Could the PC Engine do TOP GEAR or Road Rash?

Psycho Punch · 09/25/2013, 01:59 AM

This is something I was thinking. Could it do Top Gear? (edit: SNES/Kemco) As far as I know there are no special trickery aside from the scaling sprites... is it possible to do, including road elevation, etc.?

Also, could it do Road ~~Rage~~(edit: Rash/Genesis) (specifically the road cross effect that it had, with some roads appearing horizontally during the race)?

It would be cool to see a racing homebrew as good as the two aforementioned titles. Not that I think Final Lap and Victory Run are bad mind you.

Tatsujin · 09/25/2013, 02:07 AM

top gear on what?

VenomMacbeth · 09/25/2013, 02:10 AM

Personally, I'm partial to Top Gear 2 & I see no reason why the PCE couldn't pull it off, barring maybe some of the fog/rain/snow effects.

And I've not heard of Road Rage...what console is this for? Are you sure you aren't talking about Road Rash? Because, if so, the answer's a definite yes. If the Sega Master System can pull it off, then the PCE could probably do it better.

Psycho Punch · 09/25/2013, 02:13 AM

Sorry, the SNES Top Gear by Kemco.

Also it is Road RASH not Rage, the Genesis game by Electronic Arts.

Tatsujin · 09/25/2013, 03:45 AM

top gear would be possible with ease I believe. even victory run looks quite as good and in some aspects even better (imo).

road rash was kinda impressive for the MD, dunno if this would be such easy to do on our obey ware.

CrackTiger · 09/25/2013, 08:19 AM

Quote from: Psycho Punch on 09/25/2013, 01:59 AMThis is something I was thinking. Could it do Top Gear? (edit: SNES/Kemco) As far as I know there are no special trickery aside from the scaling sprites... is it possible to do, including road elevation, etc.?

Also, could it do Road ~~Rage~~(edit: Rash/Genesis) (specifically the road cross effect that it had, with some roads appearing horizontally during the race)?

It would be cool to see a racing homebrew as good as the two aforementioned titles. Not that I think Final Lap and Victory Run are bad mind you.

Neither the Genesis or SNES have hardware to scale sprites. Unlike the SNES however, the PCE does have a powerful cpu. But those types of games, which the PCE already has, rely on animation for all of the scaling objects and that is something the PCE hardware is better at than the other two consoles.

The PCE already has a more impressive game than Road Rash and Top Gear:

S.C.I. has cross-streets with traffic, road elevation, weather, plus all kinds of other cool stuff like parallel roads, different terrain on either side, cliffs on either side, obstacles to jump or smash through, plus vehicular combat in the middle of busy roads, all blazingly fast.

Tatsujin · 09/25/2013, 08:52 AM

Psycho Punch · 09/25/2013, 10:13 AM

Yep that game is pretty cool, but it still don't push as many sprites as the Top Gear game nor does it have it's kind of road elevation (I'll post images later to illustrate it better).

One thing I wonder is how does SCI do all that trickery with a Rad Racer style engine, like the split tracks? Do you guys know the programming techniques involved?

Arkhan Asylum · 09/25/2013, 10:44 AM

It's just tile trickery, IIRC. Nothing really over the top, it just looks fancy.

CrackTiger · 09/25/2013, 10:52 AM

Quote from: Psycho Punch on 09/25/2013, 10:13 AMYep that game is pretty cool, but it still don't push as many sprites as the Top Gear game nor does it have it's kind of road elevation (I'll post images later to illustrate it better).

One thing I wonder is how does SCI do all that trickery with a Rad Racer style engine, like the split tracks? Do you guys know the programming techniques involved?

I'll have to take a look at Top Rally again after I get home, but I think that you are judging everything from a unique perspective. From what I saw, SCI had noticeably more sprites. Also, I'm not sure if you realize that Top Rally is also using the same kind of "Rad Racer" style engine. Mode 7 is completely different and can only be used for completely flat surfaces.

Any elevation is the same as any elevation for how the trick is done. The SMS does a great job with these games. Daytona USA and Virtua Racing are fully 3D and can create any shapes, but didn't feature ridiculously steep hills because they had no place in those games.

These games are just doing SFII floor style effects and I assume vertical pushing of horizontal strips for elevation.

What's impressive is Genesis games that toss in realtime polygons. But it doesn't matter what is technically happening under the hood, it's all about the end result and SCI looks amazing.

turboswimbz · 09/25/2013, 11:38 AM

I like the old top gear SNES games,

It's be cool to see SCI next to Top gear.

Joe Redifer · 09/28/2013, 02:44 PM

I don't think that Taito game is as impressive. They just don't understand how speed works and their hills are pathetic. The tunnel starts approaching at supersonic speed. But then it slows down for a bit until you are inside the tunnel. Oh, and once you're inside the tunnel the lights on the side are at the wrong place in the distance because the developers don't understand proper perspective, either. They come from above where the ceiling should be to almost down to the car's level. Things on the side of the road move way too fast, likely because they have very few steps of animation.

Road Rash, on the other hand, has stuff all over on the sides of the roads. Not just right next to the edge of the road. The move in proportion to your speed, meaning they don't zip from the horizon to where you are in a single second. Things further away should be moving more slowly and Road Rash does this. The hills in Road Rash are far more impressive and factor into the gameplay (limited viability, etc). All of the sprites have software scaling applied to them instead of being animated in course steps. You can investigate this yourself if you get knocked off your bike and run around slowly. It's just too bad the game has awful colors.

Digi.k · 09/28/2013, 06:25 PM

Victory run along with BariBari Densetsu, Final Lap twin and racing damashii are imo the games that did decent road scrolling.. I just wish Namco, Konami and Hudsonsoft did bring more racing games.. I felt that was missed opportunities there..

Tatsujin · 09/28/2013, 08:50 PM

you sure can add out run to the list as well

Joe Redifer · 09/28/2013, 09:48 PM

Yeah Out Run looks better than most if not all other PCE road games in my opinion. There might be something that looks better that I can't remember right now.

CrackTiger · 09/29/2013, 02:58 AM

Quote from: Joe Redifer on 09/28/2013, 02:44 PMI don't think that Taito game is as impressive. They just don't understand how speed works and their hills are pathetic. The tunnel starts approaching at supersonic speed. But then it slows down for a bit until you are inside the tunnel. Oh, and once you're inside the tunnel the lights on the side are at the wrong place in the distance because the developers don't understand proper perspective, either. They come from above where the ceiling should be to almost down to the car's level. Things on the side of the road move way too fast, likely because they have very few steps of animation.

Everything you've nitpicked (except the last split second of tunnel entry) is more arcade faithfulness than anything else. The game still looks nice overall and does some cool things like different terrain on either side, cliffs, multiple roads, and it fills the roads with sprites (multiple large vehicles and lots of obstacles), has jumps, helicopters (one fire missiles at you), bullets, fire, sparks and thruster effects, etc. All with some very nice coloring.

QuoteRoad Rash, on the other hand, has stuff all over on the sides of the roads. Not just right next to the edge of the road. The move in proportion to your speed, meaning they don't zip from the horizon to where you are in a single second. Things further away should be moving more slowly and Road Rash does this. The hills in Road Rash are far more impressive and factor into the gameplay (limited viability, etc). All of the sprites have software scaling applied to them instead of being animated in course steps. You can investigate this yourself if you get knocked off your bike and run around slowly. It's just too bad the game has awful colors.

Road Rash does start objects off far back and the scaling is impressive on a technical level. But if we're judging console racers strictly on tech, then every Mode 7 racer absolutely destroys all PCE and Genesis racers except Virtua Racing. Aside from being an ugly game, Road Rash usually has empty roads. S.S.I. often has up to 4 large vehicles, 4 bullets, the arrow and misc effects or objects all over the road plus rain across the screen at times. So it doesn't fill the side of the road, where zero gameplay takes place, with sprites. Maybe it's because the overall 3D effect of Road Rash is more realistic than typical "Rad Racer" style games, but it feels too choppy and sluggish. The Sega Master System runs Road Rash pretty much the same as the Genesis, only with a bit less sprites and a bit less parallax. It's too bad that the visuals in Road Rash are so bland and fugly. It would have been nice to see the engine used for a regular racer with nice art and color, with the sprites reduced enough for a smoother framerate or just top speeds to match the framerate. Whatever it would take to make it feel smooth.

If you guys want to see lots of large road side objects, hills, properly splitting forks in the road and all kinds of stuff, check out Outrun Europa for SMS. You even get to ride around on a bike and punch people.

Anyway, Victory Run came out a year before the Mega Drive and around 4.5 years before Top Gear and does everything Top Gear does, other than tunnels (see S.C.I. and Chase H.Q.) and having a split screen, which other games make appear to not be taxing when it's a horizontal split like that. You have large rolling hills, even with the road curving through them and several large vehicles on the road at a time (each of which feature different angles of animation that scales along the way). It even has a 3D rolling cloud layer in one stage, another with desert on one side of the road and a body of water on the other with an animated shoreline and waves, off-road courses, where the road has a 3D textured shape to it, plus large skid clouds and obstacles. Not to mention the color of everything changing as it gets later during single races. Top Gear doesn't change anything over time and on stages with a sunset in the sky, the course and cars look the same as on a blue sky race. Top Gear is designed to quickly thin out the vehicles at the beginning of the race and has simpler Outrun Europa style hills which conceal sprites. Otherwise it just takes the more constant on-road sprites of Victory Run and puts them on the side of the road, but is only doing what a PC Engine game did (minus the things from Victory Run which it doesn't do) an entire console generation of time earlier.

esteban · 09/29/2013, 05:16 AM

VERDICT: The venerable PCE can easily handle Pole Position. Beyond that...

Tatsujin · 09/29/2013, 07:21 AM

but never pole position arcade

spenoza · 09/29/2013, 03:33 PM

I should create a game called Stripper Pole Position.

I have no idea what it would be about. It would probably suck. But I like the name.

Psycho Punch · 09/29/2013, 03:45 PM

That's a good name for a Gals Panic clone.

Otaking · 09/29/2013, 04:38 PM

Quote from: CrackTigerthen every Mode 7 racer absolutely destroys all PCE and Genesis racers

Sums it up nicely, SNES Super Mario Kart and F-Zero are the two greatest race games ever.

turboswimbz · 09/29/2013, 05:09 PM

Quote from: guest on 09/29/2013, 03:33 PMI should create a game called Stripper Pole Position.

I have no idea what it would be about. It would probably suck. But I like the name.

Sooooooooooooooo Road Spirits?????

Speaking of road spirits, unexpired game play aside, it does come across very "top gear like-ish" to me. I mean it is easy to picture combining Victory Run and Road Spirits and coming up with something that would put Top Gear to shame.

wildfruit · 09/29/2013, 05:40 PM

Micro machines on game boy trumps all

esteban · 09/29/2013, 07:07 PM

Quote from: wildfruit on 09/29/2013, 05:40 PMMicro machines on game boy trumps all

MicroMachines on NES trumps all.

Back on topic:

Quote from: guest on 09/29/2013, 03:33 PMI should create a game called Stripper Pole Position.

I have no idea what it would be about. It would probably suck. But I like the name.

Quote from: Psycho Punch on 09/29/2013, 03:45 PMThat's a good name for a Gals Panic clone.

I love the idea of a hybrid game that alternates between the two genres. Of course there would be modes for the folks who don't like to mix things up (the stinkers!), but the true beauty is revealed when you play as intended.

Arkhan Asylum · 09/30/2013, 01:06 AM

Quote from: esteban on 09/29/2013, 07:07 PMMicroMachines on NES trumps all.

Believe it or not, the MicroMachines on CDi is pretty good.

Keith Courage · 09/30/2013, 01:22 AM

Top gear 2 was an awesome game!

esteban · 10/06/2013, 09:30 AM

Quote from: Psycho Arkhan on 09/30/2013, 01:06 AM
Quote from: esteban on 09/29/2013, 07:07 PMMicroMachines on NES trumps all.
Believe it or not, the MicroMachines on CDi is pretty good.

I almost believed that such a thing could exist. But not even my favorite folks at Camerica would have wasted time on CD-i.

I say this without any attempt at research.

A Black Falcon · 10/07/2013, 01:41 AM

Quote from: CrackTiger on 09/29/2013, 02:58 AM
Quote from: Joe Redifer on 09/28/2013, 02:44 PMI don't think that Taito game is as impressive. They just don't understand how speed works and their hills are pathetic. The tunnel starts approaching at supersonic speed. But then it slows down for a bit until you are inside the tunnel. Oh, and once you're inside the tunnel the lights on the side are at the wrong place in the distance because the developers don't understand proper perspective, either. They come from above where the ceiling should be to almost down to the car's level. Things on the side of the road move way too fast, likely because they have very few steps of animation.
Everything you've nitpicked (except the last split second of tunnel entry) is more arcade faithfulness than anything else. The game still looks nice overall and does some cool things like different terrain on either side, cliffs, multiple roads, and it fills the roads with sprites (multiple large vehicles and lots of obstacles), has jumps, helicopters (one fire missiles at you), bullets, fire, sparks and thruster effects, etc. All with some very nice coloring.

QuoteRoad Rash, on the other hand, has stuff all over on the sides of the roads. Not just right next to the edge of the road. The move in proportion to your speed, meaning they don't zip from the horizon to where you are in a single second. Things further away should be moving more slowly and Road Rash does this. The hills in Road Rash are far more impressive and factor into the gameplay (limited viability, etc). All of the sprites have software scaling applied to them instead of being animated in course steps. You can investigate this yourself if you get knocked off your bike and run around slowly. It's just too bad the game has awful colors.
Road Rash does start objects off far back and the scaling is impressive on a technical level. But if we're judging console racers strictly on tech, then every Mode 7 racer absolutely destroys all PCE and Genesis racers except Virtua Racing. Aside from being an ugly game, Road Rash usually has empty roads. S.S.I. often has up to 4 large vehicles, 4 bullets, the arrow and misc effects or objects all over the road plus rain across the screen at times. So it doesn't fill the side of the road, where zero gameplay takes place, with sprites. Maybe it's because the overall 3D effect of Road Rash is more realistic than typical "Rad Racer" style games, but it feels too choppy and sluggish. The Sega Master System runs Road Rash pretty much the same as the Genesis, only with a bit less sprites and a bit less parallax. It's too bad that the visuals in Road Rash are so bland and fugly. It would have been nice to see the engine used for a regular racer with nice art and color, with the sprites reduced enough for a smoother framerate or just top speeds to match the framerate. Whatever it would take to make it feel smooth.

If you guys want to see lots of large road side objects, hills, properly splitting forks in the road and all kinds of stuff, check out Outrun Europa for SMS. You even get to ride around on a bike and punch people.

Anyway, Victory Run came out a year before the Mega Drive and around 4.5 years before Top Gear and does everything Top Gear does, other than tunnels (see S.C.I. and Chase H.Q.) and having a split screen, which other games make appear to not be taxing when it's a horizontal split like that. You have large rolling hills, even with the road curving through them and several large vehicles on the road at a time (each of which feature different angles of animation that scales along the way). It even has a 3D rolling cloud layer in one stage, another with desert on one side of the road and a body of water on the other with an animated shoreline and waves, off-road courses, where the road has a 3D textured shape to it, plus large skid clouds and obstacles. Not to mention the color of everything changing as it gets later during single races. Top Gear doesn't change anything over time and on stages with a sunset in the sky, the course and cars look the same as on a blue sky race. Top Gear is designed to quickly thin out the vehicles at the beginning of the race and has simpler Outrun Europa style hills which conceal sprites. Otherwise it just takes the more constant on-road sprites of Victory Run and puts them on the side of the road, but is only doing what a PC Engine game did (minus the things from Victory Run which it doesn't do) an entire console generation of time earlier.

Well, in Top Gear the vehicle pack does quickly thin out, but when they bunch up together on the track, you see that the game CAN put all of the cars in the field on screen at any time. It's not one of those games which only allows two or three cars on screen, like I think Victory Run among many others are; it can put a lot more cars on screen than that.

Also, while I actually like the first game best gameplay-wise, Top Gear 2 and Top Gear 3000 each in turn improve the graphics over the first game. They do all have that "Pole Position/Rad Racer" visual style, but it's a very nice looking version of it. The first Top Gear's definitely one of my favorite games in the "Pole Position style" racing subgenre.

Could the TG16/CD do it? Well... at least in part, sure, it probably could, with less color variety and probably some missing effects. It'd have been interesting to see, for sure, because racing games are definitely one of the system's weaker genres. The system has some solid topdown racers, but behind-the-car? There are very few, on CD or card. Victory Run and Outrun are two of the best ones, and they hold up to anything on the Genesis from their time for sure, but what was there for later ones? Sadly Hudson wasted its fantastic start (Victory Run is a great game, and very good looking too!) by never making another racing game again as far as I can remember, and Outrun and Power Drift were about it for good-looking behind-the-car racers, too. Sorry, stuff like Racing Damashii, Final Lap Twin, or F-1 Triple Battle aren't exactly anywhere near Top Gear. As for Road Spirits, that game has very nice graphics, but they forgot to provide any semblance of a challenge, which kind of ruins it. I like the game, but it's almost impossible to ever lose a race. It'd have benefited if, instead of doing "Outrun but you'll never run out of time", they'd had opponents to race against, Top Gear-style. Time-trial racing is fun and I love Outrun, but I really like races against other actual cars on the track. That's one reason why I think Top Gear was nicely improved over Lotus (Gremlin's previous racing game), that one uses Outrun's time-trial style, while Top Gear goes to a "race against other cars" design.

Anyway, beyond Road Spirits, are there any behind-the-car CD racing games of any note? There's Zero 4 Champ II's racing parts also, I guess... how does that compare to the SNES games in the franchise, visually? Gameplay-wise none look interesting (drag racing isn't something which interests me much, unless this one actually has turns?), though, but that's just me.

So yeah, part of the problem on TG16/PCE is that the racing genre thinned out badly after the early years of the system's life, something which didn't happen on SNES or Genesis. If the people who had made Victory Run had kept making racing games, maybe there could have been a Super or Arcade CD racing game with quite impressive visuals, for example... it's too bad it didn't happen. As is, I think that the TG16 lags badly compared to the SNES and Genesis in racing games, overall. I like a few games on the system (TG16 Outrun blows away the Genesis version in playability, for example!), but there isn't enough depth in the library. There are only six or seven racing games on the PCE/Turbo CD overall, and the only behind-the-car ones are Zero 4 Champ II and Road Spirits... and Zero 4 Champ II is as much adventure game as it is racing. Even though the TG16 of course can't do as many colors or visual effects as the SNES (that is, matching Top Gear 2 would have been hard; look at how the Genesis version of the game pales badly compared to the SNES original), the system surely could have done a lot better at racing games than what it did had the genre not died out on the platform, and had there been further first-party efforts at them as well. It'd be interesting to see what the system could do when pushed. I doubt that any of the games that were released do that, for Super/Arcade CD possibilities particularly.

Another game that it'd have been very interesting to see the TG16 attempt something like is Outrun 2019. The first Genesis Outrun looks great but plays poorly (it's so choppy!), but 2019 has both great graphics and great gameplay. And it's got cool effects like transparent roads, split roads, multi-level roads, jump pads, etc. too. Very impressive game; that and Top Gear are my top two "Pole Position style" racing games.

Quote from: esteban on 10/06/2013, 09:30 AM
Quote from: Psycho Arkhan on 09/30/2013, 01:06 AM
Quote from: esteban on 09/29/2013, 07:07 PMMicroMachines on NES trumps all.
Believe it or not, the MicroMachines on CDi is pretty good.
I almost believed that such a thing could exist. But not even my favorite folks at Camerica would have wasted time on CD-i.

I say this without any attempt at research.

Micro Machines was ported to many platforms, and yes, the CD-i was one of them.

saturndual32 · 10/07/2013, 10:19 PM

Quote from: A Black Falcon on 10/07/2013, 01:41 AMMicro Machines was ported to many platforms, and yes, the CD-i was one of them.

Sucks that the PCE didnt get a port of it though.

As for the PCE doing decent renditions of Top Gear and Road Rash, i dont see why not. Just give it a hucard as big as the carts used on the SFC and MD and it should do a pretty good job, some things might be improved (sprite scaling?, colors) while others might need to be cut. If the SMS did such a nice job with Road Rash, then i dont see why the PCE shouldnt be capable of doing something on the MDs level.

Joe Redifer · 10/07/2013, 10:42 PM

With Road Rash as good as it is on the SMS, I wonder how good it really could be on the Genesis if the developers put in the effort. I'm sure a Turbo HuCard version could be as good or better than the current Genesis version (maybe minus a touch of overlapping parallax).

Out Run Europa sucks balls. It reminds me of SMS Thunderblade.

A Black Falcon · 10/08/2013, 04:18 AM

Yeah, Road Rash is doable. Top Gear 2, though? As I said, compare the SNES and Genesis versions of that game... the Genesis version suffers badly in comparison to the SNES version, and do people think that the TG16 (or CD) could have beaten the Genesis port of the game?

But Road Rash... that's probably much more doable at a level close to where it is on Genesis, sure. I'd accept slightly worse graphics if they could make the framerate not terrible, too... you know, like Outrun, where on Genesis it looks better in screenshots, but on TG16 it plays better because it's not horribly choppy.

Tatsujin · 10/08/2013, 07:40 AM

it's all about how it's programmed and the effort behind. from a technical perspective i think road rash is better than any top gears. if top gear is worse on the MD, then probably only because of frowsy work.

saturndual32 · 10/08/2013, 03:50 PM

Quote from: Tatsujin on 10/08/2013, 07:40 AMit's all about how it's programmed and the effort behind. from a technical perspective i think road rash is better than any top gears. if top gear is worse on the MD, then probably only because of frowsy work.

Yeah, i also think the MD port of Top Gear is a weak effort from the coders. And agairn, PCE should be able to handle those 2 games at around the same level as the other 2 consoles. Some things might come up better, others might get worse.

ccovell · 10/08/2013, 07:26 PM

Remember that the PCE had an F-1 racing game with a triple-split-screen view. It could handle any type of raster-scrolled racing game, even with the occasional tunnel effect or whatever... when put in the right hands*

*meaning NOT Manley & Associates

Psycho Punch · 10/09/2013, 12:12 AM

The tile-based parallax scrolling on Night Creatures wasn't bad at all to be honest. NEC is to be blamed with minuscule budgets and short schedules.

A Black Falcon · 10/11/2013, 08:19 PM

Well, it is true that Genesis Top Gear 2 might have been a mediocre port. Beyond the downgraded graphics, the game doesn't have music and engine noise together, which is pretty lame... but Gremlin's other two Genesis games, Lotus and Lotus 2, don't either, and those aren't SNES ports (and aren't the same as the Amiga originals, I believe?). I don't know why they never bothered putting both sound and music into their Genesis racing games, but did on the SNES... maybe Kemco told them to, for Top Gear? Who knows. Obviously the Genesis is plenty capable of doing sound and music together.

Quote from: ccovell on 10/08/2013, 07:26 PMRemember that the PCE had an F-1 racing game with a triple-split-screen view. It could handle any type of raster-scrolled racing game, even with the occasional tunnel effect or whatever... when put in the right hands*

*meaning NOT Manley & Associates

It does, but that game (F1 Triple Battle) has very basic graphics... it's cool that it pulls off a three-way split, but the graphics aren't exactly great. Also the SNES and Genesis both have games with 4-way splits -- on SNES Top Gear 3000 and Street Racer have 4-player splitscreen, and on Genesis Street Racer does. (Street Racer is Mode 7 on SNES, linescroll on Genesis; TG3000 is linescroll of course).