RC de Go! Now Featuring Industry Anecdotes & Screen Chat

[Dudley]

8 hours ago, CrashedAlex said:

@wev That's wonderful to hear. I must say, coming here has been nothing but positive from me. Every other place has always descended into some odd argument. I guess as a developer you've always doing something 'wrong' somehow to some complete stranger.

 

I can try to get rightously angry abotu Need for Speed Most Wanted again if it'll help.

 

Although tbf, that was only because I loved Hot Pursuit so much... I'm not good at this.

[wev]

@Dudley I only played a bit of Most Wanted on Vita, not the console released but it didn't really grab me. Hot Pursuit was fantastic though.

 

But this is the RC De Go! thread.

[Dudley]

2 hours ago, wev said:

@Dudley I only played a bit of Most Wanted on Vita, not the console released but it didn't really grab me. Hot Pursuit was fantastic though.

 

But this is the RC De Go! thread.

 

Yeah you've missed a call back, @CrashedAlex was on both and I'm offering to manufacture some drama.

[Ketchup]

For a Psone game this game graphically looks...solid? I don’t know how to describe it but everything is clean, sharp and just looks like solid objects than flappy bits of paper most games of that era looked. Wonder if there’s many other psone games quite like that? As much as I love pop up and it’s charms it’s nice to also see no pop up or fog or anything.

[R0b]

I noticed that too, and have a theory that it's a happy accident. The PS1's trademark polygonal judder seems to be ameliorated to a large degree by the fixed camera perspective combined with the game's high speed, resulting in the judder looking for all the world like a shaky cam filming this small RC world. The replay chase cam breaks the illusion and it's back to classic PS1 unsolid, shaky tracks but yeah, whether intentional or not (or even just noticed subconsciously by the devs as feeling 'right') it's a great result. 

 

The graphically conservative PS1 games, like the ones with fixed cams or lavish 2d graphics, have naturally aged the best.  

[wev]

2 hours ago, Dudley said:

 

Yeah you've missed a call back, @CrashedAlex was on both and I'm offering to manufacture some drama.

No, I knew that, but we've talked about those games alot in the Arcade Racers and Dangerous Driving threads 

[Nathan Wind]

This game is nothing short of fantastic with the RC handset controller.  It works so well.

 

[ilpostino]

Love this thread, haven't played this for years! Going to have to pick this up again, thanks for the reminder @Nathan Wind

[wev]

Just had a few rounds on this via my CFW PS3, I so wish I had played this when it came out now, I'd have absolutely rinsed it, the cars handle well on the d-pad and the tracks are really good.

 

I did stick it on my CFW PSP too but there was some glitching that must have occurred when I created the eboot.

 

Also, @Nathan Wind I'd love to get a PSOne and one of those screens, though I bet they go for a fair bit now, or at least certainly more than I'd be willing to spend on something I'd only get occasional use out of.

[Nathan Wind]

PSOne's are still cheap as chips but I think the screen was about £50.  So many great games though, and that little screen is very kind to them with being so small - everything I've played looks great.

[MikeBeaver]

On 11/01/2020 at 17:35, Nathan Wind said:

PSOne's are still cheap as chips but I think the screen was about £50.  So many great games though, and that little screen is very kind to them with being so small - everything I've played looks great.

And £50 for that screen was also cheap, they're becoming harder to obtain for sure, I shifted a couple last month at just under a £100 each, the back light goes in them eventually though as it's a tiny little CRT looking thing, goes all the way around the screen, I've got two like that which I need to figure out a way of backlighting

[Dimahoo]

On 08/01/2020 at 16:09, Parappa said:

So good - and a great controller that I picked up with it the Another World in Hanley - good times.

 

I'm sure i've written about the series somewhere. Theres quite a story behind the Densha De go thing and the series is still strong as the latest arcade game attests.

You have Densha De go professional 1 - which features all the lines from DDG, DDG2, and some (Kanto) areas on the Takaido line. Its not quite as difficult as the arcade version as Taito sought to bring it to the Japanese home market.

 

This is the new game by Taito/Square Enix running on Unreal 4 - heres hoping it comes to Steam...

 

 

 

There was actually 2 seperate series from Taito and Ongakukan (the devs that did the photo realistic PS3 train driving game). The Ongakukan series is nearly all using in-cab movie footage which sync's with the controller and what the player is doing - and their train driving sim history is even larger then Taitos.

 

Sadly DDG never made it to Europe - a shame as given the niche for MS Train Simulator at the time i reckon (certain professional 1 and 2) would have sold quite well.

[Nathan Wind]

4 hours ago, MikeBeaver said:

And £50 for that screen was also cheap, they're becoming harder to obtain for sure, I shifted a couple last month at just under a £100 each, the back light goes in them eventually though as it's a tiny little CRT looking thing, goes all the way around the screen, I've got two like that which I need to figure out a way of backlighting

Ben Heck talks about LED modding those screens about half way down this article -

 

https://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Make-a-Portable-Game-System/

 

Edit - but that's in the context of building it into an all-in-one portable console.  I'm not sure it's feasible within the original screen casing, but maybe?

[CrashedAlex]

"it would have sold quite well" - I totally understand your comment.

 

But "Tomb Raider" sells quite well, as does "FIFA" - a game where you drive a local train on the Yamanote Line - definitely not.

 

But as someone who did this sort of thing for a job - there's no way it could have gotten past the first hurdle.

 

Today it could be sold as a niche limited run product. But even then it would be VERY expensive. DDG would require full localisation, all the text and all the audio. Then those controllers are needed. It comes in a very large box. UK retailers never really wanted things like this. Peripherals broke. They got returned as faulty. Hassle for them. They did not like large boxes taking up valuable shelf space, reducing potential profits to them. The only large boxes they liked were hardware bundles, and preferably exclusive ones to them and several games included which they would buy in at a massive discount.

 

Whilst I totally wish there could be a UK market for all of the obscure products we might be interested in trying - the reality is there just isn't a viable one. For PS1 and PS2 retail ran the show. I used to go to few of those retail 'sits' - meeting EUK (Woolies very powerful), EB,  HMV,  Leisuresoft and THE, The guy they used to all fear was Doug Bone from HMV. Because - he actually played games!

 

Without the encouragement of the retailer, stuff like this would be dead in the water.

 

Our old Sales Director was ex NTDO - the game she said 'we could not even give away and I had a boot full of them..." was PILOTWINGS...which astonished me.

What we love and what people see as 'the market' are really different things.

[DeciderVT]

4 hours ago, CrashedAlex said:

Whilst I totally wish there could be a UK market for all of the obscure products we might be interested in trying - the reality is there just isn't a viable one. For PS1 and PS2 retail ran the show. I used to go to few of those retail 'sits' - meeting EUK (Woolies very powerful), EB,  HMV,  Leisuresoft and THE, The guy they used to all fear was Doug Bone from HMV. Because - he actually played games!

Ironically enough, the only place I ever saw a DDG-style controller for sale in the UK was in HMV. After his time, though...

[Dimahoo]

15 hours ago, CrashedAlex said:

"it would have sold quite well" - I totally understand your comment.

 

But "Tomb Raider" sells quite well, as does "FIFA" - a game where you drive a local train on the Yamanote Line - definitely not.

 

But as someone who did this sort of thing for a job - there's no way it could have gotten past the first hurdle.

 

Today it could be sold as a niche limited run product. But even then it would be VERY expensive. DDG would require full localisation, all the text and all the audio. Then those controllers are needed. It comes in a very large box. UK retailers never really wanted things like this. Peripherals broke. They got returned as faulty. Hassle for them. They did not like large boxes taking up valuable shelf space, reducing potential profits to them. The only large boxes they liked were hardware bundles, and preferably exclusive ones to them and several games included which they would buy in at a massive discount.

 

Whilst I totally wish there could be a UK market for all of the obscure products we might be interested in trying - the reality is there just isn't a viable one. For PS1 and PS2 retail ran the show. I used to go to few of those retail 'sits' - meeting EUK (Woolies very powerful), EB,  HMV,  Leisuresoft and THE, The guy they used to all fear was Doug Bone from HMV. Because - he actually played games!

 

Without the encouragement of the retailer, stuff like this would be dead in the water.

 

Our old Sales Director was ex NTDO - the game she said 'we could not even give away and I had a boot full of them..." was PILOTWINGS...which astonished me.

What we love and what people see as 'the market' are really different things.

 

Could this have not been circumvented via a budget label - similar to those that hit the supermarkets like Tesco's? Simple 2000 or The best was a Japanese equivalent. I know there was Midas or 505 - but i guess as you didn't work for them...not sure whatever happened to them either. Well...obviously 505 are still going for it.

 

[Dudley]

I'm guessing that doesn't exactly negate the costs of conversion and selling for budget prices, even without controllers, just means you need to shift more numbers.

 

Generally for something daft like this I think the idea is very few will be interested but those who are will probably pay, see the Train Simulator games on Steam with thousands of pounds of DLC selling to just enough people at premium prices that it works.

[CrashedAlex]

@Dimahoo In some cases yes - but none of them offered dedicated controllers. I know Mark Cale ran a PS2 PS3 for a bit. I *THINK* that SCEE stopped approving some titles which put a stop to a lot of them.

 

 

[Dimahoo]

Yeah my thinking was they wouldn't be needed as they worked with standard controllers anyway and people in the UK wouldn't be that fussed about the controllers - esp. given it would be a budget label and many budget buyers probably wouldn't even know Taito (sad...but true?). More the case that it was train related.

I wonder if Xtreme express or A-Train 6 ever sold well?

But heyho if SCEE stopped it then thats that.

[MikeBeaver]

4 hours ago, Dimahoo said:

Yeah my thinking was they wouldn't be needed as they worked with standard controllers anyway and people in the UK wouldn't be that fussed about the controllers - esp. given it would be a budget label and many budget buyers probably wouldn't even know Taito (sad...but true?). More the case that it was train related.

I wonder if Xtreme express or A-Train 6 ever sold well?

But heyho if SCEE stopped it then thats that.

 

I've seen Xtreme express in enough charity shops and bootsales to suspect it sold ok for what it was ( It's actually not THAT bad !! ).

[amc]

I've been having a lot of fun with this on my Vita. I gave the analogue controls a dabble and although they felt really good I wasn't able to master them well enough on some of the more bendy tracks, so I went back to digital. The upgrades really do make a difference to winning and losing but it feels like some enable a slight auto steer or something, not complaining as you still need to be dexterous with the pad. It's also a technical marvel for the PS1. Looks amazing.

 

It's got me looking at other RC car games across the formats, was a little sad to see they hadn't made an update on PS2 etc. Anyway, these are what I've came up with up to now-

 

RC De Go. PS1/Arcade.

Revolt. Multi.

Motorstorm RC. Vita/PS3.

RC Pro-Am. NES.

Smash Cars. PS2.

 

There has to be a good few others but those are the ones I know and have actually played.

 

Anymore?

[Nathan Wind]

There are a couple on Steam, VRC Pro and RC Sim 2.0. I’ve tried both but they’re pretty dry, not very gamey.

[Dudley]

There's one missed out but it's an old PC game.

 

 

 

It's 17 years old now and of course doesn't really use an RC viewpoint.

 

Lovely game though, gets properly hard in the higher categories and has a mixed class championshp that very quickly gets insane.

[R0b]

They seem to have made that RC car have the weight of five cars on the suspension of a Reliant Robin, there. 

[Dudley]

Yeah it's fucking great.

 

As a game, as any kind of simulation of RC cars, it's obvious trash.

[Parappa]

I used this to test and setup Retroarch on my PC and it looks  and plays great in 1080p with some other graphical trickery.  Looking forward to spending some more time with it. 

 

[wev]

ReVolt was another RC game, on most platforms around the Dreamcast area, I think you could use an RC style camera too though I never used it

[Nathan Wind]

Re-Volt's all chase cam.  It's a great game though, one of my faves of that era.  The RC car physics are actually pretty good so it's a bit of a mish mash of an RC game and something like Mario Kart with the power ups and combat.  Very different to RC de Go! but a brilliant game.

[wev]

I'm probably thinking of a replay camera or something then. But yes, such a good game, my mates and I all spent hours in multiplayer on it and all bought our own copies so we could make and share tracks.

 

I still have it's theme tune stuck in my head all these years later

 

 

[merman]

On a related note, can anyone else remember the PS1 game where you piloted a remote-control helicopter? Played the demo on Official PSM's cover disk but never saw the full game.