15th May 2015, 11:26 PM
Nintendo 64
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San Francisco Rush: Extreme Racing - This is another special one! The first SF Rush is one of my favorite racing games ever, but I'd never actually finished the game, until now. It took a week or two of frequent play, but I learned all of the tracks well enough to win on Easy difficulty (difficulty level 2 of 6). "Easy" is still quite hard, and the higher settings don't seem THAT much tougher; the AI is tough at any setting, and the timer is often your toughest opponent. SF Rush is one hard, hard game! The AI usually stays in one tight pack, and that timer gives you almost no time for mistakes. If you want to finish the race, you really can't mess up; in many tracks, even two spin-outs means you have no chance of finishing. Yeah, this game takes a lot of practice and memorization. Fortunately it saves your progress after each race and you can restart a race when you fail, so long as you don't wait too long -- the race will go final if you don't pause and restart immediately after blowing up or running out of time.
So yeah, I've always really, really loved the game, but hadn't managed to finish the championship in first place because of the challenge level. It's awesome that I finally managed it! I started the game over, I didn't have my old save file anymore, but that's okay, I needed to re-learn the tracks anyway. Track 3 is the hardest, 6 next, 2, 4, and 5 in the middle, and 1 the easiest. The super-secret track 7 is another middle-difficulty track. On the note of track 7, you need to beat the game and then do a very complex cheatcode in order to unlock it -- that the Alcatraz track is actually on the cart was secret at launch, not revealed for months afterwards. I think it's really cool that they snuck the track on the cart like that, it's a great story. It's got to be one of the best cheatcodes ever! And indeed, it's a great track, almost as good as the arcade version. This version is a bit stripped-down, with less environment detail and the big curly-loop removed, but they had almost no cart space left, and had to make cuts to this track to squeeze it in the last bits of space they had. Rush 2: Extreme Racing USA has a complete version of the track; it's fun to compare the two versions. Even though that version is better though, its still REALLY awesome to be able to play it in this game too; as great as Rush 2 is, I like the first game more and it's awesome to have all of the tracks in it.
Rush, the series, might be my favorite racing game series. Rush 2049 for N64 is of course my favorite racing game ever, and SF Rush the Rock: Alcatraz Edition, the arcade version of this N64 game here, is my favorite arcade racing game ever. I love the tough controls, the great track designs, the awesome air you get, the challenge, the music (esp. in 2049, but this games' soundtrack is good as well), and almost everything else! They're such incredible games... and this N64 version really is fantastic. Yeah, the graphics aren't nearly as good as the arcade version, and there is fog, but it's a great, great game once you get used to it.
I remember Rush 2 having much more boring tracks than the first game, but I think I'll have to play it some now. I haven't finished that game in first place either. :)
--
San Francisco Rush: Extreme Racing - This is another special one! The first SF Rush is one of my favorite racing games ever, but I'd never actually finished the game, until now. It took a week or two of frequent play, but I learned all of the tracks well enough to win on Easy difficulty (difficulty level 2 of 6). "Easy" is still quite hard, and the higher settings don't seem THAT much tougher; the AI is tough at any setting, and the timer is often your toughest opponent. SF Rush is one hard, hard game! The AI usually stays in one tight pack, and that timer gives you almost no time for mistakes. If you want to finish the race, you really can't mess up; in many tracks, even two spin-outs means you have no chance of finishing. Yeah, this game takes a lot of practice and memorization. Fortunately it saves your progress after each race and you can restart a race when you fail, so long as you don't wait too long -- the race will go final if you don't pause and restart immediately after blowing up or running out of time.
So yeah, I've always really, really loved the game, but hadn't managed to finish the championship in first place because of the challenge level. It's awesome that I finally managed it! I started the game over, I didn't have my old save file anymore, but that's okay, I needed to re-learn the tracks anyway. Track 3 is the hardest, 6 next, 2, 4, and 5 in the middle, and 1 the easiest. The super-secret track 7 is another middle-difficulty track. On the note of track 7, you need to beat the game and then do a very complex cheatcode in order to unlock it -- that the Alcatraz track is actually on the cart was secret at launch, not revealed for months afterwards. I think it's really cool that they snuck the track on the cart like that, it's a great story. It's got to be one of the best cheatcodes ever! And indeed, it's a great track, almost as good as the arcade version. This version is a bit stripped-down, with less environment detail and the big curly-loop removed, but they had almost no cart space left, and had to make cuts to this track to squeeze it in the last bits of space they had. Rush 2: Extreme Racing USA has a complete version of the track; it's fun to compare the two versions. Even though that version is better though, its still REALLY awesome to be able to play it in this game too; as great as Rush 2 is, I like the first game more and it's awesome to have all of the tracks in it.
Rush, the series, might be my favorite racing game series. Rush 2049 for N64 is of course my favorite racing game ever, and SF Rush the Rock: Alcatraz Edition, the arcade version of this N64 game here, is my favorite arcade racing game ever. I love the tough controls, the great track designs, the awesome air you get, the challenge, the music (esp. in 2049, but this games' soundtrack is good as well), and almost everything else! They're such incredible games... and this N64 version really is fantastic. Yeah, the graphics aren't nearly as good as the arcade version, and there is fog, but it's a great, great game once you get used to it.
I remember Rush 2 having much more boring tracks than the first game, but I think I'll have to play it some now. I haven't finished that game in first place either. :)
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