Road Rash II:
Road Rash II is a motorcycle racing game for the Sega Genesis. It is the second release in the series and was published by Electronic Arts, hitting store shelves in 1992. The game features fast pace racing at speeds in excess of 180 MPH around roads based in the United States. Twisting turns, hills, obstacles and the fuzz provide a hazardous ride on these courses. Some of the other "Rashers" hold on to weapons as they race to up the difficulty of winning. Keep up, win first, and you may be victorious and move on to face a more difficult crowd. Don't forget to knock down an opponent or two on your way to the top.
Emulator used: Bizhawk 2.2.2 + Genesis-Plus-GX
About the run:
This run features the use of a menu code to achieve a hidden bike at the beginning called the "Wild Thing". It is capable of reaching speeds of 200MPH and even faster with it's unlimited nitro capabilities. It is also impossible to fall off of the bike unless there is a collision. I utilize the motorcycles handling and speed to not only reach the end as fast as possible, but also to dodge road signs, trees, cars, and provide mammoth jumps off of large hills and scenery which is one of the main playarounds in the video. I suggest turning the volume down, as I am very liberal with the use of the nitro which makes a high pitch whining noise when activated. These speed boosts are very necessary to keep maximum speed available where possible to achieve highest jumps and quick and breakneck slaloming.
The courses:
Alaska
Full of large hills and endless curves, making it a chore to watch for traffic and stay on the road. Lots of foliage fauna to watch out for throughout the race.
Hawaii
A fast and slightly curvy track with plenty of palm trees to run in to if you're not careful. Mostly small hills with a few rather large ones once in a while.
Tennessee
Rolling hills and medium curves make for a very fast track but with a lot of blind spots. Lots of road signs as obstacles between farmlands and forest.
Arizona
Rocks, sun, heat. Lots of straight roads between small hills and sharp curves. Still a difficult track with plenty of hazards that will quickly ruin your day.
Vermont
High rolling hills and long curves for the worst of a Rashers time. Beautiful scenery, but don't keep your eyes on it for too long or you'll find yourself seeing the pavement.
Reasoning behind the bike:
Not only is it lightning fast, but it provides tons of entertainment that a standard bike wouldn't. The wild thing provides a no-falling experience unless a collision has happened. This makes sharp curves especially off road at these speeds possible. You can also gain much more air off of jumps with the extra speed and nitro that is provided.
Why only Level 1:
This is the most common run category for all Road Rash series on the Genesis. It might become difficult for a user to watch all 5 Levels doing the same tricks and stunts with only limited content. Each track is one length but each Level has a different finish line that extends the race an extra 3-4 miles, with Level 1 being the shortest at around 5.5-6 miles give or take depending on the track.
Skipping the name:
I didn't put my name in due to the fact that I was not intending to publish here, and ended up being left out after completing the movie.
Other stuff:
This was my second or third attempt at making a TAS but my first game to create one. I picked this game as it's one that I already run a lot. Overall I really enjoyed the experience and can see myself doing as another hobby addition to the world of gaming. It seemed a little tedious at first having to go back and forth and make sure inputs were in correctly, spending hours to achieve something that seemed decent. After all that work it felt very rewarding to see something that looked fairly decent.
feos: This run only completes a single level, so it can not be accepted, as it doesn't beat the game according to the
Movie Rules. But there are quite a few more aspects that need to be considered when TASing this game.
It does not have an ending, but the manual directly defines completing level 5 as winning the game.
Here's my post talking about this, and we consider completing all the tracks of level 5 as beating the game.
The actual goal of this movie is showcasing the crazy jumps that can be done using the secret bike and unlimited nitro. But seeing a lot of riding outside of the road, I do not think fastest completion is a goal here. The fact that
we only allow unlockable content in branches that are neither any% nor full completion means that to be published, such a branch needs to be really entertaining and get to
Moons.
The question is, does showcasing those crazy jumps provide as much entertainment as possible for this game? The posts expressed mixed feeling about this movie: some people liked it, others didn't. So how to maximize the entertainment value while also obeying the rules about completing the game?
- when the game has repeating content (several loops, quests), and we skip to the latest iteration,
- when the game has some special modes or levels that can only be accessed after the main game is beaten, or with a password
Other scenarios where some arbitrary portion of the game is skipped can be considered past mistakes, done at the times when the rules weren't defined well enough.
While in this game each level consists of the tracks that have the same background and the same names, the tracks themselves are every time different. So we're not talking about loops, quests, or anything like that. And skipping to the later levels would be arbitrary and not justified.
This brings us to the requirement of completing all the same tracks as the any% branch requires.
I really don't know how entertaining playing through all the tracks is going to be, even with this hidden bike, even with unlimited nitro. Unfortunately, gameplay is indeed a bit repetitive in this game. And as I mentioned in the thread, infinite nitro constantly makes this annoying high pitch sound that may reduce the entertainment value. On the other hand, limited nitro may result in a more boring run overall.
I consider using Wild Thing a sensible option for this game's
side branch in terms of rules, but either nitro choice and the very length of this game make having such a branch very questionable, because its chance of being entertaining is not high at all.
Rejecting this run and looking forward to a proper any% run. It should not use any cheats or passwords, it should focus on fastest time at
any legitimate cost, it should use all the in-game resources to beat the game as fast as possible. If still unsure what is allowed for this branch, feel free to ask further questions in the thread.
