DOS Screen Challenge

[Robert Maxwell]

A lowly 26.

And I only played about a dozen of them. The rest I got right either through guesswork or general familiarity with the game's appearance. Nice to see Stunts featured; I played the heck out of that game. Had an eensy-weensy crush on Cherry Chassis, too.

The game had some fantastic features too: the very flexible track maker/editor, the multiple camera angles, the race replay feature. Plus, some neat cars; the Countach rocked!

I fucking loved that game.

Did you ever exploit the physics bug where running into the barrier fence at top speed would send you flying through the air--sometimes for several minutes? I recorded so many replays back in the day of me doing that. Of course, you're dead as soon as you hit the ground, but the insane flying was too much fun not to abuse.

Here's a rather tame example of it:

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5__LYjX5-Y0[/yt]

It was possible to hit the wall just right and fly much longer, though.

 

[Holdfast]

Yup. Great bug!

I actually tried playing Stunts again a year or so ago, and couldn't quite recapture the fun feeling. I guess you it's true what they say about never being able to go home.

I'm disappointed & surprised that Youtube doesn't seem to have that clip of Cherry Chassis blowing a kiss at you though.

(IIRC, the programmers/artists on the game played the racers; that was a cool touch too.)

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I'm disappointed & surprised that Youtube doesn't seem to have that clip of Cherry Chassis blowing a kiss at you though.

(IIRC, the programmers/artists on the game played the racers; that was a cool touch too.)

Maybe I can fire up DOSBox tonight, record a little video, and clip that into a gif for you.

(And I didn't know that about the opponents! Neat!)

 

[Owain Taggart]

The developers behind that have had an interesting history. Distinctive Software also developed the first 2 Test Drive games, and in general they made some great games, which I might add had some great soundtracks. Anyone remember the Test Drive II soundtrack? You can see many similarities in the interfaces of their games during that period. In 1991, they got bought by EA and became EA Canada and had a hand in developing some of the Need for Speed games.

Here's a rock rendition of the Test Drive II theme:

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCDZp0KgL0M[/yt]

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Yup. Great bug!

I actually tried playing Stunts again a year or so ago, and couldn't quite recapture the fun feeling. I guess you it's true what they say about never being able to go home.

I'm disappointed & surprised that Youtube doesn't seem to have that clip of Cherry Chassis blowing a kiss at you though.

(IIRC, the programmers/artists on the game played the racers; that was a cool touch too.)

Don't say I never did anything for you.

 

[Holdfast]

The developers behind that have had an interesting history. Distinctive Software also developed the first 2 Test Drive games, and in general they made some great games, which I might add had some great soundtracks. Anyone remember the Test Drive II soundtrack? You can see many similarities in the interfaces of their games during that period. In 1991, they got bought by EA and became EA Canada and had a hand in developing some of the Need for Speed games.

Here's a rock rendition of the Test Drive II theme:

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCDZp0KgL0M[/yt]

That actually reminds me somewhat of bits of the Burnout 2 soundtrack (one of my all-time fave game soundtracks). Nice work.

Talking of the staff on the game, I think one of the programmers who played your opponents on Stunts ended in charge of the the FIFA games at EA. Either "Bernie" or "Skid" IIRC. Not "Cherry" though; but she got a small part on The Commish. Not joking. I read it somewhere after reinstalling the game last year and wondering what happened to them all. That, and I wanted to see what Cherry looked like now, of course.

Yup. Great bug!

I actually tried playing Stunts again a year or so ago, and couldn't quite recapture the fun feeling. I guess you it's true what they say about never being able to go home.

I'm disappointed & surprised that Youtube doesn't seem to have that clip of Cherry Chassis blowing a kiss at you though.

(IIRC, the programmers/artists on the game played the racers; that was a cool touch too.)

Don't say I never did anything for you.

You, sir, are as much a god among men as Cherry is a goddess among women.

 

[Owain Taggart]

That actually reminds me somewhat of bits of the Burnout 2 soundtrack (one of my all-time fave game soundtracks). Nice work.

Talking of the staff on the game, I think one of the programmers who played your opponents on Stunts ended in charge of the the FIFA games at EA. Either "Bernie" or "Skid" IIRC. Not "Cherry" though; but she got a small part on The Commish. Not joking. I read it somewhere after reinstalling the game last year and wondering what happened to them all. That, and I wanted to see what Cherry looked like now, of course.

I'm not surprised. Seems like a good way to give a nod to their early history It's also kind of wild to think that the developer that started out developing the Test Drive series ended up creating a series later on to compete with it, and now is one of the best selling game franchises, outselling the series they started on.

 

[Yoda]

I got 38. Quite a few of those were process of elimination. I got the Wing Commander one wrong and felt a bit ripped off.

The first three games I got for my 486 back in the day were all on there. X-Wing, Alone in the Dark, and Links 386 Pro. Though it was at least a year before I got Links 386 Pro to run. The VESA driver which was supposed to be on the hard disk wasn't there and it took a while before I could get any sort of online without dialing long distance. Thanks a lot Packard Bell.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

You people are old

You know your getting old when you can remember computer games making only two sounds.

Bip.
Bop.
Bip.
Bop.
lol

 

[Mr. Adventure]

The first three games I got for my 486 back in the day were all on there. X-Wing, Alone in the Dark, and Links 386 Pro. Though it was at least a year before I got Links 386 Pro to run. The VESA driver which was supposed to be on the hard disk wasn't there and it took a while before I could get any sort of online without dialing long distance. Thanks a lot Packard Bell.

That's what you get for running Links 386 on a 486!

 

[FPAlpha]

29 out of 50

Not bad considering i didn't have a PC until they rolled out the first Pentiums and only got gaming time at a friend's or in the early 90s computer room at school ("You going to English class? Nah.. let's play Doom over the LAN!" ).

Some are true classics which i remember fondly.. X-Wing, Wing Commander (damn.. picked the first one and not the sequel ), Leisure Suit Larry or the Civilization games.

Damn.. it was sure nice to be a kid back then with all the free time and no worry about the realities of life because Mom & Dad took care of it

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I didn't realize until I was an adult just how much software my parents pirated for me as a kid.

 

[Owain Taggart]

The first three games I got for my 486 back in the day were all on there. X-Wing, Alone in the Dark, and Links 386 Pro. Though it was at least a year before I got Links 386 Pro to run. The VESA driver which was supposed to be on the hard disk wasn't there and it took a while before I could get any sort of online without dialing long distance. Thanks a lot Packard Bell.

That's what you get for running Links 386 on a 486!

Man, PC Gamers were a dedicated bunch back then, weren't they? We sure went through a lot just to get things running and squeeze that last bit of memory. The things we did just to play a game. We sure have it easy now.

I didn't realize until I was an adult just how much software my parents pirated for me as a kid.

Yeah, it was quite a different world back then, but when you think of it, it's also why we've played so many of the games that were out there, some of which probably wouldn't have had the success they did without that going on giving people awareness about them.

 

[Holdfast]

That actually reminds me somewhat of bits of the Burnout 2 soundtrack (one of my all-time fave game soundtracks). Nice work.

Talking of the staff on the game, I think one of the programmers who played your opponents on Stunts ended in charge of the the FIFA games at EA. Either "Bernie" or "Skid" IIRC. Not "Cherry" though; but she got a small part on The Commish. Not joking. I read it somewhere after reinstalling the game last year and wondering what happened to them all. That, and I wanted to see what Cherry looked like now, of course.

I'm not surprised. Seems like a good way to give a nod to their early history It's also kind of wild to think that the developer that started out developing the Test Drive series ended up creating a series later on to compete with it, and now is one of the best selling game franchises, outselling the series they started on.

True.

I still think that despite its franchise length, Burnout 2 was the peak of the latter series in terms of sheer fun & imagination. Great music, cars with distinctly different looks & driving personality, full race replays, tracks with an excellent drifting "flow" to them especially Big Surf Shores & Crystal Peak, exciting mechanics (burnout chains rather than the boost bars that came later) and a nice learning curve.

Plus, Acclaim had the awesome marketing idea of offering to reimburse any (real-life) driver in the UK who got a speeding ticket on release day. Sadly the UK government didn't see the funny side and Acclaim backed down on the promotion.

I loved driving the Supercar around Big Surf Shores; on a good day I could perfect every lap, and not interrupt the burnout chain at all (which meant somewhere about 35 continuous burnouts). My original xbox sadly died recently. I can't play anymore and have lost all my saved records, so I sold off the controllers & games. But I kept Burnout 2, just in case I ever pick one up again in the future...

I know there's a emulated gamecube version available for PC, so I might get round to playing it on that format someday, but it probably won't feel the same.

Honestly, in terms of sheer racing fun, I'd put Stunts & Burnout 2 in a league of their own (possibly sharing the podium with Ayrton Senna Super Monaco GP2) and way ahead of most of the racers of recent years.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Hate to nitpick, but Burnout wasn't part of the Need for Speed franchise Maybe you're referring to the fact that the developers eventually took over development of the franchise from EA Canada.

For me, the peak of the Test Drive series was Test Drive Unlimited. It was a brilliant game, which while not perfect, did introduce a lot of innovative things and took the series back to its roots. It introduced an open world and had an online component that it sort of used as copy protection, ie if you didn't have an online connection, you wouldn't have access to everything and wouldn't be able to complete the game 100%, and used the online component as a sort of hub to populate the game world as people would cruise around, explore and find races. It seamlessly integrated itself into the game in a way that many games only wish they could do. As an example, I was once cruising around minding my own business when I met someone on a road and we ended up cruising together. It was popular enough that EA went on to make Need for Speed World, although I don't know if that has an open world to the same extent. Test Drive Unlimited 2 came out and had a lot of problems.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

That reminds me, I never did beat that final challenge of Burnout 2...

 

[Holdfast]

^ It's tough, but doable. Give it another go. Or two.

Unlike Burnout 3's final few races which I found fucking impossible. I got stuck on the Indy Car one (I think it was the penultimate or maybe 3rd from last), and never got past it.

Hate to nitpick, but Burnout wasn't part of the Need for Speed franchise Maybe you're referring to the fact that the developers eventually took over development of the franchise from EA Canada.

For me, the peak of the Test Drive series was Test Drive Unlimited. It was a brilliant game, which while not perfect, did introduce a lot of innovative things and took the series back to its roots. It introduced an open world and had an online component that it sort of used as copy protection, ie if you didn't have an online connection, you wouldn't have access to everything and wouldn't be able to complete the game 100%, and used the online component as a sort of hub to populate the game world as people would cruise around, explore and find races. It seamlessly integrated itself into the game in a way that many games only wish they could do. As an example, I was once cruising around minding my own business when I met someone on a road and we ended up cruising together. It was popular enough that EA went on to make Need for Speed World, although I don't know if that has an open world to the same extent. Test Drive Unlimited 2 came out and had a lot of problems.

I though Criterion worked on all of Test Drive, NfS & Burnout at various times? I'm probably misremembering and confusing myself here, lol.

 

[Owain Taggart]

As far as I know, they've never worked on Test Drive. They only worked on the NFS franchise since the recent Hot Pursuit after the Burnout series, which was successful enough that they became the official developers for the franchise. The TDU games were developed by Eden Studios and were part of Atari/Infrogames. Basically two studios pretty much locked into their own parent companies.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

^ It's tough, but doable. Give it another go. Or two.

Unlike Burnout 3's final few races which I found fucking impossible. I got stuck on the Indy Car one (I think it was the penultimate or maybe 3rd from last), and never got past it.

Wouldn't you know it, I was thinking of Burnout 3. I feel a little better knowing someone else struggled with that, not just me.

 

[ThunderAeroI]

I enjoyed the airport themed Burnout maps