NOTE: This is a personal record of my experience with this game and is
in no way an official document.
I have the Japanese version of the game.
Updates:
========
Several minor cheats
Miscellaneous info added about sliding, cars, language, music.
Introduction:
-------------
Rage Racer is the third Namco title in the Racer series, and in some
respects it is similar. However, the majority of the game is structured
differently and this makes it an essential purchase even if you have
either or both of the prequels.
New Features:
-------------
High resolution menu screens
Ability to paint your car and design the main logo on the bonnet
Grand Prix mode which replaces the arcade mode from RR & RRR
Car performance upgrades
Excellent FMV intro. and various FMV clips as you progress
Game Modes:
===========
GRAND PRIX MODE:
----------------
There are five classes to progress through, then five on reverse tracks
then a final class with special cars.
Classes 1 & 2 (both normal and reverse) consist of three tracks, then
classes 3,4,5 & 6 add an additional track to these.
To play the game you must race through all the tracks in the class and
finish in the top three in each. You can play the tracks in any order to
achieve this. You will get a gold silver or bronze medallion for each
track depending on your position. Once you have a medallion for each
track you can proceed to the next class where prize money for races is
greater and more cars become available to buy.
To begin with there is only one car in your collection. After you have
won some money in races you can either upgrade this car or enter the car
shop
Upgrading:
----------
In the Engineer shop you can buy a tune up kit for your car. Every car
has a maximum grade of 5. The cheaper cars start at grade 1 or 2 which
gives them low performance ratings. When you buy a tune up kit, the
grade is increased by one, and the performance of the car increases. In
addition to this upgradeability of the cars, they each have specific
handling characteristics. Not only does the performance change with tune
up kits, but the cars start to get wider wheel arches and larger
spoilers and air dams etc. This makes them look much more powerful to
match the performance increase.
Car Shop:
---------
Here you can browse through the cars that have become available and see
their starting grades and performance specs. If you have enough cash you
can buy a new car.
TIMEATTACK MODE:
----------------
Here you can race on all the tracks you have obtained, with all the cars
you have bought. Your cars will be at the highest grade you have made
them during your grand prix mode. There does not seem to be a way of
altering the paint colours of the cars or their grades once in this
mode. Records are kept of the top five total times and lap times for
each track, stating the car used for each.
Cars:
=====
Make Model Description
Gnade Esperanza Saloon car
Age Alouette Micro car
Age Abeille Renault Five Turbo clone
Age Pegase Lotus 7 clone
Lizard Instinct Firebird clone
Lizard Bayonet Corvette clone
Lizard Hijack Lowrider Pickup
Assoluto Fatalita Fast Car featured in intro
Assoluto Istante Bugatti clone
Assoluto Ghepardo Looks like a Le Mans Porsche
Age Victoire Prototype car
Lizard Tempest Hot Rod with enormous rear
wheels
Assoluto Dragone Dart like car
Tracks:
=======
All the tracks share the same start/finish straight along with a steep
climb past a massive waterfall. The straight has a glass canopy housing
the line, which is illuminated at night, along with a large stone
archway, similar to the Arc de Triomphe.
Mystical Coast: 4641m
---------------------
After passing the waterfall, a straight tunnel leads to a steep drop
down to the coast. The road runs along the coast, past Mediterranean
style houses and a chapel. Climbing back inland past ancient ruins, a
hairpin leads back to the main straight through and curving tunnel.
Over Pass City: 6640m
---------------------
The longest track is also the most spectacular. The first tunnel of the
Mythical Coast track is partially blocked off and the road is taken away
to the right, down a winding route before opening up at the base of the
largest climb in the game. Past a working tram and various buildings the
road finally reaches the summit and falls slowly through more tunnels,
and winding corners. After passing over a hillside bridge, a steep drop
leads under a bridge, past a lighthouse, then winds round to past over
itself before rejoining the start/section.
Lakeside Gate: 6237m
--------------------
Although shorter than Over Pass City, this has some beautiful scenery to
admire. Now leading left from that initial tunnel, the route is laden
with hills, tunnels and tight corners, along with a cable car passing
overhead. The main attraction though is when the road opens up by a
lake, which reflects the surrounding objects. After passing around the
lakeside, you cross a bridge, and drive through a woodland scene, before
a tight hairpin leads back to the main straight.
The Extreme Oval: 3074m
-----------------------
This simply consists of a loop which connects the two ends of the main
straight. There is one long tunnel and banked corners.
Don't even try to win races here until you have bought one of the
Assoluto cars.
Gameplay:
=========
In Grand Prix Mode, you will find it necessary to repeat races in the
lower classes to build up funds to either buy a new car or tune up your
existing model. If you don't it becomes very hard to get into the top
three, as the opposition become faster.
You need to decide on what style suits you too, in order to concentrate
on upgrading a particular style of car. For example, if you prefer a car
with good handling that can take corners fast then you need to keep
upgrading this to get a competitive top speed and acceleration.
Alternatively there are cars that already accelerate fast enough, but
have worse handling, so these are suited to powersliding around corners.
Game Structure:
===============
This describes the progress through the game, as far as I have got at
least.
1. Play through Grand Prix Mode and finish the fifth class.
2. Extra GP mode is activated which runs the courses backwards.
3. The new reverse tracks are added to the time attack menu.
4. Complete the Extra GP mode to activate the sixth class.
5. Sixth class makes three special cars available to buy.
6. Complete sixth class.
Useful Tips:
============
While you may only need five of the cars to complete the first five
classes, it may be a good idea to buy all the cars and upgrade them to
the maximum before you complete the fifth class.
Once this is completed you must either reload from your previous save
game slot or restart the Grand Prix mode from scratch. By doing this you
can get all the cars reasonably easily with the high prize money in the
fifth class, and add them all to your time attack collection.
Once the sixth class is activated, you need to buy some of the special
cars to have a hope of competing against a field made up solely of these
demonic vehicles.
When I raced the sixth class, I found the only way to compete was to
ignore the powerslides and try to brake for tight corners. This usually
meant hitting the wall but it turned out faster than trying to regain
grip with these cars. You really can only afford to collide once with
another car in order to finish first. Mythical Coast seems to be the
hardest to win because it is the shortest, giving you least time to
recover if you make a mistake.
I am at present trying to get Gold on Mythical Coast to complete my gold
trophy collection, so without powersliding, the sixth class is winnable.
Anyone who has played the previous games in the series will recognise
the control method and the powerslide method it the same. It seems to be
easier to overdo a slide, so reverse lock is necessary sooner.
Basically:
1. Release accelerate before the bend
2. Turn into the bend
3. Press accelerate again
4. Counter the slide with opposite lock
5. Once straightened out the car should regain grip
With the three class ? cars I never try to powerslide as I find I lose
too much time trying to regain grip. However it seems to be easier to
regain grip if you follow this method.
1. Release accelerate before the bend
2. Turn into the bend
3. Press accelerate again to force the slide, then release it.
4. Counter the slide and change down a few gears and straighten out.
5. Press accelerate again.
As I said I find powersliding too inconsistent with these cars but this
method would give me the best chance if I was forced to slide.
The Trophy system works as follows:
To obtain a gold trophy for any class, you must place first in all the
races within this class on your first attempt in the class. Once the
class is completed you cannot return to it and retry the races. You need
to start the Grand Prix Mode again from the start or reload from a
previous savegame. Once a trophy is won it is kept in the saved game, no
matter how many times the Grand Prix mode is restarted.
It seems likely that there will be some reward for obtaining a gold
trophy in all the classes, given that it takes such an effort to do so.
In fact it has been written elsewhere on the Internet that a new track
is activated.
Other possibilities for secrets may be:
1. Access to all the cars in the game. If you watch the demos you will
see cars that are not offered in the shop.
2. Time of day option, like that found in RRR.
3. Mirror Mode - see below
4. A Grand Prix Mode that includes all tracks in reverse and mirrored.
Note that these are simply ideas of my own and do not imply any extra
knowledge of this game.
Swap Trick / Music
==================
I have the Japanese version running on a PAL machine, to which I have
fitted a two-way door switch on the front instead of using blu-tac,
springs etc.
There has been some discussion in the newsgroups about language and
music problems when buying the Japanese game. Here are the only bits of
Japanese in the whole game that I can remember, along with what I assume
they mean.
1. In SAVE/LOAD screen: Reading Data, Loading Game, Saving Game, Are you
sure you want to overwrite? Yes/No
2. When selecting End Grandprix: Save Game? Yes/No
3. When Tuning up car: This car is fully upgraded already, Do you want
to buy this upgrade? Yes/No
4. When in Car Shop: You do not have enough money for this,
5. When in customise menu: This car cannot be customised (Super Cars
only)
This is for the benefit of those thinking of buying the game, as I'm
sure those who already have it will have figured this out for
themselves. Thre may be a few more but I can't remember them and they
really are self explanatory when you buy it.
As far as music is concerned, you can get full music by swapping in the
audio menu. By this I mean using a native disc, letting it spin for a
while and swapping it for RR before the music tracks appear on the
screen. It is easier to use a native disc that has many tracks and so
takes longer to read the tracks. If done correctly, the PSX will read
the boot data from the native disc, and then the track data from the RR
disc.
I prefer this method because you can see instantly if it has worked. If
the tracks appear for RR, and you can play them as normal in the CD
player screen, then there won't be any problems in the game. If the RR
disc spins very, very quickly for a while then slows, you need to try
again, and wait a little longer before swapping. If you wait too long
the native disc tracks will appear and swapping won't do anything.
Again this works for me and I take no responsibility for broken
Playstations if you try this method.
Cheats/Extra Options
====================
1. Extra palette options:
In paint mode, move to the palette of colours and press
R1+R2+L1+L2+Select.
If done correctly, R,G and B options will appear to the right.
Use up/down to select one of these, R2+up/down to change the values
Pressing select will toggle crosshairs and zoom box on/off
2. Manipulate paint image:
When not on the palette:
Hold R1 to slide the image around
Hold R1+R2 then right to flip horizontally, down to flip vertically, up
to rotate 90 deg one way, left to rotate 90 deg the other way.
3. Mirror Tracks:
Once you have pressed Race Start, hold R1 + L1 + Start + Select until
race begins.
4. Rear View Mirror:
Pause the game once the mirror has appeared. Hold triangle and press L1
to remove mirror and R1 to restore it.
5. When in track select or car select use the shoulder 1 buttons to spin
the car/track faster or slower, and the shoulder 2 buttons to steer the
front wheels.
