MSR a re-appreciation

[rjay63]

This seems a good place to post these MSR videos.


This is a compilation of existing Youtube footage showing the original vision of MSR (circa late 98 - mid 99). This demo appeared at E3 in May 1999 and did not receive a good reception. Soon after E3, the lead coder (Matt Birch) left Bizarre Creations and MSR was place under management and subsequently redesigned. Note: I had to mute the last half of the video. Replaced it with some Daytona 2 BGM that's quite fitting.


.

The next one is a Japanese trailer for MSR taken from the old 'Segagaga Domain'(sadly closed down a while ago). Notable as the cars leave the ground (see the last 5 seconds). However this is another early version so this was removed in the final game (car manfacturer's orders). This video formed part of a conversation I had with an ex-Bizarre Creations coder (no name given) just after Activision closed down in 2011. For more information, see my blogpost here: http://msrdreamcast.blogspot.com/2023/05/msr-developer-chat-from-2011.html. It's in 'developer talk' so a lot of it went over my head!

[Woodneeded]

RJAY you are a true repository of MSR info

[Snake79]

MSR has a special place in my memory. I was really into racing games and I had read about the games development in the Official Dreamcast Magazine. It looked to be the most ambitious and realistic racing game ever made and I couldn't wait to see it. A playable demo was released and it did indeed look fantastic but more importantly they got the handling between arcade and simulation just right.

I couldn't wait to play the full game and I bought it on the day of release (which also happend to be my birthday). Back then I was playing it on a 32" widescreen CRT connected via RGB scart and it looked amazing. The level of detail was beyond anything else at that time and it felt as close to driving around the real cities as you could get.

There were so many neat touches throughout the game like the radio stations, the weather and time of day, the ability to make custom playlists, the music, the sound of the engines and how great the lighting looked during the night. Even now I am still impressed with how real the lights from signs and windows look.

I have no idea how many hours I spent playing it but it was a lot. I bought the OEM racing wheel and although it lacked pedals, I really got to master the analogue padals and loved tearing around the tracks, either in races or time attacks. I unlocked every car and track and I loved that they included the ability to change the aspect ratio for widescreen tvs which meant I could play the game using the whole of the screen. MSR on the Dreamcast was truely a next gen racing experience back in 2000 and is possibly my favourite game on the system.

[rjay63]

MSR has a special place in my memory. I was really into racing games and I had read about the games development in the Official Dreamcast Magazine. It looked to be the most ambitious and realistic racing game ever made and I couldn't wait to see it. A playable demo was released and it did indeed look fantastic but more importantly they got the handling between arcade and simulation just right.

I couldn't wait to play the full game and I bought it on the day of release (which also happend to be my birthday). Back then I was playing it on a 32" widescreen CRT connected via RGB scart and it looked amazing. The level of detail was beyond anything else at that time and it felt as close to driving around the real cities as you could get.

There were so many neat touches throughout the game like the radio stations, the weather and time of day, the ability to make custom playlists, the music, the sound of the engines and how great the lighting looked during the night. Even now I am still impressed with how real the lights from signs and windows look.

I have no idea how many hours I spent playing it but it was a lot. I bought the OEM racing wheel and although it lacked pedals, I really got to master the analogue padals and loved tearing around the tracks, either in races or time attacks. I unlocked every car and track and I loved that they included the ability to change the aspect ratio for widescreen tvs which meant I could play the game using the whole of the screen. MSR on the Dreamcast was truely a next gen racing experience back in 2000 and is possibly my favourite game on the system.

Hi Snake79, thank you for your story. Always nice to hear from MSR players from the 2000-2001 era (although I bought the game on release, I didn't play it properly until many years later).

This is a longshot but did you ever use the online facilities for MSR when Dreamarena was up and running (2000-2002)? You may already be aware that some DC developers kindly revived this game's internet rankings, and they can be accessed via DreamPi (see the following topic for more info: https://www.dreamcast-talk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12872). However any information/stories about the original facility would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[Snake79]

MSR has a special place in my memory. I was really into racing games and I had read about the games development in the Official Dreamcast Magazine. It looked to be the most ambitious and realistic racing game ever made and I couldn't wait to see it. A playable demo was released and it did indeed look fantastic but more importantly they got the handling between arcade and simulation just right.

I couldn't wait to play the full game and I bought it on the day of release (which also happend to be my birthday). Back then I was playing it on a 32" widescreen CRT connected via RGB scart and it looked amazing. The level of detail was beyond anything else at that time and it felt as close to driving around the real cities as you could get.

There were so many neat touches throughout the game like the radio stations, the weather and time of day, the ability to make custom playlists, the music, the sound of the engines and how great the lighting looked during the night. Even now I am still impressed with how real the lights from signs and windows look.

I have no idea how many hours I spent playing it but it was a lot. I bought the OEM racing wheel and although it lacked pedals, I really got to master the analogue padals and loved tearing around the tracks, either in races or time attacks. I unlocked every car and track and I loved that they included the ability to change the aspect ratio for widescreen tvs which meant I could play the game using the whole of the screen. MSR on the Dreamcast was truely a next gen racing experience back in 2000 and is possibly my favourite game on the system.

Hi Snake79, thank you for your story. Always nice to hear from MSR players from the 2000-2001 era (although I bought the game on release, I didn't play it properly until many years later).

This is a longshot but did you ever use the online facilities for MSR when Dreamarena was up and running (2000-2002)? You may already be aware that some DC developers kindly revived this game's internet rankings, and they can be accessed via DreamPi (see the following topic for more info: https://www.dreamcast-talk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12872). However any information/stories about the original facility would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

I did use the online service briefly in the early days, uploading time attack data I think. I do remember seeing some of the kudos scores and thinking how some were able to get such high numbers. They were a digit or two longer than mine which I thought was a good score. I guess clever use of the Joker card made the difference.

I recently bought a Dream Pi and I spent time over the weekend setting it up. I plan to use the online services again and hopefully some online gaming too. It was nice to have the Dreamcast back online after 20 years, it does seem slow compared to what we have now, but that is to be expected.

[rjay63]

[I did use the online service briefly in the early days, uploading time attack data I think. I do remember seeing some of the kudos scores and thinking how some were able to get such high numbers. They were a digit or two longer than mine which I thought was a good score. I guess clever use of the Joker card made the difference.

Thank you for your reply. I assume the 'time attack data upload' was to the Speed Challenge rankings; that was the only thing Sega Europe had working at the start and even that was delayed. The kudos ranking didn't get activated until January/February 2001. I think this was because Sega Europe/Dreamarena staff were (rightly) concentrating on titles with actual online play like Quake 3/PSO as they were released around the same time as MSR.

Do you remember downloading any ghosts cars to race against or anything about the 'New Time Trial/World Time Trial' rankings (were they even active)? Did you participate in any MSR message boards/chat services within Dreamarena? Sorry for asking these questions; as most of MSR's online facilities were behind the 'Dreamarena wall', very little information has been archived.

As for high kudos scores, unfortunately this was down to copious amounts of hard power sliding as opposed to skillful/stylish driving. This is
because you get awarded far more 'style' kudos than you do for 'skill' or no 'penalties'. Never mind if you hit the wall while power sliding; the excess style kudos will more than make up for any penalties. You can also get infinite jokers by turning the 'open all' cheat on/off. Having an early bugged PAL version of the game will also help too. Here's a video I made showing this flaw in detail:

[Nadmax45]

This seems a good place to post these MSR videos.


This is a compilation of existing Youtube footage showing the original vision of MSR (circa late 98 - mid 99). This demo appeared at E3 in May 1999 and did not receive a good reception. Soon after E3, the lead coder (Matt Birch) left Bizarre Creations and MSR was place under management and subsequently redesigned. Note: I had to mute the last half of the video. Replaced it with some Daytona 2 BGM that's quite fitting.


.

The next one is a Japanese trailer for MSR taken from the old 'Segagaga Domain'(sadly closed down a while ago). Notable as the cars leave the ground (see the last 5 seconds). However this is another early version so this was removed in the final game (car manfacturer's orders). This video formed part of a conversation I had with an ex-Bizarre Creations coder (no name given) just after Activision closed down in 2011. For more information, see my blogpost here: http://msrdreamcast.blogspot.com/2023/05/msr-developer-chat-from-2011.html. It's in 'developer talk' so a lot of it went over my head!

Thanks a lot for the videos and your blogspot link.
I remember being blown away by the graphics when i saw some of those footages at TV back in 99.
Is it me or the early version looks better than the final version?
That footage with the blue Honda NSX at night looks amazing. There are better car reflections, the metallic aspect of the car bodyworks has a better rendering, and the lighting effects look amazing, i love those car headlights effects with the remanent light when the camera is moving in front of the car.
I also like the moving giant spotlights in the background and the bus (or train or tramway, i can't really see) that is passing on the bridge, that makes the track more alive.
Also in the day footage, there are lens flare effects and smoke effects when the car is braking. The place where there are a lot of balloons floating in the sky looks great, like the spotlights in the night footage and the lens flare effects, that makes the track more alive.
The cars selection in the street is also a lot better than the austere menu of the final version.
It seems they changed a lot of things after Matt Birch left.

On the other side, the early version seems to have lower car polycount and there is clipping on the tracks

[rjay63]

Thanks a lot for the videos and your blogspot link.
I remember being blown away by the graphics when i saw some of those footages at TV back in 99.
Is it me or the early version looks better than the final version?
That footage with the blue Honda NSX at night looks amazing. There are better car reflections, the metallic aspect of the car bodyworks has a better rendering, and the lighting effects look amazing, i love those car headlights effects with the remanent light when the camera is moving in front of the car.
I also like the moving giant spotlights in the background and the bus (or train or tramway, i can't really see) that is passing on the bridge, that makes the track more alive.
Also in the day footage, there are lens flare effects and smoke effects when the car is braking. The place where there are a lot of balloons floating in the sky looks great, like the spotlights in the night footage and the lens flare effects, that makes the track more alive.
The cars selection in the street is also a lot better than the austere menu of the final version.
It seems they changed a lot of things after Matt Birch left.

On the other side, the early version seems to have lower car polycount and there is clipping on the tracks

Thank you for your comment Nadmax45. Unfortunately this early vision of MSR was negatively received at E3 '99; Martyn Chudley (the lead producer) has said in various "making of MSR" articles that the remaining team felt the game was too arcadey and wanted something more realistic. I guess that was the trend in console racers at the time; in contrast Sega coin-op titles like Daytona USA 2 and Sega Rally 2 (both released in '98) were definitely more 'lively' games.

Maybe one day the MSR E3 99 demo will surface and we can play it for ourselves.

MSR was a very important title in the history of the Dreamcast. Games like Shenmue/PSO have been "analysed under a microscope" so I started a blog to cover the more interesting aspects (in my opinon) of MSR. It also prevent this forum from being polluted with too many MSR posts!

[Snake79]

[I did use the online service briefly in the early days, uploading time attack data I think. I do remember seeing some of the kudos scores and thinking how some were able to get such high numbers. They were a digit or two longer than mine which I thought was a good score. I guess clever use of the Joker card made the difference.

Thank you for your reply. I assume the 'time attack data upload' was to the Speed Challenge rankings; that was the only thing Sega Europe had working at the start and even that was delayed. The kudos ranking didn't get activated until January/February 2001. I think this was because Sega Europe/Dreamarena staff were (rightly) concentrating on titles with actual online play like Quake 3/PSO as they were released around the same time as MSR.

Do you remember downloading any ghosts cars to race against or anything about the 'New Time Trial/World Time Trial' rankings (were they even active)? Did you participate in any MSR message boards/chat services within Dreamarena? Sorry for asking these questions; as most of MSR's online facilities were behind the 'Dreamarena wall', very little information has been archived.

As for high kudos scores, unfortunately this was down to copious amounts of hard power sliding as opposed to skillful/stylish driving. This is
because you get awarded far more 'style' kudos than you do for 'skill' or no 'penalties'. Never mind if you hit the wall while power sliding; the excess style kudos will more than make up for any penalties. You can also get infinite jokers by turning the 'open all' cheat on/off. Having an early bugged PAL version of the game will also help too. Here's a video I made showing this flaw in detail:

Yes, by time attack I meant the speed challenge rankings. I remember posting a few times and I was around the top 100 on some of them. It was slightly disappointing as I thought I would be higher, but not bad when you consider how many thousands had taken part.

My car of choice was the Celica GT-FOUR which wasn't the fastest in the lineup but the one I settled on at the top end of the game. I don't think I downloaded any ghost car times and I didn't participate in the message boards. My use of the online features was minimal really, having to share the internet with the telephone line meant I didn't go online as often as I would have liked. I had the game for months before I actually used the online features as I wanted to complete the game first. I think everything was up and running by then.

Watching that video, I can clearly see how broken the Kudos scoring system was and how it could be abused. It's a shame really as they had clearly put a lot of effort into the whole game and the unique scoring system.

Thanks a lot for the videos and your blogspot link.
I remember being blown away by the graphics when i saw some of those footages at TV back in 99.
Is it me or the early version looks better than the final version?
That footage with the blue Honda NSX at night looks amazing. There are better car reflections, the metallic aspect of the car bodyworks has a better rendering, and the lighting effects look amazing, i love those car headlights effects with the remanent light when the camera is moving in front of the car.
I also like the moving giant spotlights in the background and the bus (or train or tramway, i can't really see) that is passing on the bridge, that makes the track more alive.
Also in the day footage, there are lens flare effects and smoke effects when the car is braking. The place where there are a lot of balloons floating in the sky looks great, like the spotlights in the night footage and the lens flare effects, that makes the track more alive.
The cars selection in the street is also a lot better than the austere menu of the final version.
It seems they changed a lot of things after Matt Birch left.

On the other side, the early version seems to have lower car polycount and there is clipping on the tracks

There's no doubt the Dreamcast was truly next gen graphically and a significant leap over the the N64 and Atari Jaguar. We were seeing things that just were not possible on a home console or that were to a much higher standard than what had come before. Tokyo Highway Challenge an Le Mans 24 hours both come to mind having some great reflection and lighting effects.

There are a couple of obsevations from those clips. The game is pretty fast, possibly due to a lower polygon count and it looks like it's running near 60fps. Acceleration is unrealistic though, it's too fast and is more arcade like. I do like the more noticeable ups and downs in the cars suspension travel.

Looking at that early version, it is actually is closer to the first Project Gotham Racing on the original Xbox than MSR. That too has less trackside and city detail than the Dreamcast, ran faster and smoother (which would be expected as the Xbox was more powerful), had more noticeable suspension travel and the cars could leave the road. In some ways the first PGR did improve on MSR but I never liked it as much. New York during the day was particularly difficult as the roads were pitch black from the shadows cast from the buildings. I would often mis-judge a turn or miss it completely as I couldn't see the road clearly. The cars were also a lot livelier and easier to oversteer, so despite it being the follow up to MSR, it did feel like a totally different game. MSR just felt right.

[rjay63]

Yes, by time attack I meant the speed challenge rankings. I remember posting a few times and I was around the top 100 on some of them. It was slightly disappointing as I thought I would be higher, but not bad when you consider how many thousands had taken part.

My car of choice was the Celica GT-FOUR which wasn't the fastest in the lineup but the one I settled on at the top end of the game. I don't think I downloaded any ghost car times and I didn't participate in the message boards. My use of the online features was minimal really, having to share the internet with the telephone line meant I didn't go online as often as I would have liked. I had the game for months before I actually used the online features as I wanted to complete the game first. I think everything was up and running by then.

Watching that video, I can clearly see how broken the Kudos scoring system was and how it could be abused. It's a shame really as they had clearly put a lot of effort into the whole game and the unique scoring system.

Thanks for the reply Snake79. Some of the later Speed Challenge entries may have been fake as it's apparently very easy to hack an MSR game save (no protection) and adjust your times accordingly. You may have also had Action Replay/Xploder DC users to contend with. I know the Dreamarena competition times were real as I (just) managed to surpass them:
https://msrdreamcast.blogspot.com/2013/04/speed-challenge-competition_3.html. It would have been nice to see what the fastest times were before Dreamarena closed down however it may have been difficult to separate the real from the frauds.

Actually, I find the Celica GT-FOUR to be the fastest car on certain tracks. I also mainly use the Supra (best top speed), the EVO 6 (good in wet weather) and Skyliner (good on twisty technical tracks). I always race using manual transmission and ABS off (except in Speed Challenge where I have no choice but to use automatic with ABS on).

I never went online with MSR back in the day (2000-2002). Although I bought the game at launch, I didn't play it properly until late 2007. Didn't really have enough racing game experience in the early days to get the best out of MSR; more of a fighting game and Crazy Taxi player at that time.

You can still enjoy MSR's Kudos/Street Racing mode if you aim for a happy medium between Skill/Style/No Penalties. Just don't expect any record scores. While changes could have been made to prevent the exploits (ie capping Style points unless you also get high Skill points/No Penalties bonus), there is only so much you can do with the source material. I think Project Gotham's Kudos system got it right as it's much more fleshed out with the real time points, combos and medal progression. You really were rewarded for driving well. Granted, there are also Kudos exploits in PGR (spinning in circles, sliding from side to side) but you still need to be a good player to get the best results.

Looking at that early version, it is actually is closer to the first Project Gotham Racing on the original Xbox than MSR. That too has less trackside and city detail than the Dreamcast, ran faster and smoother (which would be expected as the Xbox was more powerful), had more noticeable suspension travel and the cars could leave the road. In some ways the first PGR did improve on MSR but I never liked it as much. New York during the day was particularly difficult as the roads were pitch black from the shadows cast from the buildings. I would often mis-judge a turn or miss it completely as I couldn't see the road clearly. The cars were also a lot livelier and easier to oversteer, so despite it being the follow up to MSR, it did feel like a totally different game. MSR just felt right.

The only thing MSR and PGR1 have in common is that they share some of the same tracks. Other than that, it's a completely different game (not surprising as PGR1 is basically a complete rewrite). The physics in PGR1 are more complex and nuanced than those found in MSR; cars now have significant weight transfer so you have less control during a turn/slide. You really need to get your braking, gear changing and speed right before turning otherwise you will spin out or hit the barrier. I personally miss MSR's unique handling but I understand why PGR1's physics are the way they are

The main reason MSR's cars did not leave the ground in the retail version was down to vehicle manufacturer's orders. If you play the MSR Opel Challenge/Special Version demo, the cars do leave the ground on San Francisco although it has no effect on the driving physics. I think Microsoft had a hand in getting the manufacturers to relent on this for PGR1 and to also allow vehicle damage (although the latter is somewhat superficial).

MSR's night lighting is generally better than PGR1's (minus the headlights) although both games suffer from too much darkness.

Ironically the physics in the Dream On demo version of MSR (Tokyo Time Attack) have more in common with PGR1 that they do with the retail version of MSR. For example if you turn your car and release/reapply the accelerator, the car will begin to slide in the MSR demo and PGR1. However this can't be done in retail MSR; the best way to take a corner is to turn and brake together while alternating the throttle. If it's a sharp turn you may need to add a touch of handbrake or release the accelerator completely. I made the following video showing this in action:



For further reading, you may wish to look at my MSR review (made in 2011) and PGR1 review (made in 2020) on this site:

MSR: https://www.dreamcast-talk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3880
PGR1: https://www.dreamcast-talk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13477
MSR back online (2020): https://www.dreamcast-talk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=12872