Buggy Heat [JP / PAL]

[Roareye]

So, it seems it's not commonly known but Buggy Heat in both Japan and Europe included online connectivity. The US version, TNN Motorsports Hardcore Heat, was a completely offline title. While the US version is said to have refined the controls, it is by far the version with the fewest features.
The PAL edition of Buggy Heat adds the Internet mode, which allows you to connect to the Buggy Heat website. The site is currently down and I've not yet attempted to access this site on the Wayback Machine so it may or may not still exist in some form.

However the Japanese version not only included the online website mode, but DLC in the form of an exclusive in-game option of AI Data. In short, you can create an AI racer and had to train it up to compete. This data was also used for online and offline tournaments, the latter of which occurred at CRI's headquarters in Japan.
This was all learnt from the website, which I am currently in the process of restoring (I finished and sent Xiden the MSR site work, it just needs databases added) and there are several interesting features.

However my main question comes from the site's FAQ section, the only FAQ page missing (FAQ 11, ans11.htm) which is as follows;
11. About the Capture Book
11-1. Do you have a Capture Book?

I've never heard of the Capture Book before, it's not mentioned anywhere else on the site and a quick Google search turns up nothing. Does anyone have any idea what it is? I'd love to learn a bit more about it, if possible.

[Roareye]

EDIT:: I appear to have been mistaken, PAL Buggy Heat does indeed include the AI Data the same as the Japanese version. I doubt that Japanese AI are compatible with the PAL version, but it's worth noting.
Trying to track down the PAL site's URL to see what may be recoverable, and then I'll get around to patching up and properly localising the JP site.

Here's a cheeky look if you want to have a play;
http://www.seganet.co.uk/buggyheat/home.html

[SparxsteR]

I dont rememer Buggy Heat had Online-functions or Online-play. Sadly
SEGA for some reason dident want us Europeans to play Online.
Take Outrigger and Daytona USA 2001 for example, Online-play was removed here.
EU people got the worst exclusives, bad racer and planet dead (Toy racer/Planet Ring)

Something i find funny is that the japanese version of Street Fighter 3, 3rd strike had online-play.
It must have been über lagy

[SparxsteR]

Oh! it had online, for time records i guess.

[Roareye]

It was the website, if you look at the link above you'll see the rough translation I'm working on to bring it back. The PAL and JP versions had downloadable content such as AI Driver data.

However on a website selling a copy of the game, I found this image. Anyone have any idea when the Aero Dancing planes DLC was added to the game? O.o

[Shuouma]

Something i find funny is that the japanese version of Street Fighter 3, 3rd strike had online-play.
It must have been über lagy

So how the JP games worked was, they used a certain dedicated dialup for
the actually matches, the lobby interaction was pure ISP dialup. But the
p2p was "what they said" on a better (regarding latency) better line.

I can go into more detailed regarding this, but not right now.

Shu out

[mrneo240]

its not really dlc.

[Roareye]

Apparently the Jet can be unlocked by a button combination on the main select screen.
"Press Left, Right, Down, X, X, X, X at the mode selection screen."

I have yet to try it, but it sounds cool.

So an FYI on how the site is going, you'll find it pretty much complete. The EVENT button leads to the Stupid Parents Tournaments, which are still under work, but the rest of the site is now back together - I had to rebuild quite a few pieces of the artwork (including character and car images as only a few survived) but it should all be complete. There are also a couple of external link pages I've added a single page of for archival purposes, such as the BBS and Aero Dancing F pages.

I'm still deciding on whether or not to convert the remaining tournament pages. It's a lot of effort for no real reward - they're essentially commentaries of an AI Data race tournament from 99/2000, so there's a lot to translate and then localise. There are also several missing pages and several of the tournament grids I'd have to rebuild in Photoshop as they're missing too. I might just leave it as a page from each leg of the tournament for archive purposes and then leave room for our own tournament pages.
Our very own Dreamcast-Talk Shin Baka Championship

The DreamPipe team have been working on an uploader (which is in an early but working form), so it may be possible to stream/Youtube the tournaments by recording a console with the AI's competing. That would be way more cool than a text-based play-by-play account of the event.

Here's the link again: http://www.seganet.co.uk/buggyheat/home.html
Let me know if you have any ideas for things you'd like to see added to the site!

[beanboy]

Did anyone here, ever play this game online back then?