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(_____ \ (______) (_) (_) | |
_____) )_____ ____ _____ _ _ ____ _ _ _ _ ____ |/
| __ /(____ |/ ___) ___ | | | | / ___) | | | | | _ \
| | \ \/ ___ ( (___| ____| | |__/ / | | |\ V /| | | | |
|_| |_\_____|\____)_____) |_____/|_| |_| \_/ |_|_| |_|
===============================================================================
Table of Contents
===============================================================================
[INTRO] Introduction
[BASIC] Controls and Basics
[AUTOS] Car Selection
[TRACK] Track Guides
[QUEST] Frequently Asked Questions
[VERSN] Version History
[COPYR] Copyright
[CONTC] Contact Information
Navigation tip: Press Ctrl and F to bring down a search bar. Then type in the
name of the section you're looking for - for example, [CONTC] for the Contact
Information.
===============================================================================
Introduction [INTRO]
===============================================================================
Oh wow.
I'm not going to mince words here - Race Drivin' is one of the lowest-quality
video games I've seen. I would go so far as to say it gives Mary-Kate & Ashley:
Crush Course a real run for its money as being the very worst game I've ever
played. This is scary, considering I moderate a site where people submit Mario
fangames - and some of those are frightfully bad!
Race Drivin', besides the iffy title, has serious flaws in every aspect of its
design. First of all, the graphics. Oh my. The game wants to look 3-D, but
considering it was made with 1992 technology, everything looks extremely
blocky, and the frame rate is something in the vicinity of 3 FPS. Let's face
it: It's not pretty. The background music is sparse, and what little you do
hear is pretty rough on the ears. Sound effects are absolutely awful - one of
the GameFAQs reviews compared the crash sounds to something rather undesirable
that I won't repeat here. The replays are mildly entertaining, especially when
they allow you to relive the over-the-top crashes that make your run-of-the-
mill fender benders look as if Juan Montoya just slammed into a pickup full of
jet fuel at Daytona. And crashes will happen a lot, since glancing off another
car or an obstacle, even at slow speed, will always result in a windshield-
shattering wreck. The horrible frame rate makes it very hard to control your
car through the corners, and parts of some tracks are rather frustrating.
There's also a very meager selection of tracks and cars, giving this poor game
even less replay value. If you're looking for a racing game similar to this,
try Bill Elliott's NASCAR Challenge - it looks and feels a bit like this game,
except BENC does everything better and is actually fun to play.
To be honest, the only reason I'm even writing this guide is because I wanted
to be able to say I wrote a guide on Leap Year Day, just as I did four years
ago. That, and because I said I would back last summer when someone revived the
ill-fated idea of the Super NES Completion Project. Even if I don't write as
much as I did "back in the day," I can still turn out a guide at the drop of a
hat, it appears.
===============================================================================
Controls and Basics [BASIC]
===============================================================================
Control Pad Left/Right - Steer
Control Pad Up - Shift gears up
Control Pad Down - Downshift
A - Accelerate
B - Brake
START - Pause game
You can use the L and R buttons on the top of the controller as an alternate
means of steering.
The A button is only useful for accelerating. Once you let go of A, your car
will continue moving at its present rate of speed until affected by another
object (this game seems to legalistically obey the laws of inertia while
ignoring other powerful forces such as friction and wind resistance). Unlike
most racing games, the only way to slow down is to brake, downshift, or crash
into something.
Ignore the signs that advise you to slow down to 40 MPH for corners - you never
need to slow down that drastically. In fact, you don't need to reduce your
speed at all for ordinary corners.
If you leave the road, try to get back on course as smoothly as possible, as
offroad racing slows you down a lot, and if you stray too far from the road,
you may spin out (don't steer too sharply if that happens). And if you don't
return to the pavement after ten seconds, you'll be forcibly returned to the
road and you'll have to get back going from 0 MPH, which is similar to what
happens when you crash by hitting a building or another car. Whenever you
leave the course, be ready to upshift quickly if you find yourself back in
first gear.
Race Drivin' is an arcade-style racing game, and there's really no clear
objective to the game. Since you constantly earn points as the clock runs, your
primary goal is to simply survive as long as possible. Keep passing checkpoints
to earn time bonuses, allowing you to keep racing longer. If you complete a
full lap without running out of time, you'll qualify for the "championship."
When that happens, you'll be taken to a second race once you run out of time.
In the championship race, you'll get a game over if you crash out (instead of
being allowed to restart from a previous position, with the only penalty being
having to get back up to speed), so be careful. If you finish a lap in the
championship, a gold cup will appear and you'll win... well, I'm not quite
sure, because you can still keep racing a bit longer.
===============================================================================
Car Selection [AUTOS]
===============================================================================
Four snappy automobiles are available for selection before the start of each
race:
Sportster (Manual) - This is the most balanced car in the game, and it's a safe
pick for any of the game's three tracks. It can attain a reasonable top speed
of 130 MPH, and it offers satisfactory performance in the acceleration and
handling departments.
Sportster (Auto) - This car is identical to the other Sportster, except it has
an automatic transmission, which saves you the hassle of having to change
gears. The tradeoff is that it's less powerful - its speed tops out at 120 MPH,
which is a full 10 MPH slower than the manual version. While an automatic
transmission makes life easier for beginners, a manual has the advantage of
making it easier to slow for jumps - with a manual, downshifting a couple of
times before reaching the upramp makes it easier to gauge your slowdown than
when braking hard.
Roadster - The Roadster offers top-of-the-notch (or at least as good as you'll
get in this lousy racing game) handling and good acceleration, but it can't go
any faster than 105 MPH. The Roadster runs on a manual transmission, like all
the other cars in this game except for the Automatic Sportster.
Speedster - And lastly, the Speedster gives you great speed (up to 140 MPH),
but its horrible handling makes it a nightmare to drive. It might be fun if
you're just looking for a challenge, however.
===============================================================================
Track Guides [TRACK]
===============================================================================
I'll spare you my tradition of describing every corner in minute (and boring)
detail. Instead, I'll just focus on the hard spots and other places that can
trip you up.
---------------------------
Autocross Track
---------------------------
The first course in the game is quite simple - simply take the various corners
as they come, and if you lose control and veer off the course, try to get back
on the road as quickly as possible without overcorrecting. You're unlikely to
crash into anything unless you go out of your way to hit the large garage to
the side of the track (which you can't enter no matter what you do). There are
a few rather tight corners, though, and those can be problematic for the faster
cars.
---------------------------
Stunt Track
---------------------------
This course is quite a bit more complicated than the Autocross Track. Besides
the presence of other vehicles and a greater obstacle count in general, the
Stunt Track offers you a choice of two different routes to follow. If you take
the left fork near the beginning of the lap, you'll take the speed course
(which seems to be available only for the first race - when you get to the
"Championship," you'll have to go the other way). This course is faster and
safer. If you're looking for trouble, or if you're in the championship race and
the speed course is barricaded off, you'll have to veer right at the start and
take the stunt course. This path winds through a variety of jumps and loop-the-
loops, providing you with a much greater variety of ways to wreck your car! The
two routes don't converge until shortly before the start/finish line.
Besides the obstacles mentioned above, the Stunt Track introduces some other
menaces found throughout the course. First of all, there are a bunch of ramps
that will launch your car into the air. Downshift to second gear (60-75 MPH or
so) and/or brake before you reach these, because if you go airborne, your car
won't land unscathed, Dukes of Hazzard-style; instead, you'll flip over and
crash like a 1990's Isuzu Trooper. Upramps preceded by a dip are safe, however,
and you can take those at full speed.
There's also a multitude of other cars and trucks on the road here. You're not
competing against them, but touching another car (even hitting one from the
side or while going at slow speed) spells an instant crash. Steer well clear of
them. Worse yet, sometimes these other vehicles will make a U-turn in the
middle of the road, making it even easier to crash into them. Be sure to stay
alert on the long, banked left corner late in the race - stick to the outside
part of the turn, because there's usually another slow car on the left side of
the road, and because it's a blind corner, once you see the car, it's usually
too late to avoid it.
---------------------------
Super Stunt Track
---------------------------
The Super Stunt Track is the third and final - and most hazardous track - in
the game. While the course starts off innocently enough, the middle part of the
lap is a devil of a drive. Be prepared for some tough driving as soon as you
begin ascending the long, gray ramp. Get ready for a sharp left corner at the
top of the ramp - this is a particularly easy place to end up with a broken
windshield. After that, you'll be on an elevated road for a while, and even
though you might not be able to see it, deviating to the left will cause your
car to roll down a hill and crash spectacularly. You can't make contact with
the right-hand curb, either, because the road is hugged by a high stone wall on
that side. And that's not all. Once the nasty elevated section ends, don't
forget to slow to 70 MPH for the upcoming jump, and there's a really hard loop-
the-loop near the end - it spirals sharply to the left, and it's easy to fall
off if you take it at full speed.
===============================================================================
Frequently Asked Questions [QUEST]
===============================================================================
Q: Can you run over the cows?
A: I don't think you can in the Super NES version of the game.
Q: What does the fuel gauge mean?
A: To my knowledge, the "low fuel" light doesn't mean anything, since there's
no means of refueling in this game, and as far as I'm aware, it's impossible to
run out of gas.
Q: What are the best times and scores you've achieved?
A: Usually I have a high scores section for guides like this, but it seems
rather pointless considering the scarcity of courses in this game. The
following marks are definitely beatable, so tell me if you break any of these:
-----------------------------------------------------
| Track | Best Lap | Score |
-----------------------------------------------------
| Autocross Track | 34.39 | 91,240 |
| Stunt Track | 1:17.15 | 107,613 |
| Super Stunt Track | 2:10.08 | 169,460 |
-----------------------------------------------------
My record time for the right-hand fork on the Stunt Track is 1:37.45.
Q: Do you have any more questions?
A: No, but feel free to ask me some more.
===============================================================================
Version History [VERSN]
===============================================================================
I still keep logs of my progress. Some things don't change.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date | Version | Size |
--------|---------|------|-----------------------------------------------------
2-28-12 | 0.2 | 5KB | Started guide.
2-29-12 | 0.8 | 13KB | Wrote most of the guide in honor of Leap Year Day.
3- 1-12 | 1.0 | 15KB | Finished writing and proof-reading guide.
===============================================================================
Copyright [COPYR]
===============================================================================
(c) 2012 VinnyVideo. All rights reserved.
All copyrights mentioned in this guide are property of their respective
holders.
You can print this guide out for your personal use.
You can download this guide to your computer for your personal use.
You can post this guide on your Web site as long as you give proper credit AND
you don't change a single letter, number, or symbol (not even a semicolon).
The latest version will always be available at GameFAQs.com, but don't count
on there being frequent (if any) updates.
You can translate this guide into a foreign language as long as you ask
permission first.
You can't post this guide on your Web site if you're going to change anything
in this guide that took me so many hours to write.
You can't post this guide on your Web site and then say you wrote the guide
yourself.
You can't post this guide on Web sites that contain (or have links to sites
that contain) explicit depictions of unclothed humans (also known as
pornography), racism, or flattery of totalitarian regimes.
If you don't comply with these guidelines, your hard drive will be reformatted
inexplicably and you will suffer from hemorrhoids for the rest of your life.
Heed this warning.
===============================================================================
Contact Information [CONTC]
===============================================================================
If you have any questions or comments about this guide, please send an e-mail
to
[email protected]. That's zero-zero-two, by the way. Remember that not
all e-mail messages will be read. Please follow these guidelines:
Do include "Race Drivin'" in the subject line.
Do send polite suggestions for ways to make this walkthrough better.
Do tell me about any errors or omissions you find in this guide.
Do send information about any glitches, tricks, or codes you discover.
Do ask any questions you have about gameplay. I will respond eventually if you
follow all of these rules.
Do make a reasonable effort to use decent spelling, grammar, usage,
punctuation, and capitalization so I can understand what you're trying to
say.
Do use patience. I respond to my e-mail quite sporadically.
Do not send spam, pornography, flaming, chain letters, or anything that
contains profanity or vulgarity. Junk like that gets deleted on sight.
And lastly, a public service message: Never drive while under the influence of
alcohol or other drugs. Not that anyone's going to read this.
