Jay's Speed Mod

[Frances_Penfold]

Per my understanding, F-Zero GX had two problematic game mechanics at the highest levels of competition. First, snaking, where really heavy ships could achieve faster speeds by constant back/forth movements; and second, space-flight, where properly aimed jumps could allow you to skip sections of the track. While neither was "easy" to do it clearly affected times amongst expert players.

Snaking (F-Zero GX): http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=EVd6ZgsdDaU
Spaceflight (F-Zero GX): http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=P6vlEAhWlcU

The F-Zero community managed these problem issues by creating separate ladders for different styles of play, as shown here: http://www.mrfixitonline.com/f0/gxladderhome.php

The other F-Zero games had much fewer problems of this nature, and have always attracted a hardcore audience of really talented players. Problem is, Nintendo has essentially abandoned the franchise, leading to attrition amongst players. Moreover, F-Zero never had a committed website manager (like our dear Rob, may his name never be taken in vain) so the community bounced around between web homes. Given these realities, I think it's remarkable that the community still persists at all, much less maintain very competitive time trial ladders. You can visit the current home of the F-Zero community at Mr. Fixit Online: http://www.mrfixitonline.com/

As somebody that has participated in both Mario Kart and Wipeout time trials, I would not underestimate the challenge that karting presents-- in my opinion, Mario Kart is actually harder to play competitively than either F-Zero or Wipeout. The challenge lies in the mini-turbos. Not only do you have to maintain a good line through the track, one also must time, space and execute the mini-turbos. Moreover, the karts play quite differently. Consequently, there are a million different approaches for a given Mario Track course.

Mario Kart attracted a hard-core time trial fan-base early on, and it continues to flourish thanks to people like Alex Penev and others over at MarioKart64.com. Some of those folks are crazy dedicated, going so far as to do TAS speedruns on emulators to identify the absolutely perfect run through a course, and then try to replicate this in real-world play. It's very challenging to get high ranking times in a Mario Kart game-- I played MKDS daily for two years and probably got to ~150 out of 600 or so participants? Mario Kart tends to be very fatiguing, due to the mini-turbos, which is the main reason I stopped playing.

Mario Kart 64 and Mario Kart Super Circuit have a fair number of short cuts, some intention and some not. Competition for these games is maintained by having sanctioned and non-sanctioned shortcuts, each with different time trial ladders. Mario Kart Double Dash and Mario Kart DS are much cleaner in this regard though the latter has a weird mechanic called PRB-- prolonged rocket boost-- in which the quick boost at the beginning of a race can be maintained through an entire track if you perfectly and consistently hit the mini-turbos. It's harder than hell to execute in practice.

Mario Kart 64 non-sanctioned short-cut:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=hLmsi_4nkNI

Mario Kart Super Circuit permitted shortcut:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc0OGf-t_sU

PRB on MKDS:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=cEHF7ued3mA

Sweet mini-turbos on Mario Kart Double Dash:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=xGUi4B...eature=related

As an aside, I would distinguish "snaking" in F-Zero (where it is clearly a manipulation of the game's physics engine) from "snaking" in Mario Kart (where it a logical extension of the core racing mechanic). The term snaking gets tossed around a lot but means different things in different games, IMHO.

Personally, I actually like Wipeout better than either F-Zero or Mario Kart. Wipeout has always had better tracks than F-Zero, and a much better sense of style. Wipeout also has continued support from Sony, plus an amazing developer that actually takes the time to post on this forum, a wonderful and thoughtful community, and, of course, Rob, who keeps everything going

I have tried on several occasions to get buddies from the Mario Kart and F-Zero communities to try Wipeout, because it has so much to offer. But no success so far. In any case, I am hoping that our community will grow on its own merits, and that includes a bigger and better set of records on the WOZ tables

WIPEOUT: Wipeout 3 has excellent competion, yes there is a big difference between 1 and 10, but the game is considerably harder at Phantom speed than those two other games. It is difficult to do perfect races, I don't know of to many times I have turned the system on and not hit a wall within about 15 seconds on the first try. And hitting the wall really causes a speed difference in the times (OLD GAMES). If I was to do a perfect run on Talons reach I have gotten a 1:14.7, but if I hit one time, it is at minimum a 1:16 immediately due to the high speeds being lost. In Fzero (pure and pulse as well), when you scrape a wall, it is not that much difference in you time, less than a 10th sometimes. That is why it is easier to get a pure or pulse record that is so close to the top times. Also, the addition of pitch control causing significant speed differences also adds to spread in times

I had not thought about that-- I could see where that would tend to spread the times out Even with Wipeout Pure and Pulse, there tends to be a big jump between Asayyeah/Mad-Ice and the rest of us-- heck if I can figure out where to make up that difference in some tracks.

I think El Habib is definitely right-- the user base IS different for a Mario Kart than for a Wipeout (though probably not much different between F-zero and Wipeout), and that affects the structure of the record tables.

Perhaps a combined ranking scheme (across games) would provide motivation for folks to play the older games?