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Post by Discoalucard on May 30, 2008 21:27:21 GMT -5
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Post by ReyVGM on May 31, 2008 5:34:02 GMT -5
"Also, watch for Moai from Gradius along side the track in the fourth course."
The link leads nowhere.
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Post by Discoalucard on May 31, 2008 10:41:58 GMT -5
Not anymore!
Thanks!
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Post by Scylla on May 31, 2008 15:27:13 GMT -5
I never thought I'd see this series covered here, cool stuff. :) I've only played the Game Boy game too, via the European colorized Konami collection. Man oh man, did it take me forever to beat every stage on every difficulty. I didn't even bother with the CPU races, though, it's poorly programmed rubber band racing to the extreme. If you keep messing up at some part, intentionally or otherwise, you can literally watch the CPU do this spastic "dance" to keep itself from advancing as well.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 31, 2008 19:47:38 GMT -5
I haven't played any of these games, but some of the screenshots reminded me of Action SuperCross and Elasto Mania for PC. Makes me want to try out this series. Thanks for another great article, ZZZ!
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Post by Shellshock on May 31, 2008 20:08:20 GMT -5
I'm almost done writing this same article for my site, and didn't realize there was a Famicom version even though I did thorough research! How did you find out about it? Do you have any hard facts supporting it?
Here is a bunch of stuff you missed, ZZZ:
-The best power-up, and the only hidden one, "Jet". You get it by back or front flipping at tricky unmarked locations. It allows you to fly through the air in MM and MM2. Wikipedia also has no mention of this.
-The little "option"-like racers awarded by back or front flipping. In MM they have no effect, in MM2 and MMA they allow you to wreck without loosing power-ups.
-In MM2, pressing "down" when over a "spring board ramp" activates the board.
-In MM2, there are 2 "speed" power-ups, "S" and "SS".
-MMA actually HAS a back story. It has to do with racing for food and robots. I kid you not. Read the manual.
-MMA is, effectively, the worst title. The playing area is now so "zoomed in" that it's impossible to react to the upcoming terrain, so the gameplay was totally automatized. It feels as controllable as a full speed Sonic doing loops. No skill whatsoever is involved. Just hold the accelerate button down and press the nitro button at the end of platforms. The mini-games are horrendous, and the entire game is just outright boring. While most graphics look pretty, the character designs, font designs and overall presentation details remind me of a budget title. I very much doubt this was developed by Konami, but most likely farmed out to a sneaky developer like TOSE or something. But of course, this is my opinion.
-The MM version for the GBC compilation doesn't have 2-player mode.
-If you guys need better/more cover images let me know.
Thanks for the note comparisons!
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Post by Shellshock on May 31, 2008 20:51:57 GMT -5
I never thought I'd see this series covered here, cool stuff. :) I've only played the Game Boy game too, via the European colorized Konami collection. Man oh man, did it take me forever to beat every stage on every difficulty. I didn't even bother with the CPU races, though, it's poorly programmed rubber band racing to the extreme. If you keep messing up at some part, intentionally or otherwise, you can literally watch the CPU do this spastic "dance" to keep itself from advancing as well. Sad truth is, that the CPU player is only a ghost racer. It has no effect on the outcome of the race.
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Post by zzz on Jun 3, 2008 15:04:28 GMT -5
Cool. Decent enough series.
Also, speaking of side scrolling racers, somebody should write about Excitebike.
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Post by Haz on Jun 3, 2008 15:24:31 GMT -5
I just played the original GB game last night... Fun. nice music too.
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Post by Shellshock on Jun 7, 2008 13:26:28 GMT -5
Here's the quoted introduction from Motocross Maniacs Advance's manual. I'm copying the entire thing into my article, because it's the most priceless bit of game-manual super-fucked-upness I have seen since the addition of Paula Abghoul and Fred A Scare to Castlevania's manual. How can you NOT?:
"A food-service robot gone bad has developed a diabolical plan to take over the world using "racing energy" found only within the top racers of the world. To gather such a group of racers he has staged a fake tournament with a large cash prize…which he doesn't have... But he has the next best thing. The winner will receive 10,000 donuts, 10,000 cookies, 10,000 cheeseburgers, and to top it all off, a large cake. (Being a food service robot does have its perks.) This unbelievable prize has lured the wacky racers (strange people who race for food) to all come together for a crazy, adrenaline pumping race. (Most won't admit it, but it was the cake that convinced them to come.)"
Hmm.... are the Japanese making fun of America's overweight problem?
See if you still have the will to play MMA now...
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Post by vgninja on Jun 10, 2008 8:52:21 GMT -5
. While most graphics look pretty, the character designs, font designs and overall presentation details remind me of a budget title. I very much doubt this was developed by Konami, but most likely farmed out to a sneaky developer like TOSE or something. KCE Nagoya and Konami HWI, internal developers at Konami, have both made some terrible games that have a low budget look. Motocross Maniacs Advance is probably from Konami HWI. It doesn't list a developer on the splash screen. It uses Factor 5's MusyX tools, so it's probably from a western developer, which Konami HWI is. www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qoA5Fi-KJcTOSE isn't a terrible developer. They made weak ports like FF Anthology and FFIV Advance (which was later fixed, at least for JP and EU), but they have made some quality stuff like the Game and Watch Galleries, FFV Advance, and Stafi 2 (I heard good things about the other Stafi games, but I haven't played them). Edit: It looks like Motocross Maniacs Advance is definately Konami HWI. It's listed at the site of Konami Digital Entertainment (which seemed to replace the old Konami HWI site), which lists US designed Konami games. Konami Digital Entertainment's site lists games from Konami HWI. Some pages of the Motocross Maniacs Advance site still say "Konami Computer Entertainment Hawaii" in the page title. Motocross Maniacs Advance websiteListing of US designed Konami games
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Post by Shellshock on Jun 10, 2008 13:07:34 GMT -5
KCE Nagoya and Konami HWI, internal developers at Konami, have both made some terrible games that have a low budget look. Motocross Maniacs Advance is probably from Konami HWI. It doesn't list a developer on the splash screen. It uses Factor 5's MusyX tools, so it's probably from a western developer, which Konami HWI is. www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qoA5Fi-KJcTOSE isn't a terrible developer. They made weak ports like FF Anthology and FFIV Advance (which was later fixed, at least for JP and EU), but they have made some quality stuff like the Game and Watch Galleries, FFV Advance, and Stafi 2 (I heard good things about the other Stafi games, but I haven't played them). Edit: It looks like Motocross Maniacs Advance is definately Konami HWI. It's listed at the site of Konami Digital Entertainment (which seemed to replace the old Konami HWI site), which lists US designed Konami games. Konami Digital Entertainment's site lists games from Konami HWI. Some pages of the Motocross Maniacs Advance site still say "Konami Computer Entertainment Hawaii" in the page title. Motocross Maniacs Advance websiteListing of US designed Konami gamesVery nice work, sir! I will include this in my article. Ridiculous stuff like the game's story and names like "Big Army" and "Roberto" (a Swiss name?!?!) isn't something Konami of Japan would put out. Even if they are not as good as they used to be in the 80's and 90's. MMA does, in fact, feel more like a western game. Thanks vgninja. P.S: I also recently found out about MMA's "stunts" at Gamefaqs.com, 3 per character. They are executed by entering different commands in mid air.
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Post by onoff456 on Jun 11, 2008 20:17:56 GMT -5
I haven't played the GBA game in question but I think it's more than two references. Judging from the game menu shot provided in the article the game oozes the style of Konami's Krazy Racers. Same presentation, same font, same blue background with checkered flag borders. Don't know which game came first, but thought you might like to know.
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Post by Shellshock on Jun 12, 2008 22:10:21 GMT -5
I haven't played the GBA game in question but I think it's more than two references. Judging from the game menu shot provided in the article the game oozes the style of Konami's Krazy Racers. Same presentation, same font, same blue background with checkered flag borders. Don't know which game came first, but thought you might like to know. I have to check that out. Krazy Racers was one of the first GBA titles, in 2001. It even came out before Mario Kart. I bought it when it first came out, but sold it later on. I remember I liked it quite a lot, but its presentation's quality is above MMA. It's all in the details, which Japanese developers pay special attention to. MMA is incredibly deceptive. It gives a great first impression because it looks and sounds great, and it also has a lot of play modes. But if you spend some time with it the attention to detail is just not up to Konami standards, half the play modes suck, and ends up being boring due to the total lack of challenge and skill. It was dumbed down to sell more.
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djsw
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Post by djsw on Jun 23, 2008 20:30:35 GMT -5
In a similar vein to the Konami HWI stuff here, FC Motocross Champion wasn't developed internally at Konami. I'm not completely sure who made it, but I believe it was most likely an early work of Human Entertainment. It's definitely not Konami internal, though.
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