You'll be hard pressed to find any games that have better water physics than this game.
this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2024
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Only issue with the technology is that the waves were not dynamic; they were deterministic/the same every race.
From a speedrunners' perspective, that's a blessing, not an issue!
If you played multiplayer, that made it even more fun. Being in first place meant you'd trigger certain waves, but then that could fuck up or really help someone behind you.
That's true. They triggered different waves depending on your location.
But I'm willing to bet any recent games that focus on water do the same thing, just with bigger areas, and a few more trigger types.
I loved how the water was a part of the course, just like the track. It never changed no matter how many times you play it. My fastest times were based on knowing where the waves are going to be as I’m coming around a corner.
It's hard to really describe to younger generations just what it was like.
I'm an elder millennial (1984) and the changes to games within my lifetime has been breath taking and staggering.
The first game I remember playing is River Raid on my brother's Atari. I was a vaguely plane shaped black block.
A couple years later, I find myself playing Super Mario Bros. A few more and it's SMB3 and I'm holding a gameboy in my hands on the road trips to Florida to see my grandparents.
Then the jump to SNES and Genesis. Seeing that depth and life seep into the characters... The music gaining in complexity...
I even had a Sega CD and I remember how mind blowing it was when Sonic turned and ran towards the back to go through a loop instead of just side to side.
Then for it was PS1 with Final Fantasy 7... Graphical cut scenes like moving works of art.
After this point, yes there was still obvious and sometimes bigger jumps... But this is where it all was SO different each generation. Not just seeing extra small details and polishes. Large, discrete jumps forward
I wish I could give my wonder to anyone who never got to experience it. It was an amazing time to live.
Its a truly unique experience that only WE experienced. Anyone much older, wasn't interested in video games, and anyone much younger, was gaming in realistic 3D before they could understand what was even happening.
I feel it's similar to the person in the early 1900s who had a horse & cart as a kid and experienced the invention of cars, highways, planes and eventually space travel.
The closest I've felt to those monumental leaps in recent history was the first time I played VR. It feels similarly mind-blowing.
VR is great, but it's just so hard to convince people with a trailer, it really is something that you have to experience, I'm glad there was a VR arcade here for me to try it out.
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My biggest "wow" effect was Gran Turismo (1). The moving reflections on the cars!
～(つˆ0ˆ)つ｡☆
I legit thought that was a pre-rendered video until I saw them crash in the same place I did.
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I'm an elder millennial (1984)
As a millennial born a few years before you, I don't really appreciate the "elder" wording you used there. I'd threaten violence, but I hurt my knee walking the other day and I don't think that'd be good for either of us.
I think the next couple jumps were very good too.
Ps1 was just polygons, you could see all the edges and the games were not complex.
Then ps2 happened, now you get games like gta 3 and gran turismo. San Andreas was one of the longest and most in depth games in terms of all the mini games inside.
After that, came imo the peak of game graphics. Sure, some today might be technically better, but at the time, Crysis on very good hardware looked almost indistinguishable from reality. I remember seeing some highly detailed renders of people’s faces and thinking how it was just like real life.
After Crysis, there wasn’t really any other “big jump” unless you count the hard drive space requirements.
Having said that, bf3 and red dead 2 felt like milestones.
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Some of y'all are gunna learn today that on this same system there was StarWars Pod Racing, and you could use 2 controllers, one for each engine. You're welcome.
I wish I had known that back in the day. It was one of my favorite games on n64.
Yeah, I don't think I knew about the two controller thing. I guess with emulation, PC releases, and dual sticks it wouldn't be necessary now
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You could dual stick Goldeneye as well.
That was the "kismet" config right? I remember you could still aim and shoot with the second controller during cutscenes...so it was possible to kill Bond or other characters during the short scene after beating a mission. 😂
I am one of the lucky 10 000.
I always played podracer on my HOTAS like a pleb.
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It's really funny to think about now, but we really were blown away by how nice this game looked.
Seeing SM64 at Walmart was crazy to me. I can't remember which game it was on PS2, but I was thinking there's no way they can improve graphics from here on out.
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I remember seeing Gran Turismo 3 for the first time. I was amazed, it looked like real life! When I tried it again in more modern times, Iike ish 2014, I was more like wtf, is that thing in the distance a car or a tree, can't tell because the resolution is too low😃
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I still remember seeing this for the first time, absolute mind blower for sure back then.
The first time I interacted with water and it did something in response instead of being static blew my mind.
Seeing my own reflection in a game hurt my brain.
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I never had an N64, but my buddy across the street did. Waverace 64 was incredible for its time.
I remember going over to a kid's house that lived up the street from my cousin. He had Pilotwings on Super Nintendo like right after it released. And he had a big screen TV!
My god man, you would not believe how picture perfect those pixels the size of a finger tip were.
Oh man you just took me back. I was dirt poor as a kid and my mom always busted her ass to get us the latest Nintendo, but we usually only got a couple games. We rented and borrowed the rest.
Anyway.
I went with my step brother to his grandpa’s house one day. He said nothing to prepare me for the glory I was about to see. When we came through the door his grandpa greeted us and said, “Jason, take your brother to the game room.”
We walked down into the basement and there in the coolest, most badass, teen movie room, was this giant rear projection TV. There on the floor sat a console I had never seen before. The original PlayStation with the original controllers and Nascar Racing. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I swear to god I said, “OH MY GOD IT LOOKS REAL!” We played Tomb Raider. I just kept jumping into the pool. Mortal Kombat Trilogy, man what a game.
That Christmas two of my closest friends got the N64. One showed me Doom, the other Mario 64.
I ended up with the N64, my best friend got the PlayStation.
I’d love to go back for a day just to hang out with him. I wish he’d lived to see the graphics of today. Shit, if he’d made it long enough to see The Last of Us I’d be stoked.
Gimmie these graphics with amazing physics and gameplay over the polished turds they make today. Thanks.
It's tricky to rock a rhyme, to rock a rhyme that's right on time, it's tricky
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I'm still impressed by the way wave race feels, not going to lie.
Wow those waves are GORGEOUS for N64 graphics. Dang! I remember I loved Blue Storm on the GameCube. I spent a while just moving that little bubble around the main menu hahaha. It's still gorgeous!
Water still looks and moves better than most games.
Also…
“FOLLOW THAT DOLPHIN!”
When Sony saw Crash Bandicoot running on a PS1 for the first time, they had no idea how the PS1 actually was able to run it.
When even the developers of the system you are using have no idea of how a program is running on their new system, they you know you have some advanced stuff:
I'm 3:30 in and they're just rambling. Who makes this kind of content?
I know the story because I've seen this video where the developers actually talk about how they did it. Watch it instead.
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Fuck, dude, remember VirtuaFighter?
I've got the quarters if you've got the time to get your ass beat.
Wave race was legit. I still think about that game and I'm an old gamer
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Its crazy how much graphics evolved during that time period, just two years later we got this:
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So... This is kinda where I wish graphics stayed. It's probably not the majority opinion, but I wanna feel like I'm playing a video game and not really life. Plus, I feel there was a bit more creativity in making graphics. I'm old, but I loved stuff in Doom and Duke Nukem and EverQuest. Everything now kinda just looks... Brown and dark? Or similar?
I dunno. Might just be the rantings of an old person!
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Honestly, it's still impressive that they were even able to do that on the N64.
Honestly, it holds up. Sure there's fewer polygons, but more polygons doesn't mean it looks better.
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