Rolling-Start.com launches

[Ghegs]

Side By Side/Battle Gear is a rather underappreciated series It deserves to be mentioned alongside Daytona or Ridge Racer. Taito should do an HD version of this also. You'd think that with the Type X2 porting frenzy, we'd have seen at least Battle Gear 4 making it over.

I really like the series and I wrote a little something about it. But as I've never played the actual arcade games and am restricted to the console ports (I have Special 2000 and Tokyo Road Race, BG3 on the way) I'm sure there's plenty of info I'm unaware of. If you got more details, please share. I have very little idea about the differences of the standard/tuned editions of BG3 and 4, for example.

[Ghegs]

Big update!

The forum is now a full-blown site, not unlike our shmups.com main page. So far the only real content is my article about the neGcon, but hopefully others will follow.

http://www.rolling-start.com/index.html

[ExitPlanetDust]

Great news. Heading over there now to check it out.

[KAI]

You better play some RR!

[Ghegs]

This weekend I rolled up my sleeves and whipped together a database and means to search it. I call it the RGDB - Racing Game Database.

The idea is that it will eventually house every racing game ever made so it will be easy to find more games you're likely to enjoy. For example, finding all the rally games made by Codemasters in the year 2002 that were released in Japan, if you're really, really picky about your games.

It's functionally complete but the database currently holds only a bit over 300 titles, so it's still in the testing phase. But you can play around with it, and if you see some glaring errors, mistakes or have some ideas on how to improve it (I'm not a database expert by any means), I'd gladly hear them.

Also, we got a bitchin' new banner a while ago. It's gorgeous.

[quash]

Neat! I'll have to send you a list of games sometime. For now, just add Auto Modellista and its sequel.

[Ghegs]

If you want to help, throw me a message and I'll send you a link to a Google Docs spreadsheet (no sign-in required), I can then take all the new entries from that and import them into the database.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Some keywords/search options that'd be cool to have would be the option to look for Checkpoint (against the clock) racers or lap-based racers, games with either connected tracks (lap based usually) or non-connected routes (Outrun, Need For Speed's point to point races, basically where the start & finish line aren't connected), if the game has a Time Attack mode included, etc.

[Ghegs]

Hmm...as a big fan of both point-to-point races and time attack, I certainly see the appeal of the idea. Thing is, I'm under the impression that most racing games have a Time Attack mode, so having it listed as a keyword in ~75% of the games would only make the list more cumbersome and heavy to read. It's basically safe to assume that a racing game has a time attack mode, maybe it'd be more convenient to have a list on the forums of the ones that don't include one?

In any case, both of these would require a bit more in-depth knowledge of the games. Which would be fine if there were many people working on the data entry, but so far it's just me. It's not like I went and played every single one of the 343 games that are currently there, for most of them (especially the more obscure ones) I just looked at some screenshots, it's easy to see if a game is circuit- or off-road -based, if it has cars, bikes or boats, if it's got combat elements, etc. from those alone. If game features and course types were to be included as well, it would significantly increase the time it takes to enter just one game to the database.

Good ideas though, and something to consider.

[Furry Fox Jet Pilot]

I'm not a serious racing game fan, but hey, those were the games I grew up on. Does anyone else play Midnight Club II, Midnight Club: Los Angeles, Burnout 3, Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2, and Motorstorm?

[mirkvid]

How did I miss this? I've been waiting for a decent racing game forum to pop up! I think I play more racers than anything else. R4 has been in the queue since it was released.

Currently playing GT6, NFS:Rivals (PS4), and a little Super Hang-On.

[Ghegs]

We're doing another competition, this time with Little Racers STREET. Prizes include the game's full version and other games as well.

The site itself has been building up as well since I last mentioned it. RGDB has over 1200 titles listed now and there are new articles/guides/whatnot with more on the way.

[nosorrow]

Great idea for a site! I'll definitely register when I'm out of the office.

Like many, I'm especially fond of Sega's 90s racers, even Sega Touring Car Championship (Saturn) which I play several times a year.

P.S. Favourite racing games of all time: Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast (PS2) and F-Zero X (N64) (followed closely by F-Zero GX (GC))

Edit: I was just answering to the first post of the thread. Now please proceed with you current matters.

[Ghegs]

The registration for Little Racers STREET competition ends in about 24 hours, so come join up and show us your skillz.

[Ghegs]

Thought I'd plug RGDB again since not only does it cover well over 2000 games now, I've added in some cool new features, some just in the last few weeks:

• Easier searching for multiple keywords at once, since they're now selected at the main page instead of having to type them out.
• Possible to search by multiplayer features.
• Every game now has its own (dynamically created) page, which tells more information about the game, such as the max. amount of participants in multiplayer, and whether the game has ghost support. This page also contains screenshots of the game, if they are available. Some examples:
  
  F-1 Hero
  Side By Side Special 2000
  Hydro Thunder Hurricane

Many entries are still lacking their multiplayer information and screenshots, but hopefully people will chip in and submit info and images (as some have already done), that way this can become an even greater resource.

We're also running our The First Annual Top 5 Racing Games of All Time voting until Dec. 15th, if somebody wants to partake in that.

[KAI]

Hoping the best for the RGDB project. I'm in the process of taking screenshots of all the racers running on Sega's model 2 hardware and some PSP games right now.

[Ghegs]

The Second Annual Top 5 Racing Games of All Time voting has started and will last until Dec 15th.

[Zen]

Messing around with ReShade on OutRun 2006; Coast to Coast.
Depth of field and a liberal amount of other nice things + Nvidia DSR at 3840x2160.
The beautiful journey indeed.

Spoiler

Never get tired of playing this. Best drifting eva
Such a pity that the game is no longer available on STEAM.