Friday 23 June 2023

Multiplayer mode video

A short video showing the 'split match play' feature in multiplayer mode.  I firstly drove the whole race in the Clio and once I passed the finish line, the CPU took over the running of that car.  I then drove the RV8 while the CPU was driving the Clio around the course.

 

Monday 19 June 2023

The MSR fan sites that never were


Following on from my 2015 post about MSR fan sites, here are two that were never completed.


MSR.PT.VU / MSR.HOME.SAPO.PT


I saw this advertised on an old topic at dreamcast.onlineconsoles.com.  This Portugese site was created at the end of April 2004 and promised rankings, ghost/time trials and tutorials.  However these features were still 'under construction' on early 2005 (according to Wayback) and no further updates ever occurred. It disappeared offline sometime in the 2010's.


MSR.B0X.COM



This was advertised on a topic from Bizarre Creations' old Ezboard forum.  Unfortunately just this homepage was made advertising the site was coming on 20 March 2001.  Nothing else happened sadly and disappeared offline shortly after. 

Monday 12 June 2023

Critical Reviews

I enjoy reading critical reviews for MSR as some of them raise valid points.  The game had a lot of hype in the UK Dreamcast press and some people were disappointed when it was eventually released.  Sadly these reviews are no longer online, however they have been preserved at Archive.org.


"While MSR is a welcome change in the identikit-driving genre, the game has some series flaws with its basic design, which unwind the whole experience. By relying so heavily on the original 'Kudos' scoring system, the simple problems are highlighted throughout the lengthy single player campaign and unfortunately the experience is ruined as a result."

NSTC-UK Rating: 6/10

Link to full review: NTSC-UK MSR Review


But not that everyone thinks I don't like MSR. MSR is a good racing game, but nothing more. In my opinion, it just didn't turn out to be the high-flyer I was hoping for. However, I recommend the game to every racing fan. Everyone else should borrow the game first and test it enough." 

Planet-Sega.de Rating: 86%

Link to full review: Planet-Sega.de MSR Review (translated from German)


"When MSR is good, it’s very good, and its innovations deserve a lot of credit for making the game so engaging, once you get over the initial hump. Sadly, there are too many little aggravations, too many flawed design decisions and too many visual annoyances disrupting the experience to keep it from being the perfect Dreamcast racing game that some players might have been expecting. To say nothing of MC H*m* and company. Wey hey!"

Link to full review: Electric Playground Review


"MSR" is a universe of drifting and cornering, accelerating and power-steering, peppy music and decent graphics that, while worth a visit from time to time via a rental ticket price, it's too unrewarding and punishing a formula for the hardest of the hardcore to plow the cash for. Test-drive before you buy... another Infogrames driving game that is (he, he, he)!

DC-Swirl Review: 3.5 / 5

Link to full review: DC Swirl Review

Tuesday 6 June 2023

Defunct homebrew MSR Ranking 2006 - 2018 (Matching Service from dcarena.de)

When I first began researching MSR in-depth back in 2010-2012, I came across this German fan page.

This ranking was initially set up back in 2006.  Unfortunately by the time I found it, the facility had more or less been abandoned; the upload/login feature was broken as membership was closed, and you could only download existing ghosts.  I made a video 13 years ago showing some of MSR's Dreamarena homepages on my Dreamcast (via the Wayback Machine) and I included this ranking within it to demonstrate downloads.

Sadly the whole site went offline back in 2018.  For more information on dcarena.de, please see the following link: https://www.sega-dc.de/dreamcast/DCArena.de