Honda NSX In Early Version

Bizzare Creations statement explaining why Hondas were excluded:

....As you know, some car manufacturers imposed restrictions on the game - such as no pedestrians, no proper traffic, no one-way/no entry signs, the car not allowed to leave the ground, etc.   Sega were in discussion with Honda to include their cars in the game, but the additional restrictions they asked for would have compromised the game too much. Therefore it was with sadness that we had to remove all Honda cars from the game.

Original MSR Fan Sites

Here are two fans sites I've found from back in the day.  Both are now "offline" but can still be viewed via their archive links

MSR HIGH SPEED (UK fan site)

Contains a review, some nice pictures from the older versions of MSR and an unofficial Kudos ranking.

Link: http://www.geocities.ws/ibennetty9/msr/index2.html (WARNING: archived page now filed with bots and pop-ups!)

MSR FAN (French website)

This one is a bit more in-depth.  We have a review, comparisons with other games ie Gran Turismo 3 and Le Mans 24h, and some strategy guides for various chapters

Link: https://web.archive.org/web/20050208013401/http://msrfan.fr.fm/

The Car Winners (Updated 2023)

In order to promote Metropolis Street Racer, Sega Europe held a couple of competitions where you could win an actual Vauxhall VX220 (or Opel Speedster if you lived on the continent).  This first competition is the most well known:  Win Your Dream Car On Dreamarena!

Promotional leaflet found inside early PAL versions of MSR.

Article from Paragon Publishing Unofficial Dreamcast Magazine (UK) and archived press release from Sega Europe. 

This competition was basically a quiz where you answered a series of multi-choice questions in strict time limits.  Answer them correctly and you gained 'kilometers; you got even more kilometers if you answered correctly and quickly. There was also an 'all or nothing' option where you could stake your existing kilometers to gain even more.  This was very high risk but if you wanted to win, you had to gamble.  Here is the winner's story from the UK Official Dreamcast Magazine (issue 19 / May 2001):

I guess the Dreamarena phone charges would have been enough to cover the cost of this competition so that's probably why they did it.  Personally I think a competition where you win a car by actually playing MSR would have been more appropriate. And that's exactly what they did in France with the Micromania/Jeux Video Kudos Challenge.....

Micromania is a French game store and Jeux Video is a French gaming site.  Basically you had to race across set courses and rack up as many kudos as possible without using a joker.  Here are full rules if you are interested, however there was a change made at the finals.

Here are the results:

PRELIMINARY SELECTION: 08/01/2001 - 11/02/2001

Course: Street Race - Chapter 18 - Race 7 (Old Palace Yard North). 

Not sure what the best scores were but kudos scores of 4000+ were recorded.  Here are the results from the Toulouse branch (taken from French player PXD's website that's no longer online or archived).

     

1st) Player: PXD                       Kudos: 4214.20                Play date: Saturday 10 Feb 2001 

Prize: Dreamcast T-shirt and 2nd round qualification.

   

2nd) Player: CODONOPSYS     Kudos: 3782.40 (-431.8)  Play date: Sometime in Feb 2001   

Eliminated from competition.

SELECTION FOR THE FINAL: 24/02/2001 (1400 - 1600 pm)

Course: Street Race - Chapter 19 - Race 7 (Parliament Street South II).  The four best scores of these selections taking place in each Micromania will qualify for the Grand National Final. 

Top Score: 9458.40 Kudos!

Player: Oxxxxxxx         Kudos: 9458.40          Qualified for Final

Player: Fxxxxxxx Kudos: 9458.40         Qualified for Final

Player: Axxxxxxx Kudos: 9458.40         Qualified for Final

Player: Cxxxxxxx Kudos: 9286.20 (-172.2)         Qualified for Final

Player: PXD Kudos: 4141.00 (-5317.4) Eliminated from competition

Interesting that 3 players managed to get the same exact Kudos scores.  Perhaps the game maxes out at that level?  Considering the Kudos system is riddled with bugs, I'm wondering how these guys must have played?  I imagine a lot of sideways skidding and spinning in circles!  However with scores of 9000+ Kudos on a single course and with no joker allowed, that's definitely an achievement! 

GRAND NATIONAL FINAL: 17/03/2001

Course A: Street Race - Chapter 20 - Race 7 - Jefferson West IV - Target position 4 

Course B: Street Race - Chapter 20 - Race 8 - Nishi Shinjuku Restaurant - Target position 4

2023 update: I recently checked the May/June 2001 edition of the French Official Dreamcast Magazine (page 20) and saw their report on this competition.  It seems you had to get the best overall time on on the above courses using the Vauxhall VX220/Opel Speedster.  It's likely this change took place due to the Kudos bugs in early PAL versions (too many Kudos being awarded).  Here are the winning times. 

Course A Best Time: 7'15.764

Course B Best Time: 8'04.111

The Grand National Final took place at the Auto Passion Cafe in Paris.  Only 3 of the 4 best Kudos scorers (9458.40) competed.  The 2 runners up received a Dreamcast console and 5 games (wouldn't they have Dreamcasts already?!).  Here is a rough translation of the aforementioned report:

A contest was organized by Sega France with a chain of stores [Micromania] around the very good game Metropolis Street Racer on Dreamcast. During the first elimination phases, the objective was to achieve the highest number of Kudos on a circuit of the game: Street Race - Chapter 18 - Race 7 (Old Palace Yard North). To do this, you had to own a Dreamcast (with MSR), make a record by saving it to the VM (memory card) and then take it to one of the stores covering the operation. In a second round of eliminations, the top two players from each store went head-to-head. At the end of these confrontations, the 4 best scores (largest number of Kudos), all stores combined, were selected for the final taking place on Saturday March 17 [2001] in Paris.

2:30pm: start of the final. First observation, one of the 4 finalists is missing, too bad... especially when we know that the winner receives as a reward an Opel Speedster worth 210,000 F, the other two winners win a steering wheel + 5 games. Then, completely confused, the three finalists were surprised to find that this last phase of the championship takes place, not on the greatest number of Kudos, but indeed on the best times. Also, they weren't thinking of driving the Opel Speedster (in the MSR game) in the final. This took place on two circuits, the winner being the one who achieves the best time in the aggregate of the two races. The three competitors "literally" ate the cornering walls.

Are they finalists or not? Jokes aside, stress can be understood. Also MSR is not an easy game to master, but still. According to the winner, it was a good technique (hitting the walls to waste less time, it's better than applying the brakes...). He even advises all players wanting to improve their records in their favorite games (for their pleasure or for a contest) to consult lots of magazines, to surf the net via the Dream Arena (tips, discussion forum, etc.) and also to find out as much as possible from other players to have details on game techniques, car settings, where to brake or not. What a real winner!  

and here is the lucky winner of the Opel Speedster!  Wonder if they still have the car though?

Sadly as I've not been able to trace the winners, their faces/names will have to remain blanked out.

MSR VMU Hacks (Google Groups/Usenet topic)

Oh - and the first 'Global Challenge' (London) ends January 15th so you might want to enter that first - not that you'll beat my time of course l-)!

What is your time ?

It's whatever I want it to be my friend - as I've worked out how to edit the times in the VMU  :))  How does 1:06 grab you - 'believable' but I don't think it's achievable.  Seriously though, it took me less than 5 mins to change this as the programmers (obviously too busy fixing bugs) have put NO protection in there WHATSOEVER - not even a checksum which most gamesaves have!

Any times you see posted on the (Dreamarena ranking) site could well be fraudulent therefore and
I'm not inclined to waste my time any longer...

But for the record - my best 'real' time was a low 1:14 - which is slow, I know and hence my 'curiousity' to see if others could well have cheated...

Original Google Groups/Usenet topic link 

MSR Bugs (Updated 2023)

The PAL version of MSR was released three times in total. In order to meet a November 2000 deadline in the UK, the first release had a number of major bugs. Sega Europe subsequently recalled this first batch and released a second PAL version that eliminated most of the major bugs, but not all (see below). They also offered replacements disks free of charge to those who had purchased a bugged copy. The North American release and the final PAL version were both free of major bugs, although some minor ones remained.

• Completing Street Race challenges without the required number of Kudos or target finish position will still be considered successful (first PAL version).  This is more likely to occur if you race 'badly' (crash throughout the event, set low finish positions).  

• The game would sometimes corrupt VMUs (first PAL version);

• After some time of playing, Tokyo races would always be at night (first PAL version);

• When using a keyboard to enter names etc., the keys were mapped incorrectly. Pressing C would give B, pressing B would give A etc. (first PAL version);

• The "Quick Race" screen in the multiplayer mode would be blank and thus impossible to play (first and second PAL version);

• The Alfa Romeo GTV cannot be gained legitimately as the 'time to beat' was set too low at 31 seconds (first and second PAL version);

• The Street Race in Chapter 17, Challenge 8 cannot be beaten legitimately as it was mistakenly set to infinite laps (first and second PAL version).  Workaround: get your target finish position and complete the first lap.  Once you begin the second lap, press Start and quit the event.

• Special Events could be completed without the required car or clock time (first and second PAL version);

• You can create a Time Trial with 'random' weather.  However playing it will cause the screen to become 'ash grey' with no lighting.  When you press start to quit the trial, the game may either crash or reset (first and second PAL version - the random weather option for Time Trials was removed in the final PAL and US version.  See my 'Apocalypse Street Racer' post for more info);

• If you insert the MSR disc, turn on the Dreamcast and are then presented with the clock screen (internal battery had faded/died), the game will not load after setting the time.  The revised PAL pressing (disc ring code ending SB) gives an error message that the 'softdec movie cannot be not found' (all PAL versions).  Workaround: when you are presented with the clock screen, open the lid so the game stops spinning.  Set the clock and let the Dreamcast go to the main menu.  Then close the lid.

• During wet conditions, it still rains inside tunnels and under bridges (all versions);

• Ghost cars loaded from a VMU can become corrupt and crash into the sides, sometimes without reason. This includes ghosts saved within Time Trials. It happens more often if you create ghost cars on early PAL versions and then race them on the final PAL/US version, or vice versa (all versions);

• The game screen goes blank and the speedometer gives a 'minus warp light speed' reading. Thankfully this is extremely rare. (all versions);

• Creating a Time Trial with 'misty' or 'foggy' weather will default to 'clear' weather once a ghost car is saved (all versions);

• Two Time Attack records (Asakusa Eki-Iruguchi and Koen Minami) are pre-set to 0.000 (all versions);

• Records for one-on-one challenges in Street Race mode always show a '0.0s' head start, even if one was given.  If you give yourself a head start, the record will always show as '-0.0s' head start.  The only way to tell if a head start was actually given to the other car is by looking at the skill points awarded (all versions);

• When travelling at high speed on straight sections (namely London St James' Park), the camera position/frame suddenly shifts momentarily (all versions);

• In Street Race / Quick Race events, the game awards CPU cars unrealistic best lap times (all versions);

• When selecting a personal music playlist as the default choice, MSR reverts to its own preset list [Overdrive / Time / Heartlands / Am I Only Dreaming] when resuming a game (all versions).  Workaround: after resuming a game and before playing, go into the CD/Radio option from the main menu and quickly flick through your music selection using the forward button on the radio.  When you start playing, your personal playlist will work as normal.

You can only tell what PAL version you have by looking at the ringcode on the back of the GD-ROM:

• MK-51022-0146SS: v1.001 (10/10/2000 - First PAL version)

• MK-51022-0146SA: v1.002 (20/10/2000 - Second PAL version)

• MK-51022-0146SB: v1.009 (21/11/2000 - Final PAL version)

Link: Sega-DC.de (MSR page)

I have numerous SS versions and only 1 SB version.  I have never had any severe save problems or kudos issues on my SS pressings so maybe some SA pressings were pressed as SS??  I have never come across a SA pressing in the wild. 

NG Early Write Up 1999 (Early Version)

My preview (or previews, actually) of Metropolis Street Racer is perhaps my favorite of the pieces I've written for this site. Thus, I went to E3 excited to see the game, and I was really excited when I found out that it was playable. I'm a little less excited now. The game is a visual tour de force, but as I was playing it I wondered if I was somehow missing something. The controls and track design are a bit frustrating, and I wonder if they'll be tuned up between now and the game's release.

Before I start picking things apart, let me be very clear: the backgrounds in Metropolis are amazing. The hype about Bizarre Creations' massive research effort looks to be true. During the countdown before a race, you're treated to several sweeping pans across a virtual cityscape that are downright breathtaking. I've never been to San Francisco, so I can't say this was a perfect replication, but it sure looked like a real city to me. Once you're racing, you go past all kinds of different buildings: warehouses, offices, apartments, and others, all of which look great. You can also see occasional moving objects in the sky, like a cloud of floating balloons or a passing flight of fighter jets. There weren't many other moving objects on the road, though; the one other vehicle I can remember seeing was a parked school bus.

The thing is, it was a bit hard to pay attention to the backgrounds because I was always crashing into the corners. Metropolis has an irritating tendency to give you a long straightaway, let you build up a good head of steam, and then spring a ninety-degree turn on you. If you're lucky, you'll slide sideways into the wall and stop, but if you're unlucky you'll crash head-on and stop, and so far as I could tell there's no reverse gear to quickly extricate yourself, like in Crazy Taxi. You're warned by signs, like in Sega Rally 2, but the turns themselves are still often a shock because the jersey barriers that block off the streets fade in only when you're relatively close to them. The cars also don't seem to turn very responsively. Maybe I was just picking up bad habits from Rally and expecting my little Renault roadster to drift like a tuned-up four-wheel-drive Impreza. Perhaps I should have tried to summon up my Gran Turismo cornering discipline. Still, I think that if you want to make drivers to corner at low speeds, give us a downtown course with lots of turns. If you're going to let us drive like Jehu down the straights, put us on the freeway or a seaside boulevard like Tacoma's Ruston Way where we don't necessarily have to cut our speed by fifty or sixty percent to make a turn properly.

I wasn't able to acquire any information on how long until the American version of Metropolis shows up. The European version is of course a launch title, and it looks like the game is on its way to meeting that goal. Three cars were playable, a red Ford Mustang (1999 model, damn), a blue Renault Spider (my personal favorite), and an orange Mazda Miata (thanks for the assist, Fernando), and you could also scroll through a number of other unavailable cars in the selection screen, like the Rover MGF (I didn't know Rover made those; you learn something new every day). There were two course selections: Fisherman's Wharf during the day and the same area at night. The course was actually a bit surprising; I was expecting to drive the Shibuya, Tokyo course, since that's where all the screenshots to date have come from. I suppose Sega wanted to present American players with a more familiar setting. Anyway, I'm a bit less stoked for MSR than I once was, but it still shows promise if the track design and control issues are resolved, or alternatively if I learn how to drive the game properly. The setting and the nifty selection of cars definitely set it apart from the pack.

The demo shown was the Time Trial mode from Classic Arcade; the team was reluctant to discuss Gang Battle, though it seems there will be some story elements involved. The showcase was nothing short of amazing. The level of realism shown was almost indescribable. Bizarre showed the Shibuya level in both day and night modes - you should pray this gets a US release. At night, buildings are lit from the inside, trains pass over your head that may as well be real trains, balloons float up from the road in such an authentic manner, it was simply shocking. The Alpha Spider rattled around Tokyo with the driver responding to the cars movements, lighting effects were seen that literally blew the assembled crowd away; this is pre-alpha, and the Bizarre team was nervous about showing the game. They needn't have been. The mind boggles at what the finished game will look like. Fireworks exploded in the sky as the car raced round corners, handbraking as it went; headlights shone with beams visible in exactly the same way they would if you were driving the car yourself. The brake calipers visibly grab the brake discs, which glow after rough treatment. Jaws dropped. Journalists slavered. Bizarre and Sega won the day. No question.

Sega and Bizarre Creations recently unveiled full details of the game at a European press conference held in Liverpool, England. The game will be based around three cities: London, San Francisco and Tokyo. The cities are split up into three separate areas, each covering an estimated two square miles. Metropolis Street Racer has been built using a real-time four-wheel physics engine. Over 32,000 photos were taken to replicate each of the cities represented in the game. A total of 30 hours of video footage was taken for the game, with three minutes of footage taking around an hour to walk through.

Gameplay will be split into two different modes: Classic Arcade and Gang Battle. The Classic Arcade mode will then be split up into Championship, Time Attack and Head to Head sub-modes. Gang Battle will be based around a series of events and races and a four-player split-screen mode is currently being discussed. The racer will include 20 licensed cars, and eight hidden ones. Licensed cars will come from companies including Mercedes, TVR, Mazda,, Renault, Rover, Mitsubishi and Jenson.

Although Bizarre was cautious of revealing specific car types set to feature in MSR, models seen first-hand in the demo consisted of Ford Mustang, Honda NSX, Alfa Romeo Spider, Fiat Barchetta, and Toyota Celica.

Every car engine in the game has been recorded to authentically replicate the models they are based on. During actual gameplay, players will be able to hear birds, planes and even trains, all panning round the action in full 3D. The throttle and breaking system of each car is fully analogue, and break discs on the cars will begin to blaze after extended use. Real-time weather effects display swaying trees and bushes in high detail. The usual conditions such as snow, wind, fog, and rain will accompany the gameplay.

The game's soundtrack will include an extensive range of musical genres. These are Big Beat, Drum'n'Bass, Garage, Euro-house, Progressive Rock, R'n'B and even Jazz Funk.

Various sources at the press conference hinted that the game will be released in the US, although it is not known if it will be available at the US Dreamcast launch in September.

AM News: Bizarre Shows Metropolis

Straight from the Metropolis Street Racer press conference, NGO brings you all the reasons why you're about to be seriously impressed by Bizarre Creations.

March 31, 1999

Sega moved into a new phase in the Dreamcast hype ramp-up yesterday, with the unveiling of the purely gorgeous Bizarre Creations-created Metropolis Street Racer to the European press. It's almost certain both the US and Japan will see this released at some point in the future - you should hope so. Here's the full scoop.

The thirty "most influential" European video games journalists were invited to Liverpool, England, for Sega Europe to showcase its first formally announced 1.5 party developer launch title. After a short address from the CEO of the company, JF Cecillon, the group was taken to the offices of Bizarre Creations to get some idea of what exactly Sega was making such a noise about. What we saw yesterday was nothing short of stunning.

MSR is a city-based racer that could easily snatch the realism crown in one highly attractive swoop. For all the game facts and statistics, read the "Full Metropolis Details" story after this one. This article is instead a first-hand account of what was seen yesterday.

As an introduction, Bizarre Creations took us through the incredible amount of research that has made the project possible. "We've taken over 32,000 photographs of London, San Francisco and Tokyo," informed Bizarre's Sarah Dixon. "On top of that, we've shot over 30 hours of video, to get the correct textures we needed. Photos are still coming in from Japan." It appears the developer was, and still is, a little apprehensive about the scale of what it's trying to achieve. "It is daunting," Dixon continued. "Always. Our artists had to be so organized. The whole idea behind a project of this size is to make those familiar with the places we're depicting think they're watching a video of the cities they know. We've learnt so much about producing this style of game."

In case 32,000 photos isn't enough in terms of research, maps and guidebooks were brought into the fray. "We start off using guidebooks," Dixon informed. "We want people to see prominent landmarks in the cities, things they're most likely to know. The Trafalgar area of the London tracks is probably the most advanced; Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco too. We used topological data maps for accurate height data - our pure focus is realism. All of the hills in San Francisco are there as they are in real-life. Overhead aerial maps have been a big help. We look at the maps, look at the videos we've shot, then we're able to put in the street furniture. If there's a hotdog stand on a street corner of one of the areas in San Francisco, it'll be in the game. For example, since we started the area construction, we've found out a railway is being built on one of the levels - we're in touch with the engineers and the designers to make sure it's included into the game in exactly the correct way."

Detailed? You bet. Next we were shown the developer's art department. Jon Dougdale, one of senior artist, showed off his wares: "This in one of the circuits," he said stoically, dropping jaws with a two square-mile utterly authentic map of Shibuya in Tokyo on his PC. "We use the top-down maps and the photos for reference; in-game, the buildings are 256x256." He then showed us in-game shots, including a red Mini Cooper. The crowd groaned here - the difference between the reference photos and the in-game footage was honestly negligible.

Moving on to the cars, Dougdale's colleague Mark Akester gave us the details. "We start with the wire frames and add as much texture as we can from the photos," he informed. "There are around 1,000 polygons per car, and we have four levels of detail for the four different camera views. The highlight model sits on top of the detail model." He span an Alpha Spider through 360 degrees. Amigos, this looked tasty. "We'll have 12 cars on the screens at once," he continued. "We've tried to stick to the manufacturer's preferred colors." Possibly for the best, you won't find super top-end cars in MSR. "We didn't want to go over the top as far as the cars were concerned," added Producer, Brian Woodhouse. "You won't find a Ferrari in there. Our physics model is so realistic, it'd basically just trounce the competition."

With physics on our mind, we moved on to Lead Coder, Matt Birch. He got the de-bug code up and running to demonstrate the four shock absorbers working separately. The suspension model, to put it bluntly, was a smooth as a baby's backside. "The engines, the wheelbase, even the tyre measurements are based on the manufacturers' stats," said Birch. "Our physics model is spot on. The Alpha Spider handles completely authentically, as do the rest of the cars. I have a Lotus Elan. I put the stats into the code and the result was exactly the same 0-60 time as in real-life. There's still a great deal to add, though. By the time it's finished, even the tyre marks on the road will appear in accordance to the way you lay them down - if you skid in a straight line, marks will show up in exactly the place the tread is grooved on the tyre. If you slide sideways, the marks will be smudged."

The question of realism stifling gameplay was raised. "Tiny adjustments are made over the top of the physics to make it more fun to play," he continued. "We don't alter the physics, we alter the way you interact with the car. How real can it be before you go out and buy yourself a real car?

"Loads of effects are yet to be added. For example, all the smoke in the game is done in code. If you look through a great cloud of it, you probably won't be able to see anything, but if you look sideways through it a thinner section, you will. We'll make even the smallest effects as realistic as possible, such as balloons, birds, boxes and the like."

Just how technically advanced is the work on MRS compared to the F1 games made by Bizarre? "We started from scratch," Birch answered. "Compared to F1, it's a world away. We're planning to use the VMS, though we haven't decided how yet. We're just trying to do what we wanted to do; we've been supported 100 percent by Sega."

There's only one word to describe what we saw at Bizzare's small offices - impressive. The small team of 27 members is literally oozing with talent, and Sega knows it. On to the demo...

The demo shown was the Time Trial mode from Classic Arcade; the team was reluctant to discuss Gang Battle, though it seems there will be some story elements involved. The showcase was nothing short of amazing. The level of realism shown was almost indescribable. Bizarre showed the Shibuya level in both day and night modes - you should pray this gets a US release. At night, buildings are lit from the inside, trains pass over your head that may as well be real trains, balloons float up from the road in such an authentic manner, it was simply shocking. The Alpha Spider rattled around Tokyo with the driver responding to the cars movements, lighting effects were seen that literally blew the assembled crowd away.

This is pre-alpha, and the Bizarre team was nervous about showing the game. They needn't have been. The mind boggles at what the finished game will look like. Fireworks exploded in the sky as the car raced round corners, handbraking as it went; headlights shone with beams visible in exactly the same way they would if you were driving the car yourself. The brake calipers visibly grab the brake discs, which glow after rough treatment. Jaws dropped. Journalists slavered. Bizarre and Sega won the day. No question.

With the first viewing of MSR we saw a new, driven, highly professional Sega, a company hell-bent on pushing at least $300 million into a marketing push to promote a console worldwide, with games that are utterly deserving of success. That such a small company as Bizarre can take on such a large project and succeed to this degree is truly astonishing. The question of Dreamcast failing in the wake of PlayStation 2 just got a lot tougher to answer. "We'll have the most powerful machine on the US and European market," said Mark Hartley, Chief Product Development Manager for Sega Europe. "We have great games and a great console. We're very confident the consumer will see it that way too."

In the words of Sega Europe CEO, JF Cecillon: "We have great content, great games. We're focused on great content, on strong creative talent. That's why we've brought you to Liverpool; to show you the real world, real talent. Europe is prolific in terms of new talent. There are outstanding games here." There certainly are, and to call Bizarre "real talent" is like calling grass green. Word from later on in the bar suggested this will be a definite US release. We sincerely hope so...

Kudos World Record?

MSR's main gimmick was the kudos feature but any player could get a high score by simply driving up and down particular courses doing 180º handbrake turns!  So any scores posted on the online ranking back in the day could not be taken seriously.  However I admire anyone who has the patience to do this ad infinitum in order to obtain ridiculously high scores: the world record once stood at 1,055,250 on Dreamarena. Now that's a lot of boring skidding!