I've wanted to play this game since I've seen it on a TV show in 1999. I finally gave it a go, and it was a tons of fun but.... 5 tracks? That's it? Seriously? I know the tracks are long and full of multi paths but still, this is really light.
I've wanted to play this game since I've seen it on a TV show in 1999.
Don't put so much stock in disposable media you see once on a TV show from 30 years ago.
Daytona USA has three tracks and it's widely considered as one of the best games ever. Good racing games are not about beating a track and moving on to the next one. Good racing games are about mastering a track and beating your lap times over and over again. That's assuming the track design and core gameplay are good, of course.
Need for Speed games (of which this is one) had such detail and care put in to the tracks that it was only reasonable to have just a few. Even on pc it would be like that. What does porsche have like 7? You get your gameplay variety by playing the mirror and backward versions (does it have those? can't remember)
>5 tracks?
There are 6 courses not including the multiplayer battle arenas which are fun as frick. This game is great.
This is in my top 5 best N64 games.
I had this when it was new and I still play it to this day (well, it’s been probably a year or so). I used to play it on the little CRT we had in the kitchen.
The tracks are indeed huge with multiple paths and three laps, with the final lap being slightly different than the first two.
To me it’s a perfect racing game and the greatest advergame ever made.
In the case of Beetle Adventure Racing, less is assuredly more. Every track is expertly crafted and fun, my favorite tracks in all of racing vidya. Modern racers could learn from BAR’s track design.
The music and presentation is also absolutely top notch, the announcer voice is legendary.
>Welcome to… COVENTRY COVE
Mount Mayhem theme is such a stellar track btw.
Nostalgia probably has something to do with it, but arcade racers of this quality simply don’t exist anymore. It’s so light hearted and inoffensive and not worried about being anything other than fun and it excels at it. It’s far greater than the sum of its parts. Mastering the tracks is difficult and the game gets pretty fricking hard as you unlock new classes of bugs.
I could sing the praises of this gem all day, enjoy it for what it is and try to unlock the police and alien bugs.
So many good memories with this game. Seriously like a comfort food.
I also wanted to say, this was the ad they played for it and my young mind latched onto the bug hitting the helicopter which made me beg for the game.
I might actually have to play through this today I’m getting nostalgia bombed so hard right now.
Wtf
The game design was done by the NFS guys. Tracks were designed by the same dude who did Need for Speed III tracks specifically, which is one of my favorite racing games ever. I like BAR slightly less because of my dislike for New Beetle in particular but the game is still great fun. I wish it was about classic hot hatches instead, like Renault 5 Maxi Turbo or Lancia Delta.
I like that it was about the New Beetle. Back then it was the hot thing and cool (picrel), today it’s like a warm time capsule. It reminds me of when these were on the road and really popular and in tons of movies.
In Australia it was released as HSV Adventure Racing and because of that (no offense Australians) it loses a lot of its quirky charm.
I also want to say this anon
is totally correct. I have a zoomie gf and she earnestly asks to play this from time to time.
You have to admit it’s the best advergame ever made. Cool Spot has nothing on this.
Here’s the cover of HSV adventure racing.
It just doesn’t have the same charm, makes it slightly too edgy, the branding of HSV is off for the bubbly atmosphere of the game. You see they even changed the level background for the cover art to Inferno Isle to match the harder edge of HSV.
Australians will swear to you this is the superior version though.
Yes, as an adver-game, it was actually decent and fun to play. The devs wanted it to be fun. That it was about the New Beetle is something I like, too, because New Beetles (esp pre-2005 redesign ones) are nice time capsules of the late 90s-early 2000s period. They were kind of a fashion statement back then, like the candy colored iMacs. A few girls in my high school drove New Beetles.
>In Australia it was released as HSV Adventure Racing
However I never even saw that sold, and rented beetle many times. I don't know if that hsv version was even on game store shelves or some kind of pack in offer with real hsv cars or something
https://www.ign.com/articles/1999/11/18/there-are-no-beetles-in-australia
Are you in Australia? I was always under the assumption that they never released it as Beetle Adventure Racing there.
>iMac and New Beetles
That’s the ultimate ‘99 aesthetic
Now VW has no beetle. So fricking lame to discontinue the car that launched them. I really liked the last model they did too. The road is uglier without them.
yes. ign doesn't have a clue what they're writing about there. Beetle was sold here. I see further absolutely moronic discussion about this on the same first page of google you got your link , 'buhh is it because there's no beetles in aus?' 'so i believe'. These people just spew fricking 'children's world' speculations as if they're common sense. You could buy a new beetle car, you could buy beetle adventure racing. Just normal - its not some kind of moonbase over here. Likewise these fricktards calling the HSV game the 'pal version of beetle adventure racing'. As if people in uk and europe were playing the HSV game. fricks sake
Interesting, thanks for confirming.
I’m curious to see an Australian box for Beetle Adventure Racing now.
>i will look it up on eBay
Well I’ll be damned.
That’s fricking weird that they would put the effort into releasing the game twice under two different brandings in the same region at what I’m assuming would be the same time.
If you never said this, I would have always assumed it was branded HSV Adventure Racing in Australia and that you never got Beetle Adventure Racing.
This extremely mundane revelation is blowing my mind right now. For years I thought HSV was just how it was released in Australia.
I also want to add that other Australians on this board many moons ago even said it was just released as HSV Adventure Racing there which is why I even added the anecdote of them saying it’s the superior version because that’s what he told me (brand loyalty joke).
I hate being autistic because now I have to research this. Find some commercials for both and find scans of Australian gaming mags talking about them.
> weird that they would put the effort into releasing the game twice
I already offered an explanation for this -although I'm not going to check it to confirm - that it was a promo. The original game is already partly an advert for beetle cars. Car companies have large advertising budgets. Holden calls up EA and says 'for this many thousand dollars could you print 1000 carts with our car instead for our promotion campaign?'.
Because like I said I never saw a copy of this game on a shelf or anything - who knows if there's a thousand or just like 12 copies of this ever manufactured. The only sources for it even being sold are trash that link to the same page that was just guessing.
Japs did the same by rereleasing Advan Racing with Toyota branding. Though this version was given away for free to people who test drove Toyota cars, as a promo.
Well what does “promo” mean in this instance?
You could only buy it from HSV dealerships? Was it exclusive to a certain retailer? A catalogue?
I fricking DEMAND answers from you Aussie.
This is your domain. This is YOUR bullshit.
Surely there must have been an ad for it, some proof of where and how you could purchase it. Some evidence it was on store shelves or special ordered, something.
A good condition boxed copy on eBay is going for about 350 bucks, so it’s rare but not giga-rare. That leads me to believe this was sold in stores, but I’m going to research it. This is definitely one of the most obscure N64 games and nobody ever talks about it, it’s worth looking into.
i've told you everything i know. Except I can tell you Holden, the company that made "HSV" cars, doesn't exist any more. They have one woman doing work from home who answers the company phone numbers, who has some binders of IDs of parts which got safety recalled, etc. I don't think she'll have any info about that game. Oh I can also tell you that another reason it's not likely that this was made to make the game sell better in Australia is that "HSV" cars were not some kind of beloved car for the whole population. It's like a subset of working class people only who cared for this kind of car, and within that subset was a blood feud between Ford fans and Holden fans. So by making a game with that car you would be appealing to like half of half of one quarter of families. Roughly as many as would have thought that the new beetle was cool
You are only serving to make this even more enigmatic.
here you go, though,
>exchanges only available on Target sealed....
so, looks like it was released retail. Target here is a cheap dept store
Bless you. The mystery is solved.
So every other retailer got Beetle, and Target got HSV and maybe Beetle.
I assumed it was a retailer exclusive game since if it really was some obscure promo thing the price would be much higher than 350 usd.
It’s really strange that Target Australia and Target USA have nothing to do with each other despite both being department stores with the exact same logo.
What a strange land.
im not saying in my post that this game was available only at target. my post refers to the label which says you can only exchanges games if your box is still sealed. it simply shows it was sold at target at least
Oh well that’s what I get for misreading your post too fast.
So both Beetle and HSV were sold at retail in some capacity. That’s still pretty unheard of to have two identical games with separate branding on store shelves at the same time.
So this is where the madness began…
>That’s still pretty unheard of to have two identical games with separate branding on store shelves at the same time.
I see your point. Some kid with a moron dad got the same game again and cried after realizing
>Oy'm nawt buyin moy kiied some fairy baytle guyme. HSV...naow theah's a gyme thaht'll puh' haeh on yoah chaest.
Why does the sign just say “arts”? To keep stinky basement dwellers away?
>ign doesn't have a clue what they're writing about there
This can also be a general statement lol. IGN hasn’t been decent since the mid-2000s and has especially sucked since they were acquired in 2013.
I know, it’s a shame. Blame the govt: they force car manufacturers to adhere to both ever-increasing safety regulations and fuel economy standards, at the same time. One usually demands added weight, the other, less. It’s insane and the reason why so few beautiful cars are produced now. I’d like the choice to just buy a car with more or fewer safety features, depending on what I value.
>it’s like a warm time capsule
they are producing them again with an electric engine
I was wondering if they were gonna give it the microbus treatment.
I hate electric cars but at least the body will be back.
>I like that it was about the New Beetle. Back then it was the hot thing and cool (picrel), today it’s like a warm time capsule.
It really felt like the new millennium was going to be a new optimistic era of car design when it came out, like something from the future (Y2K). That optimism quickly died out unfortunately.
New Beetle is a sexy little car, it has tons of personality and is both trad and modern at the same time.
I agree too that 2000-2010 is easily the ugliest car decade.
Great gfcore game, btw.
Half of the game is the battle mode, to be fair.
Oh I see, there is a 6th track indeed. I hadn't noticed that a Bonus championship unlocked after I beat Pro. I admit Bonus is filtering me so far though. All the other cars have a higher top speed so it feels like you can't win unless you make efficient use of most shortcuts and turbos
driving around in Wicked Woods with the alien car is a core gaming memory for me.
N64 racing library sucks in general but this game is a nice exception.
this is a game that should be decompiled
but no, it's mario and zelda for the nth time
Those have been decompiled once...
>he doesn't know
the minish cap was decompiled too
>this is a game that should be decompiled
That'd be nice considering I just downloaded 3 different N64 emulators to play this and they all suck
it runs perfectly fine with rmg
What show was it?
Level One on Game One
groovy soundtrack
>5 tracks? That's it?
While this is true, each track takes around 4 minutes per lap with multiple hidden routes. I wish it had more of course, but it didn't feel short.
I used to treat this game like more of an adventure than a racing game. I loved exploring all the secrets in every map and finding all the cool out of bounds areas.
Like you said, the courses are very deep, much more than you would get in other racers. I understand why it doesn't have 30 tracks.
Fun fact, this game was developed by the same people from Pilotwings 64
No offense to Paradigm (their F1 games are based) but they only were outsourced to do the engine/N64 specific programming and car modelling. Aka the things that indian sweatshops are hired to do in modern gamedev. Principal game design, tracks design - these were made by Need for Speed devs at EA.
i don't think so. it's clearly a need for speed game down to the individual artists. i don't remember where but i guarantee you there's roman columns that you can crash into somewhere in b.a.r., just like in porsche
5-6 tracks were a decent number for the era. Not every game could be a Gran Turismo or one of the Formula 1 games. Ridge Racer is famous for only having 1 circuit with 2 variations.
Who else in here is a fan of Stunt GP (came out in 2001, made by British Team17 - the same studio that made Worms)?
I remember that graphics were mind-blowing at that time. There were different styles of cars and a whole upgrade system. It was hard to win a single course, but damn, you felt pure satisfaction and earned enough cash to pimp out your ride further.
Team17 were great back then.
here's your electronic arts
I imagine EA having an office here with two guys in it to *publish* EA Sports games that were for local sports, which could have been developed here or just wherever EA devs usually work, being commissioned to 'mod the game you just made to now have the ball oval shaped and put these different points rules'. Then those two guys when they had nothing to do, commissioned the mod of the beetle game and then published it since that was what their job was