Game Club July- Micro Machines

[Maxim]

The music is supremely awesome! Very European compared to the Japanese style we were used to. The rubber banding is not too bad, basically the enemies all have different top speeds for each track and enemy, which are usually slower than you, but if they get more than a few screens behind then they get a faster speed to help them catch up. When they are ahead, they slow down again. Without it you would just never see the enemies, but you can ends up rarely seeing them anyway once you learn the tracks.

What sort of enemy AI would be better? I haven't seen much better in newer games.

The collisions are on an 8x8 grid, and there's no "sliding" along a wall so you have to reverse away. I'd like to improve that one day.

[Transatlantic Foe]

I've never liked rubber-band AI, it's an artificial challenge because it basically gives the AI performance that is denied to you. If you get good it tries to ruin your day and if you struggle it patronises you. It's like a fighting game where the CPU pulls off impossible combos - it's a half-thought way to provide a single player challenge in what is basically a multiplayer game.

GP Rider's AI is the best I've seen in an early racing game. It has the same top speed as you but doesn't just ride perfectly and occasionally completely screws up. Granted that's just one opponent but it's more human to compete against - it's fallible but not capable of superhuman feats. Yeah you eventually memorise enough to race perfectly but I'd rather have that sense of achievement than be swanning along in the lead and get wiped out by a turbocharged opponent!

I'm very picky when it comes to racing games anyway, Project Cars is the most recent I have and before that... erm... Daytona 2001.

[Maxim]

I've hacked the game enough that I could remove the rubber banding and make all the CPU cars go at your speed - it might be interesting to try it. They do screw up but only because they follow the same path all the time and don't deal too well with collisions.