Destruction Derby 2!

Ok, this one doesn't quite fit my own ps1 car combat games thread since it doesn't have weapons. But hell this is my absolute favorite ps1 racing game ever!

The first DD was good as a car wrecking game but it was lacking as a racing game. Narrow tracks, low speeds, not very exciting. The third one (DD RAW) was made by different guys altogether and it doesn't have that blast DD2 has. It also has some framerate problems at times. And this is one of the biggest DD2 advantages:
Smooth 30 FPS with twenty cars on the screen at the same time!

Some time ago I've decided to check some other ps1 racing games, and hell, the majority of them is so damn choppy being like between 10 and 20 frames per second when there are some opponents on the screen. NFS4 in particular was a bloody chopfest in a single race test drive mode.

Well, smooth and fast gameplay is great, but is not all DD2 has to offer. The game is just hella fun. I put it near the Daytona USA arcade cabinet on my list of fun racing games. High speed, crazy jumps, awesome crashes. It's very addicting.

There are some bad points like not being able to customize controls enough (I prefer either L/R buttons or D-pad for the acceleration), lack of rumble and analog controls (which is understandable for a 1996 game, since there was no dual shock back then), no splitscreen, and no manual gear shifting. But the rest of the game really makes up for these shortcomings.

The PC version is sad though. It's only 256 colors (versus PS1's 16-bit) and looks somewhat worse, even in hi-res mode. Some details are missing, like the rear lights and raw engine sounds at the start. Being a 1996 PC game it could also have some more polygons or other improvements, but it's just a lame console port. Even at the name entry screen you can't use letter keys and have to select letters by cursor keys! How bad is that!

Anyway, DD2 on ps1 is my personal racing king! I'd like to if I'm not the only one here who loves it.

I've never played dd2 before, I've only tried the first one on sega saturn and playstation.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hidden_Darkness

I've never played dd2 before, I've only tried the first one on sega saturn and playstation.

---

Man, you should try it! The first one doesn't have this blast.

I got Destruction Derby 2 optimized for my 4MB Matrox Mystique graphics card back in the day. I had a ton of fun in both the race and derby modes, and the graphics were far and away better than any of the other version. It is a fun game to say the least. If the PS1 game is 30FPS it is definitely worth a look.

Hmm, I was really psyched for DD2 back in the day, but in the end I liked DD1 better. True, DD1 doesn't have the raw speed nor the impressive graphics, but its slower pace emphasizes the destruction part better. DD2's high speed makes it much harder to hit other drivers, let alone target a specific spot on their car. Pulling off a 360° spin in a normal race is near impossible in DD2. It makes points scoring more a matter of luck than actual skill. That leaves mostly the racing, which DD2 doesn't do particularly well either compared to other racing games. DD1 deliberately sacrificed the racing bit for sheer destruction, and that worked better for me.

It also doesn't hurt that DD1 had great music and a lively commentator, whereas DD2 had fairly nonexistent music and a bland Paul Page.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Devil N

That leaves mostly the racing, which DD2 doesn't do particularly well either compared to other racing games.
...
It also doesn't hurt that DD1 had great music and a lively commentator, whereas DD2 had fairly nonexistent music and a bland Paul Page.

---

I disagree. It's racing part is among the best on ps1. As for music - it's a matter of taste. Techno tunes in DD1 don't fit the carnage on the screen well.

I like this:


Better than this:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Orchid87

The first DD was good as a car wrecking game but it was lacking as a racing game. Narrow tracks, low speeds, not very exciting.

---

Pretty fair; I thought it somewhat exciting, 2P at least, but those narrow tracks are frustrating. Early racers were a bit slow.

Quote:

---

It also has some framerate problems at times. And this is one of the biggest DD2 advantages:
Smooth 30 FPS with twenty cars on the screen at the same time! ....
Some time ago I've decided to check some other ps1 racing games, and hell, the majority of them is so damn choppy being like between 10 and 20 frames per second when there are some opponents on the screen. NFS4 in particular was a bloody chopfest in a single race test drive mode.

---

You should've stuck to Psygnosis racers. (Reflections Interactive is Psygnosis).

Quote:

---

There are some bad points like ... no splitscreen

---

That's too bad but doesn't is support the link cable?

Cool game though it took me a while to like as I at first avoided it due to DD's frustration factor, then later avoided it due to its degree of change from DD (I was a pettish gamer).

NFS4 was a beautiful game on the PC, it's no surprise that on Playstation it suffers... the game clearly was designed for more powerful hardware than the PS1 has. With the next, and final PS1, NFS game, Porsche Unleashed they pretty much gave up and made the console game simpler than the complex PC game, I believe. too.

Of course, all five of the NFS games that gen look better on PC than consoles, and only the PC has the enhanced SE versions of NFS1 and NFS2 (both of which add a track to the original games, among other things), but yeah, as far as graphics go, NFSHS definitely is a game that looks a lot better on PC.

As for Destruction Derby 2, I remember loving the demo of the PC version as a kid, but never have played the full game... it's something I definitely want to get, though, either for PC or PSX. It's a good series. Another "destruction derby" style game I played more recently is the Dreamcast version of Demolition Racer... now that's a fast and fun game. Great stuff. :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by A Black Falcon

As for Destruction Derby 2, I remember loving the demo of the PC version as a kid, but never have played the full game... it's something I definitely want to get, though, either for PC or PSX. It's a good series. Another "destruction derby" style game I played more recently is the Dreamcast version of Demolition Racer... now that's a fast and fun game. Great stuff. :)

---

If you want to try full DD2 go for the PS1 version. Due to 8-bit color in PC port it looks really bad, even despite having bigger resolution.
As for Demolition Racer, I've never played the DC version, but PS1 one was not very good. It's comparable to DD Raw IMO.

And here is the prototype Saturn version.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBu3iTtGkVk

Need for Speed Hot Pursuit and High Stakes wouldn't run on any PC hardware that I have owned without stuttering, it is just shoddily coded. I played the heck out of both on PC back in the day though, it was a blast multiplayer.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by sheath

Need for Speed Hot Pursuit and High Stakes wouldn't run on any PC hardware that I have owned without stuttering, it is just shoddily coded. I played the heck out of both on PC back in the day though, it was a blast multiplayer.

---

If by that you mean NFS 3 and 4 I used to run them fine on a P200 with Voodoo3 graphics lol. I was never a fan of Destruction Derby, but played countless hours of Carmageddon on the PC.. even had to look for a patch to disable the green blood haha.

Yeah, I think I had NFS HP and HS running on my old 166Mhz 686 with the Matrox M3D relatively smoothly as well. For some reason every video card after that stutters. I haven't tried installing it on my Windows 7 rig yet. Carmageddon 2 on PC was one of my favorites back then, that game actually made me feel guilty for playing it. ;)

I agree with Devil N somewhat. I prefer the original over DD2. And RAW wasn't that bad, to be honest.

Destruction Derby 64 and Destruction Derby Arenas were completely terrible, though.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Orchid87

If you want to try full DD2 go for the PS1 version. Due to 8-bit color in PC port it looks really bad, even despite having bigger resolution.

---

I've heard that, but still, I would like to play it on the PC... not sure which one I'd rather play first though.

Quote:

---

As for Demolition Racer, I've never played the DC version, but PS1 one was not very good. It's comparable to DD Raw IMO.

---

I haven't played DD Raw or PSX Demolition Racer, but the DC version's definitely fun. It's a fast game with a completely solid 60fps framerate, quite unlike what I've read about the PSX version, for instance. It also adds more ways to score points than there are on the PSX, and a few other things too I think.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by sheath

Need for Speed Hot Pursuit and High Stakes wouldn't run on any PC hardware that I have owned without stuttering, it is just shoddily coded. I played the heck out of both on PC back in the day though, it was a blast multiplayer.

---

NFSIII: Hot Pursuit doesn't work at all on my Vista computer (though it does on my old ME machine), but High Stakes does, and runs perfectly fine, just like it has on every computer I've ever used it on. I don't know what kind of stuttering problem you have, but I've never seen it.

Outside of NFS I do remember some games that had stuttering video in cutscenes on older computers (the computer we had when I got Driver couldn't run the cutscenes correctly for instance, instead I just got a slideshow of sorts), but the gameplay in that game was fine.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by M4R14NO94

I agree with Devil N somewhat. I prefer the original over DD2. And RAW wasn't that bad, to be honest.

Destruction Derby 64 and Destruction Derby Arenas were completely terrible, though.

---

I have DD1 for the PS1; it's okay, but those graphics are so, so bad...

As for DD64, I got that one within the last few months, and at first I thought it was good. The graphics and gameplay are solid, and it is a fun game to play. It does have fewer cars in each race than some of the PS1 games (or maybe just the first one? I forget how many each game has), but there are enough for it to be fun.

However, the game has a problem that I noticed. So, in the championship, the great majority of races start you with three groups of four cars on the track. One group, yours, is going one direction. The other two groups are going the other direction. This gives you a HUGE, HUGE advantage, and indeed makes finishing anywhere other than first place hard through the first two or three championships. When most of the computers can't crash into eachother, only you, while you have the choice of so many of them, the scoring is so imbalanced that you just can't lose until you reach the very hardest tracks. I like the "groups starting in different directions" concept, but the execution is really flawed.

Apart from that though the game is fun. It's no competition for Demolition Racer on the Dreamcast, that's for sure, but that's probably somewhat unfair... it is okay, but yeah, not great.