Hotshot Racing (Xbox One) - First 4 Hours of Gameplay - Part 1/2 (1st in all Grand Prix in Normal)
1A note about retro game development:
Retro game developers can often fundamentally miss the point and value of the retro games they bleed off of. Hotshot Racing is a good example of this. The rubber band AI makes me feeling I am not racing in the game. At first, I just thought my car sucked, which I immediately blamed on the game. So, that is not good. Then I realized it was rubber band AI, which spoils the fun when the gamer races perfectly, as the expectation is to kick ass. This is amplified when racing in the easiest mode (normal), as the expectation is to further kick ass. Instead of kicking ass, the other cars would boost by me -- the entire race -- no matter how perfectly I drove. This is not exciting. It makes it no fun. Can I kick ass or not? Absolutely not, you cannot kick ass. Think about that last sentence again. You cannot kick ass? Why be a cool driver and drive a cool car if you cannot kick ass?
Dominability is a term we coined at Xona Games (xona.com), which is the ability for a game to be dominated (while still being a challenge). It is not easy to obtain. It is easy to make a game easy. It is easy to make a game hard. Many developers make hard games and think they have accomplished something significant. They often have not, as "hard" is easy to do. The real challenge is to make something hard but also have the ability to be dominated. Think of Contra or Super-C. Hard games, that people can dominated. A lot of things in real life are this way. Like a guitar, for example. It kicks your ass at first. But, once you can play, you dominate.
The point is, player skill should matter. Rubber band AI ignores player skill to promote "exciting, close races" all the time. This creates fake gameplay, almost like cut-scenes. I eventually used the rubber band AI to "ruin" the game, which is to not boost and save all the boost for the end. This means I drive slow, the rubber band AI makes everyone else drive slow, and then I boost, boost, boost and drive fast at the end and win.
The easiest achievement in the game, which is unlocked by 75% of gamers, shows off the rubber band AI: "Phew!": "Come 1st and beat 2nd place by 1 second": https://www.trueachievements.com/a307326/phew-achievement
--
Matthew Doucette (Xonatron)
http://matthewdoucette.com/