Alcatraz 'The Rock' track in arcade ver. of San Francisco Rush 2049

[parallaxscroll]

It's pretty hard to find video of the Alcatraz track that was redone for the coin-op arcade machine version of San Francisco Rush 2049.

But I found some footage:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Fs4Qf2QUxg

This track was cut from the Dreamcast port of Rush 2049 released in 1999.

[part of an IGN interview with with Atari Games' Ed Logg]



IGN64: What are the differences between the arcade and home console versions of Rush 2049?

Ed: The arcade version had five tracks. They had Alcatraz that they beefed up again plus four new tracks. We're dropping Alcatraz because we've already done it twice before and people don't need to see it a third time. Besides, it really hasn't changed.

IGN64: Dreamcast owners have never seen the Alcatraz track, though. Will they get the chance?

Ed: [Pauses] Uh, for awhile we entertained the idea of getting all the old Rush tracks, taking the high-resolution textures and building them up. If we had time we could do that, but we're cutting pretty close on things we want to get into the game already and it's going to take us right to the hairy edge. Otherwise, I'd take all of the existing tracks from the other versions and put them in the Dreamcast game.

IGN64: Why not delay the game to November, put the tracks in and guarantee Internet play?

Ed: You know, I suggested that to management and you know what they told me? No [laughs]. Come September it's shipping ready or not.

IGN64: Just give us a baseball bat and we'll work it out with management.

Ed: Hey, I'll provide the bat. Yeah, I'd like to do it in November quite honestly because then I could be pretty sure to get Internet play in. Unfortunately, it's not my choice.

Anyway though, we've added two brand new tracks and dropped Alcatraz.


http://www.ign.com/articles/2000/01/04/behind-rush-2049


The Dreamcast version of Rush 2049 was the version also used in Midway Arcade Treasures 3 for the original Xbox, PlayStation2, GameCube and PC which also contained a completely separate and completely terrible emulation of San Francisco Rush The Rock - Alcatraz Edition

There seems to be really no viable options yet for emulation in MAME, or anywhere else, of these Midway arcade games that ran on Atari's "Flagstaff" and "Denver" boards which were based on MIPS CPUs and 3DFX graphics accelerators. The Rush games in the Midway compilations are pretty much unplayable due to controls & physics being so incredibly botched, never mind the sound which is also totally screwed up.

/mini-rant.

[Leo_A]

Sounds like that wheel is due for some maintenance...


... which also contained a completely separate and completely terrible emulation of San Francisco Rush The Rock - Alcatraz Edition

Not an emulation, but a port. Midway outsourced ports of Offroad Thunder, Rush the Rock, Hydro Thunder, and Rush 2049 to some cheap contract developer in China.

The Dreamcast versions of Hydro Thunder and Rush 2049 were reportedly selected since they were considered superior. In particular, they no doubt wanted to maintain the splitscreen multiplayer functionality for these two titles, although obviously the arcade originals hold some advantages of their own. Despite the talents of the developer, I think they're all very playable except for Rush the Rock which suffers from poor control and an excised soundtrack, although beware of the PS2/Xbox corrupt save issue for MAT3 and the lower frame rates in multiplayer modes on the PS2 and GCN.

The only emulated titles are those that Digital Eclipse handled. These were Badlands, Race Drivin', S.T.U.N. Runner, and Super Off-Road (And the track pack expansion, naturally).

Too bad they didn't include Alcatraz the 2nd time around. Sounds like there are other missing tracks, too. San Francisco Rush 2049 Special Edition for instance adds two new courses per Wikipedia and came out years after the original console ports.

[parallaxscroll]

Sounds like that wheel is due for some maintenance...



Not an emulation, but a port. Midway outsourced ports of Offroad Thunder, Rush the Rock, Hydro Thunder, and Rush 2049 to some cheap contract developer in China.

The Dreamcast versions of Hydro Thunder and Rush 2049 were reportedly selected since they were considered superior. In particular, they no doubt wanted to maintain the splitscreen multiplayer functionality for these two titles, although obviously the arcade originals hold some advantages of their own. Despite the talents of the developer, I think they're all very playable except for Rush the Rock which suffers from poor control and an excised soundtrack, although beware of the PS2/Xbox corrupt save issue for MAT3 and the lower frame rates in multiplayer modes on the PS2 and GCN.

The only emulated titles are those that Digital Eclipse handled. These were Badlands, Race Drivin', S.T.U.N. Runner, and Super Off-Road (And the track pack expansion, naturally).

Too bad they didn't include Alcatraz the 2nd time around. Sounds like there are other missing tracks, too. San Francisco Rush 2049 Special Edition for instance adds two new courses per Wikipedia and came out years after the original console ports.

Okay, stand corrected on port rather than emulation. It was Rush the Rock that I was mainly thinking of. The only upside to the Gamecube, Xbox and PC versions (maybe to lesser degree on PS2, I don't remember) is that it ran at 60fps for the most part in single player. Arcade was 30fps on the Flagstaff hardware. Thanks for the info on Rush 2049 SE, I knew it existed but wasn't aware of the additional tracks.

Still, it's a shame that Rush the Rock controls poorly. That's my favorite game of the series.

[Leo_A]

I don't know if it's progressing any more or what state it ended up in, but some modder was attempting to fix issues with it in recent years. I believe he successfully restored the soundtrack, which you only can hear in the game selection menu in MAT3 (Digital Eclipse when preparing the main menu apparently wasn't aware what was happening over in China to its original soundtrack), in a couple of versions of it for example.

I think he was attempting other fixes as well.

[Greg2600]

Interesting, I never noticed it. I have both Rush 2049 and Hydro Thunder on N64, and absolutely loved both games. Stunt mode on Rush is amazing. I picked up the DC versions of both but have barely touched them.

[celerystalker]

8361
Doesn't add much to the conversation, but I found these in my basement a little while ago from my old Funco days. I threw the disc in to see what tracks are there, but it's only track 3. I laughed when I saw that I still had the sticker after all these years.