The third console instalment of the Ridge Racer series. This sets on a more darker tone, with more realistic looking graphics and a completely revised soundtrack inspired by industrial drum and bass.
Grand Prix
The main game mode where you complete a series of races. Like the previous game you start in bottom place and have to finish in third place or higher against the computer controlled cars. There are five classes in total with a bonus sixth class and an extra GP, which is unlocked by completing the main GP mode.
Medals are awarded depending on what place you finish in. As you play the game you will need to replay a few of the races to build up your credit in order to purchase new vehicles, as you move up the GP class the competitors cars also get faster
Unlike the previous games in the Ridge Racer series, cars are handled differently with you only starting from one car, instead of four being available. When more races are completed, credit are awarded which allow you to spend them on buying new cars or upgrading your existing car, which will be required in order for you to progress though the next class of GP. Different cars have different specifications, with some having better handling, acceleration or top speed. Some of the later cars are in manual transmission only which requires you to manually change and shift gears.
The Grand Prix mechanic would be expanded heavily in it’s successor – Ridge Racer Type 4.
Time Attack
The mode that no one ever uses, here you get access to the fastest models of the cards with the goal of having the fastest time.
Tracks
Like the previous Ridge Racer PlayStation games, they all use the same track with some variations in them, Rage Racer is no exception as all tracks have the same starting area but then branch off into different sections and bends, which then combine back together at the end of the lap. This gives the premise of the tracks being set in the same urban city or a town.
The tracks follow a specific design and were designed around the PlayStation’s limitations, as most tracks feature bends that obscure the environmental view as to prevent pop in and to keep the game running at 30fps. Slope and hills are also used to this effect and are incorporated as a game mechanic as for manual transmission vehicles you have to drop down a gear in order to maintain your speed. All of this was used in the next Ridge Racer Game (Type 4) to greater effect and shows how Namco was able to make the most out of the PlayStation hardware which was becoming mainstream at this point.
The environments themselves feature a European look judging from the building design, and some Greek style columns can be seen with the first track, which contrasts from the Japanese look of the city in the first game.
However the quantity of the tracks is part of the games downfall, with it recycling the same tracks as reversed and mirrored. It would have been nice to race on the original tracks from Ridge Racer and Revolution, or include the Rave Racer tracks which was already released to the arcades by the time Rave Racer came out. The fact that most tracks are reused limits the variety and questions the value of the game, eventually you are going to get bored of these tracks. It’s even worse when you compare it to the Rush and Crusin series of game which feature way more tracks that are independent from each other.
Mystical Coast: The started course for the game, driving past the waterfall into the tunnel, then pass down onto the coast area with Spanish/meddidertain style housing and then into some ruins until you reach a tunnel that takes you back to the starting line
Over Pass City: starts the name as Mystical Coast where you pass the waterfall but the tunnel takes a different direction into the main city, here there are very steep hills past the tram and steep curves as you return to the starting line. This is the longest course in the game.
Lakeside Gate: Tricky since there are a lot of sharp turns where you need to drift sharply. Reaching top speed isn’t much of an issue here but having a car that you can control well is necessary. There’s a lot of tunnels and cave/hill like scenery when then proceeds into a rural area with some open scenery.
The Extreme Oval: A simple track designed for cars to reach their top speeds, but has one sharp turn within a tunnel.
Music
As someone who regularly listens to drum and bass, the music in Rage Racer was a pleasure to listen to with many songs taking inspiration from the industrial rock and break beat samples of the era. With many tracks being inspired by popular tracks of the era. They are also similar to music that was used in Namco’s other games, like in Tekken.
Conclusion
As a Ridge Racer game it takes the series into a more serious setting with its GP/credit based mechanic and its realistic art style but as a racing game it falls short due to lack of content, especially with the amount of tracks.
The game as not been released on any digital platforms, which is odd since this is an entirely Namco game that does not feature any licensed cards or music.
The game based on the popular TV show, came out very early in the shows life, along with a hit number 1 single
Story mode does not make for a good game, with the enemies being repetitive to the point of tediousness. The first level starts you off in your home town where you are attacked by deranged Turkey’s (who have the most horrible sound effect, and it’s horrendous if there’s 3 or more enemies present) and throughout the first three levels its just ongoing Turkey’s, with the occasional cow thrown in (only on the PC version, I’ve not seen the cow in the console versions on this level).
A Tank version of the turkey.
On the next stage you encounter Tank enemies which are larger Turkey’s that have the ability to spawn more turkeys that will attack. The tank’s have much more health than regular turkeys and will start to run into the beginning of the level when their health goes below 30%. If a tank manages to make it to the start point of a level, than another stage will need to be completed after you complete the level, where you have to kill the tank enemies that escaped, with a replenished health bar. You will need to do this before they destroy the town, of which depends on how many tanks had escaped. For this reason its a good idea to kill the tanks in the main game, since you are going to have to beat them regardless. What’s frustrating to me is they speed run back to the start of the level, meaning you have to chase them whilst firing, and causing you to backtrack. This makes the level much more tedious since you hare going through areas you have already passed.
The next levels don’t change much, replacing the turkeys with clones, robots, aliens and moving toys, however its mostly the same type of enemy throughout the level which become boring fast. Some of the later enemies becoming literal bullet sponges, taking 20-30 hits before they go down.
The multiplayer on the other hand is rather fun, playing as a regular FPS with a interesting selection of guns. The console versions let you play with two players, whilst the PC version supports LAN netplay. If there is one reason to play this game, its for the multiplayer mode.
The Nintendo 64 version has 17 different maps to choose from, all with a variety of weapons. The PC version has the most maps, with 26 in total This includes all the N64 maps, plus some PC exclusive maps. PlayStation has an alerted version of the multiplayer mode, discussed in its section.
Nintendo 64
The first release of the game, and was the best version of the game until the PC version, however it remains the most accessible. Multiplayer supports up to four players on one console with a range of multiplayer options, including deathmatch. This version also features a high score table and supports 16:9 aspect ratio and a ‘High-Res’ mode with the use of the expansion pack.
Downside to this version is the significant frame drops when there’s a lot of action on the screen, and the short draw distance being disguised as fog.
Below is running on Retroarch Mupen64plus with Angrylion RSP plugin, I do own a copy of the PAL version of the game, but my N64 is one of those models that only supports composite out (No RGB or even S-Video, way to go Nintendo)
PlayStation
Released a year later (1999) and used a revised soundtrack compared to the MIDI N64 version, the cutscenes are captured from the N64 version instead of being pre-rendered on a workstation like many other games of the era. Graphically its a downgrade compared to the N64 version, and the multiplayer only supports two players, known as head to head in this version.
The PlayStation version comes with a head to head mode that has 6 maps, some of which are modified from the Nintendo 64 version. DM1 is based off the Ravine level from the N64, but with some alterations like the removal of water. DM4 is based of the badlands level, DM5 off badlands 2 and DM6 is based off the Gym Class map. DM2 and DM3 look to be unique maps for the PlayStation version.
Captured on Duckstation emulator with bi-linear filtering and rendered at twice the original resolution, with GTE accuracy enabled
Windows
The definitive port of the game, with better graphics and CD audio. Also comes with a proper multiplayer mode that use the Gamespy client (now defunct) to organize games. However there are issues running this game on modern systems, as the game only seems to work on Windows 98/Me systems (95 untested but assumed to work) this could be down to DirectX/Glide support on modern systems.
Below is running on the PCem v17 emulator running Windows 98, emulating a Pentium Overdrive MMX 200Mhz, 3DFX Voodoo graphics, with a Aztech sound galaxy soundcard.
There is also a software rendering mode that renders the games graphics in just the CPU, ideal if you do not have a dedicated 3D accelerator or one that is unsupported. Unfortunately it gives PlayStation level graphics at a weird screen aspect ratio.
Cheats PC
These were hard to find, so I thought i’d put them here
Press the Esc button, select Options and move the mouse cursor to the lower left of the screen and then click, you can then enter the below cheats. Sometimes you may have to move the cursor so it goes off the screen before you can enter a cheat.
BT (and Youview) treated their TV service to a redesign in early 2021, with the main screen being redesigned
The home screen is displayed when the box is switched on from standby, or when the Home button is pressed. On older remotes this will be the Youview button. A search box is displayed at the top
Meanwhiles there a look at the old interface which has now been phased out
Back to the new interface, Pressing down allows you to scroll down the menu. Different sections will be displayed with content being promoted depending on its genre.
The main TV guide interface, not much has changed here
BT’s subscription channels, the program description is displayed on the highlighted show, which can be expanded by pressing the information button
On demand apps menu, not much has changed here
Recoded shows list
Watch list is programs that have been bookmarked for both on demand and live TV channels
Programs that are due to be recorded
Shows promoted and popular shows that are due to start later that day
BT has a limit on how many boxes that can be connected to a single broadband line, depending on the bandwidth and how many boxes are authorized on the account
The subscriptions channels require HDCP to be enabled, due to Hollywood copy protection
The settings area, again not much has been changed here
Pressing the information button brings up the program description
Software information
Errors
When you start the box without an active broadband connection, Freeview will continue to work and will pull TV listings from the DVB data, but you wont see any enhanced thumbnails
A futuristic racing game released in 1995 for various platforms.
In Wipeout your mostly battling against the track itself, rather than the rival ships, and at fast speeds the game can become a challenge, requiring quick reflexes. Thankfully it comes with a banging soundtrack, something which is a staple of the Wipeout series of games.
2 Player mode exists for the console versions, but its one of those games that needs a serial cable, two PlayStation or two Saturn’s, TV’s and copies of each game.
PlayStation
Probably the best version, since it has all the graphical effects, and the sound effects when you enter a tunnel. Can also be played on the PlayStation 3 and PSP as part of the PS Classics. Only issue with this port is the low resolution and the pop-in textures on the track, poor draw distance. As a bonus the game supports the use of a NeGcon controller, allowing for an analogue control, useful for turning and for the airbreaks.
On modern emulators you can sort of re-create the PC effects such as higher resolution and texture filtering, but you are still stuck at 30fps. Overclocking the CPU results in the game running too fast.
Duckstation: Enhanced
The game clears up rather well compared to how it originally looked
Sega Saturn
Wipeout was released for the promising Sega Saturn, and serves as an example of the PSY-Q dev kit for the Saturn, which Psygnosis were trying to promote at the time as an alternative to Sega’s devkit (a version of PSY-Q was released for the PlayStation). The soundtrack has been altered with some songs being removed
Screenshots: SSF emulator
Windows
WipEout was ported to the PC a year later than the PlayStation release, and was designed exclusively for ATI video cards and was typically bundled with Windows PC that had those cards. It’s one of the games that supports ATI’s CIF API rather than Direct3D. This limits it to ATI Rage series 3D chipsets, the one in my Dell OptiPlex being one of them, but in order to play CIF games you need to use an older 1999 driver from ATI (The Windows 98 bundled driver has no CIF support), also CIF is only supported under Windows 98, there is no support for Windows NT 4.0. ATI later removed CIF support from its drivers from late 1999 onwards, so you may have to downgrade the driver order to play. A CIF wrapper exists for Windows 7 onwards, although I’ve not tested it.
Screenshots below are captured from a Dell OptiPlex GX1 with an Intel Pentium 2 350mhz and an ATI RAGE 2 with 4Mb of VRAM
The main difference is the ability to play the game in a higher resolution and with the ability to play at a higher framerate, it’s not exactly 60fps on a Rage2 but its a lot more smoother than the PlayStation version. However the sound is not has good as the console versions, with the PC missing the echo sound effects that play when you enter a tunnel. It’s also one of those games that’s stores the music as Redbook CD audio, and the game plays the audio back like a regular CD player would. This gives the option to change the CD (as the game runs from the hard disk) to play your own music.
MS-DOS
Very similar to the accelerated Windows version, but has a lot of enhancements removed, there’s no texture filtering, the framerate is lower and the resolution is reduced, likely because everything is being done on the CPU. You are limited to a low 320 resolution, 16 bit colour.
Personally I would stick with the PlayStation version, or the Saturn if you prefer more detailed textures. The PC versions sacrifice too much for what benefit they give, although you get the opportunity to run in a higher resolution, the missing sound effects are a huge setback and ruin the immersion of the game. besides with modern emulators you can run the game with additional filtering and upscaling, the FPS is still stuck at 30fps.
Hackers
A concept imaging of Wipeout appeared in the movie Hackers, which features slightly different gameplay with obstacles on the track, a crew that speaks to you instead of techno music playing. It was believed to be rendered on a SGI workstation and features perspective correct texture mapping
Looks like Virgin are planning to pull the plug on the original TV service. Not sure what this will entail since they had already converted most of their SD channels to MPEG4 a couple of years ago, with the exception of BBC One and Channel 4 which remained in MPEG2, possibly for PSB reasons?
Here what’s shows up on a Virgin Media SD cable box (Pace DiTV1000 on UK2 software)
A look at Channel 4 on this box, one of the few channels that display video
Lets check the ntl software
I pulled out the Pace Di4000N running the ntl CR3 Bromley guide which dates from 2003
Horizon (HZN) is Virgins next generation TV platform
Same EPG data
I guess when a channel is off air it gives a link to the interactive services
Sadly no video, I never got round to amending the net id for this box, since it requires an SCART RS232 cable which seem of have disappeared off the face of the earth.
ntl Langely?
Last resort lets check the Pace Di4001N running ntl Langely CR3 software, which had a build date from 2004
Well this is a miracle, seems this box was able to locate and set my local netID
What the home screen looks like with actual video feed
Channel 4 still broadcasts in MPEG2 SD!
As does Birmingham TV (Our local TV station, that play Judge Judy all day)
A list of channels which includes the Tivo software update streams
ITV still remains an radio channel, this is because the video is AVC MPEG4, whilst the audio is MPEG2. No idea why they done this
Conclusion
So what will happen? likely the last few MPEG2 channels will disappear completely, leaving the boxes with nothing to receive. Possibly removing the SD versions entirely since all of their equipment would be HD capable, the exception is BBC1 which still has regional news in SD only. A shame since instead of investing in their playout and transmission network, they would rather invest in diversity (No, Not diversity of thought). Meanwhile if you want local news, your stuck with the SD versions for the future.
Radio channels may stick with MPEG2 Musicam, but could easily go MPEG4
Windows NT 4 was the next major release of the NT line of operating systems, and was to bring the new Windows 95 inface to the NT platform. Underneath the hood however it is very similar to NT 3.51
Install
The only License agreement I agree to. The first stage of the install is done through a basic blue installer, where the disk volume and storage drivers are selected for install. Once that’s complete the second stage install pick up in a full Windows Nt environment. here the install can be customized.
Drivers
SoundBlaster Install
Unlike Windows 95, NT4 did not feature a device manager or the Add New Hardware Wizard, making hardware instillation more difficult since Plug and Play was not supported in the NT family until the release of Windows 2000. Adding the sound card can be done through the Multimedia applet and adding a new multimedia device, just make sure you have NT driver files available (95/98 drivers will not work)
3DFX Voodoo Install
Installing 3Dfx Glide drivers, as NT4 shipped with DirectX 2 only with limited upgrade capabilities so having Glide support should allow a wider range of games to be played. Instillation was done using the setup wizard which came with the WinZip self extractor.
Iomega Zip
NT4 did not support Zip drives natively, so additional software is required in order to use Zip disc images. However the only version I could find required the instillation of Service Pack 3 in order for it to run. Accessing the Zip disk is done using that software instead of using Windows NT Explorer.
After the is complete the system will reboot and the default desktop will be displayed
One of the preloaded desktop backgrounds, on this build ‘Click here to begin’ appears on the taskbar after a fresh install or when a new user has been created.
The Windows 95 Explorer interface is present in this build on NT
Control Panel
Find
Used to search and find files and folders, this is not an indexed search to the application has to manually search through the individual files
Accessories
Command prompt (Also known as Console) allows commands to be entered that is not converted in the GUI interface and also allows MS-DOS 16bit applications to run. Not sure why the clock application was included here since the clock appears in the taskbar.
Paint
Windows 95 paint with a default background image
Object Packager
Not sure on what this is?
Imaging for Windows
Bitmapped image editor, designed to open an image from a scanner or a digital camera.
Hyper Terminal
HyperTerminal comes bundled with this build and allows for access to protocols like Telnet
CD Player
A regular CD Player, tracks can be played and renamed
Diagnostics
Views detailed system information and the hardware/drivers currently installed
Logon
Windows NT requires you to press Ctrl + Alt & Del in order to logon to ensure the logon screen is genuine, which will bring up the login screen. On some systems this may be replaced by the Novell Client logon screen for Netware networks.
Shutdown
Shutting down Windows NT, from here you can log off, restart or shut down. If ACPI drivers are installed the system will power off, otherwise a power off prompt will appear instead
Undercover – The main story mode of the game, you complete a set of missions which can range from driving from point A to B within a set amount of time, to escaping or pursuing another car
Take a Ride – Sandbox mode, only two cities are available with the other two being unlocked as you progress through the story.
Driving Games – A set of activities to choose from, Pursuit, Getaway, Cross Town Checkpoint, Trail Blazer, Survival and Dirt Track. Carnage is a mode exclusive to the PC version.
Training – Introduction to the came and the various mechanics and techniques to mastering Driver
There are no two player or multiplayer modes, Driver is a single player game.
Desert training level
PlayStation
The version that most people have played and are familiar with. This was the first version of the game to be released. Main attraction was the sandbox Take a Ride mode where you could drive freely until you caught the attention of the police, who would then proceed to ram you to death.
Cop car went vertical, a common occurrence
The game occupies on memory card block per story save, and two blocks for replay data, you can easily fill a memory card with this data, thankfully the game
PAL-land version
Thankfully this game runs in full PAL resolution, no top/bottom bars, likely since the studio that developed the game was based in Europe. There is a difference in the logos, with the NTSC version having a altered blue version of the logo with the works ‘You are the wheelman’ which is also present in the games title. The PC version adapts this for both Europe and US markets (Makes sense since the PC isn’t regionalized compared to the PlayStation releases, PAL/NTSC does not exist on PC)
Windows
Despite this version running in a higher resolution and a capability of having a higher framerate there are a few drawbacks compared to the PlayStation version. there was also a Mac version, although I believe its very similar to the PC version.
Screenshots here are running on an emulated PC (PCem v17), running an Intel Advanced/ZP with a Overdrive MMX processor with a 3DFX Voodoo Graphics card. The operating system is Windows Me. The graphics here will depend on the 3D video card an API, as 3DFX cards used Glide, the Direct3D version may look different.
Differences between the two
One of the main differences is the background music which was changed in the PC version. Also unlike the PlayStation version, there are no separate themes for when you gain felony, in the PlayStation version the music would change when you attracted the attention of the cops, but the PC version remains the same throughout. As someone who grew up on the PS1 version, it was kind of jarring to play Miami without the familiar theme, and for the game to not change when catching the cops attention.
Comparison screenshots below, the PSX version is running in Duckstation at twice the native resolution (640×480) with bilinear filtering and 2x anti-aliasing enabled. With these enhancements we can try to bring the PSX version up to the PC version, which is running at 640X480 resolution with ultra graphics present.
PSXPC
One thing to mention with the PC version, as with all PC games of the era the game is reliant on using Redbook CD audio for the background music, where the games streams the music from the disc itself, like an audio CD. For this to work you had to have an audio cable connected from the CD drive to the motherboard or soundcard, in addition to the IDE cable. On modern systems (with SATA drive onwards) this is no longer supported, and modern Windows versions / soundcards its no longer possible to stream analogue audio from the CD drive, instead being delivered through the IDE or SATA interface, which this game won’t support. The game itself will still run and you can still hear sound effect like the car engine, but you wont hear any music.
PSXPCPSXPC
The spawn points are also different for each of the maps/level, again not sure why these were changed
The map layouts were also changed, with some areas being remodelled completely, Dodge Island had a massive change, possibly since it was designed around the PlayStations limitations initially.
The cop radio voices were also changed, with some lines being completely different
A speedometer is present which gives the speed of the players car in miles per hour
The car models themselves had change and I cant say I prefer the PC version of the cards, which are lacking certain details from their textures, the back of the cards look like a blur compared to the PlayStation version.
Upgrading the PlayStation version
Modern emulators are capable of running the game in a higher resolution with additional smoothing effects. Unfortunately there is little we can do for the framerate, that’s stuck at 30fps, or 25 for Pal-land copies. Still at least there’s no boarder, and you can overclock the PlayStation CPU on some of these emulators, which helps with the slowdown when there’s a lot of cars and particle effects on screen.
The game can be upscaled to 640×480 or 800×600, which the PC version also natively supports. Depending on the emulator, higher resolutions can be used but I don’t recommend it unless the emulator supports perspective correction, otherwise those polygons will be jittering aggressively. This video will help explain further on why this occurred on PlayStation games.
Texture filtering can be hit or miss, whilst it helps smooth out the textures, due to the way the PlayStation handled 2D, it can affect the HUD display too, causing excessive blurring on the HUD, making it look like an N64 game.
Exploring the disc
In the NFMV folder there is a exe file called NFMV.EXE however this does not open even in older versions of Windows
MS-DOS (6.0) must be installed first before Windows 3.11 can be installed. At this point Windows was still reliant on MS-DOS, but were regarded as two separate products.
After install and some graphics drivers. By default Windows will use VGA mode which restricts you to 640×480 and 16 colours. Windows Sound System is not included in this build but can be installed and was required to use the Windows Sound System Soundcard.
Applications
Microsoft Anti-Virus: They had their own Anti-Virus application, before Windows security essentials, Defender or Windows Live OneCare. Different drivers can be scanned manually on request.
Smartdrive: Disk caching application
Undelete: As the concept of the recycle bin did not exist until Windows 95, Microsoft Undelete was offered instead which could restore files deleted by the user that had not been overwritten
Accessories
Write: Predecessor to Wordpad, for when you don’t have Microsoft Office installed
Paintbrush: Paint
Notepad: Text editing application
Recorder: Used to record keyboard and mouse commands, useful for automation.
Calculator: On screen calculator
Clock: Displays the time in both analogue (Face) and digital format
Character Map: Insert and remap any characters that are not supported by the users keyboard
Media Player: Plays WAV and MIDI sound files supported by the users soundcard
Sound Recorder: Records sound from the line input to a WAV file
Control Panel
Control Panel remains unchanged from Windows For Workgroups 3.1
Drivers
Some drivers that may be useful to users of PCem, depending on the machines they are emulating
AVGA2 Driver
The Commodore PC I was using used a Acumos graphics accelerator onboard and integrated to its motherboard, which was based on a Cirrus Logic CL-GD5402. Installing a driver lets you access further resolutions and colour modes that the graphics chip supports.
One of my favourite childhood games from the PlayStation, objective of the game is to find Tommy’s Reptar pieces that are scattered all around the house by completing various mini games. Rugrats Search for Reptar was only released for the Sony PlayStation
First we need to talk about the Pickles Home, what has been rendered entirely within the games engine, and servers as a gateway to the mini games that need to be completed. It’s a pretty nice house consisting of 5 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a living area, kitchen and a study room, along with a garage. Its very faithful to the TV show, at least from the episodes I’ve seen, a lot of cartoon shows tent to remodel the house to suit the plot. It’s probably one of my favourite cartoon house alongside the Simpsons house which I got to explore in Virtual Springfield. Whilst rendered in a 3D environment, the art style tries to be faithful to the shows animation.
Some areas of the house are locked out initially, but when you enter a specific level they are available like the garage, I put this down to memory limitations of the PSX because some rooms that were previously explorable are disabled in some levels. An example of this was the Chuckie’s glasses level which opens the garage area, but removes the basement and garden area for that level. Some objects of the house can be interacted with, mainly Tommy’s toys which can be thrown or picked up.
Activities
Easy
Chuckie’s Glasses
Its raining outside and Angelica decided to play Hide & Seek with the babies, volunteering Chuckie’s to find them. However to make it fair, she takes his glasses, using Chuckie, you have to find and tag the babies (Phil, Lil, Tommy) and race them back to the play pen. It’s fairly easy and you get to explore the Rugrats house as you play, there’s no time limit and if one of the babies win you simply have to find that Rugrat again, although its gave over if they beat you three times.
Ice Cream Mountain
Stu wants to go golfing, he take the kids and promises a huge ice cream mountain, based on an episode in the show. There are 10 levels and to play, you walk to the ball, press the triangle button to start the power meter and press triangle again to hit the ball when the meter is in the right spot. Some require a power shot, others only require a small amount.
Grandpa’s teeth
The level starts off in a playground where you and Chuckie can play on one of the slides/rides. When your done, you can progress through the level into some sort of maze where the goose is hiding with grandpas teeth. Once you navigate the maze, a second segment starts where you have to chase the goose that has Chuckie, using Spike to catch up to it. The third stage concluded with you throwing hockey pucks at the goose (Hopefully PETA didn’t play this game), whilst trying to avoid Chuckie.
Cookie Race
You just have to race and beat Angelica to the kitchen. The house has been slightly altered and some areas have been blocked off, meaning you have to go the long way round. This is fairly easy since Angelica is quite slow but the controls can be a hindrance since its easy to run into an object.
Medium
Visitors From Outer Space
You control Angelica in a spaceship where the babies have been abducted. Avoid the TV robots/aliens and navigate to the lower levels (you can still explore the ship) where you will meet an alien fish thing, who will disable the gravity. Angelica can then float through the air vent and navigate to one of the pod escape ships where she meets the babies, somehow? Based on a real Rugrats episode.
Mr Friend
This one sucked, basically you have to throw objects at Mr Friend and destroy it. First you have to deal with one, then three will spawn. Its challenging since the hit detection is very inconsistent and the controls are digital which makes it hard for Tommy to aim, also some of the throwable objects will just clip through Mr Friend.
Let There be Light
Stu overclocks his Amiga and causes a power cut, so its up to Tommy to restore the power. This level has the pickles house in darkness, with the textures being darkened for effect. There are ghost’s that roam around the house that can drain Tommy’s health, use the flash light to zap them away. First part see you navigating the house in near darkness to the kitchen where you find the Pickles fridge, but Tommy is unable to open it by himself so he needs the help of Spike to open it for him, which starts the next segment when you have to find Spike.
Circus Angelica
The Rugrats are tasked with performing with Angelia’s Circus, and have to perform a variety of tricks. This isn’t really difficult but the controls can be a major problem since you have to be accurate when it comes to Chuckie’s part, and if you fail twice the game is over.
Hard
Hard basically means long, as there are multiple objectives that have to be completed for the activity.
Incident on Isle 7
Set in a supermarket, Grandpa takes Tommy shopping for some Reptar cereal, Tommy breaks free and is left to explore the store. First section sees you exploring the different sections of the shop, until to reach the seafood section where a bunch of lobsters get loose. You then have to avoid or kill the lobsters and navigate through the various areas that have spillages that can cause Tommy to fall. Lastly you will reach the boss section where you have to stun the main Lobster in order to hit a switch.
Toy Palace
Set in a toy store, Stu loses Tommy and Chuckie after they decide to go solo. They explore the toy store zone in the hope of finding Reptar. Everything seems to cause damage in the first part, and the last part can be frustrating since you have to collect the blocks in order to reach the switch, some of which are located on shelves. The jumping is inconsistent as there is a delay before Tommy jumps, resulting in him falling a few times. Tommy and Chuckie also have a habit of repeating their dialog endlessly.
7 Voyages of Cynthia
You control Spike (Poorly) in this level as you navigate the sewer, Spike is very vulnerable to damage and will take a hit over every minor collision. The second stage isn’t any better since you have to avoid the mud which will reduce his health. The final stage is easy as you just need to find Cynthia before the time runs out, except she spawns in a random place.
Activities
Cookie Race – Same as the main version
Egg Hunt – Also in the main game, Angelia wants to hog all the easter eggs, so its up to Tommy to find them all before the time runs out, I guess the cookies weren’t enough for Angelica?
Gold Rush – Also available as a bonus game, Phil and Lil need to collect all the coins before time runs out, Same as egg hunt really
Mini golf – Can be played with multiple players, but instead of split screen, its more of a pass the controller for each turn kind of affair. There are 10 courses to play through.
Emulation
Recommended emulator: BeetlePSX or Mednafen, Duckstation works just as well.
One of the issues that occurred when playing this game in Duckstation was some cutscenes not playing, or the ones that did play would end early, and some of the Rugrats would be played randomly around the house, like in the screenshot below where Angelica is present in the kitchen, and cannot be interacted. This would often happen if you start the game in training mode first, then exit via the door which starts the main game. Angelica’s model is in the training map so maybe the game forgot to remove her from the world?
Angelica has seen some deep shit…
The hide and seek game is mainly affected, with the Rugrats randomly appearing around the house once they have been beaten to the playpen
Not a very good hiding place Tommy…
Tommy and Phil have been found, but instead of being in the play-pen, they are in the living room. This issue also occurred with the older builds of ePSXe where rugrats would randomly appear around the house, and issues with cutscenes playing. I’ve not tested it in modern ePSXe (this was around ver1.6)
Rugrats untextured object
An untextured toilet? Found in the cookie race level. I remember something similar occurring on the actual console itself so possibly not an emulator issue. The light above the mirror is also affected in both the cookie race and Chuckie’s glasses.
Navigating the Disc
Opening the SLUS_006.50 in Notepad++ and scrolling to line 168 reveals a few menu name strings, one of which references a Debug Menu, wonder how we activate this?
All the game data is present in the DATA folder, and each of the levels are broken up into different DB folders, with DB00 being the Pickels family home. Inside each folder are multiple BIN folders that follow the name convention. DBxxANM.BIN might refer to the animations for that level. Unfortunately these formats are likely built using proprietary game tool exclusive to N-Space, so there isn’t really much to play about here. Maybe we could rename and swap a few files around and experiment what happens when the game tries to load data intended for another level?
Update: 18/04/2023
There is also a hidden/unused level known as DB19, which appears to have been scrapped during development. By using CDmage to copy and move the files, we can trick the game into loading. Because of the way PlayStation discs are authored, we need to extract and then inject the files specifically into DB04 – the Voyages of Cynthia as that’s the largest levels that we can fit the files into.
The level appears untextured and looks to be an earlier version of the Pickles household. Notable differences is space around the house, and more narrower stairs. As you are controlling Spike for this level, we have a few issues using the stars, with careful precision you can jump up to the second floor which appears mostly the same layout.
Entering the closet causes the countdown timer to start, likely because the game thinks we are on the Cynthia level and Spike as entered into a specific trigger for the countdown timer.
Lastly lets see what’s outside in the level Chuckie’s glasses, by using the cube found in Tommy’s room we can use this to glitch out of the boundaries and into the garden which we normally cannot access. We can see its not raining at all and Spike’s doghouse is missing. Jumping on the buses causes a weird model/prop to come out which spawns shortly after. There’s also a weird square at the edge of the garden which we cannot stand on.
Compiled and made available in March 1995, this was to be the Final beta build of Windows 95, with the release candidates coming soon after.
Installation
Windows 95’s setup procedure which looks the same as the final release. Towards the end of the install procedure, there is an option to use the program manager as opposed to the 95 interface, in practice this retains the default Windows 95 interface, just opens the program manager window.
Stage 2
The second stage of the install boots into the kernel, and prompts the user to enter information. Also, in Windows 95 you were able to select a time zone by clicking on a location in the map, a feature that was removed in the later versions.
Boot screen, which was altered in the final release. The bottom segment is animated to indicate the system is actively loading. The final release replaces it with colour cycling bar
Desktop
When Windows 95 first boots, a welcome screen is displayed which shows useful tips
When a new plug and play device is detected, Windows will prompt for driver instillation. The Windows 95 CD has a moderate library of drivers on the disc, but this is mostly applicable to hardware from 1991-95
Adding additional features in Windows, some features don’t have their own icons and use the default Windows icon
Build Information
Microsoft Network
Microsoft bundled their own internet service platform, similar to AOL, Apple @World or Compuserve designed to get users online
The presence of this and the lack of a web browser being bundled with this release of the operating system signals that Microsoft intended for MSN to the primary way for users to access the internet, rather than using the http protocol that we all use today. Also TCP/IP not installed by default but can be added using the Windows components, you will be prompted to supply the Windows 95 CD to install it.
Accessories
Party Line
Not sure what this was intended for, some sort of multiplayer game like Microsoft Hearts? It seems to just open a blank window and sits there unresponsive.
Volume Control
The volume control, of which it’s appearance will vary depending on the soundcard and the driver installed
Microsoft Fax
Registration Wizard
You have the option to register your copy of Windows 95, which would send a description of your PC hardware to Microsoft, possibly for them to gauge which is the popular configuration of hardware (surely they can get that from the OEM sales?)
Disk Defragmenter
CD Player
Windows Explorer
The main Windows Explorer interface which gives a tree view on the left sidebar. This replaces the Windows 3.1 File Manager
Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer wasn’t included in this build, but was in development from around that time. To install I had to use the installer from oldversion.com, the WinWorldPC version failed to install.
This one failed
But this one worked instead, not entirely sure of the difference between the two installers but it could be due to this OS being a pre-release build.
Once installed a few changes need to be made before you can ‘browse’ the world wide web. Windows 95 did not include TCP/IP by default but could be enabled by installing it thorough the Network applet via the Control Panel.
The first version of Internet Explorer was based on NCSA Mosaic and incorporates various technologies that originated from Mosaic. Attempting to use these browsers on the modern web results in a bunch of garbled html, assuming the browser will even connect to a server. Most times you will gets an unsupported protocol since these browsers do not speak https. Here’s where theoldnet comes in
Trying to install Office 95 on Windows 95, which failed since it checks the OS build number
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