My thoughts on JM2

[aweberman]

Rather than resurrect a stale thread, I decided to start a new one to share a range of thoughts that I have on this game. (Note: I haven't played these games religiously in nearly a decade, and haven't played them at all in maybe 4 years. Though that will change soon ... I intend to take a crack at some of those records.

I still consider Jet Moto 1 to be my favorite video game of all time. At the time of its release (about 15 years ago, now), it had a racing mechanic that was pretty unique: the competition of the other racers.

In most racing games of the era (take F-Zero and Wipeout, for examples), the field mainly serves as markers to check your progress. You generally start in the back, you work your way forward over the course of the race, and you try to hold on to first place through the last lap as the guy in 2nd suddenly gets a lot better.

Jet Moto didn't do this. Instead, each racer was as competitive as they could be all the way through. It was possible to take 1st place and keep it all the way through; more often (until mastering the game, anyway) you found yourself in the pack, scrambling for the finish and not typically winning every race.

Which is the first thing that thrilled me about this game. One of the huge gripes I had with games like the SNES Super Mario Kart was the fact that you had to finish in the top 3 or 4 to progress to the next race, whereas none of the computer competition had to do anything of the sort. But in Jet Moto, you could finish dead last in every single race and still get to do every race of the season. This was revolutionary at the time. (I don't know how many of these things are still true about driving games; the newest console I have is the Wii.)

The other beautiful thing about the competition was that it really felt like you were in a racing season, with different results each time. And not only did you not have to finish near the top to race the whole season, but you didn't even have to finish first AT ALL to win the season. (Theoretically. Usually you still had to take at least one win to be in contention, but this wasn't mandatory.)

Only when I became capable of destroying the competition on Master difficulty in JM1 did I start to see the flaws in the AI of the computer. But I remember reading an interview at the time with one of the Singletrac developers that the Master difficulty was just thrown in almost as an afterthought; these guys couldn't consistently beat it on Professional, but they figured others would get good enough to do so, so they jacked up the difficulty in an "educated guess" sort of way. They managed to come pretty close for most of the tracks.

Well, but this is a JM2 thread, so I guess I'd better talk about that.

JM2 (and 3) retained this dynamic season approach to racing, which was great. However, considering how much I loved JM1 -- and considering that the games came out only about a year apart -- it seems obvious that JM2 would be a disappointment. And yet, I think it stands up to be almost as good as the original.

A couple of reasons why JM2 falls short (and I'm talking gameplay here; the visuals are better, but they're still not great):

- The field is halved. I was in disbelief when I started the first race and saw only 10 racers out there. 10! What? This fundamental shift in philosophy really subtracts a lot from the game. The tracks feel emptier as you go through them, and the amount of jostling that takes place (anywhere but The Shaft) is minimal compared to JM1. It's a shame, but it could have been worse (and was -- a lot worse -- with JM3 and its cavernous, sterile racing).

- The AI is way out of whack. Again, this doesn't really become noticeable until you start acing Master difficulty. But they threw in that Insane difficulty, apparently made some more educated guesses about how well people would do ... and then didn't guess as well. In my prime, I progressed to the point where only Insane offered enough competition for me; Master was simply too easy. But Insane is just messed up.

The first obvious problem is that the computer just flat outperforms you. You literally cannot compete with the speed of your competition. It's still possible to win, of course. But it's weird the way it works out.

If I can score any points in the first 2 races, I'm pleased. If I can score as many as 5, I'm doing pretty phenomenally good. Because basically you get hammered in those 2 races. As I said, you literally cannot compete.

Although, oddly enough, I've found that if you can just stay with the leaders in these first few tracks, they don't run away and hide. But if you make one single mistake, they are gone and you won't catch them. I have always monitored my times, compiling my own records. I have seen it happen on Slickrock Gorge, in particular, where I will stay with the pack and finish 4th in one go-round, then get a better time the next season and finish last, because I didn't stay with the pack. Hot Shot is another one that is terrible about this.

This was incredibly frustrating the first few times, until I realized the trick to winning on Insane: you have to bring home the trophy in the second half of the season. If you can pick up 10-15 points in the first half of the season, that's probably enough.

Because once it becomes possible to fall off the track a lot, the AI racers will do so. You ought to be able to consistently win at least 2 or 3 races in the second half of the season, which, when combined with the spotty performance of the AI racers, can get you the win.

For a long time I noticed this was true without ever really thinking about the underlying cause of this. Of course, it's pretty simple and obvious: The developers simply raised the top speeds of the competition. This has the twin effect of making them very tough on flat, safe courses, and very easy to beat on tracks that are easy to fall off of; if I remember correctly, the average times on Nebulous on Insane are worse than on Master difficulty.

So, that's a pretty significant flaw to me. But once I learned to cope with it without throwing my controller across the room, I still was able to enjoy the game. Although I never managed to get that "1st in every race" trophy on Insane. If anybody has, I'd be interested to know how.

That trophy case, though, was a really nice touch, even if there's that one missing pin that is impossible to get for some reason. And the track design is pretty great; this game feels, no question, like a sequel to JM1.

JM3, on the other hand ... Well, that's a topic for another day.

I also appreciated the variety in the bikes. Each one really felt different from the others, to a much greater degree than was true in JM1, where you basically had 3 kinds of bikes (light, medium, heavy) with only very minor tweaks between different bikes in the same class.

While I'm here, I wanted to share my own personal best times on each track. I played JM2 a lot, but not as much as JM1; I actually wrote a FAQ about JM1 (still up at GameFAQs) after I had simulated an entire season by racing every single track with every single racer (in practice mode). Yeah, that took awhile. But I got to know the tracks on a detailed level that I never gained while playing JM2.

This shows up in my best times.

The largest disparity between my 1st and 5th best times in JM1 was 6.8 seconds on Nightmare. The early tracks have spreads of as little as 1.4 seconds (for Hammerhead). But I have one in JM2 (Mach Schnell) where my best time is fully 10 seconds better than my 2nd best. A good race, I guess.

One other note: These times all assume no cheat codes, 3 laps, turbos on, and other normal racing. I will compare these times with the world records from the forum here, though I acknowledge that I can't prove that I actually recorded these; I didn't have the equipment in 1998 to do so.


Track____________My time_____________Record time
-----____________-------_____________-----------
Slickrock Gorge__2.49.0 (Bomber)_____2.29.5
Meltdown_________2.23.1 (The Max)____2.04.4
Aftershock_______2.51.2 (The Max)____2.33.2
Arctic Blast_____2.52.0 (Technician)_2.31.2
Hot Shot_________3.09.4 (Wild Ride)__2.48.8
The Shaft________3.33.5 (The Max)____2.50.6
Rollercide_______3.59.2 (Gadget)_____3.27.6
Ka-Ma-Te_________2.40.4 (Gadget)_____2.16.8
Mach Schnell_____3.32.7 (The Max)____2.57.2
Nebulous_________4.45.6 (Vampeera)___4.02.6


(Eh. The formatting took out all of my spaces.)

Just glancing at these records, I gotta wonder: How is this "bear" guy getting such crazy times? Maybe somebody could clue me in. And if he can beat me by 30+ seconds on most of these tracks, why not on Aftershock or Mach Schnell? (I misread my own time on Mach Schnell; which puts bear squarely back in the 30+ seconds better on that one.)

Anyway. Glad to have found this board. I have more to say, at another time.

[Dark Ermac]

Welcome, aweberman!

I have actually read that Jet Moto FAQ of yours. Interesting read.
Anyway, I believe bear has practiced Jet Moto a lot to get those records. Probably the hardest world record right now is Snow Blind in the first game, due to Bear and mcniggleston's fierce competitions.

[aweberman]

I've been watching some of the videos from the records thread. I'm not 100% sure on technique there (it's tough to pick out exactly how many times he's hitting the turbo), but it sounds like he might be "feathering" the turbo button more than I might.

Need to get that game out sometime soon.

[mcniggleston]

I'm no good at JM2 for records...I never was. JM1 was the one I always played since the day I got in 1996. Bear is still better than me for records (apart from Hammerhead)....but we're fierce alright. We were goin at it for months until we couldn't take it anymore, haha! The Jet Moto 1/2 times will be hard to beat, but if you can...kudos to you! ;D

[Dark Ermac]

I wish there was a re-do option in free run. It's a pain to have to go back to the main menu if you mess up.

[bear]

First off, welcome to the board and thanks for joining dude. Great to have new members, especially ones so involved in the games. Umm, yeah about the times, how I'm 30 seconds faster around most of the tracks isn't at all as interesting to me as how you're 2 seconds faster around Aftershock (this might just be my competitive nature that McNiggleston no doubt had a hand in developing). But anyway, yeah I want to see you run that 2:31...a lot! I think the deal is that Aftershock is one of the easiest if not the easiest track to master; there's only so much in terms of technique you can do to make your time faster. Most of the other tracks are more challenging. But obviously you're doing something I haven't figured out.

I've posted on other threads describing my technique, but I'll try to put it in a nutshell here. Basically I use the turbo strictly as an instrument of acceleration (if you're already going over 100 it's a waste to use it). About the "feathering", this is the most efficient way of using the turbo I think. If you instead use it in longer thrusts, you will have less on hand for later. When you use it in quick spurts you can take advantage of it more often, you don't have to sacrifice so much. This is one reason why I prefer JM2 to 1, trying to find the four best places on the racetrack to use turbo isn't as fun to me as having the freedom to use it pretty much anywhere.

Beyond turbo usage, bike control is the most vital skill. Like you said about keeping the nose down and the bike grounded, these are so important. But also the use of rolling the bike, this can help keep the bike grounded and also make quicker, sharper turns. When you turn with both R2 and R1 for example, you will face new direction more quickly, but you won't hold speed like if you just used R1, so you'll need to use more turbo coming off the turn to get back up to top speed. Keeping the nose down when you turn has a similar effect.

And really the little things go on and on; there's so much I do without even thinking about it I can't really articulate everything about my technique. Which sucks because it's for that reason that I don't know what I'm doing wrong if my times are a little off.

As far as AI difficulty and full seasons go, I agree with just about everything you've said. In fact on Nebulous I think the AI might even peak on Professional. But yeah the Insane season can really just be won in the second half. For me personally, I can usually have the lead by Arctic blast or Hot Shot. The only track I haven't won on is Slickrock (may not be possible).

Looking forward to seeing your vids dude. I know mine aren't the best quality, that's why it's probably a little hard to figure out what I'm doing with the turbo. But again, thanks for joining. I haven't played in moths for a couple reasons, but I could always some reasons to get back into it.

[bear]

Dec 10, 2011 22:21:20 GMT -5 Dark Ermac said:

I wish there was a re-do option in free run. It's a pain to have to go back to the main menu if you mess up.

There is a restart option in practice mode isn't there? I thought it was JM1 that didn't have that.

[aweberman]

I should have double-checked my time on Aftershock after I saw how much you'd shattered my other times by. That should be 2:51, not 2:31. So you still have it, bear!

I really thought I'd maxed out the times on these JM2 tracks, which is why I'm eager to go back and try out that turboing technique to see if I can make any headway (on my own times, at least). But as I stated somewhere, I'm trying to set some bars on non-stunt JM1 tracks first.

And, yes: JM2 has the option to restart the race, while JM1 does not.

When you use it in quick spurts you can take advantage of it more often, you don't have to sacrifice so much. This is one reason why I prefer JM2 to 1, trying to find the four best places on the racetrack to use turbo isn't as fun to me as having the freedom to use it pretty much anywhere.

You've articulated the key difference between JM1 and 2 right here. As I mentioned, it's also the reason why I prefer 1 to 2.

For me, it's more fun and challenging to have additional restrictions. I generally prefer more realism in a game (I know, a bit odd when talking about this game, but bear with me), so I prefer it when driving games don't even have a "turbo" option. In fact, for a really crazy challenge, I've even tried JM1 with the turbos OFF. That's how I learned a lot of my technique for maintaining speed, especially on steep climbs like the backside of Willpower. I've done the same thing in Mario Kart Wii a few times; it requires a lot more skill from the driver, which I like.

(As an interesting aside for the "turbo" concept, Formula 1 the last few years has basically integrated a turbo. It's called KERS -- Kinetic Energy Recovery System -- and it functions by recovering energy over the course of a lap, storing it in a battery, and then making it available at the beginning of a new lap. It adds some horsepower to the engine, and it can be used much like the turbos in JM2 -- a little at a time -- although drivers tend to use most of it in one spurt when trying to pass somebody. And if that wasn't enough, this year just passed they introduced DRS - Drag Reduction System -- which allowed drivers in certain situations to open a slot in the rear wing/spoiler and gain extra speed. So my complaint about "real" racing not having turbos is kind of shot, anyway, since F1 basically has two different kinds.)

(Sorry. That ended up being a bigger digression than I intended.

[bear]

Wow, I had no idea F1 was doing that. I know Indy has some kind of "turbo" they use at least on bigger tracks like Indianapolis. Not a big fan of the idea myself (NASCAR fan :/)

But yeah I get your point. Usually when it comes to racing games I prefer the simulation style like Forza; haven't cared for Need For Speed since it was on PS1. But with a game like Jet Moto it's already outside the realm of reality, so I guess I haven't really thought of it in the same sense. I think I just like the handling and turbo system of 2 more than 1. However, stunt mode in 1 can really add excitement and put you constantly on the edge (makes the game much more fun I think). And then there's JM2 CE...completely different level. Haven't picked it up in a while but I'm thinkin of getting back into it to put some vids and times up; we're really lacking in that one.

[bear]

BTW I meant to comment on your one gripe with 2. I think the reason they halved the field of riders was to keep the game relatively smooth to run. Not sure it would be very functional with 20. Hell in CE there's only 4 for that very same reason, and it shows. Going from CE back to regular sucks because the FPS is so much worse. But then again I use an original PlayStation, might be smoother on a PS2.