Month: September 2006

Ridge Racer 6

Xbox Live – I’m abso-fucking-lutely loving it. Far more than I ever thought I would.

Most of you 360ers will know about MyGamerCard.net; a neat part of their service is that they provide leaderboards that you can filter by Game, Zone, or Country. So naturally, once you get past the usual jousting amongst your friends, you get to the stage where you start looking at where you stand with respect to your neighbours.

Now, I’ll profess to being an average gamer – I’m OK, I’ve got a smidge of “natural” ability, but I’m far from good. But, in perusing the Australian charts, I saw a chance, an opening. For Ridge Racer 6.

Now, up until a few years ago, I fucking hated racing games. But then a pic of Ahchay & nbcl… er, strawdonkey playing F-Zero GX graced the virtual pages of Way of the Rodent, and I thought “I’ll have some of that.” And I was poo at it. Only this year, after playing pretty frequently, did I manage to unlock the Master Cup. But I loved it, each and every second that it was handing my arse to me on a platter with a frilly pink bow on it. But that’s another story.

The point is, I’m not a natural racer – I’m as untalented at racers as I am in fighting games. But I liked Ridge Racer 6 – eschewing any pretence at realism, it just felt like honest, glorious, absolutely silly good fun. From the first extravagant drift around the first corner, I was hooked. For all the second-hand swearing I submitted my SO to, she never once saw me without a big stoopid grin on my face. I was crap at the game, but I was learning… slowly.

I caned RR6. Calouses formed on the the tips of my thumbs from thrashing the cars around the Ridge Racer Universe. Hours of gameplay passed. I got stuck many, many times. Venturing online for the first time, only to encounter the Japanese and Korean pros who had been playing three months longer than I and could lap me whilst drifting (for fuck’s sake!) only served to reinforce my own perceived crapulence.

But then – 80 hours in – something clicked. Some nugget of knowledge finally lodged itself in my brain; something suddenly made sense. I unlocked the Final Series. I persevered with the much-hated Final 1 race… then came Final 2. The rest came with a rush, almost like a flourish. I finished the Final Series. My Gamer Score went through the roof as Achievements were achieved and unlockables unlocked.

I checked the Australian leaderboard again; there were still two players ahead of me. Comparing their Achievements to mine indicated that they were both able to score some extra points relatively easily. To leapfrog ahead of them, I had to do some serious racing – I had to get the 100 points for racing 10,000 miles.

But after 80 hours of play, I only had 6996 miles.

The next day-and-a-half were a flurry of driving, occasionally looking over my shoulder to look for any movement from the competition, whilst pushing my thumbs and forefingers to the brink of RSI. I was calculating the number of races left, counting them down. Continuous triple-nitrous blasts were continually applied. Sleep – bah! No time for sleep!

10 races to go… 5… 3. 2. 1.

As I exited the Single Race menu, the standard Ridge Racer 6 achievement display popped up. I scurried over to Xbox.com, confirming that the Achievement had registered. I checked Mygamercard.net; they hadn’t updated their stats yet.

F5. F5. F5. F5.

And, suddenly, I sat atop the leaderboard for my country.

I won’t lie; at the time I thought it was going to be mere moments until I lost that honour, because I’m really not that good. But the thing is, it feels like one of the greatest bits of gaming I’ve ever managed. It feels weighty to me. It feels like an Achievement: I really wanted to do it, and I managed to learn – or was taught (by a spectacular game) – how to do it.

Would I have bothered, had I not been spurred on by Xbox Live and its endless possible statistical comparisons? Maybe not – I certainly never “finished” F-Zero GX, did I? So I have this overwhelming sense of pride in this tiny, piffly, insignificant thing that I’ve done, and it’ll always be associated with the social cajoling of Xbox Live. And I’ll always feel lucky to have experienced that.

Sadly, though, this is not a story with an entirely happy ending. About a month-and-a-half later I was joined at the top of the Australian rankings by a chap who was my alphabetical superior; thus, when demonstrating my top-ranking to my nephews, they remained unconvinced that having your name second on the list is equivalent to an “equal first”. They’ll learn, the bastards.

Worse, though, is the amount of Achievement cheating that appears to be going on now. A recent check of the leaderboard shows a bunch of people who appear to have used someone else’s saved game to glean their “achievements”; seriously, acquiring all of RR6‘s Achievements in one day? Getting a 200 Win Achievement before a 50 Win Achievement?

Clearly, this fantastic incremental idea of public Achievements – those very items whose presence drove me to be a better player – can also have a negative effect, too.

The P.N.03 Papillon Quest

It’s pretty difficult to find any PAL P.N.03 information out there, so I thought I’d also share a save file [6 KB] (saved using the EMS Gamecube save card) and a few tips on Papillon suit acquisition.

Here’s the 5 slots in the file:

  1. Start of Mission 11, Easy, all suits except Blackbird and Papillon unlocked. Complete this mission to see ending #1, and the Blackbird unlock screen.
  2. Start of Mission 11, Normal, all suits except Papillon unlocked. Complete this mission (without changing out of the Blackbird suit) to see ending #2, and the Papillon unlock screen.
  3. Start of Mission 11, Easy, all suits unlocked, wearing Papillon. Complete this mission to see ending #3.
  4. Cleared data, Blackbird. Load this slot to view the Blackbird start screen.
  5. Cleared data, Papillon. Load this slot to view the Papillon start screen.

FWIW (considering the vast amounts of dubious P.N.03 information out there – especially regarding the PAL version), here’s how I did it:

  • Slot 1: played through on Easy, completed all the Trial Missions, and repeated Trial Mission 7.5 (ie, Trial Mission 5 preceding Mission 8 ) until I had sufficient points to buy all the suits. When this game was complete, I saved the Cleared data into Slot 4.
  • New game. Loaded Slot 4, then played through on Easy again, racking up the points and upgrading all the suits to maximum. Saved the “Cleared” data to Slot 4 again.
  • New game. Loaded Slot 4, then raced through on Easy mode again (not worried about the Trial Missions), saving into Slot 2. The purpose here was to generate a “Cleared” Slot in Slot 2. When loaded, the Slot 2 Cleared data still results in the Blackbird title screen.
  • New game. Loaded Slot 2, played through on Normal, saving to Slot 2. Changed suits to the Blackbird at the earliest opportunity, before shooting anything. Completed all the Trial Missions, getting Professional on all of them (resetted without saving if I missed Professional). I definitely did not get Professional ranking on all the “real” Missions. Completed the game, awarded Papillon, saved the Cleared data into Slot 5.
  • New game. Loaded Slot 5, played through on Easy with the Blackbird, racking up sufficient points to upgrade the Papillon to maximum (this generally doesn’t require any Trial Missions). Saved the Cleared data to Slot 5 again.
  • New game. Loaded Slot 5, played through on Easy, saving to Slot 3. Changed suits to the Papillon at the earliest opportunity, before shooting anything.
    Playing with the Papillon on Easy still gives you a slight buffer (getting hit twice kills you, as opposed to Normal mode’s once (!) ).

I’ve also collected a few lovely P.N.03 movies for you:

P.N.03

This entry was published – with permission, of course – in Issue 78 of the utterly joyous Way of the Rodent. Hurrah!

Back in 2003, Capcom resuscitated the hopes of GameCube owners when they came up with the Capcom Five – a series of Cube exclusives. Sadly, one of the five were dropped, and three others were ported to the PS2; P.N.03, however, remained a rough diamond that all Gamecube owners should cherish.

Sonically, it’s a bit meh. There’s nothing to inspire, nothing that infuriates; inoffensive beats that may accidentally make you tap your foot every so often, moody pieces that cajole the tone rather than set it. Gameplay-wise, it’s an odd blend of move-then-shoot, spiced up with largely ineffective mashing of the D-pad in an attempt to conjure up the use of an Energy Drive. So let’s now consider the visual aesthetics of P.N.03, and we’ll cut straight to the heart of the matter; the game is built around the model of the protagonist, Vanessa Z Schneider. Few games have characters modeled as strikingly, as gorgeously, as pneumatically, as P.N.03. Which is just as well, because the rest of the graphics are average, at best. In the variety department, this game is shamed by Halo. Or even just The Library in Halo. Yes, it’s that dull.

But, as mentioned before, this game is focused on Vanessa. VANESSA! The first time you get an Autofire power-up, you’ll hold down the A-button and sit back in wonder as Vanessa seductively moves her hips whilst dealing out death. And it’s utterly mesmerising. I’ve spent hours just watching her arse move. In fact, P.N.03 is known as “Wigglies” in my abode, such is the splendour of her buttock convolutions.

As for the gameplay… well, P.N.03 is a bit short. It’s easy to blast through the 11 levels on offer pretty quickly. But then you notice the Store, where you can purchase different skins for Vanessa’s Aegis Suit… or rather, Vanessa’s Arse. The game then becomes a matter of viewing that posterior in all possible suits in all possible surroundings; discovering that certain suits, in certain lighting conditions, are nothing short of pornographic. Wankworthy, at least.

Of course, to acquire these suits you need to score points. To score points, you need to play the game. A lot. In playing the game, you have to watch Vanessa gracefully leap, run, and cartwheel about between shooting, occasionally striking a vogue-esque pose when you manage to fire off an Energy Drive. And she wiggles her arse, too.

Did I mention that Vanessa’s got a gorgeous arse?

Finally, you discover the existence of the final Aegis Suit for Vanessa’s wardrobe – the Papillon suit. Maybe you read about it on the Internet, maybe you noticed its 0.7 second appearance in the end-game movie. No matter – you now know that the Papillon suit is, essentially, a fetching pairing of a boob-tube and a G-string. There may be something covering Vanessa’s legs too but, let’s face it, if the arse is exposed you’re not going to notice.

YES! Those glorious fleshy orbs will be freed! And a rather tasty butterfly tattoo exposed, too.

And so the quest for the Papillon suit begins. More running, gunning, posing, gyrating. It’s the best kind of gaming grind imaginable, like receiving fellatio whilst leveling-up in Sword of Fargoal. Eventually, though, you are awarded the suit – basking in the post-orgasmic glow of the achievement, you see the sex-on-a-stick Papillon title screen for the first time.

You wait for your heart rate to drop to something approximating normal, and you start playing with the Papillon suit. You leap, you bound, you pirouette, you drool. The suit, by its absence, is lush. Sure, you’ve got no actual protection from being shot, but the visual feast on offer makes it more than worthwhile.

And then, you think to yourself… “I wonder if there’s anything tasty if I beat the game wearing the Papillon suit.”

And here’s where the purity of P.N.03 is revealed, for the Papillon Quest boils down to a simple matter of not being shot. And you can’t get more hard-core, more shoot-em-up, more pure, than that.

Play. Wiggle. Don’t get shot. Wiggle. Strike a pose. Wiggle. Don’t get shot.

It’s what video game dreams are made of.

Wiggle.