Episode 1: SEGA INDY 500 vs ACE DRIVER VICTORY LAP (VERSUS BATTLECAST)

[Tiamat583]

Ace driver victory lap was amazing, but it is now hard to find nowadays. when you look for the real game on the real cabinet, the game has perfect ps1 style graphics similar to ridge racer, and it looks a lot better than the emulated one.

Indy 500 was a lot of fun, too.

[DarknessDragon451]

can't pick i'd play both for myself then decide but they both look good :D

[EAprima]

After watching this for the eleventh time because its so awesome, I'd have to say that Indy 500 is the better game.

[MrThunderwing]

Ace Driver's definitely got the better music though. Love the whole mid-nineties Namco rave vibe, 

[MrThunderwing]

I love both Sega and Namco but I reckon Indy 500 is the clear winner here.

[wooterz]

Indycar is not F1 and has nothing to do with it.

[EAprima]

This vid is awesome! Indy 500 takes it because its looks more fun, but Ace Driver's music is incredible!

@wooterz Both are similar so its relevant. Indy takes place in the US and feature faster cars than F1, but F1 got greater investment and ingenuity into each vehicle - companies like Ferrari invest millions into each vehicle to make them flawless in design for all road conditions. However, both games are open wheels, contain fantasy tracks and the true difference don't matter in ppls eyes.

[sonicsuperstarprince]

@EAprima yes, but Indy 500 has the actual Indy 500 course in it. Don't forget that.

[EAprima]

@sonicsuperstarprince That's why I said it "contains" fantasy tracks, I didn't say that it doesn't include the official course. As you know, that's not the point. The point is that both titles feature open wheel cars that is incredibly powerful and super fast. Yes, Indy 500 may be faster but remember that F1 vehicle is still insanely fast and capable of 5Gs pulls on corners. Considering this, plus the near similar handling, and that fantasy courses, that comparison video is definitely relevant.

[EAprima]

@sonicsuperstarprince I hope you know what I mean. Is Sonic EXACTLY the same as Mario? Of course not but its still comparable. Also, I think its good to point out that other than courses, in the general public eyes, they don't know the difference between the two and to be honest I really don't blame them. I vaguely remember that Indy 500 and Ace Driver got 3 courses and 8 players. I played 6 players on INDY 500 and it was incredible! Oh and the person playing both games in the video is awesome!

[sonicsuperstarprince]

@EAprima I understand that. And I also have an expirence with playing Indy 500 with 6 players! I still have an excellent winning record from that!

[EAprima]

@sonicsuperstarprince Oh man, I bet you had have had a serious blast when you played the game against those people. When I played the game against 6 others play, only 3 of them was good enough to play against me on the medium level course. gosh i remember how insanely fast the game was and how my adrenaline was pumping with excitement. RAHHHHHHHHH what a RUSH!!

i really hope this game comes on xbox live and PSN. playing 8 players on there with a force feedback wheel would be insane.

[sonicsuperstarprince]

@EAprima I hear that! And it was a blast. I remember my first loss on this game was to my best friend on Highland Raceway due to that corner wen the time ran out. I was devistated. But this, 8 Players on Daytona USA in Dave & Busters, and SEGA Super GT and SEGA Rally 2/3 Multiplayer is a good memory.

[DragoonEnRegalia]

As far as I can tell: Ace Driver generally has less polish and certainly *looks* more buggy and jittery than Indy 500—it's also got less texture detail, similar level of geometry, and a soundtrack that's just as great, if not better. Indy, however, has better and more interesting track design by nature of well-placed landmarks and lack of repetition, where the opposite is true for Ace Driver. And I'm willing to gamble that, in an arcade setting, the handling would be superior for the SEGA game.

[Tiamat583]

@DragoonEnRegalia

Ace driver might not look that good on an emulator but when you look for the actual arcade game in real time, you'll realize it looks better than seeing the game in emulation.

[ParryAll]

Don't get me wrong, I love Namco, but they just could not compare to 1990's Sega Model 2 and Model 3 era. It's not even worthy of debate.

Sega's arcade titles were in a league of their own back then.

[Saur]

It was like a long running rap battle between the companies. Namco could not compete with Sega's cabinet design, nobody could back then. But they absolutely excelled in making their games absolutely grab their audience with a brash, loud and incredibly fun attitude.

In this case I think it's Namco which clinched it. Ace Driver was such a boring game, but a simple ROM upgrade replaced the drearyness with a massively fun futuristic take on F-1 with an incredible soundtrack!

[DragoonEnRegalia]

@Saur SEGA had the same attitude as Namco—Namco games, however, had a different sound team, a generally-lower level of polish in both audiovisuals and how they played, and generally weren't as financially sustainable as a well-designed SEGA production. Ridge Racer happened to be a rare case where Namco made something quite original for the racing genre, and even that game suffered from unintuitive handling, repetitious layouts for courses, and looked inferior to the more-ambitious Daytona USA.

[Saur]

@DragoonEnRegalia But it was still great fun and was completely mad. This is what I loved about Namco's games during that era, the sheer inventiveness is something I sorely miss. Namco could not compete with Sega technically, this led to a very interesting time as two completely different approaches went head-to-head.

Really ingenius methods were used to bring fresh interfaces to the table while keeping costs low. Games like Prop Cycle and Alpine Racer were a perfect example of this.

[DragoonEnRegalia]

@Saur Indeed, and the same can be said for both. SEGA experimented with games like Wave Runner and Gunbalde: NY, two well-designed middle-tier SEGA titles that also take advantage of unique hardware designs, just like the Namco games you mentioned. Not to say that Namco didn't always out-think SEGA—games like Point Blank are utterly off-the-wall and do things that other SEGA games didn't—but they both had similar approaches, and frequently looked to each other's ideas for their own inspiration.

[Saur]

@DragoonEnRegalia Definitely, I'm not disputing that Sega's games were amazing. It was this arena where two very talented developers could really go all-out with totally outlandish game designs which made it such a pleasure. These days, developers have to play it so safe. They can't produce games like Daytona which rely on a perfectly executed "hyper-reality" which is completely consistant unto itself. Daytona isn't amazing because it's "realistic" it's amazing because it's a perfect "game".

[Tiamat583]

@Saur

I agree with you on that one, the ace driver sequel is better!!

[NickSCFC]

Usually Namco would copy SEGA's arcade games in the 90's and make them better, think this is one of the few cases where they didn't.

A few other rivalries...

Virtua Fighter vs Tekken

Daytona vs Ridge Racer

Virtua Cop vs Time Crisis

Last Bronx vs Soul Edge

Sky Target vs Air Combat

Sega Ski Super G vs Alpine Racer