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Recorded on FCE Ultra 0.98.12 (thanks to blip) Settings: default, NTSC
  • no warps or passwords used
  • no programming errors used
  • aiming for fastest possible time and score
  • total frames: 78959
Rad Racer is a racing game of the famous producer called "Square" who also made Chrono Trigger and many other top games later. The graphic is pretty nice (for NES conditions) with changing backgrounds even during a race. It also has the best speed feeling like no other NES racing game and therefore requires extremely fast reactions. The opponent cars of each course are different, from Lamborghini, over Porsche till Mercedes (you drive the famous Ferrari or a F1-Machine). This game is extremely hard to beat on normal conditions, since there are no continues at all (if you lose in course 8 you will start in course 1 again) thats why many players couldn't beat this game completely.
This movie shows a complete and perfect walkthrough of all 8 courses trying to finish them as fast as possible.
Here are the times and the final scores after each course: (note that the time is a countdown, so the higher the time the better)
  • Course 1 - 45 sec remaining, total score: 8687
  • Course 2 - 42 sec remaining, total score: 17303
  • Course 3 - 53 sec remaining, total score: 26105
  • Course 4 - 43 sec remaining, total score: 35143
  • Course 5 - 48 sec remaining, total score: 43918
  • Course 6 - 39 sec remaining, total score: 51887
  • Course 7 - 43 sec remaining, total score: 60444
  • Course 8 - 43 sec remaining, final score: 69433
To reach this times in normal conditions is by far impossible since I took so many risk everytime to keep the best speed. 1 Frame later reaction would mostly end with a crash!
In Course 3 and Course 8 I was exactly 1 frame to late to reach a 1 sec better time, in Course 8 I tried to redo everything as good as I could and spended the whole last day by trying to optimize this 1 stupid frame to reach a whole sec faster but without luck. But then I found out that I can manipulate the randomness a bit by pressing pause right before the finish and on this way I still managed to reach 43 sec instead of 42 in Course 8. I'm pretty sure that 44 sec is impossible (even theoretical) at least in the last course. Course 3 was to far away to redo everything afterwards so I let this one be.
Enjoy this crazy race-thrilling!

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Posted: 6/10/2005 7:19 PM
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TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #713: Saturn's NES Rad Racer in 21:55.98
Posted: 6/10/2005 7:20 PM
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Bisqwit
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How about fixing the markup. Read http://tasvideos.org/TextFormattingRules.html for help.
Posted: 6/10/2005 7:27 PM
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Phil
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I forgot that Rad Racer was made by Square.
Posted: 6/10/2005 8:32 PM
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Arc
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So... you The Wizard?
Posted: 6/10/2005 8:49 PM
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Quietust
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Heh, that was an amusing run. I'm surprised how much time was spent off the road, apparently without losing much speed.
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Posted: 6/11/2005 5:36 AM
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DefEdge
Joined: 6/5/2005
Posts: 64
I say yes, this was an excellent run. Nice work how you would use the cars to pinball around the corners at high speeds, and interesting how the car accelerates so quickly yet reaches it's top speed at 255 (I understand, 8 bit tech). I did notice a few times how you would slow down just a tad to let a car keep up with you. Way to show Square how to beat the crud out of their game.
Phear my uber gimpyness!
Posted: 6/11/2005 3:09 PM
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TheAxeMan
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Voting meh probably because I didn't play this one enough to generate any nostalgia. Although it's clear that it gets harder, there's too much repetition and not enough variety to hold my interest for 20 minutes. After the first few courses I found myself hoping the next one would be the last. The soundtrack is ok on some levels, but not great. Don't get me wrong, Saturn, you've clearly played this well, I'm just not crazy about this game.
Posted: 6/11/2005 5:07 PM
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Bag_of_Magic_Food
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This is one of those "turn your brain off" movies, isn't it? I'm less impressed by the game itself than by the fact that the NES can handle its graphics.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Posted: 6/11/2005 6:10 PM
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I have to agree with TheAxeMan. This couldn't keep my attention for more than 1 and a half levels.
Posted: 6/11/2005 8:43 PM
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Bag_of_Magic_Food
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On second thought, the best part of this game is the "challenge and fighting" song.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Posted: 6/11/2005 9:05 PM
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Saturn
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The first courses are not that entertaining like the last courses, because they are very easy and the opponent cars don't have the aggressive driving style like in the later courses (not many cars in one point and changing the driving line often)
  • The most entertaining courses IMO are course 5, course 7 and course 8.
  • The most boring course is by far course 2 since there are very long straight lines and not many cars. Course 1 is also not the best.
For those who think its boring just skip the first 2 courses because from course 3 on its much more exciting and entertaining, guaranteed.
See my perfect 100% movie-walkthroughs of the best RPG games on http://www.freewebs.com/saturnsmovies/index.htm Current TAS project (with new videos): Super Metroid Redesign, any% speedrun
Posted: 6/12/2005 8:12 PM
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Bag_of_Magic_Food
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I guess it's hard to see the skill. It looks like, "Okay, he's driving off the road... Okay, he's getting close to a couple of cars... Okay, he's driving off the road again... Okay, he's bouncing off a car... Okay..." It might be more exciting if everybody plays the game a little first and sees how easy it is to crash and run out of time.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Posted: 6/12/2005 8:20 PM
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Saturn
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Man, as I said before those who know and have played this game will see how high the skill is. Its not just driving through without crashing, bouncing on cars or drive out of the road, its a very carefully calculation with sense on every move. Just try to do it that close. No chance by far, my promise.
See my perfect 100% movie-walkthroughs of the best RPG games on http://www.freewebs.com/saturnsmovies/index.htm Current TAS project (with new videos): Super Metroid Redesign, any% speedrun
Posted: 6/12/2005 8:21 PM
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Bag_of_Magic_Food
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Of course, you can't force anybody to play the game before watching the movie. Shucks.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Posted: 6/12/2005 8:24 PM
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BiroZombie
Joined: 4/25/2004
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This was quite an interesting run. I've always had fun with this game as a kid. I was thinking about making a speed run for this game, but I hadn't planned it out, so I've not made one. I'd enjoyed this speed run, and I do agree that the later levels are more fun to watch than the earlier levels.
Posted: 6/12/2005 8:26 PM
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Ouzo
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Even though it's kind of long for a racing game, I found it pretty entertaining. I like how you'd bounce off the other cars to stay on track. Yes.
Posted: 6/19/2005 7:37 PM
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DefEdge
Joined: 6/5/2005
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At the speed he's going, there would actually be no way that he could stay on the road and go around the corners, the skill is definately in the pinball action he has shown here.
Phear my uber gimpyness!
Posted: 6/20/2005 1:03 AM
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Michael_Fried
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I thought I remembered voting when I first watched this run several days ago, but I just noticed that I didn't vote yet so I just voted yes now.
Posted: 6/22/2005 7:25 PM
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Bisqwit
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Saturn, you're from Germany but your movie title (in the FCM file) says "﮸‘倀茄ｨȴѠ䠴‚" (hex: EF AE B8 C2 91 E5 80 80 E8 8C 84 EF BD A8 C8 B4 D1 A0 E4 A0 B4 C2 82). How should I interpret that?
Posted: 6/22/2005 8:31 PM
Post subject: Movie published
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TASVideoAgent
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This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [363] NES Rad Racer by Saturn in 21:55.98
Posted: 6/22/2005 10:07 PM
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Saturn
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I don't even know how this could happen. I remember to write "Rad Racer Timeattack by Saturn" in the FCM title, don't know what went wrong. If you want just hex-edit this title instead of the ??????. I personaly don't care about that too much.
See my perfect 100% movie-walkthroughs of the best RPG games on http://www.freewebs.com/saturnsmovies/index.htm Current TAS project (with new videos): Super Metroid Redesign, any% speedrun
Posted: 6/22/2005 11:24 PM
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AngerFist
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First edition TAS of 2015 Innovative TAS of 2007
Was this submission encoded to .omg? If so, Why?
Nitrogenesis wrote:
Guys I come from the DidyKnogRacist communite, and you are all wrong, tihs is the run of the mileniun and everyone who says otherwise dosnt know any bater! I found this run vary ease to masturbate too!!!! Don't fuck with me, I know this game so that mean I'm always right!StupedfackincommunityTASVideoz!!!!!!
Arc wrote:
I enjoyed this movie in which hands firmly gripping a shaft lead to balls deep in multiple holes.
natt wrote:
I don't want to get involved in this discussion, but as a point of fact C# is literally the first goddamn thing on that fucking page you linked did you even fucking read it
Cooljay wrote:
Mayor Haggar and Cody are such nice people for the community. Metro City's hospitals reached an all time new record of incoming patients due to their great efforts :P
Posted: 6/23/2005 6:02 AM
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Bisqwit
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AngerFist wrote:
Was this submission encoded to .omg?
.ogm. For an experiment.
Posted: 6/23/2005 7:34 AM
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Truncated
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An important question: can Windows Media Player and other types of standard software play this movie format? Judging from the Open File dialog in WMP, no. I think this is a problem. Most of the people who download our movies are probably just regular users who are not interested (or skilled) enough to download extra programs. It's the same with new codecs, but at least they are used for a good reason, ie conserving space and bandwith.
Posted: 6/23/2005 10:07 AM
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AngerFist
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First edition TAS of 2015 Innovative TAS of 2007
I sincerely hope that this movie is the only one for this experiment because I really feel with the new avi codec that you really have squeezed and minimized it. I feel it will cause troubles for many people and I think the current avi codec works extremely fine.
Nitrogenesis wrote:
Guys I come from the DidyKnogRacist communite, and you are all wrong, tihs is the run of the mileniun and everyone who says otherwise dosnt know any bater! I found this run vary ease to masturbate too!!!! Don't fuck with me, I know this game so that mean I'm always right!StupedfackincommunityTASVideoz!!!!!!
Arc wrote:
I enjoyed this movie in which hands firmly gripping a shaft lead to balls deep in multiple holes.
natt wrote:
I don't want to get involved in this discussion, but as a point of fact C# is literally the first goddamn thing on that fucking page you linked did you even fucking read it
Cooljay wrote:
Mayor Haggar and Cody are such nice people for the community. Metro City's hospitals reached an all time new record of incoming patients due to their great efforts :P
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