097 · R.C. PRO-AM

• Back of the Box
• Manual
• Introductions
• Overview
  • Guide your radio controlled car to victory in this racing game. You have to beat your 3 opponents on 32 tracks while avoiding obstacles like water and oil puddles and collecting bonus items like better engines and tires. You can also collect a variety of weapons to blast your opponents out of the way.
• Gameplay
  • overhead isometric perspective
    • Slow to learn
  • 24 unique tracks
    • Game ends when you finish 4th (but you get 2 continues)
  • "Tune-up items" help increase the car's performance
    • turbo acceleration
    • "hotter engines" for higher top speed
    • "super sticky tires" for increased traction and cornering
  • Weapons
    • missiles take out the opposing vehicles from the front
    • bombs take them out from the rear
    • The number of missiles and bombs carry over to the next race
    • Roll Cage helps you take on weapons
    • Excessive use of projectile weaponry on opponents will result in the yellow car accelerating to 127 mph, which cannot be matched by the player.
  • Collect Nintendo Letters to upgrade. You start with standard truck to a faster 4-Wheeler and then to the fastest Off Roader.
• Fun Club issue 5
  • RC was the cover story
    • The big difference is R.C and we’re not talking Cola
  • Return of Donkey Kong
    • "That barrel-throwing rascal Donkey Kong is some kind of crazy. In Donkey Kong, he has Pauline in his clutches. In Donkey Kong Jr., he gets locked in a cage. In Donkey Kong Jr. Math, he knows the score in a math jungle. In Donkey Kong 3, he makes trouble for Stanley the bugman. And now Donkey Kong is soon to come back with more barrel-tossing fun. But this time you're in control! Are you video buff enough to handle the one-and-only Return of Donkey Kong? Watch for it!"
• Sequels and Spinoffs
  • Genesis Version
    • The Genesis version (CHAMPIONSHIP PRO AM) is basically the same game as the NES version with a few minor changes such as having 5 opponents instead of 3, spelling out CHAMPION instead of NINTENDO, and having enhanced graphics.
  • Super R.C. Pro-Am
    • Game Boy Version
  • RC PRO AM II
    • 4 Player on NES
• EGL

Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.

00:00 RC Pro-Am, Nintendo puts you in control.

00:18 And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Joe. I'm Sean. And I'm Sam. Guys, how are we doing? I'm pretty good. How are you? You seem very relaxed tonight, Sean. I'm a relaxed boy. I say tonight, but we always upload the episodes at 8am every Friday.

00:41 If you're one of our first listeners, if you're that guy who gets it at like 8.04, just know that we set them to deliver at 8am. Theoretically, I could set them to deliver at like 7.56 in the morning, so they get directly to you at 8am, but it's actually a really good idea. I might start doing that. Yeah, really. I don't know why you haven't done that yet. But then I'd hate to see it come in at like 8.01. What about 7.59? Would you be upset about a 7.59? 7.59 is better than 8.01, because that's early. Better early than late. That's true. So what was everyone's favorite part of this episode? Was it when we talked about the time? It's the only time so far.

01:12 Anyway, let's talk about RC Pro-Am. We got another rare game here. Not that it's rare in its... Well, actually, it is pretty rare, because we don't have any racing games yet, right? We've had like some things that have tried to be racing games, but don't quite get there, right? We had Rad Racer. Not really a racing game. They're all sort of just go fast. And go far. What about Excitebike? There's Race Against Time also. Oh, Excitebike, yeah. That was a racing game, right? You're racing. I feel like a lot of them are racing against time. Yeah. Or racing against society.

01:46 Mock Rider. Yeah. Yeah, and even Excitebike, I think, is still like a race against time thing for the most part. Slalom. Because you have to get it in a certain time to qualify for the next round. You don't necessarily have to finish first, I think. Whereas this is a game in which your opponents are all at like, you know, a discrete point in the lap.

02:09 Yeah. Like on the course. Whereas before, they would just sort of spawn opponents and it was just like, here, just go fast. Yeah. So, for those of you that don't know, in RC Pro-Am, you are guiding a remote-controlled car. That's the RC. Yes. It stands for remote control. And you're guiding this remote-controlled car through like a various amount of stages, but they all look kind of the same for the most part.

02:37 Yeah. And you have to avoid like water and oil puddles. You can collect some bonus items. You get a trophy. Yeah, you can get better engines and tires. And you're doing this against three other opponents, which are just the yellow car, the blue car, and the green car. You're the red car. So that's pretty cool. Can't pick. Yeah. That's hot. Yeah. But red's like the fast one, right? Isn't that why the insurance is so much money on a red car?

03:00 Yeah. Because they know people are speed. Red paint makes you go faster. Like candy apple red. That's science. I'm sorry. What were you saying, John? Candy apple red. Oh, yes. Also, apples are fast. That car from Cars, who's the star of Cars. He's red. He says, I am speed. And he's red. Right. You're right. So by the transitive property. Yes, exactly. Although that didn't come out until after this.

03:20 Yes, that's true. Little known fact. We're getting a little off topic, though, because even though I've accurately described the game in my own opinion, Sean, there is an element to this game that I haven't talked about yet. And that is the way that it looks. Yeah, it has a very interesting perspective. It's at sort of an isometric, like three quarter view that you see more in like CRPGs.

03:43 And it can be really weird when you're trying to control a car. It was like tank controls out of like Resident Evil. Yeah, this is kind of like an out of body experience of driving a car. It's like when you got in the car, you were only given the view of instead of like, you know, through your own eyeballs, you were given it from like a GPS satellite and you had to try to still drive the same way.

04:06 It's from the it's basically from the Google Maps 3D view, but not Google Earth. You know what I mean? I have played racing games with this perspective before, though. Yeah. And I guess it makes sense. And it only dawned on me right now. It makes sense in the context of a remote control car. You're not in the car. You're not looking at it from behind the car. Absolutely. I hadn't actually was wondering until right now why it's like that.

04:25 Well, I think it's like that for twofold. I think the remote control thing is great and a good like easy way for them to get away with it. But I also think this was a design choice because then they can keep they can show placement of all the other cars as well on the map. So this way, if you were only doing it like how Rad Racer did it, where you saw like the top of your car and it was more like a straight on point of view. You never knew where anybody else was on the track besides maybe a few frames in front of you if they happened to draw their car.

04:55 And combat is important in this. Yeah, exactly. So I think here like spatial awareness is also very important to know like, OK, I'm in first, but I can see the guy in second behind me and he might like try to push me off the track or shoot in a weapon. Yeah, it's also to me the easiest way to give a faux 3D look to any game because it has that depth because it's at that weird angle. And it just looks better than what we've seen from like the first person view so far.

05:31 Would you say that this even, you know, put your 1988 goggles on. Is this a visually impressive game on the NES so far? I think so. OK, no, I guess that's what I'm asking is open it up to the room, too. I didn't load it and think like, wow, look at these graphics compared to other games. I think we've also been kind of spoiled having been able to play every game.

05:53 Yeah, I think the aesthetic choices are a little like bland, like generic looking. But in terms of how they present the information, it's very clear and it holds up. It holds up well. Yeah, I think to me it falls kind of firmly and like for the time doing just what it needs to do to kind of get by and like not look bad. Doesn't look great. It didn't blow me away, but it looks fine. It looks passable. OK, cool. I think it looks good.

06:21 Yeah. And so let's get into controls of the car specifically and how that works in this isometric point of view, but also on various different tracks. I don't want to talk about the tune up items or weapons or anything like that. I just want to talk about how it felt to steer your car in this viewpoint and like if that was really the best way to go about it. So who wants to take that? I can take it. Cool. I think that it was a good viewpoint and everything works well with the steering. I think so. When you are going into a turn and you're accelerating, you kind of skid a little bit too, which I think is cool. And if you don't accelerate, you take your hand off the, you know, the A button, I think.

06:59 Then you can kind of you can do a lot sharper turns, I found. So I think that the controls are pretty tight. They were really sensitive, which it says in the in the manual. But I think that that's something that you can get used to and then start, you know, memorizing tracks and getting really like, you know, just getting really intricate with it. Yeah, there's definitely a learning curve to the to the how delicate the controls are. And also, I mean, just me personally, I always have a hard time when when you're doing this camera kind of stays facing the same direction, but you have to turn and drive back towards yourself.

07:33 Because then I start to get the turning backwards at first. So it's a little bit of learning curve on that element. But once you kind of get the hang of it all, I think it's like really fast pace and like fun to drive these cars.

07:44 It feels good. And we've seen this mechanic of like being prepared to slow down and turn in games like Mach Rider, where you, you know, all of a sudden you'll know a turn is coming up. But if you go too fast and don't prepare for the turn ahead of time, you'll be hanging out on the edge of the track the entire time. Now, in Mach Rider, you still move forward progression because of the way that it worked here. You wouldn't go anywhere. You would just go off the course and hit the wall. And you can crash that way. Yeah. So in this regard, I think that the way that they've communicated like being delicate about the controls is that if you aren't delicate, you will think that you suck at this game.

08:21 Like it's a very, it's slow to learn, at least for me. I didn't love the controls right away. But because it's so punishing, if you don't take it easy, you're forced to play that way and you do get better as a result. I think this is the kind of game that even on the very first track, if you're not controlling your car the proper way and you're just gunning for like a first place finish and, you know, like, oh, I'm supposed to win every time no matter what.

08:48 That's not going to work out here. I would argue, though, that maybe some of your struggles that you're attributing to the controls and the speed of the game may have more to do with the amount of the track that you see at once. Because it's really, I mean, like they do give you on the track, they'll have arrows pointing in the direction you'll be turning next as a warning. But you only see like a small sliver of the track at one time and a very small amount of room behind and in front of you and, you know, to the top of you and below you.

09:21 So you have to kind of memorize the track before you can get really elegant with your turns. You have to just react at first. And I think that's where a lot of struggles come from.

09:33 Yeah. But that being said, I think that in some of the later races when there's more than one lap, I felt I really felt like I could catch up at the end of it because I had memorized the track after, you know, after two laps of going around. And they're all short tracks and you do get that overhead monitor in the UI below you. But your point, Sean, was going to be my next point about just how much of the screen they show. And I'm sure that's a graphical limitation thing, a processing power thing.

10:02 But for me, I agree that I never quite like overcame that like, oh, the arrows say to go here. So I'll know exactly where to turn on my D-pad when that shows up. It was still kind of like, you know, an instantaneous reaction until you learn the course. The problem being that there are 32 tracks. So, you know, you can't you can learn like a few of them at a time as you continue to play the game often.

10:29 But unless you have an innate memory ability to like be, you know, like picture that stuff in your head, you're not going to remember all 32 of these tracks. More often for me, I was I was remembering specific turns by like the third or fourth sometimes lap of that race. But never like coming back to that track, remembering it from the last time I had that race. It was just second, third, fourth lap. I was like, oh, yeah, this is where that big sharp turn is. And I don't I just I want to be sure. I don't think I'm completely correct here. But I don't think that there are that many permutations of the track layout itself. I think that the later levels just add more obstacles.

11:08 Yeah, I think that even though it says 32, even on the back of the box, I still believe it's like 24. Oh, unique track layout. And then like as soon as that ends, then you kind of just like remix. Yeah. Remixes slash like just straight copies, but maybe in no particular order. Interesting. OK. Yeah. So I think that's a good overview of the car controls and stuff like that. Now let's let's add the AI element to it and have the other cars.

11:41 What's the difficulty like in the game? How hard is it to finish in first place in a game like this? I felt like it was fair. I think that if you play the game the right way, if you play each race the right way, then you can win. And not easily, but you can finish. I mean, fairly easily. And to speak to something that you said earlier, Sam, is that I really felt also that there were a lot of times I was really far behind, but I very rarely felt like I was out of the race. Like I always felt like, OK, it's still possible.

12:12 I can catch up. And there were a few times where I was worried I was out of the race, but just kept playing just to play. And then I was like, oh, they're kind of not that far away from me. Like I can still do this. So they always felt, not always, but frequently felt attainable. Yeah, I don't know the nuts and bolts of the game, but I have to imagine that there's some rubber banding going in there, whether you're trailing or the other computer players are trailing. Because there is a lot of quick catching up, I noticed.

12:46 But I thought that the amount of chaos that the game brings into it, like any kart racer, it was fun regardless of how well I was performing. Right. And sometimes that's the whole appeal of it, right? It are the obstacles in the courses and the weapons, too. Like I think the fact that this has both obstacles and weapons in it from the beginning and understanding that you need those things in a kart racer style game is important to have here.

13:14 Without either one of those, it would feel kind of empty. You know, if it was just guiding through the tracks. Yeah. I think, you know, even someone like me who had difficulty navigating the tracks would still find it very boring if there wasn't like, oh, you got to watch out for that oil spill. Or, you know, or like, oh, I can get in front of the blue guy if I just shoot the missile right at him.

13:36 You know, like there is a sense of like you're never really out of it unless you're like a full lap box. Yeah. You know, if you can see someone, you can catch them. They're never going like, oh, but he's going 200 miles an hour and I'm only going 100.

13:51 You know, like no one's going that fast. And so I think, Sean, I couldn't find any developer interviews, but I do believe that the green and blue cars are specifically tuned to be the easier cars to race against. And that the yellow car is dependent on some variable factors, but will either be incredibly slow or incredibly fast depending on your behavior. Interesting. So I want to bring something up and it's weird to say because I don't, I don't know if it was a glitch or what. This happened on my last race.

14:24 I got lapped, but I was in third place. The other two cars were very near me and the first place was just flying. I didn't notice until after he passed me and my place didn't change. And then I watched the map and he was just flying like double, maybe triple the speed of anyone else. I can diagnose this for you. I was going to save this. I thought I was losing my mind. I was going to save this for later, but we can troubleshoot it for you here. Okay. Was that car the yellow car? I don't remember. It would have to be, but it probably was. But I just wanted to know if you knew.

14:55 And then do you feel like you were shooting an excessive amount of missiles on that particular course? Probably, yes. The game is programmed the yellow car that if you use an excessive amount of projectile weaponry, not just the missiles. There's probably bombs. Yeah. If that counts. Because I was using a lot of bombs. Yep. If you use an excessive amount of missiles or bombs on one particular course, the yellow car will automatically accelerate to 127 miles per hour, which cannot be matched by a player, and you will lose to the first place. Wait. When you say on one particular course, you mean it can only happen on that course? You mean that it doesn't, like, raid you across multiple tracks?

15:36 Okay. Like, hey, now you've done too many missiles. I'm glad you mentioned that because I'm – I was, like – I honestly thought I was going crazy because it was just the only time it happened. Without going too much into the weeds in this one point, I had another theory because I never – I wasn't getting lapped, but I was noticing that if I didn't see the cars in front of me, like, they were that far ahead or that far behind, that the game was just sort of simulating a car going around the circuit and there were no, like, obstacles for them. It was just, like, this is how fast the car would go around the circuit, and I was, like, so that's why they're catching up or that's why they keep going faster.

16:13 So maybe that explains it. Yeah, that's a fascinating thing. I'd love to know that too of, like, how it actually figures out where the computers would be. I imagine it's all just timed.

16:25 Yeah. But if they are, like, in relation to how you're performing, like, that certain cars will slow down if you're being slow and certain cars will catch up if you're being fast, it's kind of weird to think of that being matched to a specific time, but maybe it's just matched to your time on the track. I wonder. Now I'm really curious as to whether or not they account for, like, each other shooting at each other. Yeah, I couldn't – I would be surprised if they did.

16:49 Yeah, yeah, same. And the game ends when you finish in fourth place on any particular track, but you do get two continues, so you don't immediately have to start back from the very beginning. Did anybody get through every single track? I got – so you know how you can spell out Nintendo? Yep. I got to the last D, and then I lost. Oh, okay. The only D. I think that repeats after you complete the word. He meant the only D in Nintendo. Ah. I see.

17:22 You're right. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't get through the entire course. I didn't find that they were getting harder either. I just think I wasn't getting any better. I found they were getting harder. They started to add the walls that would pop up and that kind of thing. Okay. Yeah. And, yeah. But – I guess I meant the AI itself. Oh, the AI itself. Like, that they were getting better drivers. Did you think they were becoming better drivers? No, I think the courses would just change and they would trip me up. Between how many obstacles and different kinds of obstacles that they would lay out and they

17:51 sort of had – before each race, they would give you sort of a rating on how rough the terrain was. I think they were just depending on those variables and determining how difficult the track was going to be. I don't think the AI changed at all. Got it. Yeah. And that makes sense. Yeah. All right. So, obstacles-wise, you have some puddles, some oil slicks, which it's a different fill color, but sometimes it's hard to tell the difference. It's described in the manual as rain squalls. There's very localized storms. Yeah, very localized rain. Like, rain happening right above you in this particular cloud.

18:32 The pop-up barriers that you were talking about, which are very difficult because they chose not to just be walls, but they chose to be walls that will just pop up whenever they see fit. I'm sure they're timed to something, but it seemed to be very convenient to when I was driving around them. Yeah. And then there's those skulls. I never really touched one of those. I thought I was supposed to pick those up. Yeah. What happens with the skulls? I didn't touch them. I don't actually know because I was still in the races that I picked them up in.

19:03 Maybe they, like, cancel out, like... Oh, your power-ups? Maybe. Your tune-up items? Yeah. Maybe. Yeah. I wasn't paying enough attention, I guess. And I do like that it lists the other RC drones, the other, you know, computer players that you're playing against, as items to avoid. Like, don't touch them. Sometimes when your benefit is smashing them. Yeah. Yeah, I was kind of expecting, like, just regular cars to just join in the race and, like, go, don't touch these RC cars, they'll explode. I thought it was just going to be stationary cars that were just left out on the track. Yeah. And not all the items are bad in the game. You can also get some good stuff, too.

19:39 There's the... They call them zippers. I just think of them as accelerators. Yeah. Zipper was just a funny... Like, that's already a thing. Like, we already used that word for something else. Zipper was just... And then there's the, like, line drawing of the roll cage.

19:53 Ah. See, I never... I didn't know what that was until I looked in the manual after the fact. It's a good thing to have, too, because it protects you against the missile or the bomb, I think, like, once. Mm-hmm. And then there's the missiles themselves to pick up. And the bombs, which have a smiley face on them. Yeah. That's cute. Happy bombs. Bombs are fun. Yeah. And ammo, which is just a star. So, apparently, that's what ammo looks like in this universe. How did we... Did you guys think, like... I could have used more, personally, of these things on the course themselves. Not more variety, just more on the course. Which is the one that makes you glow?

20:28 That's the roll cage. Yeah. That's the roll cage. Yeah, like, invulnerability from the missile. Yeah, but if you run into someone with that, it also messes them up, right? But they're track items to avoid. How could that be? No. Because I was hit by flashing guys, and I started... I think if you just get hit by anything in this game, you're screwed. Okay. I wasn't sure if that was the item or not. But then there's also this whole, like, turbo, hotter engine, and sticky tires thing.

20:52 That, like... Yeah, I mean, that's what they call them. I'm not... I'm not saying that you should call it as... These are the things you see between the races, right? Yes. Between the races for your... Like, when it shows your track conditions. And it's, like, fair. Mm-hmm. And it's, like, all right. Yeah, I was referencing that before, and I guess I could kind of notice when... The track had better traction.

21:12 Um, but other than that, I wasn't... I didn't feel as much of a variation in that. Yeah, apparently the turbo is for acceleration, while hotter engine is for, like, overall speed. Top speed. Yeah. Yeah, top speed. I don't think that's how you measure that in real life. The hotter the engine, the top or the speed. I think the hotter the engine, like, the worse the car. That's because we don't have zippers. Yeah. That's why we... Yeah, yeah, yeah. It just needs some zippers.

21:38 Also, there's no real difference in life between, like, top speed and acceleration, too. Like, I guess how fast you can get from zero to 60. Yeah, there is a... No, no, I know. But I'm saying, like, in this particular thing, the game's acceleration is only measured by, like, this treadmill that sends you off faster, you know, because it's running at a higher speed than your car is currently going. Okay. There's nothing like that in real life.

22:03 The treadmill. I guess I don't follow. Yeah, I'm not sure. Yeah. The idea that, like, you know, oh, I'm going 100 and I can get to, like, 160 for, like, a brief moment in time and then back to my normal cruising top speed. Oh, is that what it means? Is that what turbo is talking about? That's what the turbo is for, the acceleration only. I thought it was acceleration as in, like, how quickly you get from zero to your top speed. That's what I understood. It's for the acceleration of the...

22:28 The zippers? You might be great. I think it affects both, theoretically. Like, it affects your zipper because I noticed that your zip, you know, like, when you cross over a zipper, it goes faster. But, yeah, I guess it would also increase how quickly you get to your top speed. That is acceleration. Yeah, which is acceleration. So then there is a real life course for this and you've just watched Mike talk about it.

22:48 It was worth going through the motions, though, for all you guys. And then we have to talk about those Nintendo letters. You brought them up real fast. But it's kind of a shame that you only got them to D. I know. I was so upset. Because there's a thing when you collect the Nintendo letters. There is a reason. Would you like to tell us why, Sam? I believe you get a new car. You get a new car!

23:08 You had a good, like, announcer voice for that. Thank you. You start with what they call the standard truck. And then when you spell out Nintendo, you get the four-wheeler. And then if you manage to spell it out one more time, you get the off-roader, which is the fastest car. I definitely got that off-roader. Nice. And, yeah, that's a cool-looking car just in general, too. It is. See, I only got the four-wheeler, but do all the other cars get them, too? I don't know. I was kind of... I think that's what happened. And I was kind of like, well, why did I go through all that work if we're going to even out the playing field here?

23:42 Well, let me put it this way. I never collected Nintendo either. But I can't imagine a world in which, when you have the off-roader, that it would be a fair fight against a bunch of standard trucks. Well, yeah, but then what's the point of getting it anywhere? What's the difference? Because it looks cool. It's harder. Maybe it's like you're in a new league now, you know? Yeah. And now everyone's faster. You've moved up to a new bracket. Or maybe they all coincidentally collected the Nintendo at the same pace as you. Sure. Maybe. Good idea. They were also collecting. It was a tag team system. You just happen to be the only one to collect. But it just doesn't seem like too much of a beneficial thing if everyone else is going to have it also.

24:19 Yeah, but then if you just win every race easily... Well, yeah, I agree. Why is it in the game? Right. Either way. It's for more skilled players, too. Right. So you think it's harder to use these other... Well, if they are noticeably fast... I didn't get it, so I can't say it. But if it is faster than the regular car, then wouldn't the average speed of each course be faster?

24:39 Sure. Yeah, I guess for that sense, to make it more of a challenge on yourself. When I read it in the manual, I thought it was like, oh, this is an upgrade. It's going to make me better. Joe just wants less features in everything he wants. That's not true. You've got to understand what I'm saying. I know. I totally get what you're saying, and it makes a lot more sense than my acceleration car. It's like...

24:59 Just to put it out there, it's like if in Mario or CTR or this... You hit a speed boost, but everyone else boosts at the same time as you all boost. It's not the same. It's similar. Not the same.

25:35 Not the same.

25:43 Now, I couldn't find anything on development for RC Pro-Am. It is worth mentioning that Rare, the company that is now owned by Microsoft, that made Slalom, a game that we once had Essential, and... We don't talk about that. Yeah, and Sam's like, I have no idea. I've never played that game. I have an inaudible face right now. Yeah. And they also made Wizards and Warriors.

26:05 Okay. So, you know, this is where we're at with them. And now we have this one. And I think we're missing one other that they released earlier in the same year that I can't think of. So, forget that I'm having this conversation. But anyway, what I meant to say was that usually it's pretty easy to find information about these things, but they don't want to talk about RC Pro-Am. So, instead, I was like, well, what are we going to talk about other than the Essential Games list? And I happened to stumble upon Nintendo Fun Club issue number five, where RC Pro-Am is the cover story.

26:35 Ooh. That's a big deal. Like, you know, usually that's reserved for, like, Zelda or Metroid or Super Mario Brothers, but RC Pro-Am gets the cover story, and it's got a cute little, like, illustration of the, like, cart that you will never drive in the game. It doesn't even look like the off-roader. It looks like an actual, like, cart, you know, like, that you would own yourself. And I'm like, wow, that's not even in the game. That's confusing. But it's all worth it because the big cover story is RC Pro-Am. The big difference is RC, and we're not talking cola.

27:16 What a quick way to out-date yourself right off the bat. RC Cola, which was delicious, if anybody's ever had some. Is that not around anymore? I don't think it's really, like, as common as you would find it back then. Like, you know, back then it was, like, up there with Pepsi and Coca-Cola. Now it's, like, good luck finding that outside of the Midwest, probably. But I like the taste of RC Cola. How about you, Sean? I wasn't a fan. Okay, interesting. Too flat? Yeah. Yeah, you need bubbles in your cola. I need the bubbles. Did you ever have any cola, RC? I've never had it. Okay. And you grew up? New Jersey. Yeah, they wouldn't have had it.

27:52 But I'm not going to talk about RC Pro-Am in Fun Club Issue 5 because they don't cover anything different than what we've talked about. Instead, I want to talk about something in the coming soon section. Okay. In the coming soon section, there's a bunch of games that by now we've already talked about. And I'm like, oh, that's kind of weird that they're treating them like they're coming soon when we've played them, theoretically. However, there is one that caught my eye.

28:15 Return of Donkey Kong for the NES. Yes. That barrel-throwing rascal, Donkey Kong, is some kind of crazy. In Donkey Kong, he has Pauline in his clutches. In Donkey Kong Jr., he gets locked in a cage. In Donkey Kong Jr. Math, he knows the score in a math jungle. That's like not really. That's not really what it is. He knows the score. At 3 a.m., the writer's like, I don't know. I don't know. There was a Donkey Kong Jr. Math. Yeah, he actually went to Miyamoto first, and he's like, is Donkey Kong Jr. Math canon? And in Donkey Kong 3, he makes trouble for Stanley the Bugman. And now, Donkey Kong is soon to come back with more barrel-tossing fun. But this time, you're in control.

29:02 Are you video buff enough? What is that? Are you video buff enough to handle the one and only return of Donkey Kong? Watch for it. Maybe this is the only return. And it never happened. But also, what's weird about this, right? Is like, this is what I said I wanted in Donkey Kong 3. Remember? This was a me and Sean only episode. But I said that it seems natural that if in Donkey Kong 1, you're playing as Mario, and in Donkey Kong Jr., you're playing as Donkey Kong Jr., that in Donkey Kong 3, you would finally want to be able to play as Donkey Kong, but instead you play as Stanley the Bugman.

29:41 So this sounds like it would have been great. I don't really know what you would have done because it mentions barrel-tossing. I don't know. Would you have taken out Mario? Maybe you're trying to attack him. Do you think that maybe this is referencing the classics? Donkey Kong classics? So I thought about that, but it is an entirely different game because it doesn't say that you're, you know, when it says, but this time you're in control. Yeah. It sounds pretty new. It's referring to Donkey Kong. Like, oh, he's done all these crazy things,

30:12 and now this time there's more barrel-tossing fun, but you're in control of the barrel-tossing. Does it say that? It says, you're in control. Now Donkey Kong is soon to come back with more barrel-tossing fun, but this time you're in control. I don't know. No, no, no. The but this time implies that you are not controlling Mario anymore or stand a bug freak. You heard the jungle math thing that he was saying before. I don't think this guy's a very good writer. But Donkey Kong Jr. Man is also not in Donkey Kong classics, so why bring that up? Yeah. You fool.

30:43 That's a good point. Also, I found a stub on this on the Mario wiki about unreleased games, and apparently this was mentioned in one other place besides this, Return of Donkey Kong. I would have loved to see it. Who knows if it made it past this stub? Yeah. Someone just wrote, like, oh, we're going to make a Return of Donkey Kong game, and it never happened. But it's worth noting that sometimes when you read these older magazines, you can find some fun announced games that never actually happened.

31:12 I know in Nintendo Power early on in the 64 time of that magazine, they announced, like, Earthbound 64 and, like, had images of it and everything. Were these April issues? No, this was real. And, like, it was shown at, like, a tech demo in Space World or something like that, which was Nintendo's E3. But, like, it's just funny to see, like, when that thing gets to a magazine, that means it's, like, it's coming closer to being a real deal. And everybody was waiting for Mother 64, Earthbound 64, I guess they called it.

31:45 And it never happened. So I think it's just funny when you spot things like this. According to Sean, does any of this really matter if they don't come out? That was a thing that he called out in the Best of 87 episode when I was like, this game said that it was coming out in 87, but it won't come out until January of 88. And you're like, is it breaking news that a game has been delayed in the past? I remember that. So if you didn't listen to the Best of 87 episode, go back just for that moment. It's really fun. I mean, changing the subject, though, I'm very, I'm confused how this game has literally no trivia about it.

32:21 Like, this seems like it was a big enough game to have at least some behind-the-scenes of the developer or some weird happenstance aside from just its appearance in the same magazine issue of Vaporware. Right, right. Essentially, yeah. And that's what's so strange about it, too, is like, you know, if you look at it, it does get a sequel, too, that we'll talk about in a minute. But, like, there's a development stub on the wiki as well, and it just says a bunch of nothing. It's like, the game was originally titled Pro-Am Racing, but then was changed to RC Pro-Am when they added the remote control. That is interesting.

33:00 I guess that is interesting, because now we know maybe that they decided, like, wow, this doesn't really feel like you're driving this car because of the top-down angle. So then they were like, let's just add RC in there. Yeah. I'm fascinated.

33:15 Yeah. So I don't care what you guys say. Yeah, and I don't consider things like, you know, we've talked about David Weiss so many times, because he's always the composer on these Rare games. I don't consider, like, things from him tidbits anymore, because it's like, he's just talking about the music. And to me, RC Pro-Am wasn't like, the music wasn't as good as, like, say, what Wizards and Warriors was bringing.

33:36 It was still okay. It was possible. I think that's not worth talking. The thing is, though, with this, there's lots of sound effects that are happening at the same time. There's the engine revving, and all those take up the music tracks. Right. You know, the soundtracks. Yeah, and I did notice, I didn't notice until late into playing through it, that you also hear the,

33:53 when a car is coming close to entering your screen, you hear their engine. You hear them, voo-oo-oo. You know, whatever you call that. I never noticed. Yeah. But there's that. There's the skidding sound. There's a bunch of sounds that are happening. Well, good sound design shouldn't be noticed.

34:06 Whoa. Look at this guy. Who is this guy? Yeah, who was that? I don't know. He left. Anyway, we have to talk about the sequels and spinoffs, because that's apparently a thing we talk about in every episode when we have them. And this time we have them. There was a Genesis version of RC Pro-Am. It was called Championship Pro-Am. It's basically the same game as the NES version. However, there's five opponents instead of three. You spell out Champion instead of Nintendo.

34:43 And obviously, like the Genesis being 16-bit, it looks better. Did they get rid of the little antenna that told you that they were RC cars? You know, that I don't know. I can look that up while we talk about the next one, but it would imply that if you're losing the RC part, you've got to get rid of that. However, I'm looking at it right now, and to be honest, it doesn't look – yeah, the antennas are still there, and the graphics aren't that much better.

35:10 You know, like for what it's worth, I don't think that that's all that different. Right? Yeah. Maybe a little bit, but not much. No, I mean, it's nicer, but not worth a new purchase. You know, like, oh, I got a – Yeah. Oh, definitely. It's the remastered version of RC Pro-Am. I need it now. It's not like that. Yeah, and then there was a Game Boy version of RC Pro-Am called Super RC Pro-Am. Nothing super about it, though. It's black and white. It's really, really basic. It's pretty much the same game as the RC Pro-Am, but with less detail and portable.

35:47 Nice. So I guess, like, you know, the portable part's nice, but I'm not like – I wasn't dying to play this game on the go. Yeah. Me neither. And RC Pro-Am 2, Roman numeral 2, it's always important, comes on the NES in 1992, so we'll be playing that. The major difference, the only one we're going to talk about for now because we'll cover it in that episode, is that it introduces four-player local multiplayer. Wow. The multi-tap. Finally, yeah, finally, you can play a game with three of your best friends on one NES. I'm curious how that works.

36:22 Well, like what Sean just said, the multi-tap, essentially. But, like, yes, how does it – how do you see it all? That's what I mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought you were talking about, like, how do you plug all those controllers in? There's only two slots. Split screen. Four-way split screen. Well, I mean, because the thing is, if you go off the screen, then you die. Well, I have played games that are top-down racing like that, where if you go off the screen, you do die. Oh, I've never played that game. And then you respawn near the middle. Oh, wow. Well, stay tuned for episode 643, RC Pro-Am 2. And in the meantime, let's cover the rest of this game in our Essential Games list.

36:59 Sam, which way are you driving this list? Every way, because it's top-down. Sorry, that was dumb. It's fine. I'm going to vote this one Essential. I think that we haven't seen a racing game for this system yet. And I think that racing games are a huge and very important genre in video games. And I had a lot of fun with this one. I think that the controls are tight. It introduces a lot of different mechanics. There is – you know, you can fire weapons at each other. You can protect yourself. You can do all the – there's a lot of different variation to it. And I think it's really fun. So until RC Pro-Am 2 comes out, I'm going to say that – Assuming it's better. Yeah, assuming it's better.

37:47 I'm going to vote Essential. All right. Sean? I'm actually with Sam on this. I've had way too much fun with this game. I know that I have my little nitpicks and gripes about its perspective. But I think that it was a breath of fresh air for the system and for just racing games in general. Because while it is an old concept, I still hadn't played a game like it in ages. It reminded me of a time – it was at a party that it was my stepdad's company through. And they had an RC car circuit brought in for the kids to play. And it felt exactly like that to me. So I had a lot of fun with this game. I think that it's unique enough that it deserves a spot on this list at this point. Yeah. In our playthrough of these games. So, yes, I'm voting in Essential.

38:42 All right. Now, it's important to note that in the old rules, that would have made it an Essential game. No longer. But we have all voted that following our best of 1987, that you now need majority rule. So me or Joe must vote it into the Essential games as well for it to be an official Essential game. Joe? So there definitely was a time where I would have 100% voted this Essential. Especially because – I know we said they weren't racing games, but like Mock Rider and Excitebike and Slalom even. I voted Essential. But – oh, actually, I didn't vote Mock Rider, but you know what I'm saying.

39:20 But now looking at it – I do think this is a better game than all three of those games. I enjoyed this more than all three of those games. But I don't think in the context of today – I think what I'm really enjoying about it, what's fun to me about it is in the context of the NES. I'm like, wow, I can't believe they were doing this then because it's cool that they're doing it. But there were still too many – it didn't – it just felt a little too repetitive to me after a while. After a while, I got a little tired of it.

39:46 And for transparency, I played this game weeks ago for the first time and then played it again last night to refresh myself. And as I was playing it last night, I just wasn't as – I just felt like I had done this before. I wasn't as interested in going back. That being said, this I think is another one of my – I think I said this on the last episode, but another one of my – no, earlier episode. But another one of my higher play-its. It comes very close, but I'm just not going to throw it a vote.

40:15 All right. I think that RC Pro-Am surprised me out the gate with like how willing I was to like play ball with like being bad at the game and keep trying. Sometimes when you're bad, especially like in side-scrolling action-adventure games on the NES, sometimes you're just like, oh, well, this is just NES hard and I'm not really going to try my way through it. There's something about RC Pro-Am that felt like it's like, oh, no, you should give this the time to learn it and figure it out. And so I did and I think that while I didn't become like a great player at RC Pro-Am, I enjoyed my time with it a lot.

40:50 In terms of voting in an essential game, I think it's missing a few things to get me to also go over the edge. Most importantly in like the idea of what an essential game is, for a racing game, it needs to have some kind of multiplayer to still hold up today. I think playing against the actual like computer bots, it's not that they, I mean, they have great AI compared to things that we've played against, but it's not all that interesting. They do seem to just kind of like, if you're in their vicinity and they have a weapon, they'll attack you. Otherwise, for the most part, everybody's just driving around this course.

41:25 The courses themselves, I would have liked to see some variety in like scenic differences other than just like this one is this kind of wavy and the other one is this kind of wavy. You know, like they're just like bent around different parts of the track. You know, it would have even been cool to just like do the alphabet or something like that. You know, like I don't know, like, you know, the style of the way the track is, you know, like this one's shaped like an L and this one's shaped like an N. And I don't know how you would do that. They have to start an N somewhere different.

41:56 But it just seemed to be like all sorts of different bend out like turns of how fast you can react in later stages just added more obstacles to make things harder. As opposed to like challenging your ability to beat the other computers, which is what I always think like makes a fun racing game.

42:12 I think like for me, an easy essential games thing is the Mario Kart series. Like what makes those so fun and I'm not saying like why isn't RC Pro? I'm like Mario Kart. What makes those so fun is like the challenge against everybody else and where you fall in like this giant 12 player ranking system where like, oh, you finish second. So this in this particular one, you go up 10 points, but first place went up 16. So it's like, oh, shit. Like, how am I going to catch up in this one? It's like just don't finish and last and, you know, keep playing. And I'm like, oh, I would have liked, you know, some kind of overall point or GP system in RC Pro Am.

42:50 That said, I don't want anyone to think that like because I didn't adapt well to the controls that I'm that this is an essential game. I think like it's for the other reasons. Me not to do the controls was just like my head space not being able to like understand how to control in an isometric layout. Like that just wasn't working out well for me. I wasn't doing the weird turn thing. Whoever said that where like, you know, I think it was you, Joe, where you were talking about like when you turn and you start to think about like going. Screen left is not. Yeah. And you go backwards instead.

43:21 That didn't happen to me. It just at first. It takes a while to get the hang of it. But I think I just had to overall like to better master the turns. I just had to play slower and it wound up making for a less enjoyable experience.

43:32 Wow. So it's not essential. RC Pro Am blew a 2-0 lead. Yeah. Just a tie 2-2. Which is great. I think RC Pro Am should be proud of itself. But I think like, you know, 1988 is shaping up to be a great year. Sure. We've already had some interesting ones with Contra being essential. I think Gunsmoke was the one you were referring to being like a game that you were like, oh, it's so close. That was a while ago. Yeah. That was one you I think you were talking about though. Yeah, it was. Because I just listened to that episode. Right, right, right. So there's that.

44:03 We're not getting, you know, like granted Karnov wasn't great. But I have nothing against like games like Renegade and Ice Hockey and. We should have a nothing against category. Town and Country Surf Designs Wood and Water Rage though. I do have something against that game.

44:21 I think I called, I forgot, I forgot, I forgot, I already. Gunsmoke a golden play it. So I think this would be another golden play it. Now that that's the thing. Okay, I like the idea of a golden play it. But does anybody else like, you know, you two now, do you want to say some more about RC Pro-Am now that you voted in and it didn't make it? Are you sad? There was one thing you mentioned about not having score. But there is like a spot where you can put your initials in with your high scores and that kind of thing. That's true. And you can collect trophies and stuff like that. I like the trophy thing. The trophy case is cool. Yeah. I also like the idea of the knockout racing game. Though it's, you know, very crudely implemented here.

45:06 That game mode does exist in a lot of games. I thought that was cool too. I actually just want to, not even related to the essential games list, I feel like we need to mention, which we did in the whole episode, the fact that when the person finishes in first, the whole race is over. Wherever you are on the track is where you've placed. So if you're in third place, you're a mile away. Oh, me too. I mean, that's how I've gotten as far as I've gotten, but I just thought that was weird. Yep. I think that's all the time we have for this episode of Nostalgia.

45:36 Join us next time for Freedom Force. I know that Joe has personally bought a copy of that game so that he can play it with a zapper. So if you're playing along at home, make sure you understand that you need a CRT for that. Yeah. Joe's going all the way to Buffalo to play this game. Specifically for the play of this game. That's the only CRT that I know of is in Buffalo. It really is the mecca of CRT TVs. Is it the Sony?

46:02 Whatever. Yeah, don't worry about it. Buffalo is the mecca of everything. It's the next big city. The World's Fair 2020 Buffalo. It's going to happen. Anyway. There was a reference you were making. Do we have any listeners from Buffalo? If you are a listener from Buffalo, shout us out with a buffa yeah on Twitter. Just say hashtag go bills and it's fine. Okay, that's fine too, but buffa yeah would be better. No. Yeah, give us both. The Twitter is at NostalgiaCast. We post cool pictures at the end of the time. I've been slacking like crazy, but that's because I have a real job where I have to do a bunch of things. I'm Michael Esposito. You can find me on at Esposito Film on Twitter, and I'll talk to you soon. I'll talk to you soon.