High Velocity – Mountain Racing Challenge (Touge King: The Spirits - 峠KING・ザ・スピリッツ) is a racing game developed by Cave and published by Atlus for the Sega Saturn video game console . It focuses on one-on-one races staged on circuits made from Japanese mountain roads, featuring Japanese performance cars. It is the first in Atlus’ long running Touge series.
16-525: It was released on November 10, 1995 in Japan, and in North America in 1996. The game offers three core gameplay modes – King Battle, Vs. Battle, and Time Trial – as well as six vehicles and three circuits. In King Battle, players participate in a series of one-on-one heats around each configuration of each of the game's three circuits. The Versus mode allows two players to race against each other in
32-413: A " fog " gradient so objects further from the camera are progressively more obscured by haze and by aerial perspective . This technique simulates the effect of light scattering , which causes more distant objects to appear lower in contrast , especially in outdoor environments. Visibility in a natural haze declines exponentially , not linearly , with distance due to scattering . The colour of
48-516: A potentially unlimited draw distance, possibly due to the larger map size. Grand Theft Auto V was praised for its seemingly infinite draw distance despite having a large, detailed map. Distance fog Distance fog is a technique used in 3D computer graphics to enhance the perception of distance by shading distant objects differently. Because many of the shapes in graphical environments are relatively simple, and complex shadows are difficult to render , many graphics engines employ
64-494: A processor having to render objects out to an infinite distance would slow down the application to an unacceptable speed. As the draw distance increases, more distant polygons need to be drawn onto the screen that would regularly be clipped . This requires more computing power; the graphic quality and realism of the scene will increase as draw distance increases, but the overall performance ( frames per second ) will decrease. Many games and applications will allow users to manually set
80-492: A sequel, Touge King: the Spirits 2 , again developed by Cave. It was never released outside Japan. Draw distance In computer graphics , draw distance ( render distance or view distance ) is the maximum distance of objects in a three-dimensional scene that are drawn by the rendering engine . Polygons that lie beyond the draw distance will not be drawn to the screen. Draw distance requires definition because
96-480: A short draw distance is to obscure the area with a distance fog . Alternative methods have been developed to sidestep the problem altogether using level of detail manipulation. Black & White was one of the earlier games to use adaptive level of detail to decrease the number of polygons in objects as they moved away from the camera, allowing it to have a massive draw distance while maintaining detail in close-up views. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker uses
112-688: A split-screen configuration. As well as being one of the Saturn's first split-screen racing games, High Velocity – Mountain Racing Challenge offers players the option to partition the screen horizontally or vertically. The final gameplay mode, time trial, allows players to race against the clock around an empty track. In all, the game offers three core courses, which can be driven in either standard or reverse configurations. The courses are essentially designed to mimic Japanese mountain roads but are configured as closed circuits. Six cars feature in
128-486: A variant of the level of detail programming. The game overworld is divided into 49 squares. Each square has an island inside of it; the distances between the island and the borders of the square are considerable. Everything within a square is loaded when entered, including all models used in close-up views and animations. Utilizing the telescope item, one can see just how detailed even far-away areas are. However, textures are not displayed; they are faded in as one gets closer to
144-565: The Grand Theft Auto series and Second Life . In newer games, this effect is usually limited to smaller objects such as people or trees, a contrast to older games where huge chunks of terrain could suddenly appear or fade in along with smaller objects. The Sony PlayStation game Formula 1 97 offered a setting so the player could choose between fixed draw distance (with variable frame rate) and fixed frame rate (with variable draw distance). A common trick used in games to disguise
160-461: The developers' attention to detail, however, some areas of the game have lower frame rates due to the large number of enemies on screen. Halo 3 is claimed by its creators at Bungie to have a draw distance upwards of 14 miles, which is an example of the vastly improved draw distances made possible by more recent game consoles. In addition, Crysis is said to have a draw distance up to 16 kilometers (9.9 mi), while Cube 2: Sauerbraten has
176-409: The draw distance to balance performance and visuals. Older games had far shorter draw distances, most noticeable in vast, open scenes. In many cases, once-distant objects or terrain would suddenly appear without warning as the camera got closer to them, an effect known as "pop-up graphics", "pop-in", or "draw in". This is a hallmark of short draw distance, and still affects large, open-ended games like
SECTION 10
#1732782474812192-445: The fact that players can only race against one other car at a time is a major flaw which keeps the game from being a wholly great experience, and scored it three out of five stars. GamePro ' s brief review also deemed the limited number of competitors to be a major flaw, additionally criticized the sound effects, and was more dismissive of the game in general. The game saw strong sales in Japan. On April 18, 1997, Atlus released
208-508: The game. Although none of the cars are licensed, they are designed to look like popular Japanese performance cars of the period. Players can apply various upgrades to the cars to boost performance, and each vehicle is available in different colors. Uniquely for games of the period, High Velocity – Mountain Racing Challenge features a draw distance that nearly always extends to the visible horizon. It also has an optional widescreen mode. A reviewer for Next Generation found many merits with
224-518: The game: "With a top-speed comparable to any of the big names in the racing world, this game earns high marks for being an exciting fast ride. There are also an impressive list of options and technical achievements that go along with the racing action including absolutely no draw-in slowdown, a successful two-player mode (which offers the choice of either vertical or horizontal split-screen), a full list of engine modifications, and an awesome replay feature with seven choices of camera angles." However, he felt
240-507: The light being scattered into the viewing path affects the colour of the haze ; blue under blue skies, reddish near sunset, as with alpenglow . These more subtle details are represented in some graphics. "Fogging" is another use of distance fog in mid-to-late 1990s games, when processing power was not enough to render far viewing distances , and clipping was employed. Clipping could be very distracting since bits and pieces of polygons would flicker in and out of view instantly, and by applying
256-405: The square's island. Islands outside of the current square are less detailed—however, these far-away island models do not degenerate any further than that, even though some of these islands can be seen from everywhere else in the overworld. In both indoor and outdoor areas, there is no distance fog; however, there are some areas where "distance" fog is used as an atmospheric effect. As a consequence to
#811188