On a very special sixty-third episode of “Barrel Roll! A Video Game Podcast”, Jesse must find his missing son the only way he knows how…

By taking a shower, brushing his teeth, finding a lost teddy bear, and slowly opening a car door. If only he can do it fast enough.

In “What We Played This Week”, Jesse finds out he does not like Heavy Rain. He and Adam have also started up Monster Hunter Tri on the Wii, which they are enjoying (which falls under our “Let’s Play Together” segment). Adam has also picked up Mega Man 4 on the virtual console, so that he can play the game on every conceivable platform. Jonah decided to give the original God of War a second chance after having finished the super-hyped PS3 counterpart. He also played through the new Left 4 Dead 2 DLC pack, The Passing.

In our “Friday Old Games” segment, the guys give Rare’s classic NES racer, R.C. Pro-Am, a try and talk about what it did well and if it holds up.

Then in the news, we discuss lots of Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 details from Captivate, Bionic Commando ReArmed 2, DJ Shadow’s mention in an interview of his involvement in DJ Hero 2, and more.

Join us for the battle against tedium. Heavy tedium.

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Middle song – “Toad Man” from Rockman 4 (Complete Works version)

Outro Music – “Fortuna (Star Fox)” by The OneUps

“Friday Old Games” is a series of articles in which we review a game from the older generations of consoles, share why we picked it, and whether or not it holds up with time.

A lot of racing games came out for the NES, from Excitebike to Rad Racer and everything in-between. There was a surprisingly wide variety of them.

In 1988, Rare threw their hat into the racing ring (OK, that one got away from me) with R.C. Pro-Am, a racing game that revolved around remote controlled cars.

Pro-Am is the first racing game I ever played that incorporating drifting in the game mechanics. Its isometric view lent itself well to having your car spin to various angles when making your way around the game’s windy tracks. There are twelve different track layouts total, but they repeat indefinitely mixing up the oil slicks, water hazards, pop-up walls, weapon placement, and “zippers” (those things that magically make your car go faster).

There are two weapon types, and strangely enough only the player’s car can pick up and use them. Missiles shoot straight out from the front of your car, while bombs drop out the back and explode. If you successfully manage to hit another vehicle, it will be temporarily destroyed.

There is also a temporary shield that all cars can pick up. It makes your car flash, and if another car comes in contact, it will spin out. If a car that is spinning (either from touching a car with the shield or from an oil slick) hits the side of the track, it will temporarily be destroyed.

As you progress, you can pick up upgrades off the track in three different categories; Higher top speed, acceleration, and turning. These take the form of an engine, a turbo impeller, and a tire. While logic would state hitting these at top speed with your car while trying to race would make you crash out, this is an NES game. Instead, you get a short boost of speed and a permanently increased stat for that car.

The other upgrade mechanic is in the form of letters, one appearing per track, that spell NINTENDO. Once all of these have been collected, you and the A.I. cars will upgrade from the standard pick-up truck to the sports van, then to the race car. The race car looks exactly like the R.C. Car I had as a kid, making Pro-Am wiggle that much farther into my heart.

R.C. Pro-Am‘s winning conditions are probably the strangest part of the game. Rather than having all cars race to the finish, the race ends when one car crosses the finish line. As long as you are not in last place (out of four) when that happens, you get to continue on. In addition to this, you get three continues.

I found some interesting info on the game’s AI when researching more on Pro-Am. Within the first 24 tracks, the blue car is programmed to either accelerate or decelerate based on how well the player is doing. The green and yellow cars will stay at a constant speed that is just under the player’s max. However, using a lot of missiles and bombs can trigger the yellow car to hit his “go faster button”, making his max speed much faster than your own.

I’ve personally never made it this far, but if you can get up to track twenty-nine, the three computer cars will start the race off going the maximum, higher than you can ever go, top speed. This changes it from a race to a game of trying to shoot them all with missiles to keep up.

Why did I choose this game?

When Jeremy, my oldest brother, won the Metroid Art Contest in Nintendo Fun Club Magazine, he chose R.C. Pro-Am as one of the two games for his prize (the other was Super Mario Bros. 2).

We used to take turns trying to get as far as possible on our few continues. I remember it being one of the better racing games on the NES and having a lot of fun with it.

How does it hold up?

R.C. Pro-Am is not without its charm, but it is a hard one to go back to. The lack of music (other than a short ditty when you start the race) and constant “tire screeching” noise in the turns really starts to grate after a while.

AI, as mentioned above, is a little goofy and can start to get pretty frustrating in the later levels. While it is fun to throw it in and play a game or two, it isn’t one I could see putting a lot of time into these days.

Way back when, in the early days of the NES, before they even had Nintendo Power Magazine, there was the Nintendo fun club. It is the very one that Doc Lewis recommends that you join.

As some of you know, I also write a comic book with my brother Jeremy. Our comic is not the first time that his art skills have come in handy.

The assignment was simple. Draw a scene from Metroid. This was the original Metroid, back when most people hadn’t even reached the secret ending and found out that Samus Aran is actually a woman. Remember when that was an Easter egg?

Jeremy had been drawing comics for the local newspaper, as one of his best friend’s dad was the owner, so he had been drawing pretty regularly at the time. He was a pretty avid gamer back then as well, as I mentioned in my Scene It review, and decided that he would throw his hat into the ring. Metroid was one of his favorite games at the time, so all the pieces were in place.

He sent in his entry, and a few months later we saw this:

Click to Enlarge

The prize was the NES Advantage and two games of his choice. He ended up picking R.C. Pro-Am (a fun little racing game by Rare), and even though it wasn’t out yet, they let him choose Super Mario 2 as his second game. We were hoping that meant we would get it early, but no dice.

Once we finally did get that copy of Mario 2, we dug right into it. It was such a weird departure from the original, primary because it was actually a reworking of Doki Doki Panic, but it didn’t matter. It was one of those games that, while fairly easy, especially by 1980′s standards, was just fun. We spent a lot of time finding all the hidden shortcuts and mushrooms hidden throughout.

Who knew that one drawing of a bounty hunter fighting a giant dinasaur-lizard would turn into quality gaming time within the Gregory Clan? So I guess the real point of this article is to say “thank you” to Jeremy for picking awesome games for his prizes and for being cool about letting his younger brothers play too.