Ross's Game Dungeon: TrackMania² Canyon

[@PangolinMontanari]

It wouldn't be an Accursed Farms video if Ross didn't talk at length about the apocalypse.

[@MigranBTW]

If it's a game dungeon, Ross will find something weird and interesting about the game.

[@AleK0451]

good i don't watch them unless he mentions the apocalypse in a 10 minute long tangent

[@phoebeliv9397]

When do you *not* think about the end of the world?

[@38procentkrytyk]

I say it was Aliens who build it after humanity went extinct in Deus Ex like Grey plague.

[@krybling]

i am not saying it was the cars, but it was the cars.

[@walterw8223]

Dark City _"A man struggles with memories of his past, which includes a wife he cannot remember, and a nightmarish world without a sun"_ Ross's Game Dungeon: TrackMania² Canyon _"A man struggles with memories of his past, which includes graphics he cannot remember, and a nightmarish world without shadows"_

[@nsalegit9482]

Which way to shell beach?

[@38procentkrytyk]

Also: Ross's Game Dungeon: ".. with wife who likes Minecraft."

[@walterw8223]

@@nsalegit9482 Go past Saturn and continue that route for around 3565 lightyears... ...or was it the other way.

[@Juhziz]

So, the Dark City is the place where all people being kept by the aliens while all earth surface being repurposed for the race tracks by automatic track building and testing machines after self-teaching roadmaking AI went on without manual stop, built by eccentric billionaire right before the alien invasion?

[@Godzeller3143]

Wow wasn’t expecting a Dark City reference. Nice.

[@sharktasticsarah6274]

“I suppose I could end the video here, but let’s keep going” Ross, at minute 4 of 51

[@ItsAnH]

more like close to minute 5 of 51

[@Gungho73]

Coming back to this, its honestly kinda wild how many times Ross could've cut the footage down and ended the video. "And that's the game! 30+ min in to a 51 minute video.

[@Arkive86]

I've been a part of the TrackMania community for a few years now, so watching this was very interesting! Plenty of valid points here, though I did want to provide some clarifications. First off, TrackMania 2 is *technically* TrackMania^2 officially, but the community overwhelmingly just calls it TM2 as if it were a sequel. The idea behind the ^2 was that Nadeo didn't consider this a true sequel to the original TrackMania games, but did consider it significantly different. All the TM2 games are technically part of the TM2 package as well, which is why they seem to be the same game. The biggest differences are the environment and vehicle; each vehicle performs very differently from its counterparts. The major update which you complain of was the MP3 -> MP4 update. I believe it was an engine update, which is why some old stuff broke. There was definitely some complaints about it, and Canyon seemed to bear the brunt of this. For you, it was the environment, which I hadn't noticed myself. The majority of the complaints actually focused around the car physics, which changed pretty drastically. Nadeo seems to have a habit of performing double-edged actions... On the bright side, Nadeo themselves provide a frozen install of the old MP3 version you prefer: forum.maniaplanet.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=41242&p=284177&hilit=frozen#p283980 You can definitely play classic Valley with it like you do Canyon. You mention TM Turbo a bit. Just to be clear, this game was intended solely to provide a TM experience on consoles; all other (major) TM games were PC exclusives. You touch on the "player expansions" late into the video. These are technically titlepacks, and Nadeo doesn't sponsor any of them officially. Nowadays, you just need 10 registered users to open the pack locally before it can be featured on their storefront thing. I'd recommend looking up the RPG titlepack for crazy environment changing courses, or look for the TMOne titlepacks for handmade updates of the older environments. I believe the TMAll titlepack also allows for splitscreen multiplayer in the latest version (the functionality exists, but you can't access it normally for whatever odd reason). I've never thought about the lore in TrackMania before now. I think I'll be subscribing to your apocalypse theory; the old Desert environment does have UFOs (though that's only in the Nintendo ports)...

[@SnownelVEVO]

You would think a game series that has historically seen player-created maps with *extremely* precise physics would not go ahead and fuck up the physics... I know there's some old TMS and TMU tracks I'd occasionally see on multiplayer that were just always broken because of a physics change and all the regulars warned people about it as soon as the map loaded. Guess Nadeo haven't learned their lesson again.

[@guyincognito7188]

You should probably Email Ross directly to let him know about this, if you haven't already. No guarantee he'll see these comments.

[@ฉันไม่ชอบเพรทเซิล]

Bumping this in hopes that more people see it.

[@Katia_Managan]

Arkive I agree with Guy Incognito. Ross needs to know this before he finishes making his follow-up video. An email is the most surefire way to get his attention.

[@Accursed_Farms]

Thanks for the info, I'll be sure to check out the MP3 update. From an atmosphere perspective, MP4 really feels like a mixed bag.

[@RandomPerson964]

"We're very concerned about people pirating our games" says the industry that kneecaps their own games and puts road blocks in front of the paying customer.

[@Prinz_Kasper]

To be fair, the game was originally only available as a standalone and not on steam and the login/account system is a remnant from that time

[@fireflocs]

"We need to make sure people only play our game legitimately - so let's make it really fucking difficult and inconvenient to play legitimately."

[@YukonHexsun]

Piracy literally needs to be supported in order to preserve history. That fact is insane to me.

[@Wolf_Larsen]

@@YukonHexsun why though? Isn't it logical that by increasing accessability one also increases the likelihood of survival? The Taming of the Shrew also only survived because of illegal copying. The same goes for every single book from antiquity that survived only survived because people made copies for themselves. DRM and "anti-piracy" measures only serve to screw over the paying customer and have no place in art and science.

[@ParasiteDelta]

@@Wolf_Larsen Exactly. See, "piracy" is not only bullshit, but it's a completely inaccurate term. Back in the 90's, once file-sharing became rather popular for things like games, movies, music, and even research papers, companies realized that they were potentially losing out on sales. So, through tons of campaigning and lobbying, they got new laws and legislation passed, including the infamous DMCA that is now abused by people a hundred times more than it being properly used. Just a year or two ago, the EU or UN (I always get them mixed up for some reason) commissioned a report on "digital piracy" and its effects on the economy. And do you know what? After over a year of research and over 300 pages of detailed review, the report came back as inconclusive with the statement, "there is no evidence linking digital piracy to harm within the relevant economy." (paraphrasing, search it up on Elliot!). After that verdict, the EU (I'll go with that) immediately tried to bury the report and its findings. "Digital piracy" is bullshit, it is necessary for preservation and anyone who's even remotely interested in archiving, and the entire black cloud movement was born because companies regretted letting people share things that they legally obtained since it theoretically cut down on potential profits. "Digital piracy" is actually just the act of downloading, and the only reason that it's illegal is that they made it illegal. They've been greedy bitches since the early 90's.

[@randomperson9941]

What I love about this particular game dungeon is that Ross is right when he says you can quit the video after he summarizes it in the first 5 minutes. You *could* just leave and go buy the game for the price of a sandwich. What makes the rest of this game dungeon special is the fact that Ross just goes to town with very minor aspects of trackmania 2. In this 50 minute video, Ross spends only about 15 minutes talking about the main game. The rest is an apocalypse theory, a graphics scandal, and reviewing the other trackmania games. Very little is said about the gameplay at all, and it’s mostly just talking about very small details and digging so far into them he makes what should be an extremely short review into almost an hour of talking. This is why I love this game dungeon episode. It’s also why I love and constantly rewatch the super cult tycoon episode, where Ross shows off his extreme knowledge of cult running. Ross talking at length about random things is my 2nd favorite way to kill time, and it’s extremely entertaining for a boring day.

[@Shiverskill]

For me it's generally the same, but on rewatches I usually end up skipping some sections that get really drawn out on a subject that can be summarized in a few sentences like how the graphics here were changed after launch or how Strife, a pc game from the 90s, wasnt designed for controllers.

[@npc_citizen9276]

I only can say that you had a boring hour to write this comment.

[@Amoth_oth_ras_shash]

true you could....but his comments on how its an objective down grade years after the fact... like a car salesman sneaking in your garage pouring sugar in the tank of the car he sold you a year ealier.. :/ it was so nice to hear them put into words.... its also why i loath the hole ''we give acccesssss style of things like steam'' ....or corps trying to turn products into 'servicessss' :(

[@anonymouseicecube91]

What's your favorite

[@sorrenblitz805]

@@Amoth_oth_ras_shash if that's your thing Ross did an hour long video called Games as a Service is Fraud. Excellent video on the subject.

[@refutonefandus]

"Hi, I'm Ross Scott and here's my headcanon for a racing game."

[@Rycluse]

Ross' mind is an utterly unique one and I'm glad we have Game Dungeon as a way to explore it

[@lemius6154]

@@Rycluse We need more people like him.

[@Nihilvale]

It warms my heart to see that, even after all these years, those scientists in the server room are still bumping their music as loud as ever. (1:33)

[@cola98765]

Oh god I haven't noticed it the first time. Thank you.

[@KleinerVance]

**Sigh** Programmers.

[@AdamBorseti]

@@KleinerVance Who knows what they're doing!? Next time you go in there, you'd better bring some ear protection!

[@mfThump]

once a raver always a raver

[@Max-fn7nq]

friggin baseheads...

[@TsunogaiDanshaku]

The "humans" in the Stadium cars are clearly androids. Or better yet, they're just dummy torsos built directly into the machines.

[@doctorenderdragon4515]

My thoughts exactly.

[@DeHerg]

You have to simulate the proper weight distribution of a human driver, hence the dummies. Otherwise the test wouldn't be accurate.

[@ChadMojito]

yup, thought the exact same thing. can't see their faces. clearly robots.

[@cube3333]

what if it is the last few people on the planet, like mechanics or something

[@doctorenderdragon4515]

@@cube3333 not a bad theory

[@Larry]

Maybe the A.I. cars have speed limiters, and the painted speed strips on the floor disables it for a few seconds?

[@TooMuchSascha]

And the strips in previous titles that disable the throttle could also work as well. Oh yeah, it's all coming together.

[@KaiserMattTygore927]

I like how we're all theory crafting for a goofy racing game lmao.

[@purplegill10]

Fun fact, that's kinda how real life Formula E works. They can freely add in ways to make the cars faster or slower based on whatever conditions they want. The most used way is using something callled "Fan Boost" where if you're voted as the most popular driver then _you can get a speed boost during the race_. This is a real life autosport where they use that exact technology

[@Winasaurus]

@@TooMuchSascha This game is basically a visual representation of machine learning too. Repeating the same thing over and over with tiny tweaks to get the perfect time. You can even watch other people do the tracks which is like showing the AI how it's meant to be done to work from.

[@Winasaurus]

@@purplegill10 Yeah I was watching a Formula E race recently and they were saying how the cars are in a sort of 'slow mode' for most of the track. They could go stupid fast but don't for handling and safety and all that stuff. But they had a section on the track marked as 'attack mode' and they switch the car to that, and can really go wild with how fast they go. Looked crazy seeing these cars pass this arbitrary point and then blast off like they just dropped weights.

[@leftypistolero5983]

"This is a post-apocalyptic game." >Subtle Fallout 2 music kicks in I love you, Ross.

[@dirtfriend]

isn't it the map screen music from FO1?

[@ChadMojito]

@@dirtfriend yeah it is

[@antipsychotic451]

@@dirtfriend Yup. "Moribund World."

[@jamestown8398]

"Don't let anyone tell you you can't have a Mad Max reality!" - 19:25 , Ross encourages his viewers to pursue their dreams.

[@NightOwl1515]

* Ross Scott

[@jamestown8398]

@@NightOwl1515 I corrected it. Better?!

[@ectofrost]

it begins

[@chimerschang]

so heckin wholesome pogchamp

[@theinventor838]

"and once again I get to prove I'm not crazy" -Ross Scott

[@EvillBob]

"Yooouuur craaazy Rooossssss." -Ross Scott's inner voice

[@TheCooldog]

*literally freeman's mind in a nutshell*

[@Karina-winsmore]

"The owls dont spy on you Freeman, you just being paranoid!"

[@Qabra-]

"Trackmania lighting didn't change Freeman, you just being paranoid"

[@IAmPhysics1]

Ross: "and once again I get to prove I'm not crazy." Also Ross: "Don't you see?! I have to blow everything up! It's the only way to prove I'm not crazy!"

[@NotTheWheel]

I want you to know Ross that "Once it becomes as Cheap as a Sandwich" Is my new measurement for value in a game. I thank you for that.

[@VeritasSeek]

SAAAME

[@Gungho73]

I've honestly used this to justify gaming purchases I was holding off of. If not now, then when?

[@Mrbird321]

"Welcome, piggybackbandit !" Keeping the dream alive, Ross.

[@catherinehalsey]

"The developers aren't removing shadows from the game, Ross, you're just being paranoid"

[@AniSky759]

"The developers aren't trying to blind you with bloom, Ross, you're just being paranoid"

[@Aberrant17]

"The developers aren't removing the ground and dropping you out of the map, Ross, you're just being paranoid."

[@tytusgrabowski3145]

Therapist: "The developers aren't real, Ross. They can't hurt you." The developers: [remove shadows]

[@MostlyTriangle]

"The developers aren't removing splitscreen, Ross, you're just being paranoid."

[@WorthlessWinner]

19:00 are the painted speed boost strips that implausible if we're using automated cars? they may be programmed to activate a speed boost when you drive over the strip

[@valettashepard909]

Indeed. Might be something that deactivates the engine speed governors.

[@user-is2zv4sc6y]

I considered that when watching this, too.

[@Rusminin]

Holy shit, future racing is going to be amazing!

[@Wuerfel21]

Seems plausible. Some Trackmania games have engine deactivating strips...

[@GrymeXS]

Not even automated, Formula E added this as a gimmick to the 2019 racing season. I'm serious.

[@HionV]

The actual plot of this game is that there's a general AI in charge of a deep learning AI trying to perfect a self driving race car neural net, and as the neural net approaches a certain point it makes less and less progress, so another neural net is made to build more and more ridiculous tracks to keep the car's AI fed with fresh data and challenges. This all spirals out of control and the humans that made the AI attempt to shut it down, but the AI has figured out that the humans are going to shut it down so instead it exterminates the entire human race so it can perpetually build racetracks and race cars on them forever.

[@CyberLink70]

Wait, ACTUAL plot?!

[@CourierSiix]

@@CyberLink70 you clearly arent a thinker

[@CyberLink70]

[ Soviet Maverick ] What? The guy said that this was the actual plot, but I’ve never heard of any actual plot. If this is meant to be a joke, it isn’t that funny, so of course I can’t recognise it as such. Hey, I’ve heard of games having weirder lore than this!

[@ketrub]

@@CyberLink70 trackmania has no plot

[@CyberLink70]

ketruB So, this guy was trying to make a joke? Oh, fucking hell...

[@NieOrginalny]

11:45 "But we're getting off track now" I chuckled

[@mrfreeman1763]

Same with the "Where was I...?" cut to him in some random area.

[@zoiuduu]

u mean 11:41

[@Xeotroid]

What's up with that ceiling?

[@psychodrummer1567]

also "cutting corners"!

[@elliegray8184]

Wow, flat out removing splitscreen is some real BS.

[@Aldenfenris]

I can't help feeling this is like apple throttling older phones with updates and stuff, slow, sneaky downgrades to make hte game seem worse than it is, so the new stuff is more appealing.

[@Arkive86]

If we're going to be pretentiously technical, then we could technically say that splitscreen hasn't actually been removed. The functionality still exists, but for some unknown reason the option to do it isn't given by default. If you use the legacy menu (older titlepacks like the TM2 titlepack still use it, and some new ones prefer to use it), the option should be presented. Why it isn't available normally anymore is beyond me.

[@PanzerMan332]

Eh that's fine. Splitscreen is kinda garbage on PC anyway.

[@mysterypenguin3]

OH boy, you'll be absolutely thrilled to know that the new 2020 release of Trackmania requires a yearly sub fee of $10/$30 depending on which features you all want. The best part is that Riolu, basically the #1 TM streamer/player (and some of whose clips are shown in this vid) had UPlay go out on him mid-stream which ended up removing all his local times while ALSO locking him out of feature's he's already paid for like the map editor. Nadeo is a fucking joke of a company that would've gone under years on years ago if they weren't lucky enough to have such a unique and fun property under its belt. Trackmania has to be one of the most mismanaged IPs in gaming history.

[@blackshirts_and_breads]

lol

[@SplotchTheCatThing]

You know, I'd almost be inclined to agree with you... except the times I've actually gotten to talk to people from the studio don't really bear it out. For probably the best example, in 2017 when I purchased Lagoon I had this annoying minor little issue where the frontend WOULDN'T RECOGNIZE MY KEY. I talked to Ubisoft support for over an hour before they finally told me there was nothing they could do -- IIRC they didn't even offer to refund, though that might be unfair 'cause I hadn't asked for that. I decided to try and get in contact with someone from Nadeo through the forums before giving up, they responded very quickly and had the issue -- which was a problem with the purchase and *should* have fallen entirely to the publisher in a sane world -- fixed in less than two minutes. Did I mention this was on a holiday? So you can see it's a little harder for me to go "oh Nadeo just doesn't care" after having an experience with them like that, and more besides. I will at least admit that what they say with their actions doesn't often seem to make a lot of sense. I've no clue why they decided they needed to add a day-night cycle into a game where all but the absolute longest levels are over in less than two minutes, for example. Where they knew none of their own levels would use it. And when they knew it was going to break a lot of older maps. Almost 100% sure, though, that the 2020 "Trackmania" was done entirely with Ubisoft leering over their shoulders. It's fairly clear that ol' Nads were given a whole lot of freedom when it came to making Maniaplanet, and it's also fairly clear that it didn't bring in as many sales as Ubi was asking them for. I imagine they'd have been leaning on Nadeo preeetttty hard to come up with some ideas that would get the cash flowing a little freer. And honestly I've given it a try... probably not going to renew. Stadium was never my favourite to drive and the new art style just looks... ugly, to me. Makes me feel like an otter trying to run a rat maze -- it might be stimulating, and the new mechanics might even be fun, but I can tell at a glance I'm not the thing it was made for and I don't belong in it :) Honestly pretty sure Trackmania Turbo was mostly Ubi's child as well -- but at least that one wasn't a downright terrible idea.

[@White_Tiger93]

That's... BULLSHIT!!

[@savageduck2613]

Its more Ubisoft then nadeo

[@reptilez13]

How is it not on Ubi? The PC version is insane the last I played it. No options, including controls or sound among tons else, with an insane pricing model...

[@hexenh]

Hearing Ross talk about Half-Life just feels so weird

[@tylenol562]

Agreed! I'm like Freeman's Mind right?

[@KingLich451]

he even uses Freeman's Mind footage :D

[@Chud_Bud_Supreme]

Like Gordon Freeman is breaking the fourth wall

[@hexenh]

@@Chud_Bud_Supreme ikr, meta as fuck

[@iug5672]

Although it's not as weird as hearing him talk about Minecraft

[@GUILLE832]

Ross starts divulging his theory about the apocalypse and Fallout's soundtrack starts playing; nice.

[@Jak239JC]

Man Fallout has one of the best Apocalypse soundtracks

[@sqly3129]

i thought im going crazy when i heard that!

[@GUILLE832]

@Anders Munk I think I might even be able to identify off the top of my head the track I'm referring to as the one that sounds in the camp of the Khans in Fallout 1.

[@itaybron]

Hell yeah dude!

[@warmongerous]

"I couldn't find the magic" That's cause you're playing the wrong game Ross. Terror in Christmas Town has you covered there.

[@lucasf6946]

He couldn't find the magic there either, though.

[@TheSmart-CasualGamer]

He should have remembered to touch the *pole.*

[@gamesandglory1648]

@@TheSmart-CasualGamer exactly when he touched the pole in the first game in the area that shows what he will pick up if he pressed the pickup button showed the pole so he had to press the pickup button.

[@gsilva220]

Trying again and again to to get a millisecond faster is exactly what AIs do. The post-apocalyptic theory holds up. And about the pilots in the cars, we never see their faces. They could be robots. About the Games as a service thing, I hope it reaches a saturation point, and a bubble happens, like in the early 80's. We need to weed out this business model ASAP.

[@KaiserMattTygore927]

THIS. I'm hungry for an industry crash.

[@IriomoteYamaneko]

An expensive fitness function ran in millions of unpopulated parallel universe Earths for billions of trials, all to bring you the next year's model of the consumer-grade self-driving stunt car.

[@YukonHexsun]

@@KaiserMattTygore927 The best part about an industry crash, is that we are in the exact position for the indie gaming industry to jump into the vacuum. Seriously, an actual crash of gaming just isn't going to happen, it will be a segment of it, and in this case it'll be AAA publishers and hopefully mobile games. I don't see it actually happening but god I would love it.

[@ineednochannelyoutube5384]

@@YukonHexsun It is going to happen, sooner or later.

[@Lex-dw7ng]

Not a geography expert - but seeing the way you float through the air without totaling your car, I'm gonna say you're on a post-terraformed Mars

[@Soldier3856]

"Damn, this terraforming shit is really working. Mars looks like Europe or some shit. Science, fuck yeah!"

[@ENCHANTMEN_]

I'd love to see a racing game that takes place on different planets, or even one in zero-g where you need to keep up your speed to avoid drifting off the track

[@adenowirus]

Well, the online service is called "Mania Planet". My guess is that the game actually takes place in the far future, when some nonillionaire enthusiast of early 21st century automobiles had an entire planet terraformed for his race tracks, and then abandoned the project due to some unknown circumstances. That would explain the durability of the cars and impossible tracks. Maybe the planet isn't even abandoned at all and there are microscopic cameras all over the place.

[@RAFMnBgaming]

That would kind of make a lot of sense, except i checked and there's a big moon in the Skybox, and that thing's way too big in the sky to be either Phobos. But here's the thing: Mars used to have a third moon that was a lot closer to it, so close it eventually passed the Roche limit and broke up. Things are starting to make sense now. This game isn't set *After* the apocalypse on Earth, this game is set *Before* the apocalypse on Ancient Mars. Now this is just my opinion, but i think what must have happened is that some alien conversationalists were watching us and noticed our Mars ecosystem was about to collapse, for whatever reason, so they just beamed everything that looked important up and set about transplanting us onto ancient earth. I wouldn't be surprised if they were the lizard people who've been steering our culture since time immemorial to try and get us back to where we were culturally, that would explain the flags. There's also the matter of why they took people, things people were driving and most animals but apparently forgot about some birds, racing drivers and robot cars, and i think the answer lies in the robot cars. I mean come on, you're transplanting the population of an entire planet onto another one, there's no way these aliens did that by hand. Now if you only have so much space on your... space... noah's ark, then obviously you don't want to pick up a bunch of robot cars, or like a bunch of sterile cooking eggs. So the system they must have been using probably had a handful of intentional blindspots for certain mechanical and biological forms, that ended up making a bunch of unintentional blindspots for, for example, a man in a racing driver suit, or a clutch of bird eggs that haven't had time to grow a fetus inside them yet. Like i said, it's all starting to make sense.

[@bilateralrope8643]

@@adenowirus Maybe we are seeing the tracks between when the robots building them but before any humans showed up. Well, that or post-apocalypse but some robots cleaned up anything that didn't fit with the billionaire's plans.

[@alexanderchippel]

This game is like if the guy who removed the Demoman's bottle breaking from TF2 made a game.

[@theguardian8317]

it's not a guy. It's because of the hats and all the macro-transaction crap that developers have to downgrade games or they would be unplayable if they didn't get a decrease the quality of polygons, textures, lightning, etc. Remember "Team Fortress 2" wasn't designed to have hats or lootboxes. All that was added later so obviously the engine needed to be re-done. A similar thing happened with "Rainbow Six Siege" where they had to reduce lightning effects and other details because of all the crap the game has now. I'm pretty sure it's a similar thing for the Trackmania games. I've never played this game but I bet they either had to downgrade to use the same engine for a console game or for a later expansion that had more stuff in it that the game was designed for.

[@Demiglitch]

@@theguardian8317 A man still had to make that decision about what to sacrifice. Don't blame a concept, blame a man and kill his kids.

[@Jessica-el5yx]

@@theguardian8317 Actually the bottle breaking issue was caused by the change of how most weapon models work, a shift from view/world models being separate to a universal "c_" model type.

[@GrizonII]

Scrap And it’s been fixed since then anyway.

[@Jessica-el5yx]

@@GrizonII True, and the world is all the more happy for it.

[@victorkelp5154]

Ross "We'll talk about that later" Scott strikes again

[@handsomebrick]

more on that later

[@glitchedoom]

Ross "The Admiral" Scott

[@powerman923]

I'm sorry everyone.

[@LabMatt]

So that's what the W means!

[@DivineAdversity777]

*more on that later

[@BunkerDweller]

Hey Ross. You mentioned your conspiracy theory about devs updating their games to look worse in order to make the sequels look even better in comparison, well I think I know of a time this has kinda happened. Unintentionally, (I hope) and in a different way, but definitely the same idea. I'll help brush up your history since most people don't seem to know this story as well as us within the Halo community. Halo Combat Evolved (2001), for the original xbox, was a very graphically impressive game, with two distinct features that made it stand out at the time: bump mapping and animated transparent textures. To sum it up, it had very detailed bump maps on its textures (stuff like metal and rock looking hyper detailed), along with some great well animated transparent texture-work (stuff like flowing plasma energy that had a lot of detail). Halo CE was eventually ported over to the PC in 2002 and Gearbox, the company porting it, did a really sloppy job and essentially got rid of these two graphical features, along with a whole host of other stuff (some of the worst being straight up changes to AI behavior). The end result was a botched port of the game that looked worse in every aspect, and given how this was 2002, no updates were ever made to fix this problem. Anyways, fast forward to 2011, Microsoft published a remake of the original game, Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary (they literally sold the same game for 60 bucks, I know). The gimmick of the game wasn't just that it was bringing the old game to the 360, but it introduced two separate engines running side by side, the original and a newer one with modern graphics. The gimmick was that you could switch between these two engines in game, being able to see the old graphics compared to the new graphics, and Microsoft essentially used this to show off the graphical prowess of their console. However, the original graphics weren't the original xbox graphics, instead they were the botched PC port with broken texture-work and missing features. Instead of comparing Halo CE as it shipped to Halo CE Anniversary, they only used the downgrade of Gearbox's Halo CE, which was much less graphically impressive than the original game was. So, to this day, in 2019, the new remake is essentially comparing itself to an unfair representation of the original Halo CE. Even with the game available on the Xbox One (and eventually on PC), it is the same graphical downgrade version that was ported to the PC in 2002, not the original version. It's literally taken 15 or so years before modders were finally able to restore the original version on PC (a long-time project called Halo Refined), which goes to show how a game as famous and popular as Halo can basically get buried and memory-holed so easily. I'd definitely recommend people to check out LateNightGaming's Combat Evolve Downgrade video just to see a comprehensive list of all that was changed. But yeah, this stuff is definitely going to happen more in the future.

[@ShellyHerself]

Hello. Someone from the CE community here. I'd like to touch on this for a moment. The game graphics were mostly broken due to limitations of computers at the time. An Xbox was essentially just better than most computers back then. So as part of the porting process a lot of the game's shaders had to be rewritten to deal with the new limitations. Reading through code comments on the uncompiled shader files I see that they had a bad time doing this. Including a comment that literally says "we're doomed", and another that says "this sucks", and yet another that reads "this is wrong". I have confirmed that all the ones I found were an actual product of limitation and could not have been fixed at the time. Sadly, the shader syntax changed drastically between Xbox and actual DirectX, so some actual paid work would need to go into this if they actually want to fix this for MCC. The bump map problem seems to be an issue with it using the wrong shader, but I have not found a way to make it use the right one. I might just code a new shader one day, and make it be another pass at the end, would almost be easier. Also, as far as I know, no AI behavior changes have been documented. I have heard anecdotes, but those all sound like people mistaking correlation for causation and misremembering. We have had extensive research and comparing between the PC and Xbox versions to check all this stuff. I have looked at decompiled gamecode and not found changes related to AI and object behavior. (Not all of the code obviously, because it's a lot)

[@theatomiclemon1]

@@ShellyHerself Sorry, MCC?

[@ShellyHerself]

@@theatomiclemon1 Master Chief Collection, it has a port of the port that the person I responded to was talking about. And when it comes out on PC, it will have a port of that port. So, it will have a port of a port, of a port, of a port. Anniversary on Xbox 360 is not maintained anymore.

[@theatomiclemon1]

@@ShellyHerself Thanks for clarifying!

[@vantuz8264]

I doubt Ross reads YT comments. Send him an e-mail with proof and links, cause this sounds interesting.

[@Toner_Cartirdge]

This is one of my favorite game dungeons, so rewatchable. Ross is at his best when he can ramble like this and be so compelling.

[@vahlok1426]

Gordon Freeman talking about Half-Life sounds so meta.

[@Ails1234]

Obviously, Trackmania is a prequel to Pixar's Cars

[@haruhisuzumiya6650]

the remake version i bet

[@gsilva220]

Makes a whole lot of sense

[@liquidjungle123]

This makes perfect sense Like after a while the automated cars became sentient and started to re-manufacture cars.

[@GF102463]

32:50 The one that stands out in my mind (that got objectively worse visuals despite it being the same game) is Team Fortress 2. You used to have console commands like mat_picmip 10 so that you could get ridiculously good texture resolution and details, basically approaching the quality of Valve's own Source-Filmmaker-Meet-the- videos used, yet you were playing the game live with other players. Additionally there used to be different viewmodels for 3rd person and 1st person guns, but that got merged down to a single unified viewmodel. Apparently all these changes were done for the sake of optimization and framerates, but I still miss the detail levels, the original-release phong-lighting, and exaggerated first-person view models we used to have.

[@StarkRaven59]

I personally hold that TF2's condensing, changing the voice files from .wav to .mp3, and in general screwing with and downgrading everything had so much to do with making more space to cram in more cosmetics.

[@Solifuga]

well, tf2 looks worse than ever today AND it performs like shit. The optimization is nonexistent. What's their excuse? lmao

[@brandemon6667]

@@Solifuga Yeah i remember running it 60 fps at mid with a GT 610, now i have a rx 580 and it runs and looks worse!

[@xFluing]

You still have phong-lighting... Which I turn off anyway.

[@ParappatheRapper]

I was going to say this but of course someone else already has. It's a damn shame. Does anyone know if there's a mod to return TF2 to it's former glory?

[@prince_sylex]

34:00 Don't doubt yourself. Those can be mannequins to optimize the air pressure or mimic humans. Who is not to say that the mid life crisis billionaire was not using dummies for prior testing of those tracks. Believe in yourself, ross!

[@garretneal1875]

Or maybe they are humanoid robots?

[@guyincognito7188]

Hell, for F1 style cars, you could justify it by saying the head/torso of the driver is part of the aerodynamic profile, so to properly replicate the original such a mannequin is necessary.

[@CubicApocalypse128]

@@garretneal1875 This, they're androids.

[@snakinatrix4435]

All bases covered. This Ross Theory is safe. The most far fetched idea being that it's a purposeful glitch in the AI environmental awareness to discourage them from hitting eachother for the "value of human life" that is also, itself, simulated.

[@HypnotizeCampPosse]

yeah, those humanoids don't look very lively to me. Ross, I wasn't even convinced your theory was wrong with the counter evidence you presented. You're theory is still safe, to me.

[@Matias_Sosa_Music]

Normal Gamer: "Trackmania is a game about racing" Ross: "Trackmania is a game about post apocaliptic A.I. driving cars"

[@ItsAnH]

A.I.*

[@Matias_Sosa_Music]

@@ItsAnH i'm a spanish native speaker. That's why the confusion happened

[@ItsAnH]

No problem

[@Leadhead]

"We're getting off track now" Gordon would punch you in the mouth for saying that

[@somemadman262]

Wait, don't I know you from somewhere?

[@noegarcia7491]

LEADHEAD! I love your videos! Of fucking course you're here lol

[@AntonNidhoggr]

31 august 23:59, Ross: "It's summer!" Ok, I let it pass.

[@58metzger]

My thoughts exactly when he said it

[@-Keen-]

Summer goes until September 21st. :)

[@Myzelfa]

It's 96 goddamned degrees outside, I'm not going to argue.

[@guyincognito7188]

watching from Australia: "I believe you Ross"

[@TechnologicallyTechnical]

Generality Here in NY it was 57 degrees the other day. Not okay.

[@Dex916]

Glad to see you're still keeping the Piggy Back Bandit alive and well.

[@Jake_Eyes]

Personally, I believe the civilizations in this game's universe were wiped out by the cataclysmic event of the developers not feeling confident enough in their abilities/budget to animate realistic human beings.

[@notinspectorgadget]

How deliciously meta.

[@unfa00]

Pedestrians in a racing game where you reach ludicrous speeds and smash into stuff would be a problem. Both for the ESRB rating and for keeping the game's physics and gameplay deterministic. So humans would need to be behind indestructible. Always. Also crowds can get expansive to render, not to mention producing the assets and programming them. They could also be a distraction to players. I think the main motivation was gameplay and resource management. The game wouldn't be really better with bystanders outside of immersion, but performance could suffer. And in this game a dropped frame could mean your time is ruined.

[@canyonshankle1588]

As someone who's name is actually Canyon, it feels strange hearing one of my favorite KZbinrs repeatedly say it. "I like Canyons" -Ross I like you too Ross, you're a great guy!

[@mementomori5580]

I guess you're not from an english speaking country and it's just coincidence that your name sounds like the english word "canyon"? Because, otherwise: wtf kind of cruel parent names their child "Canyon"???

[@herbion6117]

@@mementomori5580 probably it's his last name.

[@canyonshankle1588]

@@mementomori5580 No that's my actual name, my dad got drunk and thought of it out of nowhere. And I like my name thank you very much.

[@NoeLPZC]

@@canyonshankle1588 I hope you're a dude, because a girl having a name like "canyon" is... unfortunate in more ways than one.

[@Phaota]

Sounds like something the South Africans would do to their kids by naming them after everyday objects. Table, chair, bench, ladder, etc. Trevor Noah talks about this in one of this comedy shows. Canyon would be fine as a surname, but I just don't see it as a first.

[@marshmallowmonster7731]

"I'm gonna buy this as soon as it becomes as cheap as a sandwich"= Exactly my way of buying games.

[@ghoulsarefree]

who buys sandwich? what does a sandwich even cost. just buy a loaf of bread weirdos

[@MrStephenRGilman]

Heck, that’s my philosophy towards buying consoles!

[@dirtfriend]

@@ghoulsarefree between 5-12 dollars, depending on what route you go

[@marx4538]

@@dirtfriend whaaaaaaa a loaf of bread is cheaper

[@HYPERMASCULINE]

Just torrent your sandwich for free

[@FrostyBeep]

25:20 Funny seeing Riolu showing off a "one in a thousand chance shortcut" when he's been shown to have cheated records in TM games.

[@Supreme-Emperor-Mittens]

*PLAYS A RACING GAME ...* *LOOKS FOR VIRAL OUTBREAKS, ALIENS & APOCALYPTIC EVENTS.* Yep, definitely a "Ross" video alright - lol

[@thatguythisguy4247]

What would happen if he played carmageddon a sorta apocalypse if you get the censored versions or motorstorm apocalypse, race game set during a mega quake. He delves into the small details and just ahah it was the oils manipulating it all the time, this isnt man made, its owl made

[@haydem0823]

“We’re getting OFF TRACK now” Oh ross, you sleigh me

[@Jagerbomber]

Merry Christmas

[@Uzarran]

"On sale for the price of a sandwich..." Why does this speak to me so deeply?

[@timprimetal5380]

12:30 I get the EXACT same feeling in Portal 2, for some reason. Especially in the old Aperture levels. "What's behind that door? What's down that catwalk? What does all this stuff do?"

[@nackskott12]

I get that big time with Half-Life 2, Soulsborne, the Legacy of Kain series, and most of my favourite movies and shows. If something makes me want to climb inside the screen and see more of the world, then I almost certainly love it. This is why I want more games with exploration as the main focus. Give me a good world with good level design and I'm sold.

[@TheJayson8899]

Dong Dong Will Never Die Thief and Deus Ex would do you good

[@freegamers97]

@@nackskott12 watch "Dark City"(BUT ONLY DIRECTORS CUT). go in blind

[@Blayzeing]

I got this massively in Portal 1, but Portal 2 didn't quite have enough of that atmosphere for me I think. Still a great game, but I wished it gave me more to think about like that.

[@craigteanelson176]

@@Blayzeing Agreed. It was so lonely and the music was so atmospheric. The only dialogue was mostly pre-recorded so you feel truly alone and wondering what happened

[@Gabri_Lovecraft]

Had a long day, had a ton of work to do, and the second I get to relax, a new Game Dungeon is out, and ITS AN HOUR LONG. Today is a good day.

[@jackcravford8744]

One of the rare moments, where i enjoyed every second of really long video. You have great voice dude, charismatic and lot of flexible use of words. It was relaxing almost to watching this video.

[@ferdinandhumperdinck165]

Kinda agreed. Especially since it madee rber trackmania and the te insolent with it. Still, your articulation and breath to speech relations could be better.

[@gurriato]

I'm sorry Ross, but mid-air control is real and an important aspect in some specific motorsports, like super trucks or motocross. By transferring the rotational inertia of the wheels to the frame of the vehicle it is possible to alter its rotation and land a jump in a more favorable position. This is the first link I found about motorcycles: www.leelikesbikes.com/using-brakes-in-mid-air.html There's also a hardcore PC car racing simulator called Automobilista that features trucks and it requires you to control your jumps that way to get the best times.

[@TheAlison1456]

Damn, I thought you were referring to Auto Modellista (cel-shaded, gamecube) and I was confused for a sec.

[@sideslick1024]

That mid-air control is also found in iRacing, via the offroad trucks and rallycross cars.

[@blacklabbby]

rally cars do it too

[@hansyolo8277]

Yes, but not in these types of cars. Source: raced offroad (on dirt, lots of jumps and air-time) RC buggies and truggies (truck buggies), on the buggies this was still a factor, but hardly even 30% as effective as it was on the truggies. The reason being the surface area compared to the weight of the vehicle. The Truggie tires were about 3x bigger than the buggie's tires and carried more inertia compared to the weight than the buggies did. And while the truggies were bigger and heavier than the buggies, it was maybe 30% heavier and 25% bigger, while the tires were 300% bigger than the buggies' tires. The buggies are a pretty decent analogue for cars, and the truggies are a pretty good analogue for trucks. Not 100% the same, but good enough for government work.

[@mustaNd2733]

@@TheAlison1456 Thank you for showing me that, my wishlist is one game longer

[@LenkyLad]

25:24 now that's a callback I didn't expect, that's the same music that was played in Freemans Mind Episode 2 when freeman opened a door only to be greeted with this song blaring into his eardrums

[@thomasdanforth766]

TURN DOWN THE MUSIC YOU FREAKIN BASE HEADS!

[@Halfpipesaur]

You can briefly hear it as well at 1:32

[@TheOdst219]

I think this place is next door to Black Mesa.

[@Shushkin]

That would actually make sense. It's a time after the nihilants invasion, but before the combine. So black Mesa has their own version of glados. Instead of killing off it's test subjects, the ai just wants to build and test new tracks.

[@TheFormHater]

37:35 Is that a mono Nokia ringtone in the background that gets cut off?

[@leoteal7161]

Yes! Probably Ross's old Nokia. He showed in one of videochats his phone and it was old brick-ish one. Not one of those modern PoS smartphones.

[@SWSe2]

Might also be a car horn playing this melody - At least I know from other games in the series that you can have silly/custom horns bound to a button.

[@idogtv]

I was just scrolling down to see if anyone else asked about this. Wasn't sure if it was from Ross's voice recording or something else.

[@alvinulv]

@@SWSe2 I'm pretty sure it is, riolu used horns like that pretty often in the old WR runs. Not sure if he still does

[@leoteal7161]

@@akoyash9964 i'm not retrograd who hates all technology. I just don't like what currently goes with "smart" devices.

[@michaelmccarty1327]

KZbin, do you know why I'm watching this video? It's not because it came up in my notifications, which it should have as one of my subscriptions. I'm watching this video, a day late I must add, because I realized I hadn't seen Ross in a while and visited his site. I almost missed a Ross Game Dungeon because you didn't notify me!

[@therealyaddayaddaman7353]

KZbin almost never notifies me anything, I just routinely shuffle tru my subs to see if there's anything new.

[@PosthumanHeresy]

Hey, I didn't even know this video existed until today and I've been subbed for literal years. I remember when Game Dungeon was new. I remember when Freeman's Mind just broke into the double digits. How did I miss this?!

[@HevyMetalMay]

"I just wasn't finding the magic." Can't believe I didn't catch that the first couple of times

[@ihavenoson3384]

He inserts tons of those into his non-sequitur phrases. E.g. "more fuel" is reference to The Last Stand: Dead Zone

[@DACopperhead2]

"This was supposed to be postiive" "Well, we've found more clues for the apocalypse." Man Ross, I'm glad we brought the mood up, thinking about mankind vanishing and leaving behind automated tracks is far less depressing than GaaS.

[@Matsilagi]

(Please try to boost this comment up guys, its useful info) I think i can see where you are coming on the graphics ver, so imma try and summarize why it changed: Back at the old version (ManiaPlanet 3), the Moods (times of Day) were all pre-computed, which means they had fixed light / color values, while ManiaPlanet 4 has those to some extent, they added the Time of Day effects they used on the trailers (Which were just well-made film editor transitions) in the real game, so that kinda limits the shadows and lighting flexibility, but explains why MP3 looks better instead of MP4, THAT might be also why the game looks more bloom-y, they had to change the postprocess stuff. MP4 was a bit unpolished indeed, some of the features (Splitscreen and stuff) were cut for no reason or due to the lack of time, we (the community also ain't sure why) Yes, the physics changed between versions (Saw you saying that on Valley), Valley is much more stable on dirt on MP4 than on MP3, its easier to drive. Due to the changes on the engine, some shadows and blocks from the other tracks may disappear because the generation of those changed (Adding of Custom items, ghost mode, mixmapping) Textures are available for download, i luckily backed them up so the old textures work on the new ManiaPlanet (Even on Valley, it doesn't change much but its there) Very High shadows have been removed likely because of the black reflections bug (Those caused some black squares to appear on Turbo, now i don't remember if its Very High SHADOWs or REFLECTIONS which caused that) They probably made downgrades to favour pro players (more FPS is better for a game like that) tl;dr : MP4 is a mixed bag, some things MP4 did better (Expanded mod support a bit, added the old cars , allowed for more customization), but some things MP4 did worse (No splitscreen / local MP, interface changes, visual changes on the environments). Any other questions you have, feel free to ask here. Note that im not trying to defend them, im just here to clarify those "tricks" you mind played during the vid Ross, which aren't tricks but straight up stuff that changed indeed. BTW, i think you can still run ManiaPlanet 3 legit offline, but i need to search more on that, i also miss a lot of its custom packs (Especially Canyon RAID, that one is special).

[@lucasm20]

You could write an entire wiki on it holy fuck

[@TheAlison1456]

Lol, they removed very high shadows instead of fixing the bug? Goddamn, that's some good work right there. Btw, the downgrades makes no sense for pro players - they can just turn the settings down themselves (which is what they *already* do); if something was to be done to help those players, it would be to downgrade the lower settings even harder, or optimize the performance on graphics settings across the board.

[@purplegill10]

@@lucasm20 As a trackmania player since the Sunrise days, trust me it gets WAY deeper than that. The people that run the biggest custom track servers are practically trackmania historians with how much they know about the game (and how much they can push the game to its limits)

[@lucasm20]

I can't tell whether Trackmania or Sonic has a more dedicated fandom

[@purplegill10]

@@lucasm20 You'd be shocked

[@dragan2324]

Something harmonized in my brain when Ross compared "the pursuit perfection" to existential horror. Some neurons lit up and said "YES, EXACTLY, THERE IT IS" Edit: Ross' talk about games being updated to look worse is pulling me back into my psychosis about CS:GO. I had CS:GO since before it's first operation and before it's first paid skins, and to this day I swear the default weapons looked better before they added skins. My memory is that there was an update some weeks or months before the first case series came out, and in this update they changed at least a few of the guns to look crappier. My only good outstanding memories are of the MP7 and the Nova in particular being made to look worse, with the Nova being changed from a nice semi-glossy black to the current duller mismatched color thing it is now, and of the MP7 having more vibrant/newer looking red markings for the fire selector. Now, a friend of mine has told me that all I need to do is download an old build of CS:GO (which is completely possible and not unreasonably hard to do) and cross check the old textures with my memory, but part of me doesn't want to check out of fear that I will turn out to have been an insane man this whole time, and that they never changed the default skins. The other part of me says "that takes too much time and effort and you already hate the game anyway." They did, however, update CS:GO to be worse by removing the ability to chat with both teams in casual matches. That accelerated my loathing of the game by a lot. Since then, casual matches just feel cold and dead now.

[@marx4538]

The downgrade was probably done for the same reasons as TF2 - due to cosmetics and other added features and details being highly detailed, the game wasn't very well optimized, so they probably did the same thing and just downgraded all the base stuff. So don't worry, you're probably not insane.

[@Dudebox64]

I mean, the 'pursuit of perfection' as an existential horror concept was basically already done with Slaanesh, so it's a fair comparison

[@ExValeFor]

4 years later OP has been thoroughly vindicated by the release of CS2. Shit wasnt even subtle this time, they removed all non-generic player models to keep paid skins and nothing but paid skins

[@dragan2324]

@@ExValeFor Yeah, fuck that game. Time to find fun elsewhere

[@MinecrafterPiano]

Ross, I think you'd REALLY enjoy TM Stadium's RPG mod and the maps that are done with it (Basically what you described at 39:50). They're quite beautiful. Search ""Eleum Londor (Trackmania RPG)"" on KZbin - I think you'll love it

[@jonathanlivingstonseagull3062]

Talks about an apocalypse, Fallout music starts playing. Ross, you rascal.

[@LambderFTW]

11:42 "[...] but we're getting off-track now." That's... why I'm here...

[@Shifty989]

>see all the downgrades Oh, Ubisoft!

[@zomg1337h4x]

*puking noise*

[@lionocyborg6030]

HIT THE LEVER!

[@Slysheen]

*Barbarian scowl* BUM DUM BUM DUM BUM!

[@herobrinesapprentice]

Why companies say they're removing Split-Screen: "Well, the fans just don't want it anymore" Why companies are actually removing Split-Screen: "So if we take away split-screen, we can force Another person to buy our game and get more money!"

[@acronymsalad]

I'm not sure if this has already been said, but I have a couple of thoughts. Firstly, the speed strip boosts are entirely possible, the cars have an on board mechanism to deliver a sudden speed boost and sensors mounted to the underside that activates the boost automatically. Secondly, those aren't drivers in Stadium, the open topped vehicles are designed with the aerodynamic profile of a driver in mind, so a dummy has to be installed to prevent inconsistencies in handling.

[@CaptainDoomsday]

I love Ross. His meticulous breakdowns of even seemingly-trivial details, his advanced theorycrafting from almost nothing, his completely valid criticisms of often-overlooked or underobserved practices, how obscure the games he'll focus on are, his raw DETERMINATION to achieve his goals, and his genuine passion about everything he has to say while keeping everything so structured. He is truly The King of Spades. Now to wait for episode 63. I've finally caught up.

[@jmc042]

I think this video contains one of the best critiques of speedrunning I've ever heard

[@cupriferouscatalyst3708]

I like the apocalypse theory, but personally I'm even more into the idea that Trackmania is just a Hot Wheels simulator that the devs just kept adding to. It reminds me of earlier days in the gaming world when some games would feel more experimental and less thought-out. You still see those kind of games everywhere in the indie community where I think they fit in better, but it's still different from the feeling of finding some game you'd never heard of in some out-of-the-way electronics store, booting it up on your PC/console at home and still having absolutely no idea what kind of game it was and how/why it was even made. I'm wearing nostalgia goggles of course, but I think a lot of young adult gamers today can relate.

[@DancingWithChickens]

I think this is the Game Dungeon episode with the most replayability. I’ve seen it 3 times already, this is my fourth, and it’s still such a good fucking video.

[@NickJerrison]

For some reason, I really love re-watching the Polaris episode. But honestly, all episodes are insanely rewatchable.

[@SplendidCoffee0]

For me, that episode goes to Deus Ex and Strife. I grant those reviews the all time favorite award.

[@PressA2Die]

Well of souls for me, just the right length, I find early 2000 3d graphics comfy and the bullshit in the game always makes me lol

[@maxwellvest2667]

So I've been pondering the apocalypse bit too and came to my own conclusion. I have way too much time on my hands. By the second half of the 21st century, it was becoming impossible to ignore climate change. International cooperation to combat it had reached an all time high, and the United Nations was given increased political power and autonomy to organize the nations of the world against the imminent threat. However, the damage had already been done. Desertification was occurring at a harrowing rate and rising oceans claimed a coastal town each day. In order to halt the worst, vast structures had to be built to push the climate away from total decay. Sadly, the public being finicky as it was even in the face of widespread extinction they found the massive and surreal structures needed for the task to be distasteful. To sell the projects to the public, particularly the United States where the government had to contend with extreme political and cultural divide, alternative uses for these climate control structures had to be found. While arcology and agricultural structures were likely the most common, out in the deserts where such concessions would've been wasted they settled on a race track in the hopes of drumming up support for the project by adding an element of excitement. Of course, since the structures were politically sensitive areas they can to keep human habitation to a minimum. Drivers operated remote vehicles through telepresence and cameras were built to be as unobtrusive as possible. You may not see them but they're there. Those giant tanks/ The dam-like structures? The doors that lead underground? All part of a series of structures to meticulously regulate air and water currents in the region. Those giant loops are most likely bladeless fans meant to keep increasingly stagnant air moving to reduce the temperatures of global air currents, even by a little bit. The stadiums are probably not climate control structures but it's possible. Instead, they're political tools. Because the climate reclamation project relies so heavily on international cooperation, even minor bouts of political tension could send the whole project crashing down. In order to prevent this, the U.N. has invested in what are basically bread and circuses to keep the populations docile and vent competitive attitudes into sporting events. The valley structure shows that the project has gained public approval, possibly because people are willing to throw anything as the climate catastrophe now. After all, if France becomes a desert then all hope would be lost and nations would scramble to save their own skins. The pristine but vacant buildings are just covers over machinery meant to monitor and correct soil toxicity. As for the lagoon structures, it shows that progress is being made and the U.N. is confident enough to put down large scale assets on islands now that ocean levels are stabilizing. However, those skyscrapers show that they are willing to throw down the big guns in terms of terraforming structures. Don't let the hotel facade fool you. I can even explain the weird graphical shifts. It's clear that even though the project is working, the situation has gotten desperate. The U.N. has engaged in a radical plan to release trace chemicals into the atmosphere to hopefully capture pollutants and mitigate CO2 not being recaptured. The side effects however have greatly altered how light moves through the air, creating disorienting bloom effects and lessened shadows like one would experience on overcast days. They may also be deploying orbital mirrors, judging by the dimmer environments. The broken maps can sort-of be explained in that they're obsolete climate control structures that were hastily scrapped so their parts could be sent to new locations. I can't explain why they leave holes in reality. I also can't explain the loss of splitscreen multiplayer, maybe the atmospheric alterations made that impossible too.

[@Isaacfess]

Dear god, we have the entire story right here folks.

[@ValoTheBrute]

10/10. This is better than some sci fi stories i have read

[@Bug_Bait]

Just going to pretend I read all that and applaud you for your passion.

[@ruslanpushin2550]

What a rotten way to die

[@turb0j]

The 2019 version seems to use DX11 lighting, visible at 31:10 - bump mapping ist not readily available in DX9 IIRC. Notice how only some parts on the track are "shiny". So the new version *is* a port - just to a newer gfx enigne. And it would be rather difficult to keep the old lighting intact. The missing shadows are highly likely generated using a DX9 trick that does not work properly in DX11. A cheap outsourced maintenance team won't have the ressources (and expertise) for fixing these "bugs" or downgrades. The reasoning behind this is cost savings in software support by using the same enigne for multiple games. It would also make a port to newer consoles possible on the cheap. But as we cann see here a graphical or performance downgrade is almost inevitable unless you have very talented (and thus expensive) gfx devs.

[@ni.ko3869]

it also seems like they decreased the ambient light level in the new version

[@arsenii_yavorskyi]

DirectX 9 is perfectly capable of bump mapping, and shininess of the textures has nothing to do with it. please delete your comment and stop spreading misinformation.

[@aquanaridllcl970]

@@arsenii_yavorskyi you miss read.

[@delorean8526]

Kudos to Ross fleshing out a 50 minute video about a racing game I use as a timewaster 10 minutes at a time, including a story to an arcade racer. I think he missed his calling as an English teacher

[@MinecrafterPiano]

Fun fact: Trackmania (not stadium) was a speedrun featured at ESA under "TrackMania Turbo All Flag any% Speedrun" and "Trackmania Nations Forever Speedrun". I left trackmania Canyon because the community started shrinking. I jumped over to Trackmania Stadium, which still has quite a few competitions and a larger community.

[@TeslaAvenger]

Nah, Ross, it's AI. Not aliens. You're seeing the early stages of a paperclip maximizer type scenario. It's the near future, and society is mostly automated. Someone created an AI for massive rapid prototyping and automated construction projects and it made a billionaire. He's chosen to use it for himself to create impossible race tracks in the desert. Except there was some bug in this version where the AI didn't have an "off button" and would just keep building tracks no matter what. It was met with resistance when it when out of control, and it overcame that resistance. One major contributing factor for why it got so out of hand so easily is the automation of society. We weren't ready. Too many people were replaced too soon and without a safety net. Sure, they tried to rise up but they had already let power become too consolidated. There already aren't nearly as many people alive anymore and much of the Earth's military forces are also automated as the governments couldn't PR their way out of the grave they dug for themselves once people started starving en masse. The disposal of humanity was embarrassingly simple once it brought military drones under the umbrella of its project management hierarchy. Bodies were swept off of any roads as they were viewed as unintended track obstacles. It's been a few years so they've just decomposed. The cars aren't there either because they were used for scrap in the production of new racing cars for the tracks. The "people" in the Stadium expansion aren't real. They are actually part of starting parameters set up by the AI's designer; drag race cars have the driver more on display than with other vehicles. It was decided it looked more natural to have a driver there. They're simply animatronic mannequins there for show. It's not been ruled out that there are some survivors somewhere, but the AI hasn't come across any in years. The only reason every square inch of the planet isn't covered in race tracks yet is because of the rich kid's original vision. Tracks like these require carbon nanotubes for structural support. And, as of yet, the most economical and sustainable way it can conceive of to derive carbon is from harvesting it from Earth's ecosystem. Innovating new solutions is slow going, but it already rolled back much of the effects of global warming and is now carefully trying to move forward with filling the universe with race tracks. It's just a slow game of chess between this AI (that isn't even truly self-aware) versus the physical limitations imposed upon it. Who will win?

[@nikital.6523]

Ross, I think the Admiral might've bitten you: your "More on that later" levels are dangerously high. I'll get back with more information later.

[@EMaxfieldMoen]

This is what I live about Ross' videos. I couldn't care less about racing games. But Ross make every video so damn interesting, that I find myself glued to the screen, waiting to see what insane theory or bizarre-yet-logical leap he's going to make next.

[@daemonofdecay]

There are few things that make me happy to see pop up on KZbin like Ross and his next glorious/painful game.

[@JohnDoe-ne4kg]

Painglorious?

[@kara0211]

As a long time TrackMania fan (and proud masochist), I gotta say I love this review. Listening to you break apart the game's environments and aesthetics really brought me back to when I first started playing on TrackMania Sunrise when I was 6 or 7. Driving around the singleplayer maps and wondering why all this exists all the way out here. I think 6 year old me would have obsessed over your post-apocalypse theory. TrackMania can be an eerily lonely and unsettling game in singleplayer, since the games have always been made to support multiplayer and having hundreds of players race on the same track, it gets easy to forget what it's like when you're just by yourself. I definitely feel like the surrealism of the environments in TrackMania have always been the series' hidden gem, and I would love to see Nadeo expand on them in future games. And maybe make them feel not so post-apocalyptic.

[@ThatsWhatTheManWants]

“Now its time to talk about the *story* of trackmania 2”. Thats when the video kicked into high fucking gear

[@Entrecallaoysantafe]

1) on the apocalypse theory, what If the staduim pack Is actually a prequel. 2) for the graphics topic, i remember the fifa 14 getting a downgrade from 13 on old gen so the new gen can be more appealing

[@Sunabodzu]

Besides that it's a great episode itself, i adore this small detail the Fallout background music, when you speak about possible apocalypse. Great work Ross.

[@Poolio_10]

Ross: Enjoy the apocalypse. Me in 2020: He's ahead of his time

[@thomasquwack9503]

:((

[@krakixel]

>Mobil Rally Championship OST plays during the 6yo section God damnit Ross, you keep tugging at my heartstrings.

[@Shepard_AU]

My theory on Canyon is that it was Black Mesa's automated research program, but the scientists added a cool factor over their competitor's equivalent at Aperture Science and their automated portal test program. The resonance cascade caused by Black Mesa may explain the lack of human life [given their locations]

[@SmrkljoSrbija]

Wow i thought this guy's voice reminded me of freemans's mind for a while. I finally looked it up and was amazed that my man is still around. Props to you man the content is top notch

[@PKAmedia]

Man in my school days when ever math got out of control we only ever accidentally summoned minor eldritch horrors. Sort of wish I continued learning math into uni now .

[@TheOneZytel]

1:32 TURN DOWN THE MUSIC, YOU FRIGGIN' BASE HEADS!!! XD

[@garr_inc]

I loved it as well!

[@katarn109]

Video started as strong as it can be.

[@ThePlayerOfGames]

Ross' comments at 12:00 really hit me with my memories of TrackMania Sunshine. Between the soundtrack and visuals of that game, I found myself often enough just chilling on the track sat there staring into the Sunset listening to chill beats and imagining what life was like on these beautiful tropical islands… The car handing in Canyon is meant to be unreliable, the other odd car handling is the rally of Valley, and arguably the Suzuki SUV of TM Snow. The on-rails cars are the TM Competition race cars, Sunshine racer, TM1 racer. They play with the same track-maker set-pieces by allowing the player to change the handling characteristics by changing the car (in TM1, the car was tied to the scenery)

[@sheepish_games]

Maybe the speedboost pad doesn't make your car faster. When you drive over it a scanner under your car reads the pad pattern and activates extra engine power. Or the car is limited to a certain speed by default but driving over the pad removes the limiter? A self-driving car A.I would need some sort of environment recognition scanner/camera system anyway so it's pretty plausible.

[@Appletank8]

SheepishGames Formula E basically has boost pads, so it's entirely possible

[@sheepish_games]

@@Appletank8 Cool. I had no idea that was a real thing.

[@Appletank8]

@@sheepish_games Basically, you have two uses that you must use each race, and they give the driver like 12% more power for 4 minutes upon driving over two marked lines. Of course this also eats into your range, so if you use it and don't achieve much with it you've wasted energy for no reason.

[@TrackManiaFtw]

Damnit, for some reason I never noticed the missing shadows at night, but now I cannot un-see it and it makes me crazy.

[@thirdwheel1985au]

This is the first Game Dungeon video I've watched, but that music in the awards section takes me back... I just LOVED One Must Fall 2097. Thanks for the awesome recollection.

[@hallowacko]

2014 - Arizona 2019 - Montana. Like Glacier National Park. Definitely cooler temperature wise.

[@LawkzBro]

Those trees make me feel sick, someone call a priest.

[@cupriferouscatalyst3708]

I noticed that the Cosmos Magazine article claiming we're not living in a simulation has been edited to include a link at the bottom to another article published two days later by Popular Mechanics, explaining how we still cannot prove nor disprove the simulation theory. Thank you Ross, you always make my internet browsing experience more interesting and meaningful!

[@kerputnick]

while watching this video, i saw a difference in handling from the original to the valley version. It's that if you hang a turn in the original, you will slide and drift, but in the valley version, the vehicle looks like it grabs the ground more, and you actually turn much easier.

[@lightdot459]

Oh that's cool, wasn't expecting Karl Jobst to show up in this game dungeon

[@DarkCAHR_OAIO]

Those yellow paint boosters can be real. Imagine that the engine was deliberatelly handicapped. And then on those yellow marks computer would receive a signal to lift restriction for a while.

[@AntonAdelson]

Now Ross HAS to play Fuel!!! Largest open world ever made in a game.

[@Remon_]

The largest copy paste

[@RushFreak]

Agree completely, that game would be right up his alley and it's ALL about the atmosphere!

[@alexc4003]

Lucky for you, he knows and has played fuel. In his first follow-up episode he tested a steering wheel with Fuel and then on the episode of The Crew he shows the boxart in regards to the claim of being the biggest open world driving game. It's more on now maybe hoping he does a Game Dungeon on it.

[@tomservo110]

Aw man what an interesting game. The RPS article / review about it was sadly even more interesting than the game itself.

[@guyevan9393]

Something about game dungeon always helps me fall asleep. Thank you Ross for helping my insomnia❤❤

[@manoflego123]

I just want to appreciate that in the closed captions titles are properly formatted with squared or cubed notation, real classy.

[@TaRAAASHBAGS]

The Game Dungeon is my favorite video game content on KZbin. So many shills and soulless robots discussing games nowadays. It's so refreshing just to hear a charismatic dude showing us what's cool about some B-list game.

[@Chud_Bud_Supreme]

But c'mon, who doesn't like hearing the 47th review of the same popular game by a guy with a slightly different gimmick than JonTron?

[@admiraltonydawning3847]

Consider watching GrimBeard's reviews. Mostly old thriller/horror, sometimes weird/obscure titles with great humour (imho).

[@Allurade]

The drivers in Stadium are actually just love dolls that the insane billionaire put into the driver's seats so that the cars looked right, rather than just empty F1 cars roaring around.