THE ULTIMATE RIDE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ WHAT YOU NEED ------------- Amiga 500,1000,2000,3000 1 or 2 joysticks Recommended extras : An additional disk drive 1 meg of internal ram GETTING STARTED --------------- Amiga - If playing with one drive, insert the Master Disk into the internal drive. For two disk drive systems, insert the Master Disk into the internal drive and the Scenery Disk into the external drive. CONTROLLERS ----------- All main game screen selections are made by joystick 1, which is also used for the one player mode. Joystick 2 is used only during a two player game when the second player chooses his/her bike. TITLE AND INTRODUCTION SCREENS ------------------------------ Any of the title screens can be bypassed by pressing the fire button of the joystick on the first couple of screens. This will take you to the Main Option Screen. MAIN OPTION SCREEN ------------------ The arrow pointer is moved with the joystick. Pressing fire will select one of the options if the arrow is inside the option box. Pressing Normal Game proceeds to the Player Select Screen Pressing Custom Disk loads a previously created custom game disk. Pressing Make Custom allows the user to create an original custom game disk from a previously formatted floppy disk. To do this, format a blank disk before booting the game, and then make your player, bike and course choices as you would in a normal game. The program will instruct you along the way on how to complete the custom disk process. Note that you can't boot the custom disk. You must first boot the Master Disk and then insert the custom disk when requested (on Atari ST, your custom disk is now a combination of the Bike Disk and the Scenery Disk. PLAYER SELECT SCREEN -------------------- One Player - Chooses single player mode. Two Players - Chooses head-to-head split screen mode for two players BIKE SELECT SCREEN ------------------ Each player (one or two) must choose a bike to ride, a set of tyres and transmission type before continuing to choose the course. The Player currently choosing is indicated by the flashing PLAYER sign on the bottom right corner of the screen. Pressing fire once within a bike picture temporarily selects that bike for your ride. The selected bike will be highlighted by a yellow box around the bike image. Pressing fire within a bike picture already selected will show the performance statistics of that bike. Press fire from the statistics screen to return to the Bike Select Screen. Pressing within the tyre picture cycles through the various choices of tyres for your bike. Each tyre has different wet and dry handling characteristics. Pressing on the transmission picture selects between standard shift(a joystick) and automatic shift(shown by a joystick with four arrows pointing out from it.) Pressing the OK button selects that bike, tire and transmission choice for that player. The player can now enter a name under which to ride. Press "ESCape" to abort the current choice. COURSE SELECT SCREEN -------------------- The player(s) now have to choose which course to ride on, which will be either a race track ("Track") course or a road ("Street") course. On Track courses, the rider must first qualify in a two lap qualifying run which determines starting position, and then race against five other bikes for a spot on the winner's podium. On Street courses, the rider is in a cannonball run against the clock, traffic and maybe another player (in head-to-head mode). There are six Track courses and six Street courses. The current selected course is displayed in the upper left corner. Each players' chosen bike is shown below the course picture. Pressing the up and down arrows cycles through the current set of streets or tracks. Pressing Street or Track will alternate between these types of courses. Pressing Normal will choose predesigned course settings. In this mode players can attempt to break the existing world records for a given course. In normal mode players can't change the settings listed below. Pressing Custom will allow players to choose their own course settings, but will not allow the players to set world records. (that would be too easy...because there's no challenge to a straight, short road.) The course settings can only by changed in Custom mode. All setting values range from a minimum of 0 (or more...) to maximum of 50. For tracks, the settings affect the following : *Difficulty - determines the top speed of other race bikes on track. If set in the middle the other racers are about even with you, if set less then middle they are slower, and if set higher then middle they are faster. This value also determines the difficulty of qualifying. *Weather - determines the chance of rain on the track. 0 means no rain, 50 means a definite downpour. *Obstructions - no effect on race tracks. *Length - maximum length of randomly generated course, from start to finish line (minimum 10) *Laps - number of laps of the course tocomplete the race (minimum 1 lap) *Curves - number and sharpness of curves on the course (minimum 5) *Hills - number and steepness of hills on the course For road courses, the settings have the same effect as for the track courses, except the following variations: *Difficulty - determines the number of other cars on the road, from 1 to 20 other cars. It also determines the top speed and aggressiveness of police cars. This setting also creates a random number of tunnels on the road, from 1 to 4. Tunnels only appear if both curve and hill settings are under 22. *Obstructions - Determines the amount of road construction and wildlife on the road construction and wildlife on the road. SPECIAL FEATURES OF THE COURSE SELECT SCREEN -------------------------------------------- Pressing the KEEP button will keep the last randomly generated course which was ridden. This is useful if you like the current course layout but want to change only the difficulty, weather, obstructions or laps. In the middle of the course select screen is a cluster of option buttons: Pressing the upper left button of the cluster will turn most full colour ROADSIDE OBJECTS into darker SILHOUETTES. This speeds up gameplay and response time considerably.* Pressing the lower left button of the cluster will turn all ROAD VEHICLES into SILHOUETTES.* Pressing the upper right button of the cluster will turn off TUNNELS. Tunnels only appear in Custom mode if curves and hills are both set below 22. This makes the course a bit less dangerous (and less challenge, too.) Pressing the lower right button of the cluster will turn on SMART MIRRORS. When not set, the bike's mirrors will always display the road behind the bike. The effect of Smart Mirrors is that the bike's mirrors will only show detailed images when there is a vehicle close behind you. This speeds up gameplay and response time considerably. * (for a more technical explanation, this speed increase results from the computer usually taking much longer to display full colour shapes instead of shapes with almost no colour.) If you activate the SMART MIRRORS and turn on all SILHOUETTES the simulation should run at least 25% faster. This allows for faster, smoother action and greater responsiveness to your moves on the bike. If you have chosen a new course or changed some course settings, you may have to wait for the new 3-D ENVIRONMENT to generate. During this time, the WORLD RECORD displays will scroll by. Try to get your name up there, too. When the new 3-D environment is created, you will be prompted to press the FIRE button on joystick 1. THE ULTIMATE RIDE ----------------- You are now seated on the super sport bike you have chosen for this course. Look at the bike. You can see your hands on the clutch and throttle. The bike's instruments are real, including the speedometer and tachomater. The bike control are: * ACCELERATE Push up on the joystick to open the throttle. * DECELERATE Push down on the joystick to close the throttle. * BRAKE Push and hold the joystick down (there is a slight delay before braking begins in order to allow a quick downshift, if necessary.) * INCREASE ENGINE RPM's Hold down the button and push up on the joystick. * SHIFT UP ONE GEAR (manual transmission only) - push the joystick up and simultaneously press the fire button once. Most of the bikes have 6 gears, some only 5. * SHIFT DOWN ONE GEAR (manual transmission only) - push the joystick down and simultaneously press the fire button once. * CLUTCH IN (disengaged) - hold down the fire button. * CLUTCH OUT (engaged) - release the fire button * STEER OR LEAN LEFT Push left on the joystick * STEER OR LEAN RIGHT Push right on the joystick Note that the bike will automatically lean through the corners. Go in too fast, though, and your tyre traction won't be enough to keep you on course... OTHER BIKE FEATURES ------------------- * MIRRORS In one player mode only, Mirrors show what's behind the bike. In two player mode, there's not enough room on-screen for mirrors, so neither rider gets them. Note that by turning on Smart Mirrors you can speed the game up. *RADAR The course radar is shown on the upper left of the screen, but can be turned off by pressing the "R" key. Rider 1 is shown by the "1" symbol moving on the radar and rider 2 is shown by the "2", symbol on the radar. This helps riders to keep track of their relative position to other riders and the course. On normal tracks it shows the actual course map of that race track, complete with direction and start/finish line. On Custom tracks the radar shows a circle. This is a "simple" plan of the race and is not intended to depict the actual course shape. On normal and Custom road courses, the map is a straight line depicting the start and the end of the run, and the distance each rider has completed thus far. * INFO BOX This information box is at the bottom of the screen. There are two boxes for two player mode. The info box tells the following: GEAR - what gear the bike is in (1-6) POS - your current position. In a race, it will be 1-6, and on the street it will be either 1 or 2, if two are playing MPH - bike speed in miles per hour. THE RULES - ON THE TRACK ------------------------ Each rider must QUALIFY his bike to make the starting grid of race. To do this the rider must complete two laps of the race track in the shortest possible time. Depending upon the difficulty set, the rider's time will be compared to that of the other riders(including a human opponent.) Based upon qualifying time, your rider's position will be one of six on the starting grid. There are a maximum of six bikes racing at once. The starting grid looks like this, based upon the fastest times set during qualifying: Start/Finish line 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th If any rider CRASHES more than fivetimes during qualifying, his bike is considered destroyed and that rider is out of the race. Upon FINISHING the race, if the rider is one of the top three finishers, he will stand on the victory podium. FLAGS will be waved by the race marshall at the strat/finish line. The flags are: Green - start qualifying run/start race. White - finish qualifying run/last lap of race. Chequered flag - finished race. THE RULES - ON THE STREET ------------------------- This is a cannonball run! Ride as fast as you dare to the end of the road... If you crash more than five times, your bike will be destroyed and you won't be able to finish the run. If a cop pulls you over, you will lose both valuable time and a point from your license. Get pulled-over three times and you lose your license. If you lose your license you won't be able to finish the run. Watch out for cars, construction and animals on the roads. But don't worry about the cones (feel like slaloming?) Yellow corner signs in the road alert you to upcoming curves. Don't be put off by corner signs in the middle of the curve which seem to point the wrong way. These signs are telling you that another curve is approaching after this one is over. RIDING TIPS ----------- - try not to run into things (really?). Sometimes it's better to wait for traffic to get out of the way instead of making a dangerous pass. - To pull the bike in a "power wheelie" (where the front wheel lifts way up off the ground), stay in a low gear (1st, 2nd or maybe 3rd gear on a big bike...) rev up the engine (by holding in the button and pushing up) and then release the button. Then watch the ground disappear. Be careful, though, because you can't steer and wheelie at the same time. - To get around the course faster on a manual transmission bike, you'll have to downshift when braking for the corners. This should allow you to come out of the corner in the lowest possible gear, which will immediately give you much better acceleration on the following straight (if there is a following straight!) - big bikes (750cc and up) are usually much faster on the straights, but are generally heavier and slower to respond around corners. - small bikes (under 750cc) aren't as quick on the dragstip, but are light, nimble and are able to outpace the big bikes when the going gets curry. - watch out for steep hills! You'll have a great time jumping, but remember, this isn't an off road bike and it's hard to steer when you're flying through the air. STATISTICS SCREEN ----------------- After a successful run on either the track or the street, you'll get a chance to view your performance statistics. These include your bike, tyre and transmission type, average speed, top speed, number of crashes, fast laps, etc... CONFIGURATION SCREEN -------------------- After each ride, you will be presented with the CONFIGURATION screen. If you want to change the game setup, select those options you wish to change and then press RIDE. This allows you to avoid re-selecting options you don't wish to change.* Press RIDE (without any other buttons selected) to ride exactly the same course again. Pressing the other buttons will allow the rider to change the current game setup. Press PLAYERS to select the number of players (one or two. This also involve re/selection of bikes.) Press BIKES to change the bikes being ridden (this will not allow for a change in the number of players.) Press COURSE to make changes to the current course settings. * Note that this is "smart" configuration screen. You will only have to select what is absolutely required by the game in order to try your new setup. This cuts down on loading times and repetitive selection making.