VOGONS


First post, by MightyCucumber

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Hello there!

You might have seen my name around in another topic (Looking for games bundled with Sound/3D Blasters), and I think that of all places, this forum is a treasure trove in terms of old hardware and pieces of gaming and technological history.

Thus, I have a request for anyone who happens to stumble upon this thread - do you perhaps happen to have any demo disk or other software/hardware related to the game Re-Volt? I've seen several threads sharing old Software, but they're just too many to sift through! Any help would come in handy in this endeavour. 😀

For those who dont know, Re-Volt is a cult classic game that still sparks nostalgia in many, as it was one of the most successful titles of Acclaim back in the day: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Re-Volt. The community is extremely active to this day - there are several Discord channels with a couple thousands of members, so I'd argue that the game is actually experiencing its second golden age. Understandably, we are always trying to expand our knowledge about the development process of the game, concept art and anything else relating to the game's history, archiving every piece of Re-Volt history that would be otherwise lost to time.

So far we have uncovered some development archive disks, Arcade Machines, previously unknown concept sketches and even an unreleased port altogether (for the Gameboy Color). So far we have gathered up a few demos of the game as well, but we are still missing a few: https://re-volt.io/downloads/demos - these demos usually came bundled with gaming magazines, so I'm sure at least some of you could potentially have some of these lying around in your personal collections.

My hopes is that some of you will have interesting stuff to share here, and even if you dont, feel free to post some words of appreciation about the game if you happen to have enjoyed it when you were younger (perhaps even drop by our server and say hello)! 😉

Reply 1 of 5, by chinny22

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Can't help in your search but did enjoy it back in the day. Was one of the first games I played after upgrading from our 486 to a P2 with TNT graphics card. Needless to say graphics on all these new games looked impressive but Re-Volt was one of the most beautiful. Museum with it's reflective floor stood out but mostly it was Neighbourhood which I always thought caught that early 90's lazy summer suburb feel like in Honey I shrunk the kids but also with a bit of toy story mixed in.
Even now I feel the graphics hold up better then Need for Speed 3 which I was also amazed with at the time. Although admit I play NFS alot more.

Reply 2 of 5, by MightyCucumber

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chinny22 wrote on 2023-02-27, 11:32:

Can't help in your search but did enjoy it back in the day. Was one of the first games I played after upgrading from our 486 to a P2 with TNT graphics card. Needless to say graphics on all these new games looked impressive but Re-Volt was one of the most beautiful. Museum with it's reflective floor stood out but mostly it was Neighbourhood which I always thought caught that early 90's lazy summer suburb feel like in Honey I shrunk the kids but also with a bit of toy story mixed in.
Even now I feel the graphics hold up better then Need for Speed 3 which I was also amazed with at the time. Although admit I play NFS alot more.

One of the demos we are missing is precisely the one that suposedly came bundled with the TNT Graphics card ahah. We do have the car textures that came bundled with it somehow, which unsurprisingly have the NVidia Logo slapped over them.

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I can agree that even 20+ years back the game looked beautiful, and the physics engine still holds to this day as extremley realistic - they managed to capture the essence of toy cars perfectly. It's also highly versatile in terms of modding, especially nowadays with OpenGL support through the RVGL Project, its like a big creative sandbox for RC enthusiasts. 😜

Reply 3 of 5, by MNrocketry

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I definitely remember playing Re-Volt.
At the time, I worked at a hobby store and sold radio control vehicles. As a result, I bought what might have been the perfect controller for Re-Volt, the "Traxxas Free Wheel Racing Controller".
This was basically the TQ3 radio transmitter that Traxxas used with its R/C vehicles at that time. Instead of having the R/C electronics inside, it had a cable and 15-pin connector to connect to your PC game port. Just like with a real R/C car, you used the wheel for steering and the trigger for throttle.

Unfortunately, my Free Wheel is long gone, but here's a photo of one borrowed from ebay.

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Reply 4 of 5, by MightyCucumber

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MNrocketry wrote on 2023-03-02, 18:54:
I definitely remember playing Re-Volt. At the time, I worked at a hobby store and sold radio control vehicles. As a result, I b […]
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I definitely remember playing Re-Volt.
At the time, I worked at a hobby store and sold radio control vehicles. As a result, I bought what might have been the perfect controller for Re-Volt, the "Traxxas Free Wheel Racing Controller".
This was basically the TQ3 radio transmitter that Traxxas used with its R/C vehicles at that time. Instead of having the R/C electronics inside, it had a cable and 15-pin connector to connect to your PC game port. Just like with a real R/C car, you used the wheel for steering and the trigger for throttle.

Unfortunately, my Free Wheel is long gone, but here's a photo of one borrowed from ebay.

I had no idea such a controler existed! That looks amazing!

A member of the community has created a clever rig in the past to use an actual real RC controler, but that would have made it so much easier ahah. https://youtu.be/_4kJedhha14

Reply 5 of 5, by MNrocketry

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Just looked, and I still have my original Re-Volt CD. Didn't see a manual though.

The Traxxas Free Wheel definitely qualified as an obscure PC gaming controller. I'd be surprised if Traxxas sold many of them. They weren't on the market for very long.
I can't find any mention of them on the Traxxas web site, and a google search doesn't turn up anything of significance.

The hobby store where I worked certainly didn't sell many. Perhaps two - including the one that I bought with my employee discount. I think that the other one sat on the shelf for a long time while they kept marking down the price to try to get rid of it.