Captured from the real Konami NWK-TR hardware, NOT MAME/EMULATION, I bring you the attract mode and gameplay of the highly forgotten yet awesome 1999 arcade racer, Racing Jam Chapter II. Using a PC power supply, a GBS-8220 video converter, a VGA to HDMI upscaler, an Elgato HD60 and wires that were ripped from a Silent Scope harness, I captured the game in 60 frames per second, in stereo sound with no compromises. I bought the game's PCB set about a year ago, hoping to eventually get it running on my desk to test it and New Year's Eve, the time had finally come.
This game, as well as the original Racing Jam, are NOT working in MAME, so as a racing game and arcade enthusiast, it has always been important to me to get this game going and to share it on KZitem. There was never a home console port of either Racing Jam, so if you want to play these games, you'll have to find a machine or buy the PCB set and make your own setup like I did.
0:00 Vectrex4Life Intro
0:09 Setup Demonstration
5:51 Initial Boot Up
7:22 Attract Mode Cycle 1
8:38 Attract Mode Cycle 2
9:54 Attract Mode Cycle 3
11:10 Attract Mode Cycle 4
12:25 Attract Mode Cycle 5
13:08 Bank Circuit (Acceleration Only)
15:47 Night Circuit (Steering Only)
17:05 Good Crash
17:47 Cross Road Circuit (Steering Only)
19:46 Winding Road (Steering Only)
21:21 Bank Circuit (Steering Only)
23:07 Bank Circuit (Acceleration Only)
25:19 Unlicensed Hidden Ferrari (Manual Transmission Fail)
26:49 Shut Down
This version of the game is from a deluxe cabinet, which uses a clutch pedal and a 5 speed H-gate shifter with a reverse gear, so if you want to use manual transmission, the controls have to be wired up. A fail of this can be seen at 25:41 because I don't have those controls wired up. During the boot up process, you can see that this particular version of the game is the GN676 UAE version made for North and South America, which has NOT been dumped, so I definitely want to extract the data soon. GN676 is the code name for the original Racing Jam, which means that my PCB set was originally Racing Jam 1, but was converted to Chapter II by swapping 9 ROMs and keeping 2 of the original GN676 ROMs in place. Swapping the small network board is also appears to be necessary according to the conversion kit's manual. GN888 is the code name for Chapter II.
On top of being Chapter II, on top of being the more uncommon deluxe version and on top of being the American version, the notorious real-time clock (RTC) timekeeper RAM that kills these Konami boards, is still good. Either someone did a hell of a great job soldering on a new one, or the original one is still there and still working 20 years after the game's release, which is quite impressive. I was genuinely expecting it to be dead when I finally got this going, but apparently it's still alive. No matter what though, the amount of life left in a timekeeper RAM is unknown, so it could die any day now, I just hope to record a full playthrough of the game very soon and share it with the world. Since emulation currently isn't an option, and so few know about this game, I feel it's important to share the game as much as I can for the world to see. For now, it seems that my PCB set is working great, with the exception of a minor graphical issue. You'll see in various places during the gameplay and during the transition to the Racing Jam logo in the attract mode, that there is some flashing lighting. Not sure what the problem could be, but everything is marked as 'OK' on boot up.
I don't have all of the controls wired up yet, just the start button, 3rd gear button and 1 analog control of my choice. (Steering, gas, brake, handbrake or clutch). This is why all of the gameplay is either with full on acceleration with no control of the steering, or complete steering control and hardly any acceleration. Once I get every control input working, I'll make a full playthrough of the game as well as demonstrate the test mode. Strangely the analog control values increase more and more the longer the game is on, so with only the steering wired up, the car will gradually move on it's own. However the brake and handbrake values increase at the same rate, making you stuck in 1st gear. Manual transmission was largely avoided since I currently can't make the cars go anywhere.
Even though I technically haven't fully played the game yet, I can already tell that it's a gem. Konami has never been known for their racing games, but a 90s racer that had real Japanese sports cars with wicked courses and really fast gameplay? Sounds like a precursour to the Initial D Arcade Stage series! It has the AE86 and it has a togue course, the only thing that's missing is eurobeat, haha.
Special thanks to Tomas Dahlgren for helping me with getting this game going: kzitem.info
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Негізгі бет Ойындар Racing Jam Chapter II - Arcade Gameplay on Real Hardware
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