Jump to content

LEGO Stunt Rally version differences


Lair
 Share

Recommended Posts

Here we go again folks.

 

After making this post when I discovered my copy of LEGO Stunt Rally did not contain all the command-line parameters mentioned by @TykeDean, I went tracking down this elusive other copy of LEGO Stunt Rally that contained more parameters. I managed to find it, and I've tried to write out all the file differences I found as best as I could. I think the gameplay is the same otherwise.

 

Executables

_msr.exe:

  • The 0.3.5.1 version is dated Monday, August 21, 2000, 8:40:10 AM, is 1,785,913 bytes, and is signed as version 0.3.5.1, "Copyright © 2000 Intelligent Games Ltd".
  • The 0.3.8.1 versionis dated Friday, October 06, 2000, 9:12:32 AM, is 1,785,913 bytes, and is signed as version 0.3.8.1, "Copyright © 2000 Intelligent Games Ltd".
    • The Russian version is dated Monday, June 04, 2001, and is 1,658,880 bytes. It uses all the same parameters.

 

Though I'm not entirely sure what they all do yet, all of the following command-line parameters should work with the 0.3.5.1 version of _msr:

/ALLAI
/CDIN
/DEBUGINFO
/FILES
/FREEFORM
/FROMLAUNCHER
/IGTEST
/LOAD_TEXT
/NORES
/NOINTROVIDEO
/RES_FILES
/WINDOWED
/XAFTOXBF

The 0.3.8.1 version of _msr can only use these parameters:

/FILES
/FREEFORM
/FROMLAUNCHER
/IGTEST
/NOINTROVIDEO
/XAFTOXBF

StuntRally.exe/Setup.exe:

  • The 0.3.5.1 version is from Thursday, August 17, 2000, 8:00:22 AM, is 409,600 bytes, and is signed as version 0.3.1.1, "Copyright (C) 1999".
  • The 0.3.8.1 version is from Wednesday, September 13, 2000, 5:56:34 AM, is 421,888 bytes, and is signed as version 0.3.7.9, "Copyright (C) 1999".

 

Installed files

But wait! That's far from all that's different between these games. A good deal of files were removed or altered between the two versions of the game:

 

  • For starters, 0.3.5.1 is the version of the game that has the credits sequence tacked onto the end of the outro video. That version of the outro was created August 17, 2000, while the FMV without the credits was created August 30. The elusiveness of the credits sequence leads me to believe 0.3.5.1 is probably the rarer version of the game.
  • In version 0.3.5.1, the MIDI files of George Stone's "Trip Through the Grand Canyon" and Yello's "Oh Yeah" that can be found with the direct music files in ART0001.RFD are sitting uncompressed in the folder called art\music. They're still also in the archive file though. The folders for the direct music files are also in art\music here, but are all empty. A bunch of empty folders are also in art\frontend. These aren't here in the CAB data, so it must be something left over in the installer that was removed in 0.3.8.1.

 

ART0001.RF:

  • The 0.3.5.1 version of ART0001.RFD is from Wednesday, August 16, 2000, 10:55:08 PM, and is 78,815,447 bytes.
  • The 0.3.5.1 version of ART0001.RFH is from Wednesday, August 16, 2000, 10:55:08 PM, is 298,924 bytes, and links to 2793 files.
  • The 0.3.8.1 version of ART0001.RFD is from Monday, September 11, 2000, 10:50:50 AM, and is 63,618,752 bytes.
  • The 0.3.8.1 version of ART0001.RFH is from Monday, September 11, 2000, 10:50:50 AM, is 151,112 bytes, and links to 2793 files.

Why the big size difference but no file difference? Well, for some reason, with version 0.3.5.1, if I extract the game data directly from the CAB files, the ART files are dated 4:55 PM instead of 10:55, and even though the content of all files is completely identical, extracting the CAB-extracted RFD file will dump out 5303 files. I have no idea why the RF Tool treats these two archives totally different just because one was extracted while the other was installed, and the RF files from the 0.3.8.1 version don't act like this.

 

A number of strange things extract from the 0.3.5.1 cab-extracted ART RF file. Most of the extra files seem to be .txt versions of already-existing files, and redundant audio files.

 

In aidata, there are txt files for the car AI alongside bin files that are used in the final game. Bluemon.txt (presumably Glacia's car?) contains this:

Quote

[Reflex]=150
[RacingLine]=80
[Overtaking]=70
[Blocking]=00
[CutsCorners]=40
[Braking]=65
[Speed]=85
[Intelligence]=90
[Craziness]=04

While Bluemon.bin is not human-readable:

Quote

    P A F U –    (Z

Maybe this is another situation like the unused NRM/NRN files in Rock Raiders that were used to create the final NPL files that the game uses. Oddly, according to these files, Mr. X isn't actually faster than the other bosses, he just has faster "reflex", more rubber-banding, and higher "intelligence" whatever that means, so I don't know. Again though, why I can only access these files if I rip the RF file directly from the CAB instead of installing it, I have absolutely no idea. If they are related though, maybe they could help us figure out how to edit the AI files.

 

There's a new folder "Sounds", which seems to just contain a lot of the same stuff from the SPEECH RF file. In this extraction, it's all in Dutch for some reason. Same thing happens when I extract SPEECH directly from the CAB of either version - now that I think about it, I'm not exactly sure how installers handle language files, but I guess that has to do with a lot of this stuff acting differently.

 

There's also a new folder called "text", which mostly seems to contain short .txt files that each have a single bit of interface text in them. Not sure what it was replaced with, but nothing really interesting here, aside from some planned bio texts for the racers. Most of them just contain "placeholder" with a driver's name below that, but two of them actually have more stuff written in them (The first one is the file for Baron Flambo):

Quote

-- placeholder --

Car: Mean Machine
Home: Dark City
Loves: Cheating
Hates: Losing and Cherubs
Hobbies: Creating evil plans
Style: Dangerous
Special: Flaming exhaust

Quote

-- placeholder --
Brad Speedo Info
(Has a really nice looking car!)

 

Finally, there's a worlds folder that seems to contain textures for all the roads and scenery, as well as their sprites for the construction zone. I don't see how this would be unused though, where else would this stuff be stored? I don't know where the used textures are located, so if anyone else is familiar with the file structure of Stunt Rally please help out - if they aren't anywhere normally then somethings up and the RF Tool isn't perfected, if they are then maybe I'm just unobservant lmao.

 

SPEECH0001.RF:

  • The 0.3.5.1 version of SPEECH0001.RFD is from Wednesday, August 16, 2000, 4:48:06 PM, and is 9,698,913 bytes.
  • The 0.3.5.1 version of SPEECH0001.RFH is from Wednesday, August 16, 2000, 4:48:06 PM, is 8,508 bytes, and links to 156 files.
  • The 0.3.8.1 version of SPEECH0001.RFD is from Friday, September 8, 2000, 1:43:32 PM, and is 9,698,317 bytes.
  • The 0.3.8.1 version of SPEECH0001.RFH is from Friday, September 8, 2000, 1:43:32 PM, is 8,508 bytes, and links to 156 files.

The only difference I can find is with the the "congratulations, world champion" line that plays over the outro. In 3.5.1, the audio clip starts at the same time as the video does, and contains silence for the time until he starts speaking. In 3.8.1, the audio clip only contains his line with no silence at the beginning. Presumably they changed the audio syncing code to be a little fancier, so they could save a full half-kilobyte of storage space.

 

 

Demo executables

Finally, I checked the Eidos Interactive Japanese demo of the game, as well as one of the English demos - I'm not sure if there's only one version of that though.

 

The Japanese demo version renames _msr.exe to LegoSRally.exe. This version is dated Friday, January 12, 2001, 5:49:18 PM, is a larger 2,039,808 bytes, and is signed as version 0.3.8.1, "Copyright © 2000 Intelligent Games Ltd" (and strangely still claims its language is UK English). The following parameters work with this version of the game:

/FILES
/FREEFORM
/FROMLAUNCHER
/IGTEST
/NOINTROVIDEO
/NORES
/RES_FILES

Unlike the English 0.3.8.1, it's missing /XAFTOXBF and now has /RES_FILES and /NORES included from the former 0.3.5.1 version. Unfortunately, I don't know if the main Japanese version is like this, nor do I know what the Russian and Hebrew versions of this game are like. If anyone has or finds those please let me know.

 

The English demo that I have seems to rename "moto.exe" to StuntRally.exe. This version is dated [I forgot lol], is 1,785,918 bytes, and is signed as version 0.4.0.7. Only the following parameters work with it:

/FREEFORM
/FROMLAUNCHER 

 

 

I don't know what release versions of the game corresponds to what version of the game files. My 0.3.8.1 copy seems to be an original release version by LEGO Media International, IB2G-STUFRS 2298851, might've come in a big box but it was just the case when I got it. I don't know what region it's from, the back of the case has the LMI copyright in French first, then English below it, and both full versions have a bunch of European languages available in the installer but default to English. I'm not sure how to check the exact region formatting - maybe it's from Canada? I guess if any of you have Stunt Rally, try to find which version of the files you have, the one with credits and parameters or the one without credits and few parameters (or any other ones that might be out there like the 0.4.0.7 that the en-demo uses), and what release of the game yours is if you can tell.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • lol username featured this topic

Excellent write up  on the differences, I actually had no idea there were different versions of the games with different flags supported, interesting!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I possibly got a "newer French version", the CD is from 2003. I'm trying to install it but my dvd drive is dying... it takes a very long time to install with a lot of strange noises... I thinks the speed is to 1x because the loading bar of the installation is so slow ^^

 

http://www.noelshack.com/2017-47-3-1511314330-20171122-0217536.jpg
http://www.noelshack.com/2017-47-3-1511314331-20171122-0218136.jpg

 

EDIT

Stuntrally.exe : 0.3.7.9, in fact all files are 1999/2000 when installed, and I can't run the game in W10 x64 :p. it works when copying d3drm.dll file from system32 to the directory of the game

_msr.exe is 0.3.8.1 so it's the same for you it seems..

http://www.noelshack.com/2017-47-3-1511314670-sans-titre.png

 

But Speech and Arts files are differents, in hour (same day) and size, but it's maybe because the language is different (French)

http://www.noelshack.com/2017-47-3-1511315277-sans-titre.png

 

(All the track names in folders are translated too !)

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Cyrem pinned this topic
  • 4 years later...
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.