What is a correct term to name Lotus , Outrun type of games?

[reassembler]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

The 2.5D description is a little off, given that 2.5D games in general are 2D games in a 3D world. That type of racing game are more pseudo-3D. They're not fully 3D because you can't rotate the view in any way - the engine has no concept of facing directly across the track for example, which differentiates it from 3D racers like F1GP. But calling them 2D racers doesn't work either because they're trying to simulate 3D instead of just presenting a 2D view. For example, Super Cars, Micro Machines and Roadkill are all 2D racing games.

To complicate matters, how would you classify Sega's Power Drift? The Arcade allows you to rotate the camera 180 degrees by pressing the Start button at any point.

The camera pans around the track in a 3D style at the start of the level. In fact, the game engine itself is coded in 3D. It's just rendered with lots and lots of 2D sprites, as opposed to polygons.

[Daedalus]

I'm not familiar with the arcade version of Power Drift, but even games like Mario Kart and F-Zero on the SNES I think of as 3D when compared to Outrun, even though they're realised using sprites. Being able to render the world from an arbitrary camera position makes a world of difference for the feel of a game for me, for judging corners, distances, car handling and so on, and if the arcade version of Power Drift allows that too then that would put it in a totally different category of racing game to Outrun.

[AestheticDebris]

Power Drift and Mario Kart are things I'd put into the 2.5D category. They're almost doing every in 3D but taking advantage of the limited degrees of freedom to cheat the system by rendering flat sprites that just always face the camera rather than proper polygonal models, much as something like Doom does with the enemies.

[Daedalus]

Yeah, that's fair enough, it's a similar level of 3D to Doom. Does that make Mario Kart 64 a 2.5D game too? That also renders all the players and objects as flat polygons.

The key thing I was trying to point out was the difference between these games which present a 3D environment, even if it's realised in 2D objects, and games that can't possibly present a 3D environment, and work and feel entirely different as a result.

[reassembler]

Originally Posted by AestheticDebris

Power Drift and Mario Kart are things I'd put into the 2.5D category. They're almost doing every in 3D but taking advantage of the limited degrees of freedom to cheat the system by rendering flat sprites that just always face the camera rather than proper polygonal models, much as something like Doom does with the enemies.

Yep! I always wonder how much of an influence Power Drift was on Mario Kart.

Once again, Sega innovating, but failing to capitalize on an idea and IP. (Whereas Nintendo were great at IP building!)

[AestheticDebris]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

The key thing I was trying to point out was the difference between these games which present a 3D environment, even if it's realised in 2D objects, and games that can't possibly present a 3D environment, and work and feel entirely different as a result.

Yeah, Power Drift was one that came to mind as something kind of different to Outrun style games. And why I'm not entirely keen on "Pseudo-3D" as a label, since those are also kind of in that category.

[CCCP alert]

"the best 2.5D scaling bitmap racing game in the world"

[Gzegzolka]

Personally I think about those games as Outrun clones, or paeudo 3D games. They use different techniques than render polygons/vectors. I always thought there is a correct name to how road is drawn in mathematical way. And now I realise that many post Outrun games used to focus more on sprites and spam them to create road.

[eXeler0]

ChatGPT says the correct term is Pseudo-3d
(with some subset technique referred to as 2.5d scrolling.)

[oscar_ates]

Off topic, amazingly all 3d games now use hardware rendering instead of software rendering. CPU pushes polygon mesh vertices and rest till rasterization is done on gpu pipeline.

[desiv]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

ChatGPT says the correct term is Pseudo-3d

OK, so I am definitely not using that term then. ;-)

Anyway, when I hear "pseudo-3D games", my mind goes to Wolf 3D / Doom type games.
But that's me...

[CCCP alert]

2.5D is multiple 2D layers used to represent the Z axis. In the case of Sega OutRun this is done with hardware sprite layers to do Z clipping, in Lotus etc it's with blitter objects and presumably a software rendering queue/buffer to sort behind/in front.

Is just an extension of multi-parallax movement in images, like those pixel art based PS3 cut scene.

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by desiv

OK, so I am definitely not using that term then. ;-)

Meh. It's the one good use for the thing - rely on its capability to have done the web search that most people are unwilling to take the time to formulate properly.

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by fxgogo

Well, this is a fun thread. I never thought there would be so much diversity in how people classify this genre of game.

Indeed. I used to call them "racers like Lotus" To differentiate them from "racers like Super Cars".

[desiv]

Originally Posted by gimbal

Meh. It's the one good use for the thing - rely on its capability to have done the web search that most people are unwilling to take the time to formulate properly.

Just an FYI, a smiley emoticon generally indicates a humorous statement and not something to be taken too seriously...

[fxgogo]

Should we be looking at the gameplay rather than how it is rendered to the screen to define the genre and sub genres?

[kremiso]

Lotus1 developers probably liked a lot Pitstop2 on the C64

[Bren McGuire]

racing game? how else??

[Megalomaniac]

Originally Posted by fxgogo

Should we be looking at the gameplay rather than how it is rendered to the screen to define the genre and sub genres?

Essentially a split between against-the-clock and against-other-vehicles (not just cars, as Super Hang On and RVF Honda certainly count). Lotus III neatly straddles both.

[Jimmy's Miggy's]

2D point to point racer engine maybe ???