Ryuji Kainoh: An Almost-Forgotten NFS Modder
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- Опубліковано 25 сер 2024
- Video game mods usually disappear if not closely watched, typically due to a host shutting down its website. More often than not, the original author is there to resurrect them at a moment's notice, and life goes on.
But then we have Ryuji Kainoh.
A car modeller who produced over 300 cars for Need For Speed III: Hot Pursuit and its immediate sequel, Need For Speed IV: High Stakes, his mods would vanish from the internet in mid-2006 and very little would be recovered during the years which followed.
Due to Kainoh's influence on the community at large, particularly the old-school NFS community, his mods became something of a lost media holy grail which many wanted to get a hold of, but few were ultimately able to.
And then, one day, they all came back. 16 years later, from a man who had them all along.
This video was originally scheduled for late January, but various real-life commitments prevented and delayed this. It was supposed to be out on the night of the 26th, but rendering issues and then UA-cam rejecting the video on account of its length (which I then had to rectify), put paid to this.
Man's legit was the most prolific modder of the NFS3/NFSHS era and what he did with the default HSV/Falcon models is nothing to scoff at considering the tools of the time; not to mention that massive output was done in the span of 4 years.
Great video, the older NFS games aren't really talked about all that much anymore since people mostly talk about the more underground Tuner games (Underground, Most Wanted 2005, Heat, etc), and it kinda breaks my heart a little bit since the older games were about racing in cars that you'll never drive in real life down a highway than fitting a useless spoiler on a Japanese car.
Just wanna comment and tell you that im very much with you! as much as I enjoy the Underground era(my favorite being most wanted), i'm a very big fan of the classic NFS legacy, and many other games like it, such as Pitbull syndicate's Test Drive 4 to 2002, Ford Racing 2-3 and even Corvette by Steel Monkeys. I really enjoy the racing game concept of taking any factory sports car and just tear it up in transcontinental locations with beautifully crafted simcade physics that make every vehicle handle as it should, believeable but unique, but still retaining the unique vehicle handling physics they go for. Black Box's Hot Pursuit 2 still remains my favorite to this day, still waiting for that spiritual successor to HP2. I miss it so damn much, and not even Forza can scratch that itch!
OMG! I am beyond flattered that you mentioned me in this video! Yes, I had Ryuji Kainoh's cars on my hard drive for ages, because I always thought they were cool even tho they were low poly. Damn, I remember downloading them in 2004, when I was 15 (I'm 33 now lol). I had so much fun driving them at the time, I simply loved the variety. I'm glad that me preserving these cars for more than a decade brought a lot of joy to all of you guys🥰
Thanks a ton for that!
@@christopherwilliams9418 you're more than welcome! NFS3 and NFS4 for life!
I did remember him back in the day. His models were absolutely flawless for the time.
Insanely fascinating seeing the dedication and effort that this mod author went through, and its nice to see that many of his mods have since resurfaced.
Its ironic that at the time I posted this comment, several more of Kainoh's mods for NFS4 have since been uploaded onto NFSAddons, so there's definitely still more out there.
Love your Tokyo Xtreme Racer series videos, man.
never knew he was left from internet, his designs and quality can match the vanilla cars every individual car has their specific vidwall, interior, all the features that worked on vanilla cars
nice to see a doc of an era of modding I was never part of l (I was a fetus back then). it's one of the greatest things to see lost media actually being restored
It's pretty fascinating to look into NFS's early, pre-blackbox era, modding scene. For the record, i was mostly a console player (i only really played the PS1 version of High Stakes & Porsche Unleashed) so i never got to experience such things when i was a kid.
WOW...just found this video. So many memories. I've been working with Ryuji on cars - I've been doing dashboard views for loads of his cars. One what I remember is dash for Ford Escort Cosworth - I've almost finished it when I realized it's in B&W...had to colour it but I think no-one ever noticed it! :D Too bad dont have access to email I used back then as there would be loads of e-mail sent with him...what a shame...
and nickname I used back then was "michcio" LOL :D
The dashboards you made for the cars were great and so were the cars, they looked like they belonged to the original game.
I've heard speculation that Ryuji might have worked at Polyphony and that the reason he stopped modding was because of his work there.
I don't have anything concrete to prove this other than the fact that the textures he used on his MR2 Spyder are VERY similar to the ones from GT2
Interesting video! It's amazing how a long-gone modder had a good ending with someone reposting it for everyone to drive his mods years later! Also, The Sims 2 had a car modding community, but it was never as concentrated as late 90s racing games as cars in that game aren't actually drivable. There was VPN's Garage, a modding circle that focused on fictional cars pertaining to a Sim-centered fan lore, and there was Sims 2 Car Source.
Great Video! Got a few nostalgia moments seeing the intro's to the old NFS games I used to play as a kid.
Look forward to your future videos!
Im a NFS modder myself, great video :DD
Thx, Bro!
Ryuji is a legend.
My Salutes to Mr Kainoh.
I love these models so very much, they've been so well with the graphical style of need for speed 3 and 4, a must-have if you want to expand your need for speed 3 and 4 vehicle roster!
Outstanding stuff! We need more videos like these about classic racing games and their surrounding history.
Nice job on this video, I really loved how Ryuji placed lots of effort on his cars, I hope he's doing well.
When that NFS III menu music hits, I know I am here for all 19:39.
i now feel sad because when i was young i was very active in the modding of some games and had a lot of offline copies of archives i guess they're lost now
Whoa! Where can I get those addon cars for NFS2? Edit: Found them.
@10:26 *over 500 different cars to be more precise