Sega Le Mans 24 - Retro Review
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- Опубліковано 12 вер 2024
- It's time to turn the focus on to one of Sega's less talked about Model 3 board arcade racers - the hidden gem that is Le Mans 24.
Alternate liveries for the cars can be accessed by holding down the 'VR1' and 'Start' button at the car selection screen before making your choice with the gas pedal.
Bonus Car Codes:
Sonic
Highlight the Nismo R33, and hold START, LEFT, BRAKE, and VR BUTTONS 1+3, then hit ACCELERATE.
Porsche 917K
This car can be unlocked using the same procedure to unlock Sonic, but this time, hold down the V.R. 1+2 buttons instead of V.R. 1+3.
#Sega #LeMans24 #retrogaming
The -wide-bg option stretches the tilemap layer. Most 2D graphics in Supermodel are rendered by the tile generator chip, which is based on the same chip used in System 24 and Model 2. Thanks for the trip down memory lane wrt Supermodel! That was very meta :D
Glad you enjoyed it Bart! Oooh, is that -wide-bg option something new? I better pin this comment. Someone else in the comments was insisting they had a build that could play the game in wide-screen without the skybox issue, but, when I looked at one of their videos, they just had it in stretched 4:3....
I wish sega would release a collection of all their arcade racing games it would be a huge seller if they were arcade perfect ports or better with extras added.
This game on a steering wheel is peak Sega racing.
I first remember playing this game around 20 years ago; it was in a cinema close to where my dad lived at the time so I played it quite a few times (though not as much as Daytona 2 which was in the bowling alley next door).
Even though it doesn’t look or play quite as well as the “holy trinity” of Model 3 racing games, I still quite like it for its various features such as gaining time by overtaking other cars and the other cabinet acting as a live TV camera showing the player driving around the circuit as part of the attract mode.
That's got to be the same cinema I saw it in then! I wonder if it was the VUE at Cribbs Causeway? Of course the Showcase out in St. Phillip also had a bowling alley next to it.
Nope, it was the Cineworld in Rugby. Never went to the Vue in Cribbs Causeway until much later and by then it didn’t have anything decent to play.
@@gm_matthew Ah, Rugby... That'll be a negatory then.
I have so many great memories of playing this at the Sega World in Havant. This was the second game I managed to beat in the arcade, having a Sega world within walking distance of my college was just awesome 😀 I was probably playing this once a week at one point, always sad it never got a Dreamcast port.
When I was a kid I played the cabinet in Monaco, I liked it, but I really got to appreciate it with emulation, I think it's one of the most underrated SEGA racing games ever, and the soundtrack is stunning! I like listening to it to relax. Sorry for my English ❤
Your English is just fine my dude! And yes, 100% agree, this is a highly underrated game!
I remember when I used to play this game a few years ago, even the arcade cabinet ones in 2012.
I recently got myself a Xbox controller for my PC and I started playing on Supermodel again. Daytona USA (of course), and then Rally Championship, and then this one!
Overall, good fun out of the box, and there are better fine-tunings to be done, because for Le Mans, the controls are very, very sensitive that a full turn will angle the car to like 80 degrees and slow it down.
7:12 Test Drive Le Mans (Aka Le Mans 24 on the PS2) did this, but about three years after. Released in 1999 for PS1, 2000 for PC and Dreamcast, and patched with new cars for the PS2 version in 2002. Test Drive Le Mans had the weather affects and the dynamic change of time. The only racing game to implement this since as far as I’m aware is Forza Motorsport 2023
Edit: Didn't know Le Mans Ultimate was out yet, that does it too
The first home version (PC, PS1) was very different from the the Dreamcast version, later converted for PC/PS2. But I think both had weather and day/night.
A new Le Mans Ultimate game just got released a few weeks ago with dynamic change of time/weather, game isn't fully finished but that part really looks good.
I think a couple more recent games had such dynamic weather/night effects, like Project Cars 2. I think GRID Race Driver in 2008 had day/night cycles for Le Mans but no rain.
So yeah that was a big thing at the time with the old Le Mans games, and it stayed a rare thing since!
Gran Turismo 5 ?
Le Mans 24 is one of my favourite racers ever. When the 40-to-1 race showcase?
I played sega le mans 24 in an amusement park in mexico when i was 7
Not seen or heard of this one before. It looks really good fun though. Great little review mate, enjoyed that!
Thanks dude! It's well worth checking out.
OMG, i'we played that over 20 years ago. On real cabinet it was great
I always think arcades either got this or Scud Race because they where visually to similar and people didn't know the difference
Makes sense.
The one thing that confuses me is that I would think people would be into driving the real Le Mans track and race, with the day-night cycle. Especially at the fun fair at the actual race! But for some reason it seems practically unknown, Scud Race seemed more common, at least in my experience, also in more recent years.
So that was "oh well, good enough, it's the proper cars and the tracks look fun". But still, we were happy to get the PC games so we could finally drive the proper track. Maybe this one wasn't widely distributed outside of Japan or other markets.
@@prehistoricpoodle Yeah, like I say in the video, I only ever saw it once in real life.
@@MrThunderwing Yeah I might have seen it once at the race track and even then I'm not sure, I was rather young. I'm certain I saw Scud Race there, because the cabinets had stickers announcing it on Sega Saturn soon. Then came the Dreamcast, still nothing, until Supermodel years later!
But I got to try Sega LM 24 also on a real cabinet at the Arcade Museum in a village near Prague. Haven't been since the pandemic but it should still be there. Time to think of a new trip...
However for a start, there's a bowling just 10 mns away that still has a F355 cabinet, haven't checked in a while if it's still there!
It's insane that they made 24 of these games
Heh heh!
Harley Davidson and la riders was the same for me. It looked so broken in the early versions of Supermodel I didn't really get the game. But once i fixed the textures and other issues it really started to shine. Considering the games are pushing 30 years old graphically they hold up really well.
MrDukeeeey....? Is this a new alter ego for you mate?
@@MrThunderwingalter ego? :)
The city course bares more than a passing resemblance to the actual city of Le Mans. Pretty cool!
Ahhhh, I did not know that! Makes sense I guess.
Yup as I wrote in another comment, the course itself is very random but I could recognize certain typical features from my hometown, such as driving towards the cathedral and the following tunnel, the old city walls, the theater, the high-speed train... they definitely took inspiration, it was pretty fun to see my hometown fantasized/idealized/interpreted by a Japanese development team.
Also if you pay attention, you can recognize one same building on both courses, the concert venue ("Antarès") right at the start of the Mulsanne straight before the fun fair; you also drive by it right before entering the streets again in the city course (visible right at the start of the segment in this video, at 8.50). You can figure out where the race track continues. So it really implies this is the same location in-game :)
If you want to play it on a cabinet, you can play on mine at Loading Bar in Brighton! The force feedback doesn't work currently, sadly, but it's still fun!
D'oh! I was just down in Brighton for a weekend at the end of last year. It's a bit of a trek from where I live in Bristol. I'll keep it in mind though if I find myself in that neck of the woods again.
Do you know what’s causing the FFB issue?
I believe LA Mans primarily used model 2 IO hardware. The steering \ FFB controller and control panel are late model 2. They only shared compatibility with Indy 500 and Sega Tour Car Championship.
If your cab was previously a different model 3 driver it might not have the correct IO.
@@robross6462 It mentions in the GAMES XML file for Supermodel about Le Mans using a Model 2 drive board ROM. In Supermodel the driveboard program from Scud Race can act as a replacement and the XML file edited to recognise it - which is how FFB now works in it.
@@MrThunderwing Yeah @robross6462 is right, the Le Mans cabinet does have model 2 IO and drive boards, but the game board can be switched in the test menu to scud race model 3 IO and drive board. My problem is a little more fundamental, in that the IO and drive boards had been stripped out entirely! I'm keeping an eye out for spares, but there is also a potential community solution in development.
Played this at the arcade itself.... i actually really thought it looked good and enjoyed the heck out of it.
It does look really beautiful, I’ll get round to it one day 😅
The soundtrack is so good.
Whoa i totally forgot about this one
Only ever seen it at playdium in burnaby
This looks pretty amazing 👏😎✌️
Most excellent 🏁🏁
Thanks Rozz!
Always love this game, but now with the emulator improving a lot since I've last played it, might consider revisiting it soon...
great review
Wow, by coincidence, just when I check if there's been anything new with the "90's super gp" (as I do every once in a while for the past decade...) the results brought up this video just being released today. Having myself grown up in Le Mans and being 10 around the time this arcade game came out, I was always frustrated not having been able to play this one as well as SCUD race (I saw them in my youth at the arcade stands at the race track, in the entertainment village during the actual 24H race there). We were hoping for home releases that never came out, I finally got to play them much later thanks to Supermodel.
Another coincidence is that just a few weeks ago, the new "Le Mans Ultimate" game has been pre-released: even if the LM track was present in many games(Gran Turismo, Forza, GRID, Project Cars), this is the first official Le Mans game in two decades. But it doesn't have the same charm as the releases from around 2000. In addition to this Arcade one, there were not one but TWO PC/console games, as they were two very different versions:
- one for PlayStation/PC (2000), more arcade-y, with an unrealistically smaller version of the Le Mans track, like on Sega Le Mans 24. I remember some nice night effects with fireworks.
- And the revered Dreamcast one (2002), later ported to PC/PS2, more realistic-looking and realistic-driving, one of the best racing games there was at the time, and it still holds up well nowadays, especially when one is nostalgic for the Le Mans track and cars from around 2000 - those end of 90's cars are still the best for me. I was still playing the hell out of it in the 2010s.
Both versions side by side there: ua-cam.com/video/mZWKwdfLww4/v-deo.html
Also at the time, we used to consider Scud Race as a proper "Le Mans game", because as far as us kids were concerned, we saw it at the race, and it had the actual cars we saw racing past us on the real-life track ;) And it was more common to come across than Sega Le Mans 24, that one was always a rarity.
But Scud Race itself wasn't as common in my childhood in Le Mans as the true classics Daytona USA 1 and Sega Rally, these two were always guaranteed at the traveling fun fair.
One more thing, even if the LM track here is heavily reinterpreted as idealistic rather than realistic, it still more-or-less follows the real track features, and I could recognize a lot of landmarks (the real fun fair was however not in the long straight, but right after the Dunlop bridge - before it later got moved near the pit entrance). So you can really notice a care for details, you can see the development team actually made the effort to look for references there. Same with the city track, the course itself is very random but I could recognize certain typical features from my hometown, such as driving towards the cathedral and the following tunnel, the old city walls, the theater, the high-speed train... it was pretty fun to see my hometown fantasized/idealized/interpreted by a Japanese development team.
Also last I saw a proper arcade version running, it was at the Arcade Museum near Prague, twin cabinet; it should still be there.
( arcadehry.cz/cmt_www/images/moduleGalleries/picture_files/part1/580/DSC_2385.jpg )
That's really cool! Thanks for sharing your experiences of what the real Le Mans is like and the actual race too! I'd always wondered whether the fun fair was a real track side detail or not.
Lot of cool cabinets in that photo!
@@MrThunderwing They had both Le Mans 24 and the older Konami game! As well as Scud Race and Manx TT. One pays the entrance and then it's free to play as much as you want, no need for coins. Pretty cool place!
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As for the fun fair, it used to be one of the cult spots, I guess there's a reason why it was prominently depicted in the game(s). The descent after the Dunlop used to be straight, towards the forest and Tertre Rouge. The fair was in the zone on the left of the track, supposedly drivers were able to smell the BBQ when driving by! Probably my favorite area by then, that was something, watching the cars zooming past in the night, just a few meters away on the other side of the fence.
Since 2002 it's a curve towards the left with a big sea of sand, and so most of the fun fair was moved towards the pit entrance, notably with a big Ferris wheel.
The "forest" area is way less forested now and you're not as close. The track changed a lot in the 2000s, for safety and modernizing, more construction alongside the track also, it's less wild now. Same for the village. Everything feels more sanitized nowadays, I'm glad I was still able to witness those times when things used to feel more funky :) In that sense, the Arcade track is more how it felt to be there as a kid! Haven't been there in a few years as I now live abroad, so this is how I prefer to remember it ;)
Actually the fun fair in the game might be one of the less accurate areas, but other details are pretty spot on, like the concern venue right before the fair, or the building right after the fair, which is a furniture shop I've been to. Or houses in the same straight, one is a Chinese restaurant, I was in class with one of the kids of its owners. So all this was pretty cool to see in-game. The pit buildings are quite spot-on, the museum is there too. For a smaller fantasy version it has more accurate details than one would think, even with some artistic license they tried to have the landmarks. While still being more arcade-y, less boringly realistic like in sim games ;)
"90s Super GP?" *takes long, thoughtful drag of cigarette* "Now there's a name I haven't heard for a while..."
I would have much rather have had this game on Dreamcast compared to SCUD RACE just for the (scaled-down) real world circuit.
Granted, there was a 24 Hours of Le Mans game on Dreamcast that was superior in almost every single way, Test Drive: Le Mans (which had the full-scale Circuit de la Sarthe plus several other tracks) but Le Mans 24 had a better car selection with a fully-licensed F40. (Test Drive Le Mans technically did have a Ferrari, a 333SP, using the racing team loophole where they didn't need to license Ferrari to have the car, they just couldn't identify it as a Ferrari, but the F40 looks cooler.)
Was this game only sold as a twin cabinet? I wonder if the single unit mode not having the extra cars was some sort of anti-piracy measure lol
Probably not anti piracy, but it could well be that it was only ever intended to be played as a twin cabinet.
This was the earliest 3D version of Le Mans I think. There was Taito's WEC Le Mans before, but that was sprite based.
The Le Mans games then got confusing with the PSX and PC Le Mans 24 Hours game in 2000 (by Eutechnyx) being superceded by, er, Le Mans 24 Hours (aka Test Drive Le Mans) in 2000-2002 on Dreamcast, by Melbourne House, which then got ported to PS2 and (badly) to PC by Torus Games. Phew.
I'll be comparing all versions of PC Le Mans games one day on my channel (there are about 12-18 games with the track (the larger number including non-3D racers and ones using off-the-shelf Unity assets). But i have to look at the Nordschleife first 😂
That Taito WEC Le Mans game is quite tricky. It's a pretty sweet looking 2D scroller though.
You got it right as far as I'm aware! I'm from Le Mans and was a kid at the time those 3d games were released, so that was a pretty big thing for us, I stayed very interested in everything Le Mans-related in games. I remember we were kinda disappointed by how much smaller the track was, in the first 3d versions. Finally the Dreamcast one got it so right. The PC port is still better than the first PC version I'd say.
Then the next big thing was the track in Gran Turismo, it was a big thing at the race a well, lots of sponsorship trackside and on a car.
Then I really liked Race Driver: GRID at the time, it had the track and a few Le Mans cars of diverse periods, the Mazda 787 was a lot of fun notably.
Then the track was also in Forza, Project Cars, and so on.
And the newest one being Le Mans Ultimate.
I feel like existing videos on youtube tend to omit some, so good luck, looking forward to an exhaustive summary!
That reminds me I need to update Supermodel. To make sure the extra cars appear in the game do I only have to enable Networking on the emulator or are there some extra steps? Do I have to launch another emulator instance to act as the "second" cabinet link?
You do! you can mute the audio on on the second cabinet and just have it open in the background. I made a tutorial on how to get a Supermodel network working awhile back. I think some of the terminology has changed a tiny bit now in the config ini file now, but I'm sure you'll be able to figure it out. ua-cam.com/video/tand0tIZ47w/v-deo.htmlsi=Y1a38S0XZRDqs59A
Yes, got it to work fine. The tutorial is just about 1:1 except there's True and False instead of 0 and 1
It's like an update of Sega Touring Car Championship, even the car movement looks similar.Anyways, Sonic in the buggy is somewhat preview of Sonic and All Star Racing.
I personally think this handles a _lot_ better than STCC. Even with a wheel, the handling in that felt really odd. Superb soundtrack in that one though!
I played STCC a few times but was never able to get used to the way it handled. It’s weird because STCC was developed by more or less the same team that made Sega Rally Championship which has absolutely superb handling.
@@MrThunderwing Sega made the best attract mode in the business.
@@gm_matthew If only Sega used the handling of that Toyota Celica, but with stiffer suspension for track use.
Right, now that you say it, this is how it felt when I got to try this arcade game emulation, on keyboard. I had Sega Touring Car on Sega Saturn at the time it was released and absolutely disliked the handling - I left that game behind as soon as we got Nascar 98. This seems to handle better with wheel though.
Hey man, could you share how to get FFB working in this game? I can no longer access the Supermodel forum post that explains how. :(
I had to go on a crash course on how to do it again myself - I made a post about it over at the new Supermodel forum:
www.supermodel3.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?p=348#p348
I tried to add the info into the video description, but for some reason UA-cam didn't like that and wouldn't let me save it whenever I put the XML info in there - weird.
@@MrThunderwingThx!
Only played it on emulation, so maybe it wasn't quite there on that version, and it's got some cool stuff, but i still can't get over how rough it looks compared to Scud Race and Daytona 2. Pop in on Model 3? Ugh
It looked very rough in the early versions of Supermodel, but it looks pretty gorgeous now. I hadn't really noticed any pop in in this, until you just mentioned it here and I just fast forwarded quickly through a few bits of the video looking for it. Huh - never really ever been aware of it before. TBH though, it's pretty unobtrusive looking (well, IMHO),
@@MrThunderwingFair do's. It shouldn't really matter, and i can deal with it in earlier 3d racers these days mostly, but something about courses in games with decent graphics on good enough hardware that have scenery noticeably appear as I'm driving round them just gets to me. PS2 Sega Rally 2006 is another. I blame Saturn Daytona.
buddy I love your work and your vids, but please check and level your audio. your intro thunderwing sting is much louder than your gameplay and your narration.
I've had to change the way I do my voice tracks as the updated version of the video editing software I use (really annoyingly) seems to have a bug where the audio waveforms for voice tracks don't appear - which makes editing more difficult. This new process is still a bit trial and error for me... Having said that though, the background music is the same level it normally is and my intro hasn't changed volume. I did think it sounded _a bit_ louder, but not super noticeably...
@@MrThunderwing ah, cool, It was noticeable playing from my phone, and on TV, I originally turned the volume up, then had to turn it down quickly when your intro clip started. then back up again afterwards. still, all good stuff tho and I'll be giving le mans a bit more attention now on :)
FESTA means party in Portuguese.
Ahhh, good to know!
I'll be the judge of this 😅
i just uploaded a video on model 3 running the game in proper widescreen with no noticable 4/3 issues showing , i'm using svn 846 of supermodel along with the sega model 3 UI mod on windows 7 ultimate in 4k not sure if the emulator just works the best on win 7 but it sure runs good on it , and yes you are right with a controller it is hard to steer lol
You can play Scud Race, Daytona USA 2, Sega Rally 2 and most of the other Model 3 games in wide-screen without issue. You can get Le Mans to play in wide-screen too, all the polygons and track stuff will display properly, but the skybox will always be in 4:3. I actually uploaded a video on Twitter earlier today where you can see it running in wide-screen, but with the skybox issue.
twitter.com/MThunderwing/status/1769305006291775725?t=uZAZKaQt9nhL3V0mnxPVZw&s=19
wait for my 4k version to finish uploading i promise it works great in 16/9 with no bar glitches on the version i'm using along with the model 3 ui my internet isnt but 100 mbps tops so it take about 20 mins for the full 4k version to finish lol@@MrThunderwing
@@Matt08719801 I've just had a look at your video - I hate to break it to you chief, but you're playing the game in 4:3 with the screen horizontally stretched out of shape into wide-screen. You're not playing the game in _true_ 16:9 wide-screen. That's why the cars and the track and the HUD elements are all horizontally stretched out of shape in your video. In this old video of mine, I'm playing the game in _actual_ 16:9 - you can see the game is playing in true wide-screen, everything's the right shape, but the skybox is still 4:3.
ua-cam.com/video/rJR9y0Nj4g8/v-deo.htmlsi=wqMMi_U-V3S8381-
its not proper widescreen but it beats having those 4/3 issues outside of just leaving it a 4/3 ratio which i tend to do on my windows xp r798 build i use on xp @@MrThunderwing
the ui does allow you to play 4/3 with upscaling by simply unchecking widescreen and stretched so it can both properly display game in its correct aspect while allowing the visuals to be enhanced for a purest it would defintely be the best way all around
1 minuite 20 for a lap of la sarthe 🤔
Can i play sega rally 2 on intel core i5 3570 intel hd graphics 8gb ram and windows 7 ultimate 64 bit i miss that game so much😢😢😢😢😢😭😭😭😭
I'd have thought you should be able to. Your CPU and RAM are definitely up to it. The only possible weak link is the integrated graphics.
@@MrThunderwing so can i play on 60fps without glitch
@@yenom2008 I don't know - why don't you just try it and find out?
I always got this confused with the le mans game on dreamcast
I don't think you were the only one! I haven't actually played it myself, I think it plays a bit more sim like than an arcade racer, but I don't think it's all the way SIM if you know what I mean.
For the arcade-y vibe, this would feel closer to the first "home" Le Mans game, the 2000 version for PS1 / PC.
The Dreamcast one (2000) was way more realistic, both for the visuals and the driving. I'd recommend trying that one, it was really the top at the time.
@@prehistoricpoodle Yeah, I think I'm going to have to check it out.