Rollcage Stage II

Rollcage Stage II
Cover art of Rollcage Stage II
Developer(s)	Attention To Detail
Publisher(s)	Take-Two Interactive (PC)
Series	Rollcage
Platform(s)	PlayStation Microsoft Windows
Genre(s)	Racing
Mode(s)	Single-player or multiplayer

Rollcage Stage II is an arcade-style racing game for PlayStation developed by Attention To Detail, and published by Psygnosis. It is the sequel to Rollcage and was released in 2000. On top of the basic racing concept, the cars can be equipped with weapons, that are picked up on the track as bonuses, which can be used against competing cars. The automobiles themselves, once again, have wheels that are larger than the body of the car thus creating a car that has no 'right way up' and can be flipped and continue to drive.

Game publisher Take-Two Interactive repackaged the game for PC as "Death Track Racing".

Differences from 'Rollcage'

• Improved Graphics (such as texture detail)
• Larger selection of cars (Rotor Has Reused From Re-Volt)
• Wider range of tracks
• More race types (such as knockout races)
• Upgrading weapons which give increased capability and are obtained when two of the same weapon are picked up, such as the double driller missile
• Added bonuses

Tracks

There are 6 different environments, with 3 or 4 tracks in each. There are the returning Harpoon (an exotic island) and Outworld (tracks that take place on a different planet) tracks, as well as 4 new ones: Skyway, which are all tracks built high in the sky, Ventura, which is in a rocky desert, and the even more futuristic Leviathan and Jumpgate tracks. These are all spread into 5 different leagues which must be completed to unlock new cars and other things. Jumpgate isn't available until the Type 2 campaign is completed.

Cars

The cars are also different from the original Rollcage. Instead of having to drive the cars of some characters, you get to pick out of a good 20 cars from 5 different manufacturers which included Richter, Vostok, Subsonic, Unity, and Patriot. These cars each have a type 1, type 2 and type 3 version, which all gave a different paint job. Each car, except the first ones obtained when a campaign is completed, is unlocked by winning a race respective to that car. So some things are unlocked by just beating the campaigns, but getting a car for every race won is a nice bonus. The cars in type 3 are only unlocked when you find a smiley face token in the same track that you won them on.

Weapons

All the weapons from Rollcage return except for the Ice Sheet. The original's Wormhole weapon was also changed. The missile weapon is also slightly different. The new weapons include the Tazer Ram, the Radius Bomb and the Stasis Beam. Full descriptions of these and the rest of the weapons can be found at [1]. The biggest addition though, is weapons becoming better and essentially 'upgraded' when two of the same type of weapon is picked up, for example the Driller missile becoming the Double Driller.

Extra Stuff

There is a mode called "Scramble", where your car is placed on a floating track and the objective is to get to the finish line as fast as possible. This is made very difficult due to the many obstacles such as thin bumpy roads, big jumps, snow on the track, and more. It is also possible to create shortcuts which are usually very dangerous and hard to perform and it is often hard to even discover how to find the shortcut on some tracks where the shortcut is well hidden.

There is also a "demolition mode" where the objective is to destroy as much stuff on the track as possible, either against the clock or in a two-player setting. Additional two-player modes such as the "novel rubble soccer," the "old combat mode," "time attack," and a "pursuit minigame." A "training mode" is included for new players along with "survivor mode" and a race in which every track is raced one after the other with the aim of setting a total record.

Music

Rollcage Stage II features music from E-Z Rollers, Technical Itch, Omni Trio, Aquasky, Flytronix and Dom And Roland. An official game soundtrack was released separately and is currently available for purchase digitally, via iTunes. In addition, the PlayStation game is an Audio Accessible disc and can be played in normal Audio CD Players. The PlayStation discs features playback of all 12 music tracks from the game and soundtrack.

Sequels

While ATD and Psygnosis did not continue on the RollCage series, ATD later developed the game FireBugs featuring roughly the same racing concept. There is also a free software racing simulator, ReCaged, developed by fans of the RollCage series.

Multiplayer

The game handles multiplayer games over LAN or direct IP connection, which is a bit outdated nowadays. Still, it's possible to have internet games using softwares like Tunngle.

To act as a meeting point, a multiplayer community has been created.

External links

• Rollcage Stage 2 site
• Rollcage Stage II at GameFAQs
• ReCaged website
• ReCaged forum
• ReCaged project page
• RollcageX - An open source fan-made sequel (before renamed to "ReCaged").
• rollcage steam group - A steam group for multiplayer games on Rollcage and Rollcage Stage II