The Simpsons: Road Rage (GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox)

The Simpsons: Road Rage
Developer: Radical Entertainment Publisher: Electronic Arts Platforms: GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox Released in US: November 20, 2001 Released in EU: November 8, 2001 This game has unused code. This game has a hidden developer message. This game has hidden development-related text. This game has unused objects. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused models. This game has unused music. This game has unused sounds. This game has debugging material. This game has revisional differences. This game has a prototype article This game has a prerelease article This game has a bugs page

The Simpsons: Road Rage is a clone of Crazy Taxi, but set in Springfield.

Sub-Pages

Prototype Info

Prerelease Info

Bugs

Unused Graphics

The full texture for the Krusty Burger drive-thru intercom also includes unused textures for the main building which have a less detailed appearance than the used ones. These are leftovers from early builds of the game where the majority of graphics had a more cartoon-like appearance.

Unused textures for Mr. Burns' mansion in the "Springfield Mountains" level. These are also probably leftovers from the more cartoon-like early builds.

GameCube Version

The GameCube version has some extra cut content omitted from its Xbox and PlayStation 2 counterparts.

A leftover sprite of Chief Wiggum that would have been used in the character selection screen. This sprite is identical to the one used in the E3 2001 prototype. The image is titled LWiggum.png while the sprite that is actually used is located in the same folder and titled LChief.png.

Leftover beer bottles that were used in the HUD in the E3 prototype for the "destroy stuff" and "avoid the traffic" tasks.

Coin and hourglass sprites that would have been displayed in the HUD next to the total money earned and remaining time respectively. These sprites were used in an early prototype separate from the E3 build.

A blackboard image inside a directory titled "loading", which implies it was going to be used in the loading screen. In the aforementioned early non-E3 prototype, the loading screen does have a blackboard with Bart writing on it, but the image is less detailed.

Graphics for the GameCube controller buttons. The font is different and the X, Y and Z buttons are the wrong shape.

Unused Sounds

Placeholder Pedestrian Dialogue

Located in the "Female" directory of dialog.rcf in the GameCube release of the game, these robotised female voice clips are obvious placeholders for when a female pedestrian gets hit by or dodges your car. These clips bear a remarkable similarity to some of the placeholder voices heard in the non-E3 prototype. Interestingly, none of the female pedestrians included in the game have any voice clips, so these provisional files never needed to be replaced.

Unused Pedestrian Folders

Inside dialog.rcf, there are three subfolders inside sound/dialog/english named BGMurphy, Drzweig and Lurleen, referring to the characters Bleeding Gums Murphy, Dr. Zweig, and Lurleen Lumpkin, respectively. All three of these folders contain another subfolder named Pedestri, which contains an 8 byte .dlg file used as a placeholder. Both Dr. Zweig and Lurleen appear in-game as low quality, unvoiced pedestrians - Bleeding Gums does not, however.

Unused Music

Three unused tracks. Their filenames suggest they were intended for gameplay in "Road Rage" or "Head to Head" mode.

Track	Filename
	Front_02.rsp
	Front_07.rsp
	Front_10.rsp

Unused Models

To do: Upload inages of models without lighting, or in another, vertex-based lighting rendering engine for the time. blender shading and no smooth shading kind of looks awkward here.

Dr. Hibbert

Dr. Hibbert who is untextured but has material. He was probably intended to be a passenger at some point.

Kent Brockman

Kent Brockman who normally only appears in the FMV cutscenes. He also has material but no textures.

Misplaced Objects

To do: Is there more? Images, also.

To do: The Alpha 3 build has an unused section in Downtown that connects to the Springfield Mountains; The Country Club and Cliffside View. This explains what the unused stream of water was originally meant for. Source (Starts at 4:19)

If the player uses the cheat for additional camera views, they can fly out of the level boundaries using the "Look Camera" option. The boundaries were put in place when the game was forced to shift from an open world design, instead having individual levels late in the development cycle.

Evergreen Terrace

At a distance behind the wreckage at the beginning of the level, there is an identical wreckage. This was most likely used to indicate where the level connects to the Springfield Mountains level.

Downtown

If one flies out of bounds to where the Springfield Mountains should be, they should see an unused stream of water along with a misplaced dot. It's also worth noting that there are unused collisions and spawn points for the streets and terrain that can't be seen even with the routing cheat.

Springfield Mountains

There is an unused, cheaply made sign saying "Soft Shoulder, Blind Curves, Steep Grade, Big Trucks, Good Luck!" placed behind the wreck at the beginning of the level. In this area, there is also a Burns Transit Bus Stop, a power line and a speed limit sign. Far under the world near the starting point there is also an evergreen tree and a stick just laying around.

Unused Spawn Points

In Downtown, there are two unused spawn points that cannot be accessed without glitching or cheating out of the map. The first spawn point is behind the crashed truck at the beginning at the level at the other end of the tunnel, which leads to nowhere. The second one is located out of bounds on an invisible hill near the other exit of the level near the unused river stream.

Debugging Functions

Collision Debug

In the options menu, enter one of the codes below (depending on platform) to enable debug collision lines and boxes during gameplay.

Platform	Code
GCN, Xbox	Hold L + R and press B, B, A, A
PlayStation 2	Hold L1 + R1 and press △, △, ✕, ✕

Debug Display

A debug display showing information about the performance of the game. The PS2 European region received two versions - one for the UK that only has English (SLES-50540), and one for mainland Europe that had 5 languages (SLES-50628). They are represented with (UK) and (EU) respectively.

The display normally is meant to be enabled by XORing the last byte of the 32 bit array that stores the currently activated cheat codes with 0x4 (0b00000100), but since no button combination is bound to this option^[confirm], it can be enabled by deleting the instruction that checks if the bit is set to 1, rather than writing 0x4 as that can affect the other cheats stored and activated on that byte.

	EUR	USA
GCN	040145CC 60000000	04014574 60000000
PS2	(EU) 201117E8 00000000 (UK) 201117D0 00000000	20111760 00000000
Xbox	00013EFA 909090909090	00013E7A 909090909090

(Source: Ralf@gc-forever (GCN AR), Edness (GCN Raw, PS2, Xbox))

Hidden Message

In Downtown, behind the 24/7 mini mart (across from the cathedral), is a sign with a message congratulating Michael and Whitney on their wedding. Whitney may be Whitney Reed, who is listed in the credits under Special Thanks (Fox Interactive). It is not known who Michael is, as there are seven different Michaels listed in the credits.

Congratulations to
Michael & Whitney
On their Wedding!
Happiness Always,
Love Springfield

Development Text

To do: There's plenty more.

All files determining the properties of individual vehicles start with the following comment:

################################################################################
#
# Simpsons Racing -- Vehicle Database
#
################################################################################

The file traffic.cfg includes a number of comments:

#how far in front of you traffic must be to be added.  
# call this before removetrafficaheadradius.

# how far in front of the addtrafficahead radius the car must be before it is removed.

# how far behind you (camera) traffic must be to be removed.

#what angle the traffic must be to ignore above distance and be added beside you.
# this is important at low speeds.  At high speeds, it will have little, or no effect.

#
#                    /\
#   add traffic    /   \
#                /      |
#              / do not |
#	Player   add    |	Add traffic out here
#	       \ traffic|
#                \      |
#   add traffic    \   /
#                    \/ 
# how close together traffic will be added.

# how far ahead of the player the traffic bubble will be projected.
# works like this.  speed = 30m/s, addtrafficlookaheadtime = 1s, bubble is 30 m ahead of you.
# with a radius (r) of addtrafficactivelaneradius = 20m.
#		       _____
#                     /     \
#	Player|----|>|	     |	<-bubble r = 20m
#                     \_____/				
#

# what is the radius of the projected traffic bubble.

# when will we start to use the projected traffic bubble.

Platform Differences

Additional Ending

Upon completion of the game, a cutscene where Mr. Burns admits defeat will play on all three console versions. However, an additional cutscene featuring Kang and Kodos appears only on the GameCube and Xbox versions. The cutscene reveals that the two aliens were playing Road Rage, but have grown bored and decide to play an "alternate game", namely a version of PONG as their spaceship flies off. It was removed in the PlayStation 2 version for unknown reasons.

Additionally, the GameCube version allows the player to view the game's opening cutscene and both parts of the ending cutscene in the main screen options menu, but in the PlayStation 2 version only the Mr. Burns ending cutscene can be viewed.

Removed Passengers

To do: Get images of the passenger positions.

In the PlayStation 2 version, a passenger in Evergreen Terrace (Barney, Captain McCallister or Squeaky-voiced Teen) will be standing outside an alleyway and will ask to be dropped off at Smithers' apartment. However, they don't make an appearance at all in the GameCube and Xbox versions. This is most likely because the distance between the passenger and the drop-off location is so short that the player can take advantage of this by using these passengers to rack up an unlimited amount of money without running out of time.