Techniques
This section covers the various techniques you can use in the game.
- Sliding
Integral to making some corners, and entering and exiting some shortcuts. Simply put on the brakes, turn, and hit the accelerator again to start your car sliding. Careful use of the directional buttons will control the slide.
- Powerup loading
The computer tries to do this, but doesn't get it right. The objective is to drop a powerup onto the respawn spot for another powerup such that the powerup you dropped is unavoidable to anyone who dares go for a powerup. Works best when you're over 5 seconds ahead, that way the powerup you just loaded will respawn before the next person comes through.
- Stunt loading
After pulling off a successful stunt, drop a Bad Gas immediately after getting your Nitro. The Bad Gas will be in such a place that the next person to land a stunt there will hit it immediately after getting their Nitro, setting them back, unless they have an Invincible or Nitro to use to counteract it. Be wary of that spot the next lap, though.
- Drafting
Get directly behind someone. If you're close enough, the black dot on your speedometer will slowly turn yellow, indicating that you're in the draft. Drafting will net you an extra 10 mph, which is critical for passing, so don't overlook it. You can draft while using a Nitro for an extra 27 mph. Seeya!
- Being annoying
Just because you have two powerups in your inventory doesn't mean the person behind you should have a chance to get any... Drive through a powerup opportunity with a full inventory. It will turn orange and disappear, you won't get the powerup, but then again neither will they. Powerups take 5 seconds to respawn, so keep that in mind.
- Infinite Nitro
This technique is possible on most of the tracks, but not all of them. The objective is to perform the correct sequence of stunts so that you get enough nitro to last you from the last stunt opportunity to the first one on each lap. The result is you will always have that extra 17 mph you love so much. You can win without this, but it's more to your benefit to learn it. Check out section 8 to see how exactly each Infinite Nitro is done.
- Hangin' on for dear life
Right at the end of the race, if whoever is in the position behind you is right near you, they will most certainly pull alongside and try to steal your position. Once you see which side they're on, steer into them before they get the chance to get the front end of their car ahead of yours. You will slow them down, and they will push you across the finish line in the position you just fought so hard to earn. Might be cheap in player vs. player, but vs. the computer, anything's fair game.
- Stunts
It's simple enough to get the hang of, yet complex enough to drive you insane in Stunt Challenge mode. This is where you get all your style points. The game only seems to look for two criteria before giving you the points/Nitro for a stunt:
- Did the car flip upside down at some point during the stunt?
- Did the car land reasonably enough on its wheels (either 2 or 4) without too much of the body work scraping the ground beforehand?
If both of those conditions are true, you will get the stunt points and Nitro. The rest is up to you. The aggrivating part is, sometimes if you hit a wall at the wrong angle during a stunt, it will say "hey, that player didn't land the stunt correctly!" and give you one of the stunt failed messages. I've also had it do that and then upon landing correctly on the ground, it gave me the Nitro I'd earned anyway.
- No-Stunt lap
For further reference, see Infinite Nitro.
The idea behind the No-Stunt lap is simple. Build up Nitro while doing an Infinite Nitro, and then once you've got enough for an entire lap, do a lap without any stunts whatsoever. Stunts generally slow you down a slight bit, so combining Infinite Nitro with the No-Stunt lap is a great way to shave some seconds off of your lap times.
In fact, to even beat a few of the Rumble1 times, you need to run either constant Infinite Nitro laps, or a No-Stunt lap.
I've included the number of nitros required to do a No-Stunt lap in the section for each track, even the ones where an Infinite Nitro techinique isn't possible/hasn't been discovered yet. This was calculated off of the Rumble1 time for each track, so if you're slower/faster, you'll need more/less Nitros accordingly.
- Double Launch
This technique simply (ab)uses the fact that you can use either of the powerups in your inventory at any time by pressing the appropriate button.
To do a double launch, simply launch both of your powerups at the same time. This gives you the added benefit that both of them will hit the target. For best results, hit your powerup 2 button a split second before hitting your powerup 1 button, since pressing your powerup 1 button will move the powerup in the 2nd slot to slot 1.
You get mixed results combining anything other than the Landslide with the Landslide. This technique works best with the Bad Gas, Oil Slick, and Freeze powerups.
When your opponents are getting angered by suddenly being dual-oil slicked, dual-bad gassed, or the worst, dual-frozen, you know you've got it. If you somehow manage a dual Tornado, well... good for you. Tornadoes are best launched with some time between them if you have more than one, though. That way the opponents have just enough time to recover from the first one and get going again when the second one smacks them around again.