I ’76 Walkthrough Updated & Musings

The Interstate ’76 walkthrough update is finished. Matching the other walkthroughs on the site, there are now images and video. Some of the videos may not play yet, but they will connect as they become available. I didn’t want to drop a ton of videos on Youtube all at once, so I spaced their release out a bit. I figure there’s no hurry for a 30-year-old game. Local Ditch Gaming is like a glacier — slowly moving and collecting a lot of crap along the way (while some parts slowly melt).

So, rather than writing a proper epilogue after thoroughly playing through the game again, I figured I’d drop some random bits and thoughts:

Groove makes quick work of a creeper in Interstate ’76.

• Playing Interstate ’76 is like revisiting an old friend. The mission intro cutscenes start and after a few words, it all comes back to me and I know exactly what the next line will be. And the dialog is still good, to boot. Awesome.

• In contrast with Nitro, I like how the TRIP forces you to learn different weapons. I may be more of a forward-fire type of person, but you’ve got a car with rears and droppers. The salvage component limits you at the beginning, so there’s plenty of reason to try out the new goodies as you get them. You can feel the differences in power. The handling of different suspension is noticeable. There’s room to grow and it’s done logically with the game world.

• Playing again and thinking back to my first time through: The first time was rough. Partially, it’s because I was a dumb teenager. But… I hadn’t cracked the code yet: Car design is key! I ’76 plays by old-school game rules: You try it again until you figure it out. The more you play, the better you’ll get, then you’ll reach the next level. I understand that in the modern era, we’ve kind of shifted to a “play through it just to experience it” approach, but I didn’t mind replaying levels in I ’76. I think the environment, the funk, the attitude, and just the fun of it made it all rewarding. (Then again, I’m a little biased running an I ’76 fan site here.)

Groove enters the riverbed in Scene 15 of Interstate ’76.

• Hitting Scene 15 in particular unlocked a wave of memories: roaming the desert completely lost, fighting with all these Striders/dune buggies, listening to funk while hearing Taurus’s poems sticks in my head from the first time I played I ’76. I think it’s because it was a long level for the first play through and I had no clue where I was going and still just figuring everything out. And, the evening clouds and lighting are pretty cool. It’s a bit ominous as you know the final showdown is near. All that together really sets a mood.

• When I think back to the original I ’76, particularly multiplayer, I see it in its software-only, pre-Gold Edition state: No mountains in the background, blocky textures, yellow colors for all of the ballistic weapons. I spent a lot of time in the original. (Having a car “in the red,” sounds of floppy flat tires, and circling another driver lag-aiming .45 shots with engines off seems burned in my brain.) But, I digress…

• I ’76’s plot may just be “revenge with gun-strapped cars,” but the writing is superb. Activision at the time hired creatives with writing and production backgrounds, and it definitely shows in their games. It’s not just the movies in I ’76 that are great. The mission directives and flow are awesome. If I think of Mechwarrior 5, most missions boil down to “kill wave after wave of enemy mechs.” But, think of the creative missions in Mechwarrior 2 and MW2: Mercenaries. I mean, so many people mention that you had to drive a hovercraft to escape a prison! I ’76 continues in that vein, with memorable events and unique scenarios. It’s all the better for it.

Groove prepares to race Patriot in Scene 4 of Interstate ’76.

• I ’76, of course, is an auto-combat game. But, what I think sets is apart is that it’s also a driving game. So much time in the game is spent driving from one spot to another, listening to the tunes, seeing the muscle cars, feeling the heaviness of these 70s muscle cars along the road. Heck, even listen to a poem over the CB to fill the spaces of open roads in the American Southwest. I think this is why you had a few different groups of people getting into I ’76. Some wanted it for the driving. Some liked the muscle cars. Some like guns. Some liked Mechwarrior 2-style “simulation” games. Some really loved the in-game, alternative 70s universe, which may have lead to (too many) “stories of the Southwest”-type fan-fiction works.

• “They can’t make a game like that today.” (Man, I hate hearing old people say stuff like that.) Interstate ’76 was definitely a game designed of its time. In the 90s, the PC gaming market was much smaller. So comparatively, sim gaming made up a huge part of it.. Some people have said I ’76 was like MW2 with cars. Or, that the cars felt more like tanks. Maybe… but wouldn’t an armored car feel a little like that? Either way, it rocked.

  Although there’s still a die-hard PC sim gaming community, it’s relatively small compared to general gaming nowadays. I ’76 seemed to straddle the line as an action-sim. There was the complexity in the physics: car weight, handling, etc. was impacted by how you configured the car. Acceleration, gravity, and other forces acted realistically. Outside of the baked-in e-brake physics (which were originally modeled realistically, then hard-coded after player testing), the handling is physics and sim-based. The controls… are totally simulation game. Just look at the keycards as proof!

• Surprisingly enough to me, it seems a lot people play this game in 3rd person. I get it in the competitive sense — you can see more around you which gives you an advantage in combat. But, I want to be in the car, not remote controlling it from a drone outside the thing! Seeing how other car-combat games like Twisted Metal and Vigilante 8 were third-person, maybe I’m in the minority here.

A Dover Lightning drops fire while battling.

• Rummaging through the ‘net, I’ve seen modern interpretations that the story and setting are good, but the game itself, the combat, is bad and jank. Okay, the 3D graphics are a little janky with all of the pop-in… but the handling and combat are quite nice. You can feel the weight of the cars. Not to mention, the real heavy-ass vehicles of 60s and 70s didn’t handle that well. I think back to my dad’s ’76 Grand Marquis and getting on the highway felt like an airplane taking off.

• Interstate ’76 community. It’s amazing how many sites, gangs, message boards, etc. popped up for the game. Yet, it all really only lasted a few years at most.

• It’s longer between I ’76 coming out and its setting date. 97 to 76. Crazy. I guess we missed the chance for I ’97 in 2018. The 30 year anniversary of the game’s release will be around April of next year. Maybe there’ll be a little something for it?

• Interstate ’76 AI programmer Karl Meissner provides an interesting look at I ’76’s AI design.

• I 76 programmer Kurt Arnlund has blogged a bit about the game. I found this link in a document I had saved in 2007. It was probably supposed to go somewhere on Local Ditch around then.

On my list: a little more updating of the I ’76, then a wishlist for the future of I ’76. Then… off to something else for a while.