Rollcage Stage II

Rollcage Stage II is a racing video game developed by Attention to Detail for PlayStation and Microsoft Windows. It is the sequel to Rollcage. On top of the basic racing concept, the cars can be equipped with weapons, which 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 up or down and therefore can be flipped yet continue to drive.

Rollcage Stage II
Developer(s)Attention to Detail
Publisher(s)
Platform(s)PlayStation, Microsoft Windows
Release
  • EU: 17 March 2000[1]
  • NA: 10 October 2000
Genre(s)Racing
Mode(s)Single-player, multiplayer

For the North American Windows release, game publisher Take-Two Interactive repackaged the original European/Australasian version as Death Track Racing.

Rollcage Stage II was also among the very first titles to feature hardware-accelerated bump mapping upon its release in March 2000, in the form of EMBM (Environment Mapped Bump Mapping). RSII was designed to be best experienced at the time on Matrox Millennium G400 graphics cards, released in mid-1999, which had exclusive support for EMBM until the ATI Radeon was released in late 2000. Matrox's bump mapping technology was much hyped by industry press outlets at the time, with Matrox demoing Rollcage Stage II as a cutting-edge showcase for their cards, as well as dedicating a page on their website to the game.[2][3]

Reception
Reception
Review scores
PublicationScore
PCPS
AllGame[4]N/A
CGSP[5]N/A
EdgeN/A8/10[6]
EGMN/A8/10[7]
Eurogamer9/10[8]N/A
Game InformerN/A7.25/10[9]
GameSpot7/10[10]7.2/10[11]
GameZone7/10[12]N/A
IGN8.7/10[13]8.7/10[14]
Next GenerationN/A[15]
OPM (US)N/A[16]
Aggregate score
Metacritic73/100[17]85/100[18]

Rollcage Stage II received "favourable" reviews, while Death Track Racing received "average" reviews, according to the review aggregation website Metacritic.[17][18] Daniel Erickson of Next Generation said of the former's European version, just over six months before its U.S. release date, "A wonderful surprise, Rollcage Stage II is everything Wipeout 3 should've been but wasn't."[15] Electronic Gaming Monthly, Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine, and Game Informer also gave the same European version average to positive reviews, also over six months before its U.S. release date.[7][9][16]

Spiritual successors

While Attention To Detail (ATD) and Psygnosis did not continue on the Rollcage series after Rollcage Stage II, ATD later developed the game Firebugs featuring roughly the same racing concept.

After the end of support by the developers and publishers, a former ATD developer who previously worked on the Rollcage games, Robert Baker, released in 2014 updated builds of the games' Windows versions. These builds, based on the original source code, fix longstanding bugs and update both games for use on modern operating systems: Rollcage Redux for Rollcage and Rollcage Extreme for Rollcage Stage II[19][20]

In 2015, Robert Baker approached former ATD and Rollcage teammate David Perryman to form Caged Element under the impulsion of entrepreneur Chris Mallinson. Caged Element launched a Kickstarter campaign for Grip, a spiritual successor for the Rollcage series. A prototype was completed before the Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign using Unreal Engine 4. The development staff has two people who worked on the Rollcage series and the soundtrack has artists Technical Itch and Dom & Roland who were on the soundtrack for Rollcage Stage II.[21] Grip: Combat Racing was released in November 2018 for Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch.

References
  1. "Take Two Rolls with it". Take-Two Interactive. Archived from the original on 29 February 2000.
  2. Gonzo (November 1999). "Comdex Day Two: A doctor of journalism's tale - Wednesday Edition". Ars Technica. Condé Nast.
  3. "Rollcage Stage II Shipping with EMBM". Matrox. 22 March 2000. Archived from the original on 24 August 2000.
  4. Woods, Nick. "Death Track Racing - Review". AllGame. All Media Network. Archived from the original on 15 November 2014. Retrieved 14 February 2020.
  5. Long, David J. (6 December 2000). "DeathTrack Racing [sic]". Computer Games Strategy Plus. Strategy Plus, Inc. Archived from the original on 21 May 2003. Retrieved 15 February 2020.
  6. Edge staff (March 2000). "Rollcage Stage II (PS)". Edge. No. 82. Future plc. p. 71. Retrieved 15 February 2020.
  7. "Rollcage Stage II (Import)". Electronic Gaming Monthly. Ziff Davis. 2000.
  8. Bramwell, Tom (6 April 2000). "Rollcage Stage II (PC)". Eurogamer. Gamer Network. Retrieved 15 February 2020.
  9. "Rollcage Stage II (Import)". Game Informer. No. 84. Funcoland. April 2000.
  10. Poole, Stephen (23 October 2000). "Death Track Racing Review [date mislabeled as "May 17, 2006"]". GameSpot. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 14 February 2020.
  11. Provo, Frank (16 October 2000). "Rollcage Stage II Review [date mislabeled as "May 17, 2006"]". GameSpot. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 14 February 2020.
  12. Lafferty, Michael (30 October 2000). "Death Track Racing Review". GameZone. Archived from the original on 2 October 2008. Retrieved 15 February 2020.
  13. Steinberg, Scott (26 October 2000). "Death Track Racing". IGN. Ziff Davis. Retrieved 13 February 2020.
  14. Steinberg, Scott (16 October 2000). "Rollcage Stage 2 [sic]". IGN. Ziff Davis.
  15. Erickson, Daniel (April 2000). "Rollcage Stage II (Import)". Next Generation. No. 64. Imagine Media. p. 89.
  16. "Rollcage Stage II (Import)". Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine. Ziff Davis. 2000.
  17. "Death Track Racing for PC Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 13 February 2020.
  18. "Rollcage Stage II for PlayStation Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 5 July 2017.
  19. "Rollcage Redux builds :: Rollcage". Steam. Valve.
  20. "Rollcage Redux". CodeMonkey.
  21. "GRIP - An intense futuristic combat racer". Kickstarter. Retrieved August 20, 2015.
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