XGRA - Subsonic Warmonger Cup (All kills)

Maybe it's just me, or maybe it's a common dispensation among the transhumanist crowd, but I sure do like me some futuristic racers. As if you couldn't tell.

This time it's XGRA, which they didn't call XG4 because...who knows? If I had to guess, I'd say that as part of a sequential numbering scheme, the number 3 brings a feel of excitement, no doubt due in part to a subconscious link to the apocalyptic imagery of a World War 3. Meanwhile, by the time you get to the 4th installment of something, calling it as such just sounds tacky.

Anyway, the premise here is that you have 8 riders and 8 teams racing it out in various sponsored cups, but the riders can swap back and forth between teams for each cup. Kind of like NFL kickers, if you think about it. And in addition to the races at hand, there are side goals given by the choice of team ("contract incentives") which don't directly help the standings, but completing them will enhance your bike's capabilities for future cups, or even replaying past cups for a better career score.

A perfect profile in the game consists of 1622 points: finishing first awards 10 to 50 points per race, depending on the bike class used in each cup, for a total of 1580. The remaining 42 points have to come from kills, where the two cups played under the Warmonger rules each provide a bonus point for every opponent you can destroy in each race. Somehow they all survive for you to destroy them again next race, but hey--more points for you!

The good news is there are only two Warmonger cups in the game. The bad news is that the first of those, at the Subsonic class, is easily the most difficult cup in the entire game to max out, due mainly to the fact that you have only 2 laps to rack up all 7 kills in each race, and have to repeat it for three straight races. This was the last cup I had to max out on my own profile, and now you can watch that process in action here.

Bear in mind: If there's infighting among the other racers and they destroy each other, that's a point that doesn't go to me; objective failed. If one of the autoguns on the track deals a finishing blow, no one gets that kill point; objective failed. Heck, if I send a bike up in smoke and it finally explodes in close enough proximity to another bike that the blast destroys that one too, the game fails to award credit for the second kill there; objective failed.

My mission is further hampered by the fact that weapons are generally weak compared to the health bars on the bikes, emphasizing that this is meant as a racing game and not an all-out combat game. The best weapon to get kills is the level 3 rocket, which fires of six homing missiles in a row: extremely easy to use and aim even as you go through the winding turns of the tracks. The trouble is that you don't start with level 3 rockets, you start with level 1, and go up a level with each of the first two kills. It's feasible to get kills with level 1, but it requires a sustained effort of 4-5 shots, which is generally out of the question except on long straightaways. Level 2 rockets are just plain bad, since it fires four unguided missiles to use up the ammo that much faster, and there's a delay between each one so good luck keeping them aimed in the right spot even a couple seconds from now. Usually at least 2-3 of those shots will be a complete waste.

Actually, scratch that. Level 3 rockets aren't the easiest kill-shot weapon in the game. You have these green hologram power-ups scattered all over the track, and depending on how many you want to save up, you can get different weapons and recharges. At the very top end, cashing in 10 power-ups at once earns a SiNN Deathstrike: SiNN is basically the ESPN of the future, according to the story, and the Deathstrike lets you call up the network executives and ask "Hey, see that guy in front of me? Can't you fire a massive beam down from space to destroy them instantly?" Given how much disregard they have for these supposedly world-class riders who are skilled enough to make the sport so exciting that it brings in such huge ratings, of course they'll oblige that request! Isn't this game great?

So level 1 rockets are serviceable but narrow, and level 2 rockets are extremely unwieldy. My plan in each course will be to use a deathstrike as the second kill so I can go straight on to level 3 and hopefully mow down the other 5 bikes in time for the 2-lap race, of course assuming they don't destroy each other and deny me a perfect 27 for the race.

And in addition to a a massive slaughterfest, these races even bring some nice scenes with them too. Just wait 69 more years and you can find out if the world really will be like they say!