
A reason to hate Pixar - shawndumas
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/06/a-reason-to-hate-pixar-uniracers-on-the-snes-is-a-masterpiece.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss
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topherjaynes
Hmm, not really sure this is a reason to hate Pixar.

"But they also looked a little too much like the unicycle from the animated
short film Red's Dream. At least, that's what Pixar thought."

I think it look exactly like bike from Red's Dream, which was released in 1987
so any similarities might not be accidental. Also, 1994 is around the time
they were ramping up for their first movie release and an IPO so I'm sure they
had to "fix this" incase there were any questions.

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cubicle67
Red Dream <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RedPixar.jpg>

Uniracers <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Uniracers_boxart.png>

~~~
wccrawford
Comparing those 2 pictures, I'm actually amazed at how different they are.

The seat is shaped slightly differently. The Pixar seat has springs and
mounting rails, where the other has nothing. The Pixar frame is rounded, the
other frame is squared off and looks like it has should pads. The Pixar wheel
is spoked. The other has a triangle-like center.

So, the similarities? They both have all the basic parts of a unicycle, and
they're red, and the frame is slightly oversized.

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wccrawford
Cripes, it's a unicycle... What did they really think could be done about it?

I'm not happy with Pixar about that lawsuit, but I'm more upset with our court
system for their part in this.

~~~
sambeau
Mike Dailly, one of the developers at DMA Design, commented, "The problem with
Pixar was that they seemed to think that any computer generated unicycle was
owned by them."

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniracers>

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randrews
A couple years ago I bought an SNES and a few games I liked as a kid: Link to
the Past, Metal Warriors, Pilotwings, and Uniracers. I had no idea it was rare
or even obscure. We played the hell out of it when I was in middle school. If
you can you should get a gamepad and an emulator and try it out; they're
totally right about how fun it is.

~~~
artmageddon
I absolutely loved Uniracers and Link to the Past in middle school! The latter
had neat visuals that didn't sacrifice from the feeling of immense speed it
gave...

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atroche
Do you mean the former?

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artmageddon
Yes, sorry-looks like the edit link for that expired. That was meant in regard
to Uniracers. I never knew that they had to stop producing the game on account
of a lawsuit, that's actually quite sad, as it really was a great game.

The game would let you name each of your Uni's(I think there were 20?), but I
got kind of a laugh out of how it would reject a name like "Sonic" or "Sega",
with a message of "Not Cool Enough".

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njharman
Should hate over broad, over reaching, anti-innovation IP laws, not Pixar. The
fact that someone can own an idea (look of unicycle) and sue others that use
similar idea is totally ludicrous. But, we're indoctrinated to ownership so
the jump from real to imaginary property doesn't seem so large.

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sambeau
DMA Design are an interesting company. They created Lemmings and Grand Theft
Auto from a small office in Dundee, Scotland.

~~~
sambeau
More info about it here:

[http://retro.nintendolife.com/news/2010/03/feature_the_makin...](http://retro.nintendolife.com/news/2010/03/feature_the_making_of_unirally)

“My total royalty cheques for Unirally amounted to something like seventeen
quid. I think I bought pizza. The pioneers of the games industry bought
Ferraris and swimming pools on the proceeds of their games. I bought ham and
pineapple toppings with extra barbecue sauce on a crispy base.”

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civild
I played this to death as a young lad. It was called Unirally in the UK, and
the split screen mode rivalled Mario Kart in competitive excitement (and
rage). My cousin and I used to have grudge matches every time we fired up the
SNES. Didn't realise it was a relative rarity.

~~~
daeken
My brother and I were hooked on this game for the longest time. I wish I had
held onto it.

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daimyoyo
I hope that someone open sources the code for this game. It was a blast to
play back when I was a kid, and I'd like to see this game get rediscovered.

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flocial
Awesome vid. I'd totally buy this for my iPhone.

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eridius
I had no idea this was a rare game. I loved playing this game as a kid. One of
my most-played SNES cartridges I believe.

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forgottenpaswrd
It seems to me like a copy of the Sonic The Hedgehog concept for the SNES.

~~~
bittermang
Positively wrong.

I would argue against the article in that Uniracers was a racing game. There
were tracks, laps, and everything else you would expect to find in a racing
game. What made it a trick game was the fact that doing a trick would make you
go faster, and continuing to do tricks while racing was the key to victory in
the later levels. The game also featured stunt levels where the focus was
completely on doing stunts, usually in some type of half pipe level. However
speed was also key here, because doing more successful tricks led to you
moving faster, which gave you more air, which let you do more tricks, which
let you get the gold medal.

Uniracers allowed you to enter your own name for your save file. There was a
rudimentary profanity filter, however interestingly if you tried to enter Sega
or Sonic as a name, "Not cool enough." One of the tours also featured a
"Hedgehog Mode" which made the game unreasonably slow, slower than "Slow
Motion" mode.

