Destruction Derby 2 (PlayStation)

Destruction Derby 2
Developer: Reflections Interactive Publishers: Psygnosis (US/EU), SCEI (JP) Platform: PlayStation Released in JP: February 21, 1997 Released in US: October 31, 1996 Released in EU: January 18, 1997 This game has unused graphics. This game has unused text. This game has debugging material. This game has regional differences. This game has a prototype article

MACSrPOO! Destruction Derby 2 is the second entry in the demolition derby/racing series published by Psygnosis, and the last developed by Reflections Interactive. It vastly improves on the original in terms of level design, physics and sound.

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Prototype Info

Unused Text

%R%JL%T/Pork Sword

Found at 0xF94 in FRONTEND.BIN – among the strings used by the CD Player menu – is this piece of text. "Pork Sword" is not the name of any band or song featured in the game.

Unused Graphics

Demo Leftovers

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Seven images of promotional material, used on PlayStation demo discs, can be found on the root of DIRINFO in the retail game as RAW files. They date back to the July 14th, 1996 rolling demo build.

Assets	Use

An eighth unused RAW file is also found in DIRINFO, but this one dates back even further: a playable demo build available at E3 1996, where it was used as the background of a rather barebones frontend. Its corresponding font file, FONT.BNK, is present as well.

(Source: 30 minutes of E3 1996 (17:03))

Menu Assets

Stored in LEV0/LEVEL.TX0 and loaded along with the main menu's graphics at boot and after races is an image depicting the game's cover artwork. This is never seen by the player, as the graphic is overwritten in the VRAM by a picture of the currently selected track (taken from LEV0/TRACKS.BIN) when entering the Track Select menu.

Button graphics related to a scrapped "Quick Load" feature survive in the frontend data. They were part of an earlier design of the Configuration menu and would've been used alongside a "Quick Save" button – this was replaced with a "Save Configuration" option which, due to the exclusion of "Quick Load," is awkwardly placed off-center in the final product.

A number of icons intended to be shown on the top left corner of menus remain unused in the data, either because the relevant options do not use dedicated menu screens or their pages simply use different icons.

System Link Mode Remnants

Destruction Derby 2 was originally meant to feature a system link mode, much like its predecessor. While it ended up abandoned mid-development, graphics related to it survive among HUD and car textures stored in the various tracks' files.

Found among position markers, graphics that read "1up" and "2up" would likely be displayed above the human opponent's car during linked races.

Curiously, both graphics appear as part of certain tracks' scenery, possibly as an Easter Egg: the "1up" marker replaces one of the animated flames on Death Bowl, while a group of "2up" sprites can barely be seen riding the rollercoaster on Ultimate Destruction.

Found next to the palettes used by Player 1's "Amateur" and "Pro" cars are CLUTs for two unused liveries – one in solid red and another in black/blue. Their labels in LEVEL.DAT files explicitly denote them as alternate liveries for Player 2.

Stored in the LEVEL.TXC file of Pine Hills Raceway, Caprio County Raceway, Ultimate Destruction, Red Pike Arena, and Death Bowl. As with Player 1's secondary liveries, no associated low-poly palettes exist.

Found only among Chalk Canyon's car textures are door graphics for Player 2's car. Their accompanying CLUT, as originally stored in the track's LEVEL.TX3 file, represents a blue/yellow livery that does not survive in the form of other car parts.

While not loaded to VRAM or defined in LEVEL.DAT, door palettes corresponding to the red and black/blue color schemes above are also present in Chalk Canyon's LEVEL.TXC file. Their placement towards the end of this file, as well as the fact the surrounding data repeats itself and is truncated at the EOF, suggests these were written as garbage data, either deliberately for padding purposes or by accident.

Unused Car Palettes

A low-poly texture palette for Car 01 is left unused as the lower LOD car model is never used for the player. Even Demo Mode, which focuses on The Pro's Car 17, has the 01 machine use the highest LOD at all times.

Loaded in all tracks near The Bouncer's various hood, roof, and trunk palettes is a yellow color scheme that is never seen during normal gameplay. While this tone of yellow closely resembles that of the early car graphics found in Pine Hills Raceway, its actual purpose is unknown. It's specifically attached to the second roof texture in data.

Miscellaneous Graphics

Loaded in Pine Hills Raceway are graphics for a car's windshield, rear window and a damaged front wheel arch – none of which see any use whatsoever. They have their own color palettes, which sport a yellow/white scheme only seen in promotional artwork.

Cropped Graphic

Original	Used

Track pictures used on the Track Select menu are typically stored and displayed as 128x80 graphics. Ultimate Destruction's picture, however, is instead stored as a 128x102 image, meaning that the bottom 22 pixel rows are cropped in-game and effectively go unused.

Debug Text

On booting and while using the menu, the TTY debug console displays debug info. This is not visible to the user. The nocash BIOS can be used to view these statements (it automatically detects the DUART hardware and activates TTY if it is present).

...
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SAVE_DATA        = 6520
REPLAY_SAVE_DATA = 7208
...
...
...

Regional Differences

North America & Japan	Europe

The game's outro FMV differs between regions, with the European release featuring the game's cover artwork overlaid on the background footage and a glow effect on the text, along with minor differences in formatting.