Harley Davidson and Los Angeles Riders preliminary-FAQ
Version 0.91 dated 6 May 1998
by Cheong Choon Wah AKA Rolander (rolander@pacific.net.sg)
I guess that I'm itching to try an FAQ simply because
no one seems really interested in discussing this game. I
admit there's not really much to most racing games: simply
ride as fast as you can, and take corners without crashing.
However, L. A. Riders differ primarily because there's no
fixed racecourse, and hence is quite a different game. That
is why I decided to try to master it.
For your info, most of the tips on riding is very
loosely segmented into paragraphs on advise capable of
standing alone. Whatever can be organised, is roughly so...
Enough blabbering, let's get to the subject matter.
Prime contributer besides the author is Bill Meador who
provides feedback, mainly on new secret tokens/paths. His
contributions have yet to be fully complied for the present
preliminary FAQ; hopefully they will be added to the
complete FAQ version 1.00.
Other mentions go to Stephen Reid for initial feedback
prior to the FAQ's creation and Tan Hwee Ping for
encouragement on making the FAQ.
INTRODUCTION
============
Harley Davidson and Los Angeles Riders is basically a
bike racing game against the clock with a significant twist
or two from Sega TM.
For starters, there's no conventional racecourse. The
racing occurs along the roads and freeways of a city, plus
the occasional curb, shortcut etc., teeming with
"conventional" traffic, i.e. non-racing vehicles, mainly
cars. They travel at slow speeds so a significant challenge
is to avoid crashing into them.
Also, there's no predetermined route. Instead,
checkpoints are indicated at various parts of the city.
There's a total of four or five checkpoints (depending on
your local arcade machine settings) to reach, and you won't
know which is the next checkpoint until you finish the
current checkpoint. Quick thinking and knowledge of the
land figure prominently here.
For the observant players, you will notice colored
tokens similar to the Harley crest along certain areas.
Running into them will result in extra points or additional
time.
There are seven topics to be covered below:
1) Bike difference
-What to choose as your steed...
2) Screen Display
-What you see on the screen,
apart from yourself and the roads...
3) Basic Riding
-How to complete the game...
4) Advanced Riding
-The difference between amateurs
and professionals/veterans...
5) Bonus Tokens
-For those interested in the secrets
of piling on points...)
6) Scoring (Why the other guy has a higher score...)
7) Miscellaneous (Extras and Easter eggs...)
BIKES
=====
Basically, there are 5 models available for selection
at the beginning of the game, with an option for automatic
or manual transmission. Nothing seriously different from
other racers.
The 5 models (and their riders) are:
1) FLSTF Fat Boy (Rick)
2) Panhead (Scott)
3) FXDWG Dyna Wide Glide (Dave)
4) XL 1200S Sportster 1200 Sport (Anne)
5) FXRP (Suzy)
I have decided to compare the bikes on the basis of
certain performance attributes. All comparisons are
arbitary and subject to the author's biased thinking in
favour of his personal fave bikes, namely the Sportster and
FXRP. The evaluation of the other 3 bikes may not be as
fair or as accurate as I would wish it to be...
Attributes Acceleration Top Speed Off-road Inertia
Bike
FLSTF* 3/3/3 4 3 3
Panhead* 3/3/2 2 2 3
FXDWG* 4/3/3 3 3 4
XL 1200S 5/5/2 3 2 2
FXRP 3/3/4 5 4 2
* - indicates rough performance estimates for the bike
Legend:
Acceleration
-How quickly the bike accelerates at different speed ranges
Top Speed
-Highest speed achievable on level roads, as of speedometer
Off-road
-Tolerance of lesser road surfaces; affects both
acceleration and top speed
Inertia
-Resistance to displacement caused by bumps with cars and
rival bikes
Recommendations based on comparison:
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Best bike for beginners/novices - Sportster
The superb low/medium acceleration helps quick recovery
from crashes, which is what plagues the newer riders
most.
Best bike for veterans/experts - FXRP or Sportster
FXRP has the best high-end performance and top speed
suited for scoreboard cracking, non-crashing
experienced riders. The Sportster is not as good for
long strctches of straight road or freeway, but it is
well suiting for tight maneuvering and acceleration
through high point areas.
Turkey bike of the simulation - Panhead
The Panhead is a 1948 relic (but a valued piece of H.D.
history) that can't hope to compete with the modern
bikes.
Basic Background Infomation of Bikes:
Fat Boy: Introduced as FLSTF Fat Boy in around 1990.
Panhead: Introduced in 1948 after World War II.
Dyna Wide Glide: FXDWG Dyna Wide Glide, revamped recently.
Sportster: XL 1200S Sportster 1200 Sport, a recent new
member of the XL Sportster family, introducing
new technologies.
FXRP: Police Varient of the FXRT Sports Glide, of the FXR
series in around 1988, production discontinued.
Automatic or Manual Transmission
--------------------------------
Automatic is definitely the correct choice for newbies
having trouble avoid crashes and/or staying on the road.
They have enough to worry about.
As for veterans, to my knowledge I have only seen one
rider who handles manual transmission well. In general,
unless you've been familiar with gear shifts via buttons on
your left handgrip, manual transmission is to be avoided.
You'll be facing enough menaces on the road; you don't need
gear shifting to occupy your mind. I tried it myself and
confess I don't have the capability to keep my eye on both
the road and the speedometer.
Unless you're the riding saint who NEVER crashes and
cruise at top speed everywhere. Then you can select manual,
fiddle with the gear controls as you pick up speed, and once
you hit top gear, race like a speed demon across Los
Angeles.
SCREEN DISPLAY
==============
This section covers what you will see during the race.
After selecting your bike at the shop (you may have to
wait a while), you'll be transported to the start point in
front, with a couple of seconds to get your bearing in 2nd
person (behind the bike) view. You can start switching
viewpoints between a total of 3 different viewpoints now or
anytime during the race.
A default piece of music is selected for each bike
model. Changing music pieces can only be done after the
race starts.
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Clockwise, the important information on the screen are:
1) Time remaining:
Displayed by seconds in big yellow digits at the top of
the screen. This denotes how much time you have left to
reach your present checkpoint.
2) Present Score:
Displayed in smaller white digits at the top right
corner. Points are scored based on:
a) Distance traveled on bike:
This is the actual distance that you cover by your
path.
b) Checkpoints:
For each checkpoint you hit (ahead of your opponent
if any) you gain points.
c) Bonus Tokens:
That you pick up by running into along your way.
3) Speedometer:
Display your speed via a circular meter and digits at the
bottom right corner. Note that different gears highlight
different areas of the meter, denoting the appropriate
speed range for that gear.
4) Area Map:
Of the area including your present position by a digit (1
or 2 player) and your destination checkpoint via a Harley
crest, in an upright rectangular area to the bottom left
corner. It also displays roads and freeways within that
section (but not potential shortcuts). As you get closer,
the map zooms in to reveal more detail.
5) Absolute Distance:
To your checkpoint in meters or feet displayed in small
white digits on the top left corner. This reflects
absolute distance i.e. distance measured in a straight
line from you to the checkpoint. It is not an accurate
gauge of the actual distance that must be covered on the
ground via roads.
As a rough estimate, if you are traveling in a fairly
straight path at high speed (160 - 180 kmph or 100 - 115
mph) towards the checkpoint, you need about 30 seconds for
every 1000 m, assuming you ride well and only get into one
or two minor bumps along the way. Verterans can cut it
closer to 20 seconds for a straight path.
BASIC RIDING
===========
The simple way to put it is: To complete, go the
quickest way to the checkpoints as fast as you can manage,
with as few crashes as possible.
At the start of the race, and whenever a new checkpoint
is assigned, glance at the area map to decide where to go.
Sometimes you may have to reverse along the road you're
traveling because you're going AWAY from the checkpoint.
I've seen newbies blissfully ride on, not realising they're
heading the wrong way...
As you ride towards the checkpoint, you will see bright
yellow arrows above certain road juctions. These arrows are
meant to help guide your way, pointing out possible routes.
Should you see two sets of arrows above a junction, it means
that they'r both considered viable. It is up to you to
decide which path to take.
As the roads are not evacuated of normal traffic in the
form of civilian cars, trucks and the odd police cruiser
(relax, they won't chase you down for speeding), you will
have to avoid them as you race through the city. Ramming is
definitely out; a bike will lose to a car twice its size and
probably 4 times its weigh at least. In fact, the
conventional traffic are hardly affected by bumps with you.
Try to ride with the traffic flow, not against it.
It'll be a lot easier to avoid crashing this way. However,
there are time when it is better to ride down the middle of
the road to avoid cars turning onto the road.
Immobile obstacles can be found along the way,
primarily buildings, metal posts and trees which litter the
sides of most road. There are people along the sidewalks,
but they will always duck aside; you can't run them down 8-)
There are also lesser obstacles that can be knocked over
such as park benches and fire hydrants.
While travelling along roads, it is easier and more
efficent to avoid the other vehicles by gently weaving round
them using slight turnings on the road. Sharp turns have
their place in taking corners and last ditch obstacle
avoidance, but if you manhandle the steering bar for each
obstacle along the way, you'll be zigzagging along the
breath of the road. This is BAD, as you greatly increase
the chances of bumping into something.
Occasionally, at an intersection where you're about to
turn off, it is possible to cut across the curb. This is a
most often a time saver maneuver (unless you hit the odd
tree or lamp post) as you effectively cut down on the
distance traveled on road and reduce the need for sharp
maneuvering/braking at the junction itself.
Skid turning (whereby you jam on the rear brakes as you
execute a turn) is an important move in LA Riders. This
allows you to execute very tight turns without excessive
loss of speed (unless you bump into something, of course)
and aids greatly in tight corners and reversals. In
contrast, the front brakes are near useless in most
situations, but they do provide better braking power in
special cases.
ADVANCED RIDING
================
This is for those out there eager to ride like pros and
possibly crack the scoreboard. Less obvious things on
riding and bonus pickings are here.
Experience counts a lot in LA Riders, because of the
sheer scope of the racing background. Examples are best
paths, bonus rich areas and potential shortcuts.
For every checkpoint you're assigned, you should sneak
a quick peak at the area map and make a split-second
decision on exactly how are you going to get there i.e.
which paths and turnoffs you're going to take. The yellow
arrows only indicate POSSIBLE routes, not BEST routes. You
will have to judge from your own experience from previous
ridings.
Some basic points to note:
1) Select the path with the least no. of turns. All tight
turns invariably result in loss of precious speed and
increases the possibility of crashing.
2) Freeways are potentially faster than normal roads. This
is due to the relative lack to tight corners along
freeways. They're also much wider, allowing greater
room for maneuvering and errors. If the freeway option
is only marginally longer, take the freeway.
3) When you are going to any checkpoint on the left side of
the map (ie. Beverly Hills, Hollywood) as the first
stage, then you should go up to the second block and cut
the corner along the red bricks. You get the advantage
of being on the long straightaway withou having lost any
speed in the turn.
4) There are some instances where you should make a right
turn off the road on to the freeway below. you will
need to checkpoint the map to see when it is
appropriate.
Your personal biking skill will be the prime factor in
this game, in helping you to avoid crashes. Head-on
collisions are to be avoided like the plague, because often
they rob you of most of your speed, which means you need to
waste time slowly building up your speed again. Otherwise,
ride straight along the road whenever feasible.
Sideswiping/bumping a car or a large obstacle is also
not good, but speed penality is only a fraction of a direct
collision. Naturally, it is better to go for a sideswipe
than risk a head on. The lessor ot two evils...
If you have been observant, you will have noticed your
bike is best along actual road surfaces i.e. they accelerate
and maintain top speed along actual roads and freeways.
Other surfaces do not offer as good a grip for your wheels,
ranging from the darken portions along expressway shoulders,
concrete sidewalks and dividers, stone pavements, and lastly
grass/dirt and sand/beach. Unless there are significant
advantages in going off-road for awhile, such as in cutting
a corner, or taking a major shortcut (especially Beverly
Hills, the Airport and Santa Monica beach checkpoint), you
should stick to roads as much as possible.
Occassionally, it's a good idea to go onto the sidewalk
for a while when faced with a gaggle of cars posing a
hard-to-avoid obstruction. I don't just mean the car pileup
along an expressway turnoff into Downtown. Anytime you see
a load of cars hogging the roads, making you suspect your
crash avoiding capabilites, be safe and take the relatively
clear sidewalk.
Be wary whenever you encounter an intersection, even if
you don't intend to turn. Watch out for conventional
traffic turning along that junction and avoid accordingly.
A fine art is to attempt to stay on the inner part of a
curve in the road. This does help cut down marginally on
the distance traveled, but you must be able to hold the bike
very smoothly though, as often the margin for error is so
minimal as to be nonexistant.
BONUSES
=======
There are glittering tokens of various colours
resembling the Harley Davidson crest located along certain
areas of the city. Picking them up by touching them with
your bike nets extra points or extra time for the large
tokens.
For newbies who have yet to complete the game, you
should be concentrating on improving your riding skills
before you can spare some effort to go token hunting. Most
of the points are gotten from the race directly anyway.
Token hunting should be reserved for good riders able to
make the time and effort required.
Most bonus tokens are of the small variety, and
directly affect your score. The points awarded are
determined from the colour of the tokens. More lucrative
tokens are more difficult to achieve or are situated at
obscure areas:
Green (1,000), Yellow (3,000):
Green tokens are located along certain sections of the
freeway in rows of threes. Yellow tokens are found along
certain corners of road junction mostly in rows of threes
too. Green tokens are easy to get as they lie in a fairly
straight path; yellow tokens are somewhat more difficult,
because you have to match the curvature exactly...
Individual green or yellow tokens are worth little by
themselves. However, picking them up in quick sucession
(ie. you net two or all three of a row of green/yellow
tokens in a single pass) will result in a multiplier to the
tokens after the first. For instance, if you managed to cut
a junction corner perfectly and took all three yellow tokens
by that curve in one go:
First token = 3,000 points
Second token = 3,000 X 2 points = 6,000 points
Third token - 3,000 X 3 points = 9,000 points
Total = 18,000 points... just because you took that corner
perfectly!
There exist a row of five yellow tokens by a gas station
near Hollywood that will yield:
3,000 + 6,000 + 9,000 + 12,000 + 15,000
= 45,000 points if you took all five in one quick pass!
Blue (3,000 + 100):
Blue tokens are found in obscure places, and mostly in rows
of large numbers exceeding 10. They help in piling on the
points by sheer numbers. The scoring for blue tokens is
slightly different. Above the 1st blue token, each one you
pick up in quick sucession will give points equal to the
last blue token plus an additional 100 points.
For instance, a sucessful run of 11 blue tokens give:
3,000 + 3,100 + 3,200 + 3,300 + 3,400 + 3,500
+ 3,600 + 3,700 + 3,800 + 3,900 + 4,000
= 11/2 X (3,000 + 4,000)
= 38,500 points
There exist an alleyway in Downtown choke full of
approximately 31 blue tokens and a perfect runthrought will
give:
31/2 X (3,000 + 6,000) = 139,500 points!
White (10,000), Pink (30,000), Light Blue (50,000) and
Light ? (100,000) :
These light-coloured tokens are mainly situated alone in out
of the way places, where considerable effort/sacrifice is
needed to gain access to them. The reward is proportionally
high too, but you have to decide whether it's worth the
risk.
To my knowledge, there exists only 5 such 100,000 tokens so
far: 1 at the Hollywood ramp/checkpoint, 1 just outside
Hollywood (hidden area), one over the statue/fountain at
Beverly Hills, one on the Baywatch tower at the beach and
one floating above a building on the road to Hollywood.
The large bonus tokens which award excess time are
extremely rare. To date, I know of only 3 large orange
tokens awarding 5 extra seconds and 3 large red tokens
awarding 10 extra seconds each.
One 5 second orange token is hidden in the ground floor
of a building at one end of the 4 ramps of carpark filled
with white and blue tokens. Ram through the glass panels to
reach it; you're liable to crash in the process. You can
reduce the chance of crashing if you crash into the glass at
an angle so that you are pointed towards the road.
One 5 second orange token is found behind the building
at the end of the Santa Monica jetty checkpoint. Ride round
the building clockwise for a chance at the token and the
50,000 bonus point token nearby.
One 5 second orange token is found behind the building
adjacent to the T-intersections outside LA One Airport. By
taking the red brick path to the back of the area. This is
a very difficult token to get while keeping any decent
speed. However, it will give you a chance to see what a
time token look like.
One 10 second red token is hidden among crates at one
end of the Hollywood building with domes over light blue
tokens.
One 10 second red token is hidden in the street
building closest to/beside one of the Hollywood road
entrances/exits; the depressed section is entered by either
of the two white staircases at each end, visible from the
road.
One 10 second red token is hidden in an indestructable
tower along one of the roads in Downtown. You have to ram
the tower at high speed to have a shot at getting it, or
maneuver into the gap between.
A possible 10 second token across from records store
(?) or floating above the building?
SCORING
========
Important point: It is IMPOSSIBLE to guarantee a high
score with every game, even if you are an expert. This is
due to the game being non-linear i.e. no fixed path, and the
nature of the scoring system. Apart from the lump sum of
points award for reaching each checkpoint, most of the
points awarded are based on actual distance traveled by the
bike.
Hence, a lot depend on the actual location of the
checkpoints in relation to one another. If your checkpoints
are rather close to each other, you should expect to get a
relatively average or low completion score. However, if
you're forced to ride all over the city, because your
checkpoints are scattered to the four corners of the same,
this will be you chance to go for top scores.
Basic scoring:
Distance: 100 points for every metre traveled by the
bike (I made a guess here...)
Checkpoints: 300,000 for the 1st checkpoint
500,000 for the 2nd checkpoint
700,000 for the 3rd checkpoint
1,000,000 for the 4th checkpoint
1,500,000 for the 5th checkpoint
Total no. of checkpoints are dependent on
individual arcade settings.
Bonuses: 1,000 X 1-3 per token for the freeway based
green bonus tokens (in threes)
3,000 X 1-5 per token for the yellow bonus
tokens along the corners of junctions (also
mostly in threes)
10,000 per token for the stand alone white
bonus tokens
30,000 per token for the stand alone pink
bonus tokens
50,000 per token for the stand alone light
blue bonus tokens
100,000 per token for the very rare light ?
bonus tokens
3,000 ++ 100 per token for the
difficult-to-achieve rows of blue bonus
tokens
The large time tokens add to leftover time,
but do not affect scoring otherwise
Leftover Time: 10,000 per second for each excess second
after reaching the final checkpoint
In multi-player head-to-head, the checkpoint score is
awarded only to the rider who reaches it. As such, it is
extremely difficult to get a high score in multi-player
because most often, your opponent(s) will take at least one
checkpoint away from you. Of course, if they are relative
newbies...
MISCELLANEOUS
=============
During the gameplay, pressing the start button will
activate the bike horn. For the police FXRP, it's the
siren. If you get a kick out of it, hold it down as long as
you dare ...
Occasionally, when a game is successfully completed and
the credits are shown against a picture of the bike and
rider you chose, sometimes, the rider will roll off the
bike/the bike will topple. I have no idea of what causes
this; perhaps there is a code or something?
There appear to be rumours of codes allowing access to
other bike models? I have seen nothing to confirm them.
============================================================
Any comments on the FAQ or additional information, please
direct them to me at . Sources
will be credited for contribution of worthy materials,
subject to the discretion of the FAQ writer.
I hope to create a map to display roads, paths, checkpoints
and bonuses. Help will really be appreciated here.
Future plans include a list of checkpoints and time
allocations between checkpoints, as well as locations of
major bonus areas.
Harley Davidson Motorcycles, FLSTF Fat Boy, Panhead, FXDWG
Dyna Wide Glide, XL 1200S Sportster 1200 Sport and FXRP are
trademarks of Harley Davidson Motorcycles.
Harley Davidson and Los Angeles Riders is a trademark of
Sega TM.
