Wow... I've hit an impasse.

Got this game recently and am playing it for the first time. It's a lot of fun. No idea how I was totally oblivious to this game during the N64's lifespan, especially since I was a big Rare fan. With practice even the hardest levels generally seem doable, there's just a lot of trial-and-error with figuring out strategies. I've even more-or-less figured out how to become effective with Backlash.

But... How in Satan's glorious name am I expected to beat Diamond Sands? It's the only level I've gotten truly frustrated with and have been stuck on for weeks no matter how I approach it.

Even when I take out an entire side of the tracks in one sweep, by the time I loop around and take out the other side, the carrier is so close to the next group of buildings that I can't loop around again with even close to enough time to destroy both sides of the tracks.
Without stopping once, the furthest I can get is the point towards the end where more non-obstructive houses are standing off the sides of the tracks to block you, and again, even when I manage to plow through that stuff without slowing down once at any point in the level, the carrier will have always caught up to me right around there. I've read that taking out the oil tankers about halfway through the level supposedly blows up the entire nearby building on both sides of the tracks and buys you a fair bit of extra time, but every time I destroy the tankers it only knocks down the single closest 'block' of the building on the end closest to the tankers, which I invariably can take down much quicker myself and so fooling around with the tankers just ends up being a big waste of time. But the thing is a lot of guides seem to depend on using those tankers in order to get those extra seconds needed to pass the level. What gives? Am I doing something wrong, here?

Have you watched it on Youtube? Sometimes that helps. It's definitely a hard level.

I did after reading your post - it never occurred to me because I've never really had to watch YouTube walkthroughs. It didn't help at all at first, because I didn't understand what exactly the player was doing. Eventually figured out the PB&J method based on the video and beat the level on the first try doing that. Holy crap, how did I not know about this sooner? Way more useful than the Z trick. At least now I know how to do something that'll probably come in handy for time trials/platinums.

Sometimes it helps to actually see someone else doing it. Good luck with the platinums, it's definitely one of the hardest achievements in all of gaming, and this was before you actually got achievements and people did it for personal accomplishment.

Toxic_Offender posted...

Eventually figured out the PB&J method based on the video

...PB&J? I know what it means, but not in this case. The method I relied on much for this level was a sort of fishtail technique, maybe it's the same move?

Good luck with getting those platinums later on; you might think you've mastered the vehicles now, but you'll feel like you're nowhere NEAR the goals when you start playing for platinum. I did that whole journey about 2 years ago, and it's still one of my proudest achievments in gaming. Plus as MM said; achievments get a lot of negativity from some people for being pointless, but such things have ALWAYS been a part of gaming, and nobody's forcing anyone to go for 100% in games.

I haven't tested it with anything other than Backlash yet but what some videos I've watched have described as the PB&J method is sort of wedging/nudging the spot where the corner of a building meets a wall, such as where the tracks divide either half of the buildings in this level. If you kinda wiggle there, apparently the game parses it as you being forced through the building and it will explode (fairly spectacularly at that). It's funny to watch but is also probably the only reason I was able to make it through this one.

Wow, I managed to google it up, found a site with several different techniques for getting good results.

I don't think I've actively used that one; it kinda seems like by bumping into a wall as you say, the vehicle gets a sideway/backwards bounceback that cannot be stopped (probably to avoid getting entirely stuck somewhere) and therefore destroys buildings in its path. It looks kinda similar to the Fishtailing technique in the way Backlash moves if I'd say so, but the forces at work are completely different.

I wasn't familiar with PB&J either. I Youtubed it and also got the general idea from there. Kind of neat.