From Zero To Zero: Redline

[A Blank Piece Of Paper]

It was 24th of October, 2006, when I went to one of my classmates where he showed me this game called Midnight Club 2. He only had Citi unlocked at that point of time, we randomly drove around LA, jumping off ramps and stuff. The first impression was negative because of the game physics being really "arcade", or even childish I would say. I never seeked realism in games, but it didn't look up-to-date at all (I didn't know the game was made in 2003). I thought I would give it a try since I didn't have much to choose from anyway. And I borrowed it. I got pretty addicted to the game the same evening, must have been the soundtracks within the game, not sure. I made it all the way to Paris the same night, kept on making progress everyday, until I had to face the rivals in Tokyo. One of the races that I really enjoyed was Kenichi's Oyabun - insane traffic, rainy weather, trance music, fast cars. It had me pumped with adrenaline every time. I eventually made it to Savo, where I got stuck. I simply couldn't get past Stage II - Light, felt like there's some sort of traffic magnet on me.


[Discovering The Online Community]

A couple weeks later I got connected to the internet for the first time. That was the day when MC2 shined in completely different colors to me. I went by the name of Gangsta (probably played GTA SA too much back then). The very first host I ever joined was a nearly full Paris cruise game hosted by Jamnet. He was one of the very first friends I made in the game. We both drove Torque JXs (I didn't know anything about Veloci yet) and seemed to have alot in common. I found myself coming back to his host every evening, making new friends everytime, met alot of likely minded people that I still got contact with even today (after 6,5 year), people like Shredder (now known as Unique), Cat (now known as KittyCat) etc. One of them once told me about the "rimbuk" cheatcode that would allow me to drive any car, I remember trying Veloci for the first time, a couple minutes were enough to make my mind up about it: "Nonono I'm never ever gonna drive this car, its handling is too sensitive for my liking". Those were the days when I got my eye on Knight, it eventually became my new favorite. As the time went by I simply forgot that I hadn't finished career mode yet, using the cheatcode was already a habit. One afternoon I decided to give it a try again, some sort of phobia was starting to build up, I hated losing a race after hiting something just before finish, then having to try all over again, without any sucess. That time was different. Everything seemed alot more easier as I had significantly improved during the time online.


[My First Clan]

I had alot of unrevealed mysteries back then as I still was pretty new to the entire internet. For example, I was clueless about why most of my friends had some 3 random letters infront of their names. I eventually found out those were clan/crew/team tags. One afternoon I got to play with a guy called SsR Mike, he saw that I had potential and offered me to join SsR clan (he told me that it stood for "South side Riders"), of course I accepted, it was a pleasure to finally be a part of something. We played alot, got along really well. He once told me about Pizza trainer, it seemed like it was some kind of requirement or something. The things I liked about it was that it allowed me to finally catch up with others and reach top speed with ease. After that he introduced me to the SsR leader - Cat, and then simply vanished. The strange thing was that Cat told me that SsR actually stood for "Super street Racers" and she had no clue who Mike was. I was being really careful as I didn't want to lose my spot in the clan as I was "recruited accidently". Luckily, she was very welcoming and we also got along well quick. We mainly were cruising in Paris, she showed me the so called SsR routes - Paris catacombs. It seemed to be somewhat special for the clan, as it was some kind of SsR strenght. Eventually, I got to know most of the friends she had in MC2, and one of them was Shredder (Unique). He was my inspiration to finally beat the game. That's how I was expanding my friend circle - getting to know the friends of my friends.


[A Crew Of My Own]

The time I spent in SsR was alot of fun, it showed me the way clans work in MC2, which caught my attention, I simply loved to see people being able to group up in some sort of "families" and act like one. However, I felt like there were some changes to be made (for example having my other friends along with me in the clan), like some kind of instinct I've got with myself, yet I didn't feel like interfering/discussing about it. I felt like it was the time to start something of my own, so I can make the ideas I had to actually come true. Which I did in fact, I started my own clan called NOS, which stood for Nitrous Oxide System, the name was inspired by a car tuning game called SLRR (Street Legal Racing Redline). Since then, everything started changing dramatically. I had to find a way how to get my clan more known, and the only way to do it was to explore the other 2 MC2 communities - Racing and CTF, and instead of just cruising, I started to actually race against other people online, or do some CTF from time to time (I was getting booted from CTF hosts though, nobody ever told me why, but eventually I found out that it was because of my trainer). After a while NOS started getting more attention as I was receiving more requests from people wanting to join. The group I had for it back then consisted of me, Sin, Batman, and Nightmare (who I still got contact with even today).


[Introduction To CTF]

CTF and its players always remained unknown to me, I was really curious about what the community itself was like. So one evening I came up with an idea to actually host some CTF myself instead of getting to try to play with people that didn't seem to accept me. I hosted default LA CTF (3 drops, Industrial, time limit) and got some random people to join me that seemed to have no clue what the actual mode was about. Then after a couple rehosts a guy called X5 (now known as Shifter) joined me, then I just started the game with no one but him in the host. I was astonished by how much better than me he actually was. I barely saw him in my sight, he just kept returning flag after flag, leaving me at zero all the time. He was fast, precise, smart, and always used the shortest routes. I ran out of patience, simply gave up and left, something you would call a ragequit today. I didn't go to any CTF host for nearly a week then, because I realized that some players were far more advanced than what I had expected. The phobia I had back in career mode was back once again...


[Training Sessions]

Without a single doubt, I can say that this was the most fun period of time I had during my time in Midnight Club 2. It all started with a wish to become somewhat close as good as Shifter was in my eyes back then. Then one afternoon while cruising with Shredder (Unique), Cat and some others, I paid more attention to Shredder and noticed that he was using similar driving techniques to what I saw during the games where I faced Shifter. I noticed that smoke trails were coming out the paths he drove and that his car was swerving, I asked him why does he do that, and he said that it was called "fishtail", a technique used to reach higher speeds. I also saw him do a wheelie in a Veloci, at first I thought it was some kind of trainer, but apparently, it wasn't. He saw my potential, and because of the fact we already were good friends he decided to get his hands on me, teach me everything he knew at that point of time. The training started with simple, yet essential basics, like taking corners. He showed me a spot in Paris that was just perfect for it. A corner that needed handbrake to be used in order to take it in one slide. That was the very first concept shown to me on how exactly fishtailing works. After a couple crashes I managed to get it right, knowing the fact that I'm finally improving felt satisfying. Right after that we moved on to the next exercise: We both took Lusso XTs, which he told was known for being easy to fishtail with. I eventually managed to "chain" the slides into a single primitive fishtail movement. Seeing that I could actually reach top speed made me feel more confident about myself, I saw that it wasn't so hard after all. After getting hang of it on the wider streets of Paris we moved on to the tight Paris river bank roads. The challenge was to drive all around it as fast as possible without hitting any walls. According to Shredder I did good for a beginner. Lusso XT was starting to become my new favorite, but then he asked me to try the same in Veloci, which he told had an advantage of taking sharp turns at quite high speeds. Despite my stubborness he finally persuaded me to give it a try, but unfortunately, it didn't seem to work out as good as it did with Lusso XT. I was having difficulties keeping control over the car. Shredder saw that I wasn't quite ready for the actual practice yet, and we moved on to the next exercise. He told me to try to drift around a block in Paris that had a passageway right through. I was supposed to avoid crashing into him trying to block my way in SLF going forth and back the passageway, while I had to drift around. The key was to use handbrake so that I can change my car trajectory quicker without losing much speed, or should I say, even gaining speed... We kept on doing the exercise for like 4-5 hours straight, until I started getting dizzy because of doing the continuous circling without a single break. It did help me to realize the way the car reacted at certain situations and I finally started to get a hang of the "beast". I remember that night like it was yesterday, it was also one of the very first "allnighters" we had in MC2, basically just playing all night long. By then I was pretty much armed with the knowledge needed to actually fishtail. The only thing that was left was to practice, practice, practice. Since then I was starting to become more of a racer, rather than a cruiser or a CTFer. We did alot of racing, mainly customs from Shredder's numerous game profiles full of custom races. He was also the one that taught me how to perform a wheelie, in both, a car and a bike. It was funny that by then I actually knew how to fishtail, yet had no clue on how to perform a wheelie on a bike. I remember him taking me to Paris freeway and trying to explain that I needed to use weight transfer, but all I really did was just try to duplicate his movements by going forth and back and then accelerate hoping that my front-end would pop up. The funny thing was that there were people actually driving around me doing wheelies while I couldn't figure it out. Then after getting it right I would always end up falling down, because I was overdoing it. But finally, practice made perfect. After all the training I could have easily entitled Shredder (Unique) as my actual Midnight Club 2 teacher, which I had, still have, and always will have respect for.


[Splitting Up, Moving On]

There are 2 communities in Midnight Club 2 - cruisers and CTFers/racers. I was slowly starting to become a part of the racing community, which automatically resulted in me losing contact or just getting more distant with the friends I had back then, including my clanmates, who were mainly cruisers. I ended up putting my clantag off and becoming a "free bird" again. Also, one afternoon I got a message from Shredder saying that his PC crashed and that he might never come back again. Finding that out disappointed me, I knew that the game without him would never be the same again. I was sort of put on my own, and realized, that it was the time to start it all over again.


[A Couple Steps Forward]

I started off by getting myself a new identity - Redline, which was also inspired by SLRR. That was the beginning of a new dawn in my MC2 history. I finally was able to join CTF hosts without getting booted. I made contact with alot of new people, started following forums, making videos. I really tried to push myself to my boundaries with a hope my MC2 teacher Shredder (Unique) would come back one day, my goal was to show him his effort didn't go to waste, or even eventually beat him... After getting to race more people I also noticed that what I had seen before wasn't everything: there were people that had their skills pushed to their limits, people like Shifter, Dreemax, Flash, and Tookumi. What is more, racing against them helped me realize one very important thing, which could be applied to both, racing and CTF: playing against someone better than you is the only way to improve. It can also be interpreted in many different ways, like putting some sort of limitations on yourself, for example, playing CTF without power ups/NOS, playing on quality mode rather than performance, so that way you are kind of forced to look for a different way to win: using tactics, fake turns, rather than just plain rushing, or, as already said, playing against someone more experienced.


[Settling Down]

During the years between 2007 and 2010 I've been in 2 other clans before settling down - FuN and oP. It was a great experience, however, it all comes to an end... Somewhere in late 2009/early 2010 I happened to be clanless again and to my surprise, Shredder came back! This time as Unique, as according to him he wanted to start it all over again, just as I did years before that. We decided to bring back the team that we had established on MC2 Demo back in 2007, but this time, on Full version - JTX (Just The Xtreme). We've got some of our friends to join us, such as Nace, Shifter, and Togica (past member, unfortunately).


...And that's where we are at today! :) Back to the roots! JTX all the way babeh! :D