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Bandit? Who's that?


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It seems that Bandit hardly gets any representation in this game. At all.

(Referring to the PC version.)

I mean, all the other Rock Raiders are featured pretty prominently- Chief briefs you at the start of each level, Sparks, Docs, Axle, and Jet each appear frequently in cutscenes and have a cutscene more-or-less focused around each of them. Plus they occasionally read the notifications you get, "Your air supply is running out!" "An Energy Crystal has been found!" etc.

Each character also reads the names of vehicles an buildings related to their profession.

What's Bandit get? An occasional low-res appearance in the background of the title screen, and he reads the names of water-related vehicles. I think he probably appears in the intro as well, but he doesn't do anything important, he's just there.

What gives?

I dunno about all you, but I feel sorry for the guy.

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For the in-game stuff, it is pretty unbalanced. Axle deals with land vehicles, and you use those a lot. Sparks deals with engineering and that's definitely just as prominent if not more (buildings, air). To be fair, though, Docs and Jet are also a tier lower than them. Jet only gets flying vehicles and pilot stuff, of which there are only two vehicles and "train as pilot." Docs only deals with geology, which has NO constructs representing it - though you hear his voice a lot when you scroll over terrain, but only walls at that! Chief gets all ground types except water, which goes to Bandit. So yes, while Bandit is massively underused, there are really three tiers of how much in-game use a Raider gets.


As to why, there's just a pretty bad balance. You'll teleport down a fleet of Small Transport Trucks, two Loader-Dozers, and a Chrome Crusher, and you're set. If there's something to cross you can just use a Tunnel Scout since it's faster, but I can only think of three levels where that's mandatory (ignoring Run The Gauntlet since that gives you a Cargo Carrier for free, and also ignoring Water Works since you can leave the lost Rock Raiders to die), and on only two of those can you use a Rapid Rider or Cargo Carrier as an alternative. So that's two out of twenty-five levels where you need a water vehicle, and even then you really don't. This sort of applies to Jet as well, to a lesser extent (except not because AN ENERGY CRYSTAL HAS BEEN FOUND), and Docs... well, Docs.

 

 

 

As for Bandit in the story, I really have no idea. I can only think of three prominent cutscene appearances he has: getting stuck in the elevator doors in Intro, pushing the boulders from the stupid explosion in Slugs3, and dropping the buzzsaw and running in Rock2. That's literally it. I mean, Jet also gets less appearances than Docs, Axle, and Sparks, but in the cutscenes she's in she does a lot. Bandit is just there. Doing nothing. He's useless. Water is useless.

 

In the books he's also like this, though not as bad and for different reasons. He is featured almost as significantly as the other Rock Raiders with just as much dialogue and action, but he always feels a little distant. His personality is like that, very solitary and always preferring to do things on his own instead of being part of the team, but this sadly makes him feel solitary from the reader. To me, anyway, I don't know. Maybe it's just because the story will cut to him doing something on his own (almost always involving Ice Monsters*), and then cut back to the other four Rock Raiders doing stuff and acting as a team, then back to Bandit being alone and scouting the frozen river, then back to the team, then they meet again and have the final showdown with the Rock Monsters or whatever.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*This is also something I'd like to point out, that Ice Monsters have no featuring in any cutscenes. They do appear in one less level than Rock Monsters and Lava Monsters, but it should be noted that one of each of their levels is about racing to the end, so they're not a real threat there (Don't Panic! and Run The Gauntlet), meaning they all appear equally. Yet nothing in the cutscenes. Maybe there would have been a cutscene that involved Bandit running into them like he does in the books all the time? But then both of them were cut for whatever reason. Still doesn't excuse him doing nothing in the intro.

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Docs only deals with geology, which has NO constructs representing it

What about the Geological Center?

But aside from this I completely agree with everything you've said, here. I haven't read the books, I thought maybe he was better represented in them, but I guess not?

Still, if there isn't much water-related stuff to deal with, they could have at least used him to voice some of the generic notifications. Maybe "A monster has appeared?" If his constantly running into ice monsters in the books is true, it would seem appropriate.

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Docs only deals with geology, which has NO constructs representing it

What about the Geological Center?

It is a building, so it is Sparks's job.

But aside from this I completely agree with everything you've said, here. I haven't read the books, I thought maybe he was better represented in them, but I guess not?

He is, it's just that his being separated from the team so much makes him feel too distant to me.
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Alcom Isst

Considering how flooded the caverns sometimes are, and how non-soluble energy crystals are, you'd think they would need a character who was apt at diving or underwater work, a potential head-canon role that would make Bandit quite a bit more useful.

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Considering how flooded the caverns sometimes are, and how non-soluble energy crystals are, you'd think they would need a character who was apt at diving or underwater work, a potential head-canon role that would make Bandit quite a bit more useful.

My head-canon says that Bandit is grumpy due to being ignored. I mean look at him. So grumpy.

But head-canon is head-canon, we can imagine the characters however we like them, but that doesn't change how they are portrayed in official material.

And the fact remains, at least in the PC game, he really is pretty irrelevant. Unfortunately.

GO BANDIT!

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He's quite useful in the PS1 game, since he can touch water without dying.

Which raises more questions... :/

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He is a sailor, of course, which explains why he reads out the water vehicles. But the only set he comes in is the Rapid rider and something else which I forgotten.

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Addictgamer

Oh, poor Bandit.

I guess someone soloing it just doesn't work good in the PC RR game since the whole storyline is more or less based on a team of nameless rock raiders going in after the alpha gang or whatever they're called. The Star Team?

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If you have the PC game and you don't use any of the cutscenes, and you can't afford the books or sets, then none of them have any representation in the game apart from the load screen, main menu, save menu and rewards screen (and of course the Enhanced Mode's commentating on everything except the Ground).

 

Really, I don't think it's too much of a problem. They are minifigures, after all. I could pull them all apart and rebuild them into an Eldrich Abomination.

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Addictgamer

and of course the Enhanced Mode's commentating on everything except the Ground

"Cavern Floor!"

Oh ya, I wanted to know if that was my memory being faulty or Extreme's.

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Brickulator

For all you Bandit fans, here are pictures of all his lines from the comics in the Adventures issues I have:

bandit.jpg

Unfortunately, it looks like he wasn't really used for much here either. He never really had anything helpful to say.

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I just skimmed the replies, so feel free to say if this was already said:

 

Wasn't Bandit given a bunch of voice clips in the PC game, but they were scrapped in the final version? Lair, you uploaded them, didn't you? A while back?

 

I could be wrong, but maybe he was going to have a bigger role, but the devs couldn't squeeze him in.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I just skimmed the replies, so feel free to say if this was already said:

 

Wasn't Bandit given a bunch of voice clips in the PC game, but they were scrapped in the final version? Lair, you uploaded them, didn't you? A while back?

 

I could be wrong, but maybe he was going to have a bigger role, but the devs couldn't squeeze him in.

No. All his lines are played in-game. The only extra lines I can find from any of the five are "Energy Crystals found!" Of course Chief has a bunch of unused stuff but that's mostly due to level changes,
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Car CrazeXVI

Bandit has an awesome beard. Hah take that PM, none of your team was man enough to grow a full beard.... or even have 'stach like chief.

pic63AE008A03A67599CD5E3E237A4E7CE0.pngpic50D99A30035A79A1E67126F10CF9F6DE.png

The only extra lines I can find from any of the five are "Energy Crystals found!"

Which, judging by the cfg, was supposed to be used in the Reward Screen, along with some other voice clips that don't exist.

;        RewardSFX_Crystals            SoundsVoicesExtraMisc03
;        RewardSFX_Ore                SoundsVoicesExtraMisc04
;        RewardSFX_Rock                SoundsVoicesExtraMisc05
;        RewardSFX_BaseSize            SoundsVoicesExtraMisc06
;        RewardSFX_Caverns            SoundsVoicesExtraMisc07
;        RewardSFX_Raiders            SoundsVoicesExtraMisc08
;        RewardSFX_Defence            SoundsVoicesExtraDefrec
;        RewardSFX_Oxygen            SoundsVoicesExtraMisc10
;        RewardSFX_Timer                SoundsVoicesExtraMisc11

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lol username

Bandit has an awesome beard. Hah take that PM, none of your team was man enough to grow a full beard.... or even have 'stach like chief.

*snip*

That's dirt plastered on Duke's face, except for where his goggles covered his eyes.
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Ah, grumpy as ever. Although it looks like he's wearing lipstick in the middle-left panel.

 

Bandit has an awesome beard. Hah take that PM, none of your team was man enough to grow a full beard.... or even have 'stach like chief.

Power Miners does seem to over-enforce its dress code.

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