Hi there Wangan Maxi fans, today I'm wondering whether to get my hair cut like Sonoda.
The Maxi 3DX story is still going just now, so I'm gonna speak about the DX.

I'm sure you know that in Maxi 3DX, there's going to be a new course - the Nagoya Expressway. I reckon that the fans who came to the location test and saw Maxi 3DX, even those who hadn't ridden on the Nagoya Expressway in real life, got a pretty good idea of what the expressway is like.
For those of you who don't know...The area around the Nagoya Expressway is of course packed full of Nagoya-esque buildings, and the road itself is really striking, with its pure white walls. In addition to being pretty new, the road surface meets the wall at a 45° angle, with a diagonal cut that makes it look like an expressway sent from the future.

The course we're producing from the Nagoya Expressway for 3DX is the circular ring part known as the Nagoya Speed Ring. The area is actually relatively small, but the scenery is jammed full with famous sights like Nagoya Castle, the buildings in the center of Nagoya around the station, famous department stores and so on. We used these places as the basis for making this course, putting a huge emphasis on the overall image; so, although it's a small course, there's plenty of variety to be seen in the background.

Although the shining white of the Nagoya Speed Ring course in the morning is nice, I recommend you ride this course at night. Unfortunately we couldn't show you the night stage at the location test because it wasn't ready in time, but I can tell you now that it contains some areas with unusual lighting.

The upper edge of the walls is kind of glowing, right? The area looks like an amusement park or something, and it's so bright that I was shocked when I saw it for the first time while we were doing research for 3DX.There's only one part of the Nagoya Speed Ring that looks like this, but its pretty unusually lit, don't you think?
There are lots of other unusual places along the Nagoya Expressway, full of unfamiliar parts and really interesting. There are many roads running through Japan, but although they all have different scenery, there is not much difference between the roads themselves. Looking at the Nagoya Expressway, it makes me think that it would be better to bring out the color of the local land instead of just filling it with the huge buildings you always see around....Saying that, roads are built with a specific function in mind "like making the Zebra Zone in Osaka out of stripes. (says Takenaka, referring to the Hanshin Tigers baseball team)", so I guess it's never going to happen.

And so, I'm going to give you a little introduction to the Nagoya Speed Ring at night in Maxi 3DX.

↑The entry to the Nagoya Speed Ring, near Nagoya station. This is the brightest area in the course. The white walls around the Nagoya Speed Ring make the road highly visible, so we increased the contrast of the background scenery in comparison to the other courses.

↑The entry to the expressway has a strange shape. The signboards have a cloudlike shape, kind of like a motif.

↑The photo above shows a kind of luminescent area. Looks like something from another world. The moon is spectacular.

↑A little extra screenshot: We tried putting in the Devil Z.
It's the end for you when you're pulled to the darkness; what you need is some skill.
That's the end of Tetsuo part.

*Caution: there is no story like that

Yup, Wangan Midnight is all about night scenery. Figures.
See ya!

(Original article in Japanese released on 9.17.2008)