@okamiki Also the PAL version of the Megadrive game Golden Axe was basically Dolph Lundgren in his He Man days. I'm pretty sure the Mercs character from the Capcom arcade game was based on Arnie. And to top it all of, loads and i mean loads of character sounds in Golden Axe: The Revenge Of Death Adder were literally taken from the 2 Conan movies including Grace Jones character Zula's YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH
Ok people need to understand something. Tomb Raider was never originally only intended for the Saturn. It was developed for both Playstation & Saturn simultaneously until the Boss of the company Jeremy Heath-Smith came down to the Tomb Raider team office to tell them that the late November 1996 launch date had been changed. He told them he had done a deal with Sega for the game to come out on the Saturn 6 weeks before the PC and PS1.
As a result of the team now being 6 weeks behind schedule, the team were stuck to their desks pretty much around the clock. Testers would walk into the Tomb Raider room throughout the night with a list of bugs to fix, and the developers had to sort them out. An updated version of the game would then be printed onto a CD, then the whole process would begin again. Here is a quote below on the situation by Jeremy Heath-Smith:
"Suddenly we had to work like crazy loons. We originally had four and a half months of development left, but now we had just three months to get the Saturn version ready ahead of the PS and PC versions. So we lost a month and a half off the end. We would end up putting in weekends and working until 11, 12, one o'clock in the morning just to get it done. That's how we got it done, by sheer grit."
I preferred the PS version as the Saturn version ran at a lower frame rate and had some missing areas such as the secret behind the pushable block in the Cistern level as well as you not being able to collect the last secret in the game. It also was lacking the transparent effects on the save crystals and the transparent golden Lara after jumping on the Midas hand. The sound effects were also more muffled i'm guessing as a result of the Saturn lacking audio compression.
@Fanboy_Destroyer One thing i preferred about the Saturn version was the water rippling effect on the surface that im sure was a VDP2 effect. I also preferred using the Saturn pad which is my favourite pad of all time.
@DestructoDisk What Sega needed was a better designed Saturn released 1 year later featuring a single SH chip clocked at around 60mhz with 8kb cache coupled with 2MB SDRAM and a single VDP either using triangles or backward rendered Quads clocked higher than VDP1 in Saturn with around 4 times the fillrate & bandwidth coupled with 1.5MB ram. That would of been very reasonable for a machine designed from the ground up for a 95JAP/96US/EUR release at £/$300. Get rid of a few things to keep the price down like internal save ram, VCD card slot and perhaps the SH1 acting as both the CD-ROM controller and the audio chip but on a 32 bit bus instead of separate 16 bit buses for the SH1 & 68010. As long as its out worldwide by 1996 for 300 it could get good support and more than hold its own against the PS performance wise
I so wish Sony had followed up the PSP with a direct successor called PSP2 with larger capacity UMD's and full backwards compatibility with PSP games. I'm guessing one of the reasons they didn't is to try and combat piracy but it ended up costing them big time as PS Vita sold around 16 - 17 million which is a long way off the 80 million PSP's sold and only a bit more than the Wii U.
That being said i still dont think a direct successor would have matched the PSP's success.
@Hikingguy Yes 2 years and 1 month is huge especially back then. Assuming you release a Megadrive/Genesis in Nov 1990 for the same price as SNES and use the same design as MD/GEN you could of had:
.At least a 10mhz 68000
.128 sprites
.512/4096 colours
.Larger sprite sizes
.128kb VRAM
.At least 2 more FM channels added with Stereo to the TV
.Better PCM quality from channel 0
.Rotating Background layer
.Transparancy Effects
.6 button controller
Or you can imagine how gimped the SNES would of been if it had launched in October 1988 like the Megadrive.
I honestly dont know why some people act so surprised that the SNES could do more when it was released so much later.
@Carck It was more powerful but certainly not to the extent Sony were making out and in some instances Sega had a slight advantage in textures. Plus the PS2 launched 1yr and 4 months later for a 50% higher cost (299 vs 199).
If sega launched the DC at the same time and at a 299 price instead of 199 they could of matched the 300mhz CPU & 150mhz GPU clocks with a Hitachi/Power VR combo, they could have doubled the main ram (32mb) and graphics ram (16mb) and increased the ram speed to 133mhz and had DVD's (probably charge extra for movie playback). I think it would still have been too early for a Broadband modem instead of a 128kbps dial up.
All of this though wouldnt have got it to sell more than the PS2 as everyone and their pet rooster was going to buy the PS2 after the success of the PS1 and in fact launching at 199 turned out to be a huge success in the US
I remember this was the first game me and 2 of my friends played when we went to SegaWorld at the Trocadero in London back in mid 1998. It was unique in that it was a 3 player game and you controlled the characters by rolling a track ball to move the characters. It wasn't very good if im being honest and we only played it because it was Sonic and we were 14 and all big fans of the MD Sonic games.
I think we spent about £50 each in there which was about 4 months worth of paper round money but it was worth it as its where we first experienced some of those amazing Model 3 Step 2 games like Daytona USA 2 & Sega Rally 2.
It was also the only time i saw the Model 2 game Sonic The Fighters.
I also have a track i made on MTV Music Generator 2 saved on my original 20yr old PS2 memory card that i bought with the machine back in 2001. I no longer have a PS2 to listen to it but reading this has made we want to buy one so i can have a listen.
Also bought Music 2000 on the PS1 and remember having a competition with a mate of mine to see who could make the best dance track!
@Damo Yes people may have missed your point but at the same time you seem to have missed their point too and that is that games being $70 back then doesnt mean much. The reason being is that there is more competition for a persons dollar/pound than there was then. Secondly the minimum wage has not risen equally with inflation. Also the price of buying a house today is more than double what it was during the 16 - 32 bit days.
Games & consoles came down in price much quicker back then aswel. As for the games, the best PS1 games were availible in the Platinum/Greatest hits range 1 year after release for $20.
I think people would have rather you given both sides of an arguement of wether games offered more value for money or less instead of the ''we have never had it so good'' subheader.
@UK_Kev yeah i was just pointing out that it wasn't the one game i would of spent $70 on but your right, all N64 games were the same price
@UK_Kev Agreed. I remember in 1999 seeing an N64 game in Game for £60 and alongside it was the playstation platinum range, you could buy Gran Turismo, Tekken 3 & Final Fantasy VII for £20 each! So you could buy all 3 for the same price as that single N64 game! I cant remember what game it was but it wasnt Ocarina Of Time.
@UK_Kev True Gamecube Skies has less random encounters and more side quests but the audio is horribly compressed to the point that it is noticeable immediately and always . Seeing as i.m.o it has one of the best soundtracks of all time it stops the Gamecubecube version from being a game worth buying.
I would rather put up with the excessive random encounters at times on the DC version than that atrocious audio on the Gamecube and thats saying something.
Oh my pick up a picking penguin god!!! It looks more like a Dreamcast game than an N64 one! Im guessing they are using the 4mb expansion cartridge? If not then the devs are performing pure wizardry with the hardware.
I always wondered back in the day why after the June 96 launch of Mario 64 they didn't get to work on an immediate sequel using the 4mb expansion card for a late 97 launch. I guess they were too busy working on Zelda: Ocarina Of Time
Final Fantasy X is ridiculously overrated. Cant believe its that high on the list. There were things it did that we came to hate in FFXIII like being train track linear with no overworld map and weak characters & storyline. I felt XII had the weakest characters & story but the best battle system ever.
I was surprised to see VIII so low down and i think IV is underrated. Certainly no arguements for VII being number one though.
There is a part of me that feels anything after Megadrive/SNES can't be retro as they are all the same dimension of gameplay.
For example if you compare Gran Turismo (1997) on PS1 with Gran Turismo 7 (2022) on PS5 they play almost identical and overall the experience is near identical. You cant say the same when you compare Mario World (1990) to Mario 64 (1996)
The next giant leap for mankind in gaming terms will be when or if we get a Holodeck moment like on Star Trek TNG where we play in a real environment or a Matrix moment where we just plug our brains in to connect to a simulation that is indistinguishable from reality.
If that does happen it will probably be when we have all long gone like the 22nd century or mabee even later.
The Playstation library is stupidly good. We probably wont get a console like that again with so many brilliant titles being released in such a short period of time. Every single game genre was covered and to the highest quality!
I mean in a 5yr period Square alone released Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy IX, Chrono Cross, Vagrant Story, Final Fantasy Tactics, Xenogears and Parasite Eve 1 & 2. It really was the best time to be a gamer and even better if you were in your teen years! I had 4 paper rounds at one point so i could afford all the great games that were coming out as xmas & birthday money wasn't enough!
Comments 17
Re: Random: Is Arnold Schwarzenegger The Centre of The Gaming Universe?
@okamiki Also the PAL version of the Megadrive game Golden Axe was basically Dolph Lundgren in his He Man days. I'm pretty sure the Mercs character from the Capcom arcade game was based on Arnie. And to top it all of, loads and i mean loads of character sounds in Golden Axe: The Revenge Of Death Adder were literally taken from the 2 Conan movies including Grace Jones character Zula's YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH
Re: "I Wanted It On PlayStation... They Signed To Saturn" - Ex-Sony Boss Reveals Tomb Raider "Jealousy"
Ok people need to understand something. Tomb Raider was never originally only intended for the Saturn. It was developed for both Playstation & Saturn simultaneously until the Boss of the company Jeremy Heath-Smith came down to the Tomb Raider team office to tell them that the late November 1996 launch date had been changed. He told them he had done a deal with Sega for the game to come out on the Saturn 6 weeks before the PC and PS1.
As a result of the team now being 6 weeks behind schedule, the team were stuck to their desks pretty much around the clock. Testers would walk into the Tomb Raider room throughout the night with a list of bugs to fix, and the developers had to sort them out. An updated version of the game would then be printed onto a CD, then the whole process would begin again. Here is a quote below on the situation by Jeremy Heath-Smith:
"Suddenly we had to work like crazy loons. We originally had four and a half months of development left, but now we had just three months to get the Saturn version ready ahead of the PS and PC versions. So we lost a month and a half off the end. We would end up putting in weekends and working until 11, 12, one o'clock in the morning just to get it done. That's how we got it done, by sheer grit."
I preferred the PS version as the Saturn version ran at a lower frame rate and had some missing areas such as the secret behind the pushable block in the Cistern level as well as you not being able to collect the last secret in the game. It also was lacking the transparent effects on the save crystals and the transparent golden Lara after jumping on the Midas hand. The sound effects were also more muffled i'm guessing as a result of the Saturn lacking audio compression.
@Fanboy_Destroyer One thing i preferred about the Saturn version was the water rippling effect on the surface that im sure was a VDP2 effect. I also preferred using the Saturn pad which is my favourite pad of all time.
Re: Genesis Virtua Racing Port Almost Cost As Much As The Console Itself, Thanks To The SVP Chip
@DestructoDisk What Sega needed was a better designed Saturn released 1 year later featuring a single SH chip clocked at around 60mhz with 8kb cache coupled with 2MB SDRAM and a single VDP either using triangles or backward rendered Quads clocked higher than VDP1 in Saturn with around 4 times the fillrate & bandwidth coupled with 1.5MB ram. That would of been very reasonable for a machine designed from the ground up for a 95JAP/96US/EUR release at £/$300. Get rid of a few things to keep the price down like internal save ram, VCD card slot and perhaps the SH1 acting as both the CD-ROM controller and the audio chip but on a 32 bit bus instead of separate 16 bit buses for the SH1 & 68010. As long as its out worldwide by 1996 for 300 it could get good support and more than hold its own against the PS performance wise
Re: The Sony PSP Gets Upgraded For 2024
I so wish Sony had followed up the PSP with a direct successor called PSP2 with larger capacity UMD's and full backwards compatibility with PSP games. I'm guessing one of the reasons they didn't is to try and combat piracy but it ended up costing them big time as PS Vita sold around 16 - 17 million which is a long way off the 80 million PSP's sold and only a bit more than the Wii U.
That being said i still dont think a direct successor would have matched the PSP's success.
Re: Gunstar Heroes Developer Treasure On Why Mega Drive Is Better Than SNES
@Hikingguy Yes 2 years and 1 month is huge especially back then. Assuming you release a Megadrive/Genesis in Nov 1990 for the same price as SNES and use the same design as MD/GEN you could of had:
.At least a 10mhz 68000
.128 sprites
.512/4096 colours
.Larger sprite sizes
.128kb VRAM
.At least 2 more FM channels added with Stereo to the TV
.Better PCM quality from channel 0
.Rotating Background layer
.Transparancy Effects
.6 button controller
Or you can imagine how gimped the SNES would of been if it had launched in October 1988 like the Megadrive.
I honestly dont know why some people act so surprised that the SNES could do more when it was released so much later.
Re: Fan Developer Creates New Metal Gear Solid 2 Prototype For Sega Dreamcast
@Carck It was more powerful but certainly not to the extent Sony were making out and in some instances Sega had a slight advantage in textures. Plus the PS2 launched 1yr and 4 months later for a 50% higher cost (299 vs 199).
If sega launched the DC at the same time and at a 299 price instead of 199 they could of matched the 300mhz CPU & 150mhz GPU clocks with a Hitachi/Power VR combo, they could have doubled the main ram (32mb) and graphics ram (16mb) and increased the ram speed to 133mhz and had DVD's (probably charge extra for movie playback). I think it would still have been too early for a Broadband modem instead of a 128kbps dial up.
All of this though wouldnt have got it to sell more than the PS2 as everyone and their pet rooster was going to buy the PS2 after the success of the PS1 and in fact launching at 199 turned out to be a huge success in the US
Re: Sonic Fans Want To Raise $4,000 To Preserve Insanely Rare 'SegaSonic' Arcade Game
I remember this was the first game me and 2 of my friends played when we went to SegaWorld at the Trocadero in London back in mid 1998. It was unique in that it was a 3 player game and you controlled the characters by rolling a track ball to move the characters. It wasn't very good if im being honest and we only played it because it was Sonic and we were 14 and all big fans of the MD Sonic games.
I think we spent about £50 each in there which was about 4 months worth of paper round money but it was worth it as its where we first experienced some of those amazing Model 3 Step 2 games like Daytona USA 2 & Sega Rally 2.
It was also the only time i saw the Model 2 game Sonic The Fighters.
Re: The Making Of: Music, The PlayStation Audio Creation Tool From WipEout's Tim Wright
@RadioHedgeFund
I also have a track i made on MTV Music Generator 2 saved on my original 20yr old PS2 memory card that i bought with the machine back in 2001. I no longer have a PS2 to listen to it but reading this has made we want to buy one so i can have a listen.
Also bought Music 2000 on the PS1 and remember having a competition with a mate of mine to see who could make the best dance track!
Re: Upset By Zelda Being $70? We've Arguably Never Had It So Good
@Damo Yes people may have missed your point but at the same time you seem to have missed their point too and that is that games being $70 back then doesnt mean much. The reason being is that there is more competition for a persons dollar/pound than there was then. Secondly the minimum wage has not risen equally with inflation. Also the price of buying a house today is more than double what it was during the 16 - 32 bit days.
Games & consoles came down in price much quicker back then aswel. As for the games, the best PS1 games were availible in the Platinum/Greatest hits range 1 year after release for $20.
I think people would have rather you given both sides of an arguement of wether games offered more value for money or less instead of the ''we have never had it so good'' subheader.
@UK_Kev yeah i was just pointing out that it wasn't the one game i would of spent $70 on but your right, all N64 games were the same price
Re: Upset By Zelda Being $70? We've Arguably Never Had It So Good
@UK_Kev Agreed. I remember in 1999 seeing an N64 game in Game for £60 and alongside it was the playstation platinum range, you could buy Gran Turismo, Tekken 3 & Final Fantasy VII for £20 each! So you could buy all 3 for the same price as that single N64 game! I cant remember what game it was but it wasnt Ocarina Of Time.
Re: Best JRPGs Of All Time
as for the list, its good but i would swap Breath Of Fire 4 for 3 and put Megadrive Shining Force 2 on there aswel
Re: Best JRPGs Of All Time
@UK_Kev True Gamecube Skies has less random encounters and more side quests but the audio is horribly compressed to the point that it is noticeable immediately and always . Seeing as i.m.o it has one of the best soundtracks of all time it stops the Gamecubecube version from being a game worth buying.
I would rather put up with the excessive random encounters at times on the DC version than that atrocious audio on the Gamecube and thats saying something.
Re: New Mario 64 Project Pushes N64 Hardware With Stunning Results
Oh my pick up a picking penguin god!!! It looks more like a Dreamcast game than an N64 one! Im guessing they are using the 4mb expansion cartridge? If not then the devs are performing pure wizardry with the hardware.
I always wondered back in the day why after the June 96 launch of Mario 64 they didn't get to work on an immediate sequel using the 4mb expansion card for a late 97 launch. I guess they were too busy working on Zelda: Ocarina Of Time
Re: Best Genesis / Mega Drive Games
Ristar and mabee Psycho Pinball deserved to be on the list but other than that it's a good list
Re: Best Final Fantasy Games - Every Mainline Game Ranked
Final Fantasy X is ridiculously overrated. Cant believe its that high on the list. There were things it did that we came to hate in FFXIII like being train track linear with no overworld map and weak characters & storyline. I felt XII had the weakest characters & story but the best battle system ever.
I was surprised to see VIII so low down and i think IV is underrated. Certainly no arguements for VII being number one though.
Re: Poll: Are The PS3, Wii And Xbox 360 Retro Now?
There is a part of me that feels anything after Megadrive/SNES can't be retro as they are all the same dimension of gameplay.
For example if you compare Gran Turismo (1997) on PS1 with Gran Turismo 7 (2022) on PS5 they play almost identical and overall the experience is near identical. You cant say the same when you compare Mario World (1990) to Mario 64 (1996)
The next giant leap for mankind in gaming terms will be when or if we get a Holodeck moment like on Star Trek TNG where we play in a real environment or a Matrix moment where we just plug our brains in to connect to a simulation that is indistinguishable from reality.
If that does happen it will probably be when we have all long gone like the 22nd century or mabee even later.
Re: Best PlayStation 1 Games
The Playstation library is stupidly good. We probably wont get a console like that again with so many brilliant titles being released in such a short period of time. Every single game genre was covered and to the highest quality!
I mean in a 5yr period Square alone released Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy IX, Chrono Cross, Vagrant Story, Final Fantasy Tactics, Xenogears and Parasite Eve 1 & 2. It really was the best time to be a gamer and even better if you were in your teen years! I had 4 paper rounds at one point so i could afford all the great games that were coming out as xmas & birthday money wasn't enough!