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Post by anayo on Aug 3, 2022 5:12:04 GMT -5
I just remembered that my very first version of Pac Man was on the black and white Gameboy. It's pretty bad by today's standards. Obviously there's no color. Maybe that's understandable since some Atari 2600 gamers had to flip the "black and white" toggle on their system given that color TVs weren't guaranteed back then. But I think today people associate Pac Man with its vivid colors in the arcade. The Gameboy screen can't even display the whole play field all at once. I remember two display modes: one rendered Pac Man and the ghosts at arcade-accurate resolution, but it only showed part of the maze at a time. The viewing window scrolled around the maze depending on where Pac Man was. The other display mode showed the whole maze at once, but reduced the graphics to micro size. I never minded any of this as a kid. I must have just been glad to have something to play. I remember one interaction with my Dad where he boasted about playing Pac Man in the arcade, progressing farther and farther until the ghosts just darted through the maze. One time while in the car with my Mom I asked her if there had ever been a Pac Man cartoon show. She told me yes, there had been, but it wasn't on TV anymore. I must have spent a lot of time looking at the box art imagining the context surrounding Pac Man's adventures. Later around age 14 I took an interest to early 80's gaming such as Intellivision and Atari. I got the Namco Museum disc with Ms. Pacman on it and would rotate my TV on its side in order to play at the correct aspect ratio.
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Post by Ex on Aug 3, 2022 9:46:44 GMT -5
Interesting the GB version didn't show the whole screen at once. That would seem to make Pac-Man far harder. Looking at other GB editions, Ms. Pac-Man and Pac-Man: Special Color Edition also do the partial view thing. The Atari 2600 versions show the full maze on screen, and the Atari 2600's maximum resolution is 160x192. The original Game Boy's resolution was 160×144, not that dramatic of a difference. I suppose the issue was shrinking the entire maze to that size on a 2.6" screen with heavy LCD blurring, would cause the sprites to practically disappear in motion. This is why many GB games had large sprites, so they wouldn't get lost in motion. Whereas the Atari 2600 version was on CRT without blur issues.
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Post by anayo on Aug 31, 2022 11:10:37 GMT -5
In the mid 90's my Dad went through a PC gaming phase. This meant I got to play Id Software's greatest hits when they were brand new. One of these was Quake.
Around 2004 or so I got a Sega Saturn and began collecting games for it. I missed Quake on my Dad's PC, so I ordered the Saturn version of Quake on eBay (it only cost $20-ish back then).
At first I really liked Saturn Quake. By that point in time I already had a copy of Quake for DOS from Goodwill, but I didn't know how to run it on my Windows XP PC. The Saturn version just worked, though, which was convenient. Also, by Sega Saturn standards, Quake had great graphics. The Saturn really sucked at 3D polygons, but they somehow got it to work in Quake. When I showed it to my brother he remarked, "Wow, that looks like a Playstation game."
I've since beaten the PC version of Quake and both of its official expansions. Now I can't stand Saturn Quake. The biggest thing for me is the controls. Without a keyboard and mouse, it just isn't Quake anymore. But the Sega Saturn fanbase just has this underdog complex where they really, really want to see Playstation-like 3D graphics on the Saturn. So, Quake keeps showing up on those "technical marvels of the Sega Saturn" lists on the Internet.
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Post by Ex on Aug 31, 2022 12:48:07 GMT -5
So, Quake keeps showing up on those "technical marvels of the Sega Saturn" lists on the Internet. Worse gameplay aside, from a purely technical level, it is impressive for Quake to run on the Saturn. That must have been difficult programming. Have you ever played the N64 version of Quake? I wonder if it has any meaningful differences or additions.
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Post by Sarge on Aug 31, 2022 16:48:35 GMT -5
They thankfully didn't do the same thing as with DOOM on Saturn, where Carmack stepped in and kinda botched the whole situation since he hated affine texture warping. (He's also admitted that was a mistake.) Quake uses the SlaveDriver engine from Lobotomy, also used in Powerslave. It's pretty clear they knew the strengths of the hardware and how to make it run well.
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Post by toei on Aug 31, 2022 17:25:15 GMT -5
There's a fair number of Saturn games with decent 3D, though, and many of them are good, so I personally never cared about Quake as a Saturn fan in those days.
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Post by Ex on Sept 1, 2022 0:13:04 GMT -5
There's a fair number of Saturn games with decent 3D, though, and many of them are good Which Saturn games do you consider to have the most impressive 3D on the system?
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Post by toei on Sept 1, 2022 6:05:50 GMT -5
Virtua Fighter 2 had nice 3D characters, though the tradeoff was that the backgrounds were no longer polygonal. Higher resolution and framerate than was common then, too (60fps or close). Lots of Saturn arcade ports (mostly fighters and racers) have decent 3D, though the PSX had better. Shining Force III has some nice 3D (especially during the battle cutscenes).
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Post by Ex on Sept 1, 2022 15:07:33 GMT -5
When it comes to the Saturn, my opinion is a fully 3D game like Quake is more impressive technically than a partially 3D game like Virtua Fighter 2. But I agree that VF2 looks better graphically certainly. Although, I think Dead or Alive outclasses VF2 in both categories on Saturn. Daytona USA did turn out pretty well. Ultimately, Burning Rangers may be the most graphically impressive Saturn game from a 3D perspective.
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Post by anayo on Sept 1, 2022 15:27:44 GMT -5
Ex Quake is awesome as a "look at what my Saturn can do" game. The controls just suck. Seriously, as a teen I'd reach a certain part and then just couldn't progress. I figured I just needed to "git gud", but then later in 2020 I shredded through it on PC playing with keyboard and mouse. It was a real eye-opener. At least the Sega Dreamcast would let you play Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament with a keyboard and mouse. Sarge Yeah that sucked. When Doom for Saturn came out, the gaming media lambasted it. They were like, "How can the Saturn take on the Playstation if it can't even run Doom?" I think for 1995 that kind of "on rails" or "two dudes fighting in an area" 3D was impressive, but around 1996 and 1997 people wanted stuff where you could freely move around in 3D space. Ex Yeah Burning Rangers is what I mean by "moving around in free 3D space". Although when I last played it my poor Saturn was gasping for air every step of the way, lol. I wonder if that unveiled demo of Shenmue for Sega Saturn was running on real hardware. For a Saturn game it almost looks too good to be true.
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