Stone Posted March 14, 2003 Share Posted March 14, 2003 Hi all, Thanks to a tip from Clint Thompson pased on through Gunstar (thanks guys!!), I can verify that there's a whole lot more to the SoulStar proto than previously reported...all the missions appear in fact to be present In retrospect it's so obvious; letting the attract mode run past the first two missions, it starts to move on to the ones that are unreachable in the proto Only the first phase of each mission is shown (each mission comprising 3 phases) but there's still a LOT of variety to be seen. So out came the trusty digital camera to record the phosphor for you lot All shots are named in the format 'm#p#.jpg' where m# indicates the mission number (1 to and p# the picture number. Note: missions are numbered from memory, so they aren't infallibly true First up is the title screen (natch), which is attached as title.jpg. Second is the highscore table (hiscore.jpg) which seems filled with real people who'd played the game. Interesting This is a rather nice effect, with the rainbow text gradually fading and shifting into different colours, and fake-3D scaled-sprite asteroids heading towards the player in the background. First phase of the first mission is not shown - I couldn't get a decent photo of it due to what seems to be some odd res changes. Sorry. Clint has photos up on jagcube anyhow. Second mission looks, as you can see, terrible. (shots enhanced so you can see what's going on; only half the screen seems to be updated at any one time). All the textures seem corrupted, and playing through the game nobody with the proto (afaik) has got past here. Third mission! and on to the demo-only scenes. Some very nice grassy landscape in evidence here, with sprite mountains as a background. The ground texture changes to more muddy at the very end of the demo. Paths and vegtation-encrusted rocks are all present along with the enemy buildings, and yes, you can shoot the trees 4th mission is very impressive - a 3D environment in which the player controls a large walking mech. There is a a gun turret on its back that swivels automatically to follow targets flagged by the HUD - a very cool effect. It is possible to stomp about, skim along at high speed (in straight lines) and even jump/fly! (see pic 4). Mission 5 is also impressive, but from a graphical point of view. Nice water textures as you fly over themn at high speed, coupled with enemies that burst from the depths in front of you make this a highly exciting level. The animated manga-style explosion in the background (complete with roiling clouds of dust/smoke) is also very nice. Mission 6 sees you on a lava-planet, complete with stretches of fire which spout flames at the player (and messing up his shields). Some very impressive visual effects when enemies are defeated (falling to the ground and exploding in flames? ) as well as nice ground textures for the 'runway' areas make this worth watching too. Mission 7 is one of the most impressive to me: a 'Dune'-style landscape, with turrets, landing pads and a plethora of enemies, all to an impressive sprite background. This level includes evil mechanical enemy centipede-things which burst from the ground and then tunnel back down *right* in front of the player (see shot3) and a HUGE boss, who features a laser chaingun and the ability to drop enemy mechs at you See the screenies for the overall impression on the player, especially when this boss is preceded onscreen by it's shadow...well, you're there Mission 8 is another space mission, with a bright-green (and hard to photograph) nebula in the background and the standard complement of space fighters, as well as some giant mechs who ride flying disks into battle, then leap off to face you...scary... Then the demo sequence loops back to mission one, by which time you've probably had enough Now if only we had a version with Memory Track enabled, which would work as normal...*sigh* Anyway, enjoy the screenies! There's only 5 attachments per post, so the rest of the pics will be attached in the same thread. And thanks again to Clint and Gunstar! Regards, Stone 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stone Posted March 14, 2003 Author Share Posted March 14, 2003 More pics: 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stone Posted March 14, 2003 Author Share Posted March 14, 2003 Yet more pics! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stone Posted March 14, 2003 Author Share Posted March 14, 2003 Even more pics: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stone Posted March 14, 2003 Author Share Posted March 14, 2003 More... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stone Posted March 14, 2003 Author Share Posted March 14, 2003 More?! Apologies to the board admin btw, I hope you'll agree these are cool enough to justify bending the rules slightly for though Stone Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
t.skid Posted March 15, 2003 Share Posted March 15, 2003 Thanks for all the pics. Now I want the game, more Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JagMX Posted March 15, 2003 Share Posted March 15, 2003 The game looks friggin awesome Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+davidcalgary29 Posted March 15, 2003 Share Posted March 15, 2003 I haven't heard much about this. Are there plans to release this as a demo? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gaztee Posted March 15, 2003 Share Posted March 15, 2003 Hiya Stoney, WOW, I really can't wait until the Jagfest now to see this running l8r Gaztee PS If this was released as a demo aka BIWN I would defiantely purchase too!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SwedenLynxer Posted March 15, 2003 Share Posted March 15, 2003 Very very cool pictures Looking forward to hear and see more of this SoulStar... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
future assassin Posted March 15, 2003 Share Posted March 15, 2003 Wholly molly looks sweet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stone Posted March 15, 2003 Author Share Posted March 15, 2003 Let me tell you this: it's nigh-on impossible to get good pictures of a TV screen if you don't know how to turn off auto-focus on your camera Most of these pics are slightly blurred: the ones closest to the actual game graphics are m7p7, m7p4 and m6p4. Also bear in mind that these are doing amazingly smooth motion: the only slowdown occurs when a graphical bug hits (as in missions 2 and 4, though there are some in mission 5 too). These seem to be misaligned texture references (ie the Jag is trying to use as a texture some memory which doesn't contain image data) and this causes giant black blocks to flash on and off, with scanline-type interference (as when viewing a misaligned image in JagView). Personally, I'm not surprised this slows it down, as a small (and crap) demo I made to test scaling limits shows the huge speed loss when the OP gets overloaded...ah well As for it being released - well, this is *extremely* unlikely. There's some serious legal issues just having people owning copies of this proto, and it wasn't even Core doing the development (they out-sourced it). So don't hold your breath, basically Stone Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stone Posted March 15, 2003 Author Share Posted March 15, 2003 Played it again: the volcano and 'Dune' vels are swapped around. My bad, I said my memory was poor Nice addition; floating 'drone' enemies on the 'Dune' level drop mines which fall into the sand in a spray of dust, which explode and send laser pulses flying out as you fly past. Nice touch Also, on the water level, the graphics bugs appear entirely connected with a series of long, armed barges that pass by under the player at high speed. Once there are no more on-screen everything clears up. Nice! Now I need cheats... Stone Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clint Thompson Posted March 15, 2003 Share Posted March 15, 2003 Heh, you sorta beat me to the punchline there Stone I was going to post a bunch of those pics on JagCube but see you have done a great job and posted them here! Those are some excellent shots! Good job! Yea, I guess I didn't realize how impressive those screenshots really look.... Maybe I could eventually record all 30+ minutes of the dozens of different levels. I would just let it sit there running through all the levels letting it play out for a whole day. Too bad the cheats dont' work... I have tried just about all combinations etc and spent a few days messing around with getting past with codes and acctually trying to beat it (Like I did with the Phase Zero level 5 bypass code I found Maybe I'll have to dig it out again.... Yea... it's too bad about Core and the outsource and all that junk... However the only time/reason to consider having it released is when it can be bypassed by that one stupid level.... but I think I may have a hack method to work around that one boss completely and just skip forward to the next level (Don't ask me how, I'm not telling! (I' mean really, hacking is the best part! But once I do figure something out or something... you guys will be the 1st to know. Also, I'm sure there's a 100% complete version playable all the way through somewhere.... it only makes sense. Clint Thompson Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stone Posted March 15, 2003 Author Share Posted March 15, 2003 Heh, you sorta beat me to the punchline there Stone I was going to post a bunch of those pics on JagCube but see you have done a great job and posted them here! Those are some excellent shots! Good job! Thanks Like I said, it's really hard to get decent pics without a direct video feed: maybe I should cut a VHS of the whole sequence and send it to someone who can Or you could do it Yea, I guess I didn't realize how impressive those screenshots really look.... Maybe I could eventually record all 30+ minutes of the dozens of different levels. I would just let it sit there running through all the levels letting it play out for a whole day. That won't work...after 5 or 6 times through the attract mode it just crashes (shells back to BJL screen, can't remember the error code). Shame... Yea... it's too bad about Core and the outsource and all that junk... However the only time/reason to consider having it released is when it can be bypassed by that one stupid level.... but I think I may have a hack method to work around that one boss completely and just skip forward to the next level (Don't ask me how, I'm not telling! (I' mean really, hacking is the best part! Which 'one stupid level'? Mission 2 (inside the enemy ship)? Remember my copy has no gfx glitches on phase2 of Mission 1: this isn't the same copy we're comparing here Mine is fully playable in level2, I'm just crap at it...and there are areas inside the ship with fully-aligned textures; they look very nice indeed But once I do figure something out or something... you guys will be the 1st to know. Also, I'm sure there's a 100% complete version playable all the way through somewhere.... it only makes sense. Must be...these obvious bugs *must* have been picked up in playtesting, even if it was just the coders playing it themselves. And there is no way in hell that they'd play through the whole thing to test whether they fixed a bug on level 7... (I suspect the options screen has the code entry on it) Something to do in your spare time anyway Stone Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clint Thompson Posted March 16, 2003 Share Posted March 16, 2003 Did I say Mission 2 or Phase 2 mission one? No no, i have the glithy graphics around the end boss on the last level.*er, phase 3? I've messed around with 6+ copies of it hacking around within, I've managed to change a few things but I can't find where the frig' the loader program is and the 1st level is.... I got it down for the most part but now I have to find something acceptable to replace it with. Mine doesn't crash... as I've said before, I've let it play throuh the attract mode all day.... hmm... Being up for about 30 hours I'm not too fresh in the mind Gonna have to tackle it to more extent further some other time later this week hopefully... I'm really surprised at how small the Sega CD version of the game is compared to the JCD version but I know it's due to 256colors vs. 16+million on the Jag (or whatever I'm starting to think that instead of rewriting all the code for the JCD they just programmed a re-router for the video/sound and the small things in 68000. If that's really the case it would be amazing... because then I could forsee Battlecorps as well.... but that's probably just wishful thinking for now! There has to be away around it.....there's no other way to think! Clint Thompson Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stone Posted March 16, 2003 Author Share Posted March 16, 2003 Did I say Mission 2 or Phase 2 mission one? No no, i have the glithy graphics around the end boss on the last level.*er, phase 3? On your site there are messed-up ground textures on phase 2 of mission 1, which doesn't happen in my copy. I also get weird effects when moving to the far right in phase 3 of mission 1: it seems to be a problem with having all of the planet sprite onscreen at once (overloaded OP?) I've messed around with 6+ copies of it hacking around within, I've managed to change a few things but I can't find where the frig' the loader program is and the 1st level is.... I got it down for the most part but now I have to find something acceptable to replace it with. Cool! Mine doesn't crash... as I've said before, I've let it play throuh the attract mode all day.... hmm... My copy is slightly dusty, could be that. I'd rather not clean it atm in case I scratch it tho There has to be away around it.....there's no other way to think! I think it may actually be possible to play through it on my copy...it only crashes on the first phase of mission 2 if you die more than once. Example: I got through the whole first mission (all three phases) without losing a life, but with low health. I died on entering the warpship because stuff kept shooting me...I then managed to blow up the CPU core (yay!) but had such low health left that all the stuff shooting me got too much...When I died the game blackscreened and froze. I did however see on the HUD the three routes flash up, which is where the cheats from the SegaCD version become applicable Possible answer: if you have low health, die at the end of mission 1 phase3, so you have 2 full lives to use when inside the warpship. And if you didn't already know, holding C and pressing up/down changes your altitude...beating the cpu core without that isn't even possible Rgs, Stone Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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