How have early 3D games aged in your opinion?

[CatPix]

To me, Max Payne is one of the greatest experiences ever created, but you're right...these days that looks terrible. I'd pay full price for Max Payne 1 and 2 remastered. Remedy is a really great developer even if their experimental stuff (Quantum Break, for example) comes off kind of pretentious. Between Remedy, who is based in Finland, and French studio Quantic Dream (Heavy Rain, Beyond Two Souls) some of the best narrative experiences in video games this century have come from some eccentric-assed Europeans. The graphics may not have aged, but I look at these games through some rose-tinted glasses.

 

Also, because of Max Payne 2's ending, I found one of my all-time favorite bands: Poets of the Fall. The song from the ending credits, Late Goodbye, was good, but then I found their Signs of Life and Carnival of Rust albums and I was SOLD.

I should have said, I have no gripe toward May Payne and Half-Life.

They are excellent games, and they also are milestones in videogaming history. It's just that using them to show what I meant was the easiest way, because whoever didn't played them saw le's play of them, or saw a friend playing them, so everyone can figure out what I was pointing to.

Edited September 13, 2018 by CatPix

[Lost Dragon]

This might be the UK Gamer in me talking, but when people talk of early 3D games, where others might go back as far as the SNES FX and Sega SVP era...

 

My mind goes back to the ST and Amiga era and things like:

 

Midwinter 1+2

Carrier and Battle Command

Hunter

Cybercon III

Starglider II

No Second Prize

Corporation.

 

Despite the appalling frame rates by today's standards, for myself they still have a certain charm lacking in the Playstation and Saturn era of games.

 

Probably just fond memories playing them..

[Lost Dragon]

I liked the MOOO when you collide with the triangular cow. The Genesis version of Hard Drivin' is way better than the Lynx port. They were interesting for the time, since the arcade game was expensive and not in my home. Fun, playable, and hopelessly out of date.

 

Take Hard Drivin

 

Put it on a small, low resolution screen and add over sensitive controls.

 

I give you the Lynx version.

 

Mind you before i mock it and others the Genesis version..at least you didn't have to suffer this:

 

https://youtu.be/ntEz4o5eq7k

Edited October 2, 2018 by Lost Dragon

[Punisher5.0]

This might be the UK Gamer in me talking, but when people talk of early 3D games, where others might go back as far as the SNES FX and Sega SVP era...

 

My mind goes back to the ST and Amiga era and things like:

 

Midwinter 1+2

Carrier and Battle Command

Hunter

Cybercon III

Starglider II

No Second Prize

Corporation.

 

Despite the appalling frame rates by today's standards, for myself they still have a certain charm lacking in the Playstation and Saturn era of games.

 

Probably just fond memories playing them..

For me there is something special about 3D games on non 3D hardware. They deserve a pass imo.

[Lost Dragon]

Robocop 3 by D.I.D was a far better use of the (dire) film licence than the 2D platforming game Ocean also released.

 

[TigerSuperman]

I tolerate early computer 3D more than early console 3D. The main reason is because there are less issues, what do I mean? The Playstation has texture glitches and the models were no where near clean. The Nintendo 64 had vaseline blur and jitter. Early Computer 3D was just clean blocky polygons, just like the polygons in early 3D arcade games. I could look at the screen for longer than 10 minutes without me getting a headache.

 

It always felt to me that the 5th gen consoles could only do basic 3D with compromises.

 

For me there is something special about 3D games on non 3D hardware. They deserve a pass imo.

Agreed. To create 3D games on hardware that didn't support it was an engineering feat.

Edited October 2, 2018 by TigerSuperman

[CatPix]

The Playstation has texture glitches and the models were no where near clean.

Some games didn't suffered from that. I thiikn about OverBlood, whiich is amazingly clean for a 1996 PS1 game. I dunno if getting "better" graphics was more CPU and memory-consuming and programmers choose to have more stuff happening rather than having more neat things, or if it's sloppy programming at work?

 

I mean obviously, there are still some graphics hiccups, but I know major games released in 1999 and 2000 that look worst than OverBlood.

[derFunkenstein]

 

Oh I remember my locale arcade owner putting up a sign that Laser games were not going to be around anymore because he said he was tired of spending money getting them fixed. Back then there was only 1 arcade store in the mall that had Laser games.

 

 

 

If I recall, their last two big Xbox projects (Alan Wake and Quantum Break) flopped. I liked Remedy's games, Max Payne 3 was just disappointing without them at the helm. I'm a bit concerned for their future though, the new game they showed off at E3 just looks like a remade Quantum break with gravity. Hopefully it's much better than that.

Alan Wake sold 4.5 million copies. Well deserved. Quantum Break considerably less, though.

 

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/alan-wake-sales-reach-4-5-million-as-xbox-one-rumo/1100-6426167/

 

About SNES 3D: I think that Super FX games look good due to the lack of textures. Very stylized. So almost ageless in a way. The same COULD be true of more cartoony PS1 and Saturn games, I think. It applies to Super Mario 64, IMO.

Edited October 3, 2018 by derFunkenstein

[Tanooki]

That's how I feel about those FX games on SNES too. They are these odd time pieces that just retain a nice sheen to them and don't look bad. Yes the tech was limited, but those design choices had purpose behind them in games like Star Fox or the slow Stunt Race FX to where it had and intent for appeal behind them doing just that. It's a special kind of style they went for and nailed well, so you can look at it now and not see something struggling and failing to continue to be nice with age like so many 1st/2nd gen (pre 2000) 3D system games where they're almost painful to tolerate in some cases. Just like your examples, if you look to like a Mario(64), Spyro, Conker, Croc, Rayman, and a few others the cartoony limited minimalist angle working with what the system could do still make them seem pretty fine.

[Keatah]

I loved I, Robot. But then again I would. the more non-standard and eclectic a game is the better I like it.

 

 

For me there is something special about 3D games on non 3D hardware. They deserve a pass imo.

 

That was part of the magic of A2-FS1 Flight Simulator on the Apple II. And some years later, Doom on the PC. I remember having researched and chosen the Cirrus Logic GD-5422 chip for the graphics card. It was nothing special other than it was a Windows Accelerator for Win3.1. That means it knew the primitives for drawing the windows with procedural-like commands instead of the processor having to bit-map them. The chip knew nothing else aside from static bit-mapped graphics, text, and the Windows' stuff.

 

To see DOOM work on this was beyond flabbergasting. It's like there was a whole new set of untapped hardware in there that no one knew about. Revealed for the first time. That was magic.

Edited October 3, 2018 by Keatah

[youxia]

This might be the UK Gamer in me talking, but when people talk of early 3D games, where others might go back as far as the SNES FX and Sega SVP era...

 

My mind goes back to the ST and Amiga era and things like:

 

Midwinter 1+2

Carrier and Battle Command

Hunter

Cybercon III

Starglider II

No Second Prize

Corporation.

 

Despite the appalling frame rates by today's standards, for myself they still have a certain charm lacking in the Playstation and Saturn era of games.

 

Probably just fond memories playing them..

 

Not just fond memories, some absolutely groundbreaking titles you listed there. Especially Midwinter & Hunter. And if we go even earlier in time, there's stuff like Castle Master series on ZX Spectrum and other micros.

Then there was also this brief window of time before 3D accelerators have taken over on PC where people tried new techniques such as voxels. Commanche blew me away. Or MDK from Shiny, it was a technical non-accelerated marvel.

 

But, as I said before, I actually totally dig the early PSX 3D efforts. I've actually just dusted off my Playstation and hooked it up to a huge Trinitron. It amazes me what the devs were able to achieve despite its limited specs. And I quite like that particular "style": low-res, wonky polygons, everything coming apart at seams... And yet games such as Einhander, Covert Ops, Brave Fencer or Driver manage to look awesome (aside from being so much fun gameplay wise).

[Lost Dragon]

 

 

 

Just amazing for the time.

Edited October 3, 2018 by Lost Dragon

[MrMaddog]

This might be the UK Gamer in me talking, but when people talk of early 3D games, where others might go back as far as the SNES FX and Sega SVP era...

 

My mind goes back to the ST and Amiga era and things like:

 

Midwinter 1+2

Carrier and Battle Command

Hunter

Cybercon III

Starglider II

No Second Prize

Corporation.

 

 

I also liked the 3D games on computers back then, they weren't limited by being strictly tile & sprite based and didn't need a seperate co-processor as the 68K was very capable. The flat shaded polygon graphics were also used in VR sims in the early 90's so it seemed futuristic at the time.

 

That said I was also impressed seeing Starfox on the SNES which ended up being the future of console games to this day...

[digdugnate]

 

I also liked the 3D games on computers back then, they weren't limited by being strictly tile & sprite based and didn't need a seperate co-processor as the 68K was very capable. The flat shaded polygon graphics were also used in VR sims in the early 90's so it seemed futuristic at the time.

 

That said I was also impressed seeing Starfox on the SNES which ended up being the future of console games to this day...

People dog Starfox, but I always really liked the game- it's a heck of a lot of fun and it imo still stands up

[Tanooki]

I don't get the hate either, it's a fun game and not very long either once you learn it a little so it's easily played to satisfaction in short time. I guess it's just cool to dump on it because 3D standards are so much better now.

[Flojomojo]

Starfox is the most playable arcade-style, Star Wars-ey 3D rail shooter to be seen since Atari's 1983 Star Wars arcade game. It is more fun and better paced than any of the multimedia stuff that came along afterwards such as on 3DO and PlayStation. It's a much better design than Sega's Star Wars Arcade on the 32X, which really should have smoked it.

[Eltigro]

Never was that big of a fan of Star Fox, but I don't hate it either. As far as on rails type shooters, I prefer Panzer Dragoon on the Saturn. I give it a play every once in a while, but I usually get a game over around level 5 I think... But honestly, on rails shooters were never my favorite genre.

[mbd30]

Starfox is the most playable arcade-style, Star Wars-ey 3D rail shooter to be seen since Atari's 1983 Star Wars arcade game. It is more fun and better paced than any of the multimedia stuff that came along afterwards such as on 3DO and PlayStation. It's a much better design than Sega's Star Wars Arcade on the 32X, which really should have smoked it.

 

Star Fox has some brilliant art direction and level designs. For example, the part where you enter enemy craft and destroy them from the inside is so cool. And while the frame rate might not be the smoothest, the controls are responsive and it plays well. I had more fun with Star Fox than with the more serious scifi flight sims for PC. And it's definitely better than stuff like Rebel Assault and Nova Storm.

[Tanooki]

I'd like to add more but between mbd and flojo that pretty much pegs why the sub-30fps/low polygon models of Starfox or it being a rail shooter should not be considered negatives, bad things against it being good or any of the other rants you get online against it. It's a game that has great direction to it and almost too good for its time and format execution. You have a really well flowing fun game with a decent bit of to a pretty solid challenge going by the course and sub-courses (finding the hidden stuff in medium/hard tracks) you choose after doing stage one. It's not very long, but not very short, so it's something you can keep picking away at with or without the continues given (and general lives) and get something out of the time invested and not feel like it was a wasted effort or wasted time too.

 

It's definitely better than Rebel Assault and their ilk, and while not as depth loaded or fun perhaps (staying on theme) as old TIE Fighter, it has a nice fluid style kind of like it but it's just not something you sink weeks or months into as it's short, sweet, on rails and to the point so it can be a lot more approachable and more fun than something more serious like that.

[Lost Dragon]

Talking of Star Fox and early 3D, Dylan Cuthbert of Argonaut :

 

"I'm just saddened really by the lack of effort THE MOST RESPECTED software company (Argonaut) is spending in making its games for the 3DO. Imagine what Starfox could have been like if it had had the 3DO's hardware and colours/sound etc... it probably had about the same time period spent on it (if not less staff and a lower budget! ; I was one of the staff, I know how little I was paid)".

[mbd30]

Talking of Star Fox and early 3D, Dylan Cuthbert of Argonaut :

 

"I'm just saddened really by the lack of effort THE MOST RESPECTED software company (Argonaut) is spending in making its games for the 3DO. Imagine what Starfox could have been like if it had had the 3DO's hardware and colours/sound etc... it probably had about the same time period spent on it (if not less staff and a lower budget! ; I was one of the staff, I know how little I was paid)".

 

It would have been better on 3DO, but far fewer people would have gotten to play it.

[CatPix]

Interestingly, about that, it is said and appears that Starfox is based on an arcade game called StarBlade.

And StarBlade was ported on 3DO; it even got an arcade port and a 3DO version, which is mostly the arcade game with textures :

So, here you can see what Starfox could have looked like if it had been made on 3DO.

[Flojomojo]

There are a bunch of staid, flat shooters like Starblade out there -- it was on the Sega CD too. The arcade version predates StarFox by two years and has WAY less style in my opinion.

[digdugnate]

you could also unlock Starblade through Tekken 5 on the PS2, but boy was it a pain in the butt for me.

[Osgeld]

I love starblade I play it on mame

 

but our arcade had the momma badass machine of it

 

cockpit, sub woofer, and like a 20 something inch screen (it wasnt that large it was projected off something into a magnifying lense which made everything more spacy as it was curved)

 

 

the arcade version is one of those games that seem kind of boring to sit down and get your ass kicked, but if you have a flight stick / youlk its a hoot to turn off all the lights, crank the sound (as there's little music) and run it on the biggest screen you got ... you kind of forget your in the living room

Edited October 9, 2018 by Osgeld