Remember when 3d became affordable for everybody?

[Royalshin]

At the time 1993 people who had the spending power had a PC, with the latest Video card ( graphics Card ) and sound blaster card and was enjoying various games 3d games. However for the rest of us who could never afford a full arcade machine or a $500 to $700 dollar machine we had our portable videogame systems.

 

Then came the Sega Saturn and suddenly the consumer 3d boom was all the rage. From 2d sprite scaled games to Arcade shooters and fighters.

 

Briefly before that there was Jaguar, 32X, along with various 3d games that nobody barely knew about.

 

I remembered when I would look at Starfox and then look back at the manual to compare the Arwings details. Then later when we had the Super Mario RPG and FF7 out I was going on and on about how Super Mario RPG was more realistic looking and how Final Fantasy was not. Then sega presented Sonic 3d: flicky islands that proved to be astonishing to all Sonic players.

 

I still can't believe the way people was going crazy over Sonic R when it was released on the Saturn and then Mario 64

was unbeleiveable. Then there was all the 3d advertisments like Bug and Nights.

 

Lets not forget the Nintendo versus everything bit. I was a walking advertisment for Nintendo all that time. All those games on any system could be on each system. Hell we could have Jetset Radio on the 32X, SNES, and the

Jaguar.

 

I mean nowadays hey I prefer the 3d then to all the animus we have now. It was at okay level and was reasonable. people

( kids) will never enjoy what we had and while many of you would rather not go back to those days for anything I would.

[rpgfaker]

gee and I was thinking as I read your post that Faceball 3-d was pretty old on the atari

[A Sprite]

Not all of us could afford a home computer.

 

I remember when 3D took over. "You have to play the game to really see what it looks like." Said nearly every honest review. Almost overnight screenshots became irrelevant. Cinema presentations revived the art of the silent film for a new generation. Unlike the silent films of the past, expressive faces were shunned in favor of emotions barely seen. Lovers seldom kissed. Violence was offered up as a form of dance...

 

Imagination filled in the blanks. We were part of a conspiracy to make these games better than they were, and we entered into it willingly. Final Fantasy VII was never art, but it created more artists than any single museum...

 

It couldn't last. We wouldn't let it. With the next generation, our heroes found their own voices.

 

We were shocked at how little they had to say.

[shadow460]

Why does everyone rail on about how good or bad FF7 is? It wasn't the first 3D RPG. As a matter of fact, it wasn't the first at much of anything. Yeah, it's a great game, one of the best, but even today it is far over hyped. what, then of other RPGs of the time such as Enemy Zero and Shining the Holy Ark?

 

I'd say affordable 3D is not synonymous with the Saturn/PS1/N64 generation. I think it actually occurred about the time the Voodoo Banshee chipset was released. Soon after were the first GeForce chipsets and the Rage 128. then there was the Voodoo 3/Avenger chipset, which was on several graphics cards priced under $150 and installed into a Pentium 1 class PC. Bam, $1000 gets you a crappy computer, a nice AWE sound card and a nice STB graphics board, and they blow away what you get on the (then aging) consoles of the time.

 

Personally, I think Saturn and PS1 3D is pretty ugly for the most part, and it always has been. Especially PS1. Now when it was done right, like in NiGHTS or Gran Turismo 1, it was adequate. Not good, just adequate. 3D really started to look good with the above hardware and stuff like UT '99 and PC versions of 1998 Sega Rally, FF7, and FF8. And then there's Emperor: Battle for Dune, a 3D RTS that would run on a 600 MHz machine and look good in the process.

[MetalSlime23]

Why does everyone rail on about how good or bad FF7 is? It wasn't the first 3D RPG. As a matter of fact, it wasn't the first at much of anything. Yeah, it's a great game, one of the best, but even today it is far over hyped. what, then of other RPGs of the time such as Enemy Zero and Shining the Holy Ark?

 

 

I agree, especially since the characters didn't have mouths

[chris_lynx1989]

You forgot to mention the Virtual Boy unit!It had nice immersive 3-D too.I just wish the full color one had been released later or first.You also forgot Segavision 3-D in the '80s with some immersive games.The Vectrex 3-D Imager in '83 also did a fair job.Spectravision also had Simulated 3-D games in '83,I believe.When you say '3-D',are you only referring to polygon games like Virtua Racing and Virtua Fighter or other stuff too?I'm not trying to muddy the waters or be a jackass here.3-D games aren't new.

[gdement]

There were lots of old 3D games of course, going back to vector displays and such, but that stuff is noticeably and significantly different from the hardware accelerated polygon 3D systems that started to appear in the late 90's. That was a revolutionary change.

This pretty much defined the Playstation and began what I consider to be a distinct era of console games, significantly different from the NES-SNES-Genesis-etc era that came before it. Actually I don't think of systems like the PS1-onward as being "classic gaming", I see them as modern, but most people don't classify it that way.

 

I remember the first time I saw a Diamond Monster 3D card (original Voodoo). I thought there was no way that thing could catch on, it was expensive and had to be purchased in addition to a separate video card. I figured the cheaper cards like Virges and such had a better shot. Bad call.

 

Seems the whole industry undershot the mark, designing cheaper accelerators that people decided weren't worth buying. Companies that were dominant in 2D gave the market away to startups like 3DFx and later nVidia. ATI was the exception, they did okay but they lagged in the higher end market for a while.

Edited January 3, 2009 by gdement

[SRGilbert]

At the time 1993 people who had the spending power had a PC, with the latest Video card ( graphics Card ) and sound blaster card and was enjoying various games 3d games. However for the rest of us who could never afford a full arcade machine or a $500 to $700 dollar machine we had our portable videogame systems.

 

I think you have your history a little fuzzy. The first Voodoo cards didn't even come out until late 1996, and I'm pretty sure that any computer that had one cost a LOT more than $700! Heck, I didn't get my first system with a 3d card until 1998. Ah, I think I still have it too, an STB Velocity 4400 with an nVidia TnT chip and 16 meg of memory! I remember that that whole system cost me about $1800 from ABS Computers.

[MN12BIRD]

I remember when everyone nicknamed the original Playstation the "Polygon Monster" in 1994.

[frenchman]

Yes I think in 1993 you would be lucky to buy a VESA Graphicscard, which could increase the screenresolution. But, in 1994 the REEL MAGIC Graphics card promised lots. I think it was bundled with Return to Zork.

3D was already on homecomputers in the late 1980s like C-64 with Space Rouge or Amiga with Hunter.

[shadow460]

Why does everyone rail on about how good or bad FF7 is? It wasn't the first 3D RPG. As a matter of fact, it wasn't the first at much of anything. Yeah, it's a great game, one of the best, but even today it is far over hyped. what, then of other RPGs of the time such as Enemy Zero and Shining the Holy Ark?

 

 

I agree, especially since the characters didn't have mouths

 

hm? They sure did have mouths... on the real (PC) version.

Edited January 4, 2009 by shadow460

[Noelio]

My first real run in with 3d was tomb raider & quake on my old beloved 486 dx4-120 with an ati mach 64. Duke & Doom deserve a mention too. I think the N64 w/ super mario 64 & goldeneye kick started the real need for 3d. The dreamcast spoiled everyone as well.

 

To this date, there's still something to be said for the fluid graphics & motion on the 3dfx voodoo cards. No choppiness or lagged drawing. Just amazing performance. I don't think there's been a card since with perfectly smooth 3d animation like that. Though the cards have much higher polygon counts, effects and general resolution. It really turned the pc into a console.

 

Maybe I haven't bought a serious "enough card" since the voodoo. It's been all mid level ati and nvidia since.

[in the dark]

I dreaded the 3D craze that seized the gaming world back then. I resisted it and still do today. I would rather have 2D hand drawn animated graphics. I guess that is one of the reasons that I am a retro gamer today. That and the fact that I feel that many of the old games are more fun to play. I don't like the polygon thing. I have bent and given in when it comes to racers. There are a few that I do like when 3D is used a certain way. I have yet to be drawn to purchase any of the modern day systems. Just not tempted at all. And I don't feel that I am missing anything. I am having a blast in the past.

[johnny_boy]

The move to 3D had hurt the previous purity of gameplay by diluting the 2D mechanics (left, right) into 360 degrees (left, right, front, back) bringing with it the uncertainty of measurement and examination of the immediate environment (where the hell am I standing and what exactly is in front of my character). The controls also became more complex to keep up with the free movement and platform jumping segments frequently turned into exercises of frustration or a guessing game where you put your character's hands in fate and your own approximative judgement.

 

Games using 2d gameplay with polygon graphics fared better (Klonoa, Tomba, Bug, Clockwork Knight) but suffered from a perceived complexity deficiency, and mostly linear paths of exploration. This last item doesn't have to be this way, as the 2D Castlevania and Metroid series have frequently shown.

 

The screen is a flat manifestation of a virtual world, why not accept this and play to its strength.

Edited January 5, 2009 by johnny_boy

[gdement]

I agree with the above, the 3D trend that started in the late 90's really brought an end to the era of games I most enjoyed. Some games naturally desire a 3D perspective (like racing games) so for those games, 3D acceleration hardware was a great thing. But platform/adventure type games suffered. Unfortunately the fact that new video cards and consoles had 3D acceleration meant that new games all "had" to utilize it. 2D games in the 3D era have a hard time being taken seriously.

 

I hope that attitude is ending though, we've had about 10 years now to get over the "cool" factor of accelerated 3D and get back to what actually plays better.

[mos6507]

The 320x200 res on the PS1 and the flickering polygons really hurt it. And the framerate often dropped below 30fps. For its time it was impressive, but by the end of its lifespan it was an embarassment. A few games like Tekken featured 60fps which helped make the low res look better. The high res on VF remix on the Saturn was a harbinger of what was to come, but doing that on the Saturn took too many programming hours of toil. So I don't think 3d started to look good until the Dreamcast.

[Reaperman]

I think you have your history a little fuzzy.

At least somebody finally said it. Here I was all biting my tongue.

 

Reading the whole original post I kept wondering if I really lived through that decade at all, or if I spent it in an alternate universe where we all had goatees.

[Mirage]

I think you have your history a little fuzzy.

At least somebody finally said it. Here I was all biting my tongue.

 

Reading the whole original post I kept wondering if I really lived through that decade at all, or if I spent it in an alternate universe where we all had goatees.

 

++ (par for the course)

[guitarmas]

I wish the system and game companies didn't make that giant leap towards 3-D games. It really could've been a progressive movement. That's why I think that 80% of the 3-D games for the PSX look like poop.

[chrisbid]

the first gen 3D games that used a limited number of textures or were completely flat shaded had a clean look to them that i find nifty. its an art style in games that we will never see again (outside of some retro theme)

[Reaperman]

the first gen 3D games that used a limited number of textures or were completely flat shaded had a clean look to them that i find nifty. its an art style in games that we will never see again (outside of some retro theme)

along the same lines, I liked the early textured polygons with limited effects on them--like many saturn games. Everything was so bright and easy to see. Today 'realism' has given us about a million shades of gray and brown to look at.

 

realism gets old fast. If I liked reality so much I'd probably stop playing video games.

Edited January 6, 2009 by Reaperman