One thing I loved about classic consoles vs. current ones

[Steeler]

People brought up high-performance N64 games, and Banjo Tooie was never mentioned?

 

That game had great lighting and shadows, reflective surfaces, and generally really aesthetic 3D models. And the levels were huge.

[kool kitty89]

@koolkitty: no it's not the transparency part that I find impressive, its the hdma scrolling and scaling that I find kind've impressive. I said "kind've" meaning that because I do Snes programming in my own time, its clear to me how that trick was done.

 

Hmm, you mean the same kind of scaling effect as used in Axelay? (or for the rotating room in Castlevania 4)

[Video]

 

It's probably more to do with perception than anything. I mean, on the 2600, you could have a max of something like 5 colors, 2 sprites, 2 missiles, and one ball per scanline, that's very limiting, but then you have games that (while never going beyond that) blow that out of the water. But it's so easy to see when you know what the limits are.

Hmm, can't you also "clone" sprites? (ie have multiple sprites of the same color and shape per scanline without flicker)

 

Doh...Yeah, another trick the 2600 did rather well, though I'm not sure if that's built in or some 'trick' discovered later on....probably built in as I believe combat does this.

 

More modern, the consoles look so pretty, it's hard to pick out what is actually pushing the system (like maybe polys, on the Genesis, or super Nintendo) And what's really doing nothing new (using computer generated images, rather than hand created ones in DK country, and claymation games)

A large portion of contemporary game art was also computer generated, but more often pixel art (so to speak) than digitized 3D models. (I'm sure there was also cases of digitizing hand-drawn art -and other cases of hand converting drawings into pixel art)

 

 

Yeah, but at least you get the gist of the thing. I always thought it was funny how people fell out about "Ohmygod the leetness of the SNES cause it does this" And I was just like "what exactly is the console doing it didn't do before?" It's pretty certainly, but consolewise, the SNES was doing literally nothing new.

[4Ks]

That game had great lighting and shadows, reflective surfaces, and generally really aesthetic 3D models. And the levels were huge.

 

 

At the sacrifice of any kind of a decent framerate.

[Multijointed Monster Maker]

Rpgs are by far more about graphics over gameplay, and people getting impressed by nothing, than the Donkey Kong Country series. Donkey Kong Country atleast had everything actually moving, and an actual game inside the cartridge. Rpgs on the other hand were just a bunch of static images that do nothing at all. I even find Super Mario World to be far more impressive than any Final Fantasy or Chrono Trigger, simply because the sprites actually moved and interacted with eachother.

[+atari2600land]

Hey, what about Faceball 2000 on the Game Boy? That was really impressive. Did that push the limits of the Game Boy in any way?

[kool kitty89]

Yeah, but at least you get the gist of the thing. I always thought it was funny how people fell out about "Ohmygod the leetness of the SNES cause it does this" And I was just like "what exactly is the console doing it didn't do before?" It's pretty certainly, but consolewise, the SNES was doing literally nothing new.

Yeah some say Vectorman was done in response to DKC but really that doesn't match up IMO. (a lot of prerendered stuff but a totally different graphical style in general) Sonic 3D blast is MUCH more in line with DKC style graphics IMO it came a bit late to really compete though. (then there's toy story and earthworm jim -moreso EWJ2- with lots of prerendered graphics -mostly prerendered in toy story -and both had the raycasting inside the crane machine stage -as I mentioned before)

 

At the sacrifice of any kind of a decent framerate.

 

I never had an issue with it but at the same time I didn't find it all that impressive looking at least compared to some others. (perfect dark has some framerate issues too -especially in coop but does look more impressive IMO -the factor 5 games still moreso though) I started playing goldeneye again and was a bit surprised at the amount of lag in open areas. (far less of an issue in close quarters)

 

Rpgs are by far more about graphics over gameplay, and people getting impressed by nothing, than the Donkey Kong Country series. Donkey Kong Country atleast had everything actually moving, and an actual game inside the cartridge. Rpgs on the other hand were just a bunch of static images that do nothing at all. I even find Super Mario World to be far more impressive than any Final Fantasy or Chrono Trigger, simply because the sprites actually moved and interacted with eachother.

 

I don't see it: most RPGs look less impressive than contemporaries (FFVII's most "impressive" part was the FMV) though Super Mario RPG did use some nice prerendered graphics.

 

Hey, what about Faceball 2000 on the Game Boy? That was really impressive. Did that push the limits of the Game Boy in any way?

There's also hard drivin on the GB (not sure if they cheated like the C64 and canceled NES versions though and used frame animation rather than rendering). The speccy version seems to be realtime and includes the crash scenes by comparison.

[Video]

OMG, Hard drivin' is on the GAMEBOY??!? That's AWESOME!! I've gotta get it (I think I have it for everything else )

 

As for faceball, I don't know, it looks impressive enough, but I don't think it's doing any actual 3d, or even anything as complicated as raycasting, kinda like prerendered I guess, like FMV in a way, but it's got a lot more interactivity than something like Dragonslayer, but eh, I don't know. I think it's impressive either way then again, I don't have a clue how it's done.

 

Now off to find hard drivin video on youtube (watch the bastids not have any)

[4Ks]

OMG, Hard drivin' is on the GAMEBOY??!? That's AWESOME!! I've gotta get it (I think I have it for everything else )

 

As for faceball, I don't know, it looks impressive enough, but I don't think it's doing any actual 3d, or even anything as complicated as raycasting, kinda like prerendered I guess, like FMV in a way, but it's got a lot more interactivity than something like Dragonslayer, but eh, I don't know. I think it's impressive either way then again, I don't have a clue how it's done.

 

Now off to find hard drivin video on youtube (watch the bastids not have any)

 

 

Actually, on Game Boy it's called Race Drivin'.

[kool kitty89]

OMG, Hard drivin' is on the GAMEBOY??!? That's AWESOME!! I've gotta get it (I think I have it for everything else )

 

As for faceball, I don't know, it looks impressive enough, but I don't think it's doing any actual 3d, or even anything as complicated as raycasting, kinda like prerendered I guess, like FMV in a way, but it's got a lot more interactivity than something like Dragonslayer, but eh, I don't know. I think it's impressive either way then again, I don't have a clue how it's done.

 

Now off to find hard drivin video on youtube (watch the bastids not have any)

 

I'm sure the Lynx game is far better. I recently found out about the canceled NES port of Hard Drivin. (they opted for pure animation frames for that games -lifted from the ST port supposedly) The C64 version looks like that too.

 

As to faceball 2000, I'm not sure what it's doing, it looks like primitive raycasting, but it might be something else. (it's of course a port of the classic -and historic- Midi Maze from the Atari ST -Faceball was also one the SNES and some other platforms)

 

 

Actually, on Game Boy it's called Race Drivin'.

Right: different game actually (sequel to Hard Drivin' both Atari Games arcade games), though not necessarly related to the sequel specifically, the SNES "race drivin" seems to be an odd hybrid of the 2 games. (compared to the 2 genesis or ST/Amiga games)

[Video]

Yeah, I looked it up, wow, it's pretty impressive for gameboy. I mean, it looks damn good considering. I have the lynx game, it's pretty decent too (though honestly, with that game it's not saying much ) I'd like to pick up race drivin sometiime, it looks like it's got a slight bit mre to it than hard drivin. Maybe it won't be as hard too

[Multijointed Monster Maker]

 

I don't see it: most RPGs look less impressive than contemporaries (FFVII's most "impressive" part was the FMV) though Super Mario RPG did use some nice prerendered graphics.

 

 

I don't see it either. I can't see what other people are talking about.

[Multijointed Monster Maker]

Okay, anybody know how to get this in a Youtube box? I'm posting this to know if anybody finds my Super Nintendo game impressive for a homebrew?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOBw0OZjTfA

Edited April 26, 2010 by Multijointed Monster Maker

[The_Laird]

No not really actually, sorry.

 

Use the insert media icon (looks like photos)

[Multijointed Monster Maker]

No not really actually, sorry.

 

Use the insert media icon (looks like photos)

 

What would you find impressive?

Edited April 26, 2010 by Multijointed Monster Maker

[Video]

In it's very incomplete state, such as it is, I'd say it's pretty impressive. That's a lot of crap to throw on the screen.

 

Of course, it may be much harder to pull off smoothly once you put a background in place.