Change of perception... 3DO games experienced for the first time now

[PeterG]

This is only semi Jaguar related but I wanted to hear about your thoughts as I made a rather curious observation for myself a few days ago and I wanted to hear how it is for you.

As a kid I used to drool over the screenshots in videogame magazines and marvel at some of the graphics and probably also having the imagination running wild. Of course in owning a Jaguar at some point I would get to know how those games really looked. And while for example the graphics in AvP weren't as "photorealistic" as I imagined and the frames of animation of the sprites left a bit to be desired I was still floored by the graphics. A part of that remains to this day. And of course because I own the games and could play them over the years I still see how beautiful the graphics in Rayman are or let's say what they tried to achieve with Skyhammer so it carries on to this day.

 

I missed these "in between steps" with the 3DO so I have only the magazine screenshots from back in the day and my recent play with an emulator and I was kind of shocked how bad some of the stuff is looking when in my head I always had this sort of really sharp and almost photorealistic look attached to the 3DO images. I guess it is not a big relevation but I wanted to try some of the games that were announced or rumored for the Jaguar and made it to the 3DO and was a bit shocked how muddy, pixelated and different than expected some of it looked (Especially everything with FMV in it like Rebel Assault but also stuff like Quarantine which I at least remember from the PC). Made me wonder if that is how I would look upon the Jag games if I hadn't grown up with them and just tried them out today for the first time. Still wish we would have gotten Return fire.  

[agradeneu]

1 hour ago, PeterG said:

This is only semi Jaguar related but I wanted to hear about your thoughts as I made a rather curious observation for myself a few days ago and I wanted to hear how it is for you.

As a kid I used to drool over the screenshots in videogame magazines and marvel at some of the graphics and probably also having the imagination running wild. Of course in owning a Jaguar at some point I would get to know how those games really looked. And while for example the graphics in AvP weren't as "photorealistic" as I imagined and the frames of animation of the sprites left a bit to be desired I was still floored by the graphics. A part of that remains to this day. And of course because I own the games and could play them over the years I still see how beautiful the graphics in Rayman are or let's say what they tried to achieve with Skyhammer so it carries on to this day.

 

I missed these "in between steps" with the 3DO so I have only the magazine screenshots from back in the day and my recent play with an emulator and I was kind of shocked how bad some of the stuff is looking when in my head I always had this sort of really sharp and almost photorealistic look attached to the 3DO images. I guess it is not a big relevation but I wanted to try some of the games that were announced or rumored for the Jaguar and made it to the 3DO and was a bit shocked how muddy, pixelated and different than expected some of it looked (Especially everything with FMV in it like Rebel Assault but also stuff like Quarantine which I at least remember from the PC). Made me wonder if that is how I would look upon the Jag games if I hadn't grown up with them and just tried them out today for the first time. Still wish we would have gotten Return fire.  

3DO was mostly about the FMV stuff.

 

We played it abit in a shop ca. end of 1993 and it was immediateley clear that it was too expensive for what it offered.

Thats why the Jag really had a good chance to make an impact, it appeared to be designed as a pure game console, but the software support in the first 6 months was dreadful.  Cybermorph was good, Tempest 2000 too but nothing else.

AvP was really the game everyone was waiting for. Doom was very impressive too. And after Rayman was revealed at Summer CES the Jaguar looked really strong. Iron Soldier was another killer app. Unfortunality Atari destroyed the Jaguars reputation by releasing duds like Club Drive, Crescent Galaxy or Kasumi Ninja.

 

In the end, 3DO got some better games than the Jaguar, e.g. FIFA Soccer was really good. But the Jaguar had the much better price and with more games like AvP and IS it could have been a sleeper hit.

 

 

[7800JAGFAN]

If AVP, Doom, T2000, and Iron Soldier had been launch titles and add in Super SF2, with that 1-2 year lead I think Atari would have for certain been the as mention "sleeper" hit console for sure.  But, woulda coulda shoulda.    But, since they both tanked I bought them both at a local pawn shop for $75 for both with games in 97'.   Both really fun, but I only kept the Jag.  

[82-T/A]

I had a 3DO that I bought years ago. When I was a kid, I worked the summer at CompUSA. They even sold a special graphics card made by ATI that allowed you to play 3DO games in your computer. The 3DO was basically built into the graphics card, and it came with a CD drive (2x) that when detected, would play the 3DO game directly over the graphics card. It was super cool.

 

The 3DO was a good system... but it was very expensive. A lot of the games that were on the 3DO were actually PORTED games from the PC. Like for example, Star Control 2, or Wing Commander 3. I really did like the 3DO, but eventually I sold the system, and gave away most of the games for free on here when I was going through one of my cleaning out binges.

[+jgkspsx]

Honestly I had this exact experience (coming into a console that I had virtually no hands on experience with but remembered from childhood) last year, when I got my first Jaguar. I have enjoyed almost everything, even the crap, and I have developed an understanding of the Jaguar aesthetic that I never had from screenshots and videos. For what it’s worth.

 

Admittedly, I did play a friend’s Jaguar when I was a kid, but only for a couple hours at most.

[PeterG]

Interesting. Honestly I don't even know why I was so surprised but probably the reason why I wanted to share the sentiment.  I had to laugh a bit about myself. Of course what was I expecting from a console from the mid 90s but somehow I was expecting something else. Well still interesting to see all the "could have beens". But then again realizing that we didn't miss much on Creature Shock and Demolition Man and ... wasn't Virtuoso also announced for the Jag. Oh my god... what a crapfest.  I'm reall ylate to the party with these haha

[+cubanismo]

I got a Jaguar last year for the first time. I had only rose-tinted memories of magazine screenshots at the time (Trevor McFur takes a mean screenshot), and I just happened to pick up an old CRT TV for duck hunt on my NES the day my Jaguar arrived in the mail. If I hadn't, I'd probably have been disappointed.

 

It's hard to describe the improvement in the perceived quality of the graphics on CRT Vs modern TVs or even perfectly upscaled pixels from old consoles. The modern screens just don't do ~320x240 graphics justice. On a CRT, it looks as good as any VHS or TV content from the time ever did. The games were just designed to be viewed with that kind of screen, and the pixels look like Minecraft-sized blocks anywhere else to me. I'm speaking of the Jaguar specifically, but I assume the same is true of the 3DO.

[+Stephen]

Looks at this and laughs (or cries).  Think to myself - the people that never saw CRT screens before, probably don't know that you used to pick up a phone and get this thing called a dialtone.  Also, when driving, we would stop at a gas station and find a phone bolted to a pole in a glass box in order to make a call in an emergency.  Wanders back into my retirement home, screaming at the clouds.

[+CyranoJ]

57 minutes ago, Stephen said:

Wanders back into my retirement home, screaming at the clouds.

Wanders back to San Junipero, screaming in the cloud.

[JagChris]

1 hour ago, Stephen said:

Looks at this and laughs (or cries).  Think to myself - the people that never saw CRT screens before, probably don't know that you used to pick up a phone and get this thing called a dialtone.  Also, when driving, we would stop at a gas station and find a phone bolted to a pole in a glass box in order to make a call in an emergency.  Wanders back into my retirement home, screaming at the clouds.

Dust rise right on over my time
Empty fossil of the new scene

I feel so alone
Gonna end up a big ol' pile of them bones

[+Stephen]

You do realize, at some point, all of us original people that know (knew) Atari will be, as Kansas sang, "Dust in the wind".  I wonder how far my Jag fumes will help carry me?

[+madman]

Everything seemed more exciting as a kid and video game magazines were the things dreams were made of. I remember every few days I'd drive to the nearest Best Buy, which was probably 15 miles away and check the price on an open box 3do they had. I was making probably $4.35 an hour at that point and they'd mark it down a little more every week. Not spending $400 (or whatever it was) on that system was the greatest move I ever made. I don't know if I'd pick a winner between the Jag or 3do, I'd only recommend the consoles to people who already have the heavy hitters and the PCE. The Jag does win in the homebrew department of course.

[rayik]

13 hours ago, agradeneu said:

Unfortunality Atari destroyed the Jaguars reputation by releasing duds like Club Drive, Crescent Galaxy or Kasumi Ninja

 

 

It didn't help that Crescent Galaxy was one of the 3 release titles.

[JaggingUK]

I loved the videogames magazines - in UK we had a great one for ZX Spectrum called Crash (still have edition 1 to 57) and then Computer and Videogames was the one that covered every machine and that was fantastic and made you so jealous of machines you did not have and could not afford. The machine I most wanted was a Nintendo 64 and computer and video games magazine offered one plus 5 games as a prize every month for the 'star letter' in its letters page - My mission became win that machine and on letter number 4 of month number 4 of entering I got the Star Letter... My reward a N64 plus 5 games of my choice which they mistakenly sent twice!... My star letter was an angry letter from someone who worked in a games store complaining about people sending their grand parents into the shop where he worked and asking for refunds on games that were crap - the whole thing was set around the crapper the game the more likely people would try and send the oldest member of their family back into the shop for a refund as we would be more likely to compensate an older person rather than a spotty teenager... Now as someone who never worked in a games store I just assumed that would be a regular problem and was over the moon with my Star Letter win and my N64 machine that I could not afford at the time... Next all I need was to try and win a Jaguar, a 3DO, a saturn and a playastation which never happened! 

[youxia]

In context of the era,  the best gfx of the time were deservedly jaw-dropping, because they were ahead of everything else. I'm quite certain that in 2051 some people will be having a chat about how awful-looking games from 2021 were, compared to their neural-link better-than-photorealistic ones.

[82-T/A]

14 hours ago, Stephen said:

Looks at this and laughs (or cries).  Think to myself - the people that never saw CRT screens before, probably don't know that you used to pick up a phone and get this thing called a dialtone.  Also, when driving, we would stop at a gas station and find a phone bolted to a pole in a glass box in order to make a call in an emergency.  Wanders back into my retirement home, screaming at the clouds.

 

Hahaha... I have this in the eating area off our kitchen. Every time we have a party, people always take pictures in front of it. Mostly my wife's friends who are Millennials and have never actually used one, but have seen them on TV.

 

I bought a cell phone in 1996, right after I graduated from high school. So I had a phone, but I've still used a payphone before was a kid.

 

 

[+SabertoothRetro]

I picked up a 3DO last summer to revisit some games like Escape from Monster Manor and Blade Force.  Oddly, the game I've enjoyed the most has been Twisted. It's been a nice change from the standard quarantine board game. 

 

For me it comes down to exclusives. I tend to prefer the Jaguar's exclusives compared to those of the 3DO. Most of the 3DO's best titles were ported to PS1 or Saturn, often with slight upgrades. You don't have to have a 3DO to play Gex, Return Fire, Shockwave, Total Eclipse, Toad Rash, etc.  They are great titles for sure, but you don't need a 3DO to experience them. 

[JagChris]

Twisted is great. Sadly the last who plays the Vanna White character passed away last year. 

 

Road Rash on 3D0 is much more enhanced with content than the Saturn version. And is my preferred version.

[sirlynxalot]

Crash n Burn is my favorite 3DO exclusive.  Wish that one had made it to PS1 so it'd be easier to play on more consoles and devices. A higher framerate would have been nice too. I greatly preferred CnB to Total Eclipse or Offworld Interceptor, games made with the same engine which did make the jump to PS1.

[Blazing Lazers]

On 2/15/2021 at 6:43 AM, PeterG said:

This is only semi Jaguar related but I wanted to hear about your thoughts as I made a rather curious observation for myself a few days ago and I wanted to hear how it is for you.

As a kid I used to drool over the screenshots in videogame magazines and marvel at some of the graphics and probably also having the imagination running wild. Of course in owning a Jaguar at some point I would get to know how those games really looked. And while for example the graphics in AvP weren't as "photorealistic" as I imagined and the frames of animation of the sprites left a bit to be desired I was still floored by the graphics. A part of that remains to this day. And of course because I own the games and could play them over the years I still see how beautiful the graphics in Rayman are or let's say what they tried to achieve with Skyhammer so it carries on to this day.

 

I missed these "in between steps" with the 3DO so I have only the magazine screenshots from back in the day and my recent play with an emulator and I was kind of shocked how bad some of the stuff is looking when in my head I always had this sort of really sharp and almost photorealistic look attached to the 3DO images. I guess it is not a big relevation but I wanted to try some of the games that were announced or rumored for the Jaguar and made it to the 3DO and was a bit shocked how muddy, pixelated and different than expected some of it looked (Especially everything with FMV in it like Rebel Assault but also stuff like Quarantine which I at least remember from the PC). Made me wonder if that is how I would look upon the Jag games if I hadn't grown up with them and just tried them out today for the first time. Still wish we would have gotten Return fire.  

With an emulator? Try playing real hardware on a non-wide CRT screen. It'll look and feel a lot better. 

[PeterG]

40 minutes ago, Blazing Lazers said:

With an emulator? Try playing real hardware on a non-wide CRT screen. It'll look and feel a lot better. 

Yes, someone above mentioned that too and I agree. From time to time I was looking out for a 3DO but haven't found one yet for a price I was ok with. But yeah considering the topic I probably didn't choose the best option for a first encounter on emulator and on my PC-LED, it's true...

[+madman]

Did 3do prices go up? Last time I looked a few years ago you could get console with a bunch of games for cheap...compared to the Jag, VERY cheap.

[+cubanismo]

1 hour ago, madman said:

Did 3do prices go up?

From a quick look at eBay, yes. Not quite as crazy as Jaguar (I consider myself lucky for getting a no-box/no-manual "power kit" for almost exactly original retail price), but it looks like you're gonna drop around $200 for a system and the minimal accessories like a game and a controller.

 

Also, any idea why there are so many Japanese import 3DOs on eBay?

 

Personally, the next console I'm considering is the Lynx. Been doing a little emulation there myself, and it's keeping with the theme of underappreciated Atari hardware I would enjoy coding for. Also, California Games is totally tubular.

[+madman]

The Lynx is absolutely worth it. If you want to collect, many of the games are still available NOS for cheap, but you can also just grab a Lynx GD cart and call it a day. IMO it has a superior library to the Game Gear. It really is amazing hardware for the time. The Lynx forum can steer you to the "must haves".

[PeterG]

5 hours ago, cubanismo said:

From a quick look at eBay, yes. Not quite as crazy as Jaguar (I consider myself lucky for getting a no-box/no-manual "power kit" for almost exactly original retail price), but it looks like you're gonna drop around $200 for a system and the minimal accessories like a game and a controller.

 

Also, any idea why there are so many Japanese import 3DOs on eBay?

 

Personally, the next console I'm considering is the Lynx. Been doing a little emulation there myself, and it's keeping with the theme of underappreciated Atari hardware I would enjoy coding for. Also, California Games is totally tubular.

Wondered about the Japanese 3DOs as well. There was one a few days ago relatively cheap with two games from the UK for 160 Euros or something like that but of course I did not pay attention ah well...