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Video games on multiple formats that look (almost) nothing alike


carlsson

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6 hours ago, Tanooki said:

^Good call, but then again, I'm kind of surprised you didn't double dip with Strider on this one as it's Capcom too and the same option to take a pretty linear and alright arcade game and made it far more awesome going into the whole adventure route.

Actually most NES ports of Capcom's arcade games were a bit different, less arcade-y and more adventurous in order to adapt to a home console. Most of time it was quite subtle, though, like for Gun.Smoke; the level design was basically the same and it was rather a matter of changing a few "rules". Mercs on the Genesis also added some kind of new adventure mode on top of the arcade mode. It had several characters with different weapons that could be powered up, hidden items, etc. Light RPG elements.

Speaking of the Genesis, Shadow Dancer and Eswat ports come to mind.

Edited by roots.genoa
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3 hours ago, cvga said:

I'm surprised these look so much different...

 

One on One

Aren't you splitting hairs now? I mean in that case something like Q*Bert on the Odyssey^2 also deserves to be mentioned:

maxresdefault.jpg

 

Good examples everyone, in particular those games which completely change the perspective or game style, sometimes due to hardware limitations but sometimes perhaps more due to time constraints.

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"The Sims" games.   On PC, they were always life simulators where your Sims will act on their own, but will also take suggestions from you on what to do next.

 

On console though,  the earlier sims games were very different than the PC version,  they'd have story modes, fetch quests, you'd directly control your characters, etc/

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Interesting observation. I've seen similar reasoning before, that some types of computer games simply don't "work" on consoles so in order to port a game/license they would have to redo the gameplay, not only due to different controllers but also based on what the demographic would be used to playing.

 

Stretching my own conditions, I can't help thinking about Paradroid on the C64 and Quazatron on the ZX Spectrum. Both games belong to the same universe, but the 2D scrolling didn't work out on the Speccy so they made an isometric game out of it. These two games are not strictly the same, but the second one was intended to be a port turned into a sideways sequel. The two merged into another isometric game Magnetron a little later.

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According to the book about Ocean Software, the ZX Spectrum was more suited to isometric games (it indeed got a lot of them) than the C64, mainly because of their respective CPU (I guess because Spectrum's Z80 was a lot faster than C64's 6502, 3,58MHz versus around 1MHz) from what I've understood. Of course isometric games were possible on C64, but needed more work (and Ocean developers tended to work quickly rather than efficiently ?).

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Next up: game series that look exactly the same on platforms with different schematics. The only games (aside from text adventures) that I can recall that fit this model (and I'd think that this would be comparatively harder to achieve) are the plethora of 2600 ports that appeared on the A8s in 1982 and 1983. Pitfall! looked very similar on both systems, as did Spacemaster X-7/Alpha Shield.

 

But I realize that I shouldn't hijack this thread. :)

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11 hours ago, davidcalgary29 said:

Next up: game series that look exactly the same on platforms with different schematics. The only games (aside from text adventures) that I can recall that fit this model (and I'd think that this would be comparatively harder to achieve) are the plethora of 2600 ports that appeared on the A8s in 1982 and 1983. Pitfall! looked very similar on both systems, as did Spacemaster X-7/Alpha Shield.

 

But I realize that I shouldn't hijack this thread. :)

The original Dan Dare by Virgin's Gang Of 5

 

11 hours ago, davidcalgary29 said:

Next up: game series that look exactly the same on platforms with different schematics. The only games (aside from text adventures) that I can recall that fit this model (and I'd think that this would be comparatively harder to achieve) are the plethora of 2600 ports that appeared on the A8s in 1982 and 1983. Pitfall! looked very similar on both systems, as did Spacemaster X-7/Alpha Shield.

 

But I realize that I shouldn't hijack this thread. :)

Dan Dare plays very differently on ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and Commodore 64.

 

All 3 are fantastic experiences though. 

 

They don't look exactly the same, just very similar. 

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On 9/22/2021 at 11:19 PM, CapitanClassic said:

Having played the arcade version of Strider first, the NES version seems wrong.

 

 

My Strider experience was the opposite.  ?   I played it on NES first, and absolutely loved it.  Years later, I bought the "sequel," or so my ignorant self believed, on Genesis, and was so disappointed that it was just a linear, super easy game that I bought in the AM and had "mastered"  by noon.    Once I got over that initial butthurt, I came to love the game, of course, and much later found out that it was the arcade port.

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Yes Rygar was another on NES that went down another road, more of an adventure, not just the arcade platformer it was.

 

I know the NES did this, I just was pointing out I liked the changes in those versions over the originals.  Ultimately I played either copy of them roughly about the same time, so there was no nostalgia barrier.  Strider I hit on Genesis in the mid/later 90s, same with the NES one due to second hand local goldmine of games/price in the 90s.  The only BC game I played after the fact, very after...gameboy, which I got within the last year in a small lot.  I never loved the games, gets to me a bit you can't even walk over an ankle high rock, but they're not bad...other than maybe that wonky GBC one.

 

Earlier Tomb Raider came up, good call, and really in a way that handheld game (and it's sequel) were better than the original as it took on this Prince of Persia style acrobatic and very fluid sense of motion and inertia that makes it a lot of fun without the garbage earlier games tank controls.

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Bionic Commando is the game I often think of on this sort of topic, but it was already mentioned.  I also liked Battlezone as a particularly good answer. 

 

Well, this might not completely fit the thread title, but Montezuma's Revenge on the 2600 is really a different game than on all other platforms.  However, it looks roughly the same which fools you into thinking it is the same game.  Instead, it is so short that it almost serves as a demo of what the game is elsewhere.

2600

See the source image

 

C64

See the source image

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10 hours ago, wongojack said:

Bionic Commando is the game I often think of on this sort of topic, but it was already mentioned.  I also liked Battlezone as a particularly good answer. 

 

Well, this might not completely fit the thread title, but Montezuma's Revenge on the 2600 is really a different game than on all other platforms.  However, it looks roughly the same which fools you into thinking it is the same game.  Instead, it is so short that it almost serves as a demo of what the game is elsewhere.

2600

See the source image

 

C64

See the source image

I had a friend that had the 2600 version and I was amazed by it BITD.

 

Then I got the C64 version later and LOVED it.   Need to play that soon!

 

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13 minutes ago, 1980gamer said:

I had a friend that had the 2600 version and I was amazed by it BITD.

 

Then I got the C64 version later and LOVED it.   Need to play that soon!

 

Same.  I got the 2600 version first and loved it but then got the Apple II version on some pirated disk and was amazed at how much more detailed the graphics were.  

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On 9/25/2021 at 7:31 AM, high voltage said:

Aztec Challenge C64 Atari 8 bit

I believe that is yet another Bonifacio game that received the Norman treatment over at Cosmi. Essentially Paul Norman must've thought that Robert Bonifacio had some good ideas or at least titles for video games, but the execution was weak so he redid most of the graphics etc when they anyway ported those for other systems.

Edited by carlsson
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On 9/23/2021 at 12:14 AM, cvga said:

I'm surprised these look so much different...

 

One on One (Dr J vs Larry Bird) for the Commodore 64

One on One: Dr. J vs. Larry Bird, Commodore 64 | The King of Grabs

 

One on One (Dr J vs Larry Bird) for the Colecovision

Download One-on-One - My Abandonware

 

Feels like the characters could have been a little more detailed.

 

On 9/23/2021 at 4:07 AM, carlsson said:

Aren't you splitting hairs now? I mean in that case something like Q*Bert on the Odyssey^2 also deserves to be mentioned:

 

 

Maybe. I wouldn't have compared an Odyssey2 game and complained about the graphics. However, the Commodore 64 and Colecovision seem to be way closer to the same era to me so Larry Bird as a yellow gingerbread cookie and Dr. J as a brown cookie seemed weak. Is the C-64 (and Atari 7800 for that matter) just so much more advanced?

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