Sega Rally for N-Gage?!?

[Adrian M]

Wow! Check out these screenshots! Sega Rally was practically the ONLY game that I played on my Saturn back in the day and in my opinion, one of the best racing games EVER. Though, Rallisport Challenge on XBOX comes close, Sega Rally 1 had the best physics model and play control ever. It's too bad the SR2 on the Dreamcast was such an atrocity, but there's the Dreamcast for you!

 

The NGage version appears to be PS1-Sega Saturn quality in regards to the graphics. There's a tiny bit of texture warping present in the terrain textures which basically confirms this. Still though, if this plays even a fraction as well as the original Saturn version, I may very well buy an NGage to play it.

 

http://www.gamespy.com/screenshots/ngage/s...r03/index.shtml

 

[Malix]

Looks really nice!

 

I hope the gameplay is good as well. Any reviews on this?

[liquid_sky]

wow, that does look nice. i wonder how the frame rate is though..

[Adrian M]

wow, that does look nice. i wonder how the frame rate is though..  

 

I'd be more than happy if it runs at a solid 30fps (which is the frame rate that Saturn original ran at).

 

Looks good either way. I anxiously await further news.

[liveinabin]

Hmm. Looks pretty, but I don't like the draw in distance much. Anyone played Sega Rally on GBA? I'd be interested in hearing how that compares to the mighty Saturn original.

[cryptik76]

It's too bad the SR2 on the Dreamcast was such an atrocity, but there's the Dreamcast for you!  

 

Hey, watch the Dreamcast hating!

 

Anyway, the screenshots of the game don't look any better than Top Gear Rally for the Gameboy Advance (yes, I'm serious, check it out for yourself) which runs at a solid framerate. I would think that the N-gage, being more powerful than a GBA, would be able to run Sega Rally well.

[Adrian M]

It's too bad the SR2 on the Dreamcast was such an atrocity, but there's the Dreamcast for you!  

 

Hey, watch the Dreamcast hating!

 

Anyway, the screenshots of the game don't look any better than Top Gear Rally for the Gameboy Advance (yes, I'm serious, check it out for yourself) which runs at a solid framerate. I would think that the N-gage, being more powerful than a GBA, would be able to run Sega Rally well.

 

Sega Rally for Ngage is fully polygonal, whereas Top Gear Rally is some kind of pseudo 2D driving simulation (doesn't use polygons). The GBA lacks any sort of hardware graphic acceleration. Obviously, the GBA's Top Gear Rally's graphics may look nicer simply being that they are 2D sprites.

[Agent X]

The GBA lacks any sort of hardware graphic acceleration.

 

What do you mean by "hardware graphic acceleration"? I always hated that buzzword--how does one "accelerate" pixels on a screen, anyway?

 

If you're talking about having built-in hardware to handle polygon rendering, then the N-Gage lacks that, too. So does the Tapwave Zodiac, which is described as having a dedicated "graphics accelerator" for 2D graphics (making that term even more ambiguous--more reason why it should be avoided altogether).

 

Speaking of Zodiac, from what I've seen of it first-hand, it is capable of producing some excellent (for a handheld) polygon graphics, even without having that ability built into the hardware. See this video of Spy Hunter or this video of Stunt Car Extreme to see what I mean.

 

Obviously, the GBA's Top Gear Rally's graphics may look nicer simply being that they are 2D sprites.

 

That's the bottom line. If it looks better despite using sprites, then that's even more impressive on the GBA's part (credit should go to the programmers and artists, of course).

 

No game should boast "polygons!" just for the sake of having polygons. If it sacrifices frame rate (as many N-Gage games released so far have done), or uses crude models or animation, then that's not necessarily more impressive than producing a good-looking sprite-based game with nice art and smooth animation.

[SteveW]

I saw in a GameStop today that their N-Gage systems have been knocked down to $199 instead of what they were when they came out a couple of months ago, $299. That's not a sign of a healthy videogame system. It's probably only got a year or so left before it disappears for good. Unless they remodel the thing to look and work a little less idiotically. Most people don't want to look stupid talking sideways into a silver taco. Nokia should spend more than a half-hour designing a new version that you don't have to partially dismantle just to change a game. Or maybe put one of IBM's 1Gb MicroDrives into it to store MP3s and keep games on without taking the damn batteries out first.

[Albert]

The television commercials I've seen of the N-Gage don't exactly inspire confidence in the frame rate as the games they show look pretty choppy. I can't imagine Sega Rally running very smoothly, especially if it's using a polygonal engine.

 

..Al

[DeV0]

Um, it really does look awfull, Check the background. Not much distance available at all,

[+kisrael]

The GBA lacks any sort of hardware graphic acceleration.

 

What do you mean by "hardware graphic acceleration"? I always hated that buzzword--how does one "accelerate" pixels on a screen, anyway?

 

If you're talking about having built-in hardware to handle polygon rendering, then the N-Gage lacks that, too. So does the Tapwave Zodiac, which is described as having a dedicated "graphics accelerator" for 2D graphics (making that term even more ambiguous--more reason why it should be avoided altogether).

I dunno. As a programmer, I can think of some ways graphics could be accelerated in hardware....for instance, if there was a built-in facility for double buffering (where the software "draws" all the sprites to a place in memory as if it was 'the screen', and then intstantly blips it to the visible screen) could definately save in speed and memory over a software version of the same thing. I'm sure there are other tricks that software does to look good that could be moved to hardware for better performance.

No game should boast "polygons!" just for the sake of having polygons. If it sacrifices frame rate (as many N-Gage games released so far have done), or uses crude models or animation, then that's not necessarily more impressive than producing a good-looking sprite-based game with nice art and smooth animation.

I think the best middle ground might be polygon backgrounds w/ scaled sprite characters, ala DOOM, or to a greater extent, Mario Kart 64. Backgrounds are gonna be flat w/o use of polygons or something similar.

[Agent X]

I dunno. As a programmer, I can think of some ways graphics could be accelerated in hardware....for instance, if there was a built-in facility for double buffering (where the software "draws" all the sprites to a place in memory as if it was 'the screen', and then intstantly blips it to the visible screen) could definately save in speed and memory over a software version of the same thing.  I'm sure there are other tricks that software does to look good that could be moved to hardware for better performance.

 

Oh, I'm not disputing that it's possible to have functions in hardware that assist with 2D rendering. That's been done for years. I'm just questioning the use of the term "graphics accelerator," which is a buzzword that came into existence with early 3D graphics cards in the mid 1990's. Before then, everybody simply referred to "graphics chips" or "graphics cards," and then people suddenly started tossing around the term "graphics accelerator" to make their products sound more sophisticated, even though nothing is truly being "accelerated" in the literal sense.

 

The term has pretty much declined in recent years, but oddly Tapwave just recently resurrected it. I mean, when the Commodore 64 was introduced, it had hardware sprites during a time when very few other computers did, I never heard anyone refer to its graphics chip as a "bitmap cluster accelerator."

[+kisrael]

Alright, fair enough; it IS a bit vague as far as buzzwords go, and you seem to have a better understanding of the history of the (mis)use of the phrase than I do.

 

OTOH, it is interesting to see if anyone whill make a significantly better (and successful...) handheld before Nintendo gets to it, one that puts handhelds to the N64/PSX generation rather than the "enhanced-SNES" that the GBA is on now.

[Lost Monkey]

 The GBA lacks any sort of hardware graphic acceleration.  Obviously, the GBA's Top Gear Rally's graphics may look nicer simply being that they are 2D sprites.

 

The Saturn lacked 3d hardware as well...

 

The cars in GBA Top Gear Rally are all polygons.

[Adrian M]

 

Obviously, the GBA's Top Gear Rally's graphics may look nicer simply being that they are 2D sprites.

 

That's the bottom line. If it looks better despite using sprites, then that's even more impressive on the GBA's part (credit should go to the programmers and artists, of course).

 

No game should boast "polygons!" just for the sake of having polygons. If it sacrifices frame rate (as many N-Gage games released so far have done), or uses crude models or animation, then that's not necessarily more impressive than producing a good-looking sprite-based game with nice art and smooth animation.

 

They're not "boasting" polygons just for the sake of having polygons...Sega is merely basing this iteration of Sega Rally on the original source material. That's how it was on the Saturn, so why make it a 2D racing game? Since the bulk of the gameplay is comprised of initiating precise powerslides, you soon realize just how important it is to have the tracks in full 3D. Then again, graphics have always been secondary to me, and considering how well the Saturn version PLAYED, THAT is what matters most.

[cryptik76]

The cars in GBA Top Gear Rally are all polygons.

 

Yep. At least the one you control is. I'm not sure about the CPU-controlled cars. The trackside objects and such are sprites, but from the looks of it so are the ones in Sega Rally for N-Gage.

 

Top Gear Rally looks, to me, like a PS1 game. They must have done a lot of tricks to get it to look that good.

[Video]

Sega Ralley for GameBoy Advance looks like shit. I'm not Dissing the Sega Ralley series, as it's a great game, but it looks really bad on the GBA. The car feels kind of like a marble, you roll the playfield, and the car slides around it. Other than that, and the graphics, it's actually a decent game.

 

It's not the GBA's fault however. Take a look at Top Gear Ralley, it's an awesome looking game on the GBA, easily on par with PSX racers. And they even have the Players car made of polygons, so it can roll and such (though I'm pretty sure the opponants cars are still sprites) It's got some graphic engine issues (like the camera can't turn around) But that makes it play and feel kind of like the old original NFS game for PSX (and it definately looks better) Heavy arcade experiance here.

 

I've been saying it forever, Proper coding on the GBA can put it up with PSX in terms of what it can do (or at least, what it looks like it's doing) graphically.

 

But stil, all I'm asking for is a conversion of the SNES Star fox...is that so much to ask?

[TheGrandPubaa]

But stil, all I'm asking for is a conversion of the SNES Star fox...is that so much to ask?

Hear, Hear!

[shep]

good luck playing that on the ngages horrible directional pad and gaming buttons...