I assume you mean Ken K designed the sound chip and not the SNES's Accelerated Processing Unit (only capable of 256 emotions)?
Impressive games for their time.
- Thread starter Abap41
- Start date
AHH the emoji engine?
I don't think they had emojis back then.
Original computer sound generated sounds from procedural sound-waves using synth chips. The Amiga introduced using PCM audio samples in 1985. The SNES was the first (?) console to use this method, in 1990, and that became the standard from then on. The SNES audio processor was self-contained and included a DSP, so it had zero impact on the rest of the system. XBox had the same concept in nVidia SoundStorm hardware which handled audio with minimal CPU overhead.
How awesome was SoundStorm? Listen to this official nVidia demo and be blown away...
https://download.nvidia.com/downloads/SoundStorm_5.1/NVIDIA_SoundStorm_Song.mp3
Perhaps there lies the issue. SoundStorm didn't get much DX attention, so maybe the functionalities of the hardware were locked behind a limited API?
We had ASCII
I shout out goes to Epyx games series, but I remember playing summer games for the first time, that was seriously impressive graphics I felt at the time.
Today, I still think the graphics where good for its time. But I am actually more impressed in the way they manage to do very fun game mechanics for all events.
Today, I still think the graphics where good for its time. But I am actually more impressed in the way they manage to do very fun game mechanics for all events.
D
Deleted member 11852
Guest
Had? I'll remind you that ASCII is the cutting edge rendering system used by Dwarf Fortress!
I can never decide on the acronym :neutral:
By APU I meant audio processing unit, yeah.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_S-SMP
Wikipedia calls it that too...
SH2 might have had sequenced sounds on PS2 but it goes without doubt the xbox had a much better sound chip then the PS2 ever had, its not even close. I mean, DD5.1 was about standard for all xbox games ingame audio.
Perhaps advantage to PS2 is that its sound chip had 2mb and having SPU1 clocked at 8mhz, wheras xbox didnt have any of that dedicated to the sound chip.
One that was impressive to me at the time was Splinter Cell on the original Xbox due to its shadows. It might not have been the first but it was a major feature of the game. Made for a very impressive game. I guess I would also say Doom 3 on Xbox would be as well. It was impressive how well it translated over from PC.
Tommy McClain
Tommy McClain
If PC games are allowed, I have an outlier.
Morrowind.
The water, the day/night cycles the weird and distinct uniqueness of its architecture - I remember climbing a roof in Vivec, the main city, and just silently standing there, watching it as the sun rose. Just as I have (too seldomly) done in the real world, and with similar quiet appreciation.
It was relatively early in the era where there were enough polygons to make rounded structures (Quake3 was the first limited example some years earlier), but here the designers could sculpt a world rather than merely a rounded portal in an arena. 15 years ago now.
Half-Life 2, though I didn’t appreciate the game itself, felt ground breaking in creating an environment that felt real - now the world was more dynamic and responsive.
(Incidentally, not much has happend since IMHO. It was a revelation how much more dynamic and alive the world of Zelda BotW was compared to Mass Effect Andromeda that was released at the same time, differences in targeted processing power notwithstanding. Not talking about destructable buildings here that some seem to delight in, but in grass reacting when you move through it, the environment reacting when something makes a blast or to rain, or... It doesn’t have to be completely realistic, it’s more about a reaction at all, as opposed to none.)
Morrowind.
The water, the day/night cycles the weird and distinct uniqueness of its architecture - I remember climbing a roof in Vivec, the main city, and just silently standing there, watching it as the sun rose. Just as I have (too seldomly) done in the real world, and with similar quiet appreciation.
It was relatively early in the era where there were enough polygons to make rounded structures (Quake3 was the first limited example some years earlier), but here the designers could sculpt a world rather than merely a rounded portal in an arena. 15 years ago now.
Half-Life 2, though I didn’t appreciate the game itself, felt ground breaking in creating an environment that felt real - now the world was more dynamic and responsive.
(Incidentally, not much has happend since IMHO. It was a revelation how much more dynamic and alive the world of Zelda BotW was compared to Mass Effect Andromeda that was released at the same time, differences in targeted processing power notwithstanding. Not talking about destructable buildings here that some seem to delight in, but in grass reacting when you move through it, the environment reacting when something makes a blast or to rain, or... It doesn’t have to be completely realistic, it’s more about a reaction at all, as opposed to none.)
darn, the legendary Silent Hill's old man NEVER fails to appear in tech threads like this every single time.
SH3 sold only a million copies, which is why SH4 tried to create a more combat orientated experience to draw in a bigger audience but ended up flopping, and then disbanding Team Silent and outsourcing the work, which led to a further decline, and probably ultimately was a factor in the canning of P.T.
P.T had potential. It was a whole new formula. It could have been called something else. The experiment worked. People loved it. I believe the cancelation of P.T had everything to do with Kojima taken out of Konami.
SH4's combat was sluggish with awful controls. SH4's major issues was that it became repetitive, visually it was a downgrade to SH3 and maybe even SH2, and they destroy the formula. They could have kept a bit more combat without sacrificing too much. Although I must say that they did have some other splendid elements. The worst thing Konami did was to hand over the franchise to western teams that had zero understanding about what made SH a special and good horror title. They tried to "westernise" it with more action, cheap jump scares, literal depictions, they killed the abstract and suggestive elements and worst of all they injected the movie into the formula. Pyramid Head became a generic monster in the SH world associated with specific themes and characters, he lost his symbolism and enigma and he was designed after the movie. The world transition became a special effect like the movie. All monsters became literal versions of their former selves. Basically the series did the same mistake Resident Evil did. Instead of the game influencing the movies, the movies, which btw destroyed the good things that made the games good, were influencing the games. So SH and Resi games were based on the movies from one point instead of the other way around.
Sigfried1977
Legend
Was there really so much combat in The Room? I remember it being somewhat in line with the other games. There are quite a lot of enemies in SH3. Quite a lot in SH1 as well. SH2 is kind of the odd one out. Not so much because there's nothing to fight, but because it's so easy to avoid everything. In The Room, you could neither outrun nor kill its most infamous enemies.
I thought the Room was a pretty cool game actually. Just like in SH2's case, the more tangential connection to the cult of SH made for a more interesting story I thought. SH1 and 3 are really convoluted and goofy. I also really enjoyed the way the room in "The Room" evolved. Very cool concept.
Still, it was probably too much SH for so few years. By the time The Room came out, more traditional horror games were on their way out. Probably because RE4 ushered in the era of tight controls and mechanics.
