Next gen's gonna be the worst gen ever! *spawn

[function]

The Saturn's exclusive titles consisted mostly of bad arcade ports. Very short games, sluggish controls, bad menus and in many cases incomplete visuals (see Virtual On, Sega Touring Cars, Steep Slope Sliders, Sonic R, Last Bronx). Nights and the Panzer Dragoon series (especially Saga) were some of the very few exceptions where proper care and attention to detail demonstrated what the Saturn was really capable of in 3D games. Owners of the Jaguar, Saturn or 3DO were left with a bitter taste from 3D.

I had a great time with the Saturn's 3D games!

1996 was a great year - Virtua Cop 1 (very end of 1995) moved in to the amazing Virtua Fighter 2 and Sega Rally, then Panzer Zwei (which is still my favourite rail shooter), then the incomparable [2.5D] Guardian Heroes, then Nights, then Tomb Raider, then Sega Worldwide Soccer (poor PAL conversion though dammit) and then Virtua Cop 2. I ended up with 2 guns for the Virtua Cops - co-op was awesome and playing with double guns was amazing even though I wasn't amazing at it.

Additionally, I'm a Euro living in PAL land and you have to remember that many Saturn games were full speed, and very, very nearly full screen PAL conversions. Sega Rally and Virtua Fighter 2 (which was full speed and hi-res despite also being 50fps) were really good ports of games running on hardware way out of the home console league and having these fantastic games in your home, for me, beat anything that any other console could offer. You can't get a feeling for that by going back and playing it now - all you'll see are the graphical and presentational flaws without the context.

The Saturn had character. I like the fact you could see the way the two graphics chips worked together (or sometimes not), and I loved the access light to bits. You knew when it was chip generated music, when the game was streaming data in, when it was using VDP2 to do backgrounds, when the two processors were using different resolutions etc.

Happy days.

 

[KKRT]

Resident Evil. Then Resident Evil 2. The original Tomb Raider.

I've played those on my PC I remember even today, how i've been messing with saves files by searching in hex editor values for ink ribbons or ammo and change them, without any faqs Of course not in my first playthrough ;]

Oh and i've forgot about Wipeout and Crono Cross, thanks ;p

 

[Cheezdoodles]

What made these games extra special for me was that we played them a lot round friends houses..

my best console memories was 4 player split screen goldeneye 64 as a kid

 

[pjbliverpool]

The gap between what was possible on the PC and what was possible on console was a magnitude bigger than the gap that exists today.

In sheer power terms I don't think the gap has ever been as large as it is today - and it's going to get larger. The 7980 probably has around 25x the real world shader power of either of the current consoles.

It's just that it's not as well used as it was in the past.

 

[Jedi2016]

my best console memories was 4 player split screen goldeneye 64 as a kid

Gotcha beat.. Turok 2 Frag Tag with a room full of drunk Marines. Oh, the hijinks.

 

[Ninjaprime]

Gotcha beat.. Turok 2 Frag Tag with a room full of drunk Marines. Oh, the hijinks.

Cerebral Bore needs to make a comeback.

Note that the games we're fondly remembering looked and often played like crap(The framerate on T2 multi was terrible, as was goldeneye with 3 or more), I think that says something about the need for awesome specs on a console to make awesome games...

 

[KongRudi]

If all the doom and gloom get's true, it's the same thing happening with the videogame-industry as the record industry I guess, so we don't have to look far to see what will happen.

We had great music-stores, with lots of new music coming on relatively highquality CD's, but when people should have upgraded to SACD or DVD-A and gotten our music in surround, then suddenly everyone wanted the music in low-quality MP3's, because it were more convenient.
Turns out, the record-stores dissapeared from the shops, and moved online.
We still get the charting musicians on CD if we want, but we rarely get high-quality suond from new upcoming artists..
If you discover a new band you like, and start searching for music from it, most likely most of the stuff you'll find is horrible mono at youtube.
It's pretty mindblowing that it became so important to have a movie in surround - but the music we were going to listen to only - that is is perfectly fine in lowbitrate stereo/mono. :-/

When the casual-market dissepear from the consoles.
I think we'll probably see some of the same.
We'll still get our Elder Scrolls, CoD, Uncharted and Gran Turismo, in the stores.
But the middle-ground will shrink, we will see fewer new upcoming IP, some because the best talent goes away to make Farmville-like games, and some because the stores won't be able to keep risky projects in their shelves.

We've kind of seen some of that on PC, talent moving away to weaker consoles, and in some closer degree in Japan, where they had proper phones for much longer than us, lot's of talent migrating to make phone-games and/or handheld, with fewer developers making games for the proper consoles,

 

[Arwin]

Not quite my experience, personally. For instance I listen to stations like Radio Paradise, The Penthouse and Beat Blender, and the quality of sound is often better than it ever was. I do agree that online music as at times been disappointing in quality, but lately I've discovered that often the quality of the device I'm listening on is to blame.

@Shifty: I totally understand where you're coming from, but definitely have to point out that it's circumstances that have changed, not the actual games. If you did couch mp games, then there have still been plenty of great games to play this gen. You've willfully excluded a bunch of them from yourself by excluding peripherals though. Definitely stuff like Rockstar, Guitar Hero, and Singstar were much better this gen then they've ever been last gen, and I'm still playing them (Rockstar up to 7 people). Both LBPs are also great couch co-op games, and Modnation racers and Motorstorm 2 also have 4 player split screen (great 2 player fun with sixaxis steering lowering the barrier for non-gamers), and all the sports-games are still there, but also weird stuff like Fl0w supports it. All the Buzz games also have improved a lot this gen, and are all playable with the old controllers as well as the new wireless ones. If I had a group of people I regularly play with I'm convinced this gen I'd have had at least as much fun as on old gen, and a ModNation racer's track builder would definitely have helped against me getting too good at games versus the people I play with that don't own the games I play. And I'm not even going to discuss how much better a sports game of Sports Champions or Kinect Sports' category is versus the old joystick killing decathlon and world ... series were. (Though I'm still looking forward to a Sports Champions style Olympic Games 2012 stuff - I'm worried it'll suck compared to Sports Champions)

By far the best multi-player back then for me was Micro Machines v3 by the way. Controller sharing was just awesome, and at my dorm in Sweden (when I was an exchange student) this game was a big hit and we had some 6 and 8 player sessions. Some LBP2 tracks definitely capture this feel a little, though I wouldn't mind a MicroMachines remake that contains the track-building features of LBP and ModNation combined with the brilliant dynamic split-screen of the Lego games (which each and every one are also good multi-player games).

 

[fearsomepirate]

Console online came into its own this generation. I think this generation has been pretty good so far, but I didn't buy nearly as many games as I did last gen. I have 17 PS3 games, and 11 of those are first-person shooters. I dunno, I just wasn't struck by anything special this gen. There were so many random things I bought last gen, like Gun, Fight Night Round 3, Killer7, Battalion Wars, etc...I've just had no desire to buy anything off the beaten path this gen. The worst thing this gen did was make the 5-hour campaign normative for shooters.

It's pretty mindblowing that it became so important to have a movie in surround - but the music we were going to listen to only - that is is perfectly fine in lowbitrate stereo/mono. :-/

It's not all that important to have a movie in surround. It's becoming extremely important to have it on Netflix, though...where people will most likely watch it using the built-in stereo speakers on their TV.

The 7980 probably has around 25x the real world shader power of either of the current consoles.

The Sega Genesis came out in 1989. So did the 486. The 486 could run Doom. The Sega Genesis couldn't and wouldn't ever do a first-person shooter or 2.5D anything because it wasn't even a 32-bit machine. I don't think the power gap has ever been as big as it was in the early 90s. For one thing, you can actually directly numerically compare modern computing hardware to the Xbox 360 (which turns 7 this year), because the word "shader" doesn't mean anything much different than it did 10 years ago, and because 64-bit CPUs haven't been superseded. How do you even begin to compare, say, the GeForce 4 Ti (2001) to the Playstation 1 (1994)? The GF4 didn't have 25x the PS1's shader power because the PS1 had zero shader power. It could do 0x aniso and 0x AA. It could do no bi- or trilinear filtering.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

In sheer power terms I don't think the gap has ever been as large as it is today - and it's going to get larger. The 7980 probably has around 25x the real world shader power of either of the current consoles.

It's just that it's not as well used as it was in the past.

I think this has more to do with the lack of PC exclusive AAA devs than anything else. Most of the good ones have moved to console first or at best simultaneous release of PC and console. Some have dropped PC entirely. And the few remaining PC exclusive AAA devs are scrambling to try to get onto console or are in danger of going out of business (GSC Game World of Stalker fame, for example). The ratio of pirate/buyers is a lot lower on consoles. Heck even some of the midlevel game deveopers and publishers on PC are finding things rough trying to stay PC only.

But the middle-ground will shrink, we will see fewer new upcoming IP, some because the best talent goes away to make Farmville-like games, and some because the stores won't be able to keep risky projects in their shelves.

I don't see that at all. I think this generation has had the largest boom in mid tier console developement of any generation. All due to the ability to easily and cheaply release your title on PSN or Xbox Live. Many of the mid tier titles that would have previously launched on physical media at significantly higher prices in the past on PS1/PS2/N64/etc. are instead being released at much lower prices through digital distribution.

Hence, you don't see them tracked often. And you don't see them reviewed in game mags often. But they are there, doing well, and making their developers more money than if they still had to release their games on physical media, IMO.

It's only a matter of time before AAA titles also move to primarily digital distribution.

I'm not sure if this generation has been the best for AAA titles or not. But mid level, budget, and indie titles have certainly seen a huge boom.

Regards,
SB

 

[KongRudi]

I don't see that at all. I think this generation has had the largest boom in mid tier console developement of any generation.
----
It's only a matter of time before AAA titles also move to primarily digital distribution.

AAA titles have allready gone digital. I spent a few hours downloading 24GB Star Wars last month, and then I spent another hour, with various registering.. :-/
Not really something I preferred to do, but I did it.

Next-gen, I expect this is more common.
You know, not only when the phones capture more marketshare - but also when the digital store are more important than Gamestop, because they will have a smaller market.
Publishers will realize they will sell more digital if the initial jump-in point is at 7GB, instead of 24 GB.. I guess, sound quality is the first wich will be cut from the mid-tier games...:-/
It happened in the record industry, and as the person above who mentioned Netflix showed - the movie industry.. It will most likely happen in games aswell..

The best games will allways be available in Gamestop-like places, and most likely in a physical media.. But mid-tier games will get less regularly released with a physical distribution model, and in the past, that has allways affected the quality. :-/

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The Sega Genesis came out in 1989. So did the 486. The 486 could run Doom.

Yet the 486 couldn't run Sonic. Consoles were mini arcade machines for your home, with specific hardware over a PC to give an experience the PC couldn't. It's impossible to compare them in terms of performance where, as you say, nowadays we can make approximate comparisons over key figures (flops, shops, and clocks, BW and latencies).

 

[Nesh]

Yet the 486 couldn't run Sonic. Consoles were mini arcade machines for your home, with specific hardware over a PC to give an experience the PC couldn't. It's impossible to compare them in terms of performance where, as you say, nowadays we can make approximate comparisons over key figures (flops, shops, and clocks, BW and latencies).

My 386 could run ZOOL 2 and many awesome side scrolling Apogee games pretty decently. An 486 could run Jazz Jackrabbit. Are you sure it couldnt run Sonic?

Just asking

hmm....come to think of it....I dont think my 386 was powerful enough to run Street Fighter 2 as well as a Genesis if at all although I could be wrong. Someone can clarify on this? :smile:

 

[function]

The Sega Genesis came out in 1989. So did the 486.

Falsehood!

The Megadrive came out in 1988. You could buy a Megadrive at least a year before you could bankrupt yourself buying a 486.

The 486 could run Doom. The Sega Genesis couldn't and wouldn't ever do a first-person shooter or 2.5D anything because it wasn't even a 32-bit machine.

Double falsehood!

Zero Tolerance was a first person shooter which worked within the limitations of having no framebuffer and very little memory (excuse the music on this utoob):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fY9CsdCcAf0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uCnW-3CNzo(<- intro with lovely interlaced line-scrolling backround effect)

And here's Corporation from the year before Doom:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSXx8n6hdqo

Ballz was a pseudo 3D fighting game with some impressive animation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snT74g9RPUI

And there were lots of vector based 3D games. As Shifty Geezer points out the hardware was very different, and you have to bear in mind that the Megadrive could do smooth as silk, 60 fps sprite stuff with multiple background layers (including a foreground layer), multiple layers of parallax scrolling, lots of sprites, palette based effects, scanline effects and even "GPU accelerated collision detection" as you might call it now. Not bad for a turbocharged Master System graphics chip.

 

[Prophecy2k]

I don't see that at all. I think this generation has had the largest boom in mid tier console developement of any generation. All due to the ability to easily and cheaply release your title on PSN or Xbox Live. Many of the mid tier titles that would have previously launched on physical media at significantly higher prices in the past on PS1/PS2/N64/etc. are instead being released at much lower prices through digital distribution.

Hence, you don't see them tracked often. And you don't see them reviewed in game mags often. But they are there, doing well, and making their developers more money than if they still had to release their games on physical media, IMO.

It's only a matter of time before AAA titles also move to primarily digital distribution.

I'm not sure if this generation has been the best for AAA titles or not. But mid level, budget, and indie titles have certainly seen a huge boom.

Regards,
SB

I don't personally see PSN and XBLA games as in the same category as the effective "mid-tier" titles of previous gens. I think there is still a gulf in the overall development investment of retail boxed games and online digitally distributed PSN and XBLA games.

Titles with dev budgets that fall anywhere inbetween that gulf this gen are basically insta fails, whereas i believe that in previous gens smaller less resource intensive products could be developed at costs which spanned a full spectral range from the highest budget "GTA"-level games to the lowest level "Metal Slug/R-Type"-Type titles as retail boxed products last gen.

I think my definintion of "mid-tier" here is what differs.

Also, i think you greatly oversestimate how much the average PSN/XBLA title makes relative to the devs budgets of those games. Few sell more than a million, and though most are profitable after a period and once they've been ported to most if not all platforms, the profits raised from those titles are most likely dwarfed by those made by the many mid-tier games of last gen sold at full £25-£30 prices.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

My 386 could run ZOOL 2 and many awesome side scrolling Apogee games pretty decently. An 486 could run Jazz Jackrabbit. Are you sure it couldnt run Sonic?

I saw Jazz Jack Rabbit on a DX4 120 and it still wasn't silky-smooth. Heck, my mate even had a graphics card with 'hardware scrolling' and it did nothing to improve the juddery experience of PC platform games. Processing power counted for little for drawing 2D graphics which is all about memory access for blitting objects or hardware sprites. In the field of 3D games, like Elite and X-wing, PC blitzed the 2D systems with maths power being used for filling, texturing and lighting. You had different performance applied in different ways, so 'most powerful' was a truly, even more than now, meaningless consideration!

 

[function]

My 386 could run ZOOL 2 and many awesome side scrolling Apogee games pretty decently. An 486 could run Jazz Jackrabbit. Are you sure it couldnt run Sonic?

I'm going by memory and some quick Youtubing here, but Zool on the PC was a lot simpler than Sonic. Take a look at Sonic 2 (NSFW language in this video, but it's decent quality):
(NSFW) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPKEZoVuFRU (skip to the actual playthrough at 1:30 )

It's got the background layer you're platforming on, a further background layer behind that with multi layer parallax, a foreground layer of vegetation (with interaction that generates sprites), and palette shifting to fake water transparency.

Now look at PC Zool:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEtGUVACBqs

Then Zool on Megadrive, now with added parallax background layers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0iClQaFC8M

And then Jazz Jackrabbit (maybe there are better levels - and I'm assuming this is PC):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b16upFloYak

Sonic Team used to be amazing, they really knew how to make the most of that old sprite hardware.

 

[Nesh]

@Shifty

Oh yeah you are probably right about Jazz. I think it wasnt that smooth was it?

I'm going by memory and some quick Youtubing here, but Zool on the PC was a lot simpler than Sonic. Take a look at Sonic 2 (NSFW language in this video, but it's decent quality):
(NSFW) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPKEZoVuFRU (skip to the actual playthrough at 1:30 )

It's got the background layer you're platforming on, a further background layer behind that with multi layer parallax, a foreground layer of vegetation (with interaction that generates sprites), and palette shifting to fake water transparency.

Now look at PC Zool:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEtGUVACBqs

Then Zool on Megadrive, now with added parallax background layers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0iClQaFC8M

And then Jazz Jackrabbit (maybe there are better levels - and I'm assuming this is PC):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b16upFloYak

Sonic Team used to be amazing, they really knew how to make the most of that old sprite hardware.

I am in work right now and youtube is blocked so I cant check the videos. Is that Zool 1 that you linked to? I remember Zool 1 was a very simple looking 2D game. I wasnt impressed with it.

Zool 2 was a lot better than Zool 1. That impressed me and if I remember correctly it also had multiple layers too

i will check the videos after I go home

 

[Shifty Geezer]

My point was Sonic was 60fps perfect motion. Yes, you could run the same game on PC at a juddery 15-20 fps maybe, and maybe other games at a similar 60 fps with tearing and skipped frames (there was one impressive top-down scrolling shooter that I remember), but PC couldn't compete with the 2D platforms in 2D games. It wasn't designed to, and that makes sense. It was a business computer for work! Its processing power became useful for 3D titles and sims, for which the IO helped considerably (mouse).

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I am in work right now and youtube is blocked so I cant check the videos. Is that Zool 1 that you linked to? I remember Zool 1 was a very simple looking 2D game. I wasnt impressed with it.

Zool 2 was a lot better than Zool 1. That impressed me and if I remember correctly it also had multiple layers too

i will check the videos after I go home

On what hardware? Zool 2 on PC released 1994, by which point your PC was likely hardware years later than the 1989 Genesis. The PC has always been able to catch up with and surpass consoles eventually as it's a moving platform. It used to be that consoles gave an explosive leap in what you could play at home, and each generation heralded a new era of experiences. That seems to have ended now as the business has changed.