Feel the need to defend the MegaCD, there were some really good 2d platformers on that machine

Aye, gta was originally a 2.5d top down shooter so totally feasible on the nes. A bit like how nintendo develops zelda games by implementing gameplay mechanics in a 2d 8bit engine first. It' weird how they manage to cram complex gameplay into 8bit 2d.

I first found gaming again as an adult by modding the shit out of GTA on the PC, adding my own cars initially, then downloading missions and patches, was great fun

regmcfly wrote:

Escape wrote:

It's fascinating to see what modern hands and eyes can do with old hardware, and precisely why I immediately lost interest in Grand Theftendo when it left the NES.

Is this sarcy or am vice city a crime now

Genuine interest to see how close the NES came to maximising its potential. Was it truly hardware power that capped its programmers' ambitions, or a lack of imagination. The van bits in Turtles were, in retrospect, very GTA. Led by hardware advancement since, we know how much deeper and more involved games can be, so it's fun to wonder if most of those programmers came up short through a lack of insight into the future capacity of gameworlds.

Shaun Southern's Kikstart II's a great example of modern thinking, with its two-player mode and course creator. If you remade Trials HD in 8-bit, that's exactly what you'd get. Treasure Island on the Commodore was one of the first openworld games, and so on.

MegaCd had some wonderful titles.
Final fight cd, Shining Force cd, Ecco cd, Earthworm Jim cd and eternal champions cd.

But when it comes down to it all that 16-bit era cd added was grainy low res fmv and redbook audio ost. Fmv games are not the best games of the era.

Just because it was my first version of DOOM, yes. But then a couple of years later the PlayStation port was, and remains, the best.

Ground Zero: Texas, though. Road Avenger. But I preferred...



To the CD's version.

No but the cost was somewhat mitigated by the ability to play CDs, when yo uthink about how much a cd player cost back then. But true the improvement over standard 16bit was nowhere near worth it. But some of those huge sprites and decent soundtracks are nice to revisit nowadays (or at least they were ten years ago, not so sure now)

Not sure if this is the right place. I have had ShmupMAME running with a decent sized romset. Have just grabbed a much bigger one with stuff from allsorts of consoles. Can I just drop it into the ROM folder of ShmupMAME or do I need a console specific MAME?

The latest version of MAME appears to have gobbled up all the console specific ones. I think I had it running atari 7800 ROMs a while back.

davyK wrote:

Those Frankenstein MD add-ons were money pits into which Sega pissed themselves whilst indulging in managerial infighting.

Yeah. IIRC, the 32X was Sega of America's baby, while the Saturn project was Sega of Japan's. A classic case of the right hand not knowing what the left was doing. Neither side would back down so they ended up doing both. I also remember reading another story that the innards for the Saturn were decided by a high-up in Sega of Japan during a game of golf with a hardware manufacturing exec. The hardware division at Sega basically got told "this is what's going to be inside, make it work, bitches". Possibly apocryphal, but sounds like a plausible explanation for the Saturn's infamously bat-shit insane architecture.

SoJ should've bitch slapped SoA to get them back in line. The 32X was a fatal mistake and the beginning of the end.

Blue Swirl wrote:

davyK wrote:

Those Frankenstein MD add-ons were money pits into which Sega pissed themselves whilst indulging in managerial infighting.

Yeah. IIRC, the 32X was Sega of America's baby, while the Saturn project was Sega of Japan's. A classic case of the right hand not knowing what the left was doing. Neither side would back down so they ended up doing both.

Yeah I've read about this over the years, it's absolutely bonkers when you think about it.

Sega of America didn't want to kill off the Genesis so they made the 32X to prolong it's life, a rare case of them definitely doing the wrong thing.

Think about this... the 32X came out AFTER the Saturn in Japan. Madness.

ChopperByrne wrote:

Had they just gone straight from Mega Drive to Saturn with no silly add-ons in between they might not have collapsed.

I like to think so, I reckon they even got away with the Mega CD. It wasn't a success but it served it's purpose, had a lot of good games as wasn't a complete sales stinker.

The 32X should never have happened though, shocking decision.

If they'd gone all out with the Saturn it could have definitely done better.

retroking1981 wrote:

I've read about this over the years, it's absolutely bonkers when you think about it.

Think about this... the 32X came out AFTER the Saturn in Japan. Madness.

I didn't realise that, must have seemed bizarre to Japanese gamers at the time.

Playing the historical What If game, maybe if there'd been no 32X, a clearer vision with the Saturn coupled with a $299 price tag, we might still have SEGA hardware today.

Maybe.