Subject: Just back from SCES!!
Greetings.
I flew out to the SCES and Back yesterday to check out what was up with many of our favorite pastimes. 3DO had an impressive booth with plenty of attendees swarming around all of the neat technology being displayed at the booth. I will summarize my impressions quickly since I'm at work and need to get back to things here.
From <huebner@convex.com> (Robert Huebner):
No Audio CDs were shown on any machine at the show. It would have been interesting to see how the other players handled that type of format. Wish I had thought to ask! Same for PhotoCD.
You should be aware that the various players do not share the same connector for what Panasonic calls the A/V Expansion port. Therefore the Panasonic VideoCD adaptor will not work in the other machines. But the base technology in the VideoCD adaptor was made by 3DO Co. and made available to all the hardware vendors. Sanyo and Samsung both showed working MPEG, and I imagine the Goldstar can be retrofitted for MPEG (but since Goldstart and Samsung are the same company, I think the idea is for you to buy the Samsung if that is your bent). The Sanyo VideoCD interface had some bells and whistles I did not see on the Panasonic, but maybe I just didn't know how to access them on the Panasonic. (Animated in and out for the video screen on the Sanyo, also showed some wrapping of MPEG onto surfaces).
The Sanyo player no longer has any sort of external display like the LCD it had at Winter CES. Samsung does have an LED (white) display and (thank GOD) some CD-control buttons on the front panel (forward, back, play).
Q: Do the other players have 3MB of RAM like the Panasonic, or do they only have the 2MB that are required in a 3DO player?
A: I don't think its true that Panasonic has more RAM than required by the spec. They all ran the same software at the same speed and quality.
Should be a winner.
Lots of other cool software titles, but I don't have time to list them all right now.
Q: Several who attended CES mentioned a new flight sim called VR Stalker. Is this a true flight sim and did it look promising?
Yes, its a true flight-sim engine. I talked to the developers at length about why it has taken so long to see this sort of thing on the 3DO and they explained the difficulties in performing the type of arbitrary clipping needed using the 3DO OS. (Naughty Dog folks said the same thing). The VR Stalker folks have solved this problem, they feel, before anyone else has in order to make a flight sim engine. Naughty Dog also feels they've overcome the software hurdles preventing a really good Doom from being made. Same basic software problem in both cases. More on this in TNT, don't want to go into the details here.
Anyway, the VR Stalker solution had one drawback - no texture mapping. So what they've got now is a flight sim engine that looks like one from about 2 or 3 years ago on the PC, solid colors, sparse landscape. The developers feel they will be able to solve the problem of texture mapping and possibly incorporate that into the final game. The speed was good, but at this point its too early to tell if the 3DO will push beyond the standards of the PC in the area of flight sim.
Since none of the other announced flight sim games were shown (Air Warrior, Red Baron) its safe to assume these developers are running into the same software challenges. But this is all part of the learning curve for a new platform and I'm sure the techniques being perfected by these guys and Naughty Dog will spread throughout the 3DO developer community over time. Perhaps even become part of the standard OS toolkit.
I was at CES, so let's clear a few things up...
Tetsujin (Iron Man), Burning Soldier and Powers Kingdom are being brought to the US by Panasonic! Powers Kingdom was renamed to Guardian War. The other two retain their own names.
Guardian War hopefully should hit by mid September (It was in English at the show.)
rumor:The debut price of the sanyo 3DO is said to be.. $299! That'll wake somepeople up if true!
Here's a fact- Goldstar is going to sell their basic 3DO player for $299, and sell one with the MPEG option for $549.
Another person's opinion:
Agreed! This is a good game! I thought that the feel of the bike was really good too.
This was a very good port of the classic game for the PC. I was very impressed with the speed and scaling of the ships during battle.
Another person's opinion:
This game sucked. No excuse. No Candy coating. Bzzt. Sorry. No. The graphics are very nice, the gamplay was just plain bad.
Q:Correct me if I'm wrong, but is "return Fire" the name of the 3do-enhanced version of Microillusions' (now defunct) game "Firepower" releases several years ago on the Amiga?
A:You are correct about this. Return Fire is indeed a spin-off of Fire Power. It is being programmed by the same guy that made the original Fire Power game for the Amiga. I'd love this game to be playable with AT&T's modem. That would be cool.
Q: Man, that was a cool game. I loved the bass explosions from taking out hospitals and cruching hapless soldiers beneath my treads, accompanied by a scream and red splat. I also liked the tank variety. I imagine a 3-D tex-mapped version will ROCK.
A: Well, it is 3D with mobile camera views (kind of an AI camera like in FIFA soccer but less obvious and slower-moving). Overall it looks good, but nothing about its look that screams 3DO. Which is to say, the game could easily pass for a good Amiga game or a PC game. But hey, not every 3DO game has to be a 300 MPH trench run. Good game design (which this probably has) still counts for a lot.
The game was shown at SCES, and it looked good but nothing moved too quickly. Not sure how much more work is going on in the title. It wasn't too bad but it wasn't looking like $60-$70 worth of game like Shockwave. They plan to use surround sound for the game (or some proprietary 3D sound imaging system not related to Dolby Surround). Split screen, texture mapping. My main complain was the color choices looked really washed out.
<Darknight> Samsung's system is different than the rest since it has the MPEG adaptor built in. Sony didn't show PS-X, now known as Playstation, to anyone but developers
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<bryanw> Wondering: Did ATARI make a splash with the Jaguar at CES? I tend to think 3DO was the big winner there.. Do people think ATARI has a chance?
<LanceWax> How's 3DO look? Stock gonna rise or fall? How about Atari?
<Darknight> 3DO looked better than Atari, but Nintendo just killed them at this show with Donkey Kong Country for the SNES.
... <Nug> Which 3rd party 3D0 machine was the best? Is the Goldstar one REALLY $299? If so, why so cheap? When will it be released?
<Darknight> Nobody had firm prices or release dates. Alot are expected to be out this fall and christmas. They were all pretty much the same except how they appeared
> Isn't one of the units supposed to have an integrated MPEG card?
>Darknight> That is correct, Samsung will have the MPEG chips built in
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<iLM> Okay, you now said that you believed SSF2(T) was for SNES. Please give ANY small things that made you believe so. You even sound Round 1 was removed. Perhaps there wasn't really enough memory for JUST SSF2? Any early codes out too? :)
<Darknight> Ok, Capcom denied a home version, except for 3DO, of SSF2T being done on another cartridge. However, they did not say they were never doing SSF2T. Second they said there wasn't enough room for Round 1, etc on the cart. I find that hard to believe
<Darknight> with all that memory. Also why would they bring SSF2T for one system and not the biggest systems on the market. Last, there is a code in the game and that is confirmed by Capcom
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<LanceWax> What's the most exciting 3DO title and why?
<Darknight> FIFA. It had great visuals and supported up to 6 people at once. SS was also great since it looked exactly like the Neo Geo.
NOTE: SS = Samurai Showdown