Author Topic: My Life with Sega: Retro Game Reviews  (Read 20301 times)

Offline ungibbed

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Re: My Life with Sega: Retro Game Reviews
« Reply #30 on: November 29, 2012, 04:03:07 pm »
One rather large third party developer (*cough... EA! Sniff*).

Product submissions from standard third party titles would have a typical two to three week turnaround as we all provided our feedback and any issues that might have come up during that time. On average we would juggle around four to six games between us with assigned projects.

An example would be my manager handing me a specific game or even a publisher (being a RPG nut, I got Working Designs!)  to work with and get the game through a QA checklist but still needing a panel review, we would swap a game for a couple days and play through it adding our thoughts of what could be improved or difficulty balance etc.

Our standard projects were always pushed back when a EA title came in for QA. The difference? They got a three day pass on many games including the first Need For Speed (the only NFS) for the Saturn. Our checklist was essentially tossed out the window to rush that game to market. This was often the norm for all games from EA which I thought was shit and rather unfair to other publishers but since the same games often hit the PlayStation, we both wanted the Saturn games on the shelf the same day of release

It would piss me off to wait but due to the difficulties of porting to the Saturn were an issue, some games were given the green light despite a title not passing QA scores.

On a side note, the Need For Speed port was an easy one to the Saturn from the 3DO as both systems used quads. Looking at the original PlayStation port of the same game. (It ran faster but had a lot of clipping due to the translation to triangles. The same results also were seen in the original Road Rash port from the 3DO

I despise ignorant fanboys. Enjoy the great games on all systems or platforms. There is no reason for blind hate...

Offline mylifewithsega

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Re: My Life with Sega: Retro Game Reviews
« Reply #31 on: November 29, 2012, 11:52:49 pm »
One rather large third party developer (*cough... EA! Sniff*).

Product submissions from standard third party titles would have a typical two to three week turnaround as we all provided our feedback and any issues that might have come up during that time. On average we would juggle around four to six games between us with assigned projects.

An example would be my manager handing me a specific game or even a publisher (being a RPG nut, I got Working Designs!)  to work with and get the game through a QA checklist but still needing a panel review, we would swap a game for a couple days and play through it adding our thoughts of what could be improved or difficulty balance etc.

Our standard projects were always pushed back when a EA title came in for QA. The difference? They got a three day pass on many games including the first Need For Speed (the only NFS) for the Saturn. Our checklist was essentially tossed out the window to rush that game to market. This was often the norm for all games from EA which I thought was shit and rather unfair to other publishers but since the same games often hit the PlayStation, we both wanted the Saturn games on the shelf the same day of release

It would piss me off to wait but due to the difficulties of porting to the Saturn were an issue, some games were given the green light despite a title not passing QA scores.

On a side note, the Need For Speed port was an easy one to the Saturn from the 3DO as both systems used quads. Looking at the original PlayStation port of the same game. (It ran faster but had a lot of clipping due to the translation to triangles. The same results also were seen in the original Road Rash port from the 3DO

Here I thought their handling of the James Bond franchise was more than enough reason to dislike EA....

Speaking of EA, have you ever played The Immortal for Genesis? It's an EA title. I know it was developed initially for the AppleII, but it was later ported to the Genesis/Mega Drive. My brother picked it up way back when because he heard it was extremely violent - same reason he picked up Night Trap, if I remember correctly - and....

Jesus Christ, this game's fucking HARD! First time I've played it in almost 15 years and I died in the very fuckin' room I started in! Damn!

Back on topic, it's amazing to me that certain publishers would get a pass. It shouldn't have been an option. Shit games not only hurt the publisher, but the console as well. They're off taking whatever time they need to correct those issues.

That's something that kind of bothers me with Nocturne of the Moonlight for Saturn. It had already been released for PlayStation, yet they took the time to expand on the castle a bit, throw in a new boss or two, etc; however, it doesn't look quite as good as the PlayStation original and the framerate takes a dip whenever there's more than a few cahracters and/or effects on-screen....

The Saturn was fuckin' made for this. Why didn't Konami take advantage of the hardware?
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Offline ungibbed

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Re: My Life with Sega: Retro Game Reviews
« Reply #32 on: November 30, 2012, 05:34:37 am »
Your guess is as good as mine when it came to questionable (and very poor) decisions over the years who published games on Sega consoles. The very last Genesis game I reviewed was Power Piggs. A shitty platformer where you jump around collecting donuts. The concept was awful, many games from the NES had better graphics, it was just amazing that someone actually thought something like that would be "fun"...

If I still had the cart, I'd gift wrap it and send it to the AVGN for an exclusive review.

When it comes to The Immortal, I loved that game! I first played it on the NES and it was a great effort for the old 8 bit money machine. The Genesis version floored me with it's much better sound and detail. It was nearly pixel perfect to the Amiga release which was argued to be the best version of the game due to the awesome audio abilities of the computer but the visuals looked just the same as the Genesis.

The only computer at the time which had the best sound was the Apple //GS but finding games that used the full 16 bit features for the system was difficult since it could still run all the original Apple ][ games from years past and even after the system was discontinued by Apple in favor of the Mac.

Back on topic, I did spend some quality time playing the Genesis version of The Immortal and loved it but found that most of the problems I had were due to the floaty d-pad of the original 3 button controller which wasn't the most ideal for isometric games. I used the arcade stick for a while but still had little luck.

When the six button Arcade pads were released, I replaced all my controllers with those tiny bananas and I would easily say it had the best directional pad of any controller I've used in the past to present (analog sticks aside).
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Offline mylifewithsega

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Re: My Life with Sega: Retro Game Reviews
« Reply #33 on: January 07, 2013, 11:55:25 am »
Here's a little teaser I put together for February 27th. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiNld3lFPmg
« Last Edit: January 07, 2013, 11:57:37 am by mylifewithsega »
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Offline crackdude

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Re: My Life with Sega: Retro Game Reviews
« Reply #34 on: January 07, 2013, 01:49:30 pm »
Having a hard time finding a copy of PAL Shenmue II?


http://www.consolemad.co.uk/sega/dreamcast/uk-dreamcast-games/6633-shenmue-ii.html


I was planing on buying it myself, but do go ahead, it's a great deal :)
SEG4GES

Offline mylifewithsega

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Re: My Life with Sega: Retro Game Reviews
« Reply #35 on: January 07, 2013, 01:57:05 pm »
Having a hard time finding a copy of PAL Shenmue II?


http://www.consolemad.co.uk/sega/dreamcast/uk-dreamcast-games/6633-shenmue-ii.html


I was planing on buying it myself, but do go ahead, it's a great deal :)

Hahaha! Thanks, bro. I can't afford it right now. I blew my "flitter" money on old copies of SEGA Visions and a SEGA Menacer/T2:The Arcade Game package CIB. I gotta' behave for a month or so. Go for it. :)
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Offline Barry the Nomad

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Re: My Life with Sega: Retro Game Reviews
« Reply #36 on: January 07, 2013, 02:35:38 pm »
Oh man... I remember when it was announced Shenmue II wasn't to be released in the US, and I flipped, learned how to use a boot disc (bought DC-X) and imported Shenmue II. I felt so 1337 at the time.

Offline mylifewithsega

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Re: My Life with Sega: Retro Game Reviews
« Reply #37 on: January 07, 2013, 02:45:20 pm »
Dude, I was pissed. I was already using the GameShark to play imports from Japan, but I wasn't sure how a PAL title would look on an NTSC TV. I know how to work around that crap now.

How do you mean by 1337?
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Offline Barry the Nomad

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Re: My Life with Sega: Retro Game Reviews
« Reply #38 on: January 07, 2013, 02:53:33 pm »
1337 dude, LEET aka elite! I was probably the only person in the Midwest playing Shenmue II at the time.

Offline crackdude

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Re: My Life with Sega: Retro Game Reviews
« Reply #39 on: January 07, 2013, 03:27:01 pm »
I was a bit dumb back then.


I remember seeing a bunch of Shenmue II games in a store at super clearance price when the DC bombed. They were clearing up inventory. I didn't know what Shenmue was.
SEG4GES

Offline Randroid

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Re: My Life with Sega: Retro Game Reviews
« Reply #40 on: January 07, 2013, 05:55:35 pm »
1337 dude, LEET aka elite! I was probably the only person in the Midwest playing Shenmue II at the time.

lol, Day one purchase at $125, NO REGRETS!

Offline Barry the Nomad

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Re: My Life with Sega: Retro Game Reviews
« Reply #41 on: January 07, 2013, 07:08:11 pm »
I think my copy was $50 plus $10 shipping. Bought it from some online retailer, maybe NCSX?

Offline Randroid

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Re: My Life with Sega: Retro Game Reviews
« Reply #42 on: January 07, 2013, 08:10:05 pm »
I think my copy was $50 plus $10 shipping. Bought it from some online retailer, maybe NCSX?

Oh you bastard, ebgames circa 2001 was such a rip... no, no wait, No Regrets!

Offline ungibbed

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Re: My Life with Sega: Retro Game Reviews
« Reply #43 on: January 09, 2013, 10:19:38 pm »
One exclusive game to the Sega CD I liked was Dune. Was pretty awesome back in the day.
I despise ignorant fanboys. Enjoy the great games on all systems or platforms. There is no reason for blind hate...

Offline Kori-Maru

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Re: My Life with Sega: Retro Game Reviews
« Reply #44 on: January 17, 2013, 12:24:02 am »
You know what? True Lies was on AMC last week.

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