3DO Interactive Multiplayer

"Megarace." Perhaps I'm in a minority of one but don't you just read the name of a game sometimes and think to yourself, "This sucks". The title "Ridge Racer" doesn't invoke the same sense of doubt or for that matter "Need for speed" but the very name, "...Megarace..." almost forces your lip to curl-up into a snarl and a total look of apathy to spread across the remainder of your entire face. Say it again, "Megarace", "Smegarace" ...

I'm told you should never judge a game by the name or a book by its cover. Whatever - let us move on.

The name Megarace is derived by joining two words together. One of which was 'Race' and indeed, you race. There are a selection of cars that grows as you progress and each car can be armed and improved to help you win the the next 'race'. Not, I can tell what you are thinking, an entirely original concept.

To be fair if Cryo, the developers of Megarace, had been entirely truthful in the naming of their game however, it would have been Dire-race. The game play is shameful. I could wax lyrical about the appaling AI or the dull, right-angle infested tracks but I shall not, just trust me when I tell you, Yes! It is that bad.

So, if that is 'race', what was 'mega'?

What does mega mean? When prefixed it can mean the following:

"Mega-
pref.
Large: megadose.
Surpassing other examples of its kind; extraordinary: megahit.
One million (106): megahertz"

Did the 'Mega' part mean it, Megarace, surpasses, as in the dictionary definition, other racing games? No. Without any fear of contradiction, no, it did not surpass other racing games. Even Crash 'n Burn is better.

So, did the 'Mega' element mean Megarace was large? It would be unfair to say Megarace wasn't in fairness pretty large. There were 8 tracks and 8 cars. Mega though? Hmmm, probably not. OK then. How about large in other ways?

Maybe the 'Mega' component of the name 'Megarace' refers to the use of Megabytes. Loads and loads of megabytes. Not of game play or sophisticated enemy AI (artificial intelligence) you must understand but of streaming media.

There are hours, possibly days of fully rendered 3D city scapes streaming from the CD. It was all perhaps pretty in 1994 but in 2005 it is pretty-awful.

The presenter is streamed from CD. The introduction to each level is streamed from CD. The race tracks are streamed from CD and the cars are overlaid (badly) on the courses, that have been streamed from CD. Everything is streamed from CD. Not necessarily a bad thing, but when done badly, yes, it is a bad thing.

The worst kind of MegaStreaming (you see what I've done there, clever eh?) was the presenter. A presenter whose natural ability to make your flesh creep, could have only been surpassed if they had bothered to include the video, "Michael Jackson - Little nude friends of mine in my play kingdom."

So, there you have it: Mega as in 'Mega-amounts-of-CD-streaming' and 'race' as in racing cars.

No doubt someone will give it a 'B' grade. (I'm looking at you Primal Rage lover, I'm looking at you!)

3DO Kid.

 

Another world. Also known in the US as: Out of this world.

Ah, finally, some quality. Another World - It had another name in America, 'Out of this World'. I'll be honest with you, I have no idea why they rebadged it for the different markets. I suspect it is more to do with regional marketing departments justifying their existence but I guess I'll never know for sure.

Platform games come in many guises but the principles are usually the same and Another World doesn't really break any moulds in that department. Run. Jump. Shoot. Climb - All platformer games are variants on the same theme. This one, Another World, is in the same vein as the original Prince of Persia. Try to imagine viewing the world side on, while a well animated human character runs and jumps and tackles various obstacles in his path.

This game is good. I liked it, I liked it a lot. I had the Atari ST version but I remember seeing the 24bit graphics of the 3DO version in a magazine and thinking that I just must have a copy.

Admittedly, the graphic artists pallete almost entirely consisted of 'blue' but the imagery is so atmospheric, so moody almost, and exceptionally well done. Perhaps tasteful is better way of saying it?

The animation at the time was breath taking. Without exhageration the graphics still are breath taking. It's a very stylish game, almost timeless, if it was necessary to revamp Another World for 2005, it would probably take very little effort. Even the storyline is pretty robust time-wise.

Who ever tires of the old - 'Particle acceleration experiment goes wrong, young man finds himself transported to an Alien World, befriended by an Alien, hunted by a scary Lion thing and chased by other Aliens' plot, all the while trying to get back to Earth?

I'm not being glib, it may sound glib but I assure you I'm not. If you were to travel back in time to 1994 and ask EA or Acclaim or even 3DO to come up with the same storyline, it would no doubt be, "Bye-bye particle acceleration", "Hello Virtual Reality interactive movie, set in neo-New York, with lots of bad acting and 3 days of pre-rendered graphics".

I'll say it again just in case you missed it the first time. Another World was the work of real artists. The graphics, the sounds, the storyline and the game-play come together to make, what my Father would call, a very tidy little game.

Certainly you don't start the game up today in 2005, like you might Street Fighter II or an Interactive Movie or even the classic NFS on 3DO and think to yourself, 'Hmmm mid-nineteen nineties'.

The introduction is near perfect - It has been timed and delivered to perfection. The game-play, albeit short, is very good. Although I reserve the right to add a caveats to that comment later. And as all good stories should, then there is the ending. Well, you'll have to wait and see for yourself. Although I'd recommend you don't build your hopes up too much about the end sequence.

If I was to start criticising, the game-play does lean towards pixel perfect jumping a couple of times, which did annoy me and the game is a little on the short side but there are acres of, can you say it? Emotion? Would it be too much to say there is 'Soul' in 'Another World'?

Go on, get a copy, it's worth it.

Ebay rareness? Not too frequent in all honesty.

3DO Kid.

Killing Time has something of a cult following. Not by me I might add. I'm quite sure that when I die, I'll go to hell and be forced to play First Person Shooters. They will be running on an Amiga A500, with a monochrome display, a sticky mouse and a little orange demon will sing Wet Wet Wet songs in my ear day-and-night.

My argument when it comes to games of this nature is this: if I wished to wander around lost, in a bland environment, throwing scorn and hatred on everything I meet, I'll go to the local council offices. I certainly won't pay £40 to do it in a virtual environment.

...

Killing Time was amongst the last generation of games released for the Multiplayer and in fairness it shows. Presentation wise, KT was (is?) pretty slick for a 3DO game. Killing Time received its own loading screen. (Gasp!) A unique no-loading between levels system. (Wow!) It was also lavished with a pretty neat sound track (Phwaaa!) And even, and get this, some pretty good box art.

That as far as I am concerned is as good as it gets. You can see the 'special' loading screen below, soak it up, because that is as good as it gets.

In terms of game play? Well, Killing Time is Doom with something that vaguely resembles a story line. And don not tell me that Doom had a story.

Essentially you walk around a maze and shoot anything you see. This shooting spree is punctuated occasionally, by the threads of a set-in-America during the 1930's plot.

Graphically and technically speaking Killing Time is good. The graphics are certainly better than those of Doom on a 486 PC. The Ghosts that appear to tell the storyline are impressive graphically speaking (see pictures) and the frame-rate overall is reasonably high.

Killing Time is a smooth in more ways than one. Certainly for the 3DO platform anyway and perhaps in general for that era.

Game progression is controlled by the finding of objects and using them to unlock new areas of the game.

It is a pretty tough game too. I tried desperately to play the game on medium difficulty and I kept running out of bullets. Once out of bullets some damn killer evil ducks got me. Or perhaps it was the evil shotgun toting duck hunters that killed me. I think this as the ducks didn't do anything other than flap their wings and look evil. Evil for those that don't know can be demonstrated in a duck by replacing the eyes with a red colour.

One of the main problems is when you examine, with an eye for scrutiny, the things you must shoot. It is obvious that you are shooting things that were lifted straight from the mid-nineties edition of "The idiots guide to enemies for a FPS game."

The Killer Ducks are good example. A good example of the developers trying too damn hard to be original.

What ultimately this desperate attempt at being original means is you get a selection of about ten to fifteen types of enemy in the entire game. With only one or two showing up at any one time and on any given level and they all die in exactly the same way.

The same can be said about the variety of weapons.

This game has a cult following. Don't ask me why, I don't know. I guess it's due to its porting to the Apple Mactintosh where they are desperate for any game.

Someone might find enjoyment in this game. Me? I'm off to pay my council-tax

3DO Kid.

Another day, another 3DO game. This time: Ultraman by Bandai. Perhaps I am cruising for a double helping of Egg a la Face here, but I like this game, I really do.

OK, it's a 'beat 'em up'. It is by no means the most sophisticated beat 'em up either, Street Fighter II and Samurai Showdown have nothing to fear from Ultraman. Yet, Ultraman, for me at least, is loveable.

Loveable, much like a small, ugly, 3-legged toad, limping pathetically across the street is loveable. You, as you watch it, know it would be best to kill it but you simply don't have the heart, and slowly, and gradually you fall in love with it. Before you know it, you are making a little fluffy bed for it, feeding it lovely little meal-worms and kissing it good night. And everyone around you wonders why.

Don't ask me to explain why I love Ultraman, all I know is I do.

It is apparent that this Ultraman game is taken from a Japanese TV show, a show that seems to be in the same vein as Power Rangers. i.e. Blokes (men), dressed up as big robots, fighting other blokes (men), dressed up as monsters. Quite frankly, not my bag.

As usual with my 3DO gaming these days, this game is in Japanese, but it is playable and the language doesn't get in the way too much.

Firstly, there is a slick introduction, staring I guess, actors from the TV show. Obviously, I don't understand a word they are going on about but the imagery is enjoying to watch.

Following that, there are some menu options, two of which seemed identical, basically, after selecting them, you end up fighting a monster. Another of the options is a VS (versus) mode i.e. If you have two game pads, you can fight your friend. And then there is a final library option, with lots of Ultraman images from the TV show, which are nice. I'm not even a fan and I sat and watched them all, with even some minor enjoyment, I could have skipped through them, I didn't.

Another observation I made was, despites its age, is that there seems to have been more effort put into the Ultraman the TV show, in terms of sets, costumes and characters, certainly in my opinion, more than Power Rangers ever seemed to muster, but, perhaps, I'm now biased.

There is no point in talking about the game play, it is rubbish. There are couple of game play features of note however. One of which was the option to soften up your intended enemy with a badly realised aircraft attack, the graphics for this section are woeful but if you sink some missiles into your opponent before the real fight starts, his power bar is appropriately lower.

Secondly, there seems to be an Ultraman power beam, that, if you are lucky enough to jab away at the buttons and pull-off this 'special' move, then it really hurts your opponent.

Other than that, it is terrible game. A terrible game I was drawn into. Goodness only knows what would happen if I could understand the story line!

3DO Kid!

OK 'Primal Rage' boy, I'm talking to the chap who gave Primal Rage a 'C' grade, you have some pretty random titles on your 3DO review website - well take this!

Undaunted by the plethora of games reviewed on other sites, I have hunted high and low (there is a New Romantics 1980's joke in there but I think it is best we let it lie) for a game so rare, that I would have been better off looking for chickens teeth or rocking horse pooh or some actual kellogs corn flakes in Tescos, rather than their soggy looky-likey Tescos own brand?

So, did I get 'Blue Forest'? Claimed by many to be the rarest 3DO game ever? Nope, I haven't got that. It's all in Japanese language anyway and I've tried that already haven't I. Obscure plus Japanese plus game review, didn't work for me did it? (See Yu Yu Hakasho review for details.) How about the unreleased gold disk version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat for the 3DO? Nope, don't have that either. I never liked Mortal Kombat anyway.

What we have here for your viewing pleasure is, drum roll please: "Braindead 13". Now, with this we are talking about a true 3DO rare title. A little rarer on the Atari Jaguar CD but we won't go into that.

'Rare' as in widely released but didn't sell too well and so rare, as in not seen too often on eBay.

It is a game by Readysoft - Yup, that's right, Braindead 13 is Space Ace for adults or Dragons Lair for the maturing generation 'X' if you prefer.

Braindead 13 is a high quality, almost fun, entertaining production and that is in my genuinely honest opinion. (Don't pull that face while you read this!) Think interactive 'Pinky and the Brain' or 'Ren and Stimpy'. It, Braindead 13, is a sort of an aggressive, funny, if you find comedy cartoon violence funny, interactive cartoon game or perhaps is that American animated interactive cartoon movie. Or if you have read my other stuff, think Strahl but American style.

Braindead 13, summed up - 'It's alright'.

During the early to mid-nineteen nineties everyone was trying to define Interactive Entertainment, a big catch phrase of the era was Interactive Movie - the dream being that the game player (or is that viewer?) could take part in a movie.

Everyone, and I mean everyone, tried to achieve this within the confines of the hardware available. EA, Virgin Interactive, Namco (what is Starblade if it is not a stab at an interactive movie? Eh?) It's easy to point and shout these days and declare Metal Gear an interactive movie or Resident Evil 4 an interactive movie and shout in the same breath that Braindead 13 and Night Trap are not interactive movies but without super powerful 3D processors, what are interactive movies going to be?

If they, the developers, can't do full roaming 3D, what are they going to do? Think about it, even the likes of Warp's D is really 2D game and 2-dimensions limits developers, certainly if they intend to make an interactive movie.

So, it, Braindead 13 is an Interactive Cartoon and it goes something like this: While playing Braindead 13 you wait for an on-screen prompt, for example 'UP' and then you press 'UP'on the D-Pad, you then wait for next prompt and so on.

So, interactive is reduced to pressing a button, hardly Resident Evil 4 but then elements of this style of game play did make it into Resident Evil 4, so perhaps all was not lost.

Braindead 13 is too good and too professional to be remembered in the same cherished memories as Night Trap and Sewer Shark, it is too polished and too slick. The Script is funny, well thought out and entertaining. You laugh (or is that smirk?) with it, not at it.

If you can find a copy, then do so. It's worth having just for the beautiful (hand drawn) graphics.

3DO Kid.

There is another guy (link given below) who is doing the same as me and writing tosh (rubbish) about old 3DO games.

He, would you believe, gave 'Primal Rage' a 'C' grade. As in A, B, C, D, E, F. A 'C'? Which I'm guessing means by his standards that Primal Rage is OK... OK? Is he nuts?

Well, stick with me and I'll steer you through the straight and narrow. A 'C'? For 'Primal Rage'? I appreciate that a review is simply an opinion... but a 'C'? Come on now?

Anyway --!

I was thinking. How can I beat my competition? How can I reign supreme as the ultimate resource for 3DO claptrap?

I apparently thought too hard and too long. The idea I came up with was that of 'Obscure Japanese games'. It was not until after wasting some time and money, and then looking back on what I done, that my idea now seems a wee bit silly.

For two very good reasons: Firstly - nobody cares. And those that do care can probably read a good Japanese review. Secondly - Obscure Japanese games usually come in Japanese language and I don't speak or for that matter read Japanese.

'Yu Yu Hasuko' is an obscure Japanese game. A Japanese game that no-one seems to care about. A Japanese game that is in Japanese language. Actually 'Yu Yu Hasuko' comes with lots and lots and lots of Japanese language.

Perhaps I am being a little unfair at least in part. Plenty of people seem to care about 'Yu Yu Hasuko'. Admittedly they all seem to be obscure Japanese people. However, a quick trawl of the internet produces a handful of interesting facts about 'Yu Yu'. For example the game contains a character called Botan. Who presumably is a female character. She was voted number 23 in the 'hottest women of anime'. However, even having played the game, I still have no idea who Botan is and can't comment on how 'hot' she is either!

More digging around uncovered a 'Yu Yu Hasuko' trading card game. Apparently there was also Yu Yu Hashuko game on the Super Nintendo and one for the Microsoft Xbox.

Perhaps 'Yu Yu Hashuko' is less obscure than I first thought. There also seems to have been a TV show, which helps explain a lot.

'Yu Yu Hashuko' on the 3DO Multiplayer is a fighting game. It is in a similar vein to Street Fighter II and Ultraman. The game consists of a variety of characters, which sadly for me, all speak Japanese. I should point out at this point that there was so much Japanese language that I have no real idea as to what was going on.

The game might have been broken down into a number of modes. None of which made any sense either because of the use of Kanji characters or Japanese language. One mode I did understand was 'Story mode'. The only reason I knew it was a 'story mode', is because story mode appears to be pronounced 'Story mode' in Japanese.

Before I forget, there is really good introduction after the game loads.

The introduction is actually a lovely bit of Japanese Anime and is really professional. I'm guessing but it was probably borrowed from the TV series. The story line didn't make any sense to me, the same goes for the character introductions.

After some assertive keypad pressing I managed to work-around the language barrier and the game eventually started.

The game play can be described in a word: 'Awful'. Slow. Heavy. Unresponsive. All of which was unaided by the 3DO D-Pad.

To give 'Yu Yu' a fair crack of the whip, I did the old 2D fighter button bashing routine: I tried some well known SFII style moves. You know the ones: half moon and then press 'A' or back-back kick, nothing happened.

What didn't appear to be helping was my character - he was tiny. My opponent on the other hand was enormous, easily twice my characters size. He kept pointing and shouting. I kind of wished my little character would run and hide but he stood there. Bobbing the way he did. Trying to look ready for a fight. A fight he would lose. No thanks to me, the game designers or the academic power house behind the 3DO controller. That little kid was going to receive a pounding and then he did.

I shed several virtual tears for the little fella.

After going through my entire repertoire of Virtua Fighter, Tekken, King of Fighters, Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat moves and having nothing really happen, I decided to give up.

The in-game graphics are rubbish too.

So there you have it!

A review of an obscure, well loved but ultimately rubbish Japanese game.

I have only ever seen one copy up for grabs and I grabbed it.

3DO Kid.

------------------------
TEH 3DO Kid ENEMY!!!111!!!
http://www.videogamecritic.net/index.htm

Game Title: Shock Wave.
Publisher: Electronic Arts.
Year: 1994.

Stop me if you've heard this before: At an undetermined point in the near future, a hostile race of aliens lays siege to planet earth.

Initially, as earth defence became aware of the invaders, it was thought they were meteorites but as they entered earths atmosphere it becomes apparent that it is Aliens invaders from another world.

Oooh!

The first thing I noticed after booting this game, for probably the first time in 10 years, was the striking resemblance the Shockwave introduction has to Independence Day (ID4) introduction. Hmmm. Shock Wave by EA? It should be pointed out, Shockwave came to the 3DO multiplayer some two years before ID4.

Anyway, Shockwave is a straight 3D shooter. Nothing particularly new then - Nothing particularly new now. You as the renegade rookie pilot in this one-man-saves-the-world-from-alien-invaders-plot, fly a craft across the earth, defeating and slaying aliens as you go. Interestingly, and you legal-eagles out there may have spotted this, at no point do you sign a declaration of war, so either that's handled off screen or the war is illegal!

The graphics are smooth, (smooth enough) and the action flows nicely, the rendered sequences are very slick and the usual two coats of Electronic Arts wax were applied to the whole affair.

Shockwave offers only the illusion of freedom of movement. Movement is limited to narrow paths and there is no pitch (up and down to you land lovers), only yaw movements (left and right!). Your ship has no variation in weapons either. As a weapon, you get a standard issue 101 lasers and a limited number of missiles. On the upside, the game-play isn't let down by the much maligned 3DO game pad.

The one thing I do remember about Shockwave is that Edge Magazines (a high brow gaming magazine in the UK) very first edition, contained some pre-rendered images of Shockwave. I must admit that after seeing these images, I was sold on the whole 32bit generation thing.

The lady in the picture below is Marcia Pizzo, who appeared in all the Shock Wave games and was a main stay of the 3DO FMV gaming moments. Most notably she appeared in Psychic Detective also by EA on the 3DO platform. A role to which she is credited on IMDB, although Shockwave is not listed against her name. (Sadly - In my honest opinion.)

I played this game from start to finish and all the sequels. There was even a bolt on disk for Shock wave, which was nice. (And expensive!)

It must have sold well and the 3DO market is awash with copies of Shock Wave. If you do not have a copy, you should buy and play it. It's not bad.

3DO Kid.

Try and picture the scene. The video game playing world waits with baited breath as an unreleased Japanese uber console squares itself up against an already released American console.

The Japanese machine sports an (almost) perfect arcade racing game, the American machine flaunts a photo realistic pseudo racing simulator. Xbox 360 vs PS3 or 3DO vs PS1?

It is true to say that few, very few games indeed fire the imagination.

Games that manage to fire the imagination, tend to, long before they are actually released, guarantee themselves a place in history.

A game that fires the imagination makes you want to play them because of what they may contain.

These types of games are developed by people so in tune with their target audience, they may well be wasting their time developing a game, when it would be probably more lucrative for them to start their own religion.

These types of games are so few and far between that it is probably also true to say, you could write their names on the back of a small stamp. 'Elite' from the 8bit days I believe offered this, more recently Grand Theft Auto and Grand Turismo too.

These games sell a dream rather than selling fancy graphics or even game play.

EA Canada back in 1993 delivered just such a game.

It was November 22nd 1994 by the time we in the UK got a whiff of the Need for Speed 3DO. I remember the day clearly.

I was stood in the kitchen to the rented accommodation where I lived. I shared a house with a small group of all male game players and we had spent the day placing a stake in the ground regarding which games console we thought would do best.

I, mistakenly, was backing 3DO. Brian on the other hand was backing the Atari Jaguar and Dom, well Dom was doing what Dom did.

On that evening we all stared at the Edge review of 'Need For Speed' for the 3DO. It was the usual, "YAWN, 3DO equals yawn!", from Edge magazine but we all stared at the pictures in awe anyway.

The review harked on about something called frames-per-second and scenery and some mention of something called 'draw distance', it meant nothing to me. Did I mention? NFS on the 3DO has a Porsche 993.

So, what was EA's Need for Speed promising? In a word ,'Heaven'. Let us not forget, most people my age, at that time, wanted a Porsche, a Ferrari or a Lamborghini. Nobody and I mean absolutely nobody wanted a modified VW Golf or a Subaru Impreza with a big silly fin, especially one that was all painted gold with a blue light strapped to the underside of the chassis. No that would be silly.

Men of 20 years old, way back in 1994, were simple creatures. Women and super cars. If not one, then the other, if possible, both. To be realistic and to be fair, most of us would have walked over a woman to get at a Super Car. Especially in that house.

Need for Speed promised us Porsche's, Lambos and other Super (super!) Cars.

The dream NFS on the 3DO sold us essentially amounted to this: We could take our mighty Super cars and race it against 'other' Super cars.

That however was only half the dream. The other half of the dream allowed you to crash super cars. And then, wait for it, watch replays of the crashes from a variety of angles.

Oh Lord God above, thank you - thank you.

It is my firm belief that no feature, in any game, ever, in the history of the world, has ever been as responsible for putting quite so many bums on seats, in Churches and praising the Lord on high, as that feature found in the Need for Speed on the 3DO.

What will come as a surprise to those that were not there at the time, was that we knew, just by looking at the pictures in Edge magazine and getting the general gist of the Edge review, that the Need for Speed 3DO, would be one of the greatest driving games ever.

As I recall, minutes turned into hours, hours in to days, days into months. All spent staring at a 14" colour TV, holding a badly designed 3DO D-Pad, watching by today's standards, crude 3D representations of now dated super cars.

"So ---!" What if you play today?

Hit the accelerator. Drop it into first. Wheel spin. Accelerate up to a 120mph. Scream past the cop. Mr X vanishing into the rear view. Through the woods. Across the top of the beach. The balloons on the right. Brake. Hair pin. Apex. More acceleration. Cops. Hill. Weave traffic. Win.

Somethings are best left simply remembered.

I can say this confidently and without any doubt and the Star Control II crowd will hate me, the SFII players will bash me and the Interactive Movie lovers, well they will dribble into their hands and talk to the walls as usual but the Need for Speed is the greatest game on the 3DO.

NFS is touted as rare on eBay. NFS on the 3DO is as rare as hamster pooh, in a hamster cage, with a well fed and happy hamster in it.

You get the picture.

In summary: Damn, damn, damn, I love this game.

3DO Kid.

 

 

Game Title: Total Eclipse.
Year: 1994.
Publisher: Crystal Dynamics.

Somebody's hand was firmly up someones butt when this game was being made, pulling the appropriate internal organs to get exactly what they wanted, which was to make a seminal game for a system that, in the creators mind at least, was set to change the world. It was Trip Hawkins' (father of the 3DO) hand no doubt and Crystal Dynamics butt.

Trip Hawkins, lest we forget, was not in the game (industry) for making a niche computer console, no-siree bob, Trip wanted to make the next radio, the next VHS cassette player, the next DVD player. 3DO: '3D' for 3 Dimensions and 'O' was taken from 'O' as in radi'o'.

So, when releasing said world changing games console, what 'Killer Application' did he want to bind to the mighty 3DO hardware?

Sony have used Ridge racer. Atari had Dungeon Master, the Amiga had the Batman pack, Nintendo have Link.

The 'Killer App' for Mr Hawkins was all important. I think he had a point. In retrospect actually, Trip had a very good point. What is Xbox360's killer app again...?

Anyway. Which game has its foundations in video game history? You can argue the toss but Space invaders ranks pretty high.

Total Eclipse is 3D space invaders for the 3DO. 

Choice of weapons, levels, aliens, end-of-level boss, blah, blah, blah.

3D Space invaders.

Total Eclipse cost, in the UK, £399.99 , which is pretty steep, thankfully it came with a free FZ-1 Panasonic 3DO.

So, having just sat down and played the first level of Total Eclipse again, after what? Probably twelve years. Hmmm, it is not bad. It's fun. Even the sound track, that the high-brow games magazines lamented about, isn't all that bad.

Sadly, and certainly more sadly at the time for those whose bank accounts were four hundred quid lighter, it isn't a killer app. I played Ridge racer on my PlayStation the other day, THAT is a killer app. I play ridge racer quite frequently, the more I think about, the more I love that game.

Total Eclipse is a reasonable effort at 3D space invaders, its not bad, but it isn't killer.

About as rare as Ridge Racer.

3DO Kid

 I've been generous with other games. I let them off. I found beauty where there was none. Where others find only dirt, I found diamonds.

I can't do it for Primal Rage, this game is awful. Really, really bad.

It is not only the 3DO version, all versions of Primal Rage were bad.

It is not too hard to image the scene.

It is 1995, Jurassic Park was still popular, 'Walking with Dinosaurs' was on the BBC (I think) and everyone was playing Beat'em ups. Street Fighter II, Mortal Kombat, anything on the Neo-Geo.

Yes, digital fighting was big, massive, humongous, ginormous, you get the picture. So, a small group of pony-tailed big wigs sat around a table muttering on about the future of interactive entertainment. "What?", they thought, would embrace this new golden age of digital wonderfulness? Perhaps the mixing of these two things so close to the media watching public's heart. Namely dinosaurs and fighting.

So, after much grunting and groaning the pony-tailed bigwigs managed to squeeze a pitiful little blob of fighter from some lowly developers glands. After producing such a shameful secretion, he, the developer, had but one emotion... Primal Rage.

After some initial testing, the questions over how good the game actually was or wasn't, were finally answered. To their complete and total apathy, the game was declared still-born. And for the sake of humanity, it would have been better off left that way.

Yet, sadly, no. It had life thrust upon it.

'Bad', so they tell me, is a relative term. However, if that relative is Uncle Colin, the kleptomaniac ugly transvestite from Telford, who is dying from itchy groin syndrome, then 'Bad' is not a relative you'd want to go to the swimming baths with. And that is how the game testers felt about Primal Rage. They didn't want to go to the swimming baths with it or for that matter anywhere else.

However, a bad game should never get in the way of good profits. So they, the good marketing folk at Atari, went straight to plan B. Plan B is labelled: "Port it to every computer platform under the sun and market it until every-body's eyes bleed."

And lo, so it was written and so it was: It was available for every platform known to man, god and beast. Magazines blossomed to double their normal size, simply to hold all the extra Primal Rage advertising.

It was crap.

Totally, utterly, awful. Nothing stinks like forced-ware. And none were so forced than Primal Rage.

Let me reiterate just how rubbish this game is. My copy is 10 years old and still looks brand new. Compare this with my copy of Need For Speed, which looks like it's 100 years old.

Yeah, eBay, blah, blah, game stinks, yadada.

3DO kid.

Developed by: Capcom.
Year: 1994.
Country of origin: Japan.
Distributed: Panasonic UK Ltd.

Introduction required? I think not.

Oh yes indeed, we all love Street Fighter 2.

There were, way back in 1993, two games of any real meaning - One of which was Mortal Kombat. A super violent, motion captured update of Pitfighter. It was, in my honest opinion, a bit naff. Clunky controls, rubbish graphics and boring.

The other game was Street Fighter II - Which I say quite unashamedly was the greatest fighting game ever and the 3DO version of Super Street Fighter II turbo was bloody fantastic too.

It had not been a shovel port by Capcom. That is to say, it hadn't, from appearances, been quickly moved from the SNES or anything else, on to the 3DO platform.

Capcom loved SFII (as did we all) and each implementation (with the exception of the Amiga version) was handled with love and respect. None so more so, than the 3DO version.

Why?

Well, a number of reasons:

One: Capcom recognised that the standard 3DO controller was rubbish - well, for fighting games anyway. So, they released their own controller, sure it was pricey but it made the Super SFII Turbo on the 3DO multiplayer almost perfect.

Two: The Box art. Daft as it sounds, the Box art for the 3DO version of Street Fighter is beautiful - it had a sophistication that the SNES and Amiga versions could only dream of. Even more recent editions lack the elegance of the 3DO box art.

Three: It sounded great. It used Q-Sound, a mechanism for giving the impression of surround sound, whether it worked or not was open to debate, but it was implemented.

Four: The 3DO version of Street Fighter had all the classic characters including M.Bison and also featured Akuma as the end of game boss.

It didn't, sadly, feature the car bashing sequences of the early games.

Game play wise, SFII was slick; combo's, counter combo's, the animation was smooth and fluid and unlike Samurai Showdown that also appeared on the 3DO Multiplayer, it suffered no slowdown.

This game isn't rare, and despite the prices asked, it is no different to the Japanese version. If you like SF2, then you will love this!

3DO Kid.