3DO Interactive Multiplayer

Thanks to a little in-house Japanese support I'm making some more progress in this. It can be confusing. The save menu's are a real test of memory. Get them wrong, assuming you don't read Kanji, and hours of game play can be lost. Which is precisely what happened to me. What I'm finding is that while the game is interesting, there is a lot of reading.

So the Spaceship lands and you disembark at Beyond Coast.

I went immediately, thanks to the FAQ, straight to the Beyond Coast police station.

Where, i spoke to Bob. A Police desk clerk who needs to be asked everything twice.

Once done with Bob I went to see my old buddy Ed.

I was also introduced to two new people, although one of them wasn't all that new to me, or indeed anyone who has ever played Metal Gear Solid - Meryl Silverburg.  The other person is Dave Forrest. Something of a fan of the planet Earth despite having never been there.

to be continued...

Okay - I'm playing Policenauts on the 3DO using the Walkthrough provided on http://tinyurl.com/848ake

The introduction kicks in, which is, even today, stunning. After which you are left in Jonathan Ingrams old L.A. office. Jonathon is the main character and the Martin Riggs look-a-like in the pictures. According to the walkthrough it's necessary to look at all the items in the room: The pictures, the gun and the badge and also listened to all the answer-phone messages.

By looking at the pictures you realise that Jonathan Ingrams best mate in the whole wide world is "Ed Brown" The chief of Beyond Coast Police's (BCP) Vice Unit and not totally unlike Roger Murtaugh.

Eventually in walks Mrs Ex-ingram; Lorraine Hojyo. She explains her current husband Kenzo Hojyo has gone missing. The only clues are a leaf, "Pluto" and some pills.

Lorraine then asks for help, Jonathan Ingram tells her he won't help and she leaves the office.

Jonathon watches as his ex-wife leaves but notices some footprints near her car. He suspects the car has a bomb onboard. He shouts to his ex-wife to look out, but it's too late and the bomb is detonated.

Jonathon grabs his gun and runs outside.

What follows is the first truly interactive part of the game. An Operation Wolf or Mad Dog McCree section where you get to shoot the guy that blew up your ex-wifes car.

After a while the bomber runs off down an alley-way and you pursue. There are some more shooting and investigating and eventually there is a message, written in a glowing pale blue blood like substance that says "I'll kill you".

The assassin then jumps on his motorbike and tries to run Jonathon down.

There is a pretty neat anime sequence where Jonathon shoots, but the assailant escapes.

The scene ends with Jonathon holding his injured ex-wife in his arms.

Joanthon then gets on a space plane - I believe - to Beyond Coast.

You get to talk, at length and in Japanese, to the Stewardess and a co-passenger. After watching some BBC (Beyond Coast Broadcasting) you eventually fall asleep. Now - the FAQ doesn't mention anything about it, but the co-passenger; Tony Redwood, has a hurt hand. He also looks slightly sneaky looking. I reckon he is the guy who tried to blow-up Lorraine -- but I'm only guessing. Also the BBC Newspresenter is Karen Hojyo your ex-wifes daughter.

There is also a option to make 'parts' of the air-stewardess 'jiggle' described in the FAQ as Jonathons 'thoughts'.

 

So far the 'game' element of this game is pure Hideo Kojima i.e. all talk and no action. That said I am enjoying it. The art is brilliant and the music is very 'Lethal Weapon'. It's good fun.

I keep banging on about this but I will give a game the benefit of the doubt even if it's not very good. Megarace falls happily into this category.

You see, quite a lot of Megarace is off-centre. It's Cyberpunk theme is almost right for instance, although it's watered down. Lance Boyle, the games digitized presenter I was very harsh about the last time I looked at this game, seems always at great pains to stress that death is virtual in Megarace. While obviously not that important, Megarace is pulling it's punches here and it's a little bit irritating. Suggesting perhaps if it wasn't pointed out that Megarace was a game, I would immediately run outside, jump in my car and start killing people with its front mounted laser canons.

No hold-on wait...

The next thing perilously close to being pretty good but sadly turns out to be merely okay, is the graphics. One of the unsung heros of video-games is the movie Blade Runner, and Megarace owes Blade Runner more than just a beer for it's style and presentation, and certainly Megarace owes a passing nod to Mad Max too in terms of content. That or Overlander on the Spectrum.

That said the first level; New San was the poster child for next-gen graphics in 1994. Even today the blinding white lights of the sky scrapers are impressive. Sadly none of the later levels quite manage to capture the awe of New San. Couple with this the sprite generated cars and sorry explosions and the first level of wonderment wears thin pretty quick.

Playing the game is strange experience. The cars handle very oddly, they have no-steer, then they suddenly over steer. The markings on the road that speed you up or slow you down or remove all your weapons are confusing at best and the decision to make the up-button on the D-pad the accelerator was an act of pure madness. The enemies show no signs of intelligence or personality, with only Lance Boyles dubious word that they are indeed evil speed-gangs. The whole thing is a mess.

From its dynamics and controls MegaRace is car game because of its graphics instead of despite of them. The game engine could just have easily been spaceships flying down a wormhole or submarines flyings flying down a drain - change the graphics and voila.

There is an element of fun while racing, it can get the old juices flowing, but just when you think it's actually not-too-bad your car runs out of bullets or you die and your one-life is over, reminding you that as a game Megarace is well below par.

That said Megrace is worth watching only because it encapsulates that era in gaming where we were changing from Cartridge to CD, from children's games to adults titles. It's also a nice celebration of mid-nighties Cyberpunk style.

Don't buy Megarace and expect a good game - you ain't going to get one, what you will enjoy is the spectacle of early disc gaming.

Not even mildly rare.

3DOkid.

Total Eclipse was the UK release title, in fact it was the UK pack-in game. It was to be a show case for the 3DO in Europe.

It failed.

The problem was, that the European release of the 3DO was a year after  the U.S., release and six-months after the Japanese release.

It was September 1994, and the super 3D arcade machines of the day were the Ferraris and Christian Dior of gaming. Sleek, desirable and powerful. The elite of this creme-de-la-creme were games like Ridge Racer, Tekken, Virtua Fighter and Daytona.

Nothing came close.

Sony and Sega were promising home conversions of these super-games. I remember standing slack jawed in front of a Daytona machine, staggered, not by the game, but by the raw processing power of the processors behind it. This was to be played in the home?

Then came 3DO. The 3DO with it's Total Eclipse. It looked kind of second rate. It looked kind lame. The graphics looked to my eyes, very  computer-world, as opposed  Ridge Racers, which looked very real world. Seems silly now as Ridge has aged badly, but the chasm between Namcos racer  and Crystal Dynamics 3D SHMUP was insurmountable. In 1994 when 3DO launched in the UK with Total Eclipse, PS-X and Project Mercury were offering unbelievable, where as 3DO was offering yesterday. And Total Eclipse merely compounded that.

It's a shame. Total Eclipse is an enjoyable game. It didn't feature the same dreadful real-time acting that so many of it's counter parts suffered from. It's not entirely linear. It's actually pretty good.

It's main problem is that it lacks imagination. It's just a 3D take on plain Space Invaders. What  3DO and Crystal Dyanmics didn't seem to realise, was that between 1978 and 1993 space invaders  had moved on. It had moved on a lot.

Crystal Dynamics, bless them, were American. If 3DO was going to release with a Ridge/Daytona beating game, and that game was to be a SHMUP, then that project, quite honestly, should have been handed to the Japanese. Taito, Seibu Kaihatsu, someone who knew SHUMPS. Someone who would relish the extra processing power that 3DO offered. Paint a SHMUP the likes of which the world had never seen. Instead it was given to a U.S., start'up company. It's was tantamount to asking some British people to make a Cowboy western, a German guy to make authentic American-italian Pizza, or a Japanese guy to make bangers and mash, or indeed, make an FPS.  The best you can hope for is 80% right on a first attempt. It was never likely, with 20:20 hindsight to be the next great SHUMP.

And it wasn't.

All credit to Crystal Dynamics, Total Eclipse is actually worth cracking out today and playing. It's actually alright. It's a good solid game and it's a fun, importantly it is balanced and a fair challenge. If I was to do scores out of ten, which I don't but if I was, I would give 8 out of 10.  It's just not a scratch on R-Type, Einhander or  Darius. It was a strange choice.  It was, sadly for the 3DO, okay. It wasn't the future. It had no pizazz. It was no Ferrari.

Cruising today, over the uninteresting alien backdrop, firing the uninspiring but obviously R-type to a degree inspired weapons, blasting the  clichéd 3D incarnations of  the 2D Space Invaders enemy craft  something is apparent. What that is, is that the 3DO was under-rated. The truth in that comes when one of the baddies exploded. It's kind of pretty.

The keep killing to stay alive gameplay element is an interesting twist. Moments arrive while playing that you wish you could see another enemy. So you can kill them, so you can live a little longer. 

Each level is split into four segments, with an ened of level boss. Only one end of level boss stands out. The Volcano boss. Again, it's proof that Crystal Dynamics were merely aiming to create a tollerable 3D SHMUP, and not letting their creative skills go wild. As I believe Taito would have done.

Strangely, Total Eclipse represents 3DO in more ways than just being the EU launch title. It, as a game, can be used to summarises the whole system which is: undervalued.

Not rare, you should play it today.

3DOKid.

There is little point in declaring Street Fighter II Turbo merely good.

You personally might not even like SFII, and fine, that's up to you, but whether you like it or not doesn't remove the fact that the game is good. The question is really, what makes it good?

SF2 is first and foremost an excellent test of dexterity and memory. This is why people get enjoyment from driving cars, it's a liberating feeling. Performing complex tasks repeatidly and well is in itself rewarding. For example: Chun Li comes at you with her spinning bird kick, you have to duck your character, but then you also can spin on your heels and upper-cut her. Meanwhile, pulling off your very own special-move is also rewarding.

So, Street Fighter II tests your reflexes and tests your memory. Big deal, every casual gamer from here to Tokyo knows that is fun but what is important is that SF2 does it so well. It's by no means unique, all good and bad fighting games have this feature, it's probably more to do with the way you learn the moves. You start with very simple moves and graduate up to more complex moves. Never once really feeling out gunned by your opponents.

To that end, it is often attempst by the player to try more complex moves, that results in a player losing a round. You thousand-hand slap, when a simple ankle kick would have sufficed.

You learn to balance, when to attack and when to guard. Is SF2 teaching you to become a Samurai master? Perhaps not, but your brain is learning something at reliable steady pace - and it likes it.

That said, there is more to Street Fighter II than merely that though. The characters in Street Fighter 2 have a certain quality to them as well. There is no mistaking the fact that there is a character for everyone. Pretty boy Vega, self assured Ken, U.S. Military Guile, independent Chun Li and fat-boy E-Honda. Everyone is represented. Everyone can kick-arse. Everyone is equal despite their differences.

So SF2 is a good mental test, it's personable, it also looks great. Back in 1995 "Arcade in the home" was the buzz phrase. Many people pointed at the SNES version of StreetFighter 2 Turbo but it paled against the the almost-but-not-quite arcade quality of the 3DO version. Criticisms, were and still are, squared at the 3DO controller, it's not all that bad, but in fairness you are better of playing with the Panasonic Arcade stick for the 3DO or the Special Capcom Joypad.

At the end of the day, the 3DO version is superior in every way to the SNES and MegaDrive versions, not least of all in the sound department.

However, not unique to the 3DO version is part of the coding of SF2 sound system. Ryu does a flying kick, and Guile blocks. The sound almost jars you. You can almost feel how solid the two characters are. The sound feels right.

The whole game feels right.

What staggers me, is that 13 years after it's release Street Fighter hasn't aged all that much. Partly thanks to it's 2D graphics, but also thanks to it's core foundations, its testing of memory, dexterity and personality.

What is also amazing is the longevity of such a simple arcade game. The gaming world views "value" these days by counting hours. FPS games, RPG game and racing games must feature hundreds of hour of game play to justify their expense.

On the other hand casual games don't have to feature weeks of playing but do enjoy the repetitive nature from the classic arcade of the early to mid-nighties, but they are completely devoid of personality. Cutesy blocks, and rounded wide-eyed monkeys replace the horny-ninja girl and the dark-eyed cyberpunk.

Street Fighter II Turbo is classic example of Arcade in the home, and an arcade game squared at it's core demographic: Gamers.

It's a dying breed.

Short of owning a SF2Turbo arcade, owning a 3DO and fighting pad is as good as it gets.

3DO Kid.