292: My Favorite Mistake

[RandV80]

Susan I think you are vastly overrate the obscurity of the 3D0 here. Maybe kids under 20 may not have heard of it, but every kid in the early 90's with a Genesis or Super Nintendo wanted a 3D0. In my family we were more interested in it for the arcade quality fighting games like King of Fighters... I even remember my oldest brother at age 14 or so making a $50 bet that he'd have a 3D0 by the time he reached 18. The problem with the 3DO was always that it costs 3 or more times the amount of the standard consoles of the time and nobody could either afford it or convince their parents to spend that much more on a gaming unit. Everybody wanted it but it failed because nobody could afford it. Actually if it came out in a market similar today, where half the gaming market place are adults who grew up gaming and now have jobs and can afford their own stuff, it probably would have been successfull. Certainly there were people like that around at the time, but not nearly enough.

(Edit: Actually forget everything I've said, I've gotten the 3DO mixed up with the Neo Geo.)

 

[NOOOB1]

My cousin had a 3DO back then, From what I remember, It was marketed as the "adults video game system". My cousin had Waialae golf, which was okay. It had arcade perfect versions of SSF2 and Samurai Showdown. And I don't care what anyone says, Way of the warrior was a decent fighting game (that game also introduced me to white zombie, so bonus points for that).

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

Snip

Did you every actually get to play 11th Hour?

 

[BehattedWanderer]

Ooooh, man, 11th Hour! Aww, I remember that now, and The 7th Guest! Those old, spooky puzzle-horror games, yeah. I kinda want to play them now, along with Riddle of the Sphinx, a needlessly obtuse game that liked frustrating and killing you, and never suggested saving, and so you never remembered to. Pain in the ass, that was.

 

[Nesrie]

It's strange that so many articles start with something like, most of you haven't heard of, haven't done, didn't play, don't know... I am beginning to wonder if the author's know their audience. I am familiar with the system, remember it when it was released even.

 

[Flunk]

I remember the 3DO, there are no way in hell I could have afforded one because at the time I was 10 but I remember playing the consoles in stores and seeing the hardware... That I knew I could never afford.

Later on I was given a computer to play with when my uncle bought a new one and I played some of those games like 11th Hour and 7th Guest and they all suffer the same issue. Too much focus on video and not enough on game mechanics. I think the biggest issue was lack of good quality development for the 3DO. With so many console developers slaves to Nintendo or Sega they had little chance. At least the 3DO was much better than the CD-i. Now that was a real stinker.

 

[Susan Arendt]

It's strange that so many articles start with something like, most of you haven't heard of, haven't done, didn't play, don't know... I am beginning to wonder if the author's know their audience. I am familiar with the system, remember it when it was released even.

Given how often we get complaints of "I've never heard of Sephiroth" or "I've never played (pick super popular game", it seemed reasonable to assume most folks were unfamiliar with an obscure console from more than a decade ago.

 

[StriderShinryu]

It's strange that so many articles start with something like, most of you haven't heard of, haven't done, didn't play, don't know... I am beginning to wonder if the author's know their audience. I am familiar with the system, remember it when it was released even.

Given how often we get complaints of "I've never heard of Sephiroth" or "I've never played (pick super popular game", it seemed reasonable to assume most folks were unfamiliar with an obscure console from more than a decade ago.

Yeah.. like that Blade Runner debacle a while back. *shudder*

The only game I wanted for the 3DO was it's supposedly arcade perfect port of Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo. I was a fighting game nut back then and I still am now. As much as I wanted that version of SSF2T to be mine, even I couldn't justify the insane price tag the 3D0 boasted. Had there been more to it than one game, maybe, but the only other fighters were terrible looking Mortal Kombat rip offs. I do, however, vaguely recall thinking Killing Time looked quite interesting.

 

[The Random One]

It is rare for me to throw a 'meh' at Arendt's general direction, but the thing I got the most out of this article is how great Killing Time is. It's Bioshock... in 1996! Why couldn't we have gotten a remake of that instead of games that no one cares about like Dead to Rights?

 

[Gyrefalcon]

Poor Susan! I hope you eventually got to play 11th hour on the computer. And to make up for the 3DO money pit, might I suggest Minecraft? Silly, fun, blocky, inexpensive, and there are cows! Have a good week!

 

[ewhac]

I'm glad you got enjoyment out of the machine. We were quite proud of it at the time. I believe Dave Needle still has the original wire-wrap prototype.

You wouldn't happened to have had a copy of Escape from Monster Manor, would you?

An entire 3DO article with no mention of Shockwave: Invasion Earth? What's wrong with you? Not only was that one of the best games on the system, it was one of the few games with live action cutscenes not to make me cringe at every corner.

Funny you should bring that up. Shockwave's cutscenes are compressed and displayed using the Cinepak codec. However, when we were doing initial work on Video CD, I saw the originals in considerably higher quality MPEG format. Believe it or not, though they were objectively higher fidelity, they revealed all the cheapness of the production, with the overall effect of being instantly and gratingly cringe-worthy. To this day, I still don't know how running the video through Cinepak made the cutscenes not just tolerable, but good.

And yes, Shockwave was a darned fun game.

Anyone else enjoy Burning Soldier?

... what was it called? CDS? 3DI?

Philips CD-I (CD Interactive).

Don't forget Commodore CDTV and CD-32.

As for the $699 price tag, that only made sense if you stood within Trip Hawkins' Reality Distortion Field(TM). The original idea was that the 3DO would be a licensed platform -- like VHS videotapes -- and consumer electronics manufacturers would make compatible boxes and compete with each other on price. Ultimately, the only two companies who made 3DO boxes were Matsushita (Panasonic) and LG (nee Goldstar).

Leo L. Schwab
Former Employee, New Technologies Group/The 3DO Company

 

[ewhac]

I also idly note that, amidst all the fond remembrances of 3DO games, no one's mentioned Jurrasic Park Interactive.

I cackle in socially unredeeming glee...

 

[Covarr]

Funny you should bring that up. Shockwave's cutscenes are compressed and displayed using the Cinepak codec. However, when we were doing initial work on Video CD, I saw the originals in considerably higher quality MPEG format. Believe it or not, though they were objectively higher fidelity, they revealed all the cheapness of the production, with the overall effect of being instantly and gratingly cringe-worthy. To this day, I still don't know how running the video through Cinepak made the cutscenes not just tolerable, but good.

Well, I was mostly referring to the fact that that the acting was far superior to what I've seen in most other FMV games, and the story (though a bit clichéd) was not nearly as stupid as in many similar games of the time. Though I admit, it did look awful nice too.

I think the reason the lower quality codec looked better is for the same reason older games tend to look better on older CRT televisions. A reduction in display resolution and quality can do a good job hiding technical flaws. Look at a 1950s horror flick with aliens, for example. On a low resolution screen, the strings holding up the UFOs simply disappear, but can stand out if the original film master is brought out and remastered in HD. Similarly, the low polygon count of 3D games released throughout the '90s is a lot more obvious when you play these games in emulators which can render them at high resolutions, and on crystal clear LCD screens, compared to older 480i televisions. Better technology can certainly bring out the flaws in anything.

Of course, now you've really piqued my interest; I didn't know that higher quality video masters from Shockwave ever existed, and there's a small part of me that is beyond curious to see them. :/

P.S. Thanks

 

[ewhac]

Plus it had Plumbers Don't Wear Ties, which I've been wanting to play since AVGN reviewed it.

You must be a huge Mystery Science Theater 3000 fan, or an enormous masochist (or both). Please stay away from my neighborhood.

And even with the similarities I would never imply the Sony executives took all the upper managment of the 3DO team and cut their heads off, absorbing their knowledge and power and integrating it with their own in some weird synergy quickening.

I wouldn't imply it, but damn it's fun to think of.

I, too, find it damned fun to think of 3DO management having their heads cut off, but probably not for the same reasons as you .

 

[ewhac]

Oh, and can I get some love for Nicky Robinson [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicky_Robinson_%28game_programmer%29]'s Army Men?

 

[Susan Arendt]

Alone in the Dark for 3DO was an uncontrollable mess, by the way. Just putting that out there.

 

[frans909]

Alone in the Dark for 3DO was an uncontrollable mess, by the way. Just putting that out there.

Is that where Uwe Boll got the idea from?

 

[ewhac]

Alone in the Dark for 3DO was an uncontrollable mess, by the way.

Thankfully I had nothing to do with that.

 

[redeyecoyote]

You forgot to mention live-action-hot Stephanie Seymour in Hell: A Cyberpunk Hop-venture.

When is I was a lad in grade school my local Software Etc. had a PC set up showing off how crazy-hot games played on a Pentium machine could be. The two demo videos that most caught my eye were Crusader: No Remorse and The Daedalus Encounter. My da' said he'd buy me one. I went with Crusader. I made very much the right choice.

In that same store there was a cashier who tried to sell me on a 3DO over a PSOne (what we called a Playstation back in 1995). I chose to wait for Nintendo 64. Between the three, the silver medal.

My favourite mistake remains the Virtual Boy.

Because it was my only mistake.

 

[aldowyn]

You call it your favorite mistake, hmm? That begs the question of whether it actually was a mistake - even something that seems obviously not worth it, could, if you enjoyed it, actually be worth it.

I personally don't know anything about the 3DO (I've heard of it, but that's it), being younger than many of the people here, but I can see the appeal and know the feeling - albeit on a smaller scale.