B.C. Racers

In 1995 Core Design (who hadn't yet discovered Tomb Raider) hit us with this Mario Kart clone combining kart racing with their Chuck Rock franchise. It was released DOS-based PCs, the 3DO, the Sega Mega CD and the Sega 32X, and as three of the four aforementioned systems bombed in the marketplace, it might have seen a bit more success if it had waited a year for the PS1 and Saturn. But that's what you get for taking risks I suppose.

Darxide

Just when you think it's gone away, it comes back to make us suffer some more. Yes it's another Sega 32X game - Darxide. This one's notable for being the only Europe-only release (aside from FIFA Soccer '96... which didn't have any region protection) for the console. It was a much hyped 3D shoot-'em-up, one of the first of its kind and supposedly won several awards.

Why I can't say.

Hurt me plenty

Saxman of ProSonic fame is writing a program that'll let you transfer WADs to and from the Sega 32X port of id's legendary FPS, Doom. It's still at a preliminary stage but as a proof of concept release here's Doom II's first level running on Sega's craptacular add-on:

Can't get that on Nintendo... yet. The textures aren't all there and things like the music are still relying on the original game, but it does pave the way for 32X ports of Final Doom and of course, Chex Quest. And what better way to spread Christmas cheer than pixelation and horrible music conversions.

X-Men 32X

The MegaDrive emulator Kega Fusion has been updated to version 3.63. Though Kega has been out-performing the competition since Christmas 2008, it's now doing so with significantly less memory consumption, and as there's been a lot of work in the 32X department...

X-Men 32X will run! Sega Saturno released this one a month or two ago after some donations, however no emulator could run it so we were reduced to a few off-screen YouTube videos, which wasn't really sufficient for an unreleased and potentially groundbreaking game.

Secret Doom Castle

I've been watching episodes of AVGN recently. Why? I'm... not sure. I suppose good home-made video reviews aren't released in healthy numbers, and certainly not that many are released that cover things such as the 1972 Magnavox Odessy. That system is just crazy.

Two things I thought I'd pick up on that I somewhat disagree with though

First, Milon's Secret Castle

A 1986 platformer game by Hudson Soft. Hudson liked it enough to give it a couple of SNES sequels that have nothing to do with a secret castle (and are henceforth better), plus a few cameos in other Hudson games (though seeing as the western world only got to see Milon in this form... it makes you wonder why). It's one of those NES games that hasn't aged well, but... it was released in 1986, which was still fairly early on in the NES's lifespan. It's aged better than things like Ice Climbers and Urban Champion.

People say it's a lot like Super Mario Bros. due to its colour scheme and looks but honestly I think it fits the role of a Metroid clone a bit better. You go back and forth looking for powerups to get... to the top I assume. The problem with MSC is that its learning curve is non-existant. You start off confused and you finish confused. That's probably the main reason it never caught on, but once you get the hang of it it's not too bad I suppose. It has a lot of nice ideas, they're just not executed properly.

Well, until you realise that the engine sucks.

Milon's acceleration is terrible and he(?) has no deceleration at all. Basically, it takes a few seconds to get up to full speed while walking, and as soon as you take your thumb off the D-Pad you'll instantly stop, no slowing down needed. And seeing as Milon's top speed isn't very fast, well... yeah. You'd have to play it to understand fully. Also the camera seems to have more fun following the large chunk of pixels behind Milon than following Milon. A slow game with a bad camera... ouch. Good job there's not masses of scrolling.

Furthermore everything's out to kill you, and with only one life... you're pretty much screwed unless you can play a perfect game somehow. Sure you have health but you don't start up with a full supply (did Hudson decide to break Milon's arms before he starts or something?). You shoot bubbles though they have limited range and don't fire in straight lines, and basically you've got to hit everything in hopes of finding a door or a key.

Now this process wouldn't be so bad if you weren't doomed to failure by the god-awful engine and hoards of enemies. Every now and then you fight a boss, and then you progress up the castle. Oh and also the music sucks. Lets not forget about that.

But it's not as terrible as people say. Fix up the engine and there's a passable game to be had here. But of course the ROM hacking community is a strange beast - it'll quite happily mess around with games that are already great, e.g. Super Mario Bros. but it won't fix the stuff that's been broken for 20 years. The icing on that cake is that apparently this game has a cult following (which is understandable since people do like those "search for x to unlock y" sorts of games.

Thing is, it's old and outdated now. Not so much in 1986. And lord knows there were much worse games on the market then. At least this shows some effort. But then again it never got to Europe so even Hudson didn't believe in it that much. If it had been released in, say, 1992, it may have been the NES's swan song, assuming Hudson learned from Super Mario Bros. 3.

Second, Doom on the 32X

People knock this one quite a bit and don't understand why.

When Doom was released in 1993 it was probably the most advanced PC game of the time. Some things to note about that sentence - 1993, a good three years after the release of the Super Nintendo and a good half decade after the MegaDrive, the two leading home consoles at the time. The 32-bit generation was coming up and both consoles were starting to show their age a bit. PCs are constantly improving and by this stage they were once again more powerful than the home consoles, so any port of Doom would have been gimped. In fact, with a 32X port in 1994 and a Super Nintendo port in 1995, these consoles were due to be replaced within a matter of months.

Arguably the Super Nintendo version is a better port but it's not without its issues. For one, the walls and floors have no textures. It's got all the enemies of the PC original but everything is a lot more pixellated (though I do prefer the HUD). And though yes, it's music is closer to the PC original... it's still far off. If you're a Doom fan, you probably wouldn't want to play either port.

Issues with the 32X port include the borders and the low quality sound... both space saving measures. Yes sadly even a 32X cartridge had problems storing this game fully. I assume any graphical problems on the SNES were down the limits of the Super FX2 chip. I mean you can only take these things so far. On the other side of things, the Atari Jaguar port, often labeled as the best official home console "port" lacks the soundtrack altogether! It seems to be a case where better graphics = worse sound and vice versa. So all three versions are probably on par with each other. The deciding factor is obvious though - the Jaguar died almost instantly and the 32X was awful. But if you were unlucky enough to buy a 32X instead of a SNES, you've still got a decent Doom.

And lets not forget, the Saturn and Playstation ports that followed dropped Bobby Prince's soundtrack in favour of ambient garbage and lighting effects, and Doom 64 is just... wrong (though it's not a terrible game). The really good ports of Doom are the fan-created ones. There's even one on the ZX Spectrum of all things.

Point is though, Doom 32X is not bad. Sure the SNES version probably has an edge but at the time it was still worth paying for. The 32X console on the other hand... probably not.

Random Review - Chaotix

Regular PC will be back up and running by the weekend, but I've not got much else to do in between times. So hey lets blog about some random game for some reason because I haven't got a review site to do it on instead.

Knuckles Chaotix. There's loads of people against ROMs and as such they never get to play this, or if they do they end up wasting loads of cash on a 32X that isn't guaranteed to work and doesn't really offer anything else of value that hasn't been ported onto better consoles. Don't get it. Okay, get it, but not on a real 32X. Sure you miss out on the joys of a MegaDrive controller, but it's barely playable anyway.

So what's wrong with it? Loads. Chaotix started it's life as Sonic Crackers, a MegaDrive proto that's been surfing the net for years. The concept was that Sonic and Tails would be joined together at all times, having to use each other to progress. Crackers is glitch city but has surprisingly great music. Chaotix was built off Crackers, and Sonic became Mighty yada yada yada details. Sega did the stupid move of making the 32X, a system that boasted the same amount of colours as a SNES and could be fitted on top of a MegaDrive to play 32X games. Sega had already done this with the Mega CD though, so customers were already getting confused. There's even 5 Mega CD 32x games that need both to work. Chaotix became a 32X game, and possibly the only decent original game on the platform.

But enough about the history. Chaotix clearly tries to use as much of the 32X's new features as possible. Particle effects, re-sizing, colours etc. It looks great, although looks like an ordinary MegaDrive game at times. Gameplay is a fixed Crackers, but unfortunately it still uses the whole partner system. Yes you get a lot of characters to choose from and they're all different, but it still feels broken. You're always flying about and the computer player always holds you back in some way and you're left with the impression "Why didn't they just make a true sequel to Sonic 3 & Knuckles?".

The levels are huge, but they're all the same. There's really only 5 levels, each getting a palette change once they're randomly selected. Levels are huge due to the flying about, but huge is a bit boring. It's just basic running and jumping. The switches in the first screenshot only appear in the introductory level. The rest you can complete in seconds with Charmy Bee as he carries the other guy with him and renders the other characters useless. Mighty and Espio are already inferior to Knuckles and Vector, and Heavy and Bomb are useless.

The music's also WORSE than that of Sonic Crackers. The 32X didn't improve on the sound much either so there's no excuse for this.

Possibly the most disappointing part? The special stages. The 32X's 3D capabilities, much like the SNES's aren't too great, but like all Sonic games, the special stages house the most advanced features. The result, a hexagonal tube of hatred. Jumping about with a lack of draw distance, this is probably THE worst special stage in a Sonic game, except for Sonic 3D Blast on the MegaDrive and the Advance series. Better if they'd waited a year or two for the Saturn to roll along so that they could do this properly.

Don't get me wrong though, Chaotix is far from being the worst Sonic game ever. Despite the control system being stupid and it really just being there to market the 32X's abilities it's a solid game and is the last "classic" 2D Sonic platformer. You can see what they're trying to do but it just isn't done.

The conclusion: Don't get this on the 32X. It should have been a Saturn game (Because lets face it, THAT's the console that needed Sonic and friends), it should have dropped the partner system (Which strangely it does as a "punishment" for if you run out of rings and get hit), and it should have been included in Sonic Gems Collection. You may not see this one again, so get the ROM and enjoy. Sure that's illegal, but hey, surely all those purchases to play the cart off your TV must be a crime too. The fans want it on the Wii's Virtual Console, but lets face it, Sega are clearly masking the 32X or else it would have been included in Mega/Gems Collection (and there's half a dozen Sonics to come first). There's also a hack that replaces Mighty with Sonic, if you care.


On another note, Mario Galaxy only gets released 4 days earlier in America than here. Thank god it's not months.