Sonic 3D Blast: Any fans?

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Originally Posted by Blades

Yessir, a Mr. Senoue composed most of the music for the game. He later became head director of sound for Sonic Adventure. Hence, some tunes got reused. Quality stuff. Nothing against Richard Jacques however, as both have their own unique style. I'm a fan of both. I however think Jacques's music fit with the Saturn presentation better than Senoue and the Genesis one. Although that's venturing into territory of opinion.

How is that Sonic Adventure port? I'm debating purchasing it for PSN.

And Baloo, that's probably because of the sheer obnoxiousness of the circus from hell that comes after Rusty Ruin. It's an attack on all the senses.

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That's interesting, didn't Jacques do the UK soundtrack for Shinobi X, or am I thinking of someone else?

Based on the first level of Sonic Adventure on 360 I thought it was a straight port of the Dreamcast game. Based on what I have seen of Mystic Ruins, and the character models, I think it's a straight port of the Gamecube re-release. On the 360 version you have to purchase the DX extras (Metal Sonic and, um stuff) for 400 more ponts (total of 1200 then or $15).

The framerate is more consistent than the Gamecube game from what I have seen so far. I'll have to see the later levels to be sure. The graphics are nice either way, but locked at 4:3.

I tried some of the spindash shortcuts in the first action stage as Sonic and couldn't pull a single one of them off. In the Dreamcast game I can still jump from the beach to the bridge, and launch up the mountain and land on a pin size platform at the top without the aid of the camera showing me where its at. So far I have no such luck on this port, but I think they "fixed" that stuff in the Gamecube version didn't they?

The Gamecube, Dual Shock, Xbox, and 360 analog sticks aren't sensitive enough to really have the fine control we had over Sonic on the Dreamcast. That was something I knew going into the purchase though. I'll probably play through it this week, and end up comparing some levels to the Dreamcast game.

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I just compared the 360, Gamecube and Dreamcast versions. I could swear that the 360 game is a hybrid of the previous two games, it is like they picked the best textures from each and went with an uncompressed version. Plus the framerate is a rock solid 60FPS from what I've seen so far. I am very pleased with the way the 360 game turned out, even with the 4:3 limitation. Actually, I bet it would stretch to wide screen on my set if I set the 360 to 480p, just like BC Xbox games do. I'm not as distracted by the bars as I thought I would be though.

One thing I can say for sure is that I would have paid $10 just to see the snowboarding scene and Ice Cap the way I just got to play it, perfection. I can't wait for Speed Highway and Sky Deck!

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Originally Posted by 5233

Kitty, my friend, I mentioned already that the PC version is the only version with a save feature. I own the Expert Software version, if that means anything, and it auto-saves each time to reach the next stage/act. It also saves your emeralds, and that is why I have been attempting to complete the game at this time on the PC version. When you log out and come back to the title screen, it offers a 'CONTINUE' option to pick up where you left off.

There's also an options menu that you can access by pressing M+ESC, which sets stuff like graphical details as well as letting you exit to windows, load a seperate save file, or restart the game.

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Ah, OK, at least they did that then... no saves on the PC would really not make sense given the memory (HDD) resources available.
BUG! also had saves on the PC, right? I distinctly remember it having saves, though I forget if Garfield did or not. (I do remember that we didn't get music in any of our Sega PC games at the time as our CD drive didn't have the analog mixer connected for CD-DA decoded by the CD drive itself -any games using WAV or such were fine though -S&K used MIDI so it did have music)
I also remember BUG worked WAY better in Glide (or I think it was Rage actually) than the software renderer... Maybe it was a re-release as I've heard the original only supported software rendering via DirectX. (maybe NV-1 support)

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Originally Posted by A Black Falcon

Sonic 3D Blast is pretty good. I didn't know what to expect when I played it on the Genesis a few years ago because of all the bad press the game gets, but I definitely liked it. It is slow paced, and the game badly needed a save system -- in 1996, not having it in a game like that is absolutely unacceptable (Bug! on the Saturn is even worse, that game is even longer and harder, is also slow paced, and also has no saving... quite good game, but stupidly annoying because of that one awful design flaw.). At least with the Genesis version it's easy to leave the system running for a few days until you beat it, I think that's what I did while playing through the game.

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I'm almost positive BUG! had saving on the PC. I definitely remember continuing in that game with saves.

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It's too bad the PC version doesn't work in Vista, at least on my machine; it'd be cool to play a version of the game with saving. I've played a bit of the PC version on my older machine, and it seems fun. Better graphics than on the Genesis, but identical gameplay, so both versions are good. I'm not sure if I want the Saturn version, maybe if I run across it for cheap... but yeah, I do like the game. It's fun, provides a challenge, and, in something important for an isometric game, isn't completely evil in level designs. No bottomless pits over hard, precise jumps here, thankfully... there are some tough jumping parts, but never over instant-death pits, probably because the designers knew how hard jumping like that is in an isometric game, and designed it well around that. It could easily have been a much more frustrating game. Instead it's fun, with good graphics, good music, and fun gameplay with plenty of puzzles and exploration. The Genesis version bonus stages are also great, they're really cool looking and pretty impressive for the system.

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Hmm vista 32 or 64? You could look for patches to possibly fix that... though I've found that some patches for XP won't install in vista (though the patches still WORK for vista, but you can't install them natively -ie if you copy the installation file from a patched XP install, it should work -at least that's what happened with Sonic CD)

One other problem that's not at all OS related and common to many Sega PC games (especially early ones other than Sonic CD), is that they HATE computers with multiple CD/DVD drives (or virtual drives)... We had a lot of problems getting BUG! and Garfield to work in the late 90s because of that.
It turns out that you have to install the game to both the first and last drive in the system for it to work. (ie if you have CD/DVD/virtual drives D through G, you install to both D and G) I'm not sure what would happen if you had the main DVD/CD drive under A or B ("normally" floppy drives) but a lot of newer computers seem to have CD/DVD drives in those slots by default (my laptop does) and that may cause additional problems. (I can't use discs with Fusion on my laptop because of that -I can use virtual CDs though as the virtual drives are in the "normal" range for optical drives -ie D,E,F, etc)

I have no problem playing Sonic & Knuckles collection on my vista-32 latptop other than the too fast windowed mode. (actually only the Demo installed, and it was already installed when I migrated the files from my old XP machine, so that may be a factor too)

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Originally Posted by Devil N

Sure, it's obvious why the game would be called "Sonic", it's bound to get lots of attention and sell truckloads. But that's not really the point.

Say that for instance, Rocket Knight Adventures would instead have been Sonic with a sword and a rocket pack. Same game, just a different title character. Would it have sold more copies? Most likely, yes. Would it have been as loved and looked back upon with nostalgia as RKA is right now? Probably not.

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That's a hindsight thing though... the better question is: would the game have been more well liked AT THE TIME if it didn't have the sonic name, and I mean well liked in the masses, not just the smaller market it catered to.

You could argue the same thing about applying Mario to Super Mario RPG... that feels nothing like a "Mario" game in the sense of the 2d platformers. :p It's certainly a good game in its own right though and worked well with the theme/style.
Likewise the art style and theme worked well for 3D blast, albeit I wouldn't put it in the same category as SMRPG in terms of production quality obviously, but the context is still similar.

As for RKA and Sonic being applied there: it might have worked but who knows? (though the style might have changed if they directly made it Sonic related)

As it is, they did an excellent job making a Sonic themed sidescrolling adventure game with Tails' Adventure which is obviously slower paced than the main games.

If you have a good game and good style it shouldn't be hurt by making the main character tie in from older games... Look at Star Fox Adventures: it's still a great adventure game in its own right, gets some flak for not fitting with the SF universe, but also a lot of fans and a generally good game: in fact, the only problems really came, not from the tie-in character (vs the N64 original), but some of the other related tacked-on stuff that felt rushed or poorly executed or missing content. (they flying stages looked good but were a bit bland and redundant after a while and Rare could have done better if more focus had been on that -they really could have simply cut more of them out and made a few better ones or cut it out almost entirely -the final boss was possibly the best case; and then there was the removal of the whole dual character mechanic of Krystal and Sabre of the N64 game that seems like it could have been more fun in several ways -especially how in the GC game you spend the whole introductory section of the game as Krystal and then never play as her again...)

I haven't played the Genesis version since the 90's, but I did own the Saturn version for a couple years since then. Pretty good game; looked quite polished and nice. Very colorful; mostly good music w/ a few very good songs... (Especially the Ruins stages iirc)

I love the Special Stages of the Saturn version more than anything else in the game. They're like the Sonic 2 Special Stages splashed in color. I REALLY wish the Saturn game had a Level Select so I could just play the Special Stages!!! I ended up getting rid of the game; I couldn't play thru the whole game (and explore to find every character) just for the Special Stages...

I always liked 3D Blast. It's best when played in short spirts, which is why the level select code comes in handy. I still think they should have just made a 2.5D sidescroller like DKC, though.

Sonic 3D blast is indeed a game game, personally I prefer the Saturn version w/ the 3D controller

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Originally Posted by Blades

And Baloo, that's probably because of the sheer obnoxiousness of the circus from hell that comes after Rusty Ruin. It's an attack on all the senses.

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Ah yes, Spring Stadium Zone. Everything about that zone annoys the heck out of me.





Diamond Dust Zone is always so pleasant to come to after this garish and tedious experience.

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Originally Posted by kool kitty89

Ah, OK, at least they did that then... no saves on the PC would really not make sense given the memory (HDD) resources available.
BUG! also had saves on the PC, right? I distinctly remember it having saves, though I forget if Garfield did or not. (I do remember that we didn't get music in any of our Sega PC games at the time as our CD drive didn't have the analog mixer connected for CD-DA decoded by the CD drive itself -any games using WAV or such were fine though -S&K used MIDI so it did have music)
I also remember BUG worked WAY better in Glide (or I think it was Rage actually) than the software renderer... Maybe it was a re-release as I've heard the original only supported software rendering via DirectX. (maybe NV-1 support)

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Bug, 3DFX support? I don't think it had that, and I don't remember there being a patch... Bug was released before the 3DFX Voodoo1, so it couldn't have shipped with 3DFX support.

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I'm almost positive BUG! had saving on the PC. I definitely remember continuing in that game with saves.

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The PC port, yes. The original 1995 Saturn version, however, did not. They obviously did realize their mistake, because Bug! for the PC and Bug Too! for the Saturn (that one was Saturn exclusive) both do have saving, but yeah, no saving in Saturn Bug!. There is a level-skip cheatcode, which is the only reason teh game is playable at all really, with how long and difficult the levels are.

I like the game, but yeah, it's crazy to not have saving in such a lengthy and challenging game... of course it is a pretty evil game all around, what with how when you die in a level you will always either go back to the beginning or the midpoint, but still. Bug for Saturn is annoying. Of course the PC version has issues as do almost all Sega PC ports, but I think it runs on my computer, windowed at least... not sure about fullscreen.

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Hmm vista 32 or 64? You could look for patches to possibly fix that... though I've found that some patches for XP won't install in vista (though the patches still WORK for vista, but you can't install them natively -ie if you copy the installation file from a patched XP install, it should work -at least that's what happened with Sonic CD)

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Vista 32. I described all that stuff in the 'Sega PC' stuff though.

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One other problem that's not at all OS related and common to many Sega PC games (especially early ones other than Sonic CD), is that they HATE computers with multiple CD/DVD drives (or virtual drives)... We had a lot of problems getting BUG! and Garfield to work in the late 90s because of that.
It turns out that you have to install the game to both the first and last drive in the system for it to work. (ie if you have CD/DVD/virtual drives D through G, you install to both D and G) I'm not sure what would happen if you had the main DVD/CD drive under A or B ("normally" floppy drives) but a lot of newer computers seem to have CD/DVD drives in those slots by default (my laptop does) and that may cause additional problems. (I can't use discs with Fusion on my laptop because of that -I can use virtual CDs though as the virtual drives are in the "normal" range for optical drives -ie D,E,F, etc)

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Huh? Never heard of any of this... I've never had to install a game to more than one place to get it working...

As for A though that wouldn't be a problem for me of course, considering that my computer has a floppy drive. My DVD drives are G (the real one) and J (virtual one).

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I have no problem playing Sonic & Knuckles collection on my vista-32 latptop other than the too fast windowed mode. (actually only the Demo installed, and it was already installed when I migrated the files from my old XP machine, so that may be a factor too)

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As I said in that other thread, S&K Collection won't allow me to go into fullscreen on my Vista computer. The option doesn't even appear.

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That's a hindsight thing though... the better question is: would the game have been more well liked AT THE TIME if it didn't have the sonic name, and I mean well liked in the masses, not just the smaller market it catered to.

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I don't know, considering that it was a 1996 Genesis game, it probably needed a license to get noticed... a lot of people had moved on from the Genesis by that point.

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If you have a good game and good style it shouldn't be hurt by making the main character tie in from older games... Look at Star Fox Adventures: it's still a great adventure game in its own right, gets some flak for not fitting with the SF universe, but also a lot of fans and a generally good game: in fact, the only problems really came, not from the tie-in character (vs the N64 original), but some of the other related tacked-on stuff that felt rushed or poorly executed or missing content. (they flying stages looked good but were a bit bland and redundant after a while and Rare could have done better if more focus had been on that -they really could have simply cut more of them out and made a few better ones or cut it out almost entirely -the final boss was possibly the best case; and then there was the removal of the whole dual character mechanic of Krystal and Sabre of the N64 game that seems like it could have been more fun in several ways -especially how in the GC game you spend the whole introductory section of the game as Krystal and then never play as her again...)

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Star Fox Adventures is a bad game, period. Or at best, one of the most boring, thoroughly mediocre games I have ever played. It's got boring gameplay, boring level designs, a terrible story, bad combat (numbingly dull!), simplistic puzzles, ridiculously easy Arwing levels, bad voice acting, and more... and I don't like the completely linear collection quest game structure either, at least in games like their N64 3d platformers you had a lot of collecting to do, but often could go somewhere else and do something else if you wanted, or if you were stuck where you were. No luck here, you just follow the path from one krozoa shrine or whatever to the next, alternating between the two or three sets of stupid items you needed to collect...

And I LIKED Donkey Kong 64 and got every single golden bananna in that game, so I'm not just complaining that it had too much collecting!

I was looking forward to it as Dinosaur Planet, when it was for the N64, and I still think that that would have been a pretty good game, but shoehorning Star Fox into the game really ruined it. It ruined the story (it'd have actually made sense, instead of being ridiculous stupidity, as it is with the end product's bizarre mixing of Star Fox and Dinosaur Planet is...), the gameplay (Krystal was supposed to be playable throughout, along with the removed male hero), the ending (you don't even fight the final boss, andi nstead it's Andross again? Incredibly stupid!), and more... if only Rare hadn't had to make it Star Fox and then rushed it to get it out the door before they left Nintendo, maybe it'd have been good. We'll never know, but the end product certainly was not at all good. Bland, boring, average, and incredibly, INCREDIBLY disappointing as a game from one of the best developers of the previous generation, Rare, makers of many of the N64's best games.

I like Sonic 3D Blast. It differs from the main branch of the franchise by changing things up. But unlike Sonic Spinball, I feel it succeeds in making a game that's fun to play. Very nice graphics, good music, fun boss battles, plenty of levels and some painfully easy bonus rounds.

I thought Traveller's Tales did a good job with it.

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Originally Posted by A Black Falcon

Bug, 3DFX support? I don't think it had that, and I don't remember there being a patch... Bug was released before the 3DFX Voodoo1, so it couldn't have shipped with 3DFX support.

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Whatever it was, it supported hardware acceleration of some sort that ATi's Rage pro worked quite well with. Perhaps it was a re-release, but it wasn't a patch AFIK. Hmm, it seems the Windows game came out in August of 1996, so close to the time the Voodoo was released, but the original Rage card actually predates that (released in 1995), so maybe Rage was specifically supported. (the only other cards on the consumer market by '95 were NV1 and ViRGE based cards -most notably Diamond's Stealth 3D 2000 and Edge 3D cards)

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Huh? Never heard of any of this... I've never had to install a game to more than one place to get it working...

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We had to do that with 2 or maybe 3 Sega games and maybe one or 2 others that were funky on our PC at the time, at least in windows 95, or maybe we were running '98 by then... (BUG! and Garfield for sure)

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As I said in that other thread, S&K Collection won't allow me to go into fullscreen on my Vista computer. The option doesn't even appear.

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It should be F4 for full screen. (F5 toggles the menu bar, F7 changes controls, and F8 toggles joystick) At least that's how the options are set up for the Sonic 3&K demo running on my Vista32 machine. (windowed plays all wrong, but fullscreen is perfect)

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Star Fox Adventures is a bad game, period. Or at best, one of the most boring, thoroughly mediocre games I have ever played. It's got boring gameplay, boring level designs, a terrible story, bad combat (numbingly dull!), simplistic puzzles, ridiculously easy Arwing levels, bad voice acting, and more... and I don't like the completely linear collection quest game structure either, at least in games like their N64 3d platformers you had a lot of collecting to do, but often could go somewhere else and do something else if you wanted, or if you were stuck where you were. No luck here, you just follow the path from one krozoa shrine or whatever to the next, alternating between the two or three sets of stupid items you needed to collect...

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It didn't feel that way to me: I lived the dungeons (so to speak) and such, and especially some of the puzzles. Albeit the controls were sometimes annoying (the auto-centering staff aiming in particular) and a few other things... and the overworld does get a bit tedious after a while.

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I was looking forward to it as Dinosaur Planet, when it was for the N64, and I still think that that would have been a pretty good game, but shoehorning Star Fox into the game really ruined it. It ruined the story (it'd have actually made sense, instead of being ridiculous stupidity, as it is with the end product's bizarre mixing of Star Fox and Dinosaur Planet is...), the gameplay (Krystal was supposed to be playable throughout, along with the removed male hero), the ending (you don't even fight the final boss, andi nstead it's Andross again? Incredibly stupid!), and more... if only Rare hadn't had to make it Star Fox and then rushed it to get it out the door before they left Nintendo, maybe it'd have been good. We'll never know, but the end product certainly was not at all good. Bland, boring, average, and incredibly, INCREDIBLY disappointing as a game from one of the best developers of the previous generation, Rare, makers of many of the N64's best games.

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I agree about the missing features, but in general all they seemed to do was modify the story a little (it wasn't really that bad IMO... though some of the character designs felt... off), and overall it seems they simplified it a little but left most of the content in.

A more polished N64 game (even with the limitations) would have been preferred regardless, but had they gotten the GC conversion right, I don't see what would have been wrong there either.
They certainly could have made it work better with the Star Fox adaptation as well, especially if they just had a simpler tie-in without the tacked on railshooter stages among other things. (the story could have been tied together better as well to make more sense)
As it is, the biggest plot hole is tied (more or less) to the Krozoa spirits basically sabotaging you knowing full well about Andross. (albeit that's sort of indicative of a last minute plot change -IMO it could have made a good twist if handled better)

And one other gripe is that if you save at the final cutscene, you're locked out of the game entirely and you lose the added exploration replay value integral to similar adventure games. (you can't leave the area and are forced to do nothing but re-play the final boss battle)

Dinosaur planet in general was a different sort of adventure game than the action/adventure platformers on the N64... in some respects it's more like 3D Zelda games, but different and a lot simpler in some respects and with a greater emphasis on puzzles to some extent. (obviously not nearly as good of a game) Other 3D adventure games like the Tomb Raider series somewhat fits into that group as well, but the puzzles there are even simpler. (some FPSs with heavy emphasis on puzzles sort of fit into that category too -like the Metroid Prime series)
Definitely not totally in line with the Banjo games or Donkey Kong 64. (which I liken more to Glover for some reason)


Then again, I've enjoyed a number of games others haven't, including Star Fox Assault in its entirety (main complaint is control scheme flexibility, lack of wide screen mode, and lack of first person POV).
Then there's Rebel Strike (RS III) which I prefer to Rogue Squadron II by a fair margin and don't mind the on-foot sections at all, though they still hadn't solved some of the twitchy controls in open space environments that RSII suffered from. (the multiplayer was also a really nice addition and too long in coming IMO -RSII at least should have had competitive multiplayer)

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Originally Posted by Blades

Yeah, that's him. He's a great musician.

That's good to hear, although it's a shame they didn't make it 16:9. That would have made it a must-buy for me.

Koolkitty, I can't say I've seen that thread, but I'll take your word for it. I never liked the DX port however. The graphical changes+unstable framerate sort of killed the game for me. They took some of the artistic direction away in the DX version in my opinion with their subtle changes. It was neat, but the DC version is far superior. I have a feeling that I'll still like the DC version over the 360/PSN version.

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I'll always prefer the Dreamcast original Sonic Adventure, if anything no analog stick is as sensitive as the Dreamcast's and that really makes the game. Seeing Sonic Adventure at a solid 60FPS though, is worth it for $10, I just wish I could pull off spindash jumps and actually land where I'm aiming.

I have the Genesis version and I have not played the one on the Saturn. It's a okay game at best. Frankly it's not a game I would get rid of. But it could have sharper controls.

I managed to get ahold of the japanese Saturn version and do think it's true that it has slightly shorter load times than the US and EU versions when comparing the two. In fact, I prefer to play it over my US copy because of that. The only thing I've seen so far that's translated to japanese (aside from the packaging of course) is the help screen, and the japanese artwork is pretty stylish.

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Originally Posted by kool kitty89

Whatever it was, it supported hardware acceleration of some sort that ATi's Rage pro worked quite well with. Perhaps it was a re-release, but it wasn't a patch AFIK. Hmm, it seems the Windows game came out in August of 1996, so close to the time the Voodoo was released, but the original Rage card actually predates that (released in 1995), so maybe Rage was specifically supported. (the only other cards on the consumer market by '95 were NV1 and ViRGE based cards -most notably Diamond's Stealth 3D 2000 and Edge 3D cards)

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Oh, it could have had an ATI Rage mode. Games had to be specially coded for each different card at that time, of course, there were like five different formats...

[quote]We had to do that with 2 or maybe 3 Sega games and maybe one or 2 others that were funky on our PC at the time, at least in windows 95, or maybe we were running '98 by then... (BUG! and Garfield for sure)/quote]
How weird...

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It should be F4 for full screen. (F5 toggles the menu bar, F7 changes controls, and F8 toggles joystick) At least that's how the options are set up for the Sonic 3&K demo running on my Vista32 machine. (windowed plays all wrong, but fullscreen is perfect)

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That would work fine, if modern NVidia drivers allowed you to use 320x240 fullscreen mode. Unfortunately, they don't. I'd have to downgrade my graphics drivers to a version from quite a few years ago to get 320x240 mode to function, I think... that or switch modes to some special thing (rebooting each time both to switch to it and then back to normal), I forget. You definitely cannot run 320x240 fullscreen on any remotely recent NVidia drivers, however. It's extremely annoying. What kind of graphics card do you have in this computer of yours?

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It didn't feel that way to me: I lived the dungeons (so to speak) and such, and especially some of the puzzles. Albeit the controls were sometimes annoying (the auto-centering staff aiming in particular) and a few other things... and the overworld does get a bit tedious after a while.


I agree about the missing features, but in general all they seemed to do was modify the story a little (it wasn't really that bad IMO... though some of the character designs felt... off), and overall it seems they simplified it a little but left most of the content in.

A more polished N64 game (even with the limitations) would have been preferred regardless, but had they gotten the GC conversion right, I don't see what would have been wrong there either.

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Well at least we can agree on that.

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They certainly could have made it work better with the Star Fox adaptation as well, especially if they just had a simpler tie-in without the tacked on railshooter stages among other things. (the story could have been tied together better as well to make more sense)

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Krystal should have stayed as a playable character through the game. It wouldn't have fixed the game's many, many flaws, but it'd have been a start... I hate "rescue the princess" game plots, and she was supposed to be a playable character.

I'd have even more rather seen them fix the gameplay, but that'd be a bigger task, and about-to-leave-Nintendo Rare had no interest in doing THAT, obviously (as should be obvious considering how the game turned out). That one though would have been pretty simple.

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As it is, the biggest plot hole is tied (more or less) to the Krozoa spirits basically sabotaging you knowing full well about Andross. (albeit that's sort of indicative of a last minute plot change -IMO it could have made a good twist if handled better)

And one other gripe is that if you save at the final cutscene, you're locked out of the game entirely and you lose the added exploration replay value integral to similar adventure games. (you can't leave the area and are forced to do nothing but re-play the final boss battle)

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I was far too bored by the game to ever get anywhere remotely near the end, but that kind of thing is annoying.

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Dinosaur planet in general was a different sort of adventure game than the action/adventure platformers on the N64... in some respects it's more like 3D Zelda games, but different and a lot simpler in some respects and with a greater emphasis on puzzles to some extent. (obviously not nearly as good of a game) Other 3D adventure games like the Tomb Raider series somewhat fits into that group as well, but the puzzles there are even simpler. (some FPSs with heavy emphasis on puzzles sort of fit into that category too -like the Metroid Prime series)

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Yeah, and that was exactly the problem with the game -- it was too simplistic. It's sort of like Zelda, but without the puzzles that actually make you think. Sort of like Zelda, but without combat that's actually fun or challenging. Sort of like Zelda, but utterly linear, boring, and tedious. And with more collecting.

It was one of the most boringly average games I've ever seen, and coming from Rare that was an incredible, massive disappointment.

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Definitely not totally in line with the Banjo games or Donkey Kong 64. (which I liken more to Glover for some reason)

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So do you hate DK64 ( :( :(, it's one of my favorite 3d platformers ever), or are you one of the few who liked Glover, despite its excessive difficulty...

I didn't hate Glover, it's an okay game with some original ideas, but it sure does get pretty old dying over and over and over and over. And the graphics aren't very good either.

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Then again, I've enjoyed a number of games others haven't, including Star Fox Assault in its entirety (main complaint is control scheme flexibility, lack of wide screen mode, and lack of first person POV).
Then there's Rebel Strike (RS III) which I prefer to Rogue Squadron II by a fair margin and don't mind the on-foot sections at all, though they still hadn't solved some of the twitchy controls in open space environments that RSII suffered from. (the multiplayer was also a really nice addition and too long in coming IMO -RSII at least should have had competitive multiplayer)

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Star Fox Assault... those ground missions were awful.

Rebel Strike I do like, that was a very good game. I did like RSII more -- Rebel Strike's on-foot parts were boring and not all of the ground-based vehicles were as fun to play as as the flying ones -- but it was a good game for sure. The fact that they managed to get RSII running in 2 player splitscreen in its engine was incredibly impressive as well... it was kind of lame though that it was 2p only so you still have to have RS2 to play those levels in 1 player. Also the versus mode is near-worthless because it's two player only, without 3/4 player support it's not very interesting. Play Crimson Skies on Xbox instead. But the overall package of RS3 was pretty good, and I liked it a LOT more than I was expecting to considering how many terrible reviews it got. RS2 is the better game, but only by a small margin.

I really liked playing the Megadrive version but i need to get the Saturn version for its analogue controls, i just keep forgetting to buy it.

I prefer the Saturn version of Sonic 3D Blast simply due to better controls than on the Genesis version. In the Genesis version, I find myself fighting with the D-pad most of the time just to make Sonic move where I want him to go. No such thing on the Saturn version.

Although I've never tried it out with the Saturn analog controller since I only got mine back in August and my Saturn's been idle for some time.... *hooks up Saturn and pops in Sonic 3D Blast*