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I played this for 5 mins and was amazed on how badly they ported it over to the sega cd.
The music is great but wasn't the sega cd able to do scaling and rotating?
so why did does this feel exactly like afterburner II for the sega genesis, if not, worst?
hell, the 32x is SOOO MUCH BETTER.
After Burner III wasn't made by Sega. It was an outsourced title made by CRI first for the FM Towns/FM Towns Marty, and then ported (also by CRI) to the Sega CD. The Sega CD version is a decent port of the FM Towns game, with fewer colors but otherwise pretty much the same, but the problem is that it's just not that good a game in comparison to After Burner II the arcade game, or the great 32X port of that game. It is better than the Genesis scaler rail shooters at least, but still, yeah, it's disappointing for sure. After Burner III's not that great. The problem, though, isn't the Sega CD hardware -- yeah, the 32X was better, but the Sega CD can do much, much better than this, as some other scaler games on the system show. The problem is the game, in either its FM Towns or Sega CD incarnations.
Particularly when the Sega CD definitely could have done a lot better, had Sega itself ever actually tried. It's too bad that Sega of Japan never made a scaler game for the Sega CD (the Sonic CD bonus stages were as close as it got to them making one), for sure. If you want to see some better Sega CD rail shooter efforts, play SoulStar and Night Striker. I guess the vehicular levels in Batman Returns, or The Adventures of Batman & Robin, might also sort of count. It's games like those that make me kind of sad that the Sega CD never got any Sega scaler arcade game ports.
As for After Burner III, here's a video of the FM Towns original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbwSyiAVCeY
Oh, I would say ABIII is better than Genesis ABII, at least... the scaling's so much smoother. But it's worse than any of the other Sega CD rail shooters, or anything on the 32X for sure, and it's not a particularly great game itself.
I thought it was not that bad. I actually like it. It's no Afterburner 32X but I like it because it it different. I have After Burner Complete for the 32X, Afterburner II for the Genesis and Afterburner III for the Sega CD. The lack was hardware scaling was a little dissappointing expecially compared to the 32X version but the cockpit view provides a different experience than the other 2 games and I thought the ground graphics were really simple until I saw the original FM Marty version which had scrolling dots!!!
Afterburner III is by no means a perfect game but with Afterburner I, II together with Tomcat Alley, I'm able to get my "Need For Speed" fix! Each one offers something a little different for one of may all time favorite fighters, the F-14!
Time to go watch Top Gun again! ;)
The music is good, but the trumpets or whatever brass instruments they chose to replace the original orchestra hits sound awful. Brass wind instruments have no place in a rockin' After Burner soundtrack. The bonus round music could be played at a rave, though.
Isn't this just G-Loc really?
It's Strike fighter, an arcade game made by CRI.
This is probably the most disappointing game in my Sega CD library. I disliked the remixed music, the graphics were barely a step up from the Genesis version of After Burner II (and the scaling was worse in a number of ways), the sound effects were bad, and it was just so... bland. It made use of virtually nothing the Sega CD had to offer, and frankly, should have never been released.
A serious let down, and a prime example of wasted potential.
I absolutely love the music, probably only reason I play the game. And unlike joe I love that brass
I demand that you change your opinion immediately!
Round 1
FIGHT!
It was made by SEGA . It's comes to something when Prope's port of G-Lock on the MD looks far better than the G-Lock spin off (Strike Fighter/AB III) on the Mega CD ,even After Burner II looks and runs better on the Mega CD. This game should have been a early showcase of the systems scaling and rotation effects, in the end the best thing about the game was the nice digitised pictures form the the Arcade game.Quote:
Originally Posted by youloute
What a waste
Isn't that the story of the SCD period though?Quote:
Originally Posted by The Coop
Sort of, but not to the same extent as AB III.Quote:
Originally Posted by Da_Shocker
Though some companies used the Sega CD for little more than carts with CD music (Ecco the Dolphin, Wolfchild, etc.) and FMV (Sewer Shark, Microcosm, etc.), others put the add-on to good use. With games like Lunar, Soul Star, Batman Returns, Final Fight, Beyond the Limit, Robo Aleste, Jaguar XJ220... there were a decent number of games that did indeed use the add-on's hardware features (whether it was the scaling, using the copious amounts of space on the disc, or what have you). The games doing this were fewer in number than they should have been to be sure, but it's not like the add-on was fully utilized by just one or two games.
In my opinion of course.
The landscapes look like Shit.
As soon as I saw that, I turned the game off.
Spot on post and so very well put. The few games that really used the Mega CD just showed what potential it had,even simply improved versions of Chuck Rock and Puggsy showed what a difference using the Sound chip and the extra of the effects of the Mega CD could do over it's cart based versionQuote:
Originally Posted by The Coop
I agree. I was very disappointed with AB 3. I find 2 better in pretty much every way. They do both have great music.
They should have just called it G-Loc 2 instead.
Can anyone explain what the fuck were they thinking?
What Sega was thinking was that After Burner was a hot arcade property of theirs and they could cash-in quick and have a quick and easy early release for Sega-CD by having CRI port and rename their Strike Fighter game.Quote:
Originally Posted by Curryman123
Maybe they expected great things from CRI and the team wasn't up to it. We may never know for sure.
StrikeFighter was made by SEGA inthe Arcades, not CRI . CRI just did the home porting duties for SEGA like they did for a Couple of Mega Titles and even the likes of Virtua ON, Touring Car on the SaturnQuote:
Originally Posted by Zz Badnusty
ah ha! thanks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Team Andromeda
No problem , and the Arcade game was pretty shit too imo. Really boring just like G-Loc, great graphics for the time though
It's kinda funny, Thunderstrike is better than Air Rescue on System 32 also.
1993 isn't really good for an "early" showcase either . . . they should have had such a showcase by late 1992 at the very least.Quote:
Originally Posted by Team Andromeda
Given the general quality of the games, they probably shouldn't have bothered with G-Loc, let alone Strike Fighter, and instead should have just ported an enhanced AB II to the CD like the later did to the 32x and Saturn (except it would be much more relevant than the later 32x/Saturn releases). Then followed that up with other good entries in their scaling arcade games. (along with console ports, select PC/Amiga/etc ports, and a few totally unique/exclusive titles)
We've covered this before though, the CD just lacked support in general from SoJ and their western branches didn't seem to push for arcade stuff to compensate for that. (they at least tried pretty hard for their own things, but it certainly could have been more balanced -and the arcade ports shouldn't have cost very much to produce as you've argued -advertising is another matter, though they really could have aimed at a more balanced/versatile campaign in that regard as well)
They lacked enough of everything. Having simple ports wasn't the problem, it was having too few of such ports and not enough other stuff to complement it overall, especially a (remarkably odd) lack of software emphasis from the Japanese end compared to pretty much every other Sega platform.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Coop
Having many moderately (or even minimally) upgraded Genesis ports/multiplatform releases could have been great if marketed properly: namely emphasizing the lower cost of CD games allowing the system to pay for itself. (and having all the popular cart games at equal or better quality, but significantly lower prices would be a major promotion in that respect) Compilations could be part of that as well.
There were a other missed possibilities like combo cart+CD games with playable content on the plain Genesis and expansion via companion CD for CD owners (giving further incentive to buy the CD). Another would have been demo discs as advertising, something not practical with costly carts, but reasonable with cheap CDs. (and something several computer game publishers had been doing with floppy disks for quite a while as demos or shareware) Likewise, having flexible pack-in options were much more realistic for CDs than carts. (and they took advantage of that to a fair extent, but with an odd mix of games at times -not making Sonic CD a pack-in standard in late 1993 was a mistake)
There's also some technical design changes that may have made more sense, but aside from designing the CD differently, the biggest missed opportunity on that end would probably be a low-cost Duo-type system that cost significantly less than the combined MD+CD price while also being a sleek compact/convenient/attractive form factor. Neither the Wondermega/X'Eye nor the Multimega/CD-X fit the bill in that regard. (a $300 MCD around the time the model 2 was released would have been great, possibly down to $200 by late 1994 -especially given the Genesis price drop to $99 and CD to $150)
The game came out in 1992 in Japan for the Mega CD .Quote:
1993 isn't really good for an "early" showcase either . . . they should have had such a showcase by late 1992 at the very least
Ah, OK, thanks. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Team Andromeda
Still, even if it had been a launch title in Japan, it wouldn't have been particularly good . . . even a non-graphically-enhanced port of Genesis ABII with added PCM SFX/CD-DA would have made for a better game. (let alone a conversion adding more animation, using hardware scaling, and including the missing parts from the arcade game -landing sequences, etc)
AB II in the Arcades was a better game than G-Lock, but G-Loc was a great demo of the newer board . AB III should have a great and 'early' showcase for the Mega CD sprite and rotation effects and sadly it wasn'tQuote:
even a non-graphically-enhanced port of Genesis ABII with added PCM SFX/CD-DA would have made for a better game
I tried this today on Gens, and it's below average.
The landscapes (as stated before) look awful, and some details make no sense (gray boxes? Green marvel tiles?).
Also, I hate being stuck with the "inside the jet" perspective, because you can't see what's happening around you, and it's hard to aim sometimes.
The music didn't do much for me either. blah game!
Yeah, but it's not even a port of G-Loc, but the sequel Strike Fighter. (which is arguably worse than G-Loc overall)Quote:
Originally Posted by Team Andromeda
As a kid, I enjoyed this game when it was new.
I've hardy ever saw Strike Fighter in the Arcades, and looking over how both games in my view with pretty poor They were great demo's of the Sprite scaling and rotation. Of course there was no hope of the Mega CD game looking anywhere near as good, but this should have been the 1st real showcase game for the Mega CD sprite and rotation effects (and in many ways that would have been good enough) The fact that it didn't use the Mega CD GFX hardware at all and what we saw was nothing the Mega Drive couldn't handle was a bitter disappointment. I remember very well at the time, a lot of the UK Mag's and Importers hyping this game as the game that would show off what the the Mega CD scaling could do, only for the final game to look worse than AB II on a standard 4Mb cart , its was a total letdown and frankly an embarrassment.Quote:
Originally Posted by kool kitty89
It did make people even question was there any extra GFX Hardware inside the Mega CD.
The Y board doesn't even cater all that well to the Sega CD's advantages though . . . many scaled/zoomed sprites with no rotation (only full-screen rotation on one of the sprite layers), things the Sega CD would choke at simulating directly (low color, low framerate and/or small screen size). Albeit, more heavily modified adaptations could cater better to the ASIC's avbilities (like cutting back on the full-screen rotation effects to cater more to rendering animation to individual sprite tiles, use of textured flat ground/walls -especially with tile mirroring- in place of many cases where large numbers of composited sprites were used -especially caves/tunnels, etc, etc).Quote:
Originally Posted by Team Andromeda
And as far as the Y board in general, Galaxy Force or Galaxy Force II would have been much better examples to push. (Space Harrier, After Burner, and Out Run -and sequels certainly should have been in the lineup as well in any case -and easier to optimize for the CD than many Y board games)
Thunderblade would be another good example to promote the system. (especially in contrast to Super Thunderblade)
Pushing for ports of Japanese computer games (especially X68k and FM Towns -the latter in particular due to being CD based and using very similar sound hardware to the MCD) would have been a good plan on SoJ's part as well. (be it pushing for licenses which Sega could publish themselves, or actively attempting to attract 3rd parties publishing on those computers to publish for the MCD)
Ports of any of the Scalier Coin Ups don't cater well to either the Mega Drive or Mega CD , given the huge gulf in spec's and display. The point you seem to keep on missing is this should have been a showcase for the Mega CD sprite scaling and rotation effects (number of sprites would be cut down and happened in most 16 bit ports of Coin ups anyway) If running in a window like that of Batman/Cliffhanger we should at least got scaling on the sprites/bitmaps and nice bit of rotation on the main sprites when in the outside view . It would have mattered if they were horribly cut down from the Coin up, it would have at least been using the Hardware and back in 1992 that would have been good enough for most .Quote:
The Y board doesn't even cater all that well to the Sega CD's advantages though . . . many scaled/zoomed sprites with no rotation (only full-screen rotation on one of the sprite layers), things the Sega CD would choke at simulating directly (low color, low framerate and/or small screen size). Albeit, more heavily modified adaptations could cater better to the ASIC's avbilities (like cutting back on the full-screen rotation effects to cater more to rendering animation to individual sprite tiles, use of textured flat ground/walls -especially with tile mirroring- in place of many cases where large numbers of composited sprites were used -especially caves/tunnels, etc, etc)
I really don't how you can say that, when GF II is one of the best looking (if not the best ) Y board game there is, with even to this day the most insane scaling seen . Any Y board port would have been hardware work to be fair. The Mega CD was better able to try and handle them that the stock Mega Drive, and its shame we never got to see any SEGA scalier Coin Up used , even it was just mega Drive code (say Super Hang On, AB II, OutRun) with slightly improved animation all new scaling and Arcade perfect sound - That would have been a big deal for SEGA fans back inthe dayQuote:
And as far as the Y board in general, Galaxy Force or Galaxy Force II would have been much better examples to push.
The Mega CD had it's fair share of those, thanks to the likes of Riot and CRI . Better if SEGA made sure the likes of Lucas Arts games were ported to the Mega CD, even if all it was was Amgia/St code with Mega CD audio and speech . I'm still gutted Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis never made it out.Quote:
Pushing for ports of Japanese computer games
I meant a game like Galaxy Force II generally would have been a much better game to present on the system. Though, as mentioned, there are some interesting exploits that could have been used to replace the raw sprite scaling effects of the arcade version. (using textured planes with perspective for ground effects, doing that with tile mirroring for tunnels/caves, etc -actually, that could have been doen to a limited degree on the vanilla MD like was done in a few games like G-Loc, but using tile mirroring for ceilings rather than just the ground -to do walls, you'd need additional tile animation, but it could still be mirroed horizontally -tiles and sprites can be flipped horizontally and vetically, but not rotated 90 degrees)
And yes, pretty much any high-end arcade game is going to take hits (and need modifications and good optimization to mitigate that) on a lower powered home console, but certain examples would fare better than others (and some that may take bigger hits over the arcade, may still be more impressive than weaker games that lost less in conversion).
Of course, the MCD is capable of some things that those high-end scaler boards simply can't do at all, or would do much more poorly. (they have nothing like the ASIC to handle realtime scanling/rotation effects on a per-object basis -drawn to tiles or sprites- and the CPU(s) of those arcade boards alone would be hard pressed to make up for that)
Then again, the plain MD or even Atari ST is much better at some types of games than the Neo Geo (without added hardware), namely things that absolutely require rendering to a framebuffer. (like polygons, height map engines, etc)