Hardware pushed to the limits according to Sega-16 members

I was in discussion with Barone in private message. So we have the conclusion that some games could be analized according few criteria. Therefore i would like ask to members to judge any game that can figure in this thread if was pushed to limits or not.

I would like submitt Phantasy Star (3D labyrinth) to members evaluate here.
My arguments:
According Rieko Kodama when they was thinking about labyrinths noted that would be very difficult reproduce it. So they ask to Yuji Naka to solve the problem. Yuji Naka created an algorithm for the labyrinth work.

Please, evaluate the arguments and post any game that you believe that pushed the hardware to limits doe our discussion!

Goldenband told about Pitfall 2 - Atari 2600 pushed the hardware to limits, so i decide post it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iom6uuAlN04

It pushed in sound therms?

There is a chip inside the cart handling the audio. The chip essentially generates 4bit PCM data that gets fed at 15KHz to one of the audio channels in the machine.

Completely irrelevant to the topic but the title makes me think of the song from Scarface.

I mean, I'd present The Adventures of Batman and Robin on the Mega Drive, but that'd almost be too easy!

I can't even fathom how it does some of it's more complex effects, such as those weird 3D texture polygon things in one of the later stages. The entire game is some very well orchestrated stuff! Some obvious to those with a technical eye, some just utterly baffling!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kamahl

There is a chip inside the cart handling the audio. The chip essentially generates 4bit PCM data that gets fed at 15KHz to one of the audio channels in the machine.

---

Serious? Not imagined that it would be possible in 2600 cart! Im trying imagine if the cost of game was expensive to end consumer.

goldenband said:

Tower of Doom on Intellivision is another one: a roguelike with automap, huge levels, dozens of items with unique effects and text descriptions, and highly effective sound design. It also has some of the smartest use of flicker I've ever seen, generating colors that would otherwise be impossible on the system. It doesn't really do any one thing that's whiz-bang astonishing, but the full package is remarkable

The game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYELjUGArEA

Fast Racing Neo on the Wii U:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ww3X4otQm7A

There's a lot of clever tricks, design, and coding going on to put out a game that could easily be mistaken for a PS4/Xbox One game on the Wii U.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Flygon

I mean, I'd present The Adventures of Batman and Robin on the Mega Drive, but that'd almost be too easy!

I can't even fathom how it does some of it's more complex effects, such as those weird 3D texture polygon things in one of the later stages. The entire game is some very well orchestrated stuff! Some obvious to those with a technical eye, some just utterly baffling!

---

Which polygons? Are you talking about this kind of ground/ceiling perspective effect: https://youtu.be/dP5MImvc_2c?t=501 ?

The robots that emit that beam thingy. With that textured 'polygon' look. See here.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Flygon

The robots that emit that beam thingy. With that textured 'polygon' look. See here.

---

Given that there are few other moving objects on screen at that time I suspect that this is done using sprites.
Actually, visualizing this in Exodus should make it quite easy to determine what it's made of but I do not own the game (and I don't download ROMs).

Rogue Squadron 2: Rogue Leader on the GameCube. I still think that it is the best looking game of that generation and Factor 5 pulled out every trick that the GameCube hardware was capable of, and it did it at 60fps while running in 480p.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuXEnukk--k

Skip ahead to the 13:09 mark.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by segarule

Serious? Not imagined that it would be possible in 2600 cart! Im trying imagine if the cost of game was expensive to end consumer.

goldenband said:

Tower of Doom on Intellivision is another one: a roguelike with automap, huge levels, dozens of items with unique effects and text descriptions, and highly effective sound design. It also has some of the smartest use of flicker I've ever seen, generating colors that would otherwise be impossible on the system. It doesn't really do any one thing that's whiz-bang astonishing, but the full package is remarkable

The game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYELjUGArEA

---

Hey, thanks for that. Unfortunately the video doesn't capture the flicker effects I mentioned, but I guess you'd need a 60 fps capture for that, and I don't know if there are any on YouTube.

BTW I don't think Pitfall II was especially expensive vs. other Activision games, but I can't find anything concrete -- I'll see what I can find out.

Trying a tower of doom´s video better:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6YUsevzh44

definitely Toy Story, it's like this game does everything at the same time with no slowdown at all. Meaning 3d perspective simulations, huge sprites and color palette, animated tiles/hacks.. 3d level.. some great physics simulation.. and even a racing level.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by NekoNiaow

Given that there are few other moving objects on screen at that time I suspect that this is done using sprites.

---

It's one of the scroll planes (there isn't a background in those areas). This is also why there can be only two robots of those on screen and why it flickers: because when there are two robots it's alternating between them.

And yeah, it's just the image of a triangle. On each scanline it picks whatever line in the image has the desired width and uses that, and then uses horizontal scroll to place it at the correct location. The texturing is just that the image has a texture and they just decided to allow it be funky.