The most technically Advanced games in GFX and Sound on the Genny??

Okay guys, I know we always have these types of threads on this all the time. Here is where mine is different - I want to finish my collection, and I'm trying to go after the most technically impressive games that were put out.

I'm not talking about opinions here either, not to sound like a jerk, but everyone thinks that the thunderforce games have a great soundtrack, now, while the may have great composition, the are far from the best technically sounding on the machine.

Think of it this way, how many games would you list that sound close to TMEE's sound engine. I can think of 2, puggsy and mega turrican. Those games also qualify for doing things with the Genesis that shouldnt be possible, like scaling, rotation, and layering and line effects that are just awsome, and I believe that puggsy employed a technique that used 256 colors on screen....

So, what say you guy's?

Panorama Cotton is possiobly the most graphically advanced Genesis game. I think it would be hard to disagree with that given it needed it's own graphics chip and has some ridiculous sprites and scaling among other things. Of course Virtua Racing needed it's own chip but I don't think it pushes the hardware as much. Panoramas sound quality is definitely nothing to ride home about though.

Panorama Cotton definitely the most advanced game on the Genesis

P. Cotton needed its own GFX chip? I never heard that. I thought it was just a line scrolling method that they used to simulate background scaling?

Here are some of the games I think qualify.
1) Earthworm Jim
2) Mega Turrican
3) puggsy
4) Boogerman
5) zero tolorence
6) MK 2 (soundtrack)
7) Gunstar
8) treasure land
9) dynamite heady
10) Vectorman
11) P. Cotton
These are for sound or GFX, but they all excel at one thing or another, I know you guys can name more that I have no idea about.

Cotton doesn't have anything special in the cart. It's just software... very good software. So if you think it uses a special gfx chip, then you're REALLY complimenting the programmers. :)

Here's my vote for best graphical game:

Donald in Maui Mallard

http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9445 or http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9443 or ...

- It's hard to find a game that is technically advanced in both graphics and sound. Earthworm Jim isn't exactly in my top 10 (or even top 50 for that matter) in either, graphics and much less sound! (Although it's certainly impressive what Tallarico did with GEMS).

If you look at graphics: Do you think the best game should be judged by aestetics or purely by technical achievements ?

Same for music: Do we judge sound engine and execution - or composition - or how well it fits the rest of the game ?



Here's a list with some compentent composers with good custom sound drivers:

Hitoshi Sakimoto (& Masaharu Iwata, et al., Data East, various other publishers):
http://www.project2612.org/search.ph...field=composer

Matt Furniss (& Shaun Hollingworth, countless European and American publishers):
http://www.project2612.org/search.ph...field=composer

Yuzo Koshiro (& Motohiro Kawashima, Sega/Ancient):
http://www.project2612.org/search.ph...field=composer

Toshiharu Yamanishi (& Tomomi Ootani, Technosoft):
http://www.project2612.org/search.ph...field=composer

Toshiaki Sakoda (& Masanobu Tsukamoto, Compile):
http://www.project2612.org/search.ph...field=composer

Noriyuki Iwadare (& Isao Mizoguchi, Masaya/NCS):
http://www.project2612.org/search.ph...field=composer

K.N.U. (Sega):
http://www.project2612.org/search.ph...field=composer

Kamiya Studio (Sega):
http://www.project2612.org/search.ph...field=composer

Naoki Kodaka (Sunsoft):
http://www.project2612.org/search.ph...field=composer






EDIT: The games with the best graphics and sound gotta be the MD's shmups:

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Originally Posted by Christuserloeser

It would indeed be easier to list the bad games. Here are the good ones anyway:

Horizontal:

• Aero Blasters aka Air Buster
• Arrow Flash
• Battle Mania aka Trouble Shooter
• Battle Mania 2
• Crying aka Bio-Hazard Battle
• Darius II aka Sagaia
• Eliminate Down
• Forgotten Worlds
• Gaiares
• Gleylancer
• Gynoug
• Hellfire
• Insector X
• Koutetsu Teikoku aka Battle Wings aka Steel Empire
• Sol-Deace
• Super Fantasy Zone
• Thunder Force 3
• Thunder Force 4
• Whip Rush 2222 AD
• Wonder Boy 3: Monster Lair
• Zero Wing

Vertical:

• Dangerous Seed
• Elemental Master
• Fire Shark
• Granada
• Musha Aleste
• Phelios
• Raiden Trad
• Slap Fight MD
• Truxton
• Twinkle Tale
• Twin Cobra
• Twin Hawk
• Undead Line
• Vapor Trail
• Verytex

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Other than that, Bare Knuckle III is perhaps the most impressive Genesis game technically.

RPGs and Action Adventures like Monsterworld 4, Phantasy Star IV or Surging Aura have phenomenal art direction.

Flicky or any game by Konami or Capcom.

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Originally Posted by Zebbe

Flicky or any game by Konami or Capcom.

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http://www.sigraem.com/uploads/posts...6_contra01.jpg

http://i44.tinypic.com/2sagehf.gif

Some games very technically impressive to me:

Vectorman series
Alien Soldier
Gunstar Heroes
MUSHA
Battlemania II
Ranger X
Dynamite Headdy
Contra Hard Corps
Ecco The Dolphin series
Earthworm Jim 2
Rocket Knight Adventures
Adventures of Batman and Robin
Mega Turrican
Comix Zone

Check out this Racketboy article about Genesis games that pushed the envelope in graphics and sound.
http://www.racketboy.com/retro/sega/...ics-sound.html

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Originally Posted by Genesisdoes

Check out this Racketboy article about Genesis games that pushed the envelope in graphics and sound.
http://www.racketboy.com/retro/sega/...ics-sound.html

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Cliche etc. etc.
I don't really like Racketboy.

I really think Exo Squad deserves a mention.

That's a hardware question. A few tracks from Vapor Trail are pretty impressive on the Genesis. I mean, as far as getting away from the "staple" Genesis sound almost every game has (every synth system from that era has this problem).

Graphics? Hmm. Dunno. Panorama Cotton isn't doing anything that hasn't been done before per se (and sometimes area/fx are kinda simple in implementation), but the presentation is perfect. And looks awesome :D

Batman & Robin has some impressive looking effects, even if I think the game is shit ;) And while I don't think much of Red Zone and the FX are cheap in areas (low/close color to hide the tile chunk rotation), I have to admit they really thought out those effects :D I also dislike Red Zone as a game (hate both those games musics too :P )

I dunno. Like the OP said, there's technical impressiveness and there's presentation impressiveness. Gunstar Heroes is a prime example of impressive presentation. There's nothing overly impressive about the FX at all, but the production and design and just everything about the game as a whole - is impressive. A game like Contra falls into most the technically impressive department, but not the presentation department for me. I don't care for the low color/high contrast graphics and weird layout of the game. Over the top and kinda just jumps around. Doesn't seem to flow from area to area well IMO. Though, most people don't care - they just love the action and shit (TM).

Zero Tolerance is crap compared to the FPS level in Toy Story.

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Originally Posted by MN12BIRD

Zero Tolerance is crap compared to the FPS level in Toy Story.

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What about Battle Frenzy, large viewing window, 2-player splitscreen mode, carefully designed maps to avoid clipping due to limited draw distance, etc. (ZT gets points for game design and it does use shading -lighting- as well)

Then there's Duke3D by tectoy, which looks horrible via s-video or RGB due to the odd dithered rendering method. (try it in fusion with TV mode on, and it off)

Too bad there's no wolfenstein 3D port to compare, not enough RAM though, and apparently not felt woth putting RAM on the cart. (SNES barely gets by with 128kB, same for Wing Commander) There's less of an excuse for the Sega CD though, and it did get a great port of wing commander. (better than Amiga -which apparently avoids using the blitter for scaling- except for the replaced music on the Sega CD, I have no idea why they did that)

For GFX stuff I'm going to say :
Panorama Cotton
Red Zone
Adventures of Batman & Robin
Contra HC
Gunstar Heroes

For sound :
This is a tough one one because of the composition vs inplementation stuff... but opening up the sound engine list I'm going to mention and leaning towards both :
Mega Turrican (AUDIOS Waveslave MD)
Soleil (Cube/Iwadare)
GleyLancer (Cube/Iwadare)
Atomic Runner (Data East/Vapor Trail)
Battle Mania Daiginjou (Graphic Research)
Socket (Graphic Research)
Contra HC (Konami/later)
Sparkster (Konami/later)
Alien 3 (Krysalis/Hollingworth)
Puggsy (Krysalis/Hollingworth)
T2 The Arcade Game (Krysalis/Hollingworth)
The terminator (Krysalis/Hollingworth)
Wiz n' Liz (Krysalis/Hollingworth)
Zool (Krysalis/Hollingworth)
Golden Axe 3 (SMPS 68K)
Ristar (SMPS 68K)
Gunstar Heroes (SMPS/Treasure)
Sonic 3 & Knuckles (SMPS Z80)
Pier Solar and the Great Architects (TMSE 0.4a) :P

What Shiny did with the GEMS in the Earthworm Jim games is damn impressive IMO. I think christuserloeser mentioned one other really good GEMS implementation. (he ranked it higher than EWJ/2 iirc)

Shiny did not use default instrument set in GEMs, and Tommy Tallarico actually learned a bit how the GEMS work instead of just converting MIDI files to GEMS music....

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Wesker

http://www.sigraem.com/uploads/posts...6_contra01.jpg

http://i44.tinypic.com/2sagehf.gif

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Okay Wesker, you might have won THIS round... But next time...!

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But seriously, Alien Soldier the most blast processing game ever, its technical excellency is repeated over and over again in many, many ways as you play through the game. My favourite part is the horse boss, which is gigantic (multi-jointed sprite) and greatly animated, yet the background is still moving fast.

It's not perfect, but then again, what is?

I really wish I knew who did Konami's box art.

Thanks for the thread to all who participated!

My want list just grew a great deal from games I saw listed in here!
;):D


1. Virtua Racing
2. Comix Zone
3. Mega Turrican
4. Gunstar Heroes
5. Contra Hard Corps
6. Alien Soldier
7. MUSHA
8. Ranger X
9. Exo Squad
10. GleyLancer
11. Atomic Runner
12. Socket
13. Sparkster
14. Zool
15. Ristar
16. Golden Axe 2
17. Golden Axe 3


I have the following on the way in a future order... can you guys think of any other top notch Horizontal or Vertical Shooters and Platformers that I might be interested in?

1. Sonic the Hedgehog 2
2. Rocket Knight Adventures
3. Madden 95
4. NBA Live 95
5. Altered Beast
6. Castle of Illusion
7. Desert Strike - Return to the Gulf
8. NHL '94
9. Urban Strike - The Sequel to Jungle Strike
10. General Chaos
11. Virtual Pinball
12. Sonic & Knuckles
13. World Series Baseball 98
14. Joe Montana Football
15. Mickey Mania - The Timeless Adventures of Mickey Mouse
16. Ecco: The Tides of Time
17. Paperboy 2
18. Decap Attack
19. Sonic the Hedgehog 3
20. Sonic Spinball
21. Cool Spot
22. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - The Hyperstone Heist
23. Genesis 6-Pak
24. Streets of Rage 2
25. Vectorman
26. After Burner 2

Thanks a lot!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zebbe

Flicky

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That must be why SEGA puts it in every emulated Genesis/Mega Drive compilation. Really takes advantage of the hardware. ;)

On topic, I think most Treasure games were fairly advanced, as well as the Ecco games and most smooth-scrolling 2.5D games (which include Panorama Cotton and doesn't include Super Thunder Blade).

Flicky originally was a game that could be downloaded via Sega of Japan's SegaNet service, not a standalone cartridge. Same for Fatal Labyrinth btw.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sasuke

That must be why SEGA puts it in every emulated Genesis/Mega Drive compilation. Really takes advantage of the hardware. ;)

On topic, I think most Treasure games were fairly advanced, as well as the Ecco games and most smooth-scrolling 2.5D games (which include Panorama Cotton and doesn't include Super Thunder Blade).

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Sorry to nit pick, but that's not the correct term. Pseudo 3D is the term you're looking for. 2.5D is a 3D generated game environment/engine that emulates a 2D game by use of a fixed camera angle (be it side view, top view, or 3/4 top down). Ok, move on. Nothing to see here...

Even though it may not be that good of a game, why in the flipping hell doesn't anyone ever mention Sonic 3D Flickies Island? :confused: For the Mega Drive it's prerendered graphics blew me away (lol). The prerendered flowing ice water thing in dust hill (was it called that?) looked high quality. You could say that was the Mega Drive's answer to DKC on the SNES. Heck, even the music had a great composition that had extensive drum samples thrown into the mix.

Sonic 3D is one of the most technically impressive games on the Mega Drive. The game really used the console's colour palette to it's limit (albeit with a bit of dithering i have to admit). Virtua Racing doesn't really count IMO as it has that chip in the cart although it is still impressive though.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tomaitheous

Sorry to nit pick, but that's not the correct term. Pseudo 3D is the term you're looking for. 2.5D is a 3D generated game environment/engine that emulates a 2D game by use of a fixed camera angle (be it side view, top view, or 3/4 top down). Ok, move on. Nothing to see here...

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Err - sorry to nitpick your nitpicking, but 2.5D is when you generate a 3D game environment from 2D data. Look at Doom at the prime example: levels are all 2D - you won't find a room over another room or anything similar. Levels occupy a 65536x65536 square.

I don't think there are formal definitions for what "2.5D" and "psudo 3D" strictly refer to. ;)
There are plenty of examples of crossover and other stuff. Like a "psudo 3D" game like 3D blast, but what if it's all rendered with polygons, still with the same restrictions in gameplay, still psudo 3D then? (I'd say that's both "2.5D" and "psudo 3D")
And what about dipictions of 3D environments not using polygons? (raycasting and voxel engines)

And then there are some definitions which would conflict with anything "3D" which wasn't rendered with triangles. (quadrilateral engines, voxel engines, raycasting, etc)

People use "2.5D" to mean two different things, hence, confusion. It is commonly used to refer to games like Clockwork Knight and Wild 9, which have 3D graphics with 2D gameplay (usually side-scrollers). It is also used to refer to Build engine games and similar, basically 3D games with 2D-style limitations. The problem I have with the latter is that there are plenty of 3D games that basically just take place in a big flat area, and yet no one calls them 2.5D, they only use that word for pre-Quake FPS games. Also I'm not sure that having rooms over rooms (or not) actually means anything, since it's possible for a purely 2D game to have a room or level above another.

edit: And Sonic 3D Blast is correctly referred to as being "isometric" or "3/4 overhead". Back in the 80s, games like Zaxxon and Knight Lore were considered 3D, but nowadays, most people would consider them 2D. It's kind of an in-between category though. It's 3D in the sense that you have an x, y, and z axis. But the graphics are 2D (they might seem to represent three dimensions, but it's just the way it's drawn). Sonic 3D Blast "looks 3D" more than most isometric games, just because it's drawn really well and has a good sense of visual depth. But it's not any different from Zaxxon, fundamentally. There are a few games that use a 2D isometric plane but with 3D graphics. I'm not sure what you would call that.

Maybe some people try to confuse the meanings, but a 3D game generates a 3D environment (maybe with a fixed camera, and maybe not, it doesn't matter) from 3D data, and a 2.5D game generates a 3D environment (again, maybe with or without a fixed camera) from 2D data. You can simulate a 2D game with a 2.5D or 3D engine by fixing one or more axis when rendering. It's still 2.5D or 3D.

I first hear the term 2.5D used by Nintendo back in the late 90's when referring to yoshi's island 2 for the N64.

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Originally Posted by old man

I first hear the term 2.5D used by Nintendo back in the late 90's when referring to yoshi's island 2 for the N64.

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When was Yoshi's Story ever referred to as Yoshi's Island 2? (that would be like: "Super Mario World 2: 2" or SMW3: YI 2 ;))

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Originally Posted by Chilly Willy

Maybe some people try to confuse the meanings, but a 3D game generates a 3D environment (maybe with a fixed camera, and maybe not, it doesn't matter) from 3D data, and a 2.5D game generates a 3D environment (again, maybe with or without a fixed camera) from 2D data. You can simulate a 2D game with a 2.5D or 3D engine by fixing one or more axis when rendering. It's still 2.5D or 3D.

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Sorry to nit pick your nit picking of my nit picking ( :D ), but the term gained its popularity in the PS1 era. For the reasons I mentioned. Klonoa on PS1. Fully 3D environment as far as polygons and textures and transforms and whatnot, but a fixed camera and fixed gameplay to simulate a game/gamplay from a 2D era. 2.5D. Yes, there are some games that have fixed cameras - but they don't intended to simulate a 2D gaming experience and thus aren't part of that category. The term makes -perfect- sense (2D game + 3D engine/display /2 = 2.5D). I'm an old fart and I don't ever remember seeing the term 2.5D before the PS1 era (and was *extremely* popular during and after the PS1 era). I'm not saying it wasn't used, but I don't ever remember seeing its usage. Fake 3D and Pseudo 3D are terms I *do* remember quite a lots from Pre and post PS1 era. Meaning just that, a rudimentary 3D game made from approximating objects or limited visual queues to give the idea of a 3D environment. A polygon game would be a 3D game. Panorama Cotton would be a pseudo 3D game. It plays like a (limited) 3D game and uses limited visual system to simulate a 3D space/environment. As far as raycasting or and similar, I have no problem considering them 3D. But yeah, Doom. I'd still put Doom in the 3D category despite it's limitations. I mean, compared to pseudo 3D games like Lands of Lore or Dungeon Master. Maybe this is another one of those US/EU things? Like Adventure games on console here in the US is not the same meaning as in EU land which always have to have the Action- prefix in front of adventure of they get confused. Hey, blame Nintendo and console magazines for that one ;)

I don't remember those games ever being referred to as 2.5D. They were called "3D", emphasized, with a fixed camera, mentioned as an aside. Maybe you just read a gamer magazine that was filled with idiots who didn't understand the terminology, so they tossed around buzzwords to make their magazine seem more relevant. I subscribed to, and unsubscribed to a number of magazine back then, depending on how bad they were. There wasn't anything that was very good on a consistent basis beyond Dr Dobb's.

As a complete package I think Batman & Robin overall delivers best on impressive graphics and audio. There are games out there that surpass it in some individual aspects, but as a whole this game is the 16-bit king for me.

I blame Next Gen.

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Originally Posted by Chilly Willy

I don't remember those games ever being referred to as 2.5D. They were called "3D", emphasized, with a fixed camera, mentioned as an aside. Maybe you just read a gamer magazine that was filled with idiots who didn't understand the terminology, so they tossed around buzzwords to make their magazine seem more relevant. I subscribed to, and unsubscribed to a number of magazine back then, depending on how bad they were. There wasn't anything that was very good on a consistent basis beyond Dr Dobb's.

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A Google search for the exact phrase "2.5D platformer" brings up 206,000 results, and "2.5D platformers" (plural) another 13,500. Since that obviously does not refer to Doom or anything of the sort, it's pretty settled that it's a common use of the term "2.5D" to denote games like Pandemonium. In fact I heard that definition long before I heard anyone call Doom 2.5D.

It wasn't specifically magazines. You could go up to any moderate to hardcore gamer at the time and they would understand the term completely.

I think it's clear that users have one definition (which is wrong, but still commonly used), and programmers have another (the correct one). :p :D

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Originally Posted by Chilly Willy

I think it's clear that users have one definition (which is wrong, but still commonly used)

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I'd argue that it isn't really wrong, the games have 3D graphics with a 2D plane of movement, hence 2.5D. If the term was talking specifically about the graphical techniques employed then yes it would be wrong, but it is talking mainly about gameplay in relation to the graphics, a different thing entirely, hence it is a valid term in that context.