Path: chuka.playstation.co.uk!news From: "Nick Ferguson" Newsgroups: scee.yaroze.freetalk.english Subject: Ssssh! Dreamcast talk... Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 11:33:20 +0100 Organization: PlayStation Net Yaroze (SCEE) Lines: 117 Message-ID: <7pts91$6lp5@chuka.playstation.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: dialup137-53.saqnet.co.uk X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2014.211 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2014.211 (Everybody quiet now...) Has anyone played on the new Dreamcast demo machines which popped up in games stores (and Blockbuster Video) over the weekend? After playing on one yesterday for an hour (with Senor Frosty), here are some impressions / tips: First up, note that the disc in the machine contains *numerous demos*. For some reason, the public-at-large seem unable to grasp this concept and end up stuck playing the dull-looking boxing game 90% of the time. So remember - quit to the main screen! Off the top of my head, there were the following games / videos on the disc (plus a few I prob. forgot): Sonic Adventure (video) - Pretty badly edited video. Interesting if you haven't seen the game running already, I suppose. I'd just like to say that what I've seen of SA makes it seem significantly more interesting than this footage. Cool twister, tho' Sega Rally 2 (video) - About as exciting as watching a video of a 2 yr old arcade racer can be. Hopefully they fixed the slowdown problems for the PAL release, but I'm waiting for Metropolis Street Racer, Crazy Taxi and F355, thanks. VF3 (video) - VF3 suffers more than the above from being shown on video. It looks MUCH BETTER than this in RL (as an aside, I can't think why Sega let their 3 flagship DC games be represented in this cruddy MDEC compressed-video format). Toy Commander (playable) - Surprisingly fun little game - "C&C meets Micro Machines". Nothing to write home about graphically, but runs full-screen in 50Hz. Incoming (playable) - "Glorified Space Invaders": lots of pretty effects and explosions (just like the PC version) but most exciting was the inclusion of a 50 / 60Hz switch in the video options screen (try it)!!!! Let's hope this becomes standard in PAL DC games ASAP (tho' we all know it wouldn't pass Sony's QA) ;) UEFA Striker (video) - Um. Didn't watch this one. Red Dog (video) - Looks quite fun, in a "big truck with machine guns bolted to the front" kinda way. 4-player mode looks entertaining, too. Nice weapon effects and promising bad guys / environments. Trickstyle (playable) - This is the futuristic "hover racing" game by Criterion, featured in EDGE a few times. My favourite demo of the lot - it looks beautiful, and plays well too. The only game I might buy as a result of seeing this demo disc, but then I was a big 2000AD fan (remember the Chopper stories)? Ready 2 Rumble (playable) - Boxing. As with almost every boxing/wrestling game ever made, who cares? Codie's Prince Nassim game looks much better than this. Monaco GP (playable) - I find console F1 games a a bit like PC flight sims i.e. dull. The graphics were OK, but nothing AMAZING. I think this had a 2-player option, but we never tried it. Tokyo Highway Battle (video) - The video (of real-time gameplay) looks like the Gran Turismo FMV. Not bad looking then, but it has been slated in a few reviews already. Powerstone (video) - Yay! This looks like a lot of fun, although I've already pre-ordered Soul Caliber so I think another fighting game is out of the question for a while. Very cartoony, kinetic gameplay (whatever that means). Not a sausage on the disc about truly wank-worthy titles Shen Mue, Get Bass, RE: Code Veronica, House of the Dead 2, Soul Calibur or anything to do with net access. Hmmm. Sort it out, Sega. Did I mention Incoming's 50 / 60 Hz switch? Seeing as almost all the demos were fully-bordered (and thus s-l-o-w), I think the speed switch is going to be a vital option for the 95% of us with suitable TVs. :) Loading times were on par with your typical OPSM disc - I don't think you can draw many conclusions from demo versions, though (look at Driver)! I was quite disappointed with the contents of the disc. If it wasn't for TrickStyle, I would say that there wasn't a single playable demo that showed the DC's potential. The videos show off the detail of the game environments, but compression artifacts and the low frame rate really make the graphics look horrible compared to how they really appear. I really hope this isn't the disc to be bundled with the retail version... In comparison, the US demo disc has *playable* versions of Power Stone, Sonic Adventure, Get Bass and HOTD2, among others. Video is reserved for games still in development, or much less exciting releases. Hmmm - *already* I'm glad I'm getting a US Dreamcast. This has been a public service announcement. :) Is anyone else here definitely getting a Dreamcast? Nick "Pong 3D" F ------------- www.saqnet.co.uk/users/nickf www.loonygames.com www.netyaroze-europe.com/~rookie1 "Game over, man. Game over!"