Retro Video Gamer

So after watching that AVGN video I got thinking about the 32X and I remembered this amazing tech demo:

Sega 32X Tech Demo (//http)

It certainly shows what the 32X could have done in the right hands, very impressive indeed.

There is no doubt for me that Sega really buggered things up by releasing the 32X and Saturn at around the same time. I have always been of the opinion that they never should have bothered with the 32X but maybe they should have not bothered with the expensive Saturn instead and gone ahead with an all in one Sega Mega Drive/Mega CD/32X console and tried to keep the already massive userbase that the MD/Genesis already had, what do you all think?

Interesting thoughts. A Sega Mega Drive/Mega CD/32X combo system would have been cool but I don't think it would have been able to compete with the Playstation and N64.
I had a 32X years ago and from a nostalgia point of view I regret selling it but that's about it. I think they should have taken the time and resources they put into the 32X into the Saturns development instead and didn't  bother releasing it.

Quote from: "Shadowrunner"Interesting thoughts. A Sega Mega Drive/Mega CD/32X combo system would have been cool but I don't think it would have been able to compete with the Playstation and N64.
I had a 32X years ago and from a nostalgia point of view I regret selling it but that's about it. I think they should have taken the time and resources they put into the 32X into the Saturns development instead and didn't  bother releasing it.

I was just wondering if they could have positioned a 32X combo as a much cheaper entry into the next gen and if they had also managed to stop so many existing Mega Drive owners bailing in favour of the PS1 their fortunes might have been different.

For the most part I agree they should have gone all out on the Saturn though.

Another thought here, seeings how the Saturn had a cartridge slot what if Sega made it so you could plug the 32X into it. I think a lot of Sega fans jumped ship to Sony cause they felt ripped off for spending money on the 32X so this may have helped a little. Plus being able to play Mega Drive games on the Saturn would have made the 32X a worthwhile add on.

Quote from: "Shadowrunner"Another thought here, seeings how the Saturn had a cartridge slot what if Sega made it so you could plug the 32X into it. I think a lot of Sega fans jumped ship to Sony cause they felt ripped off for spending money on the 32X so this may have helped a little. Plus being able to play Mega Drive games on the Saturn would have made the 32X a worthwhile add on.

I could never understand why they didn't make it so you could play MD games on the Saturn, they really missed a trick there 

The 32x was a year too late and came in at a higher cost than expected, originally due at £99/$150 it came out in the uk at £150! Just for an addon at time when people wanted cd and a new console not spend more money on an underpowered console compared to the psx or Saturn.....shouldn't have bothered at all...they even originally canceled the jap launch of it then changed their minds!

yeah they should either have not bothered trying to extend the life of the MD AT ALL and gone straight to a new system or scrapped the Saturn and stuck with the Mega Drive and its expansions.

releasing the 32x was enough of a joke/failure to almost seal Sega's fate because none of the Mega Drive fans bothered with it, the Saturn Suffered and so did the Dreamcast. Segas reputation never recovered from the MD expansion debacle and the confused customer base simply dried up and moved on while the Playstation seemed to garner tonnes of new consumers from a relatively untapped market.

Its a shame really, if they had simply left the MD as it was and released the Saturn in 94/95 they might have held off the Playstation. Instead most people were pretty disenchanted by it all. me included lol.

Quote from: "dcultrapro"yeah they should either have not bothered trying to extend the life of the MD AT ALL and gone straight to a new system or scrapped the Saturn and stuck with the Mega Drive and its expansions.

releasing the 32x was enough of a joke/failure to almost seal Sega's fate because none of the Mega Drive fans bothered with it, the Saturn Suffered and so did the Dreamcast. Segas reputation never recovered from the MD expansion debacle and the confused customer base simply dried up and moved on while the Playstation seemed to garner tonnes of new consumers from a relatively untapped market.

Its a shame really, if they had simply left the MD as it was and released the Saturn in 94/95 they might have held off the Playstation. Instead most people were pretty disenchanted by it all. me included lol.

The 32x actually did sell well at launch, they actually didn't make enough units for launch...megadrive owners did want it...mainly to show against snes owning superfx games..hard to believe but true....and it seemed at any price!
Had the ps1 not came out the Saturn would have been delayed a year to 95 in jap and 96 row but of course sega had to react to the ps1 to stay in the game...I don't think there was a lot they could have done even without the 32x debacle.

I was working for Game when the 32X came out and I did actually sell quite a few of them. In fact I once sold a MD2, MCD2, 32X and a load of games to one very rich lady who came in - she spent about a grand!

thats all well and good but the point still remains that everyone felt very messed about and a lot of trust in Sega was lost, ruining the chances of the Saturn and then the Dreamcast, though the Dreamcast they largely alienated it from Sega's dodgy past but still to no avail, the damage had been done.

ok fair enough it sold ok when it first came out, but that's to be expected based on the number of people who already had an MD and customer knowledge was slower back then what with no internet etc, so it probably took a while for the news of the Saturn and the PS1 to spread around... I myself didn't understand how things had happened or how they worked until about 1998 when I started hearing about the Dreamcast and knew that the Saturn was already over even though I had only just, that May, got one and began to love it

Yeah I remember those days. Only way to find out about games was through magazines and cause of the long lead times for publishing the info was always a month or two old. I sure don't miss that about the old days. lol

Nice tech demo. :)

Quote from: "Alberto 2K"Nice tech demo. :)

I used to love playing Virtua Racing on the 32X.
One of the few games for the add on I miss playing.

32X TV advert:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbYkgDWAYAE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbYkgDWAYAE)

I'm a big fan of the 32X. I only had three games when it was new. Primal Rage, Virtua Fighter and Motocross. Over the last dozen or so years I have added more titles.

I guess it is an acquired taste but one I am glad to have experienced.

Quote from: "onthinice"I'm a big fan of the 32X. I only had three games when it was new. Primal Rage, Virtua Fighter and Motocross. Over the last dozen or so years I have added more titles.

I guess it is an acquired taste but one I am glad to have experienced.

How many games do you have for it now?

What are the best ones?

I have 24 games. One is a 32X CD. Corpse Killer. Not real impressed with CD aspect.

Games I like are the two WWF titles: Raw and The Arcade game. Virtua Fighter, Virtua Racing, BC Racers, Brutal Above the Claw, Doom, MK II, Pitfall - for the hidden original version, Primal Rage,  Shadow Squadron, Star Wars, Space Harrier, Star Trek and Afterburner.

Toughman Contest might be better on the Genesis. I have heard the NBA game is really good.
Metalhead and Tempo are fun for a little while. Cosmic Carnage and Motocross are a couple of stinkers.

My NFL Quarterback and 36 Holes Golf games are sealed so I have not played those.

I think there were only about 36 games released in the States. Spiderman has always been a little to pricey for me.

I have been happy with the games. Only wish they had released more.

Was there not a soccer game released in Europe for the 32X?

Sorry, but somebody saying that Brutal Paws Of Fury isn't a bad game and Cosmic Carnage isn't is an injustice that I will not stand for. (Most people would say they're both awful. I'm not most people.)

I honestly felt it played pretty well, since it was a little closer to Street Fighter than Mortal Kombat. The whole armor gimmick, which determined what special moves you got, was pretty neat, too, even if it meant to you had to pretty much have a moves list on you at all times.

I had Cosmic Carnage and I agree it's not very good. I remember I beat the game on the highest difficulty using nothing but one special move over and over. The armor was cool and it looked really good with the scaling but game play wise not so much.

I think if I had bought Cosmic Carnage before Virtua Fighter I might have not had such high expectations for the game.

I have always been a fan of fighting game with video game animals like Primal Rage and  the TMNT series. So Brutal just falls in with the type of fighting games I like to play.

Bob which game did you think was good and which was bad? I got a little confused there lol!!

I have 5 games for it and while I think the console add on was a mistake in general that doesn't mean I don't actually like it. I think its a neat little contraption and I like Metal Head and Star Wars Arcade on it

I've got the following 5 games

Doom
Cosmic Carnage
Metal Head
Star Wars
Virtua Racer

I would love to have the 32x cd version of Supreme Warrior and Space Harrier and T-Mek but other than that I'm not too familiar with the catalogue and I have most of the games on other platforms so its a bit of an expense to try and collect it

I like the 32X but it's hard to recommend most of the games. The 32X exclusives are a quirky bunch... seems like none of them fit well with their franchises or genres. Knuckles Chaotix, Star Wars Arcade, Zaxxon Motherbase, Kolibri, Tempo, Metalhead, and T-Mek are all fun and unique but none of them are really great games.

Shadow Squadron (Stellar Assault) is probably my favorite 32X game. Fast paced dogfighting in polygon spaceships. There was a sequel released in Japan for the Saturn but I prefer the 32X version. Darxide is really good too if you don't mind playing on a flashcart, emulator, or N-Gage.

I think Virtua Racing Deluxe for 32X is better than the Saturn version, but most of the other multi-platform games are better on other consoles.


FIFA 96 was an EU-only release for 32X. It's supposed to be a solid game and works fine on either PAL or NTSC consoles but I never bothered to track it down. There was also a JPN 32X exclusive from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms strategy game series. (?)



Here's a pic of my 32X storage bin:
(http://i1128.photobucket.com/albums/m492/tomwaits16/32x_bin.jpg)

yeah I'd love to get T-Mek and Shadow Squadron but the asking prices are NUTS, nice info and pic mate!!

Very nice collection of games tomwaits!!! Thanks for the info about FIFA 96.

I have always been curious about the 32X version of Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Enough so that I would like to learn the language just to play.

Quote from: "onthinice"Very nice collection of games tomwaits!!! Thanks for the info about FIFA 96.

I have always been curious about the 32X version of Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Enough so that I would like to learn the language just to play.

Would probably make a good candidate for a fan translation

Good idea Laird! I wonder if anyone has considered it?

This video briefly shows all the western releases for the add-on

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Yl-caqFvzg (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Yl-caqFvzg)

I'd love to have Darxide and Shadow Squadron but Primal Rage and MK2 actually look pretty good too. I think next year if I get a bonus I might treat myself to some stuff lol

Obviously one day I'd also like Chaotix but doubt that will ever happen, also that Star Trek game looked interesting and another obvious one is T-Mek, but the money for some of these is just insane

Wow Tom thats a nice collection indeed..

Speaking as a launch MCD owner, the 'failure' of the 32X really came as no surprise, yet another stop gap from Sega, desperate not to lose the MD user base.The MCD fiasco really should have set alarm bells ringing within Sega, by going the FMV route on hardware really NOT geared up to run it (only 512 colours, at best what 64 colours on screen?) whilst ignoring the rich potential of it's sprite handling custom hardware and 2nd CPU, to me showed utter lack of focus.

I did pick up a 32X few years back, once i'd set the monster up (what? another AC plug, cables here, there and all over!), enjoyed Virtua Starwars (though more jerky than i expected), but very let down by Metal Head. Huge Mech fan and whilst the texture mapping was nice, did'nt have the 'feel' of being in a towering bemoth death machine that Jag. Iron Solider had.

As for the rest of the games, seemed to go for silly money for the exclusives on Ebay, was'nt planning to collect for it, so soon got shot of it.

yeah its a shame though as the 32x was actually focusing more on good 2d and some 3d with little or no FMV crap in sight. Despite the fact that I feel it was a complete failure I would love to have the money to own the better games on the system such as Kolibri, T-Mek, Shadow Squadron and a few of the others... just a shame they go for such mental money

I keep telling myself that only a few more games and I could have a complete collection. The price keeps getting in the way of that happening.

Quote from: "onthinice"I keep telling myself that only a few more games and I could have a complete collection. The price keeps getting in the way of that happening.

It's a bit like the Jaguar in the way that there are a few games that just go for insane money

I agree. I guess it is a good thing that these systems are wanted, but it just seems to put some games out of reach for the average person.

ok so I have a problem now. You guys all know I have a 32x, MEGA CD 2 and Mega Drive 1, and I can run them all together via tv but ONLY if I use composite video and the sound from the headphone jack at the front. the Classic Games Room has the same setup as mine and some other people have said they can get the Mega Drive mk1 and 32x to work on a tv without the headphone jack but I just find it IMPOSSIBLE!! I have the Mk1 and mk2 composite AND scart versions of each cable and the ONLY viable option no matter how many variations I try is the one I mention above. I get picture via the mdmk2 scart cable from the 32x but no sound. Can't understand whats going on. I mean its not a MASSIVE deal but I'd really like to hear what people like Vyothric think as I've always had trouble with this behemouth setup to the point where I'm tempted to buy the MK 2

what do you guys think, Have I solved the problem??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ky87a7dKfA (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ky87a7dKfA)

Just came across this video for the unreleased version of Soul Star for the 32X

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtFcw2mYhNk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtFcw2mYhNk)

Looks good. They should have bought a Star Wars license and made it a Return of the Jedi space battle.

Looks great.

I uploaded a vid of Stellar Assault from the 32x on my channel recently if those of you 32x fans fancy checking it out?

Quote from: "108 Stars"Just in short: The 32X was a great decision by Sega, the only bad thing was they dropped it so early because Sega of Japan wanted all ressources poured into Saturn only. Sega of America wanted the 32X.
I dare to say the 32X could have helped Sega stay competeive; it was a success at first, sold like hot cakes until Sega could not deliver anymore in time. It was more than adequate for its purpose, who knows what we would have seen on it eventually. After all, all that was released was one generation of games. People could get 3D games without shelling out as much as for an all new console. Ingenious.

The 32X should have been supported longer, and the Saturn delayed to tweak the hardware to be better designed so that developers can make more use of the power. Sega could have launched a beefed up Saturn against the N64 then.

Sega's abandoning the 32X was actually my reason for abandoning them. I had saved cash for the 32X when they stopped supporting it, and their actions lead me to buy a PlayStation instead of a Saturn.

But that is of course off-topic.

My experiences with Sega hardware just don't match yours. I only ever experienced three defects with Sega systems, the Dreamcast going back to the bootscreen, the Mega-CD-1-tray not closing correctly and the GG capacitators go bad. I never saw anything else go wrong with any Sega machine.

IF someone could move the 32X part of the above post to the 32X thread, i'd be grateful as i'd love to continue the discussion, but don't want to de-rail this thread.

As for the Game Gear:again, i can only comment on my own personal experiences, lol.Sure there are many angry PS2, 360+PS3 owners out there, but i've never encountered the issues they have

Thread bump as 108 Stars made some very interesting points in the Game gear thread, hopefully a MOD will port post over, but until then:

1)I totally agree Saturn should have been delayed and i'd say they should either have taken Silicon Knights offer of a single chip CPU and make saturn as easy to develop for and on par with, power wise the Playstation or..totally redesigned it to be a true 64 Bit CD based machine and go again'st the N64.But which ever route they took from those 2, they'd still face Sony's HUGE budget (Sony could easily afford to buy developers and exclusives and market the ass of the Playstation) and longer they left it, the higher market share the Playstation alone would of had-how many got fed up of waiting for the N64, but a Playstation instead?.

2)The 32X....i'll post on in seperate post in a little while.

Cheers to whoever moved 108's post.

Ok then 32X a total disaster for SEGA and something that never should have happened in my eyes and i'll explain why:

1) It was the latest  from SEGA to try and keep the MD as a competitive format in face of increasing competition from likes of 3DO and Jaguar-a lot of us had been badly burned by SEGA with the MCD, it did'nt get the Scalar coin-op conversions we expected it to have (Outrun, Afterburner, Galaxy force, Powerdrift, Space Harrier etc, despite SEGA etc making a lot of fuss about the hardware's ability in handling sprites etc), instead they unwisely went for FMV and used the CD storage aspect instead so many times, that was followed by the SVP chip, which turned out to be too far removed from anything like being cost-effective to continue using and now here was 32X and Saturn was to follow after, plus rumours of Neptune (32X+MD) and we'd seen the CD-X and Nomad.

Think at 1 time on paper SEGA were supporting:MD, MCD, Pico, G.G and 32X, plus had teams working on Saturn games, just madness and Sega were streched thin (think that's why Saturn Virtua Racing was given to Time Warner), as a consumer you were left thinking SEGA's going to have to drop support on 1 or more of these, plus how long before the 32X is dropped in favour of the Saturn?

2)Failure to convert Scalar coin-op's to MCD was a poor choice, but bringing likes of Afterburner+Space Harrier to 32X was far worse, great as these games were in the day, they simply were not what punters expected on 32-Bit RISC based hardware (and SEGA cocked up on Saturn by bringing Gale racer to it, again, old game arriving far too late on wrong system), let alone as stand alone carts, had they been released as 2-in-1 budget titles, they might have fared better.

3)For all the talk of the extra 'power' the 32X gave the MD, when i look at just how that power was used, it seems so often it was either 'enhanced' versions of MD/MCD games-larger sprites, better use of colour, more parallax scrolling, clearer sound, extra frames of animation etc (and even then things like SNES MKII ran faster than 32X version, which is just bizzare) or the 32X exclusive stuff had to be comprimised somewhat i.e Metal Head:Great texture-mapping, but slow even for a MECH gameMotocross:3D, texture Mapping+scaling, but movement not really much more convincing than that found in a MD game of same ilk or impressive 3D, but game lacked depth (Starwars and Darxide).

Things like Stellar assault used plain polys, Motherbase had jerky scrolling, Doom ran in bordered window, Chaotix made great use of the colours, scaling routines etc but kept the polygons to a bonus level, was'nt much in way of baddies on screen at 1 time in main game, 36 Great Holes Golf+Motocross looked drab, blurry in places, cosmic Carnage, whilst using the scaling abilities and featuring large sprites was sluggish, had jerk animation, poor sound etc.

The only things i saw that really hinted at power of 32X (Darkxide aside) were Scavengers tech demo's and The X-Men demo, but since we're not talking full games here, hard to judge and Virtua Fighter, which just arrived far too late, had it been a launch game and a lot more games of this quality followed, things could have been very different for 32X.

3)as it stood, the system looked like a stop-gap until Saturn arrived and it's power was split between beefing up MD 2D+sound along with colours and some better than SVP chip 3D.

But SEGA really were not helping with things like Virtua Racing appearing on 3 formats i feel, just added to the confusion.

I bought a 32X shortly after launch and then ended up selling it awhile later when Sega abandoned it. I agree there isn't a lot of must have games on it but at the same time I really miss playing Virtua Racing and Star Wars Arcade to name a couple and for that reason one of these days I'm going to buy another one.
Like 108 said, we never saw the extent of what the hardware could do. Hopefully someday we will see some homebrew games developed for it.

There is a homebrew version of Wolfenstein 3D for it, but it's not finished so is a bit rough around the edges at the moment:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEf9SuRuRZM (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEf9SuRuRZM)

That's not bad. Obviously Wolfenstein isn't going to push the hardware but still cool to see 

@ Rogue Trooper

I agree that what came out on the 32X was not too impressive; but look at the Wolfenstein demo, a homebrew by a single guy. Look at the tech demos from Sega. What we got on the 32X is not nearly what it was capable of.

I think much like with the Jaguar developers rarely utilized the power. You wouldn't need 2 powerful CPUs to add colors.

Games like Doom even used only one of the CPUs, keeping the second one completely dormant. People say the 32X was not even capable of a full-screen Doom when in fact it was just a rush job running on half the power.


Yes, Sega was stretched thin. But the question is... when you have a slew of systems, why discontinue them all at the same time, even when one is only a year old? Had they discontinued GG and SMS, and slowed down MD development to focus on the 32X, that's how it should have been imo. The huge installed user base of the MD could have migrated to the 32X, new customers could buy the Neptune (MD&32X in one) from the start and still have the lowest cost next gen hardware beside the Jaguar.

Sure it would only be a "filler" of sorts, but one that leaves customers satisfied. Clearly Saturn was not ready for release; Sega pushed it to the market knowing that in the area Sega pioneered in the arcade, 3D graphics, the PlayStation was superior and easier to use. The Saturn was more expensive (at least in Europe) and offered mostly inferior results in 3D that was so hot. It needed a redesign.

32X would have given Sega that time. The MD was strong in Europe and the US; I remember Sega Germany's boss stating the MD was their "bread and butter" product, offering a steady income. Prolonging its life with the 32X would have given Sega time. Abandoning it, and all other systems was a gamble, Sega bet all of its fortune on one card. Sega of America knew that too, they wanted the 32X and not the Saturn; you may say they were wrong, but then again SoA under Tom Kalinske was the most successful period Sega ever had. That SoA toppled Nintendo eventhough starting as an underdog. I trust their judgement of the market more than that of Sega Japan which had failed to achieve success with any console on their home market to that day.

But that was par of the problem; when you read the interviews etc, Sega of Japan hated that the US branch was more successful. It's a pride thing. The MD was a disgrace to them because it failed to outsell the Famicom in the early days, the PCE and the SFC. A flop console. And Japan had to see how the west brought that platform to a huge success, making them seem incompetent. The 32X, an American idea that would prolong the MD's lifespan was exactly the opposite of what Japan wanted. And in the end, SoA always had to obey SoJ.

I look at the start of the 32X, and it sold out on the first Christmas. Sega could not meet demand (because again, SoJ would not offer larger production ressources). Star Wars 32X was the best selling Sega game that holiday, being in the top 5... being a game for a brand new system!

Third parties announced support.

Had Sega gone on to support the 32X, and delivered sufficient quantities of hardware it would have been a success. Probably not like the MD, but good enough to bridge the gap until a better Saturn is ready.

But Sega killed it among the other systems.
That left them with only the Saturn which did not convince consumers; and it left Sega with the stigma of having abandoned an expensive system after only a year. I lost trust in them, as did many others. Even if the Saturn had blown me away, I would not have bought it because I could not trust Sega anymore.

Eventually, the PlaySation 1 survived the 32X, the Saturn AND the Deamcast. Not a good result, and imo largely caused by Sega's bad reputation. Sure Sony had more money anyway, but like Big N Sega had created a great brand name in the MD era; Sega was hot. But they threw that away, out of the window. Actually Sony took over that audience, the cool image. I dare to say that even if a later Saturn would not have beaten the PlayStation, it would have beaten the N64. If it was CD-based, plus had the power similar to the N64 it would have sported all the advantages; better tech than the PS1, and more 3rd parties (+FMV, speech, bigger games) than the N64 where the cart technology scared devs away.

Thaat's how I see it at least.

Great topics there, will make a start:

The Saturn started 'life' as the GigaDrive, in 1992, concept was a 32 Bit CD based machine designed to 'beat' the 3DO, modelled around SEGA's Model 1 hardware, several protypes were built during 1993, designed using the 16 Mhz NEC V60 CPU, a widely avaiable (in Japan) CISC type chip and SEGA thought no-one could touch them outside of the arcade in terms of 32 Bit technology, buy Sony by contrast had been working with and making superior RISC based chips for Silicon Graphics workstations for years, knew what they could do and how they produced the  results, so they went for a faster and improved version of a chip they knew inside out and of course started hyping the console to biblical levels based on on-paper performance  which made Model 1 coin-op hardware look dated and the Saturn as it was then very underpowered by comparison, SEGA were caught squarely on the hop, panicked and made rash decision after rash decision.Pride played a part in shunning any technology they themselves had not brought up through their own R+D labs, but it alone was'nt the sole factor...

Some of the claims doing the rounds in manner they approached 3rd parties for support make me wonder which cost them more dearly, pride or arrogance, telling E.A that they needed SEGA, but SEGA did'nt need E.A, SEGA would succeed with or without them, just beggars belief espically after it was partly thanks to E.A's support the Genesis did so well in the USA....

The 32X, just like the 3DO and Jaguar, were never going to get the software support the Playstation or even Saturn were going to get, everyone knew both SEGA and SONY along with Nintendo had the big guns lined up and it would be a battle fought with these not the pretenders, no one seemed willing to really invest time and money in doing little more than token support for these, hence we saw so many enhanced ports of existing games on them all.


Tech demo's are just that...demo's designed to showcase hardware or a new game engine, soon as you factor in real game factors such as A.I, performance takes a hit, seen it on so many systems, sony loved showing off PS1 and PS2 in terms of 3D, lighting, particle effects etc etc, yet you ever wonder just why PS2 Gran turismo used same A.I routines as those used in the PS1 games, or we never saw games pushing anything past 20 Million polys per sec on PS2 despite Sony's claims of 66 Million per sec (originally 75 Million)?.

Scavenger put together some stunning Saturn tech demo's and indeed Amok and scorcher were superb examples of Saturn hardware being used, but game engines were scaled down from said tech demo's as comprimises had to be made to ensure things like steady frame rate etc, so i cannot really say finished goods in terms of 32X games from them would have matched quality of the tech demo's shown.

Only to look at early Quake on Saturn, Lobotomy who were among THE best Saturn coders had to scale back and comprimise on graphics etc, to fit everything in and ensure game performance did'nt take a hit, 32X would have been no different.

Plus being cart based, 32X did'nt have the luxury of streaming assests off CD in way say 3DO did (look at 3DO Road rash, engine streams assests for improved graphical performance or Primal on PS2-streams assests off CD for higher polygon count than other PS2 titles, or Soul Reaver on PS1, Nuclear+Soviet strike on PS1, all stream data off CD), so it was hampered there alone.

Also going to throw in:

SEGA had also looked at bringing home VR to the MD, but scrapped it, so they must have been throwing money at a good few projects in order to see which would be best bet to extend life of the MD, wonder how much, if any of these projects diverted focus and or resources away from developing true follow up to MD?

32X gave MD more colours, but games were still restricted to MD screen resolution i'd guess?

Talking of confusion, 6 32X games needed a MCD to run, another thing consumer probably did'nt want to be worrying about.SEGA really did'nt help matters in some areas.

I had a dig through the various list of games that were annouced but canned or possibly in cases work never started on, for 32X and going to mention a few as a kinda 'What If...' these had come out and thus 32X was better supported, type scenario:

See a good few 'enhanced' Mega Drive  games in there:Garfield, Road Rash 3, Street Racer, Zero Tolerance, Comix Zone, Dynamite Headdy, Primal Rage (though this would have required the MCD as well), Strike Trilogy (Des/Jungle and Urban on 1 cart), so looking at how say BC Racers was improved, i'd guess Street Racer would be smoother, have the scaling of the SNES game and possibly enhanced modes, the others? well i'd use MK2 on 32X as an example on enhanced carts, so i'd expect more frames of animation, better colouring, clearer sound etc.

MCD games also enhanced (or ported to rather than appear on MCD), so we'd have seen Soul Star, Tomcat Alley eluxe, Shadow Of Atlantis, Alien Trilogy (which started out on MCD, changed to 32X, then appeared on PS1/Saturn).

Also as well as the 32X CD games mentioned, likes of Alone In The Dark 2, Destuxor,Colour TV, Dogfight, Dragons Lair II, 36 Holes Golf CD, few others but just how many folk had a MD, MCD and were going to buy another add-on, just for a handful of titles?

Then you've games like Capcom's AVP and Darkstalkers, both of which would have been a real shot in the arm for the system, Shellshock from Core-i had the PSone version, awful game!, little known on Castlevania-The Bloodletting, but guessing enhanced version of cart Bloodlines, so better colours, sound and scaling effects.

Rayman-Less colours on screen than Jaguar version, but otherwise the same i'd guess.

Heavy Machinery from Scavenger-this i'd liked to have seen and just how it compared to their tech demo's on 32X

Streetfighter:The Movie-awful on systems it did arrive on.

Daytona USA-Given how both Saturn versions fared and if you compare 32X VF to Saturn VF, think you get idea just how cut down in terms of polys and textures 32X version would be, big step up tech wise from V.Racing.

So personally cannot see much that would have reversed 32X's fortunes had the support continued.

UPDATE:see also rumoured on 32X was Tomb Raider, asuming here it'd be 32X CD game, same game as the Jaguar CD game, engine probably very different to one used on Saturn.

Saturn Scorcher+Amok said to have started out as 32X titles, but moved to the more powerful Saturn hardware.

Heavy Machinery would have used a game engine similar to Road rash on 3DO-Polygons used to create enviroments, pre-rendered vehicles and rest of objects made of sprites, so again here i think you'd be looking at a frame rate of 20-25 FPS.

Think to really hold it's own again'st 3DO, 32X games would have needed to come out as 32X CD games, only to see how CD benifitted the Jaguar in cases like Battlemorph, Highlander and Hoverstrike.

I personally think rather than bother with the 32X SEGA would have been far better trying to turn the MCD around-stop the FMV crap altogether, get likes of Capcom to bring more S.E games like Final Fight to the system along with Virgin etc and also look at contined use of the SVP chip but in original games rather than trying to convert something like VF or Daytona USA to the format.

As it stood with games like Pitfall appearing on MD, MCD and 32X, it just sent out confusing message to consumers, espically when the differences between versions were minimal-32X Pitfall had what, an extra level, cleaner visuals, but sound was'nt improved much, nor was much use made of the extra colours.

IF i'm right in thinking, in terms of games like Primal Rage, all the 32X is doing is generating the character models, the MD itself creates the backdrops, so you'd see a mix of improved and not improved visuals and result is just a touched up version of a game you could get on MD cart as was, MCD suffered as it was with 'enhanced' cart games, did SEGA really think adding another layer of enhancement would help?, if people were'nt buying the MCD for enhanced MD carts, what made them think they'd buy a 32X for the same reason.

Things like Thunderhawk, Batman returns, Terminator S.e, Final fight showed how new hardware could be used to really enhance an existing 16 Bit game, but SEGA never really grabbed the ball and ran with it, marketing wise to show what differences there were, plus there were too few of only possible on MCD type games and 32X suffered the exact same issue.

This a proof of concept engine/demo for the 32X by the same guy who wrote Wolfenstein 3D for it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahISpH1eMzg (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahISpH1eMzg)

Quote from: "The Laird"This a proof of concept engine/demo for the 32X by the same guy who wrote Wolfenstein 3D for it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahISpH1eMzg (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahISpH1eMzg)

Very nice, but cannot help thinking for all the talk of what frame rate it could have had if written for the 32X hardware, voice over chap+youtube commeters are totally forgetting the impact on performance you'd see once you factored in enemies, game logic, A.I etc etc, sure if you just wanted a rolling 3D engine, it'd be great, but think frame rate would suffer the more you tried to do with the enviroment itself, so you'd eith have great looking, but empty rooms, or samey looking, repeated textures, which could be an issue for level design.

Not trying to be picky, just feet on ground here, tech demo's are not going to give true picture of how a fully working game would run on the hardware.

Looks good so far 

I think we just have to agree to disagree, Rogue Trooper.

Of course tech demos are not like real games, yet the 32X is also not limited to being a color enhancement to the MD like you make it out to be. It is capable of quite competent 3D graphics on a similar level as the Jaguar. Virtua Fighter was a very good port; reduced poly count, but also reduced flickering and slowdown. Metal Head had framerate issues but great textures. Again, who knows how a second and third generation of games could have looked. I am convinced it could have managed, at a lower level most early PS1 games (the 32X  was also cheaper, to counter the loss of detail) until a better Saturn could be released in 1996. Only then did 32-Bit games reach a level that was probably beyond anything the 32X and Jag could do.
It was a much more potent add-on than the Mega-CD was, and as such it was the system to go with. The MCD was too flawed from the beginning, the CDs being the only advantage over the 32X.

All the history behind the Saturn, the Giga Drive (much of it being rumors never verified by Sega staff since) don't change that the Saturn was not the right hardware at the right time. The 32X could have filled the gap until Saturn is better prepared, the demand was there, and the support was there. In my eyes the moment Sega killed the 32X was the moment the company went downhill and it suffers from it to this day.

Quote from: "108 Stars"I think we just have to agree to disagree, Rogue Trooper.

Of course tech demos are not like real games, yet the 32X is also not limited to being a color enhancement to the MD like you make it out to be. It is capable of quite competent 3D graphics on a similar level as the Jaguar. Virtua Fighter was a very good port; reduced poly count, but also reduced flickering and slowdown. Metal Head had framerate issues but great textures. Again, who knows how a second and third generation of games could have looked. I am convinced it could have managed, at a lower level most early PS1 games (the 32X  was also cheaper, to counter the loss of detail) until a better Saturn could be released in 1996. Only then did 32-Bit games reach a level that was probably beyond anything the 32X and Jag could do.
It was a much more potent add-on than the Mega-CD was, and as such it was the system to go with. The MCD was too flawed from the beginning, the CDs being the only advantage over the 32X.

All the history behind the Saturn, the Giga Drive (much of it being rumors never verified by Sega staff since) don't change that the Saturn was not the right hardware at the right time. The 32X could have filled the gap until Saturn is better prepared, the demand was there, and the support was there. In my eyes the moment Sega killed the 32X was the moment the company went downhill and it suffers from it to this day.

The 32X (and indeed Jaguar) were indeed capable of a lot more than producing colour enhanced MD/SNES games, but thing i'm getting at here is way they were used by developers at the time.MK II does seem like a rush job, enhanced colour and sound over MD version, but still not as fast as the SNES version?, that's crazy, mentioned several other games than just had cleaner visuals etc, how many coders actually used the 32X Sound Chip? SEGA themselves admitted people just were not willing to code for the soundchip as 32X was seen as a stop gap, something to tide SEGA over until Saturn hit, what was it SEGA called it? a bridge between the MD and Saturn?.

3DO, 32X and Jaguar, all made early steps into reasonably fast Polygon 3D and texture mapping, but you've only to look at the comprimises made on all 3, which were made in order to keep game speed up, be it use of setting game in dark enviroments, using Polygons for enviromental objects, sprites for others etc.Metal Head and Darkxide probably were the 2 most advanced 3D games on 32X, texture mapping, light sourcing etc, performance probably could have improved further, but to any real effect? i personally doubt it.

Sure a 32X could have been seen as an entry level Next gen machine, which is line ATARI was bringing out when Jaguar dropped in price, but my friend, i was a Jaguar owner and i still payed £300 for a Day-1 Playstation, plus paid ontop of that for Ridge Racer and Toh Shin Den (and i hate Racing games!), purely because they looked so OMG!!!

Shallow i grant you, as i soon got bored and later poured hours into the primitive, enhanced over amiga only in terms of smoke effects and CD music, XCOM, but at the time, plain Polygons which both the 32X and Jaguar were more suited to pushing, just would'nt have cut it up again'st Sony's PSone, things like 2 games i've mentioned, plus Wipeout really made you feel hardware was worth the asking price.

Having seen the saturn fail so badly with 1st crack at Daytona USA, i dread to think what Sega would have served up on a 32X version.

Scavenger tech demos did look superb and i loved AMOK on Saturn, but even that used sprites for 3D to keep speed up, Scrocher was proper 3D with light sourcing, smooth frame rate etc, but i honestly doubt they'd have gotten the same level of performance from 32X.


I'd agree 100% the demand for the 32X was there, but the support i'd beg to differ, token support by some 3rd parties yes, but looking at list of games that did make it, alongside those that did'nt..it's clear to see it never had the full backing by 3rd parties.Much like the Jaguar and 3DO you had a handful of talented coders who were willing to get the best from the hardware, whilkst the rest just looked to tart up MD games with extra colours and better samples etc.

Folks can put up tech demo's all day long, lol, but they are no more 'true' to game performance than P.D demo's of old, your just getting the hardware to run the effects you want and that only, looks great i know, but means nothing, no more than concept demo's.

Things like that 9 Min E3 Halo 2 demo.Bungie knocked up, just to have something to show on Xbox or Sony's PS2 The Getaway-might have X amount of realistic London cityscape, but A.I, controls etc, broken same with PS2 Gran Turismo, looked fantastic in rolling vids, but soon as you started playing you realised A.I etc was'nt improved as resources were not there to pull it and those visuals off

Think 108 you honestly have to look at SEGA as a whole back then, my hat is off to them for being so willing to embrace newer technology and use it to 'future proof' the MD somewhat, be it CD, home V.R or RISC based 32-Bit CPU's etc, but harsh fact is, an add-on can never be as good as a designed from the ground up system, as it's always going to be restricted by the base unit, ie thing it plugs into.

There's a good reason the M2or Bulldog add-on for the 3DO would be able to use little more than the CD drive, they did'nt want it restricted in any way by the 3DO's chipset, it had to be a clear generation above Playstation performance.

32X might have had more faith in it, had it been the only add-on or enhancer SEGA came out with, so MD-straight to 32X, NO SVP on MD cart, NO MCD and a much longer delay between it and the Saturn.If it was priced correctly and given deluxe conversions of games it really could handle well (ie sprite based, rather than things like Virtua fighter, good as that was) and games priced to reflect the 'age', it could have settled in to the 2nd machine space in many peoples homes or be 'enough' to tide SEGA die hards over until 1st details of the Saturn came out and people could see how it performed next to PSone and N64.


Jaguar CD enabled games like Hoverstike which proved the machine could do 3D games (with cleaner textures than...) of a standard of 1st wave PS1 titles, but was an add-on for a device many of us had lost faith in, had it arrived earlier, with stronger line up of games? (like Freelancer 2100 which looked amazing) things would hopefully been different, 32X finds itself in same area for myself.

I was also an early adopter for PS1; like it was released in September, and I bought it in December (from my savings for a 32X, lol).

And yes, what 3rd parties really offered was lame. But maybe, just maybe that would have changed with a bigger user base... and with fewer 2D games coming out that could be beefed up a little. I remember looking forward to Alone in the Dark, that kind of thing would have fit the 32X nicely. Sega's Sonic Xtreme... games could have used 3D enviroments and pre rendered sprite based characters to make up for the low poly count.

I really think there was potential there. And what's important: Sega would have to set an example by providing great software. Unlike on Mega-CD, where they only brought Sonic CD as an exclusive (and one that in some regards wasn't even as good as the cart game Sonic 2) and not much else beside beefed up cart games. 3rd parties have to see the console manufacturer means business to really pour ressources into it. If they see Sega only brings few titles, or second rate stuff they know it's not worth their time and effort. Two major titles (Star Wars and VF) plus Virtua Racing which was already available on MD was not enough.

At any rate, Saturn in its state was not ready to a take on the PlayStation head-on. It was a dead giveaway with the visual discrepancy of the first generation that the PS1 would win. And even later it was only Sega and few others that could get excellent results from Saturn.

My relationship with Sega is really one of both love and hate. I love their 8- and 16-bit-era machines and games; I love how well they supported 8-bit just as long as 16-bit with AAA titles. I love how they overcame the unstoppable giant Nintendo.

But I hate how they dropped support for the MD although saying they would not. I hate how they sold the fans Mega-CD and 32X without supporting them properly. I hate how they rushed Saturn to market to be the first instead of fine tuning it. I hate how they abandoned 32X, Saturn and Dreamcast all in the lifespan of a single Sony generation. I hate how unfocused the company always was, with different parties pulling in different directions. I hate how they let their franchises rot and go into obscurity while Nintendo takes good care of its own franchises. Shinobi, Streets of Rage, Golden Axe, Wonder Boy and Eternal Champions should be big franchises today, with new incarnations being announced at big press events at E3. They were no less than Zelda, Metroid or Donkey Kong. But Sega threw it away.

The 32X is one such chapter, where I believe they could have made a lot out of it had they made a little effort. But it was not meant to be.

I bought PSone AITD II it was awful, slow, plodding speed, unresponsive controls, you name it, so i'd have to say the 32X version would probably have been even worse.Also, Interplay did'nt even have the rights to publish 32X AITD II at the time it was annouced, so wether game would have had a 'global' release, had it indeed been done, is doubtful.Also for game to really work well, you'd be looking at it as 32X CD game (which i've seen it listed as), so not exactly aimed at core 32X market.


SEGA might well have starved the MCD of exclusives (i hate Sonic CD, even re-bought on PSN to give it a 2nd chance, but no, cart Sonics far superior), but that did'nt stop Capcom bringing out Final Fight, Core for bringing out Thunderhawk, Jaguar XJ220, Soul Star, Battlecorps+BC Racers, Virgin bringing out Terminator S.E, Dune etc, all making use of MCD hardware, be it bigger sprites or using the custom sprite hardware for scaling/texture mapping etc.Only way 32X was going to get a bigger user base was to have the killer apps to convince people to buy them.

Starwars Arcade was great, if limited, Virtua Racing-were people who'd bought the expensive SVP MD cart game going to buy a 32X and another version of the game? doubt it, same for Primal Rage, MK2 etc-these are'nt games MD owners were going to see as must get another copy of...

The state of the Saturn-blame there lies squarely at SEGA's feet, if your offered a solution that meant Saturn could compete with Playstation, yet it hurts your pride or you feel you owe a golf buddy a favour, so you'll use his chipsets instead, then so be it, but don't expect developers to make allowances, instead better be prepared to watch them leave you in droves.How galling it must have been to see a key SEGA supporter in form of Core say your system won't be getting any more Tomb Raider games, knowing just how huge the 1st was.


Even in MD days, signs were clear that SEGA were running clean out of ideas for key franchises SOR peaked at SOR II-SOR III might have been biggest cart, but it tried to throw everything bar the kitchen sink in and result was a messs.Golden Axe i loved, but Golden Axe II+III were awful.

Shinobi had been hit and miss (Shadow Dancer, The Cyber Shinobi anyone?) and by time of Shinobi III, inital version was mauled at review, withdrawn and tweaked, but despite bigger cart, still not a patch on Revenge Of Shinobi.

Wonder Boy and dragons Trap i loved, but i've never got on with Monster world games, again rebought recently (on XBLA), but deleted the collection last night as magic just was'nt there, yet i still play Dragons Trap on MS/GG via emu.

Eternal Champions was a case of SEGA again showing what could be done with an enhanced version on MCD, lot better than the cart version, but for every enhanced game that worked, there seemed to be a new installment of a SEGA franchise that seemed to follow same pattern:Bigger MEG cart, bigger sprites, more levels etc, but less to enjoy.More=Less.

I still say SEGA was trying to support too many platforms at once, resources streched too thin, it was a hydra of a company, many heads snapping at each other.Sony and Nintendo slew it, a head at a time, sadly.

I also think that had SEGA gone ahead and ported likes of Daytona USA to 32X it'd done even more harm-the expectations would have been too high, end result too dissapointing, so SEGA would have ended up loosing even more faith.

Also the 'Giga' Drive, i assume this is what later became known as 'Project Mars', ie plans for an updated MD to be released featuring more colours and a 32 Bit CPU etc.

32X advert from SEGA in 1994 spoke of 'faster action, hammering graphics, if it can do this for your Genesis, imagine what it can do for your SEGA CD'.


But thing here was these 'hammering graphics' SEGA spoke of, part of which were scaling and rotation-these were features people had bought a SEGA CD for, now they were expected to buy yet another add-on to do exactly the same (but more).same applies to Q-Sound, MCD had already used that in Ecco The Dolphin and J.Park.

32X offer lot more colours to choose from (32, 768) and more on screen (256?) which MCD could'nt offer, clever coding tricks could get more from it, but nothing like 32X, but 32X did'nt adress a key flaw UK mags were moaning about by then, the MD screen resolution, so again the marketing promised a lot, but the hardware could'nt deliver everything people wanted or expected from a 32 Bit system and people were getting confused.MCD had promised to take games to whole new level, then sprite scaling etc was seen as yesterdays news, Polygons my friend, 3D that was where it was at, here's the SVP chip, no, wait...that's old tech, here's twin 32 Bit RISC chips and sprite scaling and rotation now key features....again.

First of al it was AitD 1 that was announced for 32X, not 2. A game that came on floppy disks on PC, perfect fit for the 32X.

You overestimate the importance of CD-ROM; CD-ROM doesn't mean much, it was hype with little behind it. What the space was mostly used for was music and FMVs, the gameplay of most games fits perfectly on cartridge. 32XCD games should have never been released, the 32Xwas capable of all that was required for gaming. The CD tech had no effect whatsoever on in-game graphics.

Secondly maybe UK mags complained about the 32X resolution, but I never heard it. The fact is: The majority of games on PlayStation, especially 3D games also ran in 320x224 pixels. The exact MD resolution. Very few games like Soul Reaver or on Saturn Sega's own games used higher res. Strangely nobody complained anymore.

Sega's software was hit or miss, sure; I agree on Shinobi for example peaking with Revenge, but then again Golden Axe III pummels its predecessors gameplaywise, it is only flawed in the visual department. Same goes for SoR 3, it's great, the only problems were the questionable art design and the music. Not nearly as much of a let-down as people say it was, it was just that the genre is old news. Wonder Boy got better with every incanatio imo, as much as I love Dragon's Cures, Wonder Boy in Monster World is a huge step forward in my eyes, and MW IV one of the 3 best MD games ever imo. Eternal Champions was a franchise that would have been more successful in the west than Virtua Fighter, which always was incompatible to western audiences. Great story idea and art design, violence, good gameplay... EC was the middle ground between SF II and MK.

Sure Sega was supporting too many systems; that's why I say it was okay to finally drop SMS and GG, and MCD. The MD and 32X though should have been supported. No chance in hell Sega would have been worse off than with the Saturn at that point.

The Mega-CD was dead, a misconception from the get-go and not up to the tasks needed for the MD to live on. MCD lived on 2 markets only with success: US and UK. Look at Germany, where even Sega magazines warned consumers not to buy it because of lacking support from Sega and below average good-to-bad-game ratio. MCD was stigmatized as just a platform for FMV games and a few Core Design games.
The 32X was needed, it offered 3D graphics and more colors. Think Donkey Kong Country, outselling all 32-bit games of the time; that's the kind of stuff Sega could have offered on the 32X, but with higher quality. 64 colors were not enough to rival it, Sega tried and failed, but in 256 plus with higher res and much higher processing power than the SNES and any of its add-on chips had... Sonic could have been one to topple the DKC giant on the 32X.

What we can agree on is that games are needed; but again, Sega had to set the example. Sure the Mega-CD got some support with Sega also offering little themselves, but look at the kind of support; Final Fight was a joke at that point in time. A port of a 1989 arcade game in 1993, similar situation to DD on Lynx; and at the same time SNES had FF2. Capcom brought their lower profile series with an old part to Mega-CD, while the Mega Drive got the cream of the crop with SF II. Core Design was a Euro dev, by default low profile in the console market of the time, not with the means to get an expensive Nintendo license. They helped the Mega-CD, having the familiar 68 000 CPU they knew from the Amiga and the scaling capabilities the games needed; no big surprise, they could not pick. Their support was the Mega-CD's saving grace. But where were Konami and the other big shots? They brought the high profile stuff on cart.
The moment the manufacturer does not offer good support 3rd parties will not commit either.

We will not come to an agreement here.
The Mega-CD was the mistake, the 32X was the good idea imo.

The

Magazines said and indeed posted shots of AITD II over here in many cases, rumour has it it was indeed the 32X version that ended up on PS1+Saturn.

Over estimated the importance of CD? gotta diagree there, as i've said before, Need For Speed, Road Rash, Crash  N Burn etc on 3DO were streaming textures off it, Slipheed on MCD was pulling off pre-rendered Polygon visuals, Soul Reaver again, constantly streaming data off CD on PSone as you played, compare Jaguar Cybermorph and Hoverstrike to the CD versions of Hoverstike S.E and Battlemorph and you'll see what a difference the storage medium made, Soviet and Nuclear Strike streaming ground textures off CD, sprites over-laid on top-just a few examples off top of my head-Developers wanted CD, were by then used to it and whined about cart restrictions on things like N64, Jaguar and 32X.

High Res modes on Playstation:know Colony Wars was among 1st to use higher res modes, as was Rapid Racer? (power boat game), Saturn, again just off top of my head Mass Destruction, VF2, Last Bronx etc.

UK mags were very harsh on systems, 3DO, Jaguar, 32X once the darlings (well all bar the 32X), soon considered yesterdays news, 3D power mocked (mind you soon sadly was true of Saturn in UK press), we were entering an era when 'style' mags like GQ, Esquire, FHM etc would'nt touch a game unless it was some cutting edge 3D monster, all style over substance, things like Saturn Guardian Heroes scorned by rags like Ult.Future Games as they were just souped up 16 Bit games.

Dunno if your aware, but pre-release of Saturn+32X SEGA invested a cool £7.5 Million in setting up a new HQ in West London, sole aim was to have 2 'core' teams developing 32X+Saturn games, SEGA looking to hire 3D artists, modellers etc etc, just to ensure 32X had the software it needed (as well as the Saturn) and UK press was reporting that SEGA Japan busy on Daytona USA as well as Virtua striker-wonder how many UK 32X's were sold on premise of what was said to be in the works?

You mentioned demand far out stripping supply on 32X the orders were there, well so was the case with the Jaguar, magazine coverage had built up huge interest at the time, yet likes of HMV and Virgin were supplied with less than 100 units each.Where was the demmand for either console once PS/Saturn details ramped up?

SOR 1+2 are among THE most played MD games for myself and whilst i often return to SOR III, it's such an unfocused, flabby game, it pales next to SOR II.

UK press coverage of the VF series and indeed the media in general (i can still recal seeing the Saturn UK launch being shown on BBC Breakfast news with VF running as THE showcase) has always been high, the amount of pages given by likes of C+VG, EDGE, Maximum etc to the games, the moves etc etc, was huge, Eternal Champions by comparison? far, far less.

SEGA software hit n miss:At same time SEGA had Heavenly Symphony doing the rounds, here in UK CORE were busy finishing off Battlecorps and work well under way on Soul Star.

Your description of the 32X is how media saw the 32X over here, lol.dead from the start, under powered (mags claiming it was made from 'cast off chipsets from the Saturn), the SH-2's used being little more than cheap workhorses, rather than the 3D beasts it would have needed to compete, sure the CPU wiped the floor with the Jaguar, but GPU on Jaguar was it's strength.

where were Konami? errrm, they were late to the MD, let alone the MCD, and, ahem, Snatcher anyone on MCD?

This topic is for discussion though, niether of us (i hope) is looking to change the others mind, it's just a trip back down what happened and what could have been.

Have to recal at time original concept for Saturn was in R+D only machines it needed to beat were the Atari Panther and the 3DO, so a design that was a 2D powerhouse with decent 3D abilities was all SEGA then thought was needed, market changed, ATARI scrapped Panther, claiming it had a '64-Bit' console coming, Sony seemed to enter from nowhere with a 32 Bit CD console using far newer chipsets, panic must have set in at SEGA HQ and they were desperate that the 'foothold' in USA and Europe they'd gotten with MD/Genesis was'nt eaten away, so rash decisions made.

Also CORE used far more than just the 68000 of the MCD, they were doing twin or parallel processing on hardware, long before many Japanese/American teams had even recived their Saturn dev.kits and were scrathing their heads trying to figure it out, so they deserve a lot more credit than press gave them.

And:UK VF:SEGA 'beamed' images of the characters onto the Westminster buildings (Big Ben etc) with slogan 'comes Out fighting', so VF was a big thing for SEGA Europe.

Plus right up until Saturn was released over here, there were reports in UK press that Saturn would have a 64 Bit Graphics chip (C+VG), use 2X newer SH-3 chips to match Playstation (Edge), claims SEGA did nothing to rectify.

MCD/Konami:i forgot the 2 Lethal Enforcer games, 1st of which i know retailed cheaper than the cart version.

MCD CD space, used well for games like Lunar, Shining Force CD, Heart Of The Alien (Out Of This world I+II), Rise Of The dragon, Shadow Run, Dungeon Master, Eye Of The Beholder, Monkey Island, wing Commander (which also used the sprite scaling of the hardware), Lunar etc etc.

Would we have seen these on cart in the form they appeared on MCD? i doubt it.

Streaming from CD was utterly unimportant at that time. The 32X could not handle the amount of textures that would require streaming anyway. Developers wanted CDs for one reason, because they cost only a fraction of cartridges. You could squeeze the complete track from Ridge Racer, with everything into the 1MB RAM of the PlayStation, take out the CD and play on. That was far beyond what textures the 32X would have ever displayed. Streaming was only meaningful much later in the era.

Don't forget I am talking about the 32X as a hardware to bridge the time between MD and a late 1996 Saturn, not a hardware to focus on for the entire generation.

The press proclaimed the 32X underpowered and dead because they knew the Saturn was right around the corner. Which would not have been the case had the Saturn been delayed what I made the whole point about. It was no magic to see it's dead when you know the next system is coming so soon.
The Mega-CD was indeed already called a fossil by the time it was released. It's an entirely different level from the 32X.

Demand for the Jaguar may have been high at one point, but the end result is that the 32X sold as much in its 1 year lifespan as the Jaguar in 3.

Coverage on VF was big because it was a hype from Japan, hugely successful there. It never gained any mass appeal in the west though, to complicated and cumbersome. Eternal Champions on the other hand was a success even without the big coverage, had Sega done a next gen version it would have sold very well. VF was soon dead in the west. VF2 was the last big VF for Sega in the west, released on a dying Saturn and technically impressive. VF 3, 4, 5... nobody gave a damn. Sega could have beamed VF on Big Ben if they wanted, it just never caught on. Don't mix up hopes with real success. The other way around: MK was a huge success but failed miserably in Japan. Sometimes games just don't work with all audiences.

Core: It doesn't matter if they used parallel processing, in the end it was still the 68 000 they knew well. Core was given a lot of credit, and rightly so because they made the only impressive MCD games, but it doesn't change that they were small and had no impact like big Konami, Capcom or Sega titles cold have had.

Konami: Again, two low profile games. The important ones they brought on cart.
All the MCD games you name beside Wing Commander would have been possible on cartridge easily if you cut the CD audio and FMVs. Lunar is embarrassing from a technical standpoint.

Also those reports of the enhanced Saturn, like all the details of the Giga Drive are just rumors and have never since been confirmed by former Sega employees What's the value of rumors? There are rumors before the launch of every new generation, it's worthless. That Sega of America believed in the 32X is not a rumor, you can read the interviews on Sega-16. If the same people who made the MD a success believed the 32X was the way to go, I trust them.

well, as i said MCD used CD pull off pre-rendered data as did later hardware such as PSone.32X tech builds on that used by MCD, so i'd assume it was capable of handling similar if not more data.assests can be a lot more than just textures.

For 32X to be a credible 'bridge' until SEGa had a Saturn that could match or better the Playstation, it'd need to be able to compete with 3DO at very least, so again it comes back to fact it'd need to either use the MCd for the larger games or have cut back versions on cart.

OK, lets assume all press had to worry about was the 3DO, Jaguar and Playstation.32X technology remained the same, now given how quickly the UK press declared the Jaguar and 3DO yesterdays news and 32X was'nt even up to Saturn as we saw it tech, how do you think 32X would have fared, it would still be seen as:underpowered, a stop gap, doing nothing more than buying SEGA time etc.The chips used in 32X were chosen as they had been around for ages, hence were cheap, readily avaiable, but already dated.

VF (which i'm not a fan of) was constantly used by SEGA Europe as a key 'weapon' from the comes out fighting, to the ECTS Saturn reveal, to the rumoured add-on for Saturn for VF3, to launch DC game, hell UK press gave fact VF4 was coming to PS2, not Xbox huge coverage, was there demand from magazines or Joe public in UK for eternal champions on 32X/Saturn or DC? i never heard a whisper and avid reader during all those years, got magazine collections etc, nothing there.

Core:sorry, but it does matter that they were used to twin processor tech, as it made them the ideal people to get the best out of the complicated Saturn hardware, they'd had a head start, they moved on from just using a single 68000 CPU a la Amiga, only to look at MCD Thunderhawk compared to the Amiga version.Filled polygons VS texture mapping, Mode 7, sprite scaling etc, all using the 2 CPU's and MCD sprite hardware.

Konami's Snatcher, low profile though, seriousily?

Just how big a cart do you think those MCD games would have needed? FMV etc aside, they would'nt be cost effective to produce, hell they'd make MD Virtua racing look like VFM.

I've read interviews on or in:
 
Sega-16, EDGE, Maximum, RG, Gamestm, etc etc.All say the decision was made not to continue with idea of developing a stand alone enhanced MD, but to go with the add-on, as far better chance of selling it to the installed user base.Some interviews say there was no friction between SEGA USA+SEGA Japan, some say they knew 32X was a 'dead duck', but they were afraid to speak out as it was seen as bad to be negitive about work of your fellow departments etc, not seen anything that honestly belived in 32X.

Some digs at other versions of Doom (Jaguar version having no music) are there, along with explanations why 32X Doom turned out way it did (small cart, rushed to market) etc, but faith in the product, no, bizzare claims in the early ones, then honest reflection on looking back yes.

 

Think your missing the point re:Core-they were getting far better results from SEGA hardware (at that time the MCD) than SEGA themselves were coming up with, so they would have been ideal partners for this world where 32X is a bridge until Saturn is ready, sure they'd have gotten most out of 32X as well.The size of the company is meanigless, it's what they do with the hardware, SEGA produced far more FMV dross, a Sonic game on Cd that was worse than cart versions, yet CORE managed to deliver technically stunning and fantastic to play games.I mean we are talking a SEGA here that cocked up 2 attempts at Daytona USA on Saturn, that let Time warner handle Virtua Racing, that had no idea what to do with the MD, and set about pouring resources into CD, DSP chips, enhanced MD's, home VR, portable MD etc etc.Sometimes think SEGA are the last people i'd have put faith in, in terms of delivering the games i wanted, i'd much rather they gave the hardware to the talent-Darxide-most graphically impressive game on 32X, did it come from SEGA/Capcom or Konami? no..UK developer.


CORE seemed to know the MCD hardware a LOT better than most of SEGA's in house teams, mentioned the dire Heavenly Symp., the slow, jerky Mode 7 esq bonus stage on Sonic CD, but there was also Joe montanas NFL, sure it had sprite scaling and rotation, but it was slow and jerky.SEGA's own games often did more damage than good to the system.



Tom Kalinske talking about 32X Doom: '..on other systems there's no sound and i can't imagine a game without sound.It'd be like watching a movie with the sound turned off'-so he slags off another version, does'nt get the facts right (game has no music, but sound FX a plenty) and makes no attempt to explain why that version has link-up, Sega's version does'nt.In same interview he claimed 3DO sales in USA were only 100, 000, The 3DO company responded saying it was 200,000.so faith is 1 think, but he'd been better off explaining the merits of 32X rather than trying to get digs in at it's rivals.

Core design on MCD and Thunderhawk:

we used Polygons 1st for the buildings...dropped them because it was too slow, sprites are a lot faster and they look more impressive...sprites are just a screen routine and Polygons?, well we could have just taken the code out of the Amiga version.

The machine (MCD) can do sprites and texture-mapping, sprites and texture-mapped ground are a lot better than polygons.

...SEGA wanted to use the product to sell the MCD and Polygons just does'nt use the hardware at all.so the idea was'nt to do a cart on a disc, we wanted to do something that could only be done on MCD.

It's (the MCD) a very nice machine, it's got 2X 6800's, you don't run out of cartridge space, the 2 CPU's are running in Parallel (on Thunderhawk)...there's an extra graphics chip, also running in Parallel, the only restrictions are the colours'


So i'd say they moved a lot on from the 6800 Amiga/ST days.

The point about the rumours is that SEGA did nothing to stem them or clarify them, thus you got more customer confusion as just what was on the way.

SEGA seemed to have gone from 1 main product (The MD) with an entry level machine (the MS) and a colour handheld, to all of a sudden, reports of new hardware coming in from all directions:MCD,Giga Drive, Mars,CDX, Home V.R, EDGE 16 Modem, SVP chips.. you name it.Punters left wondering just what the hell they'd need to be buying next, just to play games they wanted, before it was so simple, you bought the cart you wanted for your MD, no concern over system requirements.

SEGA should have learnt some what from  ATARI, who kept upgrading the ST to compete with the Amiga, users found they needed double-sided drives, extra memory, ohh look here's a new STe, got the blitter and colours, plus better sound chip of the Amiga, but good chance lot of games won't work on it or take advantage of it, never mind the STe, here's the Falcon, oh and here's the Lynx and did we mention the Panther?

Honestly: The Mega-CD was antiquated from the day it was born.
It seems UK press and German press handled it very differently, the machine was buried here pre-release.

Having been involved with MD homebrew I talked to quite a few knowledgeable people in terms of MD, and yes, Lunar, EotB etc were no problem to fit on a normal cart. Believe me or don't, I am certain I can trust those people. EotB and the likes came out on cart on SNES and Lynx even.

Snatcher was low profile, it may be a cult classic now, but it was totally unimportant back then and sold badly.

Sega promoted VF, press liked VF, but it doesn't change that it was never very popular here. Great ratings don't equal great sales, people rather played Toshinden, Tekken and Soul Calibur. Today VF has become download only. Eternal Champions sold like hot cakes in the US at least, it was more accessible and a good seller for Sega. Not like SF II or MK, but at least it had more potential to click with the masses here in further incarnations than VF had.

 the polygon streaming like Silpheed: That's just FMV, it's a movie. No hint of real time, it's just an FMV like any other with ships on top. That is no good reason for CDs, FMV games are junk.

I also know that Core interview... what were they supposed to say when promoting their new game? And of course names can be more important than the game quality, Contra, Castlevania and Street Fighter had 10x the selling power of new IP from small devs like Core.

All the devs who say they knew 32X was just a short intermezzo also knew Saturn was coming soon; that changes things. Had Mr Kalinske had his way, Saturn would not have come so soon, entirely different situation. And you can't blame him for not knowing the details of 3DO or Jaguar games, he's no gamer but a CEO.

But really, this leads nowhere, I am just completely on opposite terms with you on this. ^^ Mega-CD was Sega's mistake, dated hardware by the time of its release, 32X was the way to go imo. We won't change each others mind and everything's been said. :)

Quote from: "108 Stars"Honestly: The Mega-CD was antiquated from the day it was born.
It seems UK press and German press handled it very differently, the machine was buried here pre-release.

Having been involved with MD homebrew I talked to quite a few knowledgeable people in terms of MD, and yes, Lunar, EotB etc were no problem to fit on a normal cart. Believe me or don't, I am certain I can trust those people. EotB and the likes came out on cart on SNES and Lynx even.

Snatcher was low profile, it may be a cult classic now, but it was totally unimportant back then and sold badly.

Sega promoted VF, press liked VF, but it doesn't change that it was never very popular here. Great ratings don't equal great sales, people rather played Toshinden, Tekken and Soul Calibur. Today VF has become download only. Eternal Champions sold like hot cakes in the US at least, it was more accessible and a good seller for Sega. Not like SF II or MK, but at least it had more potential to click with the masses here in further incarnations than VF had.

 the polygon streaming like Silpheed: That's just FMV, it's a movie. No hint of real time, it's just an FMV like any other with ships on top. That is no good reason for CDs, FMV games are junk.

I also know that Core interview... what were they supposed to say when promoting their new game? And of course names can be more important than the game quality, Contra, Castlevania and Street Fighter had 10x the selling power of new IP from small devs like Core.

All the devs who say they knew 32X was just a short intermezzo also knew Saturn was coming soon; that changes things. Had Mr Kalinske had his way, Saturn would not have come so soon, entirely different situation. And you can't blame him for not knowing the details of 3DO or Jaguar games, he's no gamer but a CEO.

But really, this leads nowhere, I am just completely on opposite terms with you on this. ^^ Mega-CD was Sega's mistake, dated hardware by the time of its release, 32X was the way to go imo. We won't change each others mind and everything's been said. :)

Happy to leave it there as again, was'nt looking to change your mind or anyone elses, it was just a discussion, interesting to note how hardware differed on both sides of the Atlantic, seems it went widely off track somewhere.

Only thing i would say, you can hardly say there's any difference between CORE promoting their MCD game and SEGA saying they have faith in 32X, both are trying to sell product.

If a CEO or any other key player is going to diss the competition in public, it's common sense to make sure they know what they are talking about, they should be media savy enough to know media loves to run with soundbites.

I like a lively discussion once in a while, I just want to avoid us two repeating ourselves over and over and spamming the thread, lol.

I just came across this, a brilliant program for the 32X that lets you play Atari ST YM and Sinclair ZX Spectrum AY music.

[align=center:qdnhlg0p](http://content.pouet.net/screenshots/62175.png)[/align:qdnhlg0p]

QuoteThe ROM should run fine in Kega Fusion if you don't have proper hardware to run it on. Or you can watch a youtube capture here.

Most of the songs were taken from the STSound YM collection; the rest being Spectrum tunes that I converted from .ay to .ym (there might even be a CPC song or two in there).

Source code is included. Download here: http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=62175 (//http)

[align=center:qdnhlg0p]Shymmer (Sega 32X YM player) (//http)[/align:qdnhlg0p]

[align=center:y5wp5foc]Game Sack - The Sega 32X (//http)[/align:y5wp5foc]

I love the 32X for what it was, a cheap alternative for 32-bit gaming.

[align=center:2jgp26m4]Sega Genesis 32x Console Review - Leftover Culture Review (//http)[/align:2jgp26m4]

Nice review there. I think his opinion at the end there is right on, most gamers aren't missing anything by not having a 32x. He's not slamming the system, and he certainly enjoys having it around, but there isn't much enthusiasm on his part to dump a bunch of money into it, and I certainly sympathize with that.

It's a nice little niche console to collect for, I think, and has some interesting titles to check out, if you are patient and savvy with how you acquire the games. Honestly, the collector part of me would love to have a complete 32X collection. I think the uniformity of the packaging makes for an interesting setup on the rack.

The 32x is quite too expensive today. The games are impressive and the system great but the adapter alone is 200 dollar plus 30-100 dollar a game. I tried to get one but all the time it went into high bidding areas.

Quote from: "retromod"The 32x is quite too expensive today. The games are impressive and the system great but the adapter alone is 200 dollar plus 30-100 dollar a game. I tried to get one but all the time it went into high bidding areas.

Really? Wow, they're cheap in NA. I bought one last year that came with a Genesis, five Genesis games, and two 32X games for $65.00! That was a really good deal, but as long as you don't want the box they are not at all expensive. The games can be a little pricey though.

Quote from: "Shadowrunner"

Quote from: "retromod"The 32x is quite too expensive today. The games are impressive and the system great but the adapter alone is 200 dollar plus 30-100 dollar a game. I tried to get one but all the time it went into high bidding areas.

Really? Wow, they're cheap in NA. I bought one last year that came with a Genesis, five Genesis games, and two 32X games for $65.00! That was a really good deal, but as long as you don't want the box they are not at all expensive. The games can be a little pricey though.

I wish i get one including some games....

I had one when they were still relatively cheap but even then I was given the unit for free sans cables. I was never really a fan to be honest, largely because of all the cables and the extra PSU that I didn't really have any space for. The fact that it requires different leads for the different versions of the Mega Drive and also that these tend to be missing these days is a bit of a nightmare. Mine was also a bit flaky until I opened it up and messed with the two ribbon cables.

I do think the 32X has appeal on a curiosity level but aside from my aforementioned issues, the games were just far too expensive to take a punt on. I think only Virtua Fighter, Doom, Star Wars Arcade and a few others are in the 'reasonable' price bracket but thankfully most of these are decent games and not ports of Mega Drive titles. I would have liked to try out Knuckles Chaotix but it was commanding around £80 when I was after it so I traded my 32X away.

I guess I'll be skipping this add-on for my Genesis if the prices are as bad as you say. 

The prices really aren't that bad if you're patient like 64bitRuss said. For you Trek, living in the US, keep your eyes open and you can find good deals. As far as being worthwhile to own, I'd say it is just for Virtua Racing, Star Wars Arcade, Space Harrier, and After Burner. Knuckles Chaotix is also a really good game and worth paying a little extra for, not £80 though!

I would love to try Kolibri, in the screenshots it looks amazing. Tempo is another one I would like to try out.
Agree about Space Harrier and Afterburner, as far as finding those games on cartridge, the 32X versions are the very best you can get!

There are a few games I would have liked to see on the Jaguar, like Star Wars Arcade, I mean it's pretty damn fun and good looking on the 32X. Would have been interesting to see if it could have been even better on the Jaguar.

Quote from: "Shadowrunner"The prices really aren't that bad if you're patient like 64bitRuss said. For you Trek, living in the US, keep your eyes open and you can find good deals. As far as being worthwhile to own, I'd say it is just for Virtua Racing, Star Wars Arcade, Space Harrier, and After Burner. Knuckles Chaotix is also a really good game and worth paying a little extra for, not £80 though!

Yeah I would hazard a guess and say that US stuff would probably be a bit cheaper. PAL stuff probably sold in much lower quantities and the 'value' is affected by the usual ebayers jacking up the prices with BIN's etc. The other problem is that 32X stuff is so uncommon in the wild that you can't completely eliminate ebay and hope to pick up loads of stuff from shops. I mean, you might be able to if you live near some retro shops or get lucky but I've yet to see anything 32X-related outside of the internet.

I just checked and it looks like the prices are not that horrible.  A complete 32X (without box) can be had for prices in the mid-$30's range. 

I like the boxes but prefer the hard shell cases. Does the Sega Everdrive multi-cart use the 32X to play games? If so that might drive the system prices up.

Yes, you can play the 32X games using the Mega Everdrive cart.

[align=center:3l4qnduh]AVGN: Sega 32X (Higher Quality) Episode 26 (//http)[/align:3l4qnduh]

I had a good laugh with this video.  LOL  I couldn't believe the end, though!

He could have at least played taps at end.

I understand the disdain for the 32X, it left a lot of Sega fans scratching their heads. At the time my thought was "What was Sega Thinking?". Later after tracking some of the games down, it all made sense. They were trying to cover all their bases.

After a bit of info more than anything (and I'm not a trader by any means!), but I recently got hold of a complete boxed copy of Stellar Assault for the 32X...apparently it's worth a fair bit? Can anyone give me any pointers as to how much it's worth (and why?!). Was it a limited production or something?

Quote from: "Tomleecee"After a bit of info more than anything (and I'm not a trader by any means!), but I recently got hold of a complete boxed copy of Stellar Assault for the 32X...apparently it's worth a fair bit? Can anyone give me any pointers as to how much it's worth (and why?!). Was it a limited production or something?

I found a page with some information about the game here:  Stellar Assault (//http).  Did you get the Japanese version or the EU version?  The Japanese version apparently sells for about $75 on average.  I don't find anything saying that the release was limited or that there are differences between the original Japanese release the the game elsewhere.  So, I'm not sure as to why it sells for so much.  The US version (which for some reason had its name changed to Shadow Squadron) usually sells for about $20.  I don't see many of these selling, so I wonder if they indeed are a bit rare.

It's the EU/PAL version. Thanks for finding that info though - I did a bit of Googling myself and all I could find was a few threads on various forums but nothing really explaining why the game is so revered

I think it is revered because it is one of the few good titles for the 32X and rather unique for when it was released. 

Quote from: "TrekMD"I think it is revered because it is one of the few good titles for the 32X and rather unique for when it was released.

Just picking up on that, this is a title that was worth some decent money in the US, before the rise of ebay.  It's kind of the inverse of Neo Geo games; when you had to resort to digging through piles at flea markets and used game stores, it was selling for some good money, but now that you can just do a search for it, the supply is way higher than the demand for 32x games.  It is a great game, though, I haven't played it in years but I remember thinking it was a pretty worthy Star Fox rival at the time.

The comparison to Star Fox is one I've read and heard a couple of times.

Quote from: "Tomleecee"After a bit of info more than anything (and I'm not a trader by any means!), but I recently got hold of a complete boxed copy of Stellar Assault for the 32X...apparently it's worth a fair bit? Can anyone give me any pointers as to how much it's worth (and why?!). Was it a limited production or something?

The reason it's rare is because it was one of the later 32X games and so was only made in small numbers as the market was very limited, that simple really.

I see. Thanks for clearing that up Laird!

[align=center:sp2j5tjf]Sega Genesis CDX and Sega 32X Retro Review (//http)[/align:sp2j5tjf]

That is pretty nifty. A nice compact version of the system that is even compatible with the 32X (even if it looks fugly).  Quite expensive on Ebay, I see. 

So, for anyone who has a 32X and has experienced the add-on failing, this video may come in handy.  Check out how to fix a faulty 32X. 

[align=center:wwjr4u8x]http://blip.tv/play/AYOW5WEC.x?p=1 (//http)[/align:wwjr4u8x]

[align=center:10g34ovq](http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z280/mrkizza/32xad_zps51800d78.jpg)[/align:10g34ovq]

To the X-treme, eh?  Genesis does to the X-treme! 

[align=center:1tlbagdz]Knuckles' Chaotix (Sega 32x) - Leftover Culture Review (//http)[/align:1tlbagdz]

I have a mint condition copy of Knuckles Chaotix and never played it. That is one nice looking game though. I'm not a huge Sonic fan I guess, but I should definitely play this game sometime.

Looks like the opinion on this game is mixed.  Some people love it, some hate it.  It certainly looks nice.

I really like Knuckles Chaotix. It's a little on the easy side but it looks great and it's just fun to play 

Quote from: "Shadowrunner"I really like Knuckles Chaotix. It's a little on the easy side but it looks great and it's just fun to play 

Cool.  So, maybe this is better than some reviewers make it seem.

I have to say, I'm a huge fan of Knuckles Chaotix.  I think the issue with it is that it's not a straight up Sonic game, it has some unique gameplay elements that make it different.  Some people like that, some people don't (especially those who "gotta go fast").  To me, Sonic CD had pushed the 2D Sonic formula as far as it could go, so mixing it up with the chained second character (and resulting piuzzle elements) was a nice change of pace.

Quote from: "Ben"I have to say, I'm a huge fan of Knuckles Chaotix.  I think the issue with it is that it's not a straight up Sonic game, it has some unique gameplay elements that make it different.  Some people like that, some people don't (especially those who "gotta go fast").  To me, Sonic CD had pushed the 2D Sonic formula as far as it could go, so mixing it up with the chained second character (and resulting piuzzle elements) was a nice change of pace.

It's definitely an interesting Sonic game, but I'm really not entirely sure, speaking as a Sonic fan, that I could say it's THAT good. It's incredibly short, and incredibly easy, too. Most of the levels are pretty much identical, which explains why you play them in a random order. There's no loops, no water, nothing really to set each level apart. All there really is to go forward and sometimes up, and there's nothing in the level that really gets in the way of that or helps you accomplish that.

There's some cool ideas in there, I will admit. I like the 3D bonus stages, even if it feels you're always falling off of stuff when you SHOULDN'T be. Figuring out the Combiring thing can help you get some really big speed boosts, and it's really fun to plays as Vector and climb all over everything. The music's pretty great, too, but that's to be expected from a Sonic game, really.

Go to 4:50 to check out the 32X box scans..

203 Sega CD & 32X Combined Box Art Scans (http://http)

https://youtu.be/-JKs0tu6Imk (https://youtu.be/-JKs0tu6Imk)

We pick 10 of our favourite Sega 32X games.. Are they any you would change? If so please comment below or via these outlets below.

Is there something missing in your post, Zap?

The video lol, added now.

LOL

Quote from: Ben on June 29, 2014, 02:17:42 AM
I have to say, I'm a huge fan of Knuckles Chaotix.  I think the issue with it is that it's not a straight up Sonic game, it has some unique gameplay elements that make it different.  Some people like that, some people don't (especially those who "gotta go fast").  To me, Sonic CD had pushed the 2D Sonic formula as far as it could go, so mixing it up with the chained second character (and resulting piuzzle elements) was a nice change of pace.

@Ben was having a bash on this over the weekend. I actually quite liked it when I was expecting not to I think @Bobinator mentioned it was pretty easy and I found myself going through the game easily enough.. One I may well have to play on again.

I have Knuckles in a box somewhere. Never played it at length because I didn't really like the 32X. After reading zapiy's post my interest is stoked. Will have to dig this out and give it a play or load it up in Fusion.
Probably the latter as I have no idea which box in which building it's in. Damn incomplete Excel inventory sheet..

Yeah I was in Wales seeing some family and was shocked to see a cousin had it running and a few other retro systems.. Small world I thought but it turns out he was just testing them ready to sell on.

So, has anyone played these games?  Do you agree with the choices made on this video?

Those are all great games. I think Knuckles Chaotix should also be on any must own list for the 32X.

That is one game I do not have.  It is pretty expensive on Ebay!

Great video and I agree with everything but the DOOM portion. To me, 32X Doom is crap. The border around the screen is oogly and ya can't see like you need to. I'd still play it if all the other systems I have it on tanked but his dialogue sounded fanboy-ish. Glad he did that one last bc if I heard it early I probably would have stopped then.
I like the Virtua games. Some real nice pieces of work there. 8)
Never heard of Blackthorne but it resembled Flashback a little too much. (I really don't like that game)

I do have Knuckled Chaotix though :D Like Shadowrunner, don't know why it wasn't on the list.

I have Blackthorne and I did a review for it.  It is a cool game for the 32X and worth having.  I do like Doom as well but the window view is annoying.  I'm not sure why they felt it necessary to do it.  It is better to play Doom on other systems where the view is more complete (like the Atari Jaguar). 

Lucky you that you have Knuckles Chaotix!  I may try to get it, though.  I'll have to keep an eye for it. 

It's been a while since there was post here.  I just watched this video about unreleased titles for the 32X.  I didn't realize there were so many games that did not see release.

That's a crazy amount of awesome games. AvP would've been awesome.
Batman Forever gets a lot of flack but I enjoy the heck out of it. And those Castlevania games... what a waste.
Would love to have had them! :P

I know!  The AvP in particular looks really cool and it was not released for any other system!  I bet that would look great on the Jaguar!  ;)

Yes, if only!...

Feel a loss that so many good games were never released.

A friend of mine is coming over later tonight with his Sega Genesis Model 2 and Sega 32X!  I've only ever emulated the 32x so this it's going to be quite awesome to finally try the real thing.  He has four games, only two of which I can remember the names for at the moment, After Burner and Knuckles Chaotix.  This is gonna be great!

Quote from: Dreamcast Gamer on January 12, 2019, 22:15:01 PM
A friend of mine is coming over later tonight with his Sega Genesis Model 2 and Sega 32X!  I've only ever emulated the 32x so this it's going to be quite awesome to finally try the real thing.  He has four games, only two of which I can remember the names for at the moment, After Burner and Knuckles Chaotix.  This is gonna be great!

Awesome! Those are two of the best so it sounds like it'll be a blast

That is great!  Those are two good games for the 32X.  Let us know how you liked them. 

Sooooo..... he couldn't find his 32X  :'(  Well, at least we got to play Street Fighter 2: The World Warrior in MAME on Windows XP!  ;D  Hopefully next time he'll find it.  Either that or I'll just go to his place and play the arcade cabinets in his garage!  This guy has Double Dragon!

Oh, darn!  That sucks! 

Yeah, I was really looking forward to playing some After Burner  ;D

Here's something you don't see every day, an unreleased 32X prototype has been discovered and dumped! Unfortunately it's a port of the game Pinocchio and not something exclusive to the 32X but still pretty cool it was found.

More info and a comparison video between the Genesis/MD game and the 32X version can be found here. https://www.retrorgb.com/pinocchio-32x-prototype-found.html

That's cool!

Quote from: Shadowrunner on January 30, 2019, 16:33:18 PM
Here's something you don't see every day, an unreleased 32X prototype has been discovered and dumped! Unfortunately it's a port of the game Pinocchio and not something exclusive to the 32X but still pretty cool it was found.

More info and a comparison video between the Genesis/MD game and the 32X version can be found here. https://www.retrorgb.com/pinocchio-32x-prototype-found.html

That's really something! Just grabbed the rom to try out. Hoping it's very playable/near completion of at least one level :)

From what I've read it sounds like it's pretty close to a final build. Have fun. :)

It's been a while since something got posted here.  John Hancock just released a video showing his collection of 32X games.  Enjoy...

I would love all of those. cheers fella.

LOL, it is quite the collection!

Jenovi posted this video today of The Definitive Sega 32X Top Ten.

Video Description:  What are the 10 best games on the 32X? That's a question we are about to answer. Ft. RGT 85, HistoricNerd, G to the Next Level, John Linneman from D.F. Retro, Tyler from My Retro Life, Andrew from Master-Cast TV, and Rob from Retro Game Living Room.

A complete collection of 32X is a beautiful thing! Love the cases and color choice. All that yellow is very appealing.
The video makes me want to dig out my setup and get in some play.
Great info on Zaxxon. Had no idea you could hack an enemy vehicle :)

I'm like you about liking how the color combination looks on the boxes and carts.  It is easy to pick out 32X games because of the colors!

Here's another video from Jenovi discussing the history of the 32X.  It's similar to the Jaguar video I posted about a week ago, from a discussion at a retro event.  Enjoy...