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[September 29 1995]

September 29 1995

Playstation is released in the UK it costs £299.

September 29 1996

Nintendo releases the Nintendo 64 video game system in North America. Price is US$199.95.

I can still remember spending an age trying to get hold of Silica Shop as phones that busy with folks ordering Playstations and securing my launch console along with Ridge Racer and Toh Shin Den and being just blown away, visually by the pair and then there was that T-Rex demo. on the sampler disc.

The PSone was 1st platform i played Xcom on (picked up Amiga version a while after) so i owe it a great deal.

No dedicated GBA thread yet either?

Cannot believe i'm doing this, creating a thread praising Nintendo, lol, but i do love my GBA.

Right i'm going to start the ball rolling with a game that never was....


Mike Ebert (designer/programer of SNES/MD 'Zombies Ate My Neighbors' had planned to do a true follow up to the game (Ghoul Patrol was never meant as a sequel, it was just a result of development tools used in Zombies being given to another team at Lucas who were developing a game of their own, but project stalled, so Lucas decided to 'save it' by turning it into Ghoul Patrol) on GBA (and possibly DS).

So, he+his team approached Lucas about accuring the rights to do a GBA version/true sequel, but the current management team at that time had no idea LucasArts had even made Zombies!, so they had zero interest in giving Mike the time needed to set a deal up, so nothing ever came of it.


Mikes vision for a Zombies Ate My Nieghbours 2 on GBA would have involved networked MP, more kids to choose from and a lot more levels.

But 'thanks' to the damn suits at LucasArts, we never saw the project even get a green light.

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Could'nt find a dedicated PSP thread (see it's listed on the handheld thread listings, but in black, clicked on it, got nothing) so thought i'd best start one, as seems like a decent number of PSP owners on here.

Thought i'd start by talking about unreleased/not finished/canned, call'em what you will PSP titles, just been looking at the 7 screens Behesda gave 'Pure' magazine of PSP Oblivion, which if actual PSP screens, did'nt look half bad, touch murky, but detailed enough to impress.

Bethesda had promised a game more suited to constraints of PSP, so no massive open game world, but something focusing on dungeon exploration with new setting and story, so in essence an original Elder Scrolls game for PSP, but offering similar things in places to the PC/PS3/360 game.

It was down for a spring 2007 release and that single preview was the 1 and only time i ever saw anything on it......


Then there was PSP Resident Evil, annouced pre-2009 E3, said to be a totally new Res.Evil game, something both Capcom+Sony had wanted for a very long time, designed with PSP:Go in mind...due 'sometime in 2010'...Capcom working closely with Sony...and...not a damn thing came of it.

Thinking back to various posts i've made on here relating to the 32X, MCD and Saturn (owner of which i've been of all 3) and also something i read today, regarding Sega and it's approach to UK press during the DC era.But just to get ball rolling, a few reminders of where SEGA went badly wrong and possible damage as a result:


The MCD:Brave attempt by SEGA to bring the MD more upto level of SNES performance (and beyond in cases of Sprite scaling), so extra CPU and custom chips which allowed for sprite+background scaling, texture mapping etc, newer sound chip and of course increased storage space of CD format, but rather than really tap into the potential the new hardware offered, SEGA plumped for FMV on a console with limited resolution and colour palette, when they could have delivered so many home conversions of their coin-op's on it.

32X:Much disscussed on other threads.


Saturn:SEGA turns down offer by Silicon Graphics of a single, simple design chipset which would bring Saturn upto PS1 levels of performance, instead Sega go twin SH2 route, leaving so many developers unwilling or unable to get best performance running both CPU's in parallel, 3rd party support flounders.

DReamcast:annoucement of which leaves Capcom thinking consumer will view Saturn as a 'dead format' and thus will stop buying games for, so Saturn Res.evil 2 canned.

But it's HERE i want to look at, SEGA's realationship with UK stores i will get to later, but it's how they 'treated' UK press around Dreamcast era:


EDGE described Dreamcast as: The Format That Would Be King (If it were allowed) and went on to describe how SEGA failed to supply screenshots for games, despite being asked numerous times, along with product info, press discs were'nt sent out, modem-ready DC's arrived in magazine offices 3 weeks after they hit the high street and Edge recived mere 2 phone calls from SEGA Europe in 8 month period and even when the specilist or gaming press did recieve goods, the 'lifestyle' magazines were left waiting, thus making it nigh on impossible for them to do DC reviews.

Not the best way to promote your new hardware, espically when you so badly need the early head start before your competition unviels the full force of it's hype monster P.R machine......

Been posting quotes and review scores from various magazines here myself, plus sending stacks of stuff for Laird to put up, plus questioned what we read regarding how NES games were scored in the UK, so time to take things on a notch.

Can reviews ever be 'trusted'? (i use that word as seen the line 'The only reviews you can trust' used in several publications over the years).For those of us who in past or present have relied on review scores to decide what to purchase, sure many of us have come away feeling a game deserved far better score or was unfairly rated, but does it go deeper than just differing tastes or reviewer expecting something different to game he or she was given?.

Off top of my head there have been clear examples of reviewers reviewing very unfinished code, from Zzap 64's Operation Thunderbolt on C64 to C+VG and DCM's review of Half Life on Dreamcast, but i put the question:

Just how far through a game will a reviewer play before submitting their 500+ review? what changes will be made by those higher up the chain (Zzap 64 reviewers admit there was pressure from higher up's to rate magazine publishers studios games or current Ed might be on off day and say his score is what was going in).Jurno's are under pressure off deadlines, of advertisers etc, covers sell magazines, so at preview at least your going to see some startling claims of what a game will be delivering, but at crunch time, review wise, do we really see the full story?.


Few examples for food for thought:

1)Diablo II PC various US jurno's were invited over to Blizzard to see game and play unfinished code, which they did and then went away and wrote full reviews based on said beta code.

2)C64 Bobby Bearing-Zzap 64 gave the tape version a very good score for sound-there was'nt any in finished version, Zzap just went on assurance sound in tape version would be same as disk version.

3)Sega Europe PR had a disaster on their hands, disc 3 just would'nt work properly as it was from a different batch, would'nt pick up data from DC VMU, so they had 2 options, send 1st 2 discs now and then supply 3rd when they had a working copy, or send 3 discs, but 3rd would have Jap code on it, so they went for 2nd option, several reviewers admitted they only played through 1st 2 discs before reviewing, 2 others admitted they struggled on with disc 3.


4)ex-staff writer for Edge went public claiming in return for exclusive cover art, Rockstar wanted minimum score of 9 for likes of GTA series, Red Dead
Redempt. hence why review text often feels at odds with score at the bottom of page.

Examples 1+3 supplied by industry freelancer, example 2 Zzap admitted themselves.


Any thoughts people?.

Kinda a spin-off from the Jaguar reviews/lookback thread (which i did'nt want to de-rail anymore than i already have), hopefully in right area (i don't really view PS1 as all that Retro just yet), but thought i'd continue looking at how the 'press' at the time treated 'Retro' games on the 'Next-Gen' super console platforms and see how it compared to say Jaguar reviews moaning at 16 Bit ports, old genres dressed up in 65,000 colour graphic engines etc.


Few from C+VG

Super Pang Collection PS1 3/5

Megaman 8 3/5-anyone wishing for the good old days of SNES+MD will find what they are looking for here.This is the sort of game you should pick up if you see it fairly cheap.

Clockwork Knight Saturn 74% 'Other than exceptional graphics, nothing you could'nt have in a MD game'

Ultimate Parodius (PS) 85% but reviewers dissapointed by lack of new features, hard to part cash with a game that could be had for half the price on SNES, not the kind of thing they expected to see on PS and for what a Playstation cost, punters had a right to expect more.

Gale Racer (Saturn) 17% 'is'nt so much a Gale as a wet fart...been rushed out the door...sprites are 2D, badly defined, lot of flicker on screen when things get busy'

Pop 'N' Twinbee (PS) 87% 'Nothing here that could'nt be replicated on a SNES.

Playstation Plus mini-review Guide scores:

R-Types 81%

Raiden Project 72% Enjoyable, but limited, graphics and animation are only medicore.

Rampage World Tour 69%

Rapid Reload 80% (with a Rent It tag next to it).

Rayman 43%-Well we know they were'nt fans!

Real Bout:Fatal Fury 30% Very stale and slow beat-em-up.avoid

Robotron X 66% Overpriced, underspecced.

Samurai Showdown 19%

Sentient Returns 30%-Having your eyes skewered with fish hooks is better than this

I'd like to know WHY to this day,  the SNES hardware, in particular it's Mode 7 and sprite handling abilities, are still held in such high regard and no, this is'nt another anti-Nintendo angled thread, lol, but serious question.

Mega Drive via clever programming pulled off all manner of spectacular feats, which i've banged on about numerous times on this forum, plus previousily mention that coders behind things like Road Rash and the Strike Series had 'mixed' feelings about the hardware and having just stumbled across an Amiga programmer talking about it, i thought i'd bring it up again.

In C U Amiga:Graphic Feature, Martin Edmonson (among others) is interviewed, talks about Amiga Brian The Lion being written to emulate SNES Mode 7, talks of how the system he+team came up with compares to the SNES:

'....by the way of the Nintendo (SNES), you can rotate round in increments of 1 degree, so you can rotate through 360 positions.with our system you can rotate through 512 to 1024 (degrees), which looks smoother.It's also a much cleaner rotation than the SNES.If you randomly pick an angle, and do same on SNES, it'll look much cleaner on the Amiga-the ones on the Nintendo are broken apart and there are bits hanging off......Rotation takes any size block from 16X16 to full screen and rotates it through 1024 degrees, which is about 3X more than anything SNES can do'

So from my 'laymans' view point and that of Ex-SNES owner, i'm wondering really why (espically when SNES carts are further enhanced by extra processors in  many cases) the clever programming feats on a stock MD/Amiga do not get the 'coverage' that SNES games do, when it comes to pulling off flashy effects?.

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Been thinking a lot about the NES and what i call 'The UK years'-There seems to be a version of history that's popular these days on forums and in various magazines, that the NES was a huge hit over here, now whilst i was'nt a NES owner at the time, i 'grew up' during those years and was very aware of the system and my memory of events seems at complete contrast to those that are brought up by others, so thought it might create an interesting topic to discuss.

My inital introduction to the news was via the gaming press, likes of C+VG ran previews and reviews of it's games, Crash+Zzap 64 had a feature on the hardware and both seemed to suggest that the hardware was fine, but did'nt really offer that much over the C64/Speccy and besides expensive games.

My friends and i were more than happy with our 8 Bit micro's and besides had you seen those ST/Amiga games? OMG!!!!! fast 3D, samples, 'arcade Perfect' games etc etc, so NES never really raised an ounce of interest.


I also seem to recal Mattel being rather shocked by how 'mute' the reception to the NES from the UK gamer was, both packs (standard+deluxe) seeing £40? knocked off RRP after mere 2 months and then Nintendo taking charge/setting up company to promote+sell NES in Uk.I also used to encounter those NES coin-Op's in pubs etc around here, choice of 10? games, pay to keep playing, but again, games seemed rather old hat and out of place in a coin-op.


The Turtles frenzy seemed to save the NES bacon over here somewhat as the Nes+Turtles game bundles seemed to be great sellers.

Going back to the 'press' angle, i can recal ACE magazine slagging off the NES hardware when reviewing things like Ghosts And Goblins, Rush And attack etc, saying the hardware was fine for things like SMB, but way beneath delivering conversions like these.

So, point i'm making/question/s i'm asking here are basically, just how did the UK 'respond' to the NES in your exp? (sorry USA readers) and does the NES really deserve the position it seems to have been awarded in UK gaming history in todays media?.

I just find it bizzare the NES gets more coverage in Retro circles than the Atari Lynx or ST and are left pondering why this is.

I'm NOT a NES hater by any means, just very curious to see how things reached stage they have....

Thinking here of games which 1st gave us features/mechanics we now take for granteed, yet so little was made of these 'devices' at review, they never seem remembered by todays gaming press.

3 to start ball rolling:

1)Outlaws (PC):Slamned at review, yet featured a Sniper Rifle before Goldeneye (think PC MDK might also count here) and featured a level set on a moving train, now so overdone it's become a cliche.

2)+3) Kill.Switch/Rogue Trooper (various platforms, inc PS2)-Did the whole blindfire and crouching behind cover mechanics a generation before 360 Gears Of War, but reading some 360 mag reviews of Gears..you'd think Epic were the 1st to do it, only 360 made it possible.

This came up the other day on here and i've heard it on various other forums over the years, that by taking games into the mainstream with the Playstation, game deigners got far less creative.

I beg to differ, as a Playstation owner at the time, i saw the likes of:

MGS (very creative use of the PS1 hardware for 'Boss Fights'), Devil Dice, Parappa The Rapper, Ape Escape, Legacy Of Kain/Blood Omen, I.Q, Sheep, the Tenchu Series, Tomba, Jumping Flash 1+2, Trap Gunner, Power Diggerz, N20, Skull Monkeys, Oddworld, IS:Internal Section (another great looking tunnel shooter in Stun runner mould), Team Buddies, Parappa The Rapper, Carnage heart, Warzone 2100, Silent Hill etc etc.

People often say Sony only interested in 3D, yet Rapid Reload, Worms, 2 Xcoms, numerous Retro compilations from Capcom, Williams etc.

Plus as mentioned elsewhere, you can trace the origins of Loaded back to the SNES, Alien Trilogy to the Mega CD and Tomb Raider to the Jaguar CD.

By time Playstation 2 was ready to be replaced, it'd seen things like:

Ico, Shadow Of Rome, Gregory Horror Show, Bombbastic, Blood Will Tell, Psychonauts, A Dogs Life, Strech Panic, Ring Of Red, Fahrenheit, Ever Blue 2, Herdy Gerdy, SOS, Mister Mosquito, City Crisis, Killer 7, Kill.Switch, Fantavision, God Hand, Mark Of Kri, Gitaroo Man, Mad Maestro, Frequency etc etc.

I'm NOT defending either platform here, just very curious as to why Sony is singled out, where as Sega/Nintendo+Ms all escape somewhat untouched in comparison.

I'm of the thinking that it was ONLY due to the massive installed user bases of PS1+PS2 that a lot of developers were willing to risk creative ideas on the machines.

Over to you good folk.

after few topics in the forum and chatbox, had the idea of starting a thread which, i hope might help dispel some of the 'urban Legends' that have been connected to our past time.

I.E did ATARI really bury a million or so unsold E.T carts in a landfill site etc?.

Few to get ball rolling then:

1)The FICTION:Playstation 2 was so powerful it was banned from sale in places like North Korea, Iran, Iraq and Libya, as fears were it's technology could be used to control Nuclear missiles and process Nuclear fuel for weapons programmes.

The FACT:Japanese Trade Ministry Officials were concerned PS2 COULD be used for Military purposes as in 1998 'similar' devices (electronics wise) for civilian use, were found in a North Korean submarine which had been sunk by the South Korean Military.

It just related to the mounted camera/missile guidance technology used by remote firing stations, where operator could alter missilesflight trajectory as missile was in flight.

It had nothing to do with processing power needed to to turn Nuclear Material into weapons grade etc.


2)The Playstation 2 had NO Anti-Alising built into the hardware (one for C=Style ;-) ).

The Fact:PS2 had hardware A.A on a 'primitive level'-in english, it allowed the coder to choose HOW to do the A.A, it was seen as a more flexible approach, ie IF you wanted Fullscreen A.A, then you could, you just needed to allocate the resources for it (early example of it being used, Stuntman).

PS2 hardware was very different to PS1 hardware, it was designed to try and over come the problems of sheer bus speed and slow access to video.

The limited Texture memory WAS a headache for many coders, but as Core themselves said, when developing Project Eden on the PS2- 'I guarantee that if you had a 100 meg of texture memory, we would still say that there was'nt enough.The stakes have been raised so much that artist's imaginations run away with them, we'll always want more'.

(Thought after defending Sega's akward beast, the Saturn, only fair i give balance and cover Sony's).

If there's 1 thing that stands out head and shoulders on this forum, it's the sheer quality of interviews you've obtained, so i'd like to start a possible 'Dream Team' of future interviews i personally would like to see and hope others will nominate the teams/people they'd love to see.

To start the ball rolling:

ATD (Cybermorph on Jag, Rollcage on Playstation etc).Why? they were involved with the debug tools for the Jaguar hardware and i'd love to know it shipped with so many crippling bugs, espically since in it's early days they were very keen to talk to likes of Edge about work they did on the hardware and how good it was, only to really lay into it, for being under powered/bugged towards the end of it's commercial life!.

System 3/Mark Cale:Legendary name when i was a C64 owner (Ik, IK+, Last Ninja Series, Tusker etc), but initally i'm more interested in the (later) games which DID'NT make it.

Bloodlust (effectively IK 3) PC+Ps versions planned, along with high res arcade version, game was a strictly 2D fighter, Cale claiming folk were fed up with 3D, it's just an effect, did'nt play as well as 2D etc.

16 characters, outrageous special moves, High Res.PC version would have needed 64MB of Ram (this is 1998) low res.version 16 MB's, PS version was said to be causing problems, but they were confident it could be done on the 1 MB machine.

Last Ninja on Playstation-lot of preview shots at the time, it kept the originals isometric 3D viewpoint and flip-screen, with 80+ screens per level, your character could freely roam, team said to be looking at interactive scenary, not sure wether characters should be sprites or polygon models though.Looked great lush enviroments and backgrounds, said to 12 months away from completition, but yet again, PS limited Ram causing headaches.

Wondering what happened to PS versions of both of these and any chance of them being dusted off for say a PSN/XBL digital only release?.

Over to you guys...

Never know how to start these introduction pieces, any 2000AD fans out there will 'get' the heading anywho....

Something of a ex-forum regular over the years, owner of so many formats since i twisted my folks arm to get me a ZX81 and 16K Ram pack (3D Monster Maze and Mazogs, did it ever get any better?).

Been reading the site for weeks now, thought rude not to take part-hope you've room for a small one as the saying goes, looking forward to being part of something rather splendid.