NG Dev Team announce GunLord for Neo-Geo and Dreamcast

Anything from run & guns to modern RPGs, what else do you play?
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Estebang
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Re: NG Dev Team announce GunLord for Neo-Geo and Dreamcast

Post by Estebang »

Well, that sucks! What's to stop me from constantly abusing it?
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Re: NG Dev Team announce GunLord for Neo-Geo and Dreamcast

Post by psoslayer »

Estebang wrote:What's to stop me from constantly abusing it?
Stage design. In Turrican you can't use the wheel to climb up, or too destroy enemies that are out of bomb radius. Many reasons actually but it just depends on how the stages are designed.
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Re: NG Dev Team announce GunLord for Neo-Geo and Dreamcast

Post by Ed Oscuro »

TransatlanticFoe wrote:
We are currently working on a deal using original SNKP manufactured shells and snap cases (no sacc. carts).
O_O

Also, wow, that trailer is really authentic (aside from the music that is, just routine techno stuff imo)!

Things that would or do annoy me but probably won't change:

- As Estebang is starting to realize, Turrican is not built as a scoring game, which is a shame
- The usual stiff Turrican person movement
- The first level shown doesn't have very inventive structure, just blocks and long slabs everywhere. Would love to see something more organic in form (but I already complained about that earlier with the cliffside pic)

That's not a very long list though. I might go ahead and get an AES copy.
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Re: NG Dev Team announce GunLord for Neo-Geo and Dreamcast

Post by Estebang »

Yeah, I have to conclude that the game in its current state is rather unremarkable. It's very much like Contra 4: a well-intentioned homage to a classic run-n-gun series with great graphics, buckling under the weight of its developers' unoriginality and lack of talent. The level design is your typical Amiga hodgepodge, and the massive range of your weapons negates much of it.

For a doujin game, it's great. But for a full-priced new AES cart release? I'm not sure. All I can think about is just constantly abusing that wheel for a partial god mode.
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Re: NG Dev Team announce GunLord for Neo-Geo and Dreamcast

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Someone's never played a Turrican game.
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Re: NG Dev Team announce GunLord for Neo-Geo and Dreamcast

Post by Estebang »

I haven't.

Something tells me it won't make GunLord any better, though.

In fact, I'd be inclined to give Contra 4 much higher accolades if I hadn't already played the rest of the series.
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Re: NG Dev Team announce GunLord for Neo-Geo and Dreamcast

Post by Obiwanshinobi »

Turrican formula is one odd choice for a coin-op system... If anything, Hurrican - ugly but playable as it was - felt prety aimless to me. Tons of weapons and secrets and what have you, but also the lack of focus. Some old action adventure franchises have fallen into oblivion for a reason, methinks.
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Re: NG Dev Team announce GunLord for Neo-Geo and Dreamcast

Post by system11 »

It's not an odd choice for consoles though - remember the Neo Geo is not /just/ an arcade system and this will come out for DC too, the MVS version will be quite the minority. Everything I've seen in the video says 'Turrican' to me, I'd suggest if you were thinking of buying the hardware versions but are unsure, go and play Turrican 2. If you love it you'll love this, from what I've seen.
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Re: NG Dev Team announce GunLord for Neo-Geo and Dreamcast

Post by Estebang »

Obiwanshinobi wrote:Turrican formula is one odd choice for a coin-op system... If anything, Hurrican - ugly but playable as it was - felt prety aimless to me. Tons of weapons and secrets and what have you, but also the lack of focus. Some old action adventure franchises have fallen into oblivion for a reason, methinks.
Sounds pretty dead on. The Amiga Turricans just seem like more polished versions of Duke Nukem 1 and 2, which were brainless, meandering, totally unbalanced games that typified action fare of the pre-Doom shareware scene. Obviously GunLord isn't that bad, but it shares many of the same attributes.
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Re: NG Dev Team announce GunLord for Neo-Geo and Dreamcast

Post by louisg »

Estebang wrote:
Obiwanshinobi wrote:Turrican formula is one odd choice for a coin-op system... If anything, Hurrican - ugly but playable as it was - felt prety aimless to me. Tons of weapons and secrets and what have you, but also the lack of focus. Some old action adventure franchises have fallen into oblivion for a reason, methinks.
Sounds pretty dead on. The Amiga Turricans just seem like more polished versions of Duke Nukem 1 and 2, which were brainless, meandering, totally unbalanced games that typified action fare of the pre-Doom shareware scene. Obviously GunLord isn't that bad, but it shares many of the same attributes.
Well, Duke was several years later, and it was much less focused than Turrican. They also stole art from Turrican!

http://www.nemmelheim.de/turrican/news/duke/

I've played Turrican 1 and 2 (and Mega, and Super 2) recently, and they all hold up pretty well in my opinion. The biggest problem the earlier ones have is that the hit detection and hitbar handling is very cheap (not cheap in the gameplay sense, but cheap to implement). I think this is because of the C64 roots, and I'm sure they were cramming memory to the brim to get that thing to run at all. So, on the C64, T1 is extremely impressive. On the Amiga, it's a little less so. T2 has more inspired locales and enemies.

I'd argue that the game *is* focused. The weapons all have their uses, and there's no real issue with the balance (which is such a common problem). The levels in the computer games tend towards being huge levels you can explore, which itself is a bit of fun. Or you can run through them with guns blasting. The console games tend to be more linear, and a little tighter. The pacing on all of them is pretty good, and even with screenfulls of enemies, the game never makes you feel like your character is too underpowered to handle them.

Do NOT play the console ports of Turrican 1; they are not representative at all of the gameplay. If your experience is with, say, Genesis Turrican, I could see why you might think it's about the same quality as Duke.

Comparing it with Duke: Duke's levels were fairly vacant. The game didn't run at a framerate which was very good, so you either wound up with: A.) Duke 1, whose levels are mostly barren or B.) Duke 2, where you can't avoid things easily without knowing they're coming because the framerate can't keep up with the action. D2 might have actually been a respectable game had it been faster, because I remember the levels being fairly interesting (as well as the enemy behavior).
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Re: NG Dev Team announce GunLord for Neo-Geo and Dreamcast

Post by Obiwanshinobi »

To clarify this and that, I think the little known NES Super Turrican didn't lack focus, at least early on (I haven't cleared it). My longest exposition to this style, however, was Hurrican (sounds not unlike a hentai doujin game), which brought back some design issues computer action games used to have on their way to ape console and arcade action. Not saying it was exclusive to the West or Europe - some Sharp X68000 games also gave me that "not quite there" impression. That said, in Aquales the amount of flaws is just enough to enrich the game's personality, whereas Hurrican made me ask "the engine's fine, but where's the game?"
Perhaps Cave Story (and a few other freeware platformers released in the last decade) had spoilt me.
louisg wrote:Comparing it with Duke: Duke's levels were fairly vacant. The game didn't run at a framerate which was very good, so you either wound up with: A.) Duke 1, whose levels are mostly barren or B.) Duke 2, where you can't avoid things easily without knowing they're coming because the framerate can't keep up with the action. D2 might have actually been a respectable game had it been faster, because I remember the levels being fairly interesting (as well as the enemy behavior).
A remake, anyone? GBA version, please.
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Re: NG Dev Team announce GunLord for Neo-Geo and Dreamcast

Post by louisg »

Obiwanshinobi wrote:To clarify this and that, I think the little known NES Super Turrican didn't lack focus, at least early on (I haven't cleared it). My longest exposition to this style, however, was Hurrican (sounds not unlike a hentai doujin game), which brought back some design issues computer action games used to have on their way to ape console and arcade action. Not saying it was exclusive to the West or Europe - some Sharp X68000 games also gave me that "not quite there" impression. That said, in Aquales the amount of flaws is just enough to enrich the game's personality, whereas Hurrican made me ask "the engine's fine, but where's the game?"
Perhaps Cave Story (and a few other freeware platformers released in the last decade) had spoilt me.
I agree generally, and I'd go as far as to argue that the lack of attention to game design/control subtlety plagues clones today. When a lot of developers clone a style, sometimes they seem to only pay attention to the more superficial elements. I wouldn't count Turrican as one of those though. It's not quite up to Metroid or the other best examples, but there are plenty of worse popular platformers from that era on systems like the NES in my opinion. And I'd rather *play* Turrican than Metroid, even if I feel Metroid is almost objectively better, just because I feel like the pacing of Turrican is a lot nicer (and, actually, has fewer scenes of aimless wandering and dead ends)

I'd actually include Cave Story along with games like Super Meat Boy as being a little problematic in terms of jumping physics and the feel, and the general lack of weight. TBH, I only tried the demo on Wii of Cave Story, but the feel was off-putting so I didn't check it out further. All that stuff feels like Apogee's Secret Agent to me!
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Re: NG Dev Team announce GunLord for Neo-Geo and Dreamcast

Post by Obiwanshinobi »

louisg wrote:I'd actually include Cave Story along with games like Super Meat Boy as being a little problematic in terms of jumping physics and the feel, and the general lack of weight. TBH, I only tried the demo on Wii of Cave Story, but the feel was off-putting so I didn't check it out further. All that stuff feels like Apogee's Secret Agent to me!
Hum, Cave Story isn't really about jumping, but I'm not gonna spoil its gimmicks for you. It's a phony platformer so to speak. Some things it does are, well, unprecedented. Think Capcom's Duck Tales - once you discover the cane/pogo stick thing, you just keep dicking around with it joyfully. Not that it's anything like Duck Tales, structure-wise, but the mechanics are just as unusual.
It's also worth a note that I played the PC original (50 fps and slower pace than the Wii port, reportedly) with a DualShock 2 - the pad I consider just about PERFECT for this kind of controls (Super Metroid, Metal Warriors, Assault Suits Valken/Cybernator and Contra: Shattered Soldier being other examples). I know there is a "three buttons only" game design philosophy popular among the Japanese doujin devs (case in point - Gigantic Army, where you MUST double tap left or right to dash since there is no dash button), but Cave Story is clearly designed with a few more buttons in mind. Just saying.
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Re: NG Dev Team announce GunLord for Neo-Geo and Dreamcast

Post by louisg »

Obiwanshinobi wrote:
louisg wrote:I'd actually include Cave Story along with games like Super Meat Boy as being a little problematic in terms of jumping physics and the feel, and the general lack of weight. TBH, I only tried the demo on Wii of Cave Story, but the feel was off-putting so I didn't check it out further. All that stuff feels like Apogee's Secret Agent to me!
Hum, Cave Story isn't really about jumping, but I'm not gonna spoil its gimmicks for you. It's a phony platformer so to speak. Some things it does are, well, unprecedented. Think Capcom's Duck Tales - once you discover the cane/pogo stick thing, you just keep dicking around with it joyfully. Not that it's anything like Duck Tales, structure-wise, but the mechanics are just as unusual.
It's also worth a note that I played the PC original (50 fps and slower pace than the Wii port, reportedly) with a DualShock 2 - the pad I consider just about PERFECT for this kind of controls (Super Metroid, Metal Warriors, Assault Suits Valken/Cybernator and Contra: Shattered Soldier being other examples). I know there is a "three buttons only" game design philosophy popular among the Japanese doujin devs (case in point - Gigantic Army, where you MUST double tap left or right to dash since there is no dash button), but Cave Story is clearly designed with a few more buttons in mind. Just saying.
That actually makes me want to give it another go. I thought it was just a platformer that someone tacked RPGish elements onto!
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Re: NG Dev Team announce GunLord for Neo-Geo and Dreamcast

Post by Estebang »

Cave Story is more about flying than jumping once you get the machine gun and jetpack. The jumping physics are excessively floaty for no real reason, which is a legitimate criticism against the game, but it doesn't affect it too much.

And yes, it uses seven buttons, quite unusual for a doujin game: attack, jump, two weapon switch buttons, two menu buttons, quit.

Also, wow at all the stuff Apogee stole from Turrican. I recognized that green thing from Savage before.
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Re: NG Dev Team announce GunLord for Neo-Geo and Dreamcast

Post by Estebang »

Looks like NG:DEV managed to sell all the MVS copies...good job, I guess!
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Re: NG Dev Team announce GunLord for Neo-Geo and Dreamcast

Post by Obiwanshinobi »

Now if enybody was kind enough to develop Zanac for GBA... Neither a straight port nor emulation (wouldn't quite work in such a low resolution); rather, some kind of remake, I'd pay good money for a cart.
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Re: NG Dev Team announce GunLord for Neo-Geo and Dreamcast

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Obiwanshinobi wrote:Now if enybody was kind enough to develop Zanac for GBA... Neither a straight port nor emulation (wouldn't quite work in such a low resolution); rather, some kind of remake, I'd pay good money for a cart.
Get me some source code with which to work. I can probably figure that shit out.

I wish this game would have come out last year. It was the first year with no Dreamcast releases.
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Re: NG Dev Team announce GunLord for Neo-Geo and Dreamcast

Post by neorichieb1971 »

Personally I think NG DEV should stick to shooters. The trailer looks alright. Platform games don't serve SD the way shooters do imho. Something looks a bit too retro from the trailer.

As someone said above. Having the game in a turrican formula doesn't suit the cab scene. It could have played more like Rygar. Mind you, Robocop/shinobi/rolling thunder have some exploration areas like this one. For me though, the nostalgia factor doesn't sell it to me.
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Re: NG Dev Team announce GunLord for Neo-Geo and Dreamcast

Post by Marc »

However good this is, it won't sound a patch on Amiga Turrican 2. Best inro music, hell, best intro ever. Although whoever thought a ten minute comic book intro and a ten second piss-poor animation for completing the game was the right way around...
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Re: NG Dev Team announce GunLord for Neo-Geo and Dreamcast

Post by TrevHead (TVR) »

For you genre experts how does the pacing of GunLord compare to Turrican and other euro run and guns? To me and my fuzzy recollection of Turrican is that GL is faster and better paced. IIRC Turrican was slowed down by its weapon select system.

If NG.Dev team can do an modern remix of the genre then im happy.
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Re: NG Dev Team announce GunLord for Neo-Geo and Dreamcast

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The dragon fight and shmup level at the end of the second trailer look sweet as hell.
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Re: NG Dev Team announce GunLord for Neo-Geo and Dreamcast

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Not impressed that they're sending them out in batches according to pre-order date, when someone says the release date is the 26th, I expect things to be posted on the 26th (or possibly sooner to arrive for roughly that date). This week is 17th-19th of September orders, I ordered in Feb...

So what's my release date?
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Re: NG Dev Team announce GunLord for Neo-Geo and Dreamcast

Post by RaidenViper »

Yeah that sucks. I placed my order 30th September. I assume it will get shipped in 2 -3 weeks :(

This was posted by NG Dev on the Neo Geo forum:
''Currently some Shockboxes are held back by customs due to bureaucracy. There was recently a change in policy for businesses importing from outside of Europe, we have filed the applications but it takes a little bit longer as they are overwhelmed.
The later batches maybe delayed by this. But we are working on it...'
'
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Re: NG Dev Team announce GunLord for Neo-Geo and Dreamcast

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Seems it's not their fault, then.
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Re: NG Dev Team announce GunLord for Neo-Geo and Dreamcast

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system11 wrote:Not impressed that they're sending them out in batches according to pre-order date, when someone says the release date is the 26th, I expect things to be posted on the 26th (or possibly sooner to arrive for roughly that date). This week is 17th-19th of September orders, I ordered in Feb...

So what's my release date?
Damn. I preordered a MVS-RE version with NCSX around the 15th. I'm guessing it may be a while, if this week covers 9/17-9/19's orders.
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Re: NG Dev Team announce GunLord for Neo-Geo and Dreamcast

Post by Fudoh »

I got my shipping confirmation today. I ordered in late february and paid in the middle of march.

CAN'T WAIT !!!! :mrgreen:
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Re: NG Dev Team announce GunLord for Neo-Geo and Dreamcast

Post by Ed Oscuro »

I am thinking about putting aside some cash for one too.

I like the difference in arts for the US and JP style ones...pretty classic. (I think the JPN box is for me, though.)
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Re: NG Dev Team announce GunLord for Neo-Geo and Dreamcast

Post by Ghegs »

Alright, got mine. Took two weeks to arrive. DHL does not impress me.

My first impressions are positive, but more in-depth comments are still forming up. I recorded my first credit, so people can see how the game looks and works during normal gameplay and not just trailers. Fumbling play approaching: http://youtu.be/JR7cHhwXMsM
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