The Nintendo 64 thread!

[Skykid]

although I found wind waker to be a complete bore, hated that fucking boat (filler) crap. Well... maybe I need to try again.

You don't. The boat shiz only gets more boring/trying/infuriating, in that order, as the game goes on, and taints any decent dungeon highlights. WW is where Zelda fell of the wagon, basically, and therefore doesn't qualify as a 'must play'.

[Jonathan Ingram]

Loved everything about Wind Waker save for the fact that it was at least two dungeons too short. Other than that I thought it was perfect.

One of the best looking games ever too. Looks great on a good SDTV and even better in 1080p in Dolphin.

[Ed Oscuro]

The N64 wasn`t completely worthless and in the end it did manage to muster up a small selection of games worth owning, but owning the N64 alone in that era would`ve meant subjecting yourself to a very harsh gaming diet compared to the feast that existed on other systems.

I've been in pretty close agreement with what you've been saying in these threads, but this last part doesn't really jive with the experience I have had.

While I don't feel that games "age" well or badly (they are still what they were at the time of release, so long as the console works well), I don't think that most N64 gamers had it worse at the time. A lot of the "N64 doesn't have good games" arguments come from people who were either obscenely rich back then (of course, I still wouldn't afford buying current gen games at $50-$60 each at the quantities some people do) or who have been spoiled by the very low prices you can get N64 and PSX games at.

Of course, even with not having many games, I still had both systems (eventually) - I ended up with the N64 more because there were games on that system which clicked with me, and I also didn't get as far into the PSX library as I could have. There were also PC titles to mess with as well. Would it have been best for just one system to do everything that the other systems do? Well, the PCs of the era, N64, and PSX were all so different that you could not get the same experiences across systems (just look at Acclaim's Shadow Man).

Could you imagine the N64 Zelda games being ported to the PSX? I'm sure that they could have done something very good if they had been built for the ground up on the PSX, but they certainly wouldn't have been the same and even the general asthetic of the N64 Zeldas doesn't seem possible. Likewise, the general design ethos that held at least until Wind Waker wouldn't likely have happened either. It's hard to state just how much of a break the N64 was from other consoles, and I don't think people really appreciate that the so-called "kiddie system" complaints against Nintendo also saw the birth of something that was refreshingly different from the mainstream.

When the N64 was in its lifetime, I only had a few dozen games at most, and of those I only played a few repeatedly - and I didn't even have all the must-own titles (nor was I spending a lot of time with the "classics" like the Zeldas - those have always been "play it once or twice and you're done" games, even the extra collectibles in Wind Waker or Majora's Mask haven't had me going back repeatedly).

Like BIL has put it, I don't care if an ugly plastic mushroom or a soggy piece of toast is needed for just one game - it's ultimately about that game. It's not accidental that good games come on one platform or another, but the hardware itself is really a necessary evil to get to the game (or so it seems it should be, I know the Assembler people might disagree).

[BryanM]

Would've been a little nicer if they had ported Animal Forest. Still kind of interested in the translation project on that one.

Otherwise, it was a brutal thing to own:

No jRPGs.

A weak fighter selection. That Mortal Kombat game was really a nadir in an already weak series; it was like they just copy and pasted a bunch of completely mis-matched art and moves.

No Fire Emblem or Fire Emblem clones.

An extreme dearth of traditional Shoot Them Ups.


Very nearly the entire library was held together by Nintendo and Rare alone. Not terribad, but it's crap compared to the SNES or, in many ways, even the Saturn.

One thing I don't understand: they spent a lot of money getting Dragon Quest on the Wii. A hella lot. It's an important property to have. Why didn't they ever try to create their own flagship franchise? They wouldn't be completely at the mercy of 3rd parties.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Could you imagine the N64 Zelda games being ported to the PSX?

Good question. Brave Fencer Musashi looks good (them transparencies), but engine-wise more akin to 3D Ys games.
I wonder how faithful the PSX port of Rayman 2 is. It's a PC/DC, 3D-accelerated game at heart, where you can look around in pretty enormous chambers and while I can imagine N64 doing it slower, on the PSX is must have been all redesigned (different dev team worked on it too).
F-Zero X and S&P, I can sorta imagine ported (Silent Bomber was about elevator/tunnel/boat sections as well as coming from room to room). Even 1080° Snowboarding (SnoBow Kids Plus comes to mind), but OoT verily was ahead of its time and I'm not sure if Japan really followed.
I'm trying to think about Japanese games as mind-bendingly three-dimensional as Thief II, Anachronox or Gothic. Oh well, Xenoblade Chronicles at least tried. I have no hardware to play either Souls game on, so that's something I look forward to.
Now I see better why there was no 3D Metroid on the N64, and ultimately Americans went there. At least Konami shoot their shot, huh?

Speaking of hardware intricacies making for intricate look and feel of games, I suggest playing Cyber Org with a Duak Shock in analogue mode. That's how you do camera controls in dungeon crawlers (I don't think Vagrant Story fares well in this respect). Way ahead of its time as well.

[Jonathan Ingram]

@Ed Oscuro

I was speaking from my perspective. I have no doubt that you as well as many others were perfectly satisfied with their N64, but I can imagine that I wouldn`t have been happy being limited to it alone. It`s not a matter of being rich or being spoilt by cheap prices. Most of the genres I liked simply weren`t represented on the system. That`s all there is to it.

[Ed Oscuro]

@ Jonathan:

I realize that, but having heard the argument a few times - and I would've heard just that repeatedly "back in the day" from N64 detractors - it seems to me to put too much emphasis on "here is the game you bought" versus "here is the games you could play." You can't play the N64 games on the PSX (next quote also deals with this), and vice versa, and I also think that it was really a nonissue for most players. Lots of people had friends, traded games, that kind of thing - and even though I am obviously the kind of person without friends and whose collector instinct was very much in place back then - I wasn't happy even though I had a rather narrow collection myself. I guess I just don't see what the "not enough games" argument is supposed to prove.

Could you imagine the N64 Zelda games being ported to the PSX?

Good question. Brave Fencer Musashi looks good (them transparencies), but engine-wise more akin to 3D Ys games.

I haven't yet played BFM but my point is that the rather blurry textures of the N64 coupled with the high polygon counts do lend themselves better to the look of the N64 Zeldas in a way I couldn't see for the PSX. The texture mapping issue also would have marred that artstyle in my view (although, in a case of "I like whatever I see," I generally don't think that it hurts PSX-native games - funny thing that).

Otherwise, it was a brutal thing to own:

No jRPGs.

Aidyn Chronicles marries cRPGs with only the best of jRPG characterization and the best intentions of an engine - unfortunately the other stuff that got brought in (too much going on for the engine, obnoxious slow unskippable animations for routine battle shit, etc.) makes it borderline unplayable at times. Still, I'm giving it a fair shot and it is a lot better than was immediately apparent. In particular, the characterization and story elements are at least good later on (the intro half hour or so is unbearable, yes), and it is very addictive to level up various things for your fighters as you like (a shame more characters can't use shields, be thieves and warriors, and learn one of the magic schools all at once). A lot going on in this one, but just the frame rate and stuttery, slow running movement for your hero and the obnoxious repetitiveness of the battle arenas will decisively rule it out for many. If you can look past those things, though, it might prove a new take on the genre. Personally, I can take that whole waiting turns to fight thing or leave it (it's more bearable in a SSI AD&D computer game style presentation with text rather than a goofy animation for me, simply because it doesn't take so agonizingly long to get through battles), but I really do enjoy the almost wholly open world structure. Once you get into the woods it looks like you can just keep running and running, and "loading" is just a quick area transition (maybe to get up a ladder or into a cave as a sidequest).

The N64 is more an open-exploration platformer system than it is an RPG system, obviously. It's quite a departure in that regard from the SNES with its video customized for RPGs. No doubt Nintendo made a mistake from a business standpoint in not going to CD and in some of the other choices they made, but overall I quite like the unique result. With the original DS on its way out, we won't see the like of the N64 again - for good and bad; mostly good that we won't, but I liked enough of what was there too.

[Obiwanshinobi]

When I think about the main difference between OoT and your average polygonal 3D on the PSX, it's that the former sometimes could make me feel very small in a very big room. Moreso than Tomb Raider. So that was the special thing for me.
Certain bits of Ōkami made me feel this way, but it obviously wasn't "ahead of its time" anymore.
PSX, on the other hand, could do "distance" (in space and time) better. There are polygonal, textured things in Silent Hill and Xenogears (bad game, but what can I do?) looking so old and forlorn to me it has to count for something. I "rediscovered" software acceleration thanks to the machine and I wish more PS2 games (than Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song) didn't try to hide their texture resoultion so badly.

[Skykid]

Could you imagine the N64 Zelda games being ported to the PSX?

No. It would have been a veritable impossibility to maintain all that makes them so special. PSX, Saturn and PS2 have very thin-looking polygonal architecture, stylistically, whereas the 64 engine had real structural solidity (the Dreamcast its successor in these stakes.)

Brave Fencer Musashi looks good (them transparencies), but engine-wise more akin to 3D Ys games.
I wonder how faithful the PSX port of Rayman 2 is. It's a PC/DC, 3D-accelerated game at heart, where you can look around in pretty enormous chambers and while I can imagine N64 doing it slower, on the PSX is must have been all redesigned (different dev team worked on it too).
F-Zero X and S&P, I can sorta imagine ported (Silent Bomber was about elevator/tunnel/boat sections as well as coming from room to room). Even 1080° Snowboarding (SnoBow Kids Plus comes to mind), but OoT verily was ahead of its time and I'm not sure if Japan really followed.
I'm trying to think about Japanese games as mind-bendingly three-dimensional as Thief II, Anachronox or Gothic. Oh well, Xenoblade Chronicles at least tried. I have no hardware to play either Souls game on, so that's something I look forward to.
Now I see better why there was no 3D Metroid on the N64, and ultimately Americans went there. At least Konami shoot their shot, huh?

Speaking of hardware intricacies making for intricate look and feel of games, I suggest playing Cyber Org with a Duak Shock in analogue mode. That's how you do camera controls in dungeon crawlers (I don't think Vagrant Story fares well in this respect). Way ahead of its time as well.

This doesn't answer the question whatsoever, and I beg you to stop rambling and comparing everything and anything to the entire ten strong catalogue of games you've ever played. It's all so ill-informed, incorrect and backward it doesn't even qualify as opinion.

[EmperorIng]

I am a huge Kirby fan, and while I do have a soft spot in my heart for K64, it has a pretty glaring flaw in just how damn slow Kirby moves - it really brings the entire pace of the game down. The non-challenge of the levels kind of harms it, but I suppose one might say either "It's a Kirby game!" or "The mix-n-match abilities make up for it!"

Both of which are true to an extent. While I didn't like as a child how they "nerfed" the floating jump, in retrospect I do like how it forced them to design the levels a little bit tighter in order to accommodate for one's limited jump-span. In the hands of the right developer, we could have one hell of a Kirby game if they really went ambitious with the platforming.

It was a heavily-played part of my catalogue back in the day, though. At the time, the only thing that pissed me off (and still does, ha ha!) is the fact that you fight King DeDeDe at the beginning of the game, and his fight is piss-easy. That's not the King DeDeDe I grew up with!

If I could mod our n64 to play imports (lol), I'd love to get my hands on copies of Sin and Punishment and Bangai-O. Treasure's small output on the N64 was nonetheless pretty damn good as far as games go - though this is only going by Mischief Makers and Sin and Punishment (VC).

[Ganelon]

Since we're discussing cross-platform visuals, I'd like to share a tale from 15 years ago, and perhaps one reason I've always had a less-than-favorable view of the Nintendo 64. One thing that we're all acknowledging now is that the PC beats everything in terms of visuals. Yet back then, that certainly wasn't the case. Many online N64 fans then were insistent that their platform housed the best home graphics in the world.

Perhaps one of the most annoying online arguments I've ever been in was the N64 vs. PC graphics debate back around 1997 on Usenet and message boards. I don't recognize any of you from the gaming communities back then so for folks who don't remember, this era was when 3D graphics cards started to make a splash on PCs. Up until then, nobody really disputed that consoles always managed to look better in just about every way except resolution. In earlier days, while the PC was recognized as having groundbreaking visuals at times, nobody thought the PC could complement that with constant, playable action. But finally, at that point, folks in the know who had witnessed the power of 3dfx Voodoo, ATI Rage, Rendition V1000, and the like on supported games realized that PC had finally surpassed consoles and claimed that PC graphics were better and could be better on just about every game.

Top SS and PS games started to get ported over to the PC, and the 3D accelerated PC versions (Tomb Raider was the highlight example) looked much better. With that, SS and PS folks mostly piped down and admitted defeat. But N64 fans refused to accept defeat. They claimed that the N64 was superior to its console brethren and, with the whole system focused on gaming, could do more than a PC could. Screenshots of games with top-of-the-line visuals like GLQuake, Descent II, and MechWarrior 2 weren't enough to convince them. There was something about the textures, the story often went, that made the N64 look better. But that left me wondering even more what it was they were seeing other than the blurry, low-res visuals.

Doom 64 was an often-used example of a game that looked far better than anything on PC, especially compared to the original Doom. Well, that argument worked to create an impasse for a few months before things started to slip. First, Shadows of the Empire—well known on the N64—came out for PC and looked noticeably better. Then, Unreal came out for PC, and made killer comparisons to N64 FPS games that were pretty hard to argue against. And a couple of years later, UltraHLE showed how the PC was not only capable of emulating the N64 but also making the games look better through higher resolution.

And that was the beginning of the end of the consoles vs. PC graphical debate. The PC scored a decisive victory, and the message quickly spread. There was a bit more commotion when the PS2 was announced with the brilliant but ethically questionable marketing claims that the Emotion Engine could render Toy Story in real time and be used to deploy nuclear weapons, but that nonsense (especially since it's now commonly accepted that the PS2 is in some ways weaker than a DC) quickly dissipated. And since then, the PC has been undisputed in graphical performance. But the PC's last credible threat for a brief period in time was the N64.

[Obiwanshinobi]

While I remember Tomb Raider being considered better looking with 3D acceleration by many PC gamers, I'm not sure if DC wasn't king for a day. Max Payne on the PC put that to an end.
Where's a perceptible proof that DC was any superior to PS2, like, at all? Some of the best looking last-gen console games originated on PS2 and got successfully ported to 'Cube and Xbox. Would DC prove itself too good to handle RenderWare or Dark Alliance Engine?
I saw things rendered by PS2 I didn't see in Unreal and Quake III. I'd say the year when PC utterly surpassed PS2 not just in tech demos, but in playable stuff was 2002 (I think about NOLF2).
You all know PS2 pulled off VF4 Evo just fine (and that was originally made for something slightly beefier than NAOMI).

Those few games I saw ported from DC/Naomi to PS2 and/or PC: Psyvariar 2, Rez, Typing of the Dead, Shikigami no Shiro II... I just don't know where those DC cool beans are supposed to be hidden. All looked the same "gen" to me. Wikipedia told me Homura is ported from PC hardware and Psyvariar 2 from DC, but I would believe if it told me the other way around.

[neorichieb1971]

The N64 was brilliant. I'd established itself as unique in that era. I spent countless hours playing it. For me the N64, Saturn and PS1 were the highlight of my gaming years. So much choice, diversity and color.

It also provoked a question "What if RARE continued to work with Nintendo?" A question never answered to this day.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Star Fox Adventures 2?
(I know right; in the PC vs N64 debate, PC gamers should have brought up VF2 and Virtual-On with 3D acceleration patches.)

[Jonathan Ingram]

I'd say the year when PC utterly surpassed PS2 not just in tech demos, but in playable stuff was 2002 (I think about NOLF2).

Heh, having read Ganelon`s post I wanted to chime in to say that the PC vs consoles argument didn`t die with the N64, how it was kept alive by Dreamcast for some time, reignited with new strength when the PS2 came out and how the PC superiority over PS2 hadn`t become obvious until No One Lives Forever 2 came out in 2002. And then I saw your reply. You even mentioned NOLF2! Great minds think alike.

But yeah, I don`t think the PC vs consoles argument evaporated into thin air with the appearance of 3D accelerators. When Dreamcast came out, many including myself believed it had the best graphics at the time(thinking about Shenmue and Soul Calibur here). Then PS2 came with Metal Gear Solid 2 and Gran Turismo 3 which demonstrated visuals far beyond anything at the time. I had a very good PC to compliment my PS2, but I didn`t believe it was capable of producing graphics on the same level as in those two games, let alone do it at 60 frames per second. It wasn`t until I played NOLF2 in 2002(which impressed me in ways that PC games hadn`t managed to impress me in for years - the LithTech Jupiter engine was that amazing) that I started to doubt the PS2`s superiority over PC.

Where's a perceptible proof that DC was any superior to PS2, like, at all?

An argument exists that DC was supposedly superior to PS2 in some ways, but given how much better PS2 games look, I really don`t know what it`s supposed to prove.

[Ganelon]

I don't recall any serious contention from knowledgeable gamers who claimed that DC or PS2 were definitely better than PC (as opposed to at best roughly the same level as a top-end PC) afterward. That said, the transition certainly wasn't an immediate reversal of position. As I said, it was only the beginning of the end; today's "100% of games look equal to or better on PC" mentality took many more years of favorable head-to-head comparisons to develop. But after the N64 loss, consoles clearly became the underdog in graphics comparisons except from some folks who didn't know where to look (the best-selling PC games weren't always the top visual efforts) or refused to play the games on optimal PC setups (a very legitimate concern since most folks didn't have the money to pay for optimal setups that could easily run up $3000+ at time). Personally, I didn't see anything remarkable on the DC or PS2 that I hadn't seen done equally well on PC.

Unreal Tournament showed that ports to neither console could match the original PC version. Quake III Arena showed that even fully optimized, a DC game didn't compare to a top-of-the-line PC. And again with Max Payne. By the time Unreal Tournament 2003 and No One Lives Forever 2 showed up, the trend already seemed pretty clear from what I saw. As for Shenmue, it looked nice enough for a console game but I don't see how it compared to PC graphics poster children Outcast and Giants: Citizen Kabuto. Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec was also a breakthrough for console racers. But it was no match for Papyrus's latest NASCAR Racing game of that time period (much the same way Gran Turismo 5 got a lot of credit for graphics excellence when it's not even clear that it beat Forza Motorsport 4, except that GT3 couldn't even handle a progressive signal). Of course, the situation exacerbated the further away from the consoles' release with just about every multi-platform game judged best looking on PC.

As for DC, every Naomi game (e.g. Dead or Alive 2, Crazy Taxi, Ferrari F355 Challenge) looks better on DC. Every game that started on DC looks better on DC, such as Grandia II and MDK2 (of which there's also a PC version; wild guess which one looks best...). Plenty of PC ports also fit the bill, including the aforementioned Unreal Tournament and Quake III Arena. Sure, PS2 ended up having much better stuff later on but by that time, DC was finished so it's not a fair comparison. I've yet to see proof one way or another that the DC couldn't have continued as a major factor in that generation had it survived longer. I can't give you the technical reason why DC did well but images and videos speak for themselves. As I mentioned, I think this undermining of the DC is more representative of how strong Sony's marketing campaign was that so many folks still think the PS2 blows the DC out of the water without any empirical evidence.

[Hagane]

Visually speaking, I'd take Vagrant Story over anything on the N64. On paper the N64 may have had superior graphics, but nearly all of the titles I've seen had ugly models with blurry, washed (sometimes non-existent) textures and empty, lifeless worlds. To me it is clearly the weakest of its generation, with its disdain for 2D and arcade games, and poor genre variety and quality in general.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Since the late nineties, if you had a powerful PC it was easy to look down your nose at consoles because of the resolution.
Still, PS2 had those blur and soft light tricks I suck for and the effects I saw - with either component or RGB - in The Bouncer, MGS2 (that rain!), MGS3 (yup, after Far Cry) were hardly usual on the PC before pixel shaders. PoP:TSoT kind of haze and bloom, essentially. Also, I keep trying to work out why Burnout 2 looks as dreamy as it does on the PS2. In higher reolution it would probably did not look so great. Then Tekken 5 had arrived and... I don't think the genre (3D variety) was alive on PC at the time.
No matter how you look at it, in 2004 PS2 still had graphical charms PC didn't have in store; also, its price and size were nowhere near proper gaming PC.

[Jonathan Ingram]

Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec was also a breakthrough for console racers. But it was no match for Papyrus's latest NASCAR Racing game of that time period.

This is, of course, not true. None of the Rally and F1 games that I had on my PC back then were quite as impressive as Gran Turismo 3. I just checked that Papyrus Nascar game from 2001 that you mentioned and it barely looks like it belongs to the same generation as GT3.

To be fair though, Gran Turismo`s impressive visuals have always had less to do with the graphical prowess of the hardware it was on and more with its budget being exponentially larger than of any other racing game in existence.

As for DC, every Naomi game (e.g. Dead or Alive 2, Crazy Taxi, Ferrari F355 Challenge) looks better on DC. Every game that started on DC looks better on DC, such as Grandia II and MDK2 (of which there's also a PC version; wild guess which one looks best...).

Port jobs are not as good as the original versions much of the time. What else is new? The PS2 version of Silent Hill 2 remains the definitive one despite the availability of other versions of the game for more powerful hardware. Neither the Xbox and PC versions nor the HD remasters for PS3 and 360 can boast the soft shadows and thick volumetric fog of the PS2 game. This doesn`t, however, prove the PS2`s general superiority over the other systems.

Sure, PS2 ended up having much better stuff later on but by that time, DC was finished so it's not a fair comparison.

Metal Gear Solid 2, Gran Turismo 3, Silent Hill 2 and Final Fantasy X all came out in 2001. That`s not really "later on". By that time it was already clear the PS2 was packing considerably more power under the hood(of course, it wasn`t clear to some of Sega`s faithful whose belief in Dreamcast`s superior hardware was akin to blind faith, but that goes for all fanboys and people who develop emotional attachment to pieces of hardware).

Dreamcast was a very developer friendly system that, based on Sega`s own comments, was already being maxed by Shenmue 2. If it couldn`t match PS2`s offerings from 2001, there`s little reason to assume it would`ve been capable of delivering the same kind of graphics demonstrated by some of the later PS2 stuff like Silent Hill 3, Metal Gear Solid 3, Final Fantasy XII and God of War II.

As I mentioned, I think this undermining of the DC is more representative of how strong Sony's marketing campaign was that so many folks still think the PS2 blows the DC out of the water without any empirical evidence.

Oh, there`s a very concrete empirical evidence for that. It lies in playing games for both systems and then giving a fair, unbiased assessment of what you`ve seen on the screen. If, having played both, the person still keeps thinking the Dreamcast is the more powerful of the two, then, well, there`s a name for that condition.

[BryanM]

But its positives: controller

I do have to give it props for the three prongs. These jerkwads these days keep cramming the d-pad and analog stick into the same spot, except one of them is in a retarded place that you thumb does not bend comfortably into.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Then Nintendo released Classic Controller, so out od a sudden it's all a part of their big plan.

[Ganelon]

This is, of course, not true. None of the Rally and F1 games that I had on my PC back then were quite as impressive as Gran Turismo 3. I just checked that Papyrus Nascar game from 2001 that you mentioned and it barely looks like it belongs to the same generation as GT3.

Are you looking at quantity of objects or quality of textures? I'm talking about the latter here, not how artistically the tracks are laid out. NASCAR games rely on realism and are pretty bland in terms of outside aesthetics so if you're looking for mountains and plenty of trees, NASCAR can't offer them. NASCAR cars also don't reflect like normal cars do thanks to their anti-glare paint so they don't—and shouldn't—have the extreme lighting effects that normal cars have (and that GT is known for). On the texture front, NASCAR's are clearly more detailed at optimal settings. I don't have any way to prove that now so for anyone who cares, try the latest Papyrus NASCAR of that period (can't remember if it's 2001 or 2002) out for yourself and let us know.

Port jobs are not as good as the original versions much of the time.

I agree. However, when the vast majority of port jobs either from *and* to the PC look better on PC, that says something. Grand Theft Auto III was one of the early examples of a PS2 game looking better as a PC port.

Metal Gear Solid 2, Gran Turismo 3, Silent Hill 2 and Final Fantasy X all came out in 2001. That`s not really "later on".

For the DC, this time period was late. Sega had already announced the end of DC production at the beginning of 2001, and I don't recall any big budget 3rd party games by then. Consequently, comparing 2001 games isn't proof that the DC was no match; it's just speculation. The only thing we do know—cross-platform games at any time—didn't favor the PS2 (although admittedly, most were ports from DC). I think the closest analogy is the 360, also known for being easy to work with and having been released ahead of the competition. If the 360 had also died in under 2 years (back when it didn't seem to be a huge leap over the original Xbox), would we be here saying that it couldn't have ever competed against the PS3's Cell processing potential? Well, luckily, we know what actually happened.

[Obiwanshinobi]

If there was one thing PS2 had that the competition hadn't, it was Jak II. Maybe some things it does don't look so hot ported to PS3 (again - low resolution displayed properly has its charms) and I didn't see it prog-scanned, but there was more to it than performance and looks. I have yet to see a data streamer this impressive overall (or "kart racer" looking better than Jak X for that matter). The engine makes for one hell of a data streaming playground.
(Aesthetically it was a mixed bag, but talking about THIS would be off-topic.)
Of course I doubt Sega had the Sony kind of money to spare, yet some things are not about how much money you have but where you put it.
To put it bluntly, I think Sega's resources were better spent on development for hardware people bought. TV ads are gonna be missed, but when you have best ads and worst sales around, isn't it sobering?

The aforementioned Dark Alliance and RenderWare technologies look like most stark examples of what I'm talking about. If BG:DA and Burnout 2 looked so good on one platform that the competition couldn't have possibly done much better, powered by a portable by design engine, then it was a message: "not a single company can just buy best engineering out there". Competition can be healthy, but I'm not sure if DC alive and kicking would make the party any merrier.

To tease you lads for a little bit longer...
Didn't RE: Code Veronica look better on PS2? (I wouldn't know.) Then what is wrong with the Rez port (other than the omission of prog-scan, which was of meagre significance for the majority of people Sega made it for)? The aliasing wasn't too aggravating for my liking (it is in Fantavision if you care to know) and word is, it had less slowdown.
Or Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future - any complaints you'd lodge? On YouTube it looked good to me, but not out of PS2's league, no dear sirs.

[R79]

The N64 wasn`t completely worthless

No shit. I can't comment on the Russian situation (even though the country was heavily featured in the game :p), but here in England, Goldeneye was one of the most heavily played games of the late '90s. Fact.

Majora's Mask was, and is, a highly innovative action RPG, before NCL really became creatively moribund. Two Treasure games as well, sorry three... DKR, another Rare classic, highly played here. The console was an essential part of gaming from that era. I would never, ever get rid of mine. Pure quality over quantity when stood next to the PS1 (essentially a 2D turn-based RPG unit these days, with a handful of worthy shooters.)

[Hagane]

More like the N64 is a Zelda unit these days with a handful of other worthy games. The PS1 has many more good titles, and much more genre variety.

[Jonathan Ingram]

Are you looking at quantity of objects or quality of textures?

I`m looking at the car models, textures, shadows and lighting.

Gran Turismo 3:




2001`s Nascar Racing 4 from Papyrus:




From the videos I`ve seen of NR4, it seems to have had actual damage modelling unlike GT3 and it might have had better driving physics(something I can`t attest to since I`d need to play it to know for sure). But in the looks department it doesn`t seem to be anywhere near GT3`s level. I could provide HD screencaps from an emulator to demonstrate how much higher the quality of GT3`s assets is.

For the DC, this time period was late. Sega had already announced the end of DC production at the beginning of 2001

Both Shenmue 2 and Sonic Adventure 2 came out in the second half of 2001(just like MGS2 and GT3) and they already looked outdated at that point. And Metropolis Street Racer which also came out in 2001 wasn`t as good looking as GT3.

The only thing we do know—cross-platform games at any time—didn't favor the PS2 (although admittedly, most were ports from DC).

Yes, we know that quick, early ports of DC/Naomi games to the hardware that was not only drastically different but also notoriously hard to develop for were of suboptimal quality. We also know that when games developed from the ground up for the PS2 started to come out(and that didn`t take long at all) they blew the Dreamcast out of the water.

I think the closest analogy is the 360, also known for being easy to work with and having been released ahead of the competition. If the 360 had also died in under 2 years (back when it didn't seem to be a huge leap over the original Xbox), would we be here saying that it couldn't have ever competed against the PS3's Cell processing potential? Well, luckily, we know what actually happened.

PS3 and 360 are extremely close to each other which I believe is not the case for the PS2 and DC at all. The PS2 has a much faster CPU with two vector processors, more RAM and a GPU that`s at the very least comparable(Dreamcast had more dedicated VRAM and PowerVR2 had some features that Graphics Synthesizer lacked, but the latter was faster and possessed monstrous amounts of fillrate). To be on competitive terms with the PS2 the Dreamcast would`ve needed at least a higher clocked version of SH4(since going with Hitachi SH5 was not an option at the time, I believe) and 16 megabytes more RAM. Oh, and a DVD drive of course.

[louisg]

Personally, I didn't see anything remarkable on the DC or PS2 that I hadn't seen done equally well on PC.

This could just be down to artwork competence, but I'd say that something like DOA2 didn't have anything equalling it on PC for a while. I played PC games a lot around 2000, and in terms of polygonal smoothness, environmental effects, and the like, there didn't seem to be much comparison. Add to that that a lot of console games were running at a flawless 60fps where a lot of computer games didn't (due to not just optimization, but the driver implementation and things like that), and that's pretty impressive by the standards of the day.

An argument exists that DC was supposedly superior to PS2 in some ways, but given how much better PS2 games look, I really don`t know what it`s supposed to prove.

I think both machines are good at different things. The DC had a clean look without screen-door issues and most games even supporting progressive scan, plus it seemed to be a bit better in the textures department. I'd also argue that the mid-range games ended up better on DC since it was easier to develop for-- I think an awful lot of PS2 games underperform once you get away from the higher budget titles. But the better-looking games for PS2 do push a lot of polygons and I'd guess that the PS2 was quite a bit faster at stuff like alpha effects, just observing as a user where the DC tends to choke.

But for a system that came out two years after the DC, at twice the price, and with breakier hardware, the PS2 wasn't super impressive. It certainly isn't in the "blows away the DC" category like the GC and XBox 1 were, which came out only one year later (with the GC specifically being quite a bit cheaper and still pumping out impressive graphics like in RE4, Metroid Prime, and F-Zero GX).

That said, some late-gen PS2 games do look very nice, and the comparison often ends up being pretty apples-to-oranges (SNES vs. Genesis, etc etc). If you want to talk about systems getting better over time, the PS2 certainly did that. But looking at the particle effects in a game like Under Defeat also drives that home that this is a general principle-- I think we could've seen mainstream DC games look better than they did, just like with every other system that survives for more than a few years.

BTW, someone mentioned Shenmue 2. IMO, it does not look nearly as good as Shenmue 1. I'd also say that MSR is trying to do something pretty different from Gran Turismo in terms of *where* the graphical detail is (in MSR, it's more in modeling the cities). I'd compare GT3 to F355 or TD:Le Mans instead. I'm not saying those are better looking than GT3, but I think it's a more apt comparison.

But going back to the N64 and the whole console war arguments, the N64 did have a place: that system had an awful lot of firsts. It's easy to forget when you look back on its tiny game library. Maybe it's kind of like a pong machine that way

[Obiwanshinobi]

And among things I didn't see on PS2, there is decent ragdoll. Halo looks worse than Black, but has more convincing physics.
Painkiller port was out of question, apparently. Havok as seen on computers took more RAM than Xbox had.

[Obiwanshinobi]

But for a system that came out two years after the DC, at twice the price, and with breakier hardware, the PS2 wasn't super impressive. It certainly isn't in the "blows away the DC" category like the GC and XBox 1 were, which came out only one year later (with the GC specifically being quite a bit cheaper and still pumping out impressive graphics like in RE4, Metroid Prime, and F-Zero GX).

Do you think F-Zero GX (2003) is in the "blows away the DC" category? I for one am more visually impressed by Burnout 2 (2002). Playing both on the same CRT, 640i, RGB. In terms of good looking racers that gen, PS2 was second to none and I don't even remember GX being considered THAT great looking by the people who bought it. Certainly nobody claimed to play it for the graphics. "Hardcoreness" was supposed to be the selling point.
If anything, F-Zero GX split screen was less compromised than Burnout 2 split screen, but I think the latter is more of a data streamer and you know the tracks in GX are less complex. I mean the models of it all.
I think the engine hails from a certain NAOMI game.
Metroid Prime - I agree that its technology was something else in 2002. Resident Evil 4 came out in 2005 for crying out loud.
Oh yes, Rogue Squadron II was peerless in 2001 and still is. I'm not sure if more spectacular Star Wars game even exists.

[louisg]

But for a system that came out two years after the DC, at twice the price, and with breakier hardware, the PS2 wasn't super impressive. It certainly isn't in the "blows away the DC" category like the GC and XBox 1 were, which came out only one year later (with the GC specifically being quite a bit cheaper and still pumping out impressive graphics like in RE4, Metroid Prime, and F-Zero GX).

Do you think F-Zero GX (2003) is in the "blows away the DC" category? I for one am more visually impressed by Burnout 2 (2002). Playing both on the same CRT, 640i, RGB. In terms of good looking racers that gen, PS2 was second to none and I don't even remember GX being considered THAT great looking by the people who bought it. Certainly nobody claimed to play it for the graphics. "Hardcoreness" was supposed to be the selling point.
If anything, F-Zero GX split screen was less compromised than Burnout 2 split screen, but I think the latter is more of a data streamer and you know the tracks in GX are less complex. I mean the models of it all.
I think the engine hails from a certain NAOMI game.

Yeah, I think F-Zero GX is significantly better looking than Burnout 2. Don't get me wrong, Burnout 2 is pretty good, and it's one of my favorite racers that gen! All I can comment on is the GC version, but I found it to be a bit blurry looking, and not just when nitro is engaged. I always wondered if they had their own full-screen anti-aliasing scheme (like blurring between frames very slightly), or if it's just caked with a ton of lighting effects.

But F-Zero GX had some really outstanding visuals at the time, like the desert tracks and green plant environments. I remember staring at screenshots of the green plant track before it came out and just drooling. It's a game I always considered to be one of the best looking of that generation.

It wouldn't surprise me if F-Zero GX took code from a Naomi game, but I think it's something the DC couldn't do. Well, if it could, I'd be really shocked.