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JB0

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Everything posted by JB0

  1. JB0
    Similar, yes. And some games continued to use fancy mode 7 scenes very late into it's life, including, coincidentally, the Super Star Wars trilogy. But as-presented, it's impossible. Which is frustrating because it wouldn't take MUCH of a change to make it work. Which was why I spent more time than I care to admit breaking the scene down from a Super Nintendo capabilities perspective to figure out how to MAKE it work. And why it frustrated me. True. But that doesn't mean I can't expect them to try anyways! Neither Chrono Trigger nor PS4 used a coprocessor, actually. Both of them are running on just the internal system resources. (Actually, the only Genesis cartridge with a coprocessor was Virtua Racing. It was a big deal at the time.) And yeah, coprocessors would help, but... that's cheating. Yoshi's Island is a great example of what the Super Nintendo could do with a SuperFX strapped in, but... WAY too much color depth available for this to be a reasonable SNES product. But now that I think about expansions and coprocessors... SegaCD could be a viable platform. It's got a math coprocessor to help with scaling and rotation that would help a lot on the Falcon sequence. In fact, most SCD boot demos(the exact show changed with model and region) have it scaling and rotating two large objects simultaneously, which as it happens is EXACTLY what we would need to do. Replace the SegaCD logo with sand dunes and the SEGA logo with a Millenium Falcon, and BAM. And that's really the only place in the sequence where I'm worried about the Genesis' capabilities. As a bonus, it also gets us the audio via the power of redbook! 32x rises back into the "too capable" territory. It could do it, but you'd have always be left wondering WHY. Without a compelling argument to the contrary, I'm going to call it a SegaCD movie trailer.
  2. JB0
    I'm sorry, but the very first frame exceeds the C64's color capabilities, and it's all downhill from there. Most of the colors used in the trailer simply don't exist in the C64's single 16-color palette. And I'm pretty sure the neXt-Wing scene would cause a C64 to spontaneously combust if you tried it, to say nothing of the Falcon. There's simply no way it can be done on a C64. MAYBE an Atari 8-bit computer. Atari had really good color depth, though it'd need reworking. But I'm certain that several of the effects seen are beyond the reach of that poor overburdened 6502 without a more feature-rich VDP than the ANTIC/GTIA combo. Equally serious issues with the neXt-Wing and Falcon. Lesser challenges, which are likely surmountable, but still stick out at me, include 1. the parallax scrolling behind soccerbot and jetbike. The jetbike is only problematic because it has to be part of the BG layer, it exceeds sprite capabilities for both platforms. That's why it can't be a sprite over a single BG like it seems. 2. the Stormtrooper shot, all of it, but especially the first and last parts. That loading ramp descent is WAY harder than it looks. 3. the trees in the lightsaber scene. They can be assembled from sprites, and indeed have to be, but both platforms will have issues with the scene as drawn due to sprite limitations. Even ignoring the Falcon spin and available colors, both systems wind up being greatly hindered by having only a single background layer to work with. They need far more processor time than is available to render those effects in software. A crapton of RAM would help in some places, so the Atari XEs fare better than the original A8 and XL machines, but... it's not enough. These issues are also why I'm not considering an MSX2, despite it's delicious color capabilities. And while it COULD easily be done on an Amiga, it SHOULDN'T be. I don't know a huge amount about the Amiga, but I know it had FAR better color and resolution than that. It should look far better than that if it was targeted at Amiga. If one did this on an Amiga, it would be for the same reason they did it on a modern IBM-compatible. Which is to say it would be an attempt to create dated-looking CG without actually considering any of the hardware restrictions that would make it believable. And that's what bugs me about this sort of thing. It doesn't take a lot of effort to make it at least LOOK right, and no one ever expends it. Considered color selection and no parallax gets you most of the way. I'm still tending towards Genesis as the most likely sweet spot between inadequate and too capable, though the Falcon scene is still all kinds of problematic. And yes, I'm still thinking too hard about this.
  3. JB0
    I'll get a red one. And if I feel ambitious, I'll get a stencil for a Virtual Boy logo to apply to it.
  4. JB0
    Oh! I didn't even notice that was an 'n' in the middle. Is the Denon chick just really into audio equipment?
  5. JB0
    The color pallete is FAR too limited for Super Nintendo. Those sand dunes should have like eight shades of brown. Incidentally, the Millenium Falcon scene could ALMOST be done in mode 7. The only thing that kills it is the end when the Falcon and sand dunes are both rolling. The Falcon moves independently of the dunes during that roll. If it was affixed, you could do it. And that it's ALMOST doable bugs me more than when I thought it wasn't remotely doable. The BG color is sky blue, the clouds are drawn as sprites. The dunes are offscreen, you're in mode 7. Falcon is the only BG layer(BG color doesn't count as a BG layer, hardware-wise), and can be scaled and rotated freely across the entire screen. The Falcon STOPS rotating before the dunes come into view on the top of the screen. THIS is when you shift back out of mode 7, and raise the dune BG layer in from the top. Now, here's where it gets tricky, and where the demo fails the mode 7 test. You subsequently load an image that is both dunes AND Falcon on one layer. Then shift to mode 7 again. It can be freely rotated, but the Falcon has to stay on the same pixels of the dune, which it doesn't. Onve the roll finishes, come out of mode 7 again. You have one BG laye loaded, it's Falcon and dunes. Load the TIE fighter on a second layer. This is where things get a little weak, because the Falcon's dodge-roll can't really be done. What I'd do is jerk the entire Falcon+dunes layer to the side. You might could load separated dunes and Falcon layers and have the Falcon move independently of the dunes, if there's enough time to pump all the tiles into RAM. Yes, I've thought too hard about this.
  6. JB0
    He was humping a succubus when he authorized the attack on Arsenal. A succubus who fled the boat when they wrecked his shiznit.
  7. JB0
    I actually did see some parallax scrolling. But it's too low-res(mostly), and the color pallete feels wrong. The Falcon stunt-flying would be great fot SNES mode 7 except that you can only have one BG layer on a mode 7 scanline, and it belongs to the mode 7 object. Not that there aren't ways around it, but...
  8. JB0
    I've seen every episode to date. I want your futurevision.
  9. JB0
    It's closest in feel to the Genesis, but way too chunky.It ALMOST feels like a VGA DOS game. Which would make it 32-bit.
  10. JB0
    No, it's still a trainwreck. It just wrecked so hard and so fast that people are confused by the aftermath. I'm not convinced they aren't making the whole thing up as they go along. Every week someone asks "okay, so what are we writing this time?" and the response is always "I dunno."
  11. JB0
    And Kusanagi had fake tits, then got a man's body at the end of the comics. Match made in heaven.
  12. JB0
    Not a one of them has unnaturally-colored hair. Is THIS what anime's been reduced to?!
  13. JB0
    BRANDISH! *ahem* Yesterday, Xseed hit PSN with the english version of the PSP remake of Falcom's classic dungeon crawler RPG that everyone hates because you have to play with the camera and your sword keeps breaking. I'd long since given up any hope of that one ever making it over here, because, well, it's always been kind of reviled in the west. In fairness, it's not the first ever english release, but... the Super Nintendo version was a long time ago, and they made Dela put on some clothes for that one. Blasphemy, I tell ya! I'd rather have a full boxed release, but ... BRANDISH! I bring this to the attention of anyone that cares, just because it's a PSP game coming out in 2015. Gonna be very easy to miss.
  14. JB0
    Obviously, this ends with Gaogaigar ripping the Matrix out of Ultra Magnus and holding it up over his head as Magnus explodes, right? ... Wait, would that make the Big G into Galvatron?
  15. JB0
    Einstein was a pretty smart dude.</massive_understatement>
  16. JB0
    This year, this year is different, man! It's coming out in 2015. FOR CARL.
  17. JB0
    Yup. Megaman started life as an Astro Boy tie-in before Capcom failed to get that license, too. It seems somewhat backwards to make the game before the license, but... I guess it worked for them? In a final twist, Nintendo DID successfully secure the Popeye license after getting Donkey Kong ready, and so next year they made, well, Popeye.
  18. JB0
    Pretty much. IT's my universal cleaner. Only thing I can think of, aside fro the obvious "keep it off the labels" is to be wary of inked details, which is usually only an issue on hardware. As it turns out, the controller port labels on an NES are printed in an alcohol-soluble ink. Yes, I learned this the hard way.
  19. JB0
    Quantum physics gives me a headache. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the double-slit experiment, to heck with entanglement. And THIS... just no. One thing at a time.
  20. JB0
    That was what I meant. Sorry for the unclarity. The game itself is Williams's, but since they don't own the trademarks or characters(aside from Jr), they can't do anything with it. Well, they could replace all the sprites and change the title screen and sell it as ORIGINAL MAZE GAME PIZZABEANIE., but... why?
  21. JB0
    Well, while I don't know any specifics on the Macross Movie, I DO know of a good example of the situatio from video games. Pac-Man Jr was created by Williams, before Namco revoked their license. Namco does not own Pac-Man Jr. It belongs entirely to Williams. Williams, however, does not own the Pac-Man brand. All rights to it reside solely with Namco. Neither company can port, reissue, remake, or do anything else with Pac-Man Jr unless both companies can come to a mutual agreement. No one has, and they aren't likely to ever do so. * I imagine similar issues would plague the Macross Movie script. *(Tangentally, this is not a problem with the Williams-created Ms. Pac-Man because Williams gave it to Namco. Basically, Namco got pissed that they were making unauthorized sequels in the form of Ms Pac-Man, so they transferred the rights to Namco as an appeasement so they could continue licensing the Pac-brand. Williams then proceeded to continue making Pac-Man sequels until Namco cancelled the license "for real this time" . So Namco owns Ms. Pac-Man, even though they didn't make it.)
  22. JB0
    I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at the existence of a TurboGrafX Gradius, but... I am. At least it's close to the arcade. Gradius without four options just isn't Gradius. It's like... R-Type or something.
  23. JB0
    This needs an anime!111
  24. JB0
    I hope someone does license it. And someone competent, at that.
  25. JB0
    No lie, I think the brainmaster gimmick is awesome. It just seems more "Transformer" to me than the headmasters and powermasters did, and I'm glad it made it into the MP version. Basically, the more I see of Space Brick, the more I like him.
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