Crap Games #12

Off-World Interceptor (1994)
By: Crystal Dynamics Genre: Racing / Shooting Players: 1-2 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: 3DO First Day Score: 195,800 (cash)
Also Available For: Saturn, PlayStation

Most of the titles that are included in the 'Crap Games' feature here at Red Parsley were so chosen due to near-unanimous scorn at the time of their release from magazines of the day, but this one is a little different. I decided to include Off-World Interceptor mainly because of the intense disappointment I felt towards it personally. It hardly received glowing reviews anyway I guess, but I was enjoying my 3DO and its remarkable 3D abilities at the time, in particular The Need For Speed which was so far ahead of any other racing game I'd played. It was still just one game though, and I wanted another racing game for my powerful new console. Unfortunately, there weren't too many options available for it but I saw screenshots of Off-World Interceptor and thought it looked pretty good at least, so figured it was worth a try. Happily I was able to find it at my local games store, and at a bargain price too, and I was eager to get started on my... umm, off-world intercepting.

Splendid 3DO Music #1

Star Fighter (1995)

As much as us retro gamers loved and continue to love chiptunes, it wasn't until CD-based games started appearing that we had the first 'proper' soundtracks composed by real instruments or featuring samples, voices, or anything else the composers cared to add - the limits, in other words, were now non-existent. One of the earliest examples of this kind of soundtrack that I really liked was found in Fednet's stonking 3D shmup, Star Fighter. Composed by John Avery, it consists of nine techno/trance tracks (I've never been great at differentiating the many sub-genres of 'electronic music') which the game cycles through as you play (and you can jiggle the order around as you please). All of them are superb but I think my favourite is this one...

(full Star Fighter review here)



Special Note: I didn't record this great tune myself, I'm just an admirer, so all credit to the splendid Mr. Avery, as well as my thanks for making such a great soundtrack to start with!
 

3DO Games #6

Icebreaker (1995)
By: Magnet Interactive Studios Genre: Action / Strategy Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: 3DO
Also Available For: PC, Mac

I got my first 3DO whilst it was still a 'current' system and, thanks to its failure and the subsequent price reductions, I was also able to buy most of the games I wanted for it quite quickly too, but one that I was not able to was Icebreaker. It was described by magazines of the day as a puzzle game and the few screen shots I'd seen were quite intriguing, but I was never able to find it anywhere, not even mail order (which was the last resort in those days). So, once again, this fine blog gives me the chance to finally tick another box, so to speak, and the first thing I noticed when I did finally get to play it is that it's not really a puzzle game at all. It's more of a action/strategy mixture, and it's quite an unusual one at that. The emphasis, you see, is very much on pyramids. There's no back-story to speak of so it's difficult to know how or why they came to be, but there are a lot of them.

Star Control - Part 7

Star Control II a.k.a. The Ur-Quan Masters (1994)
By: Toys For Bob / Accolade Genre: RPG / Strategy Players: 1-2 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: 3DO
Also Available For: PC, Apple Mac

I have now been posting my highly inane burblings here for almost four years, believe it or not. In all that time I've written about a great many games and related subjects but the ones that I've talked about the most are probably the spiffing Star Control and its even more stonking sequel. The latter was in fact the very first game I ever talked about here and I've done so several times since as well. Rather bizarrely, however, despite being my favourite video game of all time since its release, and despite all the stuff I've posted about it, it's a game that still hasn't actually been reviewed here. As I'm sure many who know me may would agree, I'm a pretty weird guy sometimes, but this is still an entirely unacceptable state of affairs. Luckily it's also one that can be easily rectified. Behold:

Next-Gen Driving Games #2

The Need For Speed a.k.a. Over Drivin (1994)
By: Pioneer Studios / Electronic Arts Genre: Driving Players: 1 Difficulty: Easy-Medium
Featured Version: 3DO
Also Available For: Saturn, PlayStation, PC

As one of the very first video game genres, I think it's safe to say that driving games have come a long way since Atari's Night Driver, the first into-the-screen example and released all the way back in '76. Since then there have been some great games released, as well as a good few not-so-great ones, but as enjoyable as they may or may not have been, they were never terribly realistic. Of course, as technology got more advanced their realism slowly improved and today's console efforts appear almost photo-realistic and often require tutorials to even 'play' properly. Between these two points though, the first example of the genre I encountered that truly felt like an actual driving game was The Need For Speed, the first of the now-extensive series that's still going strong today (there's even a movie on the way!), and for this reason it's the game I've always considered the first genuine 'next-generation' driving game.

3DO Games #5

Return Fire (1994)
By: Silent Software Genre: Strategy / Shooting Players: 1-2 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: 3DO
Also Available For: PlayStation, PC

The culmination of RF's dramatic title sequence...

As technically impressive as the 3DO was for its day, it's a sad fact that anyone who met the rather immense outlay required to own one had little in the way of high-quality games to play on it, and even less that actually made use of the new machine's impressive abilities. One game that appeared to do just that, however, was Return Fire, and it was an exclusive too! Well, until the 3DO started floundering at least, at which point it was also released on the PS1 and PC, but still - for a while, 3DO owners had something to show off, and it was a game worthy of envy. It's a simple military-based strategic frolic at heart which pits two forces against one another - green and brown. Player one controls the latter while a second player or the console itself controls the former, and the object is simply to seize your opponent's flag and return it to your base. As you might expect, however, it's not quite that simple.

3DO Games #4

Star Fighter a.k.a. Star Fighter 3000 (1995)
By: Fednet / Krisalis Genre: Shooting / Strategy Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: 3DO First Day Score: Lord knows, I've been playing it years!
Also Available For: Archimedes, PlayStation, Saturn

This screen is so suddenly-noisy it makes me jump!

As has been documented here on numerous occasions, my failed attempts to embrace most games that the modern systems have had to offer is a source of confusion and frustration. This hasn't always been the case though, obviously, and at many times from the distant past right up to... ummm... a while ago, I've enthusiastically welcomed all sorts or innovations, either gameplay related or those facilitated by the advancement of technology. Some of these occasions have been and will continue to be relayed here, but one of the greatest examples of the latter came the first time I played this game. Sadly, the 3DO didn't last too long and my local second hand game store had soon marked down all the games they had for it. I picked up a handful of titles for £10 each including Star Fighter but didn't really know much about any of them. The others ranged from average to quite good but Star Fighter, being the one I knew least about, was the last one I tried. I later discovered it's actually based on a game released the previous year for the Acorn Archimedes but the 3DO version had undergone some significant tarting-up. I didn't know this at the time though, of course, but its splendour was soon apparent nonetheless.

3DO Games #3

Pataank (1994)
By: PF.Magic Inc  Genre: Pinball  Players: 1  Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: 3DO  First Day Score: 1,810,764
Also Available For: Nothing

One of the great things about videogames is that they allow designers to approach existing subjects from new perspectives. This is one of the reasons why I, and many others, love the Crush series of pinball games. Naxat realised they were no longer bound by the rules of an actual pintable and so covered their tables with all manner of scary creatures and outlandish bonuses. That was one way to play around with the accepted pinball format. Another one is explored here with Pataank. Until this game came along, to the best of my knowledge all pinball videogames viewed the action either from directly above or from the same viewpoint as though playing a real pintable (even the Crush games). Pataank has other ideas - as you might have gathered from the screenshots, the chosen perspective here is not only much closer to the table than normal but actually follows the ball around!

Top Five 3DO Games

The poor old 3DO was hardly a run away success, was it? It was released during a difficult period. Change was coming, but not quite ready to be embraced by the gaming public. The fact that it cost as much as a car didn't help matters either, of course! Consequently it doesn't have the biggest of software libraries. With this in mind, instead of doing a genre-based Top Five for some of its games, I have little choice but to simply select the five best games on the system from all genres. Behold:

Games-Related Top Fives Disclaimer: I've traditionally stuck to the games I know and love so far, and these game-related top fives reflect that. One of the purposes of this blog is diversify my gaming experiences, to play games I haven't played before, so I will do new game-related top fives in a few years to see how different they are!

5. Return Fire (1995)

Released somewhat belatedly as a sequel to the popular Amiga strategy shooter, Fire Power, this fiendishly addictive game was among the best the 3DO could offer for two-player thrills. The move from Fire Power's overhead viewpoint to a slightly angled 3D perspective was slight but Return Fire looks a lot prettier, and it retained and expanded upon its prequel's enemy-flag-capturing fun. There are four vehicles you can employ to capture your enemy's flag - tank, jeep, helicopter, and an armoured missile launcher - and each is accompanied by it's own classical music! There are a good few stages, or 'maps', to battle through here, but the game was also later supplemented by a 'data disc' called Maps O' Death which contained 100 new stages too. Return Fire is good fun for the solo-gamer, and I've spent a lot of time playing it by myself, but it was always intended as a two-player game, and in this capacity it's one of the most enjoyable games I've played.

3DO Games #2

BattleSport (1995)
By: Cyclone Studios / 3DO  Genre: Future Sports  Players: 1-2  Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: 3DO
Also Available For: Saturn, PlayStation, PC

Future sports games have been around a good while now, but it's a funny genre. It's bound by practically no rules, unlike most 'real' sports games, and so has almost limitless potential. Imagine the possibilities of not only creating a new sport from scratch, but having it use technology that hasn't even been invented yet! There's almost nothing that you couldn't incorporate, realistic or not. So how is it most of them suck ass? There are a few exceptions, of course, such as Speedball 2 (although I never got into it personally) and others, but the genre has few offerings of note. BattleSport, for a short time a 3DO exclusive, was one of the first to try things in 3D, but did it work?

3DO Games #1

Captain Quazar (1996)
By: Cyclone Studios / 3DO  Genre: Shooting  Players: 1-2  Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: 3DO
Also Available For: PC

Despite its innovations, I think it's safe to say the 3DO didn't exactly set the world alight, sales-wise. There are various reasons for this, but when I think about how scarce some of its games were back then, it hardly seems surprising. I can't remember how I had heard about Captain Quazar now but I knew I wanted it. But even when it was originally released, I never saw it in any shops - I had to buy it on mail order, so scarce was it. It's therefore hardly surprising that most gamers haven't even heard of it, let alone own it. So, is it one of those 'flashy-but-no-depth' games that were so common in the early days of 32-bit gaming, or is it actually any good? Read on!