Just Got A 3DO!

[Austin]

 

Btw, how many people do we have here with 3DOs? I wasn't aware it had much of a following on this site, but it seems I might be wrong. Any games you guys recommend? The ones I'm interested in that I don't own are listed below:

 

Need for Speed - Simulation-oriented driving game. I say driving, because it's more like Test Drive where you are driving from point A to point B, not so much racing around a track. It has solid visuals and when you really get the hang of things the game feels good overall.

 

Samurai Shodown - Good port (and great for the time).

 

Rebel Assault - I've heard it's a pain in the ass to play (AA user thegoldenband has written about his experiences with this game on another forum, link)

 

Wing Commander 3 - I can't vouch for it. Not a fan of space sims myself, and seeing videos of it, it seems choppy, something I have a low tolerance for these days.

 

BC Racers - Awful, with a terrible framerate. Surprisingly, the Sega CD version is better in that regard, if you'd believe it (stick around with this system long enough, and you will find the 3DO got some crappy ports of certain games).

 

Crash N Burn - A launch title for the system. Pretty impressive visuals for mid '93 if you ask me. Gameplay feels a little weird at first, as your car is a sprite on top of a 3D/polygonal background, so it takes some getting used to. Music is kind of cheesy, and the FMV characters are cheesy, but the gameplay is fun.

 

Sailer Moon - Supposedly a decent fighting game, but I suppose that depends on your level of experience with fighting games. It looks pretty bland to me, speaking on purely technical/fighting terms.

 

Off World Interceptor - A neat concept that runs at a pretty bad framerate. I'd personally recommend the PS1 or Saturn versions instead, they run much smoother and are essentially the same game. They are more common, too.

 

Primal Rage - Not the best version available. Small sprites, a choppy framerate, wonky controls (although you should be fine since you have the Capcom fighter pad). Of all the versions it probably sits somewhere in the middle--better than the Genesis/SNES versions, and just a tiny bit better than the Jag CD version, but not as good as the PS1, Saturn and PC versions (the later two of which are the best with the largest sprites and smoothest animation).

 

Bust-A-Move - Identical to the SNES game, albeit now with a choppy framerate. The single player is tolerable, but when playing two player the game chops up a lot. It's weird that the SNES version essentially has no slowdown or frameskipping, but the 3DO version does.

 

Space Ace - Can't vouch for it. I'd think it's good if you're into this kind of game.

 

Lemmings - A great port. It looks and sounds great. One of the few 3DO titles that utilizes the mouse, which is a must for this game.

 

Mega Race - Nice visuals, but there is no in-game music (unlike the PC original). The game is also tough, you can die extremely quickly.

 

Battle Chess - Fun concept back in the day that I feel hasn't aged that well, probably no thanks to the load times and the AI that supposedly takes forever to make up its mind. I believe you can get this one on GOG.com, so that's the ideal place to play it these days.

 

Novastorm - Average on-rails shooter. Probably the best version available, but personally I don't think that's saying much. A lot of Psygnosis' games from this time period were style over substance, and this game isn't any different.

 

Battle Sport - Supposedly a pretty cool game that runs really well. I haven't played it since the '90s, so I can't give a valid opinion on it.

 

Policenauts - Completely in Japanese, unless the translation patch ever comes (unlikely).

 

Olympic Soccer - Can't vouch for it.

 

Quarantine - Open world game that supposedly plays a little like Crazy Taxi meets DOOM. Framerate seems pretty choppy to me, but I hear the game is creative and fun regardless.

 

Burning Soldier - On rails shooter. Probably the best in the genre on the system (I always thought it felt better than Starblade). Not expensive to obtain either, fairly common.

 

Operation Starblade - It's, well, Starblade.. It has an upgraded graphics mode you can play. If you enjoy the original then go for it. Personally I found it to be an average game. I liked Burning Soldier a lot more for how it better integrates faster music with the gameplay, as well as the charge/homing shot mechanic that game has.

[DaytonaUSA]

Thanks for the suggestions! Do the games that use the mouse still use the joypad? I'm not sure I'd be able to find a mouse now a days.

 

I've been having a ton of fun with Starfighter btw. Great game. Played Road Rash and SFII Turbo all night last night till the early morning . I really need to get Samurai Shodown now, haha.

 

Up next is Gex. I've never played it before, but after testing it for a couple minutes, I can say it at least has some amazing audio. Hopefully the game is just as good.

 

I'd like to get some games, but I'll be very careful. I really want complete games, and while they're tempting, I've learned with my latest Saturn collection (I've collected for it at least 3 times, starting over every time I sell the system for whatever reason) that I hate loose CD game discs. There's something so ... uneventful about a loose disc compared to a loose cart.

 

I really love these longboxes, however they are a bit too long. When you make a longcase Saturn case look small, you know it's big. I just can't seem to figure out how to display these things. I can lay them down, but that's not too great for the boxes. We'll see...

[Austin]

... uneventful about a loose disc compared to a loose cart.

 

Though, that uneventfulness comes with a lot more space available on your shelf. Much less of which that you will have if you begin collecting longbox 3DO games.

[+Random Terrain]

I moved my 3DO games into those thin CD cases that you can buy a pile of for a little over 10 bucks.

[desiv]

I have one FZ1 with no S-Video out, and looking inside, not even a place to solder a S-video plug..

Can you post a pic?

All 3DOs should have s-video.

 

Wonder if that's a pre-release unit or something.

 

desiv

[DaytonaUSA]

Can you post a pic?

All 3DOs should have s-video.

 

Wonder if that's a pre-release unit or something.

 

desiv

 

 

I agree. I've found nothing that states that any 3DO came without S-Video built in. Please post pics! Did you buy it when it came out, or did you get it used later down the line?

[DaytonaUSA]

Just picked up Stellar 7 Draxon's Revenge and Battlesport! Long box versions

 

Really loving this system! Seriously, for those who have never owned or played one you have no idea what you're missing.

[Austin]

Seriously, for those who have never owned or played one you have no idea what you're missing.

 

To be fair, you started with arguably the best games on the system. It's only downhill from here.

[CatPix]

I agree. I've found nothing that states that any 3DO came without S-Video built in. Please post pics! Did you buy it when it came out, or did you get it used later down the line?

I'll post pics whenever I can, I do'nt have the console at hand right now.

The hole is obscured.

I have no clue about the system origins. I bought it used, loose, last year, for 35€. I can only tell it's a NTSC model, but I found no clues on Internet to know the difference between a Japanese or an US unit (the unit was retrofitted with a 220V 50Htz power supply as well). I suppose I could get a definitive answer by burning one of those text games with special Kanjis that US and PAL unit can't read, to be sure.

[DaytonaUSA]

I'll post pics whenever I can, I do'nt have the console at hand right now.

The hole is obscured.

I have no clue about the system origins. I bought it used, loose, last year, for 35€. I can only tell it's a NTSC model, but I found no clues on Internet to know the difference between a Japanese or an US unit (the unit was retrofitted with a 220V 50Htz power supply as well). I suppose I could get a definitive answer by burning one of those text games with special Kanjis that US and PAL unit can't read, to be sure.

 

 

Both the US and Japanese unit should have S-Video. You'll know if it's a Japanese unit. There should be Japanese writing on the bottom instead of English, and there should be a white sticker on the bottom that's in Japanese as well.

 

This is actually pretty exciting. Maybe it's a kiosky model or something?

[DaytonaUSA]

 

To be fair, you started with arguably the best games on the system. It's only downhill from here.

 

 

Hardi Har Har . There's still many great games I want. Samurai Shodown, Star Control II, Primal Rage, Novastorm, Burning Soldier, Starblade, Ultraman, Rebel Asault, Crash N Burn, Need for Speed, Wing Commander III, Lemmings, etc etc etc . It'll keep me entertained a good long time .

 

Sure there are a lot of stinkers, but the system has a surprising amount of great content. Probably because there are a lot of PC ports. Ports many systems didn't get, or didn't get with any quality...

Edited May 25, 2014 by DaytonaUSA

[Blazing Lazers]

Really excited! I ended up finding a 3DO FZ-10 locally for a heck of a price. The system is in mint condition, and came with two controllers. The original Panasonic controller and the Capcom fighting pad, which is really hard to come by. In fact, I had the same pad for my SNES when I was young, so its nice to have it again.

 

I also got the original cords as well as four games with all manuals and boxes. I got the long box version of Road Rash, Star Fighter (really looking forward to this!), Gex and Super Street Fighter II Turbo. And there's a ton more I still want to buy, so I'll be looking for those soon.

 

Still, for a start of a collection, I think I did great today . I can't wait to plug this all up and get playing. I'll post pictures later today .

 

My congratulations to you! And since nobody else mentioned it here, some other games worth checking out are the rpg Lucienne's Quest (though it's pricey) and the very bizarre Zhadnost: The People's Party game. Pataank is also an interesting pinball/3D exploration hybrid, and as far as I know the only pinball game where you are the ball itself in a first person perspective- I enjoy it every now and then but it has some mixed reviews. The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes on the 3DO is radically different than it is on other platforms, and is a very under-rated detective adventure well worth checking out.

 

There's also the 3DO Forums here:

 

http://3do.cdinteractive.co.uk/viewforum.php?f=28

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

For the super pricey or rare hard to find games keep in mind you CAN download / burn ISO images to CD-r and run them directly, no protection scheme used on 3DO. What you decide to do or not from that point depends on your own stance on such things.

[+save2600]

 

To be fair, you started with arguably the best games on the system. It's only downhill from here.

Way of the Warrior!

[Austin]

Way of the Warrior!

 

Bwahahahaha...

 

Hey Daytona, this is a GREAT game! You should buy it immediately.

 

 

[DaytonaUSA]

 

Bwahahahaha...

 

Hey Daytona, this is a GREAT game! You should buy it immediately.

 

 

 

Yeaaaaah no.

 

Fun fact, did you know it was made by Naughty Dog? Boy did they improve or what?

[DaytonaUSA]

Woo Hoo! I beat Super Street Fighter II Turbo!!!

 

Seriously, I've never been able to beat Street Fighter II before, this is a crowning achievement for me . I wasn't even playing on the easiest difficulty, haha. I've never been able to beat M. Bison, let alone on the first try. So proud!

 

[Austin]

 

Yeaaaaah no.

 

Yeaaaaah YEAH! Dooo iiiiitt!!

[+thegoldenband]

I quite enjoyed Immercenary. It doesn't have a good reputation, but it's cheap, and once I got a grip on the gameplay mechanics I had fun with it. It's sort of like a cross between a FPS title and Spectre for the Macintosh.

 

Escape from Monster Manor is another worthwhile FPS, and relatively inexpensive.

 

If you enjoy early 1980s-style FMV games, Kingdom: The Far Reaches is a bit like an untimed Dragon's Lair, crossed with a simple mouse-driven adventure game. Just be sure to play it on the harder difficulty mode -- the easier mode cuts out chunks of the game, and it's actually harder to understand because of it. My other half and I also enjoyed the quirky FMV title Psychic Detective, which works surprisingly well once you get on its wavelength. (The first time you play through it, don't do anything. Seriously.)

 

I had low expectations for the 3DO version of Out of This World, but I actually think it's pretty good. Much better than the disappointing Sega CD port.

 

My fiancée really likes Trip'd, an oddball puzzle game. There's not much to it, but it's strangely compelling. The 1P mode reputedly isn't so hot, though.

 

Avoid: B.C. Racers (horrible framerate), Battle Chess (huge CPU wait times, weak engine), Jurassic Park Interactive (super-shallow, irritating collection of minigames), Shadow: War of Succession (worst fighting game I've ever seen).

 

BTW like Atari2008, I coveted a 3DO when I was a kid, and getting to have one as an adult was a great feeling. I go through ups and downs with the system, but I consistently seek it out on a regular basis, which is more than i can say for a lot of other systems I own.

[Austin]

Much better than the disappointing Sega CD port.

 

What's wrong with the Sega CD version of Out of this World? Not counting the sequel on the same disc, I never saw anything flawed or bad about the port of the first game. It was true to the original computer versions. Or am I missing something?

 

I like the 3DO version, but it runs at about twice as fast as every other version does, which makes some parts a lot more difficult (not that they really needed to be to begin with). The remastered visuals are nice though.

[+thegoldenband]

What's wrong with the Sega CD version of Out of this World? Not counting the sequel on the same disc, I never saw anything flawed or bad about the port of the first game. It was true to the original computer versions. Or am I missing something?

 

I found that the music and sound effects were disappointing (and often cheesy), and the controls felt completely "off". Before beating it, I had played through the SNES and 3DO versions of the game (admittedly, I haven't done the Amiga or plain-vanilla Genesis versions yet), and even though the 3DO version was fast I felt like it was responding to my controller input appropriately.

 

In the Sega CD version, though, everything felt subtly wrong; it was both accelerated and laggy, if that makes sense, and on many occasions the game just felt unresponsive. I just didn't enjoy it at all; it felt like a broken version of a game I love. If it's somehow more faithful to the computer versions, then I guess I think the SNES and 3DO ports are superior (despite the former's slowdown and the latter's speedup), but I'd like to investigate that myself.

 

And don't get me started on the Heart of the Alien half, which...well, the best comparison I can make would be recent Simpsons (Heart of the Alien) vs. classic Simpsons (OOTW). I really wanted to like it, but -- no pun intended -- it felt like it had no heart at all, as if it were designed by a committee. I wasn't really bothered about the ending; it was everything leading up to it which was a letdown!

[Nebulon]

I recall Space Hulk being pretty darned cool on that machine.

 

And, of course, it has a descent version of Starblade.

[Austin]

In the Sega CD version, though, everything felt subtly wrong; it was both accelerated and laggy, if that makes sense, and on many occasions the game just felt unresponsive. I just didn't enjoy it at all; it felt like a broken version of a game I love. If it's somehow more faithful to the computer versions, then I guess I think the SNES and 3DO ports are superior (despite the former's slowdown and the latter's speedup), but I'd like to investigate that myself.

 

Weird.. I didn't experience any of the issues you mentioned. I mean, don't get me wrong--Out of this World is slightly sluggish and a tiny bit unresponsive by nature, so every version is prone to it. On that note though, I found the Sega CD one to be the smoothest playing of them all. The SNES one, wow.. Talk about a sluggish game, haha. I have some fondness for that one since it's the first one I sunk a lot of time into, but there was no going back after playing the Sega CD version.

 

Just out of curiosity, were you playing a legitimate copy of it? Through checking out YouTube videos of it, I saw someone post a comment saying ISO images for this game are bugged up/glitched and don't play properly.

[+thegoldenband]

Yep, I have an original! That said, I've definitely encountered Sega CD ISOs where the music is messed up, though I don't remember finding any that bugged out on me completely. But all the issues I experienced were straight off the original silver.

 

The slowness in the SNES game never bothered me (and still doesn't), for whatever reason; I always felt like I could anticipate everything well. The 3DO version is hyper-responsive by comparison, but it still felt fair. Somehow the Sega CD version felt like the worst of both worlds, especially in the later stages; I can't recall the exact spots that were giving me a hard time, but I just remember thinking "This feels all wrong."

 

Actually, scratch that: I do remember one area that annoyed me in particular -- the place with falling rocks and the bat-creature, near where you destroy the rock to unleash a flood. In the SNES and 3DO versions that area felt fair, but in the Sega CD version I remember feeling repeatedly cheated. Not sure if that was the controls, or just the boulder attack algorithms being changed to favor cheap shots.

[Austin]

Actually, scratch that: I do remember one area that annoyed me in particular -- the place with falling rocks and the bat-creature, near where you destroy the rock to unleash a flood. In the SNES and 3DO versions that area felt fair, but in the Sega CD version I remember feeling repeatedly cheated. Not sure if that was the controls, or just the boulder attack algorithms being changed to favor cheap shots.

 

I never found that area to be less fair in any one version or another (3DO one notwithstanding due to its speed increase, which makes you have to react faster than before). Maybe it's time to try it again?