Amigans - Which 3DO games are best?

[Xebec]

Yes, slightly off topic - but the 3DO did have some Amiga design team DNA in it, so..

I've never really explored the 3DO yet - which games are best on the platform?

(Other than Star Control 2 - which I loved on DOS, and know is better on 3DO)

Thanks

[s2325]

Alone in the Dark 1-2, Cannon Fodder, Flashback, Gex, Incredible Machine, Lemmings, Out of this World, Return Fire, Road Rash, Soccer Kid, Wolfenstein 3D
worst: Ballz, Crash 'n Burn, Plumbers Don't Wear Ties

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by s2325

Alone in the Dark 1-2, Cannon Fodder, Flashback, Gex, Incredible Machine, Lemmings, Out of this World, Return Fire, Road Rash, Soccer Kid, Wolfenstein 3D
worst: Ballz, Crash 'n Burn, Plumbers Don't Wear Ties

I see you mentioned 5 Amiga ports there

[s2325]

Yes, some 3DO games are more like interactive experimental art, there is no fun there.

[Retro-Nerd]

Super Wing Commander, Wing Commander III, Road Rash, Street Fighter II.

[kamelito]

The Horde, Captain Quazzar, Samurai Shodown, Flashback, Return Fire, Crash & Bun, Gex, Road Rash, Need for Speed, Shockwave, Total Eclispe, Star fighter, Space Hulk.
Kamelito

[eXeler0]

3do was an interesting concept but the timing and or pricing was wrong.
For a capable system it has a pretty sad (low) number of original titles and therefore brings very little thats worth playing. I like the hardware, the software library however is in the same ballpark as the Atari Jaguar...



Edit: Ok maybe Im being a bit too harsh, the 3do does have a better library than Jaguar ;-)

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

3do was an interesting concept but the timing and or pricing was wrong.
For a capable system it has a pretty sad (low) number of original titles and therefore brings very little thats worth playing. I like the hardware, the software library however is in the same ballpark as the Atari Jaguar...

It has a low number of original titles because most were ported to the PSX, at the time i would have loved to play Road Rash and Need For Speed in 1994, sadly it cost too much, but at least it was much better supported than the Jaguar, that's a machine you can say had bugger all support!

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

It has a low number of original titles because most were ported to the PSX, at the time i would have loved to play Road Rash and Need For Speed in 1994, sadly it cost too much, but at least it was much better supported than the Jaguar, that's a machine you can say had bugger all support!

Here in Sweden 3do was released rougly the same time as the Playstation but much more expensive. Big, big fail in almost every respect. Im not sure I know a single person who bought the 3do when it came out. While Road Rash of course looked much cooler on 3dso than on Amiga, PSX already had titles like Ridge Racer that diminished whatever good 3do had going for it.
At least the Jaguar was affordable..:-)

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

Here in Sweden 3do was released rougly the same time as the Playstation but much more expensive. Big, big fail in almost every respect. Im not sure I know a single person who bought the 3do when it came out. While Road Rash of course looked much cooler on 3dso than on Amiga, PSX already had titles like Ridge Racer that diminished whatever good 3do had going for it.
At least the Jaguar was affordable..:-)

Most of the 3DO sales were probably in the US, considering its 1993 launch, a full 2 years before the PS1 launched there, by the time it hit Europe in late 1994 the PSX hype train was in full swing so it's no wonder it never hit big sales anywhere else, but I was in awe at the 3DOs graphics 93-94.
I did buy one 10 or so years ago and got a few games, still had some decent games for it.

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

Most of the 3DO sales were probably in the US, considering its 1993 launch, a full 2 years before the PS1 launched there, by the time it hit Europe in late 1994 the PSX hype train was in full swing so it's no wonder it never hit big sales anywhere else, but I was in awe at the 3DOs graphics 93-94.
I did buy one 10 or so years ago and got a few games, still had some decent games for it.

Like every other console at the that time it was killed by the PSX.. But... Take out the Playstation out of the equation and 3do would still have struggled against the Saturn which had comparable specs but at half the price.. And *vastly* superior software lib... High launch price is suicide in the console market.. Maybe it wasn't obvious yet in 93/94 ish..
Now.. these days I can appreciate the 3do and I own the Panasonic FZ1 model which I still think is a nice piece of hardware..
But my software lib for it is very limited. Less than 10 games.. And that includes some obscure Japanese stuff I don't even know the English name of ;-)
But at least I have "Gex" New/Sealed.. ;-)
Should try Wing Commander...

And oh.. I did get caught by the "M2" hype.. It was almost as legendary as "AAA" ;-)

[RetroPaul]

I like the 3DO, however i find the standard pads are pretty awful to use with a horrible cheap feeling D-Pad. I don't use mine that often but i find the following games good fun as they haven't dated too badly, definitely worth picking up if you can source them cheaply, they show off some of the power of the system.
Road Rash, Need for Speed, Fifa, Return Fire, Super SF2 turbo (Very good port), Samurai Showdown, Star Control 2, Space Hulk, Star Wars Rebel Assault and Starblade.

[Xebec]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

And oh.. I did get caught by the "M2" hype.. It was almost as legendary as "AAA" ;-)

I got caught by the AAA hype of course, but reading back now -- AA+ would have been a very good upgrade for Commodore had it come out even in 1994.. I think AA+ is why the A4000 has the '8MB' jumper for chipram (AA+ being actually backward compatible with AGA).

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by Xebec

I got caught by the AAA hype of course, but reading back now -- AA+ would have been a very good upgrade for Commodore had it come out even in 1994.. I think AA+ is why the A4000 has the '8MB' jumper for chipram (AA+ being actually backward compatible with AGA).

Let's keep this thread about 3do. When I said "M2" I was referring to the 3do's mythical successor.
Check this out:
http://www.exretro.com/galleries/3do..._M2_July95.png

[gjb1985]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

Most of the 3DO sales were probably in the US, considering its 1993 launch, a full 2 years before the PS1 launched there, by the time it hit Europe in late 1994 the PSX hype train was in full swing so it's no wonder it never hit big sales anywhere else, but I was in awe at the 3DOs graphics 93-94.
I did buy one 10 or so years ago and got a few games, still had some decent games for it.

no. almost all of 3do sales were in japan. it bombed tremendously everywhere else.

[Ian]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

3do was an interesting concept but the timing and or pricing was wrong.

Price wrong, definitely, timing?

No sir.

Arriving a full 2 years before the PSX in Americaland, it arrived just in time to usher in a new era of 3D, more immersive games. While it definitely would've happened with the PSX anyway, 3DO definitely started the ball rolling.

I remember watching Game World (or whatever Sky's gaming show used to be called) and being amazed at FIFA on it, all this while the best my CD32 could muster was a buggy port of Frontier and Tower Assault. (I like both games, so it's meant as an insult) but they just don't compare.

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by Ian

Price wrong, definitely, timing?

No sir.

Arriving a full 2 years before the PSX in Americaland, it arrived just in time to usher in a new era of 3D, more immersive games. While it definitely would've happened with the PSX anyway, 3DO definitely started the ball rolling.

I remember watching Game World (or whatever Sky's gaming show used to be called) and being amazed at FIFA on it, all this while the best my CD32 could muster was a buggy port of Frontier and Tower Assault. (I like both games, so it's meant as an insult) but they just don't compare.

Its kind of two sides of the same coin. If you release a machine so poweful and expensive to build that you can't release it for less than $700 then you could argue the timing was wrong in the sense that a machine of equal power could be released at half the price 2 years later and become a success..
If they could have built it and sold it without losing money for $350 then it probably would have been a success and ppl would say the timing was just right for such a console

[ReadOnlyCat]

Originally Posted by Ian

Arriving a full 2 years before the PSX in Americaland, it arrived just in time to usher in a new era of 3D, more immersive games. While it definitely would've happened with the PSX anyway, 3DO definitely started the ball rolling.

I remember watching Game World (or whatever Sky's gaming show used to be called) and being amazed at FIFA on it, all this while the best my CD32 could muster was a buggy port of Frontier and Tower Assault. (I like both games, so it's meant as an insult) but they just don't compare.

Yup.
We are massively off topic but the only issue with the 3DO was the licensing model. Traditional console makers take advantage of the fact that they get a (large) percentage of each software sold on their machine to lower hardware prices as low as possible (they still make money on the hardware but they can afford that to be relatively low).

However, with 3DO's licensing model, vendors such as Panasonic did not have access at all to software revenues so they had to price the hardware high enough so as to be profitable. This resulted in prices way higher than what console gamers were used to and effectively priced the 3DO away from the success its feature set should have brought.

Had 3DO managed to secure enough funding to build the machines themselves a-la-SEGA/Nintendo (and later Sony) and thus recoup their investment from software sales, they would likely have obtained a much greater success.

But yeah, totally off topic.

[-Acid-]

Most consoles are sold at a loss just ask Sony, Nintendo are probably one of the few who make a profit on hardware.

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by ReadOnlyCat

Yup.

However, with 3DO's licensing model, vendors such as Panasonic did not have access at all to software revenues so they had to price the hardware high enough so as to be profitable. This resulted in prices way higher than what console gamers were used to and effectively priced the 3DO away from the success its feature set should have brought.

They did take a license fee for each software unit sold, it wasn’t as high as Sony’s or Sega’s, call it being less greedy or they had to take a chance to bring in more developers this way, either way they had a damn good go at cracking the console market, the only reason Sony did was the hundreds of millions poured in from their electronics revenue the likes the videogame market hadn't seen before.