Hi!
Due to heavy work, which puts my energy on minimum level, there is not much left for working on the project when I come home from my job. So the game cannot be released this week, I’ll have to delay it until Monday. Sorry about that! But at least I’ve finished a few sprites since the last post.
To make up for it, I decided to dedicate this post to a part of my video game collection – my complete European 32X set.
A few of the games cost smaller fortunes – Darxide, Primal Rage and T-Mek all cost over a thousand Murican dorrals each. They are ultr@ r@re and fewer than 50 copies of each are known in the world, I think. Lately, scammers have started to make “repros” of Darxide, so if you are out to get the game, beware! I’m pretty sure my copies are legit though, as I got them way before repros were made of them,
A few other games are also quite expensive – Kolibri, Stellar Assault and Knuckles’ Chaotix all go for over 100 US dollars, probably over 200 these days. The rest of the games are a bit cheaper and also easier to get.
When it comes to playing the games, the 32X is a mixed bag. Sega’s arcade classics Virtua Racing Deluxe, After Burner and Virtua Fighter are great, but my fave is definitely the fantasy railshooter Space Harrier. It’s my favourite 32X game – simple gameplay, amazing synthrock soundtrack and the scenery will make you feel like you are in another world.
Kolibri, the best hummingbird based shooter on the ‘Shroom, is a blast to play with a friend, and it looks fantastic too.
You can’t go wrong with Stellar Assault either, another 2 player shmup, but in 3D.
Metal Head hasn’t aged too well, but is fun to play and one of the more technically advanced 32X games. It’s a mech FPS.
Darxide is a fantastic but brutally difficult spaceship shooter with texture mapped polygons and beautiful music. One day I will beat it!
Mortal Kombat II is quite a good port but could have been a lot better. Same for Doom.
Cosmic Carnage is too laggy, but has great music.
FIFA 96 is awful, and so is Knuckles’ Chaotix as well, believe it or not. Messy and unstructured level design and weird, wonky controls cannot make up for the colourful graphics, catchy music or fun bonus stages.
The rest of the games I haven’t played much actually, maybe I will some day.
There are a few 32X games only released in USA – Tempo and Pitfall for example. I may get them and maybe also the only Japanese exclusive: Sangokushi IV. We’ll see.
Have a nice Midsummer!
Take care,
/Zebbe
Zebbe's vg dev blog 