In fact, nothing on the Super Nintendo scaled objects as well, or moved this fast or smoothly with the possible exception of a few Super FX chip games. No other game on the Genesis pushed the system as far as this technical marvel. Not only did Gunstar Heroes’ graphical effect enhance the visual appearance of the game, but it also help increase the variety of the gameplay. And, much like Metal Slug, the bosses in Gunstar Heroes are made up of tons of sprites that move and jiggle independently. The two player game features a moderate amount of slowdown, but it’s not enough to significantly detract from the game.Įvery graphical element in Gunstar Heroes is impressive: from the rotating, pseudo-polygonal intro logo to the warping, scaling, and rotation effects throughout the actual game. This run-n-gun classic has mobs of sprites that litter the screen at any one moment. If there was one developer that knows how to push 2D consoles to their limits, it’s Treasure (the same group that brought you Contra on the NES). What Makes The Game Special: Its nearly impossible to talk about the Genesis and technical mastery and not have Gunstar Heroes come up in the conversation. Slowdown-inducing combat due to explosions & many character sprites at once.Intense graphical effects such as warping, scaling, and rotation.This late Genesis title kept Sega fans interested as Sega prepped the Saturn. To round out the rest of the graphical effects, you can see dust motes above light fixtures, shimmering arctic waterfalls and some impressive lightning effects. One of the more subtle effects we used was the highlight/shadow mode of the Genesis, which allowed the artists to use more on-screen colors than games typically used. The first boss that you encounter in the game, which looks like a fighter plane, is actually implemented in the second scrolling playfield, and they used scroll offsets to make it look like it was rotating. The bosses were all designed around this scrolling technique as well. Some examples for of its uses were for waterfalls and the conveyor belts. It was used vertically in a few levels as well, even though vertical scrolling was limited to 8 pixel chunks. This software techinique allowed the Vectorman character to move smoothly and glide in and out of his various transformations.Īccording to Vectorman’s head developer, Richard Karpp, A large percentage of the levels implemented a creative use of the Genesis’ scrolling backgrounds For example, it was possible to specify a different scroll offset for each horizontal line, which could give a parallax effect. Vectorman’s developers, Blue Sky Software, made use of an impressive new program called “Vector Piece Software”, which allowed the spheres making up Vectorman’s body to be individually animated. Fortunately, for Sega fans, Vectorman not only looked beaufitul, but also provided some animations that were even more impressive than DKC. What Makes The Game Special:Vectorman was obviously Sega’s answer to the Donkey Kong Country series and its pre-rendered, 3D-like graphics. Cranked out more colors with highlight/shadow technique.Pieces of characters individually animated.Used pre-rendered 3D models to give the game a “next-gen” look.That said this project is still a bit of a work in progress, so If you think I missed any games, please feel free to leave a suggestion with an explanation in the comments section. Long-time readers of this site may realize this is an expanded and revised article that I am still trying to perfect. However, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at games that were the most demanding when it came to a console’s limited system resources. I usually try to emphasize that gameplay is more important that graphical quality. Each machine has had its strengths and weaknesses, and as a programmer, I’m amazed by some of the ways developers have harnessed the power of consoles and pushed them to their limits resulting is some marvelous games. I have been recently been fascinated by the history of the various machines that have battled for our living rooms. See Other Entries of the Games That Pushed The Limits Series Sega Genesis Games That Pushed The Limits of Graphics & Sound
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