The awesomeness that is Strider.
Scott H
version of Strider, the best home conversion for over eight years, because
the PS1 Strider 2 has the original game on a separate disc, and it's so much
better there's no reason. I have to contest that idea, Strider for Genesis
still stands, in my opinion, as one of the best conversions of all time.
Even better than the already great conversion of Ghouls N Ghosts, and
certainly better than Altered Beast, Golden Axe, or the much later Street
Fighter games on either 16-bit platform in terms of being exactly like the
arcade version. Strider managed to very nearly carry a photo perfect
replication of the arcade game, and only slipped slightly in the sound
department due to the lack of voices in the cutscenes.
I just felt the need to bring up this old work of art because I'm amazed
at how well the cart turned out at 8-megabits on notably less capable
hardware to the arcade version's nearly 43 megabits on much more expensive
and capable hardware. When you compare it to the other action platform
carts of its day, in 1990, it's still the cream of the crop, the best there
is, only touched by Shinobi 3 from years later in terms of gameplay and
level design. Sure, the Playstation disk has all of the colors and voices,
it damn well ought to, but the hard work was done long before it on a simple
one megabyte cartridge.
KikkoBoy01
world, as far as what I perceived as holy shit, turned upside down!
Scott H
"Scott H" <Weapo...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:59Qga.14055$783....@nwrddc01.gnilink.net...
Here we go, I posted some pics of both versions, just because there isn't a
screen for screen comparison anywhere else on the net.
http://home1.gte.net/res0zjb2 ->Comparisons->Strider
Scott H
"KikkoBoy01" <kikko...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20030328000437...@mb-cn.aol.com...
> I remember when I first saw and played Strider when it came out -- my
gaming
> world, as far as what I perceived as holy shit, turned upside down!
I remember getting it as a Christmas gift, and telling my older brother
that I'd read it was "arcade perfect". He sneered at the frase, and brought
up whatever NES games he'd seen try to do arcade games before. He shut up
when he saw the game in action. Though, I don't think he'd ever seen
Strider in the arcade before either.
I've Got A Loverly Bunch Of Coconuts
> version of Strider, the best home conversion for over eight years, because
> the PS1 Strider 2 has the original game on a separate disc, and it's so
much
> better there's no reason. I have to contest that idea, Strider for
Genesis
> still stands, in my opinion, as one of the best conversions of all time.
> Even better than the already great conversion of Ghouls N Ghosts, and
> certainly better than Altered Beast, Golden Axe, or the much later Street
> Fighter games on either 16-bit platform in terms of being exactly like the
> arcade version. Strider managed to very nearly carry a photo perfect
> replication of the arcade game, and only slipped slightly in the sound
> department due to the lack of voices in the cutscenes.
Those conversions were no slouches either, though. At the time I was
hard-pressed to see the differences. Seeing where corners were cut is much
easier now that I have access to the arcade games whenever I like. ;-)
> I just felt the need to bring up this old work of art because I'm
amazed
> at how well the cart turned out at 8-megabits on notably less capable
> hardware to the arcade version's nearly 43 megabits on much more expensive
> and capable hardware. When you compare it to the other action platform
> carts of its day, in 1990, it's still the cream of the crop, the best
there
> is, only touched by Shinobi 3 from years later in terms of gameplay and
> level design. Sure, the Playstation disk has all of the colors and
voices,
> it damn well ought to, but the hard work was done long before it on a
simple
> one megabyte cartridge.
One megabyte was very large for a game cartridge at the time. And I seem to
recall retail prices of $70 to $80 for Strider. Way too rich for my blood.
May we never see game prices like that again!
Scott H
"I've Got A Loverly Bunch Of Coconuts" <Slartib...@hugh.jass.org> wrote
in message news:v88oq7q...@corp.supernews.com...
>
> "Scott H" <Weapo...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:59Qga.14055$783....@nwrddc01.gnilink.net...
> > Somebody at some point mentioned that they never play the Genesis
> > version of Strider, the best home conversion for over eight years,
because
> > the PS1 Strider 2 has the original game on a separate disc, and it's so
> much
> > better there's no reason. I have to contest that idea, Strider for
> Genesis
> > still stands, in my opinion, as one of the best conversions of all time.
> > Even better than the already great conversion of Ghouls N Ghosts,
and
> > certainly better than Altered Beast, Golden Axe, or the much later
Street
> > Fighter games on either 16-bit platform in terms of being exactly like
the
> > arcade version. Strider managed to very nearly carry a photo perfect
> > replication of the arcade game, and only slipped slightly in the sound
> > department due to the lack of voices in the cutscenes.
>
> Those conversions were no slouches either, though. At the time I was
> hard-pressed to see the differences. Seeing where corners were cut is
much
> easier now that I have access to the arcade games whenever I like. ;-)
Oh yeah, they certainly weren't bad, I just think that in terms of
overall accuracy, Strider has them beat as each of the other conversions,
save Ghouls N Ghosts, seemed to scale down the sprites somewhat, or changed
the color palette of a character/background, or took out scaling sprites,
etc.
> > I just felt the need to bring up this old work of art because I'm
> amazed
> > at how well the cart turned out at 8-megabits on notably less capable
> > hardware to the arcade version's nearly 43 megabits on much more
expensive
> > and capable hardware. When you compare it to the other action platform
> > carts of its day, in 1990, it's still the cream of the crop, the best
> there
> > is, only touched by Shinobi 3 from years later in terms of gameplay and
> > level design. Sure, the Playstation disk has all of the colors and
> voices,
> > it damn well ought to, but the hard work was done long before it on a
> simple
> > one megabyte cartridge.
>
> One megabyte was very large for a game cartridge at the time. And I seem
to
> recall retail prices of $70 to $80 for Strider. Way too rich for my
blood.
> May we never see game prices like that again!
>
It definitely was a very large cart at the time. All carts for the
Genesis cost in the $65-75 range at the time, that's how much I paid for
Revenge of Shinobi as well. I got Golden Axe for free thanks to the mail in
offer Sega was doing, and Ghouls N Ghosts for Christmas, but I could only
actually afford to buy about one or two games a year at the time. I don't
believe there was such a thing as a bargain bin for a Sega system till much
later, and I couldn't even rent the dang things until just before the Snes
was released.
Heh, now I don't rent games for the current systems because I could pay
a couple of dollars more and actually buy a game for the older systems. ;)
Benjamin
> version of Strider, the best home conversion for over eight years, because
> the PS1 Strider 2 has the original game on a separate disc, and it's so much
> better there's no reason. I have to contest that idea, Strider for Genesis
> still stands, in my opinion, as one of the best conversions of all time.
Contest it? The PSX version _is_ superior. It _is_ the arcade version,
while the Genesis game is a nice port. While you're at it you might
want to state how SFII is better on Genesis than Saturn.
The picture comparison shows the Genesis game is missing a lot of the
little details and not as well colored. Also absent in your pictorial
is what is missing from the Genesis game, such as the animated
dinosaurs in stage four. Finally, these pictures (as well all of your
"side by side" comparisons' images) are inaccurate being taken with an
emulator -- the Sega Genesis shots look a good bit sharper here than
they would otherwise -- and the Genesis audio downgrade obviously
being glossed over as well.
The Genesis game was an impressive port for the time, and it still is
what pops into my mind when I think of the game and music (one of the
few which I can actually hum all the tracks from memory). However, I
really can't see why someone would choose to play an inferior game if
better is available -- ie., why play Genesis Midnight Resistance if
you could play the real thing? (Of course, games which deviate enough
from the original such as NES Contra and Strider blur the statement.)
Benjamin
BelPowerslave
> what pops into my mind when I think of the game and music (one of the
> few which I can actually hum all the tracks from memory). However, I
> really can't see why someone would choose to play an inferior game if
> better is available -- ie., why play Genesis Midnight Resistance if
> you could play the real thing?
Man, I wished Data East would have done an Arcade Hits sort of thing
with Heavy Barrel and Midnight Resistance(along with Bad Dudes, etc)...
Bel
--
Whip Ass Gaming: http://users2.ev1.net/~belpowerslave/
"If the Xbox falls console falls and hits someone, especially a small
child, it could cause serious injury." - The Xbox user manual
Scott H
"Benjamin" <use...@boobietime.com> wrote in message
news:5700cda6.03032...@posting.google.com...
> "Scott H" <Weapo...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:<59Qga.14055$783....@nwrddc01.gnilink.net>...
> > Somebody at some point mentioned that they never play the Genesis
> > version of Strider, the best home conversion for over eight years,
because
> > the PS1 Strider 2 has the original game on a separate disc, and it's so
much
> > better there's no reason. I have to contest that idea, Strider for
Genesis
> > still stands, in my opinion, as one of the best conversions of all time.
>
> Contest it? The PSX version _is_ superior. It _is_ the arcade version,
> while the Genesis game is a nice port. While you're at it you might
> want to state how SFII is better on Genesis than Saturn.
I'm contesting that there's no reason to play the Genesis version
because there's a superior version available yes. Strider is a more
accurate port than the SFII games were because the SF games had to be
downgraded in resolution and sprite size in the conversion, so the graphics
were noticeably smaller than the arcade version. The differences between
the arcade and Genesis Strider games were in things being slightly different
in appearance and the color count being less, but the level designs and
sprite sizes are all the same.
> The picture comparison shows the Genesis game is missing a lot of the
> little details and not as well colored. Also absent in your pictorial
> is what is missing from the Genesis game, such as the animated
> dinosaurs in stage four. Finally, these pictures (as well all of your
> "side by side" comparisons' images) are inaccurate being taken with an
> emulator -- the Sega Genesis shots look a good bit sharper here than
> they would otherwise -- and the Genesis audio downgrade obviously
> being glossed over as well.
It does show things missing, but I think the things missing are by far
the minority compared to what was included when considering that the game is
so much smaller in physical memory than the arcade game was. The Genesis
game has the animated dinosaurs in Stage 4, the only thing it doesn't have
is the skeleton of the dinosaur that gets killed by the boss.
Both images were taken from emulators at the same resolution, there is
no inaccuracy in the image because of that, but they are not representative
of the actual appearance of the images on their intended formats. The only
inaccuracy is that the screenshots do not show what one might see of the
Genesis version on a cheap TV set, but if you hook it up to a quality TV set
with A/V, especially through a 32X, the image quality ought to be very
comparable to that of the arcade cabinet. If one were a RAM dump and the
other a digital picture if a TV screen, then the screenshots were
inaccurate.
> The Genesis game was an impressive port for the time, and it still is
> what pops into my mind when I think of the game and music (one of the
> few which I can actually hum all the tracks from memory). However, I
> really can't see why someone would choose to play an inferior game if
> better is available -- ie., why play Genesis Midnight Resistance if
> you could play the real thing? (Of course, games which deviate enough
> from the original such as NES Contra and Strider blur the statement.)
One reason I can think of is that there are no load times, which would
actually be a knock against the PS1 version in my opinion, especially since
the load times might have been reduced significantly. My point is that the
game is very close to the original, so much so that you have to look hard
for the differences, calling it "inferior" because of a few changes to
background graphics and a few less color gradients here and there hardly
seems fair.
> Benjamin
Shiranui Gen-An
> version of Strider, the best home conversion for over eight years, because
> the PS1 Strider 2 has the original game on a separate disc, and it's so
much
> better there's no reason. I have to contest that idea, Strider for
Genesis
> still stands, in my opinion, as one of the best conversions of all time.
> Even better than the already great conversion of Ghouls N Ghosts, and
> certainly better than Altered Beast, Golden Axe, or the much later Street
> Fighter games on either 16-bit platform in terms of being exactly like the
> arcade version.
Yeah, I never thought the SF2 conversions to the 16-bit consoles were all
that great. I'm sure they were as good as can be expected considering the
hardware differences but I immediately noticed animation loss, differences
in sound, etc.
sxc
"Scott H" wrote
>When you compare it to the other action platform
> carts of its day, in 1990, it's still the cream of the crop, the best there
> is,
I agree that this is a great conversion from the arcade. Excellent graphics
and gameplay.
> only touched by Shinobi 3 from years later in terms of gameplay and
> level design.
I've always wondered why Shinobi 3 is held in such high regard compared to
Revenge of Shinobi. I like Revenge much more for its music, difficulty,
and enemy designs.
Scott H
"sxc" <x...@x.org> wrote in message
news:b63u25$ica$1...@charm.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu...
I wouldn't say that Shinobi 3 was better than Revenge of Shinobi
personally. Except that they share similar base gameplay, they're almost
totally different games. I like Revenge of Shinobi for the same reason,
great music, enemies, level designs and bosses. I compared Shinobi 3 to
Strider because of some gameplay similarities like being able to climb on
ceilings, and jumping over enemies, from there the similarities blur as
well, but the games are comparable in gameplay polish and level design I
think.
Benjamin
<snerp>
> Man, I wished Data East would have done an Arcade Hits sort of thing
> with Heavy Barrel and Midnight Resistance(along with Bad Dudes, etc)...
>
> Bel
I know. I remember wishing I had an Amiga since the Bad Dudes ad made
it look like a great port. I'll never understand why companies seem so
reluctant to release the "newer" JAMMA arcade titles on compilations
instead of archaic (though great) games.
Benjamin
RedFox
> > Man, I wished Data East would have done an Arcade Hits sort of thing
> > with Heavy Barrel and Midnight Resistance(along with Bad Dudes, etc)...
> >
> > Bel
>
> I know. I remember wishing I had an Amiga since the Bad Dudes ad made
> it look like a great port. I'll never understand why companies seem so
> reluctant to release the "newer" JAMMA arcade titles on compilations
> instead of archaic (though great) games.
A Capcom collection including Cadillacs and Dinosaurs and Alien Vs Predator
would really hit the spot :)
-RedFox
Scott H
> news:59Qga.14055$783....@nwrddc01.gnilink.net...
>
> Here we go, I posted some pics of both versions, just because there isn't
a
> screen for screen comparison anywhere else on the net.
> http://home1.gte.net/res0zjb2 ->Comparisons->Strider
It seems as though the arcade version reuses the 1st level music in
level 3 and level 5. At least, the US and Japanese Romsets I have do, but
the playstation version has the same music as the Genesis game in Level 3
and 5. Can anyone confirm or deny this? Did they make music for Level 3
and 5 for the Genesis game, or are all of the Romsets on the Internet for
the arcade version some beta release? Because I've never been able to find
an arcade rom that had the music in those levels.
AM2forever
Ghouls N Ghosts and Golden Axe, and even Altered Beast, concidering
the cost of home consoles and prices per megabit. However the Genesis
versions of all of these games were quite inferior to the originals in
terms of color, sprite size and animation.
Strider arcade: 32 meg
Strider Genesis: 8 meg
Ghouls 'n Ghosts arcade: 16 meg
Ghouls 'n Ghosts Genesis: 5 meg
Golden Axe arcade: 24 meg
Golden Axe Genesis: 4 meg
Altered Beast arcade: 20 meg
Altered Beast Genesis: 4 meg
Sega System 16 and Capcom CP-S could display a few thousand colors
simultaneously while Genesis was stuck with 64 (in the early days)
sprite-wise, both arcade hardwares could shift 128 sprites at least,
Genesis had 80, and lacked scaling.
Still, Genesis was a real bargin for the day.
btw, you should see the X68000 version of Strider, its nearly
identical to the arcade in everyway. I cannot tell the difference.
same with Ghouls 'n Ghosts, Final Fight and Alien Syndrome. they are
all 99% identical, and this is truly impressive concidering X68000
came out in 1986!
"Scott H" <Weapo...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<59Qga.14055$783....@nwrddc01.gnilink.net>...
RedFox
"AM2forever" <AM2fo...@hotmail.com> wrote
> Strider on Genesis was an exellent translation of the arcade as was
> Ghouls N Ghosts and Golden Axe, and even Altered Beast, concidering
> the cost of home consoles and prices per megabit. However the Genesis
> versions of all of these games were quite inferior to the originals in
> terms of color, sprite size and animation.
>
> Strider arcade: 32 meg
> Strider Genesis: 8 meg
>
> Ghouls 'n Ghosts arcade: 16 meg
> Ghouls 'n Ghosts Genesis: 5 meg
>
> Golden Axe arcade: 24 meg
> Golden Axe Genesis: 4 meg
>
> Altered Beast arcade: 20 meg
> Altered Beast Genesis: 4 meg
I don't disagree with your post, but I'm just pointing out that Megadrive
carts are Mbit not MByte, unlike the arcade :)
-RedFox
Scott H
"RedFox" <red...@firenet.ws> wrote in message
news:b6pkah$7kab2$1...@ID-111763.news.dfncis.de...
That is correct, the arcade Roms were the size listed above in Megabits, or
divide that number by 8 for the megabyte size.
> -RedFox
>
>
Scott H
"AM2forever" <AM2fo...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:8861f378.03040...@posting.google.com...
> Strider on Genesis was an exellent translation of the arcade as was
> Ghouls N Ghosts and Golden Axe, and even Altered Beast, concidering
> the cost of home consoles and prices per megabit. However the Genesis
> versions of all of these games were quite inferior to the originals in
> terms of color, sprite size and animation.
>
> Strider arcade: 32 meg
> Strider Genesis: 8 meg
>
> Ghouls 'n Ghosts arcade: 16 meg
> Ghouls 'n Ghosts Genesis: 5 meg
Where did you get these numbers? All of the Roms I've seen have both games
at or over 40Mb in the arcade versions. Golden Axe and Altered Beast are
about what I've got though, give or take a megabit or two.
> Golden Axe arcade: 24 meg
> Golden Axe Genesis: 4 meg
>
> Altered Beast arcade: 20 meg
> Altered Beast Genesis: 4 meg
>
>
> Sega System 16 and Capcom CP-S could display a few thousand colors
> simultaneously while Genesis was stuck with 64 (in the early days)
>
> sprite-wise, both arcade hardwares could shift 128 sprites at least,
> Genesis had 80, and lacked scaling.
>
> Still, Genesis was a real bargin for the day.
Heck yeah. It would have been cool if it was an actual System 16 board, but
I know I wouldn't have been able to afford that.
> btw, you should see the X68000 version of Strider, its nearly
> identical to the arcade in everyway. I cannot tell the difference.
> same with Ghouls 'n Ghosts, Final Fight and Alien Syndrome. they are
> all 99% identical, and this is truly impressive concidering X68000
> came out in 1986!
Is there any decent X68000 emulators out there? Also, do you know what the
X68000 cost when the Megadrive launched in Japan? I wonder if it had a hand
in the Megadrive flopping over there, if the PC Engine and NES didn't
already.
AM2forever
Actually, I was doing megabits for both arcade and Genesis/MD.
Altered Beast is, about 20 megabits, I'm almost certain of that.
Golden Axe is a bit larger.
All the Genesis meg counts I listed are ment to be megabit's also,
even if you thought I wrote MegaByte :)
AM2forever
> Is there any decent X68000 emulators out there? Also, do you know what the
> X68000 cost when the Megadrive launched in Japan? I wonder if it had a hand
> in the Megadrive flopping over there, if the PC Engine and NES didn't
> already.
Sorry I haven't had time to answer the discrepancy about the meg
counts of these games. I may very well be wrong on the meg sizes for
the arcade games like Ghouls n Ghosts and Strider...perhaps they are
larger than I thought, and mis-calculated the MB to Mb thingy :)
About X68000 emus - Win68X is the best. but there are several diff
versions, some addon files that improve the sound and whatnot, plus
the bios files. too many to look up and find links for. so if you have
MSN or AOL IMs, I could send you the all the files together in one
folder, plus some of the roms to save you some time.
MSN IM: AM2fo...@hotmail.com
AOL IM: expertsurfr
Azmun
> screen for screen comparison anywhere else on the net.
> http://home1.gte.net/res0zjb2 ->Comparisons->Strider
The pics here look pretty sharp for the genesis version. Makes me
wonder if an S-video cable was used to produce that kind of output.
I've Got A Loverly Bunch Of Coconuts
"Azmun" <rd...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:ca256dbe.03040...@posting.google.com...
As he says on the page, he used an emulator to get screen grabs from both
versions.
Scott H
My Genesis puts out an image just as solid and nearly as sharp as the
Snes does with S-Video, through the 32X output. These shots were taken
through emulation, as I can't afford the type of video capture hardware that
would actually take a representative picture. I do not notice a significant
difference in sharpnesswhen comparing Strider displayed with S-Video through
the PS2 and Strider connected with A/V outs through the Genesis on the same
32" TV set. In some ways the extremely slight blur of the A/V output
benefits the Genesis version's image. These higher res shots displayed on a
monitor expose every single jagged edge and color transition.
RedFox
"AM2forever" <AM2fo...@hotmail.com> wrote
> > > Strider on Genesis was an exellent translation of the arcade as was
> > > Ghouls N Ghosts and Golden Axe, and even Altered Beast, concidering
> > > the cost of home consoles and prices per megabit. However the Genesis
> > > versions of all of these games were quite inferior to the originals in
> > > terms of color, sprite size and animation.
> > >
> > > Strider arcade: 32 meg
> > > Strider Genesis: 8 meg
> > >
> > > Ghouls 'n Ghosts arcade: 16 meg
> > > Ghouls 'n Ghosts Genesis: 5 meg
> > >
> > > Golden Axe arcade: 24 meg
> > > Golden Axe Genesis: 4 meg
> > >
> > > Altered Beast arcade: 20 meg
> > > Altered Beast Genesis: 4 meg
> >
> > I don't disagree with your post, but I'm just pointing out that
Megadrive
> > carts are Mbit not MByte, unlike the arcade :)
> >
>
>
> Actually, I was doing megabits for both arcade and Genesis/MD.
> Altered Beast is, about 20 megabits, I'm almost certain of that.
> Golden Axe is a bit larger.
> All the Genesis meg counts I listed are ment to be megabit's also,
> even if you thought I wrote MegaByte :)
Oh sorry!
I was thinking Golden Axe was a bit big :)
-RedFox