For anyone curious, the two guys talking over the cutscenes are comedians Brian Posehn and Doug Benson. Strangely though, they were only responsible for the voiceover part; their on-screen silhouettes were provided by completely different people.
I think The Crow joke was about the character himself being dead, as he's supposed to be undead/unkillable in the comic, rather than about Brandon Lee. But it isn't a very funny nor well though out joke, surprised no one there picked up on it being misinterpreted, as that's exactly what I thought too when I bought the 3DO version from a pawn shop back in the day.
The consoles at the time did not have Z Buffer, so they had to sort the polygon depth first before drawing them (Painter Algorithm). By moving forward only, you could simply stream the polygons already in order from back to front.
@@m_tpa Normally you would group sort them,. So polygon related to 1 character would be sorted together, ground polygons would be sorted together and then you would sort the groups with Z depth average together.
I believe this is how Crash Bandicoot operates too. Since the camera movement is locked on a path it's also one of the first games to use occlusion culling. So they could efficiently max out the PS1's graphics output per frame since every polygon/texture rendered was something that was actually visible on screen. Hence the lush detailed look, stable framerate, and lack of "polygon popping" other PS1 games suffered from.
Someone just posted your channel @ Resetera and I decided to try it. It's right up my alley. I'm going through each of your Saturn videos and so far it's been stellar. Congrats!
I just subscribed to you the other night thanks to Jenovi talking about you in his recent video and I’m so pumped that I did. I’m really enjoying your videos. I watched a bunch the other night and left a whole bunch of thumbs ups. Keep ‘em coming brother.
You've sold me on this game. I never would have given this one a chance if not for your thorough research. All the clips from the mst3k-like segments had me cracking up.
Just wanted to say I really enjoy your channel after recently discovering it, and I have been going back and watching every video in order (even Off-World Interceptor! Ha). That is why I decided to comment here. You deserve a much bigger following and I hope you end up actually reviewing every Saturn game. Cheers.
"The constant minefield of Chase 16" was a nice recovery, lol :D Y'know, I've liked Crystal Dynamics for a long time - ever since the 3D Gex games on the Playstation. But I never knew they were ex-Sega America guys & gals. Nor did I know that Mark Cerny was their John Carmack back in the day. OWIE may be just a "Eh, it's alright" kinda game, but the story it had to tell was pretty interesting. Shame you couldn't get in touch with any of the devs. It would be really interesting to hear what anyone had to say about those FMVs, and if they did it because they genuinely thought it was a cool idea or if someone lost faith in them and they felt that was a way to salvage everything. Or see if someone remembered if that joke was ripping on Brandon Lee's death in an attempt to be edgy, or just talking about the Crow dying in that movie - the character I mean, Eric Draven. Guess not everyone's as cool as Peter Molyneux in that Hi-Octane vid ;) Great review!
One thing I recently found out a few years ago about Brandon Lee’s death was that the Guy who was supposed to clean the Gun inside/out did a very shitty job doing so. It wasn’t just the Blank that killed Brandon. There were metal shavings in the gun from real bullets lodged within it. When it was time to fire the blank, the shavings shot out with it and ultimately ended up being what killed him. Supposedly being shot by those shavings is deadlier than being by a normal bullet. I’m not sure how accurate or credible all this is but thats what I saw back then.
I played this game on the 3DO as an 11 year-old boy, and those cutscenes were HILARIOUS (also, my read on that Crow joke has always been that the character is dead from the beginning, but maybe I'm just being charitable). Fun fact: those two dudes mocking the cutscenes? Doug Benson and Brian Posehn. No joke.
Absolutely. Even just prior to the rise of unreal and unity, many of us were using frameworks like XNA, where you could write indie games and develop them for the Xbox 360 and PC. You had to write everything yourself though, which was a gift and a curse, but at the same time really allows you to create games that look and felt very different. That isn’t a knock the engines of today, because they are fantastic and greatly reduce the amount of time required to actually make a team, but at the same time largely responsible for why so many games look and feel the same for the last decade.
I love the idea that in this world of interplanetary travel the best way they have to track down and apprehend dangerous criminals is basically dune buggies with guns strapped to them
I first came here because filmcow talked about you a lot about a year ago. I still watch you and fall asleep to your videos. you are Ross Scott of accursed farms level of talented with VGReview production. god bless you lad i hope you are well
That ending legit made me tear up a bit. Funny how games are "better" now, but somehow, we've fallen so far from the wide open potentials of those days. Looking forward to your next vid.
Speaking of the possible game engine connection between Off-World and Solar Eclipse, one of the secret stages in Solar Eclipse is called Off-World where you fly around destroying ground vehicles.
These videos are like a quasi shit post, sprinkled with backstory and commentary galore, with a hefty side of 90's levels a "tude". Idk man, I just love this shit 🤣
I remember seeing this game at Software Etc. back in the day and thought it looked cool. Never played it back then but maybe I'll give it a try someday
Cool looking foward to watching this. I played it when it was new and remember my first impression.. blew my mind because you could move left or right infinitely. Like wow man this game is HUGE lol. Coming off of Genesis I was fairly gelous of my Saturn friend.
My gut feeling after reading previews for this in SSM is that the MST3K schtick was done when they realised the FMVs were horrible. Good choice if this is the case.
Great review of a game I have that I think I have played 3-4 times. I really enjoyed the information you added about the development and I agree the dollar store version of MST was horrible. Keep up the great reviews sir.
I understand why you talk about it, here, but I'm surprised there's so much talk about _The Crow_ in this video. I'm sure there's much more to come in the video about that game.
Yeah...I was one of those kids that thought "this was on the 3D0 and now it's even better on the Saturn, I must have it!" Of course I was only referring to what was on the box and had no idea if it was actually better. I did know Solar Eclipse was a better game than Total Eclipse but I digress. I bought it and almost immediately put those two buffoons on mute. I didn't like the game either and the dithering was all over the place. Addendum- The Crow was an amazing film and Brandon Lee a great actor. What a terrible loss...
Like this game, even though it isn't a high profile release. Don't like the comedy FMV, but I do like the gameplay. I played it first on Playstation, but I played the Saturn en 3DO versions later too.
What the hell... OK, so there is a veteran TH-cam reviewer called HalfBlindGamer who recently did a review of a cheesy FMV game based on a 90s Hulk Hogan show. For some reason one of the characters in the game makes an off-hand reference to MST3K that is a complete non-sequiter. I commented on the video that this may be the first and only time that MST3K was ever referenced in a commercial game. Turns out I was wrong! Because this is clearly referencing MST3K. I also love how this was clearly released just as FMV was being bashed by gamers for being fucking awful. So they tried to pretend they were cool by bashing it themselves. "Hey kids! Think FMV is cool?" "No." "Oh... Uh... Neither do we! FMV sucks!"
I always assumed this was a racing game. More like a 3d monster truck shmup. 1995 me woulda thought this looked ass either way, but 2024 me thinks this looks better than anything coming out this year.
I thought the Crow joke was referring to the character actually being dead. (Since he comes back to avenge his GF's killers) Not to the actual actor dying on set. But I can see how the joke could clearly be misconstrued and considered in bad taste.
The character in the crow is dead already though and brought back by a crow, now if they said "i wish he was Jason lee because he'd be dead already" then that would be appalling lol
Putting in the silhouetted douchebro's mocking the games cutscenes really is the epitome of SEGA 90's derp... All it's missing is a Johnathan Brandis looking guy wearing a backwards cap and sitting backwards in a chair rapping about how the game is just 'kinda cool'.
There was no massacre at Tianeman square. Literally. No one died. Go look it up. Better yet, go watch the *full* “tank man” video. Nothing happens. The tank stops and refuses to hurt him. Compare this to any protest against racist police brutality in the US in the last, oh… seven decades or so. Plenty of events you can call massacres. But absolutely not the one you referred to. Love your content, so I say this as a friendly suggestion to revisit your (common, mainstream, fallacious) presumption about that event.
I went ahead and looked it up like you mentioned and I once again saw many pictures of dead bodies in the streets, people soaked in blood being carried away, and videos of militarized police with fire in the foreground. Like every other time I went to "go look it up," I came up with the same stuff. Tank Man is a mere symbol of the overall turning point in Chinese history. Him walking away with a few other bystanders at the end of the raw footage is irrelevant to the vast body count that remains immensely under reported. Hundreds dead? Thousands? We still don't know, but we know it was a lot. I recon you believe the pictures and video of bodies and blood in the streets were faked. It is true the U.S. is riddled with decades of police corruption, including the murder of unarmed civilians and the deaths at protests that follow. We have our fair share of militarized police marching in the streets. America is far from perfect. Though using it as a whataboutism does nothing to prove your baseless claim. Listen, I'm happy you enjoy my content and I hope you stick around, I'm sure you're an alright dude. But please reconsider what you post before attempting to revise history.
@@PandaMoniumReviews L M F A O wowwwwwwww. please tell me where you looked up. because that is a giant load of western propaganda and ahistorical nonsense. stick to videogames bro. just as a fish knows not of the water in which he swims, you have zero clue that you’ve been steeped in imperialist lies since birth. there were nowhere near “thousands” killed - or even injured - during that failed cia color revolution.
@@PandaMoniumReviews lol you absolutely are. you’ve been bathed in them since you were pre-verbal. it’s hard not to be living in the West. read a few books sometime, buddy.
For anyone curious, the two guys talking over the cutscenes are comedians Brian Posehn and Doug Benson. Strangely though, they were only responsible for the voiceover part; their on-screen silhouettes were provided by completely different people.
Definitely recognized Doug's voice
Oh, now that you mention it, I can tell it's them. Brian Posehn's voice in particular is very easy to notice.
🤯
@@greysky1252 I came here to also express this, as a fan of Mr. Show and MST3K, Brian Posehn and Doug Benson riffing a game blows my mind.
In my head-canon, Craig Stadler was to the US what Segata Sanshiro was to Japan
This is everything.
I think The Crow joke was about the character himself being dead, as he's supposed to be undead/unkillable in the comic, rather than about Brandon Lee.
But it isn't a very funny nor well though out joke, surprised no one there picked up on it being misinterpreted, as that's exactly what I thought too when I bought the 3DO version from a pawn shop back in the day.
I admire your quest to review every saturn game good sir. Please don't give it up!
The consoles at the time did not have Z Buffer, so they had to sort the polygon depth first before drawing them (Painter Algorithm). By moving forward only, you could simply stream the polygons already in order from back to front.
I'm surprised they couldn't achieve a higher framerate with the simplified "forward only" engine they used
was it easy to rearrange them for each frame or did you have to stick to a certain arrangement a lot?
@@m_tpa Normally you would group sort them,. So polygon related to 1 character would be sorted together, ground polygons would be sorted together and then you would sort the groups with Z depth average together.
I believe this is how Crash Bandicoot operates too. Since the camera movement is locked on a path it's also one of the first games to use occlusion culling.
So they could efficiently max out the PS1's graphics output per frame since every polygon/texture rendered was something that was actually visible on screen. Hence the lush detailed look, stable framerate, and lack of "polygon popping" other PS1 games suffered from.
You deserve more views. I appreciate the effort put into these vids
Someone just posted your channel @ Resetera and I decided to try it. It's right up my alley. I'm going through each of your Saturn videos and so far it's been stellar. Congrats!
Glad you’re enjoying them! Thanks for checking it out. :)
Great to see Harry Enfield’s ‘Loadsamoney’ character! 😆
Agreed, wasn't expecting that!
I wish you could have finished this project. You had a great formula, intro etc.
Love the Pandemonium. Haha
I’m still working on it, just slowly, since real life is busy. :)
I just subscribed to you the other night thanks to Jenovi talking about you in his recent video and I’m so pumped that I did. I’m really enjoying your videos. I watched a bunch the other night and left a whole bunch of thumbs ups. Keep ‘em coming brother.
You've sold me on this game. I never would have given this one a chance if not for your thorough research. All the clips from the mst3k-like segments had me cracking up.
Just wanted to say I really enjoy your channel after recently discovering it, and I have been going back and watching every video in order (even Off-World Interceptor! Ha). That is why I decided to comment here. You deserve a much bigger following and I hope you end up actually reviewing every Saturn game. Cheers.
Thanks! Means a lot to hear this. :)
I'm new here. Good video, love some Saturn love! Will work myself through your back log. Keep it up!!
Wonderful video! I love how you totally get distracted by the Crow joke!
Didn't expect this video to be so good, subbed.
"The constant minefield of Chase 16" was a nice recovery, lol :D
Y'know, I've liked Crystal Dynamics for a long time - ever since the 3D Gex games on the Playstation. But I never knew they were ex-Sega America guys & gals. Nor did I know that Mark Cerny was their John Carmack back in the day. OWIE may be just a "Eh, it's alright" kinda game, but the story it had to tell was pretty interesting.
Shame you couldn't get in touch with any of the devs. It would be really interesting to hear what anyone had to say about those FMVs, and if they did it because they genuinely thought it was a cool idea or if someone lost faith in them and they felt that was a way to salvage everything. Or see if someone remembered if that joke was ripping on Brandon Lee's death in an attempt to be edgy, or just talking about the Crow dying in that movie - the character I mean, Eric Draven. Guess not everyone's as cool as Peter Molyneux in that Hi-Octane vid ;) Great review!
One thing I recently found out a few years ago about Brandon Lee’s death was that the Guy who was supposed to clean the Gun inside/out did a very shitty job doing so.
It wasn’t just the Blank that killed Brandon. There were metal shavings in the gun from real bullets lodged within it. When it was time to fire the blank, the shavings shot out with it and ultimately ended up being what killed him.
Supposedly being shot by those shavings is deadlier than being by a normal bullet.
I’m not sure how accurate or credible all this is but thats what I saw back then.
Dude these videos are great. You deserve a much wider audience!
I played this game on the 3DO as an 11 year-old boy, and those cutscenes were HILARIOUS (also, my read on that Crow joke has always been that the character is dead from the beginning, but maybe I'm just being charitable).
Fun fact: those two dudes mocking the cutscenes? Doug Benson and Brian Posehn. No joke.
Yo, this is a very fun fact! Might need to slide into their DM’s.
@@PandaMoniumReviews So you can ask them to look at your pooper?
Whenever I see development histories of 90s games, I can help but think it was much more fun making games back then.
It had to of been. Tech evolving at a rapid pace. Devs able to create wacky shit (of course they would, its a video game!).
Absolutely. Even just prior to the rise of unreal and unity, many of us were using frameworks like XNA, where you could write indie games and develop them for the Xbox 360 and PC.
You had to write everything yourself though, which was a gift and a curse, but at the same time really allows you to create games that look and felt very different.
That isn’t a knock the engines of today, because they are fantastic and greatly reduce the amount of time required to actually make a team, but at the same time largely responsible for why so many games look and feel the same for the last decade.
I love the idea that in this world of interplanetary travel the best way they have to track down and apprehend dangerous criminals is basically dune buggies with guns strapped to them
I first came here because filmcow talked about you a lot about a year ago. I still watch you and fall asleep to your videos. you are Ross Scott of accursed farms level of talented with VGReview production. god bless you lad i hope you are well
I've enjoyed binge watching these immensely
Seeing footage and screenshots from gaming stores and merch from this time is so nostalgic.
While I am late to the party, I fucking love your videos and hope you are able to review all of the games for the Saturn
That ending legit made me tear up a bit. Funny how games are "better" now, but somehow, we've fallen so far from the wide open potentials of those days. Looking forward to your next vid.
This game looks better than I expected.
Speaking of the possible game engine connection between Off-World and Solar Eclipse, one of the secret stages in Solar Eclipse is called Off-World where you fly around destroying ground vehicles.
Yeah, Saturn Memories showed me that too. I wish I saw it before posting the vid! 😅 Definitely helps make the case for it being the same engine.
Great research on this, particularly the development of it.
These videos are like a quasi shit post, sprinkled with backstory and commentary galore, with a hefty side of 90's levels a "tude". Idk man, I just love this shit 🤣
I remember seeing this game at Software Etc. back in the day and thought it looked cool. Never played it back then but maybe I'll give it a try someday
If you happen upon a copy, definitely give it a shot. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. Not an excellent game, but fun.
I believe one of the “commentators” is Brian Posehn
The only bad thing is you don't keep your cars if you buy a different one.
You have to re-buy your cars to use them again lol
its tasteless, but i guess they just meant the character of the crow who basically is a kinda zombie, right?
Yeah that's how I took it, that's kinda the crow's whole 'thing' - he comes back from the dead for revenge.
Cool looking foward to watching this. I played it when it was new and remember my first impression.. blew my mind because you could move left or right infinitely. Like wow man this game is HUGE lol.
Coming off of Genesis I was fairly gelous of my Saturn friend.
I managed to completely ignore this one back in the day. Guess not many magazines covered it in Brazil. The game shows the 3do roots...
Thank you King!
I had this game on the PS1. I liked this game a lot more than it deserved to be liked.
It’s like watching an Adam Sandler movie.
The Crow joke got me adding this to my Saturn wish list, holy FUCK that's dark
This is what Mass Effects Mako gameplay should have been.
Totally. Easter island heads and all.
My gut feeling after reading previews for this in SSM is that the MST3K schtick was done when they realised the FMVs were horrible. Good choice if this is the case.
Great review of a game I have that I think I have played 3-4 times. I really enjoyed the information you added about the development and I agree the dollar store version of MST was horrible. Keep up the great reviews sir.
I understand why you talk about it, here, but I'm surprised there's so much talk about _The Crow_ in this video. I'm sure there's much more to come in the video about that game.
"let's film a b movie for our video game except put faux MST3K over it" is THE most 1995 thing I've ever heard
I also wonder if The Crow joke was also meant to be a jab at the MST3K character Crow. Since they were doing an MST3K parody.
I have this on the PS1 and the cutscenes are classic 90s cheese
Lol I'm getting this game because I love cringe humor
Yeah...I was one of those kids that thought "this was on the 3D0 and now it's even better on the Saturn, I must have it!" Of course I was only referring to what was on the box and had no idea if it was actually better. I did know Solar Eclipse was a better game than Total Eclipse but I digress. I bought it and almost immediately put those two buffoons on mute. I didn't like the game either and the dithering was all over the place.
Addendum- The Crow was an amazing film and Brandon Lee a great actor. What a terrible loss...
I was expecting Craig Stadler to appear on the bottom right of the screen.
An oversight on my part. :)
Would have been nice to have this game back in the day. Bit past my time now. Maybe one day, who knows.
Like this game, even though it isn't a high profile release. Don't like the comedy FMV, but I do like the gameplay. I played it first on Playstation, but I played the Saturn en 3DO versions later too.
9:57 hahaha
Ahhhhhh, the 90s. Great time. Excellent video.
..
...
OK anyone got a link to purchase a Violator? Asking for a friend.
I hear Adam and Eve’s website has it on sale rn.
To be fair, the Crow was about a dead man who returned from the grave.
But it’s still in bad taste.
This looks really dope actually… ebay!!!
What the hell...
OK, so there is a veteran TH-cam reviewer called HalfBlindGamer who recently did a review of a cheesy FMV game based on a 90s Hulk Hogan show. For some reason one of the characters in the game makes an off-hand reference to MST3K that is a complete non-sequiter. I commented on the video that this may be the first and only time that MST3K was ever referenced in a commercial game.
Turns out I was wrong! Because this is clearly referencing MST3K.
I also love how this was clearly released just as FMV was being bashed by gamers for being fucking awful. So they tried to pretend they were cool by bashing it themselves.
"Hey kids! Think FMV is cool?"
"No."
"Oh... Uh... Neither do we! FMV sucks!"
I always assumed this was a racing game. More like a 3d monster truck shmup. 1995 me woulda thought this looked ass either way, but 2024 me thinks this looks better than anything coming out this year.
I thought the Crow joke was referring to the character actually being dead. (Since he comes back to avenge his GF's killers) Not to the actual actor dying on set. But I can see how the joke could clearly be misconstrued and considered in bad taste.
The character in the crow is dead already though and brought back by a crow, now if they said "i wish he was Jason lee because he'd be dead already" then that would be appalling lol
nice video bro
Btw, yeah puggles are the bomb.
Where is your intro music from?
Is the guy on the left Doug Benson?
Edit:
Just finished the video. It's Doug Benson.
Thick_propheT It is indeed.
Putting in the silhouetted douchebro's mocking the games cutscenes really is the epitome of SEGA 90's derp...
All it's missing is a Johnathan Brandis looking guy wearing a backwards cap and sitting backwards in a chair rapping about how the game is just 'kinda cool'.
I love fmv cutscenes! Why Gen X gotta be so damn cynical about everything? This is why no one talks about them anymore.
my bet they made the FMVs trying to make a FMV game then FMV's became lame so just mock it
No subtitles. Aw man switch on automatically generated please
There was no massacre at Tianeman square. Literally. No one died. Go look it up. Better yet, go watch the *full* “tank man” video. Nothing happens. The tank stops and refuses to hurt him. Compare this to any protest against racist police brutality in the US in the last, oh… seven decades or so. Plenty of events you can call massacres. But absolutely not the one you referred to. Love your content, so I say this as a friendly suggestion to revisit your (common, mainstream, fallacious) presumption about that event.
I went ahead and looked it up like you mentioned and I once again saw many pictures of dead bodies in the streets, people soaked in blood being carried away, and videos of militarized police with fire in the foreground. Like every other time I went to "go look it up," I came up with the same stuff. Tank Man is a mere symbol of the overall turning point in Chinese history. Him walking away with a few other bystanders at the end of the raw footage is irrelevant to the vast body count that remains immensely under reported. Hundreds dead? Thousands? We still don't know, but we know it was a lot. I recon you believe the pictures and video of bodies and blood in the streets were faked.
It is true the U.S. is riddled with decades of police corruption, including the murder of unarmed civilians and the deaths at protests that follow. We have our fair share of militarized police marching in the streets. America is far from perfect. Though using it as a whataboutism does nothing to prove your baseless claim. Listen, I'm happy you enjoy my content and I hope you stick around, I'm sure you're an alright dude. But please reconsider what you post before attempting to revise history.
@@PandaMoniumReviews L M F A O wowwwwwwww. please tell me where you looked up. because that is a giant load of western propaganda and ahistorical nonsense. stick to videogames bro. just as a fish knows not of the water in which he swims, you have zero clue that you’ve been steeped in imperialist lies since birth. there were nowhere near “thousands” killed - or even injured - during that failed cia color revolution.
@@conzmoleman This is a shitpost right?
@@conzmoleman Yeah, I'm not the one who is steeped in lies pal.
@@PandaMoniumReviews lol you absolutely are. you’ve been bathed in them since you were pre-verbal. it’s hard not to be living in the West. read a few books sometime, buddy.