I’m not a huge fan of the 3DO, but what really impressed me in this video is the draw distance and LOD implementation. If you look at the buildings, cars, etc. they are all 2-D billboards at a distance and pretty seamlessly shift to full 3-D models. It’s even pretty tough to see that transition line with modern displays. There’s no way you would have noticed back on a CRT.
I was there when the FZ-1 dropped and I picked my system up in early 1995. It's hard to describe just how revolutionary this system and NFS was unless you saw it coming out of the 16-bit era. It was jaw-dropping! Yeah, the PSX and Saturn did 3D gaming better, but they had millions more in R&D behind them that Trip and Matsushita had to work with. I remember getting up to speed just to crash and watching the replay over and over again. Great job on revisiting this wonderful machine and one of my 2 fave games for the FZ-1...
I wish sega would've joined accepted the 3do hardware and update it. Plus, pairing the Madam chip with the vdp2 chip. It would've been more performaning than the saturn hardware.
Fun fact, the 3DO console also existed as a PC add-on card called the "3DO Blaster", which came in a kit with a CD-Rom drive, a controller and the card itself which is the hardware of the console, on a PC card. Also, RIP Brenan T. Baird, the guy you see in the game's FMVs (1963-2013).
Brenan T Baird huh?? Thanks for putting a name to the face! Shame he's gone. It was stupid to omit his character from the PS and Saturn translations...
The Duel: Test Drive 2 was one of my favorite early racing games in part because of the effort they made to recreate the real dashboards of the real cars within the game, even going so far as to animate unique gear shifters for each car (the Porsche 959 has a leather shift boot, while the Ferrari F40 has a gated shifter, etc). In a lot of ways, The Need For Speed feels like a spiritual successor to that game. The dashboards look SO good. I find it odd how many later racing games lacked this view option, and while I enjoy a good bumper cam, it's just not quite the same. What this game does, even better than the Playstation version I'd argue, is convey the sense of blasting down the highway in a classic sports car of the time as fast as it can go. These cars, while amazing when new, weren't exactly the most nimble or easy to drive. Thus you get a serious sense of the visceral nature of actually driving one. And the 3DO version is really nails this the best, as the later ports have more of an arcade feel.
Yes these cars were tanks that drove fast and the game physics totally reflect that with as close to an accurate sensation of handling as you could get back then
Exactly, I too was a fan of the Test Drive franchise (I played it in various systems, from the C64 to the Amiga) and I 100% agree with what you wrote. I could have written your comment myself 😄TNFS even has the same "cop beeper" of Test Drive, if this not a spiritual sequel I don't know what is. Also, I must say the that FMVs were a nice touch to improve immersion. No matter how good 3D visuals and CGI got, nothing beats real footage of supercars doing maneuvers (with real physics!). It's superior even to today's technology. P.S. I played the PlayStation version, I'm not sure if 3DO's had the same FMVs.
3DO was my go to console from it's launch until well into the Saturns first year. Need for Speed was mind blowing back then. You felt like you were in a real world. Where I live there is a road almost identical to the redwood forest stage and I remember driving through that on my way to work everyday just thinking about getting back home later to play NFS. I just played this a couple nights ago, the 3DO version is still my favorite. Same with Road Rash. They have a magic to them.
I swear the mainstream were in another dimension as the 3DO was light years ahead of anything when it was released and blew me away. And don’t get me started on the Colecovision as that was the other that I just couldn’t understand why everyone didn’t buy as it was so far ahead of the competition. People just follow like sheep when there is a better option right in front of their eyes.
The knock on the 3DO back then was the insane price tag. I was there, and they wanted PS3 launch money for it. The whole gaming public balked. When the console failed and it was going out they had great deals, I had a FZ-10 back then, but that was at the very end.
Another point is that there are many important studios that likely wouldn't exist without the 3DO. Crystal Dynamics got a big boost by having the 3DO pack-in. Naughty Dog was a couple of dudes that Sega, Sony, or Nintendo wouldn't have returned a phone call let alone given a devkit. It's a similar story for Insomniac. Their 3DO projects got them noticed by the big boys and the rest is history. And even "the big boys" owe a debt to the 3DO because it was a gentle introduction to 32-bit cd-rom consoles. While Sony and Sega would throw a badly translated, incomplete hardware manual at the developers and say "you figure it out", the 3DO had a very complete OS and tools to make things like seamless level streaming pretty straightforward. On the PS1 and Saturn, they had to roll their own. It's often why you see inferior 3DO ports (looking at you, Star Fighter 3000) to other platforms and you don't see something like the no visible loads of Killing Time on other non-3do games of the time.
Depends if you take the scientific approach, I'd guess the Amiga CD32 probably has the highest scoring rated library out of the lot even if most of them are just slightly enhanced versions.
my dad initially bought the 3DO over the PSX back in the day, and I gotta say this was probably one of his favorites! coming from the SNES and Genesis this was absolutely light-years ahead of what we had back then! I think my favorite part was that smart-assed adversary you raced against, non-stop trash talk in the little cutscenes, haha. gameplay-wise my favorite part was the cockpit view, each car's respective interior modeled perfectly in digital form. so I'm always disappointed when games don't feature that, to me it's part of the immersion that you're actually driving a $50K sports car. and yeah the 3DO had its share of trash-tier stuff but there were a few stand-out games, with both this and the version of road rash among a few others!! as for music sign me up for 'kickstart my heart' by motley crue... it did appear in GT3 but it's definitely the kind of high energy rock that would be on my playlist!
For some reason 3DO dies in peoples minds for the trash games get a console like Wii has 10x more shovelware garbage. Obv Wii has tons of classics but still
Underground and Underground 2 were good games, but didn't really feel like NFS games. Then they went and did the Most Wanted formula over and over again. My favorites in the franchise are Porsche Unleashed, High Stakes, and this one, in that order.
Two things would have saved 3DO: 25 MHz CPU (which they planned but went with 12.5 for whatever reason), and Panasonic exclusivity (like the Hudson/NEC arrangement w/ PC Engine) which would have seen a more traditional pricing scheme, so the 3DO would have launched around $4-500 like the Saturn and PlayStation did in Japan. Combine that with the 1-2 year head start the 3DO had, it would have fared very well
Or Sega accepted trip Hawkins hardware and used it for the sega saturn with a fast arm, nec or powerpc cpu. Including a fast math coprocessor on the Madam chip.
Only ever had this on PS1. The first game on there that you could 'feel' the weight of the cars. We used to just blast the Ferrari down the Alpine track. Great memories. I will have a go with the 3DO version on my Emudeck install just as a comparison.
Crash and burn had amazing prerendered graphics that looked better than real time flat/Texture Mapping 3d games of its era. Plus, draw distance was amazing.
I'm 90% convinced the only reason this didn't sell better is due to the price of the console. They say that it was weak compared to other systems, but the PlayStation has less power than the Saturn and Nintendo 64 and outdid both, in no small part due to the better price. If developers had supported it more, and they'd sold them at a bit of a loss like everyone else, they could've made a bigger splash in the gaming pool.
I know framerate is something people complain about for it, but look at any of the big hitter PS2 titles or like you said, the Nintendo 64 titles, most of them run at
Yep, this game was incredible when it released! Bought it day one, and played the heck out of it. I remember crashing my car in the game one time and it rolled down a hill for ages (not on its wheels, the entire care was flipping). My friend and I laughed so hard at that moment! Good times.
According to RJ Mical , This game was most likely EA having brought the Amiga Test Drive to the 3DO... Just playing the original Test Drive on the Amiga you can tell that this game was heavily derived from it. That is everything from the feel of the cars, courses, the tire sreech, the Fuzz Buster, and the cops... This also included sectioning of the races and even the race stats at the end of each race/section. ... All elements derrived from the Test Drive Amiga game :)
@@VideoGameEsoterica Absolutely! Exactly another reason to get and love a 3DO! :) I think doing an Amiga / 3DO history video would great... I am sure you have a ton of information to share on this subject :)
The 3DO itself is an excellent console, it's just that its marketing and business strategies were pretty awful. If the 3DO company made the hardware in house like everyone else they may have been able to sell the console at a lower cost and if the royalties for making games weren't so low they may have gotten some higher quality games instead of one-off "gems" like Plumbers don't wear ties. Luckily the 3DO did get a decent amount of good games and the hardware itself is very sound... assuming its a Panasonic model and not a Goldstar or Sanyo machine. As for Need for Speed, a lot of people like to hate this game just as much as they hate the 3DO but I heavily disagree with them. If anything I like the 3DO version way more than the arcade-like ports that went to Saturn and PS1. If I wanted to play an arcade racer I just play Ridge Racer on PlayStation for Daytona USA on the Saturn. Back then, Need for Speed on 3DO was the closest we had to a realistic racer up until Gran Turismo dropped. It also looked stunning for its time. Finally, X-Man just has too much 90's charm for me to hate him at all lol. Love kicking his ass and making him eat his words. 😈
I first saw this game at a friend's house when his older brother was playing the PC version. You're 100% correct that it was utterly mind-blowing and revolutionary for the time. Nobody thought twice about the low framerate. We were too busy picking our jaws off the floor.
I was lucky enough to trade my MegaDrive and MegaCD combo with around 12 games for a 3DO with NFS, Road Rash, and Theme Park. This was early 1995, in the UK (where traditionally we had to wait months/years for games, due to EU localisation). I had an immense time with these three games. No regrets at all. Everybody from school, even people who weren't my friends, were coming to visit to catch a glimpse.
I remember me and my brother playing the hell out of this game back when it came out. That rival racer guy that's always trash talking in the cut scenes was pretty funny and classic for the time
I'm pretty sure he swears at one point after beating him in a race. Definitely a "transformers the movie 1986" feel after Spike swears. I miss 90's games.@@VideoGameEsoterica
ya, this and Road Rash we're great. There's been a game I can't remember where you fly a helicopter on rails that might family rented back in the 90s. Can't remember what it was though.
The 3DO rocks. AD&D Slayer, Wolf 3D, Super Street Fighter 2 with that FM Towns soundtrack is insane. My favorite console to play FMV games on too. I need to get one of mine recapped though.
First saw this in a department store, in a little corner on its own. Really wasn't a gaming store normally. I had a go on it there and loved it. But didn't get a chance again until I bought it on PC. The DOS version of this is nigh on identical and was also the first taste I had of being able to choose between resolution or frame rate. I didn't even know what frame rate meant back then, but I loved how smooth it looked on chunkier 320x200 pixels 😊
In technology - One step ahead in innovation. Two steps ahead is a martyr. 3DO was 10 steps ahead, and because of those folks just didn't get it. Also didn't help that the Sega V Nintendo battle was sucking the air out of the room for others to compete. As for NFS and the framerate, it was fine! I mean Road rash on the Genesis ran at 9 FPS! This was fine!
Not gonna lie, the cheap ODEs for the FZ-1 has boosted the humble 3DO`s profile in my eyes. Big time. I have 3 now and it might just be my favorite retro console to boot up. The unique flavor of the library and overall quirky nature of the console has aged really well IMO.
I walked into this one on PS1 long after Need for Speed II came out so it felt like such a downgrade that it wasn't even worth looking too far into. Today, I go back to it fondly and more blown away by the year it came out than I was the year I first tried it. I've always loved this series. Well, during the lifespan of the PS1 and a little ways into the PS2, at least. Always ahead of their time with such detail and thinking of things you wouldn't even imagine. Such as High Stakes- letting you turn on your headlights, and become the cop. Just insane! One thing I noticed in Need for Speed III back in the day, at least on two players anyway.. The wheels don't spin. I used to laugh soo hard about that while not understanding anything about technical limitations. I instead thought it was an oversight on their part.
An indie developer needs to bring back the 2D cockpit cross country racer like OG NFS here and Test Drive 2. I remember playing the PSX version of this game as a teenager and wishing it had more point to point tracks but still playing it a lot. Road and Track NFS and Resident Evil were the first two games I owned when I bought the PSX in early 96. I had also rented the PSX like 4-5 times in the previous 6 months and enjoyed titles like Assault Rigs/Jumping Flash/Tekken/Wipeout/Twisted Metal. PSX definitely had a wow factor for a good year then out came the Super Mario 64 demo kiosk at EB Games. The 90s was the best time for new video games.
@@VideoGameEsoterica I hope he is fine. All those wall of text on "his" reddit makes me feel sick. Its most very civil but if it was me it would not do good for my health. Hope is can cope with this kind of pressure.
Hopefully a 3DO core will have good overclocking options. Space Hulk on 3DO is actually better than the PS1/SAT versions. The character sprites all have unique weapons in game but on the other ports they all have the same weapon. There are other downgrades too; I wonder if this is because the 3DO had more RAM? I just wish it had a link mode like the DOS version.
Need For Speed is the right title but more for the fact that I would be wanting some. This is more Sunday Afternoon Drive with Grandma. As for the soundtrack, Panama is good but I might go for Montrose and Bad Motor Scooter.
People seems to put 3DO in with the Jaguar, timeline wise for sure, but quality wise 3DO is miles ahead. Took delivery of Strahl / Triad stone again this week, one of my FMV faves.
@@VideoGameEsoterica Atari did not sell a lot of games for the Jaguar. Most chips on the Jaguar seem to be related to the cartridge slot. I don’t get why they could not save money there. Cheapest 68k, economy RAM, only two flat pack custom chips . No CD or game save card out of the box.
It looks like they didn't just stop at using sprites for far-away buildings, but even for the world geometry itself. From memory I don't think I've ever seen that technique before. You can see 2D images get replaced with distant polygons here 4:15 and especially here 4:30
@@VideoGameEsoterica goodness gracious me, ok, well...i have the Saturn version so i will boot that up and check. Can someone please check the PS1 version?... because i don't have that one....
3DO is an odd case, I was 12 or so when it came out in 93/94. I remember wanting one but after seeing Donkey Country and Sonic and Knuckles come out I forgot all about it and I’m pretty sure I would have been very disappointed if I’d owned one at the time. At that time to have missed Donkeys Country or Mortal Kombat 3, NBA jam for anything in 3DO would have been too much imo
It had the curse of mid console generation release; SNES and Genesis were putting out those late console life cycle hits and PS1 / Saturn were on the horizon
@@VideoGameEsoterica I have one now a Japanese Fz-1 with the Mnemo ode so I’ve tried a lot of games and SSF2 is the easily the best port of that generation even more so than the Saturn imo, but without the nostalgia of owning one as a kid a lot of the library is pretty mid but there is something to way it generates its 3d that is really cool and different from everything else and I don’t regret getting one. Now the Jag 😬 I sold it quick no regrets lol
do you have any recommendations for arcade or early console games that give comfy japan vibes? like not wacky stuff just like driving through japan or walking the streets or chill family homes etc. - it's been a while since I was there and I occasionally get a flash of the vibes but I'm sure there must be some games that really drive it home
How convinient that this came out just after Robert Peip announced the end of the N64 core development. Perhaps he can harvest some ideas for a new core from your videos, now that he has some spare time.
Bro don't get me started with The Need For Speed. I played the living crap out of this when i was little! I had it on Sega Saturn, PlayStation, & just 2 years ago i downloaded for my Windows 98 emulator thanks to Retro Arch. 🥰 I eat this game for breakfast 😍😍 But yeah i heard good things about the 3DO I heard that it was absolutely amazing. I never owned one because that crap cost 2 times more than a PS3 😨 What song i would listen to If I was speeding down the highway in 200mph? I would've listened to "When World's Collide" by the Ces Cru. You have to look them up their music is top-tier. ❤
Maybe I was too young at the time, but all I remember about the 3DO was a demo kiosk in a toy store running some random game I can't even remember anything about, just that it sucked lol. Maybe I should give the console another look on an emulator. (It's already 2024 by the way, your copyright at the end still says 2023 😂)
"If you opened this under the tree..." Dude who do you really believe had the actual buying power back then? 🤣 🤣 🤣 You were never there as a late teens and twenty plus aged gamer who was deciding on either continuing the hobby of videogames or quitting it under the possible ridicule from your peers especially back then when it was extremely difficult to even find a female romantic interest who ever even touched a gamepad or new how to play Pac-Man. I actually played The Need for Speed on a REAL Panasonic 3DO in 1994... on the demonstration kiosks set up in certain electronics retail stores and I had the income to "decide" on justifying the purchase for a 3DO... thank goodness for those demo kiosks tho and btw thanks to the arrogant imbecile and belligerent 90s staff at Sega of America management who were derailing the next generation path to the Sega Saturn by playing gate keeping and pushing their own 32X agenda during 1994 which helps The Need for Speed look even more impressive than it actually was because resources being derailed to the 32X or away from Sega Saturn meant that Sega's arcade Virtua Racing would not have a true Sega Saturn version at all made by Sega's Japanese internal teams. 3DO also iirc had built up a lot more game software by December 1994 and in fact the 3DO was selling steadily well in Japan during 1994 and before November 22nd 1994. Note that 3DO launched in Japan in 1994 at ¥50,000 Yen which was roughly around $500 but the U.S.A. launch in late 1993 was at $699.99 USD because it was a marketed as this high end "multimedia" machine with advertising claiming that if you still owned a Nintendo or Sega that you just had "toys" or not a real multimedia machine... That is the label the 3DO built up in the U.S.A. thanks to the 3DO marketing and management staff... they had the ultimate "multimedia" machine... launched after the Philips CD-I which also claimed "multimedia powers" however if you actually tried out the 3DO at a demo kiosk in 1993 and 1994 then chances were that if you still owned a Nintendo and Sega that you would see right through the 3DO and Atari Jaguar hype and not be a stupid collectard who years later claims to love games but owns all the consoles... There clearly do exist bad products and also bad marketing foe average to mediocre products as well as horrible marketing for excellent products (see Sega Saturn and how Sega of America's 90s management destroyed the launch, didn't prepare for a launch and favored the 32X because they created it) The Need for Speed sure was very impressive... and the reviews are correct about it being the game to buy for the 3DO...however if you really read reviews then you were actually purchasing gamer magazines like EGM, Gamepro, etc in the U.S. and Canada and Mexico region... as always assuming you were in your late teens or twenty years plus, had your own job and knew how to save your savings by not blowing it on stupid dumb things... So you have to decide what to purchase but the gamer magazines have been talking about official announcements made in 1993 and already the launches were about to happen and Sony and Sega and 3DO made their lists of upcoming game software as well as specs to compare and company background... Even more so if you knew anything about "Sega" you knew about their arcade games and their official announcements in Japan that unfortunately Sega of America's management staff kept delaying and denying would sell as part of their staff needing to be fired for better staff which never happened... so you would know to not get too impressed by Need for Speed... you would know that Virtua Racing looks and plays in arcades and the Genesis version and you were assuming a Sega Saturn version was coming but also Daytona USA was coming too so there was no need to blow a gasket and money on a 3DO especially if you handled the 3DO gamepad and knew how it felt and why it was a horrible design just like Sega of America's 90s staff Sega Saturn launch gamepad... designed by Sega of America's staff not Japan which added to the horrible perception the Sega Saturn later got in 1995. Also you would have seen screenshots of PlayStation Ridge Racer and wondered how it played... Finally 3DO game publishers like EA knew they had to make a Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn port both of which are just superior experiences to the 3D0 a whole year later plus their higher spec hardware guaranteed 30fps or higher depending on EA's dev team efforts.
I’m not a huge fan of the 3DO, but what really impressed me in this video is the draw distance and LOD implementation. If you look at the buildings, cars, etc. they are all 2-D billboards at a distance and pretty seamlessly shift to full 3-D models. It’s even pretty tough to see that transition line with modern displays. There’s no way you would have noticed back on a CRT.
People are really noticing this. Makes me happy :)
This is much better than fog or worse pop-in. The LOD system looks great for the time!!
Yes no fog. On 3DO. Before PS1 even existed
I was there when the FZ-1 dropped and I picked my system up in early 1995. It's hard to describe just how revolutionary this system and NFS was unless you saw it coming out of the 16-bit era. It was jaw-dropping! Yeah, the PSX and Saturn did 3D gaming better, but they had millions more in R&D behind them that Trip and Matsushita had to work with.
I remember getting up to speed just to crash and watching the replay over and over again. Great job on revisiting this wonderful machine and one of my 2 fave games for the FZ-1...
3DO was so close to success but yes fighting the juggernaut that was Sony and Sega was always going to be an impossible battle
I wish sega would've joined accepted the 3do hardware and update it. Plus, pairing the Madam chip with the vdp2 chip. It would've been more performaning than the saturn hardware.
Fun fact, the 3DO console also existed as a PC add-on card called the "3DO Blaster", which came in a kit with a CD-Rom drive, a controller and the card itself which is the hardware of the console, on a PC card.
Also, RIP Brenan T. Baird, the guy you see in the game's FMVs (1963-2013).
I used to have one. Sold it forever ago. From their partnership with Creative
Brenan T Baird huh?? Thanks for putting a name to the face! Shame he's gone. It was stupid to omit his character from the PS and Saturn translations...
An odd choice for sure
I always wanted one as a kid but I got my fz1 original owner from 1994
Nice
The Duel: Test Drive 2 was one of my favorite early racing games in part because of the effort they made to recreate the real dashboards of the real cars within the game, even going so far as to animate unique gear shifters for each car (the Porsche 959 has a leather shift boot, while the Ferrari F40 has a gated shifter, etc). In a lot of ways, The Need For Speed feels like a spiritual successor to that game. The dashboards look SO good. I find it odd how many later racing games lacked this view option, and while I enjoy a good bumper cam, it's just not quite the same.
What this game does, even better than the Playstation version I'd argue, is convey the sense of blasting down the highway in a classic sports car of the time as fast as it can go. These cars, while amazing when new, weren't exactly the most nimble or easy to drive. Thus you get a serious sense of the visceral nature of actually driving one. And the 3DO version is really nails this the best, as the later ports have more of an arcade feel.
Yes these cars were tanks that drove fast and the game physics totally reflect that with as close to an accurate sensation of handling as you could get back then
Exactly, I too was a fan of the Test Drive franchise (I played it in various systems, from the C64 to the Amiga) and I 100% agree with what you wrote. I could have written your comment myself 😄TNFS even has the same "cop beeper" of Test Drive, if this not a spiritual sequel I don't know what is.
Also, I must say the that FMVs were a nice touch to improve immersion. No matter how good 3D visuals and CGI got, nothing beats real footage of supercars doing maneuvers (with real physics!). It's superior even to today's technology.
P.S. I played the PlayStation version, I'm not sure if 3DO's had the same FMVs.
@@vitomiceli4018 I've played both quite a bit and I'm pretty sure they have the same footage in both versions.
I spent hours on "duel test drive 2" as a kid!
3DO was my go to console from it's launch until well into the Saturns first year.
Need for Speed was mind blowing back then. You felt like you were in a real world.
Where I live there is a road almost identical to the redwood forest stage and I remember driving through that on my way to work everyday just thinking about getting back home later to play NFS.
I just played this a couple nights ago, the 3DO version is still my favorite. Same with Road Rash. They have a magic to them.
Haha you should have just driven LIKE you were playing NFS
I swear the mainstream were in another dimension as the 3DO was light years ahead of anything when it was released and blew me away.
And don’t get me started on the Colecovision as that was the other that I just couldn’t understand why everyone didn’t buy as it was so far ahead of the competition.
People just follow like sheep when there is a better option right in front of their eyes.
Yes it’s odd just how much continued hate 3DO gets. It’s not perfect but to pretend it’s just worthless is people missing out on a ton of fun
The knock on the 3DO back then was the insane price tag. I was there, and they wanted PS3 launch money for it. The whole gaming public balked. When the console failed and it was going out they had great deals, I had a FZ-10 back then, but that was at the very end.
@@Retroloft556 I had it from launch and it was the most breathtaking console ever released. Purchased it from the Panasonic shop.
Another point is that there are many important studios that likely wouldn't exist without the 3DO. Crystal Dynamics got a big boost by having the 3DO pack-in. Naughty Dog was a couple of dudes that Sega, Sony, or Nintendo wouldn't have returned a phone call let alone given a devkit. It's a similar story for Insomniac. Their 3DO projects got them noticed by the big boys and the rest is history. And even "the big boys" owe a debt to the 3DO because it was a gentle introduction to 32-bit cd-rom consoles. While Sony and Sega would throw a badly translated, incomplete hardware manual at the developers and say "you figure it out", the 3DO had a very complete OS and tools to make things like seamless level streaming pretty straightforward. On the PS1 and Saturn, they had to roll their own. It's often why you see inferior 3DO ports (looking at you, Star Fighter 3000) to other platforms and you don't see something like the no visible loads of Killing Time on other non-3do games of the time.
So many awesome devs got their start on 3DO. It was an easy and cheap system to develop for and very well documented
The 3DO isn't trash. It's the worst of the best consoles. It's no where near the CD32 or even Jaguar level of bad.
Some people just love to hate 3DO
Depends if you take the scientific approach, I'd guess the Amiga CD32 probably has the highest scoring rated library out of the lot even if most of them are just slightly enhanced versions.
CD-I just lacks compelling exclusives
I kinda like the version of Micro Machines on the CD-I. I just don't like the framerate.@@VideoGameEsoterica
I need to pick up a CD-I one day. One of the few consoles I don’t have
Guardian War for the 3DO was unique tactical strategy RPG too, BEFORE games like Vandal Hearts and FFT. You should try it. Quite hard though.
I’ve played it but it’s been some years
my dad initially bought the 3DO over the PSX back in the day, and I gotta say this was probably one of his favorites! coming from the SNES and Genesis this was absolutely light-years ahead of what we had back then! I think my favorite part was that smart-assed adversary you raced against, non-stop trash talk in the little cutscenes, haha. gameplay-wise my favorite part was the cockpit view, each car's respective interior modeled perfectly in digital form. so I'm always disappointed when games don't feature that, to me it's part of the immersion that you're actually driving a $50K sports car. and yeah the 3DO had its share of trash-tier stuff but there were a few stand-out games, with both this and the version of road rash among a few others!! as for music sign me up for 'kickstart my heart' by motley crue... it did appear in GT3 but it's definitely the kind of high energy rock that would be on my playlist!
For some reason 3DO dies in peoples minds for the trash games get a console like Wii has 10x more shovelware garbage. Obv Wii has tons of classics but still
my Goldstar 3DO was my precious! and this game.... was my favorite. Have always loved it and miss my 3DO bad.
You can always get one again :)
I agree VGE. I made sure I had to have a 3DO in the collection for sure. Great upload as usual. 8^)
Anthony..
All great collections have a 3DO in them
And then... EA came and starting especially with Underground, turned the series into a casual racer with tuned cars.
Quite the change.
Yeah it went “2000s” fast and furious sadly
Underground and Underground 2 were good games, but didn't really feel like NFS games. Then they went and did the Most Wanted formula over and over again. My favorites in the franchise are Porsche Unleashed, High Stakes, and this one, in that order.
High Stakes was a lot of fun
Two things would have saved 3DO: 25 MHz CPU (which they planned but went with 12.5 for whatever reason), and Panasonic exclusivity (like the Hudson/NEC arrangement w/ PC Engine) which would have seen a more traditional pricing scheme, so the 3DO would have launched around $4-500 like the Saturn and PlayStation did in Japan. Combine that with the 1-2 year head start the 3DO had, it would have fared very well
Yes the licensing of the hardware doomed it for a slow launch
Or Sega accepted trip Hawkins hardware and used it for the sega saturn with a fast arm, nec or powerpc cpu. Including a fast math coprocessor on the Madam chip.
That would have been a great timeline
I played this game in DOS back in the 90’s. Very fun game and I liked the presentation. I think it may have inspired Gran Turismo just a little.
Oh there’s no question this inspired gran Turismo
When I decided to buy a used 3DO after I regretted selling my old unit way back the first game I needed was The Need for Speed!
It’s one of those games that everyone gets when they buy a 3DO haha. Essential reading
**clears throat and lowers voice**
“The Lamborghini Countach…”
A classic design. I want one
Only ever had this on PS1. The first game on there that you could 'feel' the weight of the cars. We used to just blast the Ferrari down the Alpine track. Great memories. I will have a go with the 3DO version on my Emudeck install just as a comparison.
It was Gran Turismo levels of physics realism before that game ever existed
This, Road Rash and Crash & Burn were amazing titles on 3DO, the only “boring” 3DO game I ever got was Jurassic Park 😂
Yeah Jurassic park was not a hit lol
Crash and burn had amazing prerendered graphics that looked better than real time flat/Texture Mapping 3d games of its era. Plus, draw distance was amazing.
Crash and Burn was a great tech showcase
That was the rule back than. If a game had a movie licence, it was a bad game.
Great video! This game, Road Rash, Fifa, Captain Quazar, and SSF2T and PO'd were all I needed for my 3DO back in the 90's.
PO’d might be making an appearance ;)
And, of course: "Killing Time" ;)
Damn right 🤣
I'm 90% convinced the only reason this didn't sell better is due to the price of the console.
They say that it was weak compared to other systems, but the PlayStation has less power than the Saturn and Nintendo 64 and outdid both, in no small part due to the better price.
If developers had supported it more, and they'd sold them at a bit of a loss like everyone else, they could've made a bigger splash in the gaming pool.
Oh that’s 100% why it sold poorly. Had it been $300 day one we’d probably be playing 3DO 5 along with PS5
I know framerate is something people complain about for it, but look at any of the big hitter PS2 titles or like you said, the Nintendo 64 titles, most of them run at
Yes 3DO gets flak for “but the framerate” meanwhile N64 has awesome games that run at like 12-14fps
Yep, this game was incredible when it released! Bought it day one, and played the heck out of it. I remember crashing my car in the game one time and it rolled down a hill for ages (not on its wheels, the entire care was flipping). My friend and I laughed so hard at that moment! Good times.
It had great crash physics. You really felt like you just probably killed the driver in the cab lol
According to RJ Mical , This game was most likely EA having brought the Amiga Test Drive to the 3DO... Just playing the original Test Drive on the Amiga you can tell that this game was heavily derived from it. That is everything from the feel of the cars, courses, the tire sreech, the Fuzz Buster, and the cops... This also included sectioning of the races and even the race stats at the end of each race/section. ... All elements derrived from the Test Drive Amiga game :)
Lotta Amiga DNA in 3DO
@@VideoGameEsoterica Absolutely! Exactly another reason to get and love a 3DO! :) I think doing an Amiga / 3DO history video would great... I am sure you have a ton of information to share on this subject :)
I’ve got a couple “history of 3DO” videos in mind :)
@@VideoGameEsoterica I am looking forward to them! :)
i played this more than anything else on my 3do, it was the total killer app to show my friends.
When it came out nothing like it existed in North America in the home
The 3DO itself is an excellent console, it's just that its marketing and business strategies were pretty awful. If the 3DO company made the hardware in house like everyone else they may have been able to sell the console at a lower cost and if the royalties for making games weren't so low they may have gotten some higher quality games instead of one-off "gems" like Plumbers don't wear ties. Luckily the 3DO did get a decent amount of good games and the hardware itself is very sound... assuming its a Panasonic model and not a Goldstar or Sanyo machine.
As for Need for Speed, a lot of people like to hate this game just as much as they hate the 3DO but I heavily disagree with them. If anything I like the 3DO version way more than the arcade-like ports that went to Saturn and PS1. If I wanted to play an arcade racer I just play Ridge Racer on PlayStation for Daytona USA on the Saturn. Back then, Need for Speed on 3DO was the closest we had to a realistic racer up until Gran Turismo dropped. It also looked stunning for its time. Finally, X-Man just has too much 90's charm for me to hate him at all lol. Love kicking his ass and making him eat his words. 😈
Yes the fact they couldn’t afford to manufacturer their own hardware meant the console had to cost a fortune day 1
VGE, have you taken a look at the D&D games for 3DO? Slayer and Deathkeep. Impressive games.
I have. Always a fun time. Unsure if they will make this series or not
Draw distance is amazing
It’s very impressive for the era
I first saw this game at a friend's house when his older brother was playing the PC version. You're 100% correct that it was utterly mind-blowing and revolutionary for the time. Nobody thought twice about the low framerate. We were too busy picking our jaws off the floor.
These were just the frame rates we got back in the day and we were happy to get them
I personally prefer the original 3do release then it's playstation/saturn/pc "ports" if you can call them that, due to the major shift in gameplay.
I 100% agree
My dad had a friend who had this and Road Rash for 3DO back in 94. I was only 11 but it all seemed so ahead of its time back then.
This and SSF2X are the games that made me buy a 3DO
Two very good reasons to buy one
@After_Burnett 👌
Road Rash, SSF2X, Samurai Showdown, Gex in my case.
Gex is always a classic
You just need to get further into Gex. Past the graveyard. IMO
Some of the Legendary 3DO games:
Road Rash (obviously 😆)
Need For Speed
Crash n Burn
D by Kenji Eno
Lucienne's Quest
Gex
Alone in the Dark
How can you leave off Killing Time?? 😡
I'd add Space Hulk and Return Fire
I love how Space Hulk looks. I can never figure out the gameplay
Icebreaker is the game that no one talks about.
I was lucky enough to trade my MegaDrive and MegaCD combo with around 12 games for a 3DO with NFS, Road Rash, and Theme Park. This was early 1995, in the UK (where traditionally we had to wait months/years for games, due to EU localisation). I had an immense time with these three games. No regrets at all. Everybody from school, even people who weren't my friends, were coming to visit to catch a glimpse.
Solid trade!
I remember me and my brother playing the hell out of this game back when it came out. That rival racer guy that's always trash talking in the cut scenes was pretty funny and classic for the time
That’s like pure 90s fmv right there. The hair. The clothing. The attitude.
I'm pretty sure he swears at one point after beating him in a race. Definitely a "transformers the movie 1986" feel after Spike swears. I miss 90's games.@@VideoGameEsoterica
The 90s were a fun time in gaming because in 1990 you had the launch of the SNES and in 1999 you had Dreamcast. A wild change in a decade
ya, this and Road Rash we're great. There's been a game I can't remember where you fly a helicopter on rails that might family rented back in the 90s. Can't remember what it was though.
Helicopter on rails? Sure you aren’t misremembering Blade Force?
Best port of need for speed. I wish the other ports had simulator mode like the 3do especially the pc dos version.
It’s a bummer they arcade’d it up on PS1 and Saturn
@@VideoGameEsoterica the real driving and simulation were missing on those ports.
Back when EA knew what they were doing
Because Trip had just left and they still were awesome from him
Golden age of ea sports.
It’s in the game 😂
The 3DO rocks. AD&D Slayer, Wolf 3D, Super Street Fighter 2 with that FM Towns soundtrack is insane. My favorite console to play FMV games on too. I need to get one of mine recapped though.
Some straight up classics
I have a 3do AND NFS... Fancy a time trial ? Let's race ! 😅
Haha if only it had network play
I played this on ms-dos at the times but this looks much better 😮
Fun fact. The dos version is one of the first racing games to support force feedback. I don’t know how to get it to work lol.
First saw this in a department store, in a little corner on its own. Really wasn't a gaming store normally.
I had a go on it there and loved it. But didn't get a chance again until I bought it on PC. The DOS version of this is nigh on identical and was also the first taste I had of being able to choose between resolution or frame rate. I didn't even know what frame rate meant back then, but I loved how smooth it looked on chunkier 320x200 pixels 😊
You gotta have that low res chunk
I really wish the Need For Speed series would go back to this kind of gameplay, or even something like Porsche Unleashed.
I do too. It’s gotten too far off course. Pun intended
In technology - One step ahead in innovation. Two steps ahead is a martyr. 3DO was 10 steps ahead, and because of those folks just didn't get it. Also didn't help that the Sega V Nintendo battle was sucking the air out of the room for others to compete.
As for NFS and the framerate, it was fine! I mean Road rash on the Genesis ran at 9 FPS! This was fine!
We were just used to that frame rate back then
Not gonna lie, the cheap ODEs for the FZ-1 has boosted the humble 3DO`s profile in my eyes. Big time. I have 3 now and it might just be my favorite retro console to boot up. The unique flavor of the library and overall quirky nature of the console has aged really well IMO.
People are discovering the 3DO is fun and the internet has been lying to them for years that ir sucked haha
CRX @ 4:33
Don't see as many of those today as I used to about ten years ago. Definitely some cool little cars.
90s cars were a total vibe. I miss my 94 Saab 9000 Aero Hatchback
I walked into this one on PS1 long after Need for Speed II came out so it felt like such a downgrade that it wasn't even worth looking too far into. Today, I go back to it fondly and more blown away by the year it came out than I was the year I first tried it. I've always loved this series. Well, during the lifespan of the PS1 and a little ways into the PS2, at least. Always ahead of their time with such detail and thinking of things you wouldn't even imagine. Such as High Stakes- letting you turn on your headlights, and become the cop. Just insane!
One thing I noticed in Need for Speed III back in the day, at least on two players anyway.. The wheels don't spin. I used to laugh soo hard about that while not understanding anything about technical limitations. I instead thought it was an oversight on their part.
Haha spinning tires took a lot of computational power
An indie developer needs to bring back the 2D cockpit cross country racer like OG NFS here and Test Drive 2. I remember playing the PSX version of this game as a teenager and wishing it had more point to point tracks but still playing it a lot. Road and Track NFS and Resident Evil were the first two games I owned when I bought the PSX in early 96. I had also rented the PSX like 4-5 times in the previous 6 months and enjoyed titles like Assault Rigs/Jumping Flash/Tekken/Wipeout/Twisted Metal. PSX definitely had a wow factor for a good year then out came the Super Mario 64 demo kiosk at EB Games. The 90s was the best time for new video games.
I love a good point to point track. OutRun, Thrill Drive, Cruisn, etc
Im PSX guy and I must admit this footage look pretty good. Any news from Fixel? Everyone is ancious to hear news..
I chatted with him for a few minutes earlier this week. He’s getting things done. He will check in soon I’m sure
@@VideoGameEsoterica I hope he is fine. All those wall of text on "his" reddit makes me feel sick. Its most very civil but if it was me it would not do good for my health. Hope is can cope with this kind of pressure.
Reddit?
@@VideoGameEsoterica sorry discord
Ahh I see. I’m sure he will touch base shortly :)
Hopefully a 3DO core will have good overclocking options. Space Hulk on 3DO is actually better than the PS1/SAT versions. The character sprites all have unique weapons in game but on the other ports they all have the same weapon. There are other downgrades too; I wonder if this is because the 3DO had more RAM? I just wish it had a link mode like the DOS version.
I just wish I could understand Space Hulk. I’ve never cracked that game and figured it out
There are tutorials on TH-cam, It isn't really complex to be honest. :)@@VideoGameEsoterica
Need For Speed is the right title but more for the fact that I would be wanting some. This is more Sunday Afternoon Drive with Grandma. As for the soundtrack, Panama is good but I might go for Montrose and Bad Motor Scooter.
Your grandma out there driving a Countach?
People seems to put 3DO in with the Jaguar, timeline wise for sure, but quality wise 3DO is miles ahead. Took delivery of Strahl / Triad stone again this week, one of my FMV faves.
Ooh fun one to add to the collection
It is also twice as expensive. Where did all that money go into? What exactly is the task of the ARM CPU? T&L ?
It’s because they had to profit off the hardware as it was licensed. Panasonic / Goldstar didn’t see profit from game sales.
@@VideoGameEsoterica Atari did not sell a lot of games for the Jaguar. Most chips on the Jaguar seem to be related to the cartridge slot. I don’t get why they could not save money there. Cheapest 68k, economy RAM, only two flat pack custom chips . No CD or game save card out of the box.
Great game and a banging soundtrack! LOL
I would prob have some high octane techno pumping out personally though :P
Just Van Halen for me
the way terrain in the distance is drawn is very strange
things popping around, in, out
And buildings are sprites when they are far away and most of them are replaced with 3D models as they get closer.
Just draw distance / culling and pop in
A smart move to keep the game moving
It looks like they didn't just stop at using sprites for far-away buildings, but even for the world geometry itself. From memory I don't think I've ever seen that technique before. You can see 2D images get replaced with distant polygons here 4:15 and especially here 4:30
They used it anywhere they could to fool you and keep performance up and they nailed it
Need for Speed on 3DO is a better version than on PSX.
Tell me, please, can the imsaracing M2 game be launched on MAME?
Sadly no only the arcade games work in MAME
Amen. I believe the Saturn and PS1 NFS ports had no "on coming" traffic on their versions?
That I can’t remember?
@@VideoGameEsoterica goodness gracious me, ok, well...i have the Saturn version so i will boot that up and check. Can someone please check the PS1 version?... because i don't have that one....
I’ll take a peek one of these days
3DO is an odd case, I was 12 or so when it came out in 93/94. I remember wanting one but after seeing Donkey Country and Sonic and Knuckles come out I forgot all about it and I’m pretty sure I would have been very disappointed if I’d owned one at the time. At that time to have missed Donkeys Country or Mortal Kombat 3, NBA jam for anything in 3DO would have been too much imo
It had the curse of mid console generation release; SNES and Genesis were putting out those late console life cycle hits and PS1 / Saturn were on the horizon
@@VideoGameEsoterica I have one now a Japanese Fz-1 with the Mnemo ode so I’ve tried a lot of games and SSF2 is the easily the best port of that generation even more so than the Saturn imo, but without the nostalgia of owning one as a kid a lot of the library is pretty mid but there is something to way it generates its 3d that is really cool and different from everything else and I don’t regret getting one. Now the Jag 😬 I sold it quick no regrets lol
The SFII port really is the best outside of the arcade original
do you have any recommendations for arcade or early console games that give comfy japan vibes? like not wacky stuff just like driving through japan or walking the streets or chill family homes etc. - it's been a while since I was there and I occasionally get a flash of the vibes but I'm sure there must be some games that really drive it home
Hmm that’s a hard one. I’ll have to think about that
When we got our 3DO at VGA first thing we played was Dr. Hauzer. It's a fun game. Alone in The Dark type game.
I did a video on it years ago. Such a good game
Hope we get 3DO on MiSTer. As for song I would play while racing? Probably Until It Sleeps by Metallica.
Good choice
Only reason I try to buy 3do is nfs and road rash but never have enough money 😅
Save those quarters up! Worth it
Yeah I know it and second reason I want 3do is because no anti piracy on 3do so I can play any 3do library freely
Yes that s a very nice thing for a long since dead console
One bit of esoterica is the expansion pack for the pc version.
I didn’t realize it had one. Will look into it
How convinient that this came out just after Robert Peip announced the end of the N64 core development. Perhaps he can harvest some ideas for a new core from your videos, now that he has some spare time.
lol trust me I’m always hyping 3DO up to him
Bro don't get me started with The Need For Speed. I played the living crap out of this when i was little! I had it on Sega Saturn, PlayStation, & just 2 years ago i downloaded for my Windows 98 emulator thanks to Retro Arch. 🥰 I eat this game for breakfast 😍😍 But yeah i heard good things about the 3DO I heard that it was absolutely amazing. I never owned one because that crap cost 2 times more than a PS3 😨
What song i would listen to If I was speeding down the highway in 200mph?
I would've listened to "When World's Collide" by the Ces Cru.
You have to look them up their music is top-tier. ❤
With milk? Or is this a oven breakfast kinda deal? 😂
@@VideoGameEsoterica It'll be a full-course breakfast meal 😂😂😂
An appropriate answer!
@@VideoGameEsoterica No problem bro!
This impressed everyone at the time. Would be the last version I'd play nowadays. Just too slow compared to PSX and Saturn.
It’s still my go to personally
I probably would have got one if it wasn't for that ridiculous price tag.
It was NOT cheap
Sadly I think the "host" in the video segments passed a way a few years ago 😢
He did. But he will always be remembered at least by us for the game
Aw3DO what a console, it is difficult to describe how much I want a mister 3DO core, is there any hope in the dev scene that anyone will attempt it?
Some rumblings. I’ll do a video on it soon
@@VideoGameEsotericaThanks looking forward to that!
Me too :) will make it thurs or Fri and schedule from there
Would the MiSTer be powerful enough for a 3DO core? 🤔
I’ll be talking about it soon in a video
3d0 was a great machine, just came at the wrong time when the playstation 1 was here
The curse of mid gen new hardware
Panama wouldn't be a bad choice, I was thinking maybe Megadeth 502 though.
Radar Love would also be appropriate
Maybe I was too young at the time, but all I remember about the 3DO was a demo kiosk in a toy store running some random game I can't even remember anything about, just that it sucked lol. Maybe I should give the console another look on an emulator.
(It's already 2024 by the way, your copyright at the end still says 2023 😂)
Haha that’s when the videos were made. They get their copyright on export. And I work very far ahead on these static series
@@VideoGameEsoterica I respect your work ethic. Always a joy to see a VGE upload!
Plenty more coming. So many more. In all series lol. I like to keep busy
I’d rather play this than Plumbers Don’t Wear Ties on 3do, since I’m a nfs fan.
10/10 would
Nice video 👍🎮
the pto warrior baby
Paid time off lol
This looks like a modern game rendered like a retro game.
I do love me some Need for speed even the bloated modern ones.
Need for Speed never got bad. It just didn’t stay “as good”
There is something special about the old ones
Absolutely
How many 3do videos before Robert gives in??????
Somewhere between 68 and 70 I bet 😂
It's good but it's not like gran turismo
"If you opened this under the tree..."
Dude who do you really believe had the actual buying power back then?
🤣 🤣 🤣
You were never there as a late teens and twenty plus aged gamer who was deciding on either continuing the hobby of videogames or quitting it under the possible ridicule from your peers especially back then when it was extremely difficult to even find a female romantic interest who ever even touched a gamepad or new how to play Pac-Man.
I actually played The Need for Speed on a REAL Panasonic 3DO in 1994... on the demonstration kiosks set up in certain electronics retail stores and I had the income to "decide" on justifying the purchase for a 3DO... thank goodness for those demo kiosks tho and btw thanks to the arrogant imbecile and belligerent 90s staff at Sega of America management who were derailing the next generation path to the Sega Saturn by playing gate keeping and pushing their own 32X agenda during 1994 which helps The Need for Speed look even more impressive than it actually was because resources being derailed to the 32X or away from Sega Saturn meant that Sega's arcade Virtua Racing would not have a true Sega Saturn version at all made by Sega's Japanese internal teams.
3DO also iirc had built up a lot more game software by December 1994 and in fact the 3DO was selling steadily well in Japan during 1994 and before November 22nd 1994.
Note that 3DO launched in Japan in 1994 at ¥50,000 Yen which was roughly around $500 but the U.S.A. launch in late 1993 was at $699.99 USD because it was a marketed as this high end "multimedia" machine with advertising claiming that if you still owned a Nintendo or Sega that you just had "toys" or not a real multimedia machine...
That is the label the 3DO built up in the U.S.A. thanks to the 3DO marketing and management staff... they had the ultimate "multimedia" machine... launched after the Philips CD-I which also claimed "multimedia powers" however if you actually tried out the 3DO at a demo kiosk in 1993 and 1994 then chances were that if you still owned a Nintendo and Sega that you would see right through the 3DO and Atari Jaguar hype and not be a stupid collectard who years later claims to love games but owns all the consoles...
There clearly do exist bad products and also bad marketing foe average to mediocre products as well as horrible marketing for excellent products (see Sega Saturn and how Sega of America's 90s management destroyed the launch, didn't prepare for a launch and favored the 32X because they created it)
The Need for Speed sure was very impressive... and the reviews are correct about it being the game to buy for the 3DO...however if you really read reviews then you were actually purchasing gamer magazines like EGM, Gamepro, etc in the U.S. and Canada and Mexico region... as always assuming you were in your late teens or twenty years plus, had your own job and knew how to save your savings by not blowing it on stupid dumb things...
So you have to decide what to purchase but the gamer magazines have been talking about official announcements made in 1993 and already the launches were about to happen and Sony and Sega and 3DO made their lists of upcoming game software as well as specs to compare and company background...
Even more so if you knew anything about "Sega" you knew about their arcade games and their official announcements in Japan that unfortunately Sega of America's management staff kept delaying and denying would sell as part of their staff needing to be fired for better staff which never happened... so you would know to not get too impressed by Need for Speed... you would know that Virtua Racing looks and plays in arcades and the Genesis version and you were assuming a Sega Saturn version was coming but also Daytona USA was coming too so there was no need to blow a gasket and money on a 3DO especially if you handled the 3DO gamepad and knew how it felt and why it was a horrible design just like Sega of America's 90s staff Sega Saturn launch gamepad... designed by Sega of America's staff not Japan which added to the horrible perception the Sega Saturn later got in 1995.
Also you would have seen screenshots of PlayStation Ridge Racer and wondered how it played...
Finally 3DO game publishers like EA knew they had to make a Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn port both of which are just superior experiences to the 3D0 a whole year later plus their higher spec hardware guaranteed 30fps or higher depending on EA's dev team efforts.
Yeah im really going to buy a 3do to play this janky s**t, no thanks !
Everyone gets their opinion
Lol tell me you're in high school without telling me. You're edgy dude! 🙄