Strider- Officially the Worst port of all time

[Black Tiger]

So much to respond to, so little time.  Wait no, I actually have a lot of time.

#1 - My TurboGrafx-16 is hooked up via component video and I have the ability to get s-video from it as well (which isn't as good as component, of course).  My TV is set up the best it can be and the HUE is correct.  Anyway the color of Strider himself didn't really bother me until the second stage, the desert scene.  Play up to there. It looks vomit-inducing.

#2 - Those Strider comparison pics are all much too skinny.  For the correct aspect ratio, each picture should be sized to 320x240.  The full-sized picture with all four of them should be 640x480.  So they all look wrong to me and definitely not how they appear on my screen.

#4 - Using all of my superpowers, I can probably record Strider into a video using real hardware.  Should I?

Damn, I forgot #3.  Oh wait... I remember!

#3 - ACD Strider is really slow and floaty.  Although removing the flicker and using a better color palette would definitely have helped, it still would have not played like the arcade in that it just felt wrong.

PS - Strider scrolls at 30fps.
PSS - Golden Axe is not a Capcom game.

Here ya go-



My point with the same sized screenshots is it shows how close the ACD was modeled after the arcade. When you look at the screenshots in different resolutions, its harder to tell.

Strider doesn't look nearly as choppy as WBIII SMS, maybe that game uses a weird pacing for its scrolling.

[Joe Redifer]

Wonder Boy 3 is 30fps constant as proven before.  Strider looks exactly the same to me (scrolling wise... color wise Wonder Boy 3 blows ACD Strider away).

[Black Tiger]

Wonder Boy 3 is 30fps constant as proven before.  Strider looks exactly the same to me (scrolling wise... color wise Wonder Boy 3 blows ACD Strider away).

Thats what I said, but scrolling is animation. If you place the frames wrong, or not as well as they should be for the speed of scrolling/animation, you get an unnatural movement.

The frame rate is only the number of frames used within a particular period of time.

[Joe Redifer]

I think I understand what you are saying... as if (for example) a game screen moved two pixels adjacent on one screen update, then three pixels the next update, then back to two, then three etc etc etc.

[Black Tiger]

I think I understand what you are saying... as if (for example) a game screen moved two pixels adjacent on one screen update, then three pixels the next update, then back to two, then three etc etc etc.

Some games move at 60fps, but don't look right. I think that that was what I was really noticing in games(that I mentioned on sega-16) that didn't move smoothely, -which I once suspected to use lower frame rates.

In so-called "classical" animation (handrawn), scrolling(camera moves/panning) is just used in increments of millimetres on the peg bar that holds one layer of drawings. The peg bars look like rulers because of this.

When you look at animation film school projects, the scrolling usually doesn't look right because although they're animating at a consistant rate, the increments are the right size for the speed.

I imagine that most Genesis games look so smoothe, because a lot of developers used some kinds of default hardware scrolling routines or something.

I can see how anytime a developer used a custom scroll in a game, that it wouldn't be quite perfect, since humans aren't perfect(and not all programmers are animators).

This is why you can see the scrolling kind of inch along in a lot of PCE CD cinemas. Its also why so many 32-bit 3D animations looked choppy in games with solid frame rates, because they were animated frame by frame 'by hand'.

[Bonknuts]

30fps scrolling means the screen is not updated/repositioned until every other frame. Joe, you should already know being in video/film production. I didn't notice this choppiness in the PCE-AC port, but I'll have to take a closer look.

 Btw, the gfx of the PCE-AC port might be uncompressed(hint-hint, wink-wink,nudge-nudge) and locating the palette data in the ISO shouldn't be to hard by using save states as a reference/lookup.

[Joe Redifer]

Of course I know that (I'm not sure if your comment was meant to educate me or not).  I explained it with a 60fps Quicktime video awhile back.

[Bonknuts]

Nah, it was more to exclude you. I remember you mention something about a shoot/film shoot and experience with DV/HD camera setups - so I figured you have it covered.

[akamichi]

PCE Strider also has problems with the camera that also makes the scrolling seem weird.  Basically, the camera moves left or right too much when you change directions.  You can test it out just by jumping and pressing left and right repeatedly.  It pretty much happens in all areas where the stage can scroll either left or right (so almost everywhere).

Probably the most noticeable effect of this weirdo scrolling is when you jump in one direction and attack in the opposite direction.

[nodtveidt]

I really hate weird camera handlers. It's like coders back then weren't totally familiar with scroll threshholds.

[Bonknuts]

There's either a hidden mini game or partial of another game inside the data track of Strider. There is also a "visual selector" area and a comic drawn bmp in the iso (warning screen maybe?).

[shubibiman]

Looks like these pictures come from a pachinko game (I couldn't tell which one though).

[Bonknuts]

How do they look like a pachinko game? They look like overworld map and characters + larger characters(last pic) - to me.

[akamichi]

Cool find!  Did you find the supposed 2nd extra stage in there somewhere too?  

Actually, Strider's warning screen is drawn like a comic book page.  I thought it was pretty funny.

[Joe Redifer]

That second picture looks like a King of the Monsters game.