Favorite game babes.

[Kitsunexus]

Sega did that themselves. Jeezus there was a lot of FMV crap for the SCD. It's the primary reason I think the TGCD is better; Even though the SCD was probably more 'powerful' than the TGCD, that extra power was wasted in most games.

Good point, it's the system that made the world cringe at "multimedia".

Was the SEGA CD really all that more powerful than the TG-CD?  No. It just had a more powerful base system to launch onto. All the "3D" games that came out for SEGA CD either used streaming video specifically designed to look like a game console was generating it (See Silpheed) or it used voxels (see AH-3 Thunderstrike) a pseudo-polygon effect that the stock Genesis was already capable of employing.

It did add an additional PCM sound channel, but that's not what I would consider "power".

[GUTS]

If you want to see a pretty impressive Sega CD game, try SoulStar.  That one throws around some really nice scaling effects and tons of color.  Actually nearly all of Core's Sega CD games were very impressive graphically- Battle Corps and ThunderStrike also had some amazing graphics for the time that there's no way a stock Genesis could have recreated.

There were a few games with real polygons like Racing Aces and Stellar Fire, but they weren't any more impressive than what the regular Genesis could do.

[Hobo Xiphas]

Ah-ha, I forgot about that one.  Anyway, I refuse to call Night Trap a 'game' - it's soul sucking shit! 

Night Trap is absolutely hilarious!  I can't see how anyone can hate such a masterpiece!  It is worth it just for the theme song of the game alone!

[Kitsunexus]

"Your love is like a Night Trap..."     

[Joe Redifer]

Was the SEGA CD really all that more powerful than the TG-CD?  No.

Oh yes it was.  Let's look at what it added to the stock Genesis:

12.5 MHz 68000 CPU
PCM audio chip - 8 channels (not 1).
ASIC chip for hardware-generated scaling and rotation of both sprites and backgrounds.
6 megabits o' RAM (Turbo CD was 2 megabits o' RAM).

Thunderstrike used scaling and rotation of sprites and a background layer (all simultaneously).  The Genesis could not do this on its own at this magnitude unless it was running at 15 frames per minute.  Other Sega CD games that used scaling and rotation are the aforementioned Soul Star, Batman Returns (better scaling than the Neo Geo was capable of), Battlecorpse, The Adventures of Batman and Robin, the bonus rounds in Sonic CD and maybe a couple of others.  I agree that Silpheed was FMV generated to look like polygons.

The additional 8 channels of PCM sounded great.  They were far more powerful than the ADPCM chip in the Turbo CD.  They also sounded much better than the Genesis PCM.  Plug in the Sega Classics disc on the Sega CD and listen to the voices in Streets of Rage 1.  Now plug in the cartridge and listen to those same voices.  Quite a bit of difference in quality!

I fully agree that the Sega CD was not used properly and instead was home to waaaaaay too many FMV games (though Road Avenger kicks all ass).  It was also very difficult to program for... look at the mess that is Joe Montana Football CD.

[Kitsunexus]

Big ass post where Kitsunexus got his ass handed to him by means of techspecs...

Well you're right about all that other stuff, but the Sega CD PCM didn't sound great...NOTHING compared to a SNES, although that's mainly because it wasn't used creatively. At least I don't remember it sounding very good.

32X was marginally better, but all in all SEGA home PCM never really sounded that good to me until the Saturn hit.

Arcade, however, is a VERY different story.

[Joe Redifer]

Sega CD PCM utterly RAPED the 32X PWM sound chip and was equal to if not a bit better than the SNES sound chip (I think the SNES was limited to 24Khz while the Sega CD PCM went up to 32Khz... but I'm not entirely sure).  A good example of Sega CD PCM vs 32X PWM can be heard in the game "Fahrenheit".  The 32X version sounds awful in comparison.  Later 32X CD games used the Sega CD PCM sound hardware for the sound.  The SNES relied on extreme amounts of reverb to make it sound "powerful" and cleaner than it really was.  There are many great SNES soundtracks, but most voices sound muffled (little to no high frequencies).  Yes, it can (and did) do some great voices, like in Axelay (still had some f*cking reverb, though).  The Sega CD did not have reverb, and for that I am thankful because it was extremely overused on the SNES.  Anyway reverb is not a measure of the quality of a sound chip since it is just a filter applied after the sound is made.

[Kitsunexus]

Yeah I know SNES has too much reverb, it just seems like the chip was used more creatively than on SEGA CD/32X...

[Joe Redifer]

Well it had to have been, since they needed it for music and whatnot.  The Sega CD PCM was used mostly for sound effects and not music.   Sometimes it has been used for music, like in Sonic CD and a few others.  Also, there are A LOT more games for the SNES than the Sega CD, thus more of a chance to find good uses for the chip.

[FM-77]

Sega CD PCM utterly RAPED the 32X PWM sound chip and was equal to if not a bit better than the SNES sound chip (I think the SNES was limited to 24Khz while the Sega CD PCM went up to 32Khz... but I'm not entirely sure).

SNES = 32000 Hz, not 24000.

[Joe Redifer]

OK

[BonkThis]

sorry bout that photo goof, I fixed it on the previous page for those not familiar with the infamous dana plato 

[Kitsunexus]

 Sometimes it has been used for music, like in Sonic CD and a few others. 

OK, I KNOW that game is Redbook...

[Joe Redifer]

Not the PAST levels.

[Kitsunexus]

Not the PAST levels.

The Past is PCM? Weird...