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Thread: OMG a 3DO, LOL!

  1. OMG a 3DO, LOL!

    ""[The 3DO] will be more stimulating to the human mind than any new technology since printing." - Trip Hawkins


    I'm not really going to get into the history of the console, because I'd just be copy/pasting from the first four or five sites google throws at me when doing a search on "3DO". If you're really interested, you know how to find the info. Here are a few interesting facts though.

    A.) The 3DO company was started by Trip Hawkins, the guy who made Electronic Arts the cool place it was before it wasn't cool anymore.

    B.) The tech was created by the same guy who helped create the Amiga and the Lynx.

    C.) There is no region lockout or copy protection. You can play (with a few odd exceptions) any 3DO game on any system.

    D.) The console only had one controller port. Each controller had a port on it so that up to 8 controllers could be daisy chained together. Meaning if you were losing the fight in Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo, you could just unhook the other guys controller if you were player 1. I'm sure I'm not the only asshole who did this upon occasion. The original controllers also had headphone jacks in them. Handy!

    E.) The original idea was that anyone could become a hardware licensee. You pay a fee to The 3DO Company, they hand you the specs, you build your console. This would prove to be A major building block of one of the major faults of the system (PRICE). None of the hardware manufacturers wanted to lower their prices because they needed to make a profit on the hardware.

    F.) Only Panasonic, Goldstar, Sanyo, and Creative Labs produced 3DO hardware. Samsung, AT&T, Scientific Atlanta, and Toshiba were licensees, but never released anything.

    G.) LOL, $700.

    I do enjoy the 3DO a lot, but that may be because I got my first one long after launch. I bought the sexy Panasonic FZ-10 on clearance from Walmart for Fifty Big Dollars. It came bundled with Gex. I also picked up Star Control and Cyberia for $5 a piece. Two out of three ain't bad!
    Here's a few of my favs for the system. I leave some of the more obvious games out for the rest of you to list and wax nostalgic on.


    I'm sure everyone knows this game. For years after the fact, I would play this game every Halloween. Unfortunately, I stopped that tradition. Maybe I should start it up again. I never did find all the scarabs any of the times I played it. Ported to Saturn and PSX, I've read the music was changed, and not necessarily for the better.


    This was the first game of it's ilk that caught my attention. It's not a genre I'm huge into, but every once in a while I get the urge to do some space exploration and fighting. Ported from PC and back again, the original additions to this version aren't a selling point anymore. Still a great game, no matter which version you play.


    I've got to list this as it's the only US release I've never legally owned, though I almost did a few months ago. A guy I know frequents thrift stores and will call me if he sees game stuff I may be interested in. He called and ran off a list of 3DO games. One of the games he mentioned was DPT. While trying my best to sound almost disinterested, I told him to grab a few games, mixing DPT somewhere in the list. He asked if I'd pay $3 a piece (think they were $1, but he deserves a lil something too, right?) and I said sure. Later that day he shows up with all the games EXCEPT DinoPark. I asked, "Wasn't there another game?" With shit eating grin on his face, he replies "I don't know what you're talking about." Eventually he tells me that he looked up all the games I had him pick up and though he couldn't find a copy of DPT on eBay, he did see it listed on a rarity guide as being incredibly rare. So he fucked me out of a really cheap game. Oh well. He did offer to sell it to me for around $100, but I passed, reasoning that he didn't deserve my money and that it would only sit on my shelf and I'll find another someday. He sold it on ebay a couple weeks later for $227.
    So anyhow, the above is from the PC version. The 3DO version featured somewhat improved graphics and streamlined menus.


    Designed by the same cats who made Star Control II! Sometime between being a Seaver and being a Believer, Kirk Cameron found himself portraying the lead in the FMV for this little gem. Mixing parts of Populous and Actraiser, you try to build up various townhips when you're not killing all the hordlings who will eat your crops and cows. Lots of codes were available for this. I never beat it without cheating.


    As much as the concept of this game intrigued me, I never got too far into it. I recall shitty load times and Dennis Hopper. I tried many times over the years to get into it. Never could though. After watching this video, I'm starting to remember why.


    The control wasn't the greatest, but there was just something about this game that brought me back time and time again. Was it the open ended cities you drove around? Was it the great weapon upgrades? The ability to shoot people out the side windows? Sure! But mostly it was the fun of just running people over.


    I never played this in the arcade, so I don't know how it stands in comparison, but being a huge fan of Silpheed on Sega CD, this was right up my alley. Very short, but very fun.


    Gee, the guy who uploaded this sounds familiar... Port of a PC game, I don't know how it compares to the original, but I loved it. Military Madness introduced me into hex strat games, and this was a huge time sink for me.


    I don't think this is all that great, but it was one of the first games I tried to track down for my 3DO. You see, there was this magazine some of you may have heard of called GameFan. In it there was this game called Scavenger 4 for some weird japanese system called Marty. From the few screens I saw, I thought that game looked fucking awesome! I had heard that it was also released on 3DO as Novastorm! I had to have it! I eventually got it, and found it to be about as enjoyable as that other Psygnosis FMV shooter Microcosm. Which is to say, not much at all.


    Certain magazines at the time lamented that if this had come out before the 3DO was all but dead, it could have helped the systems standing in the eyes of the general public. Great game that I love to play, even today.

    So there are some of my favorites or big memories of the 3DO. Feel free to post about yours. There's still so many more great games to go over.
    The D&D games, Battlesport, Alone in the Dark, Cannon Fodder, Captain Quazar, CPU Bach, The American Lasergames gun games, Daedalus Encounter (Tia Carrere!), Gex, Gridders, Guardian War, Icebreaker, Killing Time, Lucienne's Quest, Need for Speed, Psychic Detective, Return Fire, Road Rash, Samurai Showdown, Scramble Cobra, Shockwave, Star Fighter, Super Street Fighter II Turbo, The Wing Commander games,Trip'D, and Wolfenstein 3D.
    I've never really been one for sports, but even I had fun with Fifa, Madden, and Jammit. Then there's the Vivid titles! Those will keep your hands full!
    Last edited by Some Stupid Japanese Name; 28 Sep 2010 at 03:08 PM.


  2. Footage from the demo that originally came with the Panasonic FZ1. Go to the 5:00 mark for the Batman Animated cartoon!

  3. My favorite 3DO games are Road Rash (pony up $400 for the system just to play this), Need for Speed, Star Control 2, Wing Commander 3, Star Fighter, Panzer General and Return Fire.

    I really wanted to like Space Hulk, but I get slaughtered no matter what I do. It was just no fun. Some of the AD&D games were okay, but the bad 3D (polygon warping that induce massive headaches) made me unable to get too far into them. It was too bad, 3DO was ahead of its time but once the price drops to reasonable level, it was quickly superceded by Saturn/PS1.

  4. Commercials!








    JAPANESE!

  5. Quote Originally Posted by Some Stupid Japanese Name View Post
    B.) The tech was created by the same guy who helped create the Amiga and the Lynx.
    Two guys, actually, RJ Mical and Dave Needle. Responsible for some of the most impressive hardware that just didn't have the circumstance going for it. They had a PSP-esque handheld (Red Jade) that that was supposed to come out not long after the GBA, but Sony bought out Ericsson and shitcanned it for the much later PSP.

    The 3DO was a really great piece of kit when it was released, but that just happened to be mid-generation rather than when people were ready to move on. That and the price really destroyed it. Those games looked pretty amazing back then, though. Of course I never got one until many years later (actually just a couple years ago) but I still had fun plowing through the library.

  6. I was going to rep you for this thread but it won't let me. So you'll just have to pretend.
    Quote Originally Posted by Doc Holliday View Post
    K3V is awesome!

  7. I'll pretend I mentioned how much better the 3DO was than that stupid Atari Jaguar thing. That system sucked!

  8. Tempest 2000 > entire 3DO library

  9. Retro systems war threads will never end.

  10. For an Asian, you certainly suck at math.
    Jag Doom >3DO Doom. I'll heartily agree with that statement!

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