Remember this compilation?
* B.O.B.
* Budokan
* Desert Strike
* Jungle Strike
* Haunting Starring Polterguy
* Mutant League Football
* Road Rash
* Road Rash II
* Road Rash III
* Syndicate (SNES)
* Ultima: The Black Gate (SNES)
* Virtual Pinball
* Wing Commander (SNES)
* Wing Commander: Secret Missions
I picked it up off Amazon for $5 shipped. And I vaguely remembered that they changed the Road Rash soundtracks. I didn't like this idea, given that the Road Rash 3 soundtrack in particular was one of the Genesis's best, but I figured it would at least be some kind of Road Rash-worthy heavy metal. But what they changed them to - it's goddamn elevator music. They took out the hilarious country-specific music tracks of Road Rash 3 and replaced them with the squarest, loungiest crap imaginable. And it kills me, too - why would they need to do that? Were they worried that countries would take offense at heavy metal renditions of their national anthems? Did they lose the files? Blech.
And that's not the only audio problem. If you've played Road Rash 3 for any length of time, you've encountered the car-horn bug: once in a while the game will get stuck playing a car horn even after the car is gone. You pause and unpause and it's fixed. Well, in this (port or emulator?), the car-horn bug gets activated almost every race. And sometimes the pause-unpause trick doesn't work right away. Switching from music to engine noise seems to exacerbate the problem, too. There's only one way to play Road Rash 3 on EA Replay: muted.
The game looks fantastic, though- much better than I ever remember it looking on the Genny or on the PSP through unofficial methods. The draw distance seems further than I remember, and objects seem to be more stable with less flicker. 16x9 actually looks good. It plays very well, and for $5 it's still worth playing today (EA needs to put it out on Live Arcade and Virtual Console). Still, I'm disappointed that they butchered one of the best aspects of one of the best Genesis games.
I also played a fair amount of B.O.B. and Mutant League Football. MLF seems to be a little slower than I remember it, and they've changed at least some graphic resources to show PSP buttons rather than letters. Still plays very well, though it makes me miss the much funnier Mutant League Hockey all the more. B.O.B. I didn't play back in the day (Was it SNES exclusive?) I didn't like the controls at all. It feels like a silly rip-off of the Turrican series. Is it worth sticking with?
I'm looking forward to spending some time with the Strike games and Haunting (which I never did play back then).
Production values on this compilation are nonexistent. Unlockable art is worthless, game info is about a sentence per game, and the options are very limited. Tips and tricks are either cheat codes or stuff that's already obvious (like what audible calls to make to do "Electrocute"). There's no history behind the games, no sense of who made them and why. It's also probably the worst-looking set of menus of any of the PSP's compilations, for what that's worth.
But, hey, it's cheap now and you can use it to legitimize your use of unofficial techniques to yourself.
* B.O.B.
* Budokan
* Desert Strike
* Jungle Strike
* Haunting Starring Polterguy
* Mutant League Football
* Road Rash
* Road Rash II
* Road Rash III
* Syndicate (SNES)
* Ultima: The Black Gate (SNES)
* Virtual Pinball
* Wing Commander (SNES)
* Wing Commander: Secret Missions
I picked it up off Amazon for $5 shipped. And I vaguely remembered that they changed the Road Rash soundtracks. I didn't like this idea, given that the Road Rash 3 soundtrack in particular was one of the Genesis's best, but I figured it would at least be some kind of Road Rash-worthy heavy metal. But what they changed them to - it's goddamn elevator music. They took out the hilarious country-specific music tracks of Road Rash 3 and replaced them with the squarest, loungiest crap imaginable. And it kills me, too - why would they need to do that? Were they worried that countries would take offense at heavy metal renditions of their national anthems? Did they lose the files? Blech.
And that's not the only audio problem. If you've played Road Rash 3 for any length of time, you've encountered the car-horn bug: once in a while the game will get stuck playing a car horn even after the car is gone. You pause and unpause and it's fixed. Well, in this (port or emulator?), the car-horn bug gets activated almost every race. And sometimes the pause-unpause trick doesn't work right away. Switching from music to engine noise seems to exacerbate the problem, too. There's only one way to play Road Rash 3 on EA Replay: muted.
The game looks fantastic, though- much better than I ever remember it looking on the Genny or on the PSP through unofficial methods. The draw distance seems further than I remember, and objects seem to be more stable with less flicker. 16x9 actually looks good. It plays very well, and for $5 it's still worth playing today (EA needs to put it out on Live Arcade and Virtual Console). Still, I'm disappointed that they butchered one of the best aspects of one of the best Genesis games.
I also played a fair amount of B.O.B. and Mutant League Football. MLF seems to be a little slower than I remember it, and they've changed at least some graphic resources to show PSP buttons rather than letters. Still plays very well, though it makes me miss the much funnier Mutant League Hockey all the more. B.O.B. I didn't play back in the day (Was it SNES exclusive?) I didn't like the controls at all. It feels like a silly rip-off of the Turrican series. Is it worth sticking with?
I'm looking forward to spending some time with the Strike games and Haunting (which I never did play back then).
Production values on this compilation are nonexistent. Unlockable art is worthless, game info is about a sentence per game, and the options are very limited. Tips and tricks are either cheat codes or stuff that's already obvious (like what audible calls to make to do "Electrocute"). There's no history behind the games, no sense of who made them and why. It's also probably the worst-looking set of menus of any of the PSP's compilations, for what that's worth.
But, hey, it's cheap now and you can use it to legitimize your use of unofficial techniques to yourself.