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[MrCunningham]

I was always a bit disappointed that the Sega CD never had more racers for it. The system could display up to two 3d flat playing fields as well as produce scaling sprites in hardware. The only real example on that hardware was BC Racers. Would've liked to see Out Run and Out Runners on the hardware. Ah well.

Hardware scaling was something that was uncommon for the 16bit generation of systems. The Atari Lynx and Sega CD were really the only two systems that had built in hardware that could do it. SNES had mode 7 and Super FX chips could produce scaling sprites. The Neo Geo had some limited scaling abilities, but that was arcade hardware.

By the time we got to systems that could produce scaling sprites with ease (32bit systems), develers became more interested in pushing polygons. There were a lot of arcade games that featured hardware scaling sprites that were never ported to home consoles, because the hardware wasn't there to do them justice.

 

[UncleSporky]

I was always a bit disappointed that the Sega CD never had more racers for it. The system could display up to two 3d flat playing fields as well as produce scaling sprites in hardware. The only real example on that hardware was BC Racers.

Wow, this seems like the game I've been waiting the whole thread to see.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjaodRnMzJw

Mode 7, but with lots of pop up elements so it doesn't feel so lifeless...and easy to tell where you are and where you're going. The second race even has a cool headlight effect!

 

[ResidentDante]

I'd nominate Sonic CD's bonus stages as very Mode 7 like too!

 

[Celine]

OK I'd been thinking there was something that did attempt to combine rotating backgrounds with raster hills, and I've found at least one example, the GT Advance games

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UvwiSM5uvA

Another example is Atari Karts for Jaguar, it has hills and scaled sprites on the track at 60 fps:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vbo1xViABIE

Raster was the best solution and far superior on arcade hardware. But at the time any of this mattered, the Genesis and SNES couldn't do Raster justice. So I'd have to say Mode 7 was the superior console choice.

That said, F-Zero and Mario Kart did some cool stuff you wouldn't have been able to do on Raster.

Yeah it depends if we are comparing raster racers on more advanced hardware inside arcade boards to 16 bit consoles "mode 7" racers or raster racers on 16 bit consoles to "mode 7" racers on 16 bit consoles.

 

[Bucket-o-roadkill]

Interesting discussion regarding Street Racer in here, I had it on the SNES then got it on the Saturn years later as I loved it, and wasn't disappointed, it looked fantastic. The lack of 'football mode' was a bummer though.

Imagine my shock when playing the PS1 version at a friends a while after and the graphics were shit. Pretty nice to have the superior port for a change.

Also, didn't the 16bit Mega Drive/Genesis port of Street Racer use raster and the SNES was mode 7? I hated the 16-bit Sega version, awful!!

 

[MrCunningham]

Wow, this seems like the game I've been waiting the whole thread to see.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjaodRnMzJw

Mode 7, but with lots of pop up elements so it doesn't feel so lifeless...and easy to tell where you are and where you're going. The second race even has a cool headlight effect!

That's the PC version of the game, which ran at a smoother framerate than the Sega CD game. BC Racers was released on multiple systems, Sega/Mega CD, 3DO, 32X, and win 9X PC, but it was originally designed for the Sega CD first. The Game was made by Core design (best known for Tomb Raider) and uses their Chuck Rock characters. It sadly only ran at about 20fps on the Sega CD, but was a cool showcase of the 3D mode 7 like playing fields and sprite scaling hardware of the add on. Other versions ran a 30 fps, I think?

Core made quite a few impressive games for the Sega CD that pushed the scaling capabilities.


Heres a 60fps recording of the sega cd game : https://youtu.be/MeaIPtMaIMQ

 

[MrCunningham]

I'd nominate Sonic CD's bonus stages as very Mode 7 like too!

Soul Star, Battlecorps, and Thunderstrike all make good use o the Sega CD'S mode 7 like capabilities as well. All made by Core.

 

[A Black Falcon]

Watching some of this, I'm pretty sure this is the closest you'll get to an FMV game on the SNES. Basically pre-rendered/pre-recorded sections of track repeated in different configurations, a video playing in the background as you move your car left and right.

Yeah, that's probably how it's done. Still though, it's impressive how it actually loads the whole track and not only the section you are on -- you can see not only the track right in front of you, but the game displays all track segments that are within sight, not only the one you're on. Sometimes (when they are close enough, considering the draw distance) you can see other parts of the course in the distance across open space and such.

For another game that used this technique to better effect, check out Toy Story Racing on the GBC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8nLpO-WaUs&feature=youtu.be&t=36

It's all video, but yeah, that game is definitely impressive.

Hard Drivin' was an unreleased prototype on the NES that did something similar, essentially played back frame-by-frame large 3D track elements as the player encountered them: https://youtu.be/TWacLAxHZzk?t=41

That's pretty amazing stuff, I'm not sure if I've seen it before... why wasn't that released, it looks pretty much done!

I was always a bit disappointed that the Sega CD never had more racers for it. The system could display up to two 3d flat playing fields as well as produce scaling sprites in hardware. The only real example on that hardware was BC Racers. Would've liked to see Out Run and Out Runners on the hardware. Ah well.

The gameplay is definitely not my thing, but visually Sega's Beyond the Limit: Formula One World Championship is pretty impressive. It's got rolling 3d terrain and sprite-based environments that makes full use of the SCD's sprite scaling power to make for some pretty impressive stuff for a 4th-gen console game! It's got to be one of the most realistic-looking racing games of the generation. Virtua Racing for the 32X beats it, but not much else. The tracks are apparently very accurate to their real layouts, something no raster games' smooth curves could ever hope to match. Sure the graphics are blocky, but it's about as good as the SCD can probably do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-c5n2qvIU6Y

But as I don't like sim racers, what the game has always made me think is 'if only Sega had used this engine for a more fun racing game too...' Like, how about a kart racer, or something? That would have been awesome... too bad. Still though it's impressive as one of Sega's only titles to actually push the SCD's scaling (and polygon) abilities, and it is a pretty good game if you take the time to learn it.

Hardware scaling was something that was uncommon for the 16bit generation of systems. The Atari Lynx and Sega CD were really the only two systems that had built in hardware that could do it. SNES had mode 7 and Super FX chips could produce scaling sprites. The Neo Geo had some limited scaling abilities, but that was arcade hardware.

It's too bad that there is only one scaler-style racing game on the Neo Geo, and it was a pretty early release... kind of a missed opportunity for something better, really.

By the time we got to systems that could produce scaling sprites with ease (32bit systems), develers became more interested in pushing polygons. There were a lot of arcade games that featured hardware scaling sprites that were never ported to home consoles, because the hardware wasn't there to do them justice.

There are some scaler-style games on the 5th-gen consoles, particularly from Sega, but yeah, a lot of scaler games never got home ports because consoles of the time definitely couldn't handle them, and in the mid '90s or beyond who'd want old games like those?

On the note of 5th-gen scaler games though, I don't have a Jaguar, but the Atari Jaguar-exclusive title Super Burnout is a really fast and impressive-looking scaler game, for anyone who's never seen it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gg-yt5xfA14

 

[Futaleufu]

Batman Returns on the Sega CD had a decent scaler racing/combat mode.

 

[Original Famous Ray]

I was always a bit disappointed that the Sega CD never had more racers for it. The system could display up to two 3d flat playing fields as well as produce scaling sprites in hardware. The only real example on that hardware was BC Racers. Would've liked to see Out Run and Out Runners on the hardware. Ah well.
.

Man...those Batman Returns racing stages made me dream of an Out Run/Out Runners port back in the day.

 

[MrCunningham]

gameplay is definitely not my thing, but visually Sega's Beyond the Limit: Formula One World Championship is pretty impressive. It's got rolling 3d terrain and sprite-based environments that makes full use of the SCD's sprite scaling power to make for some pretty impressive stuff for a 4th-gen console game! It's got to be one of the most realistic-looking racing games of the generation. Virtua Racing for the 32X beats it, but not much else. The tracks are apparently very accurate to their real layouts, something no raster games' smooth curves could ever hope to match. Sure the graphics are blocky, but it's about as good as the SCD can probably do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-c5n2qvIU6Y

But as I don't like sim racers, what the game has always made me think is 'if only Sega had used this engine for a more fun racing game too...' Like, how about a kart racer, or something? That would have been awesome... too bad. Still though it's impressive as one of Sega's only titles to actually push the SCD's scaling (and polygon) abilities, and it is a pretty good game if you take the time to learn it.


It's too bad that there is only one scaler-style racing game on the Neo Geo, and it was a pretty early release... kind of a missed opportunity for something better, really.


There are some scaler-style games on the 5th-gen consoles, particularly from Sega, but yeah, a lot of scaler games never got home ports because consoles of the time definitely couldn't handle them, and in the mid '90s or beyond who'd want old games like those?

On the note of 5th-gen scaler games though, I don't have a Jaguar, but the Atari Jaguar-exclusive title Super Burnout is a really fast and impressive-looking scaler game, for anyone who's never seen it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gg-yt5xfA14

Oh yeah, World Championship made nice use of tha Sega CD hardware too.

The Neo Geo seemed somewhat limited in what it could do with scaling hardware. To my knoledge, it has addition memmory set aside that it could use to grab the image and scale it in and out. But it couldn't do rotation or anything like that. Though the system might still be capable of doing a raster scaling game.

And there were a few interesting sprite scaling racers on the Jaguar, 3DO and Saturn. Even a few early PS1 games as well.But there were still a lot of sprite scaling games left in he arcades.

Man...those Batman Returns racing stages made me dream of an Out Run/Out Runners port back in the day.

There is also another Batman driving game for the Sega CD that is based on Batman:TAS. This one also featured original animated cutscenes as well, they were done by one of the animation groups that also worked on the show;https://youtu.be/IgHdjsyWrFY

The game itself is OK at best, but it does make really impressive use of the Sega CD hardware.

 

[Gen X]

My only experience with Mode 7 was the Super Star Wars games and one of the Contra/Probotector games. Certainly never played a Mario Kart till the N64 (left a bad taste in my mouth) or F-Zero till the GameCube.

 

[Cartman86]

It's rare for this to be the case when you grow up with a tech, but I hate them both. Growing up I couldn't stand Game Boy games, racing games, and isometric PC RPG's because of how they looked and what that did for the gameplay.

 

[AmyS]

Genesis Super Monaco GP was, I think, the first game to receive any 10s from EGM's Review Crew.

The sequel didn't fair so well.

 

[SirCheese]

Genesis Super Monaco GP was, I think, the first game to receive any 10s from EGM's Review Crew.



The sequel didn't fair so well.

It was the first game I bought for my MegaDrive. It was an amazing game for it's time.

 

[MrCunningham]

It was the first game I bought for my MegaDrive. It was an amazing game for it's time.

It was one of the earliest games I purchased for the Genesis as well. It did not look as good as the arcade game, but Super Monaco for the arcade only had one track total. The genesis game had way more content and a great career mode for its day. It was a fantastic racer for the system early in its life. The game was also released on a classics pack for the Segs CD. It is the same verion of the game, but does have updated music tracks and higher quality voce samples.

 

[Phediuk]

Genesis Super Monaco GP was, I think, the first game to receive any 10s from EGM's Review Crew.

Wasn't Ys on Turbo CD the first? Would've been a 1990 issue.