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Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: ElPolloDiabl on April 16, 2010, 04:26:12 PM
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I like the old 256 color and 32 color games, they have a certain warmth to them. Plus the hand drawn graphics is always nice to look at.
In 3D, whats the deal with those awful jagged lines even on higher resolutions I still see them, it makes the game look toyish. Considering the graphics power we have nowadays I shouldn't be let down in the graphics department.
What do you think?
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I like the old 256 color and 32 color games, they have a certain warmth to them. Plus the hand drawn graphics is always nice to look at.
Hand drawn graphics are nice for 2D.
In 3D, whats the deal with those awful jagged lines even on higher resolutions I still see them, it makes the game look toyish. Considering the graphics power we have nowadays I shouldn't be let down in the graphics department.
What do you think?
Use whatever advanced graphics tweaking tool that came with your card and:
1) Increase your fullscreen antialiasing settings to get rid of polygonal edge jaggies.
2) Use supersampling rather than multisampling for edge antialiasing
3) Use supersampling antialiasing for transparent texel edges
Finally, I think you need to install the absolute highest definition texture packs you can find for your games if you don't like the fact that at staring at a textured surface from point blank range reveals the texel edges.
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Y'know those jagged edges/large squares you see when you're running a retro game on a large tv/monitor? They're the same thing, aliasing. If you're running a game at high enough resolution then they disappear, or you can apply expensive screen space/framebuffer anti-aliasing techniques to smooth them out, but they take post-processing/rendering power.
The Xbox360 version of our last game doesn't have them (as noticeable anyway) as the PS3 version because we could afford to crank up the Xbox360's anti-aliasing whereas on the PS3 we didn't have that option due to how close we were to our 60fps target and the X360s better hardware support for it.
cest la vie.
Andy
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I favor 2D games over 3D any time.
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I too like 2D graphics, they have a lot of work in the design and color area. As animator, make all drawings have certain magic.
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Same 2D ftw.
Thats why I play http://www.dofus.com (http://www.dofus.com)
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Yea, remember Superfrog or Monkey Island? Would never ever forget these brilliant games and one main reason is truly tasteful graphics!
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I like 3D when it actually improves gameplay. Sadly it seems a mantra now that games must be 3D even if it doesn't add anything useful
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I like 3D when it actually improves gameplay. Sadly it seems a mantra now that games must be 3D even if it doesn't add anything useful
That's true. It's a pity too because modern 3D hardware is capable of very flexible 2D graphics rendering.
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I prefer the older 2D games...but maybe that's because times were more exciting back then. Nothing has excited me about gaming really since the 32bit era was superseeded, well, appart from the Wii, and that was because it brought someting completley new to the table. It will be interesting to see where the next gen machines go....but I digress.
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That's true. It's a pity too because modern 3D hardware is capable of very flexible 2D graphics rendering.
there was one RPG I played on the PS 2 recently. Forgot the title but when you walked around outside the combat maps, the backgrounds were in 2D and were absolutely GORGEOUS
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I hope this is not the wrong place for this. I still would love to have a NeoGeo.
You still can get their titles for other systems.
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2D rocks and I'm in the camp that just doesn't care about modern systems and 3D too.
The Neo Geo is an incredible gaming experience. I've had several throughout the years (arcade MVS machines as well). They sure maximized the processing power in that puppy. There's even a 68000 in it IIRC. Both Baseball Stars, League Bowling, Last Resort, Metal Slug, King of Monsters, Umm... I'll just stop there. There's waaay too many great games for it, although you can have all those generic fighters they kept pumping out in the mid 90's. Yuck.
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we're not worthy we're not worthy
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Is there a reason this has to be an either/or type thing? Personally I love hand-pixelled 2D graphics in games, but I equally enjoy some of the phenomenal detail that has found it's way into modern 3D offerings too. Remember that many of the textures used in these titles have also been created by hand by talented artists.
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Is there a reason this has to be an either/or type thing?
Well, the thread is about 'retro' gaming and 3D pretty much qualifies itself right there, so yeah.... lol
I do agree that there are some 3D landscapes and characters that are pretty damn impressive. But when you spend all or most your energy on creating that type of eye candy, what often takes a hit is the actually gameplay. Poor 3D camera angles are very common still too, but not as bad as they were in the late 90's. Is modern gaming as compelling as retro? Not in my world. And not in most peoples that subscribe to classic gaming forums.
Oh and what's with that exaggerated chest heaving thing all about in modern games? That's as stupid looking as it is disturbing. lol Just stand still already, you big brute! :lol:
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Is there a reason this has to be an either/or type thing? Personally I love hand-pixelled 2D graphics in games, but I equally enjoy some of the phenomenal detail that has found it's way into modern 3D offerings too. Remember that many of the textures used in these titles have also been created by hand by talented artists.
I'm not knocking modern artists, I'm just saying older titles seem to have more warmth.
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Well, the thread is about 'retro' gaming and 3D pretty much qualifies itself right there, so yeah.... lol
I do agree that there are some 3D landscapes and characters that are pretty damn impressive. But when you spend all or most your energy on creating that type of eye candy, what often takes a hit is the actually gameplay. Poor 3D camera angles are very common still too, but not as bad as they were in the late 90's. Is modern gaming as compelling as retro? Not in my world. And not in most peoples that subscribe to classic gaming forums.
Oh and what's with that exaggerated chest heaving thing all about in modern games? That's as stupid looking as it is disturbing. lol Just stand still already, you big brute! :lol:
In 10 years, will people still talk about Call of Duty or Crysis ? Propably not.
People are still talking about games like XCOM today.
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The only game genre I think that was really improved with 3D is racing games. I find I have more fun with a true 3D racing game than a fake 3D one most of the time, although 3D racing games aren't only modern. Stunt Car Racer is still the most fun racing game I have ever played, it's fully 3D but it's as retro as you can get. All they'd need is to remake the game with the exact same playability but with nicer, modern graphics and I think it'd be an instant hit (add online multiplayer too perhaps).
Apart from that though, I'm much more a fan of retro games. I really love looking at cell-based animation and pixel art, especially when it's been designed for the palette being used, and not just colour-reduced and remapped like most Amiga adventure games (although when they touched them up by hand like in Kings Quest VI it shows they cared more and the results are better). I don't like 2D games that are made up of vectors and simple hand-drawn characters that are scanned in and moved around the screen and rotated in real time. These things look like South Park characters or puppets or something.
Unfortunately the main reason we see less good 2D pixelled artwork in games these days is because it's a lot more time-consuming than regular game art (especially when a limited palette is involved) and it's more expensive to pay the artists, who generally have more experience in the industry and have been around since the days when pixel art was used more. There are still a lot of good pixel artists around, and plenty of younger people are still interested in the art form, so provided someone can get a full game finished and not give up half way through, we might see some new games in the future using that classic, intricate pixel art once again.
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Gee, I'm behind the times - the last 'modern' video games I played were Tekken 3, OddWorld and Spiro the Dragon on the PS...
And that was many years ago...
Have they improved much since then? :-)
Mike.
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Braid could easily be done on the Amiga and the colour cycling effects would make great use of the copper.
A very 2D game in a 3D "me too" world.
Would love to see Peggle ported to the Amiga as well.......wasted so many hours on that game!
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Dont get me wrong I like retro gaming, I go back as far as BBS Door games. But to say there are no good modern/recent 2D platforms isn't correct.
http://maxandthemagicmarker.com/
Have been playing this alot on my PC, it's a fantastic game and very nice to look at and very addictive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGFo5m5anVE
The other awesome game of last year on the PS3 was little big planet, not really a 2d platform game but still fantastic http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcp6G4JQEpc
Other fav's of mine are earth worm jim (I'm nuuuude!) and of course from the Amiga Shadow of the beast.
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I mostly prefer 2D games and I'm huge fan of good pixeling, but of course there's place for 3D in simulators (flight, racing, etc). But what I really hate is the overwhelming use of 3D in today's platformers. I just can't stand those bad camera angles and difficulties to estimate directions properly etc. I'm more happy to play good old Amiga games any time. And what I really would like to see today on modern equipment is good top down 2D racing games... like ATR, Nitro, SuperCars2 etc with modern network options etc, but unfortunately everything released is the same boring clones with 3D all the time nowadays.
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I suppose cinematics can draw you in, but better is attention to detail in the game environment. Who needs Resident Evil when we had Dungeon Master giving you chills?
FPSs are usually the worst example because you can go in for closer inspections and they're usually all function.
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Flight sims too. :) Texture-mapped, well-lighted models and scenes as opposite to retro wireframe/flat polygon engines of the past:
http://pc.ign.com/objects/042/042775.html
http://simhq.com/_air13/air_439d.html
http://pc.ign.com/articles/100/1002055p1.html
http://www.thunder-works.com/news.htm
And of course, Space Sims:
http://pc.ign.com/articles/815/815449p1.html
http://www.infinity-universe.com
Although I remember foundly playing Elite 2: Frontier on Amiga on the flat poligon graphics (cutting edge in 1993 for the game's necessity/massive procedural universe) but still leaving up for a lot of imagination to fill the blanks in the graphical department.
But apart from racing, flight and spacey sims, I'd prefer 2D as well. Specially fighting games and platformers! And of course the shmups. Although one of my favourite shmups ever is 3D (Ikaruga) although - here's the deal - *it plays like 2D*.
The only game genre I think that was really improved with 3D is racing games. I find I have more fun with a true 3D racing game than a fake 3D one most of the time, although 3D racing games aren't only modern. Stunt Car Racer is still the most fun racing game I have ever played, it's fully 3D but it's as retro as you can get. All they'd need is to remake the game with the exact same playability but with nicer, modern graphics and I think it'd be an instant hit (add online multiplayer too perhaps).
Apart from that though, I'm much more a fan of retro games. I really love looking at cell-based animation and pixel art, especially when it's been designed for the palette being used, and not just colour-reduced and remapped like most Amiga adventure games (although when they touched them up by hand like in Kings Quest VI it shows they cared more and the results are better). I don't like 2D games that are made up of vectors and simple hand-drawn characters that are scanned in and moved around the screen and rotated in real time. These things look like South Park characters or puppets or something.
Unfortunately the main reason we see less good 2D pixelled artwork in games these days is because it's a lot more time-consuming than regular game art (especially when a limited palette is involved) and it's more expensive to pay the artists, who generally have more experience in the industry and have been around since the days when pixel art was used more. There are still a lot of good pixel artists around, and plenty of younger people are still interested in the art form, so provided someone can get a full game finished and not give up half way through, we might see some new games in the future using that classic, intricate pixel art once again.
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Well, the thread is about 'retro' gaming and 3D pretty much qualifies itself right there, so yeah.... lol
I thought the thread was intended to be a "which is better and why?" question, otherwise why ask what we think at the end of a post praising 2D and criticising 3D?
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I'm a bit curious, actually. I've experimented with a 2D tiling stuff in the past that used 3D hardware to render tiles, in 32-bit depth with simple (read gouraud) lighting effects and antialiased "sprites" (32-bit images moving over the top). I can easily imagine some retro style games doing that on modern hardware with pixel-shaded sprites and tiles for highly realistic lighting effects.
Where does that sit in the spectrum of 2D versus 3D ?
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I mostly prefer 2D games and I'm huge fan of good pixeling, but of course there's place for 3D in simulators (flight, racing, etc). But what I really hate is the overwhelming use of 3D in today's platformers. I just can't stand those bad camera angles and difficulties to estimate directions properly etc. I'm more happy to play good old Amiga games any time. And what I really would like to see today on modern equipment is good top down 2D racing games... like ATR, Nitro, SuperCars2 etc with modern network options etc, but unfortunately everything released is the same boring clones with 3D all the time nowadays.
Dunno. I still have fun playing Mario 64, Crash Bandicoot.
And I love 3D racing games, especially the futuristic ones like F-Zero GX-IMO THE best racing experience on any platform, ever. Played in 16:9 480p widescreen, it looks amazing with its 60fps frame rate, fantastic background artwork.
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The only game genre I think that was really improved with 3D is racing games. I find I have more fun with a true 3D racing game than a fake 3D one most of the time, although 3D racing games aren't only modern. Stunt Car Racer is still the most fun racing game I have ever played, it's fully 3D but it's as retro as you can get. All they'd need is to remake the game with the exact same playability but with nicer, modern graphics and I think it'd be an instant hit (add online multiplayer too perhaps).
Totally agree. When "bashing" 3D, I often forget the racing genre. Excellent points and I'd bet almost all us would be in agreement: 3D racers rock.
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I've always wanted to try out this theoretical real-time antialiasing trick with Amigas. You have the game set in EHB mode, all your BOBs and background graphics would use the first 32 colours, and all the BOBs have a EHB mask behind them which slightly overlaps the BOB its under (the pixel artist would determine the best mask). This would give the illusion of an outline around the characters which is semi-transparent and would help blur jagged edges, and could also be used for shadows below the characters. Or shadow character bad guys!
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The Neo Geo is an incredible gaming experience. I've had several throughout the years (arcade MVS machines as well). They sure maximized the processing power in that puppy. There's even a 68000 in it IIRC. Both Baseball Stars, League Bowling, Last Resort, Metal Slug, King of Monsters, Umm... I'll just stop there. There's waaay too many great games for it, although you can have all those generic fighters they kept pumping out in the mid 90's. Yuck.
Dual 12MHz 68000, IIRC. And I envy your experience of owning NeoGeo MVS. I absolutely loved "Last Resort" and would play the hell out of that game at the local diner. Best part about the MVS was the headphone jack. I could immerse myself in the game and not bother patrons. It was like stepping out of another world when I finally finished.
As for 3D, I think the best and most exciting 3D games I ever played were "Looney Tunes Racing" on the Dreamcast, "CyberSled" (arcade and Playstation,) and "Crimson Skies" on the X-Box. I really enjoy realistic, first-person games -- not so much shooters. I played one of the Star Wars release in which you get to fly a TIE Fighter... that was pretty neat, too.
But I have a good bit of disdain for some of the 3D games out there now which seem to be just 3D and no real meat. Someone else mentioned that the 3D does not add to a lot of games, and I have to agree. I want substance in 3D. Unfortunately, a lot of 3D games I have played are nothing more than textured 2D characters superimposed into a 3D space. Really sucky.
Unfortunately (or perhaps not) I cannot partake of "modern" consoles because the screen modes trigger headaches in very short order. Displays which output 120Hz and above delay the inevitable, and a friend has a unit with software interpolation which reduces the effects of motion which also seems to help, but eventually the piercing pain hits me, and in a bad way, too, accompanied by motion-sick-like queasiness.
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I've always wanted to try out this theoretical real-time antialiasing trick with Amigas. You have the game set in EHB mode, all your BOBs and background graphics would use the first 32 colours, and all the BOBs have a EHB mask behind them which slightly overlaps the BOB its under (the pixel artist would determine the best mask). This would give the illusion of an outline around the characters which is semi-transparent and would help blur jagged edges, and could also be used for shadows below the characters. Or shadow character bad guys!
I'm not sure that'd actually work. The second 32 colours are always going to be the same as the first 32, just half as bright.
For antialiasing, you need to be able to blend foreground and background pixel colours together in a ratio proportional to how much of the pixel the foreground occupies using the blend equation below
pixelColour = fgAlpha*fgColour + (1.0-fgAlpha)*bgColour
where fgAlpha is the alpha channel value of the foreground for that pixel (in the scale 0-1, where 0 is completely transparent).
The alpha channel is where the antialiasing comes in. If you imagine a perfect 45 degree diagonal edge that you were antialiasing, it might cut a pixel perfectly in half and as such, the pixel at that point would have an alpha channel of 0.5.
What EHB ought to be good for, however, is realtime shadows.
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Same 2D ftw.
Thats why I play http://www.dofus.com (http://www.dofus.com)
What kind of game is it, mmrpg ?
Notice however that the gfx (most of the environment, save the chars maybe) looks 3d modeled and orthographically rendered.
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For what I'm thinking of EHB would work fine. The edges of the characters in my game are all black for example, but if they were EHB instead of black they'd help the edges of the characters blend in better. I have played around a lot with the concept in Personal Paint and it actually looks pretty nice, I wish I could use the effect in my game so the characters didn't have such jagged edges, especially when they're in front of lighter coloured backgrounds.
I'm fully aware it's not REAL antialiasing, doesn't perform the same action, and can't be applied to anything other than the concept I've already toyed with, but for softening the dark edges of some characters it looks better to have a pixel of darker background colour than black.
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I'm fully aware it's not REAL antialiasing, doesn't perform the same action, and can't be applied to anything other than the concept I've already toyed with, but for softening the dark edges of some characters it looks better to have a pixel of darker background colour than black.
It's still a quick and dirty form of anti-aliasing. It's not going to be as high of quality but it's going to be a lot faster on the 68020 and 68030 where multiplication is slow. What counts is how it looks. I always wondered why EHB wasn't used more. If the colors are chosen correctly it does pretty much double the number of colors.
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What kind of game is it, mmrpg ?
Hey Einstein, don't you know about Wikipedia? Sorry it sounded cool :).
mmorpg = Massively multiplayer online role-playing game
so...
mmrpg = Massively multiplayer role-playing game?
I guess there aren't enough Amigans online for the former.
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Hey Einstein, don't you know about Wikipedia? Sorry it sounded cool :).
mmorpg = Massively multiplayer online role-playing game
so...
mmrpg = Massively multiplayer role-playing game?
No problem. mmrpg, mmorpg, mmsrpg, smsrpg... I don't know, I have never touched any, ever. I consider them a Massive Waste of Time.
I guess there aren't enough Amigans online for the former.
I'm neither Amigan nor mmorpg fan :(
But Ich bin Einstein :)
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I usually prefer retro style games more, but that's more because the majority of big name games are pretty similar, and have been for a few years now. There's so much money required to make big name titles these days very few people seem willing to take a gamble and develop something different than the usual big sellers (parallels hollywood here). Really though I just like good games, if a game works/is good Im happy, I dont care if its 2d or 3d, retro or new. In regards to the idea that audiovisuals take preference to gameplay these days though I'd have to disagree,... typically a modern game has quite a large development team, the people doing the graphics are different people than those doing the programming, who are often different people to those that are doing the game design. I have to disagree about racing games too,... I love the old style sega sprite based racers in the arcades (turbo outrun in the arcades is one of my fav. games)... just a shame that the amiga's efforts are mostly pretty crappy (lotus is ok, if not great), even the c64 has better sprite based racers.
Just my 2 cents
p.s. There's lots of good new homebrew/indie retro style games out there. I even found a website dedicated to remakes of old classic amiga games :)
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well, part of it too is that it costs millions of dollars to create a game these days.
So unless you have a "big name" developer who can call the shots, companies are going to churn out "safe bets". A generic space marine FPS will sell for sure on the xbox so thats a safe bet. A game like Lemmings (to use an old example).. its a crap shoot
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For what I'm thinking of EHB would work fine. The edges of the characters in my game are all black for example, but if they were EHB instead of black they'd help the edges of the characters blend in better. I have played around a lot with the concept in Personal Paint and it actually looks pretty nice, I wish I could use the effect in my game so the characters didn't have such jagged edges, especially when they're in front of lighter coloured backgrounds.
I'm fully aware it's not REAL antialiasing, doesn't perform the same action, and can't be applied to anything other than the concept I've already toyed with, but for softening the dark edges of some characters it looks better to have a pixel of darker background colour than black.
Ah, you mean you'd be using the 50% brightness shades to smooth the transition from your sprite to a black edge? Yep, I can see how that works.
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Yeah, like that!
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I'm a bit curious, actually. I've experimented with a 2D tiling stuff in the past that used 3D hardware to render tiles, in 32-bit depth with simple (read gouraud) lighting effects and antialiased "sprites" (32-bit images moving over the top). I can easily imagine some retro style games doing that on modern hardware with pixel-shaded sprites and tiles for highly realistic lighting effects.
Where does that sit in the spectrum of 2D versus 3D ?
Have you ever try Hurrican ?
http://turrican.gamevoice.de/hurrican_site/
To me, this is how 2D games should use modern graphics capabilities.
Regards,
Frederic
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Have you ever try Hurrican ?
http://turrican.gamevoice.de/hurrican_site/
To me, this is how 2D games should use modern graphics capabilities.
Regards,
Frederic
Now that's what I'm talking about!
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Now that's what I'm talking about!
Yes, Hurrican looks very good!
also check out Trine, might be the best 2D platform 3D game ever...
http://trine-thegame.com/site/
also
http://www.braid-game.com/
I have never played Little Big Planet, but that may be worth looking into as well.
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What kind of game is it, mmrpg ?
Notice however that the gfx (most of the environment, save the chars maybe) looks 3d modeled and orthographically rendered.
Yeah its a mmorpg. Yeah it runs in Flash so can be played on a range of platforms including my trusty iMac. Well having said that up until recently it ran through Adobe's Standalone Flashplayer in AS2, but in the last few weeks they released an entirely coded update in AS3 which requires Adobe Air to run so no chance I'll be able to play it if I buy a X1000 which I may do if the price is right. :-/
Anyway I digress... so yes it orthographically rendered. You can zoom into the characters at will and they won't pixelate. But some static features (predominately the scenery) are 2D bitmaps so they will pixelate.
So a great mix of 2D and 3D which is one reason why I love it - the other big reason is that is turn-based which is extremely rare for a modern-day mmorpg.
It reminds me in many ways of the early rpgs by SSI (westwood studios?) AD&D-style games like Champions of Krynn and Death Knights of Krynn.
There are a series of classes, warriors, healers, those that bend time, those are adept in shields, amongst other things and the class I choose - treasure hunter.
The game engine indeed harks back to the days of Champions of Krynn, you have a set period of time to take your turn, you have AP (action points) and MP (movement points) that you can use to cast and move.
You fight monsters and the bit I like - PvP. You can fight against and with other players.
As you can tell I love this game!
Edit: Einstein, a lot of MMORPGs are a waste of time - especially the WoW varieties as I don't like FPSs as they require little or no strategy just who can click the quickest.
Dofus (pronounced do-fuu, not doo-fuss lol) is produced by a french developer called Ankama (http://www.ankama-games.com/en) who have really pushed Flash to its limits over the years. If you play the game its incredible to believe its coded in Flash/AS3.
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@djrikki
Shame it's a mmorpg though. The gfx is really stylish, like a modern The Minish Cap (Zelda). If it was single player I would for sure play it. But I may download it sometime just for the gfx's sake.
Edit:
The name made me remember a certain Doofus for PC, which I never played, but looked cute. As I googled it, it turns out it was also released for amiga: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzm7JXp2ndg (James Pond 1.5 ?).
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Dunno. I still have fun playing Mario 64, Crash Bandicoot.
And I love 3D racing games, especially the futuristic ones like F-Zero GX-IMO THE best racing experience on any platform, ever. Played in 16:9 480p widescreen, it looks amazing with its 60fps frame rate, fantastic background artwork.
Man, will have to pull out the PS2 and get some bandicoot fix now that you've mentioned it.
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@djrikki
Shame it's a mmorpg though. The gfx is really stylish, like a modern The Minish Cap (Zelda). If it was single player I would for sure play it. But I may download it sometime just for the gfx's sake.
Edit:
The name made me remember a certain Doofus for PC, which I never played, but looked cute. As I googled it, it turns out it was also released for amiga: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzm7JXp2ndg (James Pond 1.5 ?).
:laughing: don't think I ever played that one.
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Thousands of people playing MM Bubble Bobble.....!
That could cause a rift in the space time continuum!
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:laughing: don't think I ever played that one.
Me neither. Looking at it again actually makes it clear the main influences for the game were James Pond and Chuck Rock :)