Perfect Dark (GBC)

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scotland
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Perfect Dark (GBC)

Postby scotland » March 19th, 2017, 9:09 am

This game is really putting the little GBC through its paces. The GBC is like, what, maybe a really souped up Colecovision? Yet here we have big characters (double sprites?) moving about on nicely detailed backgrounds. Its graphically very interesting, but the standard gameplay seems a bit dull. Line up on bad guy, shoot, reload, repeat until you scream in death. Some minigames like a target range too.

This is probably to console Perfect Dark what the Tiger electronics version of Mortal Kombat is to its console version, but its still kinda amusing for a time.

Anyone play this one?

brendand
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Re: Perfect Dark (GBC)

Postby brendand » March 19th, 2017, 11:11 am

yep i owned it once ! you can use a N64 Transfer Pak with that game to unlock some cheats for the N64 version

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Atarifever
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Re: Perfect Dark (GBC)

Postby Atarifever » March 19th, 2017, 4:45 pm

scotland wrote:The GBC is like, what, maybe a really souped up Colecovision?


I believe when they did the top ten list on it for Retro Gaming Roundup, they pointed out that it actually had pretty decent specs. For my money the most "how'd they do that on there" game is the original Shantae. It always looks a little too smooth and well animated to be on much short of the early TG-16 to me.

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scotland
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Re: Perfect Dark (GBC)

Postby scotland » March 19th, 2017, 5:19 pm

Atarifever wrote:
scotland wrote:The GBC is like, what, maybe a really souped up Colecovision?


I believe when they did the top ten list on it for Retro Gaming Roundup, they pointed out that it actually had pretty decent specs. For my money the most "how'd they do that on there" game is the original Shantae. It always looks a little too smooth and well animated to be on much short of the early TG-16 to me.


I just got Shantae, but haven't played it longer than to make sure it worked. Now I am excited about it.

Marriot Guy is the guy who would really know this stuff. I think, spec wise, the GBC is still a Z80 clone system, but cranking pretty fast, with lots of tiles and sprites but still less sprites than the NES -- but a lot more RAM. The TG16 on the other hand has dual processors (hence the 16), so I would think it should easily outperform the 8 bit GBC. I am just learning the GBC myself. While its a decade post TG16, its doing it in a battery operated handheld, so gotta give that credit.

If you a list of GBC games to try or hunt down, I'd be interested to read it.

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Atarifever
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Re: Perfect Dark (GBC)

Postby Atarifever » March 21st, 2017, 9:48 pm

scotland wrote:
If you a list of GBC games to try or hunt down, I'd be interested to read it.

Not a clue. I played a fair bit of the original Gameboy, but Nintendo handhelds were something I checked out of for the GBC and GBA eras. If I'm honest, I'm pretty checked out again now with the 3DS too. For what it's worth, I think the RGR top 10 is probably good spot to start. Thiswas their list:

OUT Flintstones: Burgertime in Bedrock - link
OUT Mega Man V - link

10 -- Pokemon Gold - link
Dragon Warrior Monsters - link
Pokemon Pinball - link
Warioland 2 - link
Toki Tori - link
Metal Gear - link
Oddworld Adventures 2 - link
Link's Awakening - link
Dragons Lair - link
1 -- Cannon Fodder


The top ten is in this episode.
http://www.retrogamingroundup.com/shown ... 011.11.php

Like all the top tens they do, there's technical stuff, honourable mentions, etc.so it's a good background for starting out I imagine.

Note: I think that is the best podcast on the internet.

ThePixelatedGenocide
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Re: Perfect Dark (GBC)

Postby ThePixelatedGenocide » March 22nd, 2017, 11:40 pm

The GBC's way past anything a Colecovision could do. Thanks to the overall processing speed, ram, and advances in real time decompression technology, there's really no 8-bit comparison, except that it's limited to 40 sprites on screen, same as the original Gameboy. (It can throw 10 on a single scanline, though, if memory serves.)

But when you see the superscaler style Wacky Races, or how it simulates polygons in Toy Story Racing, when you get a chance to play an actual game of Street Fight Alpha - it's like an NES that was designed to handle almost any kind of sprite based game you can throw at it. In many ways, it's like a farewell celebration to everything 8-bit.

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scotland
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Re: Perfect Dark (GBC)

Postby scotland » March 23rd, 2017, 6:30 am

ThePixelatedGenocide wrote:The GBC's way past anything a Colecovision could do. Thanks to the overall processing speed, ram, and advances in real time decompression technology, there's really no 8-bit comparison, except that it's limited to 40 sprites on screen, same as the original Gameboy.


I am enjoying learning about the GBC. It does seem a very capable 8 bit system. You can compare it to the Game Gear, the Sega color portable which predated it by many years - 1991 compared to 1998. The GBC and Game Gear both are 8 bit Z80 systems, with the same screen resolution. The GBC clocks faster (twice as fast as the original Gameboy), has a bit more color, a boatload more RAM, slightly fewer sprites. Of course, the GBC is much smaller, uses fewer batteries, and makes them last a long time.

Unfortunately, the GBC only had 2 and a half years on the shelf before the GBA came along with a big tech boost. Maybe if Sega had still be in the portable line, something like the GBC could have come out in the years before 1998, but that's not how it worked out.

ThePixelatedGenocide
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Re: Perfect Dark (GBC)

Postby ThePixelatedGenocide » March 27th, 2017, 8:43 pm

One more Sega Portable would have been amazing. With the direction they were headed with their hardware designs, there's a decent chance it might have been a dual 68000 set-up, running at the same resolution as their arcade cabinets - capable of scaling sprites, but not really fast enough for textured polygons.

In other words, everything the Megadrive should have been, in the same way the Game Gear was an improved Master System.

It would have been perfected 16-bit in the same way the GBC was perfected 8-bit. It would have been arcade technology finally used for deeper games...

There's no way it would have succeeded, but it's fans would still be collecting today.


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