Why do MD demos get more media coverage than SNES demos?

[psycopathicteen]

I have to keep posting ROMs, and links to YouTube videos, just to get people to notice the SNES stuff I make, yet every single Genesis homebrew gets loads of attention. This just grinds my gears.

[koitsu]

I can only speculate, but I think a lot of it is just chance.

The speculation part: there was basically little-to-no Genesis/MegaDrive dev being done in the 90s, or the late 90s (I heard of only one, maybe two, small projects and never saw them go anywhere). Maybe now that Genesis/MD emulators (ex. Fusion) are quite good, people are able to get stuff done more. Or maybe there's more documentation available, dunno. I never followed Genesis/MD stuff.

[tepples]

Or perhaps it's because C sucks less on a 68000.

[psycopathicteen]

I'm talking about media attention. Everybody knows about the Star Fox MD demo, but not about the Gunstar Heroes SNES demo.

[Sik]

Or perhaps it's because C sucks less on a 68000.

This, I can't think of many people who programs in asm who isn't also a member of Titan (I think gasega68k is the only exception to this rule), everybody else uses either SGDK or Chilly Willy's devkit (although the latter is made with the 32X in mind). At least Basiegaxorz is a rare sight these days =P (seriously, it sucks!)

I'm talking about media attention. Everybody knows about the Star Fox MD demo, but not about the Gunstar Heroes SNES demo.

Let's start with the fact that one is a real 3D renderer without add-ons at a reasonable framerate while the other is rather stock 2D for that generation (ignore the fanboys, the SNES should be able to handle something like Gunstar Heroes just fine, as long as your object engine isn't SMW's =P).

Also the fact that there's more MD homebrew than SNES homebrew in general probably plays in a factor. Larger audience, basically. Still not as notable as what old home computers are receiving (if there's a new game for the C64 or the Spectrum expect it to receive lots of attention from everywhere).

[Drew Sebastino]

To be honest, this has also kind of perplexed me, as the SNES is what I think, is the defining console from that console generation.

Or perhaps it's because C sucks less on a 68000.

That is probably 90% of the reason. I really don't understand why people like C so much. It doesn't look very fun to program in, (which is the whole point of programming if you're not making money) and is it really all that much easier than ASM? (Not implying that ASM is necessarily all that easy, because I suck.) My stepmother does some sort of web-design or whatever (I really don't care) and she had never even learned hexadecimal! What are you even doing then? It seems like programs can practically build themselves at this point! She also didn't understand registers, opcodes and operands, etc. I haven't learned anything aside from ASM and I really don't care to. The only "problem" is that you have to learn how the different processors operate which makes porting things harder. Processors from the same family seem to be mostly the same though. (Coding for the NES and SNES seems much more similar than coding for the SNES and GBA, which came as a surprise to me.) About processors, What ever happened to a lot of processors from the 80's and 90's that were used in consoles, arcade cabinets, and computers? I understand that these are far to slow for todays standards and are probably being used in coffee machines nowadays, but is there a processor that ever came out after the 65816 in the 6502 family?

This, I can't think of many people who programs in asm who isn't also a member of Titan (I think gasega68k is the only exception to this rule), everybody else uses either SGDK or Chilly Willy's devkit (although the latter is made with the 32X in mind). At least Basiegaxorz is a rare sight these days =P (seriously, it sucks!)

I still find it ridiculous that they are kind of saying, "eh, the processor's fast enough, so it doesn't matter." They have about 6Mhz, not 60.

Let's start with the fact that one is a real 3D renderer without add-ons at a reasonable framerate while the other is rather stock 2D for that generation (ignore the fanboys, the SNES should be able to handle something like Gunstar Heroes just fine, as long as your object engine isn't SMW's =P).

I seriously think it's ridiculous how they talk about how high and mighty the Genesis is and that games like Gunstar Heroes would never be able to be on the SNES when games that are just as impressive, if not more so, can exist on the SNES like Space Megaforce or Rendering Ranger (never said the artwork was good though.) None of these games even show a hint of slowdown either, so their argument is totally bogus. To be honest though, Gunstar Heroes never really impressed me from a visual perspective. I think one of the main reasons is actually the artwork which has nothing to do with processor speed, but it's pretty atrocious in my opinion. It is pretty technically impressive for a Genesis title, but I wouldn't necessarily say that it is the most "action-packed, 2D game ever!" I can think of plenty of more explosive games (although most on more powerful hardware.) I think you can already guess one of them... The main problem with run and guns on the Genesis and the SNES is the overdraw amount, because although there are plenty of sprites to cover the whole screen and then some, you'll have a bunch of horizontal chunks missing everywhere. (This is why the GBA is kind of like a dream to me, as it has pretty close to Neo Geo overdraw and has 4 BG layers, really resulting in more overdraw because the Neo Geo doesn't have BGs.)

...I really need to settle down...

[psycopathicteen]

If you really think about it, Gunstar Heroes isn't really that good of a game anyway. The whole game was just spamming the same enemy over and over again.

[Khaz]

I found it unique and enjoyable, but I never thought it lived up to the hype. The homing laser makes almost the entire game trivial. I had more fun playing Sonic (and also more fun learning how Sonic was made).

[Drew Sebastino]

If you really think about it, Gunstar Heroes isn't really that good of a game anyway. The whole game was just spamming the same enemy over and over again.

I have to agree. I've never really been all that impressed with it. (I didn't want to say it outright because I thought I'd be massacred) I'd be willing to argue that even Contra has more variety. One think I really don't like about that game is that you have a health bar. What is a health bar doing in run and gun? It's nice to just have lives and have invincibility for a short time because it doesn't lead to deaths where you're stuck and keep getting hit. In my opinion, Id rather play Metal Slug over Gunstar Heroes any day. (It's really not a contest to me.)

By the way, If you don't really like Gunstar Heroes that much, my did you start making a port of it? Just to show that it can be done? I think it would be a real slap in the face to the Sega fanboys if somebody actually went through with it and utilized the SNES's PPUs to make the game less ugly. (You can't change the horrendous artwork, unfortunately...) One think that's always amazed me is that no one has tried to make a port of Sonic the Hedgehog on the SNES... (It's easily doable.)

And about Sonic, I think it's a much better game. I'd easily rank Sonic 3 & Knuckles as one of my favorite games of all time.

[tepples]

What is a health bar doing in run and gun?

Would Mega Man have been as enjoyable with one-hit death? Perhaps we need to define run and gun more thoroughly.

One think that's always amazed me is that no one has tried to make a port of Sonic the Hedgehog on the SNES... (It's easily doable.)

What's Speedy Gonzales: Los Gatos Bandidos (Sunsoft/WB/Acclaim) other than a reimplementation of Sonic with a different character?

[DoNotWant]

I really don't understand why people like C so much. It doesn't look very fun to program in, (which is the whole point of programming if you're not making money) and is it really all that much easier than ASM?

Oh yes, far easier.

I still find it ridiculous that they are kind of saying, "eh, the processor's fast enough, so it doesn't matter." They have about 6Mhz, not 60.

It's not about the speed, it's the ISA. It's a lot easier to write an optimizing C compiler for the m68k than any of the 65xx CPUs. Amount of hardware registers is a big reason for this.

[Drew Sebastino]

What is a health bar doing in run and gun?

Would Mega Man have been as enjoyable with one-hit death? Perhaps we need to define run and gun more thoroughly.

I don't think a game that doesn't (normally) let you do something like shoot up is considered a run and gun game.

One think that's always amazed me is that no one has tried to make a port of Sonic the Hedgehog on the SNES... (It's easily doable.)

What's Speedy Gonzales: Los Gatos Bandidos (Sunsoft/WB/Acclaim) other than a reimplementation of Sonic with a different character?

Oh come on! You knew what I meant. I mean if somebody actually made a 1:1 homebrew port of Sonic the Hedgehog on the SNES.

[Khaz]

One think that's always amazed me is that no one has tried to make a port of Sonic the Hedgehog on the SNES... (It's easily doable.)

I am also surprised, considering I've just personally made a platformer modeled after the Sonic engine. I'm going in a different direction with it, but it wouldn't take much tweaking to give it the rest of Sonic's physics...

I hate doing collision detection, by the way. It's just painful.

[Drew Sebastino]

I hate doing collision detection, by the way. It's just painful.

I can image. Even the collision detection on the original Sonic games isn't perfect. On Chemical Plant Zone on Sonic 2, I've gone fast enough to where I've gotten stuck in loops and walls. It's fun waiting 10 minutes for the timer to run out...

[Sik]

I still find it ridiculous that they are kind of saying, "eh, the processor's fast enough, so it doesn't matter." They have about 6Mhz, not 60.

7.67MHz, and still, you'd be surprised how much CPU time you actually have. As long as you aren't doing anything crazy you can be extremely sloppy and still not get to even half (or even quarter) the duration of the frame. Most of the time when I see a newbie have performance issues it's because they're misusing the video hardware, not the CPU.

Would Mega Man have been as enjoyable with one-hit death? Perhaps we need to define run and gun more thoroughly.

A run'n'gun barely has any platforming with the focus being more on just advancing and shooting, while Mega Man is definitely more about platforming than shooting robots really.

To psycopathicteen: how about you make a 3D renderer? (without co-processors) About time that there's a 3D renderer on the SNES that doesn't run at a slideshow framerate (although the planar format of the tiles may get in the way...).