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Pokun wrote:Oh I see, well many Visual Novels are also like that. The only interactions you do is click forward the text, nothing more (it's like the story intermissions in many games except take out the actual game). In rare cases you might be able to choose where to go or things like that, which may only affect the order of things in the story is told.

Then that's a bit more like an illustrated CYOA. As I understand it, Infocom text adventures tend to be comparable in complexity to the MacVenture series (Deja Vu, Uninvited, and Shadowgate), with an inventory and event flags and the like.

Pokun wrote: It generates giant versions of the characters in the CHR using the characters themselves as pixels.
Maybe they used a similar technique to generate the letters in Bayou Billy.

From the looks of it, it seem to be "just" a very large table of data for drawing each individual tile.

Pokun wrote:I know Espozo isn't a big fan of non-action games.

While you're scrolling through text, I'll be blasting demons with shotguns.

Re:tepples

I've played a lot of infocom games. They are nothing like interactive novels. More like puzzles. However many of the puzzles are nearly unsolvable without ordering the cheat book from Infocom. In zork, for instance, there is a cyclops, who can only be defeated by typing the word "Ulysses" or "Odysseus" and there is no clue to tell you that. As if anybody could make the connection between a cyclops and the novel "the Odyssey" and concluded that you should type either of these words. Or they make it not obvious how to do an obvious thing...like in Suspended there is a broken robot behind a cage, which can only be pulled out if you type "both Sensa and Poet, open the cage" ... Keeping in mind that the "both" option is never used or explained anywhere else in the game.

And...you can only open the cage if you've 'turned the flowswitch'. And you can only do that after you've 'examined the flowswitch'. If you do any of that out of order it will reply something like 'I dont see an easy way to do that'.
Similar frustrations with 'hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy'

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... leByDesign

I always thought it was cool how in Konami's Noah's Ark the water rises and falls in the foreground while the background remains independent. Was this just a raster effect, or did they just move the sprite0 up and down and change all the palette colors in the background when it got hit?

Sogona wrote:Was this just a raster effect, or did they just move the sprite0 up and down and change all the palette colors in the background when it got hit?

It uses scanline IRQs, not sprite 0 hits, and the color change is just a combination of grayscale mode and color emphasis. These settings can be changed at any time without interrupting the PPU, while actual palette changes would've been much more complicated to pull off.

Sik wrote:Metal Slader Glory is what happens when you give the finger to attribute limits =P But it took four years to make and by the time it was done the SNES was out already and people didn't care anymore (in fact it's what sent HAL into bankruptcy (if I recall correctly) and made Nintendo pick them up)

Just Breed is another game that took forever to make, was released near the end of the NES's life, wasn't well known, and also has amazing graphics.

The MMC5 is crazy.

Eeh, why not chip in here, I'm bored.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record Dragon View is definitely one of my favourite SNES games of all time, even more so after ripping the ROM apart. It's got a custom 3D engine for its world map travel that was just downright fun to explore (when I was younger and had more patience, at least). It's also a cool fusion of genres, sort of a beat-'em-up RPG with a combat system that works extremely well and that I haven't really seen another example of that I can recall. It's got its share of flaws yeah, but it definitely "stood out" to me.

I don't know if this thread is limited to the "retro" era or not, but I also never get tired of bringing up VVVVVV. It's a game so simple it could probably be ported to NES no problem with minimal loss of quality (except the soundtrack would take a big hit I guess). Yet, despite that simplicity, I have had tons of fun playing it multiple times over. That stands out in my book.

Another SNES title I've greatly enjoyed lately is Wild Guns. I'm sure there's a damn good reason it's so expensive, but I found it to be a remarkable title. Some of the graphical effects I can't quite be sure how they did it exactly but they look very nice, the game over screen for example: I think it involves merging the sprites in with the background, but all I can think while watching it is "that must've been a pain in the ass to program". Just a good game all-around, and I'll admit I haven't even beaten it completely yet. That last fight is just a bit crazy.

And of course, Sonic was pretty damn amazing in his prime.