After the 68k thread and seeing this NES Afterburner port, made by Sunsoft (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjHBkoYGdcY) it made me wonder about other ports that pushed a machine past its limits. A port that should never have happened, but did anyway to excellent effect. Please don't mention something like Sega Ages on the Saturn. I am talking ports from a higher platform to a lower one. Outrun 2 Coast to Coast on the PS2 is a good modern day one I suppose.
The C64 version of Bubble Bobble is again a smashing arcade port, but I don´t know if it is that you are looking for. Since the SID chip made the music on C64 almost arcade like. Compared to the NES version, then the C64 version is closer to the arcade. But again it is up to the individiual of course.
Lots of arcade games were ported to inferior hardware prior to the 32bit systems. Just look at Street Fighter II on SNES. Or Mortal Kombat 2 on SNES. Neither are close to the arcade really, but very enjoyable ports. The Afterburner video makes me want to play it. I might give it a shot later.
Street Fighter II on the SNES was amazing. I bought a huge box shaped 6 button controller for the SNES to play it. A group of us got together after work, for a week or two, to play it. Ahhh, those were the days! :nod: Cyberball for the Genesis was a good port, and it was done early in the Genesis' life. In fact the Genesis had a bunch of decent arcade ports early on. Buster Douglas and Altered Beast were good. Bonanza Brothers was good, although it was unknown in the US. The first time I played it was in Japan.
That is exactly the sort of thing I mean. Ports that make you think, how the heck did they manage it? Many of the Sega Master System ports were good, especially Outrun and Afterburner.
Chase HQ - Spectrum was amazing (at the time, although now the game has aged so badly in the Arcade and on Home Computers that it wouldn't be too playable...). Wonderboy in Monsterland - Master System, although it gets rid of the horrid Engrish that made the game so fun.... Bubble Bobble - Master System, C&VG reviewed it and said it was an arcade perfect conversion except it was too slow, although this had more to do with 50hz/60hz settings then anything else. Virtua Racing - Megadrive, fast and if you squinted and pretended the joypad was a steering wheel, it was just like being at the arcade.
Yeah, although it wasn't really inferior hardware. The 32x was very similar, if I understand correctly, to the Model 1.
briefly which i can think of: - Street Fighter II' PCE - Kyûkyoku Tiger PCE - Raiden PCE - Gradius II - Gofer no yabou PCE - R-Type PCE - Saigou no nindou (Ninja spirits) PCE - Horror Story PCE - Bikkuriman World PCE (evenr the characters were changed, the BGs were take over 1:1 from the arcade pendant) - Wonder Boy II - Monster lair PCE - Parodius da! PCE - Rainbow Island PCE - Garou Densetsu II/Special PCE those are all amazing and great arcade ports and regarded to its hardware they running on (& which is older as most of the arcade pendants itself), sheer unbelievable.
Newzealand Story - Mega Drive Thunder Force 2MD / 3 - Mega Drive Undercover Cops - SFC Zero Wing - PCE-CD Fatal Fury Special - PCE-SuperCD Final Fight - MCD Dynamite Dux - Master System Yakumo
These are still relevant though. Look at all the awful ports going from extremely inferior hardware to current/last gen systems? Taito Memories, the Taito Cave games, more Capcom shit than I can count, CPS2 stuff on the Dreamcast. All Ass... just b/c the hardware is superior doesn't mean the port will be quality.
Word of SF2' for PC Engine, incredible conversion.........also Chase HQ on Amstrad was just fantastic at the time http://www.cpczone.net/index.php?game=192 Of note I think therer is a big difference between "conversions" and ports, we didnt really have the later until modern times when hardware was comparable if im thinking right, in the past arcade games for the home were built from the ground up rather than shifted and tweeked between systems.
well as far as I am concerned, games brought from a higher platform to a lower one, like AfterBurner arcade down to the NES, that's a translation, or conversion, or adaption, not a port. a port is where the original game is brought over using the all of the original assets. gamecode, graphics, artwork sound, etc. with as little change as possible. I believe the term 'port' is massively, hugely overused. on the other hand, there might not be a set definition. so what I am saying, well, it's left open to be argued and disagreed with.
I think you're being pedantic, but ok - let's change the topic to Arcade conversions and ports. Which ones were brought to a lower system but seemed to capture the game perfectly in gameplay dynamics (if not perfectly in graphics)? For clarification, which games just felt right? Gameboy R-type wasn't bad, for the Gameboy. Saturn Daytona USA looked hideous, but somehow they got the controls just right for the controller. On the steering wheel - yikes! PlayStation Ridge Racer was quite amazing too.
The PC Engine-Version of Gradius was great. Its not my fav. version though - the arcade version has better sound, graphics as well as some small details that are important to me, but still - a great port. I was really stunned when I found out about the secret stages first... not to mention the bonus level. Just great...
Yeah, I think you're taking semantics way too far. If game code falls into that realm, then the only "ports" are those with identical architectures (Noami->DC, STV->Saturn, etc.). Someone could equally argue that these aren't ports as there's like 8 lines of code changed. But, this is all neither here nor there. It's only your/my interpretation of a word. Long story short, I think 'port' entails some work as well. While the definition means "to move from one to another" we all know that in the computer world apples and oranges don't mix.
To me (and I imagine many others) "port" simply means translating source code/algorithms from one platform to another. It's hard to port a game written in assembly so old "ports" are better candidates for "translations" or whatever. You could theoretically "port" a Wii game to NES and if the NES had comparable audio/video capabilities, enough memory and a high enough clock speed, you would not be able to tell the difference. In practice though, most "ports" aren't actually ports, they simulate the original game's engine quite loosely. Good examples of old ports would be games like Earthworm Jim on both Genesis and SNES where the game algorithms are largely the same. Good examples of new ports would be any modern game on more than one console which are practically identical to eachother. Most 8-bit arcade "ports" don't even attempt to copy algorithms, they're usually entirely new games which attempt to simply capture the theme of the original game.
Mmmhmm, most times it's not worth porting the assembly code. Nowadays it's all in C(++), which makes it easier.
Doom for the SNES was pretty impressive. FX chip needed, yeah, but the music was superior to the PC and even PS1 versions, IMO, and left me wondering how'd dey do dat? Edit: Oops, not an arcade port. Sorry.
