Destruction derby 2 for saturn and Destruction Derby 3

Is there any video of gameplay of the cancelled port of DD2 for Saturn, all i have found was screenshots from x cult

Also its is true that there are screenshots of the cancelled DD3 in Playstation Zone, a german magazine?.

 

I did a short video of my DD2 prototype. I'm sure someone has it, otherwise I'll take look to see where it went on my old HD.

 

I've got that Saturn DD2 footage, but sadly I won't be able to upload it until tomorrow...

 

I had no idea it even reached the development stage. I'd definately be interested in seeing it.

 

Sorry, but it's going to be a little longer before I can upload that footage. However, for now here are a few points about the copy Segafreak owns:

This was Probe's follow-up project after the Saturn conversion of Die Hard Trilogy, which it completed in late 1996. Despite not sharing any code or assets, FMV sequences from DHT were used as placeholder data in the alpha build of DD2. To my knowledge the game was cancelled soon after due to Psygnosis dropping support for the Saturn, along with a port of Formula 1 that was promoted as having a similarly projected release date of mid-to-late '97.

The work-in-progress prototype comes on two discs, with the first consisting of menus roughly brought over from the PC edition. As for the second disc, this has the first course in fully playable form, although many textures are yet to be implemented (including most on the car you drive). Because there are also no CPU vehicles, the frame rate is surprisingly good despite the addition of polygonal flooring when compared with the original DD.

In my opinion, you can't really judge how well the end result would have looked or played since a lot of work was clearly left to be done. I'm sure DD2 would have been a welcome title next to other later games published by Psygnosis, such as WipEout 2097 and F1 - had the latter not also been canned as well, that is! On the other hand, does anyone else think it may have been a slight disappointment? Probe probably wouldn't have given much attention to optimisation, so I fear that speed would have been traded for detail.

Anyway, I'll look into putting the clips I've got online either later tonight or within the next few days at the very latest...

 

That sums it up pretty nicely! The discs themselves serve the most value as proof that a Saturn version of DD2 indeed existed.

 

Surprising that Probe was the team chosen to port it, Psygnosis games were usually ported by Tantalus.

 

Tantalus was busy porting Manx TT at the time, which is how Probe got the job of bringing Destruction Derby 2 to the Saturn. I once read that Sega's AM divisions assisted with Manx to such a point that Tantalus took what they learned from that project to make a far superior conversion of WipEout 2097 than would have been possible otherwise. Clearly the lessons learned from these games could not be applied when it came to The House Of The Dead, but that's another story entirely...

P.S. Does anyone know for certain if Probe was behind the cancelled Saturn version of Formula 1? I've heard conflicting reports this was being handled by either Probe or Bizarre Creations, even though the latter claims it never did any real Saturn work and was instead already preparing for what ultimately became Metropolis Street Racer.

 

Tantalus obvioulsy went on to port WipEout 2097 though, which was a rather decent port.

 

I forgot to mention that part - thanks for reminding me!

 

DD2 would have been pretty poor on the Saturn simply because Probe were doing the port. They never really made anything of AAA quality. Tantulas would have done a far better job as their Manx TT and Wipeout XL clearly show. Their House of the Dead port is fantastic too apart from the textures used. As far as playablilty went it was very close to the arcade.

Yakumo

 

Here you all go, just as promised:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBu3iTtGkVk

 

Nice to see it running! Quite clearly a prototype, but nice to see it existed on the Saturn in some form.

And yeah, Probe being behind the port would have been a concern. This is the team that ported Alien Trilogy and Die Hard Trilogy only using ONE of the Saturn's SH2s (which I suppose is actually quite a mean feat).

And yeah, I felt Tantalus got too much stick for the House of the Dead port. I understand Sega were putting pressure on them to finish the port quickly, and they didn't have time to replace many of the placeholder textures with higher quality ones.

 

On the subject of converting The House Of The Dead to the Saturn, a while back I conducted an interview with a lead programmer on that game (who shall remain anonymous for their own benefit, since they're still with Tantalus). Let's just say the so-called "end product" was actually a 60% complete build full of placeholder textures in the later stages, or at least that was until Sega looked at how fast the project was going and suggested they could release the game in that state or face a delay.

Considering how quickly Sega wanted to abandon its 32-bit system in favour of the imminent Dreamcast, there really was little choice for Tantalus even though many of its staff would have loved nothing more than to polish up their work and as a result maintain a good repuation. Instead, that game cost them dearly and soured what had been - until that point, at least - a growing relationship with Sega.

While I agree Tantalus may have done a better job on Destruction Derby 2, does anyone know if this would have been another title using just one of the Saturn's two SH-2 chips? I'd love to know Probe learned a lesson in the end by finally embracing parallel processing! Also, who exactly was responsible for porting Formula 1; was it Probe, Bizarre or someone else? All I do know is that a promotional image mentioned Sega as being the publisher, with the Psygnosis logo's presence suggesting a deal similar to WipEout 2097 being arranged. Anyway, that's probably another discussion for its own thread...

 

There actually wasn't too much wrong with the Alien Trilogy port. It lacked two items (the flashlight and something else), and I suspect the draw distance might have been a tad closer than the PlayStation version, but it ran at a decent framerate and was generally a very decent game. I assume if they'd of embraced the other processor though, those omissions could have been avoided.

 

Alien Trilogy is a very basic ame to be honest so they could get away with using just one SH-2 chip. Probe's Die Hard Trilogy though is a mess. Ugly heap of crap.

 

Both weren't too bad imo, but could've been much better if more effort was made.

 

who owns destruction derby rights? i don´t think its sony.

 

Yeah, probably.

 

I'd imagine it would be Sony as they bought up Psygnosis to be a first party developer a number of years ago.