After I received the modded Saturn from Madhatter today (Thanks!) I've tried my Destruction derby 2 proto. I had a bad feeling about it, because not one emulator showed anything beyond a placeholder Die hard trilogy intro. Well...WE'VE GOT CONTACT! I've got it running and it's playable! A lot of textures are missing, as are the CPU cars. The other discs has the interface (all the menus and stuff) and from that it seems like the saturn version is a port of the PC version! I'm trying some more things with it and will make some screens or movies later today.
I think you could be right there, Johnny. But if that was the case, why did Wipeout 2 come out on the Saturn? (Still can't find a Japanese version!) Yakumo
Now i'm really confused. :shrug: DD2 was released on the end of 1996 / early 1997 , just like Wipeout XL / 2097 for the PS1. But Wipeout XL / 2097 for the Saturn was released by the end of 1997. I"ll have to look in some old mags to see if i can solve this mistery. But i'm almost 100% sure that DD2 for the Saturn was canned because of Sony. PS: It's difficult to find a japanese version of it? Any differences to the US / UK versions? Wipeout XL should be mandatory for every gamer. I would say the same for Wipeout3, but you don't have PS1, so nevermind
I think the PAL version is optimized so it would run too fast on a Japanese Saturn. no idea about the US version (if there is one) Yakumo
DD2 was ported by Probe and would've been released through Perfect entertainment. Perfect just got out of the Saturn market after Discworld II. There's no US version of Wipeout 2097. The PAL version seems to run fine on JAP machines, though. Anyway, back to DD2. Here's the download with two movies. Http://www.segadatabase.com/xclusive/dd2.rar The first movie is the interface only. What you see is what there is. The second shows some gameplay. Be warned, though, because it's not looking very healthy. At all. I will try to rebuild some of it in the coming months. Some missing textures could be replaced, possibly.
If this sequel was being produced the same way its predecessor was on the Saturn, then details like texturing and enemy cars would have been some of the last things to be added, which means the basic game engine was complete. However, since Probe wasn't responsible for the original's Saturn conversion it's hard to say for sure as Reflections may have prioritised their work in a slightly different way. Then again, all the essentials seem to be present and correct so does anybody know why a game so far into production would be cancelled like that? My guess is the usual reason that Saturn missed out on so many PlayStation games - console exclusivity deals. P.S. If this Saturn version really is based on the PC edition, would this have meant extras not seen in the PlayStation game? I've never played DD2 on the PC, so I wouldn't know. Also, how much placeholder material exists in your build from Probe's last project, Die Hard Trilogy?
On the subject of placeholder material, does anybody know why Core Design kept leaving in the intro speech from Thunderhawk 2: Firestorm in all its later Saturn games? Not only does this appear in Tomb Raider, but also the demo on Sega Flash Vol. 3 and I'm fairly sure it turned up in Blam! Machinehead as well, though since I've long been rid of that title I can't be sure. Can anybody with Swagman or the rolling sampler of Fighting Force tell me if it showed up in those as well? I've always been fascinated by how something that obvious could remain without being of some important - was it similar to a dummy file on the discs, perhaps? (Sorry, I'm going way off-topic with this!)
Saturn had decent, flexible sound hardware apparently, so (speculation ahoy) it might've been timestretched a bit, maybe pitch shifted up an octave or two to make a trebly, windy sound, or down a few to make a sub-bass rumble etc. Voice recordings are timbrally colourful (especially laughter), you can make all sorts of weird noises with them even with rudimentary tools because they're such detailed waveforms. If I was making sounds for a game I'd obviously apply the effects before including the files on the CD, but if this sample was being stretched out considerably over time (with the right tools 15 seconds of voice can easily become 5 minutes of ambient noise), it could have saved disc space. All of this is worthless speculation based on my PC experience, I have no idea what the Saturn's sound hardware is actually capable of.
Ah yes. 'It's 1999 and the world is still a violent place in which to live'. Hehe. I noticed that on the first Saturn power disc. So it's on the other discs as well..hmm? Have to try Swagman..not sure there.
