Gaming Forums => General Gaming => Topic started by: jrlibrarian on December 05, 2011, 11:19:33 PM
Title: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: jrlibrarian on December 05, 2011, 11:19:33 PM
Yep. You read that right. I found one on eBay in its original box, with two controllers, and 11 games. All for around $60. When I have more funds, I'm planning to grab the Action Replay thing that'll let me play import games. What the hell did I just get myself into?!?
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: NWR_Neal on December 05, 2011, 11:21:23 PM
Mildly jealous.
Always wanted to get a Saturn, but I never found one cheap enough to outweigh the fact there are like five games tops I'd realistically play.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: jrlibrarian on December 05, 2011, 11:41:52 PM
There are a number of games I've wanted to play, but it's also the collecting aspect thatdrove me to purchase it. If I hadn't found it with the box and instructions/inserts/everything, I probably would have held off. My thought was that if I'm going to get serious about game collecting, why not start with something absolutely ridiculous like a Saturn?
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: Ceric on December 05, 2011, 11:47:23 PM
I got a Saturn a while back for the sole purpose of playing Knights into Dreams. Then never hooked it up...
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: SixthAngel on December 05, 2011, 11:50:35 PM
I suggest you get the all three scenarios of Shining Force 3. The first one was the only one released in America but fans have translated the other two pretty much in their entirety and have made a patching program you can use to patch the Japanese versions.
I am currently in the middle of Scenario 2 and they did an amazing job.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: ThePerm on December 05, 2011, 11:50:37 PM
not jealous, I have one :P I dont have 11 games though, so never mind, Jealous.
Which games do you have?
I have "Iron Man x-o man of war" or whatever its called, criticom, Daytona USA, Virtual Cop(idk where the gun went), Virtua Fighter 2, Daytona USA, The Christmas Nights Demo(which might as well be a full game), a Nights Demo, Shining force III(which unfortunately turned out to suck after i looked for it for years), and a not working Nights game, and a crappy fighting game called criticom, and then a couple multi game samplers.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: SixthAngel on December 06, 2011, 12:02:47 AM
Shining force III(which unfortunately turned out to suck after i looked for it for years)
Lies. Lies and blasphemy. Seriously though. If you played the other two SF games you know what you are in for (+some welcome additions). If you played Fire Emblem be prepared for it except with the actual exploration and town parts of an RPG, a far better magic system, no permadeath, and actual unique characters and enemies.
I also suggest all the Panzer Dragoon games. There was a thread a while back on Saga but 1 and 2 are both good games too.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: jrlibrarian on December 06, 2011, 12:05:10 AM
Virtua Cop, Daytona USA, Virtua Fighter 2, Sega Rally Championship, NBA Live 98, Grand Slam Baseball, Madden 97, PGA 97, NBA Live 97, The Need for Speed, NBA Action, and Sega sample disc.
So even though there are 11, most are presumably craptastic sports games. Ah well. They all come with original case and instructions. I'll be grabbing Nights into Dreams, Shining Force, and Panzer Dragoon as soon as I have more money and can find them.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: jrlibrarian on December 06, 2011, 12:06:35 AM
I was bidding on a system lot that had Panzer Dragoon 2 and Nights, but I got sniped out of it at the last minute. This will have to do.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: S-U-P-E-R on December 06, 2011, 12:43:33 AM
Nice work. Your next mission is to post a message to the forum using the Saturn netlink.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: jrlibrarian on December 06, 2011, 01:27:22 AM
I just happen to have a phone jack underneath my desk. Challenge accepted.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: ThePerm on December 06, 2011, 06:38:17 AM
Shining force III(which unfortunately turned out to suck after i looked for it for years)
Lies. Lies and blasphemy. Seriously though. If you played the other two SF games you know what you are in for (+some welcome additions). If you played Fire Emblem be prepared for it except with the actual exploration and town parts of an RPG, a far better magic system, no permadeath, and actual unique characters and enemies.
I also suggest all the Panzer Dragoon games. There was a thread a while back on Saga but 1 and 2 are both good games too.
My experinece of Shining Force was Shining force and Shining Force II on genesis(watching my brother play), but mostly Shining Force on Game Gear. I just didn't find it to be something that transitioned well. I looked for it forever, and when I finally got it I was excited, but it was kinda meh.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: BranDonk Kong on December 06, 2011, 09:17:59 AM
I used to have a Saturn, basically never played it and got rid of it. I do have two Dreamcasts though, if that counts. I kind of want to get another Saturn merely for the collection aspect, but really it was beyond overrated among its niche audience. The first four games you listed (and Nights, arguably) are basically the cream of the crop, which is pretty sad. A lot of people like Panzer Dragoon, etc. I say get yourself a copy of Mortal Kombat 2 (almost exactly the same as the PSX version that was never released in the US), UMK3 (best port of the game on any console), and Mortal Kombat Trilogy (same as PSX/PC) and call it a day.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: Morari on December 06, 2011, 10:03:45 AM
Oval or circular buttons? :)
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: S-U-P-E-R on December 06, 2011, 01:16:24 PM
BOMBERMAN
TWO MULTITAPS
10 PLAYERS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmaU_Ap7YaQ
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: Chozo Ghost on December 06, 2011, 05:10:22 PM
There was some turn based military strategy game called Iron Storm which I was interested in a long time ago and remember reading about in Game Pro, but I was never able to play because it was a Saturn exclusive. If you are a fan of games like Panzer General I guess that would be worth looking into.
There was also a Saturn game I remember reading about which sounded cool. In this game you played the role of the evil villain and you set up traps and stuff to try to stop the hero from coming to your lair and killing you. I don't remember what the name of it was, but it is like the opposite of pretty much every hero saving the princess game out there. I remember it sounded cool at the time, but for all I know it might just be utter garbage. But now that you have a Saturn you can go ahead and look into it if you are so inclined.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: ThePerm on December 06, 2011, 07:14:49 PM
I wish I had clockwork knight, I just have the demo, that game was pretty fun. Sega, when are you going to be bought by Nintendo:(. I see no other way of Sega's franchises being brougth back to life.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: Chozo Ghost on December 07, 2011, 04:09:05 AM
I had no idea what Clockwork Knight is so I looked on youtube and found some gameplay footage. Here it is if anyone is interested.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns8aVsCMP1E
Looks like a cool game. Its a shame it launched on a doomed system, because it may have become a successful franchise otherwise. We will never know.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: Morari on December 07, 2011, 12:05:07 PM
Sega, when are you going to be bought by Nintendo:(. I see no other way of Sega's franchises being brougth back to life.
So long as Sega is put in charge of developing hardware. Compared to the Dreamcast, all consoles are crap... especially these newer gimmick-laden Nintendo ones. Shenmue 3 is about the only way I'd buy a new console at this point. :)
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: TJ Spyke on December 07, 2011, 02:28:31 PM
The Dreamcast hardware is nothing special. Yeah it had a built-in modem, but otherwise it was not any different. The controller was especially clunky. Nintendo's hardware has been much better than that.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: Chozo Ghost on December 07, 2011, 05:07:14 PM
So long as Sega is put in charge of developing hardware.
There is a reason why Sega now only makes software. If Nintendo bought them out and put them in charge of hardware they will develop a bunch of overlapping mutually competing dead end systems and peripherals which will receive divided support and cause market confusion and eventually lead to Nintendo going 3rd party for the same reason that Sega was forced to go 3rd party.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: Morari on December 07, 2011, 05:17:34 PM
Ah, Nintendo fan forums... how skewed the opinions are in regard to Sega.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: Ian Sane on December 07, 2011, 05:40:09 PM
Today's Sega probably couldn't make decent hardware to save their life since they struggle to make decent anything. They're not really Sega anymore. They're Sega like the current Atari is Atari.
But back before the Sega Sammy merge if you had Sega and Nintendo morphed together and played to the strengths of both companies, you would have something really awesome. Of course to do this you need a overlying filter that can recognize what each company is better at and what they suck at. Overwise it would either just be Nintendo turning Sega into Nintendo or a bitter rivarly like the one between Sega of Japan and Sega of America that more or less sunk the company in the first place.
Though Nintendo makes good hardware, they're just embarassingly conservative in regards to technology. But they make reliable hardware that runs well. They just need someone with veto power to say "no, that's stupid" when they decide to not include the very thing that is going to take off next generation because at that exact moment in time it isn't yet widely adopted but will be six months after launch.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: NWR_insanolord on December 07, 2011, 05:58:50 PM
Ah, Nintendo fan forums... how skewed the opinions are in regard to Sega.
I love Sega. My first console was a Genesis, and I bought a Dreamcast at launch. That being said, they made some incredibly stupid decisions in regard to hardware.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: Chozo Ghost on December 07, 2011, 06:47:51 PM
I briefly owned a Dreamcast a long time ago, but I don't see what all the fuss is about. People are saying the hardware is so great, but how so? Because its easily hackable? If you are into piracy or homebrew then this is like the Nirvana of game consoles, but to everyone else its nothing that really stands out as far as I can tell. It runs on Windows CE and therefore is notorious for crashing because that's what Windows does.
It was also the very last system to be CD based as opposed to DVD based, so that makes it even worse than the Gamecube in terms of storage capacity, because CDs can only hold 700MB and the GC's mini-dvds could hold at least twice that much, or perhaps a little more than that. So for 6th generation systems it was outdated in the form of discs it used, and it also was the least powerful system.
So how exactly is it such awesome hardware? Its easily hackable, but aside from that I don't see it.
Ah, Nintendo fan forums... how skewed the opinions are in regard to Sega.
Are you saying the 32x, Sega CD, and Saturn all mutually competing with each other and having limited and divided support wasn't a fatal mistake for Sega? That is skewed opinion? Seems more like a fact to me. I agree Sega corrected a lot of their mistakes with the Dreamcast, but the fatal blow had already been dealt with their mistakes from the generation before. The Dreamcast might have been an okay system, but former fans and developers alike were turned off to it because they had been burned before and the market confidence just wasn't there.
How is that a skewed opinion? I don't think there is any other single factor more responsible for Sega's demise than the mistakes they made during the 32-bit era. I think if any opinion is skewed it is yours, because you hold Sega and their systems in such high regard and act like they can do no wrong or make mistakes. I think its a fact that they did make mistakes.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: TJ Spyke on December 07, 2011, 06:51:00 PM
Actually, Dreamcast games were not on CD's. They were a proprietary format called GD-ROM and could hold up to 1GB of data.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: NWR_insanolord on December 07, 2011, 06:55:33 PM
Actually, Dreamcast games were not on CD's. They were a proprietary format called GD-ROM and could hold up to 1GB of data.
What he said. Also, I never had mine crash on me, so I'm not sure what you're talking about there. The system's great because of its game library. There were a lot of really interesting, really inventive games made for it, and I don't think there has been quite as creative or batshit crazy a lineup since.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: Chozo Ghost on December 07, 2011, 07:00:05 PM
GD-ROM is as much CD-ROM as Wii Optical Media is DVD. The difference is in the filesystem or whatever, but the physical discs are the same thing.
Any Dreamcast pirate can take a Dreamcast GD-ROM and make an exact clone copy of it on a CD-R and it will be exactly the same in all respects.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: NWR_insanolord on December 07, 2011, 07:02:11 PM
You can't manipulate a file system into creating 300 MB out of thin air.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: Chozo Ghost on December 07, 2011, 07:04:24 PM
You can't manipulate a file system into creating 300 MB out of thin air.
It isn't making it out of thin air. I remember people used to be able to format 1.44MB floppy disks in such a way as to get 2MB or more out of them. The space is there, but different file systems use the space differently. Some are more efficient than others.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: TJ Spyke on December 07, 2011, 08:41:48 PM
Pirates were able to copy some Dreamcast games to CD-R's because many DC games were under 700MB in size, but GD-ROM's are still distinct from CD-ROM's.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: BranDonk Kong on December 07, 2011, 09:41:24 PM
Chozo I hate to say it but you are completely incorrect there, and TJ you're not helping (that much). GD-ROMs are kind-of like CDs, but there are 100% incompatible with CD-ROM drives (aside from maybe the initial audio track). They have nearly twice the capacity of CD-ROM discs, and it has absolutely *nothing* to do with formatting, and is completely unrelated to the how Nintendo skirted paying DVD royalties with GameCube and Wii discs (which are DVDs). GD-ROM discs were invented for the Dreamcast.
Pirates weren't able to copy "some" Dreamcast games to CD-Rs because many games were under 700MB in size - *hackers* were able to burn *EVERY* Dreamcast game to a CD-R by downsampling audio and video files, or removing and re-linking videos, or by removing audio tracks. For instance Mortal Kombat Gold (and a great deal of other games) use the entire capacity of a GD-ROM, but the video was converted to a lower bitrate (which shows if you run the game from a CD-R) to make the game fit on the CD-R disc.
No - you cannot take a Dreamcast GD-ROM and make an exact copy onto a CD-R, because Dreamcast games are all over 1GB by default, they are just filled with "dummy data" (just like Xbox 360, PS3, GameCube, Wii, PS2, PSX) games are, which can be removed, or the video can be downsampled, etc.
Also, the Dreamcast did not run on WindowsCE - it could run some programs that ran on WindowsCE (like the web browser), but the console itself did not run on any type of Windows operating system. WindowsCE is not on the Dreamcast itself - any games or applications that used WindowsCE on the Dreamcast included the actual WindowsCE OS on the disc, which would be loaded before said game/app.
This thread has gone from respectful discussion about the Saturn (and Dreamcast, which may be my fault) to mindless rambling from people who have no idea what they are talking about (for the most part).
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: Chozo Ghost on December 07, 2011, 10:53:40 PM
But I've read the GD-ROMs can play on standard CD-ROM drives with nothing more complicated than a simple firmware change. There may be some difference between GD-ROMS and CD-Roms, but its not a huge difference, because apparently the same hardware is capable of processing both.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: BranDonk Kong on December 07, 2011, 11:09:55 PM
There are a few CD-ROMs that can read and rip GD-ROM discs via swap tricks and stuff like that, but even then they typically cannot read the full disc. The tracks on a GD-ROM disc are "tighter" than those on a CD-ROM disc. You can read about it here - http://trash.greg2k.com/GD-ROM%20tutorial/ - this is how games were being ripped without using the actual Dreamcast console (but still most hackers, if not all, used the Dreamcast itself and the BBA/coder's cable to rip games). There are 99-min CD-Rs out there, but I'm fairly certain the Dreamcast can't read them, or at least can't read the entire disc, but even then a 99 min CD-R =/= a "GD-R." I take back the "100% incompatible with CD-ROM drives" part - that's pushing it a bit, but even then they're incompatible with probably 99.99999% of CD-ROM drives. This small blurb explains the difference a little bit too - http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Glossary/Details.aspx?TermId=339.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: Chozo Ghost on December 07, 2011, 11:20:00 PM
Oh alright. I guess I didn't know as much as I thought I knew about the Dreamcast.
Maybe one thing Sega should have done differently is deliberately designed the Dreamcast to be unable to play standard CD-R discs at all. That way even though people could hack the GD-Roms and then burn them on CD-R the system would not accept them, so having them on CD-R would be pointless.
I doubt piracy was the worst problem the Dreamcast faced, but it was a big issue, and it might have been the straw that broke the camels back so to speak. Maybe if piracy wasn't so easy the difference that would have made might have been just enough to keep Sega alive as a hardware entity. We will never know for sure, but its possible.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: BranDonk Kong on December 07, 2011, 11:43:34 PM
Piracy was not the reason for the fall of the Dreamcast - if it were the cause, then the PS2 would have died, the Xbox would have died, the GameCube, 360, Wii, PS3, etc. Most of the time I see people say the Dreamcast died because of poor marketing, which is probably true to an extent (never getting EA Sports onboard was a huge mistake too). Before 9-9-99 everyone was like "I'm getting a fucking Dreamcast!" Then, a year later, everyone bought a PS2 and forgot that the Dreamcast ever existed. What's kind of odd is that when it was released, the Dreamcast was basically competing with no one, but it just never picked up any momentum. The Xbox 360 launched a year before the PS3 and Wii, but Microsoft marketed it like a motherfucker and it didn't get killed by the PS3 like the Dreamcast was killed by the PS2. It also probably didn't hurt Microsoft that the PS3 isn't superior to the 360, unlike the PS2 to the Dreamcast, which technically blew it away.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: Chozo Ghost on December 08, 2011, 12:18:51 AM
I know it wasn't the main reason for the Dreamcast's failure which I said in my post, but it could have been the straw that broke the camel's back. A straw is a fairly insubstantial thing, but if you have your camel loaded with a few hundred pounds of gold, frankenscence and Myrrh it might be struggling but able to get by, but then add a straw onto it and it gets crushed.
It is well know that during this time Sega had very little money available. I think I remember reading they were down to like $10 million or something at one point, which is hardly anything for a company that large. So it wasn't that they didn't want to market the console better, they just couldn't afford it. Piracy sure didn't help matters any. Whatever money was lost in piracy could have went into marketing if they had it, but they didn't. So like I said, who knows.
So yes, marketing may have been the biggest reason, but it does tie in with the issue of piracy because you need to have money in order to invest in that marketing. Microsoft has billions of dollars at its disposal and can afford to lose money on the xbox for awhile. A company like Sega which does video games and nothing else doesn't have that luxury.
Another thing which really hurt them was Sony's FUD about the PS2 which was on the horizon. The Dreamcast may have been competing against no one (except the PS1 and N64) but Sony was able to tell their lies about the PS2 being able to deliver Toy Story level graphics and things like that which people believed and held onto their money in anticipation. With more money available Sega could have done more to counter that FUD and keep their own product on the radar better so people didn't forget about it.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: TJ Spyke on December 08, 2011, 12:25:27 AM
Not only did they only have like $10 million, but they were in debt by several hundred million dollars (even after the owner of Sega forgave the money they owed him, they still were in debt).
Dreamcast sales were strong for the first few months after the US launch, then tanked in January 2000 and stayed there. I never pirated it myself, but I had a friend who had a friend who did and had pretty much every DC game pirated on CD-R's (along with ROM's for NES and SNES games that could play on a DC).
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: Chozo Ghost on December 08, 2011, 12:44:16 AM
Any system can be pirated on, but the Dreamcast was hit especially hard by this because a person could pirate on it with no hardware modifications whatsoever. You didn't need to buy a mod chip or do soldering or anything like that. It was just immediately pirateable right out of the box. I remember this was also around the same time that Napster and other filesharing things started to appear and take off, so it was like a perfect storm for piracy.
Like I said, maybe that's the reason Morari loves the system so much, but ironically that could have been the very thing which killed it too. That's like loving Achilles for his Heel.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: SixthAngel on December 08, 2011, 09:49:33 AM
Like I said, maybe that's the reason Morari loves the system so much, but ironically that could have been the very thing which killed it too. That's like loving Achilles for his Heel.
As much as I loved the Dreamcast, and I really loved those games, it was DOA. Piracy had nothing to do with its downfall. The fact is that Sega was too deep in the **** from previous mistakes and needed something like PS1 level success too keep it going.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: BranDonk Kong on December 08, 2011, 10:09:51 AM
The Dreamcast didn't get backups (also they required the boot disc at this point) running until 9 months after it was released in the US, which was also about 1.5 years after the Japanese release. The Xbox and Wii were hacked faster than that, and the Dreamcast was dead in the water long before DC piracy became as "mainstream" as it did (with self booting discs, etc). The camel's back broke long before that straw was placed on it's decomposing corpse.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: leroypantweather on December 09, 2011, 02:55:52 AM
Was Princess Crown mentioned, import the **** out of that if you like Muramasa or Odin Sphere ....I still have my saturn but honestly its the only system I dont keep hooked up or play regularly.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: noname2200 on December 10, 2011, 07:03:06 PM
Welcome to the relatively small, exclusive, and overall limited club! If you enjoy SRPGs, but don't enjoy the depth that most of the games in the genre demand of you, look into buying Dragon Force: great game, widely available still, and an easy entry in the genre.
Oh, and don't make the same mistake that I did of not realizing that your system's built-in memory runs on a watch battery, so it will die after a few years if you don't replace it!
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: ThePerm on December 11, 2011, 12:52:56 AM
Today's Sega probably couldn't make decent hardware to save their life since they struggle to make decent anything. They're not really Sega anymore. They're Sega like the current Atari is Atari.
But back before the Sega Sammy merge if you had Sega and Nintendo morphed together and played to the strengths of both companies, you would have something really awesome. Of course to do this you need a overlying filter that can recognize what each company is better at and what they suck at. Overwise it would either just be Nintendo turning Sega into Nintendo or a bitter rivarly like the one between Sega of Japan and Sega of America that more or less sunk the company in the first place.
Though Nintendo makes good hardware, they're just embarassingly conservative in regards to technology. But they make reliable hardware that runs well. They just need someone with veto power to say "no, that's stupid" when they decide to not include the very thing that is going to take off next generation because at that exact moment in time it isn't yet widely adopted but will be six months after launch.
they need the Toshiba guy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JyN6Obi7eI
I'm thinking if Nintendo did buy Sega those that left would come back. Most escaped Sega directors have small startup companies that make decent games. I'm sure they left because the corporate culture there sucks at the moment. No Yuji Naka, No Yu Suzuki, no Mizuguchi, ...not Sega
also to get gdroms to work correctly you had to get a program that made your cd rom act differently. Instead of reading your disc like a disc is normally read it photographs the disc with the laser. Writing its the same though because when you burn a disc your just drawing an image on the disc with the laser.
if you dont think piracy had anything to do with its downfall you are mistaken. Its sad really. I knew so many people that pirated dreamcast stuff rampantly. It was easy. I knew 20 people who each had 80 burned dreamcast games. I don't thini they were the most exceptionally smartest people around either, but take this microscopic sample and apply this to the macroscopic mainstream, and you'll see a picture that it was the worse case of piracy caused profit loss ever.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: jrlibrarian on December 11, 2011, 01:58:07 AM
And so we go..
I got my Saturn and the 11 games in the mail a few days ago, but I haven't had much time to devote to it just yet. One of the first things I did when I got it, however, was to replace the battery, which unsurprisingly was dead. Thankfully, my guitar tuner came with a backup battery that is the ideal Saturn battery.
Virtua Fighter 2 is kicking my ass, but I'm enjoying every minute of it. I decided to focus on just two of the characters, Jeffry and Jacky. My name is Jeffrey, so of course I had to go for Jeffry, and it's fun to play with Jacky, in my opinion. I don't have much experience with fighting games outside of playing modern games at friends' houses, but this has a brutal learning curve. Less than half way through Arcade mode, you better know what the hell you're doing, or you;re gonna get shitcanned almost immediately. I'll have updates on this one soon. Hell, I might even throw together a blog to talk about my Saturn experiences. Thoughts?
Daytona CCE: I'm liking this one. What I'm going to be doing for racing games is to try to set some world records on Twin Galaxies. This way I have some motivation to come back to them after they would have otherwise gotten old. I didn't have my camera going, but I already beat the National Park Speedway single-lap record by 1/100th of a second. I'm going to try to get proof of it sometime tomorrow if I can. While it only has 5 courses, they're varied enough that it's fun.
Sega Rally: Pretty much the same situation as CCE, except with fewer cars/tracks. So far there are only variations on two cars (manual/auto transmission) and three tracks. However, TwinG lists a 4th track, but I haven't done any research on how to unlock it just yet.
Need for Speed: Only put a couple minutes into this one. Overall, I'm not liking it as much as the other two, mostly because it just feels a lot slower, and I prefer fast racing games. Maybe I just need to give it some time. We'll see.
I'm really happy with my purchase decision. I have a nice collection of sports games which will probably never be touched, but that's how it goes. In regards to further purchases of ACTUAL GAMES, I grabbed Galactic Attack, because who doesn't need a brutally difficult space shooter in their life? NiGHTS will probably be next. It is worth it to find the 3D controller too? Or does the game play fine without it?
I'm considering getting into thrift/pawn shop running and selling some of the games/systems I find on eBay. Maybe make a bit of a profit and use it to supplement my high school senior/soon to be college freshman budget.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: BranDonk Kong on December 11, 2011, 08:28:49 AM
I'm sure piracy is a small problem for all game consoles (nowhere near as large as companies make it seem though), but again, the Dreamcast was on its way out as soon as it was released in the US. SEGA formally announced its death on January 31, 2001 - just over 14 months after it was released here. Backups didn't didn't start to get released until June 2000 (which were not self-booting). Lack of sales hardware sales is what killed the Dreamcast - largely due to the release of the PS2, and because or poor marketing (which apparently they couldn't afford). Piracy...not so much.
I don't know where you got that part about taking a photograph of the disc, but it's both untrue and impossible. A laser is not a camera, nor is it a printer (not talking about those labelflash or lightscribe drives). I think you may be confused about what a disc image is, but that is completely inaccurate about how people ripped DC games with a PC (which again, hardly ever worked back in the day)...
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: ThePerm on December 11, 2011, 10:36:25 AM
by laser i meant laser/lens combo
its not untrue or impossible, quite the opposite, if you're using a very broad term of the word "photo-graph". Photo means light, Lasers are light. When the disc is spinning it shoots the laser light onto the cd which bounces onto the lens. The lens is only capable of seeing tiny light differences. Still at a microscopic level. However, that still makes it a very basal camera. Photodiodes don't work too differently than ccd image sensors. A cd or gd-rom have pits that are used to determine digitally if theres a 1 or a 0. A graph is any recording of data. It doesn't have to have to take an accurate picture it just has to determine if there is or isn't a pit. When cds are burned they are burned in a spiral, and in old optical devices when they spun the spun at different speeds depending on where they were in the spiral. Dreamcast and newer optical drives spin at the same speed regardless of where it is in the spiral. This makes your Dreamcast era PC incapable of reading the disc normally.
What you could change is how much you move the laser back and forth along the spiral. This would allow it to gather information differently. It would take forever. It would still be a digital input though. There are multiple tracks and stuff like that, but those are readable by a regular CD-rom drive. Anyways, nobody ever got that to work, but its possible. Long story short if you wanted a rip you had to get it from someone else with more time and resources then you. They probably usually built their own gd-rom drives.
Though, you probably could put an optical disc into a scanner and run it at its highest dpi setting, and create an image analysis program, but this was years ago, and that would suck, and I would be scared to put anything that reflective in my scanner. I would say you could use film to make a copy, but that would be expensive as all ****.
on to burning, when your burning your making little pits, and making little pits is graphing, engraving, pressing, priniting, enscripting, scraping, scratching use any interchangeable English words. I used the word Write. Burning it you still have to make your cd rom burn differently, after to have a program like old nero version 3 or alcohol afterburner, discjuggler.
Anyways screw my explanation..i don't have to use exacting terms, it was 10 years ago. My simplified explanation works well enough as a Bohr atomic diagram.
also it would be cool to make a bmp/png/jpg/gif to iso coverter if only to burn this image
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: BranDonk Kong on December 11, 2011, 11:25:39 AM
I commend you on your trolling sir, you have bested me.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: ThePerm on December 11, 2011, 08:42:55 PM
you too sir are a gentleman and a scholar
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: Chozo Ghost on December 11, 2011, 10:51:34 PM
I think there is a way to digitally copy Vinyl records by putting them on a scanner and then scanning it and there is software which can analyze that and spit it out as an MP3 or other audio format.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: jrlibrarian on December 11, 2011, 10:54:17 PM
I think there is a way to digitally copy Vinyl records by putting them on a scanner and then scanning it and there is software which can analyze that and spit it out as an MP3 or other audio format.
There most definitely is. On one of my eBay trips, I came across a record-player briefcase that plugs into your computer and can rip the music straight from vinyl. However, too expensive at $70 for someone with absolutely no vinyl collection.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: Chozo Ghost on December 11, 2011, 11:09:53 PM
I knew there was that. But I meant there is also a way Vinyl can be optically scanned and software can analyze the grooves and create a perfect digital copy.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: noname2200 on December 12, 2011, 11:16:31 AM
I'll have updates on this one soon. Hell, I might even throw together a blog to talk about my Saturn experiences. Thoughts?
NiGHTS will probably be next. It is worth it to find the 3D controller too? Or does the game play fine without it?
Re: blog, I usually enjoy reading through people's reactions to retro stuff, so I'd probably read it.
Re: NiGHTS, it plays alright without it, but it was definitely intended to use that controller. The best analogy I can think of this early in the morning is playing House of the Dead on Wii without using a gun shell.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: Kon on December 13, 2011, 04:30:00 PM
Man, I'm happy to hear people still have interest in exploring the old Saturn today. I got mine around launch (european) and I still have it to this day and still play it semi regularly.
I actually purchased a new asian white model around a year ago. I'll tell you, holding a new Saturn in 2010 and smelling the new smell was one the best game related experiences I had in a long while.
If you like action strategy in some fashion, please do try The Horde. It's made by Toys for Bob, who very recently made Skylanders. The ridiculous FMV alone is reason enough to try the game out, though the game itself is very engrossing if you can connect with its unique blend.
Also, for all your Saturn needs -> http://www.segagagadomain.com/saturn-no.htm (http://www.segagagadomain.com/saturn-no.htm) and http://www.segagagadomain.com/RetroCorepage-main.htm (http://www.segagagadomain.com/RetroCorepage-main.htm). Most complete english Saturn resource on the net, with a great store to boot.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: SixthAngel on December 15, 2011, 11:57:38 AM
If you like action strategy in some fashion, please do try The Horde. It's made by Toys for Bob, who very recently made Skylanders. The ridiculous FMV alone is reason enough to try the game out, though the game itself is very engrossing if you can connect with its unique blend.
I would also recommend The Horde, I had the pc version though. I talked about it in my old pc games/nostalgia thread.
Before I go any further about this game and get myself banned by talking about something, I would like to know if we are allowed to talk about abandonware that you can download for free all over the place or if it isn't allowed.
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: S-U-P-E-R on December 15, 2011, 12:00:01 PM
IGN used to have a Saturn site, and I always wondered why they took it down. I mean, their N64 site still exists!
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: noname2200 on December 15, 2011, 12:26:11 PM
IGN used to have a Saturn site, and I always wondered why they took it down. I mean, their N64 site still exists!
Too true that there are far too few Saturn resources from its time still alive on the web. I did find a few Saturn reviews on gamespot some months back. The Deep Fear review is an interesting read (http://www.gamespot.com/deep-fear/reviews/2533885/deep-fear-import-review) (mind the reviewer).
Thankfully I still have all my CVG's issues from back in the day when the magazine was alive and Paul Davies was the EIC. Good times! :cool;
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: BranDonk Kong on December 15, 2011, 10:20:02 PM
The N64 site was their first game related (console at least) site wasn't it? IGN64.com
Title: Re: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..
Post by: S-U-P-E-R on December 16, 2011, 11:05:44 AM
heh, it was n64.com when it first started! but n64hq.com was way better ;)
