Toy Story (Gen): Most impressive 16 bit title ever?

[Wavelflack]

I finally got around to playing Toy Story for Genesis (I never picked it up before because it didn't sound like much fun...you know?), and the technical achievements of that game are simply fucking amazing. The prerendered stuff looks great, of course (I would place it higher than DK country, if for no other reason than simply for the amount of prerendered stuff present onscreen, all moving smooth as silk), but it also has perspective-shifting 3D backgrounds (not just scroll layers. Think of Clockwork Knight..), good color and sound.

THEN YOU SEE THE OTHER STUFF! The "Doom"-type segments--practically full screen, MUCH faster and smoother than any other 16 bit FPS, detailed walls AND HAS FLOORS & CEILINGS!! It absolutely creams all of the other 16 bit corridor games (including SNES Doom, which had help from the FX2 chip--and ran in a small window with no ceiling, etc.)...but that's just one of the stages!

The racing segment(s) are amazing in themselves. I realize that once you have perfected the engine to the point of allowing the "Doom" portion to run as it does, the racing part would be no sweat. It's still impressive, though. Full sprite scaling (which is at least comparable in quality to the "superscaler" Sega arcade routines--Afterburner, OutRun, etc,), and obviously a scaling/rotating plane for the ground. Smooooth..and no tiny window, either.

I could go on and on about the technical achievements this game has pulled off, but you should just play it for yourself. It's not really that great of a game (it's fine, but nothing special), but you'll be simply amazed at what your Genesis (unassisted by coprocessors, btw) can pull off when some fantastic programmers tear into it.

Any other contenders for "Most impressive 16 bit title"? I refer to technical achievement, not subjective areas like "storyline", or what have you. Anyone have an SNES title they'd like to put up against Toy Story? Hell, go ahead and throw Neo Geo titles in, if you think any can stand up to this game on a technical level.

[digitalpress]

I will kinda go along with you on that... it's "technically superior" for the Genesis platform, but have you ever seen the game RED ZONE? Do check it out, some of the most incredible visuals, hard to believe it's happening on a Genesis.

Unfortunately for me, I SUCK HARD at both of these games, so I'm not even getting to appreciate the beauty.

[Starcade]

WHat the hell about Altered Beast, remember "Rise from your grave" that, to me was impressive, a voice being in a 16-bit game!

[digitalpress]

WHat the hell about Altered Beast, remember "Rise from your grave" that, to me was impressive, a voice being in a 16-bit game!

Yeah, definitely cool, but voice was done over and over and over after that. Some good uses of voice: NBA Jam and SportsTalk Football.

[ManekiNeko]

I'm sticking to my guns... my Gunstar Heroes, that is. Vibrant artwork, impressive special effects, catchy music, high-impact sound effects... and to top it all off, the game was tremendously fun, unlike Toy Story. Red Zone was pretty entertaining and definitely impressive, but even it didn't satisfy quite the way Gunstar Heroes had.

JR

[Goodwill Hunter]

Check out Zero Tolerance for the Genesis. I haven't found too many other fans of this game, but it is a great FPS that packs doom-like graphics and many huge levels onto a plain Genny cart...very impressive and fun to boot. Toasting baddies with the flamethrower and leaving guts sliding down walls with the shotgun is hard to beat.

Rich

[Wavelflack]

Joe: I'll agree with you on Red Zone. I have preached many times (though not on this board) about it's marvels. It's not even the "fmv" segments that wow me. In fact, the most impressive thing I saw in the game (the little bit I played) was not even the full screen rotation and scaling, but a texture mapped chair! In the first "base", you walk in and there's a table and chair in a corner. As you walk by, you can see them change perspective. It's not a "chunk-chunk-chunk" animated approximation, either, but a smooth 3D table and chair. The chair was wicker, as I recall, and the back...well, I'll just say that it looks exactly as a texture mapped polygonal chair would look. Fucking amazing.

The thing is, I never saw Toy Story until now. Yeah, Red Zone is arguably a better game (this goes for Gunstar as well....and 50/50 on Zero Tolerance), but I'm simply awed at the things they were able to pull off in TS! Traveller's Tales are (were?) god-damned geniuses at manipulating the old and tired Genesis. In fact, the previous "most impressive 16 bit title" (IMO) was non other than Sonic 3D Blast. Just look at the bonus stage on that game! The bridges you run over not only have VERY high quality scaling, but also have a vertical dimension as well (steps, for instance)! In other words, they are 3D, and not just the paper flat Mode 7 scaling. Not only did they pull that off, but they had the big fullscreen linescrolling fire thing going on in the background!

Anyway, fire the game up if you have it. If you don't, put it on your emulator and check it out, and imagine that it's running on a 7.5mhz 16 bit system. I think you'll be flabbergasted at Toy Story.

[Zaxxon]

I always thought Toy Story was very impressive. It made me wonder if the SNES version looked even better since the SNES had a larger color palette. I was blown away by the DOOM level and I was shocked that I never read anything about it in magazines back then, even in reviews of the game. I like the look of it better than DK Country. DKC is very dark looking in comparison, a lot of black. People make such a big deal about system specs on paper like the fact that the SNES had built in scrolling, rotation, mode7, but it just shows it doesn't matter. They know how to do it all in software on the Gen.. Another impressive game with prerendered art is Donkey Kong Land on the old B&W gameboy. It really makes me wonder what games could've looked like had they done this on the classic systems.

I was going to suggest Red Zone. I had a Gen. and a Jaguar back then and was bummed that I didn't see these kind of cool graphic effects on the Jag. The Jag was definately powerful enough. Instead we just got old Amiga ports.

Wavelflack, when are you going to release a 16 bit Archie and Jughead version of Beat'em and Eat'em? Smooth scaling spooge LOL

[Daniel Thomas]

Yes, the technical achievements on the Genesis were truly amazing. Particularly near the end of the system's lifespan. I always avoided Toy Story, probably because of the whole "movie license curse," not to mention that most games based on Disney movies were turkeys (Dave Perry's marvelous Aladdin is an obvious exception). I'll have to check it out.

As for the best-looking Genesis games I have seen, I'm gonna have to side with Jess and choose Gunstar Heroes. Not only does the game offer a myriad of amazing visual effects, the game is amazingly varied and full of surprises.