PS2/Xbox 1/GC games that could have been done on DC?

[kevin_psx]

Cube's never had a problem with storage.

cutscene fans hate the GC's lack of disc space - an area in which the PS2 beats it, no problems.

What Cube games were "hurt" by lack of space?

[Ed Oscuro]

Any game with substantial movie footage (Lord of the Rings movie games ported to the GC got weaker video, so I've heard) is in trouble, but even regular games.

Yeah, you can always do the two disc thing, which I don't personally mind that much - those cases are sure fun to look at - but it wasn't really necessary, ya know?

GC games that use two discs need to waste huge chunks of space replicating data, even if you don't have something like The Mercenaries playable on two discs. Any reused game models, sounds, or areas will need to be copied over.

That takes a chunk out of the already scarce 1.4 GB of digital real estate on a GC disc. Together, two GC discs aren't reaching 3 GB, let alone 4.7.

A while back it was shown that many games - even exclusives - don't come close to using the full space on the disc, but we're talking about a HUGE difference here, and games with movie segments are hurt worse than most.

The easy solution? Compress the video more. If that fails you can always drop features or compress the actual game assets more...

[Joker T]

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2
Need for Speed: Underground
Jak and Daxter: The Precusrsor Legacy-PS2
Jak 2-PS2
Jak 3-PS2
SSX-PS2
TimeSplitters
TimeSplitters 2
Half-Life-PS2
Socom U.S. Navy Seals-PS2
Katamari Damacy-PS2
Dead to Rights
Indigo Prophecy
Dead or Alive 3-XBOX
Freedom Fighters

These games seem like they could be pulled off on Dreamcast quite well.
I have labled the exclusives for each system with the system name.

[goatdan]

Holy crap... long post warning, guys... many things to reply too...

It just seems to me that its basically pointless to try to down the PS2 after all these years, I mean fuckin cmon man how many Kick ass looking games has to be on a system before ppl gotta make themselves feel better by saying something like "lowest common denominator

Um, the point was that of the current systems, the PS2 is the least powerful. The fact that you state that so many kick-ass looking games have come out for it actually is a counterpoint as to why the Dreamcast could do graphics close to that. More on this in a minute...

The biggest problem with running something like MGS2, and many other titles mentioned here, is the lack of storage space. MGS2 would've taken over 6 GD-roms to run on the dreamcast and that just wouldn't happen.

It all depends. The Dreamcast used compression for many of the FMV scenes, and I think runs them at a lower resolution natively. Based on that alone, a lot of the cutscenes would automatically get a little smaller.

Metal Gear Solid was on two PSOne discs. Shenmue II was on three GD-ROMs, and then got transferred to one Xbox DVD. I would figure that MGS2 would fit on between two and three GD-ROMs, especially after compression.

BUT Im still not convinced that the great DC could run a competent version of MGS2 but it seems that IM the only one so far so I digress

This is where we come right back to the 'the PS2 has some kick ass looking games, so how is it the lowest denominator' argument you were making above. If games were designed with the Dreamcast in mind, they could work. A perfect example in my mind is Tony Hawk 2. It was obviously designed to take advantage of the Dreamcast hardware, but it also came out on the Playstation and did a decent job at that.

Hell, Tony Hawk 3 came out on the N64. It looks a "litte" worse than the Xbox version, but it still plays pretty good.

It most definitely could be done with just about any game. Graphics would have to be cut a little, but beyond that, I don't think it couldn't handle anything that the current consoles -- 360 excluded -- are pumping out.

...you can see that the two games look similar in graphics.

Similar in the same way current PS2 titles and Xbox titles can look similar, yes? That second Headhunter pic is nice, but the detailing on the first pic is pretty lousy compared to what's in MGS2. Not that it's bad.

Well, it depends on how similiar you think that PS2 and Xbox games look. I would tend to agree, as for the most part I think they look very similiar with just a slight touch of polish to the Xbox ones. If you are thinking it is more of a large leap, then I don't agree.

We hit the point starting with the Dreamcast that consoles can push so many polys that they can all display the same general thing. What is lost between conversions is the number of polys being shown on the screen. Thus, the Xbox 360 can have really smooth looking stuff while the Dreamcast could never hope to achieve that. But the Dreamcast (and PS2 and GameCube) could probably play the games made for the 360, just with some graphical downgrades.

Haven't we already seen the same thing with Gun, Live, NBA 2K6 and Madden? Same basic underlying game, much better Xbox 360 graphics.

Now here's where I am confused. Yes, can't MANY current-gen games be done on the Dreamcast (with the exclusion of those heavy on AI) if you simply start chopping poly counts and decrease the texture resolution? I guess Half-Life 2 can be done in the original HL engine, for that matter, just slap some physics in there and you're ready to go.

Again -- we're at the point in graphics that you can just ratchet things down to the right level. I forget where it is, but somewhere is an example of Doom 3 running on some really old computer hardware. It looks like ass, but it still renders and is playable at a decent framerate.

Same AI, same engine, same everything. Older hardware. Looks like ass.

Gradius V in particular...you could do that on the NES, I suppose, but of course it'll look nothing like the current ports. The Dreamcast wasn't as good as people believe - great for the time, but it's not able to hold its own with current-gen consoles - except the PS2, but barely.

The difference is that the NES has capabilities that couldn't have handled Gradius V. Limits on how many sprites on screen and colors and so on. The limits on today's systems for the most part don't come in for AI. They come in on graphics and storage space, although storage space is vastly overrated -- most games on DVD don't fill a DVD anyway.

For my part, wasn't Airforce Delta Storm on the Dreamcast? Great looking early Xbox title.

If I'm not mistaken, that was a sequel to Airforce Delta, which was the DC original, not a port.

--

In summary, I'm not just saying this all because I'm a rabid Dreamcast fan who is disillusioned and I think it could've kicked the Xbox's ass graphically. I'm not crazy. But game engines today are simply made differently.

Because of that, things could be made on the Dreamcast. And the Dreamcast is not that far behind the PS2 graphically. In fact, comparing the specs other than disc size the two systems are more comprable than people would believe. Each has bonuses and negatives. For instance, the Dreamcast has better native 2D support than the PS2.

Just about anything could've been done on it. Just like just about anything done on it probably could've been done on the PS1, but we're looking at games that will, as I've said, end up looking like ass.