No mainstream Sci-Fi on the Saturn

[mick_aka]

It's occurred to me that the Saturn has no Star Wars or Star Trek games in any region.

I remember Star Wars games in particular being a big deal during the pre-32bit era and I always seem to notice the Star Wars or Star Trek games being released.

There's no unreleased game info for either franchise on the Saturn, and I recall back in the day Origin themselves fully denied that Crusader No Remorse was a rework of a cancelled Star Wars game, which a lot of people seemed to presume at the time.

I do however remember reading many years ago of the possibility of a Super Star Wars Trilogy release on the Saturn, I wish I could remember which magazine it was in.

It's a shame such big franchises never made an appearance.

[NeoGeoNinja]

Jul 5, 2015 11:04:16 GMT mick_aka said:

There's no unreleased game info for either franchise on the Saturn, and I recall back in the day Origin themselves fully denied that Crusader No Remorse was a rework of a cancelled Star Wars game, which a lot of people seemed to presume at the time

Hmmm. Makes sense actually.

Jul 5, 2015 11:04:16 GMT mick_aka said:

I do however remember reading many years ago of the possibility of a Super Star Wars Trilogy release on the Saturn, I wish I could remember which magazine it was in

My. God. this would have been amazing. I love Super Empire Strikes Back

[brianseals]

It would have been nice, to have them in the Saturn library, I agree.

Personally though, I weep a little more for games like Forgotten Worlds, Streets of Rage and Super Hang On. I can vouch for the Saturn having awesome ports of OutRUn, After Burner II, and Space Harrier, so I know it could've handled those kinds of games.

There is a port of Forgotten Worlds on the Mega Drive, to be honest, but the Saturn version of OutRun really impressed me with the console's capabilities, and I would have rather played that game on the Saturn, along with Altered Beast, and a number of others I'm forgetting.

[MIK]

Jul 5, 2015 11:04:16 GMT mick_aka said:

It's occurred to me that the Saturn has no Star Wars or Star Trek games in any region.

I remember Star Wars games in particular being a big deal during the pre-32bit era and I always seem to notice the Star Wars or Star Trek games being released.

There's no unreleased game info for either franchise on the Saturn, and I recall back in the day Origin themselves fully denied that Crusader No Remorse was a rework of a cancelled Star Wars game, which a lot of people seemed to presume at the time.

I do however remember reading many years ago of the possibility of a Super Star Wars Trilogy release on the Saturn, I wish I could remember which magazine it was in.

It's a shame such big franchises never made an appearance.

That Starwars video game hype that came after the Atari wire frame arcade machine had been ported to most home computers during the late 1980's was only found on SNES and then continued on N64 with Shadow of the Empire ect on console. Everything else in-between such as Episode 1 on PSone was crap as Lucas Arts had really lost the plot during this time from over swamping the market with average forgettable stuff.

If you really wanted Starwars during the 32bit era it was found on PC via Jedi Knight which captured the feel of the SW universe spot on like never before. And while Starwars Pod Racer on PC, Dreamcast & N64 was very good for a change along with Jedi Knight 2 it wasn't until Starwars Battle Front came along did Starwars actually feel like a return to form from those SNES/N64 days.

It never bothered me there was a lack of Starwars games on Saturn because in truth there was nothing of real interest on PSone, there was no way we were getting a port of Jedi Knight and what came on N64 was exclusive any way. They did us a favour by not releasing anything on Saturn.

[mick_aka]

I don't know, I'd have eaten up a console port of say TIE Fighter as I was crying out for the system to get a good space sim, and disregarding ports I'd have loved something Saturn exclusive.
After all you had all the hype over the Star Wars Trilogy: Special Editions being released during the Saturn's lifetime, there was a cash in to be had.

Star Trek wise I'd have absolutely loved to see some of the FMV adventures on the Saturn like ST:Klingon or ST:Borg which I enjoyed very much when I got back into the PC years later.
A Final Unity would have been totally doable on the Saturn as well for some point and click action, both the aforementioned type of adventure games were very poorly represented on the Saturn especially in Europe.

[NeoGeoNinja]

Jul 5, 2015 20:28:50 GMT mick_aka said:

I don't know, I'd have eaten up a console port of say TIE Fighter as I was crying out for the system to get a good space sim, and disregarding ports I'd have loved something Saturn exclusive.
After all you had all the hype over the Star Wars Trilogy: Special Editions being released during the Saturn's lifetime, there was a cash in to be had.

Star Trek wise I'd have absolutely loved to see some of the FMV adventures on the Saturn like ST:Klingon or ST:Borg which I enjoyed very much when I got back into the PC years later.
A Final Unity would have been totally doable on the Saturn as well for some point and click action, both the aforementioned type of adventure games were very poorly represented on the Saturn especially in Europe.

There was some sort of Star Trek title planned and cancelled for the 3DO, was there not?

[mick_aka]

Supposedly an adventure game with space combat levels, right up my street really.

[brianseals]

Jul 5, 2015 16:26:48 GMT MIK said:

Jul 5, 2015 11:04:16 GMT mick_aka said:

It's occurred to me that the Saturn has no Star Wars or Star Trek games in any region.

I remember Star Wars games in particular being a big deal during the pre-32bit era and I always seem to notice the Star Wars or Star Trek games being released.

There's no unreleased game info for either franchise on the Saturn, and I recall back in the day Origin themselves fully denied that Crusader No Remorse was a rework of a cancelled Star Wars game, which a lot of people seemed to presume at the time.

I do however remember reading many years ago of the possibility of a Super Star Wars Trilogy release on the Saturn, I wish I could remember which magazine it was in.

It's a shame such big franchises never made an appearance.

That Starwars video game hype that came after the Atari wire frame arcade machine had been ported to most home computers during the late 1980's was only found on SNES and then continued on N64 with Shadow of the Empire ect on console. Everything else in-between such as Episode 1 on PSone was crap as Lucas Arts had really lost the plot during this time from over swamping the market with average forgettable stuff.

If you really wanted Starwars during the 32bit era it was found on PC via Jedi Knight which captured the feel of the SW universe spot on like never before. And while Starwars Pod Racer on PC, Dreamcast & N64 was very good for a change along with Jedi Knight 2 it wasn't until Starwars Battle Front came along did Starwars actually feel like a return to form from those SNES/N64 days.

It never bothered me there was a lack of Starwars games on Saturn because in truth there was nothing of real interest on PSone, there was no way we were getting a port of Jedi Knight and what came on N64 was exclusive any way. They did us a favour by not releasing anything on Saturn.

Star Wars arcade would have been great, come to think of it. That game has the best vector based graphics I have ever seen, and I would love to have a home version of it. I do wonder about how the port would have turned out though. The Saturn does have the Atari Collection, which includes Battlezone and Tempest; those are two other games that, while nowhere near as detailed, also used the same graphics style. So it's reasonable to assume that it would have been a decent port, if not a great one.

Imagine that and T2 Arcade on the shelf, next to Virtua Cop and House of The Dead. 

That would have been great. T2 alone, would have moved major units, for sure.

[MIK]

I really enjoyed the classic Atari Starwars arcade machine on Atari ST back in the day, and what made it slightly better for me than the Amiga version was the sound chip as it suited the game more. The Amiga version has a really lame sound for your x-wings fire and seeing as your pressing fire most of the time... They were not perfect arcade ports, but great all the same. A bit slow on 8bits though such as the Commodore 64.

As you may know already, the nearest you can get to this on a Sega machine is Starwars Arcade on 32X which was not bad for it's time...

One slice of Scifi we were thankful for on Saturn was Alien Trilogy of course.

[brianseals]

MIK: I did NOT know that, so thank you for telling me.

IIRC, the 32X had a very small library, so who'd have thought that gem was in there? I've got no plans to pic kup a 32X, or even a proper Mega Drive at the moment (I use a Retron 3 for Genesis games), but I would like to own all of the Sega consoles eventually, so I'll look into the port and keep it in mind.

Alien Trilogy is on my wish list, but it isn't high up there. I've still got things like Daytona USA (CCE) and Sega Rally to get still. Priorities, you understand.

Thinking about my own little collection of games, the only one that sticks in my mind as Sci-Fi, is Darius Gaiden. Granted, I can't really argue the point, since there isn't much story to speak of, but the look of the alien/fish/battleships, leave me with that feeling.

But yeah, Wing Commander it is not.

[MIK]

Alien Trilogy is common and sure thing it can wait while you grab the more important stuff first. Not that there is anything wrong with it as such, it's just one that can keep for a rainy day.

[Tatsumaru]

I really enjoyed the Phanton Menance game on the PS1, but if I recall correctly, everyone hated it. Not sure if it's because the game wasn't very good to begin with or it was Jar Jar Binks fault. I'd play it on the saturn if it was released there aswell.
Anyway, not sure if that's something I would miss that much back in the day since I've only recently seen all the Star War Movies (Yeah, I know...).

[bradcap1]

Jul 7, 2015 19:01:42 GMT Tatsumaru said:

I really enjoyed the Phanton Menance game on the PS1, but if I recall correctly, everyone hated it. Not sure if it's because the game wasn't very good to begin with or it was Jar Jar Binks fault. I'd play it on the saturn if it was released there aswell.
Anyway, not sure if that's something I would miss that much back in the day since I've only recently seen all the Star War Movies (Yeah, I know...).

With the exceptions of Qui Gon Jinn and Darth Maul, the Phantom Menace movie wasn't very good.

[bradcap1]

We did get the Lost World: Jurassic Park.

[Tatsumaru]

Jul 8, 2015 3:03:54 GMT bradcap1 said:

With the exceptions of Qui Gon Jinn and Darth Maul, the Phantom Menace movie wasn't very good.

Yeah, I didn't like The Phantom Menance movie either, but the game is not that bad actually.