pal sega ages

[snow-katt]

i know that for some reason working designs handeld the usa version of sega ages
but who did the european version ?
sega themselves ?

[mick_aka]

pretty sure it was done in house, but anyone feel free to correct me...

[snow-katt]

if the pal version was done in house why did soa farmed it out to wd ?

[chizzles]

I'm pretty sure that the European version uses the Working Designs version as a template.

It's identical other than the fact it has massive borders, runs too slow and looks like shit.

[snow-katt]

well i dont like the games anyway i was just wondering

[Anthaemia.]

AfterBurner II, Space Harrier, OutRun, Power Drift and Galaxy Force II were all converted to Saturn by Rutubo Games, though I believe Working Designs compiled the first volume of Sega Ages. Because these versions were ported for inclusion as part of Shenmue, Rutubo is credited in that game (along with AM2 - naturally! - and many departments who helped with outsourcing, such as Genki and Amusement Vision).

Anyway, on a slightly different note, have you ever noticed that all of the classics featured in Shenmue later turned up (complete with Hang On's slightly altered trackside billboards) on the disc that came with Yu Suzuki's GameWorks book? Actually, the only game that didn't feature in either Shenmue was Power Drift, which had been kept for the ill-fated third and final installment...

[chizzles]

Have you noticed that the Dreamcast versions of the games don't use the music from the Arcade versions, also?

The XBOX versions however, do.

What do you mean buy ported for use in Shenmue?
Do you mean that originally the Sega Ages games were to be featured in Shenmue and Shenmue only?

Cause the versions in Shenmue on Dreamcast and XBOX certainly aren't "ports" of the Saturn versions, they're very different on a technical level, even though the appearance is similar.

[Anthaemia.]

Back when Shenmue was still a Saturn project, AM2 simply didn't have the time to port Space Harrier and Hang On because they were so busy finishing the main game (and others, including Saturn Virtua Fighter 3). So, the challenge was given to outsourcing partner Rutubo Games, who also tackled AfterBurner II, OutRun, Galaxy Force II and Power Drift knowing a compilation series of classics was also planned. Of course, development switched to the Dreamcast and these games were left without a home, outside the Sega Ages range that was now being compiled by yet another group - this is where Working Designs gets involved. While the eventual Dreamcast versions were indeed reworked (and not just with a few changed in-game advertisements, either!), the basic code remains from their earlier Saturn incarnations. On a slightly different note, Sonic Adventure and Shenmue are believed to be the only Dreamcast games that retain elements from their original Saturn versions in terms of programming assets. Does all this make sense? Hopefully I've got it right, because the history of these games and their Saturn/Dreamcast remakes is quite complicated...

[chizzles]

It doesn't make any sense because the Dreamcast and Saturn have totally different architecture.

AM2, famously known for writing its games in assembly using Unix, would be hard pushed to get any code written for a Saturn to run on a Dreamcast... Think of it like speaking to a frenchman in dutch.

"Assets" is generally a word used to refer to things like sound, artwork, graphics files, not usually code...


Also, Are you quite sure that Retubo games ported Power Drift and Galaxy Force?

I have heard from others that the reason Power Drift and Galaxy Force is more buggy than the other ports is precisley because they used a different team.

They could go back and look at the code diagrams and pseudocode, data tables, to see what specific actions need to be carried out to replicate the gameplay, but I doubt they would use the same code...

[Anthaemia.]

Rutubo Games were indeed behind the Saturn conversions of Power Drift and Galaxy Force II... however, that's not quite the end of the story - remember how I told you this was complicated? AfterBurner II, Space Harrier and OutRun were definitely the works of Rutubo, but those games were prioritised because Sega wanted to include them in a standalone classics pack (Ages) long before they would be seen in Shenmue, probably because management knew that project would take longer than expected - either due to it changing platform or maybe the lack of publicity suggesting it was still a long way from completion.

Everyone knew the "SuperScaler" games could be perfectly reproduced on Saturn, and when reviews of the Sega Ages package mentioned even the smallest flaws it was decided Rutubo wouldn't be coming back to finish the proposed second volume, though it was still involved with Shenmue as one of several outsourcing teams. I've since discovered that CRI may have been called on at short notice to help complete Power Drift and Galaxy Force II, as the latter was changed radically from an early preview build shown months earlier. Ironically, those were even less arcade faithful, but in my opinion the only team capable of doing better thankfully opted to focus on better things... even if both of its efforts at the time were ultimately carried over to the Dreamcast, one by a different group!

According to a report in SSM, this initial test version of Power Drift featured vastly inferior music to the original. By the time it had been completed under a new developer, the end product had new remixes that were more faithful to the source material. This happened later with OutRun 2, which Genki had been in charge of producing until none other than Yu Suzuki rejected a build that was being prepared for arcade testing. In that case, a few minor details survived long enough to have been posted in screenshot form on a few websites, though I'm sure final developers Sumo Digital removed any remaining traces. Of course, a hacker may be able to prove otherwise, but that's irrelevant to this thread.

Back to the subject, I'm aware that AM2 codes its games in Assembler. Still, there can be no denying the fact certain Dreamcast titles feature leftovers from their earlier Saturn prototypes. While the programmers may have been forced to rewrite virtually everything, someone managed to reinstate Ryo's original 32-bit style design in the final version of Shenmue. Also, the character models from Sonic R feature prominently in some cut scenes of Sonic Adventure, though I'd rather not discuss that right here and now.

[chizzles]

You are referring to Assets then...

While a rendering engine is written to take geometric/other types of graphical data and work out how to display them the modelling itself is done in 3D modeling applications and is nothing more than geometric data that could be rendered by any engine capable of understanding the format of the file (for example direct X type 3D models will render in any engine that supports them).
So they either converted the old models to run on the new engine, or the new engine uses some standardized file format that was also used in the Saturn game.


The code to print "Hello World" will always be the code to print "hello world", but there's nothing particularly impressive about that level of coding and you would generally find some variant of it in most programs, even if they weren't based off of other projects.

Shenmue without a doubt, and any other game that has stayed true to its original concept andp survived the process of being converted from a "Legacy" platform to a newer platform will share similarities in the function of the code to carry out basic tasks. But technically the machines are far too different for the majority of the code to actually be ported...

Recoding a game to carry out the same functions in a different language on a new platform is called a "Conversion".

"Ports" are when the original code itself is portable enough to be compiled for a different platform (or if the original code is portable enough it could possibly run on both platforms, for example, JAVA runs in a sandbox. so technically it's always running on the same platform regardless of the machine running it)

Sadly the difference of the definition conversion and port seems to be one that has become lost in time...

Even modern day programmers think they are the same thing, now

[Anthaemia.]

I understand the difference between ports and conversions, though clearly many these days have blurred the line of definition to a point where both terms are virtually indistinguishable when they're most certainly not. What's even more remarkable is that many so-called professionals struggle identifying one term from the other, but in the context of Sonic Adventure there is plenty of evidence to suggest that Sonic Team did at least port code from the Saturn prototype. Without being more technically-minded I can't tell whether or not any 32-bit leftovers are used in the final game, though I've seen it confirmed before that major portions of native Saturn code have been found through in-depth analysis. Of course, assets from a 32-bit game would stick out like a proverbial sore thumb on Dreamcast, so unless there were major improvements the visual side of Sonic Adventure (and more than likely Shenmue as well) everything graphical was rebuilt from scratch. Then again, it's already well known that a few models were carried over from past Sonic games virtually identical for Adventure, while in Shenmue it's possible to load models from the game's Saturn prototype. Just because elements were clearly ported, that doesn't automatically mean the end product is a port. If anything, AM2, Sonic Team and many other developers port whatever they can when a game switches platform then either convert any remaining data or create new upgraded material using as much of the original source as possible. Anyway, hopefully this makes sense because I'm straying way out of my comfort zone by discussing the parts of games you don't actually get to see... Don't you think the coding process is equally as deserving of our time and understanding as what we can actually see? There are plenty of members on forums across the 'net prepared to comment on eye candy, yet the programming side of things doesn't need to be the exclusive domain of hardcore fans and developers!