3do

S

steve_k

CAGiversary!
Does anyone here remember 3DO? I bought one in 1996 from Best Buy for $89 with a free pack-in Gex game and lots of other games for $10 each. At the time, it was a great bargain. The Playstation (PS1 that is, this is 1996) was $299 and most games were $50 to $60 each. This was before the whole 'Greatest Hits' idea and before the $50 cap on game prices. It was nearly impossible to find a Playstation game for $10, let alone anything that was half-decent. I stockpiled on 3DO games, knowing they were soon to disappear. They did, and afterwards the only place I could hope to find 3DO games was Funcoland and some of the competing second-hand video game stores. Back then there were other places to buy used games and Gamestop did not have the monopoly it does today. The internet was young, and many people did not have access to it. Game reviews for 3DO were hard to find, so the only way to judge whether a game was good or not was to look at the screen shots printed on the box and maybe take a look at FuncoLand's prices. With that being said, finding good games was mostly a process of trial and error. There were no television ads, no internet review, no 3DO magazine I was aware of, and no one I knew had a 3DO. I had plenty of fun and plenty of frustration with the 31 games I bought over the lifespan of my 3DO before deciding to sell it a couple of years later for about a hundred dollars or so less than what I paid (total, with games). Overall, it was a pretty good deal and a great experience. Some of the games I had were:

Alone in the Dark - horribly slow game engine, more frustrating than fun, awful combat engine
Alone in the Dark 2 - same as above, but I have to give it credit for having an atmosphere
Gex - great game, although a bit childish, crisp graphics and a great into!
The Need for Speed - phenomenal racing game! I loved the crashes.
Road Rash - great gameplay, great soundtrack, mediocre graphics, but I still played it plenty
Super Street Fighter 2 - excellent version of Street Fighter
Shockwave - I really enjoyed this game
Shockwave: Operation Jumpgate - I enjoyed this just as much as Shockwave
Shockwave 2 - Incredible graphics!! One of the best games. Gameplay was great.
The Horde - simple premise, yet lots of fun with plenty of reply value
D - I remember the fantastic graphics and errie atmosphere of the game - it really was like a movie
Wing Commander 3 - great visuals, but boring gameplay and kind of nerdy concept
Myst - once I got past the first island, this was pretty good. The graphics were really sharp.
Hell - this was boring. too many lengthly conversations and not enough gameplay. cool intro, through.
Blade Force - I hated this game, despite the good reviews
Escape from Monster Manor - this game was so bad it made me want to throw up
Corpse Killer - great graphics, but nothing else but an overall bad game
Starblade - Amazing graphics, good gameplay. I would play this over and over again in amazement.
Burning Solder - this game had an error, preventing it from being possible to beat
Dragon's Lair - horrible, repetitive gameplay based on trial and error. I never made it very far.
Dragon Lore - great graphics, but boring gameplay and boring conversations. I never made the 2nd disc.
Doom - I loved this game!! Great environment, good graphics, excellent gameplay, nice music!!
Soccer Kid - lame child's game. I could not tolerate it, despite actually being pretty good.
Fifa Soccer - a great soccer game with amazing graphics - and it only cost a dollar!
Crash n'Burn - I never really found this to be much fun. I'd like to give it a 2nd try today.
Space Hulk - a pretty good game with really nice graphics, but kind of repetitive gameplay
Slayer - a boring game with mediocre graphics that I just could not get into
Twisted - This game was too goofy for me and would never be released today
Immercenary - unbelievably slow and boring - this game sucked
Icebreaker - terrible puzzle game that required hardly any strategy
The Last Bounty Hunter - this game was alright for a point-and-click Western Shooter, but not something I would play today


Any comments on 3DO would be appreciated.
 
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I remember looking at Road Rash 3D for the first time thinking it was the coolest game I'd ever seen. But the damn thing was too expensive for gamers, which at the time were teenagers. $700 at launch!!! Are you kidding me? People still bitch at the PS3 launch price tag.

3DO was part of that 5th Generation of gaming that never made it. It had a few good games.
 
Road Rash and Need for Speed were great. The most fun I had on a 3DO was all night wars in Return Fire. That was a fun game at the time.

I also love the way the controllers worked. Rather then having everyone plug into the console, only player one would and everyone would piggy back off the player before. So if youre player one losing in a game of Madden.. OOPS "accidentally" unplugged player two:D
 
I loved Road Rash 3D.
Awww..3DO.

I hope another company comes out and makes a system for the next generation. Bored of Sony, MS and Nintendo :lol:
 
This was one expensive system -- I picked up the slim, top loading version, and it was about $600 at that time. Not to mention, the controllers were horrible. My favorite games were Gex, Need for Speed, Road Rash and the Shockwave games.

If you do research on-line, you might find some interesting interview of Trip Hawkins on the console.

Just prior to the death of the system, there was talk of a terrific expansion module (if there is such a thing) but that never saw the light of day.
 
[quote name='bsesb2003'] Just prior to the death of the system, there was talk of a terrific expansion module (if there is such a thing) but that never saw the light of day.[/QUOTE]

That was the M2 you are thinking of. There are some M2 videos on Youtube, and the graphics are nearly as good as the Dreamcast. It would have certainly been ahead of its time. This was around 1996 when the Playstation was in its infancy.
 
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Yeah I got the system when it came out, some great games on it and at the time it was amazing.

The pack-in game crash N' Burn was pretty cool.

It had real good ports of SamuraiShodown and StreetFighter2 on it,

Star control 2 is one of my favorite games of all time.
 
[quote name='blitz6speed']I remember the games had no copy protection, you just made a copy and it booted right up.[/QUOTE]

I had my 3DO before the days of easy burning. Back then, not everyone had a computer and not every computer was capable of burning CDs. I didn't even know it could be done at the time. Even if I aware and capable, it's not like I could borrow my friend's 3DO games or even rent them from Blockbuster and burn a copy for myself. No one else had a 3DO and after they disappeared from store shelves, the only way to find them was used from the video game specialty stores.

Dreamcast, on the ther hand, was much more convenient.
 
[quote name='steve_k']I had my 3DO before the days of easy burning. Back then, not everyone had a computer and not every computer was capable of burning CDs. I didn't even know it could be done at the time. Even if I aware and capable, it's not like I could borrow my friend's 3DO games or even rent them from Blockbuster and burn a copy for myself. No one else had a 3DO and after they disappeared from store shelves, the only way to find them was used from the video game specialty stores.

Dreamcast, on the ther hand, was much more convenient.[/QUOTE]

I knew someone with a CD-R burner at the time (1x!!!), he would burn me anything i brought him, and i had a lot of friends who had 3d0. Fun times. I played the crap out of SSF2T even tho the controls were so painfully bad.
 
I own two 3DOs. I have the US flip-top and tray versions. Currently, I have eighty-one titles for the system. Many of the best titles are imports only. :whistle2:(

I always used my SNES arcade stick (not the crappy Advantage stick) with the SNES controller adaptor to play most games. It made Super Wing Commander and all the fighting games actually playable.

Some games you may have forgotten:

Dinopark Tycoon - This game is VERY DIFFICULT to find.
Theme Park - Bullfrog took out the Wooden rollercoaster, Medieval and Dolphin Acts (maybe even more), but it had 3D videos of the rides.
Jurassic Park - I didn't really like this game.
Lucienne's Quest - The only US JRPG for the system.
Lost Eden - I haven't played this much.
Quarantine - I played this a lot, but it's actually pretty terrible. It's a cross between DOOM and Crazy Taxi.
Super Wing Commander
 
[quote name='opportunity777']

Some games you may have forgotten:


Quarantine - I played this a lot, but it's actually pretty terrible. It's a cross between DOOM and Crazy Taxi.
QUOTE]

I didn't forget anything. I listed only those titles I owned. I did buy Quarantine from a small game shop in the mall back around 1998, but the game did not play on my Panasonic top-loading 3DO system. After spending my $4.50, I was pretty disappointed that this 3DO game would not play on my 3DO. I called the publisher for a refund and was asked to mail my game back to them. As I recall, the retail store was too far away to drive back for a $4.50 return. I mailed Quarantine back as requested, but never received my refund. I was pretty pissed off about it, and I'm sure I would have been even more pissed off about it if I had paid the full $70 for the game when it was first released. Anyway, I'm glad to hear the game was 'actually pretty terrible'.
 
I have Blade Force that I bought at a flea market, but I never had a system to play it with.

Also, how is 3D0 pronounced? Is it "three dee oh" or "three dew"?
 
I remember my cousin had it. I always came over to his house during the summer and play Soccer Kid. It was sort of an action/platformer game. It was really fun but we never beat it. For some reason, I can't remember any other games. Maybe that was all he had (It was a long time ago so my memory is a little fuzzy). And this was well past the 3DO's lifetime- this was around 2003.
 
I bought one a couple of months ago for $40 and I don't regret it. I've been having great success at finding most of the popular titles below $20 and have a fairly respectable library.

It isn't the best game but I've been having a good time with Escape from Monster Manor. It's just you, ghosts, a zappy gun, keys and lots of locked doors. My only serious complaint is the lack of a directional indicator on the map... due to the simple maps it can be difficult to gauge which direction you're presently facing. Tread carefully, now.

Alone is the Dark has some longer loading times but seems to be a very respectable port of the original PC version. As I have issues running older PC titles the added loading times is an acceptable compromise.

I haven't sunk much time into it but Killing Time shows lots of promise. I adore the zombie ducks and that you can step on them. It's revenge on the little quackers giving your position away to actual dangerous foes and not just being malicious, really!

I still have Death Keep, Star Fighter, Space Hulk and Quarantine to mess with. The only game I really don't care for is Icebreaker. It's a decent concept but it looks like a rejected SNES game. Ick.
 
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