Thanks guys, I was the assistant US producer on that Eurocom SSF2T port to PC. There were a couple move animations that were too much to maintain memory requirements and of course the screen is a little smaller playfield wise but I thought Eurocom did an amazing job. I got to spend some time playing in an arcade to compare while we were working on it, not that I hadnt probably already logged thousands of hours playing Street Fighter.

It's funny according to Moby games neither myself or the producer Travis Williams are credited as producers. I know Travis left a couple weeks before the game went gold and I finished up what little remained but I thought at least he would be in the credits given he drove most of the dev effort.

Shagittarius wrote on 2022-04-01, 14:55:

Thanks guys, I was the assistant US producer on that Eurocom SSF2T port to PC. There were a couple move animations that were too much to maintain memory requirements and of course the screen is a little smaller playfield wise but I thought Eurocom did an amazing job. I got to spend some time playing in an arcade to compare while we were working on it, not that I hadnt probably already logged thousands of hours playing Street Fighter.

It's funny according to Moby games neither myself or the producer Travis Williams are credited as producers. I know Travis left a couple weeks before the game went gold and I finished up what little remained but I thought at least he would be in the credits given he drove most of the dev effort.

Did you get any support/feedback from Capcom when working on that one? I understand the SSF2T port is newer and could target faster machines than the original U.S. Gold SF2, but the difference in quality is huge. It seems a lot more care and effort was put into making it as close as possible to the arcade.

I know we got all of the original assets to work with, I don't know if Eurocom got technical input directly from Capcom.

Shagittarius wrote on 2022-04-01, 14:55:

Thanks guys, I was the assistant US producer on that Eurocom SSF2T port to PC. There were a couple move animations that were too much to maintain memory requirements and of course the screen is a little smaller playfield wise but I thought Eurocom did an amazing job. I got to spend some time playing in an arcade to compare while we were working on it, not that I hadnt probably already logged thousands of hours playing Street Fighter.

It's funny according to Moby games neither myself or the producer Travis Williams are credited as producers. I know Travis left a couple weeks before the game went gold and I finished up what little remained but I thought at least he would be in the credits given he drove most of the dev effort.

Wow. That is a heck of a feather in your cap. Huge! Very well done. You might not have gotten the credits/kudos deserved in some quarters, but the quality of the work certainly did not go unnoticed. Dare I say it, it was probably the best-produced fighting game port that the PC scene saw in that decade. I can't think of any worthy challengers offhand (afaicr, only MK1 and 2 need apply, and I don't think they quite matched the overall pizazz and complexity of the SSF2T port, given all the factors in play).

Certain industry factors beyond your control dictated that such a port was unable to be a commercial world-beater - I mean lack of viable fight controller options for most PC owners, the awkward/clunky CDROM + 'multimedia PC' concepts coming-of-age, massively burgeoning competition from consoles, the much smaller market, and the like - but that's not for lack of quality. I can scarcely imagine how it could have been done better. Cheers!

Shagittarius wrote on 2022-03-26, 15:13:

I know you all are going to shoot me but I HATE all the Dark souls games. They control poorly and simply require a bunch of replay and memorization, terrible gameplay traits. I've tried to play several of these games a few times always thinking I must be missing something and each time I come away realizing they are crap.

I feel like in another decade or so everyone will admit this to be true...espcially if From actually releases a game that doesn't control like moving dog poop across the ground with a stick of butter.

Come at me bro.

Played Demon Souls on PS3 and Dark Souls on PC for a bit but didn't hold my interest and agree with you that it relies heavily on convoluted controls with you being your own cameraman as well as moving your character around which makes these games harder than they need to be. And as for it's atmosphere, meh can't hold a candle against the likes of Stalker or Diablo.
As a whole I think Japanese (console) games in general are overrated and their best days were in the arcades.

Other games that dissappoint me, War Thunder, World of Tank/Warships, Elite Dangerous and potentially Star Citizen.
War Thunder really is a game I would like. Cold War era jets, not too difficult flightmodel and nice graphics but it's all let down by boring repetitive online gameplay, endless grind and greedy moneysqueeze.
Same can be said to most of the other mentioned games.

Shreddoc wrote on 2022-04-02, 22:25:

Shagittarius wrote on 2022-04-01, 14:55:

Thanks guys, I was the assistant US producer on that Eurocom SSF2T port to PC. There were a couple move animations that were too much to maintain memory requirements and of course the screen is a little smaller playfield wise but I thought Eurocom did an amazing job. I got to spend some time playing in an arcade to compare while we were working on it, not that I hadnt probably already logged thousands of hours playing Street Fighter.

It's funny according to Moby games neither myself or the producer Travis Williams are credited as producers. I know Travis left a couple weeks before the game went gold and I finished up what little remained but I thought at least he would be in the credits given he drove most of the dev effort.

Wow. That is a heck of a feather in your cap. Huge! Very well done. You might not have gotten the credits/kudos deserved in some quarters, but the quality of the work certainly did not go unnoticed. Dare I say it, it was probably the best-produced fighting game port that the PC scene saw in that decade. I can't think of any worthy challengers offhand (afaicr, only MK1 and 2 need apply, and I don't think they quite matched the overall pizazz and complexity of the SSF2T port, given all the factors in play).

Certain industry factors beyond your control dictated that such a port was unable to be a commercial world-beater - I mean lack of viable fight controller options for most PC owners, the awkward/clunky CDROM + 'multimedia PC' concepts coming-of-age, massively burgeoning competition from consoles, the much smaller market, and the like - but that's not for lack of quality. I can scarcely imagine how it could have been done better. Cheers!

The US version of SSF2T came with an offer for a 6 button gamepad. I don't know if that was only the initial release or how many other countries got this but I wish we could have included the actual controller in the box. I think I still have the one I got from work, though not entirely sure where.

I would also say all of the thanks really goes to the Eurocom team who I praised on a regular basis.

Shagittarius wrote on 2022-04-03, 16:36:

The US version of SSF2T came with an offer for a 6 button gamepad. I don't know if that was only the initial release or how many other countries got this but I wish we could have included the actual controller in the box. I think I still have the one I got from work, though not entirely sure where.

Yes, the PC Fighter 6 (which was also shipped with some copies of Mega Man X for the PC). The most important thing is that the games (Mega Man X and Super Street Fighter II Turbo) had to be specially coded to support the 6 buttons, since it was not a native capability in DOS. This makes the port all that more impressive. 😀

Still, as a keyboard player, I wish it had bult-in support for using the gamepad diagonals for directional diagonals, so DF, DB, UF, UB could have been executed with a single keypress. 😜

Edit: Maybe it was this controller that shipped with SSF2T.

I know this is an old post, but...

leileilol wrote on 2010-09-25, 18:21:

Half-Life 2

To be honest, Half-Life 2 didn't interest me much when it was new either, even less now.

Though that could be due to the fact that it no longer uses the GoldSrc engine. 😅

dr_st wrote on 2022-04-03, 20:16:

Yes, the PC Fighter 6 (which was also shipped with some copies of Mega Man X for the PC). The most important thing is that the g […]
Show full quote

Shagittarius wrote on 2022-04-03, 16:36:

The US version of SSF2T came with an offer for a 6 button gamepad. I don't know if that was only the initial release or how many other countries got this but I wish we could have included the actual controller in the box. I think I still have the one I got from work, though not entirely sure where.

Yes, the PC Fighter 6 (which was also shipped with some copies of Mega Man X for the PC). The most important thing is that the games (Mega Man X and Super Street Fighter II Turbo) had to be specially coded to support the 6 buttons, since it was not a native capability in DOS. This makes the port all that more impressive. 😀

Still, as a keyboard player, I wish it had bult-in support for using the gamepad diagonals for directional diagonals, so DF, DB, UF, UB could have been executed with a single keypress. 😜

Edit: Maybe it was this controller that shipped with SSF2T.

Does anyone know if the PC version of X-men children of the atom will take advantage of those 6 button pads?

Procyon wrote on 2022-04-03, 10:11:

Played Demon Souls on PS3 and Dark Souls on PC for a bit but didn't hold my interest and agree with you that it relies heavily o […]
Show full quote

Shagittarius wrote on 2022-03-26, 15:13:

I know you all are going to shoot me but I HATE all the Dark souls games. They control poorly and simply require a bunch of replay and memorization, terrible gameplay traits. I've tried to play several of these games a few times always thinking I must be missing something and each time I come away realizing they are crap.

I feel like in another decade or so everyone will admit this to be true...espcially if From actually releases a game that doesn't control like moving dog poop across the ground with a stick of butter.

Come at me bro.

Played Demon Souls on PS3 and Dark Souls on PC for a bit but didn't hold my interest and agree with you that it relies heavily on convoluted controls with you being your own cameraman as well as moving your character around which makes these games harder than they need to be. And as for it's atmosphere, meh can't hold a candle against the likes of Stalker or Diablo.
As a whole I think Japanese (console) games in general are overrated and their best days were in the arcades.

Other games that dissappoint me, War Thunder, World of Tank/Warships, Elite Dangerous and potentially Star Citizen.
War Thunder really is a game I would like. Cold War era jets, not too difficult flightmodel and nice graphics but it's all let down by boring repetitive online gameplay, endless grind and greedy moneysqueeze.
Same can be said to most of the other mentioned games.

100% agree with you on this.
Both games started out great, but then greed took more and more of gameplay.
Both games are conceptually great (so you get hooked in), but ruined by monetizing decisions (but FOMO so keep opening your wallet if you want fun! (perhaps 😑)).
I'd never recommend 'games' like that. Heck, these aren't even real games imo, but elaborate 3D storefronts just keep trying that slotmachine you will have fun perhaps your next try 😀 😀 😀
And the main company just flat out lies, gaslights, bait&switch, make you buygamble for stuff (lootboxes surprise mechanics random bundles) and devalues what you buy unless they get another PR disaster slamming them in the face.

At least 'thanks' to those I'm never gonna bother with play4free again. Disappointment to the max -_-. Especially since both games started out great when they were new.

Loom? I've found it to be quite depressing. 😞

Pariah?

Fun thread to go back and re-read. My contribution many years back was Ultima 8. Since then, I've come across another that was so disappointing: Albion. Very promising DOS RPG from 1995, set in space. It starts off great! Nice story, graphics, great GM soundtrack, turn-based combat. It's been almost 6 years since I DNF it. Here's a copy/paste of my issues with it from the "What game are you playing now?" thread:

My issues with it:
-I really dislike how it jumps between different perspectives. I wish it would just stick with the 2D birds-eye perspective that the game starts in (which it does very well). The first person "Underworld style" perspective is really poorly done. Sense of movement is not at all convincing, and it's so easy to get turned around. Just turning a corner is a challenge--half the time I end up facing a completely unexpected direction or inadvertently turn completely around and start heading back where I came from. I'm constantly using the automap to check if I'm heading in the direction I'm intending to. 🙁
-the movement is primarily done by continuously holding the left mouse button, rather than the right button (like other RPGs like Ultima VII implement), which causes muscle fatigue on the palm area directly below my index finger. Keyboard movement is very limited--with the directional arrows only.
-though the world is gorgeous, there hasn't been a lot of variety within each of the areas (the ship, and the jungle) and contributes to hard-to-navigate issues. To further the plot, I was told to go to a certain area, but not given enough info to know how to get to that area (even though there is a guide with me who knows exactly how to get there, he does not lead me there or even give me hints, just tells me to go there).
-you're given a lot of important information ONCE, and are expected to remember it all or do lots of note-taking.
-there's a built-in automap, but ONLY for the first person perspective areas. In a nice touch, though, visited areas are often given a teleport dot, so if you want to go back, just click it on the automap and you'll instantly be there. They should've extended this to areas you are told to go to (see a couple of points above).

On the plus side:
-great GM music
-very interesting storyline (mix of fantasy and scifi), well written despite being translated from German
-the story has a nice "moral dilemma" very similar to something that would be written into ST:TNG
-beautiful, colorful graphics
-I personally really like their implementation of turn-based combat

Sim City (2015). I happen to really love this game. On contemporary hardware, performance was awful, but this isn't the real problem. The game has a lot of bugs that manifest once your city grows, with important features like education and transportation breaking terribly. There are irreconcilable problems with crime, unhappy sims, and homelessness that destroys property value and wrecks your city. Usually, there is no other way to combat these problems than to demolish huge portions of your city to rat out the undesirables, and it makes progressive beautification and city enhancement an exercise in misery.

City sizes are also way, WAY too small! At a minimum, they should be at least four times as large. This isn't as obvious when starting out, but high density buildings are huge, and those additional buildings necessary specialization eat into your already limited real estate. The game design encourages you to build multiple cities in a "region", but regional trade and management is broken. When while playing single player and offline, you can send funds to a neighboring city and have to wait up to an hour for it to "arrive".

One of the reasons that city limits are as small as they are call back to the performance issues. There's no way they could have had larger cities on hardware from the time. But they never addressed this, so cities stayed cramped and frustrating, even as they added new buildings and expansions.

I still like this game and play it occasionally. But I always end up very bitter towards the end, because of what I wish it could have been.

lowenz wrote on 2023-01-22, 13:20:

Pariah?

Tried that a while ago. This game is pure jank.
Bad gameplay, atrocious level design, story written like a fanfiction from a 12-year old...

I don't get why it was hyped up so much back in the day.

schmatzler wrote on 2023-01-23, 00:09:

Tried that a while ago. This game is pure jank. Bad gameplay, atrocious level design, story written like a fanfiction from a 12- […]
Show full quote

lowenz wrote on 2023-01-22, 13:20:

Pariah?

Tried that a while ago. This game is pure jank.
Bad gameplay, atrocious level design, story written like a fanfiction from a 12-year old...

I don't get why it was hyped up so much back in the day.

*Ahem* I was programming in Visual Basic 1, Mix Power C and Quick Basic 4.5 at age 7. 😀
(Oh, and I was watching Star Trek TOS already, did listen to audio dramas via cassette etc.)
Some pre-teens are/were more responsible and reasonable than adults or hormone-driven teens. 😉

Anyway, just saying..
I understand what you mean to say, though. 😀

I've seen better games from 80s and 90s programmed by children than some of the junk we get now from triple-A studios.

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-01-23, 02:19:

I've seen better games from 80s and 90s programmed by children than some of the junk we get now from triple-A studios.

Now that you mention it, the text adventures on C64 come to mind.
Some had vector graphics, too. Many were in the Public Domain (PD).
Public Domain software was the precursor to Freeware/Shareware (popular in the 90s).

Other types of games were also written by minors at the time.
It was the era of the socalled "bed room programmers".

Edit: At the time, some games were also written by father/son (Warpath! on Win31?) and/or husband/wife (Sierra On-Line founders).
Team work in the family was a thing, at the time.
The VGA game "Supernova" in the early 90s was made by two brothers, afaik.

‘Delta V’ from Bethesda. I paid good money at Babbage’s for that game in 1994. Fastest time for a game to be removed from my HDD. Boring is the only way to describe it. Many more, but that one really sticks out in my memory.

Being almost exclusively a retrogamer, i guess i get the benefit of hindsight. But i also tend to not expect one particular thing from a game. If i had to name one game that disappointed me, it would probably be Moto Racer 2 on the PS1 (i think all the series was ported to PC anyway)
there isn't much wrong with it apart from how underwhelming the presentation of the game is compared the monster predecessor of MR1, which really had all the spirit of an arcade machine crammed into a little grey box - amazing for what was actually not an arcade port.
MR2 just doesn't have it, it's just too quiet and appears like an unfinished expansion pack.