@@secoTheSonicFan Yeah, like when he said the Sega was afraid of the Super FX chip. Sega dogged the idea and said it was too expensive and would only pass the cost on to the consumers, which it did. Sega said a better way was to create an add on with enhanced hardware and keep the game costs down, which they did with the 32X. Virtua Racing was almost a proof of concept that Sega could utilize enhancement in cartridges like big N was doing but, like Sega predicted, the cost was the biggest turn off.
@@secoTheSonicFan 3/4 of the video is garbage, unfortunately. I had to give it a thumbs down because of it. He clearly was highly inconsiderate when he review the game, and it's 100% clear he was not around when the game was released on the genesis/megadrive.
@@Arjay82 He even points out the weird cartridge shape, brings up the plans for a lock on SVP cartridge, and manages not to connect the dots that the cartridge is weird because it's molded as if it was the lockon cartridge with a game cartridge locked on. They had the design ready to go but only ever did the one game, so there was no need to make it two separate pieces.
You are too young to understand how big a deal it was to get an arcade port of this quality on a home machine. The 32x had its own virtua racing which was much better, at the time of the 32x nobody saw the need for specific 3d hardware.
This guy has no idea how amazing this was when it came out. It was a game changer. The price meant nothing too, people would sell their right nut to buy it lol.
@@geoffprince2258 Yeah, those fortunate enough that could actually buy it! In Europe it was a nightmare to find the good games like this!! People would take an airplane to US just to buy a few copies and the resell in Italy at 1000 dollars each!!
@@geoffprince2258 First point yes, second point about people selling body parts for any home port of Virtua Racer? nah! It was NEVER that hot in the arcade let alone hungered for by millions of console owners, that was ALL marketing bullshit and Sega dedicated magazine hype. The 3D revolution where people went crazy to get home 3D arcade game ports didn't happen until Ridge Racer/Tekken for PS1, for Sega it took a year longer with the almost simultaneous release of Virtua Figther 2 and Sega Rally (Daytona and VF1 looked like crusty PC 486 bollox from 1992 on Saturn).Technically impressive for sure but then so would a 128 colour ray traced animation of a CGI turd be impressive. And no I don't worship Star Fox, it's too childish with all those stupid puppet characters....for little shits and lobotomised adults only (AKA Ninbendo fanbois). VR on Megadrive seems to suffer less frame drops than SuperFX games released but who knows....did anybody who had working genitals at the time of the release of either VR or SF actually give a shit? lol normal adults would play OutRun instead.
@@ostiariusalpha No I don't despise people for liking different things, what a dumb thing to assume from my comment. I think males above teenage sort of years back then, i.e. full grown adults legally, who didn't find the puppet/animal characters constantly popping up with stupid useless comments are a bit weird or a bit mentally retarded....same way it would be weird for a 21 year old to sit and watch children's Television with puppet shows or making shit out of cardboard and vinyl wrap etc. There is nothing wrong with the game as it was released for children or people too young to drive legally. If you remove that childish aspect of the game it becomes acceptable to normal male adults in the West. Why does a dumb frog have to scream at me for help when it is nothing more than a gimmick that has nothing to do with actual game progress or gameplay. Star Fox cost 65 English Pounds, nearly half the price of a new SNES bundled with a top game so adults put up with the MISTAKE of adding those dumb idiot character animations. It's as fucking stupid as the pop up "Where did you learn to fly?" bullshit in that bundled Jaguar game (yeah we all know which one it is if you ever watched an AVGN Jaguar vid).
n64 graphics? Exaggerate much.....? it's not even half way to 32X graphics, and that was far from Saturn's graphics, while the Saturn was weaker than the N64.
Right. Regardless of the quality of the textures, the vast majority of N64 games had them. Model 1 games like Virtua Racing were distinctly texture-less.
The SVP lock on cart did "kinda" happen in the end. Sega developed it further and it turned into the 32X. And when you finish the three tracks in Virtua Racing, you can play them mirrored and in reverse, so you technically have 12 tracks in total.
Yes, it was far more cost effective to do that. They could sell the 32x that would work with other carts and not have to charge them for the same chip in every single game. The main issue with that was that it came so late in the development cycle for the system. It came out the same year that Saturn did.
In 1992, "Virtua Racing" on the "Model 1" board was nothing short of revolutuionary as was "Virtua Fighter" and "Star Wars arcade". To see this in polygon form on the Sega Genisis .... EPIC.. SEGA sure had a lot of missteps... I was A proud 32X and SEGA CD owner .
I still remember the first time I saw VR in the arcade and my mouth dropped at how smooth it was at the time. I was used to Atari's polygon games with lower frame rates (such as Hard/Race Drivin' and STUN Runner.) But 30fps was a whole new level. That was until I saw Daytona for the first time and it was when I realized how amazing 60fps was in racing games.
@@JohnSegerclucka I have one now, I've never actually used it as I don't have the necessary cables and I play my Genesis games via Mister FPGA, but I could get the cables, I might do that at some point, I just like having the hardware as part of my collection.
@adam_odell 'official' This is true. The 32x would have been sold at a higher price point, while the SVP chip would have been cheaper and would have not required a separate power supply.
The graphics and sound engine was nearly identical at the silicon level but for the addition of hardware scaler and larger memory space. There was also a standalone frame buffer built in so it would not depend on doing copythrough to the MD. This allowed for higher color depth and actual texture filtering on some level. Since it was largely software driven 3d the twin SH2 were also significantly more powerful than the fixed point DSP used in the SVP.
@@pojr 32 x didn't require a sperate power supply from memory. It was just a cartridge you plugged into mega drive slot then stuck your 32x game in the top of it. There was a 32x version of this game I'm pretty certain
@@1invag The 32X needed a separate wall wart power adapter and video mixing cable. I know this because Sega used to sell a power strip to plug in the Genesis, CD, and 32X. And yes, there was a 32X version of Virtua Racing and it was the best version until the Switch version came out.
Fun fact: Sonic Team wanted to use the SVP to make Sonic 3 a 3D game but they determined it wasn't powerful enough to do what they wanted. However, seeing what AM2 did with Virtua Racing, I think a 3D platformer using the Virtua Racing engine would have been a distinct possibility.
Would have been interesting if Sega had used the SVP to enhance 2D graphics in Sonic 3, and/or introduce some 3D effects to make certain things pop. Sort of like Nintendo did with Yoshi's Island.
I think we dodged a bullet then. What we got was so much better. We got Sonic 3 + Sonic & Knuckles which brought with it the ability to plug Sonic 2 in for some adjustments and other carts would work, but just for minigames. And there was some provision for the original Sonic game as well.
You were better off to change the title “N64 graphics on a genesis?” Instead am mean come on the SVP chip doesn’t even come.close to ps1 graphics,let alone N64 graphics,also I think $100 is well worth it if a game is in full screen along with smooth controls and virtua racing definitely puts starfox and stunt race fx into shame, i wish that starfox and stunt race fx just used a more powerful chip to have smooth controls with instant response time.
Winter Gold for SNES shows what the FX2 can really do. Though it's clunky and slow, I like Stunt Race FX, but I know I'm the only one who really enjoys that weird little game.
@@AtariBorn yes i know that and am getting excited about it everytime i think about it,so who knows what can be more squeezed out of the super fx chip once mega overclocked😁
I feel like you should have really played or watched enough Virtua Racing Arcade to realise how big a port this was. The research across this whole video isn't the greatest.
Had never heard of this port until today. And I owned lots of great Genesis games. Must not have been a very famous port. Also, $100 was too high an asking price. No matter how great the game was (which it wasn't, apparently).
You can't judge an old game on how it looks and plays today, you can only judge on how it aged, and yes, it aged very badly. But back when it was released, it was one of the best racing games for the Genesis/Mega Drive, probably even for any home console at the time. I had this game when I was a kid and I played it for hundreds of hours. The meaning of "replayability" today is definitely not the same as it was back then, nor it will be the same ten years from now. And if you can't hear "Time Bonus" being said, I'm guessing you were born after the Arcades lost the war against home consoles.
I actually played the virtua racing on the 32x and it did not impress me back then. I only played it one time and I remember not liking it at all. Was there a big difference between the genesis version and the 32x? I don't even know the release time of those games. I was a big sega fan back then at least until the playstation came out. We had the genesis and the cd addon and bunch of fun games.
@@huldu The 32x was way better than the Genesis version: 20 vs 15fps, more polygons/colors, 2 more cars and 2 more tracks, with the gaming experience being closer to the original arcade version. It's one of those games that you either love it or hate it, but it was an impressive technical feat back then. I don't know what happened to my original game but I never bothered to buy it again, since the Saturn version is more than enough to satisfy any nostalgia for it with much better graphics and more cars/tracks than the 32x version.
@@wettuga2762 Yeah. Sega did some really questionable decisions toward the mid 90's for sure. I remember seeing the saturn for sale and the price was a big surprise. We were tempted to at least rent the console but even that was out of the question at the time. I think the store wanted the value of the console in deposit which at that time was unheard of around here. I think if I played virtua racing today I would enjoy it and appreciate it. Many games I didn't enjoy as a child I do enjoy nowadays. Zelda 2 is a good example. As a kid I wasn't too happy with it but these days I love the game.
I just discovered your channel. Well done video. It would be interesting if Sega did not cancel plans for additional SVP chip games: Virtua Fighter, Star Wars Arcade, and Daytona USA. Instead, of releasing the 32X. Moreover, it would be interesting to use the the SVP on the Vectorman games, Sonic 3 , Sonic and Knuckles, & Sonic 3-D Blast.
It’s cheaper to play this on Megadrive than on the arcades and a lot of us who Time Attack it. Playing a great graphics racing game like VR was the whole point.
I don't understand what Sega of Japan was thinking, instead of using chips like the FX to expand the cartridges, they tried to push useless expansions like the 32X.
Sega could've chose enhancement chips route (decompress rom storage/data, color/audio enhancement chip lock-on cart, cheaper custom 3D/2.5D chip made from sega/Hitachi) but chose the easy and expensive out with a 2nd add-on for the genesis. Which led to mismanagement, infighting and losing a lot of money once they release this horrible add-on.
9:15 Yes, the Genesis does support analog controls. Check out the XE-1AP controller. The Saturn racing wheel was also originally designed for the Genesis to use with Virtua Racing, however Sega decided to cancel it and use it for the Saturn instead. That's why it only has six buttons while every other Saturn controller has 8.
Dogeymon83 They do if you compare them to what came after, but these were high end graphics for 16 bit consoles, especially for the Mega Drive which was over 5 years old when VR was released.
@@RetroGamesBoy78 I thought they looked terrible at the time. I wasn’t comparing them to what came out after. I compared them to the arcade counterparts at the time. I didn’t expect the arcade version of Virtua Racing, but I also realized Genesis wasn’t a system that could do the game. I was far more impressed and happy with the 32X version.
@@dogeymon83 I guess as an 11 year old kid you didn't really understand that basic flat shaded polygons moving at that speed and frame rate was more impressive than something like Sonic 3. Don't forget, this guy had it running on an LCD here, it looked far better on a CRT.
Dogeymon83 Also, comparing a £2000 arcade machine to a £70 game cartridge running on a £100 video game console Isn't really a valid comparison no matter how impressive it was at the time.
Snes Doom was pretty amazing for what it was. "Hey! You wanna play Doom but don't have hundreds of dollars lying around for a Next Gen system, or a PC? $70 will get you a reasonable approximation of the experience!"
You’ve got potential my friend. Some quick tidbits of note. Sega Designed the game with Analogue support and created a steering wheel for it. The wheel never released and it’s unknown if the Analogue support was stripped from the final game build. There was a twin analogue stick controller for the Mega Drive too, some 32X games even support it. Also, Virtua Racing is without a doubt the most influential and iconic racing game of that era. Having that arcade game ported home without any content cut was an unreal accomplishment. It’s still dang impressive when considering the platform limitations. Best of luck going forward, I realize you’re taking a licking in the comments, but always recommend replying to those who support you.
I remember being a kid and not being able to talk my parents into buying it for the $100. But sure did rent this a lot. The Genesis and the 32X port still plays closest to the arcade imo. Even more than the Switch remake. That feels too...modern...
tbh Genesis was way faster than SNES and it showed - most games were way waaaay faster. Just comparing Hard Corps to Alien Wars is enough to see where Genesis owned the big N (and quite a lot of devs understood that). Who cares about colours and funky drum sounds, when Genesis pump out hardcore techno synth and high speed gameplay. Sega should had included the chip in something that'd actually improved the experience Genesis is known for, instead of "lets port this".
Which ones? Yes, the Mega Drive had a faster CPU, and most of the time a slightly higher resolutiin. but thats about it. SNES had better graphics, way better sound and the better games.
Interesting note, Virtua Racing doesn't work on the "3" model of the Genesis because of the SVP chip. My parents bought me the original Genesis in the early 90s and got Virtua Racing sometime in the mid 90s (IIRC, not at full retail price). Then in the late 90s my original Genesis broke and I got the Genesis 3 as a replacement, and I could play everything except Virtua Racing. I was disappointed but your assessment of the game is correct, it was just hard to play on a controller and it didn't have any real replayability with just 3 tracks. It's now 2021 and I still have that Genesis and my entire game collection, nearly 30 years later. 😁
The Super FX chip and Star Fox embody Nintendo's design philosophy. Nintendo tends to use lower specs for cheaper hardware but invests heavily on making quality games that make the most out of the hardware.
The video is misleading. Sega's "answer" to the Super FX was to create an add on that contained all of the enhancement hardware and keep the cost of each game down. They mentioned this back in the day. The 32X was the realization that an add on could do just that and Virtua Racing was confirmation that extra hardware in the cartridge was too expensive for customers.
@@Barcrest Because the 32X had an entire architecture of its own, rather than a coprocessor or single chip added to a standard cartridge. In that aspect, Sega was right. It made more sense to build a single add on that could give the console better specs and only charge customers once for that add on rather than add expensive chips to each cartridge and charge higher prices for each game that used them.
Great video. Atari weren't thinking what hardware they needed to accommodate most games. They were designing the cheapest system that could play Tank and Pong. When you look at it's capabilities it's some kind of black magic some of the games they managed to make on that system.
Extremely informative video, when virtua racing first came out, I was never gonna pay £100, so I rented it from my local video shop for £2, was his with it in 6 hours!!!
I rented this game when I was a kid, and I thought they actually took the real arcade version and put it in a small cartridge. But I was also a silly kid with little attention to detail lol. I was impressed.
When I was a kid, I loved going to the arcade just to watch other people play the games. I got a lot of entertainment value just admiring technology, even if I felt the games themselves were pretty crap. I don't think I was the only one, either. 8)
@@Waccoon It was always fun to admire the adults or older teenagers play and do so well at arcade games. Def fun to watch other people play, I still do to this day.
The tech demo for 32x was realtime and looked as good as the actual n64. There was a home brew a while back that was able to tap these types of visuals, something even SEGA themselves couldn't achieve with games like star wars arcade which looked more like a fancier starfox. The key was to code strictly in assembly for unhindered throughput and clever utilization of all resources. There was a method of swapping textures on the fly, but thanks to CD, that isnt even necessary. It's too bad no one made any serious projects for the console, just ports and smaller titles that just piggybacked on the original genesis.
That wasn't pixelation, it's early dithering. I had this game as a kid and on a tube tv with composite or rf connections it didn't look like that at all. Btw Genesis/MD could natively do polygons. Check out Hard Drivin' from Tengen/Atari or LXH Attack Chopper from EA. They're both pretty crappy frame rates but for 1990 it was crazy. Also just because it's neat my modded Genesis with the 68000 replaced with a 68010 all three of these games run great
I couldn't make it out in the arcade either, but I jokingly said it was "TIIIIIIIIIIIIIME BONER!" Also, why VR on the Genesis was a technical marvel for the time, the money might be better spent for VR Deluxe on the 32X. It ran a lot smoother and had more detail, and was only $60 for the game rather than $100. And yes, it still says "TIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIME BONER!"
To be fair Star Fox was the only game with the SuperFX chip worth buying, oh and also that was only if you hadn't reached puberty otherwise those annoying animal characters constantly butting in when playing Star Fox will become VERY OLD VERY QUICKLY. If you already had ANY computer (not just Mac or Windows!) bought from a high street store to use at home it could do SuperFX type solid 3D at those sort of 15ish frames per second anyway. Really didn't get what the fuss was about back then for either, 3D games before PS1/Sega Model 2 arcade games ALL look like crap....just go and watch the movie TRON (1982!) already or something if you get off on flat polygons.
I often wonder how things would have turned out if SEGA released Genesis/Mega Drive games using the SVP chip instead of creating the 32x. Maybe 3d ports of Virtua Fighter, Virtua Cop and Daytona on the Genesis/Mega Drive would have let SEGA succeed in the west while the Saturn would have allowed SEGA to succeed in the east. Sure the carts would have been expensive but the popularity of the Gen/Drive in the west may have still help SVP chip games to sell.
I remember one of the adverts going in US magazines in 1994 in regards to svp chip. "Luckily you don't have to understand the technology to appreciate the game"
Right. I wonder how much success they would have had they did. Maybe there would have been more games supporting the SVP Chip than just Virtua Racing. Datona USA would have been cool to see.
@@wahdangun No, 32x goes far beyong (probably to far to keep a raisonnable price tag) in most 32x game the Genesis is only providing electricity and side stuff like displaying text ...
Hey! Lay off the 32X. The library is only so bad because it was announced finished around the same time it was launched so all the developers ran away. Ray man was finished for it but didn’t even get released. The specs are way high for the 32X but it was cut short by idiots. It was supposed to be a bargain 32bit machine but never got the chance. :’(
@@jeanbono3880 it needs its own power. 32X added lots of cpu power, 3D acceleration and unlimited colour and 2 sampled channels of sound. It added (I think) 2 layers which could be added to the existing Genesis layers (background, foreground, hud, etc).
so much of your conjecture is straight up false here. particularly painful to sit through as former Sega staff. source, reference and cite in future please!
First of all, that's some grade A clickbait you got there. Second, you really just criticized the game for the controls while clearly you weren't breaking in a *Racing Game*. That's a mistake that I myself did when playing Outrun as a 5 year old. Many, many times. And finally, the pixelation your describing is the dithering that was used to express more colors on a CRT television. The only way I see you having a problem the pixelation in general is if you only played it through an emulator or through a Analog to Digital Upscaler from RGB. Overall, you did a good job with the presentation and scripting. You should probably recalibrate what exactly your criticizing, as some of it sounds like your trying to apply a more current mindset to a previous generation product. Like, for example, the length of some game is generally fair for most arcade ports, people don't tend to scrutinize the quality of the image/graphics unless it's really bad, etc.
No mention of mirror mode either. You can play the reverse version of every track. Not backwards but mirrored. I'd say that qualifies as extra content.
I remember in Italy this game was not sold... I used to make tournaments in the Arcade version and it was a dream to have on the Sega... too bad it never shipped. It stayed a dream and then I moved to Amiga and N64, which at least had games available at shops!
I realize the subject of this video was the SVP chip. However, when discussing the replayability of the Virtua Racing game, it would have been good to compare it with the 32X version and the Saturn version. I'm guessing the Saturn version's Grand Prix mode would have been sufficient, while the 32X's extra cars and tracks would still have been disappointing. But that's based on someone else's summary. The conclusion would be whether Sega should have canceled the SVP chip and waited until the Virtua Racing game, home version, was completed. An interesting point, not apparent at the time, was that the arcade and home markets were distinct: games and game machine hardware designed for one market were inappropriate for the other. Rather than working together, the two divisions should have been left to develop on their own, and at most, sharing/licensing game concepts.
In many cases they were but the game released at a time when the arcade experience at home was a big deal. You might as well say that about every arcade port at the time.
The fact that the "skybox" scrolling texture doesnt tilt when the camera rolls... irritating. Probably limitations of the blitter hardware... but this could've been fixed by just never rolling the camera. Doesn't look like they handle pitch either.... but i think that could've been accomplished easily with the hardware.
It’s not only hardware limitation, it’s the limitation of all the equipment we had around it. Yeah, it’s really pixelated, but you need to remember, when that game came out, we used to play on CRT’s. They really blurred those dithering pixel that you can now see using an emulator and high resolution pixel perfect screen!
The handling is easier on this game than most arcade racing games for the time. Most games when you hit a sharp corner, you don't brake at all. You lift off throttle for a sec, then back on quickly to enduce a slide through turns. Virtua Racing braking before a corner, then getting back on the gas is more like it would work in real life. Still many of the corners can be made through in this game with either brief braking, or simply letting of the gas and coasting through it. Each corner has a different method of attack. That's how they got longevity out of racing games back in the day, vs having 50 tracks and 300 cars. Master each corner and you'll win and be able to finish the race before the time limit runs out. Now racing games you can finish the race no matter how poorly you drive.
To add more insult to injury, the Atari 2600 was actually only designed for Pong and Combat (but a differently named arcade version of Combat.) The fact that literally *anything* else was even possible was basically a miraculous fluke and a testament with highest regards to the best Atari programmers of the time. 💪
This game is no gimmick. The gameplay is on point. If you can finish all three tracks on normal difficulty I would be amazed. If you can finish on hard you are godlike. Also, if you finish expert track on hard you can play the tracks in reverse. This game plays extremely well. It’s just sooo hard. I played it years back and couldn’t understand how they could release a game which is so hard. I couldn’t get anywhere. It’s one of mission in life to finish first on hard difficulty expert track. This game has SERIOUS longevity if you want to try to beat it on hard/expert track. You almost certainly won’t. It takes the dedication of an irl F1 driver. But the more you play it, the more fun it is as you master the tracks and commit them to memory. This game will last your whole life of you pit the effort in. When I was young I didn’t have that much time though. So I had to move onto games which were a bit more forgiving. PS. Apparently Virtua Fighter was in fact finished for the SVP but never released. The 32X was released so SVP games would just move to that console/addon.
It's easy to complain about price and controls when you have already seen the evolution of games from that point. When it comes to turns they are difficult on any version of the game. Just slightly less so as the frame rate improved with later generation. You just happened to be doing it all wrong. At the time it was an amazing achievement and for many of us it was worth every penny of that $100.
Don't forget, Virtua Racing came out at the absolute arse-end of the Mega Drive's lifespan. They'd already released the 32X, and Saturn was about to drop. Had the SVP chip come out three or four years prior, as a lock-on cart, it could have been vary different.
Thats not how it works. The SVP would have been super expensive "four years prior".... I mean, thats approximately a year after the Mega Drive was released, it would have been a high performance 3D chip before 3D was hardly even a thing.
@@RetroGamesBoy78 OK, so I got my years slightly wrong (this was from memory of events nearly 30 years ago), but we're dealing with hypotheticals, so ultimately , it doesn't really matter. Basically, Sega wanted a game that could rival Starfox, and that could run on a stock Mega Drive/Genesis. That meant developing bespoke hardware, at a time when Sega of Japan were focussed on the Staturn, and Sega of America were committed to the 32X. Trying to find room to develop a new, 3D processor for a single game while you're already spending time and resources on the 32X stop-gap, AND on your next generation machine was madness, and really, Sega would have been better polishing Virtua Racing, along with various other polygonal 3D titles for the 32X instead. It's telling that the 32X version is much closer to the arcade game, and had extra cars and tracks, which indicates that the SVP cart version of Virtua Racing was a compromised title, rushed out the door, simply to look like Sega had an answer to the Snes' Super FX titles. What I meant was (and I should have been clearer) was that had Sega decided to go the SVP lock-on cart route as a stop-gap measure, rather than developing the 32X, they may have had more success. Multiple games could have been released for it, such as Star Wars Arcade, Doom, Virtua Fighter, as well as significantly enhanced versions of earlier polygon flight sims that had been released on the Mega Drive, and they could have been slightly cheaper than the £70 Virtua Racing was released for. . But again, we're dealing with hypotheticals, which happens a lot when talking about Sega, and their many missteps. As it is, the 32X probably gave various development teams a good insight into how to best develop titles for the Saturn, as they used the same set of two Hitachi Risc processors.
@@boblowes I'm fairly sure work on the 32X was started after the release of Virtua Racing on the Mega Drive. I agree that the SVP might have been the better way to go but thats also with plenty of hindsight taken into consideration. the 32X was a more exiting prospect and initially sold well, but the games were slow to come, and instead of using the new capabilities of the 32X, many games were what we'd already seen before, just with upgraded graphics. We'd even seen Virtua Racing before on the Mega Drive. There are lots of "what ifs" with Sega, the truth is, Sega were terribly managed, even screwed up the US launch of the Saturn through stubbornness and jealousy, thats not the way to run a successful company.
@@boblowes I disagree your statement that the 32x helped programmers to get familiar with the Saturn CPU. If that was the case virtua fighter wouldve played better than the 32x version and not allowing a 3rd party to port virtua racing for the saturn. Sega cancelled a lot of games due to porting some of the 32x cancelled games to Saturn last minute ie sonic and ect.
@@RetroGamesBoy78 32x was already planned prior to the release of virtua racing for the genesis. Sega felt the svp chip was going to fail during the beginning of the 32-bit era and were ready give up on the genesis.
you keep saying "virtuaL" but there is no L in the Virtua games (racing, fighter, tennis...) maybe cos virtual reality was just starting to become a thing? can you not say Virtua ??? hahaha
At 100 bucks that probably was almost like half the price of a console at that time but that's why I was always surprised neo Geo is so well-loved because all of their cartridges started at over $200
When you're old enough to remember these games coming out, and playing them on rhe demo units at stores, and thinking, "how could it ever get more realistic looking than this?"
@@dinohermann1887 i dunno.. Sonic games were great and colorful but SMW had all those cool scaling and transparency effects. Sonic had those weird dithered transparencies that only really looked ok on a fuzzy CRT
sounds like from what you said in the video of the SVP chip became the 32x instead because it's still something you have to place in between the cartridge and the system.
It was criminal there was no battery-backed memory to retain lap times. Reduced the longevity of the game quite considerably as there was no incentive to keep playing.
Been playing this on Genesis 2. It is meh. Should have included the 32X version just like Genesis 1 should have had Virtua Fighter 32X rather than the Genesis version of 2.
i rented this game back in 1994. i was always wondering why the cartridge was bigger than standard mega drive cartridges. it was because of the extra chips to generate the graphics. this was the best racing game on mega drive.
A lock-on cartridge with an SVP chip could have been a great marketing move. Especially compared to the 32x fiasco. Think of all the polygon games that could have been ported to the Genesis. I don't just mean arcade ports -- these would obviously have some serious cutbacks in the graphics department. But there was a lot of PC/Amiga games that would have looked and played great.
FYI, $59.99 was the standard price for SNES games in the 90s. The higher priced games usually had higher ROM sizes, such as Street Fighter II, SFII Turbo, Final Fantasy III, Chrono Trigger, and most games 16 MBits or larger.
Panzer Dragoon did follow Star Fox, but Sega had been making games in this genre for a long time before it, including Star Wars Arcade (1993 like Star Fox), Galaxy Force (1988), After Burner (1987), Thunder Blade (1987), Space Harrier (1985), and Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom (1982, still ran smoother than Star Fox).
The Virtua Racing announcer says, "Time Bonus!"
You are correct lol. I kept listening to the voice, and I thought it was maybe saying "Time Warp".
I also heared time Bonus directly
Sounds like it's saying "Time boner".
Yay! I got it right too! Good job, ears who've probably been to too many nightclubs! :P
@@pojr It's really not that hard to hear. I've always heard "time bonus" even back when I was a kid.
It’s not pixelization....it’s dithering and lack of anti aliasing
@@secoTheSonicFan Yeah, like when he said the Sega was afraid of the Super FX chip. Sega dogged the idea and said it was too expensive and would only pass the cost on to the consumers, which it did. Sega said a better way was to create an add on with enhanced hardware and keep the game costs down, which they did with the 32X. Virtua Racing was almost a proof of concept that Sega could utilize enhancement in cartridges like big N was doing but, like Sega predicted, the cost was the biggest turn off.
@@AtariBorn yeah the 32x version is much better.
@@AtariBorn bingo! I remember that too, and he missed that essential information.
@@secoTheSonicFan 3/4 of the video is garbage, unfortunately. I had to give it a thumbs down because of it. He clearly was highly inconsiderate when he review the game, and it's 100% clear he was not around when the game was released on the genesis/megadrive.
@@Arjay82 He even points out the weird cartridge shape, brings up the plans for a lock on SVP cartridge, and manages not to connect the dots that the cartridge is weird because it's molded as if it was the lockon cartridge with a game cartridge locked on. They had the design ready to go but only ever did the one game, so there was no need to make it two separate pieces.
It’s Time Bonus obviously.
"TIME BONER"
You are too young to understand how big a deal it was to get an arcade port of this quality on a home machine. The 32x had its own virtua racing which was much better, at the time of the 32x nobody saw the need for specific 3d hardware.
This guy has no idea how amazing this was when it came out. It was a game changer. The price meant nothing too, people would sell their right nut to buy it lol.
@@geoffprince2258 Yeah, those fortunate enough that could actually buy it! In Europe it was a nightmare to find the good games like this!! People would take an airplane to US just to buy a few copies and the resell in Italy at 1000 dollars each!!
@@geoffprince2258 First point yes, second point about people selling body parts for any home port of Virtua Racer? nah! It was NEVER that hot in the arcade let alone hungered for by millions of console owners, that was ALL marketing bullshit and Sega dedicated magazine hype. The 3D revolution where people went crazy to get home 3D arcade game ports didn't happen until Ridge Racer/Tekken for PS1, for Sega it took a year longer with the almost simultaneous release of Virtua Figther 2 and Sega Rally (Daytona and VF1 looked like crusty PC 486 bollox from 1992 on Saturn).Technically impressive for sure but then so would a 128 colour ray traced animation of a CGI turd be impressive. And no I don't worship Star Fox, it's too childish with all those stupid puppet characters....for little shits and lobotomised adults only (AKA Ninbendo fanbois). VR on Megadrive seems to suffer less frame drops than SuperFX games released but who knows....did anybody who had working genitals at the time of the release of either VR or SF actually give a shit? lol normal adults would play OutRun instead.
@@madcommodore You despise people that enjoy Star Fox? Wow, don't go cutting yourself on all that edge, bro.
@@ostiariusalpha No I don't despise people for liking different things, what a dumb thing to assume from my comment. I think males above teenage sort of years back then, i.e. full grown adults legally, who didn't find the puppet/animal characters constantly popping up with stupid useless comments are a bit weird or a bit mentally retarded....same way it would be weird for a 21 year old to sit and watch children's Television with puppet shows or making shit out of cardboard and vinyl wrap etc. There is nothing wrong with the game as it was released for children or people too young to drive legally. If you remove that childish aspect of the game it becomes acceptable to normal male adults in the West. Why does a dumb frog have to scream at me for help when it is nothing more than a gimmick that has nothing to do with actual game progress or gameplay. Star Fox cost 65 English Pounds, nearly half the price of a new SNES bundled with a top game so adults put up with the MISTAKE of adding those dumb idiot character animations. It's as fucking stupid as the pop up "Where did you learn to fly?" bullshit in that bundled Jaguar game (yeah we all know which one it is if you ever watched an AVGN Jaguar vid).
n64 graphics? Exaggerate much.....? it's not even half way to 32X graphics, and that was far from Saturn's graphics, while the Saturn was weaker than the N64.
Star Fox on the SNES had PS3 graphics.
Right. Regardless of the quality of the textures, the vast majority of N64 games had them. Model 1 games like Virtua Racing were distinctly texture-less.
I would say is more like a good 3d Atari Jaguar or 3DO game. Maybe a 1994 PS1 game with much more pixelation.
@@sebastiankulche nah, Ps1 had way more polygon Power. even 3do is a far stretch
The SVP lock on cart did "kinda" happen in the end. Sega developed it further and it turned into the 32X.
And when you finish the three tracks in Virtua Racing, you can play them mirrored and in reverse, so you technically have 12 tracks in total.
Yes, it was far more cost effective to do that. They could sell the 32x that would work with other carts and not have to charge them for the same chip in every single game. The main issue with that was that it came so late in the development cycle for the system. It came out the same year that Saturn did.
In 1992, "Virtua Racing" on the "Model 1" board was nothing short of revolutuionary as was "Virtua Fighter" and "Star Wars arcade". To see this in polygon form on the Sega Genisis .... EPIC.. SEGA sure had a lot of missteps... I was A proud 32X and SEGA CD owner .
I still remember the first time I saw VR in the arcade and my mouth dropped at how smooth it was at the time. I was used to Atari's polygon games with lower frame rates (such as Hard/Race Drivin' and STUN Runner.) But 30fps was a whole new level.
That was until I saw Daytona for the first time and it was when I realized how amazing 60fps was in racing games.
A proud 32X owner?! LOL @@SNARC15
@@JohnSegerclucka I have one now, I've never actually used it as I don't have the necessary cables and I play my Genesis games via Mister FPGA, but I could get the cables, I might do that at some point, I just like having the hardware as part of my collection.
32X and Sega CD owner you say? Bold.
SVP was nowhere even close to N64 in terms of graphics. Poor way to clickbait.
well you clicked
Why the hell would it look like an n64? Genesis was 2 generations older mate do the math
@@chriswaudby5580 Exactly, which is what I'm pointing out. Poor way to clickbait.
"The Lock on SVP chip didn't happen"
The 32x existed, bro.
@adam_odell 'official' This is true. The 32x would have been sold at a higher price point, while the SVP chip would have been cheaper and would have not required a separate power supply.
The graphics and sound engine was nearly identical at the silicon level but for the addition of hardware scaler and larger memory space. There was also a standalone frame buffer built in so it would not depend on doing copythrough to the MD. This allowed for higher color depth and actual texture filtering on some level. Since it was largely software driven 3d the twin SH2 were also significantly more powerful than the fixed point DSP used in the SVP.
@@pojr 32 x didn't require a sperate power supply from memory. It was just a cartridge you plugged into mega drive slot then stuck your 32x game in the top of it. There was a 32x version of this game I'm pretty certain
@@1invag The 32X needed a separate wall wart power adapter and video mixing cable. I know this because Sega used to sell a power strip to plug in the Genesis, CD, and 32X. And yes, there was a 32X version of Virtua Racing and it was the best version until the Switch version came out.
Which was a very Bad decision
Fun fact: Sonic Team wanted to use the SVP to make Sonic 3 a 3D game but they determined it wasn't powerful enough to do what they wanted. However, seeing what AM2 did with Virtua Racing, I think a 3D platformer using the Virtua Racing engine would have been a distinct possibility.
Would have been interesting if Sega had used the SVP to enhance 2D graphics in Sonic 3, and/or introduce some 3D effects to make certain things pop. Sort of like Nintendo did with Yoshi's Island.
@@autofox1744 Yeah it could have been pretty neat, if Sega could have got the cost of the chip down.
They should have tried any way.
I think we dodged a bullet then. What we got was so much better. We got Sonic 3 + Sonic & Knuckles which brought with it the ability to plug Sonic 2 in for some adjustments and other carts would work, but just for minigames. And there was some provision for the original Sonic game as well.
Wrong they couldnt make the 32x work... which is more powerful than this
Time Bonus not hard to hear!
You are obviously too young to appreciate this game.
How old are you ?
@@cantstopbeeboo2055 Old enough to have played it when it came out. Add old enough to clearly understand "time bonus". :)
@@henningts - Ohhhhhhh *55* Cool
@@cantstopbeeboo2055 Guess you are more stupid than your name .
@@cantstopbeeboo2055 Damn if he is 55, I must be 80! 😵
Starfox has such a big replay value. I experienced that game in a special ship booth at the shop, with Stereo sound!!!!!!!
When StarFox came out, I had it hooked up to my stereo system.
The mailman was like....... *W T F you doing man.....You got a arcade in ya house* ???
Pretty tough too
this thing in 1994 was mad impressive high msrp withstanding eheh
I think the guy says "TIME BONUS" every checkpoint
Yes, the slightest "research" of the arcade version would have confirmed this. I don't think research was considered for this video's content.
You were better off to change the title “N64 graphics on a genesis?” Instead am mean come on the SVP chip doesn’t even come.close to ps1 graphics,let alone N64 graphics,also
I think $100 is well worth it if a game is in full screen along with smooth controls and virtua racing definitely puts starfox and stunt race fx into shame, i wish that starfox and stunt race fx just used a more powerful chip to have smooth controls with instant response time.
Winter Gold for SNES shows what the FX2 can really do.
Though it's clunky and slow, I like Stunt Race FX, but I know I'm the only one who really enjoys that weird little game.
You can overclock the Super FX chip. I remember seeing a couple videos on youtube, years ago.
@@AtariBorn yes i know that and am getting excited about it everytime i think about it,so who knows what can be more squeezed out of the super fx chip once mega overclocked😁
This game is like Stafox level of graphics, not typical N64 game
far more comparable to Stunt Race FX
This is trash and I didn't know anybody who bought it. Best off, people who bought the 1st StarFox, bought the 2nd one for N64.
Once the 32x was announced why would you buy any svp games anyway. Yes ok they both failed but virtua racing was so much better on the 32x
‘Time bonus’... simple mate
Difficult steering, bro play checkered flag on jaguar 😆
Lol. Or Club Drive.
i see im not the only one who youtube decided to recommend this video to today lol
Kind of a clickbaity title. This was never intended or marketed as an N64 equivalent.
I feel like you should have really played or watched enough Virtua Racing Arcade to realise how big a port this was.
The research across this whole video isn't the greatest.
Had never heard of this port until today. And I owned lots of great Genesis games. Must not have been a very famous port. Also, $100 was too high an asking price. No matter how great the game was (which it wasn't, apparently).
You can't judge an old game on how it looks and plays today, you can only judge on how it aged, and yes, it aged very badly. But back when it was released, it was one of the best racing games for the Genesis/Mega Drive, probably even for any home console at the time.
I had this game when I was a kid and I played it for hundreds of hours. The meaning of "replayability" today is definitely not the same as it was back then, nor it will be the same ten years from now.
And if you can't hear "Time Bonus" being said, I'm guessing you were born after the Arcades lost the war against home consoles.
I actually played the virtua racing on the 32x and it did not impress me back then. I only played it one time and I remember not liking it at all. Was there a big difference between the genesis version and the 32x? I don't even know the release time of those games. I was a big sega fan back then at least until the playstation came out. We had the genesis and the cd addon and bunch of fun games.
@@huldu The 32x was way better than the Genesis version: 20 vs 15fps, more polygons/colors, 2 more cars and 2 more tracks, with the gaming experience being closer to the original arcade version. It's one of those games that you either love it or hate it, but it was an impressive technical feat back then. I don't know what happened to my original game but I never bothered to buy it again, since the Saturn version is more than enough to satisfy any nostalgia for it with much better graphics and more cars/tracks than the 32x version.
@@wettuga2762 Yeah. Sega did some really questionable decisions toward the mid 90's for sure. I remember seeing the saturn for sale and the price was a big surprise. We were tempted to at least rent the console but even that was out of the question at the time. I think the store wanted the value of the console in deposit which at that time was unheard of around here.
I think if I played virtua racing today I would enjoy it and appreciate it. Many games I didn't enjoy as a child I do enjoy nowadays. Zelda 2 is a good example. As a kid I wasn't too happy with it but these days I love the game.
I just discovered your channel. Well done video. It would be interesting if Sega did not cancel plans for additional SVP chip games: Virtua Fighter, Star Wars Arcade, and Daytona USA. Instead, of releasing the 32X. Moreover, it would be interesting to use the the SVP on the Vectorman games, Sonic 3 , Sonic and Knuckles, & Sonic 3-D Blast.
I would very much like to have seen what one could have done with this tech. Imagine how Doom would have been on Sega with this chip.
It’s cheaper to play this on Megadrive than on the arcades and a lot of us who Time Attack it. Playing a great graphics racing game like VR was the whole point.
I don't understand what Sega of Japan was thinking, instead of using chips like the FX to expand the cartridges, they tried to push useless expansions like the 32X.
Sega could've chose enhancement chips route (decompress rom storage/data, color/audio enhancement chip lock-on cart, cheaper custom 3D/2.5D chip made from sega/Hitachi) but chose the easy and expensive out with a 2nd add-on for the genesis. Which led to mismanagement, infighting and losing a lot of money once they release this horrible add-on.
That was Sega of America that pushed the 32x
Sega of Japan just wanted to push out a new console (Sega Saturn)
@@SmugMatty Any info i can find points to the opposite. Miller only changed the original plan from it's own console to a add-on.
Blockbuster and game rentals made games like Virtual Racer viable to play for those of us who didn't want to spend a new bicycle to get a small game.
9:15 Yes, the Genesis does support analog controls. Check out the XE-1AP controller. The Saturn racing wheel was also originally designed for the Genesis to use with Virtua Racing, however Sega decided to cancel it and use it for the Saturn instead. That's why it only has six buttons while every other Saturn controller has 8.
Personally starfox and virtua racing both look terrible
Dogeymon83
They do if you compare them to what came after, but these were high end graphics for 16 bit consoles, especially for the Mega Drive which was over 5 years old when VR was released.
@@RetroGamesBoy78 I thought they looked terrible at the time. I wasn’t comparing them to what came out after. I compared them to the arcade counterparts at the time. I didn’t expect the arcade version of Virtua Racing, but I also realized Genesis wasn’t a system that could do the game. I was far more impressed and happy with the 32X version.
@@dogeymon83
I guess as an 11 year old kid you didn't really understand that basic flat shaded polygons moving at that speed and frame rate was more impressive than something like Sonic 3.
Don't forget, this guy had it running on an LCD here, it looked far better on a CRT.
Dogeymon83
Also, comparing a £2000 arcade machine to a £70 game cartridge running on a £100 video game console Isn't really a valid comparison no matter how impressive it was at the time.
The 32X version fixed the issues the Genesis version had. It looks and sounds much better.
Snes Doom was pretty amazing for what it was. "Hey! You wanna play Doom but don't have hundreds of dollars lying around for a Next Gen system, or a PC? $70 will get you a reasonable approximation of the experience!"
You're absolutely right, it was fantastic when it came out.
????? Reasonable hahahahahahahah omg u need to find a new hobbie SNES doom was an absolute shit show
You’ve got potential my friend. Some quick tidbits of note. Sega Designed the game with Analogue support and created a steering wheel for it. The wheel never released and it’s unknown if the Analogue support was stripped from the final game build. There was a twin analogue stick controller for the Mega Drive too, some 32X games even support it. Also, Virtua Racing is without a doubt the most influential and iconic racing game of that era. Having that arcade game ported home without any content cut was an unreal accomplishment. It’s still dang impressive when considering the platform limitations. Best of luck going forward, I realize you’re taking a licking in the comments, but always recommend replying to those who support you.
I remember being a kid and not being able to talk my parents into buying it for the $100. But sure did rent this a lot. The Genesis and the 32X port still plays closest to the arcade imo. Even more than the Switch remake. That feels too...modern...
tbh Genesis was way faster than SNES and it showed - most games were way waaaay faster. Just comparing Hard Corps to Alien Wars is enough to see where Genesis owned the big N (and quite a lot of devs understood that). Who cares about colours and funky drum sounds, when Genesis pump out hardcore techno synth and high speed gameplay. Sega should had included the chip in something that'd actually improved the experience Genesis is known for, instead of "lets port this".
Which ones? Yes, the Mega Drive had a faster CPU, and most of the time a slightly higher resolutiin. but thats about it. SNES had better graphics, way better sound and the better games.
I would say the "N64 Graphics" is a stretch. More like 32xx maybe w/o the attachment.
Interesting note, Virtua Racing doesn't work on the "3" model of the Genesis because of the SVP chip. My parents bought me the original Genesis in the early 90s and got Virtua Racing sometime in the mid 90s (IIRC, not at full retail price). Then in the late 90s my original Genesis broke and I got the Genesis 3 as a replacement, and I could play everything except Virtua Racing. I was disappointed but your assessment of the game is correct, it was just hard to play on a controller and it didn't have any real replayability with just 3 tracks.
It's now 2021 and I still have that Genesis and my entire game collection, nearly 30 years later. 😁
The Super FX chip and Star Fox embody Nintendo's design philosophy. Nintendo tends to use lower specs for cheaper hardware but invests heavily on making quality games that make the most out of the hardware.
Nintendo: *Adds Super FX chip*
Sega: "Hold my 32x and CD"
Looks like nobody held their 32x and CD
The video is misleading. Sega's "answer" to the Super FX was to create an add on that contained all of the enhancement hardware and keep the cost of each game down. They mentioned this back in the day. The 32X was the realization that an add on could do just that and Virtua Racing was confirmation that extra hardware in the cartridge was too expensive for customers.
@@AtariBorn the 32x version was far better than this version.
@@Barcrest Because the 32X had an entire architecture of its own, rather than a coprocessor or single chip added to a standard cartridge. In that aspect, Sega was right. It made more sense to build a single add on that could give the console better specs and only charge customers once for that add on rather than add expensive chips to each cartridge and charge higher prices for each game that used them.
With all of the videos on UA-cam about Sega and their Hardware, how can you be so misinformed to uploaded a video like this?
Great video. Atari weren't thinking what hardware they needed to accommodate most games. They were designing the cheapest system that could play Tank and Pong. When you look at it's capabilities it's some kind of black magic some of the games they managed to make on that system.
We can't blame Atari. For the Family Computer/NES, the only game that Masayuki Uemura determined it should play was Donkey Kong.
Extremely informative video, when virtua racing first came out, I was never gonna pay £100, so I rented it from my local video shop for £2, was his with it in 6 hours!!!
I was blown away by this on Genesis when it came out. I think I was the only one.
I rented this game when I was a kid, and I thought they actually took the real arcade version and put it in a small cartridge. But I was also a silly kid with little attention to detail lol. I was impressed.
No, you weren't the only one. This game WAS and it's STILL impressive, given the Mega Drive was launched back in 89.
I was highly impessed and still play virtua racing!
When I was a kid, I loved going to the arcade just to watch other people play the games. I got a lot of entertainment value just admiring technology, even if I felt the games themselves were pretty crap. I don't think I was the only one, either. 8)
@@Waccoon It was always fun to admire the adults or older teenagers play and do so well at arcade games. Def fun to watch other people play, I still do to this day.
The tech demo for 32x was realtime and looked as good as the actual n64. There was a home brew a while back that was able to tap these types of visuals, something even SEGA themselves couldn't achieve with games like star wars arcade which looked more like a fancier starfox. The key was to code strictly in assembly for unhindered throughput and clever utilization of all resources. There was a method of swapping textures on the fly, but thanks to CD, that isnt even necessary. It's too bad no one made any serious projects for the console, just ports and smaller titles that just piggybacked on the original genesis.
But you have to remember, that demo had 100% of the CPU at its disposal. There was no code for AI, physics, input, etc. Neat demo though
That wasn't pixelation, it's early dithering. I had this game as a kid and on a tube tv with composite or rf connections it didn't look like that at all.
Btw Genesis/MD could natively do polygons. Check out Hard Drivin' from Tengen/Atari or LXH Attack Chopper from EA. They're both pretty crappy frame rates but for 1990 it was crazy. Also just because it's neat my modded Genesis with the 68000 replaced with a 68010 all three of these games run great
I couldn't make it out in the arcade either, but I jokingly said it was "TIIIIIIIIIIIIIME BONER!"
Also, why VR on the Genesis was a technical marvel for the time, the money might be better spent for VR Deluxe on the 32X. It ran a lot smoother and had more detail, and was only $60 for the game rather than $100.
And yes, it still says "TIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIME BONER!"
To be fair Star Fox was the only game with the SuperFX chip worth buying, oh and also that was only if you hadn't reached puberty otherwise those annoying animal characters constantly butting in when playing Star Fox will become VERY OLD VERY QUICKLY. If you already had ANY computer (not just Mac or Windows!) bought from a high street store to use at home it could do SuperFX type solid 3D at those sort of 15ish frames per second anyway. Really didn't get what the fuss was about back then for either, 3D games before PS1/Sega Model 2 arcade games ALL look like crap....just go and watch the movie TRON (1982!) already or something if you get off on flat polygons.
Couldn't agree more mate.
@CybersheII Nobody ever got to purchase Starfox 2 before the SNES mini was released in 2017 so.......
You have to take into prospect that's a Sega Genesis has a sound Card from the 80s give it some credit😂😂😂😊
Fun little fact: this game does not start on most chinese clones :)
Doesn't surprise me. The game also doesn't work on the Model 3 Sega Genesis.
"Genesis Does What Nintendon't."
No, Nintendo Is What Genesisn't.
I often wonder how things would have turned out if SEGA released Genesis/Mega Drive games using the SVP chip instead of creating the 32x. Maybe 3d ports of Virtua Fighter, Virtua Cop and Daytona on the Genesis/Mega Drive would have let SEGA succeed in the west while the Saturn would have allowed SEGA to succeed in the east. Sure the carts would have been expensive but the popularity of the Gen/Drive in the west may have still help SVP chip games to sell.
13:15 I'm thinking it's more accurate to say they probably shifted focus to the 32x
The Mega CD already had mode 7 capability so I don't think Starfox had much of anything to do with anything other than in your head.
Sega was actually pushing Silpheed on the CD as a StarFox competitor back then.
I remember one of the adverts going in US magazines in 1994 in regards to svp chip. "Luckily you don't have to understand the technology to appreciate the game"
Crazy that Sega didn't sell the SVP as a lock-on cartridge instead of designing the wonky 32X ...
Right. I wonder how much success they would have had they did. Maybe there would have been more games supporting the SVP Chip than just Virtua Racing. Datona USA would have been cool to see.
They sell it, it's called 32x
@@wahdangun No, 32x goes far beyong (probably to far to keep a raisonnable price tag) in most 32x game the Genesis is only providing electricity and side stuff like displaying text ...
Hey! Lay off the 32X. The library is only so bad because it was announced finished around the same time it was launched so all the developers ran away. Ray man was finished for it but didn’t even get released.
The specs are way high for the 32X but it was cut short by idiots. It was supposed to be a bargain 32bit machine but never got the chance. :’(
@@jeanbono3880 it needs its own power. 32X added lots of cpu power, 3D acceleration and unlimited colour and 2 sampled channels of sound. It added (I think) 2 layers which could be added to the existing Genesis layers (background, foreground, hud, etc).
I'm glad the UA-cam algorithm recommended your channel. I had never heard of that custom chip!
The SVP lock cartridge was turned into the Sega 32x
so much of your conjecture is straight up false here. particularly painful to sit through as former Sega staff. source, reference and cite in future please!
It says time bonus doesn't it? Also you deserve more than 183 subs !
N64 graphics? Wtf are you looking at? You dont seem very experienced with video games to be talking about them
First of all, that's some grade A clickbait you got there.
Second, you really just criticized the game for the controls while clearly you weren't breaking in a *Racing Game*. That's a mistake that I myself did when playing Outrun as a 5 year old. Many, many times.
And finally, the pixelation your describing is the dithering that was used to express more colors on a CRT television. The only way I see you having a problem the pixelation in general is if you only played it through an emulator or through a Analog to Digital Upscaler from RGB.
Overall, you did a good job with the presentation and scripting. You should probably recalibrate what exactly your criticizing, as some of it sounds like your trying to apply a more current mindset to a previous generation product.
Like, for example, the length of some game is generally fair for most arcade ports, people don't tend to scrutinize the quality of the image/graphics unless it's really bad, etc.
No mention of mirror mode either. You can play the reverse version of every track. Not backwards but mirrored. I'd say that qualifies as extra content.
Time bonus!!!! That's what the guy says at the check point!!!!!
Yup, you got it lol. The "bonus" part especially is hard to tell.
@@pojr its not hard to tell, its your bad emulation. But even then no one else is having an issue hearing it
Svp chip lock on cart aka 32x lite 😆
I remember in Italy this game was not sold... I used to make tournaments in the Arcade version and it was a dream to have on the Sega... too bad it never shipped. It stayed a dream and then I moved to Amiga and N64, which at least had games available at shops!
Clickbait title.
N64 graphics? Now that's just a very wide goatse stretch.
I realize the subject of this video was the SVP chip. However, when discussing the replayability of the Virtua Racing game, it would have been good to compare it with the 32X version and the Saturn version. I'm guessing the Saturn version's Grand Prix mode would have been sufficient, while the 32X's extra cars and tracks would still have been disappointing. But that's based on someone else's summary.
The conclusion would be whether Sega should have canceled the SVP chip and waited until the Virtua Racing game, home version, was completed.
An interesting point, not apparent at the time, was that the arcade and home markets were distinct: games and game machine hardware designed for one market were inappropriate for the other. Rather than working together, the two divisions should have been left to develop on their own, and at most, sharing/licensing game concepts.
In many cases they were but the game released at a time when the arcade experience at home was a big deal. You might as well say that about every arcade port at the time.
those aren't n64 graphics, they don't even make me want to claw my eyes out
about the sound; I mean, it sounds better than most genesis games.
The fact that the "skybox" scrolling texture doesnt tilt when the camera rolls... irritating.
Probably limitations of the blitter hardware... but this could've been fixed by just never rolling the camera.
Doesn't look like they handle pitch either.... but i think that could've been accomplished easily with the hardware.
It’s not only hardware limitation, it’s the limitation of all the equipment we had around it. Yeah, it’s really pixelated, but you need to remember, when that game came out, we used to play on CRT’s. They really blurred those dithering pixel that you can now see using an emulator and high resolution pixel perfect screen!
Virtua Racing, Virtua Fighter, stuff like that would have been good launch titles for the Sega Neptune.
The Sega Neptune, aka the (planned, but cancelled) Genesis 32x stand-alone console, instead of an add-on!
@@dinohermann1887 A duo console eith the 32x and genesis hardware.
The handling is easier on this game than most arcade racing games for the time. Most games when you hit a sharp corner, you don't brake at all. You lift off throttle for a sec, then back on quickly to enduce a slide through turns. Virtua Racing braking before a corner, then getting back on the gas is more like it would work in real life. Still many of the corners can be made through in this game with either brief braking, or simply letting of the gas and coasting through it. Each corner has a different method of attack. That's how they got longevity out of racing games back in the day, vs having 50 tracks and 300 cars. Master each corner and you'll win and be able to finish the race before the time limit runs out. Now racing games you can finish the race no matter how poorly you drive.
Great video.
How come you look like they got all the main guy characters from the MTV show 'Teen Wolf' and mashed them together to create one dude?
The 32X version of Virtua Racing is my favorite racing game of all time.
Haven't tried it but I heard it's better
N64 graphics, lol. Not even close.
To add more insult to injury, the Atari 2600 was actually only designed for Pong and Combat (but a differently named arcade version of Combat.) The fact that literally *anything* else was even possible was basically a miraculous fluke and a testament with highest regards to the best Atari programmers of the time. 💪
This game is no gimmick. The gameplay is on point. If you can finish all three tracks on normal difficulty I would be amazed. If you can finish on hard you are godlike. Also, if you finish expert track on hard you can play the tracks in reverse.
This game plays extremely well. It’s just sooo hard. I played it years back and couldn’t understand how they could release a game which is so hard. I couldn’t get anywhere. It’s one of mission in life to finish first on hard difficulty expert track. This game has SERIOUS longevity if you want to try to beat it on hard/expert track. You almost certainly won’t. It takes the dedication of an irl F1 driver.
But the more you play it, the more fun it is as you master the tracks and commit them to memory. This game will last your whole life of you pit the effort in.
When I was young I didn’t have that much time though. So I had to move onto games which were a bit more forgiving.
PS. Apparently Virtua Fighter was in fact finished for the SVP but never released.
The 32X was released so SVP games would just move to that console/addon.
It's easy to complain about price and controls when you have already seen the evolution of games from that point. When it comes to turns they are difficult on any version of the game. Just slightly less so as the frame rate improved with later generation. You just happened to be doing it all wrong. At the time it was an amazing achievement and for many of us it was worth every penny of that $100.
awesome video, never knew this! it's still really crazy games could run 3D graphics back in 1993-1994!
Don't forget, Virtua Racing came out at the absolute arse-end of the Mega Drive's lifespan. They'd already released the 32X, and Saturn was about to drop. Had the SVP chip come out three or four years prior, as a lock-on cart, it could have been vary different.
Thats not how it works. The SVP would have been super expensive "four years prior".... I mean, thats approximately a year after the Mega Drive was released, it would have been a high performance 3D chip before 3D was hardly even a thing.
@@RetroGamesBoy78 OK, so I got my years slightly wrong (this was from memory of events nearly 30 years ago), but we're dealing with hypotheticals, so ultimately , it doesn't really matter.
Basically, Sega wanted a game that could rival Starfox, and that could run on a stock Mega Drive/Genesis. That meant developing bespoke hardware, at a time when Sega of Japan were focussed on the Staturn, and Sega of America were committed to the 32X. Trying to find room to develop a new, 3D processor for a single game while you're already spending time and resources on the 32X stop-gap, AND on your next generation machine was madness, and really, Sega would have been better polishing Virtua Racing, along with various other polygonal 3D titles for the 32X instead. It's telling that the 32X version is much closer to the arcade game, and had extra cars and tracks, which indicates that the SVP cart version of Virtua Racing was a compromised title, rushed out the door, simply to look like Sega had an answer to the Snes' Super FX titles.
What I meant was (and I should have been clearer) was that had Sega decided to go the SVP lock-on cart route as a stop-gap measure, rather than developing the 32X, they may have had more success. Multiple games could have been released for it, such as Star Wars Arcade, Doom, Virtua Fighter, as well as significantly enhanced versions of earlier polygon flight sims that had been released on the Mega Drive, and they could have been slightly cheaper than the £70 Virtua Racing was released for. . But again, we're dealing with hypotheticals, which happens a lot when talking about Sega, and their many missteps. As it is, the 32X probably gave various development teams a good insight into how to best develop titles for the Saturn, as they used the same set of two Hitachi Risc processors.
@@boblowes
I'm fairly sure work on the 32X was started after the release of Virtua Racing on the Mega Drive.
I agree that the SVP might have been the better way to go but thats also with plenty of hindsight taken into consideration. the 32X was a more exiting prospect and initially sold well, but the games were slow to come, and instead of using the new capabilities of the 32X, many games were what we'd already seen before, just with upgraded graphics. We'd even seen Virtua Racing before on the Mega Drive.
There are lots of "what ifs" with Sega, the truth is, Sega were terribly managed, even screwed up the US launch of the Saturn through stubbornness and jealousy, thats not the way to run a successful company.
@@boblowes I disagree your statement that the 32x helped programmers to get familiar with the Saturn CPU. If that was the case virtua fighter wouldve played better than the 32x version and not allowing a 3rd party to port virtua racing for the saturn. Sega cancelled a lot of games due to porting some of the 32x cancelled games to Saturn last minute ie sonic and ect.
@@RetroGamesBoy78 32x was already planned prior to the release of virtua racing for the genesis. Sega felt the svp chip was going to fail during the beginning of the 32-bit era and were ready give up on the genesis.
you keep saying "virtuaL" but there is no L in the Virtua games (racing, fighter, tennis...) maybe cos virtual reality was just starting to become a thing?
can you not say Virtua ??? hahaha
At 100 bucks that probably was almost like half the price of a console at that time but that's why I was always surprised neo Geo is so well-loved because all of their cartridges started at over $200
When you're old enough to remember these games coming out, and playing them on rhe demo units at stores, and thinking, "how could it ever get more realistic looking than this?"
No matter what all I hear is "TIME BONER!" even though I know it's "BONUS"! The poor quality clips the S sound into almost an R.
let's me honest.. a lot of things on the SNES made Genesis graphics look like garbage WAY before Star Fox came out..
BUTTTTTTTTT WHO WANTS TO *HEAR THE TRUTH* ??????
Depends on, the Classic Sonic trilogy (1, 2 and 3&K) makes Super Mario World look like trash! But for the most part, I agree with you!
@@dinohermann1887 - Genesis is such an amazing system, they could *EASILY* make Killer Instinct on their system.
@@dinohermann1887 i dunno.. Sonic games were great and colorful but SMW had all those cool scaling and transparency effects. Sonic had those weird dithered transparencies that only really looked ok on a fuzzy CRT
sounds like from what you said in the video of the SVP chip became the 32x instead because it's still something you have to place in between the cartridge and the system.
It was criminal there was no battery-backed memory to retain lap times. Reduced the longevity of the game quite considerably as there was no incentive to keep playing.
Been playing this on Genesis 2. It is meh. Should have included the 32X version just like Genesis 1 should have had Virtua Fighter 32X rather than the Genesis version of 2.
Sega decided to create the 32x and give up on the svp
do the capabilities of the 32x exceed the SVP? why didn't they embed the SVP into the 32x if they invested in all that R&D?
SEGA should have mass produced the chip and released games like Doom that would have beat the SNES.
Blah Blah Blah coulda shouda woulda but didnt
Time bonussssssss
Jk, awesome video needs more views!
Thanks man! I appreciate the support.
i rented this game back in 1994.
i was always wondering why the cartridge was bigger than standard mega drive cartridges. it was because of the extra chips to generate the graphics. this was the best racing game on mega drive.
Maybe compare with Stunt Race FX next time. A decent game in its own right. I 'member particularly enjoying the motorcycle races.
A lock-on cartridge with an SVP chip could have been a great marketing move. Especially compared to the 32x fiasco. Think of all the polygon games that could have been ported to the Genesis. I don't just mean arcade ports -- these would obviously have some serious cutbacks in the graphics department. But there was a lot of PC/Amiga games that would have looked and played great.
The 32X fiasco?
@@RetroGamesBoy78 yes, which led to sega losing a lot of money to the point they had to cancel it.
How on earth do you not have more subs? The production value & effort in this video is amazing! I hope you get the following you absolutely deserve
“TIME BONUS!” How can you not here that….obviously not a Sega fan or you would know this….smh🤔
FYI, $59.99 was the standard price for SNES games in the 90s. The higher priced games usually had higher ROM sizes, such as Street Fighter II, SFII Turbo, Final Fantasy III, Chrono Trigger, and most games 16 MBits or larger.
Loved to rent it at the video rental. But the game itself was ridiculous expensive I remember. Shame
I thought Sega's answer to Star Fox was Panzer Dragoon.
Panzer Dragoon did follow Star Fox, but Sega had been making games in this genre for a long time before it, including Star Wars Arcade (1993 like Star Fox), Galaxy Force (1988), After Burner (1987), Thunder Blade (1987), Space Harrier (1985), and Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom (1982, still ran smoother than Star Fox).
@@Banderpop they ported those to the 32x as well.