There's a few other 20th Anniversary's for Sega happening this year as well, but the 32X has the most solid release date of the set, so it's easy to assume the 21st of November in 1994 was more important than the other days. Perhaps not for the right reasons, in retrospect. I unfortunately couldn't do what I actually might have thought to do for this milestone, so instead, here's a goofy alternate reality I dug myself into: [media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pif4rN8GCo8[/media] Hurhurr~ I suppose this thread could be used to muse about the 32X, or whatever else you perceive as a critical Sega failure.
I still can't get mine to work, after it did work for a short while. Now Virtua Racing shows the Sega logo but goes black afterwards with sound, Space harrier has all kinds of weird glitches and I have a NBA Jam cart that just flashes a red CPU error screen haha. Some great games on it but man is the hardware a piece of trash that barely functions.
Erm... well... Chaotix, I guess; the music's cool, at least. Virtua Racing, but that was better on the Saturn. Did have the first actually good version of Space Harrier, though.
I disagree, the 32X Virtua Racing had a better frame-rate and superior car handling, along with better music for what little there was of it. Too bad that was the only must have game for it. I really wish they hadn't had to rush Doom out for the launch as the version we got was really lacking. Out of the few 32X games I have, Virtua Racing and Virtua Fighter are my favorites. Star Wars is OK but gets really hard too quickly. I like Stellar Assault, but there isn't much variety to it.
I'm looking for a PAL 32x myself, too bad they go for £70 online. Anyone know where I can get a cheap one that works? With or without wires, I know a site that has new ones.
You might have gotten stuck with the initial launch batch...? I've never had a technical problem with mine, surprisingly enough. Course, I don't know for certain how PAL territories compare with NA. Also, my own 32X Collection has VF, VR Deluxe and Chaotix. I'll take some more games on the cheap if anyone wants to toss them my way, but I usually don't go out of my way to look for them.
Got my 32x a few years ago. Largely just use it as a better video encoder that can output both PAL50 and PAL60 without problems (the Mega Drive itself runs into issues with the colour subcarrier). :v:
Fuck y'all niggas for raggin' on 32X DooM. The 3DO is like a million times more powerful and the viewport is like the resolution of a VMU.
Kolibri is where it's at, bitches. Best hummingbird sim ever. Also Metal Head comes into it's own when you turn the anime chraacters on.
Got mine some years ago for £32 (total coincidence - guy I bought it off agreed a base price for the system, Chaotix, Virtua Racing Deluxe, and the Mega Drive games he had - and when we totaled it up, that's what it came to) and though the little mushroom works it's very tempramental - the slightest jolt and it'll reset (explains why I never got too far in Chaotix, other than it being a very ehhhhhhh game). My opinion on the system? Poorly-made Saturn stop-gap that should never have happened. Sega should have continued with the Mega Drive until Saturn came out, and took the temporary hit - 32X did enough damage to the Sega brand that Saturn had additional baggage to deal with even on top of its own issues. The number of good 32X games is in single digits, and not high ones at that, more mid-to-low. I wonder how many of them could have been released as SVP games on the Mega Drive hardware (you might take a slight hit in quality but an SVP2 could potentially address this to some degree)? Fun fact - the full box scan and physical images of the PAL 32X inserted into other systems on Sega Retro are my unit =P
I Love the 32X, always wanted one as a kid and finally got one when I hit college. Got it from a gamestation store for £30. Then in university bought Knuckles' Chaotix for £40 off another student. I have only like 5 games, but love the console. would like to get more games but they are so pricey now.
The 32X is awesome because of Space Harrier and After Burner. Still need to buy Knuckles Chaotix, but it's a little too expensive for a game that I didn't find all that great when I played it emulated a few years back.
C'mon folks, owning a 32x but not owning Knuckles Chaotix is like some sort of sin!! Just look at these wonderful graphics! I believe the 32x as a machine is a wonderful piece of hardware, which (although not without its flaws) should not be blasted for the shit games that were passed with it. I am most definitely certain that the programmers could have done a much better job with the machine if they were given more time to understand its potential, instead of trying to "show off" cheap polygon graphics with no textures, and silly FMV based games.
I still find it fascinating that for such a short-lived console add-on, it has a surprisingly balanced library of games. If anything it's maybe a little short on platformers, go figure.
I'd say there's a glaring lack of JRPGs, lightgun-style games, and general "adventure" (whether LucasArts-style or Visual Novel, or simply a game in a more standard genre that's shifted more towards setpieces and cinematics) games.
I still think that conceptually, the 32x was a smart idea, but almost immediately it was labeled as a stop-gap measure by the cynical gamer press at the time. If sega really wanted the 32x to work, they had to fully support it in a way to silence the critics. The only way they could have done this was to have the Saturn fully backwards compatible with 32x and mega drive software. Rebranding the 32x as Mars would also have helped, and rather than fragmenting the market, all sega software could have been sold with a Mars cartridge and a Saturn enhancememt disc included. Those of us with just a Mars upgrade could play a scaled down version of Panzer Dragoon on our aging mega drives, with lower resolution, and textureless polygons (maybe even with CD audio from the Saturn disc via the mega cd), dreaming of the day when we would finally purchase a Saturn to unlock the full experience. Those of us with Saturns could then also chose to play in "Mars" mode for faster loading times and a smoother experience. Delaying the Saturn would also have helped. There would have been a temporary hit from the successful playstation launch, but going too early without enough stock and a half-baked release of Daytona was a far worse reality. Sent from my awesome Ubuntu Touch device using the Forum Browser app
I bought a 32X without a power supply nearly ten years ago. I still haven't bought that power supply. Hardcore. Maybe its existence can be defended by the price you have to pay for one now, but back when it was new and you had to part with three figure sums to play its library of half-finished games... well yeah. Chaotix is a mess too - the game you're supposed to mention is Cosmic Carnage because Cosmic Carnage.
