Vectorman PS2 Unreleased Prototype Footage

Huh. I never drew the parallel between the two. And really, I look at that game and still say "that game coulda been really cool if they just changed the title to some new IP."

 

Wow, that looked like your friendly neighborhood TPS (third-person-shooter) rather than anything like Vectorman. That's sad.

 

That looks like shit. Vectorman was parts platforming, parts shooting. That was just shooting.

 

Thank God this wasn't released as. Having only a handful exceptional games is still better than a series consisting of mostly mediocre titles.

+ - lolsonic  

 

Yeah I remember seeing trailers and magazine previews for this, it was around the same time they were working on Sonic Heroes if memory serves. I found it interesting that with both Sonic Heroes and Vectorman, when they showed actual gameplay there were sound effects but no music. I think that's pretty common for SEGA if not games in general.

 

Well, I'm glad this was never released. Vectorman would probably be pretty shit in and kind of 3D.

 

It looks more like Oni than Halo, vectorchief model notwithstanding.

Don't really see the point of redesigning Vectorman, he has perhaps the best simple / awesome ratio among all game designs. I never really understood how can you possibly fuck up a Vectorman sequel - unless you PURPOSEFULLY make it a Halo ripoff, and just stuck the Vectorman IP there because both games have a green colored main hero.

Seriously, you'd need absolutely minimal creativity to make a 3d Vectorman game.

 

I wouldn't say minimal creativity. One of the things I liked about Vectorman were his transformations - being made of spheres of varying sizes, he could be anything. Now, transition that to 3D, and not only do you have Third Person Shooting/Platforming stages, but you could also genre bend and have racing levels, flying levels, and puzzle solving in the main levels. Also, you'd be able to shoot during those flying and racing levels.

Another thing is the level designs - they were dark and moody and had wonderful atmosphere. Ergo, not the level in that video.

Although I do like the picking up and throwing in the vid. If anything that could have partially redeemed what was probably going to be a shitty title.

Also, sorry for fansquirting on you, MM.

 

If I remember correctly, wasn't the plot of the game that Vectorman lost his old body, and he had to get it back?

 

That's almost worse than not explaining his change in appearance at all.

I definitely see the halo parallels. Not just the vectorman character himself (being a master cheif clone or whatever), but the environment definitely gives me a Halo 1 vibe.

(Also, too bad no console had a C button then or now, so CALL A CAB couldn't be the level cheat. :v

 

Yeah, because that was the main reason for cancellation.

It was hardly just a generic character design; the whole game looked particularly uninspired. I wasn't upset that it got canned at the time, and I'm still not.

 

You can explain a gimped story but it doesn't make it fun. It's like playing a Superman game where you're told he's lost his powers and is an average joe for the whole game. That wouldn't be fun at all, would it?

 

I'm going to bet that the design change was mainly because of them being unable to make spheres that actually looked like spheres. Remember the hardware we're talking about, spheres probably would end up more like the 3D equivalent of hexagons.

 

They could have done what games like Mario 64 did - use a sprite of a sphere. It always looked good to me.

 

Until you zoom in, then it looks completely wrong because of filtering. Honestly a hexagonal "sphere" would have looked better. Then again, they could as well just change the name and argue it's a new franchise...

 

I'm convinced that SEGA should just stay the fuck away from everything that they made for the Genesis cause they seem to fuck it all up with the new fail they have acquired. Besides the Sonic series, the Puyo Puyo series is another one, cause once Puyo Pop Fever came along... yea, let's just say I was a very unhappy gamer that day.

Thank god this game got canceled though, cause how do you go from an awesome 2d platformer to a 3d FPS? HORRIBLE transition, as if the gaming world today already didnt have a shitload of games like them. That's like taking Sonic and putting him in a fight.... oh wait. Thats like taking Sonic and making him play tenni... oh right. Thats like taking Sonic and sticking him in a car.... oh crap

well... FUCK YOU SEGA!!! thats all I have to say

 

That video was very early PS2 tech, that's why it looked shitty. It doesn't look near as good as Halo, that's why I mentioned Oni, Bungies previous game, also released on the PS2. It was like Halo but much more bland.

They wouldn't have had to use crappy looking sprites. The PS2 had capacity for pixel shading, maybe vertex shading too (I forgot, ps2 hardware is a maze), so just make every orb a green ball of reflections. The more you zoom the camera in, the more detailed the reflection and shadowing is. You wouldn't get pixeling or polygon edges, because there wouldn't be any sprites or polygons there, just a mess of shaders that tint the surrounding area into a green blob. It would've been a pretty unorthodox method for rendering, but it's exactly what befits the legacy of a Megadrive game with visuals that made the SNES look like a broken monochrome ZX Spectrum.
Hell, maybe you could've used voxels too. Or even just phong shading, it can produce shiny curvy orbs very well.

Of course, this was an extremely early PS2 development, and we all know that it took 5 years of the combined work of every mathematician in Japan, to figure out how to move a single triangle at 10fps on the recursive buttfuck that was the PS2 hardware.