Finally got to play Crash 'n Burn, 17 years late.

[Austin]

So, at the local game shop today, I picked up one of the original pack-in copies of Crash 'n Burn. I've always wanted to check this one out, and now I've been able to.

Feelings so far on it are mixed. Those character FMV segments are baaaaaaaaad, the music isn't great and overall the framerate isn't excellent (Not a deal-breaker in this case, it's better than many other 3DO titles). I like the visuals for the most part.. A little muddy but it's an early title--on the other end, everything is textured though (I'm sure my jaw would have dropped if I saw this in '93--Pretty impressive for a launch title). The racing aspect at least seems OK as well (which I'm still getting the hang of).

One question though: How the hell are you supposed to use your boosts? The manual (as well as the on-screen control options) say to press the B button, but no matter how many times I do so, nothing happens. No increase in speed, no indication that anything is happening. All in all, the AI is kicking my ass, and I'm sure knowing how to activate this would be helpful.

Anyways, I also bought Space Hulk today, but that one will be saved for another thread...

[3DOKid]

i quitel liked crash and burn, but I agree with all your sentiments. It was a game I got to late as well. It plays okay, but it's hard.

[Mobius]

I played it for the first time a year and a half or so ago. I wasn't terribly impressed and haven't gone back to it since. I should give it a fair shake, though, I think it had potential.

But the game isn't really textured, right? It's just FMV, a la Mega Race.

[3DOKid]

I played it for the first time a year and a half or so ago. I wasn't terribly impressed and haven't gone back to it since. I should give it a fair shake, though, I think it had potential.

But the game isn't really textured, right? It's just FMV, a la Mega Race.

I think it's textured. The car is a sprite (hell it was 1993, everything was a sprite, probably even me ) I always think it's a half way between 16bit and 32bit game. If it had come out on the Amiga, people would still shuffling in their pockets over it today.

[Austin]

Originally watching YouTube videos of it sometime back, I got the impression it was all FMV. Must have been bad video quality though because it's definitely all polygons in real-time (with 2D sprites used as objects on the track).

[Trev]

If I recall, there were arguments about this topic way back when 3DO was first released. I say who cares, it still looks great.

By the way, if you want to beat the AI, I think a tip is given at the start by one of the racers (forget which one) ...

(quote may be paraphrased) "The secret to winning is to never ever make a mistake. You master that and you will always destroy your opponents"

[Scarlettkitten]

I quite like Crash and burn, good for a quick blast.

I always assumed the track was textured because it moves left to right as you move the car across the track, it doesn't appear to be streaming fmv.

[Austin]

I always assumed the track was textured because it moves left to right as you move the car across the track, it doesn't appear to be streaming fmv.

Yeah, and the framerate also fluctuates a bit too, which probably wouldn't be the case if it was steaming video (like Mega Race does it).

Any tips on using that Boost, anyone? Or is the label there just to fool the player into thinking it exists, where in reality it actually doesn't?

[3DOKid]

The draw distance is a kick in the nuts for the PS1 and Saturn as both Daytona and Ridge Racer have more pop-ip than an punch and judy show.

[oldskool]

I've always been a big fan of Crash n' Burn. I had the opportunity to own it back in the day when it was the latest and greatest and while even at the time the acting/costumes were fairly corny, it was also a good laugh!

The graphics/music at the time were nothing short of amazing. It's just not the same if you are just now seeing the game.

[Austin]

So I just found out that you have to BUY your boosts. Wow.

**EDIT: Nitro boosts cost $12,500?? Uh, big "wtf" here, perhaps? I got first place in the last race and only won $2,900.. Are you serious??

[acem77]

My jaw dropped when i 1st saw that game
it was the 1st 3do game i saw and the 1st 32bit game i saw run in real time.
compared to the 16bit stuff like stafox and vr racing at the time it was way ahead of the game gfx wise....

at that time is did not even know what frame rate really was.
it was as smooth or smoother than anything else and had way more detail.

[Austin]

So, I ended up getting the hang of it. Purchased the boost. Some shields. A better machine gun. Over the course of two hours, I ended up making it to the fourth circuit in Tournament mode. And then the CPU opponents decided to up the ante, and kicked my ass. By this point in the game, the drones also start shooting and do everything they can do keep you from passing them. I played as the punk asian chick that likes to call people "maggots", ha.

I've determined that this game should have had a sequel. A '95/'96 version of this would have been hot. Especially if the cheese factor was left out.

[Trev]

Without the cheese factor though, it wouldn't be Crash n' Burn.

Its interesting, because Crystal was so busy porting their 3DO hits over to the Psx/Saturn when they were first released, yet somehow this game didn't make the cut ...

If there had been a 2 player mode included, I'd consider it a classic. Instead it is just a good game ... something the 3DO a lot of.

[Austin]

Without the cheese factor though, it wouldn't be Crash n' Burn.

Yeah, it would just be a really good racer.

[oldskool]

The cheese factor is one of the things I like most about that game! It's obvious that it was purposely cheesy. There's no way in hell it came out like that by accident.

[3DOKid]

The cheese factor is one of the things I like most about that game! It's obvious that it was purposely cheesy. There's no way in hell it came out like that by accident.

The other thing is that in 1993 the mere spectacle of seeing people talking in a game was a startling event. A digitized voice prior to that had been a landmark moment or merely a digitized screenshot.

[swaaye]

I'm pretty sure the game is almost entirely pre-rendered video, like say Rebel Assault and Cyberrace. You can control your path down the track a little but not much.

A lot of 3DO games work like this. It was part of the times, and I think 3DO was built to run this kind of video more than it was designed to render realtime 3D. It is very good looking but you eventually realize that the limitations to gameplay are pretty extreme.

[Austin]

Nah, it's definitely rendered with polygons in real-time. Asides from the signature 3DO pixelation on the polygons themselves, the camera angle changes depending on where you are on the track (for instance, you can rock it to the left and the right depending on how far to one side of the track you are). You can't do this on similar games that use prerendered FMV as their backdrops (see Mega Race), not to mention the framerates on those sorts of titles are much smoother and consistent. I'm pretty sure there is also a decent amount of clipping in this game (Will have to pop it back in to verify), another aspect you won't see on something that's pre-rendered, streaming video, and also keep in mind that you can switch to a first-person/cockpit mode in this game that also changes the field of view.

As far as the 3DO "not being able to do something like this", keep in mind that there are far more impressive titles (visually) on the system that are rendered in realtime with polygons (Bladeforce and Star Fighter come to mind here).

[Scarlettkitten]

Nah, it's definitely rendered with polygons in real-time. Asides from the signature 3DO pixelation on the polygons themselves, the camera angle changes depending on where you are on the track (for instance, you can rock it to the left and the right depending on how far to one side of the track you are). You can't do this on similar games that use prerendered FMV as their backdrops (see Mega Race), not to mention the framerates on those sorts of titles are much smoother and consistent. I'm pretty sure there is also a decent amount of clipping in this game (Will have to pop it back in to verify), another aspect you won't see on something that's pre-rendered, streaming video, and also keep in mind that you can switch to a first-person/cockpit mode in this game that also changes the field of view.

As far as the 3DO "not being able to do something like this", keep in mind that there are far more impressive titles (visually) on the system that are rendered in realtime with polygons (Bladeforce and Star Fighter come to mind here).

Agreed, plus the 3DO was designed to do 3D textured games from the start you only have to look at the software dev kit to see this.

[acem77]

the most it does is stream the real time textures/geometry.
like road rash and need for speed, when the steaming of the data
glitches in those you get a grey polygons until it crashes from missing data.
My guess why you get poor or no music in these games. little room left in ram and the
laser is too busy pulling texture data and cant stream a HQ sound track.

final test stop the disc from spinning.
i think you can trick an eject and not reboot. fogot what i did in the past..

I know you can force an eject without a reboot on the sega-cd model one by shacking it. used this for a swap trick to play the japanese sonic cd on my usa sytem with a copy of the usa ver.

[3DOKid]

I still think it was impressive for '93 game.

[Trev]

I can't stand it any more! I've been reading this thread for days ... now I gotta go play Crash n' Burn!

@3DOKid ... put this on the list (if you haven't touched it yet) w/my belated Lost Eden review.

[Austin]

Yeah, it's definitely impressive for '93.

[swaaye]

Well if it is realtime 3D, it looks better than PS1 because it doesn't have texture warping going on as far as I can see.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0fZFUwfdWo

There's something about how the track artificially rotates occasionally and how it appears to be a rather consistent 15 fps or so that reminds me of the pre-rendered games. The pre-rendered games tended to run at 15 fps because that was what a 2X CDROM could effectively dish out the video at.

The car movement is guided along in a curious way for sure.

This was one of the few 3DO games that I played back when 3DO was the hot thing. It was frequently on display at stores. I also remember playing Super Wing Commander occasionally. That one in particular caught my interest because 1) I was nuts about space shooters back then 2) it looked completely awesome compared to WC on PC. 3DO was really mind blowing back in the SNES / 486 PC days.

[3DO Experience]

The pre-rendered games tended to run at 15 fps because that was what a 2X CDROM could effectively dish out the video at.

Looks like you need to play Wing Commander III. And a 1x CD-ROM can handle 30fps, it's all about the decoder.

[swaaye]

I think it's more about the resolution and the video quality you can accept. Most of the video compressions back them were really poor though. I was reading an article on Rebel Assault II which mentioned the reasons for their video frame rate (15 fps) and resolution.
http://wiki.multimedia.cx/index.php?title=SAN

Both Rebel Assault games use 15 fps video and require a 2X CDROM.

Regarding WCIII, the PC version is capable of SVGA so I play that one.

[3DO Experience]

I think it's more about the resolution and the video quality you can accept.

Like I said, all about the decoder. You really should check out WCIII for the 3DO.