Panasonic 3DO in 2020 - My First Impressions

 

Yesterday afternoon I picked up a Panasonic 3DO from my local independent game shop. This is the first time I've owned a 3DO and one of a few relatively decent consoles I've never owned as well. 

That I was really curious to get my hands on this and I have some thoughts with my first day with the machine along with games I managed to get as well so far.

First the console, I like the look of it personally and nice to see the different connection options to connect to a TV that I had mine running via a Scart to HDMI adapter, decent in terms of picture quality all told.

The OS is basically a screen saver over and over, which is a tad annoying as to get to the saved data for games you have to use certain games or the sampler disc which I do have.

On the sampler disc is just a chap narrating going on about enjoying your new 3DO and what it can do like play Music CD's and VCD's with an adapter which only came out in Japan in the end. Does have 5mins of Batman the animated series which is good but overall this will be only used if I need to delete stuff of the memory. 

Controller has a super long cable, which was handy how I set it up as the power supply is attached to the console I had to put it close to an outlet. Controller is like a big SNES pad, which is fine part from the tiny d-pad.

Now on to the most imported part the games as this is a games console at the end of the day. First up is Starblade which has the honour of being the first 3DO game I've ever finished, Starblade is a port of the arcade game which has two modes on 3DO. First is Arcade Mode which looks like Star Fox with the graphical style of the low 3D polygons but really impressive for something from 1991, this is the mode I finished which takes about 30mins that I may have been annoyed if I bought this new for my 3DO being that short.
 

The other mode is the 3DO mode which adds textures to those low poly graphics. Which in practice looks impressive especially in 1994 yet everything now is grey and boring & harder to see that I prefer the low poly mode instead. The game itself is fun to play it's an on rail's shooter like a Star Fox but in First Person, just be nice if more than two levels unless you really want to chase high scores.

 

Next game I took a look at was Blade Force this has awful poppin and the box mentions how it runs in film like 24fps which I find hilarious as selling point where in 2020 people moan if a game 30fps, will say though the cutscenes with the characters are like the early Fallout games.

PO'ed, I did the first level and seems an okay FPS but the second level due to everything being purple I had no idea where I was going but gives me hope for Wolfenstein 3D which is a near perfect port.

Then the big'un which may have been a system seller back in the day Wing Commander III, I didn't play much but the FMV stuff is fantastic with Mark Hamill so far and the game bit wasn't bad either, can see me coming back to this one soon'ish.

First impressions are mixed as nothing part from Wing Commander III really stood out on why you maybe want one of these but with what I know about the 3DO if I can get my hands on the likes of D, Street Fighter II (like the best console version), FIFA, Road Rash, Gex, Night Trap from the 300+ games then it be a good time.

I can see why at one point this was deemed the best place for games especially for sports titles compared to the Mega Drive and SNES but it's in the same gen as the Saturn, PS1, N64 which will all blow it out of the water.

Feels it either came too late or to early depending on what you compare it to.

Cloud Gaming - My First Impressions

My title is a bit of a lie as I have played some Onlive (Anyone remember that?) and PlayStation Now but not since it was in BETA as I've not really had any need to use it. What I'm really talking about regards to first impressions is XCloud from Microsoft and Stadia from Google.

A few weeks ago I got an invite into the XCloud BETA programme, which allows me on an Android device play around 50 games via the cloud all linked to my Xbox Account.

Meaning I can continue where I left off with Forza Horizon 4 and earn achievements, play with friends like I would using my Xbox One X.

First time using XCloud was on my phone, which to be honest was not the best as I found the screen to be just too small with only really Bloodstained giving me a decent experience.

To improve this I bought a Samsung 10" Tablet and got one of those cases that double as a stand, this was a game-changer as I could see what was going on.

Which is all well and good but how do the games run on it, you ask. Well, that's a mixed bag as I've played Bloodstained, Yoku's Island and even Killer Instinct a game with any lag makes a difference perfectly.

Those are all single-player, multiplayer is a different story as I found Halo 5 borderline unplayable, Gears 5 just playable and Sea of Thieves whilst playing as part of a two-man crew to be fine with a tad hit to the resolution. I'm thinking this may improve over time when out of BETA along with servers closer to home as when you go on the Xbox Dashboard via XCloud the time is Pacific Standard Time.

XCloud isn't the only new cloud-based gaming in town as Stadia recently launched and I have to say I've heard mixed things on it. If you go by social media it's rubbish then my mate EoFGiz who's bought a premiere pack (his thoughts here) be rather positive on the service.

I've not bought anything to use Stadia, I managed to get a Buddy Pass from someone who had a spare code on Twitter. This gives me access to the service on mobile (I think it's just Pixels, which I have) or via Google Chrome and currently four games.

As my experience hasn't been great on mobile with XCloud, I've only used Stadia via the browser option. At the moment I can play four games with my buddy pass or buy more if I wish but at the moment I'm sticking with what I've got available to me.

 The first game I played was Samurai Shodown as a fighter, any lag could be a real issue but nope was flawless. I then tried Tomb Raider which I was really impressed with, then came Destiny 2 which has sort been the marque title for Stadia with the community on the service gathering around the game.

Destiny 2 even though much better than Halo 5 and Gears 5 in terms of playability, was still not the best experience. Which leaves me to believe Single Player is fine on these services and Multiplayer isn't, of course, there are caveats like XCloud is in BETA and the centre is likely in the states, is it my internet speed (Stadia test I should be able to get 4K HDR though), would Stadia work better via a Chromcast (people do tell me this is the best way to play) and more.

Then there are other issues like prices of games on Stadia but that's whole different subject to can I play a game via the cloud from either of these services, yeah sort of.

Wargroove - First Impressions

 

I've been excited for Wargroove since it was first shown in a Nintendo Direct for Switch, due to the homage to Advance Wars, a series that largely past me by, that I have thought about playing especially after Intelligent Systems recent work with Fire Emblem, just Nintendo hasn't given a new Advance Wars in sometime thankfully Chucklefish has stepped in and brought us Wargroove.

Now I might have seen Wargroove in a Nintendo Direct however I'm playing on Xbox One which doesn't matter much as Wargroove has cross-play with a code system, meaning I can play with anyone be it on PC, Switch or Xbox One and if you're a friend then I just need your game's code, also it has asynchronously mode but I feel I could forget to take my turn.

This is more of a first impression than a review and so far I've played the prologue and all of Act 1 (Haven't played more due to another project). I've got to say it's great at the moment with some really neat characters. There's also an arcade mode which is a five battle campaign for each character, I only have the one character unlocked at the moment which I got from finishing Act 1.

Mercia was the first character I unlocked for the arcade mode, the five battle campaign has an overarching story and gives you some more lore to the characters and world which can be found in the codex. I would imagine some of the other characters arcade modes will intertwine with each other and some like Ceaser the dogs likely to be a bit more silly.

With all this means there is plenty of content with a 6 Act story mode and 12 Characters all having a Mini-Campaign in the Arcade, without touching any multiplayer and finding all the games secrets.

There is also something called Puzzles Mode which I've not unlocked yet and a Map Editor which I played around with but not really something I can see me using as I'm rather hopeless at those sort of things. I did download a 1P campaign someone had made in a haunted house and that was rather good and since heard about people recreating maps & missions from the likes of Advance Wars, which is all available regardless of what platform the map was made on.

As I said I've not played much Advance Wars, that I can't really compare but I have played some Fire Emblem and it's rather close in how it plays just with some different system on what unit can beat what unit and it's not an individual unit you're moving but a group of swordsmen to move in most cases.

 

I am playing on Xbox One but I have to say this might be best on Switch due to the aesthetics and the homage to Advance Wars plus IF it uses the touchscreen that could be a handy way to move units and make maps.

Now there is a positive playing on Xbox One and Wargroove is the first game I've tried it out with is mouse and keyboard support which I have to say is an excellent way to play this and can making maps that I can see it being much easier than using a controller.

No matter what you do decide to play Wargroove on, based on my first impressions this is very much worth a download.