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/vr/ - Retro Games

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File: 320 KB, 512x663, I, Robot.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
8319690 No.8319690 [Reply] [Original]

How the fuck was this a thing in 1984

>> No.8319718

>>8319690
It wasn't 'that' crazy, but it was also an arcade game in a golden era for such games. Money was no object. Many arcade games from the the 80s and 90s were generations ahead.

>> No.8319745

>>8319690

Star Wars Arcade was a polygonal rail shooter in 1983, but yes it was very advanced stuff

>> No.8319764

>>8319745
Vector games were not polygonal because they rendered only edges, not faces (which consist of polygons). They required less calculations than I Robot with its shaded objects.

>> No.8319767

>>8319690
Great game and very innovative, shame that this innovation made game a flop.

>> No.8319769

>>8319745
that's a vector game though, its kinda cheating, considerably less demandong than rasterized polygons

>> No.8319801

>>8319769

Considering it was a full decade between that and SNES Star Fox though still pretty ahead of its time imo

>> No.8319806

>>8319801
Whether either of those games were ahead or before their time is kind of a matter of where you were looking in the computer/graphics industry. In those days the power was there to run the games, it was just prohibitively expensive and basically unknown and inaccessible to the public. These days the best shit's plainly for sale (though GPUs are getting borderline inaccessible from the currently pozzed pricing)

>> No.8319808

>>8319801
sure, but the point is that I, Robot is considerably more advanced

>> No.8319871

>>8319764
They're still "polygonal", but yeah filling those polygons takes a lot of bandwidth.

>> No.8320217
File: 103 KB, 499x499, dkradio.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
8320217

>>8319769
>demandong

Heh.

>> No.8320479

>>8319690
>How the fuck was this a thing in 1984

Atari's arcade division had a lot of money to spend on R&D. It wasn't the only polygonal game they were working on, either.

Check out Atari's Air Race demo from 1985:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvYLCsmNKfE&t=4s

The game was never released. But it may have been reworked into STUN Runner.

There was also a prototype from 1984 for a game called The Last Starfighter, which was based on the movie with the same name. This game would have also used polygons like I, Robot.

>> No.8320515

>>8320479
>Check out Atari's Air Race demo from 1985:
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvYLCsmNKfE&t=4s [Embed]

The games that came out of this development, were Hard Drivin' from 1988 (and it's sequel Race Drivin') :
https://youtu.be/g6JC-HCNcio
STUN Runner from 1989:
https://youtu.be/g6JC-HCNcio
Steal Talons (1991):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg5IF50mJrY

>> No.8320516

Ive watched videos of this at least 5 times and I still have no idea how the fuck you do the normal stages

>> No.8320558
File: 181 KB, 900x1200, 71aEDH6lgJL._RI_.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
8320558

>>8320479
>Check out Atari's Air Race demo from 1985:
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvYLCsmNKfE&t=4s [Embed]

This is apparently the prototype for Atari's The Last Starfighter arcade game:
https://youtu.be/ghjjeZpoKLI

The game was suppose to have a 1984 release, and was even advertised at the end of the Last Starfighter movie. The movie had a message in the credits saying "look for The Last Starfighter arcade game from Atari" or something like that.

>> No.8320571

>>8320558
>This is apparently the prototype for Atari's The Last Starfighter arcade game:
>https://youtu.be/ghjjeZpoKLI [Embed]


The youtube channel that uploaded this video, is owned by the programmer of the game demo. He also left this message in the comments:

> This game was after I Robot. I Robot was built with dedicated H/W, it also did not do any kind of lighting calculation, so was a lot simpler. Technically I Robot was the first solid real 3D game Atari did. TLSF was the first solid shaded programmable one, using a 68K CPU and written in C.

>> No.8322047
File: 70 KB, 1024x928, 8665131939_f491177c86_b.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
8322047

>>8320516
just walk over all the red squares and don't jump when the eye is open

>> No.8322225

>>8319767
It was more to do with how costly it was, how few units were produced as a result, and how painful it was to maintain due to potential overheating. That, and it being released just before/during the video game crash.

>> No.8322284

>>8319690
Because the idea that the Playstation introduced people to 3d graphics is some nonsense people on the internet invented.

>> No.8322496
File: 54 KB, 787x329, ytwm.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
8322496

>>8322225
>>>8319767
>It was more to do with how costly it was, how few units were produced as a result, and how painful it was to maintain due to potential overheating. That, and it being released just before/during the video game crash.

I don't think the video game crash had much effect on the arcades, as they were a different market. The 1983 crash was mostly regulated to retail and the home console market. It was retailers rejecting consoles, after being burned too many times. In 1984 Warner Communications split Atari into two separate entities. One was Atari Corp. which was sold to Jack Tramiel. The other part of Atari became Atari games. Atari games continued making arcade games. Midway later bought Atari Games, and I think currently Warner Bros. owns most of the Atari games catalogue. Funny how it came back to them.

And image related is Jim Morris who worked on I, Robot, and the abandoned The Last Starfighter arcade game. According to him, I, Robot was built with custom hardware. While his The Last Starfighter demo was moved to C language and could be run on Motorola 68000 CPU. The Last Starfighter claims to be the first game to have calculated 3D lighting as well, while I, Robot does not. Even though, The Last Starfighter was never released, the C coded engine was reused for games like STUN RUNNER and Hard Drivin'.

>>8320558
>The Last Starfighter arcade game:
>https://youtu.be/ghjjeZpoKLI [Embed]

>> No.8322504
File: 21 KB, 621x346, Screen_20Shot_202019-01-30_20at_203_43_45_20PM.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
8322504

>>8322496
The crash definitely hit arcades too, while it didn't decimate the market like it did for consoles, there was a noticeable drop off

>> No.8322562

>>8322504
>The crash definitely hit arcades too, while it didn't decimate the market like it did for consoles, there was a noticeable drop off

1980 to 1982 really was the golden age of arcades.The drop off for the home console market didn't happen until late 1983. In 1984 the console market was toast. I always thought there would have been more of a spike with Street Fighter 2. But interesting.

>> No.8322672

>>8322562
>I always thought there would have been more of a spike with Street Fighter 2
There were a number of popular arcade games that came out in the late 80s. I think there was a general resurgence of interest in arcade games during that time. Games like Bad Dudes, Double Dragon, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, plus lots of other quality titles from the mid-80s were still enjoyable by people with nothing but a Nintendo or C64 at home. The spike for Street Fighter 2 and fighting games is hidden because it came at the same time interest in non-fighting arcade games was dying out in favor of games on 16-bit consoles and PC.

>> No.8322692

>>8319764
>They required less calculations than I Robot with its shaded objects.

wireframe and filled single color polygons take the exact same amount of calculations. What filled polygons need more of is pixel fillrate, but that's just bandwidth, not math.

>> No.8323686

>>8322504
Looks like 5th gen killed arcades and then powerful PCs and the mobile market put the final nails in the coffin