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Post by Shellshock on Feb 26, 2009 10:48:01 GMT -5
Blizzard was known as Silicon & Synapse when they first started making games. Ohhhh... now it makes sense. That's why I never saw Blizzard's logo on Rock & Roll Racing even though I played it to death. It's kinda misleading to say that Blizzard actually made those early games, not to mention put their logo on GBA's Rock & Roll Racing. Unless it's exactly the same team of people, maybe.
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Post by Discoalucard on Feb 26, 2009 10:58:08 GMT -5
They're pretty much the same people. It was just a name change, rather than a merger/split or anything.
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Post by brianc on Feb 26, 2009 11:55:46 GMT -5
I don't think Blizzard actually developed Death and Return of Superman. Even though they have their name on the splash screen (that was shown in the youtube vid in my previous post)? The credits here at mobygames make it clear that the game was worked on by Blizzard. I was a bit worried about my wording in the previous post, but I kept it since, from what I read, it sounded like Silicon & Synapse was pretty much the same company. Anyway, that Wikipedia article on Blizzard I linked to in my last post has plenty of info. I know Wikipedia can be wrong at times, but it does have sources to back it up.
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Post by Ganelon on Feb 26, 2009 19:19:01 GMT -5
Yeah, same with the original SNES version of Justice League Task Force, which only credits Blizzard IIRC. It really just means that Blizzard is one of the most diverse developers around.
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Post by derboo on Feb 26, 2009 22:52:37 GMT -5
Was one of the most diverse developers around. Now they do little more than 3 genres (RTS, Action-RPG, and WoW) and 2 1/2 franchises (Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo). And even inside that franchises, the most different and interesting titles always get cancelled.
Infact, they haven't released a non-WoW product in 5 years now, and their last non-Warcraft game was (not counting mediocre GBA-ports of their old classics) Diablo II - that's from 2000.
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Post by brianc on Feb 27, 2009 3:11:00 GMT -5
(not counting mediocre GBA-ports of their old classics) I wonder why Blizzard chose Mass Media to do the ports. Their track record isn't the best. Mass Media also worked on the N64 port of Starcraft.
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Post by derboo on Feb 27, 2009 3:14:08 GMT -5
Isn't N64 Starcraft considered a pretty competent port?
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Post by brianc on Feb 27, 2009 3:37:45 GMT -5
Isn't N64 Starcraft considered a pretty competent port? I heard the port has issues. I was speaking in general of Mass Media anyway. I mentioned that it was designed by Mass Media to indicate that they were the developers (or co-developers) of the game, not to say anything on the quality of the game. Also, I looked at their list of games here. It looks like a mix of "competent ports" and games that weren't well received.
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Post by mercatfat on Feb 27, 2009 7:00:26 GMT -5
I don't think Blizzard actually developed Death and Return of Superman. it's a nice thought, but they did. OH, HOW THEY DID. for that matter, they also made Justice League/Task Force, which predated Mortal Kombat vs DC by about a decade and a half as far as DC-oriented fighters are concerned. and yes, there's a damn good reason why there was so long in between fighting games involving DC properties. edit: i made this post before i saw a page two. i am 35% embarrassed now.
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Post by splatter on Mar 6, 2009 7:58:24 GMT -5
Isn't N64 Starcraft considered a pretty competent port? I played quite a bit of it when it came out. It wasn't terrible, but I don't think I would have given it a second glance if I'd seen the PC version. The graphics are incredibly blurry, even for the N64, and it doesn't have many of the voices or any of the FMV (they should've looked up the RE2 N64 team ). On the plus side, there were a few exclusive single-player missions and two-player split-screen, and the control scheme was alright for a console RTS. Anyway, good article! I only played the SNES version of Blackthorne, but I guess I didn't miss out on much. The most memorable part to me was the final fight against Sarlac, with its rocking music. By the way, I don't know if this sub-genre has a name, but are there any other games that fit the mold? The ones I know of are: Prince of Persia Prince of Persia 2 Out of this World (AKA Another World) Flashback Blackthorne Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus
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Post by Neo Rasa on Mar 6, 2009 8:48:48 GMT -5
Out of this World has a good sequel called Heart of the Alien. It's only on Sega CD but the disk has the original game on it as well. Shellshock!: www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnD9L3Whtj8 All of them have this same intro with Blizzard's logo I believe.
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Post by derboo on Mar 6, 2009 9:42:54 GMT -5
We had collected a few games on page 1. Here is a comprehensive list of what has been mentioned so far.
Prince of Persia (1989) Another World (1991) Flashback (1992) Fiend Hunter (1993) Prince of Persia 2 (1993) Blackthorne (1994) Nosferatu (1994) Heart of the Alien (1994) Bermuda Syndrome (1995) onEscapee (1997) Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee (1997) Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus (1998) Heart of Darkness (1998)
EDIT: Oh, and Tomb Raider for GBC, which makes sense, since TR was basically porting the same concept into 3D.
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Post by thx1138 on Mar 8, 2009 3:37:29 GMT -5
I can really relate to this article's notion that Blackthrone is "13-year old cool". A friend of mine and I have a sort of running joke based on the fact that, while I cut my teeth on Sonic and fell in love with his smirking raditude, two of his first games were Blackthrone and Zelda, and it shaped his youthful gaming tastes that anything that didn't have a weapon, like a sawed off shotgun or a sword, wasn't cool. The joke, solidified by his enjoyment of a Newgrounds flash game that had Mario fighting with a shotgun, is that, of anything I like that he doesn't, he would automatically like if it had a shotgun. And to answer the logically obvious question, no he did not like Shadow the Hedgehog .
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Post by onoff456 on Mar 19, 2009 2:26:29 GMT -5
We had collected a few games on page 1. Here is a comprehensive list of what has been mentioned so far. Prince of Persia (1989) Another World (1991) Flashback (1992) Fiend Hunter (1993) Prince of Persia 2 (1993) Blackthorne (1994) Nosferatu (1994) Heart of the Alien (1994) Bermuda Syndrome (1995) onEscapee (1997) Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee (1997) Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus (1998) Heart of Darkness (1998) EDIT: Oh, and Tomb Raider for GBC, which makes sense, since TR was basically porting the same concept into 3D. Add "Tomb Raider: Legend" for the GBA and "Zorro - A Cinematic Adventure" (1995 - MS-DOS).
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Post by Weasel on Aug 9, 2010 16:31:28 GMT -5
This screenshot is from the Mac OS version of Blackthorne, released probably around the same time as the 32X port. The Mac version featured the same prerendered sprites as the 32X version, except in a higher resolution, though this doesn't appear to make them any more pleasant to look at. The game at least seems to run at the correct speed, though I didn't hear any music (it's probably CDDA, knowing my luck, meaning it's missing from the ripped version I got from Macintosh Garden). I'll be on the further lookout for any other games that had Mac ports - if I can run them and get screenshots with my copy of Snapz Pro, I'll be sure to hook you up.
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