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Post by Discoalucard on Aug 12, 2011 19:25:44 GMT -5
www.hardcoregaming101.net/princeofpersia/princeofpersia.htmFor our Spotlight Article, derboo dug out Prince of Persia and gave it a huge revamp. I had originally written these back when The Sands of Time had come out, and kept it updated through The Two Thrones, but then got overwhelmed and lost interest. This redone version not only picks up where I left off but drastically expands it with notes from Jordan Mechner's design diary, screenshot comparisons of over 25 different ports of the original game, reviews of the not-too-shabby Disney movie, and many strangely erotic cellphone ports. I can say with great confidence that this is now one of the best articles in the entirety of HG101, and is most definitely worth checking out.
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Post by derboo on Aug 13, 2011 4:42:40 GMT -5
What is it with me losing paragraphs while compiling the article? The 2008 game had one rather important one missing, it's in now. Also, while not directly part of the article, I've made a spreadsheet for release info on all the versions of the first three games: www.hardcoregaming101.net/princeofpersia/versions.xlsMost dates come from the usual databases (used Japanese sites for the release dates over there), except where the popular opinion didn't make any sense (Mega Drive/Genesis Prince of Persia is generally attributed to 1993, but all the reviews are around March-April 1994).
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Post by evilakito on Aug 22, 2011 1:10:18 GMT -5
I love the screenshot comparisons. That's always been my favorite portion of the HG101 articles, and Prince of Persia is a perfect game for it since there are so many different versions. Hell, I didn't even realize there were so many versions until I looked the article (it even puts Ys 1 to shame).
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Post by derboo on Aug 31, 2011 18:41:52 GMT -5
Hmm, so I bought a copy of the Macintosh version of the original game, mostly to make a better scan of the box (and because it doesn't look half bad on a shelf).
However, the game comes with 3 floppy disks, labeled:
Disk 1: Application and B & W Graphics Disk 2: Color Graphics Disk 3: LC Graphics
What are "LC Graphics"? is that anoter screen mode? Is it to be expected notacibly different from any of the others? Google only brought up heaps of unrelated crap...
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Post by Weasel on Aug 31, 2011 19:51:02 GMT -5
Hm - that is a good question...it most definitely refers to the Macintosh LC, which in its base model supported 8-bit color at 512x384. I'm unsure if an LC-specific graphics data would be of higher or lower quality than the "Color" disk, and unfortunately I don't have the actual game (or a floppy drive, since my G3 Blue-and-White tower only has a CD and Zip disk) to check.
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Post by derboo on Sept 1, 2011 4:50:06 GMT -5
That would imply they're at least in a lower resolution than the color screenshot on site. I've tried grabbing disk images with MacDisk, but either all three are equally dead, or the program is incompetent.
I'd use the version at Macintosh Garden to see if it has all the graphics files included in Basilisk II, but that stupid Stuffit Expander doesn't work for me, either.
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Post by Weasel on Sept 1, 2011 12:13:34 GMT -5
That would imply they're at least in a lower resolution than the color screenshot on site. I've tried grabbing disk images with MacDisk, but either all three are equally dead, or the program is incompetent. I'd use the version at Macintosh Garden to see if it has all the graphics files included in Basilisk II, but that stupid Stuffit Expander doesn't work for me, either. Give me an hour or so, I'll check out the copy on my G3 and see if that's got them. [edit] Yeah, you're right - I tested by removing the other graphics packs. The BW and LC graphics run the game at 512x384, and the COLOR graphics run at 640x480. It doesn't seem as if the artists got lazy, either, since most of the sprites maintain a similar level of detail between the packs, even in BW mode.
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Post by derboo on Sept 1, 2011 13:27:30 GMT -5
Cool, can you get me a comparison shot for the LC graphics? (And maybe a full resolution shot for B&W while you're at it?)
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Post by Jave on Sept 1, 2011 14:31:51 GMT -5
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Post by Weasel on Sept 1, 2011 15:18:25 GMT -5
Cool, can you get me a comparison shot for the LC graphics? (And maybe a full resolution shot for B&W while you're at it?) Will do - I'll have 'em up in my next post here.
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Post by Weasel on Sept 1, 2011 15:27:29 GMT -5
Okay, here we are! Here's the LC Graphics version... And here it is for B&W Macintoshes. For sake of comparison, here is the Color version at 640x480, already in the article:
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Post by starscream on Sept 1, 2011 15:38:03 GMT -5
B&W goes down to 512x342, it just adds borders for higher resolution, (as does color).
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Post by Weasel on Sept 1, 2011 16:54:29 GMT -5
B&W goes down to 512x342, it just adds borders for higher resolution, (as does color). Seems that's the case for the entire game actually, since even the 640x480 version has borders.
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Post by starscream on Sept 2, 2011 7:49:38 GMT -5
Yes, presumably so it can run on 640x400 displays.
The X68000 port also has relatively large borders. Which is a bit odd, because the machine can output 640x400, same as the PC-98, but apparently they wanted to use extra lines.
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Post by derboo on Sept 2, 2011 11:33:39 GMT -5
The X68000 port also has relatively large borders. Which is a bit odd, because the machine can output 640x400, same as the PC-98, but apparently they wanted to use extra lines. Do you know what's the correct resolution for that version? The emulator has it in 768x512 with huge borders, but I thought that was just an emulator thing (like many emulators for 8-bit computers often display borders around the actual resolution).
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