Battle of the Ports

[Yakumo]

Kids with boobs?
Booby Kids on this week's Battle of the Ports

[Hirst]

With the new GEX collection being announced, it's a good time to take a look at the original release.

You're not wrong in your response about Gex - I remember seeing it as one of the games coming out for the 3DO and thought it looked like yet another rubbish platformer in the vein of Bubsy. Most people were absolutely sick of these lame attitude character platformers by then, so many of them had come and gone. All inevitably full of irritating voice clips, slippery movement, lousy camera, boring-looking and badly designed levels.

Then I hear it's getting a collection and people are really happy about it and I wonder if I was in some kind of alternative timeline - everyone I knew thought it looked rubbish and anyone who played any version of it would confirm the same. Just a completely mediocre game. World's gone mad!

[Colin]

This is obviously going to be me being in a minority, but I actually quite liked Gex on the 3DO.

[Yakumo]

This is obviously going to be me being in a minority, but I actually quite liked Gex on the 3DO.

I'm wondering what you like about it because there are a few comments on the video by people who enjoyed the game.
I mean, I can understand if your a 3DO owner as there's not much else to scratch the itch but GEX on the Saturn or PlayStation where there's so much more to play.

[Baseley09]

Maybe it's personal preference but imo the graphics are quite good and the soundtrack pretty decent in places. That rubberband scrolling is annoying for sure

[dataDave]

Gex was the only stinker I ended up with after I traded my PSX for a Saturn at the back end of 1996.

Yeah, like Hirst says, that mid-90s era of mediocre platform games isn’t missed at all. It all started with Earthworm Jim. I had some severe burnout from those types of games, so much so that I didn’t even enjoy Yoshi’s Island at the time.

Working in video games rental didn’t help. I had access to pretty much everything across the PAL region. It was like having a folder full of +3h R0m2.

[Yakumo]

Battle of the Ports - Heiankyo Alien

[Yakumo]

This week on Battle of the Ports is a Saturn shooter that should have been so much better.

[Yakumo]

It's time for another remastering of a video!
Battle of the Ports Remastered - Strider (ストライダー飛竜) Show 474 - 60fps

[Nu-Eclipse]

It's time for another remastering of a video!
Battle of the Ports Remastered - Strider (ストライダー飛竜) Show 474 - 60fps

A true Capcom classic.

MD/Genesis port wins out for me here. Probably played it more than the CPS-1 coin-op original.

You would've thought that the X68000 port would've been better when you consider the history that the CPS-1 architecture and X68000 hardware have together.

The PCE Arcade CD-ROM² port? Yikes!

[Baseley09]

PC Engine version is a bodge job but tbh I play it more than other versions it's got some cool things about it.

[Protocol Penguin]

I remember seeing the Mega Drive conversion and found it stunning. Really showed up how utterly terrible the Amiga conversion I had played was. (In fact I’d argue that Strider was a “killer app” for the MD in its early days, years before Sonic came along.)

Anyway, I belatedly just realised that some of the power-ups are the two kanji from “Hiryu”. The same kanji read as “Fei Long” in Chinese, which fans of Super Street Fighter II might find interesting.

[Colin]

Considering the wealth of excellent arcade ports on the PCE, this and Golden Axe are two real blots on the library.

[Nu-Eclipse]

Considering the wealth of excellent arcade ports on the PCE, this and Golden Axe are two real blots on the library.

Would arguably put PCE Shinobi in there.

It did so much right but the loss of a mission and the bonus stage is criminal.

[Yakumo]

Considering the wealth of excellent arcade ports on the PCE, this and Golden Axe are two real blots on the library.

Golden Axe is mind bogglingly bad. It's as if Telenet really wanted to piss someone off by releasing that abomination.