Tetsuo Time

It seems to me as if after doing a few iPhone\iPod Touch games Namco is now dipping their toes into doing Mac games. This is not too hard for them since the the aforementioned devices use versions of Mac OS X and making games for them is not too far off for making games for the Mac. Anyway.... one of their first games I know of is BurgerTime Deluxe.

It's a sequel\remake to the 1982 (non deluxe) arcade game by Data East (pictured below).



Sometimes remakes\sequels to old arcade games don't turn out so well or don't hold a candle to the original. In this case however I think the opposite. The gameplay is spot on and I may even say better than the original. The 1024x768 native resolution graphics are a nice and charming update to the original barebones graphics from the 80's arcade game.


Click To See Screenshot

There's a quick play mode which is pretty much like the arcade where it's just level after level each level it changes you from the two of the new characters in BurgerTime... Then there is "story mode" where you can pic from either the original chef's son or the female character. I tried it first on my notebook running Leopard and then my Mac Mini.

The Mac version seems to lack joystick support but using USB Overdrive you can remedy that. The game itself is $20 though which I think is a little pricey for a game of it's nature. But for someone like me it's very fun and I think I'd rather now play it than the original in M.A.M.E. One time I made a full BurgerTime OS theme for my sister including skins and sound effects.

Anyway, I think pretty much any recent'ish computer can play it. No need to worry about system requirements or anything. I'd be surprised if it didn't run well on a sub 1GHz machine. Here's the info\purchase links:

[PC Version]

[Mac Version]

What's weird is the PC version is $10 (from Namco) and the Mac version is $20 (from MacGamesStore). Economics of scale I guess.

This article has a video that talks about Killer Instinct. The thing I take exception to is how they say the SNES version only was missing FMV and "a few sprites". They hardly even showed the arcade version at all in the video there. It was almost like they where trying to play off the differences doing that. The game was a ~90MB game and it was cut down to fit a 4MB cartridge... and a system that had much more limited resources than the arcade cabinet did.

The SNES version wasn't just missing a few sprites and FMV. The arcade version was head and shoulders above the SNES version in every way. First off all they halved or more the resolution of the arcade version the arcade version ran at at least 512x384.. the SNES version ran at 320x240 or below. Saying it was missing a few sprites is an understatement.

The sprites where at least twice as big\detailed in the arcade version with more colors on each sprite. The game had more colors\detail in the arcade in general. Then to add insult to injury to that they cut out a lot of frames of animation especially in their victory poses. Because of the reduction of frames the action isn't as smooth as the arcade version. It's just "good enough" which is "good enough" for some people. The backgrounds where also severly cut down most of the animation, 3D effects, etc. of the arcade version where cut out. The backgrounds in the arcade version where actually FMV with full 3D effects in them. When you where at a certain part of the level you where actually at a certain frame in the FMV. Then some backgrounds where even in 3D which where also severely cut down to fit on the SNES. FMV is actually a larger percentage of the game than might meet the eye. They also removed things like the characters spinning on the character select screen and ladder.

Then we get to the sound. The music in the arcade version sounded more like the soundtrack CD that came with the SNES version minus most of the vocals they added to the CD. The SNES version had SNES MIDI versions of those songs which where OK sounding but not nearly as good as the music in the arcade version which was more like an MP3 soundtrack with the DCS sound system they used (first used in Mortal Kombat II for the arcade). The sound effects also had to be downsampled to fit the SNES cartridge and also some sound effects had to be left out and some of them where even changed. Like, Glacius had a nice rarrrr sound when he won in the arcade but on the SNES they changed it to some kind of squeaky yow sound.

They even "fixed" some things in the SNES version which prevents me from doing for example Glacius' 32+hit ultra combo or possibly doing Cinder or Eyedol's 80hit infinite ultra combos.

To be honest I was dissapointed in the SNES version and coming in a black cart was not enough to make up for its shortcomings. But I played it anyway because I didn't have any other choice back then for playing KI at home. Now I do and I play the arcade version and play the game as it was meant to be. Same thing with all other games ported from the arcade to the home from back then. None of them where as good as the arcade.

If they do bring it to xbox live arcade they better bring the arcade version or else I would say don't waste your money on it. Also you can't bring the SNES version and have it be HD it has to be based on the arcade version or else you will still be missing a whole lot. The SNES version of KI didn't even look as good as Donkey Kong Country in my opinion.

Would it take them seeing the arcade and SNES versions in action side by side to see the difference?

BTW, KI Gold for the N64 was closer to the arcade version of KI2 and in some ways it was better because it had more 3D backgrounds. But the sprites still weren't the same quality as the arcade version which then I would say it still wasn't equal.

The other day I put a shot of Killer Instinct on both arcade and home and today where is a shot of MKII.

Click here to view

The left side has the arcade version and the right is Super Nintendo. I even cropped the SNES version to even things out more as it's framed wrong causing the fighters to become smaller on the screen than they supposed to be. After cropping I noticed though they are still a bit smaller. But even so there simply is more detail in general in the arcade not to mention the sound is a lot better and there are more frames of animation. When you look closely at both screenshots you can see lots of details missing on the SNES version that are in the arcade in every square inch of the pic. But back when it came out that was my only choice for playing the game at home... so while I was disappointed I still played it anyway. In that shot it's closer to the arcade than the KI port was but still no cigar.