Starfox Vs Virtua Racing [Archive]

Blades

07-18-2007, 05:35 PM

Back when I was a kid, I was always a sega fanboy. I hated when my friends only had Super Nintendos to play with.

So when I got Virtua Racing, it simply Knocked my socks off. It was amazing! The most advanced arcade game, running on my five-year-old genesis. It amazed me and my friends alike.

But when one of my friends got Star Fox for his SNES, everyone moved on to SF...except me.

I never could understand what was so great about Starfox. I thought and still do that it was a pathetic wanna-be Virtua Racing, slow, and not as fun.

I think Virtua Racing aged MUCH better than the slowdown plaqued Starfox. I mean just look at the intro! Looks like a game running on a super-old computer.

Blades

spiggysparks

07-18-2007, 05:57 PM

Apples vs Oranges?

In terms of the chip used with Virtua Racing, if Sega had figured out a way to manufacture this cheaply, I wonder if they would have put it into more games, thus making the 32x even more useless, and possibly not creating the domino effect that eventually led to their demise.

Blades

07-18-2007, 06:00 PM

Why is it Apples Vs Oranges?

Both were on-board enhanced games on 16-bit home consoles? The Super FX Was slightly more powerful, but the SNES had a waay slower CPU.

Joe Redifer

07-18-2007, 06:01 PM

Oranges destroy apples.

The SVP chip seemed better than the FX chip in terms of speed and whatnot, but it sure seemed to limit onscreen colors. Most of the graphics in VR are very dithered. I don't blame the Genesis. But it seems like they are only using an entire palette of 16 colors (if that) for the polygons for the entire game. Star Fox has little to no dithering and therefore looks smoother. Also as a game StarFox has more value. VR just has 3 stages and you get a GAME OVER even if you beat a track. There is no level progression and really nothing happens in the game.

Blades

07-18-2007, 06:03 PM

Vyse of Arcadia

07-18-2007, 06:15 PM

Ah, I was about to say that one is a very fun and challenging on-rails 3D shooter while one is a boring ol' racing game.

But if you're talking just graphically...I dunno. I've always prefered Star Fox, but that's probably because I've always loved sci-fi. To me, a spaceship, no matter how few polygons, always looks cooler than a race car, no matter how many.

megabomberman

07-18-2007, 06:17 PM

Starfox was definitely the more adventurous of the 2 so that has to be taken into consideration when judging, it also has a lot more scope considering the genre of games.

Virtua racing imo has far better backgrounds, they are simply beautiful. But starfox regardless of how bad they look now has some cool "huge" monsters......

Alas I guess the thing that tips is for me and I think some will agree is the members of the pit crew in VR I mean come on, this must be the mortal of all mortal sins of graphics creation, They had cereal boxes for heads, out of shape ones! The one animated character that pops up in the game and they go and do that with it, other than that evenstevens.

Blades

07-18-2007, 06:22 PM

But Starfox sloowed down so much! Even in corneria, with those "box" buildings. It barely worked!

evildragon

07-18-2007, 06:31 PM

your fanboyism still shows... ;)

to be blunt, SuperFX proved better.. it didn't matter how slow the CPU in the SNES was, because it wasn't the one rendering the graphics, SuperFX was.. and if you want to be technical, StarFox having more colors makes it look MUCH better than to VR (which did only allow 16 colors for polygons, and hardly even pushing that!)..

Fonzie

07-18-2007, 06:32 PM

No doubt that the SVP just break any FX chip...
It is far faster, and can do a lot more operations.

The only bottleneck (that the snes don't have) was to transfert the picture from the SVP cart to the Megadrive... This waste a lot of processing power and cut the framerate to half speed it could be.

But virtua racing still push more polygons than FX even with this bottleneck, héhé!

As an exemple, to render the same polygon, the SVP do almost two times the job needed to adapt to the megadrive hardware, and still get better results (while FX chip only have to do one time the job).

Also, SVP can do many other things than rendering polygons... It could have been used to do AI processing for a RTS game or 2D scalling & rotation, even MP3 decoding (the SVP's family DSP are still used as MP3 decoder in some actual hardware).
I just think that sega rushed Virtua racing a bit ... They should have released one or two more games, damn !

Mr Smith

07-18-2007, 06:41 PM

I have never played Starfox, but Virtua Racing was tosh. I don't care about graphics, chips or polygons, my car handled like a skip.

Blades

07-18-2007, 07:35 PM

Your car handles like a skip in *all* version of Virtua Racing :p

If you think that's bad, you would hate Star Fox, well probably. I mean, It moves so slooow, and then it SLOWS DOWN more. The button pressed don't always register also.

I always thought it was good (not great) graphically and just proved that the SNES wasn't good at gaming.

So I still think VR still rules.

Genesis Knight

07-18-2007, 09:31 PM

I consider VR to be more 'fun' simply because Starfox has so much slowdown.

Drixxel

07-18-2007, 10:19 PM

Rusty Venture

07-18-2007, 10:33 PM

Anything has to be better than "Stunt Race FX".

Choppy animation galore.

Joe Redifer

07-18-2007, 11:02 PM

I've always wondered why the pit crew in VR animated to choppily. They even do in the 32X version. WTF?

evildragon

07-18-2007, 11:05 PM

because i think they are pre-determined "locations", instead of paths...

(mind you this is not the real terminology, i don't know the real terms to describe what im trying to say)

Joe Redifer

07-18-2007, 11:11 PM

I know what you're saying. I agree. I wonder why they did that, though.

j_factor

07-19-2007, 01:09 AM

Drixxel

07-19-2007, 02:39 AM

Star Fox (and the Super FX chip) is a year older than Virtua Racing (and the SVP chip), so it makes perfect sense that VR would have "better" graphics.

Straight comparison, Virtua Racing runs better and is on more powerful hardware, but as it's basically following Star Fox's coattails, Star Fox was much more impressive upon release. Although neither were really that impressive, IMO.

I would agree. There was obviously better 3D available at the time, and it's not as if Star Fox or Virtua Racing really pushed any boundaries as far as 3D gaming was concerned. For their respective consoles, sure, but not for gaming overall, or hell, not even console gaming. However, the visual quirks/shortcomings of Star Fox and company were glossed over or forgiven by many console gamers, be it from a lack of perspective or who knows what else. Rather than Star Fox/Virtua Racing being genuinely impressive on their own merits, it was more a case of amazement at the existence of a functional 3D engine with functional 3D gameplay on seemingly "impossible" hardware, even if it was being done better elsewhere.

As for which chip made for better 3D, well, ultimately it boils down to the classic hardware rivalry of Genesis vs. SNES, which is in other words a bitter stalemate. SVP made for faster gameplay, SuperFX made for superior colour, and neither completely outmatched the other across all meaningful categories.

Vehemont

07-19-2007, 01:21 PM

I have to say Starfox, but at the time everyone with a PC was laughing at Nintendo's FX chip because they were playing DOOM at the time.

MitsuruX

07-19-2007, 01:40 PM

But Starfox sloowed down so much! Even in corneria, with those "box" buildings. It barely worked!

It wasn't quite that bad... there were points of slowdown.. but it remained fully playable..

Some of the later levels (and i can't think of their names specifically at the moment..) featured some great backgrounds... with polygon enemies mixed with scaling sprites... at the time it was really a site to behold.

:arrow:

Ash

07-19-2007, 02:59 PM

VR kills Star Fox in the speed department, no doubt. But at the end of the day, Star Fox was more fun to play and had much more replay value. Sega needed to put in just a little more effort with VR and it could have been much better. I was a Sega fanboy back then too, and I was ashamed even back then that VR is what WE got....

Iron Lizard

07-19-2007, 03:36 PM

I think Stunt Race FX vs Virta Racing would be a much better comparison. In that case Virtua Racing wins. Virtua Racing itself was all right but nothing great. Not worth the price.I think it was overshadowed by the 32x version. As far as Star Fox even at the time I never really understood what was so amazing about it. Everyone blew their load over it. It was just a boring rail shooter that looked horrible, just in 3d. It was like Space Harrier on steriods. Not that Panzer Dragoon didn't follow the same pattern but at least it had some atmosphere

Elusive

07-19-2007, 04:08 PM

Silpheed was better than Starwing, if only for "Holy shit! They got the carrier!"

Joe Redifer

07-19-2007, 08:26 PM

I have to say Starfox, but at the time everyone with a PC was laughing at Nintendo's FX chip because they were playing DOOM at the time.
No, they were playing Wolfenstein 3D!

nat

07-19-2007, 09:41 PM

No, they were playing Wolfenstein 3D!

I know I was.

When Starfox came out me and my friends rented it from the local game store and were underwhelmed as soon as the novelty wore off.

Hidden_Darkness

07-19-2007, 10:40 PM

is it really even fair to compare these two games since their both of different genres?
anyway, i'm not really sure which one I think is better since I didn't play much of either one in the 90's.

Rusty Venture

07-19-2007, 10:53 PM

Which is why we compare "Stunt Race FX" vs. VR.

And being someone who has never played VR but has played "Stunt Race" I can tell you that I know VR would win.

Joe Redifer

07-20-2007, 12:39 AM

Why shouldn't we compare Star Fox to Virtua Racing? It's like people's minds are so limited that they just can't compute two different genres at one time, and they get the Brain Freeze of Death. People always say you can't compare apples to oranges. That is 100% complete bullshit. Like I always say, oranges are waaaaay better than apples. Apples suck, unless you're referring to the computer. Also, as the original poster said, this thread is about comparing the technology of the first games to use those special chips, not the games themselves.

j_factor

07-20-2007, 04:41 AM

Stunt Race FX sucks ass in every way.

MitsuruX

07-20-2007, 01:55 PM

I think Stunt Race FX vs Virta Racing would be a much better comparison.

I going to have to go with Stunt Race...

It had levels with basic weather effects that would alter as the races progressed, there were WAY more tracks with alot more varied designs....more modes of play...etc

While neither game was the best racer ever... Stunt Race showed of much better visuals.. (Art style is either hit or miss for each person)

j_factor

07-21-2007, 12:27 AM

Stunt Race had much worse visuals IMO. Weather effects were neat, but it was very slow and choppy. The framerate sucked, even by the standards of the time.

evildragon

07-21-2007, 01:09 AM

I think during those times, I was still in awe at Castle Master for DOS...

(ok, I think at that time, I really was getting into Doom... I do believe it was out at the time, the Shareware atleast, that's what I had, a two-floppy disk shareware.. still got it)..

Joe Redifer

07-21-2007, 01:12 AM

Doom was likely out around the time Virtua Racing was released or maybe right before, but I think it was still Wolfenstein 3D mania during Star Fox's time.

No ceiling, no floor.
Damn, that game was a bore!

Iron Lizard

07-21-2007, 01:20 AM

Blah Stunt Race Fx. More varied tracks, graphics or whatever it was slow and boring. Virtua Racing wasn't great but it was okay for at least the first 5 minutes.

evildragon

07-21-2007, 01:24 AM

but it was okay for at least the first 5 minutes.
that's about all you had! LOL

Iron Lizard

07-21-2007, 02:05 AM

Yeah and at "only"a $100 thats only like $20 a minute.

spiggysparks

07-21-2007, 05:59 PM

Why is it Apples Vs Oranges?

Both were on-board enhanced games on 16-bit home consoles? The Super FX Was slightly more powerful, but the SNES had a waay slower CPU.

Ah, I thought you were comparing the games in terms of fun, not graphics.

Suppafly

07-31-2007, 10:24 AM

this is a clear idea for me:

1) strictly graphic-wise, Virtua Racing was a more powerful and stunning game. Specially speed !

2) As an overall balanced game, starfox was superior to virtua racing. It had better impact with puclic too...no need to be a fanboy for sega all the time...

Genesis Knight

08-01-2007, 03:58 PM

Stunt Race released at $100?!! I had no clue.

Iron Lizard

08-01-2007, 04:27 PM

No Virtua was rreleased at $100. I'm not sure about Stunt Race.

MitsuruX

08-02-2007, 04:51 PM

No Virtua was rreleased at $100. I'm not sure about Stunt Race.

I remember paying 59.99 for Stunt Race back in the day... split the cost with a friend and we co-owned the game... (Yeah i know.. dumb idea):daze:

Mr Smith

08-04-2007, 05:04 AM

Virtua Racing cost £60 over here, then again Super Street Fighter 2 cost the same, although Super Street Fighter 2 was actually a decent game.

Lord Dilks

08-16-2007, 02:37 PM

Virtua Racing is one of the worst games I have ever played in my life. Abrams Battle Tank eclipsed it in terms of crapness, but thats just about it......

Captain A-hole

08-17-2007, 03:15 PM

I would have to say Starfox, hands down.

Phantar

08-27-2007, 10:54 AM

I still don't realize what all the fuzz about Virtua Racing was all about.

Pseudo-3d-racing with a handful of Polygons? Well, whoop-dee-doo!

Starfox didn't really look better, but it definitely made more fun!

Lord Dilks

08-27-2007, 01:54 PM

They're both crap.

Genesis Knight

08-27-2007, 02:00 PM

I still don't realize what all the fuzz about Virtua Racing was all about.

Pseudo-3d-racing with a handful of Polygons? Well, whoop-dee-doo!

Well, at the time that was pretty amazing.

Zebbe

08-27-2007, 02:15 PM

What makes it "pseudo"-3D?

Joe Redifer

08-27-2007, 07:26 PM

Maybe because the TV screen is 2D? I dunno.

Mr Smith

08-28-2007, 04:58 AM

The backgrounds are 2-D maybe? If that were true, however, the entire PlayStation library would be classed as 2-D.

Zebbe

08-28-2007, 08:39 AM

Yes, the backgrounds are 2D, but the level itself and all vehicles are 3D afaik.

Phantar

08-28-2007, 09:00 AM

Zebbe

08-28-2007, 09:08 AM

The point of Virtua Racing was to bring the racing genre to a new level, which it actually did. All first 3D games in their respective genres look bad, that's something you cannot get away with.

Benjamin

08-28-2007, 10:25 PM

okay, I'm taking the "pseudo"-remark back. I didn't like the game very much. Blocky graphics just for the sake of 3d-graphics do not make a good racer IMO; there were other racing games that did not have the 3d-depth but that I had more fun with than Virtua Racer (I got more kicks out of the original Outrun).

Racing is the one genre I could not stand until the 3-D aspect, either via real polygons as in Virtua Racing or "faked" as in Road Rash, came into play. Those "into the screen" racers never gave me a sense of real racing on a real track with curves and bends. I equate Monaco GP, Hang On, Night Driver (2600), etc. with those old scrolling paper racing game toys I remember from when I was a kid. Virtua Racing is racing while everything else at the time was pretty much just a game of "dodge the oncoming object." So, I'd disagree with you there, but to each his own. :)

Blaze

09-02-2007, 04:23 PM

32X version of Virtua roked. Thats the one u had to get

Star Fox was something else. Graphically I dont think it compares to the 32X version of VR.

Blades

09-02-2007, 05:09 PM

32X version of Virtua roked. Thats the one u had to get

Star Fox was something else. Graphically I dont think it compares to the 32X version of VR.

Uhm, Dude, I was asking about the Virtua Racing on genesis Vs. Starfox. They're both landmark titles because they were very early polygonal titles and both had internal graphics accelerators. 32x version was a regular polygonal title released 2 years later.

Blades

Black_Tiger

09-02-2007, 05:17 PM

But I'm not talking about Starfox vs Virtua as a game. I'm talking graphical accomplishment-wise.

Starfox had *wireframe* models for some enemies and most were sprites. Virtua had little to none sprites.

I think the fact that Starfox used more than just polygons (wireframe is very cool) makes it the better looking game.

Personally I am wowed more by Virtua Racing, but thats just my preference.

Blades

09-02-2007, 06:39 PM

I think the fact that Starfox used more than just polygons (wireframe is very cool) makes it the better looking game.

Personally I am wowed more by Virtua Racing, but thats just my preference.

Agreed.

VR was so much better graphically.

and do you really think wireframe is cool?:p

Blades

playgen

09-02-2007, 07:17 PM

Virtua Racing plays like crap, sure it moves at a fast pace, but the low number of frames per second makes it hard to tell whats quite going on. Its a shame the SVP chip wasn't used in another game - perhaps one that more suited its capabilites, because virtua racing is too much for it I think.

Black_Tiger

09-02-2007, 07:21 PM

Agreed.

VR was so much better graphically.

and do you really think wireframe is cool?:p

Blades

Of course, just as I appreciate old outdated junk like sprites and flat shaded polygons. ;)

Blades

09-02-2007, 07:47 PM

Well, I like sprites and flat shaded polyongs...but wireframes?

They're like weenie polygons :p

And I'm sure you don't appreciate Atari 2600 sprites.

Vehemont

09-02-2007, 09:26 PM

So this is how this argument stacks up...Virtua Racing has better graphics, while StarFox has better gameplay... Hmm... I wonder which is better...

Genesis Knight

09-02-2007, 09:29 PM

I debate how StarFox can have better gameplay with such a horrible framerate. Can't we just say both suck and leave it at that?

Iron Lizard

09-03-2007, 03:24 AM

I debate how StarFox can have better gameplay with such a horrible framerate. Can't we just say both suck and leave it at that?

+1

Black_Tiger

09-03-2007, 10:42 AM

Well, I like sprites and flat shaded polyongs...but wireframes?

They're like weenie polygons :p

And I'm sure you don't appreciate Atari 2600 sprites.

Of course I appreciate Atari 2600 sprites. Many are no different than the sprites of NES games like Zelda 1. The Intellivision is one of my favorite consoles which I still play.

There isn't some magical line for me where everything before sux and everything afterward rox. Which is why I can appreciate old primitive graphics like the 3D in Virtua Racing and Starfox.