__ |\/| |__ | |E G A C.D vs __|U P E R N.E.S So here it is the battle of the giants, Nintendo and Sega have been waging war in the console market for years now, with Nintendo always having the upper hand. Sega looked all set to change this around in the British market at least, with the launch of the Mega CD. Ninte- ndo however had different ideas and decided to bring forward the launch of the Super NES. This launch is all set for spring, with Super NES's in the shops, possibly as early as February. Sega dont plan to launch the Mega CD offically till summer next year. Now heres the question (?) on everyones lips; Do you buy a Super NES, or wait for the Mega CD? it's not an easy choice, so heres a guide to whats hot and whats not about the two Machines. MEGA-CD (Lame Sega Product) --------------------------- The Mega CD is a compact unit that sits happily underneath the Genesis It's very similar in styling to the Genesis and once in place looks dead sexy. The internal gubbins are a mass of smart custom chips and processor doobries. The Mega CD uses a Motorola 68,000 chip, like the one you would find inside an Amiga, St. This chip runs at 12.5 Mhz which is bloody fast, especially when used in tandem with the Genesis's own 68,000. This is all very well, but a CD-ROM really needs one thing a RAM cache! whats a RAm cache? Well, when a CD unit sends Graphics and Sound to the host machine, it needs to hold alot on information in Memory If it cant do that, then you get a very irrating lag while the machine accesses the Compact Disc. This was a big problem with the PC Engine CD Unit, the waiting time can get quite aggravating. Fortunatly, the Mega CD has a large RAM cache and can handle 6 Megabits of info a time, this is more than enough space for pause free gaming. As far as sound goes the Mega CD is a big improvement over the Genesis/Megadrive. It has an extra 8 Channels of PCM sounds and they are well up to quality of a decent keyboard. These can be played at the same time as the Megadrives chip and can also be used with live CD tracks so musically, you can go far wrong. The extra processing power built into the new unit, means that the Megadrive can now perform the kind of Scaling and rotation tricks that the Famicom is Famous for (even though the SNES only has a 3.5 processor the Megadive+Co is so shit). All in All abit of a smart kit. The Mega CD has been widely heralded in the land of the rising sun, as the machine that will bring CD-ROM into the home. There are already a couple of CD-ROM standards in Japan, the most successful of which is the Sharp FM Towns. This computer basically a souped up PC, with smart GFX and a built in CD unit. The thing the FM Towns is most notourios for is the number of games featuring scantily clad women. It's widely expected that this kind of dodgy software will appear on the Mega CD, although Sega's strict quality controls should filter the worst of it out. The Mega CD was released in Japan last December and basically sold out as soon as it hit the shops. Sega cleverly released limited numbers, so selling out completely isnt quite as impressive as it sounds. The demand though is easily out-stripping supply even now. In the UK, when the machine was launched, grey importers like Advanced Consoles Etc were snowed down with oreders. In fact, when we picked up our Mega CD there was nearly a riot because it was the last one in stock! After months of sneak previews and much speculation, we finally got hold of a Mega CD! The machine arrived only days after its release in Japan. The excitment in the room was unbearable, problem was, when we first got it, we had no software. When you turn the machine On, you are presented with a really sexy demo. This shows the Mega CD logo floating in the sky, it starts turning, spinning and swooping around the screen. Its all impressive when you discover its not a polygon, its a sprite. This gives just a peek at the machines true potential. The music that plays during the demo is groovy, but hardly mind-blowing. Not only is the Mega CD a smart piece of video gaming technology, its also a bloody good CD player. Instead of the usual array of buttons and dials, all you do is slot in a normal CD and press Start on your control pad. The screen then changes from demo to options. These allow you to play any track on your CD at random, or if you like, in a preprogrammed order. There are tons of useful options and if youre into music youll love it. You can for example, loop small sections of any track, useful for sampling chords or instrument sounds. There are a wealth of options and the sound quality is quite remarkable. Using the audio ports and connecting the Mega CD to speakers, the sound quality is easily as good as a decent CD player. Put through a good stereo system with amplifiers and the unit becomes a formidable bit of Hi-Fi equipment. Well, theres no doubt about it. The Mega CD is a dead hard piece of kit. Problem is, the first few games dont take advantage of it. There are few Japanesse RPG's available already, most with un-translatable names. The RPG's all follow the gauntlet inspired top-down perspective with alot of spellcasting and wandering around. The one advantage of CD brings to this type of game is in the lengthy graphical intros. You get treated to highly impressive cartoon sequences throughout and the accompanying music is quite awesome. Weve only seen two arcade style games so far. The first, Heavy Nova is a cross between a SEMUP and a BEMUP, its a horizontal scroller, very playable and very fast again, this game features Huge cartoon intros and smart music, but graphically it doesnot do anything we have not seen before. Sol Feace is the second of the arcade games and its a good horizontal scroller. This a real dissapointment as far as graphics are concerned, this is no better than say Thunderforce or gaiares. Soon to appear on the Mega CD will be G-LOC and RABMOBILE for starters and maybe even SONIC 2. The Mega CD has had its offically launch in the UK set for Summer 1992. This is resonably fast and well get it around the same time as America. The machine will cost around 300 quid which is abit expenisve thats import and offical will be around 250 (Kiss my ass Sega lamers!). The Mega CD imports only work on the Scart machines (LAME!) at the moment but the console boys are hard at work converting them to PAL machines which should be finished Soon. THE SUPER NES/FAMICOM (Greatest machine of all time) ---------------------------------------------------- The Super NES is a very strange machine indeed! Although its a 16Bit machine, the cental processor is not a 16 Bit at all. It is in fact an Eight bit chip, a 65C816 to be precise but a deeply confused one. It runs as fast as a 16 Bit chip and thinks it is one, but aint. Kind of like a volvo with a ferrari engine...its not much to look at but it does'nt half shift (Yeahhhhh). The Super NES main attributes are its brilliant custom chips. These are used to create some stunning effects. The color palette is an enormous 32,768 and the machine can display 256 of these at once. You can take a whole screen very quickly or a small area and expand or reduce it in size very quickly. This effect has been seen before in the arcades like Afterburner, G-Loc. The SNES can also rotate screens in real time, much the way Namco's assault arcade machine does. The chips are powerful enough to combine these effects and clever programming to produce stunning results (Eat that Sega) The most impressive about the SNES though, is the sound chip, this uses 12 channel digital PCM sounds, better quality than most mid-range keyboards. These sounds can be played in true stereo and the effects are jaw dropping. Trumpiets, pianos, guitars, all can be reproduced faithfully through the SNES. You can easily link up your SNES to a HiFi and hear the sound through decent speakers, its well worth doing. In real terms, its much more a powerful machine then Segas Megadrive (HAHA). The SNES obviously excels in anything that involves Color and Sound, especailly using Scaling and rotation hardware. Where it falls down a little is on its sprite handling. The SNES is capable of displaying tons of sprites, but the speed suffers when more than 128 are on screen at once. Much has been made of this problem in the computer press, but the megadrive also suffers from this too, although not to the same extent. Where this problem arises most is in fast shootemups with tons of sprites on screen at once. You'd be less likely to notice say, a beatemup or a driving game. There are ways round this, with special programming and tight use of hardware, but its not as big problem as you'd think. After wearing our special investigator trousers for months, we dis- covered something about the SNES that will make you fill your pants with sheer bed wetting anticipation. This makes the CD-ROM look pathetic and it will change the face of SNES gameing forever! What is it? We're not telling! Ha! Are we evil or what? All we can say is this, when it appears and you own a Famicom, you'll be even happier than a big bag of happy things. Is it Hardware? Is it Software? Were not telling, but look out in future issues for more newz its a biggie! The initial batch of Famicom games upon its release in Japan was specatular. The one to buy the machine though, was Super Mario World This is/was the forth installment of the Mario series and is still the best platform game ever. The games, unusually for a console included a couple of strange strategy games like, Populous, Sim-City. These went down a treat in Japan and shifted untold numbers of famicoms. Its highly likely that the first batch of games will be the same as the first lot of Japanesse games. Look out in the future for thses great titles, STREETFIGHTER II, and rumoursa about MARIO 5 and to top that off it may be on CD-ROM!. The SNES went on sale in the U.S last year and was greeted with great interest, but it did not do to good in sales terms as expected. There were two main reasons for this firstly, the Megadrive had already got a firm foothold in the market and secondly, NES owners were quite happy with their old machine. Software support was fine, with alot of great titles released for the machine, but many stores had problems getting enough copies. After some teething troubles and alot of speculation, the SNES is now going great guns. Nintendo have had alot of political turmoil with their CD-ROM system. This should have been availble now, but development changes put paid to that. The Nintendo CD ROM was to be developed with SONY, but the deal fell through early last year. However, the unit was nearly finished and SONY still have the legal right to release the machine. It will probably appear in japan in the next few months, its to be called the Sony playStation. It will be entirely compactible with Famicom cartridges, but with the addition of a CD-ROM drive. Early peeks at the machine reveal it to be a sleek black unit, similar in appearance to the Megadrive unit. Sadly though, there will be little in the way of Nintendo support the CD unit, with most developers opting to use Nintendos system instead. This new system has been designed by PHILIPS and looks set to beat even the Mega CD, at least in terms of Spec. It should be ready soon and there will be an inter- esting three way competition between Sega, Sony, Nintendo. Its up to you. If youre dead wealthy and have the two get em both, if not ask yourself these questions; How much do you have to spend? How important is a CD-ROM? Both the SNES and the Mega CD are brilliant machines and both have their strong points. The Mega CD remember, is an add on and not a stand alone unit. The SNES is due for release very soon. Add all these points up and decide for yourself, but remember, you heard it here first. My Views ( {Mr.SCARFACE} of CRYSTAL ) ------------------------------------- Well why pay 250-300 pound for a unit which was made to do the same type of things which a SNES already does??. The SNES will be about 150 pounds in a couple of months maximum with a free 40+ pound cart Mario Worlds so for 150 pounds you can have everything thats in the Mega CD vertually apart from the fast 12.5 Mhz but the SNES is fucking fast enough now and soon the slow down problem will be now more. Remeber everything what Sega has made falls and gets forgotten about look at the poor master System (Dead!?!?!) but look at the NES still going quite strong Nintendo always make systems which rule and you enjoy playing! look at the basic Gameboy shit colors briliant addiction check out Mario on that!. Well its up to you i have both FAMICOM, MEGADRIVE, but i will have got rid of the Megadrive soon due to it being lame! same as the Mega-Cd! (Once the novelty wears off) Nintendo products always seem to keep ya going ya never get bored of em hmmm well like i say get what ya wont but Sega is Shit! haha. CREDITS ------- Text File : {Mr.SCARFACE} of CRYSTAL! Idea : {Mr.SCARFACE} of CRYSTAL! Review : Computer & Video Games Magazine Machines : Ace-Consoles / C+VG DEDICATIONS+MSG'S ----------------- Executioner : Hope the copiers come along Soon mate! 500+ rule ha! Zigor : Wheres the price lists ?? hehe! Lonestar : Keep up the good Console game support! Protocol : Keep those Tips coming! (For SNES though he!) Megadrive : Hope the conf goes well !! i cant call much now! boo hoo Hybrid : Ult Dream is kicking some ass Console wise! >>>> HAPPY CONSOLE 92 TO ALL WHO LOVE THERE MACHINES <<<< >> TO ORDER YOURE COPIER FOR MEGADRIVE,SNES,PC.ENGINE << >> SEE EXECUTIONER ON ULT DREAM <<