Let's talk about Sega Model 2 and Model 3 games

[Alpha Skyhawk]

I've been using the Model 2 Emulator and the Supermodel Model 3 emulator a lot lately, and I've been enjoying a lot of the great Sega arcade games of the 90s.

Daytona USA was my inspiration for delving deep into the Model 2 and Model 3 catalogs, inspired by the recent Daytona USA 3 announcement. It's still a great game! The art direction makes the Model 2 graphics hold up to this day, despite it being early 3D. It was truly ahead of its time. And, of course, the gameplay. It's awesome. That really goes without saying.

One of my favorite offbeat fighting games of the 90s was Fighting Vipers. I loved the Saturn version when I got it right before Thanksgiving in 1999. (Bargain bin prices done right.) Even though it's disappointing the Model 2 version of the game doesn't have the gameplay tweaks of the remix option in the Saturn version or any of the Saturn extras, it's still fun to play on the Model 2 Emulator. The music holds up in this version, too. I'll have to see if there are any comparison videos on Youtube about the arcade vs. the Saturn versions of the soundtrack.

Sky Target was a game that I didn't play back in the day, but I like it these days. It's kind of a spiritual successor to Afterburner. It has boss battles against big aerial vehicles, though. It's a blast! It's nice to play this instead of the PC port I had to import from Japan a few years ago, too.

One thing to note about the Model 2 Emulator is that, while it supports Xinput, it doesn't really do deadzones. You can use Durazno with the Model 2 emulator, though. It's a program that lets you modify the inputs on your Xbox 360 controller for specific games. It spits out an INI and a DLL that you put in the directory of your game/emulator. It's a godsend for Daytona USA, and its antideadzone setting is a necessity for Sky Target. There's a bug with Sky Target that makes you fly in the wrong direction if you move your analog stick too far, and antideadzone fixes it.

On the Model 3 end, there's Daytona USA 2. I've got the biggest crush on Daytona USA 2. But just Daytona USA 2. I don't like the Power Edition. PE is like the evil twin that pretends she's her sister, acts like a jerk, and gets you to break up with her sister because you think she's her.

Emergency Call Ambulance is another one I never played back in the day, but I always wanted to play it. I remember reading about it in Game Informer years ago. Today was my first day playing it, and I enjoy it. It's not great, but I like playing it. I wasn't expecting it to be so much like an action movie car chase simulator. I was expecting Ferrari F355 Challenge meets Crazy Taxi.

There's also Fighting Vipers 2. I don't like it as much as the first game, but it's a welcome sequel. The most disappointing thing to me is that they completely ditch the thrash metal from the first game in favor of techno/dance stuff. Not every song in the first game was thrash, but there was a lot of it. I do like the gameplay tweaks for the most part, and it looks gorgeous, but I'm disappointed they didn't bring over the 3D movement function from Virtua Fighter 3/Fighters Megamix.

There's a lot more I can say about the Model 2 and 3, and I probably will say lots, but I want to have a good discussion about the games and the hardware, too.

 

[SpamYouToDeath]

I used to have a Wave Runner cabinet in my garage. The game was pretty simple, but still a lot of fun. I don't think you could ever emulate the controls correctly, though - the pneumatic system was a big part of it.

I really like the way those games look, though. There's nothing complicated by today's standards - just nice 3D art at a good framerate.

 

[Alpha Skyhawk]

I used to have a Wave Runner cabinet in my garage. The game was pretty simple, but still a lot of fun. I don't think you could ever emulate the controls correctly, though - the pneumatic system was a big part of it.

I really like the way those games look, though. There's nothing complicated by today's standards - just nice 3D art at a good framerate.

Eh... You might be surprised by how well it translates to standard controls. At least, it may still be fun with standard controls. I haven't tried it myself, but maybe I'll get around to it.

I source that idea of the controls translating from my experience with Sega Super GT/Scud Race. In that case, I didn't like the controls in the arcade, and I still don't like them now. Seriously, if this was supposed to be the next evolution of Daytona USA, I'm glad it faded into obscurity. It always felt snappy and slippery in the arcade, and it feels exactly the same way at home. It looks gorgeous for a late 90s 3D game, especially in true anamorphic widescreen high resolution, but it's just putting lipstick on a pig in my book. I never liked the game back in the day, and I still don't like it now.

Something I learned in my experiments with the Supermodel Model 3 emulator is that the Model 3 had a hardware enforced lock of 60FPS. I discovered this mostly because I had the PowerPC emulation set too low for that game which resulted in actual slowdown (not frame drops) in certain situations. I upped it to 70MHz, and the slowdowns stopped. I don't think my computer's powerful enough to handle emulating it at the full 166MHz, but Model 3 games perform admirably when underclocked. I've currently got my PowerPC emulation running at 70MHz for everything except Fighting Vipers 2 which runs well at 130MHz. It seems the higher I get it, the less I get texture problems in that game. Fighting Vipers 2 seems to have texture problems when underclocked for some reason. I haven't maxed out the emulator's and my computer's potential yet, though. I'm bumping the frequency up by 10 each time I play the game until I notice slowdown. Then I'll pull back. I already know it's going to slow down at 166MHz. Oh, and I already put the emulated framerate throttle back on, so it should be operating at the right speed as long as I don't push the rest of the emulation too hard. Supermodel gives you an option to defeat the hardware framerate lock, and when you combine that with PowerPC frequency tomfoolery, you can get better performance on lower end hardware. I've got kickass hardware, though, so I don't need to use those options anymore.

 

[LoneSage]

Played NY Gunblade and LA Machineguns tonight. These games are just so fucking crisp. A strong arcade memory I have is playing Gunblade for the first time and just being jolted by the gun's rumble. Every other Gunblade cabinet I've played has never come close to giving me that same feeling as the first one I played at the mall.

It also really sucks that there's no strong screen gallery of these games on the internet. Trying to search for Motor Raid screenshots and just nothing. Motor Raid was a cool game and stuck with me throughout the years despite only playing a level or two.