X68000 Goodness: Wolfteam

 Not many people know this, but most of the best Wolfteam games for the Genesis were the crap versions.
 It's true. Let's take a look at three of the epitomes of Wolfteam's goodness; Arcus Odyssey, Sol-Feace, and Granada.
 What do they have in common? Yes, they do all have that one wonderful and much-loved composer, Motoi Sakuraba, but that's not all. They all started out on the Sharp X68000. Sakuraba even said that his works on Sol-Feace were designed specifically for the X68000!
 Now I realise that you may not all have the luck to own one of these marvelous machines (nor do you have the brains to run an emulator - numbskulls!), but in a single phrase describing it. It PWNS the PCEngine, Megadrive, and SNES (Even with acceleration chips embedded, most of the time). Can you connect your SNES to the internet? I think not!
 Although I could alert you to the differences in each and every Wolfteam game (which would talk a long time, as they made quite a lot of X68k games - It's a good development system), I'll simply focus on Granada, my personal favorite.
 When you push in disk one (there's three floppies, but you only need to use two of them. Luckally, Sharp decided to build-in two floppy drives, eh?), you will be presented with one of the most exciting openings being played right before your eyes. The excellent OP song (Which I have recorded here) - gotta love Copyright loopholes!) provided by the superb artist Motoi Sakuraba gives one of the most exciting synergistic effects you'll ever see. I'm not kidding - you'll be awed.

  The Genesis version, in comparason, has a hevily butchered OP song and a text intro.

 After you finish watching the intro and popped in the third disk into FDD0, You will see a technically amazing line effect where the Granada logo phases onto the screen. There are many details in the logo; You can see some bronze tarnishing, and the shiny parts glistening in accordance with it's "manufacture."
 In the Genesis version, the line effects are maintained, but there is no tarnishing effect in the logo due to palate size limitations. There is also no shining effect. So what if it's just simple palate-swapping, it still look good, damnit!

 Now, to the gameplay. Granada (the game's namesake is the tank you pilot) is capable of 360 degrees of movement. Although digital gamepads only have eight directions, the limitation is surpassed by allowing the player to make partial turns, and then hold the direction of the turret. The turret is a fully-rotating object: no missing angles to be seen on this game. The treads are even visible underneath it. Pressing A makes the turret rapid-fire, Pushing B holds the turret direction, and hitting both makes you fire a cannon shot - taking out many enemies with one blow, sometimes. All of the enemies are also fully rotatible, giving the feeling that for some reason, they must have a smarter AI (It's hard to explain it - you have to see it). Everything that moves, explodes, adding hellish adrenalin bonus to the player. And, of course, Motoi Sakuraba's soundtrack will excite you to the point of either a heart attack or a coma.
 The Genesis port has most of the same things, mainly rotating objects. What is missing is basically the little details that make the game directed, and not feeling like they were manufactured. For instance, Granada's treads are totally missing, and targets blend in with their surroundings, making that radar ever-so-loved. Sound quality is reduced, although not too much - excepting the opening theme... Grr....
 The main qualms I have with the Genesis version is the difference in game play mechanics. instead of programming a good AI like the X68k version, they decided to just throw lots more enemies at you! It's simply stupid, especially because that many rotation calculations really bog down the processor - making this one of the few Genesis games with dropped frames. Also, they did as much to make this version easier, although that may just be because I played the US version. The Genesis version gives you the maximum amount of shields available - with no options to change them whatsoever. This is opposed to the X68k version's options to give you no shield or no spare tanks. The Genesis version is even missing obstacles, like the rollers from the first stage.

 So you see, the Genesis was not as good as we remembered it to be. Although Wolfteam was still able to show off the wonderful things you can accomplish with the system (the Motorola 68000 is quite a nice chip, after all), it couldn't compare to a superiorly-built system like the Sharp X68000 - even though it was produced quite a few years before the Genesis.

Time....

 I won't deny it; I've been ignoring this blog for a while. And I won't deny that it's been for mostly sexual reasons, either. I haven't written in over a month. In that time, I've gained and lost a loved one.
 What can I say, really? I can't say anything meaningful; I've gotten people to impress an image on who read this blog. I definitely won't tell anyone who I've fallen for, but I'll do everyone a favor by telling them how they might find out. (Although the directions will definitely make no sense)

 To find this person's identity, log into Sociopolitical Ramifications as a guest (you can use your own character, if you have one) and ask the persons there if they know who I've been with. You can even search to talk to me live if you can page and locate me. But as a rule, you can only get an answer from me if you tell me your real name.

 This post today does have a purpose, however. And that is to declare something. It is a declairation of sexuality! Don't worry; I'm not going to say that I like it a certain way or something, but I'm going to make a simple statement that should be obvious.

 Here we go:

   In order to be sexually engaged with somebody, only an intimate relationship reaching beneath the skin will suffice.
 Yes, I know that it should be insanely obvious, but I find that there are way too many idiots who don't know this! And it's so insanely obvious! INSANELY OBVIOUS! I can't emphasize this enough! I'm sick of seeing these cheesy women just waiting to be 'picked up' by some even more stupid jerk-ass guy! Gyaaaggghhhhh.....

Meh.

 Yeah, I'm just pissed off and depressed. Plus I just finished reading The Catcher in the Rye. That's what happens when you watch the entire season of 'I Love New York' on VH1. All I can say is that New York is an idiot for not picking Mr. Boston. Jews are so awesome.