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[Synbios459]

The one I had broke so I searched eBay and found a brand new one. I got it today and hooked it up and everything is working fine, except it came with these 2 plate things that it says you need to put in your Genesis cartridge slot, I didn't bother since the last one I had worked, but what are they for, and are they neccessary? BTW, I'm using Genesis 2 with a Sega CD if that matters.

 

[Gattsu25]

They are to hold it in place IIRC. I would use those when I initially owned a 32X but when I repurchased one I never used them and didn't notice a difference.

 

[DJPS2]

I want to say that they were shields... either for heat or for interference... but it's been so long since I owned a 32X mushroom that I don't honestly remember.

EDIT: I was right. The plates were called electromagnetic shield plates... so you can infer what their function was.

 

[Chittagong]

noooo.... the mention of those things brings back the traumatic memories of 32X. I imported it as a Xmas gift to myself... can't remember if it was 1993 or 1994. The thing had just come out in the UK. The build quality was horrible, it was somehow defective - the picture started shaking when the device heated. Doom and Star Wars rocked, however. Other than for a handful of games, getting the mushroom still goes down in history as my worst gaming investment - the thing wasn't cheap!

 

[DJPS2]

My 32X horror story is rather amusing now...

When I first got it-- along with Star Wars and Virtua Racing-- you could only see the backgrounds and not the polys. So... there were no cars while playing Virtua Racing and no ships while playing Star Wars. Since it was a Christmas gift, I had to wait until the next day to return it and (try to) explain what the problem was.

I only wound up getting those two games, and rather quickly wound up trading it in towards a used 3DO with Road Rash and Rebel Assault.

 

[tedtropy]

noooo.... the mention of those things brings back the traumatic memories of 32X. I imported it as a Xmas gift to myself... can't remember if it was 1993 or 1994. The thing had just come out in the UK. The build quality was horrible, it was somehow defective - the picture started shaking when the device heated. Doom and Star Wars rocked, however. Other than for a handful of games, getting the mushroom still goes down in history as my worst gaming investment - the thing wasn't cheap!

I recall seeing the 32X being chunked into $20 bargain bins not very long after its being released, at least in this area.

 

[Gattsu25]

ahh yeah...Star Wars and Doom did rock (though Doom having only a handful of levels sucked...hell... remember getting DOS style errors with Doom, as well)

The 32X did suck in the long run, aye that it did.

What happened to that one knuckles game on it?

 

[DJPS2]

ahh yeah...Star Wars and Doom did rock (though Doom having only a handful of levels sucked...hell... remember getting DOS style errors with Doom, as well)

The 32X did suck in the long run, aye that it did.

What happened to that one knuckles game on it?

I never played Chaotix... though I meant to. I also wanted to try the 32X version of NBA Jam: T.E.

 

[Spectral Glider]

I want to say that they were shields... either for heat or for interference... but it's been so long since I owned a 32X mushroom that I don't honestly remember.

EDIT: I was right. The plates were called electromagnetic shield plates... so you can infer what their function was.

Yeah, they were supposedly to help prevent interference.

In the end, the whole design of the 32x did nothing but prevent enjoyment.

 

[DJPS2]

In the end, the whole design of the 32x did nothing but prevent enjoyment.

Well done.

 

[jooey]

32X hookup stories are fun!

I remember working on mine for the better part of an evening until I magically connected something right and actually saw the Sega logo appear. I was euphoric!

Since then I've left it in my Genesis with the lone "tether" cable connected, in case I get too old to remember how to use it.

 

[Gattsu25]

32X hookup stories are fun!

I remember working on mine for the better part of an evening until I magically connected something right and actually saw the Sega logo appear. I was euphoric!

Since then I've left it in my Genesis with the lone "tether" cable connected, in case I get too old to remember how to use it.

OT: Some guy was working with a old PC trying to remove the RAM from it...it was rusted in and when he finally removed the RAM from the PC, he also removed a good ½inch of skin off the back of his index finger and bled all over the fucking place.

 

[_Angelus_]

Virtua Racing Deluxe was worth owning the system for,only not for the 180 dollars they were asking the day it had launched. Yeesh, I was quite a brave young man back then.
I owned Knuckles Chatoic,it played pretty good. The whole theme of using your partner as a means to attacking your enemy was pretty weird at first since it first like both of you were bungy killing enemies constantly,only on a much shorter leash. It did take some time to get use to it but the game was pretty fun.

I've since found ...err other ways to play the 32X games nowdays. I've found some that I never got to play back then. For example-there are a few Starfox like shooters out there that played pretty well,but they really did look alot like rush jobs. They could have been made with the SNES's SFX chip at that time in my opinion,only with the 32X these games had more colors and smoother framerates.

My favorite 32X games were always Virtua Racing Deluxe which I still play atleast a few times each year,and Star Wars 32X,one of the hardest games ever. Did anyone *ever* beat the stage where you flew directly inside an Imperial Star Destroyer,that was the furthest progress I had ever made in this game. To top it off I could never get the damn cheats to work. I guess its even worse since the emu...eeeerr my prefered way to play the games nowdays doesn't have support for two player games,and you always needed a second control port in order to activate the Star Wars cheats.

 

[Unison]

I have a 32x. It pretty much hate everything on it.

 

[Error Macro]

Can someone make a list of recommended games for the 32X? Ten years after I got it, and I still only have Virtua Racing Deluxe (which of course, is totally badass). I think I need to pick up some more games for it.

 

[BobbyRobby]

I got mine when a kid told me throw it out after I told him he'd get no trade-in credit for it.

Never got the wires so I could play it, though I did buy Tempo.

 

[_Angelus_]

Mortal Kombat 32X

Kolabri

Doom

Virtua Racing Deluxe

Star Wars Arcade

Shadown Squadron-this is the game that I spoke of above that plays like StarFox.

Metal Head,it was a run and gun decent styled 3rd person mech game. It had a nice dash technique involved in its gameplay that made it somwwhat of a fast paced game. You were placed within the city,constantly hiding behind skyscrapers do war with other mechs. I don't even remember if the game had any real story or if other levels were much different,but the game was pretty fun back then.

Knuckles Chaotic-you and a selection of Sonic like characters tag team so to speak. You are bound to a spring like bungy cord where the obect was to stretch the other and use them as a means to kill enemies or prople yourself to hard to reach areas. It sounds retarded but it was actually fun,the game had some nice stages overall. I remember there being these multi played stage where you had to make your way upward to the top deck of this party boat. There was what I think tons od parralex being used and the whole tecnique was pretty wild. I could be
wrong though,its been ages since I played this game,but whatever the effect that they used for this game was...it was pretty awesome at that time.

I Wish I could help you out with more game reccomendations but I really only owned a handful of them before the Saturn came along and I focussed on that system for good after that.

 

[Seth C]

Mortal Kombat 32X

Kolabri

Doom

Virtua Racing Deluxe

Star Wars Arcade

Shadown Squadron-this is the game that I spoke of above that plays like StarFox.

Metal Head,it was a run and gun decent styled 3rd person mech game. It had a nice dash technique involved in its gameplay that made it somwwhat of a fast paced game. You were placed within the city,constantly hiding behind skyscrapers do war with other mechs. I don't even remember if the game had any real story or if other levels were much different,but the game was pretty fun back then.

Knuckles Chaotic-you and a selection of Sonic like characters tag team so to speak. You are bound to a spring like bungy cord where the obect was to stretch the other and use them as a means to kill enemies or prople yourself to hard to reach areas. It sounds retarded but it was actually fun,the game had some nice stages overall. I remember there being these multi played stage where you had to make your way upward to the top deck of this party boat. There was what I think tons od parralex being used and the whole tecnique was pretty wild. I could be
wrong though,its been ages since I played this game,but whatever the effect that they used for this game was...it was pretty awesome at that time.

I Wish I could help you out with more game reccomendations but I really only owned a handful of them before the Saturn came along and I focussed on that system for good after that.

You pretty much got them all. Other than that, NBA Jam TE I suppose, if you liked the game. 32X had a good version of it.

 

[DJPS2]

Other than that, NBA Jam TE I suppose, if you liked the game. 32X had a good version of it.

Better than the disappointing PSone version?

 

[captmcblack]

What about 32X Virtua Fighter? Supposedly that was decent too...

 

[KiNeSiS]

You pretty much got them all. Other than that, NBA Jam TE I suppose, if you liked the game. 32X had a good version of it.

And raw 32x hmmm cosmic carnage.

 

[_Angelus_]

32X Virtua Fighter? Wow-I need to hunt that one down,thanks for bringing it up.

On a side note did anyone ever play the Genesis version of Virtua Fighter? Wow talk about nasty. I suppose its decent considering the Genny is 1989 tchnology but man its still hard to accept what its trying to do with the game. I've got it on a rom,the poor Genny never struggled so much. The sound is really awful too.

 

[belgurdo]

I wanted to like Knuckles' Chaotix because I really dig the partner system, but I can't get my head around the awful level design (which Charmy ends up completely breaking.) I still don't know how to pass the labyrinth stages

 

[Error Macro]

32X Virtua Fighter? Wow-I need to hunt that one down,thanks for bringing it up.

Thanks for the list of games, Angelus. And yes, there was a great version of Virtua Fighter for the 32X. It looked and played better than the Saturn version, that's for sure. No texture glitches and other crap like that.

 

[Dujour]

Mortal Kombat II kicked so much ass for this, it was just unfortunate that it was released so late.

 

[Error Macro]

Yeah, I loved that version of MKII. After a couple of years of playing an arcade perfect version in MAME, and now with Midway Treasures Vol. 2 for Xbox, the 32X version doesn't seem so hot. But damn, was it ever better than the shit SNES and Genesis versions when it came out.

 

[belgurdo]

Mortal Kombat II kicked so much ass for this, it was just unfortunate that it was released so late.

At the time, wasn't it the only version that was arcade accurate? With no sound errors or Shang Tsung loading or anything?

 

[doncale]

Angelus wrote

I suppose its decent considering the Genny is 1989 tchnology but man its still hard to accept what its trying to do with the game. I've got it on a rom,the poor Genny never struggled so much. The sound is really awful too.

the Genesis is 1988 technology as it came out in Japan in Oct or Nov 1988.

 

[Lonestar]

I never even bought a 32X, and I still have horror stories about that damn thing.

 

[Error Macro]

At the time, wasn't it the only version that was arcade accurate? With no sound errors or Shang Tsung loading or anything?

Yes, although the sound wasn't as good as the arcades, it was still better than the other versions. And the health bars were like the arcade, not screwed up with the names underneat like in the SNES version, and not horribly ugly, thin, and washed out like the Genesis version. The Pit II fatality was also much faster animating than the SNES version, which was sloooooow.

 

[Dujour]

It was arcade perfect. I loved the button layout, too. But I guess all that can be emulated now. :/

 

[snapty00]

I had Virtua Fighter for 32x, which I thought was great because I didn't have a Saturn.

I also had some Star Wars game, which I didn't care about but thought was neat because the beginning Star Wars music sounded very close to the real deal.

 

[Unison]

And raw 32x hmmm cosmic carnage.

Cosmic Carnage is almost unplayable to me now... Practically every 32x game is.

 

[_Angelus_]

No problem Error Macro,I'm glad I could help out a fellow gamer with the rare but good 32X games that are floating out there.

And yeah-good eye to the person who corrected my mistake. The Genesis is actually 1988 technology. I keep forgetting that because I;m full of memories of being a kid. When a friend and I saved our money and both split the costs of the system in October of 1989. WE played Tommy Lasorda Baseball and Altered Beast like maniacs for months on end. Those were really fun days.

 

[Seth C]

Cosmic Carnage, as far as I'm concerned, was always awful. It still is. It only existed to mimic the Neo Geo "zoom in and out" fighting games.

 

[snapty00]

Yeah, I'd like to say that the 32x was a system that died despite good games, but it really was just a system with a shitty library overall.

 

[DSN2K]

to think I spent like £50 on FIFA 96

 

[Buffy4ever]

I loved the 32x in the day for Doom, Virtua Racing Deluxe, Afterburner, Mortal Kombat, NBA Jam, Knuckles Chaotic, and Space Harrier. I loved to play Doom back than because I don't have a computer and I wanted to play that game so bad. And to have a perfect Afterburner just like the arcade was great. I wish Sega of Japan did not pull the plug on the system or I wish they had combine that technology with the Sega CD.

 

[drohne]

i've always been kinda curious about knuckles chaotix. might pick up a 32x one of these days. as if my model 1 genesis with model 2 sega cd isn't unwieldy enough. i guess ps2 virtua racing moots virtua racing deluxe. what else was there? tempo, kolibri, that viewpoint-lookin shooter...

 

[Unison]

I picked up a 32x about 6 months ago due to curiousity and Knuckles Chaotix didn't feel right to me at all. It's got a unique play mechanic, I guess, but it barely feels like a Sonic game and the graphics (which are pre-rendered but hideous) make it far less appealing to me than the Genesis Sonic games. Five minutes with it would probably be enough...

 

[Buffy4ever]

I picked up a 32x about 6 months ago due to curiousity and Knuckles Chaotix didn't feel right to me at all. It's got a unique play mechanic, I guess, but it barely feels like a Sonic game and the graphics (which are pre-rendered but hideous) make it far less appealing to me than the Genesis Sonic games. Five minutes with it would probably be enough...

Maybe it me getting old but I don't remember Knuckles Chaotix being pre-rendered like Sonic 3D blast. could anyone post a picture of Knuckles Chaotix. by the way I never understood why they didn't put Sonic in the game.

 

[Unison]

Maybe it me getting old but I don't remember Knuckles Chaotix being pre-rendered like Sonic 3D blast. could anyone post a picture of Knuckles Chaotix. by the way I never understood why they didn't put Sonic in the game.

I guess you are right, though they have the more 3-d Sonic 3 look to them:

The ugly part is that they scale in & out becoming pixellated blobs all the time.

 

[Anyanka]

MK II 32X is the most overrated MK port. It's weaksauce and no where near arcade perfect.

The gameplay is way off, especially juggling. The graphics are almost the same as Genesis. More colors do not make those ugly backgrounds much better. The added sound effects are good, but it does not have all of them(Kahn is missing almost all of his, for example) and most are reused from Genesis. So you've got some that are really good, like the screams, but everything else sounds terrible. The music is just as awful as the Genesis port. Tons of presentation details are missing, like bones disapearing after Fatalities and missing ending pictures. Cage still doesn't even have his complete win pose. It's bassically the Genesis version with some extra details that were already in the SNES version.

The only cool thing about it is that it has the intro pictures. For a long time it, Saturn and PSX are the only console versions to have them. Even then, it's missing the full intro. It doesn't have the cool part at the end with all the game footage.


I seriously don't understand why anyone would like it, besides either not remembing it(or arcade) well or some bizarre love of 32X.

 

[drohne]

i think sonic 3 and s+k have prerendered graphics. certainly the sprites are prerendered...not sure about the background tiles. they're more extensively retouched than the graphics in donkey kong country, though, so they don't look as crude.

 

[Unison]

Yeah, I played both 32x MKII & Genesis MKII recently & it's defenitely just a color bump / few more frames of animation upgrade from one to the other.

 

[Unison]

i think sonic 3 and s+k have prerendered graphics. certainly the sprites are prerendered...not sure about the background tiles. they're more extensively retouched than the graphics in donkey kong country, though, so they don't look as crude.

Okay, then Knuckles Chaotix has pre-rendered sprites too then... It's definitely the same style as Sonic 3. KC looks crude, though, because of sprite scaling issues.

I prefer the hand-drawn ones, no doubt.

 

[Gattsu25]

I doubt the Sonic 3 and S&K sprites are pre-rendered...if you are talking about the shading it is easily possible (though terribly slow) to do that stuff by hand with a program like MSPaint...and I would assume that SEGA had something better

Hell, I made a perfectly shaded

in Animal Crossing using their in-game tool...

 

[Unison]

I doubt the Sonic 3 and S&K sprites are pre-rendered...if you are talking about the shading it is easily possible (though terribly slow) to do that stuff by hand with a program like MSPaint...and I would assume that SEGA had something better

Hell, I made a perfectly shaded

in Animal Crossing using their in-game tool...

No, I remember them making a big deal about this in EGM when Sonic 3 came out.

Also, Sonic 3 starts with that full screen, Pre-rendered Sonic crashing into the screen & falling into the title screen, if you remember...

 

[drohne]

remember those spinning platforms in sonic 3 that also spin sonic's model if you stand on them? those make it pretty clear that the sprites are prerendered.

 

[Buffy4ever]

MK II 32X is the most overrated MK port. It's weaksauce and no where near arcade perfect.

The gameplay is way off, especially juggling. The graphics are almost the same as Genesis. More colors do not make those ugly backgrounds much better. The added sound effects are good, but it does not have all of them(Kahn is missing almost all of his, for example) and most are reused from Genesis. So you've got some that are really good, like the screams, but everything else sounds terrible. The music is just as awful as the Genesis port. Tons of presentation details are missing, like bones disapearing after Fatalities and missing ending pictures. Cage still doesn't even have his complete win pose. It's bassically the Genesis version with some extra details that were already in the SNES version.

The only cool thing about it is that it has the intro pictures. For a long time it, Saturn and PSX are the only console versions to have them. Even then, it's missing the full intro. It doesn't have the cool part at the end with all the game footage.


I seriously don't understand why anyone would like it, besides either not remembing it(or arcade) well or some bizarre love of 32X.

Anyanka you are the MKII expert, and you bought ALL the MKII games. But I do remember MKII on the 32X having more detail in the background like the SNES and more colors. (for example they put back the robed man floating in front of the window with the cloud scrolling by). I think both the SNES and 32X missed sound's from the arcade. Yes, you are right it is not arcade perfect. (I remember gamefan's saying it was close to the arcade, Boy they were wrong.) But I did enjoyed it a lot better than the Genesis version.