Angry Gaming 06.11.07: I Remember 3DO
Posted by Damian Sarcuni on 06.11.2007
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Welcome to Angry Gaming, the gallon of bleach that burns the game industry clean. I am your hate master, Damian Sarcuni, and I cut myself nightly not because of emotional distress, but because I start to itch in really hard to reach places. How could this happen to meeee!
I Remember 3DO
We're fast approaching the one year anniversary of Angry Gaming and the 411mania.com video games section. Over the course of the past year thus far, I have written 48 articles weekly without missing a single deadline. Articles 50 through 52 will be a sort of vacation for your friends at Angry Gaming, where we'll get some much needed rest and relaxation while coming up with more things to bitch about in the coming year.
In the meantime, I thought it would be wise to start going into detail about some of the things I've mentioned in previous articles. While surfing around the net this weekend, I came upon an absolutely golden find: the soundtrack for the old 3DO/PC game Quarantine. This soundtrack consists of incredibly hard to find Australian alternative rock songs, and hearing them just sent a flood of memories back to the front of my mind.
The 3DO was, in my opinion, one of the greatest video game entertainment systems of all time. I've mentioned this here at 411mania.com repeatedly before, and I think it's about time I explained what the 3DO was all about for those who are unfamiliar with it. The 3DO was a system that was built and distributed by three separate electronics companies: Panasonic, Goldstar, and Matsushita. While many of the games were quite literally ahead of their time, 3DO gained little popularity due to its initial $700 price tag at the time of its launch.
As time went on, the 3DO started to fold and so did the prices of its games. Near the end of the system's shelf life, a 3DO owner could pick up several game titles for a mere $3 or $5 per game, or a whopping $15 for new releases. The joy behind this was that many games for the 3DO console were direct ports of overly expensive PC games, which would also later be released on the Sony Playstation only to have their prices jacked up again. What's more, the 3DO's graphics processing unit was a thing of beauty and often made games look far better than their Sony counterparts.
I simply don't have enough time or space to list the amount of joy I had with my 3DO, so I'll simply relay a story with the most impact. During the 3DO's heyday, my aunt passed away due to complications at the hospital she was staying at. My family was devastated by this and everyone banded together in that dark time to comfort one another, often by finding ways to escape reality. My aunt's sons found refuge in alcohol and even at my young age I found myself drinking alongside the big boys all in the name of fun and fancy. Yet my relatives weren't the type to just drink and get into trouble. There was another source of escape involved, and that was my 3DO system. Every get together the family had consisted of several types of imported beer and a gathering around the TV to witness the beauty of this amazing system. The 3DO was the first truly adulterated video game system, powerful enough to bring families together and I will now show you why.
I have included links to three games for the 3DO that originated on the PC. These are yours for the taking and as an added bonus I've also included the ultra rare soundtrack to Quarantine (or Hard Rock Cab as it was supposedly later called on the Playstation). It gives me great pleasure to introduce a new generation to these games, and to explain the appeal they had so many years ago. So in the memory of one of the greatest systems of our time, I give you the best of 3DO.
Quarantine
For all intents and purposes, Quarantine is a simple first person shooter that allows you to run people over in a floating taxi. Set in the year 2043, Quarantine is the story of a city gone mad. With one of the biggest crime rates in the world, the city of Kemo has been walled off by a corporation seeking test subjects for a sedative type of drug. When the drug backfires, it unleashes an epidemic turning half the city into crazed killers.
You are Drake Edgewater, a hover cab driver from Kemo. Your job is to collect as many fares as possible to buy the necessary weaponry needed to get out of Kemo alive. While the premise behind Quarantine was certainly a deep and interesting one for its time, the game was somewhat on the redundant side as collecting fares became quite a chore from stage to stage. Still, the 3DO version of Quarantine featured one of the most amazing soundtracks ever pieced together, and it's a shame more people haven't heard it or played the game.
That changes today. I have included a download link for Quarantine as well as one for the original soundtrack. BE WARNED: this version of Quarantine was intended for play on MS-DOS and will run at super speed on today's faster computer processors. It is up to you to figure out how to tweak the game to run normally, but it shouldn't be that hard. Enjoy the soundtrack as well, particularly tracks 3 and 6.
Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters is beyond the shadow of a doubt one of the greatest role playing games of our time. It has received legendary accolades from major gaming publications around the world and after playing for a short while anyone can see why. Featuring hours of dialogue and an epic storyline, Star Control II takes RPG's to a completely different level. This is not some linear adventure set in space at all. This game is about alien imperialism, and you will have to use social wit as well as your spaceship's laser cannons in order to defeat it.
In Star Control II, the Earth has been enslaved by a race of unstoppable aliens called the Ur-Quan. You, however, are a starship captain who was sent from Earth on a secret mission several years ago, only to return to find the war lost and your people enslaved. Armed with a starship of unknown ancient technology, your job is to rally support and unite the alien species across the galaxy to bring down the evil oppressors once and for all.
The download for this game comes courtesy of toysforbob.com, straight from the game's creators. This version of the game is completely open source, meaning it is possible to edit all the content in the game to tweak whatever you desire. I simply cannot stress the joy of interacting with each species in the game and this download comes highly recommended. I could go on for hours, but I'll simply reiterate: please play this game.
Anyone remember Out of This World? Flashback: The Quest for Identity was created on the same engine as Out of This World and really got a chance to strut it's stuff on the 3DO game system. The game is a relatively simple action/adventure sort of fare with a great Total Recall style story thrown into the mix to keep things interesting. While playing, don't get frustrated over the difficult control response, it's intended to be that way.
The story for Flashback begins on the moon of Saturn known as Titan. You are Conrad Hart, and you have lost your memory during an investigation into a sinister alien plot to destroy the Earth. Your job is to escape Titan, recover your lost memory, and stop the alien plot before the Earth is destroyed. For such an arduous task, it sounds rather simple, no?
This download is the CD version of the game, which is relatively close to the way it played on the 3DO originally. I haven't really had any time to mess with this version of Flashback, but if its anything like I remember it's got to be good.
I can't express how much I miss the 3DO system. While flawed in marketing, there was something magical in the software that the 3DO provided and the games were what truly made the system great. While 3DO may have died and reincarnated as a software developer (having some success with the Army Men series of games) their true heyday was in the hardware where they belonged. I can only hope that another company with as much ingenuity and love for games comes along in the future, but for now, I mourn the loss. Until the rise of another 3DO, embrace the hatred.
