tomb raider on Saturn question

[chakotay1]

Does anyone know the answear on this? On the Saturns TR disc if you put it in a CD player and play the final track it has nothing to do with TR at all! It goes like this, ITS 1999 AND THE WORLD IS STILL A VIOLENT PLACE IN WHICH TO LIVE. A NATO RAPID RESPONCE HELICOPTER TASK FORCE HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED TO COMBAT A VARIETY OF POTENTIAL FLASHPOINT SITUATIONS ACROSS THE GLOBE. ITS CODE NAME FIRE STORM. Does anyone know what this is?

[na_th_an]

It's probably from another game distributed by Eidos for the Saturn which got somewhat mixed in the mastering process.

[rr_carroll]

Possibly this?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Eidos-FIRESTORM-Thunderhawk-2-Playstation/dp/B00004YMSW

[chakotay1]

rr carroll you may be right by why would Eidos advertise a PS1 game on a Saturn disc. That wouldn't make a lot of sense would it. They would put on the PS TR disc but their is nothing on that one as I have got it.

[stereopathic]

yeah it's an ad for Firestorm which was a CORE title. freaked me out the first time i found it.

-edit- there was a saturn version of it as well.

[Capt. Murphy]

It may have been slated for release (or development) on the Saturn... But CORE/Eidos(?)... seeing the capabilities of the PS decided to just stick with the PS.

Tomb Raider (1) was originally developed for the Saturn. After they jumped ship -- over to Sony they never looked back. :(

Edit: Just read Stereopathics edited reply... Oops. <:-p

[stereopathic]

i'm just looking around on google and i'm not sure we ever got a version here in the US, Capt. seems like it's all PAL versions. i could absolutely be wrong tho.

saturn gameplay of first level:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiciySaAvDE&feature=related

intro (which has really cool music):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzZrscWAiN8

[Capt. Murphy]

I will say this... When I first heard it I thought it was some kind of (perhaps) alternate ending to Tomb Raider. :D

[chakotay1]

Thank you for the replies. That does answear an 11 year old question I have always wondered about.

In my view Core and Eidos were moronically stupid to leave the Saturn as 1. TR was one of the biggest selling games on Saturn. 2.TR Saturn was graphically superior and faster playing than the PS version. and 3 The Saturn was a far superior console for sound, graphics and gameplay than the PS. Their were numerous games (Nights and Sonic R in particular) that could not be done on PS.

[na_th_an]

Yup, but SEGA dropped the Saturn and The PSX looked more promising. And the Saturn was a hell to code properly. The twin CPUs were a nighmare 'cause developers had to code them using assembly language (both CPUs shared bus and memory space. This meant a very critical bottleneck so if you wanted a good main bus management you had to code in a very low level to make sure you control every single step the machine does), while the PSX could be coded comfortably in C extracting its full potential. Most games use just one CPU (Tomb Raider does, that's why the braid was removed, for example), and that made the console look weaker than the PSX, sadly. Blame SEGA for bad management and not providing a decent SDK. With a good SDK (Software Development Kit) with twin CPU support and resource management, it would have been very easy for developers to code in a high level language such as C (like in the PSX), which is cheaper 'cause it's easier and less time consumming.

Sony leaded the 5th and 6th generations with the weakest hardware available.

[Capt. Murphy]

...seeing the capabilities of the PS decided to just stick with the PS.

Then I retract my statement. Given the ease of use to program for ...would have been more approporiate. :)