From: dethomas@unix.amherst.edu (Dennis E Thomas '**)
Subject: Re: Wing Commander
Organization: Cissalda Night Clubs Inc.
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL7]
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 05:50:16 GMT

Gary Snow (gsnow@clark.edu) wrote:
: In article <BzKoup.Kn2@unix.amherst.edu> dethomas@unix.amherst.edu (Dennis E Thomas '**) writes:
: >Whoa! Are we talking about the same game? I found the controls of the
: >SNES version abominable. They are complicated, and almost impossible to
: >pull off in the middle of combat. It would be nice to be able to use the
: >communications, without having to take so long that your going to get
: >shot all to hell.
: 
: I didn't think the controls were all that bad, they were logically layed out,
: theres just alot of them......its much the same situation on the IBM version,
: the first time I played it, I though the controls were out of hand.
 
The fact that there are a lot of them is not the problem. The problem is
that they are all equally hard to get to. Some way to get to the common
commands in a hurry would have been appreciated. On the PC, you can
spend five minutes and learn the basic commands, while the SNES version
is going to take a while longer to get the contortionist manuevers down.

: >Another problem I had was that the colors are pretty blah. They were
: >much too muddy to be useful on any number of occasions during a mission.
: >They have that wonderful SNES quality of fuzziness that someone at
: >Nintendo seems to equate with good graphics. I like anti-aliasing, but
: >bad anti-aliasing looks much worse than none at all.
: 
: The colors look pretty good on my video montior, quite comparable to a SVGA
: 486 with .28 dot pitch color monitor. And I have seen the term "fuzziness"
: describe SNES graphics before, but I find that most people say that because
: there is so much color blending going on that they can't see the edges of
: different colors, unlike on my Genesis where there is only 64 colors
: available on the screen at once, so it appears to look sharper because color
: edge it more defined (less colors to work with in blends). All in all its
: not "fuzzy" at all.
 
I have two complaints about what was just said. First of all, the
graphics were designed to be used on a satndard television. If they
can't look good on the device they were intended for, they are not good.
A monitor is nice, but it is not the standard output device for most of
the people using a SNES. The other thing I have to commment on is the
fuzziness issue. If there is a lot of color blending going on, don't you
think that qualifies as a definition of "Fuzzy?" I mean, if it is
indistinct because of color blending, then shouldn't the colors be
blended a little less? SNES graphics have a tendency to use all of those
colors it can display on the screen for no good reason. A game doesn't
have to be anti-aliased into oblivion because it *can* and that is what
it seems frequently happens on SNES games, too many colors thrown in
because they can be, not because they are relevant to the image being
drawn.

later days!
--dt

--
Dennis Thomas '**
Nerd For Hire, Budding Unix Weenie, and Mythical Figure.
dethomas@unix.amherst.edu
roach@aux1.amherst.edu