So what happened Saturn-wise in 1997? Let`s find out, as we go back in time and re-live the year from the beginning. Oh, and please try to stay awake.
The first couple of months seemed to be full of endless speculation on the status of Satun VF3. For some reason, everyone had it in mind that Yu Suzuki was going to have some sort of spectacular news conference on March 1st, where he would effectively scupper the launch of the N64 by unveiling an amazing cart-enhanced Saturn conversion of the worlds best beat`em up.
We learnt in advance that this wasn`t the case, but still everybody thought something might happen. March 1st came and went with no news whatsoever and we had to suffer the rest of the month with all the talk about Super Mario 64 being the best game ever.
In the meantime, Saturn fans proved that they do like RPG`s by buying loads of copies of Dark Savior, taking it to number one for a short while until it was dislodged by the `ok` Manx TT, which we `exclusively` didn`t review. It was around this time that the rumour mills kicked in to action again, this time with the news that Sega were working on a new console code-named `Black-belt`. The rumours were started by US magazine Next-Generation, who made a big story out of it despite not having any solid `facts`. It was up to us to set things straight with this bit of news...
Readers Digest: With all this talk of 'Black-Belt' that seems to have been sparked by Next-Generation we thought we might take a closer look at the "facts" as quoted by Next-Gen:
"Yet to be established are such issues as technical performance, third party support, price and market-positioning" So that's pretty comprehensive then.
"As yet, the number and variety of CPUs is unknown"
"According to sources close to Sega, the design of the Black Belt system is still not complete"
"It would seem also that the deal for the graphics subsystem is not yet written in stone"
UK:Resistance has exclusively discovered that the new system will probably utilise some form of 'Joypad' and several developers we've spoken to have confirmed that it will display graphics onto a 'Television'. Gary:19/03/97
That told `em. A few interesting stories came our way towards the end of March, firstly about the inclusion of a UK:R hidden car in Sega Touring Car Championship which one of the AM teams was working on (no one seems to have found it yet though). We also learnt that the Saturn conversions of Duke and Quake were already looking great, even in their early stages of development.
On to April, and another one of those numerous Japanese gameshows passed with still no word on VF3 from the AM2 team, we saved them the job though, by allowing you to make your own VF3 announcement. I`m sure that helped you all feel better. Gary went on a fact finding mission in to the depths of the SOJ website came up with some amazing screenshots of what appeared to be some sort of 3D sonic game. Immediately, people started saying it was proof of the existence of the upgrade cart. But no, it later transpired that it was all the Saturns own work, so people were amazed, and everything. Sega UK decided to splash out on a bit of TV advertising at the end of April by showing an `infomercial` at the ungodly time of 3.00am. Gary even stayed up to watch it, now that`s hard-core! (well actually his VCR was knackered).
The next big event was the huge E3 show in Atlanta. Apart from the Sega stand demoing early versions of Sonic R and Quake, there wasn`t much to write home about. (Not that we were actually there.) The lack of third-party software on display started all the `Saturn is dead` talk, which wasn`t helped by the news of more developers cancelling their Saturn projects. Oh, and there was still no VF3 of course.
Moving on a bit, the next earth-shattering news to reach us concerned the Sonic-Team when it emerged that they were actually working on another new totally new Saturn title, and not working on anything for Saturn 2 as it had been previously thought. We seemed to be working pretty hard during July to bring you lots of cool features to read as well, our extremely popular Most Wanted Games thingy reached it`s third insane installment, and who can forget Gary`s detailed research into the History of Sega. If you didn`t read them at the time, then do so now, before you`re killed in a freak catastrophe.
Have you finished, right, then lets continue...August saw Sega`s forthcoming console take on a new code-name, Dural. Hardly inspiring is it!? No, so we let you come up with your own name to see if you could do any better. You couldn`t.
Unfortunately, there was a terrible disaster at the end of the month that sent shockwaves around the world and launched the media in to overdrive. It was a devastating occurance and terribly sad for everyone involved. Thankfully, Gary managed to get the left shoulder button on his joypad repaired eventually, no thanks to those pesky paparazzi photographers.
September came around and it was England's turn to host a big gaming show, called the ECTS. No, not the European Cheese Tasting Seminar, the European Computer Trade Show. Sega opted to display their wares at some Hotel round the corner, completely fooling some people who thought they`d not even bothered to turn up. I asked some old woman who gave me the directions and then spent a good hour playing all the forthcoming games like Sonic R and Duke Nukem. However, I must apologise for turning the volume right up on one of the TV`s because it didn`t seem to be working, only for it to start working again a few minutes later and thus making a deafening racket. I left shortly after.
Next up was the `announcement` of hardware specs for Saturn 2, which we reported thus..
Yeah right: We were very excited to see the 'specifications' of the next Sega system that have been uploaded around the world today, but our excitement faded when we actually read the news. Does anybody understand this? 360 Dhrystone v1.1 MIPS
Scalar product in 3 cycles, fully pipelined (single-precision floating point) using just 1 instruction
Matrix transform in 7 cycles, partially pipelined, single-precision floating point, using 1 instruction. That's 16 multiplies and 12 additions, all single-precision fp, in 1 instruction.Hey, thanks for clearing all of that up. I've been worrying about how many single precision floating point pipeline instructions were possible in every matrix transform cycle. As a side note, our top inside informer is highly doubtful that the new machine would use the quoted PowerVR2 chip, rather it's much more likely to be a custom evolution of the chip built specifically for the Sega job. Gary: 17/09/97
In October, we gave you the chance to vent some steam by teliing Eidos how you felt about the cancellation of Saturn Tomb Raider 2 and the excuses they`d been making about the machine `not being up to it`, by providing a handy mail link to their PR department. It certainly worked, because a distressed Eidos person mailed us to complain about all the `abusive letters` they`d received, and threatened to report us to the authorities etc. Laugh? Us? Yes!
Then came possibly our best feature of the year, an exclusive Interview with Lobotomy Software. which proved there are more disturbed people than us out there. Lobotomy`s Duke Nukem 3D conversion was released the month after, and quickly became established as one of the best Saturn games ever.
Over the next two months we saw the rest of Sega`s big line up get released, including the most excellent Sonic R, the not so excellent Sega Touring Car Championship and the not quite as good as Duke Nukem, Quake conversion. Someone else `a bit famous` agreed to be interviewed by us for our `UKR vs` feature, this time it was SOE music maestro Richard Jacques and a fine interview it was too.
The short lived battle of the Sega magazines came to an end in December when Saturn Power closed down due to low sales and the fact that Future Publishing hate anything Saturn related anyway. Still, the Official Sega Saturn Mag is always pretty good, and they seem to have some particularly good writers nowadays.
So was it a good year for the Saturn? Well probably not. The Playstation really cemented it`s dominance of the console market, and even the N64 has overtaken Sega`s machine in most parts of the world. The Third-Party developers all abandoning ship hasn`t really helped, and only the UK based Travellers Tales team have really been able to push the Saturn to new limits. It`s not all bad news though, there still seems to be some stuff to look forward to next year, the cart-enhanced X-Men vs Streetfighter, Winter Heat, House of the Dead, Sonic-Team`s Burning Rangers, Panzer Dragoon Saga and hey, you never know, maybe even Virtua Fighter 3!
