3DO Game reviews
3DO games that left their mark
Initially the 3DO was bundled in the UK with Crystal Dynamics Total Eclipse which was a great looking game but was, frustratingly, totally on rails. The cut scenes were pretty basic but better than any I had seen so far. The real promise of a multimedia gaming experience didn’t arrive until the release of Electronic Arts Road Rash.
That game really showcased the capabilities of the system with good FMV intros, pounding rock music, humour, cool rendered bike shops, responsive handling and amazing looking streaming 3D scenery and sky that I had never imagined was possible at the time. This was a massive leap from the Megadrive version and if only more of that type of game had been developed earlier on in the consoles life, I feel the system would have lasted longer.
Another 5 Star game that really impressed was John Madden Football with its digitized footage of Oakland Raiders coach John Madden, FMV clips of team plays and large detailed players on realistic looking pitches.
There were a number of other games that were worthy of wearing the next-gen crown: – there was Crash and Burn , with its lovely 3D rendered tracks (which let itself down with terrible character actors), the fantastic looking FIFA with multiple camera angles, Shockwave a Sci Fi War of the Worlds shooter, Starblade which recreated the Namco arcade experience, Captain Quazar – a quirky cartoon isometric frantic paced shooter, Burning Soldier with its fantastic Rock/Jazz music, Wing Commander III starring Mark Hamill which made full use of the FMV capabilities of 3DO along with a decent script, GEX a wise cracking gecko voiced by Dana Gould and starring as a brand new 3DO platformer character.
Demolition Man by Virgin made a really good attempt at realising the concept of an interactive movie- far better than Jurassic Park managed.
There was also Capcoms Super Streetfighter Turbo II which was a near perfect port of the original arcade and the best so far on any home console and the over the top larger than life fighter, Way of The Warrior . More notable games were Killing Time which was an atmospheric Doom type experience set in the 1930’s with ghosts giving up clues and of course the visually stunning interactive movie D by Kenji Eno and WARP. Then we had the 2 player frantic capture the flag game called Return Fire with excellent surround sound and it’s expertly matched classical music soundtrack and finally the amazingly realistic super-car experience called The Need for Speed.
3DO also had its fill of FMV games that you either love or hate – like Night Trap and Sewer Shark. Remember, initially these types of games were seen as the future of gaming! They all looked great on the 3DO thanks to its native rendering of good quality video.
I tended to buy most of my games at either HMV at Oxford Street or CEX at Rathbone Place London where I managed to add quite a few of the more appealing large boxed USA versions to my collection.
See in depth game reviews below – more coming soon.
3DO Game reviews
Burning Soldier 3DO Review
Despite a somewhat old school sci-fi aliens attacking earth storyline, the game features 18 intense stages and introduces a good variety of enemies. Graphically, it offers a mix of diverse FMV sequences, explosions and overlayed sprites.
CPU Bach 3DO Review
CPU Bach on 3DO is like having a Bach streaming radio station constantly playing, where each new track is a unique Baroque piece of music from the 1700 in the style of Bach using the form of concerti, fugues, minuets, chorales etc.
D 3DO review
From the moment the game boots up, players are thrust into a cinematic experience unlike any other on the 3DO. Developed by the visionary mind of Kenji Eno and WARP , “D” immerses players in a gripping tale of psychological horror.
Demolition Man 3DO review
Demolition Man was created by Virgin Interactive Entertainment and released for the 3DO in 1994. This was a much better attempt at an interactive movie tie in game than the poor effort made by Jurassic Park.
Dragon’s Lair 3DO Review
Dragon’s Lair for the 3DO s a classic arcade game renowned for its stunning, hand-drawn animation by Don Bluth. The 3DO version of Dragon’s Lair maintains the game’s visual appeal but suffers from slightly washed-out colours. While the audio complements the visuals with a memorable score and sound effects, the gameplay is very tough.
Gex 3DO review
Released in late 1994, Gex became one of the memorable platformers available on the 3DO, alongside games like Soccer Kid, Flashback, Another World, and Johnny Bazookatone. It was even later bundled with the console. Gex managed to sell over 1 million copies on the 3DO, making it a top seller. After the demise of the 3DO, Gex became available on many other consoles.
John Madden Football 3DO Review
Overall, Madden ’95 for 3DO was way ahead of its time, offering an enjoyable experience that retro gamers may appreciate for its nostalgic value, even considering the technological advancements of later Madden titles.
Jurassic Park Interactive 3DO Review
Jurassic Park Interactive for the 3DO, released by Universal Interactive Studios in 1994, fails to deliver on its potential. Despite the engaging premise of rescuing island guests and combating dinosaur threats, the game suffers from poor execution.
Night Trap 3DO Review
The 3DO version of Night Trap published by Virgin Games and made by Digital Pictures boasted the highest clarity video, the fastest switching between rooms and the best sound from all the versions released at the time (Sega CD, 32x and PC) -and honestly puts the original grainy Sega CD version to shame.
Primal Rage 3DO Review
The 3DO uses the update 2.3 version of the arcade code as opposed to 1.7 used in other 16 Bit versions. The 3DO version also has an added FMV intro movie and character specific FMV clips. These movies are very poorly done and look very lazily executed. It’s better to switch off these animations in the options and see the original cartoon like arcade intro that appears after the intro screen.
Road Rash 3DO review
Road Rash is an amazing example of of using all the capabilities of the 3DO to maximum effect.
Released in 1994 , Electronic Arts unsurprisingly knew how to get the best out of the machine and delivered a multimedia mega game.
Sewer Shark 3DO Review
Sewer Shark looks much crisper on the 3DO than the Mega CD and doesn’t suffer so much pixelation and artifacts. The sound effects as you bend around tunnels are also great.
Shockwave 3DO review
In the realm of 3DO’s grand spectacle, few images resonate as deeply as the arrowhead FI 77 gracefully traversing the Earth’s expanse. While sceptics may dismiss it as mere theatrics, the 3DO multiplayer experience embraces this spectacle as part of its allure.
Streetfighter 2 Turbo 3DO review
The 3DO version has the honour of being the most faithful to the arcade original and was the last version to be released.
Total Eclipse 3DO review
You’re not just watching a demo – you’re in control, navigating through canyons, doing a barrel role and diving into valleys, all while rocking out to excellent sound effects and a killer guitar soundtrack.
Way of the Warrior 3DO review
This game definitely has a certain charm, is unique to 3DO, has bags of secrets and is definitely worth playing and getting the hang of.
Wing Commander 3 3DO review
Wing Commander III is based on the groundbreaking (for 1994) Wing Commander PC series by Chris Roberts. This version converted from PC in 1995 takes advantage of the 3DOs ability to render impressive FMV CGI scenes and stars Mark Hamill.
Noteworthy English 3DO titles 1994
- Super Wing Commander – March 1994
- John Madden Football – March 1994
- Pebble Beach Golf – March 1994
- Twisted – March 1994
- The Horde – March 1994
- Out of This World – May 1994
- Jurassic Park Interactive – May 1994
- Shockwave – June 1994
- Alone In The Dark – July 1994
- Road Rash – August 1994
- Way of The Warrior – August 1994
- D&D Slayer – September 1994
- Burning Soldier – September 1994
- Guardian War – September 1994
- Star Control II – September 1994
- Demolition Man – November 1994
- FIFA Soccer – November 1994
- Samurai Showdown – November 1994
- Street Fighter II Turbo – November 1994
- Off World Interceptor – November 1994
- Need For Speed – December 1994
- Return Fire – December 1994
- Star Blade – December 1994
- CPU Bach 1994
Noteworthy English 3DO titles 1995/6
- Flashback Quest For Identity – February 1995
- Immercinary – March 1995
- Gex – April 1995
- Slam & Jam 95 – May 1995
- Wing Commander III – June 1995
- Killing Time – August 1995
- Alone In The Dark II – September 1995
- Wolfenstein 3D – October 1995
- D&D Deathkeep – November 1995
- The Daedalus Encounter
- Space Hulk
- StarFighter
- PO’ed
- D
- Doom – December 1995
- Primal Rage – December 1995
- PGA Tour Golf – December 1995
- Return Fire Maps O Death – December 1995
- Shockwave 2 – December 1995
- Captain Quazar – February 1996
3DO under pressure
Towards the end of 1995 the 3DO was being assaulted on all sides by the new SONY PlayStation, Sega Saturn and then Atari Jaguar (although there wasn’t much real competition from the Jaguar as most titles didn’t seems to make the most out of advertised power available). There was also the exciting prospect of Nintendo’s Project Reality tie in with Silicon Graphics – that became the N64.
Potential life savers get cancelled
The quality of the games in the later stages of 3DO lifespan became quite frankly very poor apart from Captain Quazar. Any prospective life savers like NHL Hockey 96, the planned UMK 3 port and the much anticipated Star Trek Generations game, A World for all Seasons (screenshots were featured on the original sampler disc) were shelved as developers jumped ship. Even intrinsically linked Electronic Arts decided to ditch 3DO exclusive development and instead began to convert 3DO exclusives and code new titles for the PlayStation.
Quality drought
When I look back at my old issues of 3DO magazine I can see the issues getting smaller and the new releases getting scarcer and scarcer towards the end of September 1996.
Some very weak games appeared on the system towards the end, like Mazer (a really difficult game to control), Virtuoso (very primitive and lacking in any sort of finesse), Shadow War of Succession (a clunky and impossible to control fighting game), Rise of the Robots (limited moves, and very sluggish), Phoenix 3 (a very poor basic platformer and space shooter with appalling FMV acting).
Doomed port
A special wooden spoon award goes to the 3DO Doom conversion produced by Art Data Interactive and coded in record time by the clever Rebecca Heineman. This should have been the ultimate version of Doom on a home console at the time but the CEO of Art Data, Randy Scott, had little to no games development experience. He reached out to Rebecca at the last minute to try and save the game but she had no time to port the code properly as no code had been written… she was instead given a copy of the PC game! With such a short development cycle she ended up having to use the Jaguar version of Doom as a starting point.
The result was laughably poor apart from a great rock soundtrack recorded by Randy Scott’s in-house band and sadly the game ran in a tiny window at a very slow FPS. This was ridiculous considering the hardware it was running on. One thing that did sound promising was the inclusion of brand new FMV video scenes.
However Randy Scott also messed this up and shot the scenes on a tiny green screen and had expected Rebecca to be able to magically drop the footage into the game. She declined and ignored the request in order to meet the deadline. The result was very poorly received and it’s amazing ID Software even approved the launch.
Watch Rebecca’s excellent video on the subject.
Vivid Interactive titillation
There was also a broad range of FMV soft porn fodder like Plumbers don’t Wear Ties and Super Models go Wild, Immortal Desire, Blonde Justice, the Coven and Sex. These were all low production FMV movies/games by Vivid Interactive (see below) with laughable FMV acting and surprisingly little actual flesh on show. Here is an entertaining website that expands more on this sorry state of affairs.
These sorts of poorly created and laughable interactive FMV games did the 3DO no favours.
Softcore 3DO
Homebrew 3DO games
Recently in Jan 2021 Russian coder Timur Gagiev managed to code a version of Tomb Raider for 3DO using the OpenLara codebase. Seems a shame that clearly the console could run this game with a bit of optimisation but it was never officially ported as it was end of life before Tomb Raider surfaced.
Also recently RetroLoveLetter created an amazing port of Tempest for the 3DO with great music and intuitive 3DO mouse controls.
There is currently a really great looking homebrew version of Mortal Kombat 2 in the works . This is being coded by a talented programmer who manages the 3DO HD YouTube channel. This is getting near completion and should be really something special when finished.
Current Homebrew 3DO games:
- Mortal Kombat 2 – coming soon
- Wipeout – coming soon
- Tempest
- Tomb Raider
- Bio Fury
- Tetris
I have created a web page where you can sample some of them online, along with some of the 3DO demo discs. The games play in the browser using a very clever JavaScript Library called Emulator.js
