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Mattfrie1

Slavedriver Engine (Sega Saturn FPS)

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Weird name for a game engine, huh? This game engine powered the Sega Saturn ports of Powerslave (Exhumed for those of you in Europe), Duke Nukem 3D and Quake. I personally think that these games have to be the best FPS for the Saturn. All and all, they provide pretty good console versions of Duke 3D and Quake, with the exception of a few quirks in level design. I feel like giving these games a mention, because nobody really seems to know about them, and they don't get the attention they deserve in my eye's. What did you think of these trio of games?

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They're all really good. Powerslave stands out since it was originally designed for this engine. These games make the Doom port look even more pathetic.

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Powerslave was way better on the consoles than it was on PC, somehow - did the Playstation version use the same engine? Because that seemed to run a little smoother than the Saturn version, though it suffered from texture warping.

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WildWeasel said:

Because that seemed to run a little smoother than the Saturn version, though it suffered from texture warping.


Texture warping, like any PSX game really :) If it did use the same engine, it was a port, since Slavedriver was developed specifically for Saturn, iirc.

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Powerslave on the PC was a completly different game (same assets) that used the build engine.

When the game was ported to the saturn and psx, it featured a totally different engine (Slavedriver) suited just for those consoles. It also had a different gameplay style and levels. That engine they used for the consoles served as a base for other FPS ports such as Duke Nukem (Saturn) and Quake (PSX/Saturn).

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Thats only half right.

Despite popular misconception, the Slavedriver engine was designed specifically for the Saturn and was never used for any Playstation game. Power Slave on the Playstation is a port of the Build engine done by another team. Power Slave, Duke Nukem and Quake on the Saturn are the only released games to use Lobotomy's Slavedriver engine.

Like Tomb Raider (by Core) the renderer was designed specifically for the Saturn's quadrilateral-based hardware. This is particularly evident in Duke Nukem, where slopes intersect planes that would require triangles; Saturn can't "do" triangles the result being highly noticeable texture "pinching" because in addition to this, texture coordinates are tied to the vertex coordinates and could not be supplied independently (i.e., always [0, 0][1, 0][1, 1][0, 1]). Naturally, there are ways around this and apparently Lobotomy did plan to resolve the problem but as we know, that work was never completed. In fact, there are numerous instances where the original map geometry has been modified in an attempt to conceal some of the worst cases.

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I played through the Saturn versions of Duke 3D and Quake first, and I was surprised at how different the levels were from the other versions. The engines restrictions were more notable in Duke 3D and Quake. Namely no vertical opening doors (funny in first Duke 3D level, as the stall doors are now gone), simplified levels to conceal the Saturn's limits (first level of Quake having a new wall in the second building to keep the framerate reasonable), and extremely butchered sound effects. It seems that every sound effect in the game has to be under a certain limit, as they all are very fast (really noticeable in Duke's phrases and most monster SFX in all of the games). Now while it sounds like I'm criticizing the games, I actually like some of these changes, as it makes seem like a new game in it's own right instead of a carbon copy console port. Powerslave really shines with the engine as it was designed for it though, like Use3D said.

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I've always wanted to give Powerslave a go, but always ended up getting stuck just trying to figure out which version of the game to get.

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I SERIOUSLY doubt the psx version is using the build engine, unless they did some really crazy modifications to get lightmaps to work on the psx version, there is no way that can be the build engine.

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Kaiser said:

I SERIOUSLY doubt the psx version is using the build engine, unless they did some really crazy modifications to get lightmaps to work on the psx version, there is no way that can be the build engine.

Ditto. If you look at how the renderer works, how the camera moves, the assets, and everything else, it doesn't seem like the Build engine.

I'm also looking at my copy of the PSX version right now. Can't find any specific strings in the files to say it's the Slavedriver engine, but I'm definitely not seeing any signs of it being Build.

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Hmm, this is very strange. I was led to believe by the UK media, that the Playstation version didn't even have dynamic lights let alone lightmapping. Plus the screenshots shown during development which compared the two versions looked very much like the build engine was being used on Playstation. I must state that I've never even owned a Playstation nor have I seen Exhumed running on one.

I stand corrected.

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From what I've seen and read about the PSX version, It seems that it is using a modified version of the SlaveDriver. Both versions share some of the same aspects, the always gibbing enemies, the same "head lag" camera movement when you move. The only difference I can see is different music in some levels, bigger screen display and modified levels. I haven't played the PSX version yet, but I'd be willing to bet it's using a modified version of the SlaveDriver engine.

In response to what DaniJ said, the dynamic lighting is for the Saturn only, as I've also seen it adding nice touches to weapon projectiles in all three of the Saturn SlaveDriver games.

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