12 Prince of Persia versions at the same time

[davidn]

I believe that this is one of the most important videos I've ever done.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw8owHwvjfk&hd=1

As a preview for an investigative video I'll be releasing soon - this is the first level of twelve different versions of Prince of Persia! It was ported to just about everything that existed in the early 90s, and this selection includes (from left to right, top to bottom):

DOS, Game Boy Color, Macintosh, NES, Master System, Amstrad CPC, Apple II, Turbografx CD, Genesis, Sega CD, Atari ST, SNES

These aren't perfect runs but they give ideas of how the games are paced next to each other - Sega CD easily runs the fastest, the Genesis is the slowest, but the SNES is the last to finish by a mile because its version got a whole new section of the level that wasn't in any of the others.

Comments

[premchaia_pre4]

Well, that was… cacophonous.

Not entirely unlike birds.

[lupineangel.livejournal.com]

zzzMy God... itzzz like I've turnnned into Baxzzzter zzzStockmannn...

(http://smg.photobucket.com/user/D_F/media/Image%20Macros/Baxter_the_Fly_zpsf8c1a09b.jpg.html)

It's interesting to see how the Mega CD version (the one I grew up playing, with the 'slap a bad anime intro on it and put CD after its name' schtick that formed the entirety of Sega's playbook back then) is the fastest of all; since it's still 16-bit, you'd expect it to be about the same as the Mega Drive. Maybe the loading times were quicker from the CD?

D.F.

[davidn]

Wow, I'd forgotten about him! I had to look up where he was from, but... that's a face you don't forget.

The CD loading times are among the slower ones - the Megadrive should have had a very fast load time because it was on a cartridge with no physical movement needed for loading. The real difference is in how they're paced - the Sega CD one is just set to run faster, with the Megadrive one being tuned more like dragging a tractor through a lake of jam. I tried out the NTSC version of the game on the Genesis as well, just to make sure that it wasn't PAL doing it, and the pace was the same.

That reminds me - quadralien showed me the PAL/NTSC speed difference in the original Sonic! You don't think that there could be that much of a difference, but if you compare a Europe and US ROM side by side, it's shocking how sluggish the game is in PAL.

[crassadon.livejournal.com]

You crazy French. . . I have his action figure. He is legitimately my favourite action figure.


. . . That was odd.