Review - Mad Dog McCree
Posted: Sat Feb 24, 2007 11:31 pm
"It's in the air. It's an ill wind that blows no good." - The friendly prospector
These opening words should be taken literally. They don't just describe the villanous Mad Dog himself, but also the stench that is this terrible game. American Laser Games made several entertaining titles for the 3DO console. Mad Dog McCree is not one of them ... not even close.
Like the bulk of ALG's products, Mad Dog is a live action video shooter. Your goal in this game is to run Mad Dog and his trouble making gang out of town. Sadly, what was a reasonably difficult task in the arcades proves to be quite difficult on the 3DO. This is not due to the developers increasing the challenge on this version, but rather because it is a terribly sloppy conversion.
Although it would be naive to expect a laser disc game to acheive the same clarity on a home console, you would think that the 32-bit 3DO could at least make it look respectable. To an extent it does ... some scenes look pretty sharp. Others however are just plain awful! Some scenes are so pixelated in fact, that it is all but impossible to spot the bad guys. (even after they shot me, I was often still at a loss as to where they were shooting from) You can imagine the frustration this causes ...
Of course there are times when the enemy is in clear view. All is not neccesarily well though. Sometimes you can hit the bad guys point blank and they will won't drop. Other times your shots can be way off and they will fall.
This makes a game that already has an element of trial and error that much more frustrating.
For the sake of argument though, lets say that you have spotted the enemy with no problems. You fire a shot at them, and they do indeed drop. Problem solved. No! There is a very good chance that they will show up again ... often in a matter of seconds! The same bad guy, the same location ... unless the town in Mad Dog McCree is heavily populated with groups of triplets, there is no reason for this. Sloppy!
The biggest fault of this game though (as if the above mentioned problems were not enough) are the ridiculous load times. I am not talking about loads between scenes, I'm talking about loads between characters! Each and every time an enemy is about to appear you will know it ... the game loads for several seconds prior to their arrival. Why? Was the game just too ambitious for the hardware?
Amazingly, many 3DO publications like 3DO Magazine and 3DO Game Secrets failed to point this out (unconscious bias perhaps?) Most multi-platform magazines however ripped this port, and with good reason.
This is just simply put a shameful conversion!
One needs to only look at ALG's subsequent shooting games to see proper 3DO ports. The sequel, Mad Dog II: The Lost Gold was released just a few months later, and it fixed all of these above problems.
A pretty good game in the arcade ... an absolutely awful title on the 3DO! Only collectors should consider owning this title ... and only if it comes bundled in the Gunslinger Collection.
-Trev
These opening words should be taken literally. They don't just describe the villanous Mad Dog himself, but also the stench that is this terrible game. American Laser Games made several entertaining titles for the 3DO console. Mad Dog McCree is not one of them ... not even close.
Like the bulk of ALG's products, Mad Dog is a live action video shooter. Your goal in this game is to run Mad Dog and his trouble making gang out of town. Sadly, what was a reasonably difficult task in the arcades proves to be quite difficult on the 3DO. This is not due to the developers increasing the challenge on this version, but rather because it is a terribly sloppy conversion.
Although it would be naive to expect a laser disc game to acheive the same clarity on a home console, you would think that the 32-bit 3DO could at least make it look respectable. To an extent it does ... some scenes look pretty sharp. Others however are just plain awful! Some scenes are so pixelated in fact, that it is all but impossible to spot the bad guys. (even after they shot me, I was often still at a loss as to where they were shooting from) You can imagine the frustration this causes ...
Of course there are times when the enemy is in clear view. All is not neccesarily well though. Sometimes you can hit the bad guys point blank and they will won't drop. Other times your shots can be way off and they will fall.
This makes a game that already has an element of trial and error that much more frustrating.For the sake of argument though, lets say that you have spotted the enemy with no problems. You fire a shot at them, and they do indeed drop. Problem solved. No! There is a very good chance that they will show up again ... often in a matter of seconds! The same bad guy, the same location ... unless the town in Mad Dog McCree is heavily populated with groups of triplets, there is no reason for this. Sloppy!
The biggest fault of this game though (as if the above mentioned problems were not enough) are the ridiculous load times. I am not talking about loads between scenes, I'm talking about loads between characters! Each and every time an enemy is about to appear you will know it ... the game loads for several seconds prior to their arrival. Why? Was the game just too ambitious for the hardware?
Amazingly, many 3DO publications like 3DO Magazine and 3DO Game Secrets failed to point this out (unconscious bias perhaps?) Most multi-platform magazines however ripped this port, and with good reason.This is just simply put a shameful conversion!
One needs to only look at ALG's subsequent shooting games to see proper 3DO ports. The sequel, Mad Dog II: The Lost Gold was released just a few months later, and it fixed all of these above problems.A pretty good game in the arcade ... an absolutely awful title on the 3DO! Only collectors should consider owning this title ... and only if it comes bundled in the Gunslinger Collection.
-Trev
