Battle of the Ports HD #24 (Soviet Strike)

[@DTM-Books]

Wikipedia Entry: "The later Saturn version featured a number of changes: an optional easy difficulty setting (providing the player with twice the fire-power and slower fuel consumption), adjustable brightness on the heads-up display; two hidden powerful weapons; hundreds of bug fixes from the PlayStation version; extra sound effects added to helicopters; improvements to the graphics of control and menu screens and compass; and more improvised fuel added to level 4. It was also compatible with the Saturn's then-recent analogue controllers." Saturn Soviet Strike is a more refined version of the game, offering analog control with the 3D joypad or mission stick, which is very nice. Explosions feature more ground lighting over the PSX. Frame rate becomes choppy in both versions but the Saturn seems to be a bit worse. I'd like to see both versions run through the FPS tests. Neither is really ideal but that's Generation 5 for ya. This game needs an HD remake with 60 fps. This is a rare instance of EA actually caring enough about Saturn to put in the effort, which is very welcome. I am reminded of Mass Destruction, another military combat shooter that runs beautifully on Saturn's high-res 480/60 display. That game, of course, featured flat terrain and simpler polygon models, which demonstrates that the overriding design challenge in Gen-5 was compromise.

[@adultmoshifan87]

According to Sega Lord X, Need for Speed 1 runs better on the Saturn than the PlayStation! Seeing both versions side by side, although only slightly, I notice the Saturn version running better!

[@FerrariKangaroo]

Wow Soviet Strike is actually nicer on the Saturn. Surprising. It even has nicer transitions to the in game map. The fact that it has analog control on top is just icing on the cake.

[@godzilla7391]

Indeed. I didnt realize it had analog support. Im gonna 🔥 up the game on the Saturn and use the Nights controller and see how it goes.

[@therealbluedragon]

What I found most impressive is EA's ability to add all of Soviet Strike's FMVs (there are a lot of them, seriously) to the Saturn version without decreasing the length, size or quality of any of them. Quite a feat considering the Saturn had no proper video decoder so any FMVs included in a game had to be uncompressed taking up much more disc space then they would on other systems. Meaning developers usually had to severely compromise video quality to win back valuable disc space. Bravo EA!

[@AtariBorn]

I don't think the videos took up much more disc space. Having to use software decompression meant they had to either compress more, to keep from bogging down the CPU or compress less to maintain quality but most developers just compressed the hell out of the video on the Saturn and called it a day, rather than find a comfortable medium. Why spend more time on a platform that will sell less copies? Kind of the same mindset for third party Saturn development back then anyway. Had the MPEG cards for the Saturn been sold outside Japan back in the day, we wouldn't see much of a difference in video quality between the two systems.

[@bakerdoze]

"War never changes." (Fallout) "War just isn't what it used to be." (Soviet Strike) "War has changed." (MGS4) Huh.

[@SEGAtendo1989]

"War never been so much fun" (cannon fodder) main theme lyric version

[@Gamevet]

The one thing that stands out in the Saturn version is the lighting around the explosions; It's the first thing I'd noticed when playing this game on the Saturn. I'm surprised the Playstation version didn't have the same level of lighting, but this was one of the earlier EA titles for the consoles. My guess is that Sega was still on EA's good side when this was made.

[@ABlackFalcon]

One thing no one mentioned is that the Saturn version also added 3D Controller and Mission Stick (joystick) support. The PS1 version has digital controls only, but on Saturn it has good analog control. Pretty nice - this game's great with analog! They added two new weapons and new difficulty levels to the Saturn port too. Very nice work, all around.

[@ThorStoneGaming]

Agreed. Just like Resident Evil on Saturn, which had a deeper color scheme.

[@Pat86]

I alwasys read that the Saturn version should've an optimized engine, but looking at this video, the performance goes way more down in some areas, while the PS1 holds a stable framerate.

[@therealbluedragon]

I've been looking forward to this one, a lot of people hate this game but I love it! In fact I think it's one of the most under-appreciated games of the 90's. From a bad EA port to one of the good ones! Soviet strike is a great example of what can be achieved with a little effort. Sure the load times are longer & the framerate becomes choppy during the more intense parts of the game but it runs at the same resolution as the PS1 version (a rarity back then) & it looks & sounds just as good.

[@gabrielloko30000]

I love the main menu theme i gonna put in my funeral is very awsome

[@Kisdra87]

Is it my impression or does the Saturn version seems to have less framerate drops than the PS1 ?

[@user-yo8ab1ys9e]

Man I loved this game as a kid.

[@therealbluedragon]

@MrOriginalstevo I could beat this game easy back in the day, but I can barely scrape past level 3 now. :P

[@godzilla7391]

therealbluedragon yep. Old age has killed my reaction time in games.My vision aint the best either. Ive killed so many swaying trees in Battlefield. Lol

[@Gamevet]

Brighter color scheme? The colors are washed out on the PS1 footage, so all I see is white flashes for the explosions, and they don't seem to be multi-tiered like that of the Saturn. I haven't played the Playstation version, so the video is either poorer for it in this video, or the Saturn version got deeper colors. I know when I played it on the Saturn, the explosions radiated a gold colored tint on the surrounding area.

[@ThorStoneGaming]

What are you talking about? You can clearly see the same lighting effect around explosions on the ps1 footage, it just has a brighter color scheme so it doesn't stand out as much.

[@lol4dead]

Man, ive been wondering the name of this game for so long, i remembered the gameplay somewhat when i was five. Happy to have found it :D

[@SynthTerror]

I know your comment is a year old, but Battlefield 3 has loads of helicopter action, and Apache Air Assault is, essentially, a 3D successor to this series, in my mind.

[@bub777]

I'm a bit dissapointed that you didn't let us see if there were any differences in video/audio when your allies sent you transmissions.

[@puflio1]

Sega Saturn never die

[@cuervorockero]

i lik your videos dude they are awesome!!!!

[@tadzique]

It you can find it, try to compare Firestorm: Thunderhawk II for both systems. There's never enough heli-shooting games ;-)

[@godzilla7391]

As much as I'm a Sega fanboy, the PlayStation version wins here . We all know the Saturn struggles with transparencies and it's prevelant here. Watch the shadow from the chopper, how it blends with the colors on the PlayStation, whereas the Saturn is just a black color, following the chopper. I do like the crisp colors of the Saturn though. I also prefer the Saturn version mainly to use the analog controller (Nights into Dreams controller)

[@littlewalkway8171]

transparent shadow on PS1. not even awesome mesh for the poor Saturn :(

[@SGtMarkIV]

No! Just no! If this game were remade today on this generation, it would feature long unnecessary and unskipable cliche cutscenes, quick-time events everywhere, and Mountain Dew and Doritos commercial ads. This game doesn't belong to our time. Some games can live better in the past and don't need a remake.

[@khhnator]

apache: air assault ;)

[@Kapenguin448]

@bub777 I'd be willing to bet the videos are the same.

[@BLKBRDSR71]

Score 1 for the Saturn.

[@robintst]

I think this was when I gave up on the "Strike" games. 32-bit 3D graphics obviously didn't age well in the present day but Jungle, Desert, and Urban Strike still look great on Sega Genesis. Actually, when this came out, I really was still playing Genesis more than anything else because I had Sega Channel. That was all the reason I needed not to immediately invest in a 32-bit console. BUT, I still wouldn't mind owning this for my Saturn just for variety.

[@derkritiker7153]

but psx could balance this downside with detailed and realistic graphics, that was at the time of ps one and also at the time of ps2,

[@BeavisGoFIREFIREFIRE]

Soviet Strike > MW3

[@HyperRush79]

Sega Saturn more realistic

[@derkritiker7153]

psx looks more realistic due to the details and textures, sega displays the game more smooth and more coloured, the mistake of sega always was that sega never invested on realistic and futuristic graphics, sega always displayed old graphic in better resolution, colouration and fluent graphics,they did the same mistake by dreamcast, as a psx player i was jealous about the smooth and fluent graphic on sega, which psx never had,

[@ciredecgellar8232]

it's not a mistake actually

[@puflio1]

play station too fester,but saturn with beter grafics. 1:0 for saturn

[@dorbei]

PS version looks like a 2D game.

[@vintagebluenote8564]

as always psx is blurry and saturn sharp

[@tiagofernandes8389]

Saturn so much better.