Black Fire | NEW Reviewing Every U.S. Sega Saturn Game | Episode 23 of 246

[@GameplayandTalk]

The appearance of the bald eagle in these episodes never gets old.

[@PandaMoniumReviews]

Gameplay and Talk *screeeereeerrrrruuhrrrrr

[@nate567987]

what song is that

[@ROOMBAfloorvac]

This channel deserves more subscribers. I really look forward to each new video. Great work !

[@KRASNOVIAN1917]

I still have my copy from when I was a kid. Game was hard but I thought it was cool and the soundtrack slaps. Like you I think I got stuck on the same mission and never finished it.

[@thomaspleacher2735]

I always wondered about this game, too. Glad you made a video about it so I can see it in action. Although the Saturn helicopter game I ended up with was Black Dawn. I always thought it was weird how both had "black" as the first word in the title.

[@WALDENSOFTWARE]

Yeah, Black Fire, Black Dawn. Then there was Thunder Strike and Soviet Strike.

[@sgt.pepper253]

Novalogic, now THATS a nostalgic Hellfire-powered kick to the ass. I loved F-22 and MiG-29 back in the day. I really dug the Ghen War dev interview beat, it gives a 'slice' of the climate at the time that I feel like isn't really passed around. I'm still baffled and amazed that Sega just decided to push the Saturn out with NO backup in the face of the Playstation, that to me is like Microsoft pushing out another Xbox console just cause Sony announces one. I simply can't see that happening today in ANY capacity. I say that mostly due to the fact that those facets alone give the Saturn to me a sort of 'mystique' - and really shows in the face of the fact that the Saturn actually had some REALLY kickass games, and lots of pretty fun 'side attractions like this'. Really diggin your work man, keep it up.

[@worsel555]

Holy crap, you found the one hill to exist in North Dakota (even though it's a snow hill)! I spent 3 long years there up in Minot and I gotta say that's dedication for you to do for a review ;)

[@PandaMoniumReviews]

Ken Williams The one hill! I could see Canada from up there! Real talk, I totally cheated with that scene. I live in Fargo. Minot must have been an interesting time. At least you got live next to a bunch of nukes!

[@worsel555]

@@PandaMoniumReviews It's how I grew up, and don't think any are not near you, they are all over the place :) But yeah, you could probably still easily see Canada from up there, it's still pretty flat.

[@marakarthegreat]

you know what would be worse? if this game was called Super Thunder Blade 3D

[@sloppynyuszi]

Holy crap! I know Paul Robinson! I hung out with him literally weeks before he moved to Poland from Shanghai. I met him first at a Chinajoy event in Shanghai, and he worked at Spicy Horse for American McGee the . Weird seeing people I know in a random video like this.

[@Leahi84]

It's hard to believe this mess was made by the same company that produced the Comanche series. Those games were incredible games and revolutionary looking for their time. I highly recommend giving them a try if you can. Black Fire looks like it should have been an early ALPHA for Comanche...not a full release game. Yikes.

[@mrbig2648]

Nice video! I think Firestorm: Thunderhawk 2 was a better early helicopter game. I loved the original on the Mega CD and liked the Saturn sequel too. Core were really good on the Mega CD and Saturn (they would later come out with Tomb Raider).

[@CasperEgas]

Agree with you. This one is a step back from Thunderhawk 1 on the Mega CD, which it shouldn't be.

[@aortaplatinum]

God damn Saturn should have had *23* US launch titles. That's insane and would have moved units like crazy. The fuck were 90s SEGA USA smoking?

[@DCMann2000]

Another great video

[@spikederailed]

that looks like its was rendering maybe hundreds of polygons a frame. wow.

[@spikederailed]

im sorry, quads.

[@Lightblue2222]

Quadigons

[@Sinn0100]

I believe Segata Sanshiro would find riding in a helicopter blowing things up to be rather boring. He would rather get out of the helicopter and beat up tanks with his fists. Why Sega never brought their Japanese mascot here is a mystery too me. He really fits with Sega of the early 1990's and would have likely gotten more people to pay attention to Sega. Anything beats biker ballerinas, bald Saturn chick, coneheads, giant muscle bound Japanese guy, and one dancing bafoon. Tell me you got a chance to watch the VHS Saturn promo Sega sent out in 1994. It's absolutely insane...

[@Larry]

I see the UK mags were comparing it to ThunderHawk 2, I didn't know what was out at the time :S

[@PandaMoniumReviews]

Looks like Black Fire didn’t hit Europe until much later, coming out in late June 1996 according to a few sources. That’s nearly a year after it’s launch in the states.

[@Larry]

@@PandaMoniumReviews Interesting, With thT KIND OF DELAY, I wonder if it's any different at all? Like they patched/fixed a few bugs or improved the draw distance? Sega certainly did that with the PAL versions of Sega Rally and Daytona CCE etc.

[@PandaMoniumReviews]

@@Larry That is a very interesting question. I kind of want to go check now. :D

[@vehiclegames2695]

The game is a LOT more playable with the Mission Stick (for one you can just move up/down with the wheel), though still not very good. The accuracy of most of your weapons and the amount of ammo is simply not proportional to the amount of crap you have to deal with.

[@Liboo52]

It just occurred to me, was that shot of the eagle taken at the Fargo Zoo?

[@PandaMoniumReviews]

YES!!! Red River Zoo, probably 2016. Their bald eagles were rescued by the zoo after getting injured. They cannot fly because of their injuries, so they stomp around the grass in wide strides, it’s real cute actually.

[@Liboo52]

@@PandaMoniumReviews I love that zoo! I grew up in Fargo and I remember when I was a kid asking a zookeeper how the eagles were injured and she said they sometimes fly into power lines. ⚡️ 🦅 🇺🇸

[@evanjenkins1620]

Segata superimposed into the heli raid from apocalypse now oh no 😂

[@clarku4]

Great review. Need to take a look at this game. Looks decent.

[@malickfan7461]

11:30 "What could ever harm this guy?" A Sony missile launched at Sega's headquarters.

[@agentemerald5545]

Funny thing about that; turns out not even that worked.

[@malickfan7461]

@@agentemerald5545 True.

[@DTM-Books]

This is one of those "you had to be there at the time" sort of videogames, when the technology was new and the hardware was still being learned by developers. I've seen better on Saturn, but I've also seen a lot worse. Fortunately, fans of flight and mech sims have a lot of great software titles on Saturn to keep happy.

[@38kob]

how did you choose the cereal ad for september 1995? was that the month that ad campaign started?

[@PandaMoniumReviews]

Jakob Dorof Yes, I searched for ads that aired that month.

[@38kob]

@@PandaMoniumReviews such a great idea!

[@Bofner]

Pandamonium double feature weekend!?

[@PandaMoniumReviews]

Andrew Bofner Sort of! SF The Movie was a re-upload, slightly re edited to fit in with the new and updated release date order. I plan on uploading a new episode once every other Saturday, so I didn’t want to treat “old” reviews as new if that makes sense. Same thing will happen when Cyber Speedway and Minnesota Fats both drop in two weeks. Thanks for watching by the way!

[@pollo9500]

You gotta shoot down the stealth apaches... They are invisible and i usually ram into them to win. But i mastered the controls. just follow their shadows.

[@PandaMoniumReviews]

I’ve been revisiting this game with the mission stick, a massive improvement for BlackFire. Still stuck at the North Dakota mission though. I’m finding and destroying the stealth apaches, but midway through, I get annihilated by a big crowd of bad guys. There’s not enough ammo/health to deal with them, so I keep dying. Any advice?

[@Imgema]

The backgrounds are so filtered. More so than a N64 game. Odd for the Saturn but i guess that's what you get with voxels.

[@themeangene]

Yeah and at this point nobody knew how to optimize early 3D consoles especially for a game that is loading so many new background artifacts so quickly. I mean compare this to Nights. By 1996-97 SKILLED developers were learning tricks like streaming from the disc, LODs, z ordering, etc

[@andersdenkend]

I think I remember Nova Logic from the DOS "Commanche" helicopter sims. They were noteworthy back then for using voxel graphics. A shane that their Saturn outing was quite so bad, the Commanche titles got very good reviews.

[@m_tpa]

comanche was actually not bad back then. little arcady, the voxel ground looked kinda impressive back then. played well and had character.

[@BrySkye]

Yup, and the first Comanche game they did came out in 1992, so Black Fire wasn't their first attempt. Comanche 2.0 was released earlier in 95 and then there was the Werewolf vs Comanche 2.0 bundle of the same year. The interesting thing about Black Fire is that you can see it still shares a lot of presentation elements from Werewolf vs Comanche, such as when the camera switches to an external view when being shot down, the screen shrinks and the games logo is shown prominently. The CGI sequences also have the same style. Black Fire seems to be their first move in the genre away from pure voxels.

[@bud389]

Black Fire was not Novalogic's first flight sim, they did Comanche 3 years before it.

[@PandaMoniumReviews]

We’re both wrong. Comanche 3 came out in 1997. NovaLogic did Comanche: Maximum Overkill in 1992. It looks remarkably similar to Black Fire as well. This is a video I have been meaning to remake with more info.

[@bud389]

@PandaMoniumReviews i guess I should have put a comma after Comanche, since I meant three years before, since Comanche came out in 1992 and blackfire came out in 1995. Also, I would just like to add, I disagree with your statements on having to read the manual being a negative.

[@PandaMoniumReviews]

Okay, thanks for your input.

[@jh5124]

This was my first game for the Sega Saturn, so I got a soft spot for it. All the detractors can go suck it. Are those height maps?

[@jonathandogey5747]

I’m laughing at the shock and dismay in his voice when he says “you have to read the manual” Is reading the type of burden that makes you sweat profusely and pray to God for mercy? It’s ok. Reading isn’t hard. Just grab the page with those two fingers, hold your eyelids open so that your eyeballs can look at the pages, then switch on your brain and process the words through your eyes so the data can be sent to your brain. It’s called reading. Top to bottom, left to right. Group words together to form a sentence. Take Tylenol for any headaches. Mydal for any cramps.

[@StriclySegaEurope]

Wait... The Bald eagle dosnt Sound like that! It’s more like a chicken. The Sound you’re using is from The red-tailed hawk. i like your Series. Really good!

[@justineckard3665]

Man, the landscapes in this game are rough.

[@thelastcarnival]

(H.R. Geiger voice) Do you want to play...Black Fire?

[@The_Conspiracy_Analyst]

3:34 again, that was no different than N64/PS1!! I had a good laugh at the ridiculous 20 button controllers when they came out and said NO EFFING WAY!!! Having a budget P5 class PC for games was better in every way imaginable!! The only reason to use a console is if you were computer illiterate!

[@pollo9500]

I feel like im the only person that beat this game.

[@PandaMoniumReviews]

I recently got all the way to the last boss fight while playing with the Mission Stick. This game is honestly way more playable with that peripheral. Not like, good, but better than with a standard pad. Those aliens though.

[@gurriato]

These videos are pretty interesting, but the scoring of the games is just ridiculous.

[@Gorilla_Jones]

Haha you're bad at vidja games.

[@PandaMoniumReviews]

Lol okay

[@avalond1193]

It was an ugly game and terrible to boot. It made the Saturn look terrible especially compared to PS1 launch titles