A new feature? What? No sarky (“sarky” is used in the East end of London as a colloquial term for "sarcastic," you little blighters) comments about the title/theme of this either… The weekend is once again upon us and even after two years of doing this thing we do, I still can't believe how much the industry has changed. Thus the thought of dedicating a new weekend feature to see just what we were saying back in "those days" I felt would be fitting. You'll see where we/I went right, where we got egg on our faces and where we went so far off-road that we ended up southeast of Pluto.
Two years ago this week (which was when we kicked the site off) we were a slightly different outfit. Language was a little more risqué (parental discretion is advised and if I had a kid, which I don't you nosey buggers, I wouldn't let them read this) testing methods were very different, system specs were by today's standards a snail's pace and best of all we had those charts with the bubble background (hey, they were “in” in '98!).
First up, let me point you to what we felt was the real story behind the infamous delay to the PowerVR Second Generation chip. PowerVR/VideoLogic partnered with NEC to contract the graphics chip for a new console called Dural, Highlander and then finally Dreamcast for the 5000 pound gorilla, otherwise known as SEGA. Remember? Let us refresh your memory with “Whatever Happened To the PVRSG.” It's packed full of gossip (and other stuff that's small, brown and smells bad on really hot summer days) and caused quite a stir on the financial stock bantering message boards. We knew then what we know now. SEGA had bagged all the chips for themselves and thus the poor ‘ol PC market had to suffer. VideoLogic were late by some 18 months, which really did cripple their chances of taking on the then-might of 3Dfx (that's before they changed to 3dfx).
Secondly (and if you're glutton for punishment), in September of '98, we paid a visit to a company called Diamond Multimedia, which somehow went from being "Monsters" to “Bought by S3,” then to “a scary company that puts T&L on the box and not on the actual card” and finally into "gone bust." Who'd have thought it? We certainly didn't think so back then…
Thirdly, we took a look at 3dfx' first real 2D/3D card offering (the Voodoo Rush doesn't count) in three flavors. This was a real milestone for 3Dfx (not 3dfx yet) and the graphics industry. It was the first “real” 2D/3D gaming card and shipped just slightly before NVIDIA's TNT (which we'll rattle on about next week).
Sharky Extreme did play games from its inception. During its incubation period, that's all we ever did and so we won't neglect the gaming front. A little-known company by the name of Rage Software and hailing from Liverpooooooool, I-N-G-E-R-L-U-N-D, had just released their first 3D-only game, Incoming, which became a firm favorite amongst the “benchmarking crowd.” We were given privy to a preview copy of their next title, a violently bloody game by the name of...
Finally, I took a trip to DreamWorks' LA office to get to know their Jurassic dino game, Trespasser. Girls and boys, make sure your seats are pushed all the way forward and your tray tables folded back upright and brace yourselves for an emergency landing. Boy, did I ever get this one completely wrong…. Trespasser was one of those amazing in production titles that I ended up having enough screen shots to let loose an avi. Video…
I hope you've enjoyed this trip down memory lane. I know I have. A healthy dose of “boy were you so wrong” is also a requirement in this job. So give me your feedback and hit the forums. Let us all know if we've changed for the better or worse. Cheers for tuning in all this time. And if you're new to all of this and have not a bloody clue of what I'm talking about, don't fret. Just join the rest of the queue…