DF Retro: Origin Systems and the Crusader Series on PC/PS1/Saturn/PSP
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- Опубликовано: 27 июл 2024
- Like DF Retro? Check out our playlist for other episodes • Digital Foundry Retro
This week John explores one of the most important developers in PC gaming history - Origin Systems. From Ultima to Wing Commander, Origin produced a wide variety throughout its existence but today we're going to focus on the Crusader series. Created by Tony Zurovec, Crusader is an advanced isometric shooter which delivered striking SVGA graphics in a time when most PC games were still 320x200. We also explore its semi-sequel, No Regret, along with the console iterations of the original game.
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Imagine being 10 years old and seeing your gamer dad play Crusader on his high end Pentium Pro.
This game was amazing.
Tyrant I had a shitty dad who beat me and made fun of me for liking video games. Good times.
That was my dad! Lol! I remember watching him playing crusader when I was like 8
When i was like 6 oder 7 I woke up my dad one saturday because i was bored wanted to watch him play crusader. I even already booted up the game for him.
My dad occasionally played Doom and Heretic with me although he was not really interested about them.
Imagine being 20 when this released and reading this comment and realizing you’re old.
I remember playing Crusader on PC and my jaw hitting the floor when i first saw it. It looked, sounded and played amazingly. Definitely a game i've enjoyed most from that era.
Loved the Crusader games, they are pretty underrated. Still good today.
True, and I still think they have the best and most appropriate music tracks ever created in video games.
Let's be honest John. You just needed an excuse to play this beautiful soundtrack.
Whelp, you got me!
The music is soooo good
The Crusader Series was my favorite PC gaming experience ever.
I'm still waiting for the third installment: Crusader: No Dessert.
I remember playing it in the PS1. I loved this game as a kid.
I was 6 when I first played this in 97. Man was I blown away by this game and it's soundtrack. So much so, that now, in 2022, I still play it and unknowing made a track that is reminiscent of the main menu theme from this game. This was a great game and still is today. Graphics still look great even today.
This really took me back. It was like opening up a time capsule! I remember ALL of these games!
The title screen music for this game is so good. Unforgettable after hearing it only once.
This DF Retro series is awesome. Sends chills down my spine when I see and hear the sounds of my childhood.
Once again, this proves that once EA gets their hands on something, the games suffer.
Crusader was so fucking good. The fact that Tony works on Star Citizen gives me singlehandedly the greatest shot of optimism about that project. Now, I am gonna go listen to Crusader OST again.
SC is free to try this week...
daranus robertsspaceindustries.com/feature-list
daranus I don't know, have you upgraded your PC since then?
obviously is better, also is just 20gb
it reminds me of deus ex and red faction, two of my favorite games. i just downloaded no remorse from emuparadise since its freeware
The transition at 10:02 is perfect. Fantastic retrospective - No Remorse and No Regret are the only vintage PC games I still have original boxes/media for from '95 and '96. And one old laptop running DOSBox on Windows XP specifically to play these two whenever I feel the urge.
Crusader - No Remorse was something completely new when it came out. I had never seen graphics that detailed and the soundtrack still gives me chills. And I only played it at a friends computer back then. Very good pick!
I got SERIOUS goosebumps watching this. The last time I completed Crusader: No remorse and No Regret was in 1996. I can't forget the atmosphere of my house those days.
i would like to see a DF retro on game AI. F.E.A.R and Halo stick out to me in that department.
It's a very specialised topic, maybe ask Tommy (AI and Games)
Best. Installation music. Ever.
I totally forgot about this game! Thanks for bringing back the fond memories I have of Crusader and, as always, great job on this episode.
Oh man, this studio were insane. Not even just some of their games, basically all of them were incredible! It must’ve been really cool back in the 1990’s to see these beautiful games come out that blew everything else out of the water! Of course, nowadays technology doesn’t really have limits to be pushed, but it’d still be cool to see these guys make a return.
The art style of crusader reminds me a lot of Fallout, only better looking. The sprites look incredibly detailed for only 640x480! Shame about the scrolling, but it still looks incredibly!
Fallout's designers were fans of Crusader and acknowledged that they were inspired by it.
Thanks for another DF Retro. A nice part of my Sunday! I remember loving this game back in the day. Interesting to hear more about Andrew Sega and how he's working on Star Citizen now, so cool! It was also cool to see all the wing commander/strike commander footage. Back in the day those cinematic (even in WC1) were just cool! It's kind've hard to put in perspective how awesome it was to hear speech coming from a game that you might normally just hear "PC Speaker" stuff from.
I love these retro videos! Takes me back to a time when game experiences felt new and magical.
Fantastically well put together and informative as always. Thanks for doing these!
Enjoy your holiday John, great job!
Best original series on youtube. Keep up the great work DF!
Man this game was my childhood. Still one of my all time favourite soundtracks. Now I need to go find the PSP version's theme song.
Enjoy your Holiday John.
John, this series is amazing. Please keep making them.
andrew sega went on to join the austin texas based synth-pop band iris. their music is really good, and i got to meet them at an industrial festival a while back. really humble and chill dude.
He went on to score Unreal first. :)
Think I speak for everyone who's me when I say I'd love to see an episode dedicated to the original Command & Conquer and its console ports. Keep up the great work, John!
I love DF Retro. Keep up the good work! :)
Another wonderful video about a great game. The DF Retro series has found a nice place as an exploration and celebration of these titles.
I'd like to see a video on the Ultima Underworld series, they always get unfairly eclipsed by the later System Shock games.
I could rattle off heaps of old titles to cover too. Wipeout, Secret Agent and Crystal Caves, early Access adventures Countdown and Martian Memorandum, Paganitzu and Monuments of Mars Series, Jetpack, Eye of the Beholder, the Forgotten Realms Gold Box, Heretic and Hexen, almost nobody talks about these but they're all fantastic.
Do a video on the Ace Combat series.
Agree! Ace Combat needs a good coverage like this
I would definitely like to see this, also! The best of it was from the PS2 era, but you also have games spanning across three generations of consoles, as well a few on the handheld systems. You can do everyone a favor by leaving out Assault Horizon, though - that game was nothing but a mar on the series as a whole.
Would be interested too since from DF Retro episodes Namco likes to push technical limits, even carrying it to other future games. Never thought their technology from a light gun arcade game would help an idol game.
Fucking fantastic video. I love these DF Retros.
I had forgotten this title, and this video filled me with great nostalgia remembering how blown away I was by Crusader, not to mention others shown like Ecstatica and Bioforge....great video John.
Just have to say ure my fav yt channel by far. Mixing high class infos with your special way of sayin things.. Just love what you are doin guys :D keep it up! Love from germany
Great video. Love DF retro. Keep up the great work!
I like the consistent quality of this video series. I wish game journalist did more of this type of content, showing expertise in their field.
I love how you cover 90s DOS & Windows games. Video games entered my childhood first through the glory of Windows 98, and the only much later through the lenses of home consoles, so I have a rather large soft spot for the PC games of the 90s but unfortunately it is not a popular topic amongst gamers of today. Thanks for helping to address this.
I never played this in my youth (but I do remember seeing the boxes on the shelves!), so it was great fun to take a look at this. Thanks for the video!
Exceptional work here Jon. I remember being completely blown away just from the demo for this one back in the day. As with most Origin games it was an adventure on its own to try to get this to run and Origin always pushed the envelope on tech for their games.
You almost brought tears to my eyes just from the rundown of Origin's blockbuster releases. Its really sad how the disposable, cult-of-the-new-ish nature of this industry has all but faded away the legacy of developers that back in its day were the end-all, be-all of digital entertainment such as Origin... sigh...
Some small trivia here: pre-production brainstorming on the actual Crusader 2 was started and it even had a working title (Crusader: No Mercy). And as you mentioned, the inspiration for the game was born out of basically reworking the Ultima Pagan engine into a full action game after all the criticism at the time due to how action-heavy the design was when compared to the previous Ultimas. The CGW crowd used to refer to it as Super Ultima Bros if you can believe that, lol.
o wauw. i was waiting for someone to cover this series. great, dark games
Awesome video, as always. Have a nice holiday, John :)
John, you're the best! Love DF Retro. Enjoy your holiday.
Research well done. Hello from the co-author of the obscure PSP prototype.
I love your style John. Very welcoming and not condescending. Keep up the great work. Not sure if you've done already, but possibly do a video on the Fear Effect series? Or an older game called In Cold Blood which I always thought looked great for the time.
I love pre-rendered backgrounds, especially older ones. There's just something about them that no other type of games makes me feel. Must just be nostalgia.
I love seeing obscure games like this get covered by DF Retro; I certainly wouldn't object to other obscure games having videos as well.
As for a suggestion, maybe covering Mega Man X would be interesting? There's the Super NES original, then the PC port, the emulated version in the X Collection on PS2/GCN... plenty of stuff there to check out. Maybe its sequels could be covered too, such as Xtreme and Xtreme 2, and taking a look at how they adapted certain elements of the Super NES games onto the Game Boy Color.
Awesome episode.
Great to see Crusader revisited. Cheers for the video.
Both Crusader games will always have a place in my heart. I’ve bought my first CD-ROM to play it. I didn’t realize Tony Zurovec joined the team that brings to life the dream game of many, the one that I play-test these days - Star Citizen. What a great comeback. ❤️🔥
I didn't know this game but it was an interesting video to watch. I would like to see someday an episode on Exhumed/Powerslave. You talked about that game in some videos and I would like to see the differences between Playstation and Saturn version and also discover the origin of the engine used by some great ports on Saturn. Thanks for all your work.
Watching DF Retros 5 years after their release for that extra retroness!
Someone else remembers Crusader? No way. One of my favourite games of all time. Nothing quite like go into a room and doing a half circle shooting a machine gun and just watching the environment and enemies be riddled with bullets and destroyed. Felt just like a good action film.
Man all those games you mentioned in the beginning took me way back playing them as a kid, so many emotions returned lol, damn bioforge? Little big planet? I still wanna play those games and beat them lol
I'm glad DF is making these videos because a lot of the games covered are the games I played growing up. But I do wish you would take some time to give advice to people on best way to run these games on modern computers. Information like:
- What DOSBox settings did you use?
- What controls did you use? Is there a useable gamepad configuration? (Crusader's default controls are quite terrible)
- What mods and fan patches are available? (you've covered some of these in previous Retro videos which is good, but not here)?
i did enjoy this look back at Crusader. Good one DF
Great look back at one of my childhood games. Great stuff, Keep em coming.
If I may suggest a title? I'd love to see an episode of either Rollcage, RoadRash or Total Annihilation!
Yeah! Wing Commander 3!
When playing it years after release, I loved how it would test your CPU and tell you how your CPU speed was impossible.
love these DF retros. keep it up.
GREAT video! Loved Crusader back in the day. Not sure how they'd make a modern version work now with it's unusual control scheme but I'd love to see them try.
I enjoyed this video. I remember seeing the older kids playing this on PC and it looked really cool.
I remember this game so much from my childhood.. I played it a bunch when I was 7-8...still have fond memories from it even now 20 years later..
This retro episodes are so awesome :D
An absolute blast from the past! One of the best games I've played ever :) Going Fallout, I constantly cought myself on the fact, that I've seen it way before in Crusader
Thanks for another excellent DF Retro episode. I would love to see an episode in the future devoted to RenderWare, the game engine designed by Criterion. This was an enormously popular engine, powering games such as the Grand Theft Auto 3 and the Burnout series. I would love to know what was so special about RenderWare, how did it work, what were the advantages in using it, and how various games used it to good effect. Thanks.
Strike Commander and WC2 were some of my favourite games in my childhood
Great stuff, John. :D Aww, feel like booting up Twinsen!
The Crusader games are really awesome. To this day i still think they look and play great. Great video, next do a video on Little Big Adventure, man i loved those games when i was young.
My GOD I ve been looking for this game for years...i ve played it as a kid JESUS THANK UUUUUU
That was an awesome homage to the Crusader series. I was surprised you didn't mention Crusader No Mercy which was supposed to be the third entry on the series and featured multiplayer.I'd love to see an update to this game lifting the old limitations. With modern hardware, we could add smooth scrolling along with much better animation and controls, and with native support on Windows. I still see some slowdowns when running the game via DosBox.Certainly one of the best retro videos thus far from you. Keep up the great work.
yeah but it's not gonna happen before ea gets bankrupt when us born late 1990s to early 2000s have grown our own generation
This game is begging for a remake or reboot. With modern graphics and controls and the same style of gameplay, it would be insane.
No DF Retro next Sunday? :(
On one hand, I'm sad now, on the other hand, I wish you a nice holiday John!
great video.. and Crusader: No Remorse was a great game. I wish it would come back..
Long story short, i'm now watching longplays of games i played in the 90's but couldn't finish. I just watched Alone in the Dark 1-3, Ecstatica and Bioforge - back to back! My next stop was Crusader No Remorse - and all of a sudden, i see this 3:18! You just casually named all of the 3 games i just finished watching! What kind of magic is this?!
I like so much DF retro, for me You could make it 3 times a week :D
title maybe obscure but still it's history and cool that You Guys bring Us such good quality content
I love Df Retro, good job guys!!!
I remember this game coming out when I was 11 - at the time it felt so hard. I died over and over but still have find memories.
I wasn't familiar at all with Crusader. Thanks for sharing! Have a nice holiday!
Nice vid (as always)! I'd love to see an analysis on the Gran Turismo series, or maybe Burnout? Oh, Wipeout would be awesome as well.
One on the wipeout series would be so cool
+Dylan Brinsbury-Magee Yep! Man, I miss Wipeout so much
burnout would be awesome
+9001 for Gran Turismo series.
The first Crusader game is now being supported on ScummVM, since it uses the Ultima 8 engine.
Got these games on GoG years back, I remember being 6 or 7 watching my older brother play this. Good times!
I loved me some Bioforge. Thanks for bringing that one back into the light!
I really love these DF Retro videos, I would love to see more of them :) But seeing that Crusader has been laid to rest, honestly I say it's absolutely for the best because chances are that EA holds the rights to it and we don't want them squirting out some microtransaction-riddled monstrosity. It would be a perfect for an indie studio to make their own spiritual successor to it though, I would love to see that.
Anyway I would love to see you cover the Doom franchise at some point and go into detail with the ports - I imagine with so much Doom you'd probably have to split it into two or three videos or have one big video on the topic.
I hope you do Strike Commander and Freespace 2 sometime. I have fond memories of those (and many other) 90s flight sims. Thanks.
fantastic video !!! great work really !!
As someone who was around back in those days (born in the glorious, sun bleached year of 1971) and a MASSIVE Origins fan I can tell you that pretty much no one was "impressed" with any FMVs hehe. They were wonderfully cheesy and entertaining, sure - but "impressive" was not a word people genuinely used. It wasn't until Wing Commander 3 that a few eyebrows started to raise in appreciation.
Also - the first two Wing Commander games were nice looking and all but no where near as revolutionary as the rose tinted goggles-o-awe would suggest hehe. They're great games and I loved playing them but graphically they were on par with many other titles of the era.
The Crusader games were fucking awesome, though, and I still display my minty fresh big boxes on my shelf. =D
Star Citizen has so much talent behind it, If they do everything they say they're going to do, then this game will be game of the decade.
This game looked incredible at the time. Nowadays the lack of shadows and color depth are the only things holding it back from holding up next to modern indie sprite work.
Thanks DF! Would be great to see a retro on Gran Turismo, Doom or Resident Evil. :)
Quite possibly my second favourite PC game. Absolutely loved it when it came out.
great video!.
I love the crusader games!, I like the cyberpunk setting, the gameplay, and the music is awesome. the only flaw I can think of is it takes some time to get used to the controls, but both are great games and amongs the best pc games ever.
The bit with the ships in space remembered me of Descent. What an awesome game
This is such an awesome series!!
Another fantastic video, thank you! Could you do Jazz Jackrabbit and its sequel in one of the next videos, maybe? Doom 3 on Xbox would also be great.
Crazy to look back on it and it almost seems like a tech demo
Another Origin titel next time? Wing Commander an the console ports would be very interessting.
But thanks a lot for the good work. i like the retro DFs a lot.
Absolutely loved the game. Kept the box and poster for years.
Enjoy your holidays John! About suggestions, what about the original Diablo. . .
I looooooved No Remorse and No Regret. Two of my all time fave games. A new, modern day Crusader game would be a console seller for me!
I love Crusader: No Remorse. I recall the first time I ever played it, at some now long defunct overly sized computer/electronics store called Incredible Universe. I just passed by a computer demoing the game and was immediately hooked, as I fumbled my way through opening level. I got it as soon as I could and fell in love with everything about it. Graphics, great, music, awesome, and a game that holds up remarkably well. I need to go back and finish the second game (I beat the first game, but never got around to beating the No Regret).
Plus, I loved all of the little extra stuff that came in the box with some of the best, on theme, highly thematic extras included further exploring the world.
One of the many victims of a once great company where even the company's founder, Richard Garriot, was ousted by his own company's board.
I was so imagining all of the possibilities when a third Crusader game was in the works with proposed multiplayer. And then it was cancelled. I hope one day someone brings Crusader back in a worthy sequel, that it isn't forever lost to time!
I remember playing this game. It was really fun and I finished it twice. Good old memories
This was one of my most fav games on the saturn back then
My first game... Still play it till this day :)