A Moment With…
Digital Foundry’s John Linneman discusses the move into examining retro tech
We take great pleasure at peering behind the curtain of a game to discover the stories behind them. However, it’s difficult for us to actually visually break down iconic videogames in depth. This is where John Linneman and Digital Foundry Retro comes in.
John Linneman provides in-depth technical analysis of retro games at Digital Foundry (digitalfoundry.net). We learn why he entered this unusual line of work…
For readers who haven’t seen your videos, can you please explain the type of analysis that you provide in your work for Digital Foundry Retro? The DF Retro series of videos strives to provide a way to check out classic games running on real hardware captured via RGB while providing insight into their creation and history. It’s a great way to celebrate these games while peeking under the hood. Back in the day, it was fun to debate which version of a game was superior but now, thanks to modern hardware, it’s possible to gain a deeper understanding of these versions.
How did you become interested in retro gaming?
It kind of started in the late Nineties for me. While I was a huge Sega fan growing up, I missed the initial launch of the Sega Saturn and jumped into PC gaming for a while. Once the Dreamcast was announced in 1998, however, my latent love of Sega kicked in which prompted me to buy a Saturn and start collecting games for it. It wasn’t exactly retro, but it was obviously on its last legs and I grew to love the system. From that point on, I kept every new game that I would purchase while simultaneously digging back into consoles I loved in the past and beyond.
I think it’s fun to delve into each version of a classic game
John Linneman
Most technical analysis focuses on modern games – what drew you to analyse retro games in this way? These days, console hardware is all relatively comparable and, aside from minor performance and visual differences, each iteration of a game is roughly the same. Classic consoles were often hugely different from one another, necessitating unique approaches to development. To make matters more interesting, separate developers were often contracted out for each platform conversion resulting in even more variations. I think it’s fun to delve into each version of a classic game to better understand how developers approached each platform. It’s especially interesting when you have games that share the same name, such as Quake II for Playstation and N64, but are ultimately completely different experiences.
How useful do you find emulation as a tool to find out what a game is doing technically?
It’s proven quite useful in many cases. With certain emulators, it’s possible to peek behind the curtain, so to speak. You can see things like what’s being stored in VRAM, examine hardware utilisation, listen to individual sound channels, play in wireframe mode and even extract assets in real time. This type of information is very useful in better understanding the way a game works and how effectively it makes use of the hardware.
What sort of things would you like to include in future tests that haven’t been possible so far?
The big thing for me must be arcade games. When covering arcade titles, such as Daytona USA, I’ve still had to rely on emulation but would much prefer having access to real arcade hardware instead. It would also be great to start examining classic Japanese and European computer hardware. I grew up with the IBM PC so I missed out on platforms such as the Amiga, Sharp X68000, PC-98 and FM Towns. There may be something in the works on that front if all goes according to plan!
If you had to pick a top three, which games do you feel represent the perfect balance between good game design and technical excellence? That’s a difficult question! Soulcalibur for Dreamcast – with its richly detailed fighters, beautiful arenas and fluid animation it stands the test of time like no other Dreamcast game from that era. It also remains one of the most enjoyable and polished 3D fighting games ever made. That Namco could achieve this so early in the life of the system is astounding.
Yoshi’s Island for the SNES – perhaps the single most impressive piece of software for the platform. The dev team used the SuperFX2 chip to great effect enabling visual tricks that seem almost impossible for the SNES. It’s also backed by world-class Nintendo gameplay and a memorable soundtrack. I don’t think you’ll find a better balance of tech and gameplay on the system.
Shinobi 3: Return of the Ninja Master – this may seem like a strange choice but I feel that it embodies everything great about the Mega Drive experience. With huge detailed sprites, loads of parallax backgrounds, an incredible soundtrack, great special effects and perfectly refined gameplay, it’s a true masterpiece.