Friday, February 28, 2020

How Crash Bandicoot Hacked the Original Playstation

Ars Technica (via Hacker News):

For today’s episode of War Stories, Ars Technica sat down with Naughty Dog Co-founder Andy Gavin to talk about the hurdles in bringing the original Crash Bandicoot to gamers around the world. When Andy and his partner Jason Rubin made the decision to bring the action platforming genre into three dimensions, it required living up to their company ethos of “leaving no stone unturned” in the search for memory - even if it meant hacking Sony’s library code.

Previously:

3 Comments RSS · Twitter

I love this kind of nitty gritty developer hacking game console story. What people used to have to do to wring every last ounce of performance from systems is simply astounding.

If you like this kind of thing, you'll love Jon Burton's YouTube channel, GameHut:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfVFSjHQ57zyxajhhRc7i0g

The videos about the Sega Saturn are particularly insane.

@Lukas
Yep, I do love this kind of thing and I particularly enjoy the channel you suggested. I am not the biggest fan of Traveller's Tales when it comes to the actual games themselves and I most assuredly find the constant stream of Lego games nauseating, but they were very impressive with their technical skill. True artists of code!

Mickey Mania might be the best game they made and the Sega CD version is a particular favorite of mine. Sonic 3D blast has grown on me over the years and Mr Burton's Director's Cut is particular fantastic.

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