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Sega Saturn Conversion Magazine Issue 2 dubbed the next series of Model 2 conversions as 'The Second Big Three'. They were
Fighting Vipers, Virtua Cop 2 and Manx TT. In the arcade world, Fighting Vipers was regarded as a stop-gap from VF2 to VF3,
but it was a pretty stylish and cool beat 'em up in its own right. With the addition of walls and armour to AM2's
established VF formula, Fighting Vipers was a little more accessible than VF, and the combos were more pronounced than
before. So whilst it had its audience, it wasn't as deep and involving an experience as VF2. A bit like Dead or Alive!
Virtua Cop 2 was out in time for Christmas 96, and it was just as awesome as the original arcade version. With more
detailed graphics than VC1, Cop 2 featured multiple routes and a different scoring system. (Which nobody seemed to prefer
than Cop 1's 'multiplier' scoring system.) Now that Model 2 software was running off the upgraded 'B' hardware, the
conversion teams had an even more difficult job in getting their awesome games to Saturn, but as the true Sega fans
expected, they did it - giving us the gameplay we wanted at the least! AM3 didn't undertake the Manx TT conversion,
as Tetsuya Mizuguchi had recently formed his own AM department, AM Annex. Instead, Psygnosis (of Wipeout fame),
Perfect Entertainment and Tantalus took on the conversion together, and the final result was everything we hoped for -
well, a couple of extra tracks would have been a lot better, but as a conversion, Manx was cool. Interestingly, it
didn't exactly live up to its pre-release rumours, which had people believing it would run at 60 fps in high resolution.
Yeah right! We've since learned to ignore such hype. Or have we?... All knocking around at the same time as this 'second
Big Three' were VF Kids, a faster version of VF2 with big heads and wacky re-designed graphics, Virtual On, a hugely
involving and innovative battle action game and Athlete Kings, a very well presented athletics sim from the masters at
AM3. Anyway - where the hell are we - that brings us up to this time last year, when the third Big Three were revealed.
Obviously there was a time delay between the three releases, but for one reason or another, the three were a little
disappointing in minor ways. They were, of course, the three featured in the last issue of SSCM: Last Bronx, Sega
Touring Car and The House of the Dead. Last Bronx as a conversion was surprisingly good. Although in comparison to
Tecmo's more recent Dead or Alive it is a little glitchy and flickery, it was the most impressive Model 2 conversion
to date: in a first on the Saturn, or any home console for that matter, some of the backgrounds featured ceilings. Huge,
polygon-intensive constructions, they were excellent, and overall the game was a lot of fun. Although still not as
flexible as VF2, Bronx had tons of depth because of the scarily complex combo system which put a lot of emphasis on
retraction: something missing from DOA.
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