Amiga, Commodore and creativity

[Rakanishu]

The Amstrad version of that game was shit. If those ninjas that jumped up into the air and came down sword first ever jumped into the air, they would always hit you. Even if you were jumping away, or had moved up/down to another level.

That's true but I didn't say Iliked the game in fact I hated it,was just to show the kids how were loading games on tape lol
The legend of kage had similar ninjas but at least you could kill them by attcking them from the sky,you could jump so high that it was easy never passed the second lvl tough

Since this thread started ,I replayed Buggy Boy on my amstrad,I'm amazed the tapes still work,I'm still a god with this game, we used to play it with 4 friends,there was no network of course but we started at the same time and I was always winning

Dizzy,bubble bobble,head over heels,rainbow island comes to mind

here's a link to a head over heels video enjoy,/goes to play it on his amiga emulator
(I'm as good as the guy on the video lol )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ornJoqJD1Ks

The game introduces an original concept: the player controls (initially separately) two characters instead of just one. The two characters have different abilities (Head can jump twice as high, control himself in the air, and fire doughnuts from a hooter to paralyse enemies; while Heels can run twice as fast, climb certain staircases that Head cannot, and carry objects around a room in a bag), which become complementary when the player combines them together after about a sixth of the game

 

[RaXz]

That reminds me of the disk swapping, my A600 had no HDD. XCOM was 3 floppy's, and Monkey Island 2 even 12, that was a lot of swapping, even multiple floppy's when walking out of a scene. It was heaven, when I finally got a 1200 with a HDD.

But if you want to go further back to find a sandbox game, try 1984 with Elite.

Time machine, it was my first sandbox game, played it on the Acorn at a friend. That was one of the first versions and released by Acornsoft.

The C64 easily provided the most bang for buck, for years. The Amiga, too, was easily the most powerful home computer when it came out. It made the competition look like something from the stone age, again for quite a few years.

I think it went down because they were homecomputers, there is much more money to be made in business contracts, like IBM did.

 

[Rakanishu]

what about Highway encounter,dunno if it existed on amiga tough

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSCMy1nkgug

you had to bring the pyramid to the end of the highway,the pyramid was advancing as long as a robot was touching it,you had 5 robots to achieve that and you could control only the first until he died then you could control the second and so on,one thing that was really hard is that monsters could attack all your robots and do a carnage if you were not carefull lol

Let's not forget the best fighting game ever Barbarian were you could chop the head of your adversary blody game

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xMB2v48Oiw

 

[xrm1]

No, no no in Europe every one got an Amiga first. It was just when they didn't make any more games for the Amiga that people started abandoning it. Every one said that 7.85 Mhz was too weak for high end sims like Red Baron, although in the end most got converted and played awesome. In fact early gen PCs were a joke compared with the Amiga. VGA was 320x200: Amiga was 600x400ish. Soundblaster was no where near the sound of an Amiga. It took years until the PC had caught up in all respects, I think that was about the time Diablo appeared, which makes it 1996 or so.

More like 1990-1992, there were only a couple of hires amiga games, iirc most were stuff like strip poker and everything else used 320 x 256 32 colors and some hardware tricks to display ~200ish colors at once.
While there were plenty of shitty Amiga/ST/Arcade -> PC conversions everything that was actually targeted at 386/VGA/SB or MT32 was way superior on the PC.
I have been a PC gamer since the mid 80ies, and I went from 8088/Hercules monochrome gfx/pc speaker to 286/EGA/Adlib to 386DX/VGA/SB while everyone else had Amigas and STs so I'm obviously biased but for me the turning point was the release of Wing Commander 1. Before that the PC was the thinking man's gaming machine and if you wanted flashy graphics and great sound you bought an ST or Amiga.
By 93-94 the Amiga was hopelessly outdated and the PC was the main gaming platform.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

And how much did you pay for the privilege xrm1? Please outline the costs for each machine, along with what it came with...

I would agree with you that 93 is the tipping point with 386DX/VGA/SB. This is roughly when I jumped ship from the Commodore express to IBM clones. Good old 387/16. I got it for next to nothing second hand, and bought a monitor, 4 megabytes of ram and was it a 1 meg graphics chip? It is a little hazy now. And a soundblaster of course. I think the HD was 30 or 40mb. Lots of fun with installing and deleting larger games as I wanted to play them.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

...for me the turning point was the release of Wing Commander 1. Before that the PC was the thinking man's gaming machine and if you wanted flashy graphics and great sound you bought an ST or Amiga.
By 93-94 the Amiga was hopelessly outdated and the PC was the main gaming platform.

I would agree with you that 93 is the tipping point with 386DX/VGA/SB. This is roughly when I jumped ship from the Commodore express to IBM clones. Good old 387/16. I got it for next to nothing second hand, and bought a monitor, 4 megabytes of ram and was it a 1 meg graphics chip? It is a little hazy now. And a soundblaster of course. I think the HD was 30 or 40mb. Lots of fun with installing and deleting larger games as I wanted to play them.

I would put the "tipping point" at 1992. Wing Commander 1 blazed the trail 2 years earlier and showed everyone what the PC was capable of, but it wasn't until 1992 that we began to see more games that proved it. The dual combo of Ultima 7 and Ultima Underworld, as well as Wolfenstein 3D (just to name some examples) sent a clear message: The Amiga was toast. It was only a matter of time after that.

As for me, I got a 386DX 40 Mhz with a whopping 8MB of RAM as an early Christmas present in 1992. Ultima Underworld was the first game I played on that machine. I went on to use that machine right through the 486 era and up to the early days of the Pentium computers (1995) when I finally retired it for a 90 Mhz Pentium computer. I even ran Ultima 8 on the 386. It worked, but I got about 7 FPS on average.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Rakanishu: Highway Encounter (and its sequel, Alien Highway) were only available on the Amstrad, IIRC. Possibly the Spectrum as well. Alien Highway was one of the games I got bundled with my first Amstrad.

Barbarian turned heads mostly because it allowed you to roll them. For added insult, the goblinoid that carried away the loser's body would kick the head off the screen. It was a very simple game with a cute gimmick. I was always more fond of the sequel, Barbarian II, even though it was almost a completely different game. It had one of the most difficult and frustrating map system I've ever seen, but I did manage to complete it once and kill the end boss...only to watch his headless body stroll over to the head, pick it up and walk off screen, with a "To be continued in Barbarian III" message appearing. (Of course Barbarian III was never released)

(FYI, another game called Barbarian was also released around the same time, where you had to use a system of icons to control your character. Just mentioning it to avoid any confusion.)

 

[xrm1]

Around 2000-3500 euro in todays money per box I think, but for that you got a serious beige business machine that could also play Space Quest

I think the 1040STE was around 1500 DM/750 euro and the Amiga 500 bit cheaper but its all a bit hazy.

 

[Zakhal]

I had amiga like 6 months before swtiching it to PC. MY last amiga game was UMS2. It took 30min of waiting to play 5min turn. I called to the store that sold it demanding money back and they called me sucker.

Not long after that I got lucky influx of money and amiga was gone and replaced with state of the art 486DX33 with math-processor (I think falcon 3.0 was the only game that used it). That PC was the best thing that ever happened to me. Adios amigos.

Before amiga I had commodore64 with tapedrive for many years but I hated it even more because almost all the games on it were simple platformers. Almost no rpg or strategy games. The disk drive had som but it was a poor and overexpensive disk drive not worth saving money for.

 

[DraQ]

Originally programmed on the Amiga

Elite II: Frontier
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbegNmKRZUM

*FAPFAP*

I like the DOS version better, but it was programmed on Amiga first.

The game also succeeded at causing me to perform a complete jaw-drop on it's belated discovery over ten years after it's creation which alone makes it notable.

In fact, anyone who hasn't played it, hasn't accepted it as divine, or doesn't feel like downloading it right fucking now should be shot, endowed with an obligatory avatar featuring facial penile protrusion or both.

Turrican 1+2

Yeah...

A welcome surprise, BTW:
http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=13297

 

[Luzur]

"Hello and Welcome to Turrican, be my guest, another day another crime and remember, shot or die!"

 

[DraQ]

"Hello and Welcome to Turrican, be my guest, another day another crime and remember, shot or die!"

it's "prey".

Also, why it's awesome - for uninitiated.

 

[RaXz]

I like the DOS version better, but it was programmed on Amiga first.

The game also succeeded at causing me to perform a complete jaw-drop on it's belated discovery over ten years after it's creation which alone makes it notable.

In fact, anyone who hasn't played it, hasn't accepted it as divine, or doesn't feel like downloading it right fucking now should be shot, endowed with an obligatory avatar featuring facial penile protrusion or both.

True

Sucks that no one knows if Elite 4 is still coming, there were some problems between Ian Bell and David Braben. You should guess they made enough money with the Rollercoaster franchise. Hell, the company is named after Elite 2. At least some Russians are busy with making Elite 3 better.

http://www.elite-games.ru/conference/vi ... hp?t=47373

I still remember that I shat in my pants when I saw a white laser barely hitting me, and haven't saved in ages. Or accidently shooting a station and getting swarmed by police. And last but not least, getting too close to a friggin large planet.

 

[DraQ]

Sucks that no one knows if Elite 4 is still coming, there were some problems between Ian Bell and David Braben.

I only hope it will be true to both Frontiers - basically FE2 as it would be done with modern tech.

At least some Russians are busy with making Elite 3 better.

http://www.elite-games.ru/conference/vi ... hp?t=47373

Yes, it's very impressive, but still buggy and unfinished, although some new models are awesome. So far it's better to stick with high-res JJFFE (not GLFFE) and FE2 under DOSBox.

I still remember that I shat in my pants when I saw a white laser barely hitting me, and haven't saved in ages. Or accidently shooting a station and getting swarmed by police. And last but not least, getting too close to a friggin large planet.

Well, I knew about Elite (I had it on my c64 and was deeply saddened by the fact that I was too dumb at the time to play such an obviously large and complex game with 3D GFX to top it), but not about it's sequels.
I got my hands on FE2 after Morrowind, and, while I mostly dislike spacesims (being anything but), I am a big hard SF nerd, so my reaction was something along the lines of:

Wait, there is a game with full scale planetary systems, seamless interplanetary flight and planetary landings, Newtonian mechanics, simulated gravity, completely open structure and a whole galaxy to explore? What? 1993 game? Made in 1993? With all those impossible to implement things? Really? And nobody ever bothered to tell me?
FFFFFUUUUUUUUU-

Today I have my own collection of stories, like the time some pirate faggot rammed my main thrusters somewhere around Ross 154 where I was carrying a military parcel, then I was refused permission to land as the only tiny port on Merlin was full, forcing me to land rough, then gone impatient (I wanted to deliver the package, get my crippled craft repaired and be on my way, not to accumulate layers of ice waiting till some of the morons obviously here for several month holidays frees his pad) pissed off traffic control and ended up flying around on retros blowing the police out of the sky and wreaking accidental havoc on the parking craft - the charges were severe, but it was totally worth it, completely awesome plus I managed to repair the thruster and deliver the package on time.

Another story (FFE this time):
I was attacked by an IC in some system I don't even remember when flying my fully kitted Asp Explorer. ICs are sluggish cows but they pack a lot of punch, usually carrying 20MW beam lasers fully capable of vaporizing an unshielded Asp in way under a second. My Asp was shielded, so when the guy raked me from port to starboard with his beam my Asp "only" lost about 50% of hull integrity. I managed to dispatch the attacker, skimmed over equipment listing to check if no vital system was damaged (miraculously enough all were intact), set autopilot, cursed a bit under my breath and continued my journey. When approaching my destination - an earth-like planet of about 2.5 or 3 earth masses - I noticed that something was very wrong - the autopilot was unable to match velocity with the planet opting to wobble around in wide loops. I double checked the systems. FFFFFFUUUUUUCK! The equipment was ok, the thrusters were not. I lost both lateral thrusters in my confrontation with the IC, which explained why my autopilot failed final approach - I had to kill all the automatics, including set velocity mode that happens to be very useful for touchdowns, intercept the planet, match velocity, enter the atmosphere and fly towards the port manually, then - the horror - touch down under over 2G gravity by burst-firing the thrusters and rotating around in attempts to kill the lateral velocity with main/retros. When I finally landed I was literally swimming in my T-Shirt and had to lie down for a while - I only hope that the city dwellers found the 150t Asp with an onboard fussion reactor able to propel it at 22g for days non-stop, surplus of extra hydrogen fuel, serious thruster malfunction and one very nervous pilot, wobbling around back and forth over their heads as much fun as I did. Fuckers.

Yet another one (FFE again):
Interplanetary flight is boring. It basically consists of several days (thank Braben for StarDreamer(TM)!) of acceleration, followed by several days of deceleration. During this time - stars remain stationary in your FOV; planets, visible as specks of light move very slowly; your ship reaches absolutely unreasonable speed measured in thousands km/s. If you're unlucky, you'll get attacked by pirates, as intercepting no matter how fast ship is fairly doable. I was hurtling at about 4000 km/s through some backwater system when I was swarmed by pirates. After calmly boiling them off into interplanetary void, I noticed something I couldn't explain - all around my ship there were tiny flashes of light in the distance - like fireflies. Around a spacecraft. Travelling through interplanetary vacuum. At 4000 km/s. Ok, I mustered my thoughts, what the fuck? Then, right by the side of my ship, a huge wall of rock blinked and vanished, so fast that I wouldn't even know it was there had I blinked at the moment. I knew what those "fireflies" were - I was simply flying thorough an asteroid belt, distant asteroid hurtling past so fast that my eyes didn't even register the movement. Given that you can't really dodge anything at this speed and that the asteroid fields are spread rather thin, I left the ship on autopilot and tried not to think about it. Several days later I received my docking clearance at my port of destination.

As for the giant planets - I wholly recommend entering the atmosphere of some ringed gas giant in FE2 - rings spanning the whole sky and a whole sea of clouds just make an unforgettable spectacle, even when displayed using 1993 graphics.

On more thing - coming too close to a big planet? Some guys from Poland were making a contest about who could slingshot closest to Sirius B - a white dwarf - and make it out of there alive. The winner briefly entered the star's atmosphere - I suspect they had to cut him out of his craft, he might also show interest in skinhead fashion and teeth prosthetics after his flight - skimming a white dwarf is unkind to your DNA. Of course the whole point in this contest was that you can't just use your engines to not fall on a white dwarf - you have to make a slingshot manoeuvre with enough velocity to carry you back away from the star, while fine tuning your orbit to pass as close to the surface as possible.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Elite was good, but I preferred Space Rogue when it comes to C64 games of this type. Elite started to become a little repetitive, though it was good to come back and play it again from time to time.

Edit: The Zzap review for Space Rogue.
http://www.zzap64.co.uk/cgi-bin/display ... azine=zzap

 

[DraQ]

Elite was good, but I preferred Space Rogue when it comes to C64 games of this type. Elite started to become a little repetitive, though it was good to come back and play it again from time to time.

We're talkin' Frontier here nigga.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

You mean Frontier, the letdown?

When Elite 2 was new, it was hard to find people that liked it. Mostly due to the speed...or lack of it. Only top-of-the-line 486's could run the game at a half-decent pace, and it took the Pentiums to make the game shine. Anything less and combat became almost impossible, so people tended to avoid them. Which left the rest of the game pretty damn dull...and to be honest here, Elite 2 doesn't exactly suck people in.

As you discovered the game long after its release, you never experienced this.

 

[Haba]

You mean Frontier, the letdown?

When Elite 2 was new, it was hard to find people that liked it. Mostly due to the speed...or lack of it. Only top-of-the-line 486's could run the game at a half-decent pace, and it took the Pentiums to make the game shine. Anything less and combat became almost impossible, so people tended to avoid them. Which left the rest of the game pretty damn dull...and to be honest here, Elite 2 doesn't exactly suck people in.

As you discovered the game long after its release, you never experienced this.

I bought (!) the game on release day for Amiga. It got good reviews in the gaming press (not 90+ but 85-87'ish), so I wouldn't say that people were too dissapointed on it. Oh, and it ran perfectly fine on Amiga too ;-)

One of the few games that were actually worth the money, I'd say. It came with two manuals, a novel, a map of the galaxy and a T-shirt.

 

[Luzur]

"Hello and Welcome to Turrican, be my guest, another day another crime and remember, shot or die!"

it's "prey".

Also, why it's awesome - for uninitiated.

FFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

but to me it always sounded like "crime".

 

[DraQ]

You mean Frontier, the letdown?

If being the 1993's best selling game in Europe, the first game to use Bezier curves for 3D graphics, the first game to feature seamless realistic planetary systems and Newtonian physics, the first game to give players the whole galaxy to explore and nerds' wet dream overall counts as a let down, then yes.

Also:

*FAPFAPFAP*

 

[Destroid]

Anyone familiar with Commodore Plus/4 games? The one I'm thinking of had you playing a sort of... blob, and you moved across the screen trying to land on top of other blobs which traveled up and down on top of variously sized pillars of blue bricks.

I jumped straight from the Plus/4 to a 286 so I missed most of this classic era of gaming

EDIT: Actually I think it was a 386, this would have been somewhere around 1989-1992.

 

[DraQ]

Anyone familiar with Commodore Plus/4 games? The one I'm thinking of had you playing a sort of... blob, and you moved across the screen trying to land on top of other blobs which traveled up and down on top of variously sized pillars of blue bricks.

I jumped straight from the Plus/4 to a 286 so I missed most of this classic era of gaming

Yeah? How about jumping straight from c64 to Pentium 133?

:emo:

 

[asper]

Man, I loved the character portraits in Frontier! I'll screengrab them and upload them to the Codex, if I can find some time in the evening.

I never played any other Elite apart from Frontier; are they worthwhile/better?

 

[DraQ]

Man, I loved the character portraits in Frontier! I'll screengrab them and upload them to the Codex, if I can find some time in the evening.

I never played any other Elite apart from Frontier; are they worthwhile/better?

Elite is smaller, simpler and arcade. It was a big thing when it was out, a precursor of the genre, but now it has been cloned and improved on by every single freelance space-sim. It also leaves you stuck with pitch-roll which makes no sense in space and is frustrating (in Frontier you can use pitch-yaw, or pitch-roll depending on your preference).

FFE is basically Frontier+ it has:
- new ships
- new gear
- better AI
- optional plotline
- five monthly newspapers detailing important events,
- actual planetary geography
- more modern GFX

It was also pushed out of the door by greedy corporate suits in what amounts to a late alpha stage - the patches and user-made JJFFE fixed most of the bugs and added nifty stuff like individual all-axes thruster control, but things like messed up equipment display on some ships, lack of clouds or astronomical fuckups (that were simply left to be fixed later given that they weren't present in FE2) remain.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Anyone familiar with Commodore Plus/4 games? The one I'm thinking of had you playing a sort of... blob, and you moved across the screen trying to land on top of other blobs which traveled up and down on top of variously sized pillars of blue bricks.

I jumped straight from the Plus/4 to a 286 so I missed most of this classic era of gaming

EDIT: Actually I think it was a 386, this would have been somewhere around 1989-1992.

A 286/386 could have played all the pc versions of the classics, until you hit the 'Origin' limit.