old loyalties, reconsideration.

CiDeRmAn · 14-11-2019 1:11pm

I never enjoyed Gunstar, though I now own it... and I still don't enjoy it!

My MD hosted, mostly, the likes of Virtua Racing, Thunderforce III and IV, as well as Road Rash/2/3.
Over the years more shmups and more goodness has been bought, even in this era of Everdrives on every street corner there's still a delight to be had with a tangible cart of some classic, or series.
It's probably my favourite 16 bit console of them all, doesn't mean I don't love the Snes but the MD just has some mix of the Japanese/American/European content that the Snes didn't attract.
I imagine it is down to the Amiga software devs making the jump more easily to the MD, bringing Worms and Chaos Engine over pretty quickly.

o1s1n · 14-11-2019 1:32pm

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I could never get into Alien Soldier. It seems to flow great once you know the bosses but if you don't it can be a slog until you get better. I also find it really stressful that you need to keep weapons topped up using the counter move.

Yeah it's one of those games you just need to spend a bit of time with and learn the weapons system until it becomes second nature. Once you do it's really an incredible game. With all the bosses you can almost think of it as a weird 2d shmup/Dark Souls mashup

I haven't played it properly now in a few years. If I remember correctly, before I even started playing, I'd change the control setup to strafing mode immediately as the default. Then make sure you always have the lance weapon (sometimes in both slots) as it makes minced meat of bosses.

The dash attack is also super important too. if I remember correctly, it massacres bosses if your charge bar stays full and flashing.

Kind of want to give it a go now this evening. Used to almost be able to finish it on one credit, probably won't even get passed the first boss now :eek:

Quigs Snr · 14-11-2019 1:47pm

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I've a feeling most C64 users got into the console late once the C64 price had dropped to reasonable levels where it could compete with the speccy. The early 80's were all about the spectrum as the price was far better than the C64. I know I got my C64 xmas 90 or 91.

Snap. 1990 for me although a rich friend had one since 1985 that came with some compilation called softaid that we eventually wore out the tape on.

o1s1n · 14-11-2019 1:52pm

That actually makes sense as my cousin got a Speccy around 89/90 as a hand me down. The original owner must have upgraded to a c64

CiDeRmAn · 14-11-2019 5:13pm

Quigs Snr wrote: »

Snap. 1990 for me although a rich friend had one since 1985 that came with some compilation called softaid that we eventually wore out the tape on.

Softaid was out on the three big machines at the time, the C64 and the Speccy.
It was a great collection of games, well worth owning.
Due to its charity based nature it was the least pirated cassette on those systems!

Brilliant line up on the host systems

Spectrum

Spellbound
Starbike
Kokotoni Wilf
The Pyramid (video game)
Horace Goes Skiing
Gilligan's Gold
Ant Attack
3d Tank Duel
Jack and the Beanstalk
Sorcery

C64

Gumshoe
Beamrider
Star Trader
Kokotoni Wilf
China Miner
Gilligan's Gold
Fred
Gyropod
Falcon Patrol
Flak

Quigs Snr · 14-11-2019 6:53pm

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Softaid was out on the three big machines at the time, the C64 and the Speccy.
It was a great collection of games, well worth owning.
Due to its charity based nature it was the least pirated cassette on those systems!

Brilliant line up on the host systems

Spectrum
Spellbound

Starbike

Kokotoni Wilf

The Pyramid (video game)

Horace Goes Skiing

Gilligan's Gold

Ant Attack

3d Tank Duel

Jack and the Beanstalk

Sorcery

C64
Gumshoe

Beamrider

Star Trader

Kokotoni Wilf

China Miner

Gilligan's Gold

Fred

Gyropod

Falcon Patrol

Flak

Ah.. gumshoe was great. And fred although surpassed by rick dangerous later was great fun too.. shame i could never jump that last quicksand pit

H3llR4iser · 14-11-2019 6:59pm

This is a...bit

of a funny one for me.

Long story short, I grew up with a Commodore 64...and as a kid I thought it was pure and utter cr@p. A stance on which I made a 180 degrees turn when, as an adult, I discovered just how much of a revolutionary machine it was and for how long it remained significant in a market that, by nature, moves very quickly.

The reasons for my childhood stance were pretty much two:

- Software availability: in Italy, you'd find "compilation tapes", 100% pure pirate stuff, with 10-20 games sold by newsagents for pocket money (average price around what would today be 5 Euro). They were pretty much the only source of games - "big box" games were sold in computer and toy stores, but almost nobody bought them - we simply didn't know the difference. Obviously, the compilation nature of these pirate tapes made it so that simpler, single-load, small games were over-represented. In brief, muck. Bigger games were often modified and/or butchered to fit the tape with 9 other games. Have a look here if you're curious about these: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1xuaC4jEx8

- Culture: see, in primary school pretty much nobody had a computer and there was little to no talk about "videogames". Then the other kids started getting Nintendo, Sega and Amiga hardware; A minority even had access to MS-DOS PCs. So when talk about games started spreading, we were already in the dawn years of te C64 (1990-1994) and every time...pretty much everyone made it a special task to relentlessly sh1t on my C64.

And that's it - the poor Commodore was pretty much the worst ever in the eyes of 10-years-old-me.

One very representative moment of all the above came when in 5th grade, circa 1989, a friend tells me he absolutely needs to show me this phenomenal Formula 1 game his dad had on their PC (IIRC it was a 286, Olivetti of course!). So we go to his office, my friend fires up Accolade's Grand Prix Circuit...and it IS phenomenal indeed! The graphics! The "realism"! Cars that actually look like the real ones (at least in the selection screen...)! Qualifying and a real race with positions!!!

I was mesmerized...but also really sad, my "sh1tty" C64 could never, ever, ever play a game like that. I went home, loaded Pole Position with its generic cars, generic tracks and no actual race, and despaired at how hopeless it was.

What I didn't know back then was that the same Grand Prix Circuit had a Commodore 64 release, which you couldn't find on the pirate newsagent tapes due to its complex multi load nature.

What I also didn't know was that the C64 version was actually the BETTER of the two - a bit slower, sure, but not that far off graphically, with much better sound and most importantly, features that were completely missing in the PC version, such as different colours cockpits depending on the player's car and bumps on tracks...

Quigs Snr · 14-11-2019 7:05pm

...and separate to that.. on the C64 Rick Dangerous, The Last Ninja, Turrican, Microprose Soccer, Action Biker, Jump Man (anyone remember that?), creatures, impossible mission, boulderdash, ik+, bubble bobble, new zealand story, rainbow islands, mayhem in monsterland, rtype, zak mckracken etc..

Spectrum was great, but it was just a tesco value C64 if you ask me. (Although of course as a collector i dont discriminate and have several flavours of all of them)

Sparks43 · 14-11-2019 8:09pm

limnam wrote: »

Was it though?

C64 came with it's own tape deck AFAIK.

Speccy you had to purchase it separate before the 128k+

The amount of games on C64 compared to speccy

I'm sure there's tons more reasons the C64 was superior

It’s really a close call between the spectrum and the c64.

I’ll put it this way.

If you told me I could I could only have ever played one machine and I had to erase one from my gaming life then I would give up gaming.

Both computers had magic. Both exposed my generation to a wonderful world of fun. And both exposed a generation of future IT professionals into what the future could hold.

And btw some Tesco value products are quite nice.

Although I’d consider the spectrum to be Lidl value

The Oric-1 was Tesco cheap beans

Stoner · 15-11-2019 12:36am

Yep, reminds me of trying Barbarians on the spectrum having played IK2 on the Atari ST

On another note, my first company car was a Lexus IS200 in 2000.

I drove the new car for a week, had to drive my old 96 Astra up to a buyer.

I got out to see what was wrong with the car, thought the hand break was jammed on it was so slow

Going back down a level seems like a bigger jump that going up one as they say.

The two experiences were identical.

As was playing command and conquer again after a 3 year break. It turned in Minecraft graphics

o1s1n · 15-11-2019 10:33am

It's a weird phenomena, isn't it?

I think the most jarring for me in that regard was the PS1 to PS2.

When the PS2 came out, for a while, I really thought the graphics weren't that much of a visual improvement. Metal Gear Solid 2 looked great, but it was just more of the same.

A while into it though I went back to the PS1 and it actually looked like someone had crept into my house at night and replaced my console with a different one. Couldn't believe how low the resolution was and how many jaggies there were!

Retr0gamer · 15-11-2019 10:46am

I wasn't all that fond of my C64 either. 91 we already had the Megadrive and the SNES was coming out. My tastes were also tuned to Japanese games at that stage. There was just something better about them than the vast majority of European/US made games. So I'd play arcade games and games on a friends NES, Megadrive or SNES and there was nothing that could match that playability on the C64.

There was a few games I really loved on it. The Turrican games and the conversion of Bubble Bobble was brilliant. But I had that C64 for way too long. I was so envious when I saw the NES or 16-bit machines and then I was always annoyed that the C64 was never featured on the likes of gamesmaster and I was just so jealous of all the amazing games being shown off. I had it way too long as well as I remember the utter disappointment at the Mercs and SF2 conversions on the system and then getting excited for Mayhem in Monsterland but that was the year I got a Megadrive for xmas.

It must have been xmas 91 I got the C64. It got off to a bad start. I remember being enthralled by the C64 that the girls next door had. That Christmas when I got the C64 I excitedly called next door to tell the girls I had got my own C64 only to see them playing the most insane racing game I'd ever seen. Their dad had brought home an import SNES with F-zero and Super Mario World and it made the C64 look so archaic.

H3llR4iser · 15-11-2019 12:54pm

I had mine pretty much for its entire "shelf life" - my dad got it when I was only 5 in 1985, with the idea of using it himself initially and the prospect I was gonna start school the next September (so forward thinking for the mid 1980s, when teachers could barely use a typewriter).

After learning to read - and moving to a new place where the Commodore was set up permanently - I started using it daily. I started copying BASIC code from the manual and experiment with it when I was no older than 6 or 7. I kept using it all the way to Christmas 1994, when I finally got a 486 PC.

Make no mistake, in its years the C64 was a proper beast - the fact it still is the most successful single computer system in history (17 millions sold officially, but it has been inferred multiple times by ex-Commodore employees the actual number of units sold to be closer to 30m - let's say the company weren't opposed to a degree of...forgetfulness when reporting revenue to the taxman) speaks volumes about how laser-focused to the market it was.

The software park was great as well, once you removed all the useless muck that kept being shoveled on the market. In some countries like Italy as I said, however, the system was saddled by all the pirate companies flooding the market with compilations of awful, low budget games - or good ones that had been hacked, slashed and modified into being unrecognizable. To give you an idea, this is how they were sold in newsagents:

http://infogiochi.altervista.org/edigamma.htm

As you can see, it's no "undercover job" - they were a proper publication, sold in plain sight; Some were even exported to Germany!
(the eagle-eyed will spot some Spectrum games in there as well).

And then the fact it indeed hung around way, way, way too long - to the point its presence on the marked basically killed off subsequent projects like the C128 (dev companies didn't do sh1t for the 128 since they had a cashcow in the 64).

By the time the C64 was finally discontinued, it had gone from being a powerhouse to being used as the bottom of jokes about things being slow or underpowered.

But the decades have redeemed it - it's interesting to see how it came back from the grave even in popular culture, swinging back from being a paragon of slowness and inadequacy to its powerhouse status.

Right now I've got two of them - fully working, restored and recapped; My own one from 1985 (built in 1983) and one that was given to me as non-functional "scrap" a few years ago (PLA and -03 ROM needed replacement). I'm probably going to be looking for a Spectrum soon - I never had one of these.

CiDeRmAn · 15-11-2019 1:07pm

Oooh, I said.
Pandemonium 2, for the PS... so much better than the first one, can't wait to play it again!
(pops it in the Playstation, loads it up)

That was a sh1t, wasn't it....

CiDeRmAn · 15-11-2019 1:12pm

It was much worse for those who didn't get one of the "big" consoles.
Situations where their parents "well-meaning" quotient exceeded by a large degree their "informed purchaser" value.

Back from the shops, minds a-buzz with the satisfaction (mis-placed) that they had paid close attention to young Billy's near constant talk of that Commodore.
Chatting to the nice young man in an ill fitting jumper and an unfortunate complexion, who assured them that this was the computer for him.

Only then, for Billy to awaken to one of these on Christmas morning

H3llR4iser · 15-11-2019 1:48pm

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

It was much worse for those who didn't get one of the "big" consoles.
Situations where their parents "well-meaning" quotient exceeded by a large degree their "informed purchaser" value.

Back from the shops, minds a-buzz with the satisfaction (mis-placed) that they had paid close attention to young Billy's near constant talk of that Commodore.
Chatting to the nice young man in an ill fitting jumper and an unfortunate complexion, who assured them that this was the computer for him.

Only then, for Billy to awaken to one of these on Christmas morning

Yeah, the C-16...one of most ill advised, shameless attempt at a cash-in in the history of computing; Basically take all that was good about the VIC-20 and C-64 and strip it away to make a "low cost" product that wasn't even compatible with the same joysticks.

As for the store clerk thing - believe it or not, your story is pretty much what happened to my dad back then - he had initially bought a Commodore 16 because it was newer, over the insistence of the store that he got a 64 instead. He interpreted the sales guy's stance as trying to sell him an older and more and expensive product.

The next day, he was chatting to a colleague who dabbled in computers as an hobby...who immediately told him the store guy was right, to bring back the C-16 and get a 64 instead.

Ah, I'm wondering if in 30 years time we'll be talking about the "nice guy at the store wearing a jumper 3 sizes too small"

Lemming · 15-11-2019 2:42pm

Very much a C64 fan; my experience would be close to H3llR4iser's only replace intention of father using the initial Vic-20 with older siblings more so. Cut my teeth with BASIC on the Vic-20 when I was about 6 or 7 in the mid 80s; and then some of my friends got C64s and I was enthralled by it. My dad eventually relented and we bought a C64 (mk.1 breadbin) second-hand with a metric ton of interesting stuff like a 1541 (mk.1) floppy disc drive (aka the big beige brick), printer, boxes full of pirated game discs, and a cartridge that could copy games and compress the load times to something silly like 10 seconds. I amassed a massive collection of games (legitimate before anyone comments .. ) over the next few years and never got tired of it. I had/have quite the impressive 'Hit Squad' tape collection, since budget games were for the most part all I could afford being a kid except for those lucky few moment like birthdays or christmas where I'd have enough to buy a new release game (like Creatures or Navy Seals at the time).

Still have it (albeit packed away in the family home) along with a second C64 (mk.II) I got given years later.

Eventually the Megadrive caught my eye (again thanks to friends) into the early 90s and I moved away from the C64 at that point for my teen years until moving to PCs. I never got into the SNES, I think on reflection due to my next door neighbour getting one and all he wanted to do was play Street Fighter 2 on it and lord over how much better he was than me (because he could play it all day unlike myself ... ). To this day I am not a fan of fighting games though I own quite a few including the aforementioned Street Fighter 2 ...

Stoner · 15-11-2019 6:54pm

CiDeRmAn wrote:

Only then, for Billy to awaken to one of these on Christmas morning

TBH I didn't even know these existed until I read about them here before.

I knew nobody with one (or a Vic 20)

There was an old ZX81 knocking around in my school, constantly being sold for 10 pounds

I still don't have one. I remember it was not great though.

I picked up a vic for free years later, all I can remember on the vic20 was a game called rats. The spectrum was a lot better

But still joystick ports and the better tape deck etc.

Lemming · 15-11-2019 6:59pm

Stoner wrote: »

I picked up a vic for free years later, all I can remember on the vic20 was a game called rats. The spectrum was a lot better

But still joystick ports and the better tape deck etc.

There was also a RAM expansion board you could get for the Vic-20 (plugged into the back via exposed contacts) that increased your RAM (16kb in the case of the one we had if I recall :pac: ). Some games needed available memory in excess of the whopping 5kb on-board the machine itself.

Tom Mann Centuria · 24-11-2019 8:47am

Stoner wrote: »

TBH I didn't even know these existed until I read about them here before.

I knew nobody with one (or a Vic 20)

There was an old ZX81 knocking around in my school, constantly being sold for 10 pounds

I still don't have one. I remember it was not great though.

The Zeddy is a fun little computer, it gave us Roman Empire, Football Manager first too (which may not be a good thing for some here!). There's also still stuff going on for it, you can add colour, sound, sd card loading and a joystick port. Saying that, you could spend twenty quid on a working zx81, then multiples of that buying all the accessories :pac:

There's also still games being made for it, if you get a chance google Dr Beep, (Johan Koelman) games. He has made over 60 games, playable on a 1k Zx81, and a lot of them are decent little time killers, or even just to marvel at man's achievement of getting playable games into 1k!

Stoner · 24-11-2019 7:01pm

Tom Mann Centuria wrote:

There's also still games being made for it, if you get a chance google Dr Beep, (Johan Koelman) games. He has made over 60 games, playable on a 1k Zx81, and a lot of them are decent little time killers, or even just to marvel at man's achievement of getting playable games into 1k!

I remember years ago getting the code for a 1 K game from Sinclair User.
Huge big deal at the time around getting it all done with so few resources.

There was an old paper mill in Stoneybatter

You kind of sneak/break into it and you'd find all sorts of paper for recycling

There was always loads of copies of Sinclair User, there were imperfect in some way, the issue date would be 2085 or something.

Was a great way to get content back then because we couldn't afford them as it was.

kenmm · 24-11-2019 7:50pm

o1s1n wrote: »

A while into it though I went back to the PS1 and it actually looked like someone had crept into my house at night and replaced my console with a different one. Couldn't believe how low the resolution was and how many jaggies there were!

Would always take a while for devs to get upto speed on what they could do on new hardware. Plus more game development time.

Launch titles were often a bit meh. Where as the out going generation had years of experience.

Dont know if that applies to a Lexus tho

KeRbDoG · 24-11-2019 8:53pm

H3llR4iser wrote: »

...
I'm probably going to be looking for a Spectrum soon - I never had one of these.

I might be able to help you when you are

H3llR4iser · 25-11-2019 5:50pm

KeRbDoG wrote: »

I might be able to help you when you are

Good to know! I need to go through a decluttering phase first - I usually take advantage of house moves to get rid of stuff I don't need / didn't even remember I had, but now I've been over 5 years in the same place.

But should I be looking...I'll shout out!

o1s1n wrote: »

It's a weird phenomena, isn't it?

I think the most jarring for me in that regard was the PS1 to PS2.

When the PS2 came out, for a while, I really thought the graphics weren't that much of a visual improvement. Metal Gear Solid 2 looked great, but it was just more of the same.

A while into it though I went back to the PS1 and it actually looked like someone had crept into my house at night and replaced my console with a different one. Couldn't believe how low the resolution was and how many jaggies there were!

kenmm wrote: »

Would always take a while for devs to get upto speed on what they could do on new hardware. Plus more game development time.

Launch titles were often a bit meh. Where as the out going generation had years of experience.

Dont know if that applies to a Lexus tho

Well..."early" 3D games age horribly, much, much, much worse than 2D games in fact - it's a well known thing. I've spent a bit of time restoring my PS2 back to life, installing an hard drive into it, configuring OPL and stuff...and I can't really play most of the games. Regardless of connection, using upscalers and whatnot...they're just a jagged, confused mess on modern screens. A small-ish CRT would alleviate the issue, but only partially (also, for whatever reason my specific console doesn't work in any video mode other than the native PAL/NTSC ones).

See an old Atari or Commodore game is blocky, but it is simple in nature and it was blocky to begin with. A SNES/MegaDrive game based on sprites can still look darn good if you use a decent upscaler, maybe some scanlines and a screen that's not too big (think about this - when these games were made, a 27 inch TV was MASSIVE).

Early 3D...nope. The problem is that the technology wasn't ready at all back then, adding the 3rd dimension meant a significant step back in terms of visual accuracy and detail - the "classic Lara" skin in the recent Tomb Raider being a tongue-in-cheek demonstration of that...but our 14 years old selves lapped it like it was pure honey because it was the "modern thing"

Retr0gamer · 25-11-2019 6:05pm

Think PS2 games have aged better than last gen stuff. Last gen just struggles with RAM issues and there was a total disregard for framerates. As digital foundry said, it was more a 20 FPS generation than a 30 FPS one. Some late PS3 games buck that trend somewhat.

At least on PS2 most games would run at a solid 30-60 FPS (with exceptions of course, GTA is horrendous).

Chris_Heilong · 25-11-2019 6:49pm

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Think PS2 games have aged better than last gen stuff. Last gen just struggles with RAM issues and there was a total disregard for framerates. As digital foundry said, it was more a 20 FPS generation than a 30 FPS one. Some late PS3 games buck that trend somewhat.

At least on PS2 most games would run at a solid 30-60 FPS (with exceptions of course, GTA is horrendous).

Thing that ages PS2 was the really bad aliasing IMO, always looked ugly even when the system was released and the fact that older systems like the dreamcast could do it better was embarrassing. They did fix the issue with later titles having some form of software antialiasing to get rid of the jaggies.

H3llR4iser · 25-11-2019 7:05pm

Chris_Heilong wrote: »

Thing that ages PS2 was the really bad aliasing IMO, always looked ugly even when the system was released and the fact that older systems like the dreamcast could do it better was embarrassing. They did fix the issue with later titles having some form of software antialiasing to get rid of the jaggies.

Problem is, the software antialiasing makes everything a blurry mess - which looked somewhat OK on CRT screens, but on the harsh pixel definition of LCD/HDTV shows all its "glory".

I really, really wanted to replay GTA Vice City, being a big fan of the '80s et all...loads...the familiar Miami Vice style cartoon loading screens...oh yeah, the intro, here's Tomm...HOLY MOTHER OF THE FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTER, WHAT HAPPENED TO HIS FACE? MY EYES!!!:eek::eek::eek:

CiDeRmAn · 25-11-2019 10:30pm

Personally I think I had serious rose tinted spex on with each gen as we lived through it.
From the amount of tripe released in every gen, the cheap cash ins, the ropey wannabe games that try to catch a trend.
Yet every console has a range of great games, bar the CDi which is sh1t through and through.

ShawnRaven · 27-11-2019 1:39pm

Long time lurker.

Gonna weigh in a bit here regarding the 8bits. I was an Amstrad guy, and a big one. Hell, I'm almost 44 and I still am, my CPC464 gets fired up on a regular basis. It's gotten a few modern add ons such as the M4 board to load from SD card and a Zmem (1MB memory expansion), but the games still have the playability they had some 30-35 years back.

Was never a fan of the Spectrum, being an Amstrad guy, a lot of our games suffered from horrible slow speccy ports due to systems sharing the same CPU, same sound chip (from the toastracks onwards anyway), etc. But when the CPC was used to it's full potential, it belted out some amazing games. Robocop, Chase HQ, Turrican 1 and 2, Batman - The Movie, Rainbow Islands, Gauntlet 1 and 2. I could go on and on.

When I got back into retro gaming after a long absence, I bought several model Amstrads (including the ill fated GX4000), as well as 2 Speccy's and a C64c (you can shove yer ugly bread bin!). Each have their strengths and weaknesses. The Speccy was colourless at best, but they probably have the fastest versions of a lot of the 8bit library at the time. Flying Shark is insanely fast on it, even if it is a colour clash mess.

The C64 I always felt was overrated. It had a great sound chip, but so what? It's palette was dull, brown, green, blue and grey for the most part, and was ugly as hell on the eyes in my honest opinion. But again, some amazing games for it. Armalyte is still a classic game and wipes the floor with The C64 version of R-Type. Outrun was an abomination on pretty much all formats but the C64 version was probably the best of a bad bunch. No forks in the road which was whole point of the game. As hyped up as the C64 was, it had some awful games too. Chase HQ is laughable on the C64 and the car moves more nervous than a deer in hunting season. I also found Target Renegade completely unplayable on it.

I'll end this on a complimentary note for the Amstrad, there were some recent remakes of games that really made use of the machines hardware potential. BB4CPC (Bubble Bobble remake), R-Type 128k, and more recently Pinball Dreams are well worth playing, although the latter doesn't play very well with emulation, you're better off checking it out on the machine itself.

Enjoyed reading this thread though. Brought up a lot of both 8 and 16bit memories. =D

Psychedelic Hedgehog · 27-11-2019 1:47pm

Speaking of lazy Spectrum ports, check out the MSX version of Gemini Wing.

Still has Sinclair/Kempston control options on the game menu

Stoner · 27-11-2019 7:24pm

kenmm wrote:

Dont know if that applies to a Lexus tho

I'll tell you back in 2000 I thought I was God in my new IS200 compared to my Astra

It's lost a bit of acceleration now though!!

It's retro next year.

Stoner · 27-11-2019 7:29pm

H3llR4iser wrote:

Well..."early" 3D games age horribly, much, much, much worse than 2D games in fact - it's a well known thing. .

True, Virtua fighter 1 on the Saturn looks like a Marsbar fighting a Snickers these days

Where as yie ar kung fu on the spectrum still has some charm.

ShawnRaven · 28-11-2019 11:26am

Stoner wrote: »

Where as yie ar kung fu on the spectrum still has some charm.

There's an "unreleased" 128k version of that which plays a lot smoother than the original 48k version and has all the music too if you weren't aware.

CiDeRmAn · 28-11-2019 3:16pm

Ultimately it was all about how invested the developers and publishers were in releasing a quality product, rather than a lazy cash-in.
I mean, Uridium on the Spectrum was not as great as the original on the C64 but it was testament to the developers squeezing impressive performance from the Sinclair machine.

ShawnRaven · 28-11-2019 4:01pm

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Ultimately it was all about how invested the developers and publishers were in releasing a quality product, rather than a lazy cash-in.
I mean, Uridium on the Spectrum was not as great as the original on the C64 but it was testament to the developers squeezing impressive performance from the Sinclair machine.

This bolded part hits the nail on the head. Many developers have said later on that they were given so little time to produce for both the Spectrum and the Amstrad. And because the Speccy had the head start, was the cheaper machine and sales were generally higher on that platform as a result of both, it was easier to port it over to the Amstrad, leaving the CPC with an inferior version of the same game.

Keith Goodyer was given something stupid like 2 weeks to deliver R-Type in time for Christmas 1988. Software Houses were uber demanding back in those days, and the programmers had to make business decisions.

Tom Mann Centuria · 29-11-2019 12:52am

ShawnRaven wrote: »

This bolded part hits the nail on the head. Many developers have said later on that they were given so little time to produce for both the Spectrum and the Amstrad. And because the Speccy had the head start, was the cheaper machine and sales were generally higher on that platform as a result of both, it was easier to port it over to the Amstrad, leaving the CPC with an inferior version of the same game.

Watching some of the (mostly UK based) 8 bit computer you tubers doing comparisons between the main players versions of games, it's interesting seeing such variance in how well they play, not just how they looked or sounded. I never really saw much Amstrad stuff until recent years. I'd only ever owned Speccys and played on my mates breadbin, but a good Amstrad game does seem to hit the sweet spot. Alan Sugar is still a w@nker though.

Boring fact, the Oliver Twins (of Dizzy "fame") often seen as flag bearers for the Spectrum did all their work on Amstrad machines then ported to the Spectrum. On a documentary about Spectrums I backed on kick starter they were pretty nonplussed about the little Sinclair machine.

CiDeRmAn · 29-11-2019 12:36pm

The time spent on delivering great games to limited consoles is a tribute to those teams,
A couple on the NES/Famicom would be
Super Spyhunter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqZKLNaYIiw

and
Parodius

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfAdImidVM4

ShawnRaven · 29-11-2019 5:01pm

Tom Mann Centuria wrote: »

Watching some of the (mostly UK based) 8 bit computer you tubers doing comparisons between the main players versions of games, it's interesting seeing such variance in how well they play, not just how they looked or sounded. I never really saw much Amstrad stuff until recent years. I'd only ever owned Speccys and played on my mates breadbin, but a good Amstrad game does seem to hit the sweet spot. Alan Sugar is still a w@nker though.

I'm gonna sound biased as an Amstrad guy but I was always interested in how other versions of the same games played especially growing up reading C+VG in the 80s. But the Amstrad was always an under-rated machine, generally treated like a red headed stepchild for being the last one on the scene. Gryzor is another interesting comparison too. The Spectrum version was awkward to play, but had some nice examples of scrolling. Gryzor had zero scrolling on the Amstrad, but it looked and played a lot more faithful to the arcade. Swings and roundabouts.

Boring fact, the Oliver Twins (of Dizzy "fame") often seen as flag bearers for the Spectrum did all their work on Amstrad machines then ported to the Spectrum. On a documentary about Spectrums I backed on kick starter they were pretty nonplussed about the little Sinclair machine.

From what I remember from their book, they actually started off on a BBC B, so when they moved on, the rubber keyed Speccy just wasn't going to cut it because they were so used to a real keyboard. Worst thing they ever did to the Dizzy series was hand it over to Big Red, but I don't think they had much a hand in that, that was a Codies move and the Olivers relationships with the Darlings was strained at best by that time.

CiDeRmAn · 29-11-2019 6:35pm

Ultimately the Spectrum was a dated machine on release, but it did democratise the gaming scene in the home.
The other devices on the market were expensive, certainly in the UK and Ireland, but the Spectrum was an affordable pathway to home gaming for many working class families.
The Playstation, marketing genius aside, kinda hitched a ride on a similar wave, with a relatively affordable and available console, compared to the offerings from Sega, Nintendo and 3DO at the time.

Retr0gamer · 29-11-2019 6:56pm

But the spectrum was a piece of ****e even at release while the playstation was a well designed marvel and a very powerful machine. Good design brought the price down. Sony undercut the Saturn at a massive loss to themselves as they knew in future iterations they could reduce the cost of the system by reducing the number of chips while the Saturn was hampered by off the shelf parts that screwed them over as they had no hand in the manufacture (and Nintendo shot themselves in the foot with a late console and poor third party treatment)

Tom Mann Centuria · 29-11-2019 7:08pm

ShawnRaven wrote: »

From what I remember from their book, they actually started off on a BBC B, so when they moved on, the rubber keyed Speccy just wasn't going to cut it because they were so used to a real keyboard. Worst thing they ever did to the Dizzy series was hand it over to Big Red, but I don't think they had much a hand in that, that was a Codies move and the Olivers relationships with the Darlings was strained at best by that time.

The Amstrad was long, so very, very long!

I was never a big fan of the egg! Preferred the Magic Knight series of fetch and deliver (not that that particularly genre would be my first choice in game style).

ShawnRaven · 30-11-2019 6:46pm

I actually can't believe the Speccy is being compared to a Playstation. Very different times. The Speccy came out at a time when the UK (and Ireland) was struggling coming out of a very bad economic downturn. A lot of people were flat broke, even working two jobs when the Speccy was at it's height of Popularity between 83-86!

Was it a great machine? Oh God no, but the market for affordable computers was there. Clive Sinclair jumped on that money train whereas Alan Sugar missed it by a country mile. Of course, Sugar ended up hijacking that same proverbial train before it went off the rails with Sinclair driving the thing by buying Clive out in 1986 for a cool £5m.

Tom Mann Centuria wrote: »

The Amstrad was long, so very, very long!

The CPC464 was, yeah. Sturdy bastard of a thing too. Amstrad did bring the length down a bit with the release of the CPC664, and subsequent CPC6128 in 1985 though.

I was never a big fan of the egg! Preferred the Magic Knight series of fetch and deliver (not that that particularly genre would be my first choice in game style).

The Dizzy series is an acquired taste. I know loads of people who cannot stand it. It was a perfect match for me as someone who liked platformers and arcade adventure (text adventures bored me stupid)

old loyalties, reconsideration.

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