Most Technically impressive Amiga game
Angus Manwaring
So, what was the most technically impressive Amiga game?
First of all, this is largely going to be down to people's impressions,
because speaking for myself, I don't actually know the difference between
a hugely impressive technical achievement is, and a merely spectacular
effect.
But anyway......
I kind of think Elfmania should probably be in the running, as it had so
many sparkly touches, it ran at a decent pace, and was ECS. Certainly a
joy to behold in any case.
Another game that comes to mind (maybe I'm completely wrong here) is Black
Crypt, by Raven Software. 32 colours I believe providing lovely graphics,
very responsive and lots of cool visual effects for spells, transporters
etc. Yummy.
David Braben's Virus, converted from the Archimedes RISC machines, albeit
with somewhat scaled down visuals, running as well as it did on an A500
with all those hills, valleys, lakes and alien ships to organise must
surely be a contender.
Am I talking rubbish? Any additions?
All the best,
Angus Manwaring. (for e-mail remove ANTISPEM)
I need your memories for the Amiga Games Database: A collection of Amiga
Game reviews by Amiga players http://www.angusm.demon.co.uk/AGDB/AGDB.html
Tommy Stenberg
"Angus Manwaring" <angus@angusm_ANTISPEM_.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:1250.982T2015T5935854angus@angusm_ANTISPEM_.demon.co.uk...
>
> So, what was the most technically impressive Amiga game?
>
> First of all, this is largely going to be down to people's impressions,
> because speaking for myself, I don't actually know the difference between
> a hugely impressive technical achievement is, and a merely spectacular
> effect.
>
> But anyway......
>
> I kind of think Elfmania should probably be in the running, as it had so
> many sparkly touches, it ran at a decent pace, and was ECS. Certainly a
> joy to behold in any case.
>
> Another game that comes to mind (maybe I'm completely wrong here) is Black
> Crypt, by Raven Software. 32 colours I believe providing lovely graphics,
> very responsive and lots of cool visual effects for spells, transporters
> etc. Yummy.
>
> David Braben's Virus, converted from the Archimedes RISC machines, albeit
> with somewhat scaled down visuals, running as well as it did on an A500
> with all those hills, valleys, lakes and alien ships to organise must
> surely be a contender.
>
> Am I talking rubbish? Any additions?
>
Another World? It's kinda impressive, but I guess it's only artistically
impressive. Flashback however, is a very very beautiful game. Nick Faldo's
Golf is one of the best looking golf games on the amiga, and that includes
the AGA version of PGA European Tour.
Tommy
Seppo
>
> So, what was the most technically impressive Amiga game?
If we are going to look only the technical merits (and not necessary
the gameplay) then "Shadow Of The Beast" by Psygnosis is a real
contender. That smooth multi level scrolling really dropped jaws
when appeared to Amiga monitor screens.
Also "Frontier - Elite II" by David Braben managed to impress big
time - cramming a whole universe (and a decent game) into a
single DD floppy was a real feast technically.
Seeing "F-19 Stealth Fighter" by MicroProse running full speed on
A500 (you needed a (then) powerful 386 PC machine for same effect)
was something that made Amiga armchair pilots really proud. I
remember flying low over cities in Europe, wondering how the
programmers managed to make all that wonderful detailed gfx
move so smoothly on Miggy. Something to show to your PC owning
buddies back then :-)
Formula One Grand Prix. When I first saw the screen shots (featuring
VERY detailed Monaco track) I thought "this is going to be slow on
A500".
How utterly wrong I was. Geoff "Stunt Car Racer" Crammond really outdid
himself and made Amiga do tricks with vector graphics that I thought
were
not possible.
Also games like "The Shadow of the 3rd Moon" by Black Blade
(beautiful and fast voxel gfx engine) and VirtualGP from Paolo Cattani
(frighteningly realistic texture mapped F1 sim, so realistic it is
almost
unplayable for novice players) would get honorary mentions from
yours truly.
But if I had to mention just one game, that would deserve the title it
would
be SWIV by Sales Curve. Lots of objects can be blown to pieces without
any
slowdowns and game loading system allows continuous playing as levels
are loaded in the background, so player feels like he is playing just
one
enormously big level. Beautiful graphics with lots of wonderful
details, and those
superb sound effects....simply amazing. The way game monitors the
player's
progress and adjusts its difficulty level is propably the most
astonishing
technical feature. And to cap it all, all this only on a single DD
floppy...
Seppo
Mike
graphical machine.
Would add:
- Syndicate and Flashback for gameplay.
- Another World for graphics
- The Myst conversion (which allowed me to finally finish the game!)
Mike Clark
Tommy Stenberg
shouldn't it? I mean, the animation and graphics in that one are among the
best I've seen on the A500.
Tommy
Hidehiko Ogata
> So, what was the most technically impressive Amiga game?
>
> First of all, this is largely going to be down to people's impressions,
> because speaking for myself, I don't actually know the difference
> between a hugely impressive technical achievement is, and a merely
> spectacular effect.
Um, yeah... I guess, today, we tend to measure them on an absolute
scale, so obviously later releases, with deeper knowledge of hardware
intricacy, win out - Braybrook stuff for example (Uridium2, Fire&Ice).
Yet I have fond memories of early breakthroughs as well: the visual/
aural harmony of Mind Walker was totally out of this world, and so was
Jim Sachs' artwork in Defender of the Crown.
As much as I enjoyed Dungeon Master, I had a hard time supressing the
nagging feeling that it was "just" a ST port in stereo :).
The first Xenon was probably the first game "with an attitude" I've
seen. I knew it was a ripoff (the arcade original of which slips my
mind), yet it was so upbeat and FUN.
I was not too familiar with the demo scene, so Hybris hit me really out
of the blue ("whoa, where did these guys come from?")
I've lost count how many times I drooled over the demo version of
Interceptor (must have been one of the most eagerly-awaited titles
ever).
I rackon Ami was the only home micro that could implement Sword of Sodan
with over-the-top sprite size and decent speed (just don't mention
gameplay ;).
To have a whole solar system on just one disk was phenomenally cool in
Starglider2 - shame we don't see such an open game design today.
Rocket Ranger may have been technically tame, but everything seemed to
click, to become the first wholesome Cinemaware.
Watching the boot (and infamous death) sequence of Shadow of the Beast
had become almost an Amigan ritual in a shop I used to frequent.
Also, I have a soft spot for 8-bittish pixel perfection: Aunt Arctic
Adventure, Datastorm, Benefactor come to mind. Lemmings as I recall was
a bit more in-your-face in its time ("look how many bobs we can push
around while playing tracker tunes!")
As empty as Frontier's space may be, I admire its daring attempt to put
the whole universe (multiverse?) on one disk (okay, I'm a sucker for
spacey stuff).
--
// }{idehiko ()gata "I hope I didn't hurt you too much
\X/ Amiga since '86 when I killed you..." - Elmer Fudd
bekkoame is a classic Japanese candybar.
Strategy Gamer
> So, what was the most technically impressive Amiga game?
Firstly let me say that I am NOT considering games which require an
add-on gfx card or add-on sound card. All responders to this thread
listed only native chipset games and so will I.
I would have to say that
Total Chaos AGA: Battle at the Frontier of Time
is far and away the most technically impressive Amiga game of all time.
Here is why:
1. Total Chaos is the ONLY Amiga game to use the AGA chipset 640x512
resolution in 256 colors WITH ANIMATION.
There is only 1 other game I have ever found for the A1200 that runs in
640x512 res with 256 or more colors but it is a simple card game and
has NO animation and its screen updates were much slower than Total
Chaos even though it had no anims to update and no LOS to calculate and
no music to play.
There are a few other games that may be user selected to "run" (crawl)
in 640x512x256 gfx mode but they become agonizingly slow and unplayable
in that mode, while Total Chaos is fun and responsive.
The vast majority of Amiga games run in 320x256 with 32 or 64 or 128 or
256 colors. That is they display only 1/4th to 1/32nd the amount of
gfx information that Total Chaos does.
2. Total Chaos displays a maximum of 272 colors on screen at once using
AmigaOS 3.x Parent/Child screens.
3. Total Chaos is the only game known to make use of Parent/Child
screens for maximum AGA speed and fancy fx, even though Parent/Child
screens have been a standard part of AmigaOS since 1992. I guess all
the other game developers fell asleep or never RTFM. :)
3. Total Chaos displays up to 238 animated bobs on the screen at once
which is rather insane.
4. Total Chaos bobs typically have 7-50 frames of animation while 99%
of all other Amiga games use only 3-5 frames of animation. And there
are many hundreds if not thousands of animated bobs in the game. I
can't count them all but I can see that the developers must have really
loved their work to hand draw so many intricicately detailed anims.
5. Total Chaos has 50 fps realtime raytracing LOS (Line Of Sight)
display. It is a real joy to press and hold the 'L' key over some
monster and watch his LOS change in realtime according to the wildly
complicated on board animated monsters, slimes, plants and so forth.
Total Chaos is the ONLY game on ANY platform known to have this
feature.
6. Total Chaos features a fully customizable sound fx system so that
you can easily change/replace/delete/upgrade/enhance any sound effect
in the game. I replaced the attack sound of the Harpy with a recording
of my annoying exwife griping and whining. :)
7. Total Chaos features a fully customizable music system so that you
can easily change/replace/delete/upgrade/enhance any of the stunningly
good musical scores in the game. Technically the game clearly pushes
the Paula chip to its limits.
8. Total Chaos features a fully customizable animation system so that
anyone can put their own selfmade gfx/anims into the game. I haven't
actually tried this feature yet but I have heard on IRC that it is
quite nice and professional.
9. IMHO Total Chaos has the best gameplay of any turn based strategy
game or collectible card game on any platform ever. Nothing else even
comes close. And I have played MANY strategy games on Amiga and PC.
I have been playing this damn game for 10+ years and it still hasn't
become boring.
10. AFAIK Total Chaos has the largest and most useful set of gameplay
options of any Amiga game ever. This fantastically increases the
replay value and allows you to tune the game toward your own personal
style of play.
11. Total Chaos is the only Amiga game I have ever seen that has
animation inside the drop down Intuition(tm) menus.
12. Total Chaos is, in fact, so technically impressive that NO PC can
emulate it via UAE at the full speed of a real 50 Mhz Amiga.
Total Chaos clearly drives the AGA chipset, Paula DSP sound chip and
Motorola CPU to its maximum limits. Chipsets from 1992 are NOT
supposed to capable of technical feats such as this!
All hail the Amiga!
Tommy Stenberg
"Strategy Gamer" <Strategy...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1115301560....@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
Just one question. WHERE CAN I GET THIS GAME? I need to see that one.
Tommy
Tommy Stenberg
"Tommy Stenberg" <nobod...@dont.exist> wrote in message
news:a1qee.1422$Fe7....@news000.worldonline.dk...
Just found out it's a freeware game, available on aminet. This sounds very
interesting. Unpacking right now.
Tommy
Strategy Gamer
> Just one question. WHERE CAN I GET THIS GAME? I need to see that one.
The OFFICIAL website maintained by the programmer died many years ago.
:(
Fortunately for us there are several fansites dedicated to the game
with various levels of uptodatedness where you can download the game,
see screenshots, etc.
Portugal fansite #1 (often down)
http://totalchaos-aga.sytes.net/
Portugal fansite #2 (a bit disorganized and has popup ads so use
Firefox)
http://totalchaos.web.pt/
French fansite #1 (often slow but sometimes works)
http://xavprods.free.fr/chaos/index.html
If none of those works for you then I will hunt down the others.
There is also a SECRET site that is only for high level wizards but I
don't know the URL. :( Does anyone know it?
Please please tell me!!
WARNING: This is NOT a mindless action game. This game is controlled
with mouse not joystick. If you are looking for a platform game then
DO NOT DOWNLOAD THIS GAME!
Tommy Stenberg
I tried the game. Brilliant indeed! I will have to get my little brother
over here, this looks like a very very good 2-player game - or more.
Tommy
Strategy Gamer
Its great as a 2 player or 1 player or any number of players game, The
most we have done is 5 which was a TOTAL BLAST!!! I can see why its
called Total Chaos. :)
I love to play the game with my brother. We set generators to 13 and
then see how long we can survive before dying. Lots of strategy and
comeraderie!
Since you are a newb I would like to suggest to you that you turn off
all enemy wizards and just play against the default 4 monster
generators. The enemy cpu wizards are dastardly bastards... or
bastardly dastards, I can never remember which :) ... anyhow they are
annoying to newbs because they cast powerful magic spells that ruin all
your hopes of winning.
Of course an experienced high level MegaMage such as myself :^D has no
trouble dispatching any number of cpu wizards. ;)
Seppo
> Angus Manwaring wrote:
> > So, what was the most technically impressive Amiga game?
>
> Firstly let me say that I am NOT considering games which require an
> add-on gfx card or add-on sound card. All responders to this thread
> listed only native chipset games and so will I.
>
> I would have to say that
> Total Chaos AGA: Battle at the Frontier of Time
> is far and away the most technically impressive Amiga game of all time.
>
> Here is why:
-- snip snip--
Ok, you got me interested :-)
Just downloaded the game from Aminet (all 35 MB of it) and will have
a closer look during the weekend. The screenshots look very promising
indeed!
Cheers,
Seppo
Strategy Gamer
Seppo wrote:
> On 5 May 2005 06:59:20 -0700, "Strategy Gamer" wrote:
>
> > Angus Manwaring wrote:
> > > So, what was the most technically impressive Amiga game?
> >
> > Firstly let me say that I am NOT considering games which require an
> > add-on gfx card or add-on sound card. All responders to this
thread
> > listed only native chipset games and so will I.
> >
> > I would have to say that
> > Total Chaos AGA: Battle at the Frontier of Time
> > is far and away the most technically impressive Amiga game of all
time.
> >
> > Here is why:
> -- snip snip--
>
> Ok, you got me interested :-)
>
> Just downloaded the game from Aminet (all 35 MB of it
35 MB?!? It -was- 30!
I reckon it must have put on some weight over the holidays. ;)
>) and will have
> a closer look during the weekend. The screenshots look very promising
> indeed!
Please keep in mind that it is an original game, rather unlike anything
you have likely ever played before. But I have found that if you think
of it as a board game or card game then it all makes sense and is very
easy.
1. Play a card from your hand.
2. Discard a card if that option was enabled.
3. Move your monsters around, attack enemy monsters, eat the dead ones,
run away, heal up, yadayada
Repeat until someone wins. :)
See what a simple game this is? :^D
Tommy Stenberg
The rules are simple, but it can be SOOOOO deep. At least, that's the
impression I got.
Tommy
Hidehiko Ogata
> Just one question. WHERE CAN I GET THIS GAME? I need to see that one.
Whoa, guys! Hate to be nitpicky, but please do snip more aggressively.
You need not quote the entire 100 lines to ask just one-line question.
Angus Manwaring
>Angus-san wrote:
>> So, what was the most technically impressive Amiga game?
>>
>> First of all, this is largely going to be down to people's impressions,
>> because speaking for myself, I don't actually know the difference
>> between a hugely impressive technical achievement is, and a merely
>> spectacular effect.
>Um, yeah... I guess, today, we tend to measure them on an absolute
>scale, so obviously later releases, with deeper knowledge of hardware
>intricacy, win out - Braybrook stuff for example (Uridium2, Fire&Ice).
Good point..... I don't think we should exclude games because of when they
were written at the current know-how of that period.
Now you've got me trying to think of the early technically impressive
games on the Amiga..... hmmmm....... Marble Madness? The original
Straglider, I bet Jez San did some pioneering work there...
>As much as I enjoyed Dungeon Master, I had a hard time supressing the
>nagging feeling that it was "just" a ST port in stereo :).
But if that's all it was.... it was still a great game. I'm currently
looking into ways of emulating a game called Sundog on the Amiga, also
from FTL.
>Rocket Ranger may have been technically tame, but everything seemed to
>click, to become the first wholesome Cinemaware.
What was the technique they used where you had the animation of the guy
flying, semi-transparently against the globe...? That always impressed me.
Angus Manwaring
>I almost forgot. Moonstone should be considered a technical achievement,
>shouldn't it? I mean, the animation and graphics in that one are among the
>best I've seen on the A500.
Do you think so, Tommy? Certainly a great game in my view, and very
competently done, but I hadn't thought of it as particuarly impressive on
a technical perspective.
But as I said, I wouldn't really know. Certainly the game seems to fetch
large sums on Ebay. :)
Angus Manwaring
>On 1 May 2005 9:53:40 +0000, "Angus Manwaring" wrote:
>>
>> So, what was the most technically impressive Amiga game?
>Seeing "F-19 Stealth Fighter" by MicroProse running full speed on
>A500 (you needed a (then) powerful 386 PC machine for same effect)
>was something that made Amiga armchair pilots really proud. I
>remember flying low over cities in Europe, wondering how the
>programmers managed to make all that wonderful detailed gfx
>move so smoothly on Miggy. Something to show to your PC owning
>buddies back then :-)
Good point - arguably Gunship 2000 (another Microprose title) also
deserves a mention for the framerate and general detail in the game even
on a 500..... We'll forget about Dogfight, shall we? :)
>Also games like "The Shadow of the 3rd Moon" by Black Blade
>(beautiful and fast voxel gfx engine)
That's an interesting one.... I've got the game round here somewhere, but
its another saved for a rainy day. I just checked the AGDB, it has a
positive review but just a short one with very few details... hmmmmm....
any chance? ;)
Heikki Orsila
> So, what was the most technically impressive Amiga game?
> First of all, this is largely going to be down to people's impressions,
> because speaking for myself, I don't actually know the difference between
> a hugely impressive technical achievement is, and a merely spectacular
> effect.
> I kind of think Elfmania should probably be in the running, as it had so
> many sparkly touches, it ran at a decent pace, and was ECS. Certainly a
> joy to behold in any case.
Not on my list. Usually the game logic is not very complicated when there
aren't many moving objects in the virtual world. Elfmania has only few. Imo,
mortal kombat 2 is more interesting because they tried to fit as much
graphics as possible into memory.
> David Braben's Virus, converted from the Archimedes RISC machines, albeit
> with somewhat scaled down visuals, running as well as it did on an A500
> with all those hills, valleys, lakes and alien ships to organise must
> surely be a contender.
Virus is very nice, partly due to being implemented in 1980s for Amiga.
Technical standards for games were higher in 1990s.
Looking AGDB, I would list some titles I like in technical sense:
# Another World, Flashback, Prince of Persia (good animation and control)
# Civilization, Colonization (lots of logics)
# F/A-18 Interceptor (the virtual world was implemented so early in
Amiga history that it deserves credit)
# Frontier (very complex logic, extensive virtual world, but also very
buggy ;-)
# Hunter (very nice vector graphics coding imo, because the world is
actually simulated in real-time, but graphics is drawn on screen with
best-effort policy. thus graphics becomes smoother but not faster on
faster machines. most games, like virus and warhead, fail to do this)
# Lotus Turbo Challenge (one of the few car games that had _depth_ of
vision, imo)
# North and South (lots of well working stuff built inside)
# Pinball Dreams (physics integrated well with playing)
# Settlers (lots of logic)
# Stardust (very fast graphics)
# Starglider 2 (another well done virtual world)
# Stunt Car Racer (physics and 3d just 0wnz here)
# Superfrog (techically best platform jumping game i can now think of)
# Turboraketti II (best shoot-em-up physics)
# UFO (so much stuff in the package)
Sadly I can't say Warhead is technically excellent even if it is very good
in so many aspects (playability, atmosphere, missions and graphics).
Still, it's an ingenious combination of stuff technical stuff (space physics /
control that makes sense, bobs/sprites are used well, and then there is a
nice vector engine that fills polygons, and finally the mission engine is
rather elegant piece of assembler code. not very many lines of code per
mission).
--
Heikki Orsila Barbie's law:
heikki...@iki.fi "Math is hard, let's go shopping!"
http://www.iki.fi/shd
Simon
> # Hunter (very nice vector graphics coding imo, because the world is
> actually simulated in real-time, but graphics is drawn on screen with
> best-effort policy. thus graphics becomes smoother but not faster on
> faster machines. most games, like virus and warhead, fail to do this)
You forgot Damocles and Mercenary III !
(ok, ok, I go back to sleep ;-)
Seriously though, those games had a whole solar system in 3D. Maybe not
the smoothest animation, but technically impressive on such a machine IMO.
Simon
Heikki Orsila
> You forgot Damocles and Mercenary III !
Ah.. I never played them.. :(
Andreas Eibach
"Heikki Orsila" <us...@host.invalid> wrote:
> Looking AGDB, I would list some titles I like in technical sense:
>
> # Another World, Flashback, Prince of Persia (good animation and control)
> # Civilization, Colonization (lots of logics)
> # F/A-18 Interceptor (the virtual world was implemented so early in
> Amiga history that it deserves credit)
> # Frontier (very complex logic, extensive virtual world, but also very
> buggy ;-)
> # Hunter (very nice vector graphics coding imo, because the world is
> actually simulated in real-time, but graphics is drawn on screen with
> best-effort policy. thus graphics becomes smoother but not faster on
> faster machines. most games, like virus and warhead, fail to do this)
> # Lotus Turbo Challenge (one of the few car games that had _depth_ of
> vision, imo)
> # North and South (lots of well working stuff built inside)
> # Pinball Dreams (physics integrated well with playing)
> # Settlers (lots of logic)
> # Stardust (very fast graphics)
> # Starglider 2 (another well done virtual world)
> # Stunt Car Racer (physics and 3d just 0wnz here)
Phh. I'd always found the game OK, never top-notch, nor could I understand
all the hype about it.
I reckon that horrible engine sound was the downer for me.
This thing had always given a sound like my mom's old food processor. :P
Oweeeeeeeeeeeeee----oooow.
> # Superfrog (techically best platform jumping game i can now think of)
> # Turboraketti II (best shoot-em-up physics)
> # UFO (so much stuff in the package)
For virtual worlds, you may also name No Second Prize with his amazing
vector graphics.
(Whereas some people are not into vector stuff at all as I've found. :)
And guys...what about the two famous L's...Lionheart and Leander?
At least Lionheart pushed the good ol' 500 to his limits.
BRAT is also technically impressive in some way; not just a helluva fun, but
you really feel "inside".
Those "camera" techniques (incl. various zooms back and forth) give a very
realistic feeling (and sometimes make the game hard as hell).
-Andreas
Hidehiko Ogata
> Now you've got me trying to think of the early technically impressive
> games on the Amiga..... hmmmm....... Marble Madness?
Yeah! Must have been the most faithful arcade conversion back then.
Ouch! My palm! My palm! :)
> I'm currently
> looking into ways of emulating a game called Sundog on the Amiga, also
> from FTL.
The original AppleII version, or the ST port? Watching a gooey game on
humble II was darned technically impressive... don't know how the 16bit
version turned out.
> >Rocket Ranger may have been technically tame, but everything seemed to
> >click, to become the first wholesome Cinemaware.
>
> What was the technique they used where you had the animation of the guy
> flying, semi-transparently against the globe...? That always impressed me.
Half-bright, in Amigan term... although it can be done in fewer
bitplanes with proper palette arrangement. I wonder how many colors
RR had?
Odd that few Amigan titles seem to utilize the technique... SNES had
plenty of those (which also had a hardware support for it).
Seppo
> On 02-May-05 20:20:02, Seppo said
> >On 1 May 2005 9:53:40 +0000, "Angus Manwaring" wrote:
>
> >>
> >> So, what was the most technically impressive Amiga game?
>
>
> >Seeing "F-19 Stealth Fighter" by MicroProse running full speed on
> >A500 (you needed a (then) powerful 386 PC machine for same effect)
> >was something that made Amiga armchair pilots really proud. I
> >remember flying low over cities in Europe, wondering how the
> >programmers managed to make all that wonderful detailed gfx
> >move so smoothly on Miggy. Something to show to your PC owning
> >buddies back then :-)
>
> Good point - arguably Gunship 2000 (another Microprose title) also
> deserves a mention for the framerate and general detail in the game even
> on a 500.....
Agreed. I love the way you can use the terrain as a cover in that sim -
and going into
railway tunnel and waiting for a train to come... :)
>We'll forget about Dogfight, shall we? :)
No. We need to remember the failures as well as successes - besides,
technically
Dogfight was not so bad...I'll get my coat then... ;)
> >Also games like "The Shadow of the 3rd Moon" by Black Blade
> >(beautiful and fast voxel gfx engine)
>
> That's an interesting one.... I've got the game round here somewhere, but
> its another saved for a rainy day. I just checked the AGDB, it has a
> positive review but just a short one with very few details... hmmmmm....
> any chance? ;)
You mean a AGDB review? Have to dust of my copy and refresh my memories
first, so do not expect anything soon. But you could do yourself a
favour and try
the game yourself...I think you'll like it :)
Cheers,
Seppo
Angus Manwaring
>On 8 May 2005 14:15:51 +0000, "Angus Manwaring" wrote:
>> On 02-May-05 20:20:02, Seppo said
>> >On 1 May 2005 9:53:40 +0000, "Angus Manwaring" wrote:
>>
>>
>> Good point - arguably Gunship 2000 (another Microprose title) also
>> deserves a mention for the framerate and general detail in the game even
>> on a 500.....
>Agreed. I love the way you can use the terrain as a cover in that sim -
>and going into
>railway tunnel and waiting for a train to come... :)
Not very sportsman like to fire on an unarmed train...... sorry, being
watching Blade Runner again. :)
>>We'll forget about Dogfight, shall we? :)
>No. We need to remember the failures as well as successes - besides,
>technically
>Dogfight was not so bad...I'll get my coat then... ;)
Its on the hook by the door! :)
Microprose were odd in that some of their titles were pretty weak
conversions of C64 games, albeit still good games, some were just a bit
poor, and occasionally they were great.
>> >Also games like "The Shadow of the 3rd Moon" by Black Blade
>> >(beautiful and fast voxel gfx engine)
>>
>> That's an interesting one.... I've got the game round here somewhere, but
>> its another saved for a rainy day. I just checked the AGDB, it has a
>> positive review but just a short one with very few details... hmmmmm....
>> any chance? ;)
>You mean a AGDB review? Have to dust of my copy and refresh my memories
>first, so do not expect anything soon.
That would be great, if you can manage it Seppo. I would certainly look
forward to reading it.
Anybody wanna do Carrier Command? :) I've done it, but as sure as egges
are eggs the game deserves a second review.
I would almost say Carrier Command as a being technically very impressive
in its day. The 3D certainly seemed smoother and more repsonsive than
anything else around at the time.
>But you could do yourself a
>favour and try
>the game yourself...I think you'll like it :)
It will happen. :)
Angus Manwaring
>Angus-san wrote:
>> Now you've got me trying to think of the early technically impressive
>> games on the Amiga..... hmmmm....... Marble Madness?
>Yeah! Must have been the most faithful arcade conversion back then.
>Ouch! My palm! My palm! :)
>> I'm currently
>> looking into ways of emulating a game called Sundog on the Amiga, also
>> from FTL.
>The original AppleII version, or the ST port? Watching a gooey game on
>humble II was darned technically impressive... don't know how the 16bit
>version turned out.
Supposedly even better. It seems to have some serious cult following on
the web.
>> >Rocket Ranger may have been technically tame, but everything seemed to
>> >click, to become the first wholesome Cinemaware.
>>
>> What was the technique they used where you had the animation of the guy
>> flying, semi-transparently against the globe...? That always impressed me.
>Half-bright, in Amigan term... although it can be done in fewer
>bitplanes with proper palette arrangement. I wonder how many colors
>RR had?
I don't know, but they were mostly bright and bold. :)
>Odd that few Amigan titles seem to utilize the technique... SNES had
>plenty of those (which also had a hardware support for it).
Would bit be to do with more available memory on a cartridge?
Angus Manwaring
>Angus Manwaring <angus@angusm_antispem_.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> So, what was the most technically impressive Amiga game?
>Not on my list. Usually the game logic is not very complicated when there
>aren't many moving objects in the virtual world. Elfmania has only few. Imo,
>mortal kombat 2 is more interesting because they tried to fit as much
>graphics as possible into memory.
I accept what you say, Elfmania _looks_ damned impressive though. :)
>> David Braben's Virus, converted from the Archimedes RISC machines, albeit
>> with somewhat scaled down visuals, running as well as it did on an A500
>> with all those hills, valleys, lakes and alien ships to organise must
>> surely be a contender.
>Virus is very nice, partly due to being implemented in 1980s for Amiga.
>Technical standards for games were higher in 1990s.
Generalisation! :) Isnt that just progress though, without the guys
making mistakes and finding out new techniques in the eighties, the guys
in nineties would have had things a lot harder?
>Looking AGDB, I would list some titles I like in technical sense:
> # Hunter (very nice vector graphics coding imo, because the world is
> actually simulated in real-time, but graphics is drawn on screen with
> best-effort policy. thus graphics becomes smoother but not faster on
> faster machines. most games, like virus and warhead, fail to do this)
> # Lotus Turbo Challenge (one of the few car games that had _depth_ of
> vision, imo)
How do you mean, Heikki? You mean like 3D depth?
> # UFO (so much stuff in the package)
But not optimised as much as possible for the Amiga by the coder's own
admission - they just didn't have time apparently. There is quite a delay
on larger levels when clicking on destinations for the characters even on
an 060, and there are some bugs too, not least the sneaky peak you get of
other aliens sometimes during an alien's move. Brilliant game though. I
love it.
>Sadly I can't say Warhead is technically excellent even if it is very good
>in so many aspects (playability, atmosphere, missions and graphics).
>Still, it's an ingenious combination of stuff technical stuff (space physics
>/ control that makes sense, bobs/sprites are used well, and then there is a
>nice vector engine that fills polygons, and finally the mission engine is
>rather elegant piece of assembler code. not very many lines of code per
>mission).
Interesting..... how about our old favourite? CyberCon 3. :) I do'nt
recall seeing 3D interiors of the same scope before that game, was the
coding fairly advanced for its day?
Heikki Orsila
>>Virus is very nice, partly due to being implemented in 1980s for Amiga.
>>Technical standards for games were higher in 1990s.
> Generalisation! :) Isnt that just progress though, without the guys
> making mistakes and finding out new techniques in the eighties, the guys
> in nineties would have had things a lot harder?
Certainly, but usually the contest gets even harder when a platform has more
mature culture. And that's because the initial knowledge / skill level
required to be a pro has grown. Look at consoles and PC games these days,
the level of complexity is _huge_ compared to what it was 10 years before.
They really need to hire excellent people to pull that stuff. In 1980s only
a few guys and motivation was required.
>> # Lotus Turbo Challenge (one of the few car games that had _depth_ of
>> vision, imo)
> How do you mean, Heikki? You mean like 3D depth?
Yes. I remember the road was awesome in downhill when the bottom of the
hill was getting closer :-)
>> # UFO (so much stuff in the package)
> But not optimised as much as possible for the Amiga by the coder's own
> admission - they just didn't have time apparently. There is quite a delay
> on larger levels when clicking on destinations for the characters even on
> an 060, and there are some bugs too, not least the sneaky peak you get of
> other aliens sometimes during an alien's move. Brilliant game though. I
> love it.
Agreed. With modern C compiler techniques it could be 50% to 100% faster
(I hope :-).
> how about our old favourite? CyberCon 3. :) I do'nt
> recall seeing 3D interiors of the same scope before that game, was the
> coding fairly advanced for its day?
True, C3 is impressive. The game has lots of details, and I think it is more
idea oriented than graphics oriented. Personally I feel they failed in
doing a game, because to get anywhere in the game takes too much effort
and that pushes away most players.
Imo, all game designers should start with giving the player a few simple
initial problems that he/she can solve. After those simple problems, they
could get worse, and some longer term problems might play a part too.
I would give Another World / Flashback as an example. They start with simple
things, and move on to harder things. But from the beginning, the player can
see a point even he/she knows the road will be long.
However, I never thought like this when I was younger and actually played
those games;)
Hidehiko Ogata
> > # Stunt Car Racer (physics and 3d just 0wnz here)
>
> Phh. I'd always found the game OK, never top-notch, nor could I understand
> all the hype about it.
If anything, I've found inter-car physics lacking - if you play
bumper-cars with the computer, you'll always lose (or do I suck that
bad? 8)
> And guys...what about the two famous L's...Lionheart and Leander?
> At least Lionheart pushed the good ol' 500 to his limits.
Agreed on Lionheart - another impressive title with sheer difficulty
WALL. What's with them, really? 8)
Anyhoo I thought the audio engine of Leander was kinda sad that late
on the Amiga timeline (couldn't play both music and effects at the
same time IIRC).
Flink was by the same guys who did Lionheart, wasn't it? I found it
much more appealing... then again, it was AGA(CD32).
Another "would have been cool but was not" title was Return to
Atlantis. Would have been *spectacular* in the "EA class of '86",
but in '88 when it was finally released, it was just ho-hum.
Has anyone mentioned mighty Turrican's yet? ;)
Hidehiko Ogata
[Sundog]
> >The original AppleII version, or the ST port? Watching a gooey game on
> >humble II was darned technically impressive... don't know how the 16bit
> >version turned out.
>
> Supposedly even better. It seems to have some serious cult following on
> the web.
Interesting... back then I dismissed the II version as a cute yet
unplayable GUI novelty stuff (in a LARGE box :). Wasn't there a
platform-free reconstruction/conversion project in progress too?
[Half-bright]
> >Odd that few Amigan titles seem to utilize the technique... SNES had
> >plenty of those (which also had a hardware support for it).
>
> Would bit be to do with more available memory on a cartridge?
I'd imagine it had more to do with the hardware - on Ami it was a
side-effect of planer arrangement, with rather hefty price (half
number of colors, and a potential slowdown by the dreaded DMA
contention).
OTOH on SNES it was "just" a neat additional feature between graphic
elements - you know, on a RTG screen (on Ami) how certain color of the
pointer sprite "shimmers"? It was a re-definable version of the effect,
more or less.
(IIRC the spec sheet used an arcane term like "color addition/
subtraction"... it took a while to dawn on me what it was actually
_for_ *^_^*.)
John Burns
> On 03-May-05 09:25:21, Tommy Stenberg said
> >I almost forgot. Moonstone should be considered a technical achievement,
> >shouldn't it? I mean, the animation and graphics in that one are among the
> >best I've seen on the A500.
>
> Do you think so, Tommy? Certainly a great game in my view, and very
> competently done, but I hadn't thought of it as particuarly impressive on a
> technical perspective.
>
> But as I said, I wouldn't really know. Certainly the game seems to fetch
> large sums on Ebay. :)
Yeah I'm with you on this one I can't see what is so technically impressive
about it. As for its cost on ebay no doubt partly due to it being banned in
Germany for being too violent.
Tommy Stenberg
"John Burns" <jo...@grizo.free-onlineNOJUNK.co.uk> wrote in message
news:99966558541910...@news.free-online.net...
Well, I just thought the game looked better than 95% of all A500 titles, and
it played better too, and the animations are still excellent. I'm not sure
it pushed the A500 very much, but at least it was a well-programmed,
well-designed and well-executed game. Then again, I don't know much about
the technical stuff.
Tommy
Peteroo
the later efforts of Bill Williams--specifically, Sinbad and the Throne
of the Falcon (Cinemaware) and Knights of the Crystallion (US Gold).
I'm sure there are games that are more visually spectacular and that
tried out more advanced technology ... but these two (like all of
Williams' games, save for Alley Cat) were done virtually on his own.
Bill did everything--design, graphics, sound, coding--and, moreover,
did them wonderfully well. I can still hear Sinbad's music and remember
the tapestry-like effect in which Sinbad's deaths were woven into the
backdrop. (An effect, incidentally, that would have been integral to
Bill's last, unpublished--barely started, in fact--Amiga game.)
Peter
IB
>The greatest technical achievements on the Amiga would have to include
>the later efforts of Bill Williams--specifically, Sinbad and the Throne
>of the Falcon (Cinemaware) and Knights of the Crystallion (US Gold).
>
>I'm sure there are games that are more visually spectacular and that
>tried out more advanced technology ... but these two (like all of
>Williams' games, save for Alley Cat) were done virtually on his own.
>Bill did everything--design, graphics, sound, coding--and, moreover,
<snip>
You're mentioning coding. Do you know how coding is done? I'm asking cause I sincerely don't, and you could explain it for me
after all these years of "coded" material - after all we're both writing this on computers..
How do you code a game, a program, a OS, a ROM, a computer, how do you make a computer and what with do you fill it. If not 'from
scratch' PC, at least Amigas, the first ones.
How do you code a computer? Do you type, or don't you?
P - lease.
-- ive
John Burns
ISWYM and given the overall quality of many titles I suppose we could call it a
technical achievement when the developers managed to get all the elements
to work reasonably well, or am I just exposing my jaded sarcasm? - probably.
>
>
Jukka Aho
>> # Stunt Car Racer (physics and 3d just 0wnz here)
> Phh. I'd always found the game OK, never top-notch, nor could I
> understand all the hype about it.
At least for me, Stunt Car Racer was the first 3D game ever that created
a strong feeling of total immersion: when driving at crazy speeds to the
ramps and flying through the air (while observing the track slowly
floating somewhere down there, far, far below you), it was really a
physically stomach-churning experience.
Later 3D games did not usually give me that kind of physical sensations,
but SCR somehow managed to do it, despite of the slow framerate - and it
added a great deal to the gaming experience. I believe all those who
were praising the game back then (and still do) must have felt something
similar.
> I reckon that horrible engine sound was the downer for me.
I can agree with that notion. I never liked the engine sound in SCR,
either.
--
znark
tom sparks
you will need a compiler (c++, asm, etc)
you use the hardware (computer) to run the program (byte code) that you type
in and compile (source code)
eg of a basic program
CLS: REM clears the screen
PRINT "HELLO TODAY" : REM displays some thing on screen
INPUT A$: REM wait for user to type something in and press the enter key
END: REM end of program
--
TS@TEXAS@AU
-----------
"
Texas QLD 4385
It's home sweet home out on the border line
I'm not talking about the USA
It's just a little country town off the main highway
And it's Texas QLD 4385
"-Lee Kernaghan
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quote number: 4
"IB" <ivica...@zd.t-com.hr> wrote in message
news:4u9n81d87gem1tv4b...@4ax.com...
> "Peteroo" <petern...@yahoo.com>:
>
<snip>