I used to play Giana Sisters on C-64 at our meetings. I loved the smooth scrolling and perfect pacing and great SID soundtrack. It's far better than any other platforms including Amiga. It is even better than Mario. Probably one of the top 5 C-64 games of all time. Too bad Nintendont banned it. And too bad Speccy didn't have anything like this... I could only play Chuckie Egg, Manic Miner, Dynamite Dan but they were all lacking the smooth SCROLL magic...
You obviously didn't play Uridium, Green Beret, Cobra (the game featuring probably the best horizontal scrolling ever seen on a Spectrum), Freddy Hardest, R-Type, Energy Warrior (a pretty simple game in itself but with a superb parallax scrolling), Impossaball (great "perspective" scrolling), etc. :)
Anyway, I also remember playing Giana on the C64 and Amiga. It was so popular because it was as near to Super Mario Bros. as we could get on the home computer systems of the time. Strangely enough, the Spectrum and Amstrad versions were the only ones, as far as I know, that left no traces whatsoever, while the C64, Amiga and Atari ST versions got widespread "bootleg" diffusion.
You are using wrong examples. Green Beret is excellent (far better than on C-64) but it's not a Mario clone. The same for Cobra. Freddy Hardest... well, too slow and still not in the same category anyway... The only one I can think of is Wonderboy but it had that stupid per level loading if I remember well.
It's probably good GGS didn't make it to Spectrum, because I saw those Amstrad screenshots and I nearly vomited... epic fail at least
The Amstrad version that is "out there" isn't the finished game, there are no sound effects, no music and a lot of other stuff missing. Plays very badly.
You are using wrong examples. Green Beret is excellent (far better than on C-64) but it's not a Mario clone. The same for Cobra. Freddy Hardest... well, too slow and still not in the same category anyway... The only one I can think of is Wonderboy but it had that stupid per level loading if I remember well.
It's probably good GGS didn't make it to Spectrum, because I saw those Amstrad screenshots and I nearly vomited... epic fail at least
Sorry, I thought you were just referring to horizontal scrolling games in general and not Mario-like games.
A good example in this sense would be Karnov, a great game full of different sceneries and surprises, although 1-character block scrolling isn't exactly its strongest point :)
The Amstrad version that is "out there" isn't the finished game, there are no sound effects, no music and a lot of other stuff missing. Plays very badly.
At least there's a pre-production Amstrad version around. The Spectrum version did not even surface in an incomplete form.
So a question to all the Speccy coders out there... Is a Super Mario Land type game possible on the Speccy? The Amstrad version of this game seems to slow to me.
There are several Mario games in the archive. Most of them are works-in-progress demos, but have a look at the one by Gogin - it's fairly close to the original.
To me Great Giana Sisters looks like something of a cross between Super Mario Bros. and Sonic the Hedgehog. The feeling, though, hmm not sure what it feels like playing it.
I played the Amiga version and as much as I love that computer the version it had sucked imho. So did Creatures.
Last thing I'll say is I don't think Great Giana Sisters is so great and nothing that special. Maybe most of its popularity and perceived greatness came from people actually being able to play a Mario type game on their C64 - cause for me Super Mario Bros. beats the crap out of Great Giana Sisters. But maybe I'm wrong.
But kudos on C64 for Mayhem in Monsterland and Creatures.
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Anyway, I also remember playing Giana on the C64 and Amiga. It was so popular because it was as near to Super Mario Bros. as we could get on the home computer systems of the time. Strangely enough, the Spectrum and Amstrad versions were the only ones, as far as I know, that left no traces whatsoever, while the C64, Amiga and Atari ST versions got widespread "bootleg" diffusion.
It's probably good GGS didn't make it to Spectrum, because I saw those Amstrad screenshots and I nearly vomited... epic fail at least
The Amstrad version is definitely floating about on the t'interwebs, as I've played it. Awful, awful game though.
Sorry, I thought you were just referring to horizontal scrolling games in general and not Mario-like games.
A good example in this sense would be Karnov, a great game full of different sceneries and surprises, although 1-character block scrolling isn't exactly its strongest point :)
:lol:
Turbo mode is recommend, but it plays okay on a normal Speccy too.
This thread reminds me I have some stuff to convert and upload, including a Mario game editor.
I played the Amiga version and as much as I love that computer the version it had sucked imho. So did Creatures.
Last thing I'll say is I don't think Great Giana Sisters is so great and nothing that special. Maybe most of its popularity and perceived greatness came from people actually being able to play a Mario type game on their C64 - cause for me Super Mario Bros. beats the crap out of Great Giana Sisters. But maybe I'm wrong.
But kudos on C64 for Mayhem in Monsterland and Creatures.