Arcadia - by Imagine
Arcadia, by imagine.
I thought I'ld play this last night, but its pretty awful to control
Anyone know whats with the random movement and occasional fireing even if you dont touch the keyboard?
I seem to remember this happening on a real spectrum when it first came out, so its not a emulation error.
I thought I'ld play this last night, but its pretty awful to control
Anyone know whats with the random movement and occasional fireing even if you dont touch the keyboard?
I seem to remember this happening on a real spectrum when it first came out, so its not a emulation error.
Post edited by Zaph0dd on
Comments
Nah! the majority of Imagines early games were a heap of poopoo, for example Ah Duddums, Kosmik Kruiser, Molar maul, Alchemist, there's more I'm sure. With the exception of BC Bill and Jumping Jack, Imagines early titles were a big pile of used fanny rag.
I thought Arcadia was as stated, a big pile of poopoo. Wasn't it Arcadia that brought Imagine early recognition too?...strange.
Alchemist is a top game. First game I ever completed (well, hey... I was impressed with myself back then.) T'was up there with Ant-attack n Skool Daze, n all that. :)
Arcadia however is a tad glitchy. Not as bad as Schizoids, but just as ugly.
NEVER compare Alchemist to Skooldaze, and if you're saying both games are good.................Don't say both in the same sentence!!!
Whilst it's got a few graphical flaws and twitchy controls, the gameplay is still pretty good. I just love the way the aliens come at you with a death charge as the clock ticks down at the end of a level.
I'd say it's easily the best of the early Imagine games, with Stonkers a respectable second and Alchemist a distant third.
Nah! Alchemist was cack......but it was better than Stonkers.
Totally agree - compared to most other games released in 1982 Arcadia was great. Obviously as programmers got to grips with things the games and gamers expectations increased tremendously but put in context of its release date it should be considered a classic. The random movement and firing is definitely a bug in the keyboard reading rountine.
Yep - it was the way that it read the keyboard, and occasional stray bits across the port would result in misreads.
On a lot of levels you could get through by shooting all but one of the aliens and then just hang about until the time ran out. However, because of the random twitches in the controls you might still accidentally take out the last alien, triggering a new wave so that you'd have to start actively playing again.
Check to see if the emulator you're using has an option for the Fuller joystick, if it does then switch it on and the jerking should stop.
I thought Alchemist was an excellent game for its time as there was nothing quite like it. It was one of a number of games (I'd add Atic Atac, Halls Of The Things and Ant Attack were the others) that really set the arcade adventure genre going. To compare it to Skool Daze is a bit pointless, as the genre had matured considerably by that stage; you might as well compare Timegate with Elite.
As for Zzoom, I thought it had some nice graphical touches, but there really just wasn't much to the game; a simple shooter in flight-sim clothing. The best thing about it was being able to (accidentally, of course ;-)) gun down the people you were supposed to protect.
There weren't too many decent 16K games released - I was never really that into the Ultimate ones, except for Jetpac which was obviously brilliant.
The others I loved were Deathchase and Pheenix. All great games for their time.
Yes, just as good, equal. Brothers. Twins no less in their greatness!
:D :D :D
.................:lol: