lol this has been a good long read, while chomping on some chocolate digestives and drinking some coffee. this thread should be renamed to "playground wars: revisited". here is the pic of the quotes:
"all that is left is a 'celebrity' boxing match.
C64 with its huge beige and heavy set body would kick the ass of speccy (4 eyes) any day of the week."
Similar for me... but for Spectrum games. You guys constantly overrate the gameplay which is in fact NOT better, just different due to the fact that most speccy games are from a different genre.
I disagree. Gameplay is what it is all about even if games shared the same genre on both machines.
One thing I noticed on LemonC64, C64 (or C39 ;)) owners go on and on about the colour but when they loose this argument because someone mentions very un-blocky and defined graphics on the Speccy they bring out the ultimate argument and the only one they have left "Well it goes too prove which was the better machine. Which one sold more ay? Ay??"
That's not even an argument. That's just got nothing to do with games and playability. Hence why I got rid of my Xbox and PS2 and kept the Gamecube. Playability rules over ALL else.
I have just read back on a few posts and people are saying the C64 is technically better than the Speccy and nothing can be said otherwise. Yet again I mention gameplay as that is the only reason any of us play games.
Back in the day I had both machines and the C64 would be on for half hour at a time but the Speccy would drain the neighbour hood of power it was on that long!
Since when did a PC game using all the tricks in the book and the latest CPU and GPU make a good game great to play? IT DOES NOT
lol this has been a good long read, while chomping on some chocolate digestives and drinking some coffee. this thread should be renamed to "playground wars: revisited". here is the pic of the quotes:
Well welcome to the playground then. Two years too late I see, but old threads for the win ! :D
is there anything like c64's heatseeker on speccy?
(i mean, in it's weirndess & greatness.)
a user on lemon wrote "there can be such a game only on c64". i believe, there could be something like that on speccy. but is it?
It got a mention a few pages in; the usual stuff about it being technically the best machine of the big four, but rarely getting programmed to its full potential. There were far too many cheap ports from the Spectrum that made no attempt to use the machine's graphics capabilities and ran at half speed because they did things in a way that was efficient on the Spectrum, but wasteful on the CPC. Still, you can't really argue with the quality of games like Head Over Heels and Chase HQ on it.
It got a mention a few pages in; the usual stuff about it being technically the best machine of the big four, but rarely getting programmed to its full potential.
excuse my ignorance - the fourth one being msx or atari 800?
excuse my ignorance - the fourth one being msx or atari 800?
Neither. It was the BBC Micro, at least as far as the UK went. The MSX and Atari 800 never really made much of an inroad into the UK market, although they both clocked up respectable sales internationally.
Neither. It was the BBC Micro, at least as far as the UK went. The MSX and Atari 800 never really made much of an inroad into the UK market, although they both clocked up respectable sales internationally.
thanx.
(in my country, i experienced more spectrists/atarists quarrels than spectrists/commodorists ones.)
is there anything like c64's heatseeker on speccy?
(i mean, in it's weirndess & greatness.)
a user on lemon wrote "there can be such a game only on c64". i believe, there could be something like that on speccy. but is it?
Anyone can write a weird game, it doesn't matter what platform it's running on. Just jumble a few gameplay mechanics around in your head and when you get something that works in a Heath Robinson sort of way just cobble it together with a bit of sticking plaster and a few randomly-chosen mnemonics. Lots and lots of beer helps, especially if the room is spinning and the characters on the screen look blurred. Include some flying pigs if you can, and throw toilets at the player from level nine onwards. That ought to do the trick.
Anyone can write a weird game, it doesn't matter what platform it's running on. Just jumble a few gameplay mechanics around in your head and when you get something that works in a Heath Robinson sort of way just cobble it together with a bit of sticking plaster and a few randomly-chosen mnemonics. Lots and lots of beer helps, especially if the room is spinning and the characters on the screen look blurred. Include some flying pigs if you can, and throw toilets at the player from level nine onwards. That ought to do the trick.
well, i believe, you can write a great game on any platform in principle as well. yet, most people here say, on speccy, games are better. could be, in the days, such GREAT AND surreal games were written for c64, but not for speccy. i don't know.
By and large , US games were better on the C64 , European games better on the Speccy
How many US Gold & its partners/subsiduaries ces/Epyx etc. ,with games like Leaderboard , Impossible Mission , Summer/Winter Games , Infiltrator , Kung Fu Master etc etc , were better on the Speccy than the C64 ? Possibly 1 or 2 , maybe none
Lucasfilm , US Gold , Activision , Microprose etc produced great games for the C64
On the other hand European software houses , on the whole , tended to produce better Spectrum games
Companies such as Ocean , Ultimate , Durrell , Hewson , Gargoyle Games etc etc tended to make far better games for the Speccy
Compare Thanatos , Turbo Esprit , Cobra - in fact don't bother 'cos no-one should be made to play these games on the C64 , they're awful
There are of course exceptions - Activision created Aliens and Enduro Racer for the Speccy , Ocean created Rainbow Islands , Untouchables & Wizball for the C64 , and I know that just because the parent company was US/European , it doesn't neccessarily mean that the programming team was
But I think that generally speaking the rule holds true that:
European software house - Speccy version better than C64 version
US software house - C64 version better than Speccy version
well I never had a C64...and speccy I had was a +3 with not that many games to chose from (althoug I can't complain...I did have many games)
For some reason I had an older cousin who had a C64 and I used to go to his house very few times... and the games did look beter, more colourfull at least (I was 7, and he had the games I could never play so of course it looked good to me). later when I was older (like 14 or something) and had my super nintendo and he was 20 something I asked if I could borrough his c64 to try and play the old games but the bastard never did...(I don't really like that cousin).
so the C64 was always something of a myth to me (as well as the dam commodore amiga...and all the guys who managed to play north and south and say it's the most brilliant game ever). and when I got to the era of emullation, I first discouvered (by chance) the Spectrum and managed to play all my old games (and try some other games that I was always curious about). and after that I went for commodore...
and here is the catch about it
first I never found a emulator for C64 or amiga that was as simple, or smooth as the emulators for Spectrum, also there isn't a single c64 website that has a third of the quallity of WOS...
and to finalize that, the few games I managed to play I wasn't that much impressed when compared to the spectrum versions...
so my opinion: unleast I find some out of this world emulator that makes C64 games look briliant, I think the spectrum wins by miles this competition!
All depends on what games you've played! If all you've tried are (for example)
Enduro Racer
Thanatos
R-type
on C64 , you're going to think it's the Speccy's poor relation
On the other hand , if you'd only played
Leaderboard
Fractulus
Impossible Mission
You'd consider the C64 to be a far superior machine
It's horses for courses - I would say , on average , for the best games the split is close to 50/50
If it's colourful games you want , then try Amstard - the only problem is that usually the colours are TOO colourful to the detriment of the games , making them appear quite blocky . Also the screen size is usually smaller than the C64 + Speccy and the scrolling pretty poor.
There are exceptions of course - Barbarian , Hostages and Trantor are probably better on the Amstrad than the Speccy or C64
do you think, speccy games really do excell in the gameplay itself?
well, depends on what you mean by that, yet personally, i'd say thera are many speccy titles excelling in atmospheric graphics (edit: and sounds! :-) ), yet unfortunetally, i'd say (among pure arcade games at least), really "witty" gameplay itself (functioning quite independently on the graphics) is quite rare, when compared to current free games, e.g. (honestly, i can name penetrator, 20 tons, marauder perhaps, exploding fist may be, but what else?)
would you agree, speccy games are generaly more unique (in it's look & atmosphere) in the history of video games than e.g. C64 ones (mainly due to quite combination of strengths and graphics limitations), or do you think it's just a nostalgists' illusion?
To be honest, I think it's just an illusion. There certainly are games for the Spectrum that play like nothing else before or since, but there are also a good few of those for the C64. The same goes for pretty much every machine that found a decent niche in the market and stuck around for five years or more.
Still, that's far too much like common sense. The main reason the Spectrum was better than the C64 was that it did much the same things for half the price. :smile:
To be honest, I think it's just an illusion. There certainly are games for the Spectrum that play like nothing else before or since, but there are also a good few of those for the C64. The same goes for pretty much every machine that found a decent niche in the market and stuck around for five years or more.
Still, that's far too much like common sense. The main reason the Spectrum was better than the C64 was that it did much the same things for half the price. :smile:
thanx... :-)
btw, who you believe were the authors who developed distinct unique speccy games styles (i mean, ultimate and mike richardson were the obvious ones.)
Is it true that the commodore sold more than the spectrum back in it's heyday?
World-wide it surely must be the case when you consider that the Speccy was mainly sold in Europe , whereas the C64 was sold everywhere ,and did particularly well in the US
btw, who you believe were the authors who developed distinct unique speccy games styles (i mean, ultimate and mike richardson were the obvious ones.)
I can think of lots off the top of my head: Pete Cooke, Mike Singleton, Matthew Smith, Denton Designs, Jon Ritman, R T Smith, Julian Gollop, Realtime Games, Torus, Steve Turner, Gargoyle Games.
Some of them developed games for other machines too, I suppose, including the C64. However, the Spectrum usually came first and designing around its particular capabilities usually meant that the conversions never quite lived up to the original.
I can think of lots off the top of my head: Pete Cooke, Mike Singleton, Matthew Smith, Denton Designs, Jon Ritman, R T Smith, Julian Gollop, Realtime Games, Torus, Steve Turner, Gargoyle Games. Some of them developed games for other machines too, I suppose, including the C64. However, the Spectrum usually came first and designing around its particular capabilities usually meant that the conversions never quite lived up to the original.
Julian Gollop is a good example. I first played Lords of Chaos on a friend's Amiga. I seem to remember winning by filling my opponent's hallway with elephants, so he couldn't get in or out of his own house. Anyway, I digress. The Amiga graphics seemed to be barely better than the Spectrum ones, and this on a machine with no colour clash and thousands of colours to play with.
This is probably an example of that excellent Speccy Gameplay, though. Amiga owners were happy to play the game, even though it vastly underused their machine's resources. If we want to see this sort of thing on the PC, we'd have to turn to people like Retrospec and a few nostaligic shareware authors.
Comments
you'll make some of us blush :D
"all that is left is a 'celebrity' boxing match.
C64 with its huge beige and heavy set body would kick the ass of speccy (4 eyes) any day of the week."
:D rofl
I disagree. Gameplay is what it is all about even if games shared the same genre on both machines.
One thing I noticed on LemonC64, C64 (or C39 ;)) owners go on and on about the colour but when they loose this argument because someone mentions very un-blocky and defined graphics on the Speccy they bring out the ultimate argument and the only one they have left "Well it goes too prove which was the better machine. Which one sold more ay? Ay??"
That's not even an argument. That's just got nothing to do with games and playability. Hence why I got rid of my Xbox and PS2 and kept the Gamecube. Playability rules over ALL else.
I have just read back on a few posts and people are saying the C64 is technically better than the Speccy and nothing can be said otherwise. Yet again I mention gameplay as that is the only reason any of us play games.
Back in the day I had both machines and the C64 would be on for half hour at a time but the Speccy would drain the neighbour hood of power it was on that long!
Since when did a PC game using all the tricks in the book and the latest CPU and GPU make a good game great to play? IT DOES NOT
Well welcome to the playground then. Two years too late I see, but old threads for the win ! :D
Poor Amstrad CPC doesn't even get a look in! ;)
(i mean, in it's weirndess & greatness.)
a user on lemon wrote "there can be such a game only on c64". i believe, there could be something like that on speccy. but is it?
It got a mention a few pages in; the usual stuff about it being technically the best machine of the big four, but rarely getting programmed to its full potential. There were far too many cheap ports from the Spectrum that made no attempt to use the machine's graphics capabilities and ran at half speed because they did things in a way that was efficient on the Spectrum, but wasteful on the CPC. Still, you can't really argue with the quality of games like Head Over Heels and Chase HQ on it.
excuse my ignorance - the fourth one being msx or atari 800?
Neither. It was the BBC Micro, at least as far as the UK went. The MSX and Atari 800 never really made much of an inroad into the UK market, although they both clocked up respectable sales internationally.
thanx.
(in my country, i experienced more spectrists/atarists quarrels than spectrists/commodorists ones.)
Edit: Sorry I thought this post would appear after CU Amiga's. Dohh...
Anyone can write a weird game, it doesn't matter what platform it's running on. Just jumble a few gameplay mechanics around in your head and when you get something that works in a Heath Robinson sort of way just cobble it together with a bit of sticking plaster and a few randomly-chosen mnemonics. Lots and lots of beer helps, especially if the room is spinning and the characters on the screen look blurred. Include some flying pigs if you can, and throw toilets at the player from level nine onwards. That ought to do the trick.
Egghead Website
Arcade Game Designer
My itch.io page
well, i believe, you can write a great game on any platform in principle as well. yet, most people here say, on speccy, games are better. could be, in the days, such GREAT AND surreal games were written for c64, but not for speccy. i don't know.
How many US Gold & its partners/subsiduaries ces/Epyx etc. ,with games like Leaderboard , Impossible Mission , Summer/Winter Games , Infiltrator , Kung Fu Master etc etc , were better on the Speccy than the C64 ? Possibly 1 or 2 , maybe none
Lucasfilm , US Gold , Activision , Microprose etc produced great games for the C64
On the other hand European software houses , on the whole , tended to produce better Spectrum games
Companies such as Ocean , Ultimate , Durrell , Hewson , Gargoyle Games etc etc tended to make far better games for the Speccy
Compare Thanatos , Turbo Esprit , Cobra - in fact don't bother 'cos no-one should be made to play these games on the C64 , they're awful
There are of course exceptions - Activision created Aliens and Enduro Racer for the Speccy , Ocean created Rainbow Islands , Untouchables & Wizball for the C64 , and I know that just because the parent company was US/European , it doesn't neccessarily mean that the programming team was
But I think that generally speaking the rule holds true that:
European software house - Speccy version better than C64 version
US software house - C64 version better than Speccy version
For some reason I had an older cousin who had a C64 and I used to go to his house very few times... and the games did look beter, more colourfull at least (I was 7, and he had the games I could never play so of course it looked good to me). later when I was older (like 14 or something) and had my super nintendo and he was 20 something I asked if I could borrough his c64 to try and play the old games but the bastard never did...(I don't really like that cousin).
so the C64 was always something of a myth to me (as well as the dam commodore amiga...and all the guys who managed to play north and south and say it's the most brilliant game ever). and when I got to the era of emullation, I first discouvered (by chance) the Spectrum and managed to play all my old games (and try some other games that I was always curious about). and after that I went for commodore...
and here is the catch about it
first I never found a emulator for C64 or amiga that was as simple, or smooth as the emulators for Spectrum, also there isn't a single c64 website that has a third of the quallity of WOS...
and to finalize that, the few games I managed to play I wasn't that much impressed when compared to the spectrum versions...
so my opinion: unleast I find some out of this world emulator that makes C64 games look briliant, I think the spectrum wins by miles this competition!
Enduro Racer
Thanatos
R-type
on C64 , you're going to think it's the Speccy's poor relation
On the other hand , if you'd only played
Leaderboard
Fractulus
Impossible Mission
You'd consider the C64 to be a far superior machine
It's horses for courses - I would say , on average , for the best games the split is close to 50/50
If it's colourful games you want , then try Amstard - the only problem is that usually the colours are TOO colourful to the detriment of the games , making them appear quite blocky . Also the screen size is usually smaller than the C64 + Speccy and the scrolling pretty poor.
There are exceptions of course - Barbarian , Hostages and Trantor are probably better on the Amstrad than the Speccy or C64
well, depends on what you mean by that, yet personally, i'd say thera are many speccy titles excelling in atmospheric graphics (edit: and sounds! :-) ), yet unfortunetally, i'd say (among pure arcade games at least), really "witty" gameplay itself (functioning quite independently on the graphics) is quite rare, when compared to current free games, e.g. (honestly, i can name penetrator, 20 tons, marauder perhaps, exploding fist may be, but what else?)
Still, that's far too much like common sense. The main reason the Spectrum was better than the C64 was that it did much the same things for half the price. :smile:
thanx... :-)
btw, who you believe were the authors who developed distinct unique speccy games styles (i mean, ultimate and mike richardson were the obvious ones.)
World-wide it surely must be the case when you consider that the Speccy was mainly sold in Europe , whereas the C64 was sold everywhere ,and did particularly well in the US
30 million+ iirc c64 sold worldwide.
29,999,998 in the USA.
2 in Basingstoke.
I can think of lots off the top of my head: Pete Cooke, Mike Singleton, Matthew Smith, Denton Designs, Jon Ritman, R T Smith, Julian Gollop, Realtime Games, Torus, Steve Turner, Gargoyle Games.
Some of them developed games for other machines too, I suppose, including the C64. However, the Spectrum usually came first and designing around its particular capabilities usually meant that the conversions never quite lived up to the original.
Julian Gollop is a good example. I first played Lords of Chaos on a friend's Amiga. I seem to remember winning by filling my opponent's hallway with elephants, so he couldn't get in or out of his own house. Anyway, I digress. The Amiga graphics seemed to be barely better than the Spectrum ones, and this on a machine with no colour clash and thousands of colours to play with.
This is probably an example of that excellent Speccy Gameplay, though. Amiga owners were happy to play the game, even though it vastly underused their machine's resources. If we want to see this sort of thing on the PC, we'd have to turn to people like Retrospec and a few nostaligic shareware authors.
what for, with dozens of emulators?!