(especially seeing as half the best Spectrum shooters got ratings of around 70% in the magazines of the time, the reasons being as intelligent as "it's another shooter, we have too many shoot-em-ups already" written over and over for every shooter review)
I agree with that reasoning - if a game doesn't do something new to the genre, then I'm usually not interested in it. Most shoot-em-ups were pretty much the same as each other, just different scrolling direction (maybe), different graphics and different attack patterns,
You can draw parallels with Ultimate's demise on the Spectrum: they did very little with the isometric 3D genre, so their later games didn't really stand out from the others. Only the Ultimate faithful (*cough*CRASH*cough*) rated them highly.
I agree with that reasoning - if a game doesn't do something new to the genre, then I'm usually not interested in it. Most shoot-em-ups were pretty much the same as each other, just different scrolling direction (maybe), different graphics and different attack patterns,
You can draw parallels with Ultimate's demise on the Spectrum: they did very little with the isometric 3D genre, so their later games didn't really stand out from the others. Only the Ultimate faithful (*cough*CRASH*cough*) rated them highly.
those are most of the best shooters on the Spectrum, and the ridiculousness of the statement of "too many spectrum shooters" and "seen it all before" shows the reviewers of the times' utter incompetence, there are very few good Spectrum shoot-em-ups, I would say there is probably around 15, but definately no more than 20
after checking the reviews for all those classics i've changed my mind, Silkworm got amazing scores
Out of that list i always found Terra Cresta and Flying Shark very polished. Flying Shark was my favourite as the playing area in Terra Cresta was too small. I so wished 1942 was good but to me that was very very boring, poor graphics, even the shooting / explosion noises were dire, shame.
Flying Shark was the ultimate for me, some great levels, yeah it was monochrome and limited sound but the gameplay and scrolling were very smooth, great graphics
Flying Shark was my favourite as the playing area in Terra Cresta was too small.
The playing area is very small in that game, it is however, the perfect ratio, I was playing the Arcade version in MAME the other day and the original had the exact same thin and tall screen
those are most of the best shooters on the Spectrum, and the ridiculousness of the statement of "too many spectrum shooters" and "seen it all before" shows the reviewers of the times' utter incompetence, there are very few good Spectrum shoot-em-ups, I would say there is probably around 15, but definately no more than 20
I think you've just contradicted yourself there. No more than 20 good Spectrum shoot-em-ups and yet there aren't "too many Spectrum shooters"? The shoot-em-up genre is the largest on the Spectrum, and a lot of them are competently programmed, and yet nothing special. For every game you listed, I'd say there's 50 other shoot-em-ups which didn't make the grade.
after checking the reviews for all those classics i've changed my mind, Silkworm got amazing scores
For a shoot-em-up, maybe. But that's kinda like saying herpes is an amazing sexually transmitted disease.
I think you've just contradicted yourself there. No more than 20 good Spectrum shoot-em-ups and yet there aren't "too many Spectrum shooters"? The shoot-em-up genre is the largest on the Spectrum, and a lot of them are competently programmed, and yet nothing special. For every game you listed, I'd say there's 50 other shoot-em-ups which didn't make the grade.
around 20 playable shoot-em-ups released in a ten year period is not very much, when a spectrum shoot-em-up "doesn't make the grade", it is completely worthless, good examples of this would be Lightforce, Dominator and Bedlam anyone at the time who owned more than one games machine would've laughed their heads off at those games, they would've been completely un-acceptable on any other machine of the time.
like I said there were 15-20 playable shoot-em-ups on the spectrum, the reviewers should've been giving those games high reviews saying "thank god finally another playable shoot-em-up" everytime one of them was released
around 20 playable shoot-em-ups released in a ten year period is not very much, when a spectrum shoot-em-up "doesn't make the grade", it is completely worthless, good examples of this would be Lightforce, Dominator and Bedlam anyone at the time who owned more than one games machine would've laughed their heads off at those games, they would've been completely un-acceptable on any other machine of the time.
like I said there were 15-20 playable shoot-em-ups on the spectrum, the reviewers should've been giving those games high reviews saying "thank god finally another playable shoot-em-up" everytime one of them was released
I'd say that they got unfavourable reviews because people were doing far more interesting things with Spectrum games than just plain shoot em ups.
Anyway, I think you're being a little unfair to Lightforce by lumping it in with the other two. It got rave reviews across a number of platforms at the time of its release and the Spectrum version is hardly the worst. Any failings that it has are only in comparison with later games, not contemporary or earlier ones.
What sold R-Type was the amazing graphics, the massive nasties, the oozing playability, and the variation between levels, plus some tactical maneuvering.
There aren't very many shades of grey between that and an early Scramble or Defender game.
On the flip-side, look at everything that happened to the driving genre post-Pole Position. The recent 1989 chapter has the best of the driving games, but there are plenty more from other years.
Spectrum driving games, now those were all the same :D
Don't get me started - the 1989 chapter was so recent that I really do have a thesis on the evolution of driving games on tap to force upon everyone at a moment's notice...
Steel Eagle i'd have said the C64 was the original on the grounds that it has a copyright notice that names the developer (on the status bar) and usually that would imply that it was written independently and submitted rather than tendered out for conversion, what source are you using to make a definitive statement?
The fact that they're completely different games. I never said that either was a conversion - I merely stated that the Spectrum version wasn't one. I can't stand the C64 version, actually.
And the Amstrad version was basically a straight port of the Spectrum title(wasn't everything on the CPC like that? :grin:), but choppier. So the Spectrum version could be considered the definitive version(but, then again, saying that on the grounds that the CPC version is the same is like saying that everything that a puppeteer says is true because what his puppet says is always the same).
Bedlam i've not seen anything conclusive either way yet; being targeted for 128K machines or taking a year to code aren't definitive proof either way, in fact they could both be taken to mean that it was a conversion and a difficult one just as easily.
I've played Bedlam a few times and there's no way that it would take a year to convert that. Besides, since it took a year to code, why wasn't the C64 version released in the previous year?
a case could be made for them being different games with the same name, seeing as the level designs are different as well as some of the power-up features
I think you've just contradicted yourself there. No more than 20 good Spectrum shoot-em-ups and yet there aren't "too many Spectrum shooters"? The shoot-em-up genre is the largest on the Spectrum, and a lot of them are competently programmed, and yet nothing special. For every game you listed, I'd say there's 50 other shoot-em-ups which didn't make the grade.
Agreed. I had a hard time coming up with ten games to put on my list - every other Spectrum original shoot-em-up that I've played has either been more mediocre or downright horrible.
who are you agreeing with? Nickh is saying that Spectrum shoot-em-ups all deserve low scores because all shoot-em-ups are basicaly the same, I was saying that those ten shoot-em-ups all deserved high scores because there are so few noteworthy spectrum shooters out there
also, SWIV was made in the UK for the UK right? well, I don't see why it's so hard to believe that the 8-bit versions were as important as the Amiga version, in the UK the massive games machines were the Speccy and the Commode, then as the ninetees started, from there everyone moved to the Master System and the Megadrive/Genesis, the Amiga was big, but it never went anywhere near the popularity of any of those other machines.
oh and where the Amstrad ports are concerned, Once i was annoyed about the whole "if theres a good spectrum game, then theres a good amstrad game by default" until I actually spent time playing the Amstrad, all amstrad ports are virtually always inferior in 3 ways
1. music removed
2. colour removed
3. game runs slower
many of them are so much slower they are actually unplayable
just checked the Amstrad version of Steel Eagle, the game seems to be optimised speed wise, probably by removing frames because everything looks a bit choppier, all the music is however running very slow, colour has been completely removed from the play area to make it monochrome, it's not the worst port I've seen
Spectrum version is better, it has full speed music, smoother gameplay and isn't monochrome
who are you agreeing with? Nickh is saying that Spectrum shoot-em-ups all deserve low scores because all shoot-em-ups are basicaly the same, I was saying that those ten shoot-em-ups all deserved high scores because there are so few noteworthy spectrum shooters out there
I was agreeing with NickH's statement that for every decent Spectrum original shoot-em-up, there are at least 50 horrible ones.
who are you agreeing with? Nickh is saying that Spectrum shoot-em-ups all deserve low scores because all shoot-em-ups are basicaly the same, I was saying that those ten shoot-em-ups all deserved high scores because there are so few noteworthy spectrum shooters out there
I'm saying most shoot-em-ups deserve lower scores because they added nothing (or very very little) to the genre.
Cybernoid and R-Type deserved their consistent 90%+ ratings. Moon Cresta was great in its time, and aged quite well.
The fact that they're completely different games. I never said that either was a conversion - I merely stated that the Spectrum version wasn't one. I can't stand the C64 version, actually.
Just because the levels are different doesn't mean it wasn't a conversion; since it was done for budget release, the programmer might've had a burst of megalomania and decided to redesign the thing in the process. Personally i quite liked the C64 version but it could've done with being a little easier and the pick-ups really needed to be indestructible on all versions.
I've played Bedlam a few times and there's no way that it would take a year to convert that. Besides, since it took a year to code, why wasn't the C64 version released in the previous year?
If you have a game you release it on multiple platforms at the same time, it's only common sense to do so because you're paying for the hype machine each time you use it. And if the programmer wasn't much cop or the project was restarted for some reason or someone exagerated that year of programming for some reason, it could easily have taken a bit longer. But the point i'm making (that people seem to be missing, i blame my lack of caffeine =-) is that your own rules are making these titles grey areas; without knowing for certain that Bedlam or Steel Eagle are originally Spectrum games you can't really include them in your list, at least not by the rules you're setting.
also, SWIV was made in the UK for the UK right? well, I don't see why it's so hard to believe that the 8-bit versions were as important as the Amiga version, in the UK the massive games machines were the Speccy and the Commode
No, by that point the Amiga was just as large not because of user base so much as pricing; the companies could charge over double the money for Amiga and indeed ST titles, so for most of them it was a no brainer; those platforms became their primary target and the 8-bits played second fiddle. Certainly by the time SWIV was in development, there weren't many publishers who'd be using an 8-bit as a base and that magazine clipping sort of proves it since one of the main features was one exclusive to the 16-bit titles. Certainly it casts enough doubt that SWIV becomes a grey area under Locket's rules.
also, SWIV was made in the UK for the UK right? well, I don't see why it's so hard to believe that the 8-bit versions were as important as the Amiga version, in the UK the massive games machines were the Speccy and the Commode, then as the ninetees started, from there everyone moved to the Master System and the Megadrive/Genesis, the Amiga was big, but it never went anywhere near the popularity of any of those other machines.
SWIV was a 1991 release on the Spectrum, at which time the market had well and truly shifted to the 16-bits and consoles, so Speccy SWIV would have been seen as a "16-bit downgrade" at best.
Just because the levels are different doesn't mean it wasn't a conversion; since it was done for budget release, the programmer might've had a burst of megalomania and decided to redesign the thing in the process. Personally i quite liked the C64 version but it could've done with being a little easier and the pick-ups really needed to be indestructible on all versions.
The levels, graphics, power-ups, and theme are also completely different. I can't see how one could be based on the other.
If you have a game you release it on multiple platforms at the same time, it's only common sense to do so because you're paying for the hype machine each time you use it.
But the point i'm making (that people seem to be missing, i blame my lack of caffeine =-) is that your own rules are making these titles grey areas; without knowing for certain that Bedlam or Steel Eagle are originally Spectrum games you can't really include them in your list, at least not by the rules you're setting.
In both of our countries, a criminal is innocent until proven guilty. For the sake of simplifying this discussion, I have assumed that the games that I mention are Spectrum originals until proven otherwise.
So, you see, I include them because they are in a gray area.
Winape, I'll admit that i've only played the first level, but from this pic http://img371.imageshack.us/img371/6402/steeleaglehj4.png , you can see that the play area is monochrome (btw, just in case you didn't know, many people think monochrome means black and white, which it doesn't, monochrome means "of one colour, so, green and black is monochrome)
In both of our countries, a criminal is innocent until proven guilty. For the sake of simplifying this discussion, I have assumed that the games that I mention are Spectrum originals until proven otherwise.
What about the games that everyone else mentions? =-)
However, you could make a Spectrum game with, say, a blue and yellow screen and technically that wouldn't be monochrome. It would look rather disgusting though.
The sheep in Green Beret are apparently based on dogs.
You mean that the dogs in Green Beret are based on dogs, but they look like sheep
A closer comparison would've been if joffa had decided to completely remove the dogs and replace them with eagles, and then gave you a jetpac and removed the knife and gave you a machine gun.
The game would've ceased to be Green Beret in everything but name, Joffa could've changed the name to something different and nobody would've known it had anything to do with Green Beret.
Basicaly (i've kind of gone off the point) Green Beret was a very good port and joffa tried to make it accurate, but certain aspects of it turned out a bit wrong, whereas, Steel Eagle was pretty much completely re-designed from the base up, there was no reason to perfectly port such a ridiculously appaling game, so the programmers decided to take the 1 or 2 good things about it and make their own game, which they could've named something else if they had wanted to and no-one would've been any the wiser.
The Steel Eagle might suffer from the same bug - by the sound of the shot effects, it seems like the standard envelopes are being used, so it looks I might have done something wrong in that department.
Well, obviously during some refactoring the code which made sure the envelope register is written to even when it's value does not change got lost, so the envelope was not restarted in such case. Embarrassing bug. This caused the lack of effects in Steel Eagle (not that they are that great, though).
The tinny sound, OTOH, was the standard aliasing issue, as I have suspected. So I have added the usual fake low pass filter, locking the channel output when necessary. All the affected tunes I have tried now sound as they should, and even the samples sound clearer. Interestingly enough, it also made the whole sound emulation a tad bit faster, so even 48k tunes which suffered from occasional hiccups (like Zanthrax) now sound fine.
Throw in proper volume tables, fix of mixer clamping, stereo modes and it all sounds a lot better again :)
Oh, err, on topic, how good is Darius in your opinion? Or is it a conversion as well?
Comments
But only one mag gave that. The greats usually get 90%+ across the board.
I agree with that reasoning - if a game doesn't do something new to the genre, then I'm usually not interested in it. Most shoot-em-ups were pretty much the same as each other, just different scrolling direction (maybe), different graphics and different attack patterns,
You can draw parallels with Ultimate's demise on the Spectrum: they did very little with the isometric 3D genre, so their later games didn't really stand out from the others. Only the Ultimate faithful (*cough*CRASH*cough*) rated them highly.
Flying Shark - 85%
SWIV - 83%
ST Dragon - 80%, 80%
Xarax - 52%, 8/10, 7/10
Xevious - 64%,
Zynaps 8/10
Moonstrike 8/10, 77%, 8/10
Xenon 84%
those are most of the best shooters on the Spectrum, and the ridiculousness of the statement of "too many spectrum shooters" and "seen it all before" shows the reviewers of the times' utter incompetence, there are very few good Spectrum shoot-em-ups, I would say there is probably around 15, but definately no more than 20
after checking the reviews for all those classics i've changed my mind, Silkworm got amazing scores
Flying Shark was the ultimate for me, some great levels, yeah it was monochrome and limited sound but the gameplay and scrolling were very smooth, great graphics
I think you've just contradicted yourself there. No more than 20 good Spectrum shoot-em-ups and yet there aren't "too many Spectrum shooters"? The shoot-em-up genre is the largest on the Spectrum, and a lot of them are competently programmed, and yet nothing special. For every game you listed, I'd say there's 50 other shoot-em-ups which didn't make the grade.
For a shoot-em-up, maybe. But that's kinda like saying herpes is an amazing sexually transmitted disease.
like I said there were 15-20 playable shoot-em-ups on the spectrum, the reviewers should've been giving those games high reviews saying "thank god finally another playable shoot-em-up" everytime one of them was released
I'd say that they got unfavourable reviews because people were doing far more interesting things with Spectrum games than just plain shoot em ups.
Anyway, I think you're being a little unfair to Lightforce by lumping it in with the other two. It got rave reviews across a number of platforms at the time of its release and the Spectrum version is hardly the worst. Any failings that it has are only in comparison with later games, not contemporary or earlier ones.
Agreed. Let's face it - there's not much difference in the design of R-Type compared to 1983-era horizontal shoot-em-ups beyond:
* Power-ups
* Detachable pod
* End-of-level nasty
* Variable shot strengths
What sold R-Type was the amazing graphics, the massive nasties, the oozing playability, and the variation between levels, plus some tactical maneuvering.
There aren't very many shades of grey between that and an early Scramble or Defender game.
On the flip-side, look at everything that happened to the driving genre post-Pole Position. The recent 1989 chapter has the best of the driving games, but there are plenty more from other years.
Don't get me started - the 1989 chapter was so recent that I really do have a thesis on the evolution of driving games on tap to force upon everyone at a moment's notice...
The fact that they're completely different games. I never said that either was a conversion - I merely stated that the Spectrum version wasn't one. I can't stand the C64 version, actually.
And the Amstrad version was basically a straight port of the Spectrum title(wasn't everything on the CPC like that? :grin:), but choppier. So the Spectrum version could be considered the definitive version(but, then again, saying that on the grounds that the CPC version is the same is like saying that everything that a puppeteer says is true because what his puppet says is always the same).
I've played Bedlam a few times and there's no way that it would take a year to convert that. Besides, since it took a year to code, why wasn't the C64 version released in the previous year?
You're right, of course; I was merely stating the possibility.
No, thank you; I'd like to be able to shoot enemies that appear on the left side of the screen. Dodging would also be a welcome addition.
My thoughts exactly.
Agreed. I had a hard time coming up with ten games to put on my list - every other Spectrum original shoot-em-up that I've played has either been more mediocre or downright horrible.
also, SWIV was made in the UK for the UK right? well, I don't see why it's so hard to believe that the 8-bit versions were as important as the Amiga version, in the UK the massive games machines were the Speccy and the Commode, then as the ninetees started, from there everyone moved to the Master System and the Megadrive/Genesis, the Amiga was big, but it never went anywhere near the popularity of any of those other machines.
oh and where the Amstrad ports are concerned, Once i was annoyed about the whole "if theres a good spectrum game, then theres a good amstrad game by default" until I actually spent time playing the Amstrad, all amstrad ports are virtually always inferior in 3 ways
1. music removed
2. colour removed
3. game runs slower
many of them are so much slower they are actually unplayable
Spectrum version is better, it has full speed music, smoother gameplay and isn't monochrome
I was agreeing with NickH's statement that for every decent Spectrum original shoot-em-up, there are at least 50 horrible ones.
Monochrome?!
:-?
What emulator are you using?
I'm saying most shoot-em-ups deserve lower scores because they added nothing (or very very little) to the genre.
Cybernoid and R-Type deserved their consistent 90%+ ratings. Moon Cresta was great in its time, and aged quite well.
Just because the levels are different doesn't mean it wasn't a conversion; since it was done for budget release, the programmer might've had a burst of megalomania and decided to redesign the thing in the process. Personally i quite liked the C64 version but it could've done with being a little easier and the pick-ups really needed to be indestructible on all versions.
If you have a game you release it on multiple platforms at the same time, it's only common sense to do so because you're paying for the hype machine each time you use it. And if the programmer wasn't much cop or the project was restarted for some reason or someone exagerated that year of programming for some reason, it could easily have taken a bit longer. But the point i'm making (that people seem to be missing, i blame my lack of caffeine =-) is that your own rules are making these titles grey areas; without knowing for certain that Bedlam or Steel Eagle are originally Spectrum games you can't really include them in your list, at least not by the rules you're setting.
No, by that point the Amiga was just as large not because of user base so much as pricing; the companies could charge over double the money for Amiga and indeed ST titles, so for most of them it was a no brainer; those platforms became their primary target and the 8-bits played second fiddle. Certainly by the time SWIV was in development, there weren't many publishers who'd be using an 8-bit as a base and that magazine clipping sort of proves it since one of the main features was one exclusive to the 16-bit titles. Certainly it casts enough doubt that SWIV becomes a grey area under Locket's rules.
SWIV was a 1991 release on the Spectrum, at which time the market had well and truly shifted to the 16-bits and consoles, so Speccy SWIV would have been seen as a "16-bit downgrade" at best.
The levels, graphics, power-ups, and theme are also completely different. I can't see how one could be based on the other.
That doesn't explain the coding time.
Bedlam appears to be well-programmed.
OK, that sounds plausible.
In both of our countries, a criminal is innocent until proven guilty. For the sake of simplifying this discussion, I have assumed that the games that I mention are Spectrum originals until proven otherwise.
So, you see, I include them because they are in a gray area.
The whole having the same name thing hints that it was meant to be. =-)
The alleged coding time... stuff like "it took a year to code" sounds suspect from the get go... to paraphrase, "don't believe the hype".
What about the games that everyone else mentions? =-)
Hey, but that's two colors, isn't it? :)
Sorry, couldn't resist...
Yeah, but black isn't a colour. :)
However, you could make a Spectrum game with, say, a blue and yellow screen and technically that wouldn't be monochrome. It would look rather disgusting though.
Black isn't a colour, otherwise black and white wouldn't be monochrome either :)
If you was being sarcastic then I'm sorry :D
You mean that the dogs in Green Beret are based on dogs, but they look like sheep
A closer comparison would've been if joffa had decided to completely remove the dogs and replace them with eagles, and then gave you a jetpac and removed the knife and gave you a machine gun.
The game would've ceased to be Green Beret in everything but name, Joffa could've changed the name to something different and nobody would've known it had anything to do with Green Beret.
Basicaly (i've kind of gone off the point) Green Beret was a very good port and joffa tried to make it accurate, but certain aspects of it turned out a bit wrong, whereas, Steel Eagle was pretty much completely re-designed from the base up, there was no reason to perfectly port such a ridiculously appaling game, so the programmers decided to take the 1 or 2 good things about it and make their own game, which they could've named something else if they had wanted to and no-one would've been any the wiser.
No, no, they are definitely killer sheep, very loosely based on dogs.
Well, obviously during some refactoring the code which made sure the envelope register is written to even when it's value does not change got lost, so the envelope was not restarted in such case. Embarrassing bug. This caused the lack of effects in Steel Eagle (not that they are that great, though).
The tinny sound, OTOH, was the standard aliasing issue, as I have suspected. So I have added the usual fake low pass filter, locking the channel output when necessary. All the affected tunes I have tried now sound as they should, and even the samples sound clearer. Interestingly enough, it also made the whole sound emulation a tad bit faster, so even 48k tunes which suffered from occasional hiccups (like Zanthrax) now sound fine.
Throw in proper volume tables, fix of mixer clamping, stereo modes and it all sounds a lot better again :)
Oh, err, on topic, how good is Darius in your opinion? Or is it a conversion as well?
Patrik