Just played the OutRun Europa RZX (shaded graphics really don't work in this sort of game), and saw the end sequence. They lifted the graphics from the Chase HQ end sequence!
All in all, what a bizarre background to the game...
I'm sure that there must be a way to get the colour back into this game, the reviews all mentioned how colourful the game was and yet it was released it turned out to be black & white.
I found the game really hard on the Speccy, I think I only ever made it onto the 2nd level once so I've never seen the end sequence.
I'm sure that there must be a way to get the colour back into this game, the reviews all mentioned how colourful the game was and yet it was released it turned out to be black & white.
There was a colorful review in YS, but it was probably faked and I do not think the pictures shown has anything to do with the game that was released later.
Well there were serveral screen shots in colour and yes they could have well been fake. Anyway I've just added some colour to a screen shot from the final version... It still would have been an ugly game:
I'm not so sure, the screen shots from YS are from later levels. The way that the graphics are drawn on the final version are clearly supposed to be coloured. I reckon that the colour was dropped at the last minute for some unknown reason.
I'm not so sure, the screen shots from YS are from later levels. The way that the graphics are drawn on the final version are clearly supposed to be coloured. I reckon that the colour was dropped at the last minute for some unknown reason.
That was what was running through my head as I watched the RZX, Maybe the character-based movement of the cars looked awful, so they ditched the colour to allow pixel-based movement?
I'm not so sure, the screen shots from YS are from later levels. The way that the graphics are drawn on the final version are clearly supposed to be coloured. I reckon that the colour was dropped at the last minute for some unknown reason.
It could very much be that the final version was intended to be in colour, but I would still say that everything in the graphics look different in the YS screenshots and the real game. All from how the cars look, to the backgrounds (both in large and detail) and even that display status down under looks very bad in the real game but good in YS.
To me everything in the released game looks like a quick and dirty convert has been done from some other format and then just left that way. All graphics looks very unpolished and just "scanned" from something else.
They lifted the graphics from the Chase HQ end sequence!
I'm the man behind the rzx and also spotted it.
However for rzx I didn't use original .tzx file but a Russian cracked tr-dos version.
I chose it because it was easier to make an rzx for me and it had AY sounds while .tzx gave me only terrible beeper farts. I didn't expect such changes.
So I would suspect rather Russian hacker to add the ending from Chase H.Q, not the original authors.
I guess that original version doesn't have an ending, just the final text. But no, I'm not going to record it again. It was masochistic experience for me ;)
Terrible game to play. Ugly, probably scanned graphics, jerky animation, terrible control of your vehicle. It has some potential, like big, almost 3D houses and bridges, that you drive by, but it was ruined by other things.
I also had the impression that the game was intended to be colourful as many shapes seem to fit into Spectrum attributes and the movement is also by characters, not by by pixels, but they gave up the idea.
Do you know of any online screenshots of the Amiga version? It could be interesting to see if the Spectrum graphics perhaps came from a 16bit version of the game.
I think the Speccy graphics were definitely ported from a 16-bit version, probably the Atari ST. I don't actually think they look rubbish because they're black and white (Chase HQ had largely monochrome in-game graphics after all) but because they look grainy and clearly weren't designed on the Spectrum.
Oh, no. Every time you turn up something monumental and terrible happens.
I don’t think I have the stomach for it.
--Raziel (Legend of Kain: Soul Reaver 2)
This was a weird game, It wasn't very bad, but it was like incomplete or something, you could notice that when you played it. I used to get to level 2 easily but that level was impossible to pass. I will try again some day. Think it was one of the last speccy games I bought!
It's not something totaly uncommon remember the fiasco which pretty much sunk Sega Power Magazine. They took pics from something like EGM's press preview of SFII for the Megadrive and said they'd played it they even reviewed it as SFII Champion Edition ,and rated it 98%, but unfortunately SFII Champion edition was never released on the Megadrive thanks to the fact that SFII Turbo got released on the SNES.
But apparently it was never billed, as Turbo was out in the Arcades anyway by then, Sega Power really shot themselves in the foot.
I bought the mag and I thought something was going on, to be honest the review stunk of lies.
So what makes you think a Speccy mag would be any better especially when they've been promised something better than was possible, all they can do is pretend to have played it, in the hope that it doesn't look like the other mags got it first.
Sure all these years later it makes them out to be bare faced liars, but hey at the time they almost could pull a low trick like that off, all mags who do that outside of the month of April should be fucking ashamed of themselves though, remember Scooby Doo.
It seems like a weird review to bother faking though - so I'm not convinced they faked it. It wasn't a Streetfighter style review that was going to sell a million copies of the mag after all...
I bought this issue and remember it very well.
The lead game for that month was Smash TV (okay it was dire - but YS gave it a megagame). Terminator 2 judgement day was also released.
Both of those big releases got double page reviews and decent scores. For some reason that month Dizzy go the cover picture and Thunderjaws was mentioned (but not reviewed!)
So why would YS bother faking a review that was buried in the middle of the review section? - It wasn't even a whole single-page review (it shared space with a snooker management sim!)
I also think the screens are from another version, another 8 bit version perhaps though? It looks like some of those graphics weren't even possible on the Speccy.
I also think the screens are from another version, another 8 bit version perhaps though? It looks like some of those graphics weren't even possible on the Speccy.
Yeh, the tree roots and roof in the 2nd shot clearly have 3 colours in the same attribute block, for starters. The lack of a correct scoreline area is also a pointer to a mock-up.
So is it possible YS faked a review? I can't see them getting away with that. US Gold certainly wouldn't have been happy!
On the contrary, look at the score they gave it. Nobody in their right mind would rate the finished Speccy version that highly. US Gold would have been well chuffed with it.
As much as I loved YS, they did pull some weird shit at times. I remember them rating Pit Fighter 80%. WTF?!? I agreed with them about 3/4 of the time though.
Yeh, the tree roots and roof in the 2nd shot clearly have 3 colours in the same attribute block, for starters.
Also the tracks in the first picture seems to be impossible.
The text in the review is quite vague, just some phrases that the graphics looks good and the game is fast, which to me points that no playable game existed for the reviewer to play.
If I should guess then I would say that the software company sent some mocked-up pictures saying that the game would be released very soon and that the YS reviewer just cut in the pictures and wrote some text about the game (that really looked like it would be great).
Perhaps it was a question of dead-lines and fear that other Spectrum magazines would had reviews and not YS, so it would be better to just write something that seemed reasonable.
Judging from the final game, both in speed, gameplay and graphics, I would say that it is a total other game. It seems quite unlikely to have a playable and reviewable early version that looks and plays great for YS, and then further in the development going to one of the worst spectrum games ever. :-)
I tried to restore the Spectrum screen of Outrun Europa using photo from Your Sinclair and here is my result:
]
It's not perfect but quite close to that photo.
The only thing I couldn't do is the extra 3rd color at the roof and at the tree roots of course. Everything else fits the Spectrum attributes.
Maybe someone created a correct Spectrum mockup on e.g. Amiga and later some idiot came and decided to "improve" the picture adding third color???
Anyway it isn't picture taken from existing game + attributes. It's completely different picture and I can't imagine a Spectrum game where grapics like that would start moving. A classic fake.
That's a pretty good version! Now 1. Animate it, 2. Add Controls, 3. ???, 4. Profit! :)
It's not inconceivable as a game, but scaling those coloured car sprites would probably look as rough as C64 Space Harrier.
Those extra colours could just be glitches of a screen image capture. At the edge of the tree it would be red and green in close proximity, merging and looking like yellow. It seems odd to deliberately draw yellow pixels on the edge.
The tyre track is the really odd one - it looks like a solid colour, but not one I recognise from the Speccy. Up to that point it was passable as a game. Maybe it's a blurred stipple? Although it doesn't look like it.
The other thing that's suspicious is that it doesn't show any of the different vehicle stages the reviewer mentioned.
Another strange thing is the status bar of the third picture with your car and the police car. The status shows: 00 seconds and 00000 points which could mean that the level has just started, but the action with the police car seems to tell that it is in the middle of something.
And why in the world did YS also give you this (ugly) Outrun Europa badge with the magazine?? :)
There was a much earlier version that was scrapped wasn't there? It was very much like the previous Outrun games on the Speccy. I was very disappointed that it never saw the light of day.
There was a much earlier version that was scrapped wasn't there? It was very much like the previous Outrun games on the Speccy. I was very disappointed that it never saw the light of day.
Me too, that version actually looked pretty decent.
There was a much earlier version that was scrapped wasn't there? It was very much like the previous Outrun games on the Speccy. I was very disappointed that it never saw the light of day.
Given that the player's car is in exactly the same position on all those screens in the earlier preview, one could be forgiven for suspecting that they were just static mock-up screens, too.
Comments
I found the game really hard on the Speccy, I think I only ever made it onto the 2nd level once so I've never seen the end sequence.
There was a colorful review in YS, but it was probably faked and I do not think the pictures shown has anything to do with the game that was released later.
Your version looked way better than the released game! :-) I like those kind of colorized images, it is fun to imagine how a game could have looked.
Anyway, for Outrun Europe, comparing even your modified screen to the screenshots in the YS review (above) it is clearly a different game unfortunaly.
That was what was running through my head as I watched the RZX, Maybe the character-based movement of the cars looked awful, so they ditched the colour to allow pixel-based movement?
It could very much be that the final version was intended to be in colour, but I would still say that everything in the graphics look different in the YS screenshots and the real game. All from how the cars look, to the backgrounds (both in large and detail) and even that display status down under looks very bad in the real game but good in YS.
To me everything in the released game looks like a quick and dirty convert has been done from some other format and then just left that way. All graphics looks very unpolished and just "scanned" from something else.
I'm the man behind the rzx and also spotted it.
However for rzx I didn't use original .tzx file but a Russian cracked tr-dos version.
I chose it because it was easier to make an rzx for me and it had AY sounds while .tzx gave me only terrible beeper farts. I didn't expect such changes.
So I would suspect rather Russian hacker to add the ending from Chase H.Q, not the original authors.
I guess that original version doesn't have an ending, just the final text. But no, I'm not going to record it again. It was masochistic experience for me ;)
Terrible game to play. Ugly, probably scanned graphics, jerky animation, terrible control of your vehicle. It has some potential, like big, almost 3D houses and bridges, that you drive by, but it was ruined by other things.
I also had the impression that the game was intended to be colourful as many shapes seem to fit into Spectrum attributes and the movement is also by characters, not by by pixels, but they gave up the idea.
Still not as bad as Outrun 2012, or Battle Outrun or whatever.
Out of all the oldskool Outruns Turbo Outrun was ace bestest, followed by the original, then Outrunners. The rest were bollocks.
....and I haven't played the new ones (maybe, I did play Outrun II though?).
Just my 2 pennies :D
Outrun Europa was okay on the Amiga. Outrun II and Outrun II Coast to Coast are FANTASIC.
Do you know of any online screenshots of the Amiga version? It could be interesting to see if the Spectrum graphics perhaps came from a 16bit version of the game.
I don’t think I have the stomach for it.
--Raziel (Legend of Kain: Soul Reaver 2)
https://www.youtube.com/user/VincentTSFP
Cheers
I think they reviewed an early version, something the other two mags sometimes did.
But apparently it was never billed, as Turbo was out in the Arcades anyway by then, Sega Power really shot themselves in the foot.
I bought the mag and I thought something was going on, to be honest the review stunk of lies.
So what makes you think a Speccy mag would be any better especially when they've been promised something better than was possible, all they can do is pretend to have played it, in the hope that it doesn't look like the other mags got it first.
Sure all these years later it makes them out to be bare faced liars, but hey at the time they almost could pull a low trick like that off, all mags who do that outside of the month of April should be fucking ashamed of themselves though, remember Scooby Doo.
Dicks!
I bought this issue and remember it very well.
The lead game for that month was Smash TV (okay it was dire - but YS gave it a megagame). Terminator 2 judgement day was also released.
Both of those big releases got double page reviews and decent scores. For some reason that month Dizzy go the cover picture and Thunderjaws was mentioned (but not reviewed!)
So why would YS bother faking a review that was buried in the middle of the review section? - It wasn't even a whole single-page review (it shared space with a snooker management sim!)
On the contrary, look at the score they gave it. Nobody in their right mind would rate the finished Speccy version that highly. US Gold would have been well chuffed with it.
As much as I loved YS, they did pull some weird shit at times. I remember them rating Pit Fighter 80%. WTF?!? I agreed with them about 3/4 of the time though.
Also the tracks in the first picture seems to be impossible.
The text in the review is quite vague, just some phrases that the graphics looks good and the game is fast, which to me points that no playable game existed for the reviewer to play.
If I should guess then I would say that the software company sent some mocked-up pictures saying that the game would be released very soon and that the YS reviewer just cut in the pictures and wrote some text about the game (that really looked like it would be great).
Perhaps it was a question of dead-lines and fear that other Spectrum magazines would had reviews and not YS, so it would be better to just write something that seemed reasonable.
Judging from the final game, both in speed, gameplay and graphics, I would say that it is a total other game. It seems quite unlikely to have a playable and reviewable early version that looks and plays great for YS, and then further in the development going to one of the worst spectrum games ever. :-)
]
It's not perfect but quite close to that photo.
The only thing I couldn't do is the extra 3rd color at the roof and at the tree roots of course. Everything else fits the Spectrum attributes.
Maybe someone created a correct Spectrum mockup on e.g. Amiga and later some idiot came and decided to "improve" the picture adding third color???
Anyway it isn't picture taken from existing game + attributes. It's completely different picture and I can't imagine a Spectrum game where grapics like that would start moving. A classic fake.
It's not inconceivable as a game, but scaling those coloured car sprites would probably look as rough as C64 Space Harrier.
Those extra colours could just be glitches of a screen image capture. At the edge of the tree it would be red and green in close proximity, merging and looking like yellow. It seems odd to deliberately draw yellow pixels on the edge.
The tyre track is the really odd one - it looks like a solid colour, but not one I recognise from the Speccy. Up to that point it was passable as a game. Maybe it's a blurred stipple? Although it doesn't look like it.
The other thing that's suspicious is that it doesn't show any of the different vehicle stages the reviewer mentioned.
- IONIAN-GAMES.com -
And why in the world did YS also give you this (ugly) Outrun Europa badge with the magazine?? :)
ftp://ftp.worldofspectrum.org/pub/sinclair/company-pics/YourSinclair/YSBadge-OutRunEuropa.jpg
Me too, that version actually looked pretty decent.
http://www.ysrnry.co.uk/articles/outruneuropaoriginal-preview.htm
It's a bit ugly isn't it?!
I prefered the original YS Cover.
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/showmag.cgi?mag=YourSinclair/Issue41/Pages/YourSinclair4100001.jpg
*sniff* Happy, rose-tinted memories from 1989...
- IONIAN-GAMES.com -