OT: Amstrad CPC Games

ewgf · November 2004

Can anyone recommend any platform games or isometric 3D games (such as Head Over Heels, Knightlore etc) on the Amstrad CPC, preferably games that were either better than the Spectrum versions, or that never came out on the Spectrum at all.

I'm not turning traitor [he hastily added, before he could get lynched by the loyal WOS supporters], but after seeing Get Dexter, which looks awesome, on the CPC I've decided to see what other CPC classics I've missed out on.

Thanks for any replies.

LeeT · November 2004

The obvious one is 'SpinDizzy'.

b00mzi11a · November 2004

On 2004-11-17 20:47, ewgf wrote:

I'm not turning traitor [he hastily added, before he could get lynched by the loyal WOS supporters], but after seeing Get Dexter, which looks awesome, on the CPC I've decided to see what other CPC classics I've missed out on.

Thanks for any replies.

It will be a long and fruitless journey - I've been through a whole FTP of about 400 CPC games, and as far as I'm concerned, they're all horribly chunky, slow (it had no hardware sprites and was pushing around a lot more gfx data with the same CPU as the speccy) and inelegant.

If someone can tell me a game that doesn't fit these criteria (that's not a CPC+ game) I will be most suprised.

mel the bell · November 2004

super crap invaders?

oh woody hasnt got round to porting his spectrum / sam coupe classic to the amstrad yet :p

AndyC · November 2004

On 2004-11-17 20:58, b00mzi11a wrote:
It will be a long and fruitless journey - I've been through a whole FTP of about 400 CPC games, and as far as I'm concerned, they're all horribly chunky, slow (it had no hardware sprites and was pushing around a lot more gfx data with the same CPU as the speccy) and inelegant.

Prehistorik 2
Super Cauldron
Mission Genocide
Axys
Megablasters

...to name just 5.

Spector · November 2004

What about Elite? Isn't it the same as the Spectrum version but with more colour? It says so in the notes for the game on this site.

b00mzi11a · November 2004

Yeh - but all CPC games that are the same as their Spectrum versions are slower - it takes more time to sort out the screen, so absolutely everything I've played is slower than the speccy.

b00mzi11a · November 2004

On 2004-11-17 23:31, AndyC wrote:

Prehistorik 2
Super Cauldron
Mission Genocide
Axys
Megablasters

...to name just 5.

I am well impressed by Super Cauldron and Prehistorik 2 (gfx-wise anyway) - Prehistorik 2 on the standard CPC seems almost as good as the CPC+ version :) However they do seem just like poor versions of console games, rather than something CPC-specific, if you see what I mean. As far as the shoot-em-ups you mentioned, I really don't think they're any good at all. None of them have the sophistication of a game like SWIV or Silkworm (both of which are worse than their Speccy versions) , and that bomberman thing is horrid. Not denying that the CPC is capable of some very pretty gfx sometimes, but the games for it always seemed, well, crap really.

AndyC · November 2004

On 2004-11-18 12:22, b00mzi11a wrote:
Yeh - but all CPC games that are the same as their Spectrum versions are slower - it takes more time to sort out the screen, so absolutely everything I've played is slower than the speccy.

Please name a single shoot-em-up on the Speccy which does full screen, 50fps scrolling like Mission Genocide. You can't, because there isn't one.

Elite on the CPC has often been referred to as the second best version (after the BBC version), even by the likes of Bell and Braben...

b00mzi11a · November 2004

On 2004-11-18 13:19, AndyC wrote:

On 2004-11-18 12:22, b00mzi11a wrote:
Yeh - but all CPC games that are the same as their Spectrum versions are slower - it takes more time to sort out the screen, so absolutely everything I've played is slower than the speccy.

Please name a single shoot-em-up on the Speccy which does full screen, 50fps scrolling like Mission Genocide. You can't, because there isn't one.

Elite on the CPC has often been referred to as the second best version (after the BBC version), even by the likes of Bell and Braben...

You're absolutely right, there aren't any - but that's not really the point - I admit that CPC graphics are technically superior. What I don't think is that CPC games are as playable. And in fact, the whole CPC experience just left me cold - it has NO character. The chunky-fudge C64 was bursting with sillyness and mad games full of hardware sprites and a stupid soundchip. The Speccy had just millions of games, a really silly esoteric keyword entry system, rubber keys, nice design, silly programmers, the works.

The CPC is a boring and cynical attempt by Alan Sugar to cash in on the 80's personal computer craze, nothing more.

ewgf · November 2004

AndyC,

Thanks for the suggestions, they're amongst the CPC games Net Vampire is currently downloading for me, but I cannot find your JSW+ anywhere, so I was wondering if you'd e-mail it me?

Thanks.

ADJB · November 2004

See MSX answer.

ADJB

Sharopolis · November 2004

Im also pretty unimpressed with CPC games in general, maybe it's a bit unfair cos I don't really know whats what. If I didn't know the Spectrum I could probably play a lot of games at random and be unimpressed by what I saw unless somone told what the classics were.
the CPC definately has some nice demos though, Ecolebui being one of them. This is the first site I found with a download
http://www.fortunecity.com/skyscraper/black/791/cpcscene/cpcfdemo.htm

there's some other nice ones if you look. I think the CPCs real problem was lack of support. It seems most games made it to the CPC as an afterthought.

AndyC · November 2004

It was definately more of a coders machine than a gamers, as it certainly suffered numerous lazy ports of Spectrum games which really could have be done so much better had the effort been invested.

A 90% done version of JSW+ can be found at http://www-ftp.lip6.fr/pub/amstrad/gamefree/JSWPLUS.ZIP (although it has a nasty bug in the arrow timing routines). I'm hoping to get some time to finish it this weekend, although that means writing an AY driver which I'm not looking forward too! You need to emulate a 6128+ to run it (WinAPE is the best emu for Windows)

[ This Message was edited by: AndyC on 2004-11-19 14:19 ]

Erlstoned · November 2004

I don't have as much experience with CPC, but I can remember that Heavy on The Magick looked awesome. Correct me if I'm wrong.

ewgf · November 2004

Thanks for all of the suggestions, and AndyC, thanks too for the link, I'll download it now, and I look forward to the full version!

MattLamb · November 2004

I started an Amstrad thread up earlier in the year, and just had to go back and find it to remind myself how to load games (I had to read my own instructions I posted at the time!).

I mighht drudge the old thread up from the archives... :)

robert@fm · November 2004

Head Over Heels is (IMO) miles better on the CPC than on the Speccy -- as Jon Ritman once pointed out on css, the fact that Bernie Drummond had four colours to play with rather than just two allowed him to redesign the graphics to be clearer.

Also, I've not noticed Head Over Heels to be any slower on the CPC than on the Speccy.? Indeed, there's a fallacy in b00mzi11a's argument that CPC games "must" be slower than their Speccy equivalents; it assumes that the Speccy versions are already running flat-out, with no delay loops needed to slow them down enough to be playable -- and thus no slack to be taken up to minimise or eliminate the speed difference on the CPC.

b00mzi11a · November 2004

On 2004-11-20 21:54, [email="robert@fm"]robert@fm[/email] wrote:
Head Over Heels is (IMO) miles better on the CPC than on the Speccy -- as Jon Ritman once pointed out on css, the fact that Bernie Drummond had four colours to play with rather than just two allowed him to redesign the graphics to be clearer.

Also, I've not noticed Head Over Heels to be any slower on the CPC than on the Speccy. Indeed, there's a fallacy in b00mzi11a's argument that CPC games "must" be slower than their Speccy equivalents; it assumes that the Speccy versions are already running flat-out, with no delay loops needed to slow them down enough to be playable -- and thus no slack to be taken up to minimise or eliminate the speed difference on the CPC.

Face it - it's basically true in 99% of games that they run as fast as possible. The only slow-down code is usually to make sure it runs at a constant frame-rate. That frame-rate will be lower on the CPC than on the Speccy.

AndyC · November 2004

On 2004-11-20 22:13, b00mzi11a wrote:
Face it - it's basically true in 99% of games that they run as fast as possible. The only slow-down code is usually to make sure it runs at a constant frame-rate. That frame-rate will be lower on the CPC than on the Speccy.

That's a fundamentally flawed argument, I'm afraid. It'd be true if everything else were equal but it just isn't.

The CPC can double buffer, wheras the Speccy can't, at least not until the 128. So timing loops that were in place to avoid flicker on the Speccy can be dropped from the CPC code.

Having only two pixels per byte also drastically reduces the amount of shifting necessary when drawing sprites etc. So although you have to deal with more data, you have to process it significantly less. The pixel encoding in a byte is specifically designed to make this faster as well.

Try running the two versions of Chase HQ side by side. The difference in frame rates is imperceptible, if indeed there is any. Yet the CPC is pushing twice as many bytes per frame which should, by your argument, make it crawl. Personally, I still prefer the Speccy version, but it's a close run thing.

It takes a better programmer to make the CPC shine, but there were plenty of them.

b00mzi11a · November 2004

It takes a better programmer to make the CPC shine, but there were plenty of them.

OK - so where are the games?

b00mzi11a · November 2004

On 2004-11-20 23:54, AndyC wrote:
The CPC can double buffer, wheras the Speccy can't, at least not until the 128.

Err - how do you mean? You mean it had enough memory to double-buffer?

Depends on what you've got on screen, and how much memory you've got left over.

Neither Machine can double-buffer as a hardware feature. Show me a game on the CPC that is faster than the relevant speccy version. Go on. Admit it, there aren't any.

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[ This Message was edited by: b00mzi11a on 2004-11-21 00:07 ]

AndyC · November 2004

On 2004-11-21 00:07, b00mzi11a wrote:
Neither Machine can double-buffer as a hardware feature. Show me a game on the CPC that is faster than the relevant speccy version. Go on. Admit it, there aren't any.

Er, wrong. The CPC screen can be in any of the 4 16K pages, so you can use two of them for a double buffered display. That's a hardware feature present in every machine from the 464 onwards and used in such games as FF2T to great effect.

As for games that outperform the Spectrum, off the top of my head:

T.L.L.
Mission Genocide
Fres Fighter II Turbo
Prehistorik 2
Super Cauldron

all run faster than equivalent Spectrum titles but that's beside the point. There are numerous other titles (many mentioned in the threads here) which are easily as fast and playable as the Speccy version.

Other than your assertion that it must be slower, you've notably not produced anything to actually back up your opinions. Even a really, really, lazy port like R-Type isn't slower so I'd love to know what is.

Spector · November 2004

All this talk makes me want to fire up a good amstrad emulator and find out for myself what the difference is between the two. From what I've heard from others, the Amstrad never really made the impact as the Spectrum and C64. It usually was "the other one" that people "also" programmed for if you know what I mean. But to counter that, I do remember Amstrad games getting good reviews in C&VG.

MattLamb · November 2004

Super Cauldron I agree with, but TLL doesn't play as well on the Amstrad as on the Speccy in my opinion. Low speed seems jerky, even if the game window is bigger. The up and down movement is very smooth though.

But there are some classics to be found. For example, Double Dragon isn't the dog of a game the Spectrum version is.

Edit: Oh, and Paperboy is better too.

[ This Message was edited by: MattLamb on 2004-11-21 12:50 ]

b00mzi11a · November 2004

On 2004-11-21 02:06, AndyC wrote:

Er, wrong. The CPC screen can be in any of the 4 16K pages, so you can use two of them for a double buffered display. That's a hardware feature present in every machine from the 464 onwards and used in such games as FF2T to great effect.

As for games that outperform the Spectrum, off the top of my head:

T.L.L.
Mission Genocide
Fres Fighter II Turbo
Prehistorik 2
Super Cauldron

all run faster than equivalent Spectrum titles but that's beside the point. There are numerous other titles (many mentioned in the threads here) which are easily as fast and playable as the Speccy version.

Other than your assertion that it must be slower, you've notably not produced anything to actually back up your opinions. Even a really, really, lazy port like R-Type isn't slower so I'd love to know what is.

OK - so it had Speccy 128k-style pages for flipping.

Anyway, TLL (just tried it) just isn't as smooth as the Speccy (lower average framerate as I was saying earlier), and R-Type IS slower.
The others aren't available on the Speccy.

If you can show me a single game which is the same and faster, then I'll be corrected, but I'm pretty sure you can't - I went through most of an archive of 400 games, and they were ALL slower than their Speccy equivalents.
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[ This Message was edited by: b00mzi11a on 2004-11-21 16:24 ]

Spector · November 2004

This duel is beginning to remind me of the battle between Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone in "The Adventures Of Robin Hood"!

RE Paperboy - did the amstrad version not have any sound?

b00mzi11a · November 2004

hehe - well you can't expect to come onto WOS and big up the CPC without a fight ;)
Also - I truly hate Amstrad for crippling the later models with poor design (they looked like goddamn CPC's FFS), and ruining their oddball qualities by really commercialisng the Speccy in a horribly efficient way (glue a tape deck on, flog em in horrid bundle).

Well, rant over - but I really don't think that CPC games are ever as smooth and fast as speccy games - hardware scrolling/double buffering or not. I've seen them, they're not very good.

+CotL-DS · November 2004

Even though there's no colour clash, the colours are so dull, unlike the bright, vibrant Speccy colours. It's such a depressing machine, the CPC, bloody awful

Spector · November 2004

I haven't played it yet, but in terms of the CPC464's design it's terrible. With it's tacky red plastic buttons and the awful looking tape deck at the side, it had all the charm and style of an Alba Walkman. From 1986.

It's design summed it up - a certain specification to be delivered at the absolute cheapest price possible. The Spectrum 48 and 48+ on the other hand had a great look, the best of all the early computers without any doubt.

AndyC · November 2004

On 2004-11-21 16:07, b00mzi11a wrote:
Anyway, TLL (just tried it) just isn't as smooth as the Speccy (lower average framerate as I was saying earlier), and R-Type IS slower.
The others aren't available on the Speccy.

If you can show me a single game which is the same and faster, then I'll be corrected, but I'm pretty sure you can't - I went through most of an archive of 400 games, and they were ALL slower than their Speccy equivalents.

Sorry to hear your PC isn't up to running a CPC emulator at full speed, perhaps one day you'll be able to afford a better one, then you can get a more realistic experience.

I mean, I assume that's the problem. TLL does 50FPS at top speed, when it's slower it's dropping frames *on purpose*. Is it jerkier? Well, the Speccy version scrolls at 8 pixels per frame, because of the attributes. The CPC version scrolls at 4 (double width) pixels horizontally and 8 vertically because it's using the hardware scrolling. So no it isn't, is it?

If you want to stick your fingers in your ears and ignore the facts, that's fine by me. You'll miss out on some good stuff, but that's your loss, not mine. If you want to hate Amstrad for keeping the Spectrum alive for many years after it might well have disappeared, then that's your issue too.

Personally I stick to playing games on all the eight bit platforms, why miss out just because of some petty 20 year old grudge?

OT: Amstrad CPC Games

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