Why are platform games on the Amiga really mediocre?

[john1979]

Originally Posted by TCD

Limiting yourself to blanking out a platform for a certain genre because of making generalisations doesn't make sense to me, so that's pretty much the point why I still post here

I'm biased towards the Amiga (and 64). By the time I got an MD it was 1993 and I had already grown up with Commodore kit from the mid eighties.

But even with that bias I find it silly to deny the technical superiority of MD 2D graphics over the Amiga. The 1200 could have changed that with careful use of the faster CPU and AGA chipset but the games just didn't happen for reasons already stated by others.

But all that doesn't really matter, there were so many great games on the Amiga that it had already proved it's worth. Games like Lemmings which required precise and quick control with a mouse or games like F/A 18 which made good use of the keyboard shone above their console counterparts with ease.

The fact that 2D platforming on the Amiga seems weaker than even on the C64 (which had some awesome platformers) is not a problem when you factor in it's strength in other genres.

[DDNI]

I just got a c64. Never had one before. Tell me which platformers I should try. Thanks.

[TCD]

It did happen: http://hol.abime.net/577
This game is on par with Playstation standards. As I said, all those general bold statements as to which platform is 'superior' are silly and nothing else IMO

[Retro-Nerd]

If we are talking about platformer with scrolling the C64 hasn't that many good ones compared with the Amiga. Sure, Great Giana Sisters was clearly better on the C64 then. Besides that there weren't many more. Hawkeye, the Turricans, Mayhem in Monsteland, Ghost'n'Goblins. This wasn't a C64 dominated genre. More the single/multi screen classics like Bubble Bobble, Bruce Lee or Henry's House.

[john1979]

Originally Posted by DDNI

I just got a c64. Never had one before. Tell me which platformers I should try. Thanks.

Some of the very best off the top of my head:

Creatures
Flimbos Quest (I think it's better than the Amiga version)
Mayhem in Monsterland
It's Magic 1 and 2
Impossible Mission
Monty on the Run
Soulless
Bubble Bobble

I'm sure someone will disagree with some of those choices. There's loads more to be found.

Originally Posted by TCD

It did happen: http://hol.abime.net/577
This game is on par with Playstation standards. As I said, all those general bold statements as to which platform is 'superior' are silly and nothing else IMO

The PSX had very few truly 2D platformers. There's no way a CD32 could manage something like Symphony of the Night or one of the great semi 2D's like Pandemonium.

I'd agree that Flink is impressive though, but only in a 16bit generation sense. You can't call it PSX quality.

[Retro-Nerd]

It's silly comparison talk anyway and has nothing to do with the thread topic anymore. I guess all reasons for good and not so good Amiga platformer were already said twice.

[Lord Riton]

Originally Posted by TCD

It did happen: http://hol.abime.net/577
This game is on par with Playstation standards. As I said, all those general bold statements as to which platform is 'superior' are silly and nothing else IMO

Never.

Go play Rayman on PS1, then come back and say that again

[Mrs Beanbag]

I'd never heard of Flink, just looked up the Longplay. Great graphics and impressive action, but No Sound Effects? Amiga game gripe #1 right there.

[Retro-Nerd]

Of course Flink has sfx and CDDA tracks. Any yes, Rayman has thousands of colors and very detailed graphics. Nothing an Amiga game could handle.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Lord Riton

Never.

Go play Rayman on PS1, then come back and say that again

Been there, done that, keep saying what I did

This thread is full of subjective opinions and so I do have mine It doesn't matter at the end of the day for anyone what we think anyway, but I highly suggest that people have a second look before 'judging' a whole platform. I'm outta here for what it's worth.

[Leffmann]

Henk Nieborg's graphics in Flink are amazing, but not quite PSX standards.

You can check Henk's website on http://www.henknieborg.nl/ and look at his graphics in f.ex The Adventures of Lomax, graphically it's almost a successor to Flink.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by commodorejohn

Uh, no. No no no. Tilemaps are arrays of pointers to actual tile definitions that have to be stored in graphics memory. Tiles themselves take up just as much space as Amiga graphics of equivalent resolution and bitdepth, because they're just small bitmaps. If you're using 16-color 8x8 tiles, you can store a maximum of 2048 tiles in 64KB. (And as for word-length tilemap definitions, not all the bits are used for the pointer - there's also palette select and horizontal/vertical flip bits.) There's also the fact that the tilemap itself has to go in video memory, along with the sprite parameter list. (Can't remember whether the palette definitions do, though.) Tilemap hardware isn't magic.

And doing tiled graphics on the Amiga would take up the exact same amount of space for the graphics at equivalent size and bitdepth, plus a screen bitmap for the output (and the code itself would take up some memory and CPU time.) Not "megabytes."

The tilemap system never have direct access to the tiles. The main processor is requesting the tiles display by the X/Y hexa coordinates in VRAM. This is why you can make graphic operations that an amiga just won't be able to do.

Look at Megadrive, CPS-1, CPS-2 games. The 68000 take care of the game logic, and is constantly pushing tiles coordinates (bytes or words) to the graphic chips, and the same happens for the sprites.

The tiles in themselves are stored in ROM, they take their weight as you said, but it was not my point.

the amiga is moving the tiles in RAM "really", when a console or a coin-op machine is only moving tile references in VRAM. CPS system and megadrive are helped by a much flexible and powerful hardware functions.

Tilemap system are not magic, they just remove a huge burden off the back of the main processor. And should i add that the CPS-1 for instance has the ability for example to perform hardware calculation (yes, capcom hardware engineers have actually moved this function inside the PPU chip.), this means that the board can process calculations that would make the 68000 sink if it had to do it itself.

[s2325]

Henk Nieborg graphics in 32 colors [ Show youtube player ]

[sokolovic]

Originally Posted by john1979

Yes with good coding, and I'd still disagree it could actually compete with the best of MD and SNES. There was a reason the parallax was left out of Turrican 3 and Bubble & Squeak ECS, and especially for Turrican 3 I doubt it was developer laziness.

The SNES and Megadrive made coding the kind of graphical love you see in Lionheart much easier. With coding that kind of quality of graphics on the Amiga needing high levels of skill and experience it was no surprise most of the 2d games on the 16bit console were surpassing it.

Turrican 3 for the Amiga was rushed. I don't remember where I saw that but i remember Thierolf saying that if the game would have been coded initially on Amiga and not having been ported from the MD, it would have been far better.

This is all about coding skills and, more important, money. You cannot rush a game and simply release it when you have to pay a massive amount of money to produce cartridge. Amiga games can be released a week after they were finalized.

[moijk]

Originally Posted by Mrs Beanbag

Indeed, and Super Mario World for instance had very simple graphics purely for the sake of style, that the Amiga could probably replicate easily.

If just someone have put the time and effort into making such a huge and complex game. There were a lot of good ideas, just that the levels were too simple and repetitive, and without the memorable personality of their own like the SMB series.

Sega also struggled with getting it right, alex kidd in miracle world was just an average platformer in my eyes compared to smb. Just because they tried to copy Nintendo instead of doing something new. Sonic on the other hand was a different take on platformers - and a good reason why it became a hit.

[Mrs Beanbag]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

Of course Flink has sfx and CDDA tracks.

On the longplay it was only music, is it one of those where you have to choose one or the other? That's still Amiga game gripe #1.

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

The tiles in themselves are stored in ROM, they take their weight as you said, but it was not my point.

They are compressed in ROM so must be decompressed into VRAM. 512k in ROM wouldn't be much for graphics for a whole game otherwise. Anyway I presume they have to be in VRAM for the video chip to access them.

Of course a hardware implemented tilemap system takes some burden off the 68000 (and Blitter in the Amiga's case) but it's really not that huge an overhead if you do it right. If any Amiga game doesn't have smooth scrolling it is not because of any inadequacy of the hardware.

The really big advantage of the consoles is the number and size of the hardware sprites. But even then plenty of games prove that the Amiga has what it takes to do some very good games.

[sokolovic]

Originally Posted by Mrs Beanbag

On the longplay it was only music, is it one of those where you have to choose one or the other? That's still Amiga game gripe #1.

The game have both SFX and CD music.

By the way, it isn't true to say that this game is in par with PSX standards, because it is actually a 64 colours Megadrive game (and it is better on MD than on CD32 !).

[Lord Riton]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

The tilemap system never have direct access to the tiles. The main processor is requesting the tiles display by the X/Y hexa coordinates in VRAM. This is why you can make graphic operations that an amiga just won't be able to do.

Not sure what you mean by tilemap here (sprites ?), sure , the Amiga can't have that BIG hardware sprites. Not sure why you're using the word "hexa" here, it's just a representation style for numbers (a console is talking in binnary, if you want to be that picky ).

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

Look at Megadrive, CPS-1, CPS-2 games. The 68000 take care of the game logic, and is constantly pushing tiles coordinates (bytes or words) to the graphic chips, and the same happens for the sprites.

Changing some coordinates is not really what slows down the Amiga. It's more the fact that he has to wait for the blitter to be done. (if using the blitter, but he might be faster doing it himself on something faster than a 68000).
I see you differencies tiles and sprites, so i guess your tiles are more like the character tiles the Commodore 64 has, with just bigger tiles. Well i call these sprites too

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

the amiga is moving the tiles in RAM "really", when a console or a coin-op machine is only moving tile references in VRAM. CPS system and megadrive are helped by a much flexible and powerful hardware functions.

Yeah, sprites ! Sprites do rock !

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

And should i add that the CPS-1 for instance has the ability for example to perform hardware calculation (yes, capcom hardware engineers have actually moved this function inside the PPU chip.), this means that the board can process calculations that would make the 68000 sink if it had to do it itself.

What calculations are you talking from ? Plateform games do not need complexe calculations, if at all

[john1979]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

The game have both SFX and CD music.

Simultaneously? I can only find videos where either SFX is used or Music is used. Never both at the same time.

[switchblade]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

The game have both SFX and CD music.

Which version of the game are you talking about? CD32, Mega Drive, or Mega CD?