Why are platform games on the Amiga really mediocre?

[Retro-Nerd]

The CD32 version plays both at the same time. And if you switch to PAL 60Hz ingame it's a really nice platformer.

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[commodorejohn]

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.

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.

You are right that it takes a burden off of the CPU. (Though it's not as huge as all that, really, but then, every little bit counts at <10 MHz.) But if the VDP didn't have access to the tile definitions as you claim, it would have no way of drawing the tiles. It has to fetch tile data from memory and work it into the picture just like any other kind of video display, because those pointers have to point to something.

And the Megadrive/Genesis VDP doesn't access tile definitions from ROM. The SNES doesn't either. (The NES usually did, though even then they were mapped into the PPU's memory, which allowed some carts to put RAM there instead for freely-editable tiles.) The Genesis, like the SNES, the SMS, the PCE, the Gameboy, and so on, gets all of its graphics data from the internal video RAM, including the tile definitions. They are stored in ROM on the cartridge (because, well, they have to be,) but the CPU has to copy them into VRAM first before the VDP can use them.

[john1979]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

The CD32 version plays both at the same time. And if you switch to PAL 60Hz ingame it's a really nice platformer.

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Is there a way to play this game on an A1200 using an image of the disk somehow.

I found IDEfix and something called simcd32 so far. But there's seems little info on them and especially whether the cdda will work.

[switchblade]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

The CD32 version plays both at the same time. And if you switch to PAL 60Hz ingame it's a really nice platformer.

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Okay... maybe I'm an idiot or something , but apart from maybe one or two things, I don't see much of a difference between both the CD32 and Sega CD versions of the game.

Those differences are: the sound effects being better on the CD32, but the Sega CD port gets some extra graphical effects (those wavy clouds in the world map screen, and maybe an extra scrolling background or something in the earlier levels).

[Retro-Nerd]

Can't remember if the CDDA worked via a CD32 emulator on an A1200. The game itself worked fine when i tried it ages go. And there is a preinstalled WHDLoad version too, of course without music then.

Okay... maybe I'm an idiot or something , but apart from maybe one or two things, I don't see much of a difference between both the CD32 and Sega CD versions of the game.

I think the Mega Drive/Mega CD version has slightly smoother controls.

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by john1979

My point was that the Megadrive version WAS NOT a port of the Amiga version. Which one was released first depends on many factors and so matters not one iota (is irrelevant).

The Megadrive had much better effects (enemy deaths etc), and if I remember rightly, there were more colours and the detail was slightly higher. I remember someone describing the Amiga version as looking "washed out" colour wise compared with Mega Turrican and I think this hits the nail on the head.

Do magazines measure the quality of a game only in terms of playability? No, even though playability is the most important they also factor in graphics, sound, presentation and lastability into the equation. Yes, graphics can make a game physically 'better'. As much as I love playing nethack I prefer something a little prettier most of the time.

And if you're mentioning playability it's arguable that the Mega Drive version still comes off best, not having the poor grappling hook control system that the Amiga was stuck with.

Fair enough, but I never had that problem after many hours of playing Mega Turrican. I wonder if you're just trying to find any lame reason to put it down in favour of the Amiga version?

Beg to differ, I've played both games many times, and the Megadrive music definitely sounds the best on a Hi-Fi setup. The effects also have a lot more umph than the rather wimpy sounding ones on the Amiga. It's one of the few games that really pushes the sound chip.

I don't agree with everything this guy says, but he makes a good Amiga vs Mega Turrican comparison video:
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Man, do you need to work on your use of verbiage, and considering you're a Brit, thats not a compliment.

"much better", "tons better looking", your arguments are weak.

Nothing about the graphics in MegaTurrican is 'much better' or 'tons better looking', not remotely. Better background graphics as opposed to bars on the Amiga, can't argue with that, but really, the differences in foreground graphics are slight.

The Amiga version also had selectable 2 button support, so the whole Megaman grapple problem you had, I didn't... ever!

I find your excuses for why certain Amiga platformers are crap quite amusing.

Now, i'm not a Superfrog fan, yes its polished, yes its smooth, but for me the levels are just too damned big, its not compact, i'd have preferred it to be a little less big.

But certainly its lack of parallax or whether or not the main character is annoying or not wouldn't and don't feature as to whether or not i'll play a game or not!!!

And you pretty much made the same point in the other four or so games you ''critiqued", laughably poor reasons to not play them.

I think the main Mario character is crap, but it has absolutely ZERO bearing on whether or not the game is playable or not.

I'm not overly fond of the Sonic the Hedgehog character, but its probably a little less random than an Italian plumber thats for sure.

What matters to me is bits in a game that irritate me that ruin playability. Sleepwalker is a good example.

Its got all the shit you hold so dear in it, but it fails because the designers though it would be hilarious to have the main character have an overly long animation when he nearly falls off the edge of a high building, whilst you're screaming at the fucking screen for it to stop so you can stop the sleepwalker being beyond help.

THAT is stuff that should affect how you view a game, NOT whether or not its got a bit of superfluous parallax that other than visually, offers nothing intrinsic to the game itself.

As for your assertion that I should remotely care what a games magazine should think of a game, you're shit out of luck there as well. I think we can all name instances of absolute piles of dreck that were lauded on review only for the general Amiga games buying public vomiting into their laps as they wonder just what game it was the reviewer actually played.

As for the sound effects sounding better on Mega Turrican, possibly they did to you, but the Amiga also had two previous Turricans and there is an expectation that certain things will remain the same. Most of the SFX in T3 are the same in T2 and T1.

As for the music, simply not EVER going to agree with you on that one, and i'm not quite sure why you'd need to bring up a Hi-Fi as if it were some sort of trump card, most Amiga owners I knew had their Amigas through a hi-fi.

I think the thing is, MegaTurrican sounds so great to you because the Mega Drive was woefully short on music that didn't sound tinny, with the same sounding instruments time and time again.

The Amiga however was blessed with great music in even some of the shittiest games, it was the norm, but certainly I heard nothing in the Megadrive version to rival the title music of T3 on the Amiga.

So, we've established it sucks for you that not all Amiga games had parallax or characters you liked and it utterly ruined games for you.... frankly, thats got to be one of the most asinine reasons for disliking a game i've EVER heard!

Good job champ!

[sokolovic]

Originally Posted by switchblade

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

I was talking about the CD32 version, of course

Originally Posted by switchblade

Okay... maybe I'm an idiot or something , but apart from maybe one or two things, I don't see much of a difference between both the CD32 and Sega CD versions of the game.

Those differences are: the sound effects being better on the CD32, but the Sega CD port gets some extra graphical effects (those wavy clouds in the world map screen, and maybe an extra scrolling background or something in the earlier levels).

The screen is larger in the Sega's version and the Mega CD also have an animated intro. ALso the game is smoother, especially in the bosses sections.

Still a great games thought but i'm pretty sure it would have run on a non AGA Amiga.

You can check the in depth preview of The One for further information :
http://amr.abime.net/review_37967

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

...

Totally agree with you.

[s2325]

CD32 version of Flink have only 38 colors on screen, so yes, maybe it can be possible on ECS Amiga.

[sokolovic]

Originally Posted by s2325

CD32 version of Flink have only 38 colors on screen, so yes, maybe it can be possible on ECS Amiga.

Héhé... It makes me remember the old days, when the reviewers were always speaking of "256 colours on screen".

In fact not so many games of this era had 256 cols on screen. And when you see the work made with games like Flink, Beneath a Steel Sky and others, you can see that it was in fact pointless to have so much cols on screen

Same thing with the "astonishing" CD music of Microcosm on the CD32. I remember reading a review in a french magazine saying that the music was perfect which was normal because it was CD played.
In fact the music of Microcosm isn't at all CD music but all made by Paula... And the game is definitivly in less than 256 cols... But the reviewers were willing to believe that they were actually listening to a CD tunes and playing a games in full AGA 256 cols glory, and not a poor old amiga tune with gfx in 64 cols, maybe less...

(for french readers, reviews are here : http://psygnosisamiga.free.fr/main1.htm )

[Mrs Beanbag]

Well I somewhat agree with what Galahad/FLT has said, but not entirely.

Of course playability is priority number one but graphics and special effects, as well as the choice of character, does affect perception of the overall quality of the product - depending on expectations, which depends on what other games and platforms we have been exposed to. So our expectations of good graphics is rather higher now than in the 8 bit Era, and those of us who had Megadrives/SNES &c start to judge Amiga games by those visual standards. Even if a game is really fun to play we expect the developers to have put some effort into the visuals as well, but maybe we can expect too much and judge by unfair comparisons.

I think parallax scrolling can add a level of depth to a game's world that makes it seem more real or solid, rather than just looking at a flat picture full of "symbols". But for an ECS/OCS game reducing the foreground to only 7 colours would risk taking away more than the parallax would add, and many games that attempt it have a drab or dirty look as they try to squeeze colourful graphics into such a limited palette. The 15 colours we can use on AGA games gives us a lot more freedom, especially since OCS graphics were often only 16 colours anyway. There's a question of priorities here. On OCS parallax scrolling is only for those who really know what they are doing, otherwise it's just a gimmick you can do without.

As for the character, well as I've said elsewhere the reason Mr Beanbag is such an odd character is that it was actually intended as a sort of criticism of the whole obsession with the character-based games we had in the mid '90s post-Sonic era. That's why he has so few frames of animation - because I wanted to make the point that the main character doesn't really matter that much; in fact nothing about the game matters very much other than that it's fun to play, which is why you complete a level by jumping into a "trivial pursuit" piece, and why the mandatory platform game plot cliche "Damsel in Distress" is only an anthropomorphised glass of orange juice. Even the scoring system is a joke - at the end of a level there is a chance of getting a "random bonus". Because it's just a meaningless number of no consequence to your progress through the game.

But I have received a fair amount of criticism based on the character, such as "no-one would want to guide this sack of potatoes through the levels." One commentator referred to him as "blue and white Wackelpudding." Mostly all this just amuses me, but I have come to realise that the character does matter. He defines the personality of the game. You can ignore the character and have fun playing the game anyway, but by being "cute" or "cool" or whatever he can provide a subjective emotional motivation to play, it gives us an outlet for a sort of empathy if we care about him and his quest. You can find videos on Youtube of people playing Sonic II with the specific aim of getting Tails killed. Obviously there is no advantage to doing that apart from people find Tails annoying and enjoy a sort of Schadenfreude seeing him land on the spikes.

[Predseda]

Character really matters! Look at Ruff Rogers or Mr. Nutz. They just have a personality and players just love them. Their mimic and gestures, although they are tiny sprites. I personally think if Mr. Beanbag would have some special characteristics, he would be even more popular. Dont you think about some special edition with character's personality upgraded? I would add for example few idle animations, some mimic etc.

[Amiga1992]

"Blue and white Wackelpudding"!!! hahahaha!
Anyway, I can't read 2 pages of drivel, the AMiga did have really solid platformers man, I don't understand this thread.
Albeit with lots of slowdown, I happen to LOVE Zool 2, it has everything a good platformer should have. Probably my favourite platformer on the Amiga.
I am on the side that a character and general art direction in a platform gaem is crucial, but I happen to find Mr. Beanbag a loveable character

[s2325]

number of colors in CD32 platform games:
Alfred Chicken 39
Arabian Nights 232
Beavers 40
Benefactor 176
Brian the Lion 242
Bubba 'n' Stix 27
Bubble and Squeak 50
Chuck Rock 26
Chuck Rock II 206
Deep Core 55
Dennis 45
Donk 244
Fire & Ice 108
Fire Force 20
Fury of the Furries 24
Impossible Mission SE 201
James Pond II 68
James Pond III 19
Kang Fu 406
Kid Chaos 60
Lost Vikings 22
Marvin's Marvellous Adventure 93
Morph 103
Myth 38
Naughty Ones 70
Oscar 41
Out to Lunch 32
Premiere 43
Quik the Thunder Rabbit 225
7 Gates of Jambala 30
Sleep Walker 81
Soccer Kid 72
Super Methane Bros 52
Super Putty 57
Super Frog 58
Trolls 96
Zool 54
Zool II 182

[Mrs Beanbag]

Mario was originally called simply "jump man" but design and marketing departments soon realised that most people don't play video games as a purely intellectual exercise, that games are actually a medium for telling a story, and that emotional investment is important.

Mr Nutz was a bit too close to Sonic for my liking, that's the exact sort of image I wanted to move away from. That "attitude problem" that was so trendy, the way they'd give you accusing looks if you let them alone, as if to say "come on, I haven't got all day". I can see their appeal to their target audience, I suppose. Mr Beanbag has developed some personality of his own, but he's very much the antithesis of these impatient go-getter types. I have decided in fact that his one aim in life is to become a Rabbi. But he can't, because he's a beanbag and beanbags aren't allowed to study Torah.

But with all the refactoring of the code I'm doing now, it will be possible to load in custom modules to do different things, so it should be possible in future to replace the main character with anything you like. He does blink if you let him alone already. Maybe I can give him different facial expressions depending on the level of danger, or something.

s2325: where did you get that information?

[s2325]

it's from Irfan View

[Mrs Beanbag]

just a colour count from screen shots? the number might change as you move around a level, and some levels might have more colours than others.

[Retro-Nerd]

That's indeed true.

[s2325]

So which other method can be used?

[Mrs Beanbag]

take lots of screenshots from different parts of the same level, combine them all into one image and count the colours in that. do that for every level and choose what you think is the most representative number (maximum, mean, median? I don't know)

[lordofchaos]

Originally Posted by s2325

number of colors in CD32 platform games:
Alfred Chicken 39
Arabian Nights 232
Beavers 40
Benefactor 176
Brian the Lion 242
Bubba 'n' Stix 27
Bubble and Squeak 50
Chuck Rock 26
Chuck Rock II 206
Deep Core 55
Dennis 45
Donk 244
Fire & Ice 108
Fire Force 20
Fury of the Furries 24
Impossible Mission SE 201
James Pond II 68
James Pond III 19
Kang Fu 406
Kid Chaos 60
Lost Vikings 22
Marvin's Marvellous Adventure 93
Morph 103
Myth 38
Naughty Ones 70
Oscar 41
Out to Lunch 32
Premiere 43
Quik the Thunder Rabbit 225
7 Gates of Jambala 30
Sleep Walker 81
Soccer Kid 72
Super Methane Bros 52
Super Putty 57
Super Frog 58
Trolls 96
Zool 54
Zool II 182

How accurate are these results? How many colours would it count on a known game that has a fixed number of colours, for example Lure Of The Temptress which uses 16.