Gamebase CPC (GBCPC)

[NewDeli]

Hi,


It seems many of us were unaware of the existence of a Gamebase for the CPC. We all know that the original Gamebase was for the C64, and that Elowar developed an extensive Gamebase Amiga for our miggy related game listing needs.

Apparently, dlfrsilver offered his help for GBCPC, and this brand new v4 features 500 games, with scans, music... GBCPC doesn't have its own web site yet, unfortunately. There are guidelines if you want to add entries to the DB. 500 is not that much indeed, but Idaneels adds 100 games upon each update. I found out that, among others, the following entries were missing :

• 944 Turbo Cup (1988, Loriciels)
• AMC aka Astro Marine Corps (1989, Dinamic Software)
• D. T. Decathlon (Ocean, 1985)
• Fighting Warrior (1985, Melbourne House)
• Knight Games (U.S. Gold, 1986)
• Renaud - Marche A L'ombre aka Sidewalk (1987, Infogrames) <- Sidewalk included as of v.13
• World Games (1986, Epyx)

And for the Coin-op ports that deserve an honorable mention :
Arkanoid, Marble Madness, Paperboy, R-Type


Since some people tend to forget that a few of the 1987-88 first wave of Amiga hits were successfully ported from the CPC (and from the C64, of course), I feel it is necessary to be able to compare the technical aspects of such games (graphics come in mind) on those 2 platforms.

The author of GBCPC and its contributors really did a great job, as CPC game content is even more "deeply buried into retro-gaming sand" than Amiga's, as you can imagine. Installation is easy (detailed instructions are provided in French and in English), especially if you're familiar with Gamebase.


Prepare yourself to be presented with such exotic media files as yb, snp. This said, anyone with Acrobat can be delighted with those marvelously dated scans. Last but not least, CPCE is the central emulator designated to run the games (Personally, I think Caprice32 is quite good too).


EDIT : I edited that short list of "missing classics", but I'll probably delete it next time as I don't think it is of much concern to anyone. At least, you may notice it's getting shorter & shorter, which illustrates Loic sometimes adds games upon request.

[TCD]

Hi Deleauvive,

thanks for the links
I wonder why you think that the users here don't know about the 'roots' of the early games. Is it because not everytime when talking about old games it is mentioned that there was an original version on another platform? I think most of us are aware of the machines before the Amiga (of course the C64 is the most common) and even know that some games were even better on these platforms in the early days of the Amiga.
Anyway I will download the GBCPC and look at some of these old gems

[Retro-Nerd]

Last but not least, CPCE is the central emulator designated to run the games. (Personally, I think Caprice32 is quite good too)

Try WinApe with Gamebase. It has a Autostart feature.

[cane]

Can't wait to see how it looks. After ZX Spectrum I had Schneider CPC464 with green monitor. And after that A500.
Thanks for the links Deleauvive, didn't know that it exists. Anyway, downloading now...

[NewDeli]

True, the C64 was an instant success in Germany, but in England or in France, the CPC had made quite an impression, especially the 6128 model with its colorful keyboard and additional features.

*Reading below won't captivate your attention much if you weren't involved at all in the Amiga/Atari flame wars of that time*

To me, by that time, waiting for another 6 months proved useful each time I had a computer in mind (The Amiga 500 over the Atari ST and the CPC6128 over the competing models). It seems to me the upgrade craze started because such hurried users let it slip they were disgruntled (see below). Only additional hardware I ever needed for my A500 was a secondary floppy drive, and that was more than enough for my gaming needs.

Also, back is the days, Software houses were making games the way it's meant to be : for gamers, not for people to buy a new graphic board, a new OS, or to keep them from playing the arcade versions. Some (not all) Amiga users thought time had come to be using their machines like a PC, adding RAM, hard drives, but we all know the cost was partial loss of retro-compatibility.

Some Amiga users became narrow-minded exactly like the PC owners they used to criticize, and were hoping for more intensive game development, lurking at those eye candy Quake and Unreal fps that were invading the market. Also, their act of resistance on the hardware front was passably vain as PCs could become quite powerful. Remember when the Pentium II was released, it broke the 233MHz barriers and then the 66MHz bus speed limit, which was quite an achievement.

When a small team of talented people could make an excellent CPC game (Highway Encounter, for example), the need for higher framerate, most notably for 3D fps, which some Amiga users were strangely eager for, just blew away the chance to continue using the Amiga platform for making stylized original games (understating the power of the isometric view).

In fact, by 1997-98 there were already such unique games on the PC (Blade Runner, Dungeon Keeper 2), not even speaking about MS-DOS games that managed to use the limited possibilities of the PCs of that time in a very efficient manner (Descent II).

[TCD]

It's a sad story that some genres (classic Jump 'n Runs and Shoot 'em Ups) almost completly died together with the end of 16bit machines. I must admit that I haven't bought another Amiga after my first one died, because at the time the PC had nice features (CD-Rom and harddisks) and games like Doom, Under a killing moon and Day of the Tentacle. After some years happily engaged in the 'hardware race' I was looking back at the beginning of my gaming expierence and started with retro-gaming. Now I like to live in 'both' worlds (and everything between ), but I try to stay out of the update menace a bit because it is simply too expensive.

[T_hairy_bootson]

What about the MSX or Atari 8-bits? Or even the sega 8-bit computers? just because the CPC was big in France doesn't mean it was popular in the rest of the world, same argument for the Spectrum in the UK and eastern Europe. Whereas the c64 was pretty much universally popular except for Asia where the MSX was king.
The CPC might have had some nice games but many games were ports from other systems and came with the limitations of those systems, shame more games weren't made for the CPC to take advantage of its hardware.

[Retro-Nerd]

Originally Posted by T_hairy_bootson

What about the MSX or Atari 8-bits? Or even the sega 8-bit computers? just because the CPC was big in France doesn't mean it was popular in the rest of the world, same argument for the Spectrum in the UK and eastern Europe. Whereas the c64 was pretty much universally popular except for Asia where the MSX was king.

Agree with you 100%

The CPC might have had some nice games but many games were ports from other systems and came with the limitations of those systems, shame more games weren't made for the CPC to take advantage of its hardware.

Also true. But the missing hardware scrolling and the bad soundchip was a big handicap for the CPC. Though there are some nice games for this machine.

[NewDeli]

Here, for retributing you for having read the above bs till the end, you can download issues of Amstrad Action, Amstrad Computer User and Amtix from this web site :
http://www.cpcwiki.com/index.php/Mags

We Frenchmen have a stylish abandonware Magazines project for that purpose.


Also, some of you might not be using PCs all the time .

• ArnoldX is an Amstrad CPC emulator, ported from Arnold
  
• Not tested by us yet, there is a once commercial CPC emulator for Amiga called A-CPC, you might get it from K. Thacker web site

EDIT : Added a few Longplays (Switchblade, Cybernoid...) converted to DivX to netcomet.info ENG Download Pad, so you can see those "bad" CPC chips in action .

[Graham Humphrey]

Does anyone know what CPC emulation is like on the Amiga? I know the Windows emulators are better but I like the idea of playing the games on a TV rather than a PC laptop screen

[Retro-Nerd]

@Graham

You have a Dreamcast, iirc? Maybe you should try CPCast or DreamCPC

http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=24100

http://dreamcast.dcemu.co.uk/dreamcpc.php

[Graham Humphrey]

I do indeed - packed away at the moment due to space issues but when I get it set up again (hopefully soon) I'll definitely check those out, thanks!

[Retro-Nerd]

Play CPC games on your real CPC without the need of tapes, hehe. Pretty cool.




LINK

[TCD]

Great and simple idea
Also the fact that you can play them at double speed and the game still loads fine is quite interesting.

[Anubis]

There is CPC compilation CD out there.

You can play games directly from CD, and everything you need was on CD. (games, emulators, screen shots etc.)

Can't remember where I downloaded it from, most possibly some link at TE. (check my signature)

[viddi]

-> http://cpc.devilmarkus.de/gamescd.html

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Anubis

Can't remember where I downloaded it from, most possibly some link at TE. (check my signature)

Or not. TE seems to have expired

@viddi
Thanks for the linkie mate

[Anubis]

Strange. It was online yesterday.

[viddi]

No prob!
It´s a great CD. Have fun.

[NewDeli]

Hi,

This time it's for real : GBCPC v5 is out !

And for the 0-day freaks (you know who you are !), it's rather fresh (only 3 weeks old.)

Loic (Idaneels) started his (bilingual) blog and

That's what he wrote about this release :
"Finally, after so many hurdles, GBCPC V5 is ready for download !


"Many thanks to MIC & Dlfrsilver (him again ) for helping me (him) with samdisk."


I should try to install the update in the next few days ... , but feedback would be appreciated (details about the renaming effort, exact number of games...) if some of you manage to do it before me.