Amstrad CPC, much better than I thought it would be!

[paul773car]

I had a spectrum when I was a kid, a mate had a c64. I went from Spectrum to Amiga and the Amstrad CPC was never really on my radar. I can't ever remember knowing anyone who had one. Now out of interest in old stuff generally I bought a 6128 at a boot sale and I have to be honest i think its much better than my old spectrum and some of the games knock the socks off the C64. Its got the detail of the Spectrum with the colour of the C64 games but without the blocky graphics.

If you like me have never tried a CPC download an emulator and have a go I'm amazed how good it is!

Also try this remake of RTYPE for the 6128 its nothing short of amazing and really shows what the system can do! http://http://www.rtype.fr/Game_Features.html I'm currently using the real machine and an emulator called Ace on my Morphos Mac Mini.

When i was a kid I just assumed it was crap but to be honest I really think I missed out here!

[seuden]

I had an Amstrad CPC 464 and I loved it as much as my Amiga. It also was technically superior to its Spectrum and Commodore rivals as far as I remember and as you have found out.

[s2325]

Try Batman Forever demo [ Show youtube player ] or Invasion of the Zombie Monsters [ Show youtube player ]

[kamelito]

Well the biggest problem of the CPC is that the Spectrum was mainstream and so software houses just ported Spectrum games. They were inferior for most of them because they used the mode 1 resolution aka 320x200 in 4 colors for a 256x192 play area. So the games were smaller and had less colors. Even if the Spectrum had clash attributes it has 8 colors + brigthness for them at 256 x 192 covering the TV (except borders).There is of course good games but very few IMHO. The best was for me Sorcery superior to the C64. Rick Dangerous was very good too.

Kamelito

[Neil79]

Dizzy 1 Amstrad version had in game music while you played, however the other versions did not

[paul773car]

Originally Posted by s2325

Try Batman Forever demo [ Show youtube player ] or Invasion of the Zombie Monsters [ Show youtube player ]

That my friend is amazing!!!!!!

Anyone any ideas how I get these awesome demos and new games from .dsk files onto a real cf2 disk? Would love to try these on the real hardware.

[Neil79]

http://www.lotharek.pl/product.php?pid=13

Tested on PC, Atari ST, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Thomson, MSX, ZX Spectrum series computers.
Two floppy disk drives emulation
ST, MSA, ADF, ADZ, DMZ, CPC DSK (standard and extended)
CopyQM DSK, Oric DSK, IMG, SMC,MSX DSK, IMD, Zx Spectrum DSK,

yep :P

[tomcat666]

CPC was an OK machine, but definetly not superior to C64. The video ram was always 16k big and there were no smooth scroll registers. So to scroll you had to move the whole 16k of ram around and that was impossible. Some of the best games on CPC don't feature smooth scroll - like Gryzor, Prehistorik 2, ...
It did have 24 colours but they were even poorely chosen than the c64 ones... if the c64 looked to brown-greyish then the CPC looked way too brightly colored.
As kamelito already mentioned - most of the games were poor ZX spectrum ports which featured 4 colours. It was ok for isometric 3d games (Knight Lore, Batman, Head over heels) which had a few more colours on screen - but again - this was not done properly most of the times and looks strange.
In the end it meant that you were much better off owning ZX Spectrum or C64 back then... the games were just better on those machines.

[alexh]

Prehistorik II has smooth scroll is the most technical game but only on the CPC+. There is also Fluff, and a few others.

There have been some other great remakes :Rick Dangerous 128+

[moijk]

Originally Posted by paul773car

Now out of interest in old stuff generally I bought a 6128 at a boot sale and I have to be honest i think its much better than my old spectrum and some of the games knock the socks off the C64.

if the cpc have had sprite support, the c64 would have had some fierce competition. And of course if this sorry excuse for a computer called spectrum wasn't the source of most cpc games.

And if amstrad had gone for the 3.5" disks for the 6128 it would be even better.

[tomcat666]

Originally Posted by moijk

if the cpc have had sprite support, the c64 would have had some fierce competition. And of course if this sorry excuse for a computer called spectrum wasn't the source of most cpc games.

And if amstrad had gone for the 3.5" disks for the 6128 it would be even better.

Maybe if they had a video mode that was less than 16k big and smooth scrolling registers and sprites - then it would be serious competition to c64... but without all of that it will just be the plain old CPC that noone reeally cared for back then.

[s2325]

some games with best graphics
Elvira (unfinished) [ Show youtube player ]
Curro Jimenez [ Show youtube player ]
Comando Tracer [ Show youtube player ] - smooth playfield and objects animation
Bestial Warrior [ Show youtube player ]
Zap'T'Balls [ Show youtube player ]
Wolf 3D (preview) [ Show youtube player ]
Power and Magic [ Show youtube player ]
Comando Quatro [ Show youtube player ]
Black Land [ Show youtube player ]
Cobra Force [ Show youtube player ]
Star Driver [ Show youtube player ]
Prehistoric Island (preview) [ Show youtube player ]
El Poder Oscuro [ Show youtube player ]
Atrog (preview) [ Show youtube player ]
Starstrike II [ Show youtube player ]

[tomcat666]

Well, after watching most of these I am *really* glad I had a ZX Spectrum and a C64 later on and kept my hands off CPC ;-)

[Djay]

I had a Amstrad CPC 6128 (The disk drive one) back in the day but noticed a lack of games in my local software shops compared to the C64 and Spectrum... So I got a C64 and never looked back

[PortuguesePilot]

having experienced it back in the day, i can say that the Amstrad CPC was a very competent machine and had some aspects of it that were better than both the C64 and the Spectrum - its main competitors of the era.

the CPC never really got a hold of a significant share of the market, though, for some reason (i think that here in Portugal it had to do with the lack of an official release, though i'm not sure of this. they were very rare here). this meant that the games were very hard to come by and when they were available, they were more expensive than the C64 or Spectrum ones.

back in those days, i only saw a 464 once and, later, a GX4000 console and in both instances i enjoyed playing on them and came away convinced that they were superior to the Spectrum, the computer i owned. at the time, the Spectrum's bitter rival - the C64 - was viewed as being faster and with more colourful graphics and was considered, by most, to be the best of the 8bits, though some people preferred the MSX.

much later, already in the emulation age, i tried the CPC again and found that most games look, indeed, better than the Spectrum ones but they don't play better. most are slower or less responsive. maybe it's not the machine's direct fault and it happened because of the aforementioned Spectrum -> CPC conversions that more-often-than-not were lame or maybe it was due to the also mentioned lack of sprite control, but the CPC games don't "feel" as good as the Spectrum ones. the C64 had blockier graphics, yes, but the CPC ones weren't free from them at all. though less blocky than the C64 ones, they are much blockier than the Spectrum's.

all in all, i think the CPC falls short to both the Spectrum (gameplay champion of the 8bit) and the C64 (technical champion of the 8bit excluding the MSX2 and the consoles) but was a respectable gaming computer none-the-less.

[tomcat666]

Why on earth would you say that C64 games were BLOCKIER than CPC ones ? The C64 had basically two resolutions - 320x200 - which has the same dot pitch as the ZX Spectrum resolution and the 160x200 which has the same dot pitch as the CPC 160x200 one. So to say that C64 games were blockier is nonsense... if they used the same resolution then the blockiness would be the same.

[Retro-Nerd]

Actually a lot of CPC games looks "blockier", e.g. look a the pixels in Gryzor. ZX Spectrum often use the hires monochrome mode, that why the games looks sharper but clearly not better.

the Spectrum (gameplay champion of the 8bit)

In your dreams maybe.

[PortuguesePilot]

well, it all boils down to personal opinion, perception and taste. for me, C64 games are more colourful, technically more impressive but blockier and less playable. are there emotions here at play? maybe. but these are MY feelings and i'll be damned if i let anyone try to mess with them... for me the majority of the really good Spectrum games were more playable than on any other 8bit computer. back in the original days i was a brat and i cared for graphics very much. naturally, the Spectrum lagged behind compared to the C64, MSX, CPC, etc... the graphics had less colours and were - many times - underwhelming. but now in the emulation age, and having tried every possible computer and console under emulation, i can say that the Spectrum games give me the most enjoyment of all the 8bit computers. the graphics are still admittedly shoddy but, maybe because of that, the gameplay usually was better. and the poor graphics also let much to the imagination. overall, the Spectrum has the best playability of the bunch. sure, there are gems and turkeys on all machines, but i was speaking in a general sense.

i think that the Spectrum vs C64 war is still waging around here... seriously? can't we let the old demons die and lay to rest? we're all Spectrum and C64 "owners" now-a-days. let's just enjoy the systems for what they were/are and not for what they meant to us. (except for the Amiga. the Amiga was, is and always will be king. this is a fact not open to discussion. period.)

[lilalurl]

This site is pretty good if you want to read short reviews (with a screenshot) of many CPC games:
http://www.cpcgamereviews.com/gameslist.html


Today I would probably play the Amiga (or ST) version of a game first rather than the CPC version, but when I was younger I had much fun with games such as Prince of Persia, Rick Dangerous 2, North and South, Ikari Warriors, Gryzor, BAT, Defender of the Crown, Sim City (pretty playable with a joystick). Barbarian, Bumpy and probably others I don't remember right now.

[Retro-Nerd]

C64 games are more colourful, technically more impressive but blockier and less playable. are there emotions here at play?

No, it's only wrong on so many levels. Less playable? Quite the opposite. And the history showed it. The ZX and CPC were never build as a gaming computer in mind. But Any system has a few good games, even the CPC and ZX Spectrum.