which was, from a technical POV, the best amiga game?

[s2325]

Fire & Ice end level have some nice graphics effects & scrolling is still smooth.

[spiff]

From a technical POV Codetapper has already bitch slapped y'all

The stardust animation is still purdy though
s2325, isn't that the AGA version, same gfx with a new copper.

*edit* Nope, last hol screen.

[Marcuz]

pfft what codetapper knows? he's a ... (i shiver) coder...

[Rebel-CD32]

Mr. Nutz had heaps of colourful parallax, large sprites, fast, smooth scrolling, and coloured, transparent water effects. All of that looked great, but had been seen before in other games... but it also had full 3D texture-mapped tunnel sequences that moved at an astonishing rate (some special coding trick for sure, they're probably not texture mapped polygons, but they look like it). The game also featured massive bosses that zoomed around the screen like something using Mode 7 on a SNES.

As far as I know, it was coded by the guys from Kaiko, the guys who made Gem-X, Super Gem-Z, and Apidya. They specialised in Japanese-style games, or at least tried to make them look like Japanese console and arcade games. This was the case with Timet the Flying Squirrel, which was basically Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario World mashed together, taking heaps of ideas from those Japanese games as well as adding plenty of their own, including the unique flying ability. They sold the game to Ocean, who changed it to Mr. Nutz: Hoppin' Mad, and also used the character for a game on the SNES and Mega Drive called Mr. Nutz, which was a totally different game with the same character (and was crap compared to the Amiga game, although still not a bad console platformer).

Games that used HAM mode I suppose could be considered impressive, if the speed was fast enough to play. Covergirl Strip Poker used it and was a decent game. None of them usually move much, though...

But one thing I find impressive is a game for the humble A500 that has massive, animated sprites, animated backgrounds, full screen + slight overscan, runs incredibly smooth, and uses 64 colours. I don't know of any other 64 colour OCS game with this much speed and playability. It's a game called Fightin' Spirit, and it's the only Amiga-only fighting game that was designed from the start to use the CD32 control pad's buttons, not just a one-button game that uses the other buttons to do the same moves as the single button option did (like Ultimate Body Blows).

Another technically impressive game is Microcosm. No one has done anything like that for the Amiga since, even though it might have been dull to play, it had streaming multi-path video footage with fast movement and sprite scaling. It might not have taken that much of an effort to code the video streaming sequences, but the amount of time that went into putting the rest of the game together is impressive.

I would be impressed when an Amiga game is full screen or in overscan and has several layers of parallax. I can't think of any that do, though. Most of them have a black border around the entire screen, or are 320x200, not 256 PAL resolution.

Another game that impressed me when it came out was a demo of Fears. It was nothing like the final version, it was 1x1 pixel only, had a different colour palette and enemies, but I think it may have been the first texture mapped game.

And now that I think of it, there was another game that was WAY more impressive than that, and it never came out. I was in Sydney one time, and with a few other Amiga guys, we went to a demo coder named Accolyte's place. He showed us this game he was coding, it was like Quake running 1x1 pixel, full screen on an A1200. Not sure which CPU, but it ran smoothly, and was really colourful.

I'm going to think of more.

[fc.studio]

Originally Posted by marco pedrana

hahhahha i think i cannot agree on even ONE of them maybe Project X (intelligent use of overscan, a little random factor on enemy movement/position)

I can agree with you that these titles have not a sharp super star or WOW effect (or never seen before) , but in my opionion these games are great as overall points. For instance all have smooth scrolling, sweet and perfect control, good anims...

examples:
- Goal is very fast, excellent scrolling, superb control, great ball effects, small but good anims, zoom in/out possibility, and all with a very good AI. Probably other soccer games have better graphics, but are slow, not so deep and with little AI.
- Bubble and Squeak is colourful, fast, it has very good transparent water effects...
- James Pond has high colour designed graphic, coulourfull backdrop and excellent never slowing snow effect
- Super Stardust has great explosions GFX effects, it doesn't slow when many objects are on screen...
- Superfrog is so good realized that it seems a console game
- Switchblade II is the first game where I saw very good and large waterfall effects...
- The Settlers has great graphics and animations and it is a complex strategy game

Many of these run on a basic 1MB A500... In my opinion programmers were gurus..

[P-J]

The trick is making the screens look good when you only have 8 colours in each!

That has nothing to do with a 'technical point of view'. That is about creativity.

[rsn8887]

Originally Posted by Ironclaw

Lol, no... that is what it looks like, but it really just is 6 frames (or so) of animation looping... but the thing is, the animation is bigger than the screen....

BIG thanks for explaining that to me the long way.
I have to admit, the only thing that sold me in the end was your java applet.

Before I clicked on that, while I read the explanation, I was thinking "bs, no way that that is just simple scrolling, it actually changes perspective".

But holy sh** when I saw your animation, there it is. Incredible. It just completely and utterly looks like the camera angle changes, when really it doesn't at all, it's just a simple scrolling of the animation, together with added spaceship perspective change that creates the effect.

A M A Z I N G.

Doesn't really lessen the game though. Super Stardust (AGA) is still friggin' incredible.

[P-J]

Originally Posted by rsn8887

BIG thanks for explaining that to me the long way.
I have to admit, the only thing that sold me in the end was your java applet.

It's the animation that tricks you into thinking the perspective is changing. If you stop the animation, the illusion is totally gone.

[Marcuz]

if you stop moving in real life, perspective don't change anymore! reality is a faux!

[frikilokooo]

Originally Posted by tarr

Jim power had more than 400 colours on screen (stated by coder)

Is it possible to do this in the Amiga 500?,although they only are 256 colors somebody can explain to me how is the trick,please?

Btw backgrounds of Elfmania, Shadow Fighter and Lionheart are not exactly parallax because they use the perspective like the polygons with textures in 3D shootergame or Snes mode7.

[StrategyGamer]

A500 and A1000 both have 4096 available colors.
Amiga is not a lame Atari ST.

Every Amiga ever made came with 4096 colors or more. This includes the original OCS A1000 in 1985.

[Retro-Nerd]

Originally Posted by StrategyGamer

A500 and A1000 both have 4096 available colors.
Amiga is not a lame Atari ST.

Every Amiga ever made came with 4096 colors or more. This includes the original OCS A1000 in 1985.

But only 32 colors at once in Lowres.

[StrategyGamer]

You can put all 4096 colors onscreen at once in lowres on any Amiga ever made.

[Retro-Nerd]

Originally Posted by StrategyGamer

You can put all 4096 colors onscreen at once in lowres on any Amiga ever made.

But not in 50 fps games, only in pictures. Frikilokooo quoted this "400 colors in Jim Power..." post, which is nonsense of course. I don't know how many colors at once are used in Jim Power, but not more than 32.

[Codetapper]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

But not in 50 fps games, only in pictures. Frikilokooo quoted this "400 colors in Jim Power..." post, which is nonsens of course. I don't know how much colors at once are used in Jim Power, but not more than 32.

Jim Power uses dual playfield, so 2 fields of 3 bitplanes and then sprites aswell. That allows 8 colours for the background, 8 for the foreground, and 16 for the sprites. But it changes the palette regularly so saying there are "not more than 32" is incorrect.

Originally Posted by frikilokooo

Is it possible to do this in the Amiga 500?,although they only are 256 colors somebody can explain to me how is the trick,please?

There are 16 bits for each RGB component on an ECS Amiga, so each colour entry is 1 out of 4096 unique colours. There is no 256 colour limitation, you must be thinking of a PC. Or an AGA screenmode with 8 bitplanes.

Btw backgrounds of Elfmania, Shadow Fighter and Lionheart are not exactly parallax because they use the perspective like the polygons with textures in 3D shootergame or Snes mode7.

They are parallax, because each line moves at a different speed horizontally thus making the frontmost part appear closer to the camera. This is best evident on the Elfmania level where they are fighting on a wharf - each line of the wharf moves at it's own speed giving the parallax effect.

[Retro-Nerd]

Originally Posted by Codetapper

Jim Power uses dual playfield, so 2 fields of 3 bitplanes and then sprites aswell. That allows 8 colours for the background, 8 for the foreground, and 16 for the sprites. But it changes the palette regularly so saying there are "not more than 32" is incorrect.

Interesting, how many colors they used at once in Jim Power. What do you think? It looks very colorfull, but not like full 256 color games.

[Codetapper]

400 is probably about right. There are 256 lines down the screen, so you can change the colour on every line and you'd be nearing 300 already. Change a few sprites and other things and you'd approach 400. No reason to doubt the coder with their estimate of 400.

[Retro-Nerd]

Really? Imho Ruff'n'Tumble looks better, but YOU have the knowledge.

[Zetr0]

but that would just be a copper trick wich isn`t that difficult to code to be sincerely honest.

I honestly the more I think about it Hunter really sticks out being a full polygon environment with physics (althought its limmited to inertia and gravity aproximations) including helicopters / boats / hover craft / tanks / trucks / cars / bicycle and even a windsurf-board and not forgetting the good old foot pounding.

The game is really up there in my top 10 favs too

[Graham Humphrey]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

Really? Imho Ruff'n'Tumble looks better, but YOU have the knowledge.

More colours doesn't necessarily mean a better looking game.