Technically Impressive Games That Don't Get The Recognition They Deserve

[lordofchaos]

Second Samurai. Ticks all the boxes for being way above average, I think some people don't like the fact it's not running at a smooth 50fps. A brave choice made by the developers in my opinion, but one that frees up more cpu bandwidth.

Not too many action platformers on the A500 that feature a large playfield area, huge sprites, parallax scrolling, music+fx and simultaneous 2 player.

[OldB0y]

Originally Posted by john1979

Tubular Worlds AGA is technically impressive shmup. Loads happening on screen and smooth scrolling. Gameplay is not so great.

Never heard of that one - I'll have to give it a try!

[john1979]

Originally Posted by lordofchaos

Second Samurai. Ticks all the boxes for being way above average, I think some people don't like the fact it's not running at a smooth 50fps. A brave choice made by the developers in my opinion, but one that frees up more cpu bandwidth.

Not too many action platformers on the A500 that feature a large playfield area, huge sprites, parallax scrolling, music+fx and simultaneous 2 player.

It's an ok game. The slow down on some of the bosses and and when there's a lot going on really puts a downer on things. 25fps is okay when it's consistent, but the engine they wrote really couldn't handle the game. On top of that the WHDload version has the usual AGA slow down issues which makes things even worse.

[vulture]

Awesome has some nice technical aspects too, the rotating environment of first level and the 3d sections with the big rapidly scaling alien. Second Samurais is a 50fps game afaik, but at some points it slows down, helps to run it on NTSC though!

[lordofchaos]

Originally Posted by john1979

It's an ok game. The slow down on some of the bosses and and when there's a lot going on really puts a downer on things. 25fps is okay when it's consistent, but the engine they wrote really couldn't handle the game. On top of that the WHDload version has the usual AGA slow down issues which makes things even worse.

Yeah has it's fair share of slowdown, can't say it soured my overall experience of the game though. One thing that kind of annoyed me was swapping the joystick to a different port to play it, it tends to get confused on the title screen, not sure if the original has this strange issue.

Originally Posted by vulture

Second Samurais is a 50fps game afaik, but at some points it slows down, helps to run it on NTSC though!

It's not 50fps, I can't give you the exact refresh but definitely not 50.

[vulture]

Originally Posted by lordofchaos

It's not 50fps, I can't give you the exact refresh but definitely not 50.

Hmmm... It could be I'm thinking of the AGA version which is definitely an almost steady 50/60fps (PAL/NTSC).

[john1979]

Originally Posted by vulture

Hmmm... It could be I'm thinking of the AGA version which is definitely an almost steady 50/60fps (PAL/NTSC).

I'm fairly sure last time I played Second Samurai AGA on a vanilla A1200 it ran lower than 50fps. And on bosses there was further slow down.

I would have to fire it up again to be certain, but I think it's 25fps.

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by ReadOnlyCat

In the case of Sword of Sodan, it might actually deserve two technical awards:
- Best graphics and objects size.
- Best unplayability (ever).

Seriously, they must have worked really hard on making it unplayable. After 15 minutes I still could not go any further than the first few screens and had to stop in order to avoid rage-killing my cat.

Fantastic graphics, but I'm not sure it can really be called a game.
More like an interactive form of self torture.

Tried playing it without extra-drive? You had to swap disks after walking 10 meters. ;-) "Interactive form of self torture" isnt far off actually ;-)

[vulture]

Now, that's even more complicated for me. I've no vanilla A1200, it has an 030 and I'm using WHDLoad. Well, I've fired it up again and it feels pretty smooth. Obviously, I've no way to accurately measure such a thing, but it definitely feels much smoother than - say - Ruff n Tumble which is a 25 fps game. I'm not sure if 030 even plays a part in that as the chipset timings are usually fixed/locked in most games, but you never know.

Originally Posted by john1979

I'm fairly sure last time I played Second Samurai AGA on a vanilla A1200 it ran lower than 50fps. And on bosses there was further slow down.

I would have to fire it up again to be certain, but I think it's 25fps.

[Sandro]

Amiga 50 fps games are rare,unless for factor 5 and team 17 games and some titles like brian the lion ,lethal weapon,addams family,zool 2, james pond series etc 98% of amiga games runs at low framerate

Second samurai is a cool game but not smooth run at 25 fps

to get 50 fps on the Amiga with lot of GFX the game must be coded in assembler by a grand master

[JudasEZT]

50 fps is a very good feature.. but is not everything in a game.

SecondSamurai 2 is an amazing game. Whichever number of fps it runs... it feels fast and smooth. Unlike Cool Spot or Atomic Robokid, which feels jerky and/or not smooth. ( I like Atomic Robokid a lot, btw )

Technically KillingGameShow dual playfield and water effects are rather good.

ShadowOfTheBeast 3 water effect is very nice too.. it swamps rooms and develops puzzle-sections of this great game.

Light effects o HudsonHawk is nice stuff too.

[vulture]

So, I've fired up 2nd Samurai OCS today (WHDLOad, A1200/030) and, while not quite as smooth as the AGA version (close though), it does feel fast and smooth. It's smoother than ie Ruff n Tumble , but somewhat less smooth than the AGA version, after that I'm pretty sure 2nd Samurai AGA is indeed a 50fps game or - at least - very close to it, on my setup, can't say for vanilla specs.

[Bugala]

Not that it is unknown, but somehow Nebulus seems to be rarely mentioned in these kind of discussions. That scrolling tower which seemed bit like 3D was rather impressive back in the days.

[s2325]

Yes, they even managed to do same thing on Atari 8-bit [ Show youtube player ]

[LuMan]

Originally Posted by s2325

Liberation: Captive II http://hol.abime.net/883/screenshot [ Show youtube player ]

Absolutely! I remember hammering my CD32 with this for hours on end. Totally immersive. I may look it up again

[john1979]

Originally Posted by Sandro

Second samurai is a cool game but not smooth run at 25 fps

to get 50 fps on the Amiga with lot of GFX the game must be coded in assembler by a grand master

I think this is quite true. Amiga hardware is nothing like a SNES or MD. It takes deep knowledge of the hardware and workarounds for it's limitations + a very skilled assembler programmer to get 50fps from it.

With the consoles it was fairly easy to make a full screen game with parallax run at 50hz. Most 16bit console games manage it without any tricks. However it definitely isn't everything. Good gameplay can lessen the impact of 25fps.

[volvo_0ne]

Does anyone know how they did the semi-invisible aliens in (I think it was Tower Assault, I'm too tired to check), because I thought that was a VERY nice effect, it wowed me at the time

[s2325]

I think similar effect is in Battle Squadron.

[Gzegzolka]

and in Super Stardust for Predator ships.

[Solo Kazuki]

Same for Ninja in Body Blows - he has invisibility special