Outrun Port using Lotus engine? Possible?

[005AGIMA]

Just a thought, has anyone tried to recreate Outrun using the same engine as the Lotus series?

I've always said the Lotus games pointed out what Outrun on Amiga could/should have been like.


I dont have the skills, and let's not mention the IP involved (not just from Sega, but also from Ferrari), but that aside, would it be doable?

[005AGIMA]

Sorry just found THIS
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=76353

And this
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=76454

lol.

[LongLifeA1200]

Seems this request is too popular to ignore.

I don't know if TuRRIcaNEd is still working on it.

Someone made a Lotus Esprit Turbo Level Editor (in German made by BadCat) but it has vanished.

[005AGIMA]

Originally Posted by LongLifeA1200

Seems this request is too popular to ignore.

I don't know if TuRRIcaNEd is still working on it.

Someone made a Lotus Esprit Turbo Level Editor (in German made by BadCat) but it has vanished.

yeah I think so too.

Other threads also mention AGA only, which while I can see "why", I dont 100% agree.

Lotus 1, 2, and 3 all worked on the A500 so there's no reason why an "Outrun Mod" (for want of a better term) couldn't work on it also.

Sure there would be compromises but you could have "AGA optimised" as an additional option.

[Glen M]

There are a few striking differences between lotus and outrun that people tend to forget with the biggest one being that fact that lotus only has 1 car sprite recoloured as the cars you pass on the road whereas in outrun there is a mix match of different vehicles.

Outrun also has vastly more artifacts at the side of the road that need scaled and drawn. These could be cut back on i suppose but it depends just how accurate you want to get the port.

Speaking of which any outrun game MUST have the music as that is as much outrun as the game itself.

[saimon69]

I did thought of the Outrun Europa Engine, since it also has somehow forks but have no clue whether assets and maps can be modified

[Coagulus]

While I'd love to see an arcade perfect Out Run I'd also love to see what genuinely is the best version an A500 could do. One thing is certain, the version we got wasn't it.

I liked the Master System version but that was hardly arcade perfect. Maybe one day they'll will be a good conversation...

[rothers]

The A500 is certainly capable of running a near arcade perfect outrun (but with pre-zoomed in to memory sprites) but I think what frustrates all of us is that the conversions never got the attention they deserved.

The hardware was absolutely capable but it was just never put to good use.

[roondar]

Originally Posted by rothers

The A500 is certainly capable of running a near arcade perfect outrun (but with pre-zoomed in to memory sprites) but I think what frustrates all of us is that the conversions never got the attention they deserved.

The hardware was absolutely capable but it was just never put to good use.

No. It isn't.

Lotus 2 is a good example of how close the OCS Amiga can get. And while I absolutely love Lotus 2 and love the Amiga OCS chipset, it's pretty clear that Lotus 2 is vastly inferior to Outrun.

Now don't get me wrong, Lotus 2 is expertly programmed and uses some very clever tricks to get as fast as it is, but these tricks include various limits that just don't exist in Outrun. Such as a fairly sparse environment, much less variety in road side objects (due to memory constraints), much smaller road side objects (due to memory and Blitter bandwidth constraints) and a relative lack of on-screen cars.

[DanScott]

Originally Posted by rothers

The A500 is certainly capable of running a near arcade perfect outrun (but with pre-zoomed in to memory sprites) but I think what frustrates all of us is that the conversions never got the attention they deserved.

The hardware was absolutely capable but it was just never put to good use.

Nope, not even close

[Coagulus]

And this is why I shouldn't use autocorrect. I meant maybe one day there will be a good conversion!

The conversation has been fine.

[saimon69]

I think should be possible to reach PC Engine or Megadrive quality, but the arcade is too powerful for an OCS machine unless you want to go the Drivng Force approach and have all same 8-colors giant pixel stuff running at you (huge pixels were in the arcade too but less visible at first sight)

[roondar]

Originally Posted by Coagulus

And this is why I shouldn't use autocorrect. I meant maybe one day there will be a good conversion!

The conversation has been fine.

I found that the conversation was far from Arcade perfect. I want more layers of parallax and hardware sprite scaling in my conversations

Originally Posted by saimon69

I think should be possible to reach PC Engine or Megadrive quality, but the arcade is too powerful for an OCS machine unless you want to go the Drivng Force approach and have 8-colors giant pixel stuff running at you (actually i wouldn't mind, because huge pixels were in the arcade too)

The Amiga is certainly capable of much, much better than what we got.

PC-Engine level might be tricky due to the insane number of colours that system allows you to use (all 512 colours can be used at once with a bit of clever palette picking), but close to the MD version should be fairly doable.

[lesta_smsc]

Disappointing to learn that the Amiga cannot compete with MD lol

[roondar]

Well, that's not so strange. The Amiga is three years older than the MD. Just look at systems three years older than the Amiga to see why you really shouldn't expect the older system to win here

To be fair I've always thought the Amiga did a pretty admirable job of staying competitive even though the 16 bit consoles were years newer.

[Dunny]

While we all love the ol' miggy, you have to admit that it was way outclassed by the arcades. Look at many of the more ambitious arcade conversions (and some of the less ambitious such as NZS) and you see mostly cut-down graphical assets and washed-out palettes.

These games looked awesome back in the day, when your contact with the arcades was limited to days out at the seaside but now you can see them side-by-side - the Amiga often put on a brave face but was just not powerful enough.

[005AGIMA]

Originally Posted by Glen M

There are a few striking differences between lotus and outrun that people tend to forget with the biggest one being that fact that lotus only has 1 car sprite recoloured as the cars you pass on the road whereas in outrun there is a mix match of different vehicles.

Outrun also has vastly more artifacts at the side of the road that need scaled and drawn. These could be cut back on i suppose but it depends just how accurate you want to get the port.

Speaking of which any outrun game MUST have the music as that is as much outrun as the game itself.

Good points re Lotus only having 1 car sprite. I do keep forgetting that detail. I had thought of others like the fact that it doesn't have forks in the road, but assumed some clever dev could....you know..."just" add that in

And hell yes the music is a MUST. Although there are acceptable cheating ways around that.

I recall Sinclair User magazine ones had a cover tape (I think this was how it was distributed. I dont recall it being WITH the game but anyway), and it was an audio cassette of the music. (Edit: False memory...it DID come with the game. Just looked up the box art. So it was a second cassette I think, or perhaps side B but that wouldn't have worked as you'd loose your "position" with loading each level)


What I did, after loading the first game level, was switch tapes and play the audio through the spectrum computer. Sounded awesome

So what I'm saying is, I'd rather fix graphics and gameplay, so long as I can listen to the music...."somehow" as a worst case

The spectrum version btw was good and bad.

Colours (or lack of) go without saying.
It was sloooooooow.
BUT...the graphics representation, AND the level recreation in terms of hills and corners was amazingly close.

Originally Posted by Coagulus

While I'd love to see an arcade perfect Out Run I'd also love to see what genuinely is the best version an A500 could do. One thing is certain, the version we got wasn't it.

I liked the Master System version but that was hardly arcade perfect. Maybe one day they'll will be a good conversation...

Yes to clarify, this is what I'm thinking.

I'm not after "The Arcade version on an A500". If I want to play Outrun Arcade, hell I'd buy a used standup unit and put it in my garage TBH.

I'd LOVE to see "the best the A500 can do", and Lotus has always proved to me that it could have been done much better than it was.

I also really liked the Master System version btw. It was FAST, and that's the whole point.

[LongLifeA1200]

Originally Posted by lesta_smsc

Disappointing to learn that the Amiga cannot compete with MD lol

Originally Posted by roondar

Well, that's not so strange. The Amiga is three years older than the MD. Just look at systems three years older than the Amiga to see why you really shouldn't expect the older system to win here

To be fair I've always thought the Amiga did a pretty admirable job of staying competitive even though the 16 bit consoles were years newer.

Originally Posted by Dunny

While we all love the ol' miggy, you have to admit that it was way outclassed by the arcades. Look at many of the more ambitious arcade conversions (and some of the less ambitious such as NZS) and you see mostly cut-down graphical assets and washed-out palettes.

Okay, fair enough, people hold arcade games in high regard, but I've been compiling a list so far of my favorite games on the Amiga and only about ~20% have arcade-versions or would work as an arcade game.

Still haven't finished the list yet, but that says to me that on arcade/MAME I'd be missing out on a lot of fun & interesting products only because arcade games are very limited to small number of genres. Same almost goes for consoles.

If I had to choose, I'd rather see a new/original IP on the Amiga rather than a perfected arcade port. But I'm probably in the minority there.

[005AGIMA]

Originally Posted by LongLifeA1200

If I had to choose, I'd rather see a new/original IP on the Amiga rather than a perfected arcade port. But I'm probably in the minority there.

I'd argue that's a perfectly good thing to want.

It's a topic all of it's own.

[005AGIMA]

CRAZY thought...... and this comes from me thinking about how the Spectrum version worked (You loaded each level from TAPE), and the way games like Batman (The movie) worked.......

What if it was a multi disk game?

Batman, as I understand it (from a player perspective not a dev perspective), kind of loads individual "games" to a point. LEvel 1 and 5 being platform (disk 1). Level 2 and 4 being street (driving and flying) (Disk 2), and level 3 being the chemical puzzle. (can't remember which disk lol)

This I would assume, allowed them to have more assets.

So if a new Outrun also used Multi disk, perhaps you'd be able to achieve the depth of asset variation of the original?

Now of course swapping disks would be a pain in the arse as it interrupts the flow of driving coast to coast, but meh....we lived with MUCH WORSE on the spectrum re TAPE loading times...and fails.

Did outrun on Amiga stop and load more assets from the disk anyway? On level progression? I can't recall.

May play through AF on the weekend to see.