The Pinaccle was.... - Page 2

Tim Janssen · 29 April 2002, 16:24

For me there are only a few games that pushed the 16-bit Amiga to its limits. Of course Turrican 2 is one of them and aformentioned games like Elfmania, Stardust and Lionheart also contributed in expanding the technical capabilities. I’d like also add Kid Chaos to the list. This platform game is extremely fast and has lovely multilayer-parallax scrolling backgrounds.

I agree with Akira. I cannot think of any single AGA game that pushed the A1200 to its limits. Most AGA titles are remixes of existing ECS titles with some colours added to the graphics.
Now I come to think of it: back in the Amiga days there was no incentive for me, A500-owner, to upgrade to the A1200 because the software on that machine wasn’t too hot.

7-Zark-7 · 01 May 2002, 06:03

Although,I'm not positive about this, I think one of the criticism's about the A1200,(Apart from the standard one's of the same sound chip as the A500 etc.),was in fact to do with the memory allocation too.
It might've been to do with 3D games in particular, but if memory serves,I believe the argument was that the A1200's processing was much improved with the addition of as little as a 1/2 meg Fast Ram add-on rather than just the standard 2Meg Chip ram.

I always thought it was ironic as the common complaint for 1meg games on the older OCS/ECS a500/600 came from getting the games to run on both the older A500 with 512kChip & 512k fast ram & the ECS machines that came with 1meg chip ram as standard!!

I sure there are coders out there who'll have a better understanding of why though,I just recall that it was an issue, aat least for 3D AGA games,not to mention the lack of a Byte-per pixel mode ala like the PC's of the time.

MOS-6581 · 23 May 2002, 21:59

I think the game which pushed the 16-bit Amigas was Leander by psygnosis. It was the first game I saw on the Amiga (in 1993), and it blew me away. The game used HAM, and it also has some of the best music I've heard.

Shatterhand · 24 May 2002, 05:36

I never played Leander , but I can't believe it can use HAM for the levels and stuff, it probably only uses it in loading screens or title screen. Using HAM like that isn't that hard, I believe.

7-Zark-7 · 25 May 2002, 16:21

Or maybe the "HAM" usage might've referred to "Copper shading" for the horizon/background? I haven't played it to really know either way,though!
Although speaking of "HAM" screens I think I once read that the Amiga version of the PC Golf Game "Links" used the HAM mode, which would explain why it was terribly slow.
The most active use that could've been made of the HAM mode would've been in digitised images,(All the poker games!),I guess!

DisposableHero · 02 December 2004, 23:28

Stardust and Super Stardust respectively deserve a mention. Stunningly fast and detailed. Brian the Lion, Elfmania, Ruff 'N' Tumble and Lionheart are all good choices as well - all way beyond Leander or the Beast games. As for the A1200, how about Virtual Karting (naff game, but technically awesome).

Baseley09 · 03 December 2004, 00:55

SOTB aside........

Robocop 3??

Didn't this require a "dongle"(sp?) on some machine??

Adeptus · 03 December 2004, 05:37

The 'dongle' was for copy protection... similar things are used on the PC these days for some high-end business/CAD programs.
Has nothing to do with pushing the hardware to the limits...

Personally, I can't think of any that really pushed the Amiga...
A couple on the C64 spring to mind though

(Creatures & Retrograde)

7-Zark-7 · 06 December 2004, 07:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adeptus

A couple on the C64 spring to mind though

(Creatures & Retrograde)

Add Turrican1/2 to that list too!

Marcuz · 06 December 2004, 13:56

Frontier: if it ever didn't pushed the machine, for sure pushed the ability of programmer to stash all of that in about 500Kb. then i remember to have powerpacked it in some more than 250Kb and it was still working

StarEye · 06 December 2004, 15:04

Isn't OnEscapee a pretty demanding game for the AGA Amigas? Wouldn't call it a pinacle tough.

alkis21 · 07 December 2004, 12:16

Exactly, OnEscapee is my choice too as far as AGA games are concerned. But I have the feeling we never actually witnessed a game that pushed the hardware to its limits...
As for ECS.. Shadow of the Beast 1 looked unreal for a game that ran on 68000 with 512KB of RAM! Lionheart was not fast enough, it looked like AGA but did it really push it? Elfmania is a good guess as well, with its huge sprites and good speed.

Adeptus · 10 December 2004, 07:29

I seem to remember Zool was marketed as pushing the machine, because people had said that Amiga couldn't do a Sonic-style game well.

jotd · 29 December 2004, 22:00

What about Team 17 star games such as Superfrog, Overdrive, Assassin (hypersmooth scrolling), Project X (looks like an AGA game, especially on level 3)?
Elfmania kicks ass with the ground parallax scrolling ala Street Fighter II (on SNES/Arcade, not the lame US Gold amiga conversion)
Desert Strike is excellent with the EHB mode for helicopter shadow, the huge explosions and good SFX.
Unreal is impressive (but not the flying game, only the guy-and-sword part). Some said it used HAM but I think it's mainly interlace & copper effects.

I agree with everyone, no AGA game really kicked ass.
However, I liked Banshee very much is beautiful (The graphics look like the ones of the Bitmap bros), fast enough, and it is not a conversion from A500, and that's why it hasn't this "colorized ECS" look like Speedball 2 or Chaos Engine.

Photon · 29 December 2004, 23:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shatterhand

I never played Leander , but I can't believe it can use HAM for the levels and stuff, it probably only uses it in loading screens or title screen. Using HAM like that isn't that hard, I believe.

Don't believe it then

My friend Tomas worked with the guys who made Leander and it doesn't use HAM.

There was a flight sim that was good for its time, F/A-18 Interceptor (or something). Frontier is vast. Worms with its explosions, napalm, smooth scrolling and animated water in 50fps did something new. Jimmy White's whirlwind snooker had some tasty 3D.

The Lotus Esprit series looked really good. But there was a F1 racing game where you could play over a serial line with vectors and zooming signs mixed, which ran really smooth. I was always impressed by that, but I forget the name.

I'm talking A500 now. Never owned an AGA machine.

Chuckles · 30 December 2004, 00:25

Pioneer Plague did use HAM mode, though I don't recall any other games that did, except those that used them in title screens or other static screens. The game wasn't the greatest, but it did look pretty decent.

Photon · 30 December 2004, 00:37

OMG, I forgot the most fabulous 'Zarch' by David Braben (called 'Virus' on the Amiga). The filled vector landscaping routines were truly outstanding!

Von würst · 30 December 2004, 01:16

I agree with disposableheroe..Ruff n tumble, brian the lion, elfmania, stardust and lionheart are the most impressive ocs/ecs games.

BlaCkAdDa · 08 March 2005, 07:30

Sword of Sodan was what convinced me to convince my parents to get an a500 over a C64/128 It looked better than most of the arcade games at the time.

JudasEZT · 08 March 2005, 10:49

BrianTheLion is very impressive with its rotations in Amiga500.

For AGA,.. KillingGrounds impressed me, Also Breathless because of its smoothness.

29 April 2002, 16:24	#21
Tim Janssen Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: Den Bosch / The Netherlands Age: 47 Posts: 1,271	ECS vs AGA For me there are only a few games that pushed the 16-bit Amiga to its limits. Of course Turrican 2 is one of them and aformentioned games like Elfmania, Stardust and Lionheart also contributed in expanding the technical capabilities. I’d like also add Kid Chaos to the list. This platform game is extremely fast and has lovely multilayer-parallax scrolling backgrounds. I agree with Akira. I cannot think of any single AGA game that pushed the A1200 to its limits. Most AGA titles are remixes of existing ECS titles with some colours added to the graphics. Now I come to think of it: back in the Amiga days there was no incentive for me, A500-owner, to upgrade to the A1200 because the software on that machine wasn’t too hot.

29 December 2004, 22:00	#34
jotd This cat is no more Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: FRANCE Age: 52 Posts: 8,173	What about Team 17 star games such as Superfrog, Overdrive, Assassin (hypersmooth scrolling), Project X (looks like an AGA game, especially on level 3)? Elfmania kicks ass with the ground parallax scrolling ala Street Fighter II (on SNES/Arcade, not the lame US Gold amiga conversion) Desert Strike is excellent with the EHB mode for helicopter shadow, the huge explosions and good SFX. Unreal is impressive (but not the flying game, only the guy-and-sword part). Some said it used HAM but I think it's mainly interlace & copper effects. I agree with everyone, no AGA game really kicked ass. However, I liked Banshee very much is beautiful (The graphics look like the ones of the Bitmap bros), fast enough, and it is not a conversion from A500, and that's why it hasn't this "colorized ECS" look like Speedball 2 or Chaos Engine. Last edited by Paul; 30 December 2004 at 11:38. Reason: deleted a direct signature

01 May 2002, 06:03	#22
7-Zark-7 Zone Friend Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Brisbane/Australia Posts: 1,270	Although,I'm not positive about this, I think one of the criticism's about the A1200,(Apart from the standard one's of the same sound chip as the A500 etc.),was in fact to do with the memory allocation too. It might've been to do with 3D games in particular, but if memory serves,I believe the argument was that the A1200's processing was much improved with the addition of as little as a 1/2 meg Fast Ram add-on rather than just the standard 2Meg Chip ram. I always thought it was ironic as the common complaint for 1meg games on the older OCS/ECS a500/600 came from getting the games to run on both the older A500 with 512kChip & 512k fast ram & the ECS machines that came with 1meg chip ram as standard!! I sure there are coders out there who'll have a better understanding of why though,I just recall that it was an issue, aat least for 3D AGA games,not to mention the lack of a Byte-per pixel mode ala like the PC's of the time.

23 May 2002, 21:59	#23
MOS-6581 Retrocomp photographer Join Date: May 2002 Location: London / UK Age: 45 Posts: 58	I think the game which pushed the 16-bit Amigas was Leander by psygnosis. It was the first game I saw on the Amiga (in 1993), and it blew me away. The game used HAM, and it also has some of the best music I've heard.

24 May 2002, 05:36	#24
Shatterhand Warhasneverbeensomuchfun Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: Rio de Janeiro / Brazil Age: 41 Posts: 3,450	I never played Leander , but I can't believe it can use HAM for the levels and stuff, it probably only uses it in loading screens or title screen. Using HAM like that isn't that hard, I believe.

25 May 2002, 16:21	#25
7-Zark-7 Zone Friend Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Brisbane/Australia Posts: 1,270	Or maybe the "HAM" usage might've referred to "Copper shading" for the horizon/background? I haven't played it to really know either way,though! Although speaking of "HAM" screens I think I once read that the Amiga version of the PC Golf Game "Links" used the HAM mode, which would explain why it was terribly slow. The most active use that could've been made of the HAM mode would've been in digitised images,(All the poker games!),I guess!

02 December 2004, 23:28	#26
DisposableHero Registered User Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: England Posts: 188	Stardust and Super Stardust respectively deserve a mention. Stunningly fast and detailed. Brian the Lion, Elfmania, Ruff 'N' Tumble and Lionheart are all good choices as well - all way beyond Leander or the Beast games. As for the A1200, how about Virtual Karting (naff game, but technically awesome).

03 December 2004, 00:55	#27
Baseley09 Registered User Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Pompey!11 Age: 43 Posts: 21	SOTB aside........ Robocop 3?? Didn't this require a "dongle"(sp?) on some machine??

03 December 2004, 05:37	#28
Adeptus epun umop ap!sdn Join Date: May 2003 Location: Adelaide, South Australia Posts: 285	The 'dongle' was for copy protection... similar things are used on the PC these days for some high-end business/CAD programs. Has nothing to do with pushing the hardware to the limits... Personally, I can't think of any that really pushed the Amiga... A couple on the C64 spring to mind though (Creatures & Retrograde)

06 December 2004, 13:56	#30
Marcuz Registered User Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: . Age: 48 Posts: 5,562	Frontier: if it ever didn't pushed the machine, for sure pushed the ability of programmer to stash all of that in about 500Kb. then i remember to have powerpacked it in some more than 250Kb and it was still working

06 December 2004, 15:04	#31
StarEye Zone Friend Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Norway Age: 46 Posts: 987	Isn't OnEscapee a pretty demanding game for the AGA Amigas? Wouldn't call it a pinacle tough.

07 December 2004, 12:16	#32
alkis21 Zone Friend Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Athens, Greece Age: 49 Posts: 1,408	Exactly, OnEscapee is my choice too as far as AGA games are concerned. But I have the feeling we never actually witnessed a game that pushed the hardware to its limits... As for ECS.. Shadow of the Beast 1 looked unreal for a game that ran on 68000 with 512KB of RAM! Lionheart was not fast enough, it looked like AGA but did it really push it? Elfmania is a good guess as well, with its huge sprites and good speed.

10 December 2004, 07:29	#33
Adeptus epun umop ap!sdn Join Date: May 2003 Location: Adelaide, South Australia Posts: 285	I seem to remember Zool was marketed as pushing the machine, because people had said that Amiga couldn't do a Sonic-style game well.

30 December 2004, 00:25	#36
Chuckles The Ancient One Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Kansas City/USA Age: 68 Posts: 685	Pioneer Plague did use HAM mode, though I don't recall any other games that did, except those that used them in title screens or other static screens. The game wasn't the greatest, but it did look pretty decent.

30 December 2004, 00:37	#37
Photon Moderator Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Eksjö / Sweden Posts: 5,602	OMG, I forgot the most fabulous 'Zarch' by David Braben (called 'Virus' on the Amiga). The filled vector landscaping routines were truly outstanding!

30 December 2004, 01:16	#38
Von würst Registered User Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Würstburg Posts: 22	I agree with disposableheroe..Ruff n tumble, brian the lion, elfmania, stardust and lionheart are the most impressive ocs/ecs games.

08 March 2005, 07:30	#39
BlaCkAdDa Zone Friend Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Adelaide / Australia Age: 47 Posts: 214	Sword of Sodan was what convinced me to convince my parents to get an a500 over a C64/128 It looked better than most of the arcade games at the time.

08 March 2005, 10:49	#40
JudasEZT Registered User Join Date: May 2003 Location: mercury Posts: 577	BrianTheLion is very impressive with its rotations in Amiga500. For AGA,.. KillingGrounds impressed me, Also Breathless because of its smoothness.

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