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

[Leffmann]

Originally Posted by 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

It's just a displacement of the background. You decide where the alien needs to go, move f.ex. 3 pixels up and copy an area of the background that has the same shape as the alien, and move back down 3 pixels and paste it in its right place.

[vulture]

I recall Deliverance had those foes at level 2 who were seemingly becoming one with the background and became semi-invisible.

[Shatterhand]

I think Mr.Nutz it's a very impressive game.. it's very colorful, smooth, it has dozens of parallax layers... I know most of tricks it uses has been used in other games before, yet I think it looks amazing and it's also a very good game, not just a technical show-off.

Is that running at 50 fps?

[Gzegzolka]

Mr Nutz is impressive game from technical point - yes. But in game-play it require some practice. I like boss fights with scaling effect and techno-city levels. Bonus games are okay, there is even nice simple 3d tunnel section. Somewhere in world 3 over map become too much complicated and there is to much walking from one portal to other while searching for normal levels.

[vulture]

@shatterhand

yes mr nutz is verified to be @50 fps

see this thread for more "is it or is it not a 50 fps game?" goodness!
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=80207

[lionagony]

I went through all of First Samurai for the first time and that game is very technically impressive especially for 1991. I had a few questions that I'd be curious if anyone knew the answer to.

-are the moons in the first levels just sprites? It seems that there are more than 8 colours in the foreground so don't think it's dual playfield but the moons and copper give the impression of parallax, plus would seem like a waste to be in dual playfield and then only use if for the two moons so I'm thinking the big moon is 2 sprites and the small moon one sprite that maybe is just multiplexed?

-how did they do the background effect in the train level 58:29 here [ Show youtube player ] that one must be dual playfield right? Looks like a cool demo effect, much better than the SNES effect for the same level I think.

-the vertical scaffolding level 1:41:08 here [ Show youtube player ] is very impressive and again better looking than the SNES version imo, it might be one of the most impressive vertical levels on the A500 alongside this Jim Power boss fight at 20:50 [ Show youtube player ]

I also recently went through Wolfchild and that's another one with some great technical effects, again does anyone know if a multiplexed sprite was used as the yellow pipe in the 3rd level of parallax at 10:34 [ Show youtube player ] or the 3rd level of pipes at 24:05 [ Show youtube player ] I think these parts look especially good and the Mega Drive version didn't have that 3rd layer

Edit: Thinking more about it I bet the Wolfchild pipes are copper bars, not sprites, kind of like the first level of Turrican 3. The copper really is one of my favourite things about the Amiga.

[saimon69]

Wolfchild is the poster example of why 25FPS in an Amiga game is not bad: it makes move much more stuff than the usual 50fps!

[alexh]

The Misadventures of Flink.

Everyone moans that it is "not as good as the MegaCD version".

It still looks and plays very well. If you had nothing to compare it to it would be a classic. Possibly the best CD32 title?

Possibly the most dedicated programmer+artist+musician combos ever with Erwin Kloibhofer + Henk Nieborg + Matthias Steinwachs - The dream team behind Lionheart which too is a game that doesn't get enough recognition despite being arguably the most technically impressive (yet still playable) game on Amiga.

[donnie]

Apano sin. Not a great game, but the graphics are really cool looking on real hardware/crt.

[ Show youtube player ]

it probably does something simmilar to mega typhoon

[saimon69]

Color transitions in the background are interesting and i think those could have been done with more harmony, better colors and seamlessness; music in game is a bit meh, at least for me that suffer from ST-XX sample fatigue

[oscar_ates]

My favorite technically impressive Amiga games were Shadow of the Beast series. Played all of them. Dune II was good too. Soccer kid, ruffn thumble good platformers

[Torti-the-Smurf]

Disposable Hero (OCS version)

[DanScott]

Originally Posted by oscar_ates

My favorite technically impressive Amiga games were Shadow of the Beast series. Played all of them. Dune II was good too. Soccer kid, ruffn thumble good platformers

Read the title of the thread again...

[AMIPEGUSER]

I read it the first time.

In my opinion the Silmarils Game "Crystals of Arborea" was one of these cases.
The first 3D like Role-Playing and the screen was amazing big. In most other role playing games you just have a small screen for moving and the rest is inventory. In Arborea it was 2/3 of the screen. I was so imprest in that time. It was one of the first games I have played until the end.
It was such a new feeling to walk in the forest, hear the birds and the wind.
In that times I could not understand a review of 58% by the german Amiga Joker.

[gimbal]

There is one thing that I always wondered about Crystals of Arborea and also the Ishar games that came after it. How did they do the forests? The trees are pretty whopping big and have numerous zoom levels; did they do scaling or did they store the different zoom levels?

In some cases moving towards them seems like it has a natural progression to it where the trees just come towards you and become bigger and more defined each time you take a step forward, but for example the forest in Ishar 3 it just seems completely random where foliage appears in each grid cell (which makes that section REALLY disorienting).

There is magic behind those games but it's not all what you see on screen. I really wonder what kind of tooling they used to make the world.

[FOL]

Pulls the pin, .


MicroCosm. Still trying to finish it even now.

[Predseda]

Zerosphere. Just try it. Screenshots wont say anything.

[copse]

If you're talking about a game, please consider linking to a youtube video and say the timestamp like lionagony above (as youtube links do not work with timestamps here). He illustrated what he found technically impressive directly.

If you just say "I liked z" then you're sharing your feelings of being impressed which is great in and of itself, but not as good for highlighting the great things as direct references and illustration.

Just a recommendation! You do you.

[oscar_ates]

Originally Posted by DanScott

Read the title of the thread again...

Oeps sorry Jumped too quick to answer part. Was soccer kid underrated?

[seuden]

Jimmy Whites Whirlwind Snooker