When did you stop playing 8bit games?

[Lilura]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

If somebody offered me an ST in 1987 I wouldn't hesitate a second. At the time I was scrambling coins and dreaming of ZX Spectrum.

Yeah, sure there were heaps of great games for it and other 8-bits but it was absolutely no contest with a 16 bit machine.

I'd say there was a contest between 8 bit and 16 bit in 1987.

It's called the games-catalogue: established vs. emerging.

C64 had 23 shoot 'em up masterpieces by 1987 whereas you can count good ST/Amiga shooters on one hand in 1987.

Also:

SID sound > ST sound
VIC-II hardware scrolling > ST scrolling
ST mouse/joystick ports were mounted under the machine
ST wins on color, speed, RAM, fidelity and diskettes/drive. But in 1987 that was largely dormant potential, as yet unrealized.

ST was better for flat-shaded 3D games and other non-scrollers due to 8 MHz 68000 and 512K RAM, but the C64 and ST both got Gunship in 1986. PC got Gunship in 1987. Amiga only got Gunship 2000 conversion-remake in 1993, 6 years later.

C64 had Project Stealth Fighter in 1987. ST, Amiga and PC did not get that game. PC got the F-19 conversion-remake in 1988, ST/Amiga in 1990.

But yeah, the Amiga had Flight Simulator II in 1986. Jet on IBM PC in 1987 had a 608x345 render-field in EGA 640x350.

In 1986 the Amiga had Defender of the Crown. good graphics, poor gameplay. Thus, doesn't count. Not until 1988 Hybris did the Amiga truly flex with a coinop quality original and exclusive game, but almost no one noticed and not enough games matched that standard around that time.

Acorn Archimedes ("32 bit") had Zarch in 1987. That was a masterpiece... but that's all the Archie had..

1988 onwards is when 16-bit micros started to get a wave of good games rather than just a few good games here and there, but the C64 held the fort until the early 90s as it pertains to games catalogue.

As for Gauntlet, C64 had that in 1986, ST 1987. And ST didn't get Garrison in 1987/88, which is a better Gauntlet game.

Please note: I am of the "ST sucks" crowd.

[Megalomaniac]

The ST didn't suck, but it certainly wasn't an arcade machine in your home, which anyone looking at the clock speed and memory (and price, relative to the 8-bits) might have expected - the C64 was still ahead there in 1987, even before you consider the cost of the games, and stayed competitive for another few years. That wasn't its strength. For serious uses (from word processing and DTP to making music and graphics) it already trounced the 8-bits by 1987, and was overall roughly equal to the Amiga.

Obviously, which 8-bit you had, and which types of games you liked, makes a difference as to when was the right time to go to a 16-bit system for games. For 3D games the ST already beat the C64 and arguably the Spectrum, with things like Starglider and Strike Force Harrier (and even something as iconically C64 as Mercenary is arguably better on the ST). Get Dexter was about it for isometric, but Mortville Manor also comes to mind as a great early ST adventure the C64 didn't have. Add in the ones mentioned earlier, and other stuff that was good on the C64 too, and the ST had quite a good non-action games library even by 1987 - much of it not available for the Amiga by then, if ever. The balance would swing to the Amiga before too long though.

Gunship was eventually released for the Amiga in 1989, for the record. Also, a lot of people think both ST and C64 Defender of the Crown play better than the Amiga one.

[Lilura]

I didn't mention the productivity software of the ST because this is a computer-game thread.

Starglider of 1986 was only wireframe. And flat-shaded Starglider 2 came out in 1988.

I think Project Stealth Fighter of 1987 on C64 is more impressive.

For isometric games I'd be inclined to stick with the Speccy on the strength of the likes of Ultimate Play the Game's stuff. For me, Speccy is the King of isometric. Ant Attack of 1983 on the Speccy even scrolled in isometric and featured switchable view modes and verticality, which makes it a game to be revered.

ST and PC versions of DoC do play better than the Amiga one due to increased feedback. But I'd say that DoC remains a poor game (though historically important and impactful).

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by Lilura

In 1986 the Amiga had Defender of the Crown. good graphics, poor gameplay. Thus, doesn't count.

If the game which put Amiga on the map and is widely recognized as a next-gen paradigm-shifter "doesn't count" then of course this conversation is over before it has even started

The rest of your arguments either have similar quality or are the typically misguided attempts to apply 2024 mindset to the retro times. Back then nobody would turn their nose at some joystick-port-under-the case detail or pontificate over statistical talking points. You'd open a mag and saw screenshots from 16 bit games and go home to your 8 bit micro knowing the future has arrived. Of course, the financial realities would override such sentiments and so we would still try to make best of our current machines, but that doesn't change the fact that given a chance 9.5 out of 10 people would make the jump instantly.

This is how huge the quality gap was. People nowadays perhaps forget how impactful these generational leaps were, because these days it's not really that pronounced. But all it takes is looking at some screenshots from even the early 85-88 releases to see it rather clearly.

And that's before we even get to the "big computer" exclusives such as Space Quest, Dungeon Master, Sundog, Leisure Suit Larry, etc. Again, modern folks seem to be fixated only on arcade-style games but in reality these kind of releases were the Cyberpunks and Skyrims of their era.

This is not to diminish the awesome games which were indeed available on the 8-bit. The likes of Laser Squad on the ZX or Pirates! / Maniac Mansion on the C64 could hold their own against the 16 bit fare more then well enough, but this was never in question. I'm talking about a fantasy scenario where you can freely choose and in that case for me it'd be a no brainer. Even in the formative years you'd be on a far superior platform with enough games to enjoy at the time, and knowledge that it can only get better.

[Pyromania]

Once I saw an Amiga, I no longer had an interest in 8bit games.

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by Lilura

but the C64 and ST both got Gunship in 1986. PC got Gunship in 1987. Amiga only got Gunship 2000 conversion-remake in 1993, 6 years later.

Clearly not true

https://amiga.abime.net/games/view/g...warrior-apache

[TCD]

It's worth noting that the ST version of Gunship was released in late 1986 and the Amiga release was delayed because of a virus. So the gap between the two versions if everything went as planned would have been around one and half years.

[Snoopy1234]

Dropped the Colecovision in '86 when our Amiga 1000 arrived.

[TommyTomorrow]

Well... It was at the beginning of 1992 then I returned to playing 8bit games after 2000.

[Reynolds]

When I got my first Amiga. But how to think about 8bit games played on Amiga via emulator?

[Lilura]

dreadnought claimed there was "absolutely no contest" between 8-bit and 16-bit games in 1987.

Who else believes this? Just wondering how many people are like dreadnought on EAB.

Consider:

I cited that the C64 had 23 shoot 'em up masterpieces by 1987. And collectively, ST, Amiga and PC had only a few each.

No one acknowledged that. Was the article too long? And that is just one C64 genre. But shoot 'em ups were a rather important genre.

A few people added to my ST masterpiece list. What's that, a dozen or so games across all genre?

My argument is still stronger.

No matter how many times you link to wikipedia and moby games in favor of ST/Amiga, you won't be able to beat the C64 games-catalogue of 1987.

I mean, I can do that as well, but I prefer to post my own thoughts and commentary rather than parrot the communal efforts.

C64 destroyed ST, Amiga and PC taken together in 1987. It was the best Western computer-game machine in 1987.

Why is that so controversial a statement?

I even cited some C64-first flight sims to show that C64 was hosting "serious" games as well.

C64 smashed IBM 808x CGA and 286 EGA to pieces in 1987. It made the ST look like a joke because the ST didn't have SID or VIC-II equivalent -- it was an off-the-shelf-parts micro, unlike the Atari 8 bits, C64 and Amiga.

Compared to C64, the ST's scrolling was shit, its sound was shit, and you couldn't even plug in a joystick without lifting the machine. And indeed, the ST sucked as a computer-game machine.

Why is that so hard to take on an Amiga forum?

And Defender of the Crown was a bad game: painterly backdrops linked to via simple mechanics do not a good game make.

Originally Posted by dreadnought

I'm talking about a fantasy scenario

I am not interested in fantasy scenarios or in dormant potential. The specifics are 1987, 8-bit or 16-bit games.

Your claim was that there was "absolutely no contest" is laughable. It's based on fantasy (as you yourself said!)

I'd say most people that upgraded to ST from C64 in 1987 would have been disappointed in the ST's game-catalogue and technical performance (scrolling especially).

ST sucked back in the day, sucks now and always will suck.

[Lilura]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

Maniac Mansion on the C64 could hold their own against the 16 bit fare more then well enough

And Maniac Mansion of 1987 is another C64-FIRST.

but this was never in question.

You yourself questioned it when you said the equivalent of "8 bit games could not compete with 16 bit games in 1987".

Total bullshit.

knowledge that it can only get better.

Except ST games got no better. It always had shit scrolling and sound. Goldrunner of 1987 scrolling was never bettered on the ST. The ST never got a better game than Oids of 1987. And the ST got in the way of the Amiga's emergence, but thankfully the Amiga eventually relegated the ST to the trash-heap, where it belonged from Day 1.

[AestheticDebris]

The late 80's actually had some pretty stunning 8-bit releases. Coders had gotten extremely good at pushing every last ounce out of the hardware and to some extent the diminishing focus on graphics (which couldn't ever compete with the 16-bits) meant the gameplay was often a bigger focus. I'd wager that a lot of the 87-89 8-bit versions play as well, if not better than their 16-bit brethren.

There were definitely head turners on the Amiga (and ST) though. Games like Shadow of the Beast, Defender of the Crown or Monkey Island all just seemed like something bigger and better lay in 16-bit land, even if some of those were in hindsight more graphics showcases than fun games. Of course we all clamoured for the more advanced hardware and games that would take advantage of it.

Never stopped me playing the odd 8-bit game from time to time. And, having just played through Metroid again via Switch Online, I'm not sure I ever will.

[Megalomaniac]

Sorry if this is a bit offtopic, but I'd take some issue with the anti-ST vibe there.

Even if we ignore the ST's serious uses (and, in fairness, most ST ads from before those bundles of 20-odd games were launched from mid-1988 barely mentioned its games usage, not even Dungeon Master and Oids type stuff) there are definitely situations where it did make sense to buy one at that time. Until the A500 launched in mid-late 1987 depending on where you were, it was somewhere between 1/2 and 1/3 of the price. If you didn't have one of the 'big three' 8-bits, the ST was a lot more active than your 8-bit by 1987 (227 1987 releases in MobyGames compared to 191 for the Apple II (mostly eduational), 110 for the 8-bit Ataris and 87 for the BBC Micro. And it was always clear that 1988 and beyond would mean more ST and Amiga games and fewer full-price 8-bit games). If you had a Spectrum or Amstrad previously, and had exhausted those, it was a much more all-round step up, as its strengths and weaknesses align much closer to those systems. C64 to ST would have been a tough transition because of the sound and scrolling, but the idea of using both systems for different games does make some sense. As mentioned, to get the best out of a C64 for 'serious' games you needed a disk drive, and they cost as much as a whole ST by late 1987. Shoot 'em ups are only one genre, and they weren't as big in the 16-bit era as the 8-bit era. As for the idea that ST games didn't improve in scrolling, I'd suggest Anarchy, Wings of Death, Turrican, Leander and Wrath of the Demon for starters (though, yes, none match the Amiga version, and most weren't the best Amiga games of their day either). Still, even scrolling wasn't essential for all action games - Flashback, Rod-Land, Dynablaster and Bubble Bobble don't have any, for instance.

Yes, hindsight says that from a games perspective you were probably better to wait for the Amiga to come down in price, and to endure the initial era of 'lame ST ports' (not that they were always bad Amiga games, they'd nearly always sound better on the Amiga at least) until Amiga-exclusive developments became commonplace. By 1989 the Amiga's roster of arcade-style games did better the ST's, and eventually it probably overhauled the ST for more serious computer type game genres too, if only because people stopped making ST games sooner (the ST could have done things like Monkey Island 2, Flashback, the Beholders, Battle Isle and Gunship 2000 pretty well, but developers didn't consider them potentially profitable). That's if you didn't outgrow arcade games before the Amiga fully entered its stride and weren't ready for a PC once they started to edge ahead for serious computer type games, of course. If you'd started with a ZX81 for your 11th birthday, where would your head be by 1987 or 1991?

[TCD]

I recommend to read some multi system gaming magazines between 1986 and 1990 to get an idea how the transition was observed. The ST in 1987 was still 'emerging' even if it was 2 years old. The 'big three' were indeed still very much the gaming machines at the time and while the release of the A500 would ring in the era of the 16-bit machines in Europe 1987 was very much an 8-bit year.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by Lilura

Total bullshit.

I see you got your dander up, brother, and you're all huffin 'n puffin.

Relax! These are just old videogames. Go play some and stop taking it so seriously