Is Batman the Movie for the Atari ST the best development from Ocean?

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by Don_Adan

Disk images is enough to rip Jonathan Dunn music. Or this version has no music like other unfinished/unpublished Ocean Amiga game Renegade III?

I'm talking about IFF images. There is no working disk or demo disk of Wec le mans Amiga.

* no code
* no music
* only few IFF screens remains.

Hope it helps

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by mcgeezer

I decided to have a look at the game on both the Amiga and ST. Amiga is using the blitter to draw everything in place of ST CPU routines. There's nothing else over and above the blitter that is specifically being used on the Amiga hardware leading me to believe the same code base was used on both machines with the lead machine being the ST.

The same general technique is used for other games around 1989, Xenon 2 springs to mind.

Unlike the Bitmap Brothers he seemingly did a better job, though, considered the average speed

[Megalomaniac]

Off-topic, but I always though Xenon 2 was designed to be slow-paced, rather than an attempt at something as fast as say Battle Squadron where the coding fell short.

How much work would it have taken to reuse the Batman game engine for Chase HQ? The fantastic Z80 version was done in-house, so I'm not sure why Teque were recruited purely for the 16-bit 'attempt'.

RIP Allan Shortt, BTW.

[Galahad/FLT]

So, humble pie time from me.

The Amiga version WAS the lead for Batman the Movie as confirmed by one of the programmers.

The reason being that it had to be ready for the Batman pack that had been negotiated before the game was started.

Clearly, they didn't go all out on Amiga, and consideration was given to what the ST would be able to manage, hence why other than slight cosmetics, you would be hard pushed to spot the difference.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

The Amiga version WAS the lead for Batman the Movie as confirmed by one of the programmers.

The reason being that it had to be ready for the Batman pack that had been negotiated before the game was started.

Thank you for confirming it I've updated the HOL entry.

[Megalomaniac]

Thanks Galahad. Does this make the ST version even more impressive? It's rare for a big name game (such as a license or arcade conversion) to have led with the Amiga version over the ST as early as 1989, even if (like most) it was designed with the ST in mind. Music and maybe sound effects aside, most arcade conversions or licenses from that time are identical on both systems.

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

Thanks Galahad. Does this make the ST version even more impressive? It's rare for a big name game (such as a license or arcade conversion) to have led with the Amiga version over the ST as early as 1989, even if (like most) it was designed with the ST in mind. Music and maybe sound effects aside, most arcade conversions or licenses from that time are identical on both systems.

I think personally that because it was such a big deal for Ocean, and ST game sales were likely more or comparable to Amiga, it could have potentially harmed ST game sales if the Amiga version was streets ahead I think.

Obviously leaving aside that it being a pack in game meant Amiga "sold" 186,000 extra copies, I would imagine retail sales would have been similar between the two machines

[gimbal]

Either you get a low effort copy of an ST game or you get a game which is downgraded so it can look the same on the ST. You just can't win

[Megalomaniac]

A game not looking as good on the ST as the Amiga doesn't necessarily mean it isn't making good use of the ST's hardware, or that it didn't have effort put into it. Things like Blood Money, Wings of Death or Leander impress on both systems despite the ST version not quite matching the Amiga one technically. I'm pretty sure ST games were still outselling Amiga ones in the UK in 1989, although I think Amigas were outselling STs (or STe's when they launched) by that time. Shadow of the Beast was pretty much the first Amiga-exclusive development in the UK at that time (someone else did the later, rather inferior, ST version), but publishers can be forgiven for preferring the easier option that maximised the ST version over the Amiga one, especially for a big name that'd sell regardless of quality. At least this one was arguably a very good game, even if I didn't personally enjoy trying it now.

[ImmortalA1000]

Originally Posted by mcgeezer

I decided to have a look at the game on both the Amiga and ST. Amiga is using the blitter to draw everything in place of ST CPU routines. There's nothing else over and above the blitter that is specifically being used on the Amiga hardware leading me to believe the same code base was used on both machines with the lead machine being the ST.

The same general technique is used for other games around 1989, Xenon 2 springs to mind.

Poor, very poor, use of blitter then because they are more or less identical. To be fair though C= UK hassled Ocean into a rushed release before Xmas for the Batman Pack.

[ Show youtube player ]

[ImmortalA1000]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

I think personally that because it was such a big deal for Ocean, and ST game sales were likely more or comparable to Amiga, it could have potentially harmed ST game sales if the Amiga version was streets ahead I think.

Obviously leaving aside that it being a pack in game meant Amiga "sold" 186,000 extra copies, I would imagine retail sales would have been similar between the two machines

I can't remember exactly when the Amiga sales matched the ST sales of computers, probably before the Batman Pack though anyway. As an ST and Amiga owner I knew the ST was not as powerful because it has no blitter and the screen memory is different but just as convoluted and the set points for shifting things horizontally is 200% worse than MSX 8 pixels/1 character wide etc. All the ST only owners I knew in the mid-late 80s thought the same too.

I think it's just a simple case of the ST game engine was already good enough so all they had to do was match it more or less in the 2.5D sections with a 12.5% slower CPU, which they must have done with the blitter. On the Amiga it was rushed but it still turned out fine and that's all that really mattered as an ST or Amiga owner. There was nothing better before it and Chase HQ's horrible horrible Continental Circus routine also used in Moonshine Racers or the bespoke Special Criminal Investigation road routines are both worse I think. The ST version is not that far off Lotus on the Megadrive on some tracks which is pretty damned impressive IMO

[ImmortalA1000]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

A game not looking as good on the ST as the Amiga doesn't necessarily mean it isn't making good use of the ST's hardware, or that it didn't have effort put into it. Things like Blood Money, Wings of Death or Leander impress on both systems despite the ST version not quite matching the Amiga one technically. I'm pretty sure ST games were still outselling Amiga ones in the UK in 1989, although I think Amigas were outselling STs (or STe's when they launched) by that time. Shadow of the Beast was pretty much the first Amiga-exclusive development in the UK at that time (someone else did the later, rather inferior, ST version), but publishers can be forgiven for preferring the easier option that maximised the ST version over the Amiga one, especially for a big name that'd sell regardless of quality. At least this one was arguably a very good game, even if I didn't personally enjoy trying it now.

Shadow of the Beast is a bit of a four letter word provoking game on the ST in the forums lol, to be fair though Wrath of the Demon proves how much better the ST port could have been. Beast 1 is really a game 100% designed around all the goodies offered up by the Amiga chipset so it will never ever match the Amiga version. The only version I like as much as the Amiga release is the FM Towns version with bigger, bolder graphics engine.

It was like that on home computers, luck of the draw what sort of development quality any given game would be for the machine you owned. There is no reason why the Amstrad port of Ninja Turtles arcade should be better than C64 but it is and you just had to move on.

The only real advantage was polygon games for the ST, but then you get the YM sound, so it was a trade-off. Stunt Car Racer without the stomach churning fearful sound of the boards creaking as you go round corners on the Amiga version more than makes up for the slightly lower framerate vs ST.

Another game that is almost exactly the same is Domark's F1, on the ST version they used the extra 12.5% CPU speed to do software samples for in game SFX so they more or less sound the same (on a TV speaker) and run at the same framerate. That is really rare though, hats off to Domark for that excellent ST version that didn't use YM SFX.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

I think personally that because it was such a big deal for Ocean, and ST game sales were likely more or comparable to Amiga, it could have potentially harmed ST game sales if the Amiga version was streets ahead I think.

Obviously leaving aside that it being a pack in game meant Amiga "sold" 186,000 extra copies, I would imagine retail sales would have been similar between the two machines

the retail version of Batman the Movie sold 200.000 copies on Amiga alone.

so that's a big 386.000 copies of the game that were sold.

[ImmortalA1000]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

So, humble pie time from me.

The Amiga version WAS the lead for Batman the Movie as confirmed by one of the programmers.

The reason being that it had to be ready for the Batman pack that had been negotiated before the game was started.

Clearly, they didn't go all out on Amiga, and consideration was given to what the ST would be able to manage, hence why other than slight cosmetics, you would be hard pushed to spot the difference.

The far superior funky DAC based music and better SFX do add a lot to the enjoyment on Amiga to be fair. It doesn't help that the ST version has some of the most horrible YM sounds in the tunes I have ever heard for such a late game, more like 1985 ST music quality. Even early games like Road Runner or even Backlash made better use of what the YM could do IMO.

And as I've said in this thread the framerate was better than any other 2.5D engine than earlier game on both so it's hard to complain. It is indeed one of the few times I would complain about ST vs Amiga released game.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by ImmortalA1000

Shadow of the Beast is a bit of a four letter word provoking game on the ST in the forums lol, to be fair though Wrath of the Demon proves how much better the ST port could have been. Beast 1 is really a game 100% designed around all the goodies offered up by the Amiga chipset so it will never ever match the Amiga version. The only version I like as much as the Amiga release is the FM Towns version with bigger, bolder graphics engine.

It was like that on home computers, luck of the draw what sort of development quality any given game would be for the machine you owned. There is no reason why the Amstrad port of Ninja Turtles arcade should be better than C64 but it is and you just had to move on.

The only real advantage was polygon games for the ST, but then you get the YM sound, so it was a trade-off. Stunt Car Racer without the stomach churning fearful sound of the boards creaking as you go round corners on the Amiga version more than makes up for the slightly lower framerate vs ST.

Another game that is almost exactly the same is Domark's F1, on the ST version they used the extra 12.5% CPU speed to do software samples for in game SFX so they more or less sound the same (on a TV speaker) and run at the same framerate. That is really rare though, hats off to Domark for that excellent ST version that didn't use YM SFX.

Ok, let me enlight a bit more then :

Nowhere in hell the ST can even by tricks display 128 colors on screen like the Amiga do, even with Timer B copper emulation. the actual ST version displays more than 60 colors and see how awful it looks ......

Beast 2 ST displays 61 colors and it runs at 5fps.

TMNT 2 the Coin Op is very good on CPC, but slow. The music is present but has been disactivated in order to not slow down more the game. The C64 version is better and moves smoother than the CPC version (i own it in original tape version for each machine). Even the colors on the C64 TMNT2 are good, it's one of the game any C64 owner should have in its collection.

Next, F1 from Domark or better said Vroom rebadged with a licence runs faster and smoother on Amiga, simply because the programmer told it to me face to face when i met him and the Maupiti Island programmer in Paris in a conference regarding software preservation. What the Vroom programmer did on Amiga is over-optimise the game code.

The result is that even with its 8mhz 68000, the ST version is less faster and fun fact, the sound is the root cause of the game being slower on ST than it is on Amiga. Paula takes not hits, while the ST loose the advantage to reproduce the sound at a quality equivalent to the Amiga's. The Amiga version use the CPU and the Blitter.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

A game not looking as good on the ST as the Amiga doesn't necessarily mean it isn't making good use of the ST's hardware, or that it didn't have effort put into it. Things like Blood Money, Wings of Death or Leander impress on both systems despite the ST version not quite matching the Amiga one technically. I'm pretty sure ST games were still outselling Amiga ones in the UK in 1989, although I think Amigas were outselling STs (or STe's when they launched) by that time. Shadow of the Beast was pretty much the first Amiga-exclusive development in the UK at that time (someone else did the later, rather inferior, ST version), but publishers can be forgiven for preferring the easier option that maximised the ST version over the Amiga one, especially for a big name that'd sell regardless of quality. At least this one was arguably a very good game, even if I didn't personally enjoy trying it now.

What i know is that it is the other way around. Despite piracy, Amiga users always bought more originals than ST users. This is one of the factor that made the publishers go on Amiga first.

They were even forced to port the games from the ST to Amiga because the sales on ST were not enough to recoup the development cost.

The ST sales were a dead end, the Amiga was the only hope for them to get enough money, this up to the moment where the Amiga go it all alone and the ST was abandoned by publishers.

In term of computer sales, the ST did good sales from 1985 to Q1 1988, afterwards, the Amiga took the lead from Q2 1988 in term of computer sales.

to make things simple : there were around 3 millions of Atari computers sold throughout the world, while you had around 6 millions of Amiga sold.

In Software sales, the Amiga was always ahead of the ST.

[ImmortalA1000]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

Ok, let me enlight a bit more then :

Nowhere in hell the ST can even by tricks display 128 colors on screen like the Amiga do, even with Timer B copper emulation. the actual ST version displays more than 60 colors and see how awful it looks ......

Beast 2 ST displays 61 colors and it runs at 5fps.

TMNT 2 the Coin Op is very good on CPC, but slow. The music is present but has been disactivated in order to not slow down more the game. The C64 version is better and moves smoother than the CPC version (i own it in original tape version for each machine). Even the colors on the C64 TMNT2 are good, it's one of the game any C64 owner should have in its collection.

Next, F1 from Domark or better said Vroom rebadged with a licence runs faster and smoother on Amiga, simply because the programmer told it to me face to face when i met him and the Maupiti Island programmer in Paris in a conference regarding software preservation. What the Vroom programmer did on Amiga is over-optimise the game code.

The result is that even with its 8mhz 68000, the ST version is less faster and fun fact, the sound is the root cause of the game being slower on ST than it is on Amiga. Paula takes not hits, while the ST loose the advantage to reproduce the sound at a quality equivalent to the Amiga's. The Amiga version use the CPU and the Blitter.

Turtles coin-op on the C64 has very sluggish controls, the controller input feels like 10-15 fps max on a real C64 on a CRT Trinitron and using a Zipstik arcade quality joystick. The same joystick on a 464 with the Amstrad colour monitor playing Turtles arcade may have chunky looking scrolling on youtube videos BUT the controls are twice as responsive and it makes the difference between playable and not worth the effort. There is no emulation issues, this is a straight comparison on real hardware with identical controllers and on CRT screens.

My only comment about Beast 1 for ST was Wrath of the Demon for ST vs Amiga is where the coding talent needs to be to see what it should have been like. Doesn't matter how many palette swaps you do, without 4bit RGB registers no system will match the Amiga's subtle shading, which is why the Megadrive/NEC ports aren't remotely as subtle on the intro/overground level.

I never said Beast 1 would ever match Amiga, I intimated the exact opposite, just that it could have been better as Wrath of the Demon on ST proves. Beast 1 for the Amiga vs ST is like Rescue on Fractalus for the Atari 800 vs C64. There is no way a game designed around the bespoke advantages of the hardware of one machine will be as good on a rival machine that doesn't have those advantages. That was my actual point about that issue.

If you compare Wrath of the Demon ST vs Shadow of the Beast 1 on ST you get what I mean, the actual game design requires best of the best ST coding talent by it's very nature. I wasn't comparing ST hardware to Amiga hardware

[Megalomaniac]

Issue 1 of ST/Amiga Format suggests that, in the UK, there were 3 times as many STs as Amigas in the UK at the time, but in the US there were 3 times as many Amigas. With the price gap closing afterwards there may have been a similar amount of Amigas and ST in use in the UK by late 198. Surprisingly, I think piracy was a bigger issue on the ST than the Amiga. Wikipedia has a link mentioning that ST Dungeon Master sold 40,000 in its first year, seemingly in the US alone, but I'm not sure how UK ST and Amiga game sales compared. Still, most British games were still being designed primarily around the ST in late 1989 - Shadow of the Beast really was a trendsetter - so I doubt that ST games were loss-making that early, as presumably designing a game around the ST would cost you some quality for the Amiga version, and thus some Amiga sales, especially for original creations (were Mirrorsoft unhappy with the Bitmaps for designing Xenon 2 primarily around the ST, for example?)

Would Batman: The Movie on the Amiga have been done to make more use of Amiga hardware if Commodore hadn't set a deadline? It needed to be out for Christmas, and licensed games or conversions was almost all just done as ST ports back then. Where Amiga games outselling ST ones in the UK by then? (Not that quality made that big a difference to sales for big name stuff anyway)

Decent horizontal scrolling could be done on the ST within the right parameters and compromises though, Wayne Smithson had some good routines in Blood Money and Anarchy, and Wrath of the Demon is impressive too. The ST was better for pure 3D games too, off topic.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by ImmortalA1000

Turtles coin-op on the C64 has very sluggish controls, the controller input feels like 10-15 fps max on a real C64 on a CRT Trinitron and using a Zipstik arcade quality joystick. The same joystick on a 464 with the Amstrad colour monitor playing Turtles arcade may have chunky looking scrolling on youtube videos BUT the controls are twice as responsive and it makes the difference between playable and not worth the effort. There is no emulation issues, this is a straight comparison on real hardware with identical controllers and on CRT screens.

The Amstrad CPC version goes to crawl as soon as there are too many sprites on screen. As i said earlier, when i bought TMNT2 on C64, the smoothness and better playability struck me, because i'm overused with TMNT2 CPC.

I use real hardware, not emulators.

My only comment about Beast 1 for ST was Wrath of the Demon for ST vs Amiga is where the coding talent needs to be to see what it should have been like. Doesn't matter how many palette swaps you do, without 4bit RGB registers no system will match the Amiga's subtle shading, which is why the Megadrive/NEC ports aren't remotely as subtle on the intro/overground level.

WOTD ST is different from how SOTB is layed out. Ulrich Doewich did a great job, and the game displays 6x colors on screen on the ST version.

I never said Beast 1 would ever match Amiga, I intimated the exact opposite, just that it could have been better as Wrath of the Demon on ST proves.

Both games are the same type, but are different technically. there are no gigantic sprites in WOTD, at least not moving at 50fps.

the Megadrive and Nec have only 512 colors, the Amiga 4096......

Beast 1 for the Amiga vs ST is like Rescue on Fractalus for the Atari 800 vs C64. There is no way a game designed around the bespoke advantages of the hardware of one machine will be as good on a rival machine that doesn't have those advantages. That was my actual point about that issue.

A retry was done for Beast 1 ST, but it involves doing it on the STE, not the STF. And you get something very near to the Amiga version.

If you compare Wrath of the Demon ST vs Shadow of the Beast 1 on ST you get what I mean, the actual game design requires best of the best ST coding talent by it's very nature. I wasn't comparing ST hardware to Amiga hardware

WOTD ST looks and moves better than Beast, i agree with that. I own both games in original

[Megalomaniac]

I'm not sure the standard ST could do a better SOTB-style game than Wrath of the Demon. It really feels phenomenal. The STe could probably get closer, though still with less colours. Someone has remade Lotus 1 for the STe and its pretty close to the Amga version.