Astro Marine Corps: not technically THAT bad?

[saimon69]

Was watching lately a longplay of AMC and i did realize that, despite not being a Shadow of the Beast game and a bit boring (i did liked playing it though), has several technical feats that, albeit not stellar, put it a bit above the usual dual playfield Beast games.

[ Show youtube player ]

In example the main playfield is a 16 color multidirectional one and despite that has parallax in the back (first stage a landscape with four parallax level and three fixed moon, second stage meteors a small moon, fixed planet and foggy landscape, third stage several pillars); is this a case of brute force parallax like Flimbo's Quest or is all made with sprites?

Can we have a Codetapper analysis on this one?

[vulture]

Looks like bobs moving @25 fps, so, I'd surmise the blitter does most of the work in there. It does look nice and it was pretty impressive on Spectrum as well.

[gimbal]

Jeepers, overcompensating for something with that huge gun? It's like he's holding a sawfish. Also that jump, it makes me imagine a "boing" sound.

I like that bullets bounce and that you can actually aim up, you didn't see a lot of that back in the day.

[saimon69]

What can i say about graphics assets done on a black background, the artist using the anti-alias on black and we find all those dark areas even on the shields? I know

And by the way to really appreciate the soundtrack you gotta rip the mods and remove all the BXX commands to have a seamless single song.

However i was focusing on the technical aspect, not on the overall look.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by saimon69

What can i say about graphics assets done on a black background, the artist using the anti-alias on black and we find all those dark areas even on the shields? I know

And by the way to really appreciate the soundtrack you gotta rip the mods and remove all the BXX commands to have a seamless single song.

However i was focusing on the technical aspect, not on the overall look.

AMC graphics were done on an ST computer. hence the darkish tones.

The best version of AMC is the amstrad CPC release. It has a triple playfield, 16 colors, tons of sprites, some gigantic and it plays very well.

[S0ulA55a551n]

looks like its running about 5 fps though

[Fiery Phoenix]

Similar to After the War - also by Dinamic - they had a very particular style (loved part 1 and part 2 sections)

Also they did one of my fave ever ending sequences on the Amiga - Navy Moves. Check it out

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

AMC graphics were done on an ST computer. hence the darkish tones.

I actually mean REAL black lines on things like barriers, bullets and lightnings; it means they did the pixel art on a black background trying to do anti-alias and forgot they had a background other than black in my opinion

[vulture]

On the other hand, that's pretty much the way they did their gfx on the 8-bits, so, maybe they simply did what they knew, probably believing those outlines would help them be more distinguishable from the bg gfx.

Edit:
Regarding the frame rate, checked it with winuae, first of all, works fine under NTSC. Scrolling and player move @50/60fps, bullets and enemies @25/30 fps, some enemies even @17/20fps for no apparent reason. And by that, I mean there can be just a single enemy moving every 3rd frame and in other instances, 2 enemies move every 2nd. So, it seems that the blitter brute forces most of the stuff on screen.

[lmimmfn]

The updating enemies every 3rd frane could be deliberate, i.e. for worst case scenario of blitter usage.
Its common and a good trick for games to give max framerate for the players character, bullets and scrolling but to reduce enemy framerate.