Were there any other companies to match It Came from the Desert?

[ImmortalA1000]

I think, naff chipset banging code aside for arcade sequences, It Came from the Desert is probably the best 'Cinemaware type game' I could think of.

Did any other companies come close to that sort of game with that sort of talent woven into the development?

(I didn't put Cinemaware in the title specifically as some of their releases were not up to that level or played nothing like a 16bit interactive movie)

[gimbal]

Wings should not be ignored. Even though I don't like it that much gameplay-wise, it is probably the most cinematic of the entire lineup.

Cryo I guess were making an attempt, their Dune game being the one Amiga outing that kind of tries to have a cinematic feel to it. They were limited by the technology of their time though. Cryo managed to use the cdrom medium to really build it out, but unfortunately Cinemaware made some bum deals that just prevented them from going big.

There have been some smaller attempts over the years. For example Blue Byte's Tom and the Ghost is a piss-poor game, it really is. I've tried so hard to like it but it is fundamentally broken to the point where I can't even think of ways how it could be fixed. But it does give off this tv show kind of vibe. It made me think of the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon show at the time.

There is also Legend of the Lost which is a B-movie kind of game, but I think that is more of an aesthetic choice than to truly try to create a cinematic experience. Still at the time as a kid, it spoke to my imagination. Not as an adult, what a travesty of a game. Style over substance.

Ducktales was a pretty good one, it breathes the style of the cartoon show. If it had told more of a story, it'd have been a great cinematic game experience. Disney was good like that at the time, translating their unique style to the gaming medium.

[Mr Creosote]

Originally Posted by ImmortalA1000

Did any other companies come close to that sort of game with that sort of talent woven into the development?

It Came from the Desert and Wings are by far the best moments of Cinemaware in my view. Apart from those, Pirates!

[TCD]

Three Stooges was fun too. Some German adventure games took a different approach, but maybe got somewhere close: http://hol.abime.net/3563/screenshot

[Mr Creosote]

Jonathan? That's an example of completely failing an interactive narrative in my view. Instead of revealing little snippets of information to the player here and there, based on interaction, it just goes the naive way of dropping huge text dumps on the player after key scenes and then just freezing things again until the next "big reveal".

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Mr Creosote

Jonathan? That's an example of completely failing an interactive narrative in my view. Instead of revealing little snippets of information to the player here and there, based on interaction, it just goes the naive way of dropping huge text dumps on the player after key scenes and then just freezing things again until the next "big reveal".

Each to their own. I was more referring to the presentation of the game. It tried something different for sure.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by Mr Creosote

It Came from the Desert and Wings are by far the best moments of Cinemaware in my view. Apart from those, Pirates!

Games like these is what I lived, and bought Amiga for. This is why I have never understood the bitterness and constant complaining about the lack of quality arcade/console versions. We had some anyway, but Amiga was a computer and its real strength was in computer-style games.

There's usually a lot being said about the "cinema" aspect of Cinemaware's games but for me they really stand out because of being cracking games, not just interactive movies. This is actually quite intriguing, because when you take them apart, most of their minigames are at least questionable, if not downright rubbish (I don't think I've ever won the castle raid in DotC). And yet! ICftD is definitely the best, but I love DotC to bits still, same with King Of Chicago, and had some fun with all the other ones too - even Sindbad - apart from SDI / sports games (not my cup of tea).

This is why I don't bemoan the fact that they didn't survive into the CD ROM era, in fact it's probably a blessing in disguise. The aforementioned Cryo is a good example: their best games are from the 2d pixel art era, and what came later is mostly just endless stream of rather average FMV / slideshow like titles.

Some of my other favourites which somewhat similarly mixed a lot of gameplay styles with great presentation would be Elvira and B.A.T games, and also Lost Patrol (though that was a hard nut to play).

[gimbal]

Roger Rabbit also springs to mind. Hair Raising Havoc is really made to put you inside the cartoon shorts. But I guess that indirectly falls under the "Disney" brand.

And how can we forget about Dragon's Lair and Space Ace? I don't want to play them, but I do like to look at them

[TCD]

Originally Posted by gimbal

I don't want to play them, but I do like to look at them

It's great that (most/all) of them have a trainer with movie mode

[Mr Creosote]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

Games like these is what I lived, and bought Amiga for. This is why I have never understood the bitterness and constant complaining about the lack of quality arcade/console versions. We had some anyway, but Amiga was a computer and its real strength was in computer-style games.

Just quoting to agree & support. For sure, there are great games which are designed around a core gameplay mechanic. But then, the games which stick with me much more are those which are designed around an idea, a theme. The ones which offer an experience.

[ImmortalA1000]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

Games like these is what I lived, and bought Amiga for. This is why I have never understood the bitterness and constant complaining about the lack of quality arcade/console versions. We had some anyway, but Amiga was a computer and its real strength was in computer-style games.

Hmmm I've never complained about the Cinemaware games like Desert or Rocket Ranger, you have to accept those games needed to be written in something other than Kickstart disabling 100% machine code so the framerate can be very 'Atari ST quality' as it was the lead platform the games had to be built first on. It Came From the Desert and Rocket Ranger are pretty out there in terms of advancing the field of games design....unlike pathetic MS DOS wank like Day of the Tentacle which is shit for the tech it's running on.

However, like many intelligent people, I did buy an Amiga in the hope that games like the 1985 and 1986 Konami classics like Salamander and Nemesis would appear and be arcade perfect (well in 32 colours per scanline) because no other machine on sale in 1985/86 could do that. Even in 1985 previews people in the know were estimating the OCS chipset was making the Amiga 1000 more like a 50mhz 68000 based competitor in respected technical journalists.

I didn't buy it to play useless action games or bad ports of badly written ST games (like that ZZKJ always did)

THAT is what I never liked about the Amiga games scene, the poor greedy scumbag attitude of western software houses vs the prideful and very talented Japanese developers making better arcade games on the no more powerful Megadrive. The lack of standards of most Amiga users also winds me up....where do those people come from? Sinclair rubbish? Amstrad rubbish?

If you like glitchy no-talent ports of arcade games but still want cool 'computer' stuff like Desert/RR/Monkey Island then maybe you should have been playing EGA or ST games.

Gauntlet 1 (which looks a hell of a lot nicer than Gauntlet 2) is absolutely fine for the ST....the Amiga deserved Megadrive Gauntlet IV quality release but we got NES quality Gauntlet 2 wank. How is that OK?

Hiding behind 'it's a computer' is such a dumb thing to say, Amiga deserved console quality arcade ports 100% of the time, it cost those japanese developers £15-25 more to put their games onto those large ROM cartridges....scum like US Gold/Domark/Ocean were just shitting in your mouth and I never bought another shit Amiga game again after 1989 because luckily a few stamps and some blank disks and 'pen pals wanted to swap disks and cheats' adverts is all I needed to make sure my 30 quid a fortnight didn't help make British software houses' bosses get rich from me for utter crap and protected by the 'no refunds for games' bullshit law propping up their cunt businesses. I bought no less games than I would have if I didn't get pirate copies before buying them, I just never ever bought any crap games after thank god.

Most of the arcade style games released on the Amiga are a stain on the memory of Dave Needle and Jay Miner's genius, have some respect for the most powerful computer vs it's competitors ever to go on sale AKA the Amiga 1000, have some respect for the makers of 1984 hardware than can run game engines like Beast 1, Lotus II or Lionheart that even 1990-1992 expensive console hardware would be pushed to equal. If all you want to play is stuff like Sensi Soccer/Lemmings/Populous then great.....some of us actually bought computers to play 16bit arcade quality games....not slapdash 16 colour ropey ST port jobs for 3 days wages.

Running Desert/Rocket Ranger on an 040 solves all the bad points.....the only way to solve the bad points of Amiga Chase HQ is to shove it up Gary Bracey's rectum and take 30 quid from his wallet...ditto for that scumbag at US Gold etc. SF2 Amiga port would be shit for a well coded Atari ST game FFS.

The Amiga 1000 was 70% cheaper than an IBM PC XT and more powerful but also more powerful than any games console launched in the 1980s. THAT situation is what made the Amiga special in the 1980s, the low standards of software houses was just the nail in the coffin for Amiga. If my car which does 0-30 in less time than it takes for some clueless twat to run a red light BUT the driving controls never let me have that sort of performance at my hands what's the point...ditto with shit arcade conversions and arcade style games on an Amiga.....why do you think SF2 SNES bundle was breaking all records in the UK....because US Gold were SCUM mate....not because Amiga was a computer for 'computer games' only....ST/PC EGA was there for that situation NOT the beautiful Amiga hardware design

[Mr Creosote]

Originally Posted by ImmortalA1000

some of us actually bought computers to play 16bit arcade quality games....

Nobody's trying to take that away from you "some" here as far as I can see.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by ImmortalA1000

Hiding behind 'it's a computer' is such a dumb thing to say

You're welcome. In return, I can just say there are so many dumb things in your rant that unpicking it all would take me half a day, and ain't nobody got time for that



And it's not the first time I've seen it in your posts around here, so I guess I'll just write you off as yet another hopeless case of extreme Amiga fanboism and leave it at that.