The Untouchables Special Edition

[earok]

This project is finished. Canon URL is: http://earok.net/game/untouchables-se

Old copies have been removed from the zone

I have zoned a Special Edition hack of the Untouchables (WHDLoad only), I'm treating this as abandoned for the reasons outlined at the bottom of the post.

Changes:
- Palette fix on every level*
- Text has been changed from white/brown to white/grey on the title screen, which is identical to text elsewhere in the game
- Every level except the second one** now has both SFX and Music (one channel from the music has been sacrificed to accommodate this)
- Slight textual tweak
- WHDLoad slave hacked to ignore version check

*This is bit of an oddball one so far as palette fixes go. While Atari ST palette problems are well known on ports (Midnight Resistance, Dragon Spirit After the War and others), this one unusual in that not all colours were in the 0-7 ST range (a handful were at 8 or above), and on top of that the brightened palette doesn't resemble the Atari ST screenshots closely at all. So unlike the other "dark" ports that presumably contained straight copies of the ST palette, it looks like they at least tried to clean it up for Amiga.

Just for the record, several videos and screenshots on the Internet depict a bright version of the game, such as the Hall of Light and IronClaw's video. These were all edited, the screenshots on Lemon Amiga are of the original brightness level.

**All of the levels except for level two have a line of code that prevents SFX from being played on channels that are occupied, which is why I didn't do a similar hack for that level.

The trainer is enabled in the WHDLoad version, so F10 can be used on the title screen to skip levels.


Why it's abandoned: while the changes I wanted to do are essentially complete, the game - even the WHDLoad version - seems to have severe graphics and playability glitches by the time level three rolls around on a decent Amiga. Stock A1200 or CD32 settings on WinUAE seem fine, but once FastRAM or an 030 are added it goes to hell.

On top of that I haven't got a cracked ADF version that appears completeable from start to finish, most seem to crash on the second disk around level five. So as such, I haven't ADF'ed the project.

[Galahad/FLT]

Will take a look at my AGA fix, as I played it through to completion, so its something of a surprise it doesn't work properly.

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by earok

On top of that I haven't got a cracked ADF version that appears completeable from start to finish, most seem to crash on the second disk around level five. So as such, I haven't ADF'ed the project.

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Will take a look at my AGA fix, as I played it through to completion, so its something of a surprise it doesn't work properly.

Clearly none of you have been following this recent thread then

... The Untouchables - Issues...

I hate to say it Sir Galahad but your set didn't work correctly (at least in WinUAE):

a) Always crashes when loading Stage 5 no matter if an OCS or AGA configuration is used.
b) If an AGA configuration is used then there are graphic issues with Stage 4.

Anyway; I've tested this set and can confirm that it's 100% completable and without issue

... Untouchables, The (1989)(Ocean)(PAL)(Disk 1 of 2)[cr PNA][t +2 Avenger].adf [CRC 31FEBD38]
... Untouchables, The (1989)(Ocean)(PAL)(Disk 2 of 2)[cr PNA].adf [CRC 463CF8F9]

[earok]

Originally Posted by DamienD

Clearly none of you have been following this recent thread then

Eeek, I've been in lala land the past few days, Vollldo even told me about that thread..

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by earok

Eeek, I've been in lala land the past few days, Vollldo even told me about that thread..

No problem my friend

Your name was mentioned in the first post of that thread so I suspected you were up to your old tricks and went full steam ahead testing sets

Anyway, moving on.... Now that you have a verified .ADF set hopefully this means that your hard work is now longer abandoned???

I presume you can apply your magic to the above set and all will be good in the world (and I can edit the thread title too)

If you need any beta testers then please let me know...

[earok]

Originally Posted by DamienD

No problem my friend

Your name was mentioned in the first post of that thread so I suspected you were up to your old tricks

Anyway, moving on.... Now that you have a verified .ADF set hopefully this means your hard work is now longer abandoned???

I presume you can apply your magic to this .ADF set and all will be good in the world (and I can edit the thread title)

If you need beta testers then let me know...

At this point, I'm holding off to see if Galahad makes an update to his AGA fix. Thanks for the offer though, I'll keep it in mind

[DamienD]

Hmmm, not sure I understand that move...

...it's not that I don't believe Galahad won't fix his version

It's that you've already said that even the WHDLoad version doesn't work correctly

Maybe this game just don't work on an A1200. I'm no coder etc... all I can say is that it definitely works with this set on an A500.

[earok]

I haven't tested, but I think a stock A1200 with no fastram and a 020 should play the WHDLoad version fine. I was testing WHDLoad version mostly with stock CD32 settings on WinUAE which had no problems at all. Maybe it just needs some waits added here and there for full compatibility on fast Amigas.. that's a level above my hackery ability sadly.

I'm in zero hurry to churn out an ADF build, happy to wait a while

@Galahad minor request if you do an ADF update, can you make it so you don't need to type in the "SOUTHAMPTONGAZETTE" code to access F10 level skip?

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by earok

I have zoned a Special Edition hack of the Untouchables (WHDLoad only), I'm treating this as abandoned for the reasons outlined at the bottom of the post.

Changes:
- Palette fix on every level*
- Text has been changed from white/brown to white/grey on the title screen, which is identical to text elsewhere in the game
- Every level except the second one** now has both SFX and Music (one channel from the music has been sacrificed to accommodate this)
- Slight textual tweak
- WHDLoad slave hacked to ignore version check

*This is bit of an oddball one so far as palette fixes go. While Atari ST palette problems are well known on ports (Midnight Resistance, Dragon Spirit After the War and others), this one unusual in that not all colours were in the 0-7 ST range (a handful were at 8 or above), and on top of that the brightened palette doesn't resemble the Atari ST screenshots closely at all. So unlike the other "dark" ports that presumably contained straight copies of the ST palette, it looks like they at least tried to clean it up for Amiga.

Just for the record, several videos and screenshots on the Internet depict a bright version of the game, such as the Hall of Light and IronClaw's video. These were all edited, the screenshots on Lemon Amiga are of the original brightness level.

**All of the levels except for level two have a line of code that prevents SFX from being played on channels that are occupied, which is why I didn't do a similar hack for that level.

The trainer is enabled in the WHDLoad version, so F10 can be used on the title screen to skip levels.


Why it's abandoned: while the changes I wanted to do are essentially complete, the game - even the WHDLoad version - seems to have severe graphics and playability glitches by the time level three rolls around on a decent Amiga. Stock A1200 or CD32 settings on WinUAE seem fine, but once FastRAM or an 030 are added it goes to hell.

On top of that I haven't got a cracked ADF version that appears completeable from start to finish, most seem to crash on the second disk around level five. So as such, I haven't ADF'ed the project.

you're basically saying this game not only had the ST palette bug, but it also was using colors that looked like the ST ones, but with amiga values ?

Ah..... :/

[DamienD]

Today I've been playing around with this installed to a self-booting .HDF...

I see what you mean earok; if you add any Fast RAM then:

a) On Stage 3 your crosshair is not solid, disappears / reappears.
b) On Stage 3 after beating the 4th alley and starting the 5th alley, the screen is completely black / no image.

Problem is if you only use "2MB Chip RAM" then there's the usual WHDLoad issue with screen blinking on the first title screen (occurs twice). It's not that big a deal though...

...but I have found a solution to fix all of the above; not very conventional and really only suited to emulator users unfortunately.

Set "2MB Chip & 512KB Slow RAM" then everything is perfect, played up to Stage 5 without any issues

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by earok

The trainer is enabled in the WHDLoad version, so F10 can be used on the title screen to skip levels.

Another thing I noticed with this WHDLoad slave is that indeed you can press <F10> to skip levels but holding down <HELP> to skip to the second half of some of the missions isn't active...

So if you want this ability you still need to type "SOUTHAMPTONGAZETTE" from the 2nd title screen.

[DamienD]

Ok, have finished this game now using the mentioned configuration in WinUAE and all good. Cheers earok

For any emulator users, you can grab the self-booting .HDF from the EAB File Server under the directory "~Uploads/DamienD/HDFs"

There are no Workbench files / Kickstart ROMs on this .HDF. Just use a standard AGA configuration but set "2MB Chip & 512KB Slow RAM"...

[s2325]

I love this green shade

This SE edition was the reason why earok and I opened a few thread recently eh eh ! A few days ago I proposed earok to fix the palette of this one (coded by the same team than Midnight resistance). We were first a bit perplex about the HOL screenshots... Kinda "Where the fuck did they take them ?!", but they were in fact photoshoped. I already tested 2 earok's ADF beta, but your help guys is required to finalize an ADF version. Galahad on the rescue if the AGA fixed version failed, or as DamienD said the new palette could be applied to the OCS 100% working version cracked by the "Avenger".

I really love the grey/white letters, the first beta had a lighter red (like the originl palette) but Erik had a great idea to turn all to grey shades. 30s atmosphere guaranteed ! The new palette is really wonderfull, earok did already a fantastic job !

Will take a look at my AGA fix, as I played it through to completion, so its something of a surprise it doesn't work properly.

I will test the fixed AGA version tomorow on my A1200, i had to do it today but i couldn't. Note that the CAPSLOCK key (used to pause the game) doesn't work on my A1200 whereas it does in WinUAE (not sure about this but my A1200 seems to have a northern keyboard).

About the music + SFX at the same time earok knows my opinion : not a good idea since i think the sfx are too much continuous in level 1 and make the music totally inaudible. The best, as we discussed, would be to propose 2 version : one with music + sfx, the other with the same behaviour than the original game.

At last, this game is damn gard. If a cheatcode to skip levels 4, 5 and 6 can be added then it would be a real plus. I don't think i will beat him tomorow to be able all works well on a real A1200. Age makes me... be rusty lol.

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by Vollldo

This SE edition was the reason why earok and I opened a few thread recently eh eh ! A few days ago I proposed earok to fix the palette of this one (coded by the same team than Midnight resistance). We were first a bit perplex about the HOL screenshots... Kinda "Where the fuck did they take them ?!", but they were in fact photoshoped. I already tested 2 earok's ADF beta, but your help guys is required to finalize an ADF version.

<sigh>

...as I've already said in this thread (and the other), after loads of testing on my part, there is already a 100% working set.

Why not just patch this; unless of course it's not possible?

Also, A1200 / CD32 users can just use the WHDLoad version... For A500 users it would be good to also have something; if you patch the verified set then this is achieved.

Anyway, totally up to you guys and it's the last thing I'll say on the matter.

[DamienD]

You've edited your post since I wrote my response...

Originally Posted by Vollldo

At last, this game is damn gard. If a cheatcode to skip levels 4, 5 and 6 can be added then it would be a real plus. I don't think i will beat him tomorow to be able all works well on a real A1200. Age makes me... be rusty lol.

Actually I just tested and you can skip all levels

Let's say you are on level 3 and die. You then go back to the 2nd title screen. If you press <fire> you'll be back on level 3. If however you press <F10> on the 2nd title screen now it will skip to level 4. And so on...

[earok]

I understand your frustration, and we really appreciate your testing - however some A1200 users do prefer Gotek/Floppy over WHDLoad, and I'm happy to wait a bit to see what Galahad comes up with.

IMO it'd be better to have a more universal ADF release if an AGA fix update is forthcoming, else we can patch the ADF version easy enough.


On the topic of level 3.. IMO it's just too hard, the tight time constraints suck the fun and the gunfight feel out of it.

Similar feelings about level 4, especially when a quick fail on level 5 is possible.

Do you think it'd be a good idea to decrease the difficulty in some way, or just leave them as they are? We could maybe reduce time constraints, increase health of the baby etc..

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by earok

I understand your frustration, and we really appreciate your testing

...it's just that you guys create a thread asking for help, I spend hours testing virtually all .ADF versions and then you say you don't won't to use the 100% verified set. Seems like a wasted effort on my part.

Originally Posted by earok

- however some A1200 users do prefer Gotek/Floppy over WHDLoad, and I'm happy to wait a bit to see what Galahad comes up with.

Oh trust me, I can understand that (given all the "HD install" --> "ADFs" that I've created).

Originally Posted by earok

IMO it'd be better to have a more universal ADF release if an AGA fix update is forthcoming, else we can patch the ADF version easy enough.

Ok, this and your quote above makes sense

Originally Posted by earok

On the topic of level 3.. IMO it's just too hard, the tight time constraints suck the fun and the gunfight feel out of it.

Similar feelings about level 4, especially when a quick fail on level 5 is possible.

Yup, it's a damn tough game hence why it took me sooooo long to test...

Originally Posted by earok

Do you think it'd be a good idea to decrease the difficulty in some way, or just leave them as they are? We could maybe reduce time constraints, increase health of the baby etc..

No, personally I would leave it as is. Just takes a bit of practice.

Well maybe more time in level 3 actually, it is quite difficult to get through.

[earok]

Well now I feel really really stupid, heh.

I wasn't really able to do anything with the PNA version since it's not cracked to files, BUT I replaced the files on Galahad's version with those from the WHDLoad slave (asides from the executable of course) and now it appears to be playable all the way through (just skipping through with the cheat though).

I'm guessing that version was totally fine but the uploads on the FTP server (probably just disk 2) were corrupted when turned into an ADF.

Anyway, I've zoned that copy as a temporary INTERIM release - just in case anyone has problems with it. I might add two seconds to each of the level three scenes and make it so you don't have to type in "southamptongazette" to activate the cheat, but other than that it's basically done.

Damien, is there any chance I could get you to do one more playthrough just to check that it's working for everyone else too..? (I hope that's not too much hassle mate!)

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by earok

Damien, is there any chance I could get you to do one more playthrough just to check that it's working for everyone else too..? (I hope that's not too much hassle mate!)

Maybe, since you asked nicely

...should I also removed [Abandoned] from the thread title?