Next game to port?

[SquawkBox]

Funny how some ports on Amiga that used to be favorites of mine (Double Dragon I, Strider, Forgotten Worlds etc.) seem to have badly aged.
IMHO It's better to avoid playing those games on MAME for a while to let your mind "forget" about how different the "computer ports" are from the real thing (not completely effective trick).
Personally, I keep asking myself whether I would bother playing a version of Shinobi that would not be 1:1 or not. I am with dlfrsilver on this one, I doubt it could be done properly, even aiming at the beefed up A1200 / Vampire crowd. Yet, I know some peeps still enjoy playing slow ports and / or arcade wannabes to this day on their C64 or ST, and never seem to get tired of it, kudos to them .
A couple of additional suggestions : Afterburner, Thunder Blade, Michael Jackson's Moonwalker.

I mentioned Street Fighter but after having watched a couple of longplays by Zeus including the coin op's, I am not certain that's the one... Must have been some other martial arts related brawler I played on the CPC. I remember some walking around, it didn't consists in just a series of VS fights. I'll tell you in a minute or so.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by SquawkBox

Funny how some ports on Amiga that used to be favorites of mine (Double Dragon I, Strider, Forgotten Worlds etc.) seem to have badly aged.
IMHO It's better to avoid playing those games on MAME for a while to let your mind "forget" about how different the "computer ports" are from the real thing (not completely effective trick).
Personally, I keep asking myself whether I would bother playing a version of Shinobi that would not be 1:1 or not. I am with dlfrsilver on this one, I doubt it could be done properly, even aiming at the beefed up A1200 / Vampire crowd. Yet, I know some peeps still enjoy playing slow ports and / or arcade wannabes to this day on their C64 or ST, and never seem to get tired of it, kudos to them .
A couple of additional suggestions : Afterburner, Thunder Blade, Michael Jackson's Moonwalker.

Those 3 games ? Same problem as shinobi, and AB/TB are super scaler games.

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by SquawkBox

Personally, I keep asking myself whether I would bother playing a version of Shinobi that would not be 1:1 or not.

I remember as a kid, on my Commodore 64, loading Final Fight and Street Fighter 2, and thinking:
"Well, this is really bad. Why they didn't just draw stick figures, and make gameplay as in aracade, instead of this crap"?
Pretty much the same I think today.

So, I could definitely play variously degraded ports, as long as they preserve playability of the original.

[SquawkBox]

@dlfrsilver
Point taken. Have you heard of Karnov's younger brother, Chelnov ? You probably have since that game was ported to the X68000. Not a favorite of mine by any means, but bears a distinctive Amiga'ish style, with that tacky nod at the dreaded Chernobyl incident (which, interestingly enough, coincides with availability of Amiga 1000 on this side of the Atlantic).
Well, someone porting the game could take into consideration what Data East Inc. did with the Mega Drive port, could prove an interesting challenge.


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[Konrad]

Looking at ShadowDancer I'm sure that a very good port of Shinobi is possible. Gameplay is very similar.

Chelnov has 3button controls. Turning, Shooting, Jumping. Up for jump (to eliminate one button) won't work well gameplay wise.

[d4rk3lf]

Ok, what do you guys think about Splatterhouse?

OCS - maybe possible with some compromises?
Or only Aga can do it justice?

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[Konrad]

A1200 as pure hd-installed game could probably work.
Don't think A500 would work out.
But I love that game. Totally forgot about it here.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

Ok, what do you guys think about Splatterhouse?

OCS - maybe possible with some compromises?
Or only Aga can do it justice?

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Splatterhouse is a good theme game. However, extracting the assets will not be fun.....

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by Konrad

Looking at ShadowDancer I'm sure that a very good port of Shinobi is possible. Gameplay is very similar.

Chelnov has 3button controls. Turning, Shooting, Jumping. Up for jump (to eliminate one button) won't work well gameplay wise.

Shinobi means tons of work. A graphist would have to repalette the whole game, never mind the coding.

[Konrad]

I didn't say it is easy. I'm just convinced that it's technically very possible to achieve a good port.

[DanScott]

Nobody should be under any impression that ANY port of a (1986 and upwards) coin op would magically happen easily, with graphics just fed through some simple conversion tool.

It just wouldn't be able to happen that way... Any conversion WILL/WOULD require a hell of a lot of gfx work to get it down-converted to the relevant palettes!

Obviously, just wringing stuff quickly through a simple conversion process would be enough to do a proof of tech

EDIT: Shinobi is a very dull looking game really.. lots of grey and brown everywhere (background AND sprites)

[Anubis]

Nah, it can be done and then you have to label it 'Ocean' for conversion skillz.

Is it just me or MSX of all 8bit home computers had most well done conversions?!

[saimon69]

I think that now with the presence of floppy and HD alternatives is time to do some productions look at a more expansive experience than 880k data; i remember seeing in 1992 the Roger Rabbit game and was thrilled to see lot of data without need to rely on floppy swap - with an HD substitute even an A500 can provide very enlightening experiences

Of course if related to original productions would be better

[SquawkBox]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

Why they didn't just draw stick figures, and make gameplay as in aracade, instead of this crap"?

Sure. One good example of that would be infogrames' Advantage Tennis.

Originally Posted by Konrad

Chelnov has 3button controls. Turning, Shooting, Jumping. Up for jump.

Data East didn't feel embarrassed about one button issue when they ported the first opus of Robocop, did they ? Up is used to aim upwards, while space bar is used to jump. So I say double down could be used to turn backwards in Atomic Runner since that game doesn't feature any crawling / crouching.


Edit : Coin op's gameplay is rather bland, I mentioned the imaginative and abundant Megadrive port in my previous post, that's the version I would like to see ported hopefully. From watching excerpts of both longplays, the latter doesn't seem to require any turning around (it does feature two kind of jumps though, normal and barrel roll jump).

[malko]

Originally Posted by saimon69

I think that now with the presence of floppy and HD alternatives is time to do some productions look at a more expansive experience than 880k data; i remember seeing in 1992 the Roger Rabbit game and was thrilled to see lot of data without need to rely on floppy swap - with an HD substitute even an A500 can provide very enlightening experiences

Of course if related to original productions would be better

As long as the coding quality stay the same, I think this is a good point. BitD looking for the less disk(s) release had sense in term of production costs. Now given that most of the releases are digital downloads, having a 1 or 2 disk game doesn't change the production costs.

[djcasey]

I'm vote for Final Fight, Amiga deserves a decent port

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by djcasey

I'm vote for Final Fight, Amiga deserves a decent port

yes on A1200.

[djcasey]

agreed, no other options

[d4rk3lf]

I think that Richard Aplin's engine on Final Fight is amazing, despite the bad gameplay.
Let's not forget that his version works on unexpanded A500 (only 512kb Ram).

So, if it's modified to use whole 1MB, added few moves, improve gameplay, I think we would get Final Fight version for A500 that will make lot's of people happy (including me).

[Gordon]

I hope it is Final Fight because the next port deserves to be good.