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I dunno, I thought I remembered the colour use being very similar between the two, shouldn't the Amiga have like double the colour counts of the ST?Quote:
Originally Posted by Kamahl
Yeah, I definitely remember thinking that the Amiga version felt like the ST version, but with added hardware scrolling and in-game music.
I really think the ST version is running suspiciously well for something designed for a computer which is much, much more powerful.
This kinda requires getting into details on how the Amiga works. The more color you use on the Amiga, the slower it gets (and the more the blitter has to work). Most Amiga games are actually 16 colors, with an extra 16 for the main sprite and copper tricks to get some extra color on the background.Quote:
Originally Posted by Thenewguy
The bitmap brothers didn't use hardware sprites so their games were 16 colors.
Was there a reason for them not using hardware sprites?
Yeah, but that's what I like about European gamers (or at least UK gamers since they're usually the English speakers I encounter on internet forums). I'm generalizing here but limeys tend to have a more well rounded view of gaming history than Yanks and Canucks. It's not as Nintendo/console dominated.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kamahl
True that.Quote:
Originally Posted by NeoZeedeater
Not really, even if they were still taking into account the ST, all that would change would be the main character having more colors. That's what Turrican 2 does for example.Quote:
Originally Posted by Thenewguy
Shutting off sprites does give extra time for the processor/blitter, but even then not having to blit the main character kinda offsets that.
Give it 10 years and Britain will be no different to the US.Quote:
Originally Posted by NeoZeedeater
History is written by the victors as they say. Most people around here not even 5 years younger than my generation think Nintendo dominated the 80s, even in Britain.
Actually that looks pretty good when one has just been messing about with Action 52 and trying to play Cheetah Brothers.Quote:
Originally Posted by Thenewguy
@ Out of this World and OP here's another recommendation = Lost in Shadow for the Wii. It's a stylistic POP/puzzle platformer, or however you want to categorize stuff like Out of this World. Beautiful art direction and sound, minimal interface intrusions (much closer to 5th gen than 6th or 7th), and a nice simple use of the nunchuk and Wii remote, which latter is only pointed at the screen for finding clues at dead ends and so forth, otherwise it just has button commands whilst movement is controlled perfectly by nunchuk. You play as a shadow moving in the world of shadows created by the foreground objects on screen, which both you can manipulate through various mechanics, the one connected to the remote being your fairy friend termed a spangle in the game. There is combat. Definitely should be played on Hard.
I just found this one slumbering in the back of my C64-Disk collection. Figured that not too many people know about it:
They Stole a Million
Relatively simple, yet complex robbery-simulator: First you plan a heist on a blueprint, and assign each robber for a job (be on lookout, knock out guards, crack the safe etc.). After that, you execute the plan, sometimes improvising on the spot if something was left out during the planning phase. Easy to learn, hard to master.
Remade in 1986 as "The Clou!" for Amiga, CD32 and PC with better graphics and improved controls, but lacking the classic Ben Daglish-Soundtrack.
But surely if there are no cons to using the hardware sprites, and the sprites as they are look low colour, and re-use the background colours (which they do) this indicates an ST port?Quote:
Originally Posted by Kamahl
I mean, why go through the difficult job of making a sprite out of loads of re-used brown, and grey background colours when you can simply use a hardware sprite with completely independent, more-fitting colours?
Also, what you've written kind of makes the Amiga some pretty week in colour use, I mean 16 colour for the background and 16 for the sprites sounds like SMS!
I can remember some of the things KoolKitty used to say about Amiga sprites, and BOBs, and from that I would imagine Amiga was not lacking at all in sprites numbers, and quality, but is the colour use really just an SMS with easy interrupts, and a larger pallette?
Most of the time that's actually what happened. In fact, it's not 16 colors for the background and 16 for sprites, it's 16 colors for the background AND enemies, and 16 for the MAIN sprite.Quote:
Originally Posted by Thenewguy
The Amiga can do a lot better than that of course, but it's not free. Using 64 colors (without any copper effects) forces the Amiga to take a huge chunk of DMA time for the chips from the CPU. I think it was something like only 3/8 of time left for the CPU, and even then the blitter would steal from that too. Ruff 'n Tumble is a 32 color game, it's not running at 25 fps due to lazy programming, it really is hard to get good performance out of the Amiga if more than 4 bitplanes (16 colors) are used.
EDIT: Ok, just read about it some more. Having all 6 bitplanes on (whether it's for 64 color mode or for 7+8 color parallax scrolling) takes away 50% of time from the CPU. The blitter will however need to work twice as hard in 64 color mode than it does in parallax scrolling mode. That probably implies using the "nasty blitter" mode which steals even more CPU time.
EDIT2: On-Topic - Ruff 'n' Tumble:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Kvpm4t4A1o
Only the player sprite can be 16 colour? how does that work?, just one designated 16-color sprite tied to the joystick controls? :huh:
I was just looking through some stuff and it said the Amiga has 8 3-colour sprites on a line, or 4 15-colour sprites on a line?
EDIT: Oh, wait, they're only 16 pixels wide? so you'd have to use most of the 4 sprites for 1 object?
No, there's no limitation that only the player sprite can be 16 colors. That was just what was done because it was easy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Thenewguy
A great example is every Dual Playfield game (Lionheart, Agony, Jim Power, Mr Nutz, Kid Chaos, Turrican 3, etc...), only the main sprite and his attacks are of different colors.
Risky Woods does a 180º and makes the farther background layer entirely out of sprites (and the main sprite uses the same colors as the foreground). This is a really advanced trick though, since it takes some crazy copper work to pull off.
4 16 color sprites is just 64 horizontal pixels, not much that can be done with that.
EDIT: Yes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_1fME0wPzw
EDIT2: Shadow of the Beast 1 is the only game I can think of that makes the enemies using 3 color sprites. But that game cheats like crazy.
When in 32 colour mode, is the Amiga like the SMS in that its extra 16 background colours need to be shared with the hardware sprites?
Hybris looks like it does it too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kamahl
Yup, but remember, the Amiga doesn't really need to use hardware sprites. Those 32 colors can all be freely used by the blitter to draw enemies.Quote:
Originally Posted by Thenewguy
it's very likely that it does yeah.Quote:
Originally Posted by Thenewguy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n21rJ65EZb0
Beneath a Steel Sky (PC/Amiga/Amiga-CD32/Atari ST/ioS/SCUMM)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...y_Coverart.png
Legendary Point n click game from the makers of the Broken Sword series. It's an awesome scifi adventure that is filled with hilarious moments (Joey the sarcastic robot, anyone?) and an intruging, complex plot.
The game's freeware, so you don't even have to pay a penny for it. That, and you can play via SCUMMVM, so you can play it on modern PCs as well as consoles such as the Wii, original Xbox and even the Dreamcast. No excuse not to play it. ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlME-TVhyRU