Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Gaming => Topic started by: runequester on November 08, 2010, 08:07:05 AM
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This series, more than anything else, really captures everything about the amiga for me.
Great graphics, the sense of playing "aliens the movie", sound effects, the haunting intro tune, the frantic two player action, the completely irreverent and obnoxious cheat codes. It was just perfect.
So lets talk about the series.
Which was your fave of the series?
Which ones have you beaten (no cheats or trainers)?
Fave weapons?
In short, talk everything Alien Breed :)
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I had the original special edition and the two FPS versions. I'll never forget that horrifying sense of urgency you got when the countdown started and you had to make your way to the lift!
AB3D was well designed, if somewhat lacking in the GFX department, but it whizzed along on my 060 equipped machine. Similarly, with the right combinations of settings, AB3DII-TKG was playable and enjoyable.
I never played AB2 or AB2TA but would have liked to. Regrettably I sold my Amiga last year :-( so I couldn't even if I wanted to!
AndyC
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Alien Breed always reminds me of a guy that was at high school with me. This scam hated me because i used to beat him in science, litterature and history and, most of all, because i had an amiga while he had a crappy Atari ST.
So, one day, at a friend place, he was here watching us playing Alien Breed, with stunning graphics and digitalized voices, and he said "you were right, amiga is better".
Jubilating!! :-) Not like Lemmings anymore.
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I finished tower assault on the cd32. I was surprised to find it was supposed to be hard because i didn't really notice :rolleyes:
There is an image on the back of the box. It is a rendering of an alien with a real creepy shadow behind it. But it wasn't in the game. Anyone know what this was? it's really important to me! :)
Alienbreed 3D was a pile of s**t. It reminded me of why commodore went bankrupt because their products couldn't compete with the PC equivalent - DOOM! :madashell:
Alienbreed 3D - worst amiga game ever :pissed:
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I think Alien Breed 3D is an excellent game and very funny if you install the patch that lets you play with AWSD + Mouse.
Putting aside the blocky graphics it's a solid FPS, very well designed. I hope one day we can have an AB3D port with higher resolution.
AB3D2 has better resolution but the game is worse. And the 2D Alien Breeds are very good in any sense, but too difficult for most players.
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There was also features listed on the back of the Alien Breed 3D box that were not in the final game. Actually rang Team17 to ask wtf? and they just said sorry boxes were printed before game finalised.
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Alienbreed 3D - worst amiga game ever :pissed:
I actually did & still do enjoy playing AlienBreed 3D every now and then... :)
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Alienbreed 3D was a pile of s**t. It reminded me of why commodore went bankrupt because their products couldn't compete with the PC equivalent - DOOM! :madashell:
Alienbreed 3D - worst amiga game ever :pissed:
Well you can just go and boil your head because I thought it was a great game. Sure it was very low res, but it had far better and more tense atmosphere than Doom and all of the other amiga "doom clones" put together.
Oh, and whilst were at it, despite the resolution, engine-feature wise it was more than a match for Doom. Split level zones, transparency, refraction effects, shaded lighting, pseudo 12-bit RGB (4096 colours) etc. At the same resolution as Doom it could have looked awesome, but alas it was not to be.
Getting all this out of a basic A1200 with FastRAM at a playable speed (and I played it on that config) was seriously impressive.
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I never played the predecessors, but AB3D was one of my favorites. Although the graphics were pretty lo-def, it made excellent use of sound, which heightened the anticipation of whatever nasty was lurking around the corner. Lots of good puzzles to solve. Sadly, I never got past the big room at the bottom of the last level and only got that far about half a dozen times (WAY too many baddies in that room for the remaining ammo, etc. by the time you get there!). This is a game that would have benefitted from mid level saves.
I, also, would love to see a modern version with updated graphics. Sadly, it seems (as I have read) that even though the code was released, it was such a jumble that no one has been able to sort it out and build it better.
AD3D2 was not as much fun to play. it just lacked the feel and anticipation and dread.
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On the subject of games, while I have in my collection from one source or another just about every game ever written for the Amiga, the most annoying and dumbest thing ever imho, was the advent of 'trainers' that the cracking scene put into games. :(
I mean how on earth can you have a "trainer" for a game, it defeats the whole challenge and purpose of playing the game in the first place, you'd be as well just formatting the floppy on which it came and asking someone, what happened at the end of that game. :rolleyes:
While these days I appreciate the cracking crews making it easy for old amiga games to be collected and preserved in ADF or DMS format, I just wish they hadn't put in those so called 'trainers' that I've had to spend over a decade removing from them... :furious:
If you have to cheat at a game to play it then your missing the point of playing it in the first place... :)
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If you have to cheat at a game to play it then your missing the point of playing it in the first place... :)
They did it for people like me who suck at games, though I just tend to not play them for that reason.
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They did it for people like me who suck at games, though I just tend to not play them for that reason.
Being crap at playing a game is no excuse, you just need to try harder... :biglaugh:
Or better and more interesting still is do what I do and write WHDLoad slave files for them, sometimes it's actually better than playing the game... :)
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I agree franko, It used to bug me computer and games magazines printing cheats.
I don't cheat at games because I really don't see the point either.
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the sense of playing "aliens the movie"
When I want the sense of playing Aliens, there's nothing that beats this! http://www.lemon64.com/games/details.php?ID=87
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I dug Alien Breed 3D.
As far as Commodore going bankrupt because of Doom... seriously ?
Doom came out in the very end of 93. Dave Haynie has made it pretty clear in interviews that at that point, Commodore was beyond rescue.
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As far as Commodore going bankrupt because of Doom... seriously ?
It didn't even take Doom, I blame Wolfenstein 3D!
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I agree franko, It used to bug me computer and games magazines printing cheats.
I don't cheat at games because I really don't see the point either.
Oftentimes a good "cheat" is the only way to see cute little things stuck in places by bored programmers. There's instances throughout Quake, Romero's head in Doom, there's an automated turret bunker in DN3d that has graffiti on the inside that says "You shouldn't be here!" (which could only be seen if you were in there); in Shadow Warrior there's a load of "in jokes" on the backs of cars that are outside of the airport lobby/level you can't get to...unless, again, you use noclip mode.
I mean, the list goes on and on.
It's fun to see stuff like that.
Plus, on playthroughs, God-mode is good for quickly getting to your "favorite" parts. :)
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Doom for sure killed the belief we fellow Amiga owners had back then. But we had some really nice 3D games released on our patform aswell. AB3D being one of the best imho. I like the game alot, and I played it to death on my CD32 back in 1994/5 (can't remember when it was released).
Yes, the blocky gfx is not that good, but it's good enough. And the gameplay was great!
Doom sucks... AB3D rules :D
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This series, more than anything else, really captures everything about the amiga for me.
Great graphics, the sense of playing "aliens the movie", sound effects, the haunting intro tune, the frantic two player action, the completely irreverent and obnoxious cheat codes. It was just perfect.
So lets talk about the series.
Which was your fave of the series?
Which ones have you beaten (no cheats or trainers)?
Fave weapons?
In short, talk everything Alien Breed :)
Oh my.. really nice topic, like this one.
I played both AB, but i never had the chance to play AB3D. Never got the hardware to do so.
Number one and number two are by far my favorite Amiga game. And (believe it or not) i have never cheated in any AB game...
About favorite weapons.. anything that kills aliens... :D
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I played Tower Assault. I don't think I ever played AB1 or 2. I know one thing: don't bother with the new Alien Breeds which Team 17 released a couple of months ago on Steam. They are utterly boring. The Shadowgrounds games are much, much better and for a modern multiplayer Alien Breed check out the free Alien Swarm.
Team 17 really lost their touch 15 years ago :\.
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I liked, and completed, Tower Assault. The problem was that by playing Tower Assault first, going and playing the earlier games where you couldn't backup and shoot was annoying as hell. The CD32 version of Tower Assault has issues though. I can't remember them off the top of my head but accessing the map caused the game to hang and there was a glitch with one of the weapons whereby you paid for an upgrade but it stayed at the standard power level.
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To say Alien breed 3D has low res is an understatement. What about ultra low res?
I tried to finish the game but failed. The res is so bad half the time i couldn't tell the difference between the bad guys and the walls behind them! It's hard to finish a game when you can't see the bad guys :madashell:
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The Shadowgrounds games are much, much better and for a modern multiplayer Alien Breed check out the free Alien Swarm.
Just tried Alien Swarm for the last couple of hours and it's feckin' awesome! Thanks you!
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@Kesa: Think of AB3D as a text adventure ;). I enjoyed that game, despite the crappy visuals and performance.
@RMK305: You're welcome. It's a bit thin on maps though, but that could've changed by now with community stuff. Feel free to find odin@amiga.org on Steam if you need a fourth space 'rine to shoot some aliens.
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A victory for style over substance (the team 17 way).
Great graphics (at the time) and sound, problem was it was an annoying maze game that got boring very quickly. I would rather not discuss Alien Breed 3d as I am in still in therapy for that one.
Now retail games that really defined Amiga for me were: Stunt Car racer, F1GP, Frontier: Elite 2, Syndicate and the Monkey Island games.
Lets not forget CLASSICS like Dennis, Akira on CD32 and Body Blows Galactic (joking).
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I remember playing AlienBreed1 when it was brand new. Me and a few friends sat around my amiga eagerly anticipating playing it. I was one of the 1st to play and for about 10 minutes I thought it was the greatest game ever. Nice graphics, great atmosphere, the computers you could access and play pong. After a while though the initial excitement wavered a little, but I kept playing expecting to find it again. For me that never came. I wouldnt say it's a bad game at all, it's still a competant shooter, but for me it's appeal dwindled very quickly. Each to thier own and whatnot though.....
Now as for AlienBreed3d I vey much enjoyed it. For it's day, besides resolution it was a fairly impressive engine and was silky smooth on even a modest a1200 (played it on a 28mhz corba mk2 '030 + 4 meg fast if I recall correctly). Well crafted gameplay and good level design, plus that atmosphere that AlienBreed had briefly stays around in AB3D.
AlienBreed3d 2:TKG I initially didnt like. Despite looking nice, even against it's peers on other platforms of the day it just wasnt playable on the 50mhz blizz 4 '030 + 8 meg fast I was using at the time. I tried to persist, but it just felt "muddy" and unresponsive so I wrote the game off.
Some years later however while finding out about an RTG patch for it I was an amithlon user so decided to see how it played on fast hardware and was pleasantly surprised to find it completely changed the experience. It's actually not too far removed from an enhanced (both resolution and engine, etc.) version of AB3D1 when you have powerful enough hardware behind it and when it does I'd put it in my top few Amiga FPS games. Very much chalk and cheese between the 2 systems I ran it on.
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Lets not forget CLASSICS like Dennis, Akira on CD32 and Body Blows Galactic (joking).
Are you kidding? Body Blows Galactic is the best fighter game ever! :)
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Actually I have always considered it as a rather sub-par game.
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To say Alien breed 3D has low res is an understatement. What about ultra low res?
To right, I had hoped they'd release a level pack to run the original in AB3D2. I really loved the atmosphere, but I could not see squat.
As for the 2D games, I did love them...but I hated the exploding levels. Worst game mechanic ever.
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To say Alien breed 3D has low res is an understatement. What about ultra low res?
I tried to finish the game but failed. The res is so bad half the time i couldn't tell the difference between the bad guys and the walls behind them! It's hard to finish a game when you can't see the bad guys :madashell:
It was no lower resolution than existing doom clones of the same period, most of which were far less polished.
I originally finished that game on a basic A1200. Whilst some of the later levels had moments that were interactive slide shows*, a bit of tenacity goes a long way. Maybe you just sucked at playing it :lol:
*when I got my first accelerator card, it was a completely different story. Completely fluid at all times.
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It was no lower resolution than existing doom clones of the same period, most of which were far less polished.
I originally finished that game on a basic A1200. Whilst some of the later levels had moments that were interactive slide shows*, a bit of tenacity goes a long way. Maybe you just sucked at playing it :lol:
*when I got my first accelerator card, it was a completely different story. Completely fluid at all times.
Rubbish. Doom was far superior. But it has certain traits that annoy me though. When i tried to get around the back of the demons to see what they looked like from behind i got really frustrated because i couldn't do it. 2 years later i figured it out. The demons were only 2D and not 3D and they rotate to match your view head on. It took me that long to figure it out. What a waste of 2 years :madashell:
I'm sorry but for me Alien Breed 3D will always be the game that put the nails in the coffin for amiga. This is the game that made me sell my cd32 for next to nothing in 1996 and buy a playstation one and ironically introduced me to doom :rolleyes:
You don't think i can play well? I'm the best doom player i have ever seen! :cool:
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Think you need to re-read the post. Doom CLONES
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Think you need to re-read the post. Doom CLONES
Quite.
I'm sorry but for me Alien Breed 3D will always be the game that put the nails in the coffin for amiga. This is the game that made me sell my cd32 for next to nothing in 1996 and buy a playstation one and ironically introduced me to doom
Ironic indeed, since after the release of AB3D1, suddenly every man and his dog was out to better it on the platform. AB3D1 showed that fully textured 3D FPS games are possible on a modest amiga, despite the long running belief that a lack of chunky pixel mode made it impossible. It ran on 14MHz 020; Doom, OTOH doesn't even get out of bed on a 16MHz 386. After it's release, we started to see games that actually required accelerator cards to run respectably since people were interested in pushing the envelope. With a bit more CPU power, C2P was possible and with it, full screen 1x1 Doom clones. Eventually, doom itself, the game that John Carmack himself insisted was "impossible" on the Amiga was ported (but not until Quake already had been).
Of course, these wouldn't have ran on your CD32, not without a CPU upgrade at least. IIRC, DoomAttack runs very respectibly on CD32+SX32.
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My personal opinion on the 2D Alien Breed games was that they were nice enough but no match for the Sega Alien Syndrome coin-op on which these games were based initially.
Never played any 3D FPS games on the Amiga including the AB 3D series, and not likely to given the cost of accelerator cards on ebay :)
I would be interested to know two things.
What is the best Amiga specific FPS, is it actually AB 3D v1?
What is the best Doom engine to run Doom WAD files on Amiga A1200?
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I would be interested to know two things.
What is the best Amiga specific FPS, is it actually AB 3D v1?
Personally, I'd say it was one of the most ground breaking of the "first generation" of amiga "chunky copperscreen" doom clones (said games all used various copper tricks to fake a chunky pixel display, later games just used chunky to planar conversion which by the time you get to 68040 takes no more time than plain writing data to chip RAM). Pitted against the likes of gloom and fears, it stands right out, both technically and in terms of atmopshere.
Technical highlights of AB3D1 included (but are not limited to):
Arbitrarily angled zones
Contrast with Fears, which was largely "rectangular" (even later titles like Breathless and Genetic Species followed the simpler wolfenstein-esque "by blocks" method of laying out maps).
Variable height zones, with lifts, stairs etc.
Contrast with Gloom (and later, Genetic Species) in which each level was completely flat.
Vertically split zones
Allowed for two levels in the same zone. Doom itself didn't have this. I think only Duke Nukem 3D had a similar feature.
Shaded texture mapping
Of all contemporary amiga doom clones, this was pretty much unique to AB3D1 and improved in AB3D2. As well as being textured, walls and floors were Gouraud shaded from vertex to vertex to produce smoother lighting effects. Doom-style sharp changes in lighting between zones were still possible.
Transparent water / refraction
As above, no other amiga doom clone had water effects to match. It was a shame that the water ripple texture animated per frame, which made it look a bit too fast on quicker machines, but overall the effect was very nice indeed. To be honest, it's only since the advent of "refraction shaders" in modern 3D that I've seen it done significantly better. A nice touch was that once you went under the water, the palette was subtly modified and the audio filter enabled. The liquid effects in Doom were frankly rubbish in comparison, nothing more than animated floor textures that you didn't even sink into to any depth. Quake's were better, but still lacked any transparency (pre OpenGL at least) and while the screen-space refraction effects under water were cool, they were totally unrealistic. Refraction only happens at the interface between materials like air and water.
Polygon models
Like Doom and the various amiga doom clones, the game mostly 2D used sprites for enemies, collectables etc. However, it was capable of using models too, though the only examples to be seen are the various wall lights and the mid-game boss, a grenade lobbing robot walker.
Pseudo RGB rendering
Probably not unique to AB3D1 as a "chunky copperscreen" engine, the hardware banging display code allowed it to basically render all the visuals using 4096 colours, essentially giving you a pseudo RGB 12-bit mode. The benefits of this are a bit subjective as the colour resolution is only 12 bits but no doubt it helped with the shading effects.
Beyond all these, it just had the right atmosphere. Tense and uneasy with the prospect of a sudden and violent death round the next bend...
I should point out that you can't criticise Gloom for it's gameplay however, it was enormous fun, especially in two player mode.
AB3D2 was likewise technically very impressive. As a 1x1 pixelmode capable C2P based renderer, it went back to 256 colours only but thanks to a careful palette selection (and the fact the palette entries are 24-bit) and the use of dithering (which I never noticed until getting a proper monitor), it looked very nice. The shading had been improved allowing for realtime lighting effects from weapon shots, explosions etc. Polygon models featured a lot more, including all weapons and several enemies. Even the 2D sprites were given light maps to make them fit better. There was also a greater freedom of view using the same sort of look up/down technique that was used by Duke Nukem 3D.
Unfortunately, the game seemed somewhat rushed. It probably didn't help that not enough people were working on it. Frankly you need a 68060 (or emulator) to play it to it's full potential, on my 040 it had moments where it was very slow. A lot of the sprites seemed hurried and didn't really have enough animation or directional views. Unlike sprites in Doom, which typically had up to 8 unique views for each animation frame (for viewing at different rotational angles), there were only 4 views. The level design just wasn't as interesting as the first, either.
For all the technical feats, there was a definite sense of let down. I still enjoyed it but felt a bit sad that it could have been that much better as a game too.
What is the best Doom engine to run Doom WAD files on Amiga A1200?
I haven't played in a long time but on my old 68040, DoomAttack was easily one of the most fully featured, including a lot of features not present in the original version of Doom, such as being able to look up and down with manual aim (as opposed to simply facing the general direction of the enemy and firing), jump etc.
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Has anyone ever played with the AB3D2:TKG editors ? Would be fun to recreate some AB3D1 levels with the sequels engine.
Also, has anyone tried any of the various patches for AB3d2 ? I've used the RTG one, but no others. Do the speedup patches for custom chipset amigas make much of a difference ?
It seems there's a bit of potential there for inclined people to have a bit of amiga specific fps creative fun, but Ive seen very few attempts. I assume there's a reason for this ?
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Has anyone ever played with the AB3D2:TKG editors ? Would be fun to recreate some AB3D1 levels with the sequels engine.
Also, has anyone tried any of the various patches for AB3d2 ? I've used the RTG one, but no others. Do the speedup patches for custom chipset amigas make much of a difference ?
It seems there's a bit of potential there for inclined people to have a bit of amiga specific fps creative fun, but Ive seen very few attempts. I assume there's a reason for this ?
I have, but they're not terribly friendly. I did make some weapon/pickup models, reintroduced some of the sprites that were left out and modified the existing levels a bit. I did think about redoing the original game but never got around to it.
If I can find that old mod, I might upload it somewhere. For some reason, it crashes the RTG patch badly though.
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Personally, I'd say it was one of the most ground breaking of the "first generation" of amiga "chunky copperscreen" doom clones (said games all used various copper tricks to fake a chunky pixel display, later games just used chunky to planar conversion which by the time you get to 68040 takes no more time than plain writing data to chip RAM). Pitted against the likes of gloom and fears, it stands right out, both technically and in terms of atmopshere.
Technical highlights of AB3D1 included (but are not limited to):
Arbitrarily angled zones
Contrast with Fears, which was largely "rectangular" (even later titles like Breathless and Genetic Species followed the simpler wolfenstein-esque "by blocks" method of laying out maps).
Variable height zones, with lifts, stairs etc.
Contrast with Gloom (and later, Genetic Species) in which each level was completely flat.
Vertically split zones
Allowed for two levels in the same zone. Doom itself didn't have this. I think only Duke Nukem 3D had a similar feature.
Shaded texture mapping
Of all contemporary amiga doom clones, this was pretty much unique to AB3D1 and improved in AB3D2. As well as being textured, walls and floors were Gouraud shaded from vertex to vertex to produce smoother lighting effects. Doom-style sharp changes in lighting between zones were still possible.
Transparent water / refraction
As above, no other amiga doom clone had water effects to match. It was a shame that the water ripple texture animated per frame, which made it look a bit too fast on quicker machines, but overall the effect was very nice indeed. To be honest, it's only since the advent of "refraction shaders" in modern 3D that I've seen it done significantly better. A nice touch was that once you went under the water, the palette was subtly modified and the audio filter enabled. The liquid effects in Doom were frankly rubbish in comparison, nothing more than animated floor textures that you didn't even sink into to any depth. Quake's were better, but still lacked any transparency (pre OpenGL at least) and while the screen-space refraction effects under water were cool, they were totally unrealistic. Refraction only happens at the interface between materials like air and water.
Polygon models
Like Doom and the various amiga doom clones, the game mostly 2D used sprites for enemies, collectables etc. However, it was capable of using models too, though the only examples to be seen are the various wall lights and the mid-game boss, a grenade lobbing robot walker.
Pseudo RGB rendering
Probably not unique to AB3D1 as a "chunky copperscreen" engine, the hardware banging display code allowed it to basically render all the visuals using 4096 colours, essentially giving you a pseudo RGB 12-bit mode. The benefits of this are a bit subjective as the colour resolution is only 12 bits but no doubt it helped with the shading effects.
Beyond all these, it just had the right atmosphere. Tense and uneasy with the prospect of a sudden and violent death round the next bend...
I should point out that you can't criticise Gloom for it's gameplay however, it was enormous fun, especially in two player mode.
AB3D2 was likewise technically very impressive. As a 1x1 pixelmode capable C2P based renderer, it went back to 256 colours only but thanks to a careful palette selection (and the fact the palette entries are 24-bit) and the use of dithering (which I never noticed until getting a proper monitor), it looked very nice. The shading had been improved allowing for realtime lighting effects from weapon shots, explosions etc. Polygon models featured a lot more, including all weapons and several enemies. Even the 2D sprites were given light maps to make them fit better. There was also a greater freedom of view using the same sort of look up/down technique that was used by Duke Nukem 3D.
Unfortunately, the game seemed somewhat rushed. It probably didn't help that not enough people were working on it. Frankly you need a 68060 (or emulator) to play it to it's full potential, on my 040 it had moments where it was very slow. A lot of the sprites seemed hurried and didn't really have enough animation or directional views. Unlike sprites in Doom, which typically had up to 8 unique views for each animation frame (for viewing at different rotational angles), there were only 4 views. The level design just wasn't as interesting as the first, either.
For all the technical feats, there was a definite sense of let down. I still enjoyed it but felt a bit sad that it could have been that much better as a game too.
I haven't played in a long time but on my old 68040, DoomAttack was easily one of the most fully featured, including a lot of features not present in the original version of Doom, such as being able to look up and down with manual aim (as opposed to simply facing the general direction of the enemy and firing), jump etc.
Another nice touch in AB3D is that the sound of your foot steps varies depending on the surface you walk on.
AB3D is also true 3D in its maps. You can walk under walkways and platforms etc, which is not possible in the Doom engine.
In the end of course, any of the nay sayers can prove me wrong. AB3D is playable on a stock 1200, and runs really well on even a modest 030.
Dig up an old PC with no more than 14 mhz and 2 megs of ram, and when you get doom to run off floppy disks, we'll talk.
Pictures or it didn't happen :)
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Which was your fave of the series?
Each installment has its beauty. "Alien Breed" has a great atmosphere but it was too buggy and sometimes too difficult but beatable. When you managed to do it, you came to the conclusion that it was too short. The player needed something more and there wasn't.
"Special Edition 1992" enhances the game by a set of new levels and new adventure waiting for you. It is decent follow-up or rather an extra disk to the original game.
"Alien Breed 2" for me was too colourful and by that the atmosphere in it was killed. The game was a bit too artificial, though there were many good ideas which were expanded later.
"Alien Breed Tower Assault" was the best in the whole 2D series. It has a great atmosphere and what is not common, the non-linear gameplay. There were 276 routes you could take to complete the game!
"Alien Breed 3D" was also a very good game. Graphics were a bit pixelated but the game again had that something that you just did not mind the way it looked.
"Alien Breed 3D 2" by many people was laughed at. They did not like it but it was also great. A very good successor of "AB3D".
Which ones have you beaten (no cheats or trainers)?
I have beaten all the 2D "Alien Breeds" without any cheats or trainers. I could not beat 3D editions.
Fave weapons?
In 2D rebounders of course. Flame throwers were useless. 3D changed the meaning of weapons. Rockets and grenades were good for guardians and a blaster was good as a regular weapon. I missed rebounders in 3D versions.
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If you have to cheat at a game to play it then your missing the point of playing it in the first place... :)
By constant failure people become frustrated and irritated. Some people just enjoy the game simply playing it. They do not take it as a synonim of struggling with it. Trying harder does not work for everybody. They use trainers and cheats to enjoy while others might enjoy trying harder.
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I liked, and completed, Tower Assault. The problem was that by playing Tower Assault first, going and playing the earlier games where you couldn't backup and shoot was annoying as hell.
Yes, this is true. It is not recommended playing Tower Assault first when you haven't played and wish to play AB, ABSE'92 and AB2. You can easily get accustomed to the reverse walking and shooting.
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Another nice touch in AB3D is that the sound of your foot steps varies depending on the surface you walk on.
True, that was a nice touch. I always felt the underwater "walking" was a bit silly though, should have swam, instead.
AB3D is also true 3D in its maps. You can walk under walkways and platforms etc, which is not possible in the Doom engine.
Well, that's not actually true. It's very much a 2D map extruded vertically into 3D (like Doom etc) but walkways and multilevel stairs were achieved with the "vertically split zones" I mentioned above. Basically, every zone had the option of a lower room / upper room combination.
Suppose you had 3 adjoining zones, A, B and C, as seen from above:
+-----+---+-----+
| | | |
| A | B | C |
| | | |
+-----+---+-----+
Imagine zones A and C have lower rooms only, starting at height 0 and are 200 units tall. Imagine that zone B has lower and upper rooms. The lower room starts at 0 has height 95, the upper room starts at 105 and also has height 95. The end result is that the entire space from A to C appears to be crossed by a central walkway 10 units thick (where zone B is) which crosses the room midway along and halfway up the walls.
Hope that makes sense :)
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That does make sense, thanks!
From the players perspective it was still pretty cool though :) Like a whole new world had opened.
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That does make sense, thanks!
From the players perspective it was still pretty cool though :) Like a whole new world had opened.
It was used to good effect in several levels in the game, as I recall. The computer core level (level 5 IIRC) used it quite a lot.
I remember experimenting with a third party level editor for AB3D2 and made a level that had many gantries. By placing faux "support" columns (self contained zones) in strategic places, such as where gantries may cross, you could create the illusion of many stacked vertical layers, since the column actually raised the floor of the zone it defined to a gantry either side but left the upper room area free to be the crossing point for a tangental walkway even higher up:
+-------+---+-------+
| | | |
| A | B | C |
| | | |
+-------+---+-------+
| D | E | F |
+-------+---+-------+
| | | |
| G | H | I |
| | | |
+-------+---+-------+
Imagine that zones A, C, G and I are all lower rooms with their floor 0 and ceiling at 300 units. B and H also have a lower room with their floor at 0 and ceiling at 95 units but also an upper room starting at say 105 all the way up to 300, thus defining a walkway similar to the earlier example. Likewise, D and F have a lower room with a floor at 0 and a ceiling at 195. They also have an upper room with a floor at 205 and a ceiling at 300, thus creating a walkway even further up at right angles to the one made by B and H. To complete it, zone E has a lower room with a floor at 105 and ceiling at 195. It then has an upper room with a floor at 205 and ceiling at 300.
The end result is that you get the effect of one walkway crossing another, the cheat is that the lower walkway just happens to have a support strut where they cross.
Of course, the above is just one such junction, the actual level had lots of them. I got really ambitious and tried to design ones where the support column appeared to run all the way up to the ceiling with access holes cut though it. If you imagine four smaller zones immediately on each corner of E, which simply are solid from floor to ceiling, you get the effect.
Unfortunately, I never could get the hang of proper AI path layout in the editor, so the level was never populated with any nasties.
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Do the original top down version support Strafing/Running, or two or more button joypads for that matter?
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Do the original top down version support Strafing/Running, or two or more button joypads for that matter?
No to the former, although tower assault supports backing up.
They do support two button sticks and pads. The second button usually becomes the scanner (at least in AB2 and TA)
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:(
Well the Wii port has one advantage then.
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There is a Wii port?
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http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=55154
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Just been testing the following, all be it on my 060 Amiga, running each at max resolution, full audio etc... :)
AB3d - Smooth as a babies bum
Fears - Ditto
Breathless - the same
Doom - Jerky & lots of glitches, not even close to being as playable or enjoyable as any of the above... :(
(couldn't test them on any of my 030 miggies as their all in bits just now... :))
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Just been testing the following, all be it on my 060 Amiga, running each at max resolution, full audio etc... :)
AB3d - Smooth as a babies bum
Fears - Ditto
Breathless - the same
Doom - Jerky & lots of glitches, not even close to being as playable or enjoyable as any of the above... :(
(couldn't test them on any of my 030 miggies as their all in bits just now... :))
Weird. I've seen Doom run pretty well on 040's. What port were you using ?
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XDelusion,
Thanks for that. I haven't tried Homebrew on the Wii yet.
Franko,
I run doom just fine on my A4000. ADoom and Doom Attack. :)
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I played Tower Assault. I don't think I ever played AB1 or 2. I know one thing: don't bother with the new Alien Breeds which Team 17 released a couple of months ago on Steam. They are utterly boring. The Shadowgrounds games are much, much better and for a modern multiplayer Alien Breed check out the free Alien Swarm.
Team 17 really lost their touch 15 years ago :\.
l have to agree but new alien breed impact looks really promising it be on xbox360
and psx 3
yes love alien breed special edtion my fav amiga game
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Weird. I've seen Doom run pretty well on 040's. What port were you using ?
Not sure I'd need to check, strange thing is I don't remember it being so bad when I ran it on my Blizzard060 board, but on my Blizzard060/PPC board it seems a bit glitchy and slower somehow than the last time I played it on the plain 060...
Need to dig out the plain 060 and compare the two... :)
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l have to agree but new alien breed impact looks really promising it be on xbox360
and psx 3
yes love alien breed special edtion my fav amiga game
You will be dissapointed. The new alien breed game on xbox is rather poor
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Not sure I'd need to check, strange thing is I don't remember it being so bad when I ran it on my Blizzard060 board, but on my Blizzard060/PPC board it seems a bit glitchy and slower somehow than the last time I played it on the plain 060...
Need to dig out the plain 060 and compare the two... :)
Is there not a PPC port of Doom the same as quake ?
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Is there not a PPC port of Doom the same as quake ?
More than one, in fact. There was ADoomPPC, ZhaDoom and at least one or two others IIRC.
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@Franko
Might be worth trying a different port of 2 of Doom. There's a big difference in speed between some of the Amiga versions. ADoom seems to be a favorite for 68k (not sure if theres a ppc version though).
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Tought there was. But from memory Franko has PPC not GPU. So will a ppc version make much difference.
Do the PPC ports have support for AGA
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Tought there was. But from memory Franko has PPC not GPU.
GPU isn't used as the rendering is entirely software driven (note there are GL ports, not sure if any are available on Amiga). The only advantage you get on RTG here is a faster bus speed and no need to do C2P.
So will a ppc version make much difference.
Yes. Further to the above, at the default resolution of 320x200 on the PPC, even the most basic C2P routines tend to hit the chip ram "write speed" wall long before any issues caused by their lack of optimisation. However, the C2P routines used were at least as optimal as most 68K versions.
ADoomPPC was actually very playable at a variety of resolutions higher than the default 320x200 on my BlizzPPC. The determining factor was more to do with whether or not the current column being rendered would fit comfortably in the cache.
Do the PPC ports have support for AGA
ADoomPPC certainly does.
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If anybody is interested, I found my old AB3D 2 mod. Not sure it is complete, but here it is regardless:
http://extropia.co.uk/projects/KarlosTKG.lzx (http://extropia.co.uk/projects/KarlosTKG.lzx)
Extract it somewhere (it creates KarlosTKG as a directory), put a copy of your tkg executable from your original game in there and run it from the KarlosTKG icon, which should set up all the assigns.
What you get are slightly modified / reskinned levels (a few new secret areas here and there), reworked weapon models (alas some of the animations are too fast in UAE), new monsters, effects etc.
I was rather pleased with the models (reworked the shotgun, assualt rifle has ejecting brass, muzzle flash, grenade launcher has rotating circular clip, also added a chain gun), making them with the provided editors was a complete bitch.
Due to extra models, sprites and textures, I think it may need more RAM than the original. It has never been tested with less than 68040 / 16MB. For some reason, the mod really does not like the RTG patch and will crash fairly quickly.
Have fun, all bug reports to /dev/null :D
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Some screenshots added to gallery (click for gallery entry)
(http://www.amiga.org/gallery/images/810/large/1_montage1_256.png) (http://www.amiga.org/gallery/index.php?n=3372)
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l have to agree but new alien breed impact looks really promising it be on xbox360
and psx 3
yes love alien breed special edtion my fav amiga game
I was talking about Impact [and Evolution], although the PC versions.
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If anybody is interested, I found my old AB3D 2 mod. Not sure it is complete, but here it is regardless:
http://extropia.co.uk/projects/KarlosTKG.lzx (http://extropia.co.uk/projects/KarlosTKG.lzx)
Just tried to download your file but all I got was a window full of text... :(
Someone once told me here how to get round this but now I can't remember how... :(
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Just tried to download your file but all I got was a window full of text... :(
Someone once told me here how to get round this but now I can't remember how... :(
Try right-click and "save as", or whatever your browser's equivalent is...
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Try right-click and "save as", or whatever your browser's equivalent is...
That did the trick... Cheers Karlos... :)
Just need to dig out AB3D 2 now (for some reason I don't seem to have it installed on my HD just AB3D 1)...
It'll be nice to try out new levels someone else has created as when you make your own there's not much point in playing them, as you already know all the secrets... :)
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That did the trick... Cheers Karlos... :)
Just need to dig out AB3D 2 now (for some reason I don't seem to have it installed on my HD just AB3D 1)...
It'll be nice to try out new levels someone else has created as when you make your own there's not much point in playing them, as you already know all the secrets... :)
I didn't really make new levels, just modified/reskinned a few of them :)
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I didn't really make new levels, just modified/reskinned a few of them :)
That'll do for me... :)
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That'll do for me... :)
A few more images in the gallery:
(http://www.amiga.org/gallery/images/810/large/1_montage2_256.png) (http://www.amiga.org/gallery/index.php?n=3374)
A few unused assets from the TKG source have been included and if you know your FPS games, you should recognise various textures that have been borrowed (with various degrees of modification) from Doom, Doom 2, Quake and even Quake 2 :)
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@ Karlos
Gonna give it a try tomorrow, need to finish of a few other things first, cos I know once I start playing it again with your new update every other project will get put on hold until I discover all it's secrets... :)
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@ Karlos
Gonna give it a try tomorrow, need to finish of a few other things first, cos I know once I start playing it again with your new update every other project will get put on hold until I discover all it's secrets... :)
You might want to use TKGTurboPatch (http://aminet.net/package/game/patch/TKGTurboPatch) with it as it will certainly help speed up the game a bit.
I actually had a mechanism to switch data files in the current installation by using various assign add / remove so that I could have multiple sets of levels / data. My original goal with that was to recreate the original AB3D 1 as one set, have a "revamped" AB3D 2 as a second and a collection of death match levels. Unfortunately, I've no idea what state all of that was in, so all I have included is the AB3D 2 only stuff, but you should certainly notice plenty of little differences from the original AB3D 2 (it's probably even less stable for a start LOL!)...
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Just downloaded cheers... :)
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:(
Well the Wii port has one advantage then.
Original version with backing up is not the same ;)
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@Franko
Might be worth trying a different port of 2 of Doom. There's a big difference in speed between some of the Amiga versions. ADoom seems to be a favorite for 68k (not sure if theres a ppc version though).
There is PPC version of ADoom.
Some ports (eg. DoomAttack) have settings to enable suitable c2p conversion. He may be running the game on fast CPU but uses some not suitable c2p mode thus making everything slower/jerky.
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Never owned the second one, sure does look pretty good
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Never owned the second one, sure does look pretty good
If you are referring to the screenshots I posted, those are not the standard game, but a mod I made from it after I completed the original and decided to play with the editor disks :)
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I appreciate that, but its the enigne thatas displaying them. Quite impressed with it. Will have to give it a try.
Do you know if it runs at a decent speed on UAE in MorphOS.
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I appreciate that, but its the enigne thatas displaying them. Quite impressed with it. Will have to give it a try.
Do you know if it runs at a decent speed on UAE in MorphOS.
It actually runs a bit too fast in UAE on my PC, insofar as the various animations for weapon select / reload, explosions and water rippling are clearly too fast. The speed in UAE for the original game was about perfect on my old Duron 1200. This is with JIT enabled. Does the MorphOS version of UAE support JIT*?
*for MorphOS and OS4, the idea of leveraging the OS provided JIT has always intrigued me but I've no idea how realistic that would be to accomplish.
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No MorphOS UAE does not have JIT. There was an attempt made at a PPC JIT engine, but from what I read was a bit of a mess and nobody really interested that much in having one.
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No MorphOS UAE does not have JIT. There was an attempt made at a PPC JIT engine, but from what I read was a bit of a mess and nobody really interested that much in having one.
Well, you might need it for this since the RTG patch for TKG seems to crash with my mod almost immediately. However, to be fair, I found it crashed with the original game almost as quickly.
It would be really cool if the OS provided a lower level interface to it's own JIT that allows you to execute 68K code and then invokes native callbacks for various "illegal" operations, like hitting non-existent classic hardware, especially if it allows it to be "patched out" into a direct call in the emitted PPC code after the first time so that the overhead is minimised.
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It actually runs a bit too fast in UAE on my PC, insofar as the various animations for weapon select / reload, explosions and water rippling are clearly too fast. The speed in UAE for the original game was about perfect on my old Duron 1200. This is with JIT enabled. Does the MorphOS version of UAE support JIT*?
*for MorphOS and OS4, the idea of leveraging the OS provided JIT has always intrigued me but I've no idea how realistic that would be to accomplish.
I imagine the timing would be a nightmare! Probably impossible without access to the native JIT source code :(
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I imagine the timing would be a nightmare! Probably impossible without access to the native JIT source code :(
Hence why I say this
It would be really cool if the OS provided a lower level interface to it's own JIT that allows you to execute 68K code and then invokes native callbacks for various "illegal" operations, like hitting non-existent classic hardware, especially if it allows it to be "patched out" into a direct call in the emitted PPC code after the first time so that the overhead is minimised.
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Just downloaded cheers... :)
So, did you try it?
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So, did you try it?
Not yet, been busy with a lot of other projects right now and I'm just about to check out the new iMacG5 i've just taken delivery of, but rest assured I'll be giving it a go (probably later on tonight or tomorrow) and I'll report back on it... :) (better be good... :lol: )
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(better be good... :lol: )
Don't expect too much :lol: