Most annoying Amiga game in the world.

[Hyperspeed]

The best pinball game I've played is Sonic Spinball on Megadrive/Genesis.

Imagine the ball being able to walk and jump etc. It was gripping getting to the boss battles and having a sort of inertial control over Sonic (a bit like tilt in other games).

Most annoying Amiga game for me is Zeewolf. Whoever thought controlling a helicopter with a mouse was a good idea should be strangled. Nice effort with the 3D graphics, pity the horizon was about 10cm away. Desert Strike was better.

A joint award goes to all games that forced you to sacrifice sound-FX for a soundtrack. Or vice versa!

:-)

[Hyperspeed]

Yeah, but what about people who want the choice of BOTH!

:-D

Some games felt like you were walking around in the Antarctic (Dennis AGA) because there was no background music or ambient Sound FX.

And having music with no Sound FX takes a big chunk of the feeling of the game away.

Zool did this I remember, but Kid Chaos managed both (and faster scrolling!).

It was excusable on OCS/ECS but not on AGA machines!

[Hyperspeed]

by Hyperspeed:
Some games felt like you were walking around in the Antarctic (Dennis AGA) because there was no background music or ambient Sound FX.

It was excusable on OCS/ECS but not on AGA machines!

by Legerdemain
...I guess what you really mean to tell us is that you find it excusable on OLDER games, and not specifically on OCS/ECS games (because there is no difference in the soundchip whatsoever the OCS/ECS and AGA machines inbetween)?

Well yes, AGA games were supposed to be the remixed and updated varieties with all new 32-bit graphics. And hopefully they had worked out how 4-channels could be used effectively.

It does puzzle me why Paula was not upgraded significantly from the A600 to A1200.

What should make a difference on AGA machines is the extra memory and CPU speed which might have helped out the sound chip should a special routine have been made for extra channels (like AHI maybe).

Odd that the 1988 Megadrive/Genesis had 10 channel audio and it was a 16-Bit 68000 machine and the 1992 Amiga-1200 had 4 channels and it was a 32-Bit 68020 machine...

Anyway - Zeewolf... I think I did try it with a joypad and it was a lot easier to control. However the way your field of view was restricted to very close combat and the pyshcadelic Populous style landscape combined to give me an unpleasant opinion of the game. I'll try it again when I can get hold of it, it was very highly acclaimed in the magazines so it's worth a second chance!

;-)

The most difficult game I've ever played was Radiant Silvergun (a top down shoot 'em up on Sega Saturn). The end boss took 2 players about half an hour to kill with infinite lives! The screen was so full of bullets that evading them for just a few minutes would have required a direct linkup from my brain to the CPU.

:-D

[Hyperspeed]

I don't like Commodore bashing.

I've never seen The Deathbed Vigil video/DVD but a lot of Commodore's problems could have resulted from intense competition in an intolerant market.

They kept the Amiga alive until production of a games console variety (the CD32). This was 1985 - 1994 = 9yrs?

It seems to a lot of people that the Amiga didn't do well in America because it was perceived as somewhat nouveau in a market obsessed with doing 'business stuff'.

Escom and Gateway 2000 didn't do a better job and both of them went down the pan.

Commodore Business Machines had to survive for it's core business and it 'went down with it's ship' - the Amiga. (it could have ditched the Amiga well before finances pinched).

If you recall Gateway 2000 sold Amiga off a few years before biting the dust but Commodore & Amiga stayed synonymous until death do us part.

Another point to raise is the fact that Commodore was a PC manufacturer producing computers from parts from other companies. Unlike IBM I am not aware of it ever having developed weapons or, like Microsoft, engaged in immoral acts of infringement, competition suppresion or (in the case of Iraq 2003-2006) providing logistics for an illegal occupying force.

Seems decency, imagination and 'good' business don't get you anywhere in the US. And we all know the US is the world... Yeehaw!

[Hyperspeed]

by minator:
Apple were the one company which stayed different - and survived as a result

Could that have anything to do with Microsoft/Bill Gates buying a wadload of shares in Apple so as to avoid anti-trust/anti-competition regulation?

This is why I believe the evolution of Apple into Intel CPUs, music players etc. is a fraud. Like the present Commodore owners, present Atari owners and the government of Afghanistan/Iraq.

;-) ;-)

It's like cloning your dead dog and continuing as if nothing ever happened.

To me, the almost fanatic choice between an Intel CPU and a Motorolla for example is a choice the customer would like to make in order for their desired style of computing to evolve. I'm not sure I even like the idea of an IBM PowerPC 603e/604!

If the customer has no choice and cannot steer the market through buying power, then the result is a monopoly. I think that is the mess we are in today.

Today's computer market is bland and festered. There'll either be an 80s style crash or some company is going to blow our socks off with something new (I suspect this will come from Japan or China).

Back on the subject of most annoying game, can we consider all the Amos PD games ever made as a contender?

:-D

[Hyperspeed]

Lando: Worms and Super Skidmarks started as Blitz Basic 2 I think.

Speelgoedmannetje: I don't think the Megadrive ever came in a mono version as it had a stereo headphone jack! The Z80 inside handled audio, the sound chip was the power of the Master System!

:-)

I felt that Zool on A1200 was slower than the old ECS version, don't know why.

I think Flashback and Another World were quite annoying since you had to use trial and error instead of skill and reflexes. You would have to fail to achieve, which sends the wrong signal to kids!

;-)

[Hyperspeed]

No, it didn't suck because Kid Chaos is like greased lightning...

Considering the era it was conceived and the fact I am using an AGA machine as my main computer is only testament to what a good bit of design it is.

Maybe it seemed a dissapointment because the original OCS/ECS chipsets were so good!

The same happened when people played Perfect Dark after Goldeneye on the N64. Nothing could really live up to the original experience.

It's possible people who went straight into A1200 without owning the others are less likely to moan...

:-D

[Hyperspeed]

Legerdemain: Have you had your breakfast yet? You seem in a bad mood...

:-D

[Hyperspeed]

Let us unite in appreciation of the Sega Saturn!

Here, have a pancake.
http://www.syberpunk.com/images/oolong/oolong.jpg

Oh well, I tried to make Oolong appear on the thread but I don't know how to imbed HTML...

:-D

[Hyperspeed]

PMC: Interesting that Elite had a spaceship called a 'Panter Clipper' because they're working on a space shuttle type plane to send cargo to the space station called a 'Clipper'...

:-o

[Hyperspeed]

I was dissapointed that Chaos Engine's scrolling was so bad for A1200. It was a good game though, a bit like Cannon Fodder viewed from overhead but with full joystick control over the character!

I noticed Speedball 2 had jerky scrolling also, but Zool 2 AGA had the same trouble so I wonder if it's a problem with AGA?

Kid Chaos AGA is really smooth as are other 2D games. The Jaguar version of Zool 2 was smooth on 68000 so why not on 68EC020!?

If you don't like Xenon 2's scrolling there's a newer style version called XP8. Stardust-style rendered sprites!

(Oh, by the way - Stardust's tunnel stages have smooth scrolling!)

[Hyperspeed]

Hmmm, maybe it's to do with the CPU then?

I think I tried Zool 2 AGA on '030 but it may well have been standard A1200 '020.

Syndicate behaved strangely even on the highly compatible Blizzard 1230-IV, everything seemed turbo-charged.

The demo of Elite went berserk on '030, I'm going to try it on '060 soon.

:-D

It's a shame TFX won't run on '060. The best it could make use of was '040 for some reason.

One thing I found very annoying with games (particularly Mortal Kombat 2) was that some came on 4 disks and required swapping between every round. Loading at 10k/s didn't help either!

;-)

[Hyperspeed]

I bet if you bought yourself a few extra disk drives to get DF1: DF2: DF3: it would still say "Insert disk into DF0:"...

DOH!

:-D

[Hyperspeed]

Someone has mentioned this before that when you use Screenmode Prefs or the Early Startup Menu to switch into NTSC mode on a PAL machine it is outputting 60Hz PAL and not 60Hz NTSC.

I'm not totally sure what the difference is as I've mainly used RGB (which is bypassing PAL/NTSC transmission).

[Hyperspeed]

The Sega Dreamcast games usually allowed you to use 60Hz from the software's main menu, probably in response to half the Saturn users getting a 60Hz switch!

:-)

I think maybe all Amigas could be modded to switch between 50/60Hz PAL and 59.98Hz NTSC with a hardware dongle on the rear. This would be the best method for people in North America/Japan who wish to play PAL Amiga games.

That or getting a Philips/Commodore/Microvitec monitor. Although an LCD panel might be a good option to avoid the more flickery 50Hz PAL screenmodes... without needing to buy a less-than-perfect scandoubler/flickerfixer.