Extra Half Brite games?

[Amiga_Nut]

Can't remember very many of these, in fact only Bullfrog's Fusion comes to mind and it had scrolling as jerky as an Atari ST too

Any other commercial 64 colour Amiga games?

(copper gradients excluded in colour count, only those running in proper EHB mode)

[Amiga_Nut]

A partial list of "supposed to" be
 
EHB
Agony
Black crypt
Dessert Strike
Conquest of the Longbow
Lionheart
John Madden Football
Simcity
Pirates
Elysium
Defender of the crown II
Gloom Deluxe
Abandoned Places 2

HAM
Links
Knights of Crystallion
Pioneer Plague
Labyrinth of time

Thanks for the list. Isn't Agony and other parallax games just using 6 bit planes in stock dual playfield mode? Agony doesn't look like 64 colours bobs + copper lists really. Lionheart used another trick to get round the 16+16 foregroung/background limit too I believe.

[Amiga_Nut]

Fightin' Spirit uses Extra Half-Bright mode........

Interesting, only have the AGA CD32 version so will track that down and see what the speed is like compared to stock 32 colour OCS/ECS Shadow Fighter.

[Amiga_Nut]

I remember magazines at the time reporting they used 256 colors even on ocs/ecs machines, although dont recall them saying it was HAM. Im not saying you're wrong, I've just always been curious about how the got so many colors on ocs/ecs :-)  I'd always put it down to changing color registers multiple times with a base of 64 colors, but that was just a guess.

I used to enjoy reading interviews with developers in the old c64/amiga magzines. Would be good if AGTW or someone interviewed some of the developers of Amiga software that used the hardware in creative ways in my opinion  :-) (assuming theyre contactable).

I'm pretty sure the 256 colour graphics of Universe was achieved using palette switching on the fly per scan-line but still using non-HAM screen mode on non AGA machines. In fact wasn't it identical graphics for both?

Could be wrong, but see if I can dig up some blurb on it from one of my Amiga mags.

[Amiga_Nut]

The CD32 version isn't AGA, it still uses EHB but it has extra graphics like the guy with the flags who starts the match. Shadow Fighter OCS used dual playfield mode which is two 8 colour (7 + transparency) so it's not a 32 colour game. The AGA version uses two 16 colour playfields so it's 32 colours in a way though.

So there is no 256 colour version of Fightin' Spirit at all? Hmm can't say I have played the CDs yet (CD32 is kaputt)

[Amiga_Nut]

Reckon that kinda sums up why todays games don't impress me much, having started of with the VIC 20s 8 colours & the C64s 16 colours and being totally blown away at the time with what people could achieve with so little. It kinda makes todays stuff look like nothing more than a bunch of full colour screen grabs joined together as quickly as possible in order to lull folk in with that initial WOW factor and bugger the gameplay or heaven forbid actually making each game something new and different...

Wasn't it max 4 colours on screen on VIC-20 from a palette of 16 (only 8 for inside the border though) Anirog Skramble for VIC20 looks pretty good compared to the C64 version except the resolution on VIC is pants.

Anyway each step has produced a marked increase in quality.

VCS/Intellivision/ZX81 to
C64/Atari 5200/Amstrad etc  
Amiga/SNES/Genesis/VGA DOS  
Software 3D on DOS PC/PS1/Saturn/N64  
PS2/Xbox/Dreamcast/Gamecube t
PS3/360/£300 GPU + i7 in PC etc

Ok the last generation is the start of refinement/photo-realism sure but it is still very noticeable to me. Popup in games affects gameplay despite being a technical issue too.

You couldn't do something like Jet Set Radio Future before Xbox level of graphics and what an awesome and original game that was, a true class act. Ditto Shadow of the Beast on anything other than Amiga was a waste of time too. Every evolution will have games worth playing end of story.

But I do believe this is the last generation where any improvements in graphics are going to be barely noticeable and we only have 2 ears so 5.1 sound is enough

[Amiga_Nut]

Was Battle Squadron in EHB?

I always thought that pinball would have been nicely suited for a HAM game.

The unreleased sequel to it definitely was going to be EHB.