Amiga Powerdrift takes advantage of faster hardware

[fishy_fiz]

After reading through some old Amiga magazines I come across an interview with ZZKJ in regards to his conversion of powerdrift. Personally I got a bit of enjoyment out of the Amiga version back in the day, but certain tracks were much more playable than others due to some being a bit too sluggish and disorientating. The interview revealed a few things I was unaware of prior to reading it. For example, while the game is "sprite" based it's actually a 3d environment and tracks, etc. are calculated mathematically. It seems it was written from the start to take advantage of faster hardware.
After learning this I couldnt help but to try it out only to be pleasantly surprised at how much better it plays on my '040 based a1200 than it does on a stock a500/a600.

Not really rivetting stuff, but being that I was fond of the game I thought Id share this discovery with y'all.
For now though Im going back to have another game  

[Bamiga2002]

Yes Powerdrift is a rather enjoyable experience once you got some horsepower under the hood for smoother screen update

[JC]

Never heard of powerdrift. Any screenshots or videos?

[jj]

I loveed this game on the Amstrad CPC, never played the Amiga version

[RMK305]

Never heard of powerdrift. Any screenshots or videos?

http://hol.abime.net/1116

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5wSSR27MjY

[LaserBack]

http://hol.abime.net/1116

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5wSSR27MjY

the amiga version of powerdrift is very buggy and unplaylable and it runs on a small screen
The C64 is lot better and playlable ...was done by the genius Chris butler

[RMK305]

I used to enjoy it back in the day, but after looking at the youtube video it looks utter crap. Wil have to try it on my warpengine to see if it helps the frame rate any.

[fishy_fiz]

Id hazzard a guess the video shows it running on a stock a500 (possibly a1200). It appears to be running something akin to how I remember it from when it was new. Its definately smoother on a machine with a little extra grunt. The "problem" then however is that the road graphics (the actual roads hemselves, not the side objects) can be a little offputting. Theyre actually made up of patterns, the closer the graphics get the bigger the area tiled with the pattern becomes. When things are smooth this is a lot more noticable and can be a little offputting.

Still though, like it or not it is refreshing to see an older sprite based game taking advantage of faster hardware.

[Digiman]

ZZKJ always did S[hi]T ports. I read about the production of this game in a WIP diary and the is no denying it was an ST port. It's in ACE magazine.

Horrible game graphically. If Magnetic Fields had only been contracted to convert it.

[fishy_fiz]

@LaserBack
Yeah, c64 version was great. And I agree, Chris Butler is a legend.
 
Im a bit of a ZZKJ fan as well, but there's no denying that he targetted the lower common denominator (ST) as Digiman said.