ChinnyVision : Pitfighter

[chinnyhill10]

I'd hoped at least one of the systems had a decent port. But the CPC really got a poor deal here. A slow Speccy port of a game that stank to high heaven.


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G802wNeLBFs[/youtube]

[Puresox]

AKA Sh*t fighter

[CraigsBar]

The arcade game was great for a blast in the pub between college lectures. So glad I never bought it tho!

[Puresox]

I didn't mind it when I saw it in the Arcade , it was ok, and it was a new style . So I respect it for that much . As a long term game it hasn't fared well. With Mortal Combat using that style it grabbed the lime light for that style . And I personally didn't care much for the game it had limited moves and wasn't a patch on Street Fighter 2. The thing that makes Mortal Combat special was the Death Moves and the different scenario's people were intrigued in seeing or doing. So pretty clever concept .
 The Ports to the 8-Bits was an instant --'Do Not Buy'-- for me because the idea of bringing it to the machines does not compute, pun intended. I thought the C64 version was the only version worth taking a look at , because they made a realistic interpretation of the games concept. The only reason people may have considered buying the Speccy version would be to see a presentation of digitised graphics and be wowed visually oh and the sonics were good too.

[ivarf]

The only reason people may have considered buying the Speccy version would be to see a presentation of digitised graphics and be wowed visually oh and the sonics were good too.

  and you are not even joking.   

[chinnyhill10]

The arcade game was great for a blast in the pub between college lectures. So glad I never bought it tho!

I imagine there's limited fun to be had on the 16 bits (didn't appeal to me) but goodness the CPC version is slow. It's bad enough on the Speccy but the poor old CPC is struggling with shoddy code trying to scale bitmapped sprites. It's so rubbish it hurts.


Should have gone down the C64 route and dispensed with the digitised graphics and just tried to do a conventional fighter but where you can move up and down the play field instead of just left and right.

[zeropolis79]

The ST version was reasonable...

[Shaun M. Neary]

Megadrive version was a lot of fun. Wasted countless days on it.


Then we got Streets of Rage and that was that for Pit Fighter.


8bit version was pretty much done out of obligation I reckon, to honour contacts with the arcade licence and the software house. They heaved out all sorts of shit in 1990-1991 (E-Swat, anyone?) and people bought it.

[rk last]

By the time that this game came out I was a AMIGA & MEGADRIVE owner.  I never found the game appealing and after watching the vid here I`m glad I never wasted my money on it.

[Puresox]

and you are not even joking.   

I'm being generous I know , but considering digitised graphics showing Atheletes training in a slideshow along with the music is about all you could say for the game . I wouldn't have bought it ,but that would be about all its worth for on ZX Speccy

[sigh]

The game wasn't the greatest but it had some interesting gameplay elements, such as picking up weapons and using background objects to hit your opponent with. This wasn't seen in 1 vs 1 beatem ups as these type of gameplay elements were left for scrolling beat em ups.
The crowd could also damage you too by hitting you with a weapon.

It almost felt like a hybrid of scrolling beat em up and a vs beat em up as it also had simultaneous 3 player mode on some arcade cabinets.
Playing this game felt very different from playing Streetfighter, Fatal Fury and it probably struggled more against the scrolling beat em up genre than the Vs genre.

The only other game that I have seen like this was Aggressors of dark kombat by Neo Geo. This is the same gameplay style as Pit Fighter, but with more characters to choose, more supermoves and MMA style take downs.

PitFighter - not a great game, but there were attempts at some innovation.

[chinnyhill10]

8bit version was pretty much done out of obligation I reckon, to honour contacts with the arcade licence and the software house. T

Domark were never known for putting any budget behind their arcade conversions on the 8 bits. It was always about fleecing customers and making a fast few quid. How many CPC versions of their games were just lazy Speccy ports?

[chinnyhill10]

I'm being generous I know , but considering digitised graphics showing Atheletes training in a slideshow along with the music is about all you could say for the game . I wouldn't have bought it ,but that would be about all its worth for on ZX Speccy

CPC and Spectrum do have a nice tune + the training shots. That's about it.

[Shaun M. Neary]

Domark were never known for putting any budget behind their arcade conversions on the 8 bits. It was always about fleecing customers and making a fast few quid. How many CPC versions of their games were just lazy Speccy ports?

It was about 50/50. Xybots, Toobin and Hard Drivin were butt ugly, but there were some nice outings from them too.


Action Fighter, Escape from The Planet Of Robot Monsters, Klax, Dragon Spirit and APB come to mind as the stand out.
If you compare them to the US Gold/GO! Capcom deal, they came out the better end.

[Puresox]

Yes Domark had 50/50 I'd say. And I think they relied a lot on good presentation over content. They did occasionally get it right though. But also they got it very wrong --Super Space Invaders?!

[Shaun M. Neary]

Yes Domark had 50/50 I'd say. And I think they relied a lot on good presentation over content. They did occasionally get it right though. But also they got it very wrong --Super Space Invaders?!

I will still take Super Space Invaders over 1943 and it's two levels on repeat. xD


Bad as the Tengen/Domark rep was, US Gold/Capcom was more of a shambles. I also forgot to put Vindicators on the Tengen/Domark list which was also done very nicely too on the CPC.


But look at USG/Capcom shambles. 1943, Street Fighter, Bionic Commando, Last Duel, LED Storm, and Dynasty Wars! Strider and Forgotten Worlds were the only two good games out of that entire batch from recollection.

[sigh]

@ChinnyVision; Is it possible that when you review arcade ports - to show the actual arcade version at the beginning?

I would also like to know from the programmers out there, with all the sprite scaling involved, was the game at all doable to achieve a respectable level of enjoyment?

[Puresox]

I will still take Super Space Invaders over 1943 and it's two levels on repeat. xD


Bad as the Tengen/Domark rep was, US Gold/Capcom was more of a shambles. I also forgot to put Vindicators on the Tengen/Domark list which was also done very nicely too on the CPC.


But look at USG/Capcom shambles. 1943, Street Fighter, Bionic Commando, Last Duel, LED Storm, and Dynasty Wars! Strider and Forgotten Worlds were the only two good games out of that entire batch from recollection.

Oh man , Super Space Invaders over 1943!? well You can take SSpaceInvaders, and I'll take 1943 on that one . I agree the 2 levels are somewhat of a shortchange , but at least it plays and looks sweet. Is it 2 Levels or 4levels I will have to give it a run through? Isn't it a crying shame that they dropped the ball with that one , All that impressive coding that could have been turned into probably the best vertical shootemup on the CPC.

[Shaun M. Neary]

Oh man , Super Space Invaders over 1943!? well You can take SSpaceInvaders, and I'll take 1943 on that one . I agree the 2 levels are somewhat of a shortchange , but at least it plays and looks sweet. Is it 2 Levels or 4levels I will have to give it a run through? Isn't it a crying shame that they dropped the ball with that one , All that impressive coding that could have been turned into probably the best vertical shootemup on the CPC.

 


Wasn't it two levels and a plane? A game can look shit hot, but without gameplay, it's not worth shit. Look at Strider 2! I think I finished that game on first attempt! I don't think it even looked as good as the original either. Mode 0 wasn't kind to it at all.

[Puresox]

True , 1943 was very easy , which made the fact that they made it very short very daft tbh , they should have made it brutally hard so no one could have found out the game was so short .

[chinnyhill10]

@ChinnyVision; Is it possible that when you review arcade ports - to show the actual arcade version at the beginning?

I usually do but it's not always possible to get a game running. Pit Fighter I tried every image I could get my hands on and it wasn't playing ball. On a weekly release schedule you just have to know the point where you have to quit and move on. Same reason no ST version. Just wouldn't run on my ST no matter what I tried.

[zeropolis79]

Works on my expanded 520STE...

[MacDeath]

Same reason no ST version. Just wouldn't run on my ST no matter what I tried.

what is the config/model of your ST ?
have you tried different ROMs ?
what CRTC do you have ? oops wrong machine.
 

Works on my expanded 520STE...

what do you call expanded ? which config ?
I mean, the only difference between 520STe and 1040STe is a sticker and extra RAM sticks



I should use my STe more often.


Wasn't Pit fighter universally bad on every formats ?
even arcade ?

cool video as usual.


"Z80" Pit fighter has actually some massive sprites.
I suppose the CPC version uses 1bpp coded graphics and convert them into Mode1 as usual.
seems it also uses another 1bpp mask...
can't be more poorly ported.

Domark were never known for putting any budget behind their arcade conversions on the 8 bits. It was always about fleecing customers and making a fast few quid. How many CPC versions of their games were just lazy Speccy ports?

CPC-POWER, sauvegarde du patrimoine de l'Amstrad CPC
CPC-POWER, sauvegarde du patrimoine de l'Amstrad CPC

the Speccy port aspect was cross/jointed Z80 dev in many case, same engine but mode0 graphics. This was the standard process in UK I guess.

Domark actually also had some decent CPC versions here and there.

Klax, actually, despite small sized screen.
Dragon spirit doesn't look too bad.
Escape From The Planet Of The Robot Monsters looked nice.

Don't know about the baseball game but doesn't look too bad.
Vindicator as well.

APB was quite fun.

actually Domark games were half lazy mode1 portshytes, half nice Mode0.

xybots manages to be the best 8bit version compaired to C64 or Speccy because the sprites have different colours from background actually.

Toobin is a massive disgrace.

Most of their games suffered from the classic "464" limitation...
No proper quantity of graphics/content, no nice cinematics or whatever.


wasn't the game and many actually deved by "Teque" ?
CPC-POWER, sauvegarde du patrimoine de l'Amstrad CPC
CPC-POWER, sauvegarde du patrimoine de l'Amstrad CPC

[Shaun M. Neary]

True , 1943 was very easy , which made the fact that they made it very short very daft tbh , they should have made it brutally hard so no one could have found out the game was so short .

 


I think here was a legit reason for it's shortness. Capcom wanted it for the Christmas market (Capcom and Go! had only brokered the deal at the end of the summer from what I remember reading old C+VG's religiously), but Probe were nowhere near finished in time (shocker!). By the time October/November came around, Capcom were asking where their game was, and Probe were only on 3 levels and a plane, but they ordered them to wrap it up and get it ready for distribution, as Go!/Capcom wanted to have a rake load of titles ready for Christmas.


Street Fighter, 1943, Bionic Commando, Forgotten Worlds, Tiger Road and others were the first wave of licences I think. Most of which sold moderately well on their names alone, but they were far from impressive except for Forgotten Worlds.


Sorry for going off track. Just basically pointing out that as bad as the Tengen/Domark releases were, the Capcom/Go! ones were a lot worse in most cases.

[kawickboy]

Don't forget u.n squadron and strider 2, quite good. And the mega twins demo looks awesome. And after activision crashed they bought sega rights.

Anybody played thunderjaws and skull&crossbones ? the last one went on the market 3 years after target renegade and is a failure.