I've just tried all the batch of cartridge games on a gx4000. The gx4000 is hooked up to a lcd 32" television through scart.
I see some minor colour artifacting, and some banding in the colours on all games. The display on the television is clear and the mode 0 pixels definitely look chunky.
Here are my comments.
- Pang is the best of them all. It has a demo sequence which shows you how to play. The difficulty is good, the presentation is great.
It uses the full vertical screen resolution.
- Navy Seals looks great, sounds great, it's very very hard to play, so much so that it puts me off it. It's too hard. Good use of vertical space on screen.
- Robocop 2 looks great, sounds great, it's also very very hard, too hard. Good use of vertical space on screen.
- Switchblade, looks great, resolution is nice, good use of colours. The game is not too bad, the collision can be a bit iffy and things appear out of the ground without warning - so you often loose energy on them. When you are hit by an enemy you are stunned and it's often hard to move away and get a good hit, but generally it's a good game, one which I've finished on CPC. Switchblade also uses fire 2 for jump.
- World of sports, I played just bmx, and the controls are not nice. Controlling it should not be that hard.
- Enforcer: Difficult to play on joypad, you need the gun which I don't have. Not worth trying I don't think. The cursor just doesn't move well enough.
- Copter 271 is ok, but could do with a bit faster pace in it's scroll and action for me.
- Klax is probably the best of the direct CPC ports.
- Crazy cars 2 - how do you accelerate? Button 2 brings up map, button 1 doesn't do anything it seems or up???? really???
- Fire and Forget 2 - no sense of speed at all.
So what I noticed on the big screen is that when the CPC screen is reduced it's so much more noticeable, the borders appear huge. On the best cart games they fill the screen vertically well and the side borders are not so bad.
The overscan screens on Crazy Cars 2 and Fire and Forget 2 are nice, really nice.
Mode 0 appears quite chunky on my television, pixels like bricks. I was sitting fairly close though, about 1 metre away, the gx4000 was sitting under the television itself.
So a quick analysis of the games ;)
The gamepad of the gx4000 is poor, at least mine is, the movement isn't responsive enough.
Playing the games on gx4000 and at a distance showed me the experience is different compared to playing them closer up on a plus with it's smaller monitor screen.
What comes out of this (my point of view):
1. Don't shrink the screen. Keep it normal width (or larger) and use the height and screen splits.
2. Mode 1 looks the best and try and increase the colours using sprites and colour splits. Mode 0 looks quite chunky, so careful use of colours to lessen that.
3. Include a demonstration and some instructions because most people don't read manuals.
4. Adjust the difficulty (if level based), make it easier at the start and then increase it.
5. use the second pad button. Important.
6. If you're playing from a distance, it's annoying to have to lean over and press pause! Pity the pause wasn't on the controller :(
7. Use the colours well.
8. If possible allow control using either pad.
Quote from: arnoldemu on 11:41, 22 November 14
- Crazy cars 2 - how do you accelerate? Button 2 brings up map, button 1 doesn't do anything it seems or up? ??? really???
It's up to accelerate, down to brake, and fire changes between gears, pushing up or down simultaneously to go high or low. You dont need to hold accelerate all the time to maintain speed, I think.
Quote from: arnoldemu on 11:45, 22 November 14
6. If you're playing from a distance, it's annoying to have to lean over and press pause! Pity the pause wasn't on the controller :(
Didnt they make the lead on the pad particularly short to try and stop that from happening? ;)
Quote from: arnoldemu on 11:41, 22 November 14
- Robocop 2 looks great, sounds great, it's also very very hard, too hard. Good use of vertical space on screen.
Lousy game. Original is better. Main mistake was having stupid jumpy bits. Not massively keen on the graphics. The level and tile design in a lot of places somehow looks even more ridiculous with the more 'realistic' colours than they would with the regular CPC palette. Navy Seals is a LOT better in that area. The blocky hostages still look horrifying to me. Oddly enough they remind me of Emil from the first movie after his accident with the toxic waste. ???
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- Switchblade, looks great, resolution is nice, good use of colours. The game is not too bad, the collision can be a bit iffy and things appear out of the ground without warning - so you often loose energy on them. When you are hit by an enemy you are stunned and it's often hard to move away and get a good hit, but generally it's a good game, one which I've finished on CPC. Switchblade also uses fire 2 for jump.
Collision is fine, it's just it doesn't give you any invulnerable recovery time so you get dragged about a bit sapping more energy. And as for things appearing out of ground without warning... not really. The spikes pop up just before you run over that space so as long as you're careful you'll be fine and they're in the exact same place each time rather than random, so you'll learn their placements soon enough. The only real issue I ever had with the game was the jumping but I been playing it for so many years now I'm just used to it. Still prefer the regular CPC version though (other than load speed)
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Mode 0 appears quite chunky on my television, pixels like bricks. I was sitting fairly close though, about 1 metre away, the gx4000 was sitting under the television itself.
I've often been plugging my laptop into my 32" HDTV to test out my CPC-style games. I love the chunkiness. Mainly cos unlike most modern 2D games (that seem to think HD is an excuse to have ridiculously tiny barely readable sprites and fonts, made even worse by all the over-the-top shadow and lighting effects that seem to be mandatory these days) I can actually see the things moving about.