Lazy Speccy Ports

[chinnyhill10]

Never again should we complain that the CPC suffered from lazy Speccy ports. Today I've got my first MSX and I played a few games. I fired up Gemini Wing and this is the actual menu screen:


[attachimg=1]


Spot the problem?


That has to be the laziest piece of ported code I've ever seen. Couldn't even be bothered to alter the joystick options from the Spectrum version!


We thought we had it tough. With its small user base the poor old MSX seems to have had titles literally shovelled onto it from the Speccy as quickly as possible with no care at all!

[roy bates]

its a real shame,lots of systems suffered this pandemic of poorly ported games software in an attempt to get it on the shelves fast.

[McKlain]

On the MSX the problem is as bleeding as on our poor CPCs.

[MacDeath]

yeah, imagine the choker : you have an MSX2+ and all you can find is this sort of thing...


Then 25 years after you learn about imported Japanese Konami cartridges...

You childhood ruined forever.


But hey, Yie Ar Kunfu 2 was an MSX port on CPC* and it is bad**...


Weren't Spanish often responsible for those terrible speccy ports on MSX ?
Anyway we had a few speccy ports on Thomson MO5/TO7 computers as Well... not code port of course (different CPU) but graphic ports.

MO5

Speccy



I gave a new look at some Spanish speccy ports on MSX or MSX games and found a few things.

= After the war : yeah it actually seems to use Hardsprites in second part, the fire from gun doesn't shows attribute clashes : not a lazy port !!!
(well, a bit anyway)

= temptations  : topo soft, 1988 : doesn't seem to be Speccyied but seems actually real MSX game. seems even quite good.
= colt 36 (toposoft as well) same...

Actually toposoft seemed to produce some real MSX games according to araubi youtube channel, but also some more speccy type games like Sir Fred, jsut the palette is more MSX though..


Then when are we trying to make NEC PC6001mk2/6601 ports on CPC (or CPC ports the other way)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=bt4ixC7Vvc0

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YBv2IBY-xw
this could be great on CPC...
And NEC PC6001 2nd specs are basically a CPC minus the dark and pastel colours.


Many great Japanese RPG on MSX, PC6001mk2 or PC8000... those are Z80 systems and may be ported on CPC.


Nec PC8000 used a 640x200x8 video mode with basic RGB palette (RGB, yellow cyan purple, black & white) and because of the 640x200 resolution on a CRT monitor, you actually had this as equivalent/effective 320x200x27 in full CPC palette (via ditherings, so it is more a software palette/CRT trick actually), so most of those graphics can actually be well ported into CPC in Mode0 because the CPC has the right palette...
Nec PC88 graphics can be a real inspiration on how to use CPC colours actually...
Wished CPC could have a 320x200x16 mode indeed...

Look : CPC palette :


*ok I have no proofs for that
**This is a well knomn fact

[EgoTrip]

That second game looks good, but the music and sound fx are really irritating so a CPC version would have to sort that out.

[MacDeath]

I lov how Japaneses wouldn't try to do some things if there is no hardware for it.

No smooth Hardware scrolling ? no Hardware sprites ?
Then they would just use character based engine and nothings inventive as they did in Europe with similarly spec-ed machines...


The graphics on this NEC "PC6000" may seem a bit stranges.

its palette was also quite strange to begin with, yes somewhat CPC flavoured...



with the second generation specs (see CPCwiki page I did : NEC PC-6xx1 - CPCWiki ), you could actually have equivalent of Mode0 and Mode1 as on CPC, but more limited palette, no dark nor pastel variants of the colours...


Add-in the AY and the  Z80 => totally a CPC "brother" in some ways...

Fun to see how they handle the Mode1 / 4 colour modes compaired to europeans... I guess some earlier models (Speccy like) had some Palette limitations as well.
Hard to find properly translated infos on those.


Yet I'm pretty sure you can quite  straight-port games from those machines on CPC.
or the other way (would reduce some graphic quality perhaps)


I really believe this would be cool to have some Amstrad enthousiasts to mess with some NEC PC6001mk2 or get some NEC PC6001mk2 japanese enthousiasts mess with some real Amstrad CPC...

[Puresox]

The MSX , considering it had crapper capabilities, scrolling wise, than the CPC, the Shooters Horizontal&Vertical Are far superior on the whole. Bar the superb R-Type , which is not a fair comparison anyhow.

[chinnyhill10]

The MSX , considering it had crapper capabilities, scrolling wise, than the CPC, the Shooters Horizontal&Vertical Are far superior on the whole. Bar the superb R-Type , which is not a fair comparison anyhow.

Been playing more MSX games today. Blimey, some of the UK games are literally straight from the Spectrum. No effort made at all. No sprite capabilities used. Lazy and quick ports.


The port of Boulderdash is good though. Not quite as nice as the Atari or C64 versions but still pretty good.

[MacDeath]

MSX1 and 2 sucked at scrollings... R-Type scrolls by wholes characters... 2+ and turboR are another thing...

[Puresox]

Been playing more MSX games today. Blimey, some of the UK games are literally straight from the Spectrum. No effort made at all. No sprite capabilities used. Lazy and quick ports.


The port of Boulderdash is good though. Not quite as nice as the Atari or C64 versions but still pretty good.

All of the British games for it are atrocious, worse lazy Spec ports than the CPC. But the Japanese made games were astounding. Fantastic machine.

[Gryzor]

Nice find mate Been following your tweets but I don't think I saw that!

Indeed, that's the laziest I've seen...
So what happens when you choose one of the speccy options?

*Idea*: a brand new game, doesn't need to be big or complex, but it does need to look good, with an option to switch to SpeccyShite Mode.

[chinnyhill10]

Nice find mate Been following your tweets but I don't think I saw that!

If it was the @ChinnyVision account then I try to keep that relevant to the channel with occasional diversions. If it's @chinnyhill10 then it's a free for all