Which games would you show a Spectrum person to show the Amstrad's power?

[MartinJSUK]

My 8-bit computer was a Spectrum +2, late in its life. I enjoyed it, a fantastic education on a machine which produced dozens of genuinely innovative and original games, many of which I got to experience. Still, I was jealous of C64 or Amstrad screenshots on the box, more often than not. My suspicion is that the Amstrad may actually be the most powerful of the main 8-bits, but it was often a bit under-supported by developers, especially the big UK companies. All too often, you just got lazily converted Spectrum code, usually meaning slower performance than the Spectrum version regardless of whether the graphics were improved or not (I don't think there was actually any performance benefit to only using limited colours per 8x8 block, as the Spectrum dictated). The perception of the Amstrad struggling to scroll smoothly, in particular, is one that really lingers, though I suspect that, in certain circumstances, it is possible.

With that in mind, which games are the best proof that the Amstrad could match or exceed the Spectrum for performance, as well as exceed it for audiovisual quality? Not only 2D action games, but also isometric or full 3D, or maybe adventures with static graphics? I only speak English to any functional level though, so bear that in mind.

I have a few ideas what people might say, but I'm interested to see what you come up with.

[andycadley]

(I don't think there was actually any performance benefit to only using limited colours per 8x8 block, as the Spectrum dictated). 

There is an enormous performance benefit to this. An entire 8*8 pixel grid, including the colour information can be updated by just writing 9 bytes to RAM. The equivalent on the CPC requires writing 16 bytes which is almost double the amount of effort.

But to the question at hand, if we're talking about games from back into he day: Head Over Heels, Get Dexter, RoboCop and Batman the Movie would be high on my list. 

If you're looking at more recent productions the things like R-Type 128K and Pinball Dreams would probably top the list.

[retro space]

Definitely Rick Dangerous II.

[Prodatron]

Cybernoid II:

ZX Spectrum 
 

Amstrad CPC 


Both versions are great and probably try to use the maximum power of their respective platforms, so you're not comparing apples to oranges. But you can clearly see that the CPC version is more advanced: it has the same speed, the same amount of cool animations, and all this even with double the screen RAM size, and the graphics and colors are so much better.

[BSC]

it has the same speed, the same amount of cool animations, and all this even with double the screen RAM size, and the graphics and colors are so much better

Interesting.. I think the Speccy version looks better. On the CPC, the screen width was obviously reduced to support a decent frame rate, making the big mode 0 pixels and thereby the sprites look even chunkier. 

[andycadley]

it has the same speed, the same amount of cool animations, and all this even with double the screen RAM size, and the graphics and colors are so much better

Interesting.. I think the Speccy version looks better. On the CPC, the screen width was obviously reduced to support a decent frame rate, making the big mode 0 pixels and thereby the sprites look even chunkier.

I'm not sure that's for frame rate. I've a sneaking suspicion it might be to allow the CPC and Spectrum versions to share the same data structures and (probably) code.

[BSC]

I'm not sure that's for frame rate. I've a sneaking suspicion it might be to allow the CPC and Spectrum versions to share the same data structures and (probably) code.

Yes, both screens look like they were made up of 32 tiles per row, so they could keep/share the level design at least. With the added bonus of a 20% smaller frame-buffer. But we are digressing.

I would have shown Sorcery+ and I think that Ultimate's isometric games like Knight Lore or Alien 8 looked better on the CPC. Crafton & Xunk would also be on my list. Donkey Kong was awesome. Gryzor, Renegade, Everyone's a Wally () .. I just had a look at https://www.cpcgamereviews.com/ - in hindsight, a lot of CPC games looked cute.

[dodogildo]

Operation Wolf

[GUNHED]

Show everything, every game which is no Spectrum port. This way you have good chances to have a good game. 

[norecess464]

Arkanoid on ZX Spectrum vs. the Amstrad CPC

The Amstrad CPC provides a much better resolution for the graphics with more colors on screen.

Even the audio is better on the Amstrad CPC, but it's not due to a technical improvement.

[norecess464]

which games are the best proof that the Amstrad could match or exceed the Spectrum for performance, as well as exceed it for audiovisual quality?

Audio quality should actually be much better on the ZX Spectrum, on par with the Atari ST.

About the "performance", my immediate thoughts are Prehistorik 2 and Pinball Dreams, both featuring smooth 50hz scrolling with colorful graphics.

[lmimmfn]

I did back in the day show some of my games to a Spectrum owning mate:
Gryzor
Op Wolf
Chase HQ
Batman The Movie
Robocop

He was highly impressed, except he had a 128k Speccy, probably a +2, so he had speech in games whereas I only had a CPC 464 which wouldn't have such luxuries.
 Its only recently that I discovered that the 128k versions of Amstrad games were much more polished with speech etc.

[scorp6128+]

Savage

After not playing it for years I lately realised again what a nice game it is.
Graphically impressing.

[Gryzor]

I think one-to-one comparisons work best. R-Type 128K came to mind as it blows the Speccy version (and the original CPC version) (and I love both) out of the water.

[Anthony Flack]

21st century games tend to show off the CPC's capabilities to the greatest extent, as you might expect. 

Relentless, Super Edge Grinder, Imperial Mahjong, Orion Prime, The Abduction of Oscar Z, Red Sunset, Alcon 2020, Pinball Dreams as mentioned are all technically and visually impressive games.

Running in a 32 character-wide screen mode rather than 40 has several advantages when coding for the CPC. It doesn't have to follow the Spectrum though; 32x32 is ideal. 

[MartinJSUK]

Sorry, I did specifically mean that I didn't think there was any performance benefit to Amstrad games retaining the limited colour placement of the Spectrum, rather than redrawing the graphics to use all 16 (or 4 in Mode 1) colours at once.

I think Cybernoid II probably typifies how Spectrum and Amstrad games were jointly developed, in this case the Amstrad version is much more colourful but perhaps less 'clean' in its visual look, a slightly smaller screen window but no apparent speed loss. Both great, and I've always loved the methodical design of the Cybernoid series, almost like a shoot 'em up version of Manic Miner with the way you have to find 'safe spots' to reach for the keyboard to swap your weapons.

Easter Egg's R-Type isn't a direct comparison with the commercial one as its 128k only, but definitely shows what can be done - the scrolling is pretty smooth, though again the window is a bit small, and R-Type isn't the fastest-paced game by its nature. Probably beats the ST version, as well as all official 8-bit computer ones (the Master System one looks great though). Love the music test, not something we're used to on 8-bit computers.

Isometrics are an interesting one - Get Dexter / Crafton et Xunk looks like a great game, I think using Mode 0 whereas most conversions from the Spectrum are Mode 1. If used well, the sheer variety of the 27-colour palette can make Mode 1 feel like more than 4 colours per screen when they're changed on each screen (even if it effectively means Sabreman changing clothes every few minutes, alongside the changing into a wolf). Objectively Knight Lore is better on the Amstrad because of the music, but there's a charm to the footsteps on the Spectrum version that I just can't un-feel, if you see what I mean. Amstrad Head Over Heels probably edges it over the Spectrum though. What about scrolling isometric games? Great Escape is certainly better on the Spectrum.

I expected a lot of Ocean / Imagine, and the recent Pinball Dreams (I don't think the C64 could match that, probably not the ST either). Is it generally the French and Spanish games that are the most impressive of all though?

[Gryzor]

By the way, not a game, but since we mentioned Pinball dreams:

[trocoloco]

If I had to show games from back then, for isometrics I would have shown  La Abadía del Crimen, Bactron or Mad Mix Game 2 for sure. Then some other games like Tiger Heli, After the war, Rick Dangerous 1 & 2, Panzas Kick Boxing, Prohibition, Rainbow Islands, Target Renegade, Bob Morane Space, X-out, Capitan Trueno,  Mundial de futbol, Fres Fighter, North & South, Ramparts, Chase HQ and even tho is slow is a great port UN Squadron, I've played it to death!

PD... Almost forgot Trantor!

[Gryzor]

Ooh Tractor!

How about Prince of Persia?

[Anthony Flack]

Yes, I think the CPC got the best version of Head Over Heels. And even though the graphics weren't enhanced in any way, I really like the way Starquake looks with a slightly larger palette. Jack The Nipper also looks best on the CPC I think.

Other Spectrum ports like Commando and Chase HQ were arguably improved.

I used to think Arkanoid on the CPC was pretty good, but you can't angle the ball properly, it has terrible slowdown and it seems to be the only version of Arkanoid where the bricks cast no shadow. Which is a bit of a shame, because the CPC is very well-suited to vertical arcade games, which was established early on with the likes of Moon Cresta and Donkey Kong. Other than the BBC, the other 8 bits can't cope with vertical resolutions so well and they have to resort to things like adding vertical scrolling to Pac Man. I don't think you could ever do a satisfactory version of Bomb Jack on the C64 because the screen is just the wrong shape. 

The CPC can make the screen any dimensions you want; whatever will fit on the monitor. Full overscan games like Megablasters are worth mentioning. 

[eto]

Imho the most impressive game would be Alcon 2020 but you can only run it from cartridge/rom

Very nice graphics had MGT

Is it generally the French and Spanish games that are the most impressive of all though?

I think that's related to how the machine was perceived in the different markets: The CPC was a top player in the UK, France, Spain and Germany, so most of the productions came from one of these countries. 

In Germany the CPC was more seen as a semi-professional computer which led to a lot of "serious" software and hardware but there was no game company that focused on the CPC. 

UK was probably the biggest producer of games for the CPC. However probably the vast majority of games were only "ported" to the CPC and usually in the cheapest possible way with minimal effort. It was usually only a straight conversion of graphics with minimal adaptions of the code (drawing routines). The screen size got limited to 256x192 which resulted in the typical small screen window and more often than not was the code only barely adapted to the CPC - sometimes even so crazy that the Speccy sprites were converted in code during run-time to the CPCs format - they didn't even bother to prepare that data. Some game developers surprisingly managed to port the Speccy "fart" sound to the CPC... quite an "accomplishment". And even the Oliver twins who developed ON the CPC developed their games with the Speccy as a target platform in mind. All of that led to too many games that look and behave worse on the CPC than on the Speccy. Both a blessing and a curse: if the base architecture of CPC wouldn't have been so similar to the Speccy we wouldn't have received so many games - but we also wouldn't have gotten so many crappy ports. 

In France and Spain it was different: the CPC was the leading 8bit platform and the Speccy was far behind. So the games were not developed for the Speccy or with the limitations of the Speccy in mind. They developed FOR the CPC and wanted to get the most out of it. 

Even today I have the impression that this did not really change over time. The most active and creative communities are still in Spain and in France.

[dodogildo]

Some game developers surprisingly managed to port the Speccy "fart" sound to the CPC... quite an "accomplishment".

The best description of Speccy ports ever! 

[Shaun M. Neary]

My initial sarky response would be Super Wonder Boy In Monster Land, just because we could finish the game without it crashing
(For context, the CPC version was a Speccy port with less bugs, the Speccy version wasn't completable, as the dragon was indestructable... they fixed it using the CPC code)

R-Type (Easter Egg)
Turrican 1 and 2
Rick Dangerous 128
X-Out
Pinball Dreams
Fire Tyre (Just to show what we can show off on 64k alone without needing twice that amount)

Other than that, I can't think of anything else that hasn't already been mentioned.

[MartinJSUK]

Imho the most impressive game would be Alcon 2020 but you can only run it from cartridge/rom

Very nice graphics had MGT

Is it generally the French and Spanish games that are the most impressive of all though?

I think that's related to how the machine was perceived in the different markets: The CPC was a top player in the UK, France, Spain and Germany, so most of the productions came from one of these countries.

In Germany the CPC was more seen as a semi-professional computer which led to a lot of "serious" software and hardware but there was no game company that focused on the CPC.

UK was probably the biggest producer of games for the CPC. However probably the vast majority of games were only "ported" to the CPC and usually in the cheapest possible way with minimal effort. It was usually only a straight conversion of graphics with minimal adaptions of the code (drawing routines). The screen size got limited to 256x192 which resulted in the typical small screen window and more often than not was the code only barely adapted to the CPC - sometimes even so crazy that the Speccy sprites were converted in code during run-time to the CPCs format - they didn't even bother to prepare that data. Some game developers surprisingly managed to port the Speccy "fart" sound to the CPC... quite an "accomplishment". And even the Oliver twins who developed ON the CPC developed their games with the Speccy as a target platform in mind. All of that led to too many games that look and behave worse on the CPC than on the Speccy. Both a blessing and a curse: if the base architecture of CPC wouldn't have been so similar to the Speccy we wouldn't have received so many games - but we also wouldn't have gotten so many crappy ports.

In France and Spain it was different: the CPC was the leading 8bit platform and the Speccy was far behind. So the games were not developed for the Speccy or with the limitations of the Speccy in mind. They developed FOR the CPC and wanted to get the most out of it.

Even today I have the impression that this did not really change over time. The most active and creative communities are still in Spain and in France.

This is roughly how I perceive it. The CPC and its games never outsold the Spectrum in the UK, probably because the Spectrum had a two-year headstart, so from a commercial perspective it made sense to use the same code for both. Unfortunate for Amstrad owners in the UK and beyond, and probably frustrating for Amstrad coders who wish they'd had an extra month or two to really push the system, but commercially understandable. The same of course happened with the Amiga mainly getting ST ports making no use of the Blitter and Copper early in its life in the UK and France (in contrast with the USA and much of mainland Europe, where the Amiga was quickly bigger than the ST) The CPC and Spectrum having different screen modes, whereas the Amiga could do the 320x200x16 colours of the ST, often made it worse. The difference is that the Amiga remained successful after the ST started to die out, so the balance changed eventually, whereas with the Amstrad it didn't - if anything, British publishers seemed to get lazier with the Amstrad later on, from the 1991-or-later UK games I've seen.

How easy was it to get some of the French and Spanish games (especially those with no Spectrum or C64 versions) in the UK BITD? Were things like Panza, Capitan Trueno and Bactron published or widely imported into the UK?

[McArti0]

North&South