retrosutra compares all AMC versions... Guess which has the wrong aspect ratio!

[cwpab]

I wish this was intentional, it would be more like a conspiracy of sorts, more interesting to analyze.

Instead, it seems like the guy didn't realize! LOL, how can you NOT realize when the other 5 versions use the normal aspect ratio?

The reason why I believe it was accidental is because he refers to the CPC using words such as "the superior hardware of the CPC" and, in the end, he says he "personally prefer the Spectrum and Amstrad versions".

Ooops! I just spoiled the surprise... Yes, the only version with wrong aspect ratio is the Amstrad CPC one. *throws himself to the highway and screams 'kill me, truck'*

Here's the video:

[Gryzor]

An interesting video nonetheless. I hadn't realized the Spectrum version looks so good and that the c64 version is so bad😁

[Jean-Marie]

It seems they managed to avoid the infamous colour clash effect on the Spectrum. Interesting.

[andycadley]

Is the aspect ratio wrong? I mean it looks sort of zoomed in, but it doesn't look particularly distorted. More like the creator of the video has clipped all the borders as much as possible and the CPC version does have a lot of border.

The Speccy version looks impressively colourful. I think it's just the way the Spanish did games, didn't matter if the scrolling was a bit jerky as long as there was a lot going on. If it weren't for the insanely hard difficulty of Spanish games, I think they'd all be very highly rated.

No idea what they were thinking with that C64 port though, it looks shockingly bad. And the Amiga and ST ports seem very weak too.

[scorp6128+]

Interesting video comparison of a game I really like.
The CPC version shines bright in this comparison.
Perhaps one of the best Dinamic games for the CPC.
I also recommend the fantastic speccy version in 128k.

[cwpab]

Ouch! My bad... It's only zoomed it. I wasn't expecting AMC to have this "panoramic view" on the CPC.

It's still a bad idea because it makes the game looks worse (mode 0 is not good for this) and it doesn't really show the actual CPC display, which goes against the comparison of the video.

I find the music a bit too melancholic, an issue that affects quite a few action computer games from that era. It's not as bad as in Target: Renegade, where you want to cry instead of beating up thugs, but it's still not ideal for the style of game.

The Spectrum graphics are just fantastic. Spanish programmers really mastered this machine. They managed to make many of these games with a black background and a few basic colors carefully combined for the sprites better than games for superior machines.

I'm not into Contra games, so I haven't played this much. And yes, the lack of a jumping animation makes the game feel much "cheaper" than it deserves.

[Gryzor]

And the Amiga and ST ports seem very weak too.

Well the Atari version isn't spectacular, but looks nice and easier (?). The Amiga version looks much more impressive but it's like they tried to do a SotB clone instead and it ends up being really weird.