Xyphoe's Vids - [AMSTRAD CPC] Toobin' - Review & Longplay

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[AMSTRAD CPC] Toobin' - Review & Longplay
10 April 2011, 10:55 pm

 

	[AMSTRAD CPC] Toobin' - Review & Longplay Toobin on the Amstrad CPC - longplay and (live) review! Fun little arcade conversion, not without it's collision detection problems and bugs, oh and 4 colour graphics ... but still quite playable and OK for a quick blast. For this first time I've recorded my review live whilst playing the game! I may not do this again because I found the resultant video generated by WinApe emulator to end up being a bit slower than the mic audio I recorded in a separate program, so still had to end up making several edits of the voice over to sync back in - grrr! Still, whilst not the most professional sounding of reviews (mine never are anyway!) it's interesting to hear how much I get into the game or not - frustration and swearing included! cpc-power.com By the way, I later found out that in the arcade original if you do collect all the floating balloon letters you get a special code on completing the game where you win a free t-shirt! Sadly of course the offer expired in December 1988 ;-) www.arcade-museum.com	From: Xyphoe Views: 2 0 ratings
Time: 23:22	More in Gaming

Source: Uploads by Xyphoe

[redbox]

I was all excited about it being "live"...!  Hope you manage to crack it.


Like this game, shame about the Speccy-port-ness of it.  The arcade version is cool and [MacDeath] would be cool to see a Plus version [/MacDeath]. 

[MacDeath]

I got a look in Winape...
actually a really straight port...
All graphic datas are in 1bpp...

so there would be quite a heavy job on it if you keeps the speccyport version.
Better got to start a brand new engine.

But this seems to be a small game too...

Some sprites are masked (so totaling 2bpp) and I do n't think it actually uses the full 64K RAM that well...

It seems to convert 1bpp graphics in 2bpp and add monocolour fro mthe 4 inks of mode1 with "attribute like" way...


Weren't there a Dizzy clone from this game ? perhaps more interesting actually.


Yeah a Plus version would be great as usual...
You know, the 16 HardSprite are just good enough for such kind of game...

but just getting this stuff in a 256x256 vertical full screen setting perhaps...
With a far smaller HUD then...
And Mode0...


http://www.arcade-history.com/?n=toobin%27&page=detail&id=2933

Game ID : 136061
 
  Main CPU : 68010 (@ 8 Mhz), M6502 (@ 1.7895 Mhz)
  Sound Chips : YM2151 (@ 3.579 Mhz), POKEY (@ 1.7895 Mhz)
 
  Screen orientation : Vertical
  Video resolution : 384 x 512 pixels
  Screen refresh : 60.00 Hz
  Palette colors : 1024
 
  Players : 2
  Buttons : 5

Lol it uses an Atari's 8 bit computer's pokey soundchip...


BTW...
384x512 resolution means (as it is a vertical monitor...) that the resolution is actually 192x256...
Which is a turned 90° speccy resolution...
it is quite doable on CPC with the "256x256 resolution... and a good vertical HUD then.

This leaves 64 pixels large vertical HUD.

divide by 2 the X in Mode0 of course...

96 large play-area and 32pix HUD...
(3/4 + 1/4)

[redbox]

BTW...
384x512 resolution means (as it is a vertical monitor...) that the resolution is actually 192x256...
Which is a turned 90° speccy resolution...
it is quite doable on CPC with the "256x256 resolution... and a good vertical HUD then.
This leaves 64 pixels large vertical HUD.
divide by 2 the X in Mode0 of course...
96 large play-area and 32pix HUD...
(3/4 + 1/4)

This is a really good point, and I had never thought about the monitor rotation when looking at arcade specs.


You're right, with 256x256 screen and using the hardware sprites this could be a lovely conversion.

[arnoldemu]

This is a really good point, and I had never thought about the monitor rotation when looking at arcade specs.


You're right, with 256x256 screen and using the hardware sprites this could be a lovely conversion.

it would be much better, even if done on cpc, with a hardware split, and using smooth vertical scrolling.
a panel either at the top, or the bottom ,or both and a smooth vertical scroll in the middle. it could be really sweet.

[Axelay]

it would be much better, even if done on cpc, with a hardware split, and using smooth vertical scrolling.
a panel either at the top, or the bottom ,or both and a smooth vertical scroll in the middle. it could be really sweet.

Tempting to think that about a lot of CPC games though.  A couple of months ago I was playing Arcade Flight... er, "Simulator", and having a bit of fun, as short term as it tends to be with that game.  But it occurred to me at the time that with it only scrolling vertically, only a handful of sprites - It coulda been awesome with vertical hardware scrolling! 

[McKlain]

Lol it uses an Atari's 8 bit computer's pokey soundchip...

  A lot of atari arcade games of the time used the pokey. And it's quite a nice soundchip, better than the AY.

[MacDeath]

Is it possible to flip aside a CPC monitor ?

The cooling system inside actualy use the natural air flaw due to temperatures changes... so it may not do the best to the power supply...



this kind of fliped monitors were quite common for vertical displays such as vertical scrollers...

And also used for some publishing/edition oriented machines (PCW like... many Apples actually...)


Concerning the vertical shooters, it was a good way to cheat and trick the Hardware...
Exemple : we all knowa CPC cannot perform that welll in vertical interrupts or scrollings... (sort of).

Vertical raster changes lol...

Just flip aside your monitor and tada !!!! Bingo...

You can split vertically your screen...

Well, rememeber my list of the infamous Speccy porks of death ?
(got to enter it into the Wiki though)
All those games actually can be better than they are... if redone well.

That's a list of 30 games (a little more actually) ... minus R-Type who is actually being re-dione "properly".

But this would need a proper back-coding crossdev...
Need to compare the speccy game and the CPC games/codes.
But as many of them probably (probadly) used the same kind of porkage technics... a method may be found.

[Xyphoe]

Haha!

That's a nice idea! But the first main draw back are the cables from the monitor > CPC are too short and you'll have stretched cable getting in the way of things

[MacDeath]

That's just a mundane DIN6 cable Female/Male...

Certainly the same you may find in any Hi-Fi store...
Concerning the Power supply this may be trickier, I mean this may heat up too much as the natural air-flux supposed to cool the thing would not work properly...

Anyway Amstrad's not a speccy, CPC "can into" vertical 256... so is more than suitable to get the vertical 512 feeling... (and ratio).

Remember Arkanoid ?
Donkey Dong ? (pun....)

[TFM]

 
  A lot of atari arcade games of the time used the pokey. And it's quite a nice soundchip, better than the AY.

You can't proove that 

[robcfg]

I wouldn't say the pokey is better than the ay, but is has a very distinctive sound. Try the Warhawk tune on Atari... 

[McKlain]

You can't proove that 

It's better on paper, and to me it does sound better than the AY. 4 channels, independent noise level per channel, high pass filter, variable duty cycle on the square waveform, configurable channels...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNxICcU3bPo&feature=related

Don't tell me that the AY it's better just cause it has "stereo". We all love our CPCs, but the sound chip and its implementation it's not the best of the best between the 8bit computers of its time. 

[TFM]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNxICcU3bPo&feature=related

Ok, this sound is not bad, but it doesn't kick me out of my shoes! The PSG sound of the CPC is way superior, take a listening at this:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8GtLSvA5BA

or at this (that rocks!):


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSfoQKiXo5g

Enjoy the power of the PSG!
Enjoy the divine CPC ;-)

[McKlain]

Enjoy the power of the PSG!
Enjoy the divine CPC ;-)

I already do, I use Arkos Tracker 

But to me the best 8bit soundchip is the one from "the enemy". The SID it's a goddamned miniature synth on a chip.

[robcfg]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qtX_w2kpIg

To be fair, this one is much better on Atari. And if you feel like it, take a look at the Atari SAP Music Archive (asma.atari.org). Lots of good tunes there!

[McKlain]

And the lead sounds that you can do with the variable duty cycle thing...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUmh68be-CU&feature=related

I think that you can only do this on the CPC using quite a lot of cpu power (no problems on the plus as there is DMA).

[MacDeath]

It's like compairing a violin (AY) with a trumpet (Pokey) and a musical saw (Sid...vicious...)

ok bad exemples lol...

Pokey had 4 channel if I recall well.

BTW all those component were good provided well used.

AY is somewhat the most limited, yet its sound can be good too...

Some Tim follin tunes are actually great on AY...

Atari ST would have been so cool if it had both YM and Pokey...

To me the real limitation wasn't the sound but the number of channels...
and CPU + RAM ressource... availlable to manage the PSG.

CPC often perfomed poorly because of the heavy video and limited used RAM (464 config...).
Sounds were often the first sacrificed things in games.

[McKlain]

And then you see games on the C64 with lots of musics, menus with big logos... in 64k.

By the way, Tim Follin also did amazing things on the SID:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7ZDJ4Lzm80 

[MacDeath]

To be fair...
CPC's AY is clearly the minimum decent setting concerning sounds...

Not  that much... and by decent, I mean decent.. no more, yet quite manageable and exploitable.


Not as "good " as even Speccy 128's or Atari ST's AY/YM...  (appart from Stereo...thx Amstrad...)
Yet somewhat inferior to pokey and Sid... (or others...) in some aspects... many ? not that much ... (we are talking about 8 bit chips...)

Yet far better than Thomson/Speccy48/PC beeper... (unless the CPU intense "realsound technic...)
My first PC (and also the second...lol...) had no soundcards... I can tell... you couldn't even turn off the volume (not an Amstrad PC, lol)...
Quite shitty when playing late at night...



This said, good stuff could be produced on it, provided sufficiant CPU and RAM (so not often the case.. in games...)
Also the stereo is a plus, and DMA on PLUS are also a plus. (Prehistorik 2... yet the only 1 case...)


Just a matter of opinion.

I was baffled by stuff like HATE, Robocop, Antiriad... on CPC with a proper HiFi...
or even Ghoul's and Ghost tune (Follin there)... which to me at the time sounded like Amiga/C64... and is quite decent in absolute.

ok C64fans would argue that it is always better on SID...
I don't like SID that much... it often hurts my ears...

BTW, AY renderitions are somethimes efficient enough in absolute...
Not better but good enough... or simply great.

When child... I used to have a proper HiFi connected to my CPC audioport... with good tuner and extra basses...
This clearly upgrades the sound and get full account of stereo.
And many tunes sounded awesome, while shit-tier on the normal CPC speaker...


Today my CPC is connected to a cheap and shitty 5€uros PC stereo speacker... not even better nor even more powerfull as the actual CPC's speacker (yet in stereo)...
Sounds awnfull...

A CPC needs a good bass woofer ...
Ay can have awesome basses.

Gotta get better stuff...lol...


Sweet menu in 64k config ?
Not the tradition...
We had cost down speccy versions, and you had to remove bits to fill the heavier Video requirements on CPC 464...
If "6128" were the norm, I guess CPC games would have been more polished...

Speccy 48 is lighter on Sounds (no AY) and video (speccy), while Speccy 128 (+2 and +3 too) had Sounds... but still speccy video (light as hell)...

CPC ? be it low RAM or High Ram, the specs are the same...
AY Sound AND 16k video...
Yet gotta match both the 64k and 128K specs...

A "proper" CPC just can't be 64K RAM...
should actually be like 192K RAM (3x64K)...IMO.
(perfect match with the 180k/178K per 3" disk sides...)

Or even get an additionnal +16K dedicated VRAM... at worse...

[AMSDOS]

Weren't there a Dizzy clone from this game ? perhaps more interesting actually.

Spoiler: ShowHide

Can never miss an opportunity by going OT! 

"Dizzy Down the Rapids" I believe was the name. AA took DDTR to the cleaners and gave it 29% Toobin' itself was reviewed in AA52 and only got 76% (the graphics was the contributing factor, otherwise it might have been a Rave). Though from what I understand AA never felt highly about "Dizzy Down the Rapids" placing it as one of the weakest Dizzy Arcade games. Toobin' for them is far more polished, sadly though I've never played it! 

[McKlain]

If "6128" were the norm, I guess CPC games would have been more polished...

I just remembered Alien Storm. May not be the best arcade conversion out there, but you have the animated logo and all that. As it's the case with many other 128k versions.

I'm a freak of audio synthesis, so that's where my love for the sid comes from 

[TFM]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qtX_w2kpIg

To be fair, this one is much better on Atari. And if you feel like it, take a look at the Atari SAP Music Archive (asma.atari.org). Lots of good tunes there!

Hmm, that sounds better to me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV1nKwZsm4Q&feature=related