I was looking at GX4000.CO.UK - The site for the Amstrad GX4000 console! Welcome... (http://www.gx4000.co.uk/) and saw the news that there was a video showing the cartridge running on a 6128PLUS here Amstrad GX4000 Chase HQ 2: Special Criminal Investigation (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7fmHpbl85k#noexternalembed)
Yeah... also notice the user name :D
What about the user name?
The user asked to remove the embedded youtube link, so it's not possible to watch the video on other place than his youtube post, where he disabled the comments too.
For me, you will never get a dump, because he his not enough intelligent to understand that his cartridge will never lose its value. ROM or not to save the content.
So, he can die with, if it not die before him... :-*
Maybe he wants to create a myth about this cart game (which is in fact not soooo good).
But - hey - they didn't sell only one copy of the game, right? Next time I'm back in EU I have to check out some landfills - maybe I will find the other copy there :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
Quote from: steveWhat about the user name?
"TheOppositeOfJesus". Jesus6128 is (was, not the username has been changed I think) a spanish eBay user that pays insane prices for CPC gear, hoarding rare stuff away. TheOppositeOfJesus would probably suggest that this owner wouldn't want to just hoard it, but then again what do I know... certainly not much about scene politics.
Quote from: Gryzor on 11:58, 22 January 13
TheOppositeOfJesus would probably suggest that this owner wouldn't want to just hoard it, but then again what do I know... certainly not much about scene politics.
The way he did this video suggests that he's doing his best to follow into the footsteps of Jesus6128.
Does anyone care about a badly done video of that game? I know I don't. I suggest we call Chase H.Q. II a legend until one of the supposedly two cartridges is finally backed-up for the common good. Video or not, it might as well just not exist.
Quote from: Gryzor on 11:58, 22 January 13
"TheOppositeOfJesus". Jesus6128 is (was, not the username has been changed I think) a spanish eBay user that pays insane prices for CPC gear, hoarding rare stuff away. TheOppositeOfJesus would probably suggest that this owner wouldn't want to just hoard it, but then again what do I know... certainly not much about scene politics.
I know "Jesus6128" payed crazy prices, but I don't believe it was hoarded away so that nobody could access it.
So, he has one of the few copies of a game for a console that sold poorly. Also the game looks like shit. Congratulations.
Anyway, I don't think that there were only 2 copies of the game produced (full package, cartridge, industrial duplication... makes no sense, at least to me), so the thing is where is the rest of the batch of this game.
I you really want CHASE HQ II on your CPC+, better to do the port from the arcade version and really enjoy it. ;)
@McKlain: Well, according to our wiki two are known to exist. And you're right, it stands to reason that there must have been a lot more.
Chase HQ II: Special Criminal Investigation - CPCWiki (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Chase_HQ_II:_Special_Criminal_Investigation)
I guess no one is in doubt, but just in case, I can confirm that the video is legit. It's identical to the copy James Bridges loaned me for the Retro Gamer article a few years back.
As you can see, the game really isn't that good :(
Ah, thanks for that, Martyn!
I wonder how on earth they managed to make it so slower. What was it witht hem?
Quote from: MartynC on 14:58, 23 January 13
I guess no one is in doubt, but just in case, I can confirm that the video is legit. It's identical to the copy James Bridges loaned me for the Retro Gamer article a few years back.
As you can see, the game really isn't that good :(
And you didn't dump the ROM !?!?
Bryce.
Quote from: Bryce on 16:25, 23 January 13
And you didn't dump the ROM !?!?
Bryce.
Ha! It was James's express wish that the cartridge wasn't tampered with in any way. IIRC, at the time, the only way to dump the cart was to open it up, and he didn't want to do that.
However, I
should have captured a decent quality video playthrough. My mistake.
One thing about that video - the player is a bit rubbish! I recall playing through to the last level (the one where you chase a truck) on my first go.
Hmmm, pity. It's actually very easy to dump a cartridge without opening it. If you get the chance to borrow it again, let me know and I'll build you a simple device to do it.
Bryce.
Quote from: Bryce on 17:02, 23 January 13
Hmmm, pity. It's actually very easy to dump a cartridge without opening it. If you get the chance to borrow it again, let me know and I'll build you a simple device to do it.
+1 that!
Don't be afraid !!!
Dumping a CPC+ cartridge is "just" reading it. It's not like a JAMMA board. :)
Oh hey, I think Likes are back :D
Quote from: Gryzor on 15:12, 23 January 13
Ah, thanks for that, Martyn!
I wonder how on earth they managed to make it so slower. What was it witht hem?
Haha, well it's not soooo bad. And when a car is moving through 3D it talkes a lot of cpu power. Furthermore we know about these speccy ports :laugh:
Quote from: MaV on 17:11, 22 January 13
@McKlain: Well, according to our wiki two are known to exist. And you're right, it stands to reason that there must have been a lot more.
I know that a mail order company called WAVE advertised in
Amstrad Action in around 1993, offering
Chase HQ II cartridges for sale. What a shame that I didn't buy one (or indeed, a few) at the time - but I didn't (and still don't) own a Plus machine or a GX4000! :D
Well, for selling one CHQII cart you could now get lots of Plus and GX ;) On the other hand you still have good Karma :)
Even if the game is rubbish it should be dumped and preserved for posterity. There may be a few who actually like it I'm sure some of the games I love to load up on my CPC would fall under the "crap" heading but its up to me to "likes what I likes".
If I won the lottery or through some other way became a multi millionaire (I'm working on it honestly ;-)) I would offer a bounty for a cartridge and as soon as it was in my hands it would be dumped and within minutes on the wiki for all to enjoy or to pour scorn upon.
I look at it like this, I had Smashing Pumpkins Siamese Dream on CD for years I also copied it to tape and later my iPod to me those copies had no value. I like to collect the vinyl versions of my favourite albums and I happily paid £45 for an unopened copy of the same album on vinyl. A few weeks after buying it a vinyl reissue was released (albeit with a different cover) which was available for around £26.
The point is that my vinyl copy is still worth £45-50. It's value hasn't changed to me either. The CD, tape copy and mp3 versions haven't changed its value, there is no substitute for dropping a stylus on a vinyl record and I happily paid a premium for that but the songs are still great on tape or mp3. In the same way we all like to own a 6128 or a Plus machine etc and we will pay some high prices to do just that even though we can use an emulator and that costs us nothing.
I suppose in a nutshell I'm saying a rom dump has no inherent value but the original cartridge always will. The only thing that could change that is if a secret cache of unopened copies are ever found and things like that do happen! The only downside is that some dodgy people on eBay might make bootlegs and try to pass them off as original.
Just my thoughts on the matter!
Ok, so if this guy who bought the CHQII Cart will not allow to dump it then we will flood ebay with 100 carts of that kind and then he is fecked :P
Even if its dumped, it wouldnt lower the price when re-sold on ebay...
Because the seller'd sell the Original and no CPR or Polish(ed) Cartridge...
Oh dear, I just watched the video on YouTube! While I stand by my original comments, the game doesn't seem a patch on the original CPC version! No samples??!! "Let's go Mr Driver!" Is badly needed in any Chase HQ game in my opinion! The amazing thing about those original samples is their clarity, very crisp and clear considering the trickery involved in even playing back samples on the CPC. The original is certainly a game that showcased the potential of the CPC.
Chase HQ 2 looks like a rather rushed reskin of Burnin Rubber which makes me wonder, if they essentially had the game structure ready to go, why didn't they spend some of the spare time really making the game shine? Why didn't they make more use of the GX/Plus enhancements? This makes me slightly entertain the possibility (however remote) that the game is a rather well played hoax. I know the games reputation as the most rare commercial release but there is a little nagging doubt in my mind that someone with access to the appropriate equipment made a very polished representation of a real Chase HQ 2 cart and that perhaps explains the reluctance to put it into the hands of an expert community member?
It's just me considering all the possibilities and I know it's less likely its a hoax but history is full of similar stories.
Quote from: Badstarr on 13:18, 26 January 13
Chase HQ 2 looks like a rather rushed reskin of Burnin Rubber which makes me wonder, if they essentially had the game structure ready to go, why didn't they spend some of the spare time really making the game shine? Why didn't they make more use of the GX/Plus enhancements? This makes me slightly entertain the possibility (however remote) that the game is a rather well played hoax.
It more likely that they are pre-production copies intended for magazine review. It doesn't explain why there's a manual and boxart, unless they expected to be able to knock the game out quickly because it was essentially a re-skin of an existing game and had already finished these ahead of schedule.
Being a review copy would certainly explain why there's so few copies of the game in existence.
Since we don't know the whole story (hey, one for the Ocean book, perhaps?? That'd be great...), let's cut them some slack: the game wasn't released after all, from what it seems, so we can't judge them so harshly. I bet lots of crap games were (and still are) trashed before making it to the market :)
Oh no, no company could afford that. They just release it with a nicer cover if the game is really that crappy. See Drecksdrumm, eh Spectrum ports.
Quote from: TFM/FS on 21:42, 26 January 13
Oh no, no company could afford that. They just release it with a nicer cover if the game is really that crappy. See Drecksdrumm, eh Spectrum ports.
Well, as someone who writes games for living, I can assure you that this very much does happen. I've worked on a game that was cancelled after about 6 months and I've heard of people that have worked in games for over 10 years and still never had a game released!
The reality is that even if a lot of money has already been spent on development, actually releasing a game is very expensive. It's not uncommon for a very large percentage of the cost of making a game to be spent on advertising. There's also the issue that releasing a bad game can seriously damage the company's reputation and impact future sales. So even if a game is finished and potential customers eagerly awaiting it, it can often make commercial sense to not release the game even if that seems counter intuitive.
It could just be the video on YouTube but it does look like it lacks a bit of polish. Surely the developers would have been better off starting with the original game engine from the first Chase HQ and bolting on some eye candy that hooks into the Plus features. That would have been a damn sight better than what you can see on the YouTube video. Perhaps the best reason for this is that its a pre production release as suggested.
Maybe the community could pool it's resources to make Chase HQ 3, the game that Chase HQ 2 Should have been?
Quote from: Badstarr on 14:04, 27 January 13
It could just be the video on YouTube but it does look like it lacks a bit of polish. Surely the developers would have been better off starting with the original game engine from the first Chase HQ and bolting on some eye candy that hooks into the Plus features. That would have been a damn sight better than what you can see on the YouTube video. Perhaps the best reason for this is that its a pre production release as suggested.
Maybe the community could pool it's resources to make Chase HQ 3, the game that Chase HQ 2 Should have been?
different team :(
if the chase hq team was used I am sure chase hq 2 would have been great.
Quote from: BadstarrMaybe the community could pool it's resources to make Chase HQ 3, the game that Chase HQ 2 Should have been?
You mean put our heads close together and think about it really hard? :D
But, yeah, that would be fantastic. CHQ must have been one of those titles I've played the most...
Quote from: Gryzor on 16:52, 28 January 13
You mean put our heads close together and think about it really hard? :D
But, yeah, that would be fantastic. CHQ must have been one of those titles I've played the most...
Never underestimate the power of thought! :laugh:
Yessss the mind can be a powerful thing, you don't even need any actual development!
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Quote from: ralferoo on 22:18, 26 January 13
Well, as someone who writes games for living, I can assure you that this very much does happen. I've worked on a game that was cancelled after about 6 months and I've heard of people that have worked in games for over 10 years and still never had a game released!
The reality is that even if a lot of money has already been spent on development, actually releasing a game is very expensive. It's not uncommon for a very large percentage of the cost of making a game to be spent on advertising. There's also the issue that releasing a bad game can seriously damage the company's reputation and impact future sales. So even if a game is finished and potential customers eagerly awaiting it, it can often make commercial sense to not release the game even if that seems counter intuitive.
Well, that's not only shocking. It also explains the demise of the economy to me.
Quote from: Badstarr on 14:04, 27 January 13
Maybe the community could pool it's resources to make Chase HQ 3, the game that Chase HQ 2 Should have been?
You could start one of this crowd funding projects (I'm not aquainted to that, but I would contribute).
Demise of the economy? For cancelling stillborn products? I think it would be the opposite that would be wrong - releasing sub-par products and trying to sell them through marketing and hype.
This is not exclusive for software, of course, every sector of the economy is littered with cancelled products - several, for each successful one.
Quote from: Gryzor on 19:42, 28 January 13
releasing sub-par products and trying to sell them through marketing and hype.
don't know why but I read that and for some reason the word 'Vista' popped into my head... but I don't want to derail the thread.
I do agree with the post that it did look like a Burning Rubber framework with the CHQ graphics dropped on top. If anyone has the time / patience / insanity then I'd buy a copy of CHQ3 :-)
Quote from: Gryzor on 19:42, 28 January 13
Demise of the economy? For cancelling stillborn products? I think it would be the opposite that would be wrong - releasing sub-par products and trying to sell them through marketing and hype.
This is not exclusive for software, of course, every sector of the economy is littered with cancelled products - several, for each successful one.
1. Investing time and money and human ressources in projects which get not released
2. Investing too much money in out-dated media for advertisments
3. Starting projects without thinking of it before, then cancelling it
1 + 2 + 3 = pretty stupid waste of ressources! (Easy math here). In the result released products are too expansive and of suboptimal quality.
Quote from: TFM/FS on 20:38, 28 January 13
1. Investing time and money and human ressources in projects which get not released
2. Investing too much money in out-dated media for advertisments
3. Starting projects without thinking of it before, then cancelling it
1 + 2 + 3 = pretty stupid waste of ressources! (Easy math here). In the result released products are too expansive and of suboptimal quality.
Nobody sets out to fail, it just happens. It's not maths, it lots of factors and a bit of luck too. Every project probably looked like a good idea at the time it was started. The skill of a good business is to recognise when something's going to fail and stop there before they've spent too much on it instead of continuing and throwing good money after bad.
Bryce.
OMG! If I would work that way, then they would nail me at a cross wrong around and put me into the sunshine to dry.
Nobodys tells that small errors or small problems can't happen, but such a large scale thing is just not supposed to happen. And if it happens you just can burn the management. Don't things I'm to hard, it's just the way thing work in an real efficient work environment.
You can also discuss this with my boss, and it will be my pleasure to see what happens (how high and far you will fly for example :laugh: ).
You work in a research environment, not product development. They're two completely different worlds.
In (proper) research the goal is rarely profit driven.
Bryce.
TFM,
Don't act so surprised or snobbish.
1. Happens all the time, and how could it not?
2. Irrelevant
3. that's called being stupid, it's not specific to the economy. If you start for the w/c then realize you don't need to pee, this is not a fault of biology.
Also, and I somewhat disagree with Bryce in this (but I guess he meant something else than what I understood), research or not it doesn't matter. Research is profit-driven, too. Maybe not money-driven, but there's *some* sort of profit in it. And in a world of finite resources you get to count your peas -dollars or cents, why not, it's nice and convenient. Somehow you need to keep track of your resources.
Now, even if there was a lab with infinite resources where scientists were let loose to research till kingdom come with no real purpose (ars gratia artis), there would still be, naturally, failed and aborted research paths or experiments. To make a distinction between scientific research and physical product development is utterly naive. If it were otherwise then I guess Thales would have already proceeded with nuclear fission and all CPCs would have 4MBs of memory.
With "research" I was talking about the kind of Government backed research, that can swallow millions without any obvious product being possible. For example researching whether the lesser spotted armenian grass frog is really related to the common north european chirping lake frog. This research is done for knowledge of a subject rather than ever making a useful product out of it. Other scientific research even where the product isn't immediately obvious is of course very similar to commercial development and the decision to stop researching something is also quicker, when the institution decides that the research is not going to result in anything useful.
Bryce.
Ah, see what you mean now (I knew it :) ). However, even in that sense, it's not like there's no resource management involved. Just because you can't count it precisely, or because follow-up is more lax it doesn't mean there's no oversight, feedback or some notion of failure.
Even in your example if could be, for instance, that the armenian grass frog's skin, except for its excellent hallucinogenic properties (when properly dun-dried and processed - no picking up frogs to lick here, kids!) can also make for an excellent gorilla glass replacement. However, the Armenian grass frog is nearly extinct and can't live in capture. However it's speculated that the european shrieking lake frog (not the chirping frog, you've got them mixed up) contains part of the Armenian's DNA. So let's see what happens if we put them together in a blender - will they mix?
I don't think any government-funded research is purely knowledge-driven. It may be that the reasons are 'soft' (say, understand and protect bio-variety in Armenia), but noone gives out money just because!
I'm all for my taxes being spent on compiling a list of which frogs will blow my mind and make me see wierd and wonderful things! Which party do I need to tick the box next to?? :-\
Bryce.
Ah, what ever, no need to get personal here. :-[
I don't mind, time will sort'em out :laugh: 8)
Nah, you know I meant no offense :)
Sure. Well, we do better on CPCs now. Looking forward to the 16 KB ROM games happening :)