Retro Asylum 102 - The 8bit Wars Special - Does the Amstrad CPC win?

[MacDeath]

Bombjack on CPC plays so well that it can only be the best...

yeah some graphical elements are disapointing but hey, it palys so damn tight and fast that we can't care that much, for once.

[Swainy]

Here is the video edition of the podcast where you get to see each version of the games side by side.

[sigh]

This is great Swainy.

However - is it possible to list the games on the descritption tab along with the time they appear on the video? That way, people will know what games are coming up and can jump to them.

[Swainy]

This is great Swainy.

However - is it possible to list the games on the descritption tab along with the time they appear on the video? That way, people will know what games are coming up and can jump to them.

Done!

[Carnivius]

Really?  I thought Renegade's sprites were terrible on Spectrum.  Way too thin and fiddly looking.  Lacking the sense of impact during the combat the CPC version had with it's beefier sprites.

At least R-Type 128k got a mention.  Of course it doesn't count in this but at least it's noted that it's out there and is awesome.  The original port really does look slow in comparison.   The others had far progressed onto other levels while the CPC version is only just  getting to the level 1 boss.

[sigh]

I really dont like the Renegade sprite design/animation  on the spectrum. The character's dont look bad ass enough and the animation frames aren't well drawn.

However - gameplay wise, it does have the throw animation and also the animation with the stars around enemies head when they are knocked down. It also has the bosses standing around while your beating up the henchman and it also has the full arcade sound track which the cpc is missing.

CPC is missing the full sound track on the final level and its also missing some music sections on on the 2nd level if I remember correctly.

The CPC version does have better sound effects but the spectrum sound effects are very good.

Both games play great but in terms of a whole package, the Spectrum does it better.

[Carnivius]

I really dont like the Renegade sprite design/animation  on the spectrum. The character's dont look bad ass enough and the animation frames aren't well drawn.

For me it severely affects the gameplay.   I get absolutely zero sense of satisfaction with the combat in the Spec version (even with the throw) because the sprites are so skinny and flat and decent sprite design is something I find so very important especially in a beat 'em up.  I even prefer the sprite design in the C64 version over the Spectrum one purely just because of the better proportions.



One good thing about the C64 RoboCop.  ED-209 ACTUALLY MOVES!


Can't agree with the CPC guy on Enduro Racer.  I bought it back then and thought "what the frick is this crap?".  Pure Spectrum port graphics through out.  Mode 1 is capable of so much better.  Didn't enjoy the game itself much either.

[ralferoo]

True that! I am still wondering why almost no tune from modern games stays in my mind? Is it just nostalgia or modern game music is not memorable?

Possibly adding more to your argument, but the soundtrack to VVVVVV... I frequently listen to that as music because it's just so awesome!

But yeah, most music for modern games is more orchestral and designed to evoke a feeling rather than being memorable. You probably won't remember much music from the last film you saw either...

[TFM]

Renegade is one of the games which really show off the CPC. It's an order of magnitude ahead of the C64 (pale) and Speccy (grey) versions. People disagreeing with that are imho clearly biased. C64 and Speccy have of course games which are better than the CPC version - see speccy ports. But especially since Swainy put the comparison video up, it's obvious to even the blindest pelican   

[TFM]

At least R-Type 128k got a mention.  Of course it doesn't count in this ...

Well, why should it not count? It's software available for the CPC. Or do homebrew productions get excluded in principle? Where do you draw the line? 


IMHO in a fair comparison it -MUST- be regarded. As Orion Prime, Megablasters, Black Land and so on.   


Excluding titles is imho just do change the outcome of the comparison.   

[Swainy]

We gave the Easter Egg version of R-Type a mention but as it wasn't released back in the day it wasn't fair to include it. It would be the same for the hacked 128k Spectrum version of Commando that features the Rob Hubbard music. It wasn't released back in the day so that will not be included in any future 8bit Wars shows that we do.

[TFM]

We gave the Easter Egg version of R-Type a mention but as it wasn't released back in the day it wasn't fair to include it. It would be the same for the hacked 128k Spectrum version of Commando that features the Rob Hubbard music. It wasn't released back in the day so that will not be included in any future 8bit Wars shows that we do.

Back the day? Please tell me the date at which you draw the line. I'm seriously interested in that date.    And maybe even a reason for using that particular date. If I ask for too much please let me know, but you told that you use some kind of time / date border. 


I think it's totally cool to use modern Speccy super productions (hard and software). Why excluding it?

[Swainy]

Back the day? Please tell me the date at which you draw the line. I'm seriously interested in that date.    And maybe even a reason for using that particular date. If I ask for too much please let me know, but you told that you use some kind of time / date border. 


I think it's totally cool to use modern Speccy super productions (hard and software). Why excluding it?

I don't need to give you a date. We were looking at the official conversions and releases. What's so hard to understand about that?

[sigh]

Back the day? Please tell me the date at which you draw the line. I'm seriously interested in that date.    And maybe even a reason for using that particular date. If I ask for too much please let me know, but you told that you use some kind of time / date border. 


I think it's totally cool to use modern Speccy super productions (hard and software). Why excluding it?

The episode is focused on the original releases of the games and not the remakes.

Edit: Swainy beat me to it!

[TFM]

What's so hard to understand about that?

Well, because I see no reason for it. If productions get excluded, then the whole thing is imho very subjective. But it's your good right to be subjective in a podcast.   

[andycadley]

Plus you have to save some stuff up for when it comes time to do a best "modern" 8-bit retro podcast right? For which the Amstrad will be well served with things like R-Type 128, Orion Prime, BB4CPC, Rick Dangerous + etc. Although there are some Speccy coders doing amazing things with multicolour effects these days too, so it'd be a tough call.

[TFM]

Not really, the spectrums hardware is very limited. I will never be able so scroll properly and smooth (or I haven't seen it). And half of the colors are blinding. Color bleeding is not so great either. Then the sound... oh well, good luck!

[Swainy]

Not really, the spectrums hardware is very limited. I will never be able so scroll properly and smooth (or I haven't seen it). And half of the colors are blinding. Color bleeding is not so great either. Then the sound... oh well, good luck!

The sound on a 128k version of the Spectrum is better than on an Amstrad when you think about it because the beeper can be used to enhance the AY chip. There are plenty of games on the Spectrum that scroll just as smoothly as an Amstrad and probably a bit quicker too. You've got me on the colour clash though

[Bryce]

The sound on a 128k version of the Spectrum is better than on an Amstrad when you think about it because the beeper can be used to enhance the AY chip. There are plenty of games on the Spectrum that scroll just as smoothly as an Amstrad and probably a bit quicker too. You've got me on the colour clash though

Only after you've fixed up the bugs in the circuitry

Bryce.

[arnoldemu]

The sound on a 128k version of the Spectrum is better than on an Amstrad when you think about it because the beeper can be used to enhance the AY chip. There are plenty of games on the Spectrum that scroll just as smoothly as an Amstrad and probably a bit quicker too. You've got me on the colour clash though

crazy thing is that on the cpc's (not plus) you can use the tape write to make beeper like sounds.

Scrolling on CPC: a lot of people overlooked the hardware scrolling because it's movement was too fast. Some games managed to get it to work better in horizontal and vertical (mission genocide for example), but it took more work. So the Amstrad *can* scroll smoother than the Speccy if used correctly.

In reality though most games used software scrolling and because the CPC had more data to shift it was often slower than the Speccy.
Ocean did it quite well with their games.

Speccy smoother scrolling when comparing cpc to speccy. Yes that is true.


One thing that got me was games like Super Hang On. They purposely tried to make the CPC sound like a Speccy's buzzer. They set the AY up in a way to make it sound like a buzzer.  Crazy!

[CraigsBar]

crazy thing is that on the cpc's (not plus) you can use the tape write to make beeper like sounds.

Scrolling on CPC: a lot of people overlooked the hardware scrolling because it's movement was too fast. Some games managed to get it to work better in horizontal and vertical (mission genocide for example), but it took more work. So the Amstrad *can* scroll smoother than the Speccy if used correctly.

In reality though most games used software scrolling and because the CPC had more data to shift it was often slower than the Speccy.
Ocean did it quite well with their games.

Speccy smoother scrolling when comparing cpc to speccy. Yes that is true.


One thing that got me was games like Super Hang On. They purposely tried to make the CPC sound like a Speccy's buzzer. They set the AY up in a way to make it sound like a buzzer.  Crazy!

Some games also use the tape relay to add drum beats. Hero quest for example.

[sigh]

Some games also use the tape relay to add drum beats. Hero quest for example.

Is that damaging to the CPC tape deck?

[CraigsBar]

I would imagine it may shorten the life of the relay, but I cannot see it effecting the tape deck itself.

[MacDeath]

Speccy is generally easier to have fast smooth animation or better AY sounds, mainly ecause the Video is somewhat crude and needs few datas/RAM compaired to CPC.
All with the same CPU to begin with.

But hey... can you get CPC Gryzor/Renegade graphics on a speccy ? nope.
Even a well used Mode1 can have more interesting look and have no colour clashes.

Clearly CPC often has issues with smooth and fast animation.
Very often because more commonly than you may thing, pure speccy code was plainly ported on the machine.
So many CPC features or tricks were certainly not used as they should.

(See the interesting Rich Stevenson posts)

CPC is quite often less smooth than speccy because Mode0 cannot porduce horizontal scrolling as smoothly as with Mode1/speccy... and the scrolling routines would often comes from speccy code.


The main advantage of CPC was that it was somewhat well rounded.
And is very capable on the pure graphics department.

Basically it can produce a 192x256x16 picture... like Samcoupé or MSX2.
And very few of the main machines from before 1985 technology could get more than 15-16 colours to choose from with no 1bpp attributes.

C64 could cheat its way because a few sprites or wide pixel mode in 4 colours per attributes in 160x200/320x200 surface.


some 8bit Z80 based japanese machines would totally explode all of those graphically with the 640x200x8 modes... as the 8 colours are basic RGB colours, when displayed on a CRT screen this would be somewhat and slightly blurry equivalent to a 320x200x27 mode with proper use of fine ditherings applied on surfaces... yeah, full CPC palette in 320x200...
(NEC PC8000 and Pasopia7)


Anyway, all successfull 8 bit machines were cool yet imperfect anyway.

= Oric :  palette was far too limited. shame, because it was otherwise better to Speccy IMHO. ORIC ATMOS with 64K and a bigger palette could seriously kick speccy asses.

= Speccy couldn't really get rid of those attributes, with a quite limited paeltte (not a lot of contrast between bright and dark colours) and the Speccy48 only had a beeper.

= C64 had a bizarre palette so is basically an half monochrome computer (1/3 greys, 1/3 browns and 1/3 pale colours) and seriously the SID sound can also be annoying and feel like a saw to the ears. But it is not the most successfull computer for nothing... quite well rounded anyway and those Hardware features eases a lot of things.

= Apple2 : Wasn't so good in colours, was expensive but stapple American computer anyway. the AppleIIgs is indeed more 16bit than 8bit an quite impressive, but came later.

= Atari 8 Bit : was so often limited to 160x200x4... yeah, Mode3 guys...

=MSX1 : yeah, MSX1 is not that good actually... and because all models/specs after had to be retrocompatible, it meant considerably lot of extra componenents or heavy design.

= SamCoupé : Came quite late on the market. Fails to have "medium" video modes between speccy and Coupé... you would go from speccy to ST like graphics, @6mhz it doesn't work that well and it fails to be really "overclocked" in speccy modes.  Had SAMCcoupé included modes like the CPC (256x192x4 or 128x192x16) it could have had impressive CPC like ports due to being still a bit faster than CPC (in theory).

= Thomson MO/TO : ok, let's have a laugh at superior french failures...MO5/TO7 plainly suck asses Basically Spectrums48 with MSX1 video mode (minus the sprites) powered by a 6809 CPU... MO6/TO8 could have been quite a beast provided it had an AY soundchip and was clocked in 2mhz (6809E).

= BBC micros: were they THAT good ? ok, Acorn was good in ARM architecture... to have a 6502 @2mhz is quite handy and nice to begin with. you could have the same graphics as the CPC...but with only 8 colours (basic 8 RGB colours) so failure to have a "proper" CPc mode0 indeed.
So games sticked to "CPC Mode1" equivalent. Like Atmos, it failed to have a "bolder palette". as an education material, could get a lot of fun peripheral (See Thomsons as well) like extra CPU slots of whatever speccy synthesis (as in many Japanese computers). wasn't it freakinlish expensive and beasty ? and not well rounded indeed... poor graphicals for "non-serious" things, many models with great hardware differences.

= Enterprise 64/128 : wasn't a speccy nor a CPC, was somewhat both as well. missed opportunity, should have included mass media storage instead of joystick.. I guess most amstrad CPC or speccy qualities apply to it.

Sorry, I don't talk about TRS-80 or Dragon32/64...

NEC PC-8000 were very successful in Japan.
NEC PC-6000 were not successful but were quite similar to Speccy then CPC in tech specifications.

[sigh]

Speccy is generally easier to have fast smooth animation or better AY sounds, mainly ecause the Video is somewhat crude and needs few datas/RAM compaired to CPC.
All with the same CPU to begin with.

But hey... can you get CPC Gryzor/Renegade graphics on a speccy ? nope.
Even a well used Mode1 can have more interesting look and have no colour clashes.

You definitely cant get the colour on the spectrum, but having a good artist adept at using 2 colours can produce very good results that equal the full colour or even do it better. Rodland on the spectrum is an example of this which looks lovely compared to the CPC version. Graphically I would take the spectrum version over the CPC.
Same with the C64 palette which can look super nice when the correct colours are chosen like IK+ and Mayhem in Monsterland.