From: bairds@ursula.ee.pdx.edu (Wraith)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.games
Subject: Re: Street Fighter 2: HAHAHAHAHA
Date: 5 Jan 93 06:16:47 GMT
Article-I.D.: newsgate.1ib94fINN94
NNTP-Posting-Host: ursula.ee.pdx.edu

jerry@cs.mcgill.ca (Gerald (Jerry) KUCH) writes:

>In article <C0B8vK.AyD@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> shulick@cineret.ucs.indiana.edu (Sam Hulick) writes:
>>Limitations my ass.  US Gold has no excuse for that.  Look at the SNES
>>version of SFII.  It is kick-ass, and from the a specs comparison
>>between SNES and an Amiga:
>>
>>  1) Amiga is faster.

>More CPU...  but there's also the custom graphics and sound stuff that would
>help out SF2 a lot more on the Amiga than say, on a high clocked 486 with a 
>slow video card, no sprites, etc.

Mayhap, but the SNES has much better sprite capabilities than your stock Ami.
Perhaps under AGA ... the fact is that the blitter can only do so much work,
whereas machines with fancy hardware sprites don't have to worry about saving
and restoring the background, etc.  In fact, I suspect the Ami version of
SF2 does use sprites.

>>  2) SNES has (unfortunately) better sound capabilities.

>Really?  The specs on the SNES really didn't look all that impressive, and
>I've never heard any really world shakingly great sound coming from one.  The
>SNES sound system is good, but not great, which is about the same description
>that I'd use for the Amiga's today.

I haven't seen any specs for the SNES, but I have heard of at least one title
that supports surround sound, which if not particularly amazing at least hints
at being interesting.
     I'd say the Amiga was easily up to the sound quality of SF2, however.
Yet, again, you have the wonderful chip memory problem.  You can only really
fit in 512k of chip data at once if you expect most buyers to be able to run
your product.  I would imagine that an AGA version of SF2 could, again, be
quite impressive.

>>  3) Amiga has better graphics routines & handling.

>I would have liked to see some of Psygnosis's people have a shot at it...
>from the demos there is a scarcity of variation in the color schemes... a lot
>more could have been done with some copper list tricks.  The multiple layers
>of scrolling background could also have been at least attempted using copper
>list tricks... if you look closely at some of the seams that occasionally
>appear on the SNES version, it appears that a copper-list or raster interrupt
>scheme was used in several places.

Hmmm, better routines and handling?  Coders aren't likely to use OS routines
when they need the amount of speed SF2 needs (at least, not with current PC
hardware).  I guess what we're really talking about here is hardware support
again.  Although I agree that perhaps the multiple layers could have been
done acceptably, you're probably hosed as far as character quality goes.  I'd
assume they were sprites or combined sprites (ooh, and didn't those fireballs
look nice) ... if the blitter was fast enough, it would do a much nicer job.
Mayhap if someone tried to animate that fast using, hmmm, a second copy of
the background image to speed up erasure and an interlaced screen.

>>Ok, as far as controls, yeah.. they had no better way to handle that,
>>but the graphics and sound are for shit.  Either SFII Amiga was a rush
>>job, or US Gold isn't too great at making games.  Should've left SFII
>>Amiga to Team17! :)  Look at other arcade games for the Amiga.  It *IS*
>>possible to make a *GREAT* SFII game for the Amiga.  A better company
>>has to do it, that's all.

Personally, I don't really agree that the controls couldn't have been better.
I ached for a keyboard mode (I've been suggesting to others something like
QWE/ASD for the buttons along with the numeric keypad for movement) that was
at least close to the original.  I'd like at least some way to get at least
all of the functionality (even if only in one player mode).

--
Shawn L. Baird           | "By all means, take the moral high ground --
bairds@ursula.ee.pdx.edu | all that heavenly backlighting makes you a
-------------------------| much easier target."  --Solomon Short