From: buffa@delos.inria.fr (Michel Buffa)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.games
Subject: Re: Future of the amiga ?
Date: 3 Sep 92 16:08:04 GMT
Reply-To: buffa@sophia.inria.fr
Organization: Inria Sofia Antipolis

In article <1992Sep2.122052.2927@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>, gfm@Gnu.ai.mit.edu (George Francis McBay) writes:
|> In article <2766@nlsun1.oracle.nl> gbradley@uks197.Berkeley.EDU (Gary Bradley) writes:
|> >buffa@delos.inria.fr (Michel Buffa) writes...
|> 	 I can't play a shoot'em'up or a platform game on the amiga now. Even 
|> 	 project X looks very poor and SLOW! Yes, SLOW!
|> >   Puzzled! If Project X went even a little faster on my Amiga, it would
|> >be unplayably difficult due to being too fast. I have a basic A500 with
|> >1 Meg and no extra bolt ons????
|> 
|> 	I agree.  I also have bought a Super Nintendo, and I'm glad I did.
|> There are many games for it that will probably never be ported to the
Amiga.

TRUE.

|> I could not see how Project X could be considered slow, though, take another
|> look at the asteroid sequence on level 1 or the silver sine-wave balls on
|> level 2, how could they go much faster than that and be dodged at ALL?
|> I think the game is plenty fast enough, just very hard, and doesn't include
|> a 'password' or game save feature.

WELL, play a shooter in the arcades, play Super Aleste on the Super Nintendo,
and then play Project X. Much less things on screen. Weapons look small and
unoriginal. That's the fatcs. Super Aleste has got more speed, more things on
screen, bigger and more original weapons, and yes, more speed.


   For me this is a big plus in most modern
|> games.  Another case in point: Amiga Wolfchild by CORE Design... Spectacular
|> Console-ish platform game, but every time I booted it I had to start at
|> level 1, I could only make it as far as level 5 but never lasted very long 
|> there (I could usually do 1-4 without losing any men) because I was so tired
|> of playing the game at that point.  Another problem with Amiga games is the
|> LONG waits.  Examples of this: Fire and Ice and just about anything by
|> Psygnosis, excepting Lemmings and Leander, perhaps.  Most Amiga games 
|> take entirely too long to load, and before you say 'well that's not the game's
|> fault' it usually is -- if it was HD installable there would be no problem.
|> For most games I wouldn't even mind if they trashed multitasking, as long
|> as I could get HD speed-loading out of them.  Sure it's nice to be
|> able to play an Amiga game while multitasking, but this isn't an option
|> with complex games and a 68000 (my A500) even with 3 megs of ram.

I agree. Imagine Project X on HD with lightning fast disk access, and a
passowrd system. It would be perfect. Look at recent Psygnosis race game RED
ZONE. They wanted to make a Microprose F1 GP for motorcycle races. They have
made almost everything good but the game can't be installed on HD. They want
to compete and they ommit the best point of F1 GP, it's HD installability. And
the game can't be saved!!! They will never understand!

|> If I really need a game when doing something on my Amiga I usually reach back
|> and hit the composite in on my 1084 and switch on the Super Nintendo.
|> One last point about the Super Nintendo --  It is not the end-all of home
|> entertainment, it has it's own problems like SLOWDOWN...Even the newer releases
|> like Konami's CONTRA III have severe slow downs in some parts (In contra it's
|> usually when there is a large fire-part nearby)

Well, CONTRA III is still one hell of a game and the slowdowns are very rare
and don't affect the gameplay at all. I'd add that I have never noticed them.
Super Aleste has thousands of sprites on screen, multiparralax scroll, mode 7
effects and NEVER has slowdowns. AXELEY, the last shooter by konami has got no
slowdowns too. Most of the recent games don't have any slowdowns.

The amiga games, should be HD installable in order to compete with the
instantaneous running time of the console games.
--
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Michel Buffa: Projet Robotvis,
INRIA, France

    Internet:       buffa@sardaigne.inria.fr
Surface Mail:       Michel BUFFA, INRIA - Sophia Antipolis, 
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Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.games