From: buffa@delos.inria.fr (Michel Buffa)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.games
Subject: Future of the amiga ?
Date: 27 Aug 92 11:56:32 GMT
Reply-To: buffa@sophia.inria.fr
Organization: Inria Sofia Antipolis

Well, well, well... I use my amiga mainly for playing games. This year I
really loved some games like F1 GP, Vroom, Pinball Dreams, Crazy Cars III
(yesm I love race games!), project X, Apidya, Harlequin, but really, what is
the percentage of good games. I bet it's not > 1% of the total ammount of
games that have been marketed. I love F1 GP so much that I bought a G-FORCE
68030 GVP board for my B2000. The game speed has been multiplied by three and
now it's apleasure to play it. Same with Knights Of the Sky. I really enjoy it
now. 

But I also bought a Super Famicom. For 1/4 of the price of the GVP board. And
finally, it's been a much much better investment than the GVP board. The
accelerator bringed me some games at a higher frame rate and some comfort for
using the workbench. The Famicom opened me to the real arcade games. 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! Compared to Super Aleste it looks so bad...
Of course games are expensive, but Street Fighter II really worth its price.
We have played it more than any amiga game, and believe me, until now I hated
fighting games. I also discovered that people who own console all trade games,
lend their games to others, so finally, the price is not so much a problem.
In fact, after I had this console I stopped playing the amiga for one month.
Now I play again on the amiga, but the only games I enjoy are the arcade
simulators like F1 GP or Knights Of The Sky, and games that have no equivalent
on the console, like Pro Tennis tour 2 and his 4 player at the same time
option, sensible soccer, Pinball Dreams. 

I'm also afraid because I read in some recent French magazines the
characteristics of the new amigas. Impressive, but the first price models, the
ones that will show what kind of games we'll have in the future are the same
as before. No better sprite engine, no better sound processor, no improvement
for games. And the new high models, the 4000 and the 2200 are trying to
compete with big PCs, with VGA modes and so on...  this means we'll have the
same kind of games we already have on PCs. Maybe better but in any case we'll
get arcade games able to compete with the best sonsole games. The amiga will
have the same (or better) capabilities the PCs have + the possibility to have
some good arcade games because of it's dedicated hardware for sprites +
scrolling. But this particular point has not been improved at all. Number of
sprites, of parallax scrolling, bitmap rotation, zooming, quality of sound are
what makes good arcade games. For the moment the amiga can not compete with
the dedicated hardware of the Super Famicom.

Conclusion: get an amiga or a PC for original games, simulators, and get a
console for arcade games. Remember the console is not more expensive than soe
extension boards for the amiga. Before flaming me, don't forget I'm only
talking about a machine for playing games, not a polyvalent machine.

I use my amiga ONLY for playing games.

-- 
------------------------------------------
Michel Buffa:       Projet Robotvis, INRIA, France

    Internet:       buffa@sardaigne.inria.fr
Surface Mail:       Michel BUFFA, INRIA - Sophia Antipolis, 
                    2004, route des Lucioles, 06565 Valbonne Cedex -- FRANCE
 Voice phone:       (33) 93.65.78.39, Fax: (33) 93 65 77 65
------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.games