Talk:The Chaos Engine

message: I adore this game; it is one of my all-time favourites and I still return to play it occasionally. I have played all three Amiga versions: the A500 version was the first one I bought, and it came in a lavish box with six identity cards for each of the six characters, with a picture on the front and a brief bio on the back. I hope to upload the information to Wikipedia. The six pictures were amalgamated together into the group shot of the characters which is common to all formats.
The gameplay is identical in all versions. IMHO, the A500 version (with its limited colour range) is actually the best. The palette was limited to muted dusty browns and metallic blues and greys, which contrasted perfectly with the golden keys and activated nodes. All the characters' coats were more or less the same colour, and the overall effect was a bit like watching an old sepia movie, which is quite in keeping with the tone of the game.
The A1200 version added more bright colour to the characters, which I found made them less appealing. In other respects, the game was fine. The CD32 version was identical in colouring to the A1200 version, although it had the animated, voice-over introduction which is brilliant. In addition, the sound on the character selection screens was played from the CD, which gave a slightly better-produced version of the same music, and each world had a background sound-effects track (from the CD) playing behind the soundtrack (tweeting birds on the early levels; menacing clanks and grinding in the later levels). The actual level music could not be played from the CD since (in all versions) the pace of the music changed and became more frantic and dramatic as the level progressed.
As with all games since their earliest work (Cadaver is the earliest game I have seen), the Bitmap Brothers have a wonderful and distinctive graphic style, which is chunky, purposeful and evocative. In addition, there are loads of lovely details which bring out the flavour of the game perfectly. Worthy of special mention are the animations and sounds of the boiling mud, and the different stance adopted by the Thug as he waits around (the other characters stand straight, with their guns pointing out in front; the Thug holds his on his hip and points it out to the side at 45 degrees). I love that the computer character always watches your back, whichever way you stand.
I have not completed the game without cheat codes. Disappointingly, these differ for each version of the game! With a huge number of lives and all powerups it is possible to complete the game with any character. Although he starts off as the weakest character and is physically vulnerable, the Preacher is the quickest-moving of the six characters, and can upgrade his weapon to either equal to the Navvie or one point behind, giving him the strongest (or second-strongest) gun in the game. For preference, I choose the Preacher and let the computer take the Navvie; I find the computer AI can keep the Navvie on my tail quite nicely, and he is tremendously strong. I also like the Preacher and Navvie's guns firing straight ahead: the spraying of bullets by the Mercenary and the Thug means that you can't nail a target coming right at you as too many bullets travel wide (especially with advanced powerups).
In some versions of the game, the Preacher has been defrocked and is called the Scientist. To me, this robs the game of its best character (after whom I chose my own web name!). I assume someone went all squeamish on the Brothers and they were forced to change it so as not to offend tender sensibilities. If they absolutely had to change it, why not rename him "the Boffin", which at least is a decent name in keeping with the style of the others?
The sequel was utterly dire, from the unpleasant box-cover art to the dreadful music. And the Preacher is not in it! (Neither, IIRC, is the Thug). Worst of all was the gameplay: each character had only six bullets before running out and having to collect more! What a waste! Another four levels of the same sort of game as the first would have been perfect for me, perhaps in a different time zone or with a couple of new player-characters. (although perhaps, the Chaos Engine's moment had already passed by then).
I want to see Frank Miller do a graphic novel describing the adventures of the Chaos Engine gang: I think it would be brilliant to explore their characters and allow them to develop, as well as watch them gang up on some other adversary (like that huge steam-powered spider in Wild Wild West?). Or what about a blockbuster movie of the game?
: I prefix this with: "I have lead you here so that you might set me free...." 82.68.152.186 (talk) 13:15, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Amiga Versions 

message: I'd always thought it was "You will be rewarded...", which made it's own bizarre take on the introduction to the sequel - some reward (Heck, some memory).
The Preacher did appear in DE2, though (And the Thug, I think) as NPC's, not characters; I had always assumed that the Scientist mentionned in the manual was an NPC that whoever hired them had sent out too. The basic premise of the game wasn't even that bad (Being trapped inside the Chaos Engine itself, and having to work together to get out, but knowing only one of you could, creates an interesting dynamic, but the game itself was rubbish. I actually completed it (With the Brigand, I think) but can't remember how it ended. In contrast, I've played through the first one with five of the six characters (All except the Thug), and intend to go back to him, even if I do only have the emulated versions now (I like the SNES one, with my Xbox controller attached).
I'm still upset that the proposed GBA port was never released... that game would have took up almost all of my spare time for months :) Tohya 11:53, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "You will be rememberred..." 

message: I just played the Europe SNES version of the game and the preacher is renamed the Scientist there too. --70.234.35.138 07:30, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Preacher 

message: :Image:Sega Chaos Engine.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
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BetacommandBot (talk) 05:32, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:Sega Chaos Engine.jpg

message: The infobox says it is single-player, but it actually is a co-op game for one to two players. If you are alone, the AI takes controls of the second character. Note that I only know the original release, so maybe in some of the console ports that was changed? 93.218.184.35 (talk) 21:10, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. I think I've fixed this correctly, based on the documentation at Template:Infobox video game. -- Quiddity (talk) 21:34, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Playercount 

message: steam release supports widescreens and features on-line co-op through steam --80.251.112.202 (talk) 06:59, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  steam release