Prolific but notoriously poor shmup developers query

[BIL]

And not just the Spectrum version... the Amiga version that could *easily* handle something like Sagaia on the Master System, is na awful game. It's not that's bad programmed or the hardware not handlng what's thrown at it properly. It's just a terribly ill-designed game.

And to cap it all, the reward for beating Darius+ is an ending that is an ad for another of the dev's games. How about no?

Reminds me of Final Fight's infamous Amiga version. A shitty effort by most's estimation - I've never had any reason to investigate - but the real prize is a bundled text file, in which the lead dev slags off the arcade version, verbally masturbates about all the COOL GAMES he could make with CPS horsepower, whines about not getting recognised at his local game store, and regales us with an enthralling list of his favourite bands. It's all tremendously boring, and by all accounts displays more effort than the conversion ever does.

Adding injury to insult, the grand missive contains more compelling street violence than the product itself, as our unhappy coder is glassed on his way home from the pub one night. Must've been a disgruntled fan! Or more likely he was just a mouthy twerp IRL. I suppose he had the last laugh, as I can't imagine actually discussing his work in any other context.

[Shatterhand]

And not just the Spectrum version... the Amiga version that could *easily* handle something like Sagaia on the Master System, is na awful game. It's not that's bad programmed or the hardware not handlng what's thrown at it properly. It's just a terribly ill-designed game.

And to cap it all, the reward for beating Darius+ is an ending that is an ad for another of the dev's games. How about no?

Reminds me of Final Fight's infamous Amiga version. A shitty effort by most's estimation - I've never had any reason to investigate - but the real prize is a bundled text file, in which the lead dev slags off the arcade version, verbally masturbates about all the COOL GAMES he could make with CPS horsepower, whines about not getting recognised at his local game store, and regales us with an enthralling list of his favourite bands. It's all tremendously boring, and by all accounts displays more effort than the conversion ever does.

Adding injury to insult, the grand missive contains more compelling street violence than the product itself, as our unhappy coder is glassed on his way home from the pub one night. Must've been a disgruntled fan! Or more likely he was just a mouthy twerp IRL. I suppose he had the last laugh, as I can't imagine actually discussing his work in any other context.

Just to be fair, I actually have talke with the guy, he had to port the whole game alone, both the ST and Amiga versions at the same time. He had a PCB of the game and nothing else. Was promised to get graphic assets for it which he never received, so he built a cable that he could connect the PCB to the Amiga and rip the graphics direct from the arcade ROMs and then downsize the colors of it.

He left room in the ram for Music which US Gold said he would receive to add in the game... and he never got any music.

And that he also is very ashamed of the cheat code of the game that makes his face shows up with all sort of shenanigans, but he was like 19 years old when he did those games, so it's understanble.

He also got scolded for "wasting time" optimizing the scrolling routines for the Amiga version, as the hardware could scroll properly instead of the ST version, and US Gold guys said he should just "Get the job done" and not waste time with such things.

Yes, many times it was clear he had no idea what made Final Fight a fun game and that shows on the port, he always says he never got beat'em ups at all (ANd then people gave him 2 Double Dragon and Final Fight to port. Fuck), and that he loved Shinobi... and his port of Shinobi for the CPC is usually regarded as one of the best games on the system.

[Marc]

And not just the Spectrum version... the Amiga version that could *easily* handle something like Sagaia on the Master System, is na awful game. It's not that's bad programmed or the hardware not handlng what's thrown at it properly. It's just a terribly ill-designed game.

And to cap it all, the reward for beating Darius+ is an ending that is an ad for another of the dev's games. How about no?

Reminds me of Final Fight's infamous Amiga version. A shitty effort by most's estimation - I've never had any reason to investigate - but the real prize is a bundled text file, in which the lead dev slags off the arcade version, verbally masturbates about all the COOL GAMES he could make with CPS horsepower, whines about not getting recognised at his local game store, and regales us with an enthralling list of his favourite bands. It's all tremendously boring, and by all accounts displays more effort than the conversion ever does.

Adding injury to insult, the grand missive contains more compelling street violence than the product itself, as our unhappy coder is glassed on his way home from the pub one night. Must've been a disgruntled fan! Or more likely he was just a mouthy twerp IRL. I suppose he had the last laugh, as I can't imagine actually discussing his work in any other context.

I did not know about this, off to investigate

[BIL]

And that he also is very ashamed of the cheat code of the game that makes his face shows up with all sort of shenanigans, but he was like 19 years old when he did those games, so it's understanble.

Blimey, going by his own extensive cameo, I'd assumed he was at least 21 (and therefore criminally responsible at the time of the offence ). I always regarded US Gold as child exploiters, but not outright child slavers

Yes, many times it was clear he had no idea what made Final Fight a fun game and that shows on the port, he always says he never got beat'em ups at all (ANd then people gave him 2 Double Dragon and Final Fight to port. Fuck), and that he loved Shinobi... and his port of Shinobi for the CPC is usually regarded as one of the best games on the system.

It's been a few years, so I gave the text another skim for old times' sake - and while I certainly came away refreshed on his drinking habits, favourite tunes, and enmity for the patrons of Virgin Games Centre Bristol, I couldn't find where he'd opined on FF itself. So I looked up the cheat video, and remembered it was in the comments that he equivocated his shoddy work with the arcade version.

So +1 to him, for at least not shitting on FF in his own obliviously caterwauling rendition of it, but -999 for that comment.

Looking at footage of the Amiga version - - I'm reminded of the well-liked Mighty Final Fight. If the former had captured the arcade's mechanics even half as well, I've no doubt this post of mine wouldn't exist. Nobody would care what he thought of FF itself either. (the dev messages would still get razzed, but they're by far the least embarrassing thing here )

Spoiler

Of course, Mighty was created by an internal Capcom team, 1,000,000x more equipped, experienced, and likely passionate than Amiga Lad. I suppose this all goes back to US Gold's shitty, cradle-robbing hiring practices.

And perhaps not just equipment, experience, and passion, but also something any young person can benefit from: professionalism. I always liked Christopher Walken's summation in King of New York.

"There's some things I don't do."

(also Laurence Fishburne's later addendum to working life: NOBODY RIDES FOR FREE, MOTHERFUCKER )

I did not know about this, off to investigate

Tha hook up Warning: contains extreme street violence!

[Shatterhand]

21, 19... not a big difference. I missed the number by 2

I actually spoke to him on the English Amiga Forum board, he also said the title song used on Amiga Final Fight was made by a friend, which US Gold promised to pay for the use of the song... and he believes US Gold actually never paid him either.

The "Ronald Van Thingy" he talks about is Ronald Pieket Weeserik... a dutch guy who made some real solid MSX games all by himself (Hype, Skooter and a few others) and they got employed by The Sales Curve to do Amiga games..... and made some of the best arcade ports the systems ever saw (Rodland, Silkworm, Ninja Warriors, I believe he also did Final Blow and he helped with Saint Dragon), and he also made Swiv.

-

Final Fight on Amiga isn't badly programmed at all. Problem is, I believe those coders didn't have much freedom to mess with the games, zero support and some real shit tight deadlines. I always say, for comparision.... Street Fighter 2 CE on the Mega-Drive was made in-house, 9 months of development, about 17 guys working on it, with full access to source-code and original assets. Street Fighter 2 on Amiga was made in 6 months by 5 guys who had to go to the arcades to play the game because US Gold didn't even gave them a fucking PCB to test the game properly for half the development time, WHILE also doing the Atari ST version. I mean, hell, what chance did they have? And then those guys had no idea of game-design. The fact that Richard Aplin thinks both Final Fight and Double Dragon 2 are crap games says a lot about his work when porting those games, because he doesn't "get" obvious stuff about their design (like Double Dragon 2 having enemies beating you up at the start of the level even before the screen finished fading in or you enemies beating your full health bar up in Final Fight because you have no invencibility frames between hits you get). Most european game developers in the 80s and 90s were programmers that ended up doing games, but most of them had no idea of what made a good game. They just did something that worked, sometimes it would end up as a good game, sometimes it wouldn't. And that's why european games at this time were usually the ones that most pushed hardware limits... those were programmers trying to prove themselves, not game-designers trying to make fun games.

Lots of games were ported with programmers just looking at a VHS tape of the game being played. Amiga and Atari ST UN Squadron programmer said he found way to "pause" the arcade game, so the artist could use a semi-transparent piece of paper to draw the sprites on top of the screen.

And I am pretty sure the instructions US Gold et all gave to the programmers were "Make this game looks like the arcade on still screenshots, that's how we will sell them". That was their job, nothing else. Richard Aplin said when US Gold gave him The Godfather to code, they also said "We want a game that looks like this and that", he could make the game play whatever he wanted as long as the game LOOKED like what the tied guys wanted.

In comparison, I know the guys at The Sales Curve had time and freedom to work with the ports. Ron Pieket said he could, for example, fix a bug the arcade version of Rodland had which made gameplay worse, and the Amiga version could play more fluid, he would get sprite sheets and source code from Jaleco and I dunno how much a better programmer he was compared to Richard Aplin, but it's OBVIOUS those things make work a lot easier.

[BIL]

And I am pretty sure the instructions US Gold et all gave to the programmers were "Make this game looks like the arcade on still screenshots, that's how we will sell them". That was their job, nothing else. Richard Aplin said when US Gold gave him The Godfather to code, they also said "We want a game that looks like this and that", he could make the game play whatever he wanted as long as the game LOOKED like what the tied guys wanted.

Precisely what I was thinking, WRT the "wasting time" comment re: Amiga Final Fight's parallax. I've no doubt the execs didn't give a rat's ass how this stuff moved or played, as long as it generated passable box/magazine shots.

I distinctly remember being all of nine years old, SNES-less, and considering asking for the widely-slammed DOS SFII as a birthday present ("How bad could it be? It looks just like the arcade game in this VG&CE review!" <- kidz r dum). Fortunately that fell through, because importing stuff was a giant PITA where I grew up, so I ended up with SCE and its needlessly crummy digitised speech a couple years later.

Most european game developers in the 80s and 90s were programmers that ended up doing games, but most of them had no idea of what made a good game. They just did something that worked, sometimes it would end up as a good game, sometimes it wouldn't. And that's why european games at this time were usually the ones that most pushed hardware limits... those were programmers trying to prove themselves, not game-designers trying to make fun games.

This was the impression I vaguely had, doing more reading than playing where these home versions are concerned. And beltscrollers are a particularly bad genre to hand a clueless programmer, with their frequently idiosyncratic use of i-frames and attack priorities. AC Double Dragon II is a fine beater, if relatively simple (my award-winning ROAD 2 REVENGE ). If a developer couldn't capture DD2, he wouldn't have a cat in hell's chance with the relatively elusive Final Fight.

Worth noting here that even the JP-developed MD version of DD2AC is widely regarded as crap. I played a couple stages and gave up on it, it's pricey. PCE-CD one plays much nicer, but also takes more after the lovely Famicom version (not to be confused with its wimpy NES localisation - "Supreme Master" my ass), which just like Capcom's Mighty Final Fight was expertly designed by Technos themselves.

Euro PC arcade conversions, a tale of hardship

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I distinctly remember being all of nine years old, SNES-less, and considering asking for the widely-slammed DOS SFII as a birthday present ("How bad could it be? It looks just like the arcade game in this VG&CE review!" <- kidz r dum).

You know, I remember seeing both SFII and Mega Man X's MS-DOS ports sold beside each other in store, with that nifty 6 button controller (where MMX only recognized 4 of the buttons, lol, I always wondered if 2 of them were dummied out). The sad thing is the MMX port is pretty solid, moving very fluidly and sounding/playing pretty damn close to the SNES version. It's especially shocking giving one of the devs involved was also responsible for the infamously bad MS-DOS versions of Mega Man. Too bad SFII wasn't competent.

It's especially sad given there were very decent fighting games for MS-DOS, including OMF 2097 and Sango Fighter.

[BIL]

Every time I look up DOS SFII, I never make it past their... interpretation of the attract sequence before copying down the URL. Remember the AC ver? The uneasy wait as Mike and Steve bob anticipatedly, just long enough for the viewer to take in the summerly festive scene, before *CRACK!*

Behold

I'm realising that of all shoddy works, I particularly scorn this stuff that resembles the arcade games in stills, yet demonstrates sweet fuck-all grasp of them in motion. That attract sequence isn't even gameplay, just a matter of cinematic timing, and they shit the bed even there.

C64 Ninja Spirit had the right idea. Doesn't have much to do with the AC game, other than its very nice take on Masahiko Ishida's sinisterly pulsing BGM, nor should it. Snazzy ninja sidescroller in its own right. Not unlike the stacks of arcade-deviating, thoroughly excellent interpretations for FC (DD2, Guevara, Contra, Gradius II, Salamander, 1943, etc etc...).

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Oh yeah, the C64 has some absolutely lovely conversions. The soundtrack for Commando is amazing on the C64. OutRun also has some seriously great tunes, and is very playable (albeit harder than the arcade version IMO, its traffic is a terror). I also remember having fun with Zaxxon, though I've no idea how well it held up since I was rather young since I last played it.

The MS-DOS port of OutRun actually looks pretty decent and wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the controls. Unlike conversion to platforms with digital controls where the car either steers at max speed or has a bit of inertia/auto-centering to make it feel responsive like in the arcade, the way the MS-DOS port works is you have to tap left/right to adjust your steering, and the steering locks in at that position. To recenter, you have to tap the opposite direction the appropriate number of times. There's like 5 angles outside of center I think? It makes it feel really awkward and stuff to control. It's quite a shame too; fix the controls and it'd be as worthy a port as the Game Gear one would be honestly.

I see US Gold was responsible for the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC ports. Calling them unplayable is putting it mildly; they clearly had no shame in porting games that simply would not be doable at a reasonable framerate on the systems. The same goes for the RE2 port for Game.com It's an amusing oddity, but clearly a cheap cash-in and not something anyone would actually regard as a competent or worthy port. The fact that the unreleased version of Resident Evil for Gameboy Color runs much smoother puts it entirely to shame.

[To Far Away Times]

I distinctly remember being all of nine years old, SNES-less, and considering asking for the widely-slammed DOS SFII as a birthday present ("How bad could it be? It looks just like the arcade game in this VG&CE review!" <- kidz r dum).

You know, I remember seeing both SFII and Mega Man X's MS-DOS ports sold beside each other in store, with that nifty 6 button controller (where MMX only recognized 4 of the buttons, lol, I always wondered if 2 of them were dummied out). The sad thing is the MMX port is pretty solid, moving very fluidly and sounding/playing pretty damn close to the SNES version. It's especially shocking giving one of the devs involved was also responsible for the infamously bad MS-DOS versions of Mega Man. Too bad SFII wasn't competent.

It's especially sad given there were very decent fighting games for MS-DOS, including OMF 2097 and Sango Fighter.

My introduction to the Megaman series was actually through the DOS port of Megaman X, and although I didn't play the original on real SNES hardware until many years later, the DOS version seemed damn close from my memory, with maybe some differences in instrumentation that you would expect from PC gaming in the early 90's.

Spoiler

My childhood friends also had the DOS port of the original Megaman, but the less said about that game, the better, lol.

[Marc]

I see US Gold was responsible for the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC ports. Calling them unplayable is putting it mildly; they clearly had no shame in porting games that simply would not be doable at a reasonable framerate on the systems. The same goes for the RE2 port for Game.com It's an amusing oddity, but clearly a cheap cash-in and not something anyone would actually regard as a competent or worthy port. The fact that the unreleased version of Resident Evil for Gameboy Color runs much smoother puts it entirely to shame.

Not only did they have no shame, but go look at the adverts at the time for OutRun - they Spectrum version they pictured never existed, it's a mock-up. Although still monochrome, the sprites are huge and there's a level of detail there the machine simply wasn't capable of.

I remember Sinclair User reviewing a version of Nemesis that never existed then compounding it by dedicating two pages on a guide to the first level, using those very same screenshots.

C64 Ninja Spirit had the right idea. Doesn't have much to do with the AC game, other than its very nice take on Masahiko Ishida's sinisterly pulsing BGM, nor should it. Snazzy ninja sidescroller in its own right. Not unlike the stacks of arcade-deviating, thoroughly excellent interpretations for FC (DD2, Guevara, Contra, Gradius II, Salamander, 1943, etc etc...).

Exactly. It's a cracking cover version and that soundtrack is brilliant.

[Shatterhand]

My introduction to the Megaman series was actually through the DOS port of Megaman X, and although I didn't play the original on real SNES hardware until many years later, the DOS version seemed damn close from my memory, with maybe some differences in instrumentation that you would expect from PC gaming in the early 90's.

Megaman X on MS-DOS was great, that was a point when Capcom games were getting some real good ports on the MS-DOS. Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo for the MS-DOS was also great.

And I just saw a video of Ninja Spirit on the C64. Never played that but... come on, from looking at the video, it seems to follow the Arcade version pretty well, and it *also* seems to be a very good game indeed.

Unlike the Amiga version which is hideous.

[BIL]

It depends what metrics we're going by. In terms of running and moon-jumping to the right, shredding armies of evil ninjas in haunted feudal Japan? The C64 one is a great time. For strict 1:1 accuracy, in deadly-precise arcade context? Wisely, it's not going for that. You want the PCE version, which will teach you a good deal about the arcade version's subtleties, just like PCE Vigilante, MD/SGX Daimakaimura, and MD Strider. All of these reproduce AC mechanics and stages remarkably closely, to the point strategies devised on cart will frequently port over to the board just fine.

(incidentally, PCE Ninja Spirit could've probably been more accurate than it already is; weird case of a conversion that's super-accurate until it's suddenly, bafflingly not, with some poorly thought-out rebalancing to top it off. Still an essential HuCard, imo. If the AC one had never existed, it'd shoulder 90% of its renown handily)

I wouldn't dock C64 Ninja Spirit for being nowhere as accurate, any more than I would FC Guevara or Salamander. It's the divergences, accompanied by excellent design sense, that make these releases on vastly underpowered hardware worth playing. Even if the Mega Drive version of Double Dragon II hadn't shat the bed, it wouldn't make the only loosely related FC and PCE ones less worthwhile.

The older conversions that are out of luck are the ones that neither contribute quality material, nor capture the arcade version (asterisk for stuff like Famicom Ikari & Dogosoken, which technically have boatloads of new ideas, but play so horribly, the extra content becomes more tragic than anything ). MD Thunder Fox is an easy example, a dishwater-dull walk/stab shadow of the AC's exuberant Rolling Thunder x Ninja Warriors hybrid (I thought the AC was running overlocked when I finally got to try it, having grown up with the molasses-slow cart).