Amiga CD32 and Amiga 500/1200 Shoot Em Ups

Turrican · Post by **Turrican** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 12:00 pm

I feel Uridium 2 is a bit overrated these days - the reviews back then were a bit cold, and I can't see how many of its fans are willingly to forgive the fact that the landscape is just so intricated that it makes the action confusing.

It's still a great game, it moves fast and it's technically superb as you'd expect from Braybrook, but I agree with the reviewers that the C64 original is a better game.

Necronom · Post by **Necronom** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 1:56 pm

@Shatterhand
That would be great! Thanks in advance

MJR · Post by **MJR** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 8:51 am

[almost off-topic]

I bought apidya and installed it on the HDD because of the praise it got here, but I must say that I do not agree it being the best shooter in amiga. I'm not sure if I got a favourite amiga shooter, though.
What I like in apidya is slick and polished presentation, smooth 50hz gameplay, and well thought out levels and enemy patterns.
What I don't like are bland and boring graphic design (yes I've seen the screens for later levels); and difficulty is just too high for me to watch graphics like these.
Many things in apidya are executed a lot better than many other shooters, therefore I understand why many regard it as the best. But I did not get excited.

Amiga shooters I liked were of course xenon and xenon 2, sidewinder, hybris, datastorm, starray and battle squadron. But I don't consider any of these as a great game by today's standards, even retro standards, as they got too many flaws. Well maybe starray comes out clean, I can't think of anything to complain in that games.

From stardust, super stardust or its cd32 version I cannot give comments because they wold be biased, for obvious reasons

Ceph · Post by **Ceph** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 9:08 am

Ok, I've changed the topic to include all Amiga shmups.

Herr Schatten convinced me to dig out Z-Out and give it another go; it's pretty good indeed. You should try it.

OT: I just got a CD32 with a weird video connector, please have a look:
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?p=177115

MJR · Post by **MJR** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 9:09 am

I forgot to mention that Z-out is one of my old favourites, too. I one-lifed it back in '92.

NAVVARR · Post by **NAVVARR** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 2:12 pm

Ceph wrote:Project X seems to have a bug - when you move your ship, weapons and upgrades are sometimes selected without pressing a button. I tried the game with two different joypads and in two different CD32s, same outcome.

Its not a bug- actually- its a feature that enabled you to power up your ship by -sort of quickly doing up left down right quickly.
-Pretty lame way of doing this and I too was frustrated by it.

-Now you know!

Ceph · Post by **Ceph** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 3:03 pm

NAVVARR wrote:
Ceph wrote:Project X seems to have a bug - when you move your ship, weapons and upgrades are sometimes selected without pressing a button. I tried the game with two different joypads and in two different CD32s, same outcome.
Its not a bug- actually- its a feature that enabled you to power up your ship by -sort of quickly doing up left down right quickly.
-Pretty lame way of doing this and I too was frustrated by it.

-Now you know!

It's not a bug, it's a feature

Why the heck didn't they remove this for the CD32 version, where your standard pad has 7 buttons?! Very Annoying.

dakidski · Post by **dakidski** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 3:38 pm

Ceph wrote:I've got the compilations recommended above; unfortunately some of my old favorites aren't on them.

Can anyone point me to a guide that explains how to convert adf-files so they can be loaded from CD? Better yet, is there a tool to create CD32 CDs?

For instance, I'd love to play some Paradroid '90 on my CD32. Uridium 2 isn't on any of the of the compilation CDs either...

Let me know if you start doing your own a500 -> cd32 conversions.

bcass · Post by **bcass** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 8:10 pm

Uridium 2 is best played on a big TV. On a smaller screen, I agree that things can get confusing due to the detailed graphics. I still recon it's one of the best Amiga games ever though. Later levels are insanely busy. The only way I could complete that game was using an Atari 800XE that had been modified so it could be plugged into an Amiga joystick port (using QAOP and SPACE keys on the Atari to control the ship).

Turrican · Post by **Turrican** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 8:43 pm

bcass wrote:The only way I could complete that game was using an Atari 800XE that had been modified so it could be plugged into an Amiga joystick port (using QAOP and SPACE keys on the Atari to control the ship).

err, you did what?? I didn't understand this last part.

Necronom · Post by **Necronom** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 9:21 pm

Uridium 2 is best played on a big TV. On a smaller screen, I agree that things can get confusing due to the detailed graphics. I still recon it's one of the best Amiga games ever though. Later levels are insanely busy. The only way I could complete that game was using an Atari 800XE that had been modified so it could be plugged into an Amiga joystick port (using QAOP and SPACE keys on the Atari to control the ship).

Interesting but also truely...weird. I mean...how about a decent joystick?

bcass · Post by **bcass** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 9:43 pm

At the time, I was a ZX Spectrum man. Most Spectrum owners didn't own a joystick as the early models didn't have joystick ports as standard. This lead to most owners using keys (usually redefinable). The most popular configuration was Q (up) A (down) O (left) P (right) and SPACE (fire). It was some years later that I started to really get used to joypads. I could only ever really use joysticks on arcade machines.

Twiddle · Post by **Twiddle** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 9:44 pm

bcass wrote:This lead to most owners using keys (usually redefinable). The most popular configuration was Q (up) A (down) O (left) P (right) and SPACE (fire).

unintuitive

bcass · Post by **bcass** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 9:44 pm

Turrican wrote:
bcass wrote:The only way I could complete that game was using an Atari 800XE that had been modified so it could be plugged into an Amiga joystick port (using QAOP and SPACE keys on the Atari to control the ship).
err, you did what?? I didn't understand this last part.

A friend rewired those five keys to the relevant up/down/left/right/fire wires on a standard Atari joystick plug so it could be attached to an Amiga.

Turrican · Post by **Turrican** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 10:09 pm

Huh, awesome - but the amiga had its share of excellent microswitch joysticks - albatross comes to mind...

bcass · Post by **bcass** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 10:38 pm

Twiddle wrote:
bcass wrote:This lead to most owners using keys (usually redefinable). The most popular configuration was Q (up) A (down) O (left) P (right) and SPACE (fire).
unintuitive

The millions of Spectrum owners accross the whole of Europe would disagree with you (although debate still rages as to whether the M key is preferable to the SPACE bar...).

Twiddle · Post by **Twiddle** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 11:06 pm

"Most people use it" is not a good explanation why each hand has half of the movement control.

bcass · Post by **bcass** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 11:47 pm

Why, is the average human brain incapable of co-ordinating both hands at once?

The QAOP SPACE configuration allows for much better keyboard control of diagonals (for example) than say using the arrow keys cluster.

Twiddle · Post by **Twiddle** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 11:49 pm

That might have been true then, but it sure as hell isn't now.

Super Laydock · Post by **Super Laydock** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 12:02 am

bcass wrote:Why, is the average human brain incapable of co-ordinating both hands at once?

The QAOP SPACE configuration allows for much better keyboard control of diagonals (for example) than say using the arrow keys cluster.

Well I suppose it can be unintuitive if you have to use one of both hands for movement AND shooting...

I think I can see the diagonals working better (after some practice) this way, but only if arrow keys are aranged as like today on most if not all keyboards.
Some older computers (well at least some of the MSX ones) had a better (more logical) layout of the keys.

Instead of

up
left-down-right

it was like:

up
left right
down

One hand could once again do the movement and easily do diagonals.
This would be much preferred over keyboard arrow key controls on todays keyboards imo.

But this thread is gone way off topic so maye I should add that the amiga version of Atomic Robo Kid is quite good and worthy of playing.

neorichieb1971 · Post by **neorichieb1971** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 12:41 am

My favorite Amiga shooters were -

Hybris.
S.W.I.V
Xenon 2.
Project X.

Think thats it.

Post by **Shatterhand** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 6:34 pm

I used to love my MSX arrow keys configuration, it was perfect indeed. And I always hated when there was some ZX Spectrum port where they didn't bother to give me an option to play with the MSX arrow keys, so I had to stick with the worse QAOP-Space configuration.

I never liked this configuration too much. When one of those ports had the option to configure the controls but had no support for the MSX arrow keys, I would configure ZSXC + Space, always felt much better.

Turrican · Post by **Turrican** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 8:00 pm

I planned to write a little essay about two amiga shmups - well, it's all postponed after this nightmarish Dragon Blaze week has come to an end...

Super Laydock · Post by **Super Laydock** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 8:13 pm

Turrican wrote:I planned to write a little essay about two amiga shmups - well, it's all postponed after this nightmarish Dragon Blaze week has come to an end...

It's ok, we all suffer this week!

NAVVARR · Post by **NAVVARR** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 9:13 pm

I think that Uridium2 is a great shooter- but i alway found that it crashed randomly- just froze in the later levels.
-I was using a legit version- not a copy.
Anyone else find this?
-Also- the version released ran on the A500+ -there was a version written for AGA -but never released- OR WAS IT?- anyone know??

Turrican · Post by **Turrican** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 11:17 pm

NAVVARR wrote:I think that Uridium2 is a great shooter- but i alway found that it crashed randomly- just froze in the later levels.
-I was using a legit version- not a copy.
Anyone else find this?
-Also- the version released ran on the A500+ -there was a version written for AGA -but never released- OR WAS IT?- anyone know??

I don't think there's an AGA version, but the game detects AGA and offers a couple extra gameplay modes as well as graphic improvements.

gamer · Post by **gamer** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 11:32 pm

My favourite amiga shooter was Project X but i found it too hard to complete but it kept me addicted to it.

Turrican · Post by **Turrican** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 11:45 pm

Welcome, gamer.

bcass · Post by **bcass** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 2:34 am

Shatterhand wrote:I used to love my MSX arrow keys configuration, it was perfect indeed. And I always hated when there was some ZX Spectrum port where they didn't bother to give me an option to play with the MSX arrow keys, so I had to stick with the worse QAOP-Space configuration.

I never liked this configuration too much. When one of those ports had the option to configure the controls but had no support for the MSX arrow keys, I would configure ZSXC + Space, always felt much better.

You should be grateful that Spectrum coders even bothered to support the MSX. It bombed in Europe.

Turrican · Post by **Turrican** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 12:22 pm

MJR wrote:maybe starray comes out clean, I can't think of anything to complain in that games.

In amiga's Defender II there's a sort of "history of defender" by Jeff Minter and at some point he totally bashes the game (which is kinda amusing, considering how bad Defender II is), it is not mentioned by name but the allusion is evident... It's unfortunate that my .adf doesn't run on MacUAE otherwise I would have taken screenshots.