trb@stag.UUCP ( Todd Burkey ) (10/06/87)
Well, after reading the new OSS Pascal 2.0 manual and seeing how poorly things like VDI were supported, how poorly the manual was put together (as if they were planning on forcing all owners to buy the Tacklebox ST package), and most of all after I couldn't get my DISKTOP to compile with the new 2.0, it probably was not very oppurtune timing for Marble Madness to come out...I haven't done a product flame in two years, so lets see how I do :-) /* Flame On *) Well, it seems that every year Electronic Arts does something to get Atari owners all riled up...First it was when they made all the snide comments about the Atari 800 being a dead machine (in response to why they were not producing software for that machine, but for the Commodore 64), and then they decided to develop primarily for the Amiga because they "didn't feel the ST would survive" (extracted from comments in the EA Go #$%^* Yourself article that circulated the ST boards over a year ago.) But that is old stuff. Today we got in Marble Madness for the ST. I think I can keep this to a short low tech analysis, starting with 5 words...What a piece of trash. Very poor graphics (not close to what can be done on the ST), buggy play (the ball 'tracking' is slightly out of phase with the screen), and poor animation (ball doesn't even disappear when going behind small projections...) I would rather play Zombie on the 8 bit Atari...guess that isn't a fair comparison (Zombie is much better than MM on the ST). This is kind of a Deja Vu to the earlier experiences with EA...what were those exciting packages...financial cookbook?, golden oldies (eliza, life, pong)?, artic fox?, etc. Does someone at EA have it in for upper management at Atari or something? Logic would dictate that the company at least put out the best software that the machine they are porting the software to would handle. I played Marble Madness on the Amiga before I got rid of it (the Amiga) and there is no reason that the graphics couldn't have been even better and smoother on the ST...(or the 8 bit Atari for that matter)...EA has always indicated that one reason they have such poor Atari sales is because of piracy by Atari owners, I would rather think it is more the quality of their software by the time it gets ported to the ST (and the 8 bit systems). (* Flame off */ Sorry people, only a few companies get me irritated like that (and no, Atari isn't one of them...I personally like my ST and what I have learned on it, so could care less when/if mega's or PC clones come out...although a high speed transputer would be an intriguing add-on with Tom Hudsons' SW). On the good side, Gauntlet and Boulderdash Construction Set are two VERY nice games...at least some companies out there know how to design good game software. oops...almost forgot Midi-Maze which is probably the most addicting game I have ever played (if you can get two or more ST owners to bring their machines over to your house). -Todd Burkey trb@stag.UUCP (of course if MULE came out for the ST, you know who would be first in line)
trb@stag.UUCP ( Todd Burkey ) (10/06/87)
oops...that was skyfox that was one of the other EA fizzles...I didn't bother ever getting artic fox.
cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis) (10/07/87)
In article <228@stag.UUCP> trb@stag.UUCP ( Todd Burkey ) flames: > Today we got in Marble Madness for the ST. I think I can keep this to a short > low tech analysis, starting with 5 words...What a piece of trash. Very poor > graphics (not close to what can be done on the ST), buggy play (the ball > 'tracking' is slightly out of phase with the screen), and poor animation > (ball doesn't even disappear when going behind small projections...) ... > ... I played > Marble Madness on the Amiga before I got rid of it (the Amiga) and there > is no reason that the graphics couldn't have been even better and smoother > on the ST...(or the 8 bit Atari for that matter)... Well, sorry to rain on your parade Todd, but there really is a reason why the graphics are 'better and smoother' on the Amiga. It's those custom chips that are taking care of 50% of the game mechanics. As more people design programs that use them efficiently there will be more programs (games especially) that you *cannot* port to other architectures, *and* retain satisfactory 'look and feel'. Take something as simple 'Mouse Trap', a Donkey Kong Jr type game available for most machines. On the Amiga the 'characters' move smoothly by, the background Obscures some of them and not others, and the music plays continuously (unless you deselect it) in the background. Thats because the mouse and the other objects are sprites and blitter objects, the screen is in 'dual playfield' mode that allows two 8 color screens to be overlayed on top of each other with the foreground screen using '0' for transparent. These take care of half the stuff you have to deal with when writing this game. The Amiga was originally planned to be the ultimate killer game machine, it's no suprise that it handles games quite nicely. As you mention above it could have been done better on the 8bit Atari, and your right, but thats because the 8 bit has graphics hardware too! The original authors of MM thought that it couldn't be done on *any* micro because of the stuff in the original coin-op (like a yamaha synthesizer chip, math and graphics accellerators etc). The bottom line is you can flame EA all you want, they consistently do stupid things, but I draw the line at this "there's no reason ..." stuff. There *is* a reason, Amiga owners paid extra for it, and as developers use 'the Amiga difference' they don't feel as cheated as they once did. --Chuck McManis uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.
richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) (10/09/87)
Don't get the impression that Amiga people are the slightest bit
happy with EA. They're not.
MM and Dpaint are the only things that seem to work halfway decently.
And then there is the copy-protection issue....
In other words, you may not be missing much.
--
Richard J. Sexton
INTERNET: richard@gryphon.CTS.COM
UUCP: {hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, ihnp4, nosc}!crash!gryphon!richard
"It's too dark to put the keys in my ignition..."c9c-eh@dorothy.Berkeley.EDU (Warner Young (WHY)) (10/09/87)
In article <30249@sun.uucp> cmcmanis@sun.UUCP (Chuck McManis) writes: >In article <228@stag.UUCP> trb@stag.UUCP ( Todd Burkey ) flames: >> Today we got in Marble Madness for the ST. I think I can keep this to a short >> low tech analysis, starting with 5 words...What a piece of trash. Very poor >> graphics (not close to what can be done on the ST), buggy play (the ball >> 'tracking' is slightly out of phase with the screen), and poor animation >> (ball doesn't even disappear when going behind small projections...) ... >> ... I played >> Marble Madness on the Amiga before I got rid of it (the Amiga) and there >> is no reason that the graphics couldn't have been even better and smoother >> on the ST...(or the 8 bit Atari for that matter)... > >Well, sorry to rain on your parade Todd, but there really is a reason why >the graphics are 'better and smoother' on the Amiga. It's those custom >chips that are taking care of 50% of the game mechanics. As more people >design programs that use them efficiently there will be more programs (games >especially) that you *cannot* port to other architectures, *and* retain >satisfactory 'look and feel'. Take something as simple 'Mouse Trap', a ... > >The bottom line is you can flame EA all you want, they consistently do >stupid things, but I draw the line at this "there's no reason ..." stuff. >There *is* a reason, Amiga owners paid extra for it, and as developers >use 'the Amiga difference' they don't feel as cheated as they once did. > >--Chuck McManis >uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com >These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you. I don't think so. I just saw Marble Madness for the ST yesterday, and I agree with Todd. There really is no reason why they (EA) couldn't have made it better. At least (AT LEAST), the background graphics could have been improved. I know this for a fact, because just using NEOchrome, I have PAINTED more authentic MM screens than the game itself uses. As for the rest of your "reasons" why the Amiga version is better, they're all perfectly true. However, if you've seen Time Bandit on the ST, you would know that it's possible to simulate the sprites and graphics functions pretty closely. There is definitely no reason why EA has to put out games that are lower quality than others (notable MichTron and Xanth FX) put out. The only reason I know of if that Trip Hawkins (remember THAT guy?) still doesn't like the ST. Recently, when asked what he thought of the market situation, he replied that the ST games have not been selling as well as the Amiga's. Given the fact that the ST versions are almost always made worse, I'm not surprised. Of course people don't buy the EA ST games! Most of us are out there buying games from manufacturers who are willing to put some effort into programming their games! Please understand that this was not meant to be a flame. Actually, I do think that some of the EA stuff is pretty good, like Chessmaster 2000, and Arctic Fox (well, actually, a friend of mine has AF, and HE thinks it's good; it bored me to sleep). Okay, everybody. Instead of just applying pocketbook veto to EA's products, lets let them know WHY we won't buy them. Otherwise, they'll continue to maintain that the ST's not good enough, instead of improving their own programs. Sincerely ticked off, Warner Young \ / \ / \ /\ / \__/ \/ \/ | | __|
trb@stag.UUCP ( Todd Burkey ) (10/09/87)
In article <30249@sun.uucp> cmcmanis@sun.UUCP (Chuck McManis) writes: > >Well, sorry to rain on your parade Todd, but there really is a reason why >the graphics are 'better and smoother' on the Amiga. It's those custom >chips that are taking care of 50% of the game mechanics. Hi, Don't want to get into a Amiga<->ST controversy, since I have written graphics applications on both machines so am quite familiar with the capabilities of both. I didn't say that the Amiga can't be 'better and smoother'...I just meant that Marble Madness doesn't come close to stretching the Amiga and the style of graphics programmed on MM on the Amiga would have been very easy to port to the ST...I know, since I have 1) written smoother toy routines myself on the ST while learning about the blitter, and 2) have seen much better games (and smoother) on the ST than MM was on the Amiga...and written in higher level languages to boot (Pascal and C...although MM might have been as well, I never got around to looking at the executable while I owned the Amiga). Base line is that MM 1) doesn't have all that complicated graphics, 2) doesn't have many sprites to deal with, 3) and isn't color or resolution hungry...or speed for that matter. >have to deal with when writing this game. The Amiga was originally planned >to be the ultimate killer game machine, it's no suprise that it handles >games quite nicely. Oops..deleted too much...I agree that the Amiga has the potential to be a better game machine (although it is interesting that more games (and better ones) keep coming out for the ST about 3-6 months before they do on the Amiga...I know, not always and some things may not come out until the ST Blitter takes hold.) -Todd Burkey trb@stag.UUCP (and no, I don't want to write a stupid game to prove a point...games are to be played, applications to be written:-)