carlos@io.UUCP (Carlos Smith) (09/26/87)
There seems to be a flood of new games coming in that origanate in Europe.
My dealer got a bunch of arcade rip-offs that all seem to be from Germany (or
at least the packaging is in German and English).
One game that I LOVE is NOT a rip-off, but it is a fast, exciting arcade style
game. Just the thing for an adrenaline break between compiles. It is called
Goldrunner, and is wicked neat. It has amazingly fast and smooth vertical
scrolling, while you fly over bizarre landscapes and blast neat looking
enemies out of the sky. Meanwhile, digitized voice is urging you on, while
good music plays along! ("Good Shooting!", "Keep Going!", "Don't fail now!"
etc.) Check it out for excellent 5-10 minute per game gameplay and very well
done artwork and sound. It is billed as "The game of destruction". That was
enough for me, and it lives up to it. I am curious, the box has "Amiga"
stickers on it, does anyone know if it is a port from another machine? Also,
the box is half in German, but published in Michigan. Is it an import? Seeing
this game I see why coin-op manufacturers are licensing Amy boards...
Another interesting game is Garrison. It is a rip-off (but not a clone) of
Gauntlett. It is from Germany, (the grammar in the instructions is really
cute). Nice graphics and sound, 2 players can play at once. It looks really
nice, plays well (like Gauntlett, it is somewhat overwhelming with one
player). BUT, it has some serious bugs. Three of us bought it, one had to
return it because it couldn't overcome its copy protection on his A500. I have
had trouble booting it reliably on my A1000. I have lost games when the
machine has hung while loading a new level (like every time I play). The third
guy has had it crash on him in the middle of the level. These are nice crashes
though, go to reboot and you get nice wild copper effects. I could return my
copy, but I would prefer a fixed version because it seems like a good game. I
guess I'll write to Germany to find out what the story is. Has anyone else
seen it, and do you have the same problems?
--
Carlos Smith
uucp:...!harvard!umb!ileaf!carlos
Bix: carlosmithali@rocky.STANFORD.EDU (Ali Ozer) (09/27/87)
In article <389@io.UUCP> carlos (Carlos Smith) writes: >There seems to be a flood of new games coming in that origanate in Europe. >One game that I LOVE is NOT a rip-off, but it is a fast, exciting arcade style >game. Just the thing for an adrenaline break between compiles. It is called >Goldrunner, and is wicked neat. ... I am curious, the box has "Amiga" >stickers on it, does anyone know if it is a port from another machine? Just picked up Goldrunner yesterday, and yes, it's a wonderful game! It also seems to be available for the ST --- A price list that came out of the box lists it as available for the ST, color only. Words of warning, though: As Carlos said, the game is strictly an arcade style game --- So although you get smooth scrolling and screens as nice as Faery Tale, there's not much strategy involved --- And I know some people who don't like Starglider just for it's arcade qualities. A second warning is the copy protection --- The disk drive grinds away for close to a minute while the game is loading. (I don't have Marauder or anything, so I never uncopy-protect my games...). But it looks like its worth the $30 (unless I finally manage to get to ring 2 and it gurus on me). Ali Ozer, ali@rocky.stanford.edu
adrian@cs.hw.ac.uk (Adrian Hurt) (09/28/87)
In article <389@io.UUCP>, carlos@io.UUCP (Carlos Smith) writes: > > One game that I LOVE is NOT a rip-off, but it is a fast, exciting arcade style > game. Just the thing for an adrenaline break between compiles. It is called > Goldrunner, and is wicked neat. It has amazingly fast and smooth vertical > scrolling, while you fly over bizarre landscapes and blast neat looking > enemies out of the sky. Meanwhile, digitized voice is urging you on, while > good music plays along! ("Good Shooting!", "Keep Going!", "Don't fail now!" > etc.) Check it out for excellent 5-10 minute per game gameplay and very well > done artwork and sound. It is billed as "The game of destruction". That was > I have played this game on the Atari ST. Otherwise, I agree with the above description. The voice often has nothing to do with what is happening - it has been known to say "Good shooting!" and no-one has fired a shot! I liked what it wrote on the screen - "If it moves, shoot it - if it doesn't, blast it!" One of my favourite sayings from a game came from the old arcade game, "Gorf". This was one of the things it would say when the game was over - "Try again - I devour coins!" -- "Keyboard? Tis quaint!" - M. Scott Adrian Hurt | JANET: adrian@uk.ac.hw.cs UUCP: ..!ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!adrian | ARPA: adrian@cs.hw.ac.uk
dragon@oliveb.UUCP (Give me a quarter or I'll touch you) (09/28/87)
in article <389@io.UUCP>, carlos@io.UUCP (Carlos Smith) says: > One game that I LOVE is NOT a rip-off, but it is a fast, exciting arcade style > game. Just the thing for an adrenaline break between compiles. It is called > Goldrunner, and is wicked neat. It has amazingly fast and smooth vertical ... > enough for me, and it lives up to it. I am curious, the box has "Amiga" > stickers on it, does anyone know if it is a port from another machine? Also, > the box is half in German, but published in Michigan. Is it an import? Seeing > this game I see why coin-op manufacturers are licensing Amy boards... 'Goldrunner' was originally released for the Atari ST by Michtron. On that computer it is also a very good game. It was written by Microdeal, who seems to be a European publisher putting out numerous other games for the Amiga and ST. Most of these tend to be pretty good, in my opinion. Do others have suggestions for good arcade-style games on the Amiga? There seems to be a shortage of this type of game! -- Dean Brunette {ucbvax,etc.}!hplabs!oliveb!olivej!dragon {ucbvax,etc.}!hplabs!oliveb!dragon-oatc!dean Olivetti Advanced Technology Center _____ _____ __|__ _____ 20300 Stevens Creek Blvd. | | _____| | | Cupertino, CA 95014 |_____| |_____| |__ |_____ 'Such a strange girl, I think I'm falling in love' --The Cure
cjp@vax135.UUCP (Charles Poirier) (09/29/87)
Garrison is a very nice Gauntlet-derived game. It has all the characters and effects from Gauntlet I, plus most of the new things from Gauntlet II, plus maybe some new stuff. Almost all of the screens are new. There is a "Dwarf" character as well as the original Wizard, Elf, Valkyrie, Warrior. One or two can play at once; for each level, you may choose which of your surviving characters gets to run on that level. The game supposedly goes up to level 128. But, there's a problem. I see from the first posting in this thread that I'm not alone. I have had the game go into a scrambled-screen mode from which a boot is the only escape. The game is still running, you just can't see what's happening (I can tell because you can hear things reacting to your controls). The appearance of the screen is consistent with a loss of vertical sync, I think. I notice that the game is vertically overscanned. My strong suspicion is that we are seeing unmodified 256-scan-line-European-PAL-format output. I further suspect that this is eventually causing my monitor to overheat, and then lose the tracking range of the local sync oscillator. The first crash (scramble, really, not crash) happens after one or two hours; the next is maybe fifteen minutes, then three minutes.... I am using a normal 1080 monitor, vintage Jan 1986, that has been left on almost all the time. And a stock A1000 + Alegra. Sigh. It's an excellent game, for as long as it works. Even with only one player, it is quite playable. But this (presumed) overscan damage has got to go. I'm not sure whether I might hurt my monitor permanently with this abuse. Can anyone advise me on this last topic in particular? Thanks. -- Charles Poirier (decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4,attmail)!vax135!cjp "Docking complete... Docking complete... Docking complete..."
jdow@gryphon.CTS.COM (Joanne Dow) (09/30/87)
In article <1889@vax135.UUCP> cjp@vax135.UUCP (Charles Poirier) writes: > >Sigh. It's an excellent game, for as long as it works. Even with only >one player, it is quite playable. But this (presumed) overscan damage >has got to go. I'm not sure whether I might hurt my monitor permanently >with this abuse. Can anyone advise me on this last topic in particular? > It is impossible to get anything other than NTSC out of the US Agnus chip unless you do extraordinary hacking in the copperlists etc. Hence I bet you are simply seeing a screen setup for garden variety vertical overscan. If the game uses sprites that might explain why it does not use horizontal overscan. (If it is a European game you may be getting the overscan as the American chip and SW settings valiantly try to cope. But you are quite unlikely to be seeing 50Hz sweep rates.) > Thanks. >-- > Charles Poirier (decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4,attmail)!vax135!cjp > > "Docking complete... Docking complete... Docking complete..." De nada -- <@_@> BIX:jdow INTERNET:jdow@gryphon.CTS.COM UUCP:{akgua, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, ihnp4, nosc}!crash!gryphon!jdow Remember - A bird in the hand often leaves a sticky deposit. Perhaps it was better you left it in the bush with the other one.