I just noticed that a new Saboteur remake (for PC) called Saboteur SiO is now available on Steam.
I will be too busy to check it out for the next few days, but I already played (actually completed) the first 2 remakes and I highly recommend both! They feel exactly like improved 128K versions of the original games, that Clive Townsend would have created if he had tons of time and money back them
If anyone's interested, the trilogy can be found here.
Gameplay looks nothing like the original, which had an air of mystery, subtlety and lots of exploration. This "sequel" is some strange, in-your-face, kitsch mash-up of arcade side scrollin beat'em ups. The scrolling itself is also atrocious. Definitive pass for me.
akeley wrote: ↑Fri Sep 18, 2020 4:07 pm
Gameplay looks nothing like the original, which had an air of mystery, subtlety and lots of exploration. This "sequel" is some strange, in-your-face, kitsch mash-up of arcade side scrollin beat'em ups. The scrolling itself is also atrocious. Definitive pass for me.
A problem with previous Saboteur games was enemies going in and out of screen when you were fighting them near the edges. Or encountering an enemy right on top of you when flipping screen. I'm sure they added scrolling to fix solve these issues.
I didn't play this sequel yet so I don't know how well it works. However I can say it looks great in ZX Spectrum mode:
Gameplay in this vid looks way better than in that awful trailer, much more like the original games. The scrolling is still abominable though. If they wanted to fix problems with enemies then I'm sure there are ways to do so in flip screen too. Besides, this is a PC game - so why is the scrolling so jerky?
akeley wrote: ↑Fri Sep 18, 2020 6:15 pm
Gameplay in this vid looks way better than in that awful trailer, much more like the original games. The scrolling is still abominable though. If they wanted to fix problems with enemies then I'm sure there are ways to do so in flip screen too. Besides, this is a PC game - so why is the scrolling so jerky?
Do you mean the char-based scrolling? They certainly did it to make it look authentic.
But I agree they could have provided an option to select char or pixel scrolling.
Oh, I see the problem!
Scrolling needs to match the running animation frames. A pixel scrolling would make the screen move several times while showing the same animation frame. It would look bad, as if the hero is always "sliding" while running.
The alternative would be a more detailed running animation. Then it wouldn't look like Saboteur anymore...
It's the reason we see a smooth scrolling when the hero is falling because he's not animated while it happens, therefore pixel scrolling is not a problem in this case.
