Worst arcade conversion

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PeteProdge
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Re: Worst arcade conversion

Post by PeteProdge »

Ralf wrote: Mon Mar 05, 2018 1:50 pm Outrun is average in my opinion.

Yes, it is slow but the graphics are good and detailed. Compare other 8 bit versions.
The C64 version is crap, but crap in a really different way. Very fast, but no choice in route and the roads are far narrower.

At first glance, the MSX version looks just the same as the ZX Spectrum, but as you get going it's... oh I can't describe the weirdness of the road panning. A YouTube video will show how utterly awful and off-putting it is.
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5MinuteRetro
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Re: Worst arcade conversion

Post by 5MinuteRetro »

Ralf wrote: Mon Mar 05, 2018 1:50 pm Outrun is average in my opinion.

Yes, it is slow but the graphics are good and detailed. Compare other 8 bit versions.
I loved Outrun back in the day, on my ZX Spectrum I mean. It was probably my favourite arcade machine and as the Spectrum was the only computer I had, I guess I embraced the conversion. Yes it was slow but I think the gameplay captured the essence of the arcade machine, and it had the music (on my 128K toast rack, at least).

Still, the later Chase HQ showed what Outrun on the Speccy could've been...
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RMartins
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Re: Worst arcade conversion

Post by RMartins »

PeteProdge wrote: Mon Mar 05, 2018 9:25 am You guys have missed the biggest disappointment.

Double Dragon. Woefully poor. Maybe I'm the only one saying it because Double Dragon is my all-time favourite arcade game, and the incarnation on the ZX Spectrum is dismal (although not as bad as the Atari 2600 or Sega Master System versions).

Image
...
I have not seen the Atari 2600 version, but I would not bash it that hard, since if they have done anything remotely similar it's a success by any measure, since that machine only has 128 bytes (NOT Kbytes) of RAM, and that's for variables and stack!
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Re: Worst arcade conversion

Post by Ralf »

Atari 2600 is a machine from 1977 :o 5 years earlier than Spectrum. Comparing it to Spectrums or C64s is a bit unfair.

And yet it beats all 8 bit machines with 128 colour palette :lol:

And here's the video for anyone curious:
[media]https://youtu.be/th0-t0X8ZTk[/media]
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Juan F. Ramirez
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Re: Worst arcade conversion

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

For me, Out Run and Enduro Racer were two decent conversions, not bad games, knowing the Spectrum limitations. But I enjoyed them more back in the day. They haven't aged well.
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Juan F. Ramirez
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Re: Worst arcade conversion

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

And what about Pole Position?

For me, compared to the original, the Spectrum version is bad, the car looks 'static', with no motion. However, it's payable.

[media]https://youtu.be/FFs1Xc82Q0U [/media]
[media]https://youtu.be/76omr-7FDXo [/media]
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5MinuteRetro
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Re: Worst arcade conversion

Post by 5MinuteRetro »

Juan F. Ramirez wrote: Mon Mar 05, 2018 8:55 pm And what about Pole Position?

For me, compared to the original, the Spectrum version is bad, the car looks 'static', with no motion. However, it's payable.

[media]https://youtu.be/FFs1Xc82Q0U [/media]
[media]https://youtu.be/76omr-7FDXo [/media]
I don't think I knew that PP had made it to the Spectrum. From the video it looks like a pretty reasonable stab at a conversion. At least, it has plenty of colour: it'd have been easy for the developer to go for a lazy monochrome job.
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Re: Worst arcade conversion

Post by Ralf »

Pole Position on Spectrum looks very all right with lots of colour.

It's an early game and I believe that in early Spectrum days people wanted to do colourful games. It could have colour clash but it had to be colourful. Only later developers went the monochrome path.

It plays worse, the movement feels slow and jerky unfortunately.

But generally it's no shame for me. No classic either. It's one of the games that was very popular on other other platforms (like River Raid or Boulderdash) but not on Speccy.
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Re: Worst arcade conversion

Post by Ralf »

Another disappointing conversion is Street Fighter 2.

Image

Yes , there is also Street Fighter 1 and it's nothing special on Spectrum. But it was also nothing special on arcade so no feel of disappointment.

But Street Fighter 2 was an incredible hit and an important game in my life. Me and my mate spent many hours playing the PC version or hanging out at arcade saloons playing SF2 or watching other people playing.

And many years later I learnt that it existed on Spectrum too.

It looks good, actually the sprites are big and detailed.
But it plays terribly. It's very slow but it's not the worst thing.

The bad thing is that original SF2 was controlled with joystick and 6 buttons - light/medium/strong x hand/foot attack.

On Spectrum you have one attack button and you never know what it will do. There are frames drawn for special attacks but you never know how to make these attacks. So it plays like a completely random game.

A lost opportunity unfortunately :(
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PeteProdge
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Re: Worst arcade conversion

Post by PeteProdge »

Ralf wrote: Tue Mar 06, 2018 9:16 pm There are frames drawn for special attacks but you never know how to make these attacks. So it plays like a completely random game.
This describes the arcade original, in my eyes. Never been a fan of Street Fighter 2 in any version.
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Re: Worst arcade conversion

Post by Ralf »

This describes the arcade original, in my eyes. Never been a fan of Street Fighter 2 in any version.
Well, I suppose you didn't play it much then.

SF2 was maybe the first beatemup which introduced combo attacks. Most later solo beatemups followed this path:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combo_(video_gaming)

You know - press left + right + up + middle punch to release some super powerful attack. Because just pressing the attack buttons leaves you with standard weak attack.

It was a great fun to discover these combos and it was actually a social thing as you could learn a lot by watching/talking to more experienced players in the arcade places.

Actually in SF2 instruction for Speccy these combos are described:
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/pub/sinc ... hterII.txt

The problem is that they... don't work ;) This instruction was written for Amiga/Atari ST I believe. And when you load the game, you can see the message that the game may differ from the manual.. So actually you don't have any working instruction. Very, very lame if you ask me.

As I am a fan of beatemups I even wanted to examine source code of SF2 for Speccy to discover how it actually works. Maybe one day... ;)
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Re: Worst arcade conversion

Post by Wall_Axe »

it would be interesting to see sf2 for spectrum with tiny sprites, and the gameplay ported over by someone familiar with the disassembly of the arcade version.
if there is room you could sample ARRYOOOGENNN for dragon punch like the sampled speech the codemasters loved to use
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Re: Worst arcade conversion

Post by Bazza H »

Def Kung Fu master
It must be jelly cos jam don't wobble like that
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