Across the formats - Lets play "Bruce Lee"

[spider]

A small series of topics covering some of our games on other 8bit platforms.

Some background info split into three sections, Spoilered as its identical in each topic to save the same questions being asked, perhaps please read have a skim read once.

Preamble

Spoiler

None of this is in any way attempting to downgrade these games on other platforms, someone will love them elsewhere regardless of which we are all here for our retro computing experiences because we enjoy it. I sometimes enjoy titles (which are not tested here) on other platforms too!
This was initially planned to be about 10 "of the well known" but the list started to grow to 20 then 30... I had to be sensible so it is now only 21 games, otherwise it could of grown to about 100 or more.

I'm aware there are some perhaps 'better' candidates for this and also that some of the games I played do actually exist on platforms I have not tested. The reason for this is as I worked with what I "had to hand" already plus what I could find easily and actually loaded without too much difficulty.

For example I did have a couple more Oric Atmos games and some more MSX versions too, however as I was unable to get them to load I had to discount them which was a bit of a shame unfortunately but I did not want to waste too much time hunting more versions down. In general, if the version I had to hand did not work and one or two attempts (say a tape and a disc version) obtained from elsewhere did not function despite adjusting emulation machine type settings etc then I ignored that game on that machine.

Its not really a group review as such, perhaps in some ways it could be considered 'mini comments' about each game as I saw them, errors and omissions excepted! I'm also purposely not covering our versions of these games here. I do point out some differences between versions where I noticed them but this is merely for reference such as playing speed and controls etc.

Emulation stuff

Spoiler

The chosen machines being emulated along with their respective emulators I used for this are:

Amstrad CPC464 and CPC6128 via the CPCE95 and WinApe emulators

BBC Micro Model B and Master 128 via the B-Em and BeebEm emulators

Commodore Plus4 and C64 via the Hoxs and Vice emulators

MSX and MSX2 via the BlueMSX emulator

Oric Atmos via the Oricutron emulator

Testing method

Spoiler

How I did this:

I did not run one emulator then each game in turn and play, as I'd likely forget anything specific about it between each variant! Instead I did it the harder way. One game tested on each platform in turn, taking a few screenshots and making very brief notes as I played. No real attempt was made to play them too hard or for too long, merely enough to get a feel for them in their different environment and how they were. Had I played with one emulator and each game, I may of lost thoughts about some of them when it came to using a different emulator for the next round, so although it was a lot more work I think it was worth it.

The comments on each version are not always in alphabetical order in each topic, this is by machine playing order rather than design as I used one text file per game for all machines and it does not reflect any form of rating, that being because a machine is first or last in the topic does not make its version of the game any better or worse.

Closing comments

Spoiler

Its fair to say it took me ages and ages to do this over a couple of weeks as I had available free time, inclination and energy but it is something I had planned on doing quite a few months ago.

If you get half as much enjoyment from viewing the screenshots and reading my short comments on how I found each variant to be and perhaps posting a reply or two I'm happy.

Please enjoy!

BBC

Emulator: BeebEm

Intro offers (during load like some other BBC games) the option to redefine the keys, effectivly "poking" the values in.

The loading screen is quite well drawn and makes good use of colour for this platform.A different loading screen is displayed on another version too.

The game plays quite fast, a bit faster than the ZX and its also more difficult too, with ladders being a bit more difficult than usual to jump onto horizontally.

The levels colour choices are sensible and not unpleasant to look at and the graphics do not appear too pixelated given the lower resolution the game runs in.

There is only one 'baddie' the smaller character but unlike other variants he is able to climb back up ladders and jump across gaps.The horizontal 'wave' on some of the levels is missing so less accurate timing is needed however the conveyors and the deadly items on them are a bit faster.

There's no item collection sound, the game otherwise sound-wise is relatively identical to other versions.




AMSTRAD CPC

Emulator : WinApe

The loading screen and introductory screen menu closely mirror the ZX version, as expected.

There is good use of sound and there is an item collection sound present.Some of the level colour choices can perhaps be described as a bit unusual!

The game does play quite well and its feel does mirror the ZX version except the controls can sometimes be a bit slow. The game speed itself is about the same as the ZX and its only a fraction more difficult.




MSX

Emulator : BlueMSX1

There was no loading screen and the introduction and menu screens are plain compared to other versions, but quite functional enough. I'm discounting the text onto the next line as an emulator or configuration issue given the huge variety of MSX variants.

The game plays quite slowly unfortunately and although the controls are quite responsive, the player movement is not quite right somehow. The graphics are quite pixelated too.

The sound effects are fine and good use is made of a white-noise generator for when you're hit by a baddie.

[XTM]

Bruce Lee is a great game on most platforms. Personally I've played it on Speccy, C64 and CPC. Shame the Speccy version loses the coloured sprites, the Yamo just has to be green ...

Now that I've gotten this bit of on-topic banter out of the way ... let me say the following with all due respect.

Spider, I'm sure most of us appreciate this kind of topic - however, posting 21 topics in the span of seven minutes is not the way to go about it. I think the forum users will react like this: they come to the forums for a read and are greeted with page 1 of the "recent topics". That's 5 topics by you, all the same kind just for a different game. Hmmm ... then they'll go through pages 2 ... 3 ... 4 ... each page showing another 5 of these. And they may be thinking "jeez, that's a bit excessive innit?" ... then finally on page five the "regular" topics appear.

I'm absolutely aware of your good intentions to provide interesting topics to read, but posting them in such a machine gun like fashion? I'm sorry to say this but it feels like spam and most users will probably be put off from reading the topics and participating, which is certainly not what you hoped for but I'm sure this is what the reaction will be.

You've already posted them so saying this is pointless, but may I humbly suggest in future you just "drip feed" content like this, like posting one per day?

Cheers and best regards,
XTM

[PeterJ]

I think @XTM makes a good point @spider. These are great topics and you've obviously put a lot of work in, but drip-feeding is probably best.

[hitm4n]

These topics are very cool, looking at the third one so far (opened them all in their own tabs), and i'm really enjoying them. Always wondered side by side comparisons of some of these games, and yeah, a lot of work to create all these so thank you.

But so many at once? LOL.
May it continue, but 5 at a time maybe?

[spider]

Sorry all. I guess I did get carried away. Apologies.

I do hugely appreciate the kind comments though too. Thank you. Regarding "too much topics omg" yes:



No prizes for guessing why I used 1 to 21 for the loop rather than 0 to whatever. Ahem.

You're correct it did take a lot of time to do them, in the way I did, not to mention converting the pics from bmp in some cases etc.

FWIW the duplicate info won't or should not effect the SEO afaik because the rest of the topic content is so different, if anything it may go up not down due to so many different games and platforms being mentioned. I did think of this before I duplicated the 'basic info' in each. The algorithm is smart enough to see this.

[PeterJ]

Any chance of looking at the Atari 8 Bit version @spider?

http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-40 ... e_798.html

[Lethargeek]

Any chance of looking at the Atari 8 Bit version @spider?

http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-40 ... e_798.html

best version for me - plays well, has similar gfx to c64/amstrad/msx but better colours

[spider]

@PeterJ I did see that but (foolishly) assumed it was a remake, sorry!

Standby for something later today as its an "addition" rather than a new one, said "new one" being Scrabble today.

@Lethargeek Right OK, it will be interesting to compare then, difficulty level especially.

[spider]

By request then Just a short play sorry.

Atari 1200XL with Altirra64

The tape based version I tested had a simple but tidy enough text based loading screen and once loaded the introductory title page with options is very similar (colours aside) to the ZX and AMS versions. I did not notice it toggle between pages however.

Once play commences, the graphics although low resolution are nicely coloured and detailed taking into account the machines palette and the action speed is enough to not notice any pixelation. The controls respond very quickly to player input and the enemies move at a relatively fast pace. I did find it a bit more difficult than the ZX version but that may be unfamiliarity with the controls and emulator response too.

One interesting small change on the first set of three screens upon collecting the last item if you're on the middle screen with the exit, instead of the floor grate area just vanishing it neatly slides open leftwards. Another small change I noted is on the second set of levels the enemies can appear in the lower left area before Bruce has had a chance to open the doors, this can make it slightly more difficult, but not hugely so.

Bruce does seem a little bit slower in climbing ladders but not hugely so and it appears on this version its far easier to grab onto them as you can do this via a jump left or right rather than having to stand directly underneath.

The sound effects are quite pleasant to hear too, there is also a different noise upon which enemy enters a room. Upon despatching said enemy, unlike some other variants they do not flicker for a few seconds they simply disappear after a moment, in general the sprite animation is smooth and flicker free.

At game over, the score is displayed for a few seconds then its back to the title screen for another go!



EDIT... In gameplay, the graphics look better than the screenshots as they were tiny captures by the emulator (too small) so I resized them "best quality" using .png at 200% to get them from 336x224 to 672x448 , I have done this with others where the output picture are too small. Where I notice this 'in action' I will pause emulation and grab the whole window (with emulation at 100% size) and then manually cut the pic out.

[Lethargeek]

Atari 1200XL with Altirra64

ugh... do not use this config when playtesting atari games!
1200XL was an obscure, unsuccessful, least compatible model
the main ones were 400/800, 800XL and 65/130XE
just a warning

[spider]

ugh... do not use this config when playtesting atari games!

Thanks.
I'm not hugely familiar with the platform and the information available was a bit too detailed when I sort of needed a quick easy to read guide.

Here are my basic choices although the emulator is very comprehensive in its options in general:



XL/XE does result in slightly wavy text but otherwise its OK.

All noted anyway Thank you.

[+3code]

It was released too for a few Z80-based Japanese home computers as the NEC PC-88 and the Fujitsu FM7.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz21z7iDLbM

For the PC88 I use the M88 emulator.

Edit: the FM7 uses a 6809 micro, not a Z80

[Lethargeek]

XL/XE does result in slightly wavy text but otherwise its OK.

"wavy" text sounds like PAL artifacting rather than chipset feature

[merman]

To me this will always be a C64 game as I played it there first.

Mr.Jim Bagley did a Game Boy Advance remake based on the Spectrum version.