Were Amstrads any good?

[salacious crumb]

This might sound a bit of a weird question especially from someone who never owned an amstrad in his life but which was the best 16 bit system. I'm thinking here especially of graphics. Most of the games back then were converted to all 3 systems and there wasn't much too choose from a playability level so graphics for me was one of the things that defined the system.

I had a C64 and most of my mates had a speccys. I never ever knew anyone with an Amstrad so never actually saw what the games were like in comparison. All I seem to remember is Amstrad games looking better on the back of the boxes!!

Don't get me wrong I loved my commodore but can anyone enlighten me from back then? Any Amstrad owners out there?

[mwaawm]

I had an amstrad and used to live in shame as it was considered inferior to the C64 by al my mates who conveniently owned spectrums and C64s. I'd never played on a C64 at the time just spectrums and my amstrad.

It was only when I came to sell it and the bloke and his 10 year old son who I was demoing it to said 'yes the graphics look much better than on that C64 we saw earlier' that I realised what a superior system it was. OK the Commodore had better sound but of all 8bit home computers the Amstrad had the best graphics by a long way.

[olly]

Depends which you mean. I had a CPC 6128, and the graphics were superior to the other computers. I think earlier amstrads may have been inferior, though.

[mrsambarlow]

Amstrads were superb. They didn't have as good sound as the C64, and they didn't get some of the software from the hardcore c64/Amiga scene, but the graphics were the best and they had a lot of exclusive European (esp. French) games that didn't make it to the other 8-bits.

It was a shame so many developers did straight ports from the Spectrum and failed to take advantage of the graphics--which in the high-res, four colour mode could pass as greyscaled versions of the Amiga or ST. In cases where the developers went the extra mile and didn't do lazy ports, the Amstrad had the definitive versions of 8-bit classics.

--Sam

[SuperBrother]

Two words mate, Ikari Warriors! This game made me green with envy when I had to leave my mates house after a good 8 hour Amstrad session to go back to my humble speccy.

[goldbricker]

A mate of mine had the 6128. It had some decent conversions with Chase HQ and Arkanoid being some of the better ones that I remember.

[amorenod]

Aaaaah, the CPC 6218. Great games like Gryzor and Renegade used multi-load on the CPC 464/664, but loaded in one go on the 6128.

Great machine when programmed by: Ocean, Elite
Pathetic machine when programmed by : US Gold and his coders (Probe, Tiertex, Software Creations ...)

[muddy]

to argue the Ocean call there... 2 games in point

Head Over Heels - awesome Amstrad version, best of the bunch

Wizball - utterly dismal port

[amorenod]

Agreed, but even the mighty Nintendo can do wrong. With US Gold, that was the norm.

EDIT: In this CPC context. On C64 was very different, for example, Bionic Commando

[salacious crumb]

Well I'm a little clearer now

Didn't even realise there was two versions of the Amstrad which shows how much I know!! Stick to my C64 - didn't even know that it had the best sound, knew it was better than the speccy but thought Amstrad would have quite good sound. Considering how good the music was back then I'm quite glad I had my c64.

[Welrain]

two versions??!?! I count Five ;-)

It does seem to be the general trend that Amstrad users grew up as lonely individuals playing their cpc's while their mates played on speccy's and C64's...but we all knew we had the best computer didnt we ;-)

[olly]

Preach it, brother

[salacious crumb]

I will find out what i've been missing!!

Anyone know the best emulator for Amstrads?

Found quite a few good games here: http://www.users.bigpond.com/winthrop/ams/cpcgame.htm

[Madbury]

Sure they had pretty graphics, but boy were they slow. imo games like Chase HQ and Guantlet were vastly superior on the speccy.

[stroppa]

I had a CPC464, which had the colour monitor, I loved it. Matchday II is a game I reminisce about a lot when thinking back to my amstrad days, as well as tracksuit manager and Leaderboard.

Roland in the Caves anyone?