Battle of the Ports

[Kotatsu Neko]

It's a real shame that the bitmaps never used the Amiga's hardware properly. I assume they're essentially running software scrolling on the blitter, as the frame rate is higher than the ST (which actually had a faster CPU), rather than using the Amiga's hardware scrolling. Had they used the hardware as it was intended,all of their games would run at 50fps. They also don't use any of the Amiga's hardware sprites (which come with their own pallete of 16 colours), instead using software sprites (either on the CPU or as BOBs on the blitter) with the same restrictive pallete as the 4-bit playfield.

Personally, I also found their games really over-rated. I put a lot of their fame down to their celebrity lifestyle and nice art.

[Cepp]

I always preferred the a500 colour pallete for this game.

[Leon Retro]

It's a real shame that the bitmaps never used the Amiga's hardware properly.

Yeah, it's such a shame. Lots of people think of The Bitmap Brothers as a very significant Amiga developer, but they never took full advantage of the hardware. It was the same situation with lots of devs because publishers tended to want games made with the ST in mind.

I
Personally, I also found their games really over-rated. I put a lot of their fame down to their celebrity lifestyle and nice art.

Speedball 2 is still one my favourite games, so that's easily the highlight from their catalogue. I also quite like The Chaos Engine. Cadaver looks pretty good, but it's not my cup of tea. Lots of their other games, such as Magic Pockets, don't stand up as being anything special in my book.

I always preferred the a500 colour pallete for this game.

Yeah, it suits the vibe of the game better. A clear case of less being more. Such a nice looking A500 title.

[samanosuke]

I get the whole not utilising the Amiga thang. No way on Earth should the MS DOS version look infinitely smoother than the Amiga with its hardware scrolling.

In spite of that, deffo the A500 version FTW. The Chaos Engine and Speedball 2 deserve the hype, the rest of the Bitmap library is sh*te.

[Yakumo]

Another classic this week on Battle of the Ports but one with a modern home-brew on an ageing system.

[JazzFunk]

Bang on mate, switching lights off, this will take me to the promised land, ie. sleepwise, will watch this, have last piss, then beddy-by-boes.

[paulus]

Another classic this week on Battle of the Ports but one with a modern home-brew on an ageing system.

That Atari VCS port looks amazing. Is this the first time a 2600 game was won the battle

[Cepp]

That Atari VCS port looks amazing. Is this the first time a 2600 game was won the battle

That title screen alone is badass! Very impressive stuff.

[Mayhem]

Yeah the Atari 2600 is one of my favourite ports to the system.

[Yakumo]

The first Battle of the Ports of 2020 is here !

[Kotatsu Neko]

I've been playing through the Saturn fan translation, and while I love the art and atmosphere, I find these kind of games kind of dull after a while. They invariably boil down to clicking on every possible dialogue option and item in the scene until it triggers the next section. I wish they were less fussy and would let you progress more quickly.

As for the ports, I do like the PC98 original's high-res art, even with the low colour depth. Of the low-res versions, the Saturn version is the clear winner due to the 30fps video. The other two have 15fps video.

[Yakumo]

[Hirst]

On that Galaga pronunciation, I've not heard that "Gal-aaga" version before. But I've had a similar discussion with a Japanese guy about the pronunciation used for car manufacturer names in TV adverts - he thought it was unusual how the American English versions seemed to add extra vowels that didn't exist (particularly Maaazda), whereas British English versions were more like you'd expect a word to sound out in English, even if it differed from the Japanese way. He wondered if there was some odd differing translation rules or something.

The conclusion is that we have no idea why, but Americans seem to have their own special interpretation of how to say Japanese brand names where extra vowels and peculiar syllable emphasis can be added at random. It seems this now includes game titles too!

[S3M]

Love that intro, not heard anyone call it Galaaga myself, but it only takes one sucker, who thinks it sounds cool to spread it like wildfire on the net. Like that idiot from gamefaqs, who put out the myth that the Japanese version of Saturn DOOM was miles better, than the USA version. It had some minor changes that were also in the PAL version as the USA version released first, but not much else.

[Yakumo]

Love that intro, not heard anyone call it Galaaga myself, but it only takes one sucker, who thinks it sounds cool to spread it like wildfire on the net. Like that idiot from gamefaqs, who put out the myth that the Japanese version of Saturn DOOM was miles better, than the USA version. It had some minor changes that were also in the PAL version as the USA version released first, but not much else.

The nostalgia nerd on YouTube is one of the galahga people. Even "proving" it's the correct pronunciation.