Battle of the Ports

[Leon Retro]

old palace full of dust n' 14" Matsui CRTs in every room.

[Yakumo]

This week on Battle of the Ports is a game I loved as a young boy. back in 1989 I was 14 and loved playing Geoff Crammond's Stunt Car Racer on my mates Amiga.

Let's take a look at all the ports including an unofficial Windows remake.

[Kotatsu Neko]

One of my all time favourite Amiga games. I played it to death. I played it quite a few times in link mode too, which of course involved lugging my Amiga to a friend's house (he had a spare TV). Hard as nails in retrospect, but practice made perfect.

The ST version's frame rate is noticeably higher, but for a genuinely better experience play it on a higher spec Amiga, like an A3000 or A4000. They really fly by comparison. Bit of a shame it never saw an updated release on the 32-bit systems.

[samanosuke]

Never thought I’d hear myself say this but... ST version FTW!

Really disappointing Speccy port as usually Spectrum games have much better frame rates that their Amstrad counterparts, and looking at the Amstrad version it’s clear that the Speccy could and should have fared much better.

[Mayhem]

I believe Crammond actually started the C64 version first and then ported to ST/Amiga, but all three versions were out together (Zzap certainly reviewed both 64 and Amiga versions in the same issue)

[Team Andromeda]

One of my all time favourite Amiga games. I played it to death. I played it quite a few times in link mode too, which of course involved lugging my Amiga to a friend's house (he had a spare TV). Hard as nails in retrospect, but practice made perfect.

The ST version's frame rate is noticeably higher, but for a genuinely better experience play it on a higher spec Amiga, like an A3000 or A4000. They really fly by comparison. Bit of a shame it never saw an updated release on the 32-bit systems.

Loved this game so much, so gutted Geoff never made a 32bit sequel. I find most polygon ST games to run a little better than the Amiga

[Leon Retro]

Never thought I’d hear myself say this but... ST version FTW!

Yeah, it's a bit more nippy than the Amiga version.

Loved this game so much, so gutted Geoff never made a 32bit sequel.

I was gutted when the proposed Xbox version didn't get released.

[Team Andromeda]

Yeah, it's a bit more nippy than the Amiga version.




I was gutted when the proposed Xbox version didn't get released.

I think a lot of 3D Polygons games run just a little better on the ST, just a shame their versions sounded like crap LOL. I remember an interview with Geoff (might have been EDGE) with him hinting that he made do an update for the 32Bit systems.

Gutted he never and that his version of F1 GP3 for the Xbox, was dropped when the game was nearly finished.

[Leon Retro]

Gutted he never and that his version of F1 GP3 for the Xbox, was dropped when the game was nearly finished.

Yeah, that was a shame.

Remember this? https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/article_47687

I think it was going to be for the PC & Xbox. Wiki states that it was also cancelled alongside GP4 for the Xbox.

[DeathAdder]

(taps watch impatiently)

[Yakumo]

Welcome to the second Battle of the Ports Remastered series. Today we are revisited Final Fight. The original video released on 30th August 2013 only covered 11 versions of the game and ran at 30fps 720p without any voice-over.
This remastered video runs at 60fps 1080p with voice-over and includes 14 unique versions of Final Fight and that doesn't include emulations of the arcade rom running on other platforms such as that found on the PS2's Final Fight Street Wise or compilation packs and virtual consoles.

[Kotatsu Neko]

I've always loved the Mega CD version. I know that technically the X68000 version is better, but the combination of it being on a system I both own and love, and the arranged soundtrack really makes it appealing. It really showed how the MCD could be used, focusing on the increased storage, extra CPU power, and better sound chip. The SFC version seemed amazing back in the day though, to see something which appeared to be visually arcade perfect (it wasn't, but doing a side by side comparison back then was kind of tricky) seemed like the future.

I didn't know most of the home ports ever existed, It's bold at least to try and port a high end arcade with gigantic sprites to a Spectrum. The Amiga port is especially unforgivable. It was never going to be arcade perfect, but it should have been possible to run it in 32 colour mode and draw the characters on the blitter at 25fps. 50fps wouldn't have been possible with such huge characters.

[Team Andromeda]

The Mega-CD version is the best for me. I never played the X68000 version mind, but never had 2 grand, to import the system back in the day either.

[Nu-Eclipse]

The X68000 port is pretty much the "master track", given that Capcom developed their CPS-1 and CPS-2 games on the machine.

That said, the MCD port was for a long time the easiest way for many to play a near-arcade perfect port. Personally, I can't stand the arranged soundtrack on Final Fight CD and think that the arranged soundtrack on Double Impact is superior.

Final Fight One GBA gets a special mention from me. A far better port than given credit for and shows up the SNES/SFC ports, although to be fair Capcom likely had to rush the original port of SNES/SFC Final Fight to release and were dealing with the SNES/SFC tech in its infancy at the time. Final Fight Guy probably should've been a better port though.

All of the home computer ports are trash.

[Leon Retro]

The SFC version seemed amazing back in the day though

After being gutted with how poor the Amiga version was, the SFC version was a revelation. If only Capcom had opted for a 16mb cart, but at the time 8mb was the norm.

The Amiga port is especially unforgivable. It was never going to be arcade perfect, but it should have been possible to run it in 32 colour mode and draw the characters on the blitter at 25fps. 50fps wouldn't have been possible with such huge characters.

I remember feeling that the Amiga version was a big mess. You could say it's not terrible, but I hated playing it. It's up there with Chase HQ as an Amiga port that felt extremely underwhelming. Bad memories of wasting £20 on each of them.

but never had 2 grand, to import the system back in the day either.

I share your pain.