08-06-2022, 01:35 PM
To think that this post had about 50+ revisions before posting as progress kept flip-flopping. Well it's posted now.
Firstly:
Oooh... Navy SEALs... He's actually nameless in this game (only called Navy Seal or "you" in the manual for the other versions) but since he looks so much like Charlie Sheen and follows the plotline of the film.
Remember when I was talking about sunsetting regarding the Amstrad CPC? Well...
Decided to have a break on the Game Boy and SNES for a bit (still working on some sheets including waves that race and bubbles that bobble) outside of a few title screens to beef up the sections. Instead focused on getting the massive backlog down.
Have been going through a bunch of games on the computer using CPC Game Reviews as a guide. Any that looked interesting or appealed to me. Then booting up Caprice Forever to see if they are rippable, many of them aren't. If they are, it's on this list. The ones that I intentionally skipped are the recent homebrew games as in games made in the past 15 years or so and especially the Spanish scene/Batman Group where they have done some impressive stuff. It's because I respect the developers working on the games, sometimes even crunching for a competition that's a bit wrong for something that is meant to be for fun. Anyone who worked on the CPC scene and want their sprites on the site though, just let the tSR staff know.
Hollywood or Bust
The Addams Family
Buggy II
There was no Buggy 1 in case anyone asks.
Formula 1 Simulator
Motocross Simulator
Was in the backlog for ages (since December 24 last year), the game is waaaaaaay too difficult. The timing to do the jumps is extremely tight and doesn't help with lag to boot. Took about 200 attempts just to do the first jump and doesn't help by the end of the first stage where you have to jump over a gap, due to the push scrolling most of the time you can't make it and think that only did it 3 times successfully over countless attempts. Haven't got much further than that... Luckily got all the sprites for the rider though and that counts. It even says something that the person who reviewed the game and made the trainer version (the game with built in cheats) says "It is let down by the game not being at all easy to get into - getting your bike over the first obstacle can be a feat in itself." Probably for fans of the Sonic 3 level select as even Souls fans would ragequit.
Joe Blade 2
The Adventures of Bond... Basildon Bond
One of the first games made by Probe (if not the first) and you get see some weird licensed games... Literally based off a sketch from a British 1980s comedy show that is suppose to be a 007 spoof yet the character looks more like a 1980s ninja played by Richard Harrison.
Speed King
Like Formula 1 Simulator, this has no loading screen compared to the other versions. It seems to be a common thing from Mastertronic. Also a little known fact, this was co-developed by the same person as the legendary Deathchase on the Spectrum.
BMX Kidz
Closest thing on the computer to Excitebike. No loading screen as it is case. Oh and BT (British Telecom) published this game and had a few labels (Firebird, Rainbird, Silverbird), they were very prolific famous for bringing out the Bubble Bobble ports but also for Don't Buy This on the Spectrum. They published over 130 games. You wouldn't think that a phone/telecom company would be one of the more well known publishers for games back then?
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Developed by the co-founders of Tiertex so you'll know what to expect (Tiertex was founded after this game was released). Also one of the few games where you can literally choose what palette scheme that you want for the game via the pause screen. Yeah the default is Indy wearing blue and the CPC doesn't have any brown... Still Indy in blue...
But that's not the end of the story! While ripping this, discovered that the game uses collision detection based transparency meaning that I literally had to hack away the background tiles so it could show the boundaries of the sprites. As for why, the game only displays 4 colors and one of them is in black (remove the black from the graphics viewer affects the sprites). This is a trick for fake transparency which is why it looks a bit funky. It took too long...
Lost Caves
From Indy himself to being inspired by the series but plays like Boulder Dash. Ripped pretty quickly by comparison. It's also one of the few games actually programmed by a magazine editor (Amstrad Action fittingly enough). Probably got a good review then
Oh and no fancy collision detection based transparency, the sprites... well... tiles really are 4 colors. You can even see the tiles overlapping when a boulder is moved.
Beach Buggy Simulator
Really stretching the use of simulator here... Still the idea of buggies firing rockets at helicopters while jumping and listening to a 4 minute song does seem cool.
Bounty Bob Strikes Back
What platformers were like before Super Mario Bros, considered to be a Commodore 64 classic (that I might end up doing).
Scalextric
Nebulus
Galachip
Galaxian or Galaga weren't released on the CPC but didn't stop people making clones and this is a decent French developed one by Carlo Perconti. The computer had a metric ton of Space Invaders clones (and an official sequel) including one that Titus made but not as much for the Namco shmups and many of those were homebrew that you had to type in yourself from looking at a magazine/book. This was a retail release though.
Despite looking simple to rip and most of it is, there were just two things that I couldn't find in the graphics viewer at all... The Chip logo on the loading screen and the white pixels used for the starfield, the former seemed to be part of the screen (no different than a capture) and the latter seems to be generated by the game. Those two things took longer to figure out than 90% of the rips of the game!
While ripping this, discovered that this computer had a Fantasy Zone clone! So obscure that neither the CPC fans or the Fantasy Zone fans know about it.
Volley-Ball
Penalty Soccer
Basically a mini game packaged as a retail game, at least the graphics aren't too bad. Also there's something strange that's unused...
Wacky Darts
The only thing wacky in this game is the collision detection. A shame that you can't play as the computer opponents with rockets, shurikens and axes as your darts because that would have been pretty cool. This was also a late Codemasters game from 1992 and find it interesting that they still supported these home computers when every other company either closed down, moved onto other systems, just make compilation packs (that themselves also did), making the likes of Count Duckula 2 or just having homebrew.
Australian Rules Football
Bully's Sporting Darts
Have some Bully for you.
A Question of Scruples
Finally we have...
Mega Twins (Prototype)
There are two builds of the game, both very unfinished and both have one thing that the other doesn't have. From the looks of things, it was shaping up to be a good port and there are far worse arcade ports that were released. Plus this version gave the players default names which is something that isn't in the other versions being more randomised if you don't choose your own.
On top of that done most of Daley Thompson's Decathlon, Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future, a famous cat & mouse duo as well as some housekeeping.
The irony of all these Amstrad CPC rips? Never had the home computer and only played on 1 game on a home computer (Horace Goes Skiing on the Spectrum). For most people under the age of 30, a home computer is what people had before playing on consoles or computers. Imagine a PC but instead of being a laptop or a desktop, the entire computer is inside the keyboard. Depends on the model, some you would had to connect a tape player (Commodore 64, the earlier models of the Spectrum), a floppy disk drive and only the 16-bit computers had a mouse due to the menus on older computers being in command line (Atari ST, Amiga and the Acorn RISC based PCs had a GUI). They were popular due to the price of the games and if you couldn't afford it/didn't want to pay, people just copied tapes/disks that annoyed publishers.
As for why, it is a case of forgotten history in terms of the gaming world. A lot of gaming companies started on home computers, some that are still alive today (EA, Ubisoft, HAL Laboratory, Codemasters just about). The French and the Spanish gaming industries grew especially in the case of Ubisoft where it was their start. That's why their games are buggy and have bad frame rates.
Another reason is because it is easier for me to see just because Caprice Forever shows the sprites double their actual size (or double the height for Mode 2 stuff) for the graphics viewer. Really, it says 32px for the Y position but looking at it shows up 64px. Even then usually have to zoom in as much as 800-900% in GraphicsGale to see the pixels clearly enough and sometimes even have to zoom in the graphics viewer because sometimes we're dealing with a few pixels for a sprite (e.g. when a car zooms out in a racing game and it's the last sprite before disappearing).
Left for me to do in terms of the backlog:
Don't worry, once the massive backlog is down it'll be back to the console rips and the much smaller Spectrum backlog. Saying that did manage to find a new Commodore 64 emulator that has a graphics viewer but before I can even get onto that...
Hint for what's to come in the not too distant future: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Firstly:
Lt. Dale Hawkins
Oooh... Navy SEALs... He's actually nameless in this game (only called Navy Seal or "you" in the manual for the other versions) but since he looks so much like Charlie Sheen and follows the plotline of the film.
Remember when I was talking about sunsetting regarding the Amstrad CPC? Well...
Decided to have a break on the Game Boy and SNES for a bit (still working on some sheets including waves that race and bubbles that bobble) outside of a few title screens to beef up the sections. Instead focused on getting the massive backlog down.
Have been going through a bunch of games on the computer using CPC Game Reviews as a guide. Any that looked interesting or appealed to me. Then booting up Caprice Forever to see if they are rippable, many of them aren't. If they are, it's on this list. The ones that I intentionally skipped are the recent homebrew games as in games made in the past 15 years or so and especially the Spanish scene/Batman Group where they have done some impressive stuff. It's because I respect the developers working on the games, sometimes even crunching for a competition that's a bit wrong for something that is meant to be for fun. Anyone who worked on the CPC scene and want their sprites on the site though, just let the tSR staff know.
Hollywood or Bust
Buster Baloney
Enemies
The Addams Family
Gomez Addams
Buggy II
Buggy
There was no Buggy 1 in case anyone asks.
Formula 1 Simulator
Car
Rival Cars
Motocross Simulator
Rider
Was in the backlog for ages (since December 24 last year), the game is waaaaaaay too difficult. The timing to do the jumps is extremely tight and doesn't help with lag to boot. Took about 200 attempts just to do the first jump and doesn't help by the end of the first stage where you have to jump over a gap, due to the push scrolling most of the time you can't make it and think that only did it 3 times successfully over countless attempts. Haven't got much further than that... Luckily got all the sprites for the rider though and that counts. It even says something that the person who reviewed the game and made the trainer version (the game with built in cheats) says "It is let down by the game not being at all easy to get into - getting your bike over the first obstacle can be a feat in itself." Probably for fans of the Sonic 3 level select as even Souls fans would ragequit.
Joe Blade 2
Joe Blade
Punk
The Adventures of Bond... Basildon Bond
Basildon Bond
Enemies
Items
One of the first games made by Probe (if not the first) and you get see some weird licensed games... Literally based off a sketch from a British 1980s comedy show that is suppose to be a 007 spoof yet the character looks more like a 1980s ninja played by Richard Harrison.
Speed King
Rider
Computer Riders
Like Formula 1 Simulator, this has no loading screen compared to the other versions. It seems to be a common thing from Mastertronic. Also a little known fact, this was co-developed by the same person as the legendary Deathchase on the Spectrum.
BMX Kidz
BMX Kid
Closest thing on the computer to Excitebike. No loading screen as it is case. Oh and BT (British Telecom) published this game and had a few labels (Firebird, Rainbird, Silverbird), they were very prolific famous for bringing out the Bubble Bobble ports but also for Don't Buy This on the Spectrum. They published over 130 games. You wouldn't think that a phone/telecom company would be one of the more well known publishers for games back then?
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Indiana Jones
Developed by the co-founders of Tiertex so you'll know what to expect (Tiertex was founded after this game was released). Also one of the few games where you can literally choose what palette scheme that you want for the game via the pause screen. Yeah the default is Indy wearing blue and the CPC doesn't have any brown... Still Indy in blue...
But that's not the end of the story! While ripping this, discovered that the game uses collision detection based transparency meaning that I literally had to hack away the background tiles so it could show the boundaries of the sprites. As for why, the game only displays 4 colors and one of them is in black (remove the black from the graphics viewer affects the sprites). This is a trick for fake transparency which is why it looks a bit funky. It took too long...
Lost Caves
Explorer
Nomad
From Indy himself to being inspired by the series but plays like Boulder Dash. Ripped pretty quickly by comparison. It's also one of the few games actually programmed by a magazine editor (Amstrad Action fittingly enough). Probably got a good review then
Oh and no fancy collision detection based transparency, the sprites... well... tiles really are 4 colors. You can even see the tiles overlapping when a boulder is moved.
Beach Buggy Simulator
Beach Buggy
Enemies
Really stretching the use of simulator here... Still the idea of buggies firing rockets at helicopters while jumping and listening to a 4 minute song does seem cool.
Bounty Bob Strikes Back
Bounty Bob
What platformers were like before Super Mario Bros, considered to be a Commodore 64 classic (that I might end up doing).
Scalextric
Cars
Nebulus
Enemies
Galachip
Gameplay Sprites
Galaxian or Galaga weren't released on the CPC but didn't stop people making clones and this is a decent French developed one by Carlo Perconti. The computer had a metric ton of Space Invaders clones (and an official sequel) including one that Titus made but not as much for the Namco shmups and many of those were homebrew that you had to type in yourself from looking at a magazine/book. This was a retail release though.
Despite looking simple to rip and most of it is, there were just two things that I couldn't find in the graphics viewer at all... The Chip logo on the loading screen and the white pixels used for the starfield, the former seemed to be part of the screen (no different than a capture) and the latter seems to be generated by the game. Those two things took longer to figure out than 90% of the rips of the game!
While ripping this, discovered that this computer had a Fantasy Zone clone! So obscure that neither the CPC fans or the Fantasy Zone fans know about it.
Volley-Ball
Players
Penalty Soccer
Goalkeeper
Goal
Basically a mini game packaged as a retail game, at least the graphics aren't too bad. Also there's something strange that's unused...
Wacky Darts
The Humanoid
Portraits
The only thing wacky in this game is the collision detection. A shame that you can't play as the computer opponents with rockets, shurikens and axes as your darts because that would have been pretty cool. This was also a late Codemasters game from 1992 and find it interesting that they still supported these home computers when every other company either closed down, moved onto other systems, just make compilation packs (that themselves also did), making the likes of Count Duckula 2 or just having homebrew.
Australian Rules Football
Players
Bully's Sporting Darts
Bully
Have some Bully for you.
A Question of Scruples
Portraits & Expressions
Finally we have...
Mega Twins (Prototype)
Ron / Player 1
Don / Player 2
There are two builds of the game, both very unfinished and both have one thing that the other doesn't have. From the looks of things, it was shaping up to be a good port and there are far worse arcade ports that were released. Plus this version gave the players default names which is something that isn't in the other versions being more randomised if you don't choose your own.
On top of that done most of Daley Thompson's Decathlon, Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future, a famous cat & mouse duo as well as some housekeeping.
The irony of all these Amstrad CPC rips? Never had the home computer and only played on 1 game on a home computer (Horace Goes Skiing on the Spectrum). For most people under the age of 30, a home computer is what people had before playing on consoles or computers. Imagine a PC but instead of being a laptop or a desktop, the entire computer is inside the keyboard. Depends on the model, some you would had to connect a tape player (Commodore 64, the earlier models of the Spectrum), a floppy disk drive and only the 16-bit computers had a mouse due to the menus on older computers being in command line (Atari ST, Amiga and the Acorn RISC based PCs had a GUI). They were popular due to the price of the games and if you couldn't afford it/didn't want to pay, people just copied tapes/disks that annoyed publishers.
As for why, it is a case of forgotten history in terms of the gaming world. A lot of gaming companies started on home computers, some that are still alive today (EA, Ubisoft, HAL Laboratory, Codemasters just about). The French and the Spanish gaming industries grew especially in the case of Ubisoft where it was their start. That's why their games are buggy and have bad frame rates.
Another reason is because it is easier for me to see just because Caprice Forever shows the sprites double their actual size (or double the height for Mode 2 stuff) for the graphics viewer. Really, it says 32px for the Y position but looking at it shows up 64px. Even then usually have to zoom in as much as 800-900% in GraphicsGale to see the pixels clearly enough and sometimes even have to zoom in the graphics viewer because sometimes we're dealing with a few pixels for a sprite (e.g. when a car zooms out in a racing game and it's the last sprite before disappearing).
Left for me to do in terms of the backlog:
Don't worry, once the massive backlog is down it'll be back to the console rips and the much smaller Spectrum backlog. Saying that did manage to find a new Commodore 64 emulator that has a graphics viewer but before I can even get onto that...
![[+]](images/collapse_collapsed.png "[+]")
SpoilerHint for what's to come in the not too distant future: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX