04-08-2023, 08:28 PM
Managed to get some spare time for some more rips while having a little break.
Spectrum
Yie Ar Kung Fu
Ripped mostly from the 128k version* meaning that it has better music more closer to the arcade that I believe used the same sound chip, Feedle and Chain are included, some graphical improvements and faster gameplay speed also matching more closer to the arcade (the 48K original is fairly slow and a bit sluggish by comparison, much harder too). It was only released as part of the Stars on the 128k Spectrum pack that also had International Match Day (already ripped), The Neverending Story (not ripping that) and Daley's Thompson's Super-Test 128 (hmm...). Cannot find Chain's chain anywhere as it was not in the same place as the rest of his sprites. The chain is one segmented "sprite" that is placed and causes flicker when a lot shows up. That's why Chain isn't here.
Oh and as for Blues, it just uses the same sprites as Oolong that shadowman44 had already ripped.
* - Except for the 48k only sprites. Weirdly both versions store their graphics in a different way, 48k loads all the characters and is easier of the two to rip as it requires no assembly while 128k only loads whatever character you fight mostly (did see bits of other characters loaded though) and splits the graphics up into two via 8 pixel strips. Since Feedle and Chain were made for the 128k version, even their design is different.
It's getting harder to continue with the Spectrum... sure there's 1000s of things to choose from but running out of games that I would pick due to a personal commercial era only rule and wouldn't rip from graphical text adventures or games coded in BASIC in most cases. So many problems from games that have the split bitplane mess of two directions in its correct size but despite being visible squashed with missing details when it is doubled (Mountain Bike Racer [Zeppelin], Gryzor, Cobra, Street Hawk Kays Catalogue Edition), games that are one or two 8 pixel strips but with no sprite boundaries (Emilio Sanchez Vicario Grand Slam, Sito Pons 500cc GP the latter also applies to the Amstrad version), games without sprite boundaries (both Road Racer and Days of Thunder have to be dropped despite progress, Grand Prix Simulator 2 from the looks of things) or in the case of Nigel Mansell's World Championship, the Spectrum version seems to run off a framebuffer with the only sprites that are displayed are the rival. Either that or the graphics are too small to see...
Currently in the backlog to finish off there's Motorbike Madness, Video Olympic, Speedboat Assassin, Dick Tracy and actually forgot about Fire & Forget on top of what was already mentioned.
Commodore 64
Turbo Out Run
Oh yeah! Now we're talking. Probably the peak in terms of the C64 rips on a personal note as the game is nicely presented (and has two awesome opening themes by Jeroen Tel).
Super Stock Car
Tried to play and rip from Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge but the game crashes on CSFEC and can only load a part of the intro or the handbook as the game calls it. Tried two original tape dumps (original release and the budget re-release), the first just crashes with out of memory while the other goes beyond the tape counter and just gets to a loading loop. Then tried Test Drive, cannot load Side 2, thought of ripping Super Soccer (not to be confused with Super Formation Soccer) but the control issues prevented from leaving the menu. Finally thought of Knuckle Busters to think of a K game to rip from but again crashed 218 on the tape counter. Oh and control issues with Pole Position.
Yeah... Sounds like ripping from the C64 with the limitations of CSFEC (easy to use emulator and has a high level of accuracy so far but not quite there yet regarding support/fully emulating the computer) is getting close to having enough and running low on good/decent racing games on the computer to choose from.
WIP wise... Ripped the sprites from Basket Master and Karate Champ but have to arrange them, started on Slicks and Mean Machine. Shanghai is just about done and so is Grand Prix Simulator. After those, Continental Circus and the previous post, I don't know...
Amstrad
Just a couple of Spanish racing games:
Angel Nieto Pole 500
This game has been in the backlog since July 2022 so it shows how bad it is, only a bit of the rider and half of the CPU one was done back then.
Anyway this is the closest thing to Hang-On on the computer visually (and playability wise if you enable Turbo at 300% on Caprice Forever). Until someone comes up with a homebrew game to surpass this, this is one of the best motorbike chase view games on the CPC along with Super Cycle, Speed King and the two Microids GP 500 games as Super Hang-On itself sadly is a Spectrum port with cut down colours (still better than the C64 version though). Even then visually it looks lovely and has a 2 player split screen mode!
Little known fact, the screenshots on the back of the box are doctored. Not massively so but it shows more detailed backgrounds such as having clouds in the sky and different roadside objects. They aren't from any other version either because the HUD and the bikes match the actual game.
Campeones
A quick rip that wasn't in the backlog. Not much to the game but does look nice for an early Amstrad game (it was done by Indescomp who pretty much became Amstrad Spain, famous for releasing Fred/Roland on the Ropes, Bugaboo/Roland in the Caves/La Pulga/The Flea/whatever and The Galactic Plague).
Started to think about beyond the Speccy/CPC/C64 home computer backlog. After a failed update, decided to redownload Emulicious and now it can rip MSX2 games. This means that I can finally work on The Castle of Cagliostro and The Legend of the Gold of Babylon using a more accessible emulator since it is on the to-do list for a few years. One issue, it seems to be that the MSX2 video mode for these games seems to be a bit of a hack in terms of the sprites.
![[Image: d6rGXjnnYj4f.png]](https://gcdnb.pbrd.co/images/d6rGXjnnYj4f.png)
If you look at the picture, one is of the outline of the sprite and the others are for the color. Probably means that it's done in layers. Weirdly enough the outline sprites makes look like some Spectrum game.
I won't be doing much on the MSX/MSX2 though (probably Lupin and some Konami games), just an idea that's been around for a while.
Spectrum
Yie Ar Kung Fu
Buchu
Star
Nuncha
Pole
Feedle
Club
Fan
Sword
Tonfun
Ripped mostly from the 128k version* meaning that it has better music more closer to the arcade that I believe used the same sound chip, Feedle and Chain are included, some graphical improvements and faster gameplay speed also matching more closer to the arcade (the 48K original is fairly slow and a bit sluggish by comparison, much harder too). It was only released as part of the Stars on the 128k Spectrum pack that also had International Match Day (already ripped), The Neverending Story (not ripping that) and Daley's Thompson's Super-Test 128 (hmm...). Cannot find Chain's chain anywhere as it was not in the same place as the rest of his sprites. The chain is one segmented "sprite" that is placed and causes flicker when a lot shows up. That's why Chain isn't here.
Oh and as for Blues, it just uses the same sprites as Oolong that shadowman44 had already ripped.
* - Except for the 48k only sprites. Weirdly both versions store their graphics in a different way, 48k loads all the characters and is easier of the two to rip as it requires no assembly while 128k only loads whatever character you fight mostly (did see bits of other characters loaded though) and splits the graphics up into two via 8 pixel strips. Since Feedle and Chain were made for the 128k version, even their design is different.
It's getting harder to continue with the Spectrum... sure there's 1000s of things to choose from but running out of games that I would pick due to a personal commercial era only rule and wouldn't rip from graphical text adventures or games coded in BASIC in most cases. So many problems from games that have the split bitplane mess of two directions in its correct size but despite being visible squashed with missing details when it is doubled (Mountain Bike Racer [Zeppelin], Gryzor, Cobra, Street Hawk Kays Catalogue Edition), games that are one or two 8 pixel strips but with no sprite boundaries (Emilio Sanchez Vicario Grand Slam, Sito Pons 500cc GP the latter also applies to the Amstrad version), games without sprite boundaries (both Road Racer and Days of Thunder have to be dropped despite progress, Grand Prix Simulator 2 from the looks of things) or in the case of Nigel Mansell's World Championship, the Spectrum version seems to run off a framebuffer with the only sprites that are displayed are the rival. Either that or the graphics are too small to see...
Currently in the backlog to finish off there's Motorbike Madness, Video Olympic, Speedboat Assassin, Dick Tracy and actually forgot about Fire & Forget on top of what was already mentioned.
Commodore 64
Turbo Out Run
Ferrari F40
Oh yeah! Now we're talking. Probably the peak in terms of the C64 rips on a personal note as the game is nicely presented (and has two awesome opening themes by Jeroen Tel).
Super Stock Car
Car
Tried to play and rip from Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge but the game crashes on CSFEC and can only load a part of the intro or the handbook as the game calls it. Tried two original tape dumps (original release and the budget re-release), the first just crashes with out of memory while the other goes beyond the tape counter and just gets to a loading loop. Then tried Test Drive, cannot load Side 2, thought of ripping Super Soccer (not to be confused with Super Formation Soccer) but the control issues prevented from leaving the menu. Finally thought of Knuckle Busters to think of a K game to rip from but again crashed 218 on the tape counter. Oh and control issues with Pole Position.
Yeah... Sounds like ripping from the C64 with the limitations of CSFEC (easy to use emulator and has a high level of accuracy so far but not quite there yet regarding support/fully emulating the computer) is getting close to having enough and running low on good/decent racing games on the computer to choose from.
WIP wise... Ripped the sprites from Basket Master and Karate Champ but have to arrange them, started on Slicks and Mean Machine. Shanghai is just about done and so is Grand Prix Simulator. After those, Continental Circus and the previous post, I don't know...
Amstrad
Just a couple of Spanish racing games:
Angel Nieto Pole 500
Riders
Riders (CPU Only)
Flagman
This game has been in the backlog since July 2022 so it shows how bad it is, only a bit of the rider and half of the CPU one was done back then.
Anyway this is the closest thing to Hang-On on the computer visually (and playability wise if you enable Turbo at 300% on Caprice Forever). Until someone comes up with a homebrew game to surpass this, this is one of the best motorbike chase view games on the CPC along with Super Cycle, Speed King and the two Microids GP 500 games as Super Hang-On itself sadly is a Spectrum port with cut down colours (still better than the C64 version though). Even then visually it looks lovely and has a 2 player split screen mode!
Little known fact, the screenshots on the back of the box are doctored. Not massively so but it shows more detailed backgrounds such as having clouds in the sky and different roadside objects. They aren't from any other version either because the HUD and the bikes match the actual game.
Campeones
Cars
Flagman
A quick rip that wasn't in the backlog. Not much to the game but does look nice for an early Amstrad game (it was done by Indescomp who pretty much became Amstrad Spain, famous for releasing Fred/Roland on the Ropes, Bugaboo/Roland in the Caves/La Pulga/The Flea/whatever and The Galactic Plague).
Started to think about beyond the Speccy/CPC/C64 home computer backlog. After a failed update, decided to redownload Emulicious and now it can rip MSX2 games. This means that I can finally work on The Castle of Cagliostro and The Legend of the Gold of Babylon using a more accessible emulator since it is on the to-do list for a few years. One issue, it seems to be that the MSX2 video mode for these games seems to be a bit of a hack in terms of the sprites.
If you look at the picture, one is of the outline of the sprite and the others are for the color. Probably means that it's done in layers. Weirdly enough the outline sprites makes look like some Spectrum game.
I won't be doing much on the MSX/MSX2 though (probably Lupin and some Konami games), just an idea that's been around for a while.