Amstrad GX4000 - anyone spent any time with it

[AtariORdead]

I know the reputation it has, but I just wanted to know if anyone else has spent much time with it, and what games they have played.

 

what did you think of them, even if you have not played on one is there any games you like the look of.

 

The main reason I am asking here is that people here seem far more forgiving over failed consoles and seem to give them more of a chance ( A little too mucj in the case of the Jag, but its that particular section of this forum and how they seem to find the good in even the really bad games on that system that got me thinking about this )

 

For me

 

Burnin Rubber is actually a decent little racer

 

Pang is actually brilliant

 

Klax is as playable as ever

 

Barbarian II is a great blast for anyone who played it on the CPC, C64, and Speccy.

 

Robocop 2 and Navy Seals are very difficult but decent games

 

Switchblade II is a really cool little game

 

Crazy cars II and Fire and Forget II are not great but I enjoyed having a game on them

 

Panza kickboxing / best of the best is a lot of fun

 

Operation thunderbolt is still Fun

 

Dick tracey and coptor 271 are okish

 

Pinball magic is just pinball

 

The rest range from boring to awful IMO

 

anyone else played on one much

[phoenixdownita]

I got one and made a multicart myself.

Burned 3 EPROMs and got all 23 games (no light gun games so can't comment on the both of them).

 

I tried to spend time with it but I have to say that 8 bits really require a lot of "patience".

GX4000 has a pretty dreadful lineup, I realized that if I have to spend time on 8 bits may as well be an SMS or a NES. In the end I believe that up until 16bits there's really little that would want me coming for more an any 8 bits, special treatment only for PCE (which is an odd ball of 8 bit CPU, 16bit VDP) that I enjoy quite a lot.

 

My current 8 bit collection: GX4000, SMS, Twin Fam, 7800, Vectrex, but they rarely get turned on, and at that the GX4000 is the least compelling.

[i'm also trying to repair a ColecoVision which I know is actually enjoyable .... for a little at least]

 

In all honesty I considered many many times selling all my 8 bits as I really do not enjoy them that much, and with all the warts they carry around a good emulator is all that I can handle at this stage.

 

I am not sure this answer is on topic but there's really little worth playing on the GX4000, your comments find redeeming qualities on 13 out of 23 games .... my experience is far less forgiving.

 

Pang: fun

Burning Rubber: salvageable

Klax: never liked it but OK on the GX4000

Copter271: boooooooooring, technically ok-ish but so booooooooooring

 

The rest hadn't had time to do more than a cursory look but apart from Batman, Robocop 2, Navy Seals and Switchblade I don't really plan to as the first impression was .... ouch.

I did finish Wild Streets and it's not worth of the space it consumes on my EPROM.

 

I wanted to try the no$cart that allegedly can port a CPC/CPC+ DSK to ROM, but hadn't had the time yet and my multicart only support 128K per game, modifying it for 256K or 512K is a no go and making another one requires a donor that I don't have .... also I read somewhere that the no$cart is not entirely GX4000 compat as it seems to target a CPC+6128 .... and no keyboard games of course.

 

Sorry if I am not one of the forgiving crowd, I agree with you that around here "horrid" has a place (7800 and Jag seems to enjoy way more forgiveness they deserve).

Edited February 28, 2015 by phoenixdownita

[AtariORdead]

Oh, I agree its not what you would call a good system and alongside its peers its dreadfully underwhelming. But just in isolation I found myself happily wasting away a few hours.

 

Had to test a couple of spare machines and carts as they are part of a clearout.

 

Never heard about the multicart. Only game I am missing is Mystical, and of course Chase HQ if it exists.

 

Just wish the CPC version of Gryzor got released for it.

[phoenixdownita]

All GX4000 games are exactly 128KB and on EPROM so by "opening" an official cart, removing the EPROM and putting a socket you can burn all games .... I went a step further and wired a ZIF socket instead AND added dip switches (3 of them) so I can control manually a bigger EPROM (1MB) so I can have 8 games per chip .... not very complex, lots of soldering though.

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/224038-multicarts-suggestions/page-3?do=findComment&comment=3015347

 

The GX4000 carts can all be configured to address 512KB although no games for it ever used that much.

 

Mystical is .... well ..... underwhelming.

 

I agree with your statement that it can be "fun" in a weird kind of way to waste a few hours away with it.

[Seob]

Bought one a few years ago. Only have 1 game for it, the packin game burning rubber. Would love to have more games, but they are to expensive.

Love the design of the console. Always reminds me of a snowspeeder.

[Lost Dragon]

Chase HQ II 'exists' in a form: RG Magazine tracked down both the owner and coder of the game for an article a while back.

 

You can read about that HERE along with other GX4000 Games:

 

http://gx4000.co.uk/gamebase/games.php?game=specialcriminalinvestigations

[Lost Dragon]

When i said a while back...it was actually as far back as..Issue 46. 2-page article...Whatever happened to Chase HQ 2:S.C.I.

 

Maryn Carrol gets his driving mitts on perhaps the only copy in existance.

 

 

James Bridges lent him the boxed copy of the game, James having bought it from WAVE who advertised in Amstrad Action Magazine.

 

Ocean farmed the conversion out to Ice Software, lead coder was Ian Morrison, who's memory was said to be sketchy of the GX version, but knows they focused on ZX Speccy version 1st and projected sales for the GX version might not of been high enough to justify it's release.

 

He went onto say Ocean were interested in supporting cartridge games, but Amstrad had problems duplicating carts and thus releases for games like Robocop 2, Pang, Navy seals etc were late and by then CPC Plus range was being sold off cheaply to clear stocks/shelves etc at retailers.

 

Article ends by describing it as a lukewarm Speccy port with a splash of colour.

[CatPix]

I don't have a GX4000, but I do own an Amstrad 128+ (which is, for those unaware, the origins of the GX4000 : it's a cut-down Amstrad Plus (can't recall if it's a 464 or 6128) much like the Atari XEGS is an Atari 8bits without keyboard).

It has lots of potential, but it was released at least 2 years too late, and was not exploited much by both Amstrad and third party programmers (which make sense, after all, the system was too late) only few games use the power of the system.

 

While not being as powerful as the PC-Engine or the Megadrive as Amstrad claimed, the Plus had quite good hardware :

Z80 @ 3.3 (4Mhtz effective, but reduced to 3.3 for technical reasons)

RAM is 64 or 128Ko depending on the model

Video modes goes as this :

160×200 16 colours ("Mode 0", 20 text columns)

320×200 4 colours ("Mode 1", 40 text columns)

640×200 2 colours ("Mode 2", 80 text columns)

 

Original palette of 27 colors on the original CPC, extended to 4096 colours on the CPC Plus; also modes are extented from a maximum of 16 to 32 colours; the Plus range also add sprites support and soft scrolling.

 

Sound is a classical AY-3-8912, stereo. The Plus range allow better management of it, resulting in more complex soundtrack (or simply for games to being able to play music and sound effect at the same time. Apparently is was a difficult task on the original CPC as many games doesn't do it properly - other games do, so I guess it's due to a lack of time or knowledge in most cases).

Unfortunately both the Plus computers and GX4000 are rare. Else we'd see lots of nice homebrew on those.

[Lost Dragon]

Yep from quotes i've read in likes of Gamestm/RetroGamer over the year, people within Amstrad itself, Ocean etc all agree it really was a case of arriving far too late.Much like the Sam Coupe, people simply were'nt interested in buying souped up 8 Bit Hardware. 'All eyes' being as it were, on the ST and Amiga, where bigger and better things were happening.

 

More colourful ZX Spectrum ports were'nt going to do it any favours either.

 

Things could of been very different had it been released 2-3 years earlier and the 3rd party software houses gotten behind it.

 

I'll always recal Mean Machines Magazine talking with regret that they (well management) decided to cover the GX4000 in the 1st few issues, rather than the PC Engine.The thinking being that as the Amstrad console was a UK Machine, they'd get the UK Publishers advertising games for it in Mean Machines.

[Lost Dragon]

Good friend of mine was throwing out a load of old mags, so i nipped in and nabbed a few, in amongst them was RetroGamer Magazine Issue 139, with a Minority Report on the GX4000.

 

Now, i've often been 'shot down' for being vocal about magazines just playing safe, doing the same old, same old and getting people who are a little too 'biased' towards hardware to cobver it, ie re-writting NES UK History...so i'm going to give RG a 100% honest big 'Thumbs Up' for getting someone who i'd previousily 'known' not to be a huge fan of the GX4000 (And i quote:...but this is really is a terrible console that is not helped by the atrocious joypads' ) cover it.

 

I myself was'nt really a CPC fan during my C64 days but found new respect for it, trying a CPC Emulator out a few years back, so yes, big pat on the back for giving the article to someone who could give an honest apprasial on the games, as just that, games.

 

The article itself?.In the main, some great choices there....

[Lost Dragon]

I'd of liked to have heard a lot more about the GX4000 version of Pang itself, rather than quite so much text devoted to it's background, Switchblade was a superb choice, coder Jeff Calder (i think) did a great job on the conversion, good to see Batman, Tennis Cup, Robocop, Fire+Forget 2 and Navy Seals covered, but i'd like to have read what differences the GX4000 Hardware allowed for from that of a std CPC.

 

I was surprised to see Operation Thunderbolt featured again, as it was already covered (in a bit more depth as to differences) earlier in the same issue in the superb Making Of...Operation Thunderbolt feature, so a little proof reading within the department i feel, should of flagged that up and had a suitable replacement choosen, maybe:Super Pinball Magic? that used the GX Colour Palette and High Res mode to great effect or if you wanted a Rare Title:Go for The Trojan Phazer pack, with Skeet Shoot+Enforcer. Just 2 humble suggestions which would of been nice, rather than Op.Thunderbolt..again....

Edited April 6, 2015 by Lost Dragon

[Lost Dragon]

The Entry for Ocean's conversion of Plotting spun me out a bit, text describes it as obscure, but then details Ocean converted it to most (major) home formats at the time, so it's not really obscure if it got released on formats like CPC, Spectrum, C64, ST etc here in UK, is it?.

 

There was even a planned C64GS release:http://www.gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/plotting/

 

Again, touch of proof reading might have solved that ?

 

I'd previousily never heard of No Exit, looks like i did'nt miss much :-)

 

But yep, (minor) niggles and perhaps tad over-use of 'Attractive Graphics' in places :-) aside, I really enjoyed the article.Always great to find out about games you missed and great to see another fellow gamer change his mind on the CPC hardware.

 

Magazines like RG can play a key role in getting people to give over looked hardware a second chance, be it the GX4000 or the Atari ST.