Why can't all ST games be like Domark's F1?

[oky2000]

So I was playing F1 by Domark, not the sequel F1 Championship Edition which is Amiga/Megadrive exclusive, on my Amiga 1000 I have recently unpacked (the Amiga of my youth!) and out of curiosity I thought I would check out F1 on the ST.

 

Bang, it is IDENTICAL on both, speed and sound. I was expecting weedy engine noise and square wave tire screeches etc but nope it appears to run the same speed as the Amiga whilst still playing up to two samples at the same time via CPU software sample playback.

 

This has got to be the only time Domark did an ST and Amiga game worth a damn. A great game that is great on both......it's just like the PS3/360 era of same game but completely different hardware.

[Justin Payne]

This was my favorite racing game on the ST. I played it all of the time.

[Tillek]

Well, for one reason... if all the games were like that one... wouldn't it be boring as hell?  Especially if you don't like racing games!!!!

 

[Lostdragon]

11 hours ago, oky2000 said:

So I was playing F1 by Domark, not the sequel F1 Championship Edition which is Amiga/Megadrive exclusive, on my Amiga 1000 I have recently unpacked (the Amiga of my youth!) and out of curiosity I thought I would check out F1 on the ST.

 

Bang, it is IDENTICAL on both, speed and sound. I was expecting weedy engine noise and square wave tire screeches etc but nope it appears to run the same speed as the Amiga whilst still playing up to two samples at the same time via CPU software sample playback.

 

This has got to be the only time Domark did an ST and Amiga game worth a damn. A great game that is great on both......it's just like the PS3/360 era of same game but completely different hardware.

From my memories, Domark certainly had a very mixed portfolio of ST and Amiga releases, but they put out some solid enough titles on the 16-bit systems, they treated the C64 to a lot more horrors. 

 

 

APB:As flawed as it was, at least contained the Prisoner interrogation sequence, which was sadly missing from the Lynx conversion. 

 

Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back. 

Rampart

Klax

Licence To Kill

Typhoon Thompson 

Vindicators 

Xybots 

Prince Of Persia

Hard Drivin (whilst not a fan of the game itself, worked far better on the ST than the Lynx). 

Escape From The Planet Of The Robot Monsters. 

 

[ParanoidLittleMan]

I don't think that sound is 'identical' when DMA (Amiga) and PSG sound is in case. Could say very close or like. 

In any case good PSG sample based playback eats some CPU time, what can be up to some 40% . And that can be just too much, especially if waveform based PSG sound is fine. Which btw. needs less RAM too.

And being identical as Amiga v. is criteria for good ST game ? Please ...

Good game pulls out max from existing HW, and that's different by ST and Amiga.  It is known that 3D polygon is faster on ST because faster CPU, less video RAM.

And that's where extra Amiga HW can not help.  But good SW can solve smooth scrolling, for instance. Could continue, but whatfor ... I don't care about Amiga versions.  Which has no "completely different hardware" .

[Zogging Hell]

3 hours ago, Lostdragon said:

From my memories, Domark certainly had a very mixed portfolio of ST and Amiga releases, but they put out some solid enough titles on the 16-bit systems, they treated the C64 to a lot more horrors. 

 

 

APB:As flawed as it was, at least contained the Prisoner interrogation sequence, which was sadly missing from the Lynx conversion. 

 

Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back. 

Rampart

Klax

Licence To Kill

Typhoon Thompson 

Vindicators 

Xybots 

Prince Of Persia

Hard Drivin (whilst not a fan of the game itself, worked far better on the ST than the Lynx). 

Escape From The Planet Of The Robot Monsters. 

 

That's not a bad run really, a lot better games in there than Pygnosis ST library anyway. Typhoon, Prince of Persia and those two Star Wars games are pretty damn good. The rest a pretty competant at least (Hard Drivin' perhaps not so).

 

F1 is actually just Vroom (from Lankor) with a two player mode and a license, so perhaps shouldn't be classed as a Domark game entirely. Almost certainly the best arcade style F1 racer on the ST, although it would be a toss up with this Stunt Car Racer and Microprose F1 for best overall racer on the platform IMO.

[Lostdragon]

37 minutes ago, Zogging Hell said:

That's not a bad run really, a lot better games in there than Pygnosis ST library anyway. Typhoon, Prince of Persia and those two Star Wars games are pretty damn good. The rest a pretty competant at least (Hard Drivin' perhaps not so).

 

F1 is actually just Vroom (from Lankor) with a two player mode and a license, so perhaps shouldn't be classed as a Domark game entirely. Almost certainly the best arcade style F1 racer on the ST, although it would be a toss up with this Stunt Car Racer and Microprose F1 for best overall racer on the platform IMO.

Those were the ones i had personal experience with. 

 

Only tried the Freescape games on C64 due to the SID music in cases of Driller andcDarkside, had Castle Master, but wasn't my bag.  UK ST Press seemed to like it. 

 

 

Likes of Hydra, Thunder Jaws, Skull And Crossbones  and TOO in were mediocre coin-ops to start with, so mediocre conversions were of little interest. 

 

 

This one i wished I had been given the chance to try, looked promising

 

 

 

I'd take their ST output over the absolute crud that they served up on the C64

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Zogging Hell]

2 hours ago, Lostdragon said:

 

This one i wished I had been given the chance to try, looked promising

 

 

 

I'd take their ST output over the absolute crud that they served up on the C64

I had the sequel Shadow worlds (iirc), but have never got round to playing it much. It is set in space, and is as hard as nails from what I remember. I always wanted the first one as well, although I imagine that is also a bit tricky. Kind of like a sexy Heroquest

[+DarkLord]

Typhoon Thompson and Prince of Persia are excellent games.

 

Shadowlands (original/1st) is not bad either...   Just sayin'.

 

[oky2000]

On 5/22/2022 at 2:21 AM, Tillek said:

Well, for one reason... if all the games were like that one... wouldn't it be boring as hell?  Especially if you don't like racing games!!!!

 

The conversion quality not the actual game ;)

[oky2000]

On 5/22/2022 at 7:42 AM, Lostdragon said:

From my memories, Domark certainly had a very mixed portfolio of ST and Amiga releases, but they put out some solid enough titles on the 16-bit systems, they treated the C64 to a lot more horrors. 

 

 

APB:As flawed as it was, at least contained the Prisoner interrogation sequence, which was sadly missing from the Lynx conversion. 

 

Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back. 

Rampart

Klax

Licence To Kill

Typhoon Thompson 

Vindicators 

Xybots 

Prince Of Persia

Hard Drivin (whilst not a fan of the game itself, worked far better on the ST than the Lynx). 

Escape From The Planet Of The Robot Monsters. 

 

I am no longer 100% sure exactly when I bought my used Amiga 1000 but Domark on the Amiga is generally not a 'quality' publisher ;) On the ST their games were a lot less of a shortfall for the hardware though I would agree. 

 

In the case of F1 they went all out and upped the sound quality beyond what the YM offers and you would expect, a nice surprise. Lotus II doesn't do that but I suspect the hit on scaling bitmap performance might have been larger than for the enhanced Vroom engine of F1.

[oky2000]

On 5/22/2022 at 8:21 AM, ParanoidLittleMan said:

I don't think that sound is 'identical' when DMA (Amiga) and PSG sound is in case. Could say very close or like. 

In any case good PSG sample based playback eats some CPU time, what can be up to some 40% . And that can be just too much, especially if waveform based PSG sound is fine. Which btw. needs less RAM too.

And being identical as Amiga v. is criteria for good ST game ? Please ...

Good game pulls out max from existing HW, and that's different by ST and Amiga.  It is known that 3D polygon is faster on ST because faster CPU, less video RAM.

And that's where extra Amiga HW can not help.  But good SW can solve smooth scrolling, for instance. Could continue, but whatfor ... I don't care about Amiga versions.  Which has no "completely different hardware" .

By same I really mean they sound very similar on the tiny little crappy speakers in 14" portable TVs etc.....it is a bit more scratchy but it makes little difference when playing the game. A bit like how the Direct X libraries of Xbox 360 vs PS3 alternative display driver, there is a difference in gamma and low end/high end luma definition on rendered polygons (360 seems to be better technically) but on your average CRT TV it's hard to tell :)

 

Lotus II is a fine game on both the ST and Amiga, ditto Batman the Movie (if you turn off that no talent cunt music by Johnathan Dunn and stick to just SFX on the ST) but in the case of F1 I had to go and check on STeem to make sure the youtube videos were not being recorded from STE emulation mode. The title page music is admittedly more scratchy but it's a crap bit of music anyway and the SFX are fine as they are when played on my Commodore 1084SD monitor on both.

 

T

[oky2000]

On 5/23/2022 at 5:22 AM, DarkLord said:

Typhoon Thompson and Prince of Persia are excellent games.

 

Shadowlands (original/1st) is not bad either...   Just sayin'.

 

Indeed, the graphics of the stonework on the ST version look much nicer than the EGA looking crap on Amiga Prince of Persia, so I refused to play it on the Amiga.

[Lostdragon]

1 hour ago, oky2000 said:

By same I really mean they sound very similar on the tiny little crappy speakers in 14" portable TVs etc.....it is a bit more scratchy but it makes little difference when playing the game. A bit like how the Direct X libraries of Xbox 360 vs PS3 alternative display driver, there is a difference in gamma and low end/high end luma definition on rendered polygons (360 seems to be better technically) but on your average CRT TV it's hard to tell

 

Lotus II is a fine game on both the ST and Amiga, ditto Batman the Movie (if you turn off that no talent c*nt music by Johnathan Dunn and stick to just SFX on the ST) but in the case of F1 I had to go and check on STeem to make sure the youtube videos were not being recorded from STE emulation mode. The title page music is admittedly more scratchy but it's a crap bit of music anyway and the SFX are fine as they are when played on my Commodore 1084SD monitor on both.

 

T

Loved Batman The Movie on C64 and the 3D sections on the ST version, but the music was weak on the ST version as expected due to the AY soundchip. 

 

 

 

[youxia]

2 hours ago, oky2000 said:

no talent cunt music by Johnathan Dunn

I'm sure it was the lack of talent which kept him employed in the audio biz for more than a decade and why he is credited on numerous popular games.

 

These edgelord takes, so rife on retro boards, are actually quite amusing when you realise they mostly come from 40+ year old grown-ass men, and not some hopped up teens ?

[Lostdragon]

I'd personally rather not see the C-word used on here, hear it plenty at work thanks. 

 

Johnathan Dunn was a very respected musician over here, kind enough to give detailed interviews at the time. 

 

https://archive.org/stream/the-games-machine-27/TheGamesMachine27#page/n91/mode/2up

 

And in the years since:

 

https://www.atlantis-prophecy.org/recollection/?load=interviews&id_interview=92

 

 

He has a very respectable portfolio of music to his credit,across multiple systems. 

 

 

https://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,31702/

 

 

He was synonymous with the late-1980s to early-1990s Ocean and Imagine software era..

 

 

His work  was used in a TV commercial.. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[oky2000]

10 hours ago, Lostdragon said:

Loved Batman The Movie on C64 and the 3D sections on the ST version, but the music was weak on the ST version as expected due to the AY soundchip. 

 

 

 

Personally I would say if that was the only music you heard on the ST that just used the AY/YM facilities you would put it in the same class as the Mattel Aquarius/Jupiter Ace. It's like a circuit bent Pong console. There are some brilliant tunes on the ST, Rolling Thunder is catchy, Xennon II is haunting via a nice hi-fi and Goldrunner is iconic but Batman...meh I personally think it's terrible technically. So odd because the scrolling on level 1 is lovely, the pixel art identical (16+16 colour game screen via a single pallet split on both Amiga and ST) and the 3D sections are very similar, too close to be worth mentioning.

 

 

[oky2000]

7 hours ago, Lostdragon said:

I'd personally rather not see the C-word used on here, hear it plenty at work thanks. 

 

Johnathan Dunn was a very respected musician over here, kind enough to give detailed interviews at the time. 

 

https://archive.org/stream/the-games-machine-27/TheGamesMachine27#page/n91/mode/2up

 

And in the years since:

 

https://www.atlantis-prophecy.org/recollection/?load=interviews&id_interview=92

 

 

He has a very respectable portfolio of music to his credit,across multiple systems. 

 

 

https://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,31702/

 

 

He was synonymous with the late-1980s to early-1990s Ocean and Imagine software era..

 

 

His work  was used in a TV commercial.. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jason Donovan sold a lot of records......so did Michael Bolton.....talent and fame rarely have anything to do with it. He is not bad, he is OK...no better than that.

[Hwlngmad]

On 5/21/2022 at 2:06 PM, oky2000 said:

So I was playing F1 by Domark, not the sequel F1 Championship Edition which is Amiga/Megadrive exclusive, on my Amiga 1000 I have recently unpacked (the Amiga of my youth!) and out of curiosity I thought I would check out F1 on the ST.

 

Bang, it is IDENTICAL on both, speed and sound. I was expecting weedy engine noise and square wave tire screeches etc but nope it appears to run the same speed as the Amiga whilst still playing up to two samples at the same time via CPU software sample playback.

 

This has got to be the only time Domark did an ST and Amiga game worth a damn. A great game that is great on both......it's just like the PS3/360 era of same game but completely different hardware.

Some were just able to get a lot of the ST than others.  It just works that way.  Same can be said with a lot of other consoles and/or (retro) computers.

[leech]

As far as publishing houses go and 'good ports for platforms' my vote is the Silmarils games.  They generally looked / sounded fantastic on both the ST and Amiga, and they usually even supported the STe enhancements, and were one of the few to keep making games even for the Falcon.

 

Which reminds me, one of these days I need to just beat Ishar.  It actually sounds quite a bit better on the Falcon than on a DOS machine with a high end sound card

[Megalomaniac]

Its hard to think of any French games which are significantly worse on the ST than the Amiga. They really 'got' the machine and knew how to work it. If only Flashback had been finished.

[oky2000]

On 5/24/2022 at 11:11 AM, Lostdragon said:

Loved Batman The Movie on C64 and the 3D sections on the ST version, but the music was weak on the ST version as expected due to the AY soundchip. 

 

 

 

No. The tunes on ST Batman are just crap 'broken pong console' quality not because of the AY chip  

 

Plenty of funky tunes on the AY/YM in the hands of talented composers like David Whittaker's Xenon 1 on Amstrad/ST etc.

[Orion_]

it's actually the other way around.

Lankhor made the game Vroom for the Atari ST.

then it was licensed and ported over Megadrive / Amiga by Domark.

so the original game was made for the ST hardware, and as the Megadrive (and maybe amiga) are more capable on the graphic chip side, the port will be identical on all the platforms.

porting a game made for megadrive or amiga to atari is just impossible, 2 or 4 times more colors, a dedicated powerful graphic chip, etc...