Holy Shmoly! » Amiga

I was a big fan of Stunt Car Racer on th…

Donncha O Caoimh — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 10:57:04 +0000

I was a big fan of Stunt Car Racer on the C64, and later played it on the Amiga too but I never knew about Stunt Car Racer TNT.

TNT is an extra tracks mod of the Amiga version released a few years ago by AmiGer. Here’s his announcement post:

Stunt Car Racer TNT (The New Tracks) will be released around christmas.

Modifications

Eight new tracks:
DIZZY DESCENT, WITTY WAY, CRAZY CAPER, AMAZING ADEPT, JERKILY JUMP, EVILLY EPISODE, TEASING TEMPER and RAT RACE

Track parameters changed:
start positions, start height, damage sensitivity, boost count

AI speed adjusted/changed for all tracks

Some visual adjustments
e.g. race colours, track names gfx dropped, title screen modified etc.

AGA fixed

Cracked

Long time readers will know my dislike for Blur and I’ve hardly played NFS Hot Pursuit since I got it last month but Stunt Car Racer gripped me like no other racer since. It required perfectly timed boosts, cornering and was literally a rollercoaster of a ride.

Related Posts

Cannon Fodder theme by Press Play On Tape

Donncha O Caoimh — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 09:52:21 +0000

Thanks David for the comment linking to this video. It’s so great it deserves a post of it’s own.

Press Play On Tape get on stage with Jon Hare and play the Cannon Fodder theme with game controllers. Playstation and Xbox controllers of various types were used as well as a retro arcade joystick played by Jon.

It’s well worth watching even if you don’t remember the game!

Related Posts

Extreme Cannon Fodder

Donncha O Caoimh — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 08:57:17 +0000

David produced a montage of great clips from Geoff’s Youtube channel and played the old Cannon Fodder theme tune in the background. I can’t believe this hasn’t been done before but maybe the average Youtuber is too young to remember this classic Amiga game!

Geoff himself used the same tune in this Squad Rush video as he and his team annihilated the opposition. Cannon fodder indeed!

Montage clips are from Modern Warfare 2 and Bad Company 2 of course. If you’re curious, here’s the Cannon Fodder intro and here’s some gameplay from the game. Great game, but I always preferred Syndicate.

Related Posts

Hours of fun with Syndicate

Donncha O Caoimh — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:01:06 +0000

Have Macbook. Check.
Have DOSBox. Check.
Have external mouse. Check.
Have Syndicate. Check.

Syndicate is a game I played a lot in the early nineties. I was never any good at games (some things never change!), but this is one of the few games I stuck with and managed to finish. The original game came out in 1993 for DOS and the Amiga. It was on the Amiga that I first came across it but the DOS version is easier to run these days. Luckily both versions are exactly the same.

What do you need? First of all, download the latest version of DOSBox. It’s available for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and many other operating systems.

Now look for the game itself. You can download Syndicate in many places so search for it using Google. Some would describe it as abandonware as the game can’t be bought any more but it’s a legal grey area. Bullfrog still own the copyright to the game so if you don’t own a copy downloading it is, strictly speaking, an act of piracy.

Unzip Syndicate in a convenient location and launch DOSBox. The familiar DOS prompt will open, on the Z: drive so mount the Syndicate directory using the command of the same name. If you’ve installed it in /games/Syndicate/ use the following:

mount c /games/Syndicate

Now change to drive C using

c:

You may need to edit synd.bat if it’s there (to set up your sound card) or just run main.exe as I did. The game will launch and probably run a little too quickly. Slow it down with CTRL-F11, and use ALT-Enter to enter fullscreen mode. CTRL-F12 will speed it up again, handy for researching new weapons and mods.

In fullscreen mode, you’ll swear you’re using an Amiga again! Enjoy what must be one of the best shoot ‘em ups, ever!

There’s also an opensource version of Syndicate. It hasn’t been updated since 2007 though. Anyone with game coding experience want to lend a hand?

As a special bonus, here’s the Atlantic Accelerator. It’s the very last level in the original Syndicate. This guy makes it appear really easy but it’s not. This level takes quite a bit of time to master! Just read his video description for all that he went through.

Or better yet, check out this video of American Revolt. Wow, all those enemy syndicate guys descend on you like flies to a …

Related Posts

Batman: Arkham Asylum reviews roll in

Donncha O Caoimh — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 10:23:21 +0000

Oh yes, I remember well the original Batman The Movie game. Bloody good it was, even if I didn’t get that far in it. Amazing music to top it all off. I can still hear the first level beat in my head all these years later.
I only played it on the C64 but the Zzap 64! screenshots of the Amiga version had me wishing I owned the more powerful 16 bit machine.

Batman The Movie, C64

Batman The Movie, Amiga

Actually, I remember seeing the flip screen Batman The Caped Crusader on someone’s Amstrad CPC 464 too but I never got into that sort of thing myself.

This year’s “Batman: Arkham Asylum” is another story altogether. I played the demo on Xbox Live last weekend and was blown away first by the amazing intro and the visuals, but then by how easy it was to swing from Gargoyle to Gargoyle, doing the Batman thing! The demo itself isn’t that long but it’s a great taster for what’s to come!

The guys at Joystiq loved the game too, giving the game a very favourable review, even going so far as to say,

Easily the best video game 2009 has had to offer thus far.

The game’s Metacritic score has hit a very impressive 91 putting it in the 20 of Xbox 360 games.

Yes, of course the game is on my wishlist. Now if only there were 26 hours in a day…

PS. Just in case you’re not convinced, check out this metareview of lots of other glowing reviews. I want!

Related Posts

State of the Art by Spaceballs

Donncha O Caoimh — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 09:49:01 +0000

This Amiga demo blew me away when I first saw it. There are better ones out there but I think the dancing figures were such an unusual feature at the time it struck a chord with a lot of people.

Check out the follow up demo, Nine Fingers and other releases by Spaceballs. Of course, you should grab the original disks for State of the Art and 9 Fingers and watch on a real Amiga rather than watching a low quality Youtube video!

Related Posts

Xenon 2 Megablast

Donncha O Caoimh — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 08:50:02 +0000

Xenon 2 Megablast. If you know this game, you’ll know the soundtrack. This game by The Bitmap Brothers had great title music by “Bomb The Bass”. It was a shoot ‘em up released in 1989 although I didn’t play it until years later when I played it on the Atari ST and years later before I’d play it on the Amiga. The Amiga version is widely regarded as the best version and if you look around you can find the adf download fairly easily.

Hand on heart, I have to admit I didn’t like this game much. I love the genre and I’ll happily blast away at Armalyte(C64) or Raiden(Arcade) but Xenon 2 just never did it for me. I do love the soundtrack though!

Here’s a longplay of Xenon 2 in WinUAE. It’s over 48 minutes long but watch a bit of it and you’ll get a taster for the gameplay!

The Bitmap Brothers have created an updated Xenon game, Xenon 2000 but it’s Windows only so I’d love to hear from anyone who has tried it! As luck would have it, someone has created a video of the new game. It’s more a demo than anything else by the looks of things unfortunately.

So, what are your favourite shoot ‘em ups? In no particular order mine would probably be:

Armalyte
Syndicate
Raiden
Quake
Half Life

Geometry Wars Galaxies is almost there but it’s too new. I’ll have to wait a few years before I decide if it goes on the list or not!

Related Posts