Games worth playing, Vol. III -- 1989-1990

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Exactly, they developed the C64 version first, and then did't have enough time to implement all features properly for the Amiga port. Based on some forum comments, the Atari ST version is supposed to be on par with the C64 original in terms of mechanics (and has pretty much the same graphics as the Amiga port), but I haven't personally tested it yet.

Defender of the Crown was developed by Cinemaware for the Commodore Amiga and released in 1986; I don't think any of the ports were even available until the following year. Unfortunately, gameplay in the original was rudimentary, something rectified in certain ports.

The audiovisuals of the Amiga version was a feast for the senses.

 

[Rincewind]

Defender of the Crown was developed by Cinemaware for the Commodore Amiga and released in 1986; I don't think any of the ports were even available until the following year. Unfortunately, gameplay in the original was rudimentary, something rectified in certain ports.

Indeed, my bad, I mixed up the the timeline. It actually gave me a pause when I wrote it, because it doesn't make fully sense to do the feature complete C64 version first, then the incomplete Amiga one... Ok, let's try to do a proper job this time :D

The gist of it still stands, the mechanics of the Amiga version are relatively poor, and the C64 and Atari ST version implement all gameplay features as per the original vision:

Due to financial strains, Cinemaware decided to release the initial version without all the features originally planned for because of their need for revenue. Some features were partially implemented, but were removed so the game could be shipped. Some additional features completed but never seen in the shipped game include flaming fireballs (launched via the catapult), more locations (more varied castles to attack), and more in-depth strategy. Some of these features were implemented in the ports of the game.

(source)

These Lemon64 posts are also informative:

In the C64 version there is a number of options available when seiging the castle. You can launch greek fire and disease. In the Amiga version I have these are not available. Other differences are that the sword fighting is just mindless mouse button while in the C64 version there was some actual gameplay there.

C64 also loaded a screen during the overland battles that showed your infantry and knights and my Amiga copy does not.

The C64 version was a later release than Amiga's Defender of the Crown.
Subsequently, Cinemaware improved the gameplay in various ways for the C64.

The 8-bit game is more challenging and has greater variety. It has more random events, more siege options, more battle options, etc. You can also "Pass" a turn. Unlike on the Amiga, buying an army on C64 DOTC costs you a turn. This aspect makes the C64 game more difficult to complete - thus, more exciting.

Like you, i played the C64 version first and I was bit disappointed playing the Amiga's. As far as castle sieges go, was miffed not to see the Amiga DOTC have greek fire + disease missiles!

Also, wanted to see the castle up in flames on the 16-bit!!

The C64 version is the best - on all platforms!

On the earlier releases, recall reading either Beck or Sachs saying the Atari ST port was the most complete version of the game. Really, the Amiga game should have been this, with the better Amiga aesthetics.

(source)

The Digitally Remastered Edition is "quasi a 1:1 conversion of the classic C64 version, in which only the old graphics and sounds were refined correspondingly to the better possibilites, the gameplay is almost identical" (source). I personally detest the smoothed/upscaled graphics compared to the brilliant original pixel art of Jim Sachs. Just compare this to the castle art posted by Zed in the previous post:

Spoiler

The DOS version implements the extra features, but it's an EGA game. Which leaves us basically with the C64 and Atari ST versions as best. The C64 version is extremely good and a must-play for fans of the machine (this crack is recommended, or this cartridge conversion). The Atari ST version has identical graphics to the Amiga as far as I can tell, plus the extra features of course, but sadly it has inferior music. It not quite terrible, though, but I enjoy it less than the SID music of the C64 port. However, I think the gameplay improvements make up for it.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

I wish I had played DotC on my C64 when I owned the hardware. Instead I played a clunky mess called Iron Lord back then that may have killed my interest in the genre.

 

[Rincewind]

I wish I had played DotC on my C64 when I owned the hardware. Instead I played a clunky mess called Iron Lord back then that may have killed my interest in the genre.

I too played Iron Lord on the C64. The loading times were way too long and I didn't quite understand what I needed to do without a manual... There's a cartridge conversion that fixes the loading time issue, and it seems the game has a fair share of fans. I intend to revisit it, it's on the list (with a link to the cartridge version).

Btw, this is what the Digital Aquarium guy says about the different ports:

Cinemaware ported Defender of the Crown to a plethora of other platforms over the next couple of years. Ironically, virtually all of the ports were much better game games than the Amiga version, fixing the minigames to make them comprehensible and reasonably entertaining and tightening up the design to make it at least somewhat more difficult to sleepwalk to victory. In a sense, it was Atari ST users who got the last laugh. That, anyway, is the version that some aficionados name as the best overall: the graphics and sound aren’t quite as good, but the game behind them has been reworked with considerable aplomb. Even so, it remained and remains the Amiga version that most people find most alluring.

I just learned the Apple IIgs and Atari ST only had 16 colour palettes in 320x200 mode. Moreover, on the ST the total number of available colours was only 512 (3-bit RGB components), as opposed to 4096 on the Apple IIgs and the Amiga 500 (4-bit RGB components). That surprised me, I believed the ST and the Amiga 500 had similar graphical capabilities. So the reason why many 16-bit games look identical on the ST and the Amiga is that they just did the gfx once for the ST (the lowest common denominator) and then used that for all the other 16-bit ports... a bit sad, really.

felipepepe's comparison image below shows this quite well; note that the Apple IIgs and Atari ST images are identical (16 colours, 3-bit RGB) and noticeably worse than the 32-colour Amiga original (with 4-bit RGB).

Which means that all existing versions are compromises... :shrug:

 

[Jack Of Owls]

By the way, I've never played any of the Ultimas, so it cannot be entirely nostalgia (well, maybe for the era), but the Ultima VI intro just *SLAYS*! *Every single time* I watch it, it sends me shivers down my spine, and it manages to do that without 4k UHD / 3D / realtime raytracing / 48 kHz audio, etc. I'm particularly fond of the Adlib soundtrack, it has so much more character than the MT-32 version. I'm so excited to finally play through the whole series, none of the new game intros/trailers get my blood pumping like this one!

I had one of these almost mystical musical appreciation moments with the C64 SID instrumental of Devo's Some Things Never Change in Neuromancer.

 

[Rincewind]

By the way, I've never played any of the Ultimas, so it cannot be entirely nostalgia (well, maybe for the era), but the Ultima VI intro just *SLAYS*! *Every single time* I watch it, it sends me shivers down my spine, and it manages to do that without 4k UHD / 3D / realtime raytracing / 48 kHz audio, etc. I'm particularly fond of the Adlib soundtrack, it has so much more character than the MT-32 version. I'm so excited to finally play through the whole series, none of the new game intros/trailers get my blood pumping like this one!

I had one of these almost mystical musical appreciation moments with the C64 SID instrumental of Devo's Some Things Never Change in Neuromancer.

Yeah it's a great tune! I was also blown away by the LOOOONG digitised loop that plays during the title screen! Never heard anything like that come out of the C64 before, I was just listening to it in awe for like 5-10 minutes straight! I still like it a lot, I love the grittines of it. I definitely think the game is best on the C64, the relatively lo-fi nature of the game meshes so well with the cyberpunk theme. The Amiga version is just very good and competent, but there's something magical about the C64 original.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

By the way, I've never played any of the Ultimas, so it cannot be entirely nostalgia (well, maybe for the era), but the Ultima VI intro just *SLAYS*! *Every single time* I watch it, it sends me shivers down my spine, and it manages to do that without 4k UHD / 3D / realtime raytracing / 48 kHz audio, etc. I'm particularly fond of the Adlib soundtrack, it has so much more character than the MT-32 version. I'm so excited to finally play through the whole series, none of the new game intros/trailers get my blood pumping like this one!

I had one of these almost mystical musical appreciation moments with the C64 SID instrumental of Devo's Some Things Never Change in Neuromancer.

Yeah it's a great tune! I was also blown away by the LOOOONG digitised loop that plays during the title screen! Never heard anything like that come out of the C64 before, I was just listening to it in awe for like 5-10 minutes straight! I still like it a lot, I love the grittines of it. I definitely think the game is best on the C64, the relatively lo-fi nature of the game meshes so well with the cyberpunk theme. The Amiga version is just very good and competent, but there's something magical about the C64 original.

Yeah, Neuromancer C64 was definitely one of the three computer games that I played on my C64 the year it came out (or maybe the beginning of '89) that got me hooked on the computer adventure/RPG genres and showed me the possibilities. It took me hours to figure out how to defeat those corporate AIs using the zen chip implant in my skull but I was so proud that I did. To this day, any game that uses the Neuromancer battle template in cyberspace (ie Shadowrun on the Sega Genesis) makes me smile. Last year, I was testing Neuromancer in Retroarch's VICE core with some custom color palettes and decided I was going to do a full playthrough but the VICE core didn't allow for easy swapping of disks so I gave up. The Amiga version was certainly prettier but the sound on that C64 version that was originally coded for it- oh. my.

 

[Rincewind]

To this day, any game that uses the Neuromancer battle template in cyberspace (ie Shadowrun on the Sega Genesis)

That's actually a very interesting looking game! There's no place for it in my list though because of the strict no console rule, but I will definitely make note of it and try it at some point. Looks like a Western game, which is no surprise because it was developed by SEGA USA. Can you name other games with similar cyberspace battle mechanics, I'm interested to learn about them.

Last year, I was testing Neuromancer in Retroarch's VICE core with some custom color palettes and decided I was going to do a full playthrough but the VICE core didn't allow for easy swapping of disks so I gave up.

Play this cartridge conversion then, that's what I recommended in my list. No disk swapping and it saves the game to the cartridge as well. The only drawback is that they got rid of the intro music. I briefly tested it in VICE, but haven't completed it. Should be fine, but if there's any bugs/crashes then Master (who did the conversion) is contactable on forum64.de and he's very responsive with bugfixes.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

That's actually a very interesting looking game! There's no place for it in my list though because of the strict no console rule, but I will definitely make note of it and try it at some point. Looks like a Western game, which is no surprise because it was developed by SEGA USA. Can you name other games with similar cyberspace battle mechanics, I'm interested to learn about them.

StarCrawlers pays very obvious homage to the Neuromancer cyberspace battle style in certain sequences. It was mentioned in a very old thread here on the 'dex dedicated to Neuromancer that someone recently bumped but I can't seem to find it now. I liked the cyberspace sequences in Dex but it's more about moving around in complex mazes a la Robotron chasing down errant AI with combat software than in the Neuromancer vein but I just thought i'd mention it because I love offbeat takes on fighting entities in cyberspace in order to progress in the game's "real world" which Neuromancer may have been the first to introduce in computer games.

Play this cartridge conversion then, that's what I recommended in my list. No disk swapping and it saves the game to the cartridge as well. The only drawback is that they got rid of the intro music. I briefly tested it in VICE, but haven't completed it. Should be fine, but if there's any bugs/crashes then Master (who did the conversion) is contactable on forum64.de and he's very responsive with bugfixes.

Oh, cool. It's convenient to have these little "cartridges" for the C64 because some of the larger games like Ultima VI's port came on multiple 5.25 disks with no fast loader routines. Some of these games on original hardware desperately needed it too because I ended up rage quitting U6 on my C64 because of that and had buyer's remorse (I bought it new for about $25 at the time of its release).

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Its interesting seeing and hearing things about Neuromancer that are good, because I remember playing the game many moons ago on a DOS version and playing it badly. I don't know what it was I missed, but all that ever happened in that game was I sat around the opening area waiting for something to happen and also sold the guy's organs, for no benefit. I remember looking up a walkthrough and not even getting any help on the subject. Kind of weird to see/hear the C64 version be superior in apparently every way possible.

 

[Rincewind]

Oh, cool. It's convenient to have these little "cartridges" for the C64 because some of the larger games like Ultima VI's port came on multiple 5.25 disks with no fast loader routines. Some of these games on original hardware desperately needed it too because I ended up rage quitting U6 on my C64 because of that and had buyer's remorse (I bought it new for about $25 at the time of its release).

Indeed, and I've listed a lot of good cartridge conversions in my list for the C64, it's definitely worth a second look if you're into that kind of stuff.

 

[Rincewind]

Its interesting seeing and hearing things about Neuromancer that are good, because I remember playing the game many moons ago on a DOS version and playing it badly. I don't know what it was I missed, but all that ever happened in that game was I sat around the opening area waiting for something to happen and also sold the guy's organs, for no benefit. I remember looking up a walkthrough and not even getting any help on the subject. Kind of weird to see/hear the C64 version be superior in apparently every way possible.

Not sure what went wrong when you tried it, but I'd stay well away from that DOS version. Neuromancer is at place 25 on the C64 Wiki's TOP 100 list, and it's regarded as one of the best adventure games (with RPG elements) on the C64. I'd say rightfully so. Check out these comments and this review on Lemon64, for instance.

It's a very unique and captivating game, but you really need to read the manual and perhaps look up a few hints if you're stuck. But I don't remember it being an overly hard game. The entry for the game on the C64 Wiki should also help.

The fight against the AI's is brilliant, I remember how tense and exciting it felt when I played it as a kid. I'd advise you to give it another try on the C64 with the cartridge version I linked above.

EDIT: Another interesting thing is that the authors were apparently were familiar with the cracker/hacker/warez/demoscene culture of the 80s, and they nailed down that atmosphere perfectly. Depending on your background, that can add to the game a LOT (I was personally involved with the demoscene in the 80s/90s, so I'm quite biased, in a good way).

 

[Rincewind]

StarCrawlers pays very obvious homage to the Neuromancer cyberspace battle style in certain sequences. It was mentioned in a very old thread here on the 'dex dedicated to Neuromancer that someone recently bumped but I can't seem to find it now.

I think it was this thread. Morpheus Kitami, you might be interested in the review of the game in the first post of that thread.