Games That Push The Limits of The Amstrad CPC
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 มิ.ย. 2024
- The Amstrad CPC, a system that is a little overlooked these days, even by hardcore classic gamers, but was in the '80s one of the biggest selling systems in Western Europe. A bit more powerful in some ways than that other big British system the ZX Spectrum, the CPC had a lot of very impressive games.
I take a look at few of those titles that pushed it to the limit and showed what it could do when driven hard.
If you're into the CPC please have a look at Xyphoes Channel:
/ xyphoe
Lot's of in depth stuff on CPC games.
#AmstradCPC #PushingLimits - เกม
![[AMSTRAD CPC] The Top 10 WORST Ever Amstrad CPC Games!](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/d4r_4TFUzLE/mqdefault.jpg)
Back in the day, I was a programmer for Choice software and we were subcontracted to program and design games for Ocean and US Gold. One of our main platforms was the CPC, and I personally was involved with Rambo, Daley Thompson's Super Test, Kung Fu Master, Spy Hunter, Buck Rodgers and Zaxon to name but a few... On the CPC with careful use of Z80's interupts it was possible to exceed the standard 16 colour limit on screen and also to have multiple resolution modes displayed simultaneously... As the screen was refreshed the mode and colour palette could be timed to be changed ahead of the raster which was then displayed. A lot of the racing games used a similar swapping of hardware palette registers to achieve the fast pseudo "scrolling". The Music for Rambo was not "programmed" sequences but physically played live using a Yamaha DX9 synthesiser but with only the midi notes and durations recorded into a set of tables which could then be re-played at the appropriate time in game using the internal sound chip.Several special techniques were employed to optimise the speed of the games, one in particular was using the "Stack Pointer" to point to a screen memory location so that graphics data could be "Pushed" to the screen, the Stack being the fastest registers, i.e. using less machine cycles to access memory. The graphics for Daley Thompson's Super Test Penalty Kick run-up were realised by taking video footage of our college Craig physically running and the individual frames digitised, perhaps one of, if not the first time motion capture was ever used...
Hope you find this info interesting, it was definitely one of the most fun jobs I've ever had... especially on Fridays when we would playtest each other's games...👍
thank you for the wonderful games you wrote back then. I maniacally played dalley thomson's ST and of course Kung Fu master...
Misel982001 cheers, it was a very enjoyable job and hopefully we gave many hours of fun to a lot of gamers. By today's standards the games now look incredibly dated but there was a lot of innovative ideas developed largely due to the limitations of the hardware, especially with regard to processing speed. Glad you had fun 😀👍
@@RevellingTerror are you still on the business?
Misel982001 not for a long time, I'm now specialising in sound design and synthesis, particularly on the iOS and soft synth platforms but also on hardware synths and modulars. I'd still be interested in working for software houses if an offer came up 😀👍
@@RevellingTerror has game development changed a lot since then?
Thank you Amstrad for giving me a great childhood.
I don't know what's more entertaining, the nostalgia, or this guy's commentary. Nice one.
calling the speccy 'Sir Clive's non-slip tea tray', very witty indeed :-)
good ol’ British humour
😊
I’m here for both
Ahhhh my beautiful Amstrad CPC 464, many many late nights and sick days off school!! no wonder im just a cleaner now lol!
Your profession has nothing to do with cpc's fault. Discipline is the key...
I m glad u are clean...lol
@@stayrospaparunas3062 i bet his amstrad is clean too! i would buy it for a dollar.
@@Kerveros1904 haha,i ve an Amiga 500 n a commodore 64 n gor your price a rather to give it for charity to an Africa country...lol $...i ll give u 3€ to buy me 3 cheese Mc
Well I am a software developer thanks to my Amstrad CPC464 with which I started studying BASIC, assembler Z80 ...
I bought this when it came out in 1984 (thanks for guaranteeing the loan mum!). Taught myself to program Amstrad Basic, then after a few months, started teaching programming evening classes at a local FE college (in the land of the blind, the man with one eye is king, as my stepdad used to say!) on BBC micros, Commodore Pets, Apple IIs and whatever else was available. They were great times as this was all new to pretty much everyone.
I'd been interested in computers since I was small, although had only seen pictures of them. Getting this foundation, and via a career in graphic design, I eventually ended up in IT, first for a major British retailer, then 17 years with IBM doing all sorts of things. I have a lot to thank the CPC464 (and my mum, ofc) for.
CPC was my first computer...
Back in 2004...
We were poor but luckily I found a 464 in the trash one day. Oh, the good times I had!!! For nearly 2 years this was my main rig.
Wow that’s awesome! When I was a kid I was also poor and we had an extremely outdated windows 3.1 computer. Old computers can still bring a lot of joy and teach you a lot 💆🏽♂️
Lots of people trashed these computers 15-20 years ago. You could get any Amiga for free too. Or for pocket money. I was in a similar situation when I had an A500 with 1 floppy for gaming from 1991 up to 2000 when the monitor gave up the ghost, we couldn't afford a better system. Then things got a bit better I got a PS1 and an old Pentium 1/166mhz PC with win95. That were good times!
@@SHINOBHS Not in my region. I have never seen an actual Amiga in real life.
@@cyberlord64 what region you refer to?
@@SHINOBHS Eastern Europe
I had the cpc with the green monitor but I still loved it! War games the movie came out and I thought I could hack into the Pentagon with my trusty powerful cpc but I think I needed the colour monitor to do that!!
😂
Eddie Jones "Hack-pentagon: run"
:-)
He used an IMSAI 8080 in War Games, I think the CPC might have actually been a bit more powerful, it certainly had better graphics. It was even CP/M compatible just like the IMSAI, if you'd had an acoustic coupler modem as well you could have totally hacked WOPR and probably pulled Ally Sheedy too!
@Vince RusBro With this one little add-in chip...
@Lou Seephur No, the real question is how do I pull Ally Sheedy. Even now she's still pretty gorgeous, and she was even more so back in the 80s. I'd have her either way. Although I was in junior school for most of the 80s, so I suppose I'll have to compromise. If we've got a time machine and a sex machine (a make-Ally-Sheedy-have-sex machine) then take young man me from a bit later on, she'd still have been beautiful at that point.
Harrier Attack gave me so many great Sunday afternoons with my Old Fella, back in the day.
Me and my dad played it together too. The teamwork made this game addictive. Just goes to show that enjoyment doesn't always mean smooth scrolling.
I played he same game on a cbm 64 and it felt wrong.
Same here, but the game we had quality time on was "Gryzor" (A "Contra" clone on the CPC6128).
Sorcery was an incredible game. It had the complexity of an RPG yet with the fun of a platform gameplay.
Great looking and atmospheric!
great days where every system had it's own unique charm and strengths. I was a C64 owner and while I adored the machine, there was plenty I was envious of on other systems. Amstrad's initial garish palette was actually strikingly pretty and while it couldn't move things as well compared to the C64, it didn't stop me loving it. Really you had to have all three of the major systems if you wanted the best of everything which is why it's so great we can so easily play them all via emulation these days
Re the impact of Prince of Persia on CPC in the UK: it got a huge review from Amstrad Action with a really high score (c. 96/98% if memory serves) and I tried ordering it every month for literally years from postal retailers, but they were constantly out of stock. £12.99 for the disk version, I believe.
A great game that isn't often mentioned is Mr. Heli. Colourful graphics, nice scrolling, good gameplay. Imho a fine example of what Amstrad could do. Another honourable mention should go to P47, another great scroller
Oh look! There's me at the end! * waves * ;)
The man himself! Hi, I watched a load of your videos when making this! In fact I'll stick a link in the description to your channel.
@@Sharopolis Heyyyy man!! That's really cool, and very kind of you to add me in the description! Great video mate!
Loved my 464, sold them in South Australia in the late 80's!
When I was 12 years old I carried newspapers to save money for a used cpc464. When I finally had it, I was late for school every morning and was totally tired because I read the manual late into the night and taught myself how to program. I had very bad grades. I am now 45 years old and work as a software developer. 😂👍
What I still remember when I was late on a C64 was how advanced the Amstrad was.
I recently got one of those things from Ali Express with all the built in ROMs, so for the past month or so I've been going down the rabbit hole of games that were out before I was even a thought. Your channel has been very helpful in navigating these retro systems, in addition to being very informative and interesting. Thank you for the excellent work.
Sorcery... What a great game. Also Marsport was a fantastic looking game...
my memories awww... After Burner, Exolon, Boulder Dash, Cybernoid 2, Galaxy Force, Prehistorik 2, Game Over 2, Ikari Warriors , Barbarian, P47, Xevious, Swap, Gryzor, Rampage, Ye ar Kungfu, Ghost'n Goblins, Bomb Jack, Gauntlet ... and so sooo many more are brilliant
Turrican II, Cybernoid II and Exolon. Not forgetting Elite which everyone knows was ported to every system even today.
It's funny to see the difference in quality on some of the first games for the CPC 464 and then some of the later :-D
My faves were "Get Dexter" & "Rescue on Fractulus". I liked "Winter Games" and those compilation cassettes which had 5 of the best US Gold hits etc....This video brought back so many happy memories of the 1980s.
These videos are great. Would love you to continue the trend with different subjects across the formats. Following suggestions . . .
1. Musicians that push the musical limits
2. Designers that pushed the game play limits
3. Artists that pushed the graphical limits
4. Programmers that push the technical limits
That's a really good idea!
Brilliant! Great style and good selection 👍🏻
Chase HQ tottally surprised me upon release. I was expecting a speccy/dull colour port or a mode 0, outrun variant.
To this day I love that game on the cpc and regret playing the crappy Amiga version.
Amazing video. Reminded me of a few amazing games I'd completely forgotten about. Get Dexter was my life, even though I was absolute trash at it.
Contra/Gryzor was the best looking CPC game, I thought. Awesome music, responsive controls, it really was a great arcade port, only let down by the jumpy scrolling.
agreed! Although I loved Renegade's graphics almost as much.
I had the CPC464 with colour monitor when I was a kid. Loved it. Happy memories. Captain Blood was another weirdly great game, along with The Eidolan. And of course, Bomb Jack I played to death. Loved Cauldron!
My friends had 464 color, 6128 green and if I remember well one had 664 color. There was a guy that had a Spectrum too. So many years passed, more than 30 lol. Absolutely hated green, I would take 464 color any day
It was a pleasure.
I was a CPC 6128 and now I have got a CPC 464 , CPC 472 and CPC 6128 as well
Love your commentary, keep it coming
Love that machine! We’ve got 2 of them (only one works mind!) but it’s one of our faves for sure.
Would you believe it the youtube algorithm actually worked in your favor and for that you got a new sub.
Thanks!
I never owned a CPC, but two of my friends did. One had a 464 with a green monitor and the other had a 6128 with a color monitor. Funnily enough they did not have a single common game. Which worked for me just fine as I got to see more games.
While eventually (87) I got to buy an Atari ST, I never stopped liking the CPC line and how the games looked and played on them. Some of my favorites were GBA Two on Two, ATV simulator, Cauldron, Flying Shark, Match Day II. Great games for a great computer series.
Sqeek, rainbow islands ,dizzy fast food, fruit simulator 2 , I cant even think of half of the code masters range. There was so many good games loved my 6128
I bought "Get Dexter" for my CPC 6128 back then (strangely in Germany it was called "Crafton & Xunk", no clue why). A beautiful game with all these vivid colors. It might be the first game I really finished.
This is the one I was waiting for 😄
Glad you like it!
Sharopolis Thanks. Grew up with a 464 so was hoping you’d do a cpc episode of this series 😁
Love this channel. Great writing and delivery and you're filling in the blanks in my knowledge of British computers. I'm old enough to have had first hand knowledge of it but the NES took hold and I never got into them. Feel like I missed out on an entire scene. That said, the NES was great.
Thank you!
I was a C64 fanboy back in the 80's but I'm very interested to see games running on other systems. Some great looking games here to be sure, the colours are so much vibrant than the C64's rather dull palete. Great vid! :)
Thank you!
Both colour palletes have their strengths. The C64 does beautiful natural environments for realistic games, and the CPC was gorgeous for scifi and arcade games.
@@KirkJacobsonHere for me commodore 64 still was better
Commodore 64:8
Spectrum 32:6
Amstrad cpc:5
But it have much slower framerate and almost choppy animations.
C64 ver. is much more fluid, so its better to have fluid game than very colourfull, as Prince of persia was famous for its fluid animatilns, which Amstrad Cpc struggles to get and C64 is very fluid compared to it.
@@marcin.the.gamer. The video system on C64 and CPC differs. The CPC uses hardware scrolling and software sprites. And it's much more capable than the C64. Quite a number of games are testament to that. C64 version of BTM is the weakest of all the versions made back in the day. the Best one is the CPC version followed by the Amiga version and the ST version.....
My second home computer. Had a Dragon 32. Got mine with a green screen then upgraded with the tv adapter and used on my Sony 14" trinitron TV. Then upgraded to a floppy drive and a game capture card. So I copied the games over to disc! Loved Chase HQ, Batman and Robocop. Thanks for this video!
Your videos are really good.
Thanks!
Advert at 2:19...'Grandstand Leisure Limited'. I never knew they had anything to do with Amstrad computers. I still have my Grandstand Video Sports Centre console from 1980. Used a 464 from '85 to '90. Sorcery really was stunning looking at the time. New version of the arcade game Scramble for the CPC is fantastic.
Batman the Movie looked pretty much the same as it did on the Amiga, notwithstanding the reduced colour palette and lower resolution. I was particularly impressed that they managed to pull that off on an Amstrad.
Batman the Movie CPC and Amiga were made with the ocean internal tools on Atari ST. And the Z80 coding made by Mike Lamb was nothing less than brilliant.
WEC Le Mans is another game that shows off the Amstrad. It may not use many colours, but the graphics look really nice, and the sensation of speed is decent. Definitely my favourite racing game for the computer.
A mate of mine had one of these back in the day. Although being used to Turrican's super smooth scrolling on the c64 meant I couldn't play it for long on the CPC. Aside from that, good times.
Yeah, graphics speed/scrolling wasn’t always good on the Amstrad.
The CPC is my favorite 8-bit computer. It had the best color palette of any 8-bit machine (a mix of vivid, bright colors with useful ones) and it was a straight framebuffer machine with no hardware sprites or scrolling (I consider those features a double edged sword: they make games smoother, but will introduce constrains to the developer's creativity). The low resolution mode most games used was often criticized, but it was ideal for the Z80 CPU as any higher resolution would make games too slow or require compromises in color handling. The availability of high resolution modes, disk storage and a bundled monitor made it ideal for programming and work.
It did have hardware scrolling courtesy of the CRTC chip. Nobody used it though because they couldn't be arsed
Very good video, great stuff.
Thanks!
11:45 Prince of Perse... As a Finn, I chuckled.
Good to see someone who really knows the CPC games
CPC 6128 was my first computer. It's fantastic. Now I have a CPC 464, CPC 472 and CPC 6128.
Nice video and I agree with most of these. I should mention Stryker in the Crypts of Trogan also runs on a regular CPC (in fact it came out on tape but not cartridge) and you just lose extra colours like those smooth rasters in the sky. Also if you haven't already, check out the recent Pinball Dreams by Batman Group and see a truly awesome 8-bit port of a 16-bit game. :)
Kind of late to the party, but Zap'T'Balls should have been number 2 on the list, after Xyphoes Fantasy (maybe no.1 now that I think of it). I still remember that loading+music+fullscreen tricks that left me in awe.
Hugs from a happy CPC user back in '87 :)
This was my first computer! I can only remember a few games from that time though :( Elite did take up a lot of my time though as did Lynx. Such good times!!
Excellent vid, as usual.
Thanks!
Sharopolis what systems you got left to cover? Maybe you could do a compilation of boundary-pushing games on more obscure systems , that might not warrant a full dedicated video? (TI-99? and I’d love to see you cover Gorf on vic 20. Apologies if you’ve covered these, I’m new to your channel)
I've still got loads left to do, but a compilation of games on obscure systems is a great idea actually, I think I might do that in the future, thanks!
Sharopolis I look forward to it
Thanks for the memories.
fascinating. thank you. I'd love it if you would offer some explanation of the roland series
Yeah I'd love to revisit that sometime.
Awesome video! Cheers!
Thanks!
Oh Mummy and Chase HQ on the CPC-128 were some of my first experiences with computer games.
I love the CPC. I've got a 6128 and a 464 and they're great machines. They never had the same mass appeal as the C64 or Spectrum, and they're not as expandable as the Beeb, but there's a lot you can do with them if you're willing to get to know them.
Sir you are really talented
There was an Amstrad CPC game that had a 320x200 mode and at least 12 colors. Something about a cat? I don't remember. Perhaps it was an infogrames game.
Another impressive game as Arkanoid. The conversion to CPC was incredible.
Thanks for the content.
The Freescape games on the CPC had me envious as a C64 owner, whilst i loved the C64 music to Driller and Darkside, the horrendous frame rate did my head right in.
Great video, you will see Pinball Dreams for CPC, the new quantum leap.
Yeah that looks superb!
I have never played Get Dexter, but the Batman game and it's sequel Heads Over Heal were among the best of these type of games for the CPC imho. They went for high ress and only 4 colours per screen, but they picked the colours very vibrant, so that it looked very colourful, too. Also the puzzle design was great. From the "French Connection" I would highlight Doomsday Blues. The change of point of few, which often made it difficult to not get lost, was a bit annoying. But other then that it was a superb game.
I was enjoying reminiscing over the computers of my schools years
Titan used a wicked multi-directional scrolling. Also Bob Winner had killer digitalised graphics ;)
Titan used the rarely used hardware scrolling
In New England we never saw these systems and I must say it's fascinating. In the early 80's most people had Atari or Commodore 64 around here.
From ehat I've seen, Alan Sugar decided that America was TOO great a risk and decided on focusing on Europe instead.
Can't blame him. The C64 was king, IBM clones were starting to run wild and both Sinclair (the Timex Sinclair line) abd Acorn (BBC Micro) failed SPECTACULARLY here. He made the right choice in the end by not looking at America.
Makes you wonder if they realized the futility of 16-bit micros as well.
I dreamed of a CPC 6128 as a kid, but my parents wouldn’t buy one as they didn’t understand what this expensive thing did. As I got a bit older and started earning money as a teenager, I managed to get an Amiga 500 to scratch the itch. As a middle-aged adult now, I am enjoying CPC games on my MiSTer FPGA
The Amstrad had an 80-column mode from the factory. so it was easier to justify buying one of them than a C64 - after all you could write text and school assignments on an Amstrad CPC. "Context" was the program I used at the time. Good memories!! (Edit: typofix!)
Yes, mode 2 was limited to 2 colours but was 640x200 pixels, so 80 characters per line and 25 lines.
80 characters per line isn’t ideal, though. 64 characters per line would have been better and could have allowed for more than 20 lines, e.g. 512 by 240 or 256 pixels to get 30 or 32 characters per line.
@@peterknutsen3070 80 characters per line was good for text processing, though. And for games you would use the 40 x 25 or 20 x 25 character mode.
@@peterknutsen3070it is possible to change the screen to adapt it to 64 characters (or up to 34 lines) if wanted so, by adjusting it using the CRTC chip, even from Basic
Chase HQ was my personal favourite CPC game
Ahh the Enterprise advert. I loved my Enterprise
very impressive color / graphics for 1984 home computer!!! I never knew anything about this one
Enjoyed this video :)
It was like listening to mark radcliffe which made it even more enjoyable.
Agreed. Fantastic commentary!
Thank you! I'm working on the next vid now, so keep watching.
@@Sharopolis Personally I really enjoy the fact that you dive into a little detail as to *why* you think the limits were pushed. That technical detail is severely lacking in other channels. Keep it up :)
@@PJBonoVox Thanks, I try to keep it concise and entertaining without it being too superficial, so I'm really glad you appreciate it.
B.A.T, Turrican, Batman, Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge, Croco Magento. Good looking games.
Great stuff
Thanks!
4:43 The "Get Dexter" title screen is eerily reminiscent of Wolfenstein 3D.
Those devs really made use of the color palette! These look more colorful than poor Genesis games with 64! :)
AMC and Exolon were my favourites :-) (Shinobi was also impressing for the CPC)
Thanks 30 years ago I forgot the name Exolon after playing it a few times. Then I was unable to find it again in the middle of tons of disks :) you made my day :)
@@poyopoyo55 Redefine the keys as "ZORBA" for infinite lives in Exolon.
I had a C64 back then and I had many arguments with my CPC owning friends, which was the better system.
We eventually agreed that the Amstrad had the better graphics, but the C64 left it in the dust when it came to the sound.
Sound AND animation, especially scrollings which were smooth and sometimes parallax at full 50fps on the C64.
@@HarikenRed1 at the price of nasty short cuts and limitations !
@@dlfrsilver what shortcuts
C64 pros
Animation, sound.
CPC pros
Better colors, faster loading (for disks).
If you wanted games and could afford it the C64 was the better system except a few better ports on the CPC. Animation was crucial for arcade games. The CPC did good when the games were on static screen eg Gryzor.
@@SHINOBHS i have 2 C64, one breadbin and one whitish one, german sport pack. this computer has hardware sprites and scrolls, but this has a "price" to be used and many short cuts. The best CPC games have better animations than the best C64 games while being done in software. The CPC has stereo sound, not as good as the SID sound, but it has some legendary soundtracks. The CPC (old) can do hardware scrolls with software sprites. Your information about CPC scrollings was valid in 1986. We know since 1990's that the CPC can do hard scroll. So no, if you wanted games and good ones with good graphics, it was on CPC, not on C64. PS : the C64 has more than its fair share of crap games never mind bollocks gameplay. It's an overrated computer. In many ways the CPC is 10 times better.
Remember karnov sick game. Loved it
Loved my amstrad cpc .
Nostalgia... i steal remember the red light flushing and the sound of the floppy disk driver when it was loading a game....my years just past away my dear friends...
I kind of love how you just casually create epithets for whatever system your talking about.
Good videos. Good memories. What do you think about La abadía del crimen? This game went too far for the cpc limits. Kknd regards.
Imo two of the best CPC games are the turn based tactical futuristic wargames 'Rebelstar' and 'it's sequel 'Laser Squad'. Rebelstar makes full use of the CPC's colour palette. Laser Squad looks similar to the Spectrum version, but has more maps/missions than Rebelstar. Both great, anyway. They're ancestors of the XCOM games. The 2008 conversion of the 16K Spectrum game Deathchase is worth checking out, too.
My parents had a CPC 6128 (green screen) and I loved it to death. We ended up with a modulator that allowed me to play it in colour on the ‘big’ TV. I noticed one of these games was ‘Firebird’. Was there a cheaper’Silverbird’ brand that I recall?
John Ritman's Batman and Head over Heels are the best CPC games.
I was a Spectrum owner back in the day, but the lack of colour clash alone was enough to make me secretly envy my neighbor's Amstrad.
my dad got me a cpc 464 from bessemer road car boot sale and market, cardiff, when i was about 8 years old for christmas. my favourite game was magicland dizzy but i was never good at it, the music on the cpc 464 version is better than on the c64 for that particular game.
It seems lots of resource came from france: games and even the final advertisement of the video came from frog-land. It is actually the french version of the CPC adverts of the time. If you got time, please visit the french computers of the time too (Thomson TO8).
With 16000 screen bytes, CPC fullscreen redraw allows approximately 4e6Hz/4/16e3/50Hz = 1.25 instructions per screen byte, in case of ZX Spectrum it is approximately 3.5e6Hz/4/6912/50Hz = 2.83 instructions per screen byte.
ZX is shite compared to the CPC anyway.
@Sharopolis How did Satellite Warrior not make the list, in light of how far it pushed the envelope on the 464?
Bonus points for the rarely seen correct usage of the word 'myriad', with no redundant 'of' to be seen!
Chase HQ looked amazing for a CPC title 😍😍😍
Enterprise 64! Very cool 8bit. :)
Never played the Amstrad 128k version of Sorcery. Had the MSX version and must be the first game I completed way way back.
P47 and Gryzor were both excellent CPC games
I was shocked with Afteroids (from Zigurat). Headphones, dark room, run"afteroids..... a robotic voice yells at full power to my ears, wow! It really scared me. Robocop and Afteroids used speech synth, it was cool. Another good game was Arkanoid fullscreen and colorful.
Did anyone ever play Double Dragon on the Amstrad 464? Man I was a huge fan of the Arcade game and i remember getting that home and being so excited to play it, only to realise it was barely even playable at like 2 frames per second.
I did. It was slow as a snail but i enjoyed it anyway.
I had the 6128, a quality machine, so many games, yes, the graphics were naff, but the gameplay was fab. Ocean made some fab titles as did the darling brothers Codemasters