[HN Gopher] Turrican 2 AGA
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Turrican 2 AGA
Author : masterofmisc
Score : 112 points
Date : 2023-02-07 08:09 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (sonicslothgames.itch.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (sonicslothgames.itch.io)
| masterofmisc wrote:
| This is a rewrite from scratch of the Turrican 2 PC-DOS version
| for AGA Amigas. 24bit/256 colours, original music/sounds. All
| levels plus various things that were missing in the DOS version
| have been reinstated (missing parallax, animations, waterfall
| effects, etc.)
| bluedino wrote:
| I thought Duke Nukem 2 was the DOS port of Turrican?
|
| http://www.nemmelheim.de/turrican/news/duke/
|
| (joke because of all the stolen/similar sprites used in Duke)
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| Holy shit!
|
| FT(link in the)A:
|
| >SonicSloth, developer: I rewrote the code from scratch
| attempting to recreate the original as close as possible just
| by playing the original (and by watching longplay videos). I
| didn't have any access to the original source code. [0]
|
| [0] https://itch.io/t/2565630/how-did-you-do-this
| layer8 wrote:
| The original Turrican games (Amiga and console versions) have
| also been released for the Nintendo Switch and the PS4 last year.
| The C64 versions are not included, unfortunately, due to
| copyright issues.
| barbazoo wrote:
| This is beautiful!
|
| So I've been trying for the longest time to figure out the name
| of this game my older brother used to play. The game mechanics
| are similar to Turrican, kind of, 2D, left to right or bottom to
| top. It's not futuristic, I think there were jungle themes, maybe
| the hero used a whip or a hook but not sure. There might have
| been lots of blood. I keep thinking the name is "Heretic" but
| that's a different game! Maybe it sounds similar?! Anyone got an
| idea what I could be thinking of?
| tz-1984 wrote:
| Was this game on the Amiga?
| [deleted]
| masterofmisc wrote:
| I dont know, but you made me remember PP Hammer. If you left
| the character for a while he would stand there and start
| smoking. oh, how times have changed!
| the-rc wrote:
| Leander? Jim Power? Rick Dangerous?
| FLT8 wrote:
| Shadow of the Beast II?
| wk_end wrote:
| Jill of the Jungle?
| lloeki wrote:
| If anyone wonders about the difference between the PC DOS version
| ported to Amiga and the original Amiga version, it seems like
| this video shows that (in German, just skip forward and the
| visuals are self explanatory)
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tx_zaQnpgUE
| actionfromafar wrote:
| It's funny how language works - I can't follow random spoken
| German. But since this subject is familiar to me, I understood
| every word he said.
| sgt wrote:
| It's amazing what the Amiga community comes up with - even in
| 2023. How long is it since the Amiga 1200 came out? 30 years?
|
| Also, there's a ton of conventions and meetups with Amiga fans
| everywhere in the world. Especially n places like Germany,
| Ireland, Poland, USA.. maybe others.
| ekianjo wrote:
| yeah, 30 years, it was released in 1992 (amiga 1200)
| kristiandupont wrote:
| I remember playing Turrican 2 on the Amiga and being rather upset
| that it was just impossible to replicate on the PC which was what
| I considered "home" at the time.
|
| Then, at a demo party in Aars in Denmark, I was walking around
| and I spotted some guy who must have been developing this exact
| piece of software because I saw what was definitely Turrican 2
| running on what certainly looked like a PC (they were quite easy
| to spot). At the time, I was pretty well aware of what you could
| do with the PC and VGA in assembly language (The Copper demo
| particularly occupied me:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KeMtiYi808), and I knew that
| remaking this game would be close to impossible.
|
| I stared at his monitor from afar for a good 20 minutes but I
| didn't have the courage to approach this god-like developer (I
| must have been 14) so sadly, I never found out where his magical
| skills came from or whether or not he was a nice guy.
| to11mtm wrote:
| > I remember playing Turrican 2 on the Amiga and being rather
| upset that it was just impossible to replicate on the PC which
| was what I considered "home" at the time.
|
| I think for a long time PC games had a rough problem; 'What is
| the 'lowest common denominator' that you can code your game to
| so that it reaches the largest audience possible in a semi-
| nascent industry?'
|
| The 386 was introduced in 1985, the 486 in 1989, but it took a
| while for games to require a 386, let alone a 486.
|
| On the flip-side, the Amiga benefited from a very good
| 'standard' video chipset and sound setup. There's a few
| 'interesting' PC releases that are hard to run nowadays because
| they were bundled with non-standard 3d hardware.
|
| To say nothing of dealing with segmented arch of the 286[0].
| Dos4G(/W) was a godsend for a lot of developers, I am sure.
| Same for Mode X.
|
| Turrican 2 is indeed impressive for it's time from the videos
| I've seen. It took a while for PC's to catch up[1] and I would
| say Jazz Jackrabbit is the first DOS game that comes to mind
| that could best what I see in Turrican 2[2]. But that was 1994
| (3ish years later) and needed a 486 to really sing with sound
| and all.
|
| Factor 5 is a really talented set of devs. Nintendo folks know
| them for some of their N64 work, where they were able to push
| the limits of that system too.
|
| [0] - I never learned segmented arch. Even back in 2003 or so
| when I took X86 Asm in college it was a footnote of "yeah we
| don't do that anymore for _reasons_ ".
|
| [1] - Monster Bash, FWIW, is pretty smooth and fast (even
| though the art is limited by EGA) and runs on a 286. But even
| that was a 1993 release.
|
| [2] Yes I know Doom came out in 1993 and changed my life. But
| it's still a different comparison to a fast-paced 2d
| platformer.
| donohoe wrote:
| Turrican 1 on the Commodore 64 is one of the big reasons why I
| went into software development... am so happy to see this on HN
| js8 wrote:
| I played the DOS version but it only had 2 levels. Is there a DOS
| version with more?
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Maybe it was a demo?
| ekianjo wrote:
| there's a full dos game, but the Amiga version is 100x times
| better. Don't waste your time with the bad ports.
| Narishma wrote:
| If it was that bad, why was it ported back to the Amiga in
| this project?
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Do you know how to run this effectively, ie some A500
| emulator? Readme doesn't mention much for actually playing
| this on PC
| xyzal wrote:
| WinUAE is the best one. Also you will need the rom image
| 'from a friend' -- search for 'amiga kickstart 1.3'
| gattilorenz wrote:
| Worth noting that, this being an AGA game, it won't run
| in the good ol' A500 that was requested. You need an
| Amiga 1200 or 4000: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_A
| dvanced_Graphics_Archit...
| andrewstuart wrote:
| Turrican 2 was the best game on the Amiga I played it literally
| for years.
|
| Amazingly it was also on C64. I'd love to see the source code for
| that bit of Wizardry.
| favourable wrote:
| I played Turrican II on the Amiga back in the day. I could never
| reach past the undersea/aquatic world (The second world after the
| desert one). There was this jump you had to make which was
| impossible for me to progress further. I thought it was some bug
| by the game designers: How did they manage to make this jump so
| difficult for players?
|
| But I loved the game. I liked the premise you were this human in
| a robotic exoskeleton that was exploring strange planets with
| exotic ETs and could also turn yourself into a rollerball that
| could annihilate anything in its path.
|
| The music was epic too. I listened to a Spotify playlist of all
| the Turrican II music and it instantly brought me back.
|
| This fan remake looks good, but it will never beat the original.
| tluyben2 wrote:
| Very nice. That brings back Amiga memories (I never played
| Turrican on DOS).
| mrandish wrote:
| Game Review & Impressions
|
| ---------------------------------------------------
|
| Turrican II remains one of my favourite platform games on the
| Amiga, so I was quite excited when I learned of the project to
| create an enhanced version for the AGA chipset. Essentially a
| conversion of the 1994 PC DOS release, the principle developer
| behind the endeavour is Alastair Murray (AKA Sonic Sloth).
| Various demos and pre-release versions have been available, but I
| wanted to wait until the final release before trying it for
| myself.
|
| The obvious change between this new AGA version and the OCS
| release is the graphics. It incorporates the art assets from the
| PC DOS release which, being a VGA title, supported more colours
| and higher detail. The redesigned player sprite, with it's
| bulbous helmet and wedge-shaped boots, represents one of the more
| divisive changes from that version, so it's cool to see Alastair
| also included an option allowing players to choose between the PC
| and Amiga versions of the Turrican suit.
|
| Of course, looks aren't everything, so I'm pleased to report that
| the game plays exactly as I would expect. I don't know how much
| of the original code was used, or to what degree of re-
| engineering was required to get this running, but it plays
| exactly like Turrican II should. I used an A1200 WinUAE config to
| play this and, aside from a few occasions where the framerate
| dips when things get really busy, it's pretty much flawless.
| There are also some quality-of-life improvements, including the
| ability to look down (reduce the need for blind jumps), sound
| enhancements and optional control tweaks
|
| Perhaps my favourite addition is the inclusion of new secrets.
| Each of the platforming levels contains three special crystals,
| which can only be retrieved by finding hidden drones. The little
| blighters are invisible and only appear when shot, although they
| do emit a noise when you're in the vicinity. This is gives
| seasoned Turrican II players who already know the game inside out
| another reason to revisit the game and do battle with The Machine
| and it's space-faring minions.
|
| Overall, Turrican II: AGA Edition is a great release. The
| strapline for the game over on Alastair's itch.io bills the game
| as "The best way to play the PC version of Turrican 2 is on the
| Amiga", and I couldn't agree more!
|
| -----------------------------------
|
| Note: Cross-posted from here:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljzIDjyWhzY. Review not written
| by me.
| [deleted]
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