ROBOCOP 2. Amiga or ST?

[Hazzardus]

I first played Robocop 2 on a demo disk from Amiga Format at a friends house (I think it was Amiga Format anyway, may have been another mag) and man it looked and sounded amazing. The sprites were huge and the nuke animations when you shot someone looked fantastic at the time... So I bought it for ST.

It's not even the same game!

I was very disappointed with it originally, it just didn't look like an arcade game which the Amiga pulled off perfectly, and the sounds were sub par, even for YM.

Coming back to them both though, I really love the smooth animation on the small ST character sprite, and I think it actually plays better. Going back to the Amiga version is painful after playing the ST version.

I love that the last few levels are "almost" a repro of the Amiga version too, and because it's all vertical scroll boss fights, it runs fast even without the blitter.

What version do you prefer?

[Hazzardus]

http://codetapper.com/amiga/interviews/ian-moran/

Also this is an interesting bit of behind the scenes for Robocop 2 and a few others.

[lostdragon]

As a huge Robocop (Film and Coin-Op) fan, i found the Home games a very mixed bag.

The Original Robocop was superb on a 128K ZX Spectrum, C64 version looked nice, but bugged, not found a console version i like.

With Robocop II...the coin-op i found to be awful.

The Amstrad GX4000 and Amiga versions both looked superb and made fantastic use of the host hardware, but were simply no fun to play...

Love ST Robocop II music, title screen wise, the in-game music is good, but a little too 'jaunty' for the feel of the game.



I've never been a fan of having Robocop navigate platforms by jumping around as if he was no different to your average platform character, it just doesn't sit right with myself.

I'd say the Amiga version has the looks, but the ST version, more of a personality.


Great idea for a thread BTW...

[aktiv8]

Agree with lostdragon. Visually the Amiga wins but game play wise I think ST version is better and more fluid.

The platform jumping did feel odd for a Robocop game, but perhaps thats where most of Oceans licenses were going in style? That said, I did love the Speccy version of Robcop 2 - jumping and all, and do have a soft spot for the NES Robocop in all its jumping glory too!

[Hazzardus]

As a huge Robocop (Film and Coin-Op) fan, i found the Home games a very mixed bag.

The Original Robocop was superb on a 128K ZX Spectrum, C64 version looked nice, but bugged, not found a console version i like.

I really enjoyed the Speccy version too, although before I got my ST I played the Amstrad version the most. I remember getting so good at the Arcade version on holiday in Dawlish that if the 2nd level didn't play unfair with the chainsaw guys I could beat it on 10p. Robocop and Wonderboy are still to this day the only games I can complete in one credit if I get lucky on the coin-op versions.

With Robocop II...the coin-op i found to be awful.

Yeah that was total garbage. Didn't even encounter it until about 1998, didn't know it even existed until way after it was relevant. My local chipshop replaced R-Type with that pile of trash. I was gutted. It soon got replaced with a fruit machine.

The Amstrad GX4000 and Amiga versions both looked superb and made fantastic use of the host hardware, but were simply no fun to play...

Agree, although never played the GX4000 version. Had to check out youtube to see it. Looks like the ST version quite a bit, but plays like the Amiga version. Worst of both worlds

Love ST Robocop II music, title screen wise, the in-game music is good, but a little too 'jaunty' for the feel of the game.

Gonna have to agree to disagree on this one... I don't think it's terrible, but it is in no way good, or ROBOCOP

I've never been a fan of having Robocop navigate platforms by jumping around as if he was no different to your average platform character, it just doesn't sit right with myself.

I'd say the Amiga version has the looks, but the ST version, more of a personality.

Yeah, it always seemed off to me too, I wouldn't have minded if the gameplay was there, but especially on the Amiga, it wasn't. it was just a boring unfair slog.

Great idea for a thread BTW...

Cheers!

[joefish]

I hated the jump control too - I didn't like either version.

Jonathan 'Joffa' Smith (Speccy programmer extraordinaire) once told me that he really didn't rate the programmer who worked on the ST version of Robocop 2. It was a simple conversion based on the 8-bit Spectrum / Amstrad developments. This was after Ocean bought 'Special FX' for one pound and took the team back in-house.

But the guy never finished it, and it was left to Joffa to code the final level and boss fight. If you ever see it, it's completely different to the rest of the game with a much larger scrolling area and the larger Amiga sprites. You can see it towards the end of this review:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2QEjIdze2E

Compare with the Amiga version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCTiYxugBPk

So the whole game could have looked like the Amiga version if Ocean had put the effort in. Joffa had written a game engine for the ST that matched the Amiga one, but they only used it in the final level.

[sporniket]

Awww that would have been awesome if such engine and clever level design could produce such a fluid rendering throughout all the game. This level was such a "WOW !"

[AxelStone]

I don't think that ST version is a bad game, simply is a bit different. I've played a lot CPC plus version and technically is very impressive but it's too hard: if you die in the stage, you return to the start of it without reset time. I prefer Robocop 1 for plain CPC than this Robocop 2.

[dlfrsilver]

The ST version use the same assets as the Amstrad CPC+ cartridge (it's based on the ST release).