Computer + Video Games - Commodore Is Awesome

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"Gamewise there's no
comparison: ours has got
real strategy and lots of
planes on the screen. In
Interceptorthere can be
o plane which is a dot on
the screen and you're still
supposed to fly around
and chase it - you only
get a brief glimpse of it up
big. In Hawk you'll be
dogfi ghting all the time
There's a lot more in it too
- we've got fractal
mountain terrains in some
parts of the game and in
other parts there's flat
land with lots of buildings.
"We've included a lot of
ground combat: there's
landing on different
runways and airports and
things like that. Mid-air
refuelling of course. We
wanted to do the flight
simulator to beat them
all, and we put enough
people in the company
with different talents to
make an all round
product - it's a really full
combat simulation: very
graphical and very fast,'
The second project is a
coin-op conversion of a
Sega game that derives
its name from a device in
an aircraft jet engine that
ignites extra fuel, which
at the moment has to current crop of
remain nameless. Jez conversions: Outrun is
reveals more of the pathetic.
mystery game: 'We got " S o m e coin-op games
excited by a particular c a n be reasonably well,
coin-op. It's not going to especially the Pacmans
take us long to do it - we and the Gauntlets where
already have a sprite n o t very much is
engine that can enlarge happening but its fun.
and decrease, flip in the But Outrun, where there's
X and N
1 draw millions of them a sprite action, needs to be
second, dire and that's all you well programmed and so
need for certain coin-op far hasn't been. I'm not
c t i o
n
conversions coupled with saying that we are going
our 3D maths. t o change all that, but we
a
"We're due to finish it in are going to change all
about n two month's time that, but we are certainly
d ready for Christmas g o i n g to do it better'.
a launch on the Activision S o how much does
llabel.
It's looking A r g o n a u t watch other
oreasonable
considering programming teams? Jez
we haven't been on it that admits: "We're active in
t
g
long, and we ought to w h a t everyone else is up
have something worth t o , to steer clear of them
o
seeing in about a month." so we can stay original.
i How does Jez view There's no point treading
ncoin-op
conversions in o n other peoples' toes. I
g general? p l a y a lot of coin-ops,
o "I think a coin-op t h a t ' s where all the new
n conversion done well is technology is. I've got a
a
very good, but I haven't Star Wars machine at
n
seen too many h o m e , and I've also got a
conversions done well. Stargliderarcade
d
The best coin-op m a c h i n e in my lounge.
a conversion so far is Buggy It's really good, but it
lBoy,
and even that could won't be released over
ohave
been better. I'm not here because Bally/Sente
t impressed with any of the have just closed their
o
f
coin-op division. All their
programmers have
moved across to
Electronic Arts. It's a
shame, it's a really good
shoot 'em up - very hard,
and far more Immediate
than the computer
version. I really liked
Marble Madness, it was a
favourite for years. I also
liked / Robot.
I Robot has a shape
pointing option. Did the
'Painting with Rolf' option
on Starglider come from
there? Jez acknowledges
that he did enjoy playing
with the drawing option,
but explains: "Paint with
Rolf was a bug. We've
always got a shape
editor in our games, and
one day it didn't clear the
screen and we thought,
that's great! So when we
finished the game we put
in some options, and the
end result is great -
everyone loves it. It's
fascinating to doodle
with walkers".
And indeed it is. With
that, Jez had to rush off to
the duplicators to check
that they were managing
to copy Starglider
correctly.