Leger vs. Fears (Amiga CD32)

It is not like they did not try.

Rather, bringing a Doom like experience to the Amiga became almost like a competition and by the end of 1995 at least eight had been thrown into the market.

Describing the impact Doom had on me and people around me (and seemingly the gaming market in general, by the looks of it) is quite hard, but saying it brough the first person shooter genre to the forefront is not a stretch by far.

Some would even go as far as claiming id Software's Doom had a huge role in the demise of the Amiga as a gaming platform in the eyes of many.

Bomb Software's Fears did not really do that much to change this, and as of today it is nowhere near as frequently mentioned along classics like Gloom and Alien Breed 3D, and besides some good reviews when released the word now (from those who bother to play the game) is often that it is one of the lesser friends of the genre.

You could wonder if Bomb's background in the demo scene, in 1994 releasing a demo with a 3D engine later being evolved into the core of Fears, and their attitude towards gameplay and game design in general had something to do with the current lack of enthusiasm.

Doom, as a successor to Wolfenstein 3D, did not mind the players running around like crazy shooting whatever came in their way. The tempo could be just as high as you wanted it to, with some stages taking mere seconds (almost) to complete if you knew what you were doing.

Fears, on the other hand, is slow as hell and by running around like a madman shooting at things chances are that you will be dead within a tenth of the number of seconds as it takes to complete a single stage in Doom.

It is brutal, in every sense of the word, with silent enemies and silent projectiles that tears you apart without you knowing of it until you see the screen telling you that you are taking damage.

To make things even worse enemies do know exactly where you are and try to shoot you as soon as you get close enough, and if you happen to open a door with an enemy behing it you will be shot even before you realise there is an enemy there.

Best of all is the fact that there so often seems to be ledges to fall off, into deadly lava or acid or whatever that kills you while being completely unable to get up from the pit of death again.

And that is just some few of the design choices made along the way that makes Fears one of the most hostile and unwelcoming first person shooters on the Amiga.

Some enemies seem to refuse to die until you are severly lacking ammo, and while a knife always will be at hand close combat is seldom really more than a desperate final way of trying to stay alive.

So... die you will do, again and again and again.

Like most games in the genre on the Amiga Fears does not give the player the option of using a quick save function to record the progress. Instead there is a password given after each stage completed, with things such as weapons obtained, lives left and ammo kept track of.

The choice of having lives at hand could be a disaster, but actually this is where it becomes obvious that one has seriously think of how the game is played, when it is a good idea to replay a stage and when to keep pushing forward.

Especially since the game is rather huge, with 30 stages to beat.

Lacking ammo, lives and having missed out on most of the weapons does not mean that it is impossible to progress, but it makes an already tough game all the tougher.

But this Bomb knew, so when you die you will always see your basic ammo be restocked up to its maximum of 99 and all the enemies killed, doors opened and things picked up will stay that way.

Furthermore, the more you play it will become more and more obvious that all of what initially seems unfair can be dealt with in ways to stay ahead of the challenge.

You will learn to always side step away from doors when opened to avoid unpleasant surprises.

You will learn to visually scan all the areas for surprises before you enter them, to use the map and see your placement when your vision is impared (especially useful when having to walk down, and take some turns, on thin steps placed close to deadly pits) and take note of the fact that enemies actually can come into view without them shooting at you as long as you keep your distance.

You will learn that playing a stage a couple of times, learning the enemy placements and in which order to push buttons, open doors and whatnot, dramatically will reduce the difficulty.

Suddenly it all seems to make sense.

Fears may be a Wolfenstein 3D in disguise, with a very square attitude when it comes to the level design. Working with height is merely an illusion, as the game in reality plays as is it would be flat, but knowing this makes it even easier to navigate.

Using the map frequently helps figuring out where secret areas can be found, which besides ammo and health refills may contain a new weapon (besides the knife and the rifle you can obtain a machine gun, a bazooka, a plasma gun and a circular saw (which uses no ammo at all but have a range just as limited as the knife)), or valuable extra lives.

Talking about enemies, depending on which version of the game you play, they will either consist of floating heads only or floating heads and creatures with bodies.

Personally I do prefer floating heads only, and even though they hardly are animated at all and never smarter than trying to reach you in an as straight line as possible while shooting and shooting and shooting at you they are actually quite disturbing.

Killed, they will stay on the spot with their skulls open and brains and various liquids exposed.

Combined with the quite monotonous aesthetics and ambient soundtrack that never goes beyond eerie sounds, some kind of humming noises, possibly machines working somewhere in the background, always knowing that one simple mistake can, and probably will, kill you... the experience is rather tense.

The entire game takes places in a towering castle of sorts, with a map showing you how you reach further and further up.

Starting at the darkest spot, deep down in a dungeon, finally reaching so high that you can watch a setting sun bringing some light to the castle and its surrounding mountains, there is really not much more sense of progression to be had.

Not other than some changes in the textures and new and tougher enemies, and seemingly more and more complex stage design.

This is however not a bad thing, instead it is making the journey feel like an almost endless one where one has to find motivation to keep moving forward.

But I never lacked motivation, instead each new stage felt like an obstacle to overcome. To learn how to beat, to beat and leave behind.

With each passing session of gameplay I found myself eager to return, to map out the next stage and to see what secrets I could find. To make another decision concerning my progress... if it felt okay to lose a life or two, if I had used up more ammo than I should.

Suddenly the credits was rolling after having beaten the final boss and Fears had evolved from something that felt dated and not much fun to play... into one of the most intriguing first person shooter experiences I have had on the Amiga.

If not surpassing Gloom, which would be quite a ridicilously surprising accomplishment, at least getting even with Alien Breed 3D.

Certainly a more well balanced experience than Breathless and Nemac IV.

Who would have thought?

Sure, the graphics are crude in their low res appearance, the perspetive used feels somewhat off when turning close to a wall and the not so animated enemies aswell the weapons presented in higher resolution than the graphics of the actual stage played, well, they do not help in making the production feel as perfect as it could have been... but it is never in those details the bulk of the experience resides.

A word of warning, though: Fears should never be played in any other way than one that allows for simple strafing. This means using the keayboard or a CD32 controller (for example) is a must, as playing without strafing readily available for use makes it more or less unplayable (and what options you have at hand will depend on which version you play).

Also, the flow of the game I have experienced is with the help of a 030 proccessor at 50 Hz on an Amiga 1200, with the game WHDLoad installed, so it might well be that it runs slower or suffers from slowdowns in certain situations if playing with weaker hardware.

Leger vs. Hard 'n' Heavy (Amiga)

Of course going head to head with a behemoth such as Nintendo made people think twice before making Giana 2: Arthur and Martha in Future World a reality.

Hence, Hard 'n' Heavy was born.

Still very much like The Great Giana sisters before it, but with a couple of major minor changes such as no longer having the characters breaking blocks with their punky heads and all the colourfullness flushed down the toilet paving way for a metallic, cold brown and grey mess of genericness.

Thing is, Giana sisters may have gone a bit too far with enemies resembling Goombas, every fourth stage taking place inside a castle and the upgrade system copying the mushroom, fire flower and, uh...

Hard 'n' Heavy, on the other hand, strays so far away from anything unique, unpleasantly dictating the fact that the Gianas never had personality of their own while watching the alien looking helmets stripping them of every last bit of identity.

With a year behind them one could have hoped for some kind of insight, evolution of whatever kind, but besides the annoyingly bouncy projectiles taking turns with a flamethrower and the aquiring and usage of bombs and shields nothing new of worth can be seen.

Anywhere.

Thus, what we have is some twentyfourish grey, brown (and sometimes a bit green and blue) short stages which although not unpleasantly designed lacks the memorable sections found all over in the precursor.

Which all ends in some kind of boss fight paving way for stage one again.

No ending.

No credits roll.

Nothing.

Hard 'n' Heavy feels unfinished.

Not only due to a lack of a proper ending (even The Great Giana Sisters had one, although lackluster in every sense) but also due to some sometimes iffy but not game breaking collision detection and seemingly rushed presentation.

The title screen is presented in full screen glory, but when the actual gameplay part kicks in it leaves like 1/3 of the lower part of the screen completely black (an apparent 50/60/PAL/NTSC oversight).

To be fair, there is nothing particularly WRONG with Hard 'n' Heavy.

If anything it feels like a Commodore 64 game converted to the Amiga with a minimum of effort put into making use of the hardware at hand.

Volker Eloesser (who apparently took over the coding during the project due to the original coder getting sick along the way) has delivered a quite stable and smoothly running game, the graphics by the nameless Man Without Name are although generic never intrusive or offensive and the soundtrack is actually not bad at all... but expecting less from Mr. Hülsbeck I do not ever do.

While being short and rather easy its is never tuly boring and the stage design is fair although not all that inspiring.

Not bad.

Just not that good, either.

Let us go with... passable.

 

Leger vs. SWIV (Amiga)

No, it is not the fourth Silkworm game.

You could rather go with a spiritual successor to Tecmo's Silkworm, put together by Random Access (1991) who also did the Amiga port of that very game (1989), that comes with at least three different suggestions on what the acronym of a title means.

Secret Weapons Installation Verification, for example.

While similar in many ways, although now sporting a vertical instead of horizontal fashion, it never fails to do its own thing while keeping true to its roots.

Still there is the classic gameplay with a helicopter, not having to bother about obstructions on the ground and very much an easy mode of sorts, where you may and should pick up exposed bubbles for a period invunlnerability while shooting everything that comes in your way.

The assembling goose like airborne vehicle makes a return, also acting as the only source of upgrades with its Twin Bee influenced, with projectiles juggleable, icons which switches function each time shot.

Faster shooting. Wider spread. More projectiles on screen. And this star thing, which appears if the icon is being juggled for an extended period of time.

You could claim that SWIV is rather generic, opting for a military attitude at times trading secrets with a Sci-Fi one explaining everything from crop circles to giant space ships in settings sometimes so similar to the sources of inspiration that it becomes obvious that we are talking tributes rather than pure plagiarism.

Like Xevious, which SWIV suddenly turns into from out of nowhere, not much more is going on than shooting stuff and doing it in style.

But beneath the generic surface, no matter how pretty it may be (and pretty it is, in a Psyiko kind of way although never getting as close nailing the aesthetics as, say, Banshee), something unique when it comes to Amiga shmups is at work: A ranking system.

At first it may not be all that obvious (and since I have not gotten this confirmed I might be wrong, but I am trying to get this sorted out at this very moment), but after losing a life, or helicopter or tank that is, in a hectic situation things suddenly may seem to calm down.

Combined with another kind of ranking system, based on up to five stars actived by picking up a certain amount of upgrade icons, where more stars means starting with more fire power after dying the flow of the game just feel ridicilously natural.

Gone is everything Gradius syndrome related, no checkpoint system is at work and what can be seen as different stages are never more than different environments effortlessly introduced during the one and only long vertically scrolling level the game consists of.

Such is the design, where no loading screens are to be seen and all the data streams from the floppy (or the medium for your choice of play) in real time with no pauses in the forward moment other than when bosses, often in the shape of static defense systems, halts the progress.

Now, SWIV is pretty much another game completely when played controlling the tank instead of the helicopter.

Suddenly the environments are threatening, buildings and other objects obstructing the way forward, and the way of controling the vehicle differ.

Although being able to shoot in "all" directions there is a directional lock at work while keeping the button pressed making it easier to move in one direction while shooting in another. Also the tank can jump, and airborne vehicles offers less physical threat.

Still, playing as the tank could very well be considered a hard mode of sorts.

Most efficient would be to go co-op, however, to reach the best of both worlds in an combined effort to complete the game.

SWIV is a rather long experience in shmup context, about 45 minutes long it is not all that suited for a quick play, and since it consists of one long stage it may be that one can grow tired of the earlier parts of the game over a period of playing and trying again and again to reach further.

Thankfully the gameplay is intense, the room for strategic decisions quite big and the ranking system keeps things dynamic. Also, there is a percentage counter shown when Game Over have become a fact showing how far through the game one has reached which triggers the urge to reach further.

What SWIV lacks is music to get the adrenaline pumping faster. Not to say the sfx are lacking in any way, but looking at (or rather listening to) the later console offering, a follow up to SWIV (Super SWIV on the SNES and Mega SWIV on the Mega Drive), it is easy to hear how it benefits the overall experience.

Oh, and one more thing.

The game seem to run in 25 frames per second. Although not a problem when it comes to the core gameplay, the scrolling is slow and the action is both intense and with an apparent feel of heavy, it just makes the overall presentation a tiny bit less impressive than one could wish for.

However, a classic, impressive at that, SWIV is without a doubt. A technical marvel with great gameplay and an overall sense of effortlessness in the production just like the game that inspired it.

No that the shmup genre is thriving on the Amiga, but SWIV alongside a few other examples makes it well worth looking into.