Four Play - Carnival - 8-bit Computer Comparison
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- Опубліковано 9 тра 2024
- In this episode of Four Play we compare the 8-bit home console conversions of the classic Sega arcade game Carnival. But which conversion is the best - BBC Micro, Apple II, Sinclair ZX Spectrum or Atari 8-bit? You decide!
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#retrogaming #sega #arcade - Ігри
My thoughts: This week we have the version that made me fall in love with Carnival, the unofficial BBC Micro port. This is where I first played the game, on a computer at school no less, before getting the 2600 version for myself. And even without that nostalgia skewing things I'd still say its the best of these, my only real criticism being that the pipes are too easy to hit. Interestingly a new completely arcade perfect homebrew version was released for the BBC Micro by Trickysoft, which is by far the best home port. Next I'd go with the Spectrum version, because aside from the horrendous music and high difficulty its actually a very accurate port. Then I'll say the incredibly disappointing Atari 8-bit conversion, which should have been so much better and in last place the Apple II, because I hate the way they changed the pipes and those things they replaced them with are pretty much impossible to hit.
Definitely agrre with you on the BBC Micro version being the best of this week's selection, and the ZX Spectrum version's music being atrocious.
I don't know, to me it seems that the bullets are too slow on the BBC Micro version presented here, especially for targets that move so quickly. The Spectrum version looks a lot like the arcade version, and reminds me of the ColecoVision version, albeit the latter sounds and plays better, in my opinion. The Apple II version has its design issues, but it is technically rather impressive, especially in contrast to the Atari 8-bit version, which runs on significantly more advanced and capable graphics hardware and a faster CPU (can't tell that at all--as always, so much depends what one does with something, not just what something can do).
Tricky's port for the BBC Micro is really accurate and impressive, and I think it's way past due that the Commodore 64 got a version of _Carnival_ like that, especially given the similarities between its graphics features and those of the arcade hardware (and then some). So that's exactly what I've been working on for the past month or so in my spare time, and I think I'm about halfway done with it. I'm working on an arcade-accurate Atari 8-bit version, too, in hi-res, at the same time, although unfortunately it really only looks decent, in terms of color, on NTSC. Both ports run on both NTSC and PAL, and have timing adjustments to make the gameplay similar, as well as color adjustments. The problem with the PAL version is that the darkest shades of most of the hues are too bright for how color is used in this case, based on the limitations of color in the Atari's hi-res modes. In NTSC, this is only a minor issue, in terms of visibility, while in PAL it is prominent. The only way around this that I know of would be to reduce the horizontal resolution in half (as done by the vast majority of Atari 8-bit games), which I might end up doing for PAL, eventually.
If you'd be interested, I'll let you know when I'm done with these two ports, so you can try them out. It has been a blast to see this game, a favorite from my childhood at the arcade, gradually come to life (accurately) on the C64 and Atari 8-bit, so I'm highly motivated to make sure that people can play them, and that they won't end up as vaporware.
I did not even realize Carnival got an official port for the Atati 8-bit computers - never heard of that software company before. That grey background looks horrific!
Wow BBC micro unofficial port runs buttery smooth with large varried objects well animated and colorful. The apple version Also has large objects but they are more animated with more details and color depth.
Never played any of them, didn't know of the game till you featured them. The BBC looked the best.
Speccy running sweet. 👍
That may be the closest ZXS port I’ve ever seen
I still love the 2600 version best
Aw. Someone replaced my childhood memories of arcade-perfect BBC action with absolute dross!
(They did the same with Starsky and Hutch) 😂
The BBC Micro version was my first experience of the game and I still think it holds up well, but the new homebrew version by Trickysoft is absolutely arcade perfect.
I think the Spectrum version looks the best. The music is ear rape but at least it only costs a single shot to turn it off. The Beeb looks nice too but the targets are racing by at light speed. Both the Atari and Apple ][ ports look terrible. It appeared that the hit box for the pipes on the Atari 800 game was only a single pixel wide.
Really surprised by the smooth scrolling in the Spectrum version. And is there no black in the Atari's color palett?
The Atari has 128 colours, so just bad choices there.
The Apple version is pretty good looking. Most of the shootables are large and animated. Yeah, the pipes situation is disappointing.
Given what the Apple is doing with animation there's no good reason why the Atari version is so sad.
(Not sure if there is animation on the BBC version or if I'm just seeing screen tearing.)
I'm often amazed at what can be done with the Apple II graphics hardware, and the same often goes for the ZX Spectrum, too. The Atari version just looks low-budget to the extreme. That platform deserves a better port, and so does the Commodore 64, for that matter. I'll see what I can do about that.
There sure is a lot of tearing on the BBC Micro version, and aside from that, I'm not seeing any animation while stepping through the video frame by frame.
The Atari is very bad, slow and bad graphics. The BBC and Spectrum ones are good.
I've heard that this game was written partly in BASIC. It could have been done so much better on the Atari.