That's what I remember when I think about this game! ;-)
I had the Atari 8-bit (con)version and I felt "con'd" indeed as the game was in black & white - on PAL machines. The reason for that was of course that the Atari version relied on dithering to get color on NTSC machines. This technique doesn't work with PAL machines, though, as the colors are generated differently with this system.
As Matt pointed out in his review/video that Origin could've spend more money on the 16-bit conversions the same could be said for the PAL versions but it was likely that this wasn't really an important market back then.
The second thing that annoyed me was that the game was pretty hard and as Matt mentions: You effectively start anew each time you die. You really get punished for being 'incompetent' and this is IMHO really shoddy game design. OK - I was used to the step-by-step tactical RPG worlds of Ultima at the time (which is why I bought the game in the first place - I thought "A Mad Max RPG from Origin - how could that be possibly bad?") but I'm happy to hear that other people got the same impression.
While technically the game is pretty up to snuff - all graphics are being drawn in bitmap mode (AFAIK both the Atari and C64 versions don't deviate from the Apple II and don't make use of their character modes) - and it's quite fast: Charles 'Chuckles' Bueche was an accomplished assembler programmer as can be seen with his other Origin games (Caverns of Callisto and 2400 A.D.).
However, at some point I made a grave mistake: I somehow mixed up disks and formatted one of the game disks! It wasn't copy protected as it was also used for save games and this effectively terminated by unsuccessful auto duelling career...
A final trivia bit: The original package came with a small tool set (screwdrivers etc.) and it broke very easily: Don't ever use that to work on something! ;-)
As for the video: I like this video clearly better than most of the previous RPG installments and the reason is simple: There is much more time allocated to actual game footage, while Matt narrates more or less exactly what happens on-screen.
I think you should continue on this route, Matt.
That's what I remember when I think about this game! ;-)
I had the Atari 8-bit (con)version and I felt "con'd" indeed as the game was in black & white - on PAL machines. The reason for that was of course that the Atari version relied on dithering to get color on NTSC machines. This technique doesn't work with PAL machines, though, as the colors are generated differently with this system.
As Matt pointed out in his review/video that Origin could've spend more money on the 16-bit conversions the same could be said for the PAL versions but it was likely that this wasn't really an important market back then.
The second thing that annoyed me was that the game was pretty hard and as Matt mentions: You effectively start anew each time you die. You really get punished for being 'incompetent' and this is IMHO really shoddy game design. OK - I was used to the step-by-step tactical RPG worlds of Ultima at the time (which is why I bought the game in the first place - I thought "A Mad Max RPG from Origin - how could that be possibly bad?") but I'm happy to hear that other people got the same impression.
While technically the game is pretty up to snuff - all graphics are being drawn in bitmap mode (AFAIK both the Atari and C64 versions don't deviate from the Apple II and don't make use of their character modes) - and it's quite fast: Charles 'Chuckles' Bueche was an accomplished assembler programmer as can be seen with his other Origin games (Caverns of Callisto and 2400 A.D.).
However, at some point I made a grave mistake: I somehow mixed up disks and formatted one of the game disks! It wasn't copy protected as it was also used for save games and this effectively terminated by unsuccessful auto duelling career...
A final trivia bit: The original package came with a small tool set (screwdrivers etc.) and it broke very easily: Don't ever use that to work on something! ;-)
As for the video: I like this video clearly better than most of the previous RPG installments and the reason is simple: There is much more time allocated to actual game footage, while Matt narrates more or less exactly what happens on-screen.
I think you should continue on this route, Matt.
take care,
Calibrator
take care,
Calibrator