Reshoot on Amiga CD32

This weekend I had a look at Catacomb 3D on CD32 and there is also another new game for Amiga CD32 in 2016! We now have Reshoot for Amiga CD32 (Amiga 1200/4000 as well) which is available now for EUR36 from Amiworx.de and Ares Shop.

I purchased and received my copy in the post last week prior to the Adelaide Retro Computing meeting, which gave me the opportunity to show it to plenty of Adelaide attendees on the CD32.

Here is the Game box and internals - the game itself was written by Richard Lowenstein, with graphics supplied by Australian Kevin Saunders:

As you can see from the system requirements on the back of the box, the game runs on a stock standard Amiga CD32/1200/4000 with no accelerator cards or extra memory needed.

Inside you get a miniature Amiga Joker magazine with a "review" of the Reshoot game, which is actually the instructions!

I am impressed with the quality of the gamebox packaging and CD - it looks exactly like a professional CD32 title from when the system was still available!

Here is Reshoot in the CD32 ready to run:

Here is the game title screen:

The graphics are nice but the screenshots below don't do it justice:

There is a nice Retro soundtrack and spot effects during the game.

I should say from the outset that this game is really hard. Really. I like to think I am good at shoot em ups like this but I don't last long at all!

I was hoping to show more screenshots of the game once I mastered it a little bit, but I sucked so badly at the game I never got the chance! The bullets fired at you follow you around the screen, which makes it quite hard to avoid being killed quickly.

As mentioned I took the game to the Adelaide Retro computing meeting this month with an Amiga theme and had Reshoot running on the CD32 on the big screen for everyone to play on the night. Feedback was positive, but people agreed it was a tough shoot em up!

I think the game itself is attractive, plays fast and looks great.

Others will probably have better luck than me - I will certainly give it another go soon though, as I don't feel I did the game enough justice to do a full review of it. I did want to show it here though.

I include a publicity shot below from the developer from further into the game, which I never got to  -so you can get an idea of the harder (!) enemies later on:

Maybe I am just getting older and no longer as good at these types of games as I think I am! Please don't take my word for it being tough, please try it for yourself!

So there you have it - we have two new games for Amiga CD32 (and other Amigas too) in 2016. Catacomb 3D and Reshoot and the promise of even more games in the works - how fantastic! :-)

Catacomb 3D on Amiga CD32

It is amazing to see that we have new games for Amiga CD32 in 2016! Today I want to take a look at  a new CD32 game called Catacomb 3D, which is a sneak preview of the game provided to me by Pascal Papara ahead of it's release. Thanks mate!

For those who know their game history, they will know that Catacomb 3D was originally written on the IBM PC in 1991 by ID Software, and was the prequel to the classic game Wolfenstein 3D.

Catacomb 3D was a landmark 3D game that lead to ID Software classics like Wolfenstein 3D, Spear of Destiny, Doom, Quake and the whole first person shoot em up game genre which is still very popular today.

I am embarrassed to say I have never played Catacomb 3D before, and so the first time I have ever played it is as a port to the Amiga CD32 in 2016!

The funny part was I remember back when these 3D PC games in the 1990's were being touted as not being able to be run on an Amiga and was a strong reason why many people went PC to play these games.

How wrong was that decision - we have Doom, Quake, Heretic, Hexen, Wolfenstein 3D, Descent, Rise of the Triad and many other PC games from that era that run fine on Amiga!

And now, in 2016 we have the game that started it all, Catacomb 3D on Amiga CD32! It was ported by Bzili, and will be released soon as commercial game to purchase as a CD32 title from Ares Shop, Ebay and potentially other vendors that are interested in distributing it!

As with most ID Software titles of the period (Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3d), the main menu to the game allows you to start new games, load a game (I would assume saving doesn't work given it is CD32 - not tested):

You can even play a simple pong game from this menu called Skull N Bones!

Anyway, distraction aside, lets get into the game proper, starting with the CD32 controls, included in the manual to come with the game:

From the main menu we can choose Easy/Normal/Hard game style - I wimped out and chose Easy:

We start entering the level called "The Approach":

Still makes me smile seeing this running on a CD32!

In this game you need to locate the exit gates to progress to next levels, but there are keys to find, as well as additional weapons that can help defeat the enemies along the way:

The longer you hold done the fire button, the more powerful the shot you fire. The level is indicated by the level of the nuclear explosion graphic on the right side of the display.

The Health boosters (called Heals) are essential to get anywhere in this game as you need to keep healing yourself as you go along. These functions are mapped to various buttons on the CD32 joypad as shown earlier.

Health is shown graphically with your head on the top right, which turns into a skull the more times you are damaged. You die if it changes to a full skull!

A little later in the level and you can see the blue circle indicating an exit gate:

I then moved on to the next level, Nemesis's Keep:

Things start getting trickier from here as we need colour coded keys (located in the level) to open locked off sections of the level:

Here is the red key:

Making things even more interesting is that you can shoot the walls, some of which reveal secret tunnels and passages - some even lead to whole secret levels!

Here is an example hidden room, which I shot at a wall to reveal:

As always the enemies are close at hand to slow down my progress:

Moving through the game, and several levels in now things seems easy enough until you start finding some really nasty enemies that require a lot of shots, nukes and bolts to kill. I found myself healing constantly and realised this game is definitely not easy:

It was about this time that my luck ran out in the Brick Chamber, with two nasty enemies taking me apart and with no bolts, nukes or heals left I was easy meat:

Oh dear, game over:

This game will also run on Amiga 020 systems like Amiga 1200 and 4000, and ideally runs best with 4MB Fast memory. It does run ok on 2MB memory though, like on my Amiga CD32 I tested here.

Catacomb 3D is a very fun and challenging game. I am grateful for the sneak preview of the game on CD32 and it is expected to be released very soon to purchase, so keep an eye out for it!

Tales of Gorluth on Amiga 600

Today I wanted to take a look at the recently released Classic Amiga game Tales of Gorluth on my Amiga 600.

The game was written by Amiworx Software, available in German and English language versions on the CD.  You can buy it for GBP11.80 from AmigaKit here.

I promptly received my game in the mail from AmigaKit - The CD itself and packaging looks very nice:

Back of the CD cover:

Inside CD case - so nice to have nice professional presentation:

CD insert cover also has the installation process and controls outlined:

The installation process is not very straightforward, and does not follow the instructions included in the cd insert above.  I found I had to muck around with it a bit to get it working.

In my case, I found I needed to first (as per the instructions) copy across the TOG_E folder from the CD to your Hard disk as described (see below for the CD contents):

Having done this you end up with this folder on your hard disk:

You then need to rename the TOG_E folder on your hard disk as TOG-E, and then extract the tog_e.lha file included on the CD over the top of this hard disk folder to get all the files.

You then get the talesofgorluth script that can be executed from a Shell. Note that this program does not work from Workbench, and needs you to boot with no startup-sequence, cd to the folder, and then run execute talesofgorluth to run it.

There is also known issues apparently running it under AmigaOS3.5 or AmigaOS3.9, although I have not tested this, as my Amiga 600 is running AmigaOS3.1.

Seriously - the installation process and instructions need some improving. A single lha file to extract to hard disk with all files in it would have been better than this messy method.

Anyway, once installed, I then ran the game - it prompts to see the Introduction or Start Quest:

Of course I wanted to get straight into the game, so I start the Quest and we are into Part 1:

The graphics are colourful and work well on an Amiga 600.  The screen update is a bit jerky - it does recommend an 68030 to run this game - my Amiga 600 has a 68030, but it runs at 25Mhz rather than the usual 40-50Mhz on a big box Amiga or Amiga 1200 with a 68030 accelerator.

You control the game with a joystick, and press fire when next to a person to chat to them, bringing up a dialog box revealing more of the quest:

Exploring the map you can enter houses by pressing fire when positioned near the door, which then switches to an internal view of the house:

The exit path is less clear, basically pressing fire on the grey bit that looks like where a door should be - I think a door should be there to make it more obvious where the exit is.

Even as you enplane the map you find enemies to kill, prior to entering the crypt referred to by several people you chat to as the start. Press fire to shoot the enemies - i found that often the enemy would sit on top of my position draining my health - you need to shoot them before they get that close:

Clearly someone spent a bit of time making this game look nice:

In the pub I talked to Galek:

Apparently all is not well in my home village, and I need to find his daughter who will explain what happened and why so many people have left. I eventually found his daughter:

Dunia gives a long dialogue explaining what happened, that the statue at this location has been stolen, the crypt is not safe and I need to find and bring back the statue:

So logically I head off to the crypt - here is the entrance:

Inside the crypt the passages are narrow and full of enemies to be killed and secret rooms:

Exploring the crypt:

I made a YouTube video showing the initial part of the game so you can see what to expect:

At the end of the video (for those unable to view it) I got stuck in a dead end in the crypt and had to kill myself (hit escape) to start again...I did this several times and couldn't work out how to get past it...I guess I have to keep trying!

There is a good game here but also some issues when I tried it out - the installation process is not good, the edges of the map are often closer than you think - some parts of the map that look like they should continue on (especially inside houses) hit an invisible wall you can't go past, and the shooting of enemies once they reach your position is almost impossible.

You can continue your quest from where you left off, although it is not clear how to "save" it. I guess it is automatic.

The music is a highlight - very well done. The graphics are also acceptable for an ECS Amiga game - someone spent some time making these.

It is good to see new games to play on Classic Amiga in 2014!