Apidya is a horizontal-scrolling shoot'em up game developed by the Germans from Kaiko and released in 1992. This game takes place in an original context: instead of controlling the usual space ship, the player controls a honeybee. The enemies are animals such as flies, grasshoppers, spiders, snails, moles, fish... The bee can retrieve flower-shaped power-ups from killed enemies in order to extend its shooting capabilities.
The first two levels take place in the wild (meadow, pond), then in a sewer where the bee fights against toxic waste products and mutant enemies. The fourth level takes place in some bio-mechanical area with bizarre enemies. In the fifth and final level, the player fights against several bosses. There is also a hidden level that you can access from the fourth level, a tunnel in which the bee must avoid obstacles (ground, ceiling, platforms...) while the screen scrolls faster and faster. The purpose is to remain alive as long as possible.
The game graphics are very nice, the scrolling is very smooth, enemies are varied, numerous and original. The action is intense and the game not too easy. You'll need some training to complete it, but it isn't an impossible task. The numerous game tunes were composed by Chris Hülsbeck, a German musician who also composed the musics of Turrican and Great Giana Sisters. Apidya's music is great. It goes from happy melodies in the first levels to more aggressive techno music in the last levels.
No shoot'em up lover should let Apidya pass them by and miss the pleasure of embodying a honeybee! The game is really good for letting off steam so grab a good controller and kill those bugs!
Arkanoid is originally an arcade game from Taito, released in 1986. Ported to almost all platforms, this breakout game revived this long-forgotten genre. It is inspired by the old Breakout from Atari, released in 1976, but brings improvements that make it more attractive and conform it to the demands of the era.
First contribution: color. The game is colorful and the graphics are clear and pleasant. The game principle is identical to Breakout (destroy bricks with a ball controlled with a paddle), only here you have 3 different types of bricks: colored bricks you can destroy with one hit, gray bricks you can destroy with 2 or more hits depending on the level, and gold bricks which are indestructible.
Some bricks, when destroyed, will release capsules the player can catch with the paddle. These capsules bring bonuses, which can be good or bad: slowing the ball, increasing the paddle size, laser cannon, direct access to the next level, multiplication of the ball, sticking paddle, etc.
Also, enemies of various shapes enter the levels through trapdoors located at the top of the screen. The ball can destroy them by hitting them, but is randomly deviated when doing so, making it difficult to catch with the paddle.
The game has about 30 different levels, more or less difficult to complete. The last level is a boss in the form of an Easter Island statue head that can be destroyed by touching it numerous times with the ball.
The Amiga version is a wonder. Identical to the arcade version, the only difference comes from the controller. In the arcade version, the paddle was controlled with a very reactive circular knob, while the Amiga paddle was controlled with the mouse, which is also very fast and accurate. Graphics, musics, sound effects, handling... everything is perfect. A stressing game where you will lose often but that you won't let go until you have finished it. A true classic!
This game is undoubtfully one of the best shoot'em up on the Amiga. Technically speaking, it's great: fine, full screen and colorful graphics, perfect animation without any framerate dropdowns, whatever the number of enemies on screen, vertical and horizontal scrolling, invisible enemies you can only see because they distort the background they fly over, great musics... flawless!
The game isn't very difficult but its exceptional production makes you want to play it over and over again.
It is perfectly emulated through WinUAE.
The musics are very good, very well composed. They welcome the player from the beautiful title screen and play throughout the game, and also in the score screen.
Gee Bee Air Rally is an Activision game released in 1987. It is one of the first Amiga games and you feel that the computer is not pushed to its limits. Gee Bee Air Rally is not graphically outstanding and we know the Amiga can do better. The introduction music is nice but there is only one and it gets interrupted when the game is loading. No sound, no music, no graphics to help the player wait, although the Amiga turned out to be able to load AND display somthing on screen. Furthermore, the gameplay itself is rather similar to an 8-bit game. The game is pretty repetitive, once you have played a level, you pretty much have seen everything the game has to offer. Only the level of difficulty will rise gradually, but no new challenge in sight. On the other hand, the atmosphere is nice, with some beautiful graphics. Unfortunately, they are only still images. In spite of all these flaws, the game is pleasant. You won't spend hours playing it, though. You can always try to beat your high scores if you don't mind the repetition.
Gee Bee Air Rally is an arcade plane race, based on car races with the added possibility to go up and down. The player controls an old propeller monoplane in short tracks. You cannot go off limits by far. You control your speed by going up, which makes you slow down, then dive to the ground (you cannot crash) to speed up. The purpose is to reach the finish line before the time expires.
The game offers 3 levels of difficulty. The higher the level, the less time you have to finish a race. The plane will also turn more slowly, which compels you to slow down in order to avoid going off limits.
Each level has 3 races and ends up with a special race. There are two kinds of special races. In the first one, you have to fly low and blow up the red balloons. Control the plane so you come in contact with them and avoid the signposts. You must blow up a certain number of balloons and the time is limited. If you fail, you will have to start over. In the second special race, you must zigzag between red and blue marks. These two events are not very exciting, but they bring a little variety to the game.
Gee Bee Air Rally offers a nice atmosphere as the game takes place in the 1930's. There is some sort of scenario as your pilot character will gain the love of a young woman as he wins races and will eventually marry her. At the end of the first four levels, still images will show you that. First, you get a trophy, then you get a photograph in the local newspaper, then you get to kiss the woman and you finally get married. The game then continues, but this nice little story will not develop any further.
In the end, Gee Bee Air Rally is very simple, too simple because of a lack of diversity, but it is easy to play, there are several nice still graphics and it is enjoyable over short periods of time. Merely a nice little game which brings back nice memories to me, as it was one of the first games I played on Amiga.
Silkworm is an arcade game from Tecmo released in 1988 then ported in 1989 to the Amiga (and other platforms) by The Sales Curve. It's horizontal-scrolling shooter for one or two players, in which players control either a helicopter or a jeep.
The Amiga version of the game is excellent. The difficulty is progressive, the first levels are fairly easy but things get complicated pretty fast. The number of enemies or enemy missiles on screen can be impressive and you'll often wonder how you'll manage to stay alive.
There are 11 levels, various enemies and you gain new and more powerful weapons by destroying specific enemies. You can get protective shields by shooting some ground targets and even blow up every enemy on screen by combining twho shields. Each level ends up with a boss, either a giant helicopter or a giant tank, every other level. Too bad for the lack of variety in this department.
The action is intense. Silkworm will not let you breathe but it doesn't make it impossible to complet. It takes training, stamina, but you can always feel it's possible to complete, even if not at the first try.
Technically, the game is fine. It isn't striking, but graphics are clear enough and the sound effects are intense but not tiring. The intro music is OK, although it isn't a piece of art. The game becomes jerky at times when too many enemies are present on screen. I would have preferred the game to be perfectly smooth, but it doesn't ruin the game experience and it doesn't happen too often.
Handling is excellent, you feel instantly comfortable with the controls, the helicopter is very responsive. The jeep is really not interesting for one-player games since it only moves in two directions on the ground, even though it is able to jump above low obstacles (secret technology: jumping cars!), but you cannot avoid it in the tow-player mode. Silkworm is highly recommended to all players who love quick intense action games.
Here, you can download the best Amiga emulator there is for PC: WinUAE (Windows Ultimate Amiga Emulator). It's the most comprehensive, probably also the best known emulator, even though it is not always very simple to use. However, it's rather easy to find tutorials on the Internet if needed.
The zip file contains a few games: Apidya, Battle Squadron, Arkanoid, Defender of the Crown, Gee Bee Air Rally, Great Giana Sisters, Katakis, Pacmania, Pushover, Silkworm, Swiv, Superfrog, Xenon, Xenon 2.
Should any beneficiaries think that these files should not be downloaded and rediscover these lost treasures, please let me know and I will delete them from the site.
Amiga emulator for PC : WinUAE v2.3 (14.8 MB)
This help file contains the Kickstart 1.3 for Amiga 500, a settings file for Amiga 500 and a quick help file that will teach you how to simply start a program, without detailing every function of the WinUAE emulator:Help (288 KB)
After spending three and a half years with my Commodore 64, I realized it was now outdated. I had bought it in 1985, and in 1988, the market had shifted from the 8-bit to the 16-bit computers. The Commodore 64/128, Amstrad CPC, Atari XL/XE, Spectrum and Thomson computers left room for the allmighty Atari ST, which in turn was to give way to its big enemy: The Commodore Amiga.
After the Commodore 64 vs Amstrad CPC and Atari XL/XE, a new war had started. As I previously owned a Commodore computer, I chose my side very quickly: the successor to my beloved C64 was the One, thanks to its technical features being superior to those of the Atari ST.
Objectively, I must say that the Atari ST and the Amiga were very much alike, even though, theorically, the Amiga outclassed the Atari. The Amiga had better graphic, animation and sound capabilities.The Atari was cheaper, had an integrated MIDI interface and had been on the market for more time.
The Atari ST had been on the market for almost two years when the Amiga 500 (the model that allowed Commodore to challenge the Atari) was released, and so it already had a large quantity of software when the Amiga 500 showed up. It cost roughly 230 euros less, which was far from negligible, and it was indeed a good computer. Furthermore, the name of Atari was still a pledge of quality.
It was also nicknamed "Jackintosh", that is to say the "Jack Macintosh" as Jack Tramiel was Atari's CEO at the time, and though it was much cheaper than the Apple Macintosh (really expensive), it was as powerful and gifted for office work as was the latter one. But then Apple will survive while Atari will perish.
Finally, the integrated MIDI interface will allow the Atari ST to dominate the computerized professional music industry for years, until the Macintosh took the lead, today competing with the PC.
But... even though it was nice to be able to handle office work and professional music with a cheap computer, the truth is that the vast majority of people was not buying this class of computers in that purpose. No. Most people bought it to play, and a lot of them, thanks to the great capabilities of these computers, started taking interest in graphics and music... the casual way. And the Amiga was the best in that area.
I knew the technical features very well. I read the magazines well before Internet came to our homes. Even though the Amiga had less programs than the Atari ST when I bought it, I had no doubt that I would feel frustrated owning an Atari ST. But it was expensive, so I had to sell my dear Commodore 64, get Christmas money and eventually buy the Amiga on 30 December 1988.
So, what did I do with my Amiga? Like most people: I played. A lot, with passion. I was as happy with it as I had been with the Commodore 64. Only everything was more beautiful, sounded better, the gameplay was more complex, the games were more comprehensive... This is what make the computer industry so interesting and so difficult to handle for newcomers: everything evolves quickly and endlessly. I played a lot of great games, but gradually, games became less important to me as I got interested in a new piece of software that was going to eclipse all others. It was Aegis Sonix, a music software with which I composed quite a lot of musics between 1989 and 1992.
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commodorehdcovers,
le 05/11/2011 à 20h18
Salut Grebz !
Super ton site, plein de souvenirs rien qu'en lisant tes tests ! J'ai trouvé sur YouTube ton excellent test de The Way of the Exploding Fist, j'ai adoré, moi aussi j'ai plein de bons souvenirs avec ce jeu !
Je t'envoie mes respects commodoristiques !
Et si tu as quelques minutes à perdre, tu peux toujours venir faire un petit tour sur mon site www.commodorehdcovers.com (il y a aussi un forum).
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Merci de ta visite ! À bientôt sur ton site.
Grebz
Dge Be,
le 30/03/2011 à 09h37
Et en plus tu joues !
Et oui, c'est encore moi, perso je suis sur PS3 maintenant et principalement des jeux de sport (golf, fifa, gran turismo, nhl, nfl, baseball...).
J'en ai eu assez de devoir sans arrêt updater mon PC (comme pour la musique d'ailleurs) alors les consoles m'ont paru plus utiles.
Merci pour ton site complet, on se sent moins isolé, même en pleine Cévennes.
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Mais tu es partout :-) ! Ravi de voir que mon site t'a plu et que tu y as trouvé des choses qui t'intéressent.
Grebz
kromagnon1664,
le 27/01/2011 à 14h06
merci pr ta page, que de souvenirs... :)
Palermo183,
le 17/01/2011 à 17h24
Franchement excellent et que de souvenirs me reviennent en memoire. Combien de joysticks explosés, de crises de nerfs et de délires entre potes.
C'était pas toujours du gâteau de terminer les niveaux.
Punkito,
le 07/01/2011 à 07h22
Au clavier, Punkito, un des graphistes du groupe Yankees. Le C64 a été une révélation pour moi. Ce site me rappelle d'énormes et très bons souvenirs, toutes mes félicitations à son créateur ! Il manque juste Cybernoïd :D et notre démo 45.2 Light Years (yks) :D
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Merci !
Oui, il manque plein de jeux, parce que je manque de temps pour m'en occuper. Alors j'ai mis en priorité ceux qui m'ont laissé le souvenir le plus vif... Et encore, ils n'y sont pas tous. J'ai passé du temps sur les jeux Epyx (summer games, winter games, etc...), il faut absolument que je prenne le temps de me replonger dedans ! Un jour prochain !
Grebz
