What happened to beat em' ups?

[Xeogred]

Bit funny reading this debate, since for somebody raised in the micro-land - as opposed to y`all console kiddies - there is only one master brawler in town:

When it arrived on my ZX Spectrum, the quality of the port was so ahead of everything else regarding gfx/sfx/gameplay it really had no competition. And even looking outside the microcomputer niche, sure SoR/FF/DD are all great (I`d say SoR>rest btw) but they definitely stand on the leather-clad shoulders of this giant.

I can't stop laughing at the pipe/chain guy at the bottom.

[BogusMeatFactory]

It looked like one of his goons said, "Here! Hold my lucky pipe while I beat this guy's ass!"

[Exhuminator]

raised in the micro-land - as opposed to y`all console kiddies

it arrived on my ZX Spectrum, the quality of the port was so ahead of everything else regarding gfx/sfx/gameplay it really had no competition.

On the ZX Spectrum Renegade looked like this:



On NES it looked like this:



On SMS it looked like this:



I think us "console kiddies" had the better ports.

Also I don't think Renegade on ZXS had "no competition", rather I think Final Fight was more impressive on the same system:

[akeley]

I think us "console kiddies" had the better ports.

So much work in response to a little innocent joke...my, aren`t we sensitive? ;)

A joke that went waaay over your head, btw, which is my fault I suppose. I should`ve mentioned that I grew up behind Iron Curtain where there was NO CONSOLES of any kind. We only got micros (expensive as hell anyway) because the games/soft were so easily pirated.

In your battle fever you missed one important point thou: how the game looks an how it plays can be two different things. That`s just for the record, since I`m pretty sure the console ports could be in fact better - little surprise given the game`s and hardware`s origin and also the NES` FX/RAM superiority over the ol` ZX.

Having said that, the models in your NES scr$ look way "worse" plus quite comical, maybe because it`s a Japanese imagining of what NY gangland looks like vs Westerner`s more close to home interpretation. I much prefer the gritty ZX version.

I`m afraid that when you then later move into actual Spectrum territory it`s clear to see you`ve never had one. Renegade was light years ahead of Double D, even though the latter was released 2 years later. It should be clear even from the screenshots you yourself posted - DD is a mostly-one-colour mess (sprite size don`t matter ;) that also moved and played like a dog.

Anyway, don`t take my word for it - Renegade has been voted no 48 in Your Sinclair Top 100 both by critics and public, whereas DD doesn`t even register.

And to cap it off, it was so popular that we even got two sequels on the micros - Target: Renegade (ranks even higher than original) - it was even better than NES port since it had co-op mode, and Renegade 3, which was a micro exclusive :)

[Exhuminator]

the models in your NES scr$ look way "worse" plus quite comical

Not so much in the obviously superior Sega Master System version though.

Renegade was light years ahead of Double D, even though the latter was released 2 years later.

I never talked about Double Dragon. I posted screen shots of Final Fight on ZXS.

Anyway, don`t take my word for it - Renegade has been voted no 48

I wasn't trying to say Renegade on ZX Spectrum is bad. I was saying that the console versions are just fine, if not better. The way you phrased it earlier, calling the majority of the gamers on this board "console kiddies", that came off as arrogant sounding. Which lead me to believe you were insinuating the ZXS version was better. Now I never owned a ZX Spectrum personally, but I've seen them played in real life. I'd take a NES/SMS over a ZXS any day. My condolences that you were deprived of consoles as a child, and lack the same perspective.

[marurun]

A lot of old computer fans are born of a kind of Stockholm Syndrome. I still think the Apple II is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

[Sarge]

And if you had a green monochrome monitor, it was like moldy sliced bread.

(Seriously, though, I thought it was a cool machine when I got to play with it at school. No Oregon Trail, though.)

[Exhuminator]

A lot of old computer fans are born of a kind of Stockholm Syndrome.

Indeed, I suspect that's the case here.

[Xeogred]

I'd like to wager some of you guys here that had computers back in the day are on the older end. Or that's just me growing up lower class for the most part. We had a craptacular family computer, but the full extent of my PC gaming growing up was basically freeware Doom and Duke 3D, Frogger 3D, Shivers, Need for Speed III (ran like garbage), Jedi Knight (ran okay), Starcraft (somehow ran very well), Total Annihilation, and some other weird demo discs or collections of freeware games like Descent and stuff. Some SNES games emulated via ZSNES like Seiken Densetsu 3 really taxed out the PC and had a lot of slowdown, funny to think about.

There are some really bizarre old games I used to play I wish I could remember. One was like this weird racing game with what seemed like sci-fi bumper cars. I wonder if I can find that "Mega Games" collection disc somewhere, but I remember half the games off the disc not even working correctly and it'd probably be too scary to put in a modern computer, might blow things up. I remember the PC version of Sonic CD I still own to this day would erase everything in whatever directory you installed it to and had to be right after the main drive path, it wiped out a whole folder of games and stuff one time.

[isiolia]

There are some really bizarre old games I used to play I wish I could remember. One was like this weird racing game with what seemed like sci-fi bumper cars.

If you're talking about Hover!, then it's actually included on the Windows 95 CD (along with a Weezer music video).
Apparently there's a Windows store app version now.


I think some genres favored consoles back in the day anyway, due to graphics techniques and all not necessarily being hashed out on PC. Even past that, the focus was just typically very different between console and PC gaming then.