Back in the day consoles seemed to garner much of the attention and rightly so. They had the best selection of quality games but that was hardly surprising given they were made for the sole purpose of gaming but there were other home systems available at the time and they were the home computers. Long before the rise of powerful Windows driven machines, the PC's of the time were rather slow business machines, heavily reliant on DOS and not much good for anything bar maybe a good Lucasfilm adventure now and then. The real daddies were the Commodore Amiga and The Atari ST.
| Not being exclusively gaming machines, both the Amiga and ST were horribly open to money grabbing third party developers who would snap up film and arcade licences and produce sub-par ports to the machines that relied on the name alone to sell the product. Almost every single arcade conversion to these machines was a disaster and unfortunately the beat 'em ups got it the worst. Rubbish conversions of the original Street Fighter arcade game, Double Dragon and many more littered the machine with publishers U.S. Gold being the prime culprit in these dodgy dealings with Ocean software handling the crapola film licences. |  Final Fight Amiga had the look but lost most of the moves...and gameplay |
The most controversial of these ports by far was the Amiga conversion of Final Fight and one that is still talked about with universal hate to this very day (seriously, check YouTube). Amiga Final Fight had massive sprites ripped straight from the arcade machine as well as some sound effects too but the crock came when players discovered that just about 80% of the moves were missing from the game which turned it in to a slow, plodding chore that came no where near the frantic arcade original. Enemy placement was random, the special moves were different and it just felt like the programmers didn't even play the game at all (They did but that's another story!). Amiga Final Fight had no music either, simply because U.S. Gold were too cheap to commission a composer and the whole thing feels like exactly what it is - an incomplete beta version which was rushed through production and comes no-where near the potential it could have had if given the proper time and care. Even the programmer himself Richard Aplin says he wasn't a fan of the genre at all and found the arcade game 'boring' so it really was doomed from the start with that lack of drive. In saying that, in it's own right the game was a solidly programmed scrolling beat 'em up with some clever coding tricks to handle the massive sprites and it had an awesome title theme song that the programmer pinched from the Amiga demoscene (the composer of which never got paid although he did make a few new fans through the game) but as a conversion of probably what is considered the yardstick of all scrolling beat 'em ups it was atrocious. The other systems faired even worse with the ST having some horrible jerky scrolling and the 8-bit machines not even making an effort.
 Double Dragon II was one of the best ports on the Amiga | Other ports faired a bit better with the earlier Double Dragon II being one of the best (Ironically programmed by the same guy who did Final Fight) and conversions of The Ninjawariors, Mortal Kombat, Bad Dudes VS Dragonninja then later Street Fighter II's faired reasonably well in the translation from arcade machine to computer. |
Being what they are the computer world was home to some splendidly talented homegrown development teams who didn't specialise in ports but original game designed specifically for the machine. In 1988 lone developer Archer Maclean ported his own game to the Amiga and ST from the 8-bit machines. International Karate Plus or IK+ as it was known was a smash hit and routinely called the best beat 'em up on the system. The game is a Karate simulator much like Way OF The Exploding fist where you control a storyless karateka but the difference was that you fight not one but two opponents at the same time. Even in two player mode the CPU will control a third fighter to add some chaos to the proceedings. The game had basic graphics and only one background but was meticulously programmed with some great moves, a funky tune and some excellent sound effects sampled from Enter The Dragon all wrapped up in a good sense of humour.
IK+ brought amazing gameplay and a sense of humour to the genre
Germans Thalion did a beautiful and creative job in 1989 with 'Chambers Of Shaolin' which wasn't so much a beat 'em up as a Shaolin....sim? The premise being that you guide your baldy disciple through his training within the Chambers who will then move on to fight real opponents and the final boss. The game was fairly unique with it's puzzley trial stages in the Chambers and the combat sections were quite nifty too despite the fact you were just fighting slightly palette swapped versions of yourself but a highly commendable game that should be given credit for thinking outside the box.
 Chambers Of Shaolin was maybe the first puzzle 'em up | The 90's saw the potential of the Amiga being taken to it's limits. Enter Team 17 in 1991, a fresh young Amiga group and hungry to show what the machine could do and they did just that with 'Full Contact' their first official release. |
Full Contact was a one on one beat 'em up dressed in the most sumptuous cosmetics the Amiga had yet seen. From the stunning opening sequence (with animation traced straight from the film Kickboxer) the graphical effects alone told you these guys knew the machine inside out and the music and SFX by legendary game composer Allister Brimble was, and still is something to behold with some wondrously atmospheric sampled oriental sounds. The game itself was fast, smooth and responsive though while not the deepest or most varied game in the world it was great fun to play, even just to soak up the atmosphere.
Full Contact had stunning cosmetics and made a mark for Team 17
Team 17 returned in 1993 with their next beat em 'up offering Body Blows, another one on one fighter but this time on a hefty diet of better graphics, character variety and competition of the somewhat dire U.S. Gold Streetfighter II conversion. Body Blows featured some pretty big sprites, beautifully drawn and animated against some nice backgrounds and some clear sampled punch and kick sound effects. The game itself was actually rather clunky and unbalanced but served as an excellent tech demo for the machine to silence those who shouted “The Amiga can't handle that kind of game!”. Some improvements were made for the updated semi-sequel Body Blows Galactic which featured some even more stunning graphics and sound and slightly better gameplay.
 Elfmania featured some of the most stunning graphics ever seen on the Amiga |  Body Blows, Team 17's next effort |
In 1994 Finnish company Terramarque released Elfmania for the Amiga another one on one fighting game but with the gimmick of cutesy Elf like characters. The game won much acclaim for it's absolutely stunning graphics, possibly some of the best ever seen on the Amiga and in some cases far surpassed arcade games but fell short on gameplay as there were only a few moves available and no hit sound effects to speak off which gave the play zero impact and no satisfaction. Cross this with overly floaty jumps and it was clear that Elfmania wasn't much good past the WOW factor of the graphics and it's a shame that a sequel was never made to sort these problems.
With Team 17 and Teramarque putting the dodgy arcade game porters to shame the 'game' was upped and later ports of Super Street Fighter II, and Mortal Kombat were actually fairly decent, especially for the A1200 and newer games like Shadow Fighter and Fightin' Spirit did in fact come quite close to the arcade feel....
....just a little too late!
NEXT – Part 5: The Clone Wars
With Team 17 and Teramarque putting the dodgy arcade game porters to shame the 'game' was upped and later ports of Super Street Fighter II, and Mortal Kombat were actually fairly decent, especially for the A1200 and newer games like Shadow Fighter and Fightin' Spirit did in fact come quite close to the arcade feel....
....just a little too late!
NEXT – Part 5: The Clone Wars
 | Striding forth from his lair at Castle Stareskull one morning, Prototron decided to not reign down terror on the villagers, but instead go back inside, crack open a beer and load up Streets Of Rage 2. One hundred years later, he's still there. A avid music maker (of TERROR!) and retro gamer, he can be found whooping any and all heroes at all manner of SNK-based challenges. |
