For those of you who played the shoot em up of Xenon 2 - Megablast on the Amiga in the year of 1989. A game that was developed by The Bitmap Brothers and also released on systems such as the Atari ST, IBM PC, Sega Master System, Sega Mega Drive and Sharp X68000. Then you might be interested in this latest news story that we've come across via the EAB forums. As Mcgeezer looks to be working on a recoded version for the Commodore Amiga. A new version in which he says "I've decided to try and recode Xenon 2 for AGA running at 50FPS".
Although I will be following developments as they progress, and unsure if this will be turned into a super smooth AGA experience. This is what Mcgeezer has said via the EAB post linked HERE. "I'll just get the basic game engine working first and then fix up the graphics/glitches. 5 64px wide hardware sprites make up the background, it's in dual playfield mode with 64x fetch. First playfield is for scrolling terrain and is double height with some support for animated tiles while the other playfield is for sprites. I'll try and use 1 hardware sprite for player bullets and the other two for a multiplexed starfield".
"90% of the code is taken from Devil's Temple because the sprite engine I built was quite efficient and it lends itself to Xenon 2 nicely with the way the player ship can be expanded. Depending on how far I go it might morph into a new game if I can get some people onboard"
And that's all we know so far, so watch this space!
looks very good. well done. if possible please please please sort out the way the fx cuts into the music, it was so off putting, not sure how, but it could use more than just that one tune too. maybe someone like hoffman could create more tracks :) i can dream ,,
ReplyDeleteThis is really cool news. I've always loved this game (and I know it's a bit of a Marmite one!!), but always felt the slightly stuttery scrolling was something that made if feel less polished than other Amiga shooters like X-Out (which I read is also getting a Switch / Console re-release as a jazzed up version)!
ReplyDeleteLook forward to reading more as this develops.
Z out was stunning
DeleteAlways liked Xenon 2 but thought it was a little slow to play - This Possible Update sounds INCREDIBLE. Be Nice if we can have the Original "BOMB THE BASS" Music in there too - Only a Humble ask - Wayne
ReplyDeleteThere is no reason in making an aga version of xenon 2 without using the enhanced graphic of the chipset...Xenon 2 on cd tv was already better and way smoother(and more difficult..) than the original version! and the sountrack on cd rom is fantastic too!
ReplyDeleteWouldn't mind an enhanced version of Xennon 2 with some visual and game play improvements, that actually would be kinda cool. If that was followed by an original game that morphed from that code - even better!
ReplyDeleteSUPER NASHWAN POWER
ReplyDeleteThis looks amazing, look forward to seeing it. So far the CDTV version is peak Xenon II for me, thumping CD soundtrack!
ReplyDeleteAs amazing as this tech demo is, that is all it will be. It's not a modification of the original it's just a tech demo. Getting the rest of the game in will be very hard work.
ReplyDeleteI clicked on the video hoping to hear the music.....ohhh
ReplyDeleteVery nice news! Thanks to other commenters for pointing out the CDTV version. I didn't know it has smoother gameplay.
ReplyDeleteWhy using AGA ! As the Amiga version is only an ST port I'm sure OCS can run 50 fps...
ReplyDeletethen you can do the OCS version then, prove McGeezer wrong
Deleteagree the same game at 50 fps is a nice addition but in order to make sense the extra capabilities should be used!
DeleteIf you say so, maybe OCS chipset is less capable than what I think....thanks
DeleteNo way.
DeleteOn OCS, Dual Playfield is out of the question because of the lack of colors in one playfield, and using a whole screen background sprite layer would slow everything down massively because there would be no DMA left for blitting BOBs, so we would have a shitty lame low frame rate version again.
AGA is the only way to go here...
As OCS/ECS big fan, I m too enthusiastic with it's capabilities . What we had is probably the best we could pulled out of an Amiga 500....
DeleteYou can never prove an Amiga developer wrong, they're always right even when they're wrong.
DeleteOf course the Amiga original can be improved, whether it can run at twice the speed as the ST version I don't know...
That's what I say to myself every time I play Brian the lion.....
DeleteGreat.
ReplyDeleteMolto brutto, corto e end sequence inesistente. Hybris is the best !!!!!
ReplyDeleteI disagree, BANSHEE ;) - By the way, in future can you only post in English as per the rules of the site. As we've had a LOT of abuse that I've come across via Google Translate. So that had to stop thus English ONLY! .
DeleteThe Bitmap Bros were unable to do something superior to 25 Hz back in the days, so this is good news !
ReplyDeleteWould bee nice to see Speedball 2 and Chaos Engine in 50fps too! Whether it would need AGA; well so be it. They both have AGA (palette wise) versions already. I do agree though that there are quite some games out there that at least suggest OCS would be capable enough.
ReplyDeleteThe Bitmap Brothers sure knew how to design an addictive game, but they were not so great when it came to Amiga programming. The other way round can be said for Team 17... Chaos Engine CD32 runs properly with fast memory though.
ReplyDelete