Fantam 39 Amstrad Action Revised For A New Generation By Fantam 39

                                     
                               For A New Generation


    When the 8 bit days were about to end Amstrad had to come up with a plan, as was the advent to the likes of the Atari ST and Amiga 500 so what do you improve on whats already available but what was a bit peculiar was that Amstrad didn't produce a 16 bit computer instead they made a better version of the already existing systems so along came the 464 Plus with built in tape deck and cartridge port along with the 6128 Plus with built in disk drive and also the with cartridge port, the bonus to the Plus range was a bigger color palette and some technical improvements also all GX4000 games could be played on the new systems. Also if you'r just after the game side of things a single console came out the GX4000 which had a low support for its library of software. Games developers started using the extra colors to give more depth to there game, also the machines were very beautiful machines to look at leaving the original models looking dated. I remember going to a friends house were he had a 464 Plus and he showed me Burnin Rubber running from the cartridge port and I noticed the improvement straight away, But putting a racing game like Chase H.Q running along side Burnin Rubber there wasn't a huge difference but I suppose if developers had more years to experiment with the new tricks the Plus systems had we'd see something special and some of the cartridges were straight ports of the tape and disk versions. Because players were starting to save there money for the Amiga 500 Amstrad got left behind when people saw what the new 16 bit computers were capable of meaning games were becoming less available for all 8 bit systems. In life everything advances so people want the next best system to play there games on meaning what could've been for the Plus range was over showered by the new market of gaming machines. To this day I'd like to get a CPC Plus just cause how great they look.

Fantam 39 Amstrad Action Revised Bedroom Hacking By Fantam 39

                                             Bedroom Hacking


  When I had my CPC set in my bedroom it wasn't just playing my favorite games there was another side to my gaming the monthly magazine which was like religion for me to read each month was Amstrad Action and every month there was a tips,hints and pokes section with type ins that you could type into the CPC and it would give you infinite lives/energy so I became each month without realizing a bedroom hacker originally I'd type the poke and then load up the game to let me complete it without any worries this really did take away the feeling of achieving but when you've played a game for months and got stuck on the same level the handy poke came in handy so I could see the rest of the game other ways of activating a cheat was usually pause the game and hold a certain amount of letters which would either give you infinite lives or let you skip a level, After a while of just typing the poke in and loading the game I thought of incorporating the cheat at the begging of the game on a separate tape so it would go like save the type in then record the game after and I gave the loading screen my own bedroom hacking name so when you load the tape from the start it would read on screen 'Ollysoft Ltd Proudly Presents Hacked Version Of.....' then there would be a request to load the main game and once your game had loaded it was hacked with whatever cheat was typed at the time, cool huh. Well in my life time I'd never really meet any hackers just when I went to a guys house to get copies of Amiga games for my friend they'd nine out of ten times be hacked versions. I noticed a lot of the Roms I've downloaded for Winape have been hacked by a lot of French people, me and my friends didn't know any CPC hackers at the time it was just me doing it by myself each month Amstrad Action came out and I'd make a hacked copy of the game I wanted changed. I suppose \Googling the hacking and PD scene you'd be surprised how many CPC hackers were out there. Still it's a fun little hobby to have when your young and at least you can get to finish your games and see everything the game offered.

Fantam 39 Amstrad Action Revised But I Wanted A Commodore 64 Not A Amstrad CPC By Fantam 39

           But I Wanted A Commodore 64 Not A Amstrad CPC

  Most kids back in the eighties primarily wanted the favored C64 as there bedroom system to hack,play and program on, it's just healthy competition but people go for whats right and C64 was a huge favorite back then and it was seldom when people actually opted for a CPC it's the hype surrounding the best machine with a great sound and those grainy old skool graphics people must have felt at home with a C64 how the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC grew its user base is hard to figure, I can't calculate to this day how the three systems all got there owners maybe they were people that wanted specific machines for personal needs maybe some people were after color or was it influence that drew people to there desired system I remember having four friends when I started secondary school and they each had a CPC of some sort, I'd already owned my CPC 6128 for about four years so it wasn't because friends had a CPC as well, maybe it's like you can tell a man by his....? that kind of destined for a specific system some people suited a ZX Spectrum others the culture behind Commodore 64 or flash people who could afford the Amstrad CPC range with there mono/color monitors what ever it was life's always always has its reasons for something happening to some body maybe I was suppose to be given my CPC 6128 for a life long reason seeing as I'm sitting here at forty years old after owning near enough every console/computer available, sometimes when I was young I looked upon Commodore 64 owners as lucky I don't know why now as after seeing how each big name game was converted to each system my CPC's were the most presentable of the three computers I only needed to envy the C64's amazing sound back then. So to anyone who had a CPC and wanted a C64 don't feel bad the CPC is still the king of 8 bit computers 32 years on. I can understand the Commodore 64's following as there was a lot of PD demos that made use of the systems excellent sound and fancy graphics but the CPC might not have had a huge PD scene in England over in France the CPC's PD scene was booming french people really dedicated there life to the Amstrad you can still find a lot of hacked games on sites that have french hackerd versions of games to download one of the places is Free Roms you'll find loads of french hacked games at there site, I'm not really sure about the ZX Spectrum's PD popularity as I've made little effort to research it but Commodore had that covered over here and as did France for the CPC. Wanting to know what the best system was in those days is like asking was the Atari ST better than the Amiga 500 or was Super Nintendo better than the Megadrive it's hard to decide, every dog has its day. The choice was down to the buyer maybe there's a personal reason for owning a pacific machine, who knows ?

Fantam 39 Amstrad Action Revised What's Going On Inside....? By Fantam 39

                                 Whats Going On Inside....?


  Your probably after all this time was wondering what made your CPC tick well internally the CPC's technical side had these components media wise it could load off tapes and 3 inch floppy disks and its operating system was AMDOS and Locomotive BASIC 1.0 or 1.1: CP/M 2.2 or 3.0 Zilog Z80A @ 4 Mhz 64 or 128 KB expandable to 576 KB input was used with a keyboard so there you have it that's what tech was keeping everything running on the inside while you were using your CPC one more fact the Amstrad sold 3 million units worldwide, which in my books isn't a bad figure, France been the biggest user base for the system with a huge following over seas I don't think it was that popular in the states where most Americans used the Commodore 64. England had a firm user base as well for the CPC, I've just discovered that the Amstrad was released in 1984 and was discontinued in the early nineties 32 years a go. Has it really been that long, well anyone with a PC can easily download a emulator to play all there favorite CPC games one of the best emulators that I use myself is Winape it's a Amstrad CPC plus emulator so you could play the entire library of games from the CPC's library including the GX4000 games, give it a try you can get all the CPC games from different sites like Free Roms and Emuparadise, you'll get the full spectrum of systems in Winape i.e 464/464 Plus/6128/6128 Plus there all there including ParaDos unless you've managed to keep and maintain your original system from over the years with your games still running then you won't have to worry about emulators. One more fact before this section's finished is you could also buy a TV converter to watch TV on your monitor I think it was for the color monitors only but stories leaked that using the converter would drain the color from your monitor which wasn't the cleverest piece of tech Amstrad thought of if you wanted a healthy monitor to continue playing your CPC library. Also on the audio side of things the Amstrad used a General Instrument AY-3-8912 sound chip output was used by a small built in speaker driven by a internal amplifier it was possible to hear digitized sound by a resolution of approximately 5 bit by sending values to the sound chip games like Robocop and Chase H.Q used this effect on non playable scenes to a grainy but audible quality. Who made the disk drive on your 644/6128 it was produced by Hitachi's floppy disk drive. The interface used was a NEC 765 FDC used also by IBM.

Fantam 39 Amstrad Action Revised Amstrad At The Arcades By Fantam39

                                   Amstrad At The Arcades

  When you knew you were operating with a 8 bit computer you'd sometimes wonder how the developers would squeeze the arcade version of the game you'd spent all your holiday money on but the programmers still managed and sometimes they were as faithful to the arcade version as you'd wanted let's take Robocop for example when I was young and staying at Center Parcs there was a bowling ally and a row of arcade machines the two I'd play were Super Monaco GP and Robocop the feeling is nothing like I could express today it was just perfect as action would go you were Robocop walking down downtown and shooting punk after punk till you'd reach the end and be faced with the mighty ED209 the feeling was perfect aiming up at windows shooting a punk and watching him fall to the ground plus motorbikes racing down the street and having you blow there bike up before it ran over you then there was the items to pick up like a three way bullet spray to make taking out multiple targets and when you'd done this you'd hear a loud roar as ED209 would appear on screen making you aim for his head to destroy him blinding gameplay in those days, then after all of that you'd hear there was a conversion been made for your CPC how is this going to feel been compressed to only 64k. Then I got hold of the finished product and fair play the graphics weren't as good as the arcade version but everything from the original was in included and played well enough for you to remember the arcade version you'd played.When you want you favorite game on your Amstrad you needed everything the original had but had to understand the graphics were going to be to the machines limits, that I could handle I just wanted the same enjoyment and be able to play the arcade game of my dreams at home. It still amazes me today how the mighty games made a near perfect transmission to the humble CPC, many arcade hits were converted in those days including Gryzor, Final Fight, Chase H.Q and many others. So been 8 bit didn't have an restraints in those days the Amstrad was more than capable of bringing the magic home. I remember Operation Wolf I first thought how is anyone going to do this but they did and it worked really well arcade conversions didn't have to make any compromises on account of the small about memory the developers had to work with. Super Monaco GP showed how to add presentation to a arcade conversion including the women holding up the get ready to race card and even the options screen had digitized graphics in the back ground. Dragons Lair on the other hand didn't recreate what the arcade version was instead created a new format that was based on different aspects of the arcade original but it worked and became a classic with the new look it was given implementing certain aspects of the arcade with Software Projects own inclusions based on the original. Popularity was probably why so many conversions made it to the Amstrad people getting hooked on certain titles and now been given the option to play at home on there system.

Fantam 39 Amstrad Action Revised Budget Gaming By Fantam 39

                                          Amstrad Budget Gaming

  The wonder of saving your money and still been able to play your favorite game was great in the CPC days you could buy really innovative games puzzle,action and sport and it wasn't because they were £2.99/£3.99 that you were going to be given a rubbish game some were highly addictive and some had the feel good factor of a fully priced game, also if you waited long enough £10.99 games would come out on a the software houses budget range so everyone was catered for, but to this day I'm a firm believer in the cheaper games as I am as fully priced Class A games. There was one instance were a game called Big Top Barney came out and it was so cool and packed with innovative features as you performed circus stunts, also there was Spellbound that had the addictive feel of getting items and working out what to do when interacting with other characters, one budget game that still sticks in my mind was Locomotive where you had to rearrange the train tracks for the train to travel on before it crashed into the wrongly positioned track, budget games were just as important to players as were Ocean/US Gold's fully priced games they were in there abundance. That was a huge benefit to the 8 bit days when money wasn't there you just had to spend a few pounds to get yourself something to enjoy until the next big movie tie in came along. I remember if you went to a indoor market you could find expensive games a couple of pounds cheaper than retailers so that was another way to save money. There was a expansion for Gauntlet at the time called the deeper dungeons and I think it was about £4.99 nice little incentives like that were nice as well. The Kixx label was US Gold's budget range were all there big name games would eventually drop to £3.99 and Elite had Encore there price drop label and there was of course Mastertronic with there experimental games and then you had the Oliver Twins own label Code Masters were they chucked out simulators and of course Dizzy the little egg that appeared in numerous games one of my favorite games from them was Seymour once Amstrad Action gave a demo on one of there cover tapes I genuinely liked him more so than Dizzy. Budget games didn't necessarily need big fancy graphics they were for the bedroom player who liked to a good puzzler or mini action game or maybe one of Code Masters simulators they were cheap and great fun until the next big budget game was announced, plus if you'd keep buying them your software library would grow in no time. Who says you have to spend big.

Fantam 39 Amstrad Action Revised There's Something About The Amstrad CPC By Fantam 39

                  There's Something About The Amstrad CPC

  The thing you realize about the CPC range is it's unique in it's own right sure somebodies got a ZX Spectrum or Commodore 64 but seldom is it when somebody told you they had a CPC that's why I'm looking in to the days of people who played used programmed on a Amstrad in the early nineties, the CPC+ range have always intrigued me so maybe it was the bright color palette and sharp noise or always looking at the system as how's it going to handle this title but the CPC wasn't really a machine to mock it usually came up trumps when converting a arcade conversion and it was astonishing to see the likes of Final Fight actually looking like a proper conversion of the arcade version as you can see in the screenshot below

 with the characters been really big on screen which leads me to believe there's a lot of good technology inside the CPC that's more than capable as a premium 8 bit computer, I suppose whatever developer want's to play with the graphic engine and produce new tricks is the one to show the Amstrad CPC's true potential, another example of excellence was Chase H.Q which ended up been the best conversion out of all home formats including the 16 bit incarnations, If you want to know about conversions that the CPC shined to the public was a conversion of Pit Fighter that I was playing the other night I noticed it could handle scaling and decent digitized graphics by keeping the basics of the look simple as there was about three colors and everything the arcade version had was there with the screen scaling the fighters to small in the background to large as they came down the playing area and all the animation was there no holds barred what Tengen/Domark compensated with color it retained everything that the arcade version was the digitized graphics converted perfectly to the CPC, So the CPC was looking more reliable for a decent conversion of your favorite games, it's strange how the Commodore 64 messed up on a few big name games because it couldn't do what the Amstrad was capable of at the time but having said that all credit goes to the 64 for it's excellent music chip which was a lot more impressive than the CPC's beeps and loud music at the time. Amstrad wasn't a cheap machine either when it came out in the early eighties the price for a complete set was in the £400 region including monitor and keyboard, I got given the CPC 6128 back in 1984 and the market for it's services lived on till the mid nineties making its life span around ten years before everyone went 16 bit with Atari, Commodore, SNES and Megadrive. But there was one country that still believed in the Amstrad and that was France where you'd find Nintendo big in Japan or Sega huge in America it's France that looked upon Amstrad as it's religious computer France was absolutely dedicated to the CPC with a huge PD scene and a following of there favorite computer like when the world went crazy about the Nintendo Entertainment System or Sega Master System. Amstrad was the favored computer out of all the systems in France, I remember going over there and coming home with two French CPC magazines that were twice the size of the magazines in England, they like bibles full of type ins and articles it's unfortunate to say I couldn't read them as they were written in French obviously.

Fantam 39 Amstrad Action Revised That Amstrad Feeling Fantam 39

                                  That Amstrad Feeling

  Why did on wet afternoons and at certain times your CPC make you feel good to be at home playing certain games that genuinely made you feel good I like the feel when I got back from a long day at school and I'd take off my school uniform get into my normal clothes and load up a game that made me feel at home again weather it was Terminator 2 Judgement Day or Operation Wolf there's certain games that took you away from everything and let you escape into unknown worlds I think that's why in those days we had some great arcade conversions that you'd played on holiday and read in your favorite magazines that a software house had just snapped up the rights to convert what you'd spent pounds on trying to further your game you found in the arcade, so finishing at school and coming home and been able to load up the likes of say Operation Wolf was so cool when you were a kid, and having the Amstrad's bright color palette to bring a arcade smash to life was a great benefit after school, that's what the CPC did it really did have in those days the small amount of technology to pull off a arcade hit on a humble 8 bit system and it did it really well for example the CPC could produce huge characters on screen that were similar to the same style as the arcade original, it was the closest thing you were going to get other than spending more money on the arcade version. On one occasion after school my mum shouted me the Class A game of the movie tie in to Terminator 2 Judgement Day which I thank her for even today, it was a grey smoggy afternoon and I went home and played T2 Judgment Day and it got me away from thinking about the weather that day with it's high production value and brilliant graphics and every stage was based on a section of the movie I remember loading it and been presented with a a digitized title screen of a terminators face and thinking my CPC's got some kick then once it loaded the first level had two big characters on screen of me been the terminator who has to have a one on one fight with the bad terminator of the movie I thought this is great to be home on wet day playing a game of this quality then eventually after beating the first level I was on a motorbike going down the canal been chased by the bad terminator trying to doge obstacles and such games like that give you the real Amstrad feeling. Long live evenings after school and my best friend the Amstrad CPC 6128 to help me enjoy the evening. Some games have a certain effect on you that last for years it's like when I was really young and my brother had heard about Dragons Lair on a friends Commodore 64 and I had to play it how intriguing it sounded and the day came when I got hold of a copy and it just changed my life how brilliant it was from the unforgettable opening level of the falling disc and the cloud people trying to blow me off the falling disc were you'd have to run into there wind blowing from them until the disc stopped and you'd carefully navigate Dirk The Daring onto a platform to complete the first level of a unforgettable game and then there was the second level where you'd have to time your moves against skulls and skeleton hands with leaping backwards or striking with your sword, amazing in those days and highly addictive. It's possibly because that was how to use the CPC to it's limits when big things come in small packages, you were so impressed when your CPC could produce those addictive games that you look back at in those days it had more of an effect in comparison to today's games. With innovative games coming out the wood work you were really surprised by what you were playing I remember and still do playing a game called Nemesis The Warlock it was strange the way a completely new game could get you fixated like that, but I had a bit of a ruckus with my brother and unfortunately and something happened to the tape as a way of revenge from my brother so to this day I've never played it again I might try getting a Rom to revisit it and see in action again. I do wonder why in the CPC days why movie tie ins never seemed to fail in comparison to the high budget licenses today. They were always true to the movie and they were based on the action movies you loved.      

Fantam 39 Amstrad Action Revised Introduction By Fantam 39

             
           Fantam 39 Amstrad Action Revised Introduction

  Hi and welcome to Amstrad Action years have gone past since
we brought Amstrad Action with there cool cover tapes packed with demos of up and coming games and utilities, this isn't an official reproduction of the original magazine from yester year just something for you to read and remember those early years with your CPC/CPC+ so enjoy as we touch on the life we lived when there was some real Amstrad Action. Back in the eighties Amstrad released the 464/664/6128 at the time you had the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64, the CPC range brought bright colors and three modes to display games a lot of developers for games used mode 1 which used the most amount of colors and a medium range to produce pixels, the Commodore 64 had effectively a better sound chip to produce the best music out of the 8 bit computers, but the CPC could pull of a lot better graphics with the ZX Spectrum always looking like
a stripped down CPC game minus the colors and quality the Amstrad produced. Games were in there abundance at the time of the early nineties you'd get excellent movie tie ins and some Class A games that made the 8 bit days really shine in those days.
  Myself I had a lot of the best CPC games around looking back at some of the titles I'm bewildered as to why I loved a lot of the unique games that in this day in age I'd forgotten I loved to play. In the 8 bit war it was Commodore that was favorable to a lot of computer kids and the ZX Spectrum had a lot of adulation as well, it wasn't a case of the CPC falling behind the first two systems had a head start by been a round in the market a bit longer, in the UK I had friends who also had Amstrad CPC's as well and there was no biased call for developers to primarily develop for just the ZX and 64 all three systems where accounted for been the exception of a few top quality games that were only released on the former the reason been Commodore owners had the extra use of a cartridge port to play games on cartridges I think that gave developers more memory to work with, but other than those few games that were ZX/64 exclusives the Amstrad had no problem with getting the latest movie/arcade tie ins it just made me wonder at the time why there was no support at the time for those certain games maybe the sales were better for ZX/64 at the time seeing as there was a larger user base. Not to worry when it comes to quality the CPC range of games had it in a nut shell, so I feel no real lose for that decision in the market at the time. On the back of CPC range there was utilities to add the back of the keyboard like Midi interfaces to make music and other utilities to make use of your CPC, I stuck for my external tape lead which I connected to a tape player to play my collection of tape games, having said that the reason been I had a 6128 with built in disk drive so I had to plug in a lead that connected from the side of the keyboard with three leads colored red/white and yellow that would plug into the tape player giving me access to hundreds of tape based games from the CPC range disk versions of games were available but they were hard to get hold of unless you knew a shop that catered for the 664/6128 disks, more or less most of my library of games came on tape. Until in the early nineties Amstrad pulled out the big guns by releasing the Plus range making the already colorful CPC range even more colorful with a larger color palette and certain technical niggles to make the Plus range even more advanced system to play and use, Amstrad took a risk and entered the console market with its first console the GX4000 with a handful of games that boasted extra color better graphics and sound it was up against the Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Master System which by then had a huge user base, so the inevitable happened and the GX4000 wasn't a major success Amstrad were hoping for with shops slashing the price to ridiculously low prices, the cartridges made for the console still had some kind of use to all the buyers of the new Plus range as on the back of the new CPC's was a cartridge port that played all the GX4000 games. Games on tape and disk started to make use of the CPC Plus's new technical powers by making use of more colors, in certain games there were also exclusives that landed on Plus range like Robocop 2 and Burnin Rubber also Navy Seals based on the movie came to Amstard's new range of home computer so some use was made of the new tech on offer. At this point in the 8 bit world of computers came the dawning of the 16 bit home systems the first been the Atari ST and soon followed the Amiga 500, out with old in with the new. But we're here to praise what a amazing system the CPC was so that's what we're going to look at here at Fantam 39 Amstrad Action Revised, Enjoy the CPC days all over again....Here we go.