ScuzzBlog: Diaries February 2020
Entry 21st February 2020: Post 01: Predator 2 - Amstrad CPC464.
Predator 2 - Amstrad CPC464.
I have kicked this box up and down the stairs so many times over
the last few years I decided it was about time I looked at what
it was. I was kinda surprised to be honest cus with it being a
Predator title I expected Arnie ' Get to the Chopper '. However
this was Predator 2 and I hadn't recognised the rather poor art
work of the creature. Still not sure.
Anyhoo... it was time to give the CPC's a bit of a run out. You
may or may not recall that a few years ago I had to fix all of
my Amstrads as they had failed belt drives and power switches.
So I do check them every so often. So many belts were replaced
I started thinking of myself as the 'rubber band man '.
This CPC was a little dusty even though draped in a cover. I gave
her a quick brush and set too loading the tape. First though I
plugged in my trusty QuickJOY which dwarfed the computer. You
really do need a big stick when cast into the dark while taking
pictures... something to hold onto.
The CPC uses those coloured keys to the full and starting the
process you press 'CTRL and ENTER' and then PLAY and then any key.
Always works and when you magically load that first block you
get a comforting click from the machine and then up pops the
Sinclair Spectrum style loading screen. The lines slowly filling
to give the image. I have tried to capture the feel of that with
some really crappy video. You get the picture.
The game is a scrolling shooting 'rail shooter' evidently. Your
character is a simple outline and your job is to shoot everything
other than the ladies that pass in front of you. To be honest its
more conveyor belt than rail. Sadly it wasn't very inspiring and
lacked any feeling of terror or danger or... anything.
So I put the thing back in its box.
The music was pretty cool. The sound on the Amstrad CPC464 comes
from the ' cricket bat ' er sorry, computer. Amazing when you
consider the size of the speaker. The computer also controls the
volume. I used the green screen GT65 as the full colour is a bit
heavy to carry to the bench. If you didn't know, the Amstrad
computer takes it's power for the main computer and cassette drive
from the monitor via two connectors. So if you don't have a
suitable Amstrad monitor you are stuffed.
This game was developed by Oxford Mobius Arc Developments and mine
was published by Mirrorsoft in 1991. In truth there was no excuse
for it being so poor when you think of other similar games around.
It was actually ported to the Amiga, Atari ST, C64, MS-DOS, Spectrum
along with the Amstrad.
OK here are some crappy videos... I have kinda given up with vids.
I'll leave that to the Toobers out there. Not my bag.
V I D E O S
Startin the tape - Loading screen
Kinda playing the game - Some of the music
Sorry, quite dreadful videos...
I was also using the joystick with my
left hand in the video. Didn't work.
Predator 2 - Amstrad CPC464.
Get to the chopper
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