 Coala. Terrific game in its present incarnation. If the base-Amiga had more oomph in the speed stakes, it could've been made even better. |
There are nine in all: vision, world detail, object detail, shadows, surface detail, time compression, sound, shaded horizon and copper horizon.
Five of these are mere toggles: shadows, surface detail, sound, and both horizons. The other four are scaled and are worth more discussion.
Vision - probably effects the running speed of the game the most. The maximum distance of your sight is a setting of 1000. On an unexpanded 1200 the frame rate drops drastically, but the game looks better. Can be optimised in units of 50.
World Detail - on a scale of 1-10, affects the number of trees, buildings, and roads. Again, down to user preference and processor installed. The more detail, the better the world looks.
Object Detail - another 1-10 scale. This time it's the detail on the vehicles in the game, including the player's chopper that are added or subtracted. Obviously, the more real a vehicle looks, the more satisfaction gained from blowing it up or shooting it down.
The last of the options is Time Compression. Here, the player can choose to enable slow motion, real time, or fast motion.
If the player isn't sure which of these options is the best trade-off, they can always change between them while the chopper is flying and feel the difference in handling as it happens.
What's more, a suitably powered Amiga could drive a virtual reality helmet or glasses and make Coala a truly immersive experience. Amiga Technologies have their own over-priced version of the type of glasses needed. With proper driver support, Coala would be a virtual reality winner.
In all, Coala offers a tremendous amount of scope for customisation and optimisation. Something that games developers have mostly ignored with the Amiga, yet pay very close attention to on the Mac and PC platforms.
If you own an accelerated Amiga, let software houses like Team 17, Manyx, Acid, Graftgold, Vision, Black Magic and any others whose games have captured your imagination, know the spec of your Amiga. Let them know that you'd rather play games that exploit the Amiga's hardware potential to the full than put up with games that limit themselves to the minimum spec.
Around half of A1200 owners own expansions of some kind or other. Convincing the other half to upgrade would be easier if more games like Breed 3D and Coala were released. The more people who upgrade, the more viable and attractive the market appears to developers.
