Cinemaware's Wings!

[Cinemaware 0]

Cinemaware is BACK! And we will be announcing a new Wings title soon! Stay tuned!

www.cinemaware.com and www.facebook.com/cinemaware

[NS13Jarhead 6]

Yay!

 

Back in my Commodore Amiga days (1985-94), Cinemaware was one of my primary game providers: Defender of the Crown, The Three Stooges (sorry), and of course, my introduction to WWI flight - Wings!

 

 

Edit: Just checked out the website and realized I had forgotten about Sinbad and It Came from the Desert.

Edited July 26, 2012 by NS13Jarhead

[Von Paulus 8]

These new remakes, seem to be just for iOS devices.

Edited July 26, 2012 by Von Paulus

[+Lothar of the Hill People 6]

These new remakes, seem to be just for iOS devices.

These are not even remakes, just the originals running on an Amiga emulator for iOS. Wonder how they're dealing with the ROMs (they better be paying a license to Cloanto!).

 

While I loved Cinemaware, I'm not sure this is them in anything but name. Seems like just another cheap attempt at cashing in on their old IP.

 

Too bad. Wings of course got many of us into WW1 flying. It Came from the Desert is the best graphical RTS adventure game ever made. And their TV Sports franchise was the model for every modern sports game. Still have most of the original 3.5" floppies for these--doubt the disks still work, even if I had a disk drive that could read them.

[Von Paulus 8]

These are not even remakes, just the originals running on an Amiga emulator for iOS. Wonder how they're dealing with the ROMs (they better be paying a license to Cloanto!).

But for Wings they need to do some further adaptation, I say. They don't even have joystick for those gadgets.

[Hasse Wind 46]

Cinemaware seems to come and go every few years. This is not the first time the company has come back. I don't know if they are the same people who made those Amiga classics twenty years ago.

[+matt milne 5]

Great, excellent news.

[+Lothar of the Hill People 6]

Hey Matt. It'd be brilliant if the WOFF score included a little homage to Wings' haunting score by Greg Haggard. Break out the accordion?

 

You can find MP3s of the soundtrack here. Amazing how these tunes stick with you more than 20 years later, in all their 8-bit glory.

[Von Paulus 8]

Hey Matt. It'd be brilliant if the WOFF score included a little homage to Wings' haunting score by Greg Haggard. Break out the accordion?

 

You can find MP3s of the soundtrack here. Amazing how these tunes stick with you more than 20 years later, in all their 8-bit glory.

16-bit Lothar.

[+Lothar of the Hill People 6]

16-bit Lothar.

8-bit 4-channel PCM audio, VP, I know my Amiga.

 

Though clever coders were eventually able to coax 14-bit two-channel stereo out of Amiga's Paula audio chip. CDs are 16-bit, and DVD-Audio supports up to 24-bit audio. See this article on audio bit depth at Wikipedia.

 

This is different from the architecture of the computer itself. The Amiga's was always 32-bit internally (32-bit registers), but early models (MC68000 and MC68010 processors) had a 16-bit data bus and could only address up to 16MB of RAM.

[Von Paulus 8]

8-bit 4-channel PCM audio, VP, I know my Amiga.

 

Though clever coders were eventually able to coax 14-bit two-channel stereo out of Amiga's Paula audio chip. CDs are 16-bit, and DVD-Audio supports up to 24-bit audio. See this article on audio bit depth at Wikipedia.

Yes you're right, silly of me.

[+Lothar of the Hill People 6]

Yes you're right, silly of me.

Not silly, I just know way too much about that crud. Getting that Amiga 500 for Christmas in 1987, age 10, completely changed my world.

[Von Paulus 8]

Not silly, I just know way too much about that crud. Getting that Amiga 500 for Christmas in 1987, age 10, completely changed my world.

I still have my A500, which I bought in 1988. That and a ZX-Spectrum 48K from 1983. Unfortunately I sold my C64, Atari 800XL and my Amiga A3000. Funny, never wanted to keep my PC rigs.

[Hasse Wind 46]

I sometimes regret getting rid of all of my old computers, but I didn't and don't have room for all of them. Modern emulators are great and very useful, but it's not the same as playing the games in their original environment. Of course most of those old games are crap these days, but there were some true classics among them that are still fun to play.

[+Lothar of the Hill People 6]

You're right, Hasse Wind, not quite the same. The 2D graphics such as the strafing and bombing missions in Wings are pretty jittery on my GTX470, the software emulation lacking the hardware-driven smoothness of the Amiga's custom chips. And it's tough to control those planes with my analog Saitek--does anyone even make digital joysticks for PCs?

 

But yeah, a lot of crap games. Some of the stuff we used to consider "gameplay" just makes me shake my head.

[Hasse Wind 46]

And it's tough to control those planes with my analog Saitek--does anyone even make digital joysticks for PCs?

 

I use a Competition Pro joystick for retro gaming. They are still being made. Just plug and play (USB), no drivers required.

[Von Paulus 8]

I use a Competition Pro joystick for retro gaming. They are still being made. Just plug and play (USB), no drivers required.

+1

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

Oh God...such happy, Happy memories!...Wings was just the best!!

[+matt milne 5]

Hey Matt. It'd be brilliant if the WOFF score included a little homage to Wings' haunting score by Greg Haggard. Break out the accordion?

 

oh dear god no. The most difficult thing about scoring woff was avoiding clichés.

But there's plenty melody there, as wings has.

[+Lothar of the Hill People 6]

I use a Competition Pro joystick for retro gaming. They are still being made. Just plug and play (USB), no drivers required.

Seems the only version available is just a little gaudy:

[Von Paulus 8]

Not necessarily, Lothar:

http://www.speedlink...id=25585&paus=1

Edited July 28, 2012 by Von Paulus

[+Lothar of the Hill People 6]

Thanks VP, glad "They’re back!" But where can people buy them?

 

Ah, here's the page for what I've taken to calling GoldTrigger. I've bought from AmigaKit before and decided to give them the business--just snatched up their very last one. But geeze the shipping to the US is almost as much as the joystick! Evens out not paying the VAT I suppose.

[Hasse Wind 46]

Well, what could be better than a golden joystick!

 

There should be other, less gaudy models available. Or at least there used to be.

[Von Paulus 8]

Lothar, Speedlink is German, so it will be more hard to find outside Europe.

Although you can find them in Amazon.de

[+Lothar of the Hill People 6]

Seems Amazon.de has both the anniversary gold and the rereleased classic. Gold is cheaper! Does seem to be taking them a while to expand distribution outside Germany.

 

Looks like we crossed in the ether, VP!

Edited July 28, 2012 by Lothar of the Hill People