Live1052/DoggyRock/MattTheSprat - and anyone else who liked the SID stuff me and all the other folks did at the time - thank you too - I can't believe people are still commenting on stuff we did all those years ago - compared to the huge productions of games that are about today.
hoques 1432 - working for Tiertex, we did a lot of stuff for US Gold at the time - me, music for Thunderblades, but programming by Chris Butler - who didn't work for us and Strider (music/sound by me, and the intro screen, programming of the game by Tiertex) - OutRun, not Tiertex...
@marktait my setup after leaving Tiertex, was a Kawai K1, Roland D110, Roland JD990, and Steinberg Pro 24, then Cubase - these days it's FL Studio and soft synths...
@marktait I've came back to this to find more comments - which after all this time, still really touch me. Anyone commenting on the music - thank you very much. To answer a specific query, I'd love to redo the old C64 music for all the games I did - but I think Back In Time has already chosen all the good stuff (none of mine - but I'm as much a fan of all the other tunes by the other guys - Martin, Ben, Mark, Rob etc - so I've no problem there)
for some unexplainable reason..this is the only version, which has the paralax scrolling semi 3 d technique,same as the arcade version,except in the "3d"city parts.which was a major breakthrough.unbelieveable that just the colours are downsized,but not the dynamic,the whole game nearly stays the same.this is what i call a good convertation
Impressive! And it's made by U.S. Gold? Very well made by a company which is infamous for pure crap (cp. C64 conversions of OutRun, Strider and so on).
great work on the musics mark. lissen to your sid collection right now :)
btw: this is the only home conversion of thunder blade in which you actually can zoom up and down (excluding the x68k port). no imagine that this version runs on the most weak hardware of any those conversion. LOL
Extremely good conversion! They even kept the parallax scrolling buildings in this one! On the expense of color depht of course, but still very playable. For a c64 game... Remember I looked forward to the Sega master system version coz I thought it looked much better on the screenshots. But the game just felt flat! Litterary! And that was on a 1MB cartridge as well. Plus the SMS was nearly 4 times faster with its Z80.. Boo to Sega! Or maybe hats off to US Gold? I think they nailed it!
The C64 version of Thunder Blade looked pretty good, it sounded great, but I seem to recall that it had stupid controls. If I remember correctly, you held the fire button and moved the stick forward/back to adjust the throttle. Of course you ended up changing the speed and getting killed when you were just trying to move and shoot. That pretty much ruined this game for me.
X68000 Thunder Blade is the closest home version ever released. It's much better than the C64 version. for those that don't know, the Sharp X68000 was a powerful 16-bit computer (like the Amiga but much more powerful and more like arcade hardware) released only in Japan in 1987. It has many exellent arcade ports that put the Amiga, MD/Genesis, PCEngine/TurboGrafx and SNES all to shame.
A few games had samples in them, a few are well known for it.. impossible mission, ghostbusters , turbo outrun , bmx kidz, slimeys mine, i-ball , mega apocalypse , savage . to name a few, theres plenty more I've probably missed. my fav music wise is easily turbo outrun.
Thanks for the comments on the music - I did it (while working for Tiertex/US Gold) - remember having 1 day to finish it for Chris Butler, as it was going to feature on the cover tape of Zzap! 64.
Thank you very much - I'm very humbled by that. My heroes were the obvious - Martin Galway, Rob Hubbard, Mark Cooksey, Ben Daglish etc etc I never played the games, just listened to the music - fantastic, and very nostalgic thinking back to it after all this time!
Hey thank you - we had the full arcade version in the office - I only ever played that (didn't have time to play the C64 version that Chris did). But as above, you've made my day with those comments - didn't think anyone thought of anyone other than Rob/Martin.
@marktait how was it working for US gold, please tell me you only worked on the music of things, because this is great, and street fighter for Amiga is well..., any who have any words of wisdom for a young game designer/ co composer?
@marktait Was it intentional that when going to the last "C" part of the song, before starting over, the drums goes "back beat"? Right from 2:25 forward you can hear the "fill in" goes a little weird, and the beats are not at 2 and 4 they go 1 and 3 :)
The C64 was notoriously bad at 3D but game did worked. Chris Butler was a talented coder who excelled at making great arcade conversions in spite of limitations. Punchy music, too.
of course, nothing compared to playing this on a real C64... as all emulated games... add also that youtube videos have got a lost in frames. But is not a lot different, only a bit.
I want a Pepsi now!! ???
obsidianrufus 4 months ago
What the!?!... There is a C64 game with that kind of gfx? (I mean the top-down view)
Now I wonder if there is a GTA 1 or 2 clone for the C64...
1xWertzui 1 year ago
Live1052/DoggyRock/MattTheSprat - and anyone else who liked the SID stuff me and all the other folks did at the time - thank you too - I can't believe people are still commenting on stuff we did all those years ago - compared to the huge productions of games that are about today.
All the best,
Mark
marktait 1 year ago
hoques 1432 - working for Tiertex, we did a lot of stuff for US Gold at the time - me, music for Thunderblades, but programming by Chris Butler - who didn't work for us and Strider (music/sound by me, and the intro screen, programming of the game by Tiertex) - OutRun, not Tiertex...
tatsujincorp - thank you so much
marktait 1 year ago
@marktait my setup after leaving Tiertex, was a Kawai K1, Roland D110, Roland JD990, and Steinberg Pro 24, then Cubase - these days it's FL Studio and soft synths...
marktait 1 year ago
@marktait I've came back to this to find more comments - which after all this time, still really touch me. Anyone commenting on the music - thank you very much. To answer a specific query, I'd love to redo the old C64 music for all the games I did - but I think Back In Time has already chosen all the good stuff (none of mine - but I'm as much a fan of all the other tunes by the other guys - Martin, Ben, Mark, Rob etc - so I've no problem there)
marktait 1 year ago
Comment removed
marktait 1 year ago
Comment removed
marktait 1 year ago
for some unexplainable reason..this is the only version, which has the paralax scrolling semi 3 d technique,same as the arcade version,except in the "3d"city parts.which was a major breakthrough.unbelieveable that just the colours are downsized,but not the dynamic,the whole game nearly stays the same.this is what i call a good convertation
KingCrimson82 1 year ago
Impressive! And it's made by U.S. Gold? Very well made by a company which is infamous for pure crap (cp. C64 conversions of OutRun, Strider and so on).
hoques1432 1 year ago
great work on the musics mark. lissen to your sid collection right now :)
btw: this is the only home conversion of thunder blade in which you actually can zoom up and down (excluding the x68k port). no imagine that this version runs on the most weak hardware of any those conversion. LOL
tatsujincorp 1 year ago
Extremely good conversion! They even kept the parallax scrolling buildings in this one! On the expense of color depht of course, but still very playable. For a c64 game... Remember I looked forward to the Sega master system version coz I thought it looked much better on the screenshots. But the game just felt flat! Litterary! And that was on a 1MB cartridge as well. Plus the SMS was nearly 4 times faster with its Z80.. Boo to Sega! Or maybe hats off to US Gold? I think they nailed it!
Omnisense 1 year ago
This is a surprisingly decent conversion. You shouldn't be able to see the sky when you're in a cave though.
melvoin 2 years ago
My God... so incredible also to see today... on a C64... all that moving so speed...
dpiktoria 2 years ago
I love the music for this game! Right up there with the opening for the hit squad games and paperboy!
Live1052 2 years ago
Man, I never saw Thunderblade on the C64. Really impressive in every aspect.
frigginjoe 2 years ago 5
The C64 version of Thunder Blade looked pretty good, it sounded great, but I seem to recall that it had stupid controls. If I remember correctly, you held the fire button and moved the stick forward/back to adjust the throttle. Of course you ended up changing the speed and getting killed when you were just trying to move and shoot. That pretty much ruined this game for me.
lurkerrekrul 3 years ago
The conversion is really impressive, considering the machine it's running on. The real problem is that the arcade machine wasn't too playable either.
zedr77 3 years ago 4
X68000 Thunder Blade is the closest home version ever released. It's much better than the C64 version. for those that don't know, the Sharp X68000 was a powerful 16-bit computer (like the Amiga but much more powerful and more like arcade hardware) released only in Japan in 1987. It has many exellent arcade ports that put the Amiga, MD/Genesis, PCEngine/TurboGrafx and SNES all to shame.
airraideagle 3 years ago
Isn't this the one that had loads of impressive speech at the titles etc?
wannaseesumfun 3 years ago
A few games had samples in them, a few are well known for it.. impossible mission, ghostbusters , turbo outrun , bmx kidz, slimeys mine, i-ball , mega apocalypse , savage . to name a few, theres plenty more I've probably missed. my fav music wise is easily turbo outrun.
cosine303 3 years ago
No, I mean LOADS! Not just samples conversation at the start with cartoony graphics.
wannaseesumfun 3 years ago
Thanks for the comments on the music - I did it (while working for Tiertex/US Gold) - remember having 1 day to finish it for Chris Butler, as it was going to feature on the cover tape of Zzap! 64.
Mark
marktait 3 years ago 3
Nice to get a comment from the maker. :)
It`s one of my favourite sid`s you was one of my childhood heroes. :)
DerSchmu 3 years ago 2
Thank you very much - I'm very humbled by that. My heroes were the obvious - Martin Galway, Rob Hubbard, Mark Cooksey, Ben Daglish etc etc I never played the games, just listened to the music - fantastic, and very nostalgic thinking back to it after all this time!
All the best,
Mark
marktait 3 years ago
@markait
You made the music ? Amazing,youre the who forced me to play the game again and again just to listen to it...great job xD
XTraaashX 3 years ago
Hey thank you - we had the full arcade version in the office - I only ever played that (didn't have time to play the C64 version that Chris did). But as above, you've made my day with those comments - didn't think anyone thought of anyone other than Rob/Martin.
Cheers, Mark
marktait 3 years ago
The composition is really great, you deserve the compliments. Remember the good times of computer entertainment. Praise the SID chip xD
Cheers, Semy
XTraaashX 2 years ago
@marktait Given the chance, would you remake the ingame music using GoatTracker to be closer to its' source material?
MattTheSpratt 1 year ago
@mark
Nice Job, indeed. This track was my personal reason to play this game again and again in childhood :) A real deference to the C64 era.
XTraaashX 9 months ago
@marktait how was it working for US gold, please tell me you only worked on the music of things, because this is great, and street fighter for Amiga is well..., any who have any words of wisdom for a young game designer/ co composer?
y2k4ever1 9 months ago
@marktait Was it intentional that when going to the last "C" part of the song, before starting over, the drums goes "back beat"? Right from 2:25 forward you can hear the "fill in" goes a little weird, and the beats are not at 2 and 4 they go 1 and 3 :)
blackmoorX 2 months ago
I was the only member of my family to complete Thunder Blade on the Amstrad 6128. It was one of the best moments of my life.
Excelsior2007 3 years ago
Crappy graphics, but the sound is good.
kzbxvz 3 years ago
The C64 was notoriously bad at 3D but game did worked. Chris Butler was a talented coder who excelled at making great arcade conversions in spite of limitations. Punchy music, too.
inphanta 3 years ago
Had this game years and years ago, it was wicked, c64 had some good games, music was ace!
Doggyrock 3 years ago
Wasn't this game faster than this?
TheCheezWizz 4 years ago
of course, nothing compared to playing this on a real C64... as all emulated games... add also that youtube videos have got a lost in frames. But is not a lot different, only a bit.
jesuszafra 2 years ago
I mean it's slower slower. There's nothing wrong with the emulators. I mean like the difference between NTSC and PAL.
TheCheezWizz 2 years ago
Sure, NTSC games are really fast, I know
jesuszafra 2 years ago
OMG- I love this music. I want to marry it. Looks pretty good for a c64 game too- I'd say it looks about as good as the Sega Genesis version!
Djclyve 4 years ago
Sounds like a Nintendo NES!
BenJabituya 4 years ago
ignorant.
TheCheezWizz 4 years ago
Good game
horsxnu 4 years ago
this was my favourite chopper game on the c64. very innovative way to create a sense of depth perception with the graphics at the time!
definedface09 4 years ago
lol at the product placement for pepsi. as for the game itself, the C64 version's got some good music there
figment1988 4 years ago
I can't get this rom started on my emulator, nor CCS64 or Vice. Wich key I must push on the title screen? Can someone help me, please??
zweig1 4 years ago