[AMSTRAD CPC+/PLUS] Prehistorik 2 – Review & Longplay (Part 1 of 2)

The amazing Prehistorik II on the Amstrad! A truly landmark and important release for the Amstrad Plus machines….

This longplay is done on the 6128 PLUS version with extended colour palette (fifty colours), parallax scrolling, DMA music (and interrupts), hardware scrolling, hardware sprites, screen splitting … basically ALL the new features that were added in for the new 464/6128 Plus machines (and GX4000 console). So this is a very special game indeed, certainly it’s the only game I can think of that actually uses the new DMA music (which is a special way of feeding the existing sound chip essentially).

So here you can truly see what the Plus machines were capable of, bringing a platformer game up to the standard of the 16-bit rivals of the time.

Just a shame about the slow-down that occurs. This is probably due to making certain parts of the game compatible with the normal CPC so compromises were made… releasing a Plus only game would have been sweet but it wouldn’t have sold as well. So yes – this also works on a normal CPC gameplay and levels intact but minus the parallax scrolling, extended colours and DMA title tune. It can also work on a 64k only CPC!!

Simply amazing work by programmer Elmar Krieger, who also did the excellent Super Cauldron, just wished he had made more games and not appeared so late in the CPC’s life (1993!!) – just imagine what could have been. Just goes to prove that the CPC was capable of being so much more than the lazy ports and rush jobs Amstrad owners were subjected to. He also later did the Gameboy port (titled “Prehistorik Man”) which used a lot of the same sprites and graphics and level layout.

(c) Titus 1993

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