Disappointed by the A500 feature

[paranoid marvin]

Well , had another go - nice graphics , smooth parallax scrolling , and a good tune , but for side scrollers not as good as UN Squadron or Silkworm imho.

[Antares]

Well , had another go - nice graphics , smooth parallax scrolling , and a good tune , but for side scrollers not as good as UN Squadron or Silkworm imho.

Here's why Apidya is great:

First, it has excellent level design which even equals R-Type imo.

Second it is full of ideas and innovations in terms of level design. E.g. in the severs level where half-smoked cigarettes are lying on the ground, still glowing and you have to avoid the smoke clouds or the dead rat with the open belly, where suddenly worms come out of it to "defend" their meal. Or the bonus rounds, like flying in the molehill where you must carefully manoeuvre through the tight ways or flying in the mouth of the big carp or the open chest of the dead rat to swim in their innards. Every world has it's own setting and a whole lot of different and unique enemies and it's all drawn with much attention to detail.

And third the in game music is one of the best ever heard. My favourite's still stage 4s Techno Blast but also all the other tunes are excellent.

For me Apidya still counts to the top 5 shmups ever made!

[Steve Halfpenny]

Huelsbeck is the greatest homecomputer musician of all time for me! The excellent Apidya music is also written by him

Damn right he is. This is the only game music I'd happily listen along to and take as seriously as anything else in my CD collection. The man is a genius and Turrican is nowhere near as good without him (the C64 version seems unfinished to me when I go back). I'm sure there's enough fans out there to warrant an article.

... did everyone know the new Huelsbeck Album is coming out in August?

Nope. BTW, do you know where I can buy his albums (including the Turrican soundtrack comp)? I've only been able to make do with MP3s for years.

[Antares]

Nope. BTW, do you know where I can buy his albums (including the Turrican soundtrack comp)? I've only been able to make do with MP3s for years.

Some of his albums (including Turrican) are still available from Synsoniq Records:

http://www.synsoniq.de/productdetails.php?pid=5

I'm sure the other ones will pop up on ebay frequently.

[Steve Halfpenny]

Thanks for that.

Now may the rallying for a proper write up in Retro Gamer begin.

[DrBlue]

I liked the A500 article on the whole, I'm an Amiga fanatic and I could find no fault with it.