Retro City Rampage Getting a DOS Version

jones_supa writes: There is an indie game port in works which certainly cracks a smile on one's face. Vblank Entertainment is bringing Retro City Rampage — its homage to 8-bit games and Grand Theft Auto — over to one of the influential gaming operating systems of all time: DOS! Retro City Rampage 486 is a port of Retro City Rampage DX, an enhanced version of the game featuring a story mode, arcade challenges, and free roaming. As the name suggests, if one wants to run the game natively, a beefy 486 CPU is required, along with 3.7 MB of disk space and 4 MB of RAM. But of course, DOSBox can be used as well. A release date for the DOS version of the game is not yet known.

Comments

Release date for DOS version unknown...

[BusyDuckman]

that makes me a little sceptical.

What's new?

[DNS-and-BIND]

Since this post will obviously flush out a bunch of people who know, what's new with DOS in the last 10 years? What's been happening? Just curious.

Re:What's new?

[dreamchaser]

FreeDOS is still under active development and has many features and enhancements beyond the original DOS. It'd be easier for you to browse the site rather than list them all here, as there are quite a few of them.

Re:What's new?

[The MAZZTer]

DOSbox is the best and easiest way to run DOS applications and games in modern OSs. You can even run Windows 3.1 and Windows 9.x inside of it, apparently.

Linux port

[spirtbrat]

The game is now available for: Windows, Mac, PlayStation®4, PlayStation®3, PS Vita, Wii, Nintendo 3DS, Xbox 360, NES and DOS. What remains is the obvious hardest - Linux port.

Re:Linux port

[BasilBrush]

Linux? There's not much call for it. Not round here, sir.

Re:Linux port

[Black.Shuck]

Linux? There's not much call for it. Not round here, sir.

Not much ca-- it's the SINGLE MOST POPULAR CHEESE IN THE WORLD!

Re:Linux port

[SQLGuru]

I thought it was AmigaOS/AmigaDOS or NextStep.

Re:Linux port

[CronoCloud]

Hardest? They have got a PS4, PS3 AND Vita port! While it's probably not as simple as "./configure && make && make install" for the new platform it should be similar enough. The PS4 runs a full on BSD for goodness sake.

Re:Linux port

[lisaparratt]

"make menuconfig" already has the Linux gaming world sewn up, no need for any other games.

Re:Linux port

[KGIII]

I do not have the compute power to run this game. I am waiting for the VIC-20 BASIC V2 port. Also, you are an insensitive clod.

Re:Linux port

[KGIII]

I have been playing grep for like 10 years now. I think I am winning. I did not realize there were other games.

Re:Linux port

[CronoCloud]

Ha! Good one. I've actually ran "make menuconfig" on a PS2.

Complete with coked-out grammar?

[damn_registrars]

Frankly, if a PC game doesn't require a Sound Blaster 16 card and arrive on 25 floppy disks, then I don't want know.

Sounds rightfully 80s to me. Really, though, the most important line - at least, if it is true - comes later in the article:

if you already own a copy of either the Windows or Mac version of Retro City Rampage, you can pick up the new port for free.

Re:heh

[sabbede]

With MMX?

NES vs. DOS

[CastrTroy]

That proved to be quite the challenge considering the NES only had 10KB of RAM, 32KB of program ROM, 256KB of background graphics ROM, and 4KB of sprite graphics ROM.

While the MS-DOS version isn't anywhere near as limited in terms of resources, it remains to be seen just what corners have been cut in order to get the game working.

Seems funny when I think about games on DOS vs. NES. Most of the time, NES games seemed much better. I guess as time went on, and DOS advanced to games like DOOM and Descent, it left NES behind. But by that time, SNES was already out, and again, the games were much better on SNES for the most part.

At the time, NES didn't seem very limited. IT had plenty of great games that played quite well.

Re:NES vs. DOS

[blazer1024]

You're probably right if you're considering the 80's. PC hardware was pretty awful... but in the 90's things really changed. Sure, your SMB, Zelda, Contra, etc type games were better on the SNES... but what about Sim City (and 2000), Civilization, Command and Conquer, Warcraft 1&2, Star Control 2, Ultima 6-8, Wing Commander, X-wing and Tie Fighter? All of these were amazing DOS games, and either didn't have console versions, or if there were, they weren't quite the same (the SimCity,Civilization and Wing Commander for SNES come to mind) Anyway, my point is there were many more games for DOS than just DOOM and Descent in the 90's. Maybe you didn't experience them, but there was a lot of good stuff.

I actually felt the opposite from you those days. I felt a lot of the SNES games were pretty much just rehashes of old stuff, maybe with a slightly better gameplay, but there really wasn't much original going on there, and I was generally bored pretty quick. Then again, I was a teenager, so take this with a grain of salt :)

Re:NES vs. DOS

[CronoCloud]

Sure, your SMB, Zelda, Contra, etc type games were better on the SNES... but what about Sim City (and 2000), Civilization, Command and Conquer, Warcraft 1&2, Star Control 2, Ultima 6-8, Wing Commander, X-wing and Tie Fighter? All of these were amazing DOS games, and either didn't have console versions, or if there were, they weren't quite the same (the SimCity,Civilization and Wing Commander for SNES come to mind)

Those later DOS games should be compared to PSOne games, not SNES.

Re:NES vs. DOS

[keith_nt4]

It's funny you mention Civilization and SNES in the same sentence. I rented that game for SNES and then rented two more weekends in a row. I was quite obsessed with it and had never even heard of it before. After returning to it to the store the last time I bought Civilization 2 (a new release at the time) for Windows which started a whole new obsession. You might even say Civilization for SNES was my "gateway drug" converting me from a console gamer to a PC gamer. I don't think Command and Conquer, Warcraft 1&2, Star Control 2, Ultima 6-8, Wing Commander, and/or X-wing and Tie Fighter came out for SNES, you may be thinking of Sega CD, Turbo (PC Engine to some) Graphix CD (Turbo Duo, whatever) and/or 3DO.

Doom, Out of this World and Flashback did come out for SNES (and I thought they were quite fantastic). Although Doom without multi-player is kind of pointless.

Re:NES vs. DOS

[Sigma 7]

Seems funny when I think about games on DOS vs. NES. Most of the time, NES games seemed much better.

Around that time, the PC was rather simplistic and not designed for gaming. Graphics were usually EGA (or worse, CGA), and didn't have any sprite support that other systems in that area liked to use. Sound was a cheap internal speaker that was more annoying, especially with lack of volume control.

It took until the 386/486 era before PCs started becoming strong, but developers around that time still needed to think about less powerful systems as opposed to knowing that each system could at least handle a minimum quality of graphics.

Once PCs became modern - VESA, Soundcards, and breaking 1MB barrier, consoles were mostly in catchup. It took until 2000 before game consoles had an internal hard drive.

At the time, NES didn't seem very limited. IT had plenty of great games that played quite well.

Also around that time, programmers were much more skilled at optimization tricks - and didn't have to worry about the operating system.

Re:NES vs. DOS

[Tapewolf]

I don't think Command and Conquer, Warcraft 1&2, Star Control 2, Ultima 6-8, Wing Commander, and/or X-wing and Tie Fighter came out for SNES

Ultima 8 was AFAIK DOS-only. There was a SNES version of Ultima 7, but it was largely considered a joke. For one thing, Nintendo couldn't stomach the plot, which was about investigating a series of rather gruesome murders, which somehow mutated into 'kidnappings' in the SNES version.
The original game was about 20MB all told, pushing the limits of what was technically feasible on the PC at the time (it used "unreal mode" which allowed the 16-bit game engine to access a 32-bit address space, but couldn't work under Windows or EMM386). As a result it was chopped down significantly, losing the ability to recruit party members or even select the player's sex.

AFAIK they never even attempted to port Serpent Isle, aka Ultima 7 part 2. Given the apocalyptic ending I can't say I'm surprised.

Although Doom without multi-player is kind of pointless.

Depends. If you've got a hundred odd add-on levels for it it's got a lot of staying power. 'Course the console versions didn't have that either.

Re:NES vs. DOS

[KGIII]

I miss A Train and Sim Ant. For the Sega I miss Mutant League Hockey and Mutant League Football. They were wonderful games, all four of them. I have not gamed much since the days of Fallout 2.

Crickets chirping for DOSBox

[jones_supa]

In a recent LateBlt video, there's some interesting rambling about DOSBox and its forks. Long story short, the development of the main branch has halted a long time ago, although it works pretty well already. However the DOSBox Daum fork is alive and offers things like save states.

Re:heh

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Probably. I thought that starting with the P166 ones they were all MMX but then I could not be remembering things correctly since that was around 20 years ago. And now I feel old.

Re:heh

[sabbede]

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean...

Damn. That does make me feel old.

Re:Quake 2 DOS port here

[Pi Is A Rational]

epic ween

Re:Also you can use PCem

[Ixpath]

I actually had Star Control II running on a 286.