CONVERSION CAPERS

INFLUENCE ACROSS MULTIPLE PLATFORMS THE CHAOS – ENGINE WHICH SPREAD ONE FARED ITS MALIGN BEST?

amiga 1993

the original release, and the one against which all subsequent versions are measured. chief advantages over rival platforms include the quality of the pounding background music and the excellent intro theme. Some players also prefer this version’s muted colour palette – it wasn’t used often for conversions.

mega drive 1993

the mega drive version offers a taller field of vision and puts specials on a second button, but colour contrast is higher due to a more restrictive palette, and the soundtrack is downgraded. get the pal version – it runs at the correct speed and is the only version of the game to offer adjustable difficulty.

atarist 1993

this doesn’t match the amiga version, chiefly due to technical limitations – inferior scrolling, fewer colours and the absence of music and sampled speech. Still, it’s hard to argue that St owners were short-changed, as this is still one of the most accomplished blasters available for the format.

snes 1993

the Snes version offers a narrower field of vision than the mega drive version, but does a much better job of replicating the amiga soundtrack. as with the mega drive version, the game benefits from having specials mapped to their own button, and the ntsc release runs faster than the amiga game.

amiga (aga) 1993

the improvements available to owners of advanced amigas, such as the 1200, are so modest as to be tough to spot. Better colour handling allowed for a more appealing palette to be applied to the otherwise identical sprite work. all subsequent versions would use this look as a basis.

amiga cd32 1993

owners of commodore’s console get a version of The Chaos Engine that is almost a direct port of the aga version. the difference is the intro – instead of the original tune and gigantic dinosaur, we instead get an animation with voice acting, showing the creation of the game’s titular monstrosity.

mobile 2005

despite some major musical alterations, this is a surprisingly smooth version of the game. Unlike the other versions the display is vertical, and some notable level design changes have been made for reasons we can’t fathom. if it didn’t have to be played with a phone keypad, it’d be pretty nice.

pc 1993

the pc version plays well and introduces a floating hud which allows players to see more of the screen during play. that’s great and all, but the music here – particularly the brilliant intro – has been majorly compromised and sounds like it should have been utilised in a circus instead.

risc os 2000

this rare version arrived rather late in the day, having been shelved by the original publisher due to poor game sales on acorn’s machines. it offers visuals and sound on par with the amiga 500, with the exception of a greater vertical resolution that allows you to see more of the stage in a single screen.

pc 2013

this is the excellent aga amiga version, but with some subtle enhancements – full 360-degree movement, online leaderboards and online co-operative play. there are also some optional graphical filters, smoothing and a bloom effect, which can be turned on if you like that sort of thing.