CONVERSION CAPERS

WHICH VERSION IS THE DESTROYER?

Apple II

The first thing that you notice about the Apple II Conan is that its six challenging stages are explosions of colour. The Apple original also runs smoothly and at high speed, regardless of what’s going on, and its controls are impressively responsive. Admittedly, the game’s proceedings are practically silent – except for the occasional sound effect, but between tackling its frenetic platforming and avoiding its unpredictable enemies you hardly notice the lack of soundtrack.

Atari 8-bit

The Atari and C64 Conan ports were both developed by 8-bit Bruce Lee creator Ronald Fortier. They’re almost identical, and are very faithful to the original, but there are a few areas where they differ from their inspiration. The Atari 8-bit version uses less colours, but it’s rendered in bright hues, and it has tunes playing throughout. On the downside, it suffers from flickery sprites, and slowdown when there’s a lot going on, and jumping gaps often requires perfect positioning.

C64

Conan on the Commodore 64 uses a more muted colour palette than either of the other versions, but like its Atari equivalent it boasts in-game music that the original lacked. Some of its tunes drift out of key occasionally, but by way of balance its sprites are flicker-free. That said, the Commodore conversion shares its Atari counterpart’s slowdown on busy levels and its requirement for precise jumping, but minor flaws aside, it recreates the original’s gameplay pretty much perfectly.