Hot on the heels of Myst is Quake, the next game to receive the porting treatment from ClickBOOM. Interestingly, Quake came 2nd in the voting by Amiga users, with Monkey Island 3 coming first. But I don't mind, as I would rather see Quake.
They expect to release Amiga Quake in February 1998. This suprised me; okay, it may slip a month or two, but it is soon, considering how long it took to port Myst.
As ClickBOOM are proud to point out, Quake will be on the Amiga, before is is ported to the Playstation, before it is ported to the Nintendo 64 (indeed, it may not be ported to those consoles at all). Interesting point to make next time a 'super console' owner puts down your Amiga (are you reading this, Digitiser?)
So what are the specifications? Absolute minimum is: 68020, FPU, 8MB RAM, AGA or graphics card, 35MBs hard disk space and 2x CD ROM. That doesn't mean you should play with an '020 though! Realistically, you need at least an '040, and an '060 or PowerPC with 16MB RAM would be preferable.
I cannot help but raise a smile. You see, I may have 50MHz '030, 8MB RAM and CD, but I don't have an FPU. At long last, a game on the Amiga that my system is not powerful enough to run!
Of course, although there are plenty of Amiga users with '030s out there, you really need (a lot) more to play Quake. Are there enough '040 and '060 Amiga owners out there already to make enough sales so that Quake is worthwhile for ClickBOOM? Or maybe they are counting on Amiga users upgrading, persuaded by Quake, and other games? Years ago (and still now), it was high powered PC games that only worked on the very latest machines that encouraged people to upgrade.
The danger is that although there are a reasonable number of '030 Amigas out there, Quake has just gone too far, and very few will buy it, which will put ClickBOOM and others off from releasing more high powered Amiga games. But there are two factors which, when combined, could greatly increase sales of Amiga Quake. Firstly, how playable will it be on an '040, and secondly, how cheap '040 accelerators will be over the next few months.
Quake being playable on an '040 at first looks unlikely, given that fast Pentiums are recommended on the PC. But remember that 'playable' means different things depending on what you want. If you're looking for full screen 320x256, or maybe 640x480 or higher, at 30 frames per second, then an '040 is out of the question. But Amiga users with '020s and '030s have always been prepared to play Doom clones on a quarter screen 160x128 resolution, at a jerky 8 to 10 frames per second (In fact, I could play Breathless quite well in about a 80x64 pixel window, on a basic A1200). So hopefully, an '040 will provide a reasonably playable game.
As for price, well, an '040 machine no longer means a £2000+ A4000, as A1200 accelerators are falling all the time in price. Rumours are that they will soon be under £100 - it wasn't too long ago that you got '020s for that price. As for RAM, it's dirt cheap now, 16MBs as low as £25 from some places.
Looking at the high end, PowerPC will give all the speed you need; 160MHz 603e, with 25MHz '040 and SCSI 2 at just over £300 has got to be good value (remember when just a 25MHz '040 cost that much?) Hopefully, the Permedia 2 on the new PPC graphics cards will be supported, which will give incredible performance.
At the moment, we have a situation where there is a large proportion of users with '030s, and then a smaller percentage with '040s and '060s. Just imagine if enough were to upgrade so that '040s were more of the standard, and there were a significant number with PowerPCs... We could then expect to see more games like Quake. I really hope that Quake sells well, and at the same time lots of Amiga accelerators are sold too. Remember when buying a Blizzard accelerator got you a free copy of Alien Breed 3D 2? Maybe Gordon Harwoods / Phase 5 could do a similar thing here, giving away Quake with the PowerUP boards, so save users the trouble of buying both.
Mark