When the original Bitmap Brothers Collection launched on Evercade a few years ago, there were mixed feelings. It includes all of the company's biggest games – such as Speedball 2, Xenon 2 and The Chaos Engine – but they were console ports and not the Amiga originals.
Fast forward to 2024, and Evercade now has Amiga emulation in place, which has resulted in a second crop of Bitmap Brothers titles. The games included on the cart are Cadaver (1990), Cadaver: The Payoff (1991), Gods (1991), Magic Pockets (1991), The Chaos Engine 2 (1996) and Z (1997). Like much of the studio's output during the '90s, these six games are all uniformly excellent.
Cadaver is an isometric action adventure packed with engaging puzzles, while its expansion pack, The Payoff, is practically a full sequel and builds on the original in some brilliant ways. Gods is a stylish platformer which remains one of the company's most beloved titles, mixing intense action with devious enemy AI and challenging puzzles.
Magic Pockets was something of a deviation for the company when it arrived in 1991, as it was the Bitmap Brothers' first stab at a cute, console-style platformer (gamers in the UK may remember it being a phone-in game on the Saturday morning TV show Motormouth).
The Chaos Engine 2 is arguably the most interesting game on this cart, as it offers a very different experience from its forerunner, but was released so late in the Amiga's lifespan that few people actually got to experience it (it was also never ported to any other hardware, outside of the Amiga 32CD). You're best off experiencing this game on the Evercade VS, as it's one of the most fiendish two-player action titles of the '90s. Eschewing the cooperative approach of the original game, it forces each player to beat the other by collecting points, killing enemies, or simply killing their rival.
The most recent game on the pack is the PS1 port of Z, which launched in 1997, a year after the PC version. Fusing the company's trademark 2D artwork with RTS gameplay, Z removes the focus on resource management and instead tasks you with occupying bases and using them to build a big enough army to take down your enemy. As you might imagine, this kind of game works best with a mouse, but there are fairly intelligent shortcuts mapped to each button which makes controlling the action a little more palatable.
All of the games included here are worth a look, then, but we can't help but feel a little sad that we're not getting the chance to play the Amiga originals of titles like Speedball 2 and Xenon 2 – they could have been included as secret unlockables, perhaps. We'd also have liked to have seen the original Xenon featured here; while it's one of the company's lesser hits, it's still worth a look.
Ultimately, though, it feels silly to moan about what's not included when you look at the sheer amount of quality contained within this collection. Chaos Engine 2 alone is arguably worth the cost of entry, especially if you're able to rope in a second player – it's a game that is capable of destroying friendships and has long deserved a second chance at broader acclaim.
Comments 9
Never played Cadaver, only game in Bitmap softography missed I think and forgot there was an extra dungeon add on disc with more levels as well! Trying to think of other 16 bit isometric RPG in this style, Immortal from EA, Shadowlands from Domark with the lighting was great, Equinox on SNES, Hero Quest board game adaption by Gremlin...probably loads more.
In other news just got a copy of the preview edition of Games X and issue 1 of the magazine, the weekly one for 60p from Interactive Publishing.
Puts most modern journalism to shame but it did have a Bitmap three page feature spread with Betty Boo and Bomb The Bass entitled "What do Betty Boo, Rhythm King Records and the Bitmap Bros all have in common?"...plus interview questions with Eric Matthews.
No obligatory black and white shot of developers in sunglasses with a helicopter in background though! I will enjoy reading this more than Edge this month!
@Deuteros Games-X!
https://www.timeextension.com/features/the-inside-story-of-games-x-the-uks-first-weekly-video-game-magazine
Thank you for this will read now while having a mocha. Loved that magazine back in 90s for the weekly hit, plus surprised at how big it was at 50 pages. There is a lot in each issue plus standard of fun and enthusiasm is lacking overall in writing online these days or indeed in any print magazine that is left. (Time extension is great though!)
Supercars 2 review in the preview issue as well by Magnetic Fields. You guys need to do a feature on them and push for HD remixes of Supercars and Lotus Trilogy.
More of a progenitor of what was to come with the internet revolution in games journalism and daily 24 hr updates was Games X!
Here is the first question on origins of the Bitmap Bros...
Ok Eric so how did you get involved in creating games?
"When I was at art college studying sculpture I met a computer games programmer who asked me to draw some computer game graphics. I did graphic freelance for a bit and then around 87-88 Mike, Steve and I decided rather than writing games for other people we would get together and do our own thing. So Xenon was our first creation."
I just wanna know if the music from the intro of Gods is the actual Amiga music and not the one from the Mega drive/Snes version
@Gs69 I cant see them somehow managing to combine their Megadrive emulator with a Amiga emulator and then combining the 2 versions of software to play the Megadrive music?
@JMX 😂 that would actually be quite clever I’m only asking because back in the day the audio was quite special at the time and I feel like it can make or break some of these games take cannon fodder for example it’s a great game whichever format you play it on ,but the Amiga version is the one I always return to cos of the soundtrack
@Gs69 As a proud old ex owner of 2 Amiga 1200's I fully understand and wholeheartedly agree with you!
@Damo I take it the offical demo's for Cadaver like the last supper are not included as they did 3 different ones and each was unique?
I also agree about the soundtracks playing speedball 2 without the amiga theme is a crime against gaming.
Chaos Engine 2 seems so disappointing. They almost got it right with this collection with the only weird thing using the PS1 version of Z instead of the PC version. Blaze need to offer Amiga ports for their previous games. No reason we shouldn't be getting the superior Amiga versions of Zool and Soccer Kid.
Also their Discord is a disgrace.
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