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The Konix Multi-system Games
Here are the know games that were either in development for the Konix Multi-system or had been planed to be. Some have screen shots from magazines and some have videos provided with kind permission of Jon Dean (the guy that actually filmed them). Please don't distribute or re-produce these videos as they remain Jon Dean's Copyright.
Hammerfist - Vivid Image
Hammerfist (1) - Konix Multi-system
Hammerfist (2) - Konix Multi-system
The version of this game was handled by Mevlut Dinc, interviewed here.
The KMS version of this game looked really nice - again, the trademark
colourful graphics were there, the character animation seemed fine and it
seemed to play ok based on the play testing that Mev was doing in the videos
to the side. Certainly in these videos, the end of level boss used quite a
few sprites and there didn't seem to be any real slow down.
It's not generally known that this title was actually being developed on
the Konix first - read Mev's interview. All other versions were ports from
the Konix version.
The game was a push scrolling side-on beat'em up / platformer, a little like Rolling Thunder if you're unfamiliar with the game. You had the ability to swap between two characters with different abilities. I think It would have made a very good addition to the launch software line-up.
It's hard to say how this version would have differed from the rest, there was little scope to use any of the controls that the KMS offered over the other systems. It's graphics may have been prettier than the others and the audio possibly would have been better. This game demonstrates that the KMS didn't have to be all about exotic controls and gimmicks and was capable of conventional games.
If I was in the market for a Multi-system when it was to be released and I had a choice between this, Vendetta and Last Ninja I may have purchased this but it would have been a supplemental purchase - I don't think It would have convinced me to buy the console. That's not to say it was by any means a bad game, it's just not one that stands out from the rest too much. Last Ninja mixed action and puzzles, Vendetta took that further adding a driving challenge. This was more of a straight forward arcade game.
Some mood setting blurb from game:
"The Revolution begins
2245AD.
The people are no longer free.
Their lives and destinies are controlled by a powerful corporate body,
Centro-Holographix, that seizes suitable humans for transformation into
holographic images, indistinguishable from their solid counterparts. Their
unknowing minds and holographic bodies are programmed to perform any task the
masters should require.
Two of the deadliest, Hammerfist and Metalisis were ready for assignment; to
dispense death and destruction under the evil instruction of
Centro-Holographix.
They were political puppets, dangerous and skilled murderers who followed
their binary politics to the letter - their masters didn't even consider the
possibilities of a malfunction... especially one that would turn Hammerfist
and Metalisis against the hand that fed them..."
The C64 incarnation of the game was awarded 90 percent by ZZap64 magazine.
Screenshots
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These are all screen shots from the KMS version of the game.
Here's a side by side comparison of the game on different platforms - useful
for making a judgement about how the KMS rated against it's rivals graphically
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Of course the shots aren't all from the same point in the game, but you
can gauge from the comparison that the Konix certainly had better resolution
than the 8 bits, had comparable resolution to the 16 bit versions, but I feel
had something extra, the graphics had more depth and felt more like an arcade
game. Maybe because of the greater colour-depth? I don't think there's any
degree of bias or rose tint being applied to my opinion, they really did look
more detailed, maybe because of the greater degree of freedom afforded by the
enhanced colour-depth...
Of course the KMS screenshot is a capture from a composite video source which
isn't the best and as such has an inherent degree of blurring and the other
shots are screen dumps from emulators which show the pixels in their purest
most precise form, however I don't think you can fail to notice how much more
vibrant and colourful the Konix version looks. That being said the magazine
scans of the Konix version hold up well to this argument.
I can't take any credit what-so-ever for the images. I'd like to thank the following websites and highly recommend people visit them to find out more information about games for the systems mentioned:
Lemon 64
Lemon Amiga
Amstrad CPC
Atari ST