Golden Axe Amiga 1990

Dementia ported Sega's Golden Axe coinop of 1989 to the Amiga in 1990. Golden Axe is a side-scrolling hack n slash game in the classic swords and sorcery mold.

The Amiga version of Golden Axe was programmed by Richard Costello; its graphics were drawn by Kevin Bulmer; its audio was composed by David Whittaker.

In Golden Axe the player assumes the role of either Ax Battler (Conan), Tyris Flare (Red Sonja) or Gilius Thunderhead (Gimli). The object of Golden Axe is to slay Death Adder. Golden Axe supports solitaire or 2-player simultaneous play.

Each character can walk and run left and right, jump, hack and slash and perform jump-attacks, downward strikes and 180° spinning strikes. In addition, the characters can sprint and then shoulder-charge or jump-kick the enemy. The characters can sometimes pummel and throw the enemy. Moreoever, each character can cast AoE spells and sometimes ride on the back of "Bizarrians", which have sweeping tails or breathe fire. At intervals, Elves can provide "mana" for spells and food for health.

There are five stages in Golden Axe: The Woods, Turtle Village, Eagle Island, Castle Approach and Castle. Each stage is stock-standard because in hack n slash games the enemies are supposed to be the main obstacle. Players can fall or be knocked from ledges but otherwise there are no environmental hazards to speak of.

Golden Axe displays in 16-color 320x200, and its active drawspace is 320x192. Golden Axe has good audio, color-tints the playfields and crams 600 sprite animations, 18 sound effects and cool music tracks into one 3.5" 880kB DD diskette.

If I may be allowed one criticism, I'd say that there are no sprite dropshadows. I don't remember if the coinop had sprite-dropshadows. If it didn't, then I would level that criticism at the coinop, not ports thereof.

Golden Axe Atari ST 1990

Dementia also developed the Atari ST version of Golden Axe in 1990, which was distributed on 2x 3.5" 720kB diskettes. Naturally, ST Golden Axe needed to be cut down in terms of audiovisuals due to the ST's weak tech-specs. For example, the music is "bleepy and blurpy", the scrolling is choppy, the colors are starker and the sprite animations are rougher. And while ST Golden Axe displays in 16-color 320x200, its drawspace is only 320x187, and its active drawspace is only 320x128. That said, ST Golden Axe is nevertheless a good port, but the Amiga version is better because the Amiga's superior chipset was harnessed.

Golden Axe IBM PC 1990

John Sanderson and Kenn Sanderson ported Sega's Golden Axe coinop of 1989 to IBM PC MS-DOS 2.1 in 1990.

IBM PC MS-DOS Golden Axe commonly displays in 16-color EGA 320x200 or 256-color VGA 320x200 and features smooth screen-scrolling and sprite animations in such graphics modes.

IBM PC MS-DOS Golden Axe audio supports AdLib and requires an IBM PC XT/AT with 512K of RAM.

In addition to Arcade mode, IBM PC MS-DOS Golden Axe incorporates Beginner mode, Duel mode and tailorable life meter (3-5 notches). The active drawspace is 312x200.

Golden Axe was distributed on 1x 3.5" 720kB DD diskette or 2x 5.25" 360kB floppy disks.

cf. Chronological list of similar computer games:

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