POKEY my SID

Forget Sega vs Nintendo, it’s time for the battle of the old sound chips.

As I commented on the recently-released 8-Bit Computer Retrospectacular Squadcast (which I really do recommend you go and listen to – it’s our best yet), I was an Atari boy growing up, largely because that’s the system we had at home – there was none of this “own every system” malarkey that goes on now, partly because the systems were a lot more expensive in relative terms than today’s consoles, and partly because pretty much the same stuff came out on all of them anyway.

The bitterest battles that we Atari people fought were against the might of the Commodore 64, a machine of roughly equivalent power and capabilities to the Atari 8-bit series of computers. Both had very similar specifications, so it was common for owners of the two systems to try and outdo each other whenever possible. This constant effort of oneupmanship often took the form of trying to outdo each others’ graphics as seen here in this equivalent screenshot from Alternate Reality: The Dungeon on Atari (first) and Commodore (second).

Atari fans were quick to point out that clever programmers were able to get 256 colours on screen at any one time while the Commodore often seemed to have a more limited colour palette. But then Commodore would strike back with something like this shot, the title screen from Draconus (again, Atari first, C64 second):

Facepalm. “Hey, where’s all your colours now, Mr Atari?”

Graphics were all very well and good, but some of the bitterest battles were fought on the aural front, with both systems having a great sound chip far ahead of anything else at the time – Atari being armed with POKEY, Commodore with SID.

Okay, I may be exaggerating when I say “bitter battles” but it’s clear that there was some rivalry here. Some compositions sound clearly better on Atari while others are clearly superior on the C64. And it’s the SID chip’s sound which has endured in today’s chiptunes. There’s still POKEY players and archives out there, sure, but nothing on the scale of, say, the High Voltage SID collection, an exhaustive library of pretty much every piece of SID chip music, both retro and contemporary, you would ever want.

So, let’s take a look at a few examples. That is why you’ve read this far, right? To hear some funky old chiptunes? All right. Here we go.

Zybex – Adam Gilmore

Atari version:

C64 version:

Two versions of a cool song that you’ll be familiar with if you’ve read my past entries on game music. Adam Gilmore worked on a lot of music tracks for both the Atari and the C64 (including the theme for Draconus, pictured above) and was clearly very familiar with how to get the best out of both of them. It’s difficult to say which one is the best out of these two – or even if there is a “best” one. The Atari version, to me, has a cleaner sound, while the C64 version has some more interesting synth effects.

Warhawk – Rob Hubbard

Atari version:

C64 version:

Rob Hubbard was one of the undisputed masters of the 8-bit sound chips, with games featuring his music frequently marketed due to that fact – even if said music only appeared on the title screen, as was the case with most games, including Warhawk here. In many cases, the demands that pushing the sound chip hard enough to produce complex music put on the processor meant that having in-game music was often impractical.

I’ve gotta hand it to the C64’s SID chip here, the Warhawk theme sounds hugely better on it – partly because it seems that Hubbard actually wrote a more complex piece of music for it. Listen through, though, and you’ll hear the kind of effects that you’d expect to hear on a standalone synth – vibrato, tremolo, chorus, echo – it’s impressive stuff.

M.U.L.E – Roy Glover

Atari version:

C64 version:

A much older and simpler piece of music than the kinds of things Rob Hubbard dreamt up, the M.U.L.E. theme is still a catchy little piece. For my money, I prefer the POKEY version of this one as the sound envelopes that are used, particularly on the melody line, just give the whole thing a bit more “fullness” than the C64 version which sounds a bit “dry”.

Action Biker – Rob Hubbard

Atari version:

C64 version:

Oh dear. It’s clear where Mr Hubbard’s loyalties lie now, isn’t it? The pathetic, short loop used in the Atari version of Action Biker becomes an actual piece of music on the C64. Thanks. Thanks a lot.

Digital music

Bonanza Digi (Atari):

Digi Freaks Digi (C64):

What many people didn’t realise (even now, in some cases, and definitely not in the early days) was that both of these sound chips were more than capable of reproducing and sequencing sampled sounds, leading to much more realistic-sounding pieces. Of course, the sound quality is nothing to write home about, but there’s something gloriously 80s about the sound of “noisetracker” pieces such as these – a phenomenon which continued with the 16-bit machines, particularly with the C64’s 16-bit successor, the Amiga, whose sound chip was so far ahead of Atari’s equivalent effort for the ST (which in many cases sounded inferior to POKEY) it was ridiculous.

So there you have it. A few selected examples from the Atari and C64’s sound chip back catalogues. Back in the day, I was genetically predisposed to hate everything Commodore but on reflection, there are many examples of its superiority in music production. There’s certainly got to be a reason that the sound of the SID chip has endured as long as it has and remains popular to this day, while POKEY remains relatively obscure. I’ll always have a soft spot for those Atari sounds, though.

If you’re interested in making chiptunes, this plug-in for VST- and AU-based DAWs provides a good way to get started for low-cost, while fans of the old NES sound should check this (free!) one out.

Ode to Game Music, Part I

This is one of those posts I’ve wanted to write for a long time, and I have a sneaking suspicion it will be a topic that I will return to regularly – covering, as it does, one of my favourite things about video games: the music. You might think it ironic that I am so interested in one of the more non-interactive elements of interactive entertainment, but the effect of some quality music on the experience of a video game is not to be underestimated.

My first exposure to video game music came very early on with enjoying the title-screen music compositions of artists such as Rob Hubbard on the Atari 8-bit series of computers. These songs formed a big part of the “identity” of a game, and many of these composers became micro-celebrities in their own right. In many cases it could be argued that the quality of the music was actually higher than the quality of the game itself – particularly as many of these early computers didn’t really have the processing power to play complex (for the time) four-channel music as well as having a smooth gameplay experience and thus forced you to listen to not-very-interesting sound effects during gameplay.

Here’s a couple of fine examples from “back in the day” that stick in my mind:

Zybex (Adam Gilmore)

Warhawk (Rob Hubbard)

Going back to these games now, they’re somewhat primitive in every way imaginable, but I have to say, my fond memories of them can almost 100% be attributed to the music that played on the title screens. Both games are now relatively forgettable shooters, but Gilmore and Hubbard’s music meant that I’m not about to forget them.

My next generation of computers was the Atari ST which, despite being very good at MIDI, had a shitty three-channel internal soundchip that was 1) considerably worse than the four-channel POKEY chip in the Atari 8-bit range and 2) constantly trumped by Commodore’s rival machine the Amiga which had then-revolutionary stereo digital sound. However, a number of developers got around this fact and produced some excellent pieces of music. It has to be said, however, that these pieces of music were still largely confined to the title screens of games. Here’s a few more that stick in my mind:

Obliterator (David Whittaker, Psygnosis)

This one sticks in my mind not because it’s a particularly interesting piece of music (which, after listening to it again, it clearly isn’t – and look how long it took to load the damn game) nor because it’s a good example of the ST’s capabilities (see what I mean about the horrible soundchip?) but because it evoked the atmosphere of the game nicely. Obliterator involved running around a space station shooting robots and solving puzzles – yes, the same shit we’re still doing nearly 20 years later. It was quite a “solitary” game – you spent the majority of your time alone and attempting to navigate the environment using Psygnosis’ incredibly weird icon-driven movement and action system that thankfully they abandoned after two games.

Obliterator also sticks in my mind for a second reason – the fact that the music adapted as it went through. The moody piece of music you hear in the video above eventually gives way to a more, for want of a better word, “cheerful” piece as you make progress. This is something that, to this day, I absolutely love. While Obliterator may not necessarily have had the technology to make truly dynamic music, I remember feeling the whole mood of the game shift when the music changed. Suddenly you weren’t up against the wall in the dark surrounded by robots, you were a hero.

Gods (Nation XII/Bitmap Brothers)

The Bitmap Brothers were one of the earliest “celebrity developers” of the gaming world – developers who were held in the same regard as today’s well-known designers and teams. In the earlier days of gaming, teams were much smaller and budgets were much lower so it was rather more unusual for a development team to come to the forefront in such a way.

One of the ways that the Bitmap Brothers brought themselves into the public eye was through their use of excellent music in their games – the music for Gods which you can hear above being one such example. This piece of music was played on the Atari ST version during the introduction sequence and is, I’m sure you’ll agree, poles apart from Obliterator’s chiptuniness – which brings us to another point – the Brothers’ games also made far better use of the ST’s hardware than almost any other developer out there, including taking advantage of the STE’s enhancements, such as the ability to display a mighty 512 colours on screen at once (seen to lovely effect in Gods with a nice gradient sky background).

Okay, Amiga owners were laughing at the shoddy ST ports of many games, but the Bitmap Brothers’ games made some of the pain go away. 🙂

I hope you’ve enjoyed some of these tracks. There will be more to come in the following entries!

M.U.L.E.

Many people who have been playing video games and mis-spending their youth (and beyond) as much as I have will have one game that really sticks in their mind from the “good old days”, that they like to return to as much as possible and are gratified to discover that it’s actually still good.

Some retro games hold up better than others. Some age gracefully despite limited technology. Others remind us just how far we have come since those early days of one-man programming teams. Others are so well-respected that they spawn modern-day remakes or sequel after sequel… or endless variations on Xbox Live Arcade.

My particular fond memory is for an early EA title for the Atari 8-bit range of computers named M.U.L.E. This game involved four colonists from a diverse range of species attempting to make the best use of the resources a small planet named Proc Irata had to offer… yes, that planet’s name is indeed “Atari Corp” backwards (and this wouldn’t be the last time Atari Corp would have their name used as an element in a game, with Red Rat’s Laser Hawk following a few years later pitting a lone chopper against the forces of the “evil Proc Irata”. One wonders if Atari had any say in all this.) and, as these things tend to go, to make as much money as possible by the end of a period of time that was set according to the “difficulty” level. I use the term “difficulty” loosely as, unusually, the difficulty setting in M.U.L.E., rather than simply making the computer players harsher and cheaper, it actually added new layers of complexity to the game.

M.U.L.E. was played on a month-by-month basis, with each month being a game turn split into several phases. First up was the Land Grant, where a cursor moved over the single-screen landscape of the planet one plot at a time, and players competed simultaneously to be the first to press their fire button to claim a plot. Different plots were good for different things – mountains were good for mining, the river valley running down the middle of the map was good for food production and everywhere else was good for energy production. This stage, despite its simplicity, was teeth-gnashingly frustrating in the way a good board game is when someone pips you to nabbing, say, the sheep port in Catan.

Next up, players took it in turns to actually manage their plots and assign them to particular purposes. This was done on a strict time limit, so players had to make decisions quickly. In order to assign a plot, players had to outfit one of the titular M.U.L.Es for energy, mining or food production before taking them out onto the map and dropping them into a plot, taking care to place them carefully, otherwise the M.U.L.E. would simply escape. In this phase, if players had time, and if they were playing on one of the higher difficulty levels, they could also attend a land auction for an additional plot of land, scan an area for its suitability for mining the more precious minerals and finish their turn by wandering into the pub to receive a “gambling bonus” according to how much time they had left.

Next up was production, which was sometimes preceded by a random event affecting production of one or more of the resources. This could be anything from sunspots increasing energy production to a pirate raid stealing stock from the colony’s store. This random element added some tension to the game and also meant that someone who looked like a runaway victor could have their big plans scuppered at short notice, which was always immensely satisfying.

Finally came the auctions, where players were able to sell their surplus stock either to other players or the store. Auctions were handled in an interesting manner, with players setting buying and selling prices by walking up and down the screen. If two players met, they would exchange goods and money until one or the other moved away. If no players wanted to buy or sell, goods could also be bought or sold from the colony’s stores (for very high or low prices respectively). After the auctions, the four players were ranked according to their net work before the whole process repeated again another five to twenty-three times.

So that’s how M.U.L.E. works, and its simple yet elegant mechanics, along with its good sense of humour throughout, make it a game that’s still fun to play today. Interestingly, though, none of these things are the reason why I remember M.U.L.E. so fondly, because I was much too young to understand how to play it properly when I was first introduced to it.

Rather, two things stick in my mind. Firstly, there was the music.

I defy you to not be humming this masterpiece of the POKEY chip all day. Evoking an appropriately adventurous sci-fi feel (in my mind, at least), M.U.L.E.’s theme is one of my favourite video game themes of all time.

Secondly, there was the “characterisation” of the game. In The Squadron of Shame‘s podcast, we’ve often discussed the merits of having a truly immersive game world. And M.U.L.E’s, while simple, worked brilliantly. Each alien race was distinctive and had its own character, despite only having about three or four frames of animation at most. The fact that this strange little world had its own curious rules, such as catching the little white dot (the “Wumpus”) on the map rewarding you with extra money, made it all the more appealing to be a part of – and made you feel a little sad when the ship came to pick you up on the last turn.

M.U.L.E.’s a game I remember fondly for all the wrong reasons – yet fortuitously, it still plays very well today. I highly recommend exploring its curious charms – ideally, with three other people.