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Introduction Last Ninja 4 Downloads LN engine Artwork News Fun stuff Walkthroughs Manuals: [1] [2] [3] |
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Message Board The LN Crew Music LN CDs Items Credits Banners Main Page To C64 page |
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Introduction Last Ninja 4 Downloads LN engine Artwork News Fun stuff Walkthroughs Manuals: [1] [2] [3] |
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Message Board The LN Crew Music LN CDs Items Credits Banners Main Page To C64 page |
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Here's a cheat for Amiga LN3: Gather over 600 points and in the hall of fame entry type: ILLBEBACK This should give you infinte lives and with F1 and other buttons you can skip levels. (Thanks Dinko!) |
The Last Ninja AMIGA Versionsreviewed by Jan ZottmannLAST NINJA 2Last Ninja 2 was the first part of the LN series to be converted for the Commodore AMIGA. I don't know whether the conversion was done by System 3 programmers ?However, as a fan of the C64 original I felt this one was a far cry from the original game. The graphics were simply below AMIGA standards and the gameplay was terrible. In fact, I was never able to make it through the game because of the "basement box jumping scene" - one simply couldn't tell which direction the AMIGA-Ninja was going to jump! The soundtrack featured decent rearranged versions from the original LN2 score as well as some new average compositions... LAST NINJA REMIXLast Ninja Remix was converted by a German programmer group called "Eclipse" ("Lethal Xcess"). The game had nothing to do with the C64 Remix but was in fact the conversion of the first "Last Ninja" game. It truly felt like a 16 bit program with cool improved graphics and a gameplay very close to the C64 original. The famous Benn Daglish score was carefully rearranged by legendary AMIGA composer Jochen Hippel. The only part of the series on the AMIGA to come close to the C64 original!LAST NINJA 3Done by the System 3 programmers the latest installment of the LN games made its way to the AMIGA systems. The intro sequence was improved and is a bit longer than the C64 opening. The game itself looked really nice, but again the gameplay lacked something of the original. In addition to that it was the most difficult of the LN games yet - thanks to some unfair enemy actions and the flabby control of the Ninja character... Besides, it was the only conversion to feature a whole new music score done by Reyn Ouwehand who had also written the C64 soundtrack for LN3. |
Mike Clarke, LN2 music man"Hi. Just to correct some info on your Amiga LN2 review:"LN2 was not ported and enhanced to the Amiga by Activision. I have no idea where somebody would get this info. [wrong entry removed - Kai] "It was converted by Consult Software in Birkenhead. It was a direct port from the ST with no enhancements - the reason being that System 3 wouldn't pay them any more for an Amiga enhanced version so there was no point in them putting in the extra effort. I can't remember the name of the programmer, but it was only one guy. If I remember rightly, System 3 only supplied them with maps of the game so any other info had to be gained from playing the C64 one. "The music doesn't contain anything new (besides the loading tune), apart from an extra voice on one of the tracks.. Everything was converted by me using Noisetracker and sitting there with a tape recording of the 64 music. I did it in 5 days in their office when I was still at school during a half-term holiday. I got paid £40 per track if your interested. Well, it was a lot for a school kid back then anyway. All of the instruments were sampled from a Roland MT-100 sequencer/sound module which I borrowed from school, but the samples are quite low quality because every track had to be under 40k. "There you go....if you have any questions just ask." [Of course I took him up on that offer!] Me: Say...are the LN2 mods I have on the site in their original, untainted (and complete!) form ? Do you still have your tunes..? Mike: I'm just giving them a go now. They sound okay so far. Actually, if you got them from the Blue9 modules collection then they're definitely okay because I sent them there! :) Ever played LN2 and the other parts ? Er...oh yes. All I ever used to do was play on my Commodore 64. When I got my Amiga, all I used to do was play my Amiga. I'd come home from school, go straight upstairs to my room and play games - until I got Soundtracker and then just started doing music all the time (I have almost every tune I did apart from the first four and they are absolutely terrible! :). The guy from Consult Software phoned me up out of the blue (he'd heard some music I gave to someone at a computer club) and asked, "Would you like to do the music for Last Ninja 2". Well the answer was a bit obvious. I've never played Last Ninja 3 though. I had my Amiga by the time it was released. Did you play the game before creating the music ? See above. Oh those hours of frustration getting over the rivers in Last Ninja. It wasn't so much creating as converting anyway so playing the game wouldn't have been a requirement. I went through the tape of the music and chose what I thought were the best ones, so the Amiga tracks are a mixture of the the C64 loading tunes and in-game tunes. I wanted to do perfect copies of the originals, but that was impossible with the memory restrictions and Noisetracker wasn't really designed for it. A few months later, I got a copy of Future Composer which could do proper C64 sounds, so I was annoyed I found it too late. On Noisetracker, I drew waveforms I've got the original C64 Last Ninja 2 in my Mum's loft - the one with the Mask and Shuriken in it. Weird thing is, I've got no idea how I got it! I never bought it, that's for certain. What did you think of the game itself ? Which one, the Amiga one or C64 one? The C64 one was/is as we all know an absolute classic. The Amiga one was okay, I was expecting it to be amazing, but being an Amiga advocate I thought it was as good as I could have expected seeing as it was a direct port from the ST. Actually, when the Amiga first came out, Commodore User (I think) had a pull-out section every month about the Amiga, with screenshots and stuff. One of the games in there was Last Ninja, and looked like it was what eventually came to be Ninja Remix. I'll see if I can find the screenshots. I remember that the text about it said it was going to have multiple baddies on screen, and that was what the screenshots showed. So anyway, I thought Last Ninja 2 was going to be as good as those screenshots were, but it wasn't really to be. What _were_ your favourite games then ? Good question. I don't know really. It was February 1990. If you can tell me some games that were around then I'll be able to tell you. I can't remember right now. And what do you play these days ? Almost nothing at all actually. I just don't play games. I don't have time to be honest, and when I do play stuff, I usually play for about 10 minutes and think "What am I playing this for?". But there are some exceptions.....All incarnations of Carmageddon are the greatest games ever. And I sat here for 3 days solid and completed the amazing Half-Life (and then Opposing Force when it came out which was good but a bit short). Oh, and the excellent Foundation on the Amiga recently held my attention to the detriment of my work because it eats up hours at a time. Got more anecdotes / facts from your LN-music creating time ? Erm....I don't know what would be interesting. Not a lot I suppose. I was going to use the money I made from it to pay to go to space-school, which I think was a 4 week course to learn about about space and stuff. I found out about it at school - I think I was the only person interested. You had to do a big essay to gain entry though and I couldn't be bothered. It was also the first time I actually bought something "just because I had the money on me", which was good. It was a Cruiser Joystick which cost £16, and I still have right here and is in perfect condition after 10 years of battering. One of the MDs at Consult Software (Dave something) wanted me to help program some game stuff for them as well, but my programming was just not good enough at the time, and that's what I had to tell him. At that time, Consult Software was also converting some Disney games so I did music for those as well. I had to do Amiga, ST and Spectrum versions. That was the only time I ever did music for anything other than the Amiga (besides doing Playstation and PC stuff years later of course). I also did the music on Little Puff for the Amiga which Consult Software wrote for Codemasters. I got £20, but it only took me half an hour! :) But the music got credited to Lyndon Sharp who worked at Codemasters at the time and did the ST music. I was not happy and sent a letter to Codemasters complaining. :) I had to do sound effects for LN2 as well. I had no idea how to go about it so I went to see the drama teacher from school because I knew he had sound effect tapes. That was the only time I ever phoned up a teacher's house and the only time a teacher came to my house. It was a weird experience. :) I think most of punching sounds were done by my mouth. Actually, I can't remember if they even used them at all. Oh yes, I never even got a copy of the game. How crap is that? I'm not even sure if Consult Software themselves got any copies of the game. Curiosities I can put on the Archives...? No, nothing really. I did do a few different intro tunes. The two MDs wanted (for some reason) the intro music to be a medley of the ingame music. So I did that and it was absolutely awful. I did another tune which wasn't so bad, but the one that went on was the best one and fit with the game best. And then you can only hear it for about 10 seconds anyway! They're on a disk somewhere, but I don't know where. Did you hear of Last Ninja 4 ? What's your opinion ? To be honest, I think they've missed the boat a bit. Last Ninja 4 should have appeared 2 or 3 years ago. Of course, I hope it is good, but I have no opinion until I see it. I've been in the games industry long enough to not believe anything until I see it and play it. Thanks for any answers ;) No problem. Mike Clarke Music - +44 (151) 639-7581 mikec~AT~popstar.com http://www.mp3.com/MikeClarke http://www.fromwithin.com/[Thanks Mike!] |
