VOGONS

Common searches


First post, by Cloudschatze

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

hg_s.jpg

With its unique first-person quadrant view (allowing for up to four simultaneous players), decent graphics, and a great MED-based soundtrack, DMA Design's 1993 release of "Hired Guns" is regarded as something of a masterpiece on the Amiga platform. Completed later that same year, the PC conversion and gameplay experience is arguably something far less impressive.

Initially introduced to the European PC market with "Roland," "AdLib" and "Soundblaster" playback options, Psygnosis required that the game additionally support the Gravis Ultrasound for the North American release that would shortly follow. Presumably hoping that it might also become some sort of Ultrasound showcase title, Hired Guns not only features a MIDI/UltraMID-based conversion/arrangement of the Amiga soundtrack, but it is also one of the only commmercial titles to feature use of Focal Point's 3D sonic treatment (which was used for a whopping four whole sound-effects!).

gravis3d_s.jpg

What a total win for DMA Design, Psygnosis, and Gravis! Oh, wait, except for the minor detail of the Ultrasound music support being broken and ultimately unusable, noteably plagued by infinitely sustaining MIDI notes, and resulting in utter cacophany. Booooo! Not only that, but there's also this amazingly interesting system crash behavior that occurs whenever DEATH.MID plays, requiring a hard reboot thereafter. (This is certainly a bug, but it's also the best incentive to avoid death in a game that I've ever encountered.) 😉

I looked into the Gravis playback issues several months ago, and discovered a remarkably simple solution - acquire and substitute UltraMID version 1.00 for the UltraMID version 1.06a that shipped with the game. (Note that the use of UltraMID v1.05 will likewise solve the sustaining note issue, but not the crashing behavior.)

So, with those problems out of the way, we're free to experience Hired Guns' UltraMID soundtrack in all its glory! After all, a custom patch library is involved, containing several of the same instrument samples as used in the MED-based counterparts. Should be glorious, no...?

Front
Character Select
Static 00
Static 02
Static 03
Static 04
Outro
Death

Eh, it's debatable. If you're familiar with the Amiga soundtrack, you'll notice that the title music has been supplanted with an inferior rendition, and that several of the piece-defining MED "effects," such as the gated tremolo, are lacking in the UltraMID conversion, noticeably cheapening the experience. Otherwise, it's not an entirely bad effort, and certainly adds to the GUS' repertoire.

Reply 1 of 13, by Kodai

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

Being both a heavy PC and Amiga gamer since the 80's, I'm surprised I've never heard of this game. I'll have to play it on both machines to see/hear the difference. Thanks for the heads up on it and offering up a fix for its PCI audio. Great work!

On a side note: is this a game that was also released on the ST, and if so did it come out on the Amiga or ST first? I ask this mainly because many Amiga games came out on the ST first and were poorly ported to the Amiga.

Reply 2 of 13, by keropi

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

Another great discovery Cloudschatze , thanks for sharing!
I was aware of the game - not my cup of tea though 🤣

🎵 🎧 PCMIDI MPU , OrpheusII , Action Rewind , Megacard and 🎶GoldLib soundcard website

Reply 3 of 13, by Cloudschatze

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
Kodai wrote:

On a side note: is this a game that was also released on the ST, and if so did it come out on the Amiga or ST first?

No, just the Amiga and PC.

keropi wrote:

I was aware of the game - not my cup of tea though 🤣

Nor mine. To be brutally honest, I don't find the game itself or its controls be be particularly enjoyable, and while the quad view may be unique and interesting for multi-player use, it's instead constraining and clunky to manage during single-player gameplay. So, while Hired Guns may have been a technical marvel and success on the Amiga, the PC release failed to garner similar praise or attention, in part (and according to DMA Design's developers), because demonstrably superior titles like Doom loomed just over the horizon.

What the PC version does have going for it though is an exceptional FM soundtrack, and (as hopefully evidenced above) a largely decent GUS soundtrack. For those reasons, not to mention an impressive set of manuals, I will concede that it was probably worth the two bucks I spent on it at the thrift shop. 😀

Last edited by Cloudschatze on 2016-10-13, 21:26. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 5 of 13, by elianda

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Do you refer to the Version of the AIL drivers or to the Ultramid TSR?
Does UltraMID 1.12 or MegaEM 3.11 works as well?

Retronn.de - Vintage Hardware Gallery, Drivers, Guides, Videos. Now with file search
Youtube Channel
FTP Server - Driver Archive and more
DVI2PCIe alignment and 2D image quality measurement tool

Reply 6 of 13, by Cloudschatze

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
elianda wrote:

Do you refer to the Version of the AIL drivers or to the Ultramid TSR?

Just the UltraMID TSR (ULTRAMID.EXE), as found in the linked AIL driver package.

Does UltraMID 1.12 or MegaEM 3.11 works as well?

As I recall, the divide-by-zero crashing issue is fixed in both, but not the sustaining note problem, which was likely introduced with a change to "fix poor sounding percussion" sometime after version 1.05.

Reply 7 of 13, by ripsaw8080

User metadata
Rank DOSBox Author
Rank
DOSBox Author

I tried Cloudschatze's solution using DOSBox: after replacing the included 1.06a version of ULTRAMID.EXE in the game's EXECUTE subdirectory with the 1.00 version, I then ran HG.BAT to start the game as usual. There was no music at all, but GUS sound effects were still working.

After some investigation I learned that the game executes ULTRAMID.EXE with a command line parameter to specify the location of custom config and patch files; but it seems that the 1.00 version of UltraMID does not support the parameter and always uses the path in the ULTRADIR environment variable.

So, with the extra step of setting ULTRADIR=C:\HIREDGUN\MUSIC (I installed to the default path of C:\HIREDGUN) the GUS music in Hired Guns does seem to be working correctly with the 1.00 version of UltraMID. However, Cloudschatze didn't mention changing ULTRADIR, and I have to wonder if I've overlooked something...

Reply 8 of 13, by Cloudschatze

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
ripsaw8080 wrote:

However, Cloudschatze didn't mention changing ULTRADIR, and I have to wonder if I've overlooked something...

Hah! Sorry, it did seem like I was neglecting something. I'd forgotten about that limitation of the earlier ULTRAMID version, and that I'd simply edited HG.BAT to compensate:

HG.BAT wrote:
@set ULTRADIR=C:\HIREDGUN\MUSIC @execute\hgmain @mem > tmp @del tmp @SET ULTRADIR=C:\GRAVIS\ULTRASND […]
Show full quote

@set ULTRADIR=C:\HIREDGUN\MUSIC
@execute\hgmain
@mem > tmp
@del tmp
@SET ULTRADIR=C:\GRAVIS\ULTRASND

Reply 10 of 13, by ripsaw8080

User metadata
Rank DOSBox Author
Rank
DOSBox Author
Enverex wrote:

Possibly a silly question, but there's no Ultrasound option in setup for this game. How do you actually tell it to use GUS rather than Roland/SB/ADlib?

Do read Cloudschatze's initial post, specifically the part about the European and North American releases of the game.

Reply 12 of 13, by hum4ndr01d

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Great review! I have read on the Amiga version manual if you have 1MB ram you can have e hanced audio effects. Are this effects present in the PC version too using at least one of the allowed audio cards? I can also see with the Gravis 3D the sound experience is rather poor compared to the Amiga one, expecially in the intro sound tune. What about the other audio cards? Is there any way to have an audio experience as good as the Amiga one on PC? Is the PC version VGA 256 colors? Or just 16 colors? Thanks in advance

Reply 13 of 13, by slx

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

@hum4ndr01d
You get extra sound effects If you have 2MB chip RAM in the AMIGA version.
I think the PC version has not got these extra sound effects!!!
The mid music of the PC version is bad with all soundcards compared with the AMIGA version. This game's written on AMIGA...
The PC version has ALMOST the same graphics as the AMIGA. It uses more color but you can only see this in the menu, and the characters portraits and the inventory look more colorful in game.

---------------------------------

DOSBox does not run the HG with Soundblaster correctly.

So I tried the US version of HG (what uses GUS) on DOSBox and it works.

BUT I found it strange that every weapon has the same sound effect! There is not thunder when lightning happens. Sadly, I do not remember the SB version correctly but I think there are these sound effects!

Last edited by Stiletto on 2020-01-05, 23:35. Edited 1 time in total.
Reason: abandonware discussion