First post, by Cloudschatze
- Rank
- Oldbie
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!).
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.