Anyone Remember Zarch/Virus?

Trick · 2 Feb 2006 at 13:58

I've been going all retro recently and started trying to emulate those machines I used as a kid in yesteryear. So far I've had good results with WinAUE/AIAB (Amiga) and RedSquirrel (Archimedes). Just to settle and age old argument, ArcElite was the best version of them all!

However, does anyone remember David B's classic Zarch, allegedly written in just 3months!? I've managed to dig up both Lander (the Zarch demo) and my old copy of Virus but so far have had no luck locating Zarch.

During the search for old reviews of Zarch (I'm sure ACE gave it a near perfect score) I stumbled across this dynamite bit of freeware: Z_Virus...

Give it a go, it's brilliant! Totally faithful to the original with extras such as being able to increase the draw distance, chase and rear views etc... What a great tribute to a brilliant game. Now, I've just gotta find someone who sells old Arc software.....

BS Dave · 2 Feb 2006 at 14:11

I remember there was a cheat you could use in Virus on the Atari ST. It gave you unlimited missiles. You could fire loads off at the really fast enemy ships and watch as it flew round with a cloud of missiles chasing it. Most amusing.

A very hard game if I recall. Only managed about the first 5 levels. (without cheating). Have you had any luck with classics such as North and South or Mega-lo-Mania?

Trick · 2 Feb 2006 at 14:15

Yep, both work fine with the latest version of WinUAE. The emulation of the Amiga is pretty much perfect these days and, obviously, loads faster. Games such as AB3D and AB3DII are worth playing now!

AndyBorzi · 2 Feb 2006 at 14:17

Heh that game was the reason i nearly bought an Archi!

I changed my mind at the last minute and bought an Amiga 500 instead. Lo & Behold it came out (as Virus) for the Amiga

BS Dave · 2 Feb 2006 at 14:24

this is great news i loved virus on the st, but always drawled over the arch version.

i remember looking through magazines at school at amiga 1000 as well. happy days.

bit wierd to think my phone has 60 times the ram of one of them now.

chopchop · 2 Feb 2006 at 14:26

used to play lander when i was ~7 on the A3000 at primary school

and some batty clone, that used to sing "take me down to the paradise city where the grass is green and the girls are pretty" on the a3000 again.

and the best of all POD!! on the bbc when i was 5

pod can:
dance
skip
jump
e.t.c

Trick · 2 Feb 2006 at 17:12

AndyBorzi said:
Heh that game was the reason i nearly bought an Archi!

I changed my mind at the last minute and bought an Amiga 500 instead. Lo & Behold it came out (as Virus) for the Amiga

Arc version was the best. Crisper gfx, smoother colours. The Amiga version ran pretty slowly, must've only been 10-15fps which made the game very hard. You can get it to run with WinUAE on a 68020 cpu but then it runs too fast!

Trick · 2 Feb 2006 at 17:13

chopchop said:
and some batty clone, that used to sing "take me down to the paradise city where the grass is green and the girls are pretty" on the a3000 again.

ah man I remember that too! Damn! What game was it?

Trick · 2 Feb 2006 at 17:15

BS Dave said:
Have you had any luck with classics such as North and South or Mega-lo-Mania?

Things such as Powermonger work really well now as they're much faster than the old A500. Populous 2 is fun with loads of magic going off. Hunter runs nicely as well, as does Cybercon 3 and Captive 2.

james.miller · 2 Feb 2006 at 17:17

emulating most consoles and computers is illegal, so we cant talk about it here im afraid.

chopchop · 2 Feb 2006 at 17:25

Trick said:
ah man I remember that too! Damn! What game was it?

dunno, if i did know, i would have said

just some batty, arknoid type game.

Trick · 2 Feb 2006 at 17:27

james.miller said:
emulating most consoles and computers is illegal, so we cant talk about it here im afraid.

Ah ok, didn't realise. Can one of the Dons pls close the thread? Unless we promise just to reminisce about old games from now on?

Deckard · 2 Feb 2006 at 18:38

Yea. I had that on my old amiga. The box and disc is still at my Dads place, somewhere.
Before it came out on the amiga though, I remember seeing a demo of it on micro live one sunday morning, on an archie of course.

ScarySquirrel · 2 Feb 2006 at 19:15

OMFG.................we had Lander on our PRIMARY SCHOOL computers made by Acorn. this was when i was like 8-10 or something (20 now)

neoglow · 23 May 2013 at 12:53

Wow, thread revival.

Was just looking at this old classic on google and came across Z-Virus, as mentioned by the OP. Didnt think someone would have made a thread about it.

It came under a few names, Zarch or Virus, it started as a demo that came with the old Acorn Archimedes and was called Lander.

Great little remake and I remember playing this on the school computers too.

If anyone wants some nostalgia, heres a page to the Zarch fan remake and a linky to the download.

Excellent little remake. (And yes the file is virus free etc, Ive downloaded it, checked it and played it)

http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=38995
http://www.steviegoodwin.plus.com/Z_Virus.zip