This (on the Amiga, not the PC which had disturbingly poor sound by comparison) was (is ?!) my all-time favourite game ... First off I have to say I haven't played this game (off GOG) on my computer, I have however bought and played it on the ipad the day it came out - I believe this is the same 'Jon Hare conversion' as the ipad version ? And for this reason I shall not be buying it. Here's why ... I hadn't played this beloved game for over 15 years (on an Amiga, with a competition pro joystick) and I picked up the ipad version and completed the whole game (inc Champions league) on my FIRST ATTEMPT ! Now this is not me bragging, I am not (and never was) that good at computer games, I completed the various competitions in the original by (LOTS !) of hard work, determination and hours and hours of serious joystick bashing and as such when I won it gave huge satisfaction, there was no guarantee however that next time I would win again because Super Nashwan could play you off the park at anytime, Fatal Justice could also do this on occasion and if you met the Turbo Hammers in a particularly aggressive mood they could kick you off the park - for me at least it was no certainty you are going to win. Also in the the original the gym was important - as to how you wanted your team to play, I never used to max out my aggression as instead of being in a good position to receive the ball I found with max aggression your players would wander off and fight instead and with this new version I feel it just doesn't work like - in the original version you couldn't upgrade your 'star' players in the gym, their stats were set, so again, you would buy in star players to fit in with your style of play - for me 'JAMS' (star forward) was always in the right place at the right time and not off fighting. I think this game was a missed opportunity, it was (imho) practically perfect in it's original format - all it ever needed was the longevity improving.
Everything I remember about the Chaos Engine from my Amiga days is here - It was a fantastic shooter, pretty hard (but not impossible as I remember finishing it back in the day -- although replaying now I can't imagine how I did it !), beautiful, unmistakably Bitmap Brothers, graphics and sound. Had some slight difficulties getting it to work on my XP desktop but the GOG support team sorted that for me. (worked straight away on My Windows 7 laptop). I even dusted down my old Competition Pro joystick (through a USB converter) and this too worked a treat, Oh how I loved joysticks/hated game-pads. All in all, many hours of simple pleasure, thank you GOG, now make my life complete and release Speedball 2 please ?! (the Amiga version, not the PC version with the dreadful sound) Ice cream anyone ?!
