Both games originally written by Andrew Walker, with music by Paul Hodgson, and published for the Commodore 64 by Taskset in 1983 and 1985, respectively.
Super Pipeline converted for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum by Simon F. Finch for Viper Software, and published as "Pipeline" by Consolidated Software Marketing Ltd. in 1985 as a two-for-one release with "S.O.S."
Super Pipeline II converted for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum by Nic Shulver and Steve Cook, and published by Taskset in 1985.
Super Pipeline II converted for the Amstrad CPC by Taskset (details unknown) and published by Amsoft in 1985.
Super Pipeline unofficially converted for the Commodore Plus/4 by TLC, and released by Coroners (CNS) in 1993. Published in a German disk magazine called "Club Info 16".
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INTRODUCTION & GAME STATUS
Some of the best early C64 games had the sort of quality that you would find in early Famicom and Master System games, and sometimes even arcade games. In most cases, these would have been converted from the 8-bit Atari computers, but in a few cases, they would have been C64 originals. Andrew Walker's two Super Pipeline games would fall into that category, and I'm actually kind of amazed, that these two games never found their way onto the NES/Famicom. I suppose it wouldn't have worked because they didn't feature Mario as the protagonist. Anyway, I decided to write this comparison now, because I had been planning it for over three years already, with the original purpose being one of these games' comparisons being planned for the now defunct Reset64 magazine, but other things got in the way; and also, I talked myself out of it before, because none of the other versions would have been able to beat the C64 original in any way. Well, I suppose that wouldn't even be the point this time around, because there are the other two versions for both games that would require deeper inspection, and that's what we're doing here today.
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DESCRIPTIONS & REVIEWS
The basic premise in both games is the same: you play as a foreman, who has to keep an eye on any harm being done to the pipeline, and if anything happens to stop the flow reaching the barrels at the end of the pipeline, you need to guide the workmen to the problem area to fix it. You can walk around on the pipeline as you will, and you can shoot at your enemies, but you cannot aim up or down, and some enemies cannot be shot from the front, and some not at all. A level is cleared by getting the barrels filled. If you lose a life at any point during a level, the level restarts completely.
While both games have a fairly similar overall stylistic approach, the differences in gameplay elements are what set these two games apart. In the original Super Pipeline, you have an unending flow of undisclosed liquid coming from off-screen, and your main enemies - the Laddermen - are able to drop plugs from the ceiling to cut the flow in the pipes. For the sequel, they changed the game design to make certain enemies able to punch holes in the pipes, making the undisclosed liquid fall down to waste, which now was coming from a container, that would eventually end. Also, the first game gives you only one workman to order around and fix the plugs, whereas the sequel gives you two.
Super Pipeline and its sequel are very much arcade-style in their design, which in this case means, that there is no actual ending, just a number of levels that loop from the beginning once you have passed the mark. In that way, there's not much of incentive to keep coming back to the games, but they are both such entertaining games, that the lack of a closure doesn't necessarily even pass your mind when playing them. At least, that is how I always went in to play them on the Commodore 64, and I always thought they could have easily been arcade classics, had they been originally arcade games. In that category, the two Super Pipeline games are some of the best that the C64 has to offer, particularly considering the time they were released in, and back in the day, they certainly seemed to be a part of any C64'ers collection in one form or another. So I would definitely call them classics in that sense. Whether they are such for the other platforms is something that I'm here to find out.
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LOADING
Since the first Pipeline was officially only released on the C64 and Spectrum, with the latter one barely being an official release, the loading comparison there feels a bit unnecessary, but here it is anyway:
COMMODORE 64: 3 minutes, sharp.
ZX SPECTRUM: 4 minutes 18 seconds
The Commodore Plus/4 version was only ever published on a disk magazine, so there is no tape version to get a loading time for. Of course, this means that there is no loading screen, either.
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| Loading screens. Top row - Super Pipeline, left to right: Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum. Bottom row - Super Pipeline II: Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC. |
AMSTRAD CPC, Taskset: 4 minutes 54 seconds
AMSTRAD CPC, Mastertronic: 8 minutes 39 seconds
AMSTRAD CPC, Amsoft: 7 minutes 5 seconds
COMMODORE 64, Taskset: 2 minutes 57 seconds
COMMODORE 64, Mastertronic: 4 minutes 38 seconds
ZX SPECTRUM: 3 minutes 15 seconds
No real surprises here - the original C64 Taskset version beats any other version, regardless of which game we're talking about, and the Spectrum version isn't too far behind. The Amstrad version, as usual, is almost exactly two minutes slower even in the Taskset release, than the C64 version, which is still considerably better than either of the re-releases.
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SUPER PIPELINE: PLAYABILITY
Back when the original Super Pipeline was written for the C64, there was no clear guidelines as to which joystick port should be preferred for the primary player, which later would be opted for port #2, so here, you plug the joystick in port #1 for player 1. Alternatively, you can play the game on keyboard with A-S-W-Z or J-K-I-M and Space bar.
All this you can learn from the Instructions screen, which can be accessed through the Options menu, to which you can get to by pressing any key other than the designated fire button/key. If you press the fire button, you will start the game with the default settings. The Options screen allows you to start the game from any of the first eight levels; choose a one or two player mode; choose the number of lives between one and eight; choose the skill level from easy, normal and hard; and set up the sounds to have both music and sound effects, only sound effects, or no sounds at all. The unofficial PLUS/4 conversion uses the same options and controls, except the C64 version has a unique feature in the ability to store and load your high scores - not exactly something you would expect from an arcade-like game of this age.
The SPECTRUM version boots straight into the main menu. For control options, you are given Interface II and Kempston as the joystick options, but if you have no such option to use, the key bindings, which are unalterable, are: Z and X for left and right, K and M for up and down, L for fire, H for hold (pause), A to abort the game, and you also need to press S in the menu to start the game - an instruction that is only mentioned in the instructions. The number of lives, the skill level options, and the starting level options are the same as in the other two versions.
Personally, I have never been able to get through Super Pipeline (nor its sequel), but the longplays on YouTube reveal that the game has twelve levels, which then loop from the beginning, ad infinitum. So far, there seems to be no such longplay for the SPECTRUM version, so I cannot say, whether that one has the same amount of levels or not, but the PLUS/4 version has the same twelve as the original.
As you might have perhaps expected, the PLUS/4 version is closer to the C64 original than the SPECTRUM version. The clearly inferior things about the PLUS/4 version are a somewhat jittery movement animation, and the collision detection is slightly off, but not so far as to make the game unplayable. It is rather buggy, though, which can break the game occasionally - I have had a thing happen, where you end up walking half inside the pipes, and the workman might start fixing something that isn't something to be fixed, and then he might not follow you afterwards at all. But as long as that doesn't happen, it's playable enough.
What the SPECTRUM version does, is make the game's speed balance quite a bit off, and it plays very slowly compared to the other two. The laddermen feel much faster to the original by comparison, and the collision detection, which is considerably worse than what you get in the PLUS/4 version - and to the opposite direction, makes trying to shoot the laddermen (and everything else) much more difficult. To balance this out, even if only a little, the obstacle blocks between the ladder and the pipeline don't appear until the sixth level in the SPECTRUM version, while the two COMMODORE versions have them appear already in the fourth level. All in all, the SPECTRUM version is not a superbly bad version of the game, and it does play better than many early Spectrum games, but there is a considerable difference in quality between this and the original. There really is no need to dig further to determine, what the order is here, so let's just get on with the placings.
1. COMMODORE 64
2. COMMODORE PLUS/4
3. SINCLAIR ZX SPECTRUM
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SUPER PIPELINE: GRAPHICS
As you might have noticed from the Loading section, the two COMMODORE versions have no loading screens, while the SPECTRUM version does. The tables are logically turned, when the game has booted up and you expect some sort of a title screen.
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| Title screens. Left: Commodore 64. Middle: Commodore Plus/4. ZX Spectrum has none. |
Obviously, the SPECTRUM version has no such title screen, as it boots up into the options menu, which you will see next. The unofficial COMMODORE PLUS/4 version has a slightly edited version of the original title screen, featuring no Taskset logo.
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| Menu screens, left to right: Commodore 64, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Commodore Plus/4. |
Accessing the options menu in the C64 and PLUS/4 versions is optional, so you will only get to see them if you press any other key than the designated fire button/key. The options menu screens feature more information on how to navigate the menu system, but it feels more like an afterthought, rather than a good design. Then again, these menu things are hardly ever given any particular focus in games for a reason.
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| In-game screenshots from the Commodore 64 version. |
While this is all there is to the game, it's clearly enough to make it interesting enough to want to keep beating the challenge. What is also noteworthy, though, is that the protagonists both have a clearly comic look about them, and are animated to emphasize the comic style. There aren't that many animation frames, but just enough to make it look funny. I specifically like the small detail of having the foreman fall down in a certain unique position that he doesn't do while walking around the pipeline. It should also be mentioned, that when you lose a life, the screen draws down like a curtain, and then comes back up before drawing in the pipeline as you restart the level.
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| In-game screenshots from the Sinclair ZX Spectrum version. |
What I found the most impressive about the SPECTRUM version's graphics, is that there is no colour clash between the protagonists and the pipeline, or even with the crabs and the bugs. The only colour that has any clash is white, which really only clashes with itself, but that's hardly a problem, because you can still pretty much distinguish all the enemies clearly enough. Having essentially monochrome elements, this allows for the characters to be more detailed than in the C64 version, and the animations are also well executed. The only thing really missing is the special falling down pose for the foreman, but it's such a small part of the game that you hardly have time to miss it. However, the slowness of the game ruins most of the enjoyment to be had from the graphics. If you run the game at 2x speed on an emulator, it suddenly becomes rather pleasant.
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| In-game screenshots from the Commodore Plus/4 version. |
The PLUS/4 version looks almost exactly like the C64 original, but it does have some minor inaccuracies regarding your positioning on the pipe, as well as of those of your enemies; and then there's also the relative lack of colours. It's all various shades of blue, and then some white, grey and black. The only splashes of other colours are to be found in the top area and next to the barrel, when you complete a level. Still, it does feel much more like how Super Pipeline is supposed to look, compared to the very different looking SPECTRUM version.
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| Interlude screens. Top: Commodore 64. Bottom: Commodore Plus/4. |
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| Game Over, left to right: Commodore 64, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Commodore Plus/4. |
Another thing that shows the limitations in the SPECTRUM version, is the lack of a separate Game Over screen, as the message is only slapped into the middle of whatever screen you were on when the game ended. The C64 and PLUS/4 versions have a separate Game Over screen with the message framed with bugs and crabs.
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| Enter name & high score table. Top: Commodore 64. Bottom: Commodore Plus/4. |
All things considered, I found myself liking the SPECTRUM version's graphics more than I expected, but it is a real shame that the game runs so slowly that it ruins the experience. Also, the lack of a title screen, the cutscene and a separate Game Over screen does have its effect on the overall results in this section. The PLUS/4 version fares well enough, but it's not quite as good as the original.
1. COMMODORE 64
2. COMMODORE PLUS/4
3. SINCLAIR ZX SPECTRUM
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SUPER PIPELINE: SOUNDS
Although the music in Super Pipeline is not exactly original work, it has always felt like it belongs there somehow. Paul Hodgson's renditions of classic compositions, such as Debussy's "Golliwog's Cakewalk", which acts as the main title theme; Paganini's "Caprice No.24" and Brighouse and Rastick's "The Floral Dance" fit the goofy feel of the game so perfectly, that I couldn't believe when I first found out they were actually covers. There are some bits and pieces that are actually Hodgson's own material, such as the interlude theme and some other small jingles, but most of it is just renditions of pre-existing music. In addition to all the music, you get a few well-defined sound effects that season the stew just enough to make it more than adequately interesting.
The SPECTRUM release features no music whatsoever, and the sound effects are the usual pops, thumps and farts. In this context, it might not come as a surprise, that there is not even a Game Over jingle.
No surprise, then, that the unofficial PLUS/4 version fares considerably better. You only get "Golliwog's Cakewalk" as the theme tune, and one tune that wasn't in the C64 soundtrack as the in-game tune that's used for all the levels. The only sound effect that I took notice of here was the shooting noise, which attaches a strange blurry noise on the music while the bullet flies across the screen. Again, no trouble deciding the order.
1. COMMODORE 64
2. COMMODORE PLUS/4
3. SINCLAIR ZX SPECTRUM
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SUPER PIPELINE II: PLAYABILITY
Now, the sequel adds and fixes a couple of important gameplay issues, but in most other aspects, remains fairly similar to the original. When it comes to different versions, though, the SPECTRUM version is much more official looking and feeling, as it was made in-house by Taskset, and instead of an unofficial PLUS/4 version as the third wheel, the trio's third spot is filled by an official version for the AMSTRAD CPC.
Options are largely similar to the first game - you get to choose one or two players; number of lives between one and eight, or in the AMSTRAD version, between three and eight; and of course, then there are the control options. In the C64 version, you can access the Options screen by pressing any Function key, but in the SPECTRUM and AMSTRAD version, you just wait for a bit.
As is only proper, all three versions are playable with a joystick or keyboard, but to be honest, the keyboard controls in the C64 original leave much to be desired. From what I could find, you can only control left and right sort of naturally with L and :, and to go up and down, as well as shoot, you need to press Q simultaneously with 0, 1 and 2, respectively. Not ideal, that. So you'd better stick with the joystick in the C64 version. The SPECTRUM version uses the classic Q-A-O-P and Space setup, and the AMSTRAD version goes with the cursor keys.
As for the joysticks, this time the C64 version uses port 2 as the primary one; the AMSTRAD version has only one joystick port so you need not make guesses; and the SPECTRUM version has joystick options for Kempston, Sinclair and Cursor.
The action in Super Pipeline II is largely similar to its predecessor, since all you need to be doing is running around the maze-like pipelines, shoot as many enemies as you can to protect the pipeline from being broken through, and fix the holes if necessary with the aid from your workmen, of whom you now have two. Instead of a ladder, which brought in laddermen and bugs, and the crabs arriving through the pipeline, there are now a plethora of different creatures and items-come-to-life that change from level to level. The crabs and bugs are still featured as they were in the original game, but additionally, you get flying nails which cannot be destroyed, various kinds of things that are able to punch holes into the pipeline, and they arrive through a smaller pipe, which connects with the bigger pipe at a few different places in each level. As if that weren't enough, the liquid supply has become a clearly visible, limited sort of a tank, which depletes in time, and you need to get the barrels at the bottom filled before the tank is empty.
In the C64 version, the overall feel of the gameplay is pretty much identical to the original, so no need to elaborate any further on that. Obviously, though, you can imagine that Super Pipeline II is somewhat busier than the first game.
The SPECTRUM version feels like the complete opposite of the first game, since this one seems to run with a turbo charger fueled with espresso - it is notably quicker than the C64 version, you see. It is also notably busier than the C64 version, and you might easily find yourself overwhelmed by the amount of enemies coming at you from both sides of the screen. If you can bother long enough with it, though, you might notice a comparative lack of variety in the enemy movement patterns, which then leads you to notice relatively safe spots to shoot the enemies from. It takes a bit more patience and sniper skills to notice these things, though, and if the pipeline is crawling with a dozen enemies already, it will be hard to reach any potential point for camping. Another problem presented by the game's speed is, you will have a hard time keeping your workmen in order, and if you need to fix multiple spots of the pipe at any one time, it's unlikely that you will clear the level. One last thing worth noting, which is not a problem as such, is that in this version, you start each level from the lower end of the pipeline instead of the higher end. Despite its overwhelming speed and difficulty, it is still much more playable than the first game.
I suppose, for AMSTRAD users back in the day, having only played, and perhaps even heard of Super Pipeline II, must have felt largely similar to how I felt when playing Agent X II on the C64 and finding out later on that the original Agent X game was only available on the Speccy. It has to be said, the newcomer here didn't have its way paved with the smoothest material, because what knowledge the CPC programmers had at that point wasn't much, the catalogue only having started to take some form with the Roland games and other Amsoft classics.
My point in that long-winded introduction to the AMSTRAD version of Super Pipeline II is this: this version feels like it was made by someone who worked on Amsoft's Roland games, only barely better. That said, some of the Roland games are more playable than others, and this would have been one of the better ones in the series, if so. The main problem with this version is not the speed - it's somewhere between the C64 and the SPECTRUM version; the problem is that all the pipes are foreground elements, making all the animated things walk and climb behind the pipes. Sometimes, you can't see a thing when trying to shoot at things, and even worse, sometimes the things you're shooting at behind the pipe detect no collision, because they're behind the pipe. The problem of enemies overcrowding the pipeline becomes worse here than in the SPECTRUM version because of this exact problem, since you cannot always shoot the enemies quick enough, and there is also some very notable collision detection problems. Again, though, the same enemy behaviour model is used as in the SPECTRUM version, as they all follow their own specific paths. I also noticed, that the liquid runs much slower through the pipes here than in either of the other two versions, so there's definitely more disadvantages here than you would have perhaps expected at first.
1. COMMODORE 64
2. SINCLAIR ZX SPECTRUM
3. AMSTRAD CPC
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SUPER PIPELINE II: GRAPHICS
This time, all three versions' graphics were designed more or less with a similar framework of the entire game in mind, even if reaching the same results were practically impossible back then.
Similarly to the first game, Super Pipeline II has more than just a title screen, and it is basically what the arcade industry calls an "attract mode". This includes the actual title screen, a short gameplay demonstration, high scores table, and maybe some instructions and the options screen, depending on the version, and these items may not always appear in the same order.
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| Title screen variants. Top row: Commodore 64. Middle: Amstrad CPC. Bottom: ZX Spectrum. |
In the C64 and AMSTRAD versions, the title screen is what greets you immediately, once the game has loaded, and in the SPECTRUM version, it is viewed as the third screen after high scores and options. Interestingly, the C64 and SPECTRUM versions share the amount of colour variations for the title screen, while the AMSTRAD version only has one. Otherwise, the design is very similar between the C64 and AMSTRAD title screens, and the SPECTRUM title screen differs considerably by not only the overall look of the title font and surroundings, but also, it's the only one of the lot that has the title screen animated to have a faux fade-in kind of a thing for the title itself.
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| Options and instructions, left to right: Commodore 64, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC. |
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| In-game screenshots from the Commodore 64 version. |
Compared to the first game, things are definitely more colourful in the sequel. The most obvious difference is, that the pipelines and the flowing liquid have a different colour for each level. Less obviously, the workmen now wear light green overalls instead of dark blue ones, and there's a wider variety of enemy creatures, displaying even more colours than previously. The liquid tank in the top left corner also brings in a new animated element, which is nice. In its very essentials, though, Super Pipeline II doesn't have particularly upgraded in-game graphics, which I suppose is good, because the concept worked well enough in the original.
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| In-game screenshots from the Sinclair ZX Spectrum version. |
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| In-game screenshots from the Amstrad CPC version. |
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| Various cutscenes, top to bottom: Commodore 64, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC. |
Each level ends with a quick animated cutscene displayed at the bottom of the screen, where the barrel usually is. What the C64 version does uniquely is, that you can see the filled barrel(s) being slided off the screen while the cutscene plays in front of the barrel(s). I could only show the first three, because the SPECTRUM and AMSTRAD versions became so difficult by level four, that I was unable to pass them without much quicksaving and -loading, so I couldn't be bothered to focus on the cutscenes after level three. Anyway, the AMSTRAD version shows the cutscenes in a different order than the C64 and SPECTRUM versions, and the cutscene with the small car has a different plot, too. In the SPECTRUM version, the cutscenes run considerably slower than in the other two, but I suppose they made it that way to make the viewing experience more viewable.
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| Game Over, left to right: Commodore 64, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC. |
In the SPECTRUM version, the message gets drawn in split lines from the left and right, and the font is a more basic one, but still very stylish. The AMSTRAD version is the only one to not have anything particularly special for the occasion, as it only shows the Game Over message in a basic wide system font on a dedicated screen.
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| High score tables with name entry, left to right: Commodore 64, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC. |
So, while there is clearly more variety in the graphics between these three than in the first game, the obvious winner here is the C64 original, no doubt about it. However, the fight for the second place is perhaps unexpectedly won by the SPECTRUM version, simply by being more functional.
1. COMMODORE 64
2. SINCLAIR ZX SPECTRUM
3. AMSTRAD CPC
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SUPER PIPELINE II: SOUNDS
Instead of hauling in more classical covers, Paul Hodgson composed an entirely original soundtrack for Super Pipeline II, apart from a couple of tunes recycled from the original game. It's all very ragtime-like with a distinctive feel of Looney Tunes going on with it. The entire soundtrack consists of four different level themes, with one variation for the title screen, seven shorter jingles for the cutscenes, and one short jingle for Game Over. For sound effects, you get a shooting noise which seems to vary slightly randomly, an explosion effect or two, a hammering "ding ding" sound, a low bell-like sound when a pipe is penetrated, and an alarm noise of sorts when the liquid tank is close to empty. The music definitely has the highlight here, but the sound effects do make the game lively enough, despite of how irregularly you hear some of them, and how low in the mix they are.
Since there was no 128k version available for the ZX SPECTRUM, all you get is a beeper soundtrack. All the music you hear in this version is basically constructed in alternating 32th notes, of which every second one is a pause note, every first one a melodic note, and every third one a bass line note. This makes the tunes difficult to decipher, which ones they are supposed to represent from the original soundtrack, but at least the one in the title sequence is recognizable. When in game, though, you only get sound effects, which are the usual pips, pops, ticks and farts that you get from the Speccy beeper. This, however, is a blessing compared to having constant music, when it is constructed the way it is here. You do get the occasional jingles between levels and in the Game Over, which is quite enough. All in all, you might consider this an upgrade from the first game's Speccy version.
Obviously, the AMSTRAD version gets the soundtrack much closer to the C64 original, but how much closer is it? Well, the soundtrack starts off with a very faithful rendition of the theme tune, and as you get on with the game, all the tunes you hear in the C64 original are present, including all the jingles - apart from the Game Over jingle. Not too bad, then. Unfortunately, while the sound effects were not all that important in the C64 original, there was plenty enough of them there, which isn't the case here - I only managed to count two different ones, shooting and hammering. So, once again, we have a clear order to present.
1. COMMODORE 64
2. AMSTRAD CPC
3. SINCLAIR ZX SPECTRUM
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OVERALL + VIDEO
As I mentioned at the beginning of this two-fer, both the C64 versions would be obvious winners here, but the reason for doing this comparison was to find out more about the other versions. Turns out, the sequel was much more interesting than the original game in this regard, and all the non-original versions of both games can be considered at least somewhat enjoyable, if not particularly good. So, here's how they all line up...
SUPER PIPELINE
1. COMMODORE 64: Playability 3, Graphics 3, Sounds 3 = TOTAL 9
2. COMMODORE PLUS/4: Playability 2, Graphics 2, Sounds 2 = TOTAL 6
3. SINCLAIR ZX SPECTRUM: Playability 1, Graphics 1, Sounds 1 = TOTAL 3
SUPER PIPELINE II
1. COMMODORE 64: Playability 3, Graphics 3, Sounds 3 = TOTAL 9
2. SINCLAIR ZX SPECTRUM: Playability 2, Graphics 2, Sounds 1 = TOTAL 5
3. AMSTRAD CPC: Playability 1, Graphics 1, Sounds 2 = TOTAL 4
Of course, because this was a two-fer, I had to make an FRGCB-original video comparison to accompany this bunch, so here's for your viewing pleasure:
After writing all of the above, I managed to find one other unofficial version of the original Super Pipeline, and this one is a type-in for the MSX computers by Volker Becker, published in the first 1986 issue of Computronic Sonderausgabe, which was a German computing magazine published by Tronic-Verlag. Being a type-in, it obviously cannot amount to much, but unfortunately, I was unable to actually test it out myself, because the only disk image I found of it wouldn't work properly. At least, I can show two screenshots I borrowed from Generation-MSX.
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| MSX: Pipeline (Volker Becker, 1986) |
That's it for now, hope you enjoyed this two-fer! I suspect, my pace for doing comparisons having been what it has this year, I might not do more than the obligatory Finnish game review for the Independence Day for the 6th of December, but meanwhile, I will be focusing more on My Nostalgia Trip Games on FRGCB's YouTube channel. Anyway, see you whenever, wherever!
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