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To arms, my noble Saxon knights!

Defender of the Crown, a 1986 turn-based strategy classic, originally launched on the Commodore Amiga, is available in all it's pixelated glory on GOG.com, for $5.99!

We are happy to announce a new partnership with Cinemaware that will bring plenty of mouth-watering classics in their best available incarnations. Starting with Defender of the Crown, more classic titles from Cinemaware will release on GOG.com with both PC and emulated Commodore Amiga versions. Yes, the graphically superior, awesome, beautiful and shiny Amiga versions!

Today's release is a wonderful gem straight from the 80s. Back in the day, Defender of the Crown set a new standard for graphical presentation and innovative, fresh gameplay. As the leader of an initially sparse pack of Saxon knights, building up your army and influence as you proceed, you'll have to stick it to the Normans in an effort to gain control of the war-torn medieval England. Your strategic prowess as well as your sword fighting skills will be severely tested. This turn-based strategy classic will have you saving damsels in distress with your blade, jousting with fearsome knights, and besieging Norman castles - all the while reveling in the Amiga quality sound and beautiful graphics.

Defeat those pesky Normans and unite England in Defender of the Crown, for $5.99 on GOG.com.
Post edited September 09, 2014 by JudasIscariot
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JohnnyDollar: I'm on the fence. I'm awaiting the response from Wishbone. :) I played this game a bunch on C64 back in the day.

What are your thoughts about the mouse sensitivity and the MP3 soundtrack?
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Cinemaware: Some tracks on the Soundtrack (Only in the MP3-Soundtrack) are running slower. We are working on an update.
The mouse sensitivity issue is not a problem for me, i just readjust my mouse.But it is good to know that the soundtrack problem is being looked into.

Just had a quick game and think the Amiga emulation(never played the Dos version before and haven't tried it yet) is quite playable and brings back fond memories.Thx Cinemaware and GOG.I am definitely looking forward to future Cinemaware releases here, in particular It Came from the Desert.
Post edited September 10, 2014 by ALH
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Cinemaware: Some tracks on the Soundtrack (Only in the MP3-Soundtrack) are running slower. We are working on an update.
That's good hear. It's good to see this title coming here, and I appreciate you coming to the forum and interacting with us. :)
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htown1980: The soundtrack has some slowness and quality issues, but I haven't really listened to it all that much. I can't imagine I would ever want to listen to a soundtrack from a game from 1986. The music just isn't that good.

The mouse sensitivity thing is a bit of an issue, not game breaking, but a bit annoying. I personally prefer the dos version though (I struggle with sword fighting in the amiga version), so you should probably speak to someone who has played it a bit more of the amiga version than me.

Personally, I would recommend that anyone who isn't buying this for nostalgia reasons, wait for a sale.
Thanks. Part of it is nostalgia, but I really liked this game back in the day. Yeah, it's old, but I can see myself putting in a little bit of time.
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ALH: The mouse sensitivity issue is not a problem for me, i just readjust my mouse.But it is good to know that the soundtrack problem is being looked into.

Just had a quick game and think the Amiga emulation(never played the Dos version before and haven't tried it yet) is quite playable and brings back fond memories.Thx Cinemaware and GOG.I am definitely looking forward to future Cinemaware releases here, in particular It Came from the Desert.
It does bring back memories. :) Yeah, I have a mouse with a manual control and can turn it down a notch if I need to. That just sounds like an issue that needs to be resolved.
Post edited September 10, 2014 by JohnnyDollar
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JohnnyDollar:
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htown1980: The soundtrack has some slowness and quality issues, but I haven't really listened to it all that much. I can't imagine I would ever want to listen to a soundtrack from a game from 1986. The music just isn't that good.
I disagree. This still gives me chills.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFrcwk5my7g
Hahaha, never realized it was Jean-Michel Jarre who did the music.
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htown1980: I can't imagine I would ever want to listen to a soundtrack from a game from 1986. The music just isn't that good.
I can't imagine I would ever want to listen to music from [insert past century]. The music just isn't that good.
Oh wait, age has absolutely no correlation whatsoever with quality, I forgot.
Post edited September 10, 2014 by Erich_Zann
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Erich_Zann: Hahaha, never realized it was Jean-Michel Jarre who did the music.
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htown1980: I can't imagine I would ever want to listen to a soundtrack from a game from 1986. The music just isn't that good.
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Erich_Zann: I can't imagine I would ever want to listen to music from [insert past century]. The music just isn't that good.
Oh wait, age has absolutely no correlation whatsoever with quality, I forgot.
I know! And I only found out recently that it is part of this track off Zoolook (about 7 minutes in):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kbazRhuhd8

(Apologies for that totally nerdy digression haha).
Yay, first Amiga release on GOG! This is great news. Does this mean we will see more Amiga on GOG?
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Lafazar: Yay, first Amiga release on GOG! This is great news. Does this mean we will see more Amiga on GOG?
Yes, but only from Cinemaware's catalog.
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Lafazar: Yay, first Amiga release on GOG! This is great news. Does this mean we will see more Amiga on GOG?
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tburger: Yes, but only from Cinemaware's catalog.
Oh well, better than nothing, and hopefully we get more in the future.

I understand the problem is the OS of the Amiga which has to be licensed for emulation, so is this release actually emulated or is it a native port with the Amiga assets? Since no other Amiga stuff seems to be coming I guess it's the latter...
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tburger: Yes, but only from Cinemaware's catalog.
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Lafazar: Oh well, better than nothing, and hopefully we get more in the future.

I understand the problem is the OS of the Amiga which has to be licensed for emulation, so is this release actually emulated or is it a native port with the Amiga assets? Since no other Amiga stuff seems to be coming I guess it's the latter...
It is some kind of Cinemaware's in-house build emulator that seems to have some issues. The don't add adf images to run the game on other emulator (say - Amiga Forever)
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htown1980: The soundtrack has some slowness and quality issues, but I haven't really listened to it all that much. I can't imagine I would ever want to listen to a soundtrack from a game from 1986. The music just isn't that good.
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skinandbones13: I disagree. This still gives me chills.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFrcwk5my7g
Mate, that is 1988. That's way different :)

I just don't rate this music, its not even comparable:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1QopxQ5wJQ
This game got a remake for Windows didn't it? In the early 2000's
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Erich_Zann: Hahaha, never realized it was Jean-Michel Jarre who did the music.
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htown1980: I can't imagine I would ever want to listen to a soundtrack from a game from 1986. The music just isn't that good.
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Erich_Zann: I can't imagine I would ever want to listen to music from [insert past century]. The music just isn't that good.
Oh wait, age has absolutely no correlation whatsoever with quality, I forgot.
I'm not talking about music from a previous year. I am talking about music from a GAME from a previous year.

Technology has changed a lot since 1986. Video game music and graphics from the early and mid 80s are objectively worse than music and graphics from, say the 2000s. There is some correlation between age of a video game and teh quality of its music. Listen to this and compare it to good music from a current game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1EcS9mJJwo
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Lafazar: Oh well, better than nothing, and hopefully we get more in the future.

I understand the problem is the OS of the Amiga which has to be licensed for emulation, so is this release actually emulated or is it a native port with the Amiga assets? Since no other Amiga stuff seems to be coming I guess it's the latter...
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tburger: It is some kind of Cinemaware's in-house build emulator that seems to have some issues. The don't add adf images to run the game on other emulator (say - Amiga Forever)
:( Oh well, baby steps, I guess...
high rated
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htown1980: I'm not talking about music from a previous year. I am talking about music from a GAME from a previous year.

Technology has changed a lot since 1986. Video game music and graphics from the early and mid 80s are objectively worse than music and graphics from, say the 2000s. There is some correlation between age of a video game and teh quality of its music. Listen to this and compare it to good music from a current game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1EcS9mJJwo
Technologically inferior ? Sure. "Objectively worse" ? Not necessarily. Unless you consider photorealism/hyperrealism (for graphics) to be artistically "objectively better" than pixel art / digitized paintings / voxel graphics, or the pseudo-Carmina Burana stuff from nowadays MAJESTIC!!! games to be artistically "objectively better" than, well anything made before for epic-oriented games.

I simply don't understand how one can conflate superior technology with superior artistic/aesthetic quality. It's like saying colour photography is "objectively better" than black&white, or talking films are "objectively better" than silent ones.

Edit, re-your example : and yes, I grew up among other things with a 286 without sound card, so I know the DOS games were in the gutter when it came to music. Doesn't mean the 80's had bad game music.
Post edited September 10, 2014 by Erich_Zann
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htown1980: Sure there are issues with them, sound, graphics, slow-down, but those issues have always been there. That is the game.
No, the issues haven't always been there. The game ran smooth and was perfectly playable in the original Amiga version. In the emulated version it's nearly impossible to control certain gameplay elements (jousting, fighting).

Same goes for the DOS version. Haven't played it back then, but the emulated version runs much too fast, which makes it impossible to control things. Sure I could mess around with the DOSBox settings, but one of the reasons I buy classics here, is that I don't have to do that.