| Notes: | [1] Min. Requirements: AGA, 2Mb chipram.
Recommended: AGA, 50Mhz 68030 CPU or better, 2Mb chip/4Mb fastram, HD.
[2] TFX was originally scheduled for release by Ocean in 1994, but was shelved indefinitely in 1995 when it was 95% finished and reviewed by several magazines in April/May of that year. Many of the reviews stated that the game was unplayable on a standard A1200 due to the poor speed of screen updates (about 1fps on a 14Mhz 68020 CPU) and suffered generally because of the low detailed graphics, reduced sound and frequent disk swapping, that owed somewhat to the machine's lack of memory (i.e. 2Mb chip/no fastram). The magazines generally recommended minimum specs of an A1200/4000 with 030 CPU and fastram to adequately play the game. Such high specs (they were for Amiga users back in 1995, at least) coupled with the uncertainty of the Amiga market resulted in Ocean indefinitely withholding the release of the game and eventually cancelling it in 1996.
Little more was heard about the game until CU Amiga announced in the Apr 97 issue that it was going to show TFX exclusively on their stand at the World of Amiga (WOA) show. True to their word, they unveiled the game publically for the first time to impressed Amiga enthusiasts at the WOA show in May 97. The general consensus was that it ran reasonably well on the A1200/030/50MHz used and that it was a pity that Ocean decided not to release it.
With the dearth of commercial Amiga game releases and much positive feedback from the WOA showing, CU Amiga entered negotiations with developers DID and secured publication rights to TFX.
Subsequently, CU Amiga exclusively published the game on the CUCD15 coverdisc of the Oct 97 issue (CD edition).
Readers who bought the Oct 97 issue (floppy edition) would not miss out, however, and were able to take advantage of a special offer to buy a 7 disk version of TFX for £4.00 (p&p inclusive).
The CU Amiga release of TFX contained 3 executables:
(a) TFX_68000 for AGA machines without FPU
(b) TFX_FPU for AGA machines with FPU
(c) TFX_040 for 040/060 AGA machines.
[3] Unfortunately, due to TFX being only 95% complete when it was shelved by Ocean, several bugs were still present when the game was released by CU Amiga. Among other things, some Amiga users reported that the TFX_040 executable did not work on 040/060 machines and that the TFX_FPU executable produced graphical glitches.
In response to some of the bugs identified, TFX coder Charlie Wallace released updated BETA executables in Dec 1997. They are available for download from his website, although cannot be guaranteed to fix all TFX's bugs nor work on all Amiga configurations:
(a) TFX_020 beta executable (requires FPU)
(b) TFX_030 beta executable (requires FPU)
(c) TFX_040 beta executable (requires 040/060 CPU) |
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 - Double Barrel Screenshot "TFX (Tactical Fighter Experiment) - Double Barrel Screenshot")
