Disappointing classic Amiga games

[Abou27]

Hi there,

I was just thinking about how people fondly remember the classic games of the early 90's on their Amigas - how good the playability was etc.  Over the last year or so, I have been dustiong down old games and firing them up once more.  Some, like SWOS Settlers and F1GP, remain fantastic but on playing Lotus III again for the first time in about 10 years, I was really taken aback by how bad it seemed.  I loved the Lotus series when I was younger and found it hard to come to terms with!

I was wondering if others have experienced similar disappointment when returning to old games?  Alternatively, which have you found ones that live up to their top billing in your memories?

[drwho]

Yeah, with the Amiga, it's really easy to focus on the good since there was (and still is) so much of it to go around. Unfortunately, I remember some really bad titles.

I remember playing a game called "Savage" and the reason that I thought it was so cool was because of the opening soundtrack,man, that game was utter crappola.

Some other games I remember were not so obvious. When Psygnosis came out with RedZone, I was really excited since I like bike racing games and Psygnosis always made such good stuff. I thought I couldn't go wrong. It was horrible though. Completely uncontrollable motorcycle, bad physics, that was a big let down.

I know there are more, but, I can't think of them at the moment.

Mike

[MAD]

Hoya!

EH! I liked Savage! I thought it had an Amstrad CPC feel in it. Besides, I had it on CPC too!

What about Lombard Rally? The point of view form the back seat was interesting, and you could see the co-pilot, too, but the game was SOOOOO slow and IIRC sound was not very good either.

And what about Alien Breed 2???
Brilliant gfx, brilliant sfx but impossible to play!
The difficulty level was just INSANE! 17 levels... Yeah, right, I have never been past the second one...

Any other?

Be funky

M A D

[Ilwrath]

When Psygnosis came out with RedZone, I was really excited since I like bike racing games and Psygnosis always made such good stuff. I thought I couldn't go wrong. It was horrible though.

Yeah... Psygnosis had some great games... But they had some real stinkers, too.  I'd class RedZone as one of the latter.  Fortunatly, "No Second Prize" was so fun it had erased the memory of RedZone, until you just HAD to go and mention it here.  ;-)

I was disappointed when I got the Amiga version of Skyfox.  I had loved the C64 version so much.  Found out I didn't love the Amiga version nearly as much.  :-/

One strange surprise was Street Rods II.  I kinda liked the first one with all the car building and such.  The racing scenes certainly weren't good... But they were adequate.  Then came Street Rods II.  Better car building options.... But totally unplayable because of the "racing" (crawling slow) scenes.  1fps won't cut even slow-mo racing!  I threw it in the closet in disgust, and forgot about it for years.  Tried it for laughs a few years ago on an A1200/030, and was pleasantly surprised to find that it worked and actually played somewhat smoother.  (Though still maybe only 10-15fps)

[Thematic]

I think I only got good/excellent titles, but then again there were very few instances where I would know little about them beforehand. Oh, perhaps Simlife was some sort of disappointment. I didn't ever think it could be as absorbing as SC2k, but the edutainment aspect missed me probably because of simplicity. Either of the program or the user. :-)

playing Lotus III again for the first time in about 10 years, I was really taken aback by how bad it seemed.

While Lotus III isn't a must see compared with the first two, I find that just the mountainside races are bad. This because even under NTSC display the framerate is horrible, and thus only barely playable with carefully selected tracks.

[PMC]

Depends if we're talking about being disappointed at the time or disappointed when we play the games ten / fifteen years later...

I bought a CD full of Spectrum games and emulators for my Amiga, hoping to relive those halcyon days when I'd play Elite, Stormbringer and Starglider for hours on end.  I had a very rude shock when I sat down and played those speccy games again and remembered just why I wanted an Amiga so badly in 1990.  Those old 8 bit games came with 8 colours - all garish - and a mind numbing plethora of tinny and slightly out of key bleeps courtesy of the emulated AY chip.  At least they didn't manage to emulate the fifteen minute wait for games to load from tape though!

If you're in any doubt as to the greatness of old Amiga games, just spend half an hour playing Turrican II and your cynicism will disappear...  If there's a better shoot em up out there I've yet to play it!  I do still keep coming back to Batman the Movie, Lotus III, Civilization, Warlords, Doom I & II etc.

Being taken in by hype is nothing new though.  Remember back in 1989 when Psygnosis released Shadow of the Beast?  A truly beautiful game that was distinctly mediocre in terms of gameplay.  Xenon II?  Great graphics and lovely sound, but the scrolling was jerky and I couldn't be arsed to try and get past level 4.  

The biggest offender though has to be US Gold with Outrun.  How could they take that beautiful Sega coin-op and screw it up so badly???

[Legerdemain]

I've been playing many old games recently. I've lived with the principle "things were better" for pretty long now, but in all honesty I must say that many many titles have come to dissapoint me... especially some that I held so high in regard back in the days.

STINKERS:
---------

Chaos Engine
- I loved this game. Played it through over and over again. Today? Well, I still like the principles of the game... but what about the lousy scrolling? Scrolling have become one of the most important parts in games... comparing like True Crime on the Gamecube (60hz, as smooth as ever) with True Crime on the X-Box (it stutters all the way through... not even the cinemas are able to play smoothly... feels rushed) is like comparing ABC80 with an AMiGA 4000.

Speedball II
- Loved it then. Can't play it now. It's everything but smooth. The scrolling is horrible.

Moonstone
- Thought it was excellent then. Now it really doesn't hold up to anything. Slow. Jerky control. Jerky graphics. What was the big deal?

Pinball Dreams, Fantasies & Illusions
- Well. They are smooth. And the graphics are nice. But they have aged. Oh man, have they aged! In comparation to Slam Tilt they seem so trivial. There is so little to do on the tables. Slam Tilt still works just fine, and I consider it still by today being the best 2D Pinball simulator ever.

Lotus I, II & III
- What made them impress me? I can't stand them. The graphics are not nice and the gameplay is everything but smooth. Compared to Jaguar XJ220 they seem... lightweight? Jaguar XJ220 still holds up well, and the arcade feeling is instant. Love it. Hate them.

Dune II
- Uhm. It's unplayable. Too few levels. Too hard. Too tedious interface (controlling one unit at a time when there is like 20 units attacking?). This was a major disappointment.

Microcosm
- Unplayable graphic demo. Nice concept. Horrible gameplay. Back in the days it impressed me. But the impression wasn't lasting.


ROCKERS:
--------

Besides the previously mentioned Slam Tilt & Jaguar XJ220...

Super Stardust
- Is this the best asteriods clone ever? The graphics are insanely nice looking and the tunnel sequences STILL seem to impress people. Not to mention the gameplay with so many different enemies, levels and nice challenge.

Turrican II
- The perfect platformer. Although I play it through in about an hour with 30+ lives left, I can't help loving it. The graphics. THE SOUNDTRACK. The leveldesigns. The control. The everything. Man, is this a classic!

Dune
- Never played anything like this since. Real time strategy combined with adventure and almost some RPG-alike elements. Wonderful soundtrack. Nice graphics and overall superb interface to play around with.

Eye of the Beholder I & II
- They are what they are and they are good. Never seizes to intrigue me.

Monkey Island I & II
Indiana Jones & The Fate Of Atlantis
Napalm
Myst
Hero Quest I & II
Brian The Lion
Megaball 4
Cannon Fodder I & II
Civilization
Benefactor
Sim City, Sim City 2000, Sim Ant & Sim Earth
Populous I & II
Bobs Bad Day (it rocks, but no one seems to remember it?)
...and many many more.
- No comments.

[that_punk_guy]

I hate Sensible World Of Soccer.

But then, I just hate football. So that's probably a major contributing factor.

[darksun9210]

while i agree all pretty much all of the above points, i feel i must differ on one.

Lotus 2.

more playable than lotus 1, faster and nowhere near as annoying as lotus3.
and 4 player simulanious! this is where it really shines.

jack 2 A500's together with a null modem cable, and get four people together and some beers in. the only game that beats this in my opinion in multiplayer is mariokart double dash on gamecube.

btw, did someone mention starglider? i've been looking for starglider and starglider2 for years!

i'll rate XJ220 very highly, but for some reason, i didn't get that feeling of speed. for that i'll play the demo pre-release version on an amiga format coverdisk i have. plus it has soundFX and music at the same time! as opposed to one or the other in the full game.

and whats all this hype about the "Great Giana Sisters"?
imho it should be the Great Giano Sisters. or however you spell bird poo in potugese/spanish. i remember this as being one of the worst gaming expiriences i had. or has it had a serious update?

[Linchpin]

Cool Games :

Supercars II
Monkey Island
Zool! (Yeah, i liked it!)
Jag XJ220
Flashback
Another World
Cannon Fodder

Awfull Games

Days Of Thunder (The WORST)
Street Fighter II (Took sOOOoOO long to load from FD!)

sweet.

[Noster]

Hi

@Legerdemain

> STINKERS:
> ---------
>
> Speedball II
> - Loved it then. Can't play it now. It's everything but smooth. The scrolling is horrible.

You should use an Amiga to play it ;-) It is still fantastic and full of action, whenever I meet one of my old Amiga-friends for a retro-night, we play it.

> Dune II
> - Uhm. It's unplayable. Too few levels. Too hard. Too tedious interface
> (controlling one unit at a time when there is like 20 units attacking?).

I don't agree with you, it was the first game of this kind followed by many others (e.g. Command&Conquer on PC) and was a fantastic game. It has too few levels but it isn't to hard to play and I don't know what you've done but you can controll multiple units at the same time, the control is equal to all the following games of this kind.
-- EDITED -- Sorry, failure of mine, it was too long ago since I've played it, there is only a single unit controlable at the time, but nevertheless I think it is a great game (still located on my HD, maybe I will play it again the next days :-))


A disappointing game was "Foundation". Thought it is at least as good as Settlers II or III and found out it is lame and boring even on a PPC200e with plenty of memory and CV64/3D, that really stinks :-(
Back in early 1990th I was disappointed by "Kolumbus". It has a good graphic and a nice game-play, but no sound at all and the game has no goal. It simply stops after the pope blessed you three times -- what is usually at that time in the game, when it is becoming interesting (build the infrastructure and the ships required to fight against the enemies -> just started the attack, conquered two or three cities and the game is over).

Noster

[Damion]

Moonstone
- Thought it was excellent then. Now it really doesn't hold up to anything. Slow. Jerky
control. Jerky graphics. What was the big deal?

WHAT?? :-) Actually, Moonstone is one of the rare few amiga games which doesn't
entirely suck after all the years (IMO). I still play it once in a while.

Dune II
- Uhm. It's unplayable. Too few levels. Too hard. Too tedious interface (controlling
one unit at a time when there is like 20 units attacking?). This was a major disappointment.

I agree, although for me I could probably still rock it if it weren't for the controlling
one unit at a time bit. (On a sidenote - I can't believe I actually used to load up and
swap all 5 disks for hours playing it.)


Another amiga game which "aged well":

Superfrog - gfx, sound and "gameplay" are still exceptional for a
title of that vintage

[ptek]

On the contrary !

I recently played Sensible Soccer and Lotus 2 and enjoyed a lot ! It made me think how simple and fun were the games at that time : no fussing around this the mouse + 1 dozen of keys as on current PC FPS games, just the four directions (ok, 8 combinations) and 1 fire button joystick !

How can it be simpler ?

No 3D stuff ? Great !
We must admit that a 2D environment is simpler to manage than a 3D one to the brain.

So in a good 2D game you get the same fun without so much efford ... And yes, I do need some vacations :-D

(BTW : Lotus 2 is a lot better than Lotus 3, IMHO)

[ptek]

and whats all this hype about the "Great Giana Sisters"?
imho it should be the Great Giano Sisters. or however you spell bird poo in potugese/spanish.

I totally agree with you.
And " bird poo" is Portuguese is "merda de pássaro" :-D
In Spanish i'm not sure ... Portuguese and Spanish are not the same language as you know.
 

[jonssonj]

Have you all forgotten the Bards Tale trilogy. I have played it for hours and hours and I have drawn maps and it's the only game that I have spent several hours with from time to time. I still have those maps I think...   It was the greatest RPG game of that time.

FA/18 interceptor is a another game that I have played a lot. It was actually the absolutely first amiga game that I played. It came with the A500 that I bought.

And Phantasie III are also a another great game, that I still can play.

Guild of Thieves was the first game that I bought to my A500. I was going to buy a another game (I can't remember what the name was) but it was not in the store, so I bought the Guild of thieves. I think that this was the absolute best writing game that I have ever seen. You could write several sentences on the command line and the game understood every single word of it. It was just great...


/Jörgen