Most annoying Amiga game in the world.

[Legerdemain]

I have never got past the second tower in Nebulus, in over a decade of playing the game on and off!

I usually start to play the game and play it many times in a row, learning how the towers work. I haven't completed the entire game, but I've managed quite a few of the towers. It is hard, but I wouldn't really go as far as saying it is one of the games one hardly can complete.

Games I really think have gone too far are Rygar on the NES, Mega Man VII on the SNES, R-Type Complete for the PC-Engine and the final boss in Phantasy Star II for the Genesis/MegaDrive. Man, what the heck where they thinking when they made the final bosses in those games?

In Rygar one has to replay WAY too much to reach the boss if one dies... and when the boss in itself is more or less impossible to beat, I just feel like throwing the controller into the TV-set.

In Mega Man VII one doesn't only have to play all of the eight regular robots first, and while 6 of them can be beaten while sleeping, two of them are just too frustrating and pure luck is what matters, it just seems TOO MUCH when finally reaching Dr. Wily... who, in turn, has attacks which are practically impossible to avoid and takes way too much damage, when oneself only can take 1 of his, 30 something, hitpoints each turn he attacks (and this is in his SECOND FORM, yes, he also has a first form to defeat). Ridicilous and makes the game seem completely worthless even though some of the earlier bits and pieces of the game have their moments.

In R-Type for the PC-Engine the final boss has two really huge rotating things which is attracted to ones ship and if touching them one is greeted with instant death. It took me like 50-60 snaps/reloads to manage the boss while running the game under emulation.

Phantasy Star II. Well. I got to the final boss without not that much trouble. Tried it and was smashed to pieces within seconds. Leveled up. Tried again. Was smashes to pieces within seconds. Kept on leveling up until it was way too time consuming to reach the next level (we're talking hours now) and still was smashes to pieces. Got fed up and used some action replay cheatcodes and maxed out all of my characters (they did reach their max levels), confirmed that I had all of the best weapons and magics and tried again. And, what do you know, I was smashed to pieces within seconds. So... once again, tried it under emulation, and realised that the final battle was based on pure luck. 90% of the time eveything went in the way of the boss, so by snap/reload I could go back before each of the attacks by the boss, making them eventually go in my favour... so, with way too much trouble and effort I finally got to see the ending sequences. I do not believe that there are many people out there in the entire world that have beaten this game without cheating.

In comparation Nebulus seems rather easy. Even though I haven't completed it, yet.

[Hyperspeed]

by Hyperspeed:
Some games felt like you were walking around in the Antarctic (Dennis AGA) because there was no background music or ambient Sound FX.

It was excusable on OCS/ECS but not on AGA machines!

by Legerdemain
...I guess what you really mean to tell us is that you find it excusable on OLDER games, and not specifically on OCS/ECS games (because there is no difference in the soundchip whatsoever the OCS/ECS and AGA machines inbetween)?

Well yes, AGA games were supposed to be the remixed and updated varieties with all new 32-bit graphics. And hopefully they had worked out how 4-channels could be used effectively.

It does puzzle me why Paula was not upgraded significantly from the A600 to A1200.

What should make a difference on AGA machines is the extra memory and CPU speed which might have helped out the sound chip should a special routine have been made for extra channels (like AHI maybe).

Odd that the 1988 Megadrive/Genesis had 10 channel audio and it was a 16-Bit 68000 machine and the 1992 Amiga-1200 had 4 channels and it was a 32-Bit 68020 machine...

Anyway - Zeewolf... I think I did try it with a joypad and it was a lot easier to control. However the way your field of view was restricted to very close combat and the pyshcadelic Populous style landscape combined to give me an unpleasant opinion of the game. I'll try it again when I can get hold of it, it was very highly acclaimed in the magazines so it's worth a second chance!

;-)

The most difficult game I've ever played was Radiant Silvergun (a top down shoot 'em up on Sega Saturn). The end boss took 2 players about half an hour to kill with infinite lives! The screen was so full of bullets that evading them for just a few minutes would have required a direct linkup from my brain to the CPU.

:-D

[Tomas]

Odd that the 1988 Megadrive/Genesis had 10 channel audio and it was a 16-Bit 68000 machine and the 1992 Amiga-1200 had 4 channels and it was a 32-Bit 68020 machine...

Blame the idiots at Commodore. They mostly just milked the Amiga for all it was worth. The a1200 was released nearly 10 years after a1000, but still it was mostly the same design in a smaller package with only the ram, gfx and cpu being slightly upgraded. The a1000 was way ahead of its time, but the amiga was lagging behind in many areas when the a1200 came out because of lack of hardware developement, which is probably what lead to its death anyways.

I really wonder where the Amiga would have been today if a decent company had owned it instead of the incompetent company called Commodore.

[Hyperspeed]

I don't like Commodore bashing.

I've never seen The Deathbed Vigil video/DVD but a lot of Commodore's problems could have resulted from intense competition in an intolerant market.

They kept the Amiga alive until production of a games console variety (the CD32). This was 1985 - 1994 = 9yrs?

It seems to a lot of people that the Amiga didn't do well in America because it was perceived as somewhat nouveau in a market obsessed with doing 'business stuff'.

Escom and Gateway 2000 didn't do a better job and both of them went down the pan.

Commodore Business Machines had to survive for it's core business and it 'went down with it's ship' - the Amiga. (it could have ditched the Amiga well before finances pinched).

If you recall Gateway 2000 sold Amiga off a few years before biting the dust but Commodore & Amiga stayed synonymous until death do us part.

Another point to raise is the fact that Commodore was a PC manufacturer producing computers from parts from other companies. Unlike IBM I am not aware of it ever having developed weapons or, like Microsoft, engaged in immoral acts of infringement, competition suppresion or (in the case of Iraq 2003-2006) providing logistics for an illegal occupying force.

Seems decency, imagination and 'good' business don't get you anywhere in the US. And we all know the US is the world... Yeehaw!

[irishmike]

Found Nebulus and I will have to try and report back.

Looks like it may be loads of fun

[minator]

It does puzzle me why Paula was not upgraded significantly from the A600 to A1200.

The sound chip in the Amiga was the same from the A1000 right up to the Walker 11 years later.  They never changed it.

Unfortunately the replacement stuff they were working on in the early 90's (DSP / AAA) were never released.

[minator]

I've never seen The Deathbed Vigil video/DVD but a lot of Commodore's problems could have resulted from intense competition in an intolerant market.

They kept the Amiga alive until production of a games console variety (the CD32). This was 1985 - 1994 = 9yrs?

Their problems were caused by the upper management who didn't understand that you cannot stand still in the tech market.  They had better technology but never released it.  Instead they put all their money into cheapo PCs, many companies with unique products did this - and promptly died.

Apple were the one company which stayed different - and survived as a result.

[Tomas]

They kept the Amiga alive until production of a games console variety (the CD32). This was 1985 - 1994 = 9yrs?

Depends on what you mean by keeping it alive.. I really did not see them doing any developement at all, other than shrinking the a1000 to smaller form factor for the a500, a600 and such.. When the a3000 came out, the gfx chip wasnt even aga and the sound chip was still the same with 8bit sound and 4 channels while the pc was finally starting to get 16bit soundcards. Then once a4000 came out, it was actually kinda a step backwards since they cut the costs by dropping the superiour scsi interface in favor of ide and the aga gfx was a nice upgrade, but came far too late in reality. The even more odd part is that it lacked a cdrom, which was already common in the pc world...

The only reason why the Amiga lasted as long as it did, was because it was so ahead of its time when commodore bought it.
Commodore did have some nice enginers, but that dosent help when the management sucks.

Escom and Gateway 2000 didn't do a better job and both of them went down the pan.

Escom didnt really have the kind of budget that Commodore orginally had.. Gateway 2000 on the other hand had the money but only bought the Amiga for the name.  :-(

[Hyperspeed]

by minator:
Apple were the one company which stayed different - and survived as a result

Could that have anything to do with Microsoft/Bill Gates buying a wadload of shares in Apple so as to avoid anti-trust/anti-competition regulation?

This is why I believe the evolution of Apple into Intel CPUs, music players etc. is a fraud. Like the present Commodore owners, present Atari owners and the government of Afghanistan/Iraq.

;-) ;-)

It's like cloning your dead dog and continuing as if nothing ever happened.

To me, the almost fanatic choice between an Intel CPU and a Motorolla for example is a choice the customer would like to make in order for their desired style of computing to evolve. I'm not sure I even like the idea of an IBM PowerPC 603e/604!

If the customer has no choice and cannot steer the market through buying power, then the result is a monopoly. I think that is the mess we are in today.

Today's computer market is bland and festered. There'll either be an 80s style crash or some company is going to blow our socks off with something new (I suspect this will come from Japan or China).

Back on the subject of most annoying game, can we consider all the Amos PD games ever made as a contender?

:-D

[mr_a500]

Whoa, this thread went off topic. Briefly: the death of Amiga and Commodore is 100% the fault of management. Commodore was heading towards death in 1991 as mentioned in the Deathbed Vigil, but the management incompetence was obvious even in 1989. Here are some quotes from a Canadian Amiga magazine I bought in 1989:

"There are very many people who are relying on the success of what may be Commodore's last chance at giving the Amiga the recognition it deserves. There are many software and hardware developers that have been disenchanted with the low sales they have been having, some have even stopped promoting and/or developing software for the Amiga. At the recent Siggraph graphics show in Boston there was quite a disturbing sight in the Byte-by-Byte booth (the makers of Sculpt-4D); they had several Mac II's at the front of their booth and one lone Amiga at the back with its name plate removed."

"From my point of view... CBM seems to have a split personality. It appears to have brilliant engineers, and a not-so-brilliant group of marketing personnel... Why is it that the marketing folks back at Commodore Headquarters in West Chester, Pennsylvania - who should be leading the pack when it comes to the business of developing and maintaining good relationships with dealers and software producers - why is it that these marketing 'experts' often seem to be looking the other way when someone out in the field is trying to get their attention?"

These quotes are from early 1989 remember, not 1993.

Back on the subject of most annoying game, can we consider all the Amos PD games ever made as a contender?

DawnVideoPoker and Babenoid were great AMOS games (written by Richard Fhager). Wonderland was pretty good too.

[Speelgoedmannetje]

Hyperspeed wrote:
Odd that the 1988 Megadrive/Genesis had 10 channel audio and it was a 16-Bit 68000 machine and the 1992 Amiga-1200 had 4 channels and it was a 32-Bit 68020 machine...

Really? :-? I think my Amiga (500) has a much better sound than my megadrives (I got the original Megadrive - with mono-sound and the revised one with stereo sound)  

[itix]

@Hyperspeed

Vanilla A1200 was still too slow for software mixing and lack of fast ram crippled performance. After all AGA was quite poor and sometimes 'AGA enhanced' games were slower than OCS originals.

@mr_a500

CBM was always badly managed. They were in financial problems since 70s and it didnt get better in 80s. They were lucky to survive to the 90s.

[Tomas]

CBM was always badly managed. They were in financial problems since 70s and it didnt get better in 80s. They were lucky to survive to the 90s.

Quite funny isnt it? considering that the c64 was the best selling machine and still they were in financial troubles.. I think that says something about the management in that company.

[Lando]

Back on the subject of most annoying game, can we consider all the Amos PD games ever made as a contender?

DawnVideoPoker and Babenoid were great AMOS games (written by Richard Fhager). Wonderland was pretty good too.

I think Team 17's 'Worms' originally started off as an Amos game too.  And now coming soon to the Nintendo DS and PSP (announced release date is 17th March).

To the most annoying games I would add any SEUCK game - all play identically but with slightly different sprites.  All tedious and devoid of any gameplay.

[Hyperspeed]

Lando: Worms and Super Skidmarks started as Blitz Basic 2 I think.

Speelgoedmannetje: I don't think the Megadrive ever came in a mono version as it had a stereo headphone jack! The Z80 inside handled audio, the sound chip was the power of the Master System!

:-)

I felt that Zool on A1200 was slower than the old ECS version, don't know why.

I think Flashback and Another World were quite annoying since you had to use trial and error instead of skill and reflexes. You would have to fail to achieve, which sends the wrong signal to kids!

;-)

[B00tDisk]

Hyperspeed wrote:

I felt that Zool on A1200 was slower than the old ECS version, don't know why.

Because AGA sucked?