House of Usher, Good God why o why?!

[ZEUSDAZ]

Hi all, well It's another SGT review and this one is a paid request by Youtuber "Ogma" who wants me to play (or try to) House of Usher and send it into the vault of shitness, I've not seen any positive reviews of this game, It's really crud, I hope you enjoy it,...the video that is 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWOCTfBdimg

[AlexM]

I had this game on tape back in the 80s. As far as I remember it took ages to load and very often it didnt load in my case. And then that game caused nightmares. But what shall I say, 30 years later I still watch youtube videos people playing that game. I like it Thanks for sharing with us.

[tjohnson]

This was one of the first games my dad bought for us to play with the new 464.  Tbf i never warmed to it and thought it wasn't very good. I remember he got hunchback and star commando which were good and return to Eden that was just too tough for a young kid.

[AlexM]

Kids will never understand the struggle. It wasnt that easy just to open steam and buy another game for 0.99 Euro. For us, the game which was just bought would be the next game for the next weeks.

[Sykobee (Briggsy)]

Inflation since 1990 is over 100%, so a £1.99 budget title would be £4 now, and a £9.99 big tape title would be over £20, and a £14.99 disc version over £30.


My boy doesn't understand it, but I have been teaching him that we must wait for the Steam Sale.


This game looks like could have been okay (for 1984) with some minimal play testing and fixes - the movement is fairly smooth, the jumping is the issue.

[reidrac]

Kids will never understand the struggle. It wasnt that easy just to open steam and buy another game for 0.99 Euro. For us, the game which was just bought would be the next game for the next weeks.

Or even more!

My assignation left me basically out of the market. Being very disciplined, I could buy 2-3 budget games a year, or 1 full price. So my best bet was birthdays and Christmas.

The other option was game exchange, or buy some magazines for the cover tapes (remember what I said of being disciplined? hah!).

At the end you played mostly the games you already had

[Gryzor]

Indeed this could have been better, but for 1984 it's just passable. Extra points for the custom font though!

[eto]

If the controls are rubbish, the game is rubbish.
If the gameplay is rubbish and just "demanding" because of frustrating elements like pixel perfect jumps everywhere, then the game is rubbish.
Houses of Usher is rubbish*rubbish. "Houses of Rubbish²".

And I really don't understand why the intro sequence is SOOOO slow. And why the sprite falls slower than it moves sideways. So annoying.

I got this game on the first disk I received from a friend after I bought my CPC. And since I didn't have a lot of games, I played it quite often. But I think I never managed to finish more than 2 or 3 screens. So frustrating.

I guess many games were developed without a sense of gameplay or how motivation works.

[tjohnson]

Kids will never understand the struggle. It wasnt that easy just to open steam and buy another game for 0.99 Euro. For us, the game which was just bought would be the next game for the next weeks.

Definately.   Mail ordering games, sending off cheques in the post and waiting weeks for them to arrive...if they ever did, hunting round shops trying to find games.  Saving up pocket and birthday money to buy new games.  It made you appreciate games a little more I think.

[tjohnson]

I did love the package for this game, the creepy skeleton artwork and the loading screen is good with the house.

[mr_lou]

I have very mixed feelings about "House of Usher".
We can all agree that it's utter crap.
BUT
It was my cousin who showed the game to me, back in the very early days of our CPC adventures - and he seemed rather enthusiastic about it at the time.
For that reason, the game will always represent those awesome days, despite being utter crap.
And I've since tried finding some awesomeness in the game, but failed. Unlike "Don't Panic" which was also just impossible difficult back then, has turned out to be a nice arcade game nowadays.
Would have loved to find some awesomeness in "House of Usher" too, but if it's there, it's certainly well hidden!

[eto]

Definately.   Mail ordering games, sending off cheques in the post and waiting weeks for them to arrive...if they ever did, hunting round shops trying to find games.  Saving up pocket and birthday money to buy new games.  It made you appreciate games a little more I think.

And also was the cause for huge disappointments. I still remember when I bought Winter Sports as it looked quite good on the box. But it was sooooo slow and sooooo boring. Several months of saving my money and then it was gone for this.

Lots of the full price games were very disappointing. Not necessarily bad, bud often I would have expected "more" for the money I paid.

Werner - looks fun - is fun a few times - but is actually boring and repetitive.
MGT being a different example. I loved the game while I played it, the graphics, the gameplay. But it was just too short. After a few hours it was solved and then there was no point to play again, as solving the puzzles was the motivation, but not repeating that.
Satellite Warrior from Amsoft - it was selling at almost full price and it didn't have a German manual. At that time my English was still not sufficient to understand it and I didn't figure out the logic until probably 2 years later. Was not a bad game and then I enjoyed it, but first it was such a disappointment.

The only exception I remember, where a full price game did not disappoint me at all, was Elite. It was worth every single penny. And it was the most expensive game I ever bought as it was even more expensive than normal full price games.

[ZEUSDAZ]

Thanks for getting involved in this feed chaps, if you didn't know there are 120 episodes so far in the "Shit Game Time" series ranging across all formats so no particular format is targeted, they all get their fair share of bad games being shit-rated, here is the full list if anyone is interested, please either click link below the video or the small box in top-right where it states 1/120 to take you straight to the list:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwNreNhW7CggPRyQKQLfklqwZi6s2J0eh