So, we've had ZX Nightmares penned by Graeme Mason and Commodore Nightmares written by me and successfully funded on Kickstarter...
Would people be interested in an Amstrad Nightmares?
Looking back at the worst CPC and Plus games out there.
From Loathsome Licences (film, TV and terrible arcade conversions), the games so difficult they required the Patience of a Saint, the strange ideas and bizarre mechanics that made you say They Did What?, and finally the Simply Awful.
And what games would you include?
I'd buy it in a heartbeat.
Yeah but Amstrad nightmares would be double (or triple) the size of your previous book, considering the speccy conversions :picard:
Quote from: merman on 17:37, 13 May 24So, we've had ZX Nightmares penned by Graeme Mason and Commodore Nightmares written by me and successfully funded on Kickstarter...
Would people be interested in an Amstrad Nightmares?
Looking back at the worst CPC and Plus games out there.
From Loathsome Licences (film, TV and terrible arcade conversions), the games so difficult they required the Patience of a Saint, the strange ideas and bizarre mechanics that made you say They Did What?, and finally the Simply Awful.
And what games would you include?
Yes, provided that lazy speccy ports were completely off the table, or in their own section - too much of an easy target, I feel.
Yes, but some, probably the most egregious and disappointing cases could/should be showcased.
Good point on the Spectrum ports - it would be easy for them to dominate such a book.
For C64 Nightmares, I used the worst-rated games in ZZAP! plus some of the worst games generally.
Obviously Amtix and Amstrad Action ratings would play a part in deciding what makes the final list.
Count Duckula 2 is the obvious one, and Bridge-It, the game everybody loves to hate. But I have a more personal dislike for Amsoft's 3D Space Invaders. Or the "educational" Animal Vegetable Mineral, which really should have been an example type-in in the BASIC manual, instead masquerading as a full-priced game. What else? Beach Head II was particularly dire. Roland on the Run was also awful.
Renegade III
Saint Dragon
Super Soccer
Super Gran
Marsport
aand... I quit
Because, thinking again, those games are so bad, it won't be fun to read them over a book at all.
This book may not be a good idea at all :picard:
Atom Smasher.
It was the first game I bought back in the day. :'(
The cassette inlay made it look like a cool asteroids type of game, but it certainly wasn't that!
Still my most hated game to this day.
I would not focus too much on the early AMSOFT games, especially not those that came free with the CPC. Sure some of them were very bad, but they were also the first attempts of a developer on a new machine. Maybe a section that covers them in general, but please not (for the 100th time) a rant about Bridge'It.
For lazy Speccy ports maybe one could focus on those that were not bad on the Speccy but then were awful on the CPC.
My personal worst is Winter Sports. I wanted to get Winter Games but it wasn't available so I unfortunately chose Winter Sports as it seemed similar. But it isn't - it is an abysmal Speccy port. Slow, sluggish and incredibly boring. The worst 50DM I ever spent on a game. I am still angry at the developers/executives who were responsible for that crap.
I'd be interested in the best Applications for CPC ;)
Here's my contribution!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4r_4TFUzLE
Altered Beast, worst conversion ever
Dr Jackle and Mr Wide, most repetitive game
Back to the future, worst movie based game
Howard the duck, second worst movie based
Big trouble in little China, third worst movie based
Chicago's 30, most boring game
Infiltrator, most frustrating game
Many more coming...
Unplayable: Alien Syndrome, Black Tiger, Highlander, Karnov, Out Run, Breakthru
Amsoft games are not considered. Freescape games are mostly unplayable but still an achievement for the hardware.
Why was Out Run unplayable? Also Freescape - slow, sure, but never found that difficult to navigate...
Quote from: Gryzor on 08:21, 23 May 24Why was Out Run unplayable? Also Freescape - slow, sure, but never found that difficult to navigate...
Outrun was slow and sluggish and on tape, it was a real bad multiload nightmare. But I don't think it's fair to call it unplayable.
I definitely got my moneys worth out of it in 1988 but it was disappointing, but it was a flop on all the major 8bit computers. Even the Master System version didn't hold up well.
Sure, I don't necessarily say it was a good conversion. But it wasn't unplayable for sure... Not knowing any better (meaning: I hadn't seen the arcade) I played it quite a lot back in the day.
Thanks everyone for your lists and ideas. This is still just a possibility at this stage, but definitely under consideration.
For me personally, particularly on the C64, the Freescape games were atmospheric and ambitious despite the slow speed. I was able to accept the limitations because they created interesting worlds I wanted to explore. Yes, we can look back now and say how SLOOOOOOOOW they are compared to modern games, but in some ways they were an important step forward for the industry as a whole.
Now for my overall contributions.
First and foremost, I often found AA's reviews harsh, especially between 88-90 where Trenton Webb was involved in the reviewing. When you look back at some of his reviews, you have to ask yourself if he even enjoyed gaming, period... never mind Amstrad gaming. AA had a strange tendency to give sub-par games Raves or Mastergames (Hard Drivin' and The Untouchables in February 1990 spring to mind on this one). Unfortunately, it tended to sway a lot of opinion instead of people thinking for themselves.
In my honest opinion, judgement often gets clouded by unfair comparisons. We can't really fairly compare Fire Tyre to Outrun, although the former is some achievement for the little amount of time put in, but the truth of the matter is, a lot of arcade conversions and movie tie ins, the big money makers were done with such tight deadlines by people who barely knew how to utilise the machine to begin with. As a result, we often got unfinished or badly coded products, or worse, speccy ports!
Now for my picks, which I'll try not to cross over with existing picks, in no particular order.
1) Deathkick. I know it's an early game, but it looks awful, and the cumbersome controls don't help.
2) Breakthru. It was a weird game in the arcades to begin with, but for 1987, this thing was inexcusable. Renegade style controls didn't help, why in gods name could the fire button not be utilised?
3) 3D Monster Chase. Being a fan of mazes, I rushed out and bought this in 1986. I really didn't think we could get worse than Sultans Maze, but here we are... never say never.
4) The Running Man. I'm genuinely surprised this didn't get brought up. I think AA said it best when they used the follow for their first day target score "Not reformatting the disk!"
5) Impossible Mission. This game was awesome on the C64, but it was an ugly, garish mess on the CPC. Great idea, but so poorly implemented. The sequel was no better either.
6) Ace Of Aces. Infiltrator was mentioned by
@abalore earlier as being frustrating. I found it quite enjoyable once you figured out the controls and how to use the ADF for the helicopter stage. I found Ace Of Aces far more frustrating. They came out around the same time, and they ended up on the Solid Gold compilation a year or so later. It's easily the weakest game out of the entire set.
7) Cisco Heat. This one speaks for itself, small playing area, large chunky blocky sprites and no room to move. This is actually worse than Super Gran for that syndrome and how this passed for a final release is beyond me. Clearly a lot of developers knew they were on their last releases for the platform and couldn't care less, and it certainly shows here.
8) Summer Games. Winter Games was awesome, what went wrong here? And don't get me started on the abortion that Summer Games II was.
9) Midnight Resistance. I loved this in the arcade, but the CPC version, as nice a job as they did with Mode 1 graphics, the sprites were slow, stodgy, and barely responsive. It just took away from the impact of the game, leaving it a shell of it's arcade parent. The sad thing is, with a little more care, it could have been a great conversion. Missed opportunity.
10) Shadow Of The Beast. I get that the Amiga fanboys raved about this game, but it was not designed for the 8 bit market at all. I had no fucking clue which way to go, or even what the hell I was supposed to do when I played this in 1990! The tape multiload didn't help, if it wasn't enough that the character wanders around aimlessly, but then suddenly, click, wait another age for the next level to load. Discs are probably fine but it still didn't make up for the fact that you're just wandering around for the entire game. Or did I miss something?
Looks like the book is writing itself now
:laugh:
Aw come on I really enjoyed Ace of Aces back then, was it really frustrating? I was pretty good too, and I think it must've been my first air sim.
Midnight Resistance really disappointed me for all the reasons you quoted. And I was prepared to *love* it no matter what because I really liked the arcade
But let's face it, no matter the platform, it's just not the same without the rotary stick.
Quote from: Gryzor on 14:46, 23 May 24Aw come on I really enjoyed Ace of Aces back then, was it really frustrating? I was pretty good too, and I think it must've been my first air sim.
Midnight Resistance really disappointed me for all the reasons you quoted. And I was prepared to *love* it no matter what because I really liked the arcade
But let's face it, no matter the platform, it's just not the same without the rotary stick.
I just thought Ace Of Aces looked bland and was way inferior to Ace which came out before it. I'm not a massive fan of flight games but I'll try to be objective. The sound from Ace Of Aces will also drive you to drink, the rubber room or both! Also was it just me or was the compass always the first to go, and once that's gone, it's pretty much game over. That's what I found frustrating.
I wasn't overly bothered by the lack of the rotary stick, the CPC brought out games that had those in the arcade that worked just fine without it (Ikari Warriors, Victory Road, Guerrilla War), but it just didn't have the frantic pace the arcade version had. Not like I was expecting a perfect arcade conversion on our beloved Amstrad, but it was just so sluggish that I'd barely make it through one game and reset the machine then.
Fire Tyre , not tried that one before. Think I will have a look for it.
Great suggestions here. Breakthru was a disaster on all the 8-bits - it's taken the recent Amiga conversion to really show what could have been done. Amstrad Breakthru has that really small playing area coupled with a massive player vehicle; it just does not work!
Like I said in the initial post, the Nightmare books have four main sections...
Loathsome Licences - this covers film and TV tie-ins, arcade conversions and any other type of licenced character/property. Think some of those terrible toy tie-ins, or Super Gran.
Patience of a Saint - this is for really difficult games, the ones that made you throw your joystick in frustration or were badly flawed and needed more game testing.
They Did What? - this is for really unusual ideas or game mechanics, or something with a touch of controversy about it.
Simply Awful - the worst of the worst, the truly diabolical.
So, Breakthru could be in either Loathsome Licences or Simply Awful.
Quote from: Lazy Dude on 15:15, 23 May 24Fire Tyre , not tried that one before. Think I will have a look for it.
Was part of Retrodev 2020, I believe it's one of CNGSofts.
Quote from: Shaun M. Neary on 10:03, 23 May 24Outrun was slow and sluggish and on tape, it was a real bad multiload nightmare. But I don't think it's fair to call it unplayable.
I definitely got my moneys worth out of it in 1988 but it was disappointing, but it was a flop on all the major 8bit computers.
You got
your money's worth out of
Out Run? I'm sure I recall you telling me on more than one occasion about how you received the game as a gift! ;) Then again, maybe I've forgotten some small details...
Personally, I also got
Out Run as a gift - as part of the
Coin-Op Hits compilation. I begged my father to buy it because I really wanted
Road Blasters after playing it at an amusement arcade on a day out one summer. Thankfully I had four other games on the compilation to play, so I wasn't totally disappointed!
Quote from: merman on 15:44, 23 May 24Like I said in the initial post, the Nightmare books have four main sections...
Patience of a Saint - this is for really difficult games, the ones that made you throw your joystick in frustration or were badly flawed and needed more game testing.
Abu Simbel Profanation springs to mind. The 2017 sequel,
Profanation 2: Escape from Abu Simbel, is arguably even worse in terms of difficulty.
QuoteThey Did What? - this is for really unusual ideas or game mechanics, or something with a touch of controversy about it.
Explorer - it boasts 40 billion locations, but all it involves is wandering around a huge landscape looking for nine pieces of your spaceship. To quote my own review (https://www.cpcgamereviews.com/review/665/): "While technically impressive, it feels as if the programmers added a game merely as an afterthought."
QuoteSimply Awful - the worst of the worst, the truly diabolical.
I give you
Atomik (https://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=323) - a truly diabolically bad
Breakout clone from France. The graphics are terrible and it looks like it's a BASIC type-in listing - but it isn't written in BASIC!
Quote from: merman on 15:44, 23 May 24Loathsome Licences - this covers film and TV tie-ins, arcade conversions and any other type of licenced character/property. Think some of those terrible toy tie-ins, or Super Gran.
I thought of
Badlands (https://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=353) after posting my previous reply. My brother bought this game when we visited London while on a summer holiday, without seeing any reviews or screenshots beforehand. He had to wait a few days until we got back home before we could play it. Imagine the disappointment upon loading it for the first time... ugly Spectrum port graphics and almost no sound effects on the CPC464. :(
Another game for the "They Did What?" list - The Experience (https://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=2984) by Players. A GAC text adventure that takes place in a single room and can be completed in just five turns - yes, really!
The late John Wilson (Zenobi Software) did the single-room adventure concept much better with his Behind Closed Doors series of games.
Quote from: Nich on 20:35, 23 May 24Quote from: Shaun M. Neary on 10:03, 23 May 24Outrun was slow and sluggish and on tape, it was a real bad multiload nightmare. But I don't think it's fair to call it unplayable.
I definitely got my moneys worth out of it in 1988 but it was disappointing, but it was a flop on all the major 8bit computers.
You got your money's worth out of Out Run? I'm sure I recall you telling me on more than one occasion about how you received the game as a gift! ;) Then again, maybe I've forgotten some small details...
Personally, I also got Out Run as a gift - as part of the Coin-Op Hits compilation. I begged my father to buy it because I really wanted Road Blasters after playing it at an amusement arcade on a day out one summer. Thankfully I had four other games on the compilation to play, so I wasn't totally disappointed!
When I was in secondary school I used to order CPC games for mates, this was a time where I had to get a postal order, order from the UK and would take a month for delivery.
When I got Outrun(and honestly Turbo Outrun) delivered, I played them for 1 minute(after 5 mins or so loading) saw complete crap, didn't even bother copying them before handing over.
I'm struggling to find an awful full price gsme that I bought, maybe Thunderblade but even though its Tiertex I can't honestly say it was terrible on the CPC as I think they did the best they could(the faces on the in game panel were completely awful though)
I didn't personally buy many full price CPC games, I bought:
Robocop
Batman
Operation Wolf
Operation Thunderbolt
Chase HQ
Forgotten Worlds
Thunderblade
Out of the above, Thunderblade and OP Thunderbolt are the weakest, but I faired well snd most of those were bought prior to reviews.
Quote from: Nich on 20:35, 23 May 24Quote from: Shaun M. Neary on 10:03, 23 May 24Outrun was slow and sluggish and on tape, it was a real bad multiload nightmare. But I don't think it's fair to call it unplayable.
I definitely got my moneys worth out of it in 1988 but it was disappointing, but it was a flop on all the major 8bit computers.
You got your money's worth out of Out Run? I'm sure I recall you telling me on more than one occasion about how you received the game as a gift! ;) Then again, maybe I've forgotten some small details...
Personally, I also got Out Run as a gift - as part of the Coin-Op Hits compilation. I begged my father to buy it because I really wanted Road Blasters after playing it at an amusement arcade on a day out one summer. Thankfully I had four other games on the compilation to play, so I wasn't totally disappointed!
Hah nope! I bought it with my Confo money in 1988.
I'd forgotten about the Coin Op Hits compilation. My duplicate of Outrun ended up on Giants which was another compilation full of turkeys. Road Blasters was in my local arcade as well so really wanted it for the CPC too. I made it to screen 49 after hours of playing a few years back and lost. I don't have the motivation to attempt to play it again for that long these days. Maybe someday...
Quote from: Nich on 20:51, 23 May 24Quote from: merman on 15:44, 23 May 24Loathsome Licences - this covers film and TV tie-ins, arcade conversions and any other type of licenced character/property. Think some of those terrible toy tie-ins, or Super Gran.
I thought of Badlands (https://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=353) after posting my previous reply. My brother bought this game when we visited London while on a summer holiday, without seeing any reviews or screenshots beforehand. He had to wait a few days until we got back home before we could play it. Imagine the disappointment upon loading it for the first time... ugly Spectrum port graphics and almost no sound effects on the CPC464. :(
That speccy port is so bad, it actually included the colour clashing as well! :laugh: :laugh:
Quote from: lmimmfn on 23:11, 23 May 24Quote from: Nich on 20:35, 23 May 24Quote from: Shaun M. Neary on 10:03, 23 May 24Outrun was slow and sluggish and on tape, it was a real bad multiload nightmare. But I don't think it's fair to call it unplayable.
I definitely got my moneys worth out of it in 1988 but it was disappointing, but it was a flop on all the major 8bit computers.
You got your money's worth out of Out Run? I'm sure I recall you telling me on more than one occasion about how you received the game as a gift! ;) Then again, maybe I've forgotten some small details...
Personally, I also got Out Run as a gift - as part of the Coin-Op Hits compilation. I begged my father to buy it because I really wanted Road Blasters after playing it at an amusement arcade on a day out one summer. Thankfully I had four other games on the compilation to play, so I wasn't totally disappointed!
When I was in secondary school I used to order CPC games for mates, this was a time where I had to get a postal order, order from the UK and would take a month for delivery.
When I got Outrun(and honestly Turbo Outrun) delivered, I played them for 1 minute(after 5 mins or so loading) saw complete crap, didn't even bother copying them before handing over.
I'm struggling to find an awful full price gsme that I bought, maybe Thunderblade but even though its Tiertex I can't honestly say it was terrible on the CPC as I think they did the best they could(the faces on the in game panel were completely awful though)
I didn't personally buy many full price CPC games, I bought:
Robocop
Batman
Operation Wolf
Operation Thunderbolt
Chase HQ
Forgotten Worlds
Thunderblade
Out of the above, Thunderblade and OP Thunderbolt are the weakest, but I faired well snd most of those were bought prior to reviews.
Outrun and Turbo Outrun were developed by ICE hence the similarities. I actually enjoyed Turbo Outrun in late 89 early 90 but it's a bit easy now. I don't think Operation Thunderbolt was weak, just the lack of crosshair made it quite difficult to play, a major misfire on what could have been a great sequel, but just ended up being a good sequel.
I really do try not to tar Tiertex with the same brush as not all their games were bastardised Speccy ports done by Don Campbell and John Prince. Thunderblade was done by the late Mark Haigh Hutchinson who gave us the awesome Paperboy, Alien Highway, Highway Encounter and Italy 1990. It was overambitious and the controls were fiddly, so I gave that a pass for effort.
So today I watched this, two years after its release by
@Xyphoe . A few good ideas on there...
https://youtu.be/d4r_4TFUzLE
Surely the absolute worst has to be Count Duckula 2. It's already a terrible port of an abysmal Speccy game, one that ranks amongst the all time worst on that machine. But they broke it during the conversion, preventing Duckula from jumping higher than the top of the screen, which makes a whole slew of screens impossible to complete without just using the superhero screen bypass power up thing.
I don't think you could get worse unless you ported Sqij, kept all the bugs in it and added some more as well.
Play Deathkick,
@andycadley It doesn't excuse the abortion of CD2, but it's close second!
Quote from: Nich on 20:47, 23 May 24Quote from: merman on 15:44, 23 May 24Like I said in the initial post, the Nightmare books have four main sections...
Patience of a Saint - this is for really difficult games, the ones that made you throw your joystick in frustration or were badly flawed and needed more game testing.
Abu Simbel Profanation springs to mind. The 2017 sequel, Profanation 2: Escape from Abu Simbel, is arguably even worse in terms of difficulty.
I honestly don't understand why Abu Simbel is considered as one of the most difficult games for CPC. I think it is a fair game, you only need practice and memorization as the game is always the same, the only random element in the game is the color of the diamond.
What fails in the second part is, in my opinion, that they added an extra animation to the character which adds an extra layer to the things your mind have to process when developing your strategies. In the first part the character moves as soon as you press a key, but in the second part it has a small delay due to the mentioned extra animation. Maybe not noticiable for those who didn't play the first part too much, but it breaks my focus (and patience) as I am too used to the original profanation.
Great suggestions from Nich there, and Count Duckula 2 is definitely under consideration.
Quote from: merman on 17:37, 13 May 24And what games would you include?
What about including a chapter like "masters of the nightmares", featuring companies with reputation on sucking (such as Tiertex)
;D
Quote from: dodogildo on 12:25, 24 May 24Quote from: merman on 17:37, 13 May 24And what games would you include?
What about including a chapter like "masters of the nightmares", featuring companies with reputation on sucking (such as Tiertex)
;D
Tiertex weren't the worst. Software Studios and Software Creations did far worse, giving us gems such as Super Hang On, Peter Pack Rat, Enduro Racer.
From what I can see, Tiertex tried to get their shit together after 1989, but by then the damage was already done especially with a lot of the Capcom conversions (although I did enjoy Strider and Strider II).
I get it though, between 87-89, Tiertex really did produce a stream of crap, and I won't defend that. I'm just saying that there was actually worse, WAY WORSE out there than Tiertex. :D
I swear I actually wrote a game in BASIC that was like Death Kick but not as bad. I would have been about 10 years old. Sprites drawn on graph paper and entered in with the SYMBOL command, and despair at how slow it all was.
I remember playing Outrun on the CPC at my parents' friend's house (they had a 664) and I thought it was awful at the time. We got the Sega Master System version years later; I thought that was acceptable and played it to completion.
Freescape games don't deserve to be on any worst-of list; they were innovative and widely appreciated at the time.
Thunder Blade does look dreadful, but that's hardly Mark Haigh-Hutchinson's fault. The arcade game was rubbish to begin with. Imagine being given that and told to port it to the CPC... it's basically a guaranteed fail.
Operation Thunderbolt was ugly and disappointing after Op Wolf, but so was the arcade game. Still better than Predator 2. Impossible Mission was disappointing only because on the C64 it's one of my favourite 8 bit games.
I just want to reiterate for those who never had the misfortune of owning it and trying to extract some value from it, that Beach Head II SUUUUUCKS.
Most of these games look terrible... Here's a couple of good lucking bad games!
Asterix and the Magic Carpet:
Gorgeous raphic adventure that doesn't make sense because the only thing you can do (besides playing some Pac-Man style minigames) is to randomly click on the comic book characters while they travel to India on a magic carpet hoping that someone doesn't get angry too many times to avoid falling into the sea.
Pink Panther
How fun can it be to "clean" the path of a sleepwalker in a house, and doing it super-fast, so that he keeps walking and you can stel objects? Exactly how it sounds: nothing, especially because you must clean his path every 10 seconds or so, so you can't explore the beautiful house.
Also, why should earlier simpler games be spared? I say, let's include Grand Prix Driver! The Game Over screen can really traumatize a child (or give him an epilepsy attack).
About Pink Panther's concept: Brat on the Atari ST (and Amiga?) was the same concept and was actually pretty fun.
I checked the game and... not the same! Brat was a simple concept with a quick, instinctive execution. You only placed some arrows on some simple isometric platforms as the guy walks "south" (sometimes down-left, sometimes down-right). In Pink Panther, you must move the panther to a place the sleepwalker is going to be in a few seconds. Then you must press some action button to make some "stop" sign with the arms, which will make the guy turn over once he reaches you. But that's only one of the things you must do: you also need to place some kind of inflatable dolls or other objects that will make him change direction. And simultaneously, you need to steal objects placed around. As a kid, I was always dead after 20 seconds. Commando was more relaxing!
Quote from: andycadley on 10:07, 24 May 24Surely the absolute worst has to be Count Duckula 2. It's already a terrible port of an abysmal Speccy game, one that ranks amongst the all time worst on that machine. But they broke it during the conversion, preventing Duckula from jumping higher than the top of the screen, which makes a whole slew of screens impossible to complete without just using the superhero screen bypass power up thing.
I owned a copy of
Count Duckula 2 that didn't have the bug on the second screen. I dumped a CDT file of it and it's available on CPC-POWER (https://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&onglet=dumps&num=619), so not all copies of the game are bugged. Unfortunately the bugged version has been around for so long that it's become the accepted story that the game has always been bugged (leaving aside the obvious point that the rest of the game is atrocious in every way).
Quote from: Nich on 20:56, 25 May 24Quote from: andycadley on 10:07, 24 May 24Surely the absolute worst has to be Count Duckula 2. It's already a terrible port of an abysmal Speccy game, one that ranks amongst the all time worst on that machine. But they broke it during the conversion, preventing Duckula from jumping higher than the top of the screen, which makes a whole slew of screens impossible to complete without just using the superhero screen bypass power up thing.
I owned a copy of Count Duckula 2 that didn't have the bug on the second screen. I dumped a CDT file of it and it's available on CPC-POWER (https://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&onglet=dumps&num=619), so not all copies of the game are bugged. Unfortunately the bugged version has been around for so long that it's become the accepted story that the game has always been bugged (leaving aside the obvious point that the rest of the game is atrocious in every way).
That's a cool piece of information Nich, thanks!
Quote from: Anthony Flack on 22:11, 24 May 24I just want to reiterate for those who never had the misfortune of owning it and trying to extract some value from it, that Beach Head II SUUUUUCKS.
Oh dear lord! I had actually forgotten about this. I had it as part of the History In The Making compilation. I think I've loaded it about twice in my entire life and the second time was to note the tape count between Beach Head and Raid! (Over Moscow). Stickman sprites, sluggish and some of the worst music the AY has ever produced should you ever win the game.