Amstrad Nightmares?

[merman]

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?

[Gryzor]

I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

[dodogildo]

Yeah but Amstrad nightmares would be double (or triple) the size of your previous book, considering the speccy conversions 

[Devlin]

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?

Yes, provided that lazy speccy ports were completely off the table, or in their own section - too much of an easy target, I feel.

[Gryzor]

Yes, but some, probably the most egregious and disappointing cases could/should be showcased.

[merman]

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.

[Anthony Flack]

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. 

[dodogildo]

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 

[ervin]

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.

[eto]

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. 

[GUNHED]

I'd be interested in the best Applications for CPC 

[Xyphoe]

Here's my contribution!

[abalore]

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...

[abalore]

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.

[Gryzor]

Why was Out Run unplayable? Also Freescape - slow, sure, but never found that difficult to navigate...

[Shaun M. Neary]

Why 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.

[Gryzor]

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. 

[merman]

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.

[Shaun M. Neary]

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.

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?

[dodogildo]

Looks like the book is writing itself now

[Gryzor]

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.

[Shaun M. Neary]

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.

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.

[Lazy Dude]

Fire Tyre , not tried that one before. Think I will have a look for it.

[merman]

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.

[Shaun M. Neary]

Fire 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.