Game recommendations

[retrofreak90]

Yep, it's a dreaded recommended-me-do thread. So guys, as I'm still a CPC virgin, what games can you recommend? Either versions that blow the C64 ones away, or original games that only appeared on the CPC.

[arnoldemu]

Yep, it's a dreaded recommended-me-do thread. So guys, as I'm still a CPC virgin, what games can you recommend? Either versions that blow the C64 ones away, or original games that only appeared on the CPC.

Renegade
Gryzor
Chase HQ

[MacDeath]

Rick dangerous, all of them.

Bombjacks 1 and 2.

Paperboy.

Barbarians were good too but C64 are as good.

Double Dragon 128Ko versions.

Try some shooters too.
some of them in Mode0 are quite good too.

[fano]

Some have been said , and i'd like to add some recommandations 

• Savage
• Beyond the ice palace
• Ikari Warrior
• Cybernoid 1 & 2,Exolon (and other Raphel Cecco stuff)
• Saboteur 2
• Combat Lynx
• TwinWorld

There are the first i found but they are more...

[MacDeath]

Most spanish games from the CPC era.
Dinamics games especially : Game over 1&2, after the war and so on.

Arkanoid 1&2 are pehaps the best 8 bit ports thx to full screen, I see thenm as arcade perfect despite less intro pages and some slowmotions ...

Not always well playable but very often the best graphics.

Klax may be superior on CPC too as this games needs no scrollings but lot of nice colours.

Perhaps try wizball.
Sounds are inferior and there are no scrollings too, yet the lack of scrolling can also be seen as just another type of gameplay, sometimes more difficult indeed.

Sacred armour of Antiriad too.
slightly different than C64 in gameplay and feeling.

And of course 3d games (sort of) : Fighter Bomber, Gunship, stargliders, Elite...

Post Edit : oh yeah head over heels...the best 8 bit port is on CPC thx to a lot of colours changes despite 4 colours only per screen.
C64 one was monocolor like the speccy one.


Titan is to try too just to see what a CPC can, and Skweek series.

Moktar/titus the fox. a good french platformer.

[ervin]

Some games that are far superior to the c64 versions:

Spindizzy
Head over Heels
Tempest (was it released on c64?)
Starion (just amazing, this one)
WEC Le Mans

[Xyphoe]

Quite simply - watch this -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2EqX3rpJ6M

100 Amstrad Games in 10mins ... some of the best are there, and he's provided a link to the list of games if you want to find out what's what

[ukmarkh]

I recommend these:

Target Renegade
Operation wolf
Shinobi - best 8-bit version, better than the SMS
Robocop
Wec-le Mans
Chase HQ
Laser Squad
Classic Invaders - I once got to level seven, but that was definetley a one off.
Star Sabre 128k
Switchblade
Yie-ar kung-fu
Gryzor
Astro Marine Corps
Game Over II
Head over Heels
Anarchy
Smash TV
Impossimole
The Untouchables
Total Recall
Prince of Persia
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Coin-op conversion)
MegaBlasters

[mr_lou]

My recommendations (and favorite games) are:

Star Sabre 128k
Radzone
Donkey Kong
Fruity Frank
Spindizzy
Killaped
Tempest
Dr. Destructor
Bombjack
Kong strikes back
Prohibition
Thrust
Obsidian
Harvey Headbanger
Solomons Key
Chickin' Chase
Kane

And if you're still hungry after that, these are also worth a look in my opinion:

Don't panic
Winther Games
Daley Thomson's Super Test
Bruce Lee
Gunfright
Frostbyte
Defend or Die
Jetset Willy
Who Dares Wins II
Barbarian
Boulderdash
Monty on the Run
Savage series
Eye Spy
Trailblazer
Subterran Stryker
Biosphere

[retrofreak90]

Thanks for all this guys! Guess I'm gonna be busy for a while...

[fano]

Dr. Destructor

OMG ! i forgot this one : The island of the Dr Destructo , one of the funniest game of the CPC !

[Cholo]

Trantor - The last Stormtrooper (with fansy speech on a 6128)
P47
Feud
Stormlord
Ghost Busters 2
Freddy Hardest
Nebulus
Werewolves of London
West Bank
Get Dexter
Druid
IK+
Batman the movie
Lightforce
Pang
Turrican 1+2

Some game that amstrad people always talk about even tho they perhaps aint that great:
Ghost n Goblins
Oh Mummy
Glider Rider
Bruce Lee

[nurgle]

5th Axis
Zynaps
Prehistorik II

[ukmarkh]

Basically the CPC is full of good quality gaming goodness.

[MacDeath]

Well, sort of.

The cream represent a good lot of great games, yet an even greater shitton of awfull games and bad to average speccy ports goes up for the bulk majority of all the released games.


But yeah, the great games were great.


I'm sure C64 also got a heavy load of bad bad bad games too.


but we all know CPC was given bad reputation because of pseudo economical purposes (why bother buying coders and graphist when Speccy's can do something for almost no additionnal cost) and the fact Games producers didn't care...

And the fact that Allan Sugar didn't care too.


I was always ashamed that my cpc6128 almost never had proper games for him.

Fast Disc and Extra memory bank.
Most games were 464 so loaded once and got everything in less than 64Ko.

That's why games like Pirates! (sid meyer) were so great, deep and awesome, yet the graphics were almost C64 ported and could really have been better in my opinion...


Windsurf Willy was great looking (don't know about gameplay)
Aussie games wqas also good looking, as many such Multisports games.
Get a try at Bivouac too.

"Adidas" beach volley (OCEAN) was great too but i played it on Amiga in fact.

Disc, a Tron like disc game...I used to play it on PC at the time, yet great graphics on CPC.

Les Dieux De La Mer  /Patrice Martin Championship Waterskiing/Championship Water-Ski Challenge (Infogrames - 1987)
I played it a lot, great graphics, amongst my favourite.
Really awesome looking a great to play in my memory (yet I wouldn't be able to be as good at it again....)

Ping Pong was almost arcade perfect if I remember well.


A shame to me was the lack of a proper Speedball game.
Many pseudo futuristic sports yet, but no real speedball.

Yet we had :
--SkateBall (a french erzatz)
--Xeno
--Cyberball
--Killerball...

[cpc4eva]

some really good cpc games listed already

dont forget   Frogger cpc+version by Richard of winape fame

Space Harrier
Spy Vs Spy
Zap T Balls
Burnin Rubber
E - motion
Puzznic
Silkworm
Mr Heli
Interchange
North & South
Skweek
Buggy Boy
Continental Circus
Golden Axe



a few good soccer games:

Micrprose soccer it was quite poorly converted to cpc awful colour scheme and small screen size poor control of keeper but rain and lightening and 3 types of swerve on the ball made a fun game

Emlyn Hughes International soccer  great game

Football Manager 2  love it for the fun of management

Footballer of the Year  repetitve and based on chance but can be fun

Adidas Champ football if you can work out the control system you might tend to enjoy it eventually

Matchday 2  not my cup of tea but some people think its good

[Cholo]

The cream represent a good lot of great games, yet an even greater shitton of awfull games and bad to average speccy ports goes up for the bulk majority of all the released games.

But yeah, the great games were great.

I'm sure C64 also got a heavy load of bad bad bad games too.

but we all know CPC was given bad reputation because of pseudo economical purposes (why bother buying coders and graphist when Speccy's can do something for almost no additionnal cost) and the fact Games producers didn't care...

And the fact that Allan Sugar didn't care too.


I was always ashamed that my cpc6128 almost never had proper games for him.

Fast Disc and Extra memory bank.
Most games were 464 so loaded once and got everything in less than 64Ko.

That's why games like Pirates! (sid meyer) were so great, deep and awesome, yet the graphics were almost C64 ported and could really have been better in my opinion...

Yeah its a bit sad really. Then again i guess it could have been much worse. Every time i see interviews with Alan Sugar i always get the feel that we got really lucky with the amstrad range computers and im sure that Alan himslef had very little to do with the actual making of the amstrads. Sure perhaps he had a lot to say about the design and even how the motherboard fit in the case, but someone else made the software/firmware/rom (someone who knew what they where doing).

I read somewhere that C64 was originally supposed to be an arcade machine but ended up as a home computer instead. Aint so odd that its good at games then 

But to Alan the amstrads was just another way to make money by making a low budget combined system, like he did with his stereo systems. Im sure that Alan saw the amstrad as just another big calculator, whos main use is business. All the first official amstrad mags was also disturbingly business like and you would be lucky if you could find half a page about games in a 100 page mag.

[cpc4eva]

remember the first cpc plans were to be either a stand alone 6502 or was it 6502 & z80 based....

i think may of us had the same feelings re ur comments about sugar man.... he really didnt put that much into it most of the work would have been done by his staff or the project team he set up to create the computer range.... i can just imagine sugar man ordering roland perry et al into his board room saying something like "Roland I want you to build me a computer have it completed in 2 months i want it in the shops by xmas" then sugar man goes out for dinner with some lovely looking mistresses spending all his lovely wealth and leaves poor Roland to figure everything out

[redbox]

Every time i see interviews with Alan Sugar i always get the feel that we got really lucky with the amstrad range computers and im sure that Alan himslef had very little to do with the actual making of the amstrads. Sure perhaps he had a lot to say about the design and even how the motherboard fit in the case, but someone else made the software/firmware/rom (someone who knew what they where doing).

But to Alan the amstrads was just another way to make money by making a low budget combined system, like he did with his stereo systems. Im sure that Alan saw the amstrad as just another big calculator, whos main use is business. All the first official amstrad mags was also disturbingly business like and you would be lucky if you could find half a page about games in a 100 page mag.

I'm not so sure it was all 'luck' that Roland Perry, Cliff Lawson etc were involved with the development of the CPC.  Sugar, for all his faults, knew where he could cut corners and where he couldn't and it would appear from interviews etc that I've read that even though he was a bastard as a boss, he realised he needed talented people and knew how to use them.  It is a testament to the CPC's design that we are here still talking about it 25 years later.

And as for the CPC being promoted for 'business' or 'serious use'; Amstrad made the most money out of marketing their computers for this function, something they realised and capitalised on with the PCW.  And I'm sure a lot of people ended up getting CPCs because it was marketed as not just being a games machine, something which the parents (who were the ones buying it for their children) wanted to hear.

He really was a smart businessman and that's why he was so successful.

[Gryzor]

Yes, I agree that you can't blame Sugar (and, of course, very few CEOs had a saying in the product's design, i.e. were technically-minded; they were businessmen!), but this is getting off-topic.

I always enjoy such threads because I see so many good titles gathered together... I'm salivating!

But also, why not play the newest releases, like Rick Dangerous 128+? Or the Mojo Twins games (really cute, those)? You'll find the news on the wiki's front page...

And let the games begin

[cpc4eva]

i want speedball on cpc+ can that be a recommendation   

[MacDeath]

I tried some graphics tests for a speedball.
simply : I put some Atari ST pictures of speedball through ConvImgCPC.

Even in Mode1 this may be great.
Maybe with slight Hard sprite addition just to add a few colours to players.

Speedball 1 has only a vertical scrolling (no multidirectionnal) and not a lot of sprites to generate  : only 5 players per team, despite quite big sprites.

Yet it also has to be fast and dynamic...

I tried some "vertical" Football-soccer games from CPC ludotheque to see if a simple heavy patch-mod would work.
Found almost nothing really valuable to start with indeed.

Reallistically we cannot aim at an Atari ST perfect game, nor even a Speedball perfect game.
But it seems "doable".

I don't like sports games in general, but the added Violence value is great.
I used to play Speedball 2 on my VGA PC at the time.
Great game indeed.

I see no point in soccer game as bloody contacts are penalised.
Why ?

Wasn't there an australian soccer game ? or an indoor soccer game on CPC ?
I remember of one in mode1.
the terrain was walled and it had interesting ball effects in my memory (oh yes, Microprose soccer if I remember well).

seeing at CPC powers :

--Buitre - Emilio Butragueno Futbol : seems a good enough game's engine to start with.

--Australian Rules Football : don't remember if so well playable.

--Challenge Foot - Senior : horizontal and no real scrollings ?

--Fighting Soccer : obviously...

--Microprose Soccer : yes, I played this one...Don't seems to age well.


And so on.
To be honest, lot of those Soccer games were speccyported to death.
Sucksers more than soccers.


Speedball has simpler rules (walled terrain), yet the violence management has to be implemented too.

And a 2 button controller would be just too fine.

[cpc4eva]

make me dream  of seeing speedball 1 on cpc+

microprose vertical scroll was decent enough but screen size for playing area was tiny and the speccy colour scheme was awful

how would u be able to get around this ?

TLL (tornando Low Level) had a crazy fast scroll worth viewing....

[ukmarkh]

The C64 had a version of Speedball... could it be ported, or used for setup?

[Nreive]

Speedball 1 would be a great idea for CPC, but how about Speedball 2?  That also had a C64 conversion, and a pretty good one as well.

A CPC Microprose Soccer with colour and replay effects... Mmmm.