The Greatest Games You've Never Played

[Darran Lee Jones]

We're looking to run a feature on the Amstrad's best hidden gems and are looking for suitable suggestions. I have a few ideas myself, but certainly haven't played everything.
It makes more sense to post here as opposed to our own forum as you're clearly going to be more knowledgeable on the subject and it will keep away the tattling of which system is best.
Simply tell us the ten games you feel define the system and we can go from there.
Ideally exclusives and amstrad-coded stuff will be best. Not interested in things like Operation Wolf, Chase H.Q. etc as we all know they're the best.


Darran

[TFM]

Greatest CPC Games could be Orion Prime, Black Land (see CPC-Power), and the one that was never played can be found in the following link... 


Cyber-Chicken for CPC - Cpage Site

[Puresox]

I really don't think this feature is going to us any favours. Going on how Retro Gamers relationship with the Amstad is, I feel it is a bit of a barbed question.
Anyway Here are some,
Dr.Destructo
Triaxo's( Subtle brilliance , but not going to set the world on fire with it's awesomeness)
Fly Spy(Again nothing to blow you away but a very enjoyable game)
3D Starstrike 2
Get Dexter
Sub Hunter
Dead on Time ( Again not mind blowing , but it's scoring systems make it fantastic. Great shooter In the same sense  as Robotron)
Orion Prime
Potsworth and Co
Castle Master (Or Any of the Freescape offerings, Wasn't this an Amstrad development beginning with Driller?Superb)
Freescape Note... Here is an example of what Amstrad has always suffered with , being the last in line usually so our games are always sluggish . If you see the C64 versions of the freescape games they run at a snails pace compared to the Amstrad .
Hardcore Gaming 101: Freescape Engine Games
The Vindicator( 3 brilliant games within this  ,  most people will have only seen the first level ,which is very difficult  to complete )
Prince of Persia
Alien Storm
Bloodwych
BombJack
Live and Let Die
Wec Lemans
P47 Thunderbolt
Prohibition
Solomons Key
Spherical
Tempest
Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles
Turrican 1+2
The Adams Family

[tastefulmrship]

Alien Breed

Alien Breed on CPC? Do you have a .dsk? I can't find a copy anywhere!
ALSO.. are we talking Team17's Alien Breed here or did you actually mean USGold's Alien Storm?

[Puresox]

Alien Breed on CPC? Do you have a .dsk? I can't find a copy anywhere!
ALSO.. are we talking Team17's Alien Breed here or did you actually mean USGold's Alien Storm?

Oh Shoot , yes your right Alien Storm. Sorry if I got your hopes up . thanks for pointing it out

[dodogildo]

Anyway Here are some,
Dr.Destructo
...

The Island of Dr. Destructo is probably one of the most underrated and greatest games of CPC library. A hidden gem. Cheers.

But how come it ever gets listed alongside Prohibition? [emoji50]

[Puresox]

The Island of Dr. Destructo is probably one of the most underrated and greatest games of CPC library. A hidden gem. Cheers.

But how come it ever gets listed alongside Prohibition?

You don't like Prohibition? I don't think it's too bad a game?

[dodogildo]

Sure, not bad. But not half as good as the Destructo, get dexter,  prince of persia or others on the list either

[Nich]

We're looking to run a feature on the Amstrad's best hidden gems and are looking for suitable suggestions. I have a few ideas myself, but certainly haven't played everything.
Simply tell us the ten games you feel define the system and we can go from there.

You've just wasted most of my evening asking this question. I'm only allowed ten games?! No way!

After browsing the list of every game that's been reviewed on CPC Game Reviews, I came up with two lists - one for British games, and another for foreign (i.e. French and Spanish) games:

British games

• Academy - less well known than its predecessor Tau Ceti, but more fun (in my opinion), particularly the ability to build your own spaceships
• Ball Bearing - homebrew arcade game released in 1993; control a bouncing ball and collect rings
• Chevy Chase - car racing game
• Exterminator - great conversion of a coin-op game in which you explore a house killing giant insects
• Flyspy - very impressive-looking budget game, and it's a CPC exclusive!
• Fruity Frank - a very little known game when it was originally released
• Red LED - explore a wide variety of isometric landscapes collecting energy pods
• Spherical - brilliant Solomon's Key clone with amazing graphics; this may have been released by Rainbow Arts (a German software house) but the programmers were British, so in my opinion, it counts as a British game!
• Split Personalities - variation on the classic tile-sliding puzzle game where you must recreate famous faces, with plenty of hazards thrown in!
• War Machine - very colourful platformer/shoot-'em-up with plenty of explosions

Foreign games

• La Abadía del Crimen - widely considered the best Spanish 8-bit game of all time
• Bumpy - cute French platform/puzzle game in which you control a bouncing ball; later re-released by Infogrames as Pop-Up
• El Capitán Trueno - Spanish game with beautiful graphics and animation, and it's not that difficult either, unlike most Spanish games!
• Comando Tracer - ditto; re-released by Alternative Software in the UK as The Last Commando, but it's still relatively little known
• Iron Lord - the CPC version was only released in France, and it's a real shame that British CPC users couldn't experience it, despite announcements in some magazines that the CPC version would be released in the UK
• Le Manoir de Mortevielle (aka Mortville Manor) - sublime French detective adventure game with beautiful graphics, digitised speech and an enthralling storyline, but like Iron Lord, the CPC version wasn't released in the UK
• Pick 'n Pile - another cute puzzle game with colourful graphics where you must match balls of the same colour
• Psyborg - French tunnel racing game; very fast but perhaps too easy
• Relief Action - French adventure with 3D wireframe graphics involving exploring a deserted spaceship; very little known (even in France?) and has sold for pretty high prices on the very rare occasions it appears on eBay
• Xyphoes Fantasy - developed by a team of demo coders and features beautiful graphics and music; perhaps an example of too much style over substance?

I think all of these games are pretty obscure, at least to most casual CPC users.

[Puresox]

You've just wasted most of my evening asking this question. I'm only allowed ten games?! No way!

After browsing the list of every game that's been reviewed on CPC Game Reviews, I came up with two lists - one for British games, and another for foreign (i.e. French and Spanish) games:

British games

   
• Academy - less well known than its predecessor Tau Ceti, but more fun (in my opinion), particularly the ability to build your own spaceships
• Ball Bearing - homebrew arcade game released in 1993; control a bouncing ball and collect rings
• Chevy Chase - car racing game
• Exterminator - great conversion of a coin-op game in which you explore a house killing giant insects
• Flyspy - very impressive-looking budget game, and it's a CPC exclusive!
• Fruity Frank - a very little known game when it was originally released
• Red LED - explore a wide variety of isometric landscapes collecting energy pods
• Spherical - brilliant Solomon's Key clone with amazing graphics; this may have been released by Rainbow Arts (a German software house) but the programmers were British, so in my opinion, it counts as a British game!
• Split Personalities - variation on the classic tile-sliding puzzle game where you must recreate famous faces, with plenty of hazards thrown in!
• War Machine - very colourful platformer/shoot-'em-up with plenty of explosions

Foreign games

   
• La Abadía del Crimen - widely considered the best Spanish 8-bit game of all time
• Bumpy - cute French platform/puzzle game in which you control a bouncing ball; later re-released by Infogrames as Pop-Up
• El Capitán Trueno - Spanish game with beautiful graphics and animation, and it's not that difficult either, unlike most Spanish games!
• Comando Tracer - ditto; re-released by Alternative Software in the UK as The Last Commando, but it's still relatively little known
• Iron Lord - the CPC version was only released in France, and it's a real shame that British CPC users couldn't experience it, despite announcements in some magazines that the CPC version would be released in the UK
• Le Manoir de Mortevielle (aka Mortville Manor) - sublime French detective adventure game with beautiful graphics, digitised speech and an enthralling storyline, but like Iron Lord, the CPC version wasn't released in the UK
• Pick 'n Pile - another cute puzzle game with colourful graphics where you must match balls of the same colour
• Psyborg - French tunnel racing game; very fast but perhaps too easy
• Relief Action - French adventure with 3D wireframe graphics involving exploring a deserted spaceship; very little known (even in France?) and has sold for pretty high prices on the very rare occasions it appears on eBay
• Xyphoes Fantasy - developed by a team of demo coders and features beautiful graphics and music; perhaps an example of too much style over substance?

I think all of these games are pretty obscure, at least to most casual CPC users.

Some sound choices in there , however I think we'd be eaten alive if Red LED was considered. Our version is horrendous compared to the C64 version.

[robcfg]

Comando Tracer is an awesome game! One of my favorites back in the day...

[ervin]

Yep, as Nich said, Fruity Frank.
An absolute CPC classic.

[Puresox]

The Island of Dr. Destructo is probably one of the most underrated and greatest games of CPC library. A hidden gem. Cheers.

But how come it ever gets listed alongside Prohibition?

Dr Destructo is a cracking game and for a budget title it was one of my most pleasing purchases as a kid . Loved the smooth colourful style of it,that and the two player Co-op made it fantastic in my eyes. I only realised years later that it was actually a clone of the Arcade game 'Twin Tigers'(or Two Tigers,something like that).
Regarding Prohibition , I just gave it another go to refresh my opinion on it. I have to say that I still rate it highly. For the game style it is trying to be it does it really well it has sharp graphics, decent tune and well presented. I suppose it could do with a few tweaks in the playability to help it stay interesting. For all I know it may well do , I can only manage getting to level 2 . It did make me think of another game to add to the list  which is 'Operation Jupiter' or 'Hostages'. That game was quite an achievement for on an 8-Bit. Had a 16 bit vibe to it , the level of depth.

[AMSDOS]

10 Games that define the CPC that I haven't played Hmmm. Here's 11 or 12.


Haven't played:-


any of the Barbarian games
Purple Saturn Day
Lazer Squad
Batman the Movie
Captain Blood
Iron Lord
Bloodwych
E-Motion
Deflector
Total Eclipse
Super Caldron

[alex76gr]

- Super Edge Grinder    super edge grinder &copy format war (2012)
- Relentless    relentless &copy psytronik software (2013)
- Mission Genocide    mission genocide &copy firebird (1987)
- Rygar - Let's Fight !!!    rygar &copy u.s.gold (1987)
- Fres Fighter II Turbo    fres fighter ii turbo &copy bollaware (1999)
- Megablasters    megablasters &copy radical software (1994)
- Megablasters - Escape from castle in the clouds    megablasters - escape from castle in the clouds &copy project argon (2015)
- Zap 'T' Balls    zap't'balls &copy cpc amstrad international (1992)
- Zap 'T' Balls - The Advanced Edition    zap't'balls - the advanced edition &copy noname edv-service (1992)

[dodogildo]

Purple Saturn Day
Lazer Squad

Cheers man! I remember Amstrad Action covered and praised both Purple Saturn Day and Laser Squad back in the old days.
Both of them, excellent games indeed.
On the other hand, I'm never seeing people remembering or giving credits to them nowadays

[||C|-|E||]

I would say that the games I missed playing the most were:

- Ironlord
- B.A.T
- Bumpy´s Arcade Fantasy
- Guild of Thieves
- Ranarama
- Nebulus
- North and South
- Switchblade
- Stryker in the crypts of Trogan

Of course, there are many others and I am not talking about new releases, but games I missed when the Amstrad was still sold

[Nich]

Some sound choices in there , however I think we'd be eaten alive if Red LED was considered. Our version is horrendous compared to the C64 version.

Well, I like the CPC version - but I decided to try out the C64 version after reading your comment, and I see your point. The game is much faster on the C64 - and more difficult as well!

[Nich]

The Island of Dr. Destructo is probably one of the most underrated and greatest games of CPC library. A hidden gem. Cheers.

But how come it ever gets listed alongside Prohibition? [emoji50]

I love The Island of Dr. Destructo - but I think it's too well known to be included in the Retro Gamer article. Remember, guys, they're looking for games that few CPC users will have played...

As for Prohibition, I have largely the same opinion as Puresox. It makes good use of hardware scrolling, looks good and plays well, but the gameplay is too repetitive in the long term - and although it's well known in France, I believe it wasn't all that well known in the UK, so I think it should be considered for inclusion in the article.

[Puresox]

I would say that the games I missed playing the most were:

- Ironlord
- B.A.T
- Bumpy´s Arcade Fantasy
- Guild of Thieves
- Ranarama
- Nebulus
- North and South
- Switchblade
- Stryker in the crypts of Trogan

Of course, there are many others and I am not talking about new releases, but games I missed when the Amstrad was still sold

What do you mean? You never played them at the time? I can't imagine  he is being literal when he says never played?Might be wrong .

[reidrac]

I personally didn't know about Werewolves of London, but after @chinnyhill10 video I got a cassette (comes with both Speccy and CPC versions) and the CPC version is quite enjoyable.

[arnoldemu]

shockway rider
motos
3d stunt rider

[||C|-|E||]

What do you mean? You never played them at the time? I can't imagine  he is being literal when he says never played?Might be wrong .

Yup, I mean that I never had the chance to play them when I was a kid 

[EgoTrip]

Home Runner

[Puresox]

Yup, I mean that I never had the chance to play them when I was a kid 

I just don't know how the article would work lol if it was games you never played , but were really good? . It would work on the forum but not in a magazine . Maybe His lordship will clarify .