What are the best non-British-developed CPC games?

[MartinJSUK]

Clearly, the majority of British CPC games didn't fully exploit the hardware's potential, usually doing nothing to work around scrolling issues or to use the slightly-differently-clocked Z80 properly - often not even redrawing the graphics to exploit the lack of colour clash, resulting in awkwardly stretched visuals. We can all name repeat offenders, and the relative handful this usually doesn't apply to. It was usually British teams who handled conversions of American C64 games or Japanese arcade games too.

Conversely, Spanish, German and especially French coders generally coded for the CPC from scratch, so their games should be better. And yet, lists of the best CPC games seem dominated by British titles, with a few regular exceptions like Get Dexter. The retrogaming scene sometimes considers Spanish games to be too hard, German games to be too characterless, and French games to be too weird.

Which games do people think are exceptions here? Which non-British games did people enjoy the most?

[ago]

The lists of the best CPC games you have seen are usually dominated by British titles just because those lists are created by British players, and nostalgia is a big factor when talking about "best" games when childhood is involved. Check any list from a Spanish, French or any other language forum and you will see the difference.

Edit: You have to consider the amount of British games released vs any other country as well. If your list is a TOP 10 you will see differences depending on where you are from, but if your list is a top 100 then it will probably be full of British titles anyway.

[cwpab]

As a spaniard, my top 5 CPC games has 3 British games (Matchday 2, Saboteur and Saboteur 2), 1 American game ported by British guys (Bruce Lee) and 1 Japanese game ported by British guys (Gryzor).

Should we count Japanese and American games ported by British companies as "non British"?

[Raft]

I agree that these lists are very country dependent. I love British games, but I think companies like Ubi soft, Loriciel, ERE, Infogrames, Lankhor also added some great games to the CPC game library. In particular in the Adventure corner.

I would not be suprised to find one of those titles in a french player list : Zombi, Bob Winner, Get Dexter 1&2, L'aigle d'Or, Captain Blood, Fer&Flamme, Mandragore, Macadam Bumper, Mortville Manor, North&South, Eden Blues, Oxphar, Sram, Sapiens ... 

[eto]

I think the UK game developers had a few advantages

- movie licenses and arcade ports: I have the gut feeling that many games were bought because of the license name. And even mediocre games then stuck in our heads because of this. I mean, I even regularly see someone mentioning Airwolf as a great game -  and it's a complete piece of unfinished crap. 
- 2-3 years more experience: the initiative around the BBC micro and definitely also the Speccy gave the UK a jump start for its gaming industry - when other countries started with this, they were (overall) probably 2-3 years behind. 
- Speccy ports - a bit of the combination of the previous two points. Lots of games were easily available and were bought and played because they were already well known from friends who had a Speccy. 
- less need for translations - if it was crucial to understand the manual or the in-game text, you were screwed if the game was not translated. For UK games this was less of a problem than for French or Spanish games. 


Maybe even cultural differences played a role. I remember that I didn't understand some of the games from France as they were so different from what I was used to. Today this makes them more interesting to me but at the age of 12 I was a bit lost. 

[Shaun M. Neary]

Oh I've a few of these to list from the viewpoint of being an Irish kid in the late 80s to early 90s.

After The War - I was blown away by this when I first played it in 1989. Like most Dinamic games, it can be quite difficult, but not so difficult to the point that you can't progress without some perseverance. Now that being said, while I did finish part one (the street fighting part), part two (the futuristic machine gun part) remains unfinished by me to this day, but I still love it.

Astro Marine Corps - I actually finished this one last year! I was so fucking proud of myself for that. Amazing graphics and sound that had it not been for Raff Cecco coming back with the likes of Exolon and Cybernoid, it pretty much would have left every British developer's attempts in the dirt, I said that then and I'll say it now.

Skate Wars / Skate Ball - I was late to the party on this one only discovering it in 1993 on a compilation. Mode 1 done correctly by the French. It's not the most exciting game as a one player game but two players can burn an afternoon and even an evening with this one.

Pro Tennis Tour - I'm not a big fan of Tennis in general, but this has to be the best tennis game for the Amstrad. Nothing comes close to it in my opinion.

Crazy Cars II - This game frustrated the hell out of me until I realised that it came with a map. Thankfully the plus cart version of it allowed you to access the map with a keypress but it was certainly a French lesson on how driving games are meant to look and feel before Chase HQ and Continental Circus came along.

[MartinJSUK]

True that the UK had a home computing and especially programming 'scene' before most of Europe, though even that was a few years behind the US, mainly because the launch prices of the Atari 400/Commodore PET/TRS-80/Apple II wouldn't've been affordable in the UK, which was economically behind the US (and France and Germany at that time). It was Clive with the affordable relatively bare-bones ZX80/81/Spectrum, plus the BBC Micro in schools, which started it here. This had the side-effect of clinging the UK to tapes, and making straight-to-budget and re-released games a big deal, when I don't think they were in France.

Film-licensed games were a commercially clever area for British developers to exploit, but in the 8-bit era at least they did produce some wonderful games. Speaking (almost) the same language as America allowed US Gold to establish their original raison d'etre of importing American games and converting them to UK systems.

Seems like French adventure games are the biggest area where British players missed out back in the day, simply because the effort of translating them won't've been worthwhile for games which were only available for the UK's third-biggest system, and were mostly going to be disk-only (which basically killed the chance of making Spectrum conversions, and reduced the potential C64 audience as the UK was so tape-dominated). It's a shame that even games which also had 16-bit versions available in English (such as Mortville Manor and Iron Lord) never got English-language releases despite their clear quality.

Great suggestions, I'll check a few out when I have time. Bactron is another that comes to mind, I liked MGT from a quick play, Infernal Runner seems neat, also Xyphoes Fantasy still impresses me, and feels like more of a game than Amiga Shadow of the Beast.

[eto]

I liked MGT from a quick play

MGT is awesome - but was also a huge disappointment if you paid money for it. It's just too small. It takes only a few hours to finish the game even if you are a mediocre gamer as I was - and once finished the first time it has zero replay value. I was really annoyed after I bought the game on a Saturday morning for DM60 (it was of course a full price game) - and on Sunday there was nothing left to explore anymore. 

[Shaun M. Neary]

Damn and there I was thinking Martin wanted a list of games rather than "Well we were in France, or Spain and these were popular because of x, y and z..."

Yep... definitely off topic. I'm out...

[norecess464]

What are the best non-British-developed CPC games?

A list of non-British games I played for real when I was a kid:

• Crazy Cars 1/2
• Prehistorik 2
• Super Cauldron
• Inertie
• Phantis
• Basket Master
• Army Moves
• Freddy Hardest
• Titus Classiques 1/2
• Prohibition
• Bumpy
• Chicago 90
• Superski
• Shufflepuck Cafe
• Great Courts
• 3D Fight
• Billy La Banlieue 1/2
• Infernal Runner
• Macadam Bumper
• Rally 2
• Asphalt
• Captain Blood
• [..]

All those games are purely awesome, and I spent countless hours playing them!
Please take note that I did not play any adventure games as a kid (not enough mature/patient back then I guess!).

I'm not sure if homebrew games count as well. To my experience, very few games were created in Germany during the commercial lifespan of the machine. However, I loved Bollaware Games and Spots 94, both of which were released after the Amstrad was no longer commercially active.

And finally (that will make you happy @MartinJSUK ! ) TBH my favorite games remain the ones coming from UK: Ocean, Palace, Imagine, Probe, Virgin, Mastertronic.. but IMO it's complementary to the rest, I would be really sad without the above list of games.

[Shaun M. Neary]

I never actually understood Captain Blood if I'm being honest.

Visually it was beautiful looking but I never knew exactly what to do in the game! Again, this is probably due to idiot me being 13 years of age and not bothering to read the instructions!

[scorp6128+]

What are the best non-British-developed CPC games?

A list of non-British games I played for real when I was a kid:

• Crazy Cars 1/2
• Prehistorik 2
• Super Cauldron
• Inertie
• Phantis
• Basket Master
• Army Moves
• Freddy Hardest
• Titus Classiques 1/2
• Prohibition
• Bumpy
• Chicago 90
• Superski
• Shufflepuck Cafe
• Great Courts
• 3D Fight
• Billy La Banlieue 1/2
• Infernal Runner
• Macadam Bumper
• Rally 2
• Asphalt
• Captain Blood

Great list.
Played most of these games too.
Some of them are true classics.

[eto]

Damn and there I was thinking Martin wanted a list of games

true... somehow we got carried away.

Non-UK games I enjoyed


French games:

Bubble Ghost
Bumpy
Crazy Cars II
Hostages
Macadam Bumper
Mach 3
MGT
North & South
Skweek
Theatre Europe
Turbo Esprit
Zynaps

Spanish games: The only I know, played and loved is "Roland in the Caves". I like the very unique idea, even if it's hard as hell.

German games:

Kaiser
Nibbler
Mission Elevator
Pingo
Werner
Western Games

There may be a few more but they all were ported to the CPC from non-German programmers, so they do not really count I guess.

[norecess464]

I never actually understood Captain Blood if I'm being honest.
Visually it was beautiful looking but I never knew exactly what to do in the game! Again, this is probably due to idiot me being 13 years of age and not bothering to read the instructions!

It's more of an exploration game. I didn't have the manual either, but I figured out the concept of traveling from planet to planet, talking to aliens, deciding whether or not to make a planet explode, and so on. If you have the manual, you'll realize that the game even has its own dialect or dictionary! I used to launch it often, simply for the joy of exploring. It had such a unique atmosphere.

[Shaun M. Neary]

I never actually understood Captain Blood if I'm being honest.
Visually it was beautiful looking but I never knew exactly what to do in the game! Again, this is probably due to idiot me being 13 years of age and not bothering to read the instructions!

It's more of an exploration game. I didn't have the manual either, but I figured out the concept of traveling from planet to planet, talking to aliens, deciding whether or not to make a planet explode, and so on. If you have the manual, you'll realize that the game even has its own dialect or dictionary! I used to launch it often, simply for the joy of exploring. It had such a unique atmosphere.

That explains a lot actually as I don't think I really had the attention span for those type of games back then, not even sure I have it now! Same reason I never had a lot of time for Elite. Spent ages loading it from tape and just wandering around what I felt was aimlessly.

[Nich]

Non-UK games I enjoyed

French games:

Hostages
North & South

The CPC versions of the above two games were actually developed by New Frontier, a Spanish team - so do they count as 'French' games? Discuss!

[Anthony Flack]

Surely Turbo Esprit and Zynaps are British games? 

[trocoloco]

 There are some games you should try from back then, just like Prohibition, Capitan Trueno, Sir Fred, Goody, Navy Moves, Livingstone Supongo 1 and 2, Rescate Atlántida, Sol Negro, Mutant Zone, Mundial de fútbol, La Abadía del Crimen (there's an english conversion but only on 128K) and probably more 

[cwpab]

In the previous message, all games are Spanish except for the first one (Prohibition), which is French. And the user is from Spain (like me). 

But it's true: 1985-1990 was clearly the golden age of Spanish video games.

And what is the golden age for each major country developing video games? Let's see...

United States: Now these guys have been constantly delivering great stuff since the 70s, and even invented video games in the 50s. They did great stuff (like Bruce Lee) in the CPC days, but I believe their golden era was the early 90s, where they pretty much created FPS and released dozens of cool graphic adventures (and RPG and strategy games, for the ones who like those).

Japan: A similar situation even if they started a bit later. Constant quality and quantity, and a good eye to create just the right difficulty. The 80s were pretty creative for them, and the early 90s were very solid, but I would choose the late 90s as their golden era. No other country could come up with all the Nintendo 64 Japanese hits, all Sega games and everything released by Namco, Konami and Square for the Playstation.

UK: These guys were not very important until the mid 80s, and I found their early 90s games a bit overrated. But in the late 80s and late 90s, they were super inspired. And while I enjoyed many of their late 90s games like Tomb Raider or Destruction Derby 2, I feel like their golden era is the CPC days due to the multiple hits they made in that time.

France: It's gotta be one of the 2 "eras" which happened from 1985 to 1995, even if they continued releasing cool games in the 32 bit era. I find their late 80s stuff quite fun to look at and learn about, but a bit too experimental. I think its main reason to exist is so that French developers could learn, and thus we get their much more playable early 90s stuff. I find that 1990-1995 is their golden era because they found a very interesting balance of craziness and playability (see Another World, B.A.T. 2 and all the Coktel Vision adventures).

Spain: Second half of the 80s, no question. It's interesting how they (we) went from releasing hundreds of games to releasing only a handful in the early 90s. France, for example, didn't have this problem. Did they have more money? Were they better organized? Was it because of the Spanish policy implemented by the distributor ERBE to make games much cheaper to avoid piracy? It's a fun topic.

Special note for Germany: I don't know too many German games. I read that video games were not so popular there in the 80s because kids were not allowed into arcades, as the government considered them "gambling". Whatever the reason, they only released a few games for the CPC in the late 80s. I believe they released more games for the C64 (exclusively?), but I don't think any of them was super famous. But I have to say that, if we take Turrican, Clever & Smart and Pink Panther into acocunt, Germans were aiming high with these games. Turrican is a top game, Clever & Smart is one of the first open world games (because of what you do, not because of a huge map) and Pink Panther is beautiful and original (even if a failed concept).

[Shaun M. Neary]

Special note for Germany: I don't know too many German games. I read that video games were not so popular there in the 80s because kids were not allowed into arcades, as the government considered them "gambling". Whatever the reason, they only released a few games for the CPC in the late 80s. I believe they released more games for the C64 (exclusively?), but I don't think any of them was super famous. But I have to say that, if we take Turrican, Clever & Smart and Pink Panther into acocunt, Germans were aiming high with these games. Turrican is a top game, Clever & Smart is one of the first open world games (because of what you do, not because of a huge map) and Pink Panther is beautiful and original (even if a failed concept).

Turrican is such a triumph on the Amstrad to be fair. I was blown away by it when I fired it up in 1990. I had no idea it was a German production at all. Back then I didn't really pay attention to the credits other than the loadng screen (I was a 464 guy so I'd see the signatures in the corners of the screens) and the audio, unless the main menu had 'A Software Studios Production' in which case I knew I was in for a pile of crap (Sorry guys, Speccy ports weren't my thing).

Given the popularity the Amstrad/Schneider had in Germany, I'm surprised there were weren't more games produced out of there but if you said about arcades considered gambling (or even a gateway to gambling, which ironically my own mother was fearing for me as all I did was play video games as a kid) is true, it would make sense, especially given how very different Germany was as a country/countries pre 1989. If Turrican was an example of what could come out of Germany, it's food for thought in terms of what could have been, isn't it?

[andycadley]

Were there not also laws forbidding humans to be portrayed as the enemies in video games in Germany? I thought that was the cause of Contra/Gryzor becoming Probotector in most of Europe (with everything being replaced by robots).

I would imagine that might have stifled video game creation and conversions a bit too.

[villain]

German games:

Kaiser
Nibbler
Mission Elevator
Pingo
Werner
Western Games

Just when I read this "Vermeer" jumped into my mind... Spent a lot of time with it...

[abalore]

La Abadía del Crimen for me is the best CPC game, sadly it was not released outside Spain

[Shaun M. Neary]

To be totally fair. Nobody outside of Germany would understand how to play Werner. I'm Irish and even I like to drink beer and I'm still confused by Werner!!!

[eto]

To be totally fair. Nobody outside of Germany would understand how to play Werner. I'm Irish and even I like to drink beer and I'm still confused by Werner!!!

I can assure you, it is confusing for Germans too. 

It's basically a set of 5 mini games of which 4 are stupid, and/or unplayable and/or boring. 

The only game that is a bit fun (and can actually be won) is the mini game, where you build a motorbike. You build a dream machine to sell to a friend. The more absurd, the better and the more you will get for the bike. BUT: before you can sell it, the police will have a look and will request that you build a (of course ultra boring) motor bike that is actually allowed on (German) streets. You then have limited time to fix all violations and build a bike that will be accepted by authorities. Once your bike is accepted of course you will sell the first bike to a friend and get the money/beer for it. 

To win that game it probably makes sense just to identify the acceptable parts so you know what will be accepted by the police. Once you figured it out you can try to build the most absurd bike to get as much beer as possible from your friend. It's quite some fun to try out the weirdest bike variations. At least for a few times.