Worst Ever Amstrad CPC Games

[Token]

There are many "officially" crap games out there on all systems, but they often turn into guilty pleasures if you persevere!

Hahaha indeed!

[Puresox]

I think Commando was brilliant on Amstrad , played fast, had plenty of levels (The C64 only had about 3), Good music too

[sigh]

In regards to commando, I really like the idea they used in this game to simulate the smooth scrolling by moving the tiles. Previously, I had never really thought much of the game before - but after discovering their techniques, I quickly changed my mind.

It even had the music.

[Shaun M. Neary]

Did you class ELITE as one of the worst games ever? ? 


shit graphics? How can wire frame graphics be labelled shit? Do you think Asteroids in the arcade has shit graphics??!

Yup, absolutely hated it. Flying around, blasting rocks for cash, then trying to fly into a "shop", which consisted of a tiny crack in a rotating hexagon, to me personally wasn't worth the loading time! Sorry!
And yes, Asteroids had shit graphics... Blasteroids on the other hand was bloody awesome!

[Puresox]

Yeah Elite was ok , but not I never found it as appealing as everyone else did , Knew the concept and how to trade up but a bit repetitive . Blasteroids was awful , give me Asteroids any day

[Carnivius]

Yup, absolutely hated it. Flying around, blasting rocks for cash, then trying to fly into a "shop", which consisted of a tiny crack in a rotating hexagon, to me personally wasn't worth the loading time! Sorry!

I have to agree.  I never understood what was so appealing about Elite.  I gave it multiple tries but it just bored and frustrated me every time.  And yet I somehow ended up buying Frontier - Elite 2 for Amiga when that came out.  Maybe I'd hoped it had gotten more interesting in the 16-bit era.  Nope.  Had a catchy theme tune though.  I often just loaded it up for the intro.   I still have it come to think of it.  I gave away the original Elite though.

[EgoTrip]

The absolute worst Amsoft, and probably worst of all, has to be Home Runner.

It was absolutely awful to control, the collision detection was bullshit, the graphics were really basic, and they turned the bugs into features rather than fix them. There was not a single redeeming feature about it. It was also a full price game for lower quality than what you could type in from ACU or CwtA.

I see other games like Sultan's Maze, the Galactic Plague and Electro Freddy get a lot of hate, but these were all great games. Sultan's Maze was a little on the slow side updating screens, but it was quite a good little game once you got past the flaws. GP was difficult but it was a nice quick game to kill some time, due to it being the fastest of the free games to load. Electro Freddy was a good game, had good humour, and was fun to play. Its not fair to compare these early games to later better games.

[tastefulmrship]

ELITE was brilliant on the BBC. It lacked a LOT on the CPC!
FRONTIER was amazing... but FE was a bunch of poo!

I still play FRONTIER on WinUAE!

[Token]

The absolute worst Amsoft, and probably worst of all, has to be Home Runner.

I never knew this one, I'm gonna test it tonight
Galactic plague, nice but without sinuses and curves, it's like

[AMSDOS]

Well, why are we bashing CPC games.... let's take a look at other systems...


... opening a new thread for that ...

Addressing the flaws in CPC games usually results in a game been rewritten. What's interesting though is I don't know if anyone has mentioned Bubble Bobble which was reworked to become more like the Arcade.
This is my feelings towards Commando since I once played the Arcade version and have played it on my Atari 7800 as well as an 2600, the Amstrad version seems to play like the 2600 with graphics more like the 7800 when you exclude some of the large sprites like the Helicopter in the opening sequence of the game and large animated storyline graphics. To have Commando play better on an Amstrad though would be a more difficult challenge than improving some graphics.

Bionic Commando for example I don't mind playing that game (to someone else they probably played the arcade and thought the Amstrad version could be better), but the graphics are definitely bad and they probably just need to be redone to make it work. Super Wonderboy in Monsterland I played this ages ago on a Sega Master System, I think the Amstrad version plays just as well, though it's another game where the graphics could be improved and it would probaly be alright. 

[Gryzor]

Never really got into Elite either, but this doesn't mean it belongs with the worst CPC games ever! It's like Civ is a terrible game if you don't like strategy gaming...

[sigh]

Addressing the flaws in CPC games usually results in a game been rewritten. What's interesting though is I don't know if anyone has mentioned Bubble Bobble which was reworked to become more like the Arcade.
This is my feelings towards Commando since I once played the Arcade version and have played it on my Atari 7800 as well as an 2600, the Amstrad version seems to play like the 2600 with graphics more like the 7800 when you exclude some of the large sprites like the Helicopter in the opening sequence of the game and large animated storyline graphics. To have Commando play better on an Amstrad though would be a more difficult challenge than improving some graphics.

What are the things you dont like about Commando? Maybe graphically it could be improved, but I'm very interested in hearing if there is something you find wrong with the playability.

I dont know any other games that move this smoothly without the continuous scrolling techniques used in Mission Genocide etc.

[Token]

Amazing 87 shooter. I didn't knew it, smooth

[Carnivius]

Never really got into Elite either, but this doesn't mean it belongs with the worst CPC games ever! It's like Civ is a terrible game if you don't like strategy gaming...

Oh yeah I certainly don't consider Elite to be a 'worst game ever'.  It's certainly got effort and time put into it and appeals to people who like that sort of thing and I can appreciate what it did that was supposedly interesting and new in that era.  For me personally though I wouldn't rate it very highly at all because I rate games on how much they actually entertained me overall and I got zero enjoyment out of it.

Now you mention it I didn't actually like Civilization at all despite how much my friend forced me to Though inviting me around his house just to watch him play it for hours didn't really do much to endear it to me and by the time I got my own Amiga and he copied the game for me in a bunch of others to have a 'starters library' of games I just couldn't bear to see it's graphics anymore.  Particularly when the likes of Alien Breed, Lotus 2, Turrican II and others captured my attention far easier and quicker.

[AMSDOS]

What are the things you dont like about Commando? Maybe graphically it could be improved, but I'm very interested in hearing if there is something you find wrong with the playability.

I dont know any other games that move this smoothly without the continuous scrolling techniques used in Mission Genocide etc.

The things which annoy me about the Amstrad version of Commando is more of a playability thing. The Bad Soldiers for example have a Seek & Destroy motto on the Atari 7800 version which was true to the arcade, but on the Amstrad they seem to be in for the kill. If I play Ikari Warriors on the Amstrad for example the Enemy Soldiers in that game don't seem to be as direct, so the Amstrad is definitely capable of that sort of thing. Scrolling I'm not terribly fussed about, Commando has a large playing field on the 7800 which maybe something which suffers on the Amstrad, so I guess if were after a smooth scroll then it becomes harder when dealing with a full screen.

[ivarf]

Grand Prix Driver from Amsoft

[pacomix]

Sultan's Labyrinth (El laberinto del sultán)
Fruit Machine
[troll]Cyberchicken (boring but lets support the new developments)[/troll]

[Bryce]

Sultan's Labyrinth (El laberinto del sultán)
Fruit Machine
[troll]Cyberchicken (boring but lets support the new developments)[/troll]

It was called Sultans Maze in English (and yes, it was crap).

Bryce.

[ivarf]

Sultan's Labyrinth (El laberinto del sultán)
Fruit Machine
[troll]Cyberchicken (boring but lets support the new developments)[/troll]

Fruit Machine is in my opinion an excellent game. I have friends that back in the day wanted Fruit Machine everytime he visited us. The graphics are more than ok and the soundeffects add much to the game. I would say that Fruity Machine was the game that got my friend into gambling. A few years ago he came back from Thailand and the Philipines with a debt of over £200 000. He had spent the money on girls and gambling. I would have liked to blamed Samantha Fox Strip Poker for his unluck too .... but I think that would be very wrong. 

[Carnivius]

Sultan's Labyrinth (El laberinto del sultán)
Fruit Machine

Yeah, Sultan's Maze was crap made extra crap by the ridiculously long loading time (I couldn't remember quite how long but just checked the cassette inlay and it says 17 minutes.. jeez).   Overall I found CPC tapes to not take too long to load and also do it quite reliably when compared with other 8-bits so why did that game need so long?

And Fruit Machine, well..  I didn't mind putting it on now and then cos it was kinda 'fun' in small doses but I ended up hiding the tape cos my sister and mum liked that game and when they'd play it I wouldn't get to play anything on the CPC for hours...  I can still remember many a time of myself playing with my Transformers and ThunderCats figures while hearing that Fruit Machine's sound effects coming from the other side of the room...

[Puresox]

Fruit machine was dreadful IMO, utterly bland ,
Cyrstal Castles
BreakThru

[CanonMan]

Yeah, Sultan's Maze was crap made extra crap by the ridiculously long loading time (I couldn't remember quite how long but just checked the cassette inlay and it says 17 minutes.. jeez).   Overall I found CPC tapes to not take too long to load and also do it quite reliably when compared with other 8-bits so why did that game need so long?

Sultan's maze was written in BASIC. Even when a BASIC program is tokenized, it still isn't as compact as machine code, which is why it took so long to load and runs so slowly.

[Carnivius]

Sultan's maze was written in BASIC. Even when a BASIC program is tokenized, it still isn't as compact as machine code, which is why it took so long to load and runs so slowly.

Makes sense.  But what doesn't make sense is why bother releasing it.  I know the old Amsoft games were mostly pretty bad (though some like Roland on the Ropes and my personal fave of the lot, Oh Mummy, were very fun and playable) but it didn't seem to be something that you'd want to sit there waiting all that time to load on your brand new computer and then 'play'.  If that had been the sample game running on a shop's display CPC my folks might have gone with the C64 or Spectrum.   Though to be honest I'm not actually sure why they picked the CPC out of that lot (I wasn't there at the shop with them).   Maybe it was the built in tape deck and the supplied monitor (green) that gave it that value all-in-one purchase appeal.  I'm very glad they did though.

[Puresox]

I know my Parents bought mine , because of the monitor as they did not want me to have a tv in my bedroom , that and the complete package was fairly  competitive

[khisanth]

Elite is a quality game whether you love it or hate it.  I got it into it and enjoyed the trading, the danger, the risk/reward aspects and was a nice absorbing game to play for hours.


Cant wait for Elite: Dangerous to come out, shaping up really nicely.


The thing I didnt like about older games is the cover art could be incredible, stirring your imagination and the game is awful or nothing to do with the artwork!