Worst Amiga games that look great, Best Amiga games that look terrible

[saimon69]

Power Drift is a case of "we can fix it with N years of reverse engineering" though

[cloverskull]

Originally Posted by Thorham

Imagine getting that for Christmas

Ha! Years ago, I did! For Sega CD (or Mega CD). I spent days getting a whopping 3 mins deep into the game and gave up.

Those prerenders, though...

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Thorham

Imagine getting that for Christmas

I remember trying to play that at the arcade. About $20 in and still stuck on the first screen I gave up. The Amiga version has to be better just for not having to feed coins into it. If there was a way to save the game at any point I might even get good at it (never tried it on the Amiga because the arcade experience was so off-putting).

[Marcuz]

Looking outside the topic of poor controls, mechanics too can be bad designs.

Ishar I: just beautiful and compelling, but with punishing devices (pay to save, unbalanced stamina: have to rest every couple of fights, but you can only rest in town's tavern, paying for it; and, yes, the loot is skint).

Journey: beautiful graphics and story, but, if you make one of many possible mistakes at the start, you are in unwinnable plays that you discover only at the end.

[cloverskull]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

I remember trying to play that at the arcade. About $20 in and still stuck on the first screen I gave up. The Amiga version has to be better just for not having to feed coins into it. If there was a way to save the game at any point I might even get good at it (never tried it on the Amiga because the arcade experience was so off-putting).

Yeah, I think I quite nearly broke my controller in half on that game lol.

I've actually tried watching a playthrough of the game on YouTube and I still have no idea how anyone is supposed to figure this game out. But the cartoon is cool.

[Jope]

Have we already mentioned Out Run on the Amiga for the Worst games that look great series? :-D

[kremiso]

maybe Astro Marine Corps could also fit here
the gfx was ok, the gameplay not as much

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by Marcuz

Looking outside the topic of poor controls, mechanics too can be bad designs.

Ishar I: just beautiful and compelling, but with punishing devices (pay to save, unbalanced stamina: have to rest every couple of fights, but you can only rest in town's tavern, paying for it; and, yes, the loot is skint).

Journey: beautiful graphics and story, but, if you make one of many possible mistakes at the start, you are in unwinnable plays that you discover only at the end.

I like your examples. Ishar has indeed great gfx, and it's interesting to read about the tricky gameplay since bitd without manual I could never get into it.

Have never tried Journey - it looks really great and I'd like to give it a go, but it's good to be forewarned about dead end choices. I hate adventures that do that to the player.

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by rabidgerry

For me recently the Polish game Franko - The Crazy Revenge! plays really well but looks horrendous. It really is good fun and has a good feel to it once you figure out how to play it. It's horrendous looks however have so much charm it makes it good!

Haha, that game looks awesome...

[Megalomaniac]

Sadly the priority for a lot of early coin-op conversions was to recreate the look (as far as 16 colours could, anyway) of the coin-op as closely as possible, with speed and playability a secondary concern - after all, by the time you realise how bad they are, you've already bought the game. Power Drift is the most glaring offender there (worst Amiga Format Gold winning game?), but both Out Runs look better than they play.

Kid Chaos is another beautiful game beset with annoying design flaws, though its hardly Dragon's Lair level of awfulness.

[dreadnought]

Franko looks so terrible that it actually crosses into "it must be art!" territory. But yeah, it was a blast to play, especially for us Poles, because of all the little "local colour thingies" such as the eponymous "Maluch" - Fiat 126p

[StevenJGore]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

Ishar has indeed great gfx

Slightly OT, but I just looked at Ishar on HOL to remind myself of the graphics (it's been a while), how come the OCS graphics are better than AGA? The forest screenshots, for example, are far more muted and atmospheric on the OCS version; on the AGA version they are too bright and vivid, and even look less well-drawn. Do fewer colours force more artistic decisions, I wonder?

[sokolovic]

Originally Posted by StevenJGore

Slightly OT, but I just looked at Ishar on HOL to remind myself of the graphics (it's been a while), how come the OCS graphics are better than AGA? The forest screenshots, for example, are far more muted and atmospheric on the OCS version; on the AGA version they are too bright and vivid, and even look less well-drawn. Do fewer colours force more artistic decisions, I wonder?

That's a matter of taste I guess...
Note that Ishar gfx are probably just 16 colors, as Silmaris was an ST first developper.

[sokolovic]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

Franko looks so terrible that it actually crosses into "it must be art!" territory.

Totally agree on this one. At this level this is an artistic décision.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

Franko looks so terrible that it actually crosses into "it must be art!" territory. But yeah, it was a blast to play, especially for us Poles, because of all the little "local colour thingies" such as the eponymous "Maluch" - Fiat 126p

Hmm, it's a pretty generic beat 'em up. Not that it plays terrible, but it wouldn't make it on any of my 'best' lists.

[Marcuz]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

I like your examples. Ishar has indeed great gfx, and it's interesting to read about the tricky gameplay since bitd without manual I could never get into it.

Have never tried Journey - it looks really great and I'd like to give it a go, but it's good to be forewarned about dead end choices. I hate adventures that do that to the player.

I still loved playing both at the time, when I had more stamina and patience, but yes, I had to hex edit Ishar's savegames a lot (which in itself was part of the fun), and I used a bit of a walkthrough for the second.

If you don't mind the frustration of the dead end paths, and like a great, original story, I recommend Journey, however, it's very much like playing D&D with a DM telling the story.

Originally Posted by StevenJGore

Slightly OT, but I just looked at Ishar on HOL to remind myself of the graphics (it's been a while), how come the OCS graphics are better than AGA? The forest screenshots, for example, are far more muted and atmospheric on the OCS version; on the AGA version they are too bright and vivid, and even look less well-drawn. Do fewer colours force more artistic decisions, I wonder?

For sure, having an armonious palette helps to convey a clear visual message, where clarity is perceived as beauty; and having fewer colors might for sure help that.

OCS vs ECS vs AGA vs etc doesn't necessarily mean anything, you can have tons of colors yet control them well. But for sure there were many games at the time, when AGA was introduced, that either because they were not designed for a larger palette specifically, or simply because of careless or unexistent or questionable art direction, they looked less compelling than OCS games.

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

Franko looks so terrible that it actually crosses into "it must be art!" territory.

It looks a bit like some very talented coder let his 5 year old son draw all the gfx in MS Paint.

Isn't there some polish barbarian game by the same guys existing?
At least that one looks as bad as Franko..

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by Tigerskunk

Isn't there some polish barbarian game by the same guys existing?
At least that one looks as bad as Franko..

Yeah, Doman: Grzechy Ardana (Sins Of Ardan). Never played it myself, looks bit more boring than Franko. Same artist: Mariusz Pawluk. Dude certainly has an interesting way of drawing humans

TIL there has been a sequel to Franko released this year on PC and consoles.
https://www.mobygames.com/game/20296...s-of-violence/
With gfx by the same guy! But this time it actually looks pretty good.

***********************

Back OT, the RPG talk reminded me about Legends Of Valour. I had huge expectations for this game, what with being CRPG fanatic plus having my head turned by the likes of Wolfenstein and Ultima Underworld II. So it was really something special to see smooth scrolling 3D on my A500 - in a RPG, not just some simple shooter!

But apart from the engine the game was a disappointment. Not sure if because I had no manual and zero clue on how to actually play it - but I think it was more than that, and its design was really flawed (which the Pelit's review talks about, unlike all the other big Amiga mags). So I think it does fit the premise of this thread.

Wikipedia has an interesting writeup about its engine's development.

[sokolovic]

Legends of Valour was fairly well received by the press back then, even by Amiga Power and even in re release so I Guess it's just a case of a game genre that aged too much or a game needing to be too heavily involved in it when we just doesn't have the time anymore.
I feel the same about Liberation (I've recently tried to play seriously both of them). I would'nt say that these games are the worst, but It is maybe a bit difficult to get into them by now if you never played them before.
And manual or some walkthrough are a necessity for them. This was some kind of copy protection as they were almost unplayable without it (same case for the Settlers).

[lmimmfn]

I'm going to give a shout out to Viper PD game, looks like crap but in 94, 95 at Uni it was a fantastic party game amongst my friends who didn't know/care about anything Amiga.
It's definitely one of the best party games ever, that's a thread in itself ??