Amiga Games You Thought Were Over-rated or Under-rated

[fishyfish]

The topic pretty much says it all.

In no particular order I'd have to say:

Over-rated:

SuperFrog. I wouldnt call it bad, but personally I found it boring, and the protagonist has absolutely no personality or character. There's far better platform games on the Amiga.

BodyBlows. My thoughts on this one echo those of Superfrog. Not terrible, but void of any real character and generic to the nth degree. Like a 3rd rate neogeo fighter.

Breathless. More engine than game, and very drab visually. Looks ok at 1st, but hours later youre still looking at pretty much the same grey graphics. Weapons and enemies are also boring

Battle Squadron. I tried to like this one, I really did. I remember countless nights of me, my brother and our friends sitting around the amiga playing this game, with everyone else loving it, and me just looking for the gameplay. Bland and generic.

Underrated:

Z-Out. Received reasonably positive reviews, but not a game that many people remember in the same way as Xenon2, Disposable Heroes, Hybris, etc. despite being a better game.

Addam's Family. Shame there's no backgrounds like in all other versions, but one of the best SuperMario clones around. Plays great, with lots of variey, nicely hidden bonuses and extras.

Sinbad And The Throne Of The Falcon. Probably one of CInemaWare's least popular/successful games, but one of my personal favorites, and *the* game that made me desperately want an amiga. Cant put my finger on why, but there's just something about this game that really draws me into its world.

Over:

Lotus II - its ok but Lotus I was great in two player and so had a bit more about it, and I got bored of battling the clock in 2, and frankly how far removed from outrun or even space harrier were these titles?

Lots of standard platformers - shadow of beast (all), gods...bored me stupid

Under:

World class rugby (and derivatives) - really good crack at a sports sim and a tough one to replicate...me and my mate used to hammer this, second only to SWOS and kick-off in the time i spent playing it. Ive yet to see a rugby game on any system get this close to the feeling of the game. Ace game.

[seuden]

Under:

M.U.D.S (Mean Ugly Dirty Sport) - Got reasonable reviews but doesn't get any where near the credit that Speedball 2 gets and I find it to be much more fun to play. They were released around the same time too.

[BuckoA51]

Over rated -

SWIV - Even now people talk highly of it, but it's just such a dull repetitive shooter with rubbish weapons, unlike the Amiga version of Silkworm which is fantastic.

Frontier - I just don't get Elite or Frontier, about the only classic that I don't understand the appeal of. It's like flying from spreadsheet to spreadsheet.

Under rated, maybe Banshee, it's not as often mentioned when people talk about the best shooters on the system, and to be fair some of the bosses are a bit rubbish, but I just love the levels and the character of the game.

Originally Posted by BuckoA51

Over rated -

SWIV - Even now people talk highly of it, but it's just such a dull repetitive shooter with rubbish weapons, unlike the Amiga version of Silkworm which is fantastic.

Frontier - I just don't get Elite or Frontier, about the only classic that I don't understand the appeal of. It's like flying from spreadsheet to spreadsheet.

Under rated, maybe Banshee, it's not as often mentioned when people talk about the best shooters on the system, and to be fair some of the bosses are a bit rubbish, but I just love the levels and the character of the game.

Yeh swiv...got to agree with that, its a bit childish really, looks crap as well.

[TCD]

For over rated games also have a look here: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=13726

[Mendel]

Over rated:

Zool - I don´t like the gameplay, I think the graphics are too colorful and there is this annoying chupa chups ad theme that I don´t like either.

Shadow of the beast. - Just too dull game mechanics. The punches need to be too precise. Come on, give the beast a sword that reaches the enemies!



Under rated:

Fury of the Furries. Best puzzle platformer ever. The physics are wonderful, I love some of the water puzzles. Also always loved the green furry, the inertia of the character is lovely. This is even better than the rope in worms games
4 furries make 3 vikings look like crap.

[AndyLandy]

The comments about the Addams Family and Zool definitely hit the mark for me. Addams Family was a really neat platformer, well designed, fun to play, challenging without being outrageously un-completable. I really loved all the hidden secrets, too! Right down to the Continue screen! I found loads of them, but I doubt I came close to finding them all.

As for Zool, I genuinely did enjoy playing it, but it got so much hype at the time, heralded as a Sonic-beater when it was nothing of the sort. It was a fairly entertaining and very colourful platformer, but held very little interest beyond that.

Oh, and whoever dissed Frontier, wash your mouth out!... OK, to be fair, Frontier's biggest blessing and curse was its open-endedness. You could travel anywhere in the galaxy and do any of the myriad of jobs on offer, but you'd always eventually get to that point where you'd done everything and you still hadn't "won" yet. I personally loved Frontier, I spent the whole of 1993 playing it, but I can see why it might not be everyone's cup of tea.

[kipper2k]

I really do like Superfrog, its a good platform game, the kids love the colours and the themes. Shadow of the beast series were ok, too hard and gameplay would make a saint curse.
Spent many an hour playing Stunt car racer with my neighbour on a 60 foot serial cable. There were actually very few games that i actually finished due to boredom creeping in. I liked Ports of Call, i had to disable the manual docking/undocking tugs and all the other annoyances that popped up as they were just too annoying.
Millennium 2.2 was good, finished that one but no good for a repeat as it was too linear. Mike the magic Dragon was a fun game also that i used to spend a few hours on when it first came out

[jeff b00toNic]

Originally Posted by BuckoA51

Over rated -

SWIV - Even now people talk highly of it, but it's just such a dull repetitive shooter with rubbish weapons, unlike the Amiga version of Silkworm which is fantastic.

I agree 100% !
This shooter makes me ...oh I missed the helicopter waves again...boooring
and highly overrated.

Bloodmoney
Same thing here gfx are good but controls are rubbish.

Underrated

Roadkill - This one is a true beauty fast action nice gfx and sfx in my eyes better than Nitro and Supercars 2

The review score from different mags makes me laugh....so variable. You do sort of get the feeling they had design houses they liked and other not so much. I always read amiga format and to be fair i generally agreed with the scores but some were way off....SWIV (that one again) for example = 92%?

Under: Supercars II. Good physics, good courses (very hard late on), sort of funny at times and what did AF give it - 82%....balls.

[Cpt. Hindsight]

Overrated:
Dune II. I never understood the hype about the rts genre. Who needs a hectic strategy game?

Underrated:
Seek and Destroy. No all-time classic, but smooth and a shmup with free movement adds a little bit of tactic.

[seuden]

Originally Posted by Cpt. Hindsight

Overrated:
Dune II. I never understood the hype about the rts genre. Who needs a hectic strategy game?

Really? I think Dune II got all the hype it deserved. Maybe you don't like the game or genre but calling it overrated when the fact is Dune II was a game changer and cemented it's place in gaming history as the title with the format that would be copied for nearly every RTS to follow.

I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree.

[Dastardly]

Originally Posted by fishyfish

The topic pretty much says it all.

In no particular order I'd have to say:

Over-rated:

SuperFrog. I wouldnt call it bad, but personally I found it boring, and the protagonist has absolutely no personality or character. There's far better platform games on the Amiga.

BodyBlows. My thoughts on this one echo those of Superfrog. Not terrible, but void of any real character and generic to the nth degree. Like a 3rd rate neogeo fighter.

It's like the you've read my mind. Bang on.

[lordofchaos]

Mmmm over rated Amiga games?...That's a tough one, I don't feel I can give any objectionable critique due to my natural bias but I suppose Team 17's Body Blows definitely deserves an honourable mention.

Sticky controls, un-balanced fighters and stilted animations with some of the worst victory retorts in the gaming sphere.

[jamotide]

Come on, Body Blows is great when you have never seen any other beat em up game, just like Fifa soccer,ProEvo are great if you dont know Sensible soccer or GOAL!

Which brings me to my contribution to overrated games in history:

Sensible Soccer! Yes! It is a simple fun game, but it has little variety, you cant do much with the ball. Its a game for kids, I still play it with my 6 year old nephew on my Amiga 600, he loves it. But when he is older, we will play Goal!, the best football simulation ever.

[FOL]

Originally Posted by Dastardly

It's like the you've read my mind. Bang on.

I agree.

Its like microcosm, its not all that bad, granted it could have been better, but I love it, .

[StarEye]

Originally Posted by jamotide

Come on, Body Blows is great when you have never seen any other beat em up game, just like Fifa soccer,ProEvo are great if you dont know Sensible soccer or GOAL!

Which brings me to my contribution to overrated games in history:

Sensible Soccer! Yes! It is a simple fun game, but it has little variety, you cant do much with the ball. Its a game for kids, I still play it with my 6 year old nephew on my Amiga 600, he loves it. But when he is older, we will play Goal!, the best football simulation ever.

Body Blows was overrated from day 1. It wasn't even better than the Amiga version of Street Fighter 2.

Sensi has just as much variety as Goal!. Calling it a game for kids when Goal! is a dumbed down version of Kick Off 2 is hypocritical. That's like saying KISS is a band for kids, and then put on Justing Bieber.

[jamotide]

But in Goal! you can do much more with the ball, the path it goes is always different, you can precisely shoot at any point in the field from any spot your player is at. In Sensi the path of the ball if always pretty similar, and the goals are always very similar,too. In Goal! you can do anything.
Also, I am sure 6 year olds will like both KISS and Bieber, but they will only be able to play Sensi properly.

[StingRay]

Overrated: Zool series, SWIV, Lothar Matthäus Soccer, James Pond series.
Underrated: Goal!