Which game is better? Kid Gloves or Rick Dangerous

[Retro-Nerd]

Still valid. S.Campbell's aren't my favorite reviewers.

[DaveMB]

well as Retro-Nerd performed necromancy on this thread i may as well post my thoughts on the subject at hand.

I actually spent several hours just recently playing Rick Dangerous so my view is not clouded by fuzzy nostalgia.

Spent an hour or so playing kid gloves today aswell and to be fair its not a bad game although it does certainly have issues with bad design.

Rick Dangerous however despite having decent graphics/audio does suffer from glaringly obvious bad design. Been killed by traps that you cannot see and having to remember where they are in order to avoid them the next time is not good game design, and remembering how to avoid a trap then seeing the exact same trap on the next screen and thinking 'aaahh i know how to avoid this' only to find out that despite its appearance it's actually a different trap and promptly being killed is in 'my opinion' very very bad game design.

Sure there are lots of people that say 'RD is easy - once you know where the traps are', well of course it is but having to play through the entire game constantly dying - remembering the traps and then avoiding them is just dull.

Having said that i still think its a better game than KG

[Shatterhand]

Funny, I was pretty sure Stuart Campbell was banned from this forum. Was I wrong, or maybe he was just unbanned or something?

Anyway, I'll try to not call him any names. I had never read Amiga Power before the Internet (I read The One and Amiga Action, the only Amiga Games magazine I ever saw here in Rio de Janeiro).

After encountering Mr.Campbell in two different forums and watching his "I know everything about videogames and you shut up" attitude, I begun looking for his reviews on AMR....

I never saw anything special on them. I can't remember them by name right now, but it was very easy to find wrong information on his reviews, also long texts about basically nothing. He usually fails to comment about important aspects of the gameplay of the game, and like most reviewers, fails to be any coherent in the long-stretch of his carreer.

Which means he's basically like any other game reviewers, except he seems to believe he his better than everyone else, and likes to troll/flame in gaming forums.

[Shatterhand]

Oh, I should add something abour KG vs RD too, right?

First, I have to agree what Campbell says about bad design, and what Turrican2FTW just said. In RD you die by things you can't see, and you die by things that didn't kill you the screen before. That's really unfair.

But stuff like this does happen in KG too. I mean, you enter a screen, you are walking through clear space and suddenly an enemy shows up EXACTLY where you are and its instant death. And then you go "Ok, I know this enemy will show up at this point of the screen after 5 seconds".... and then another enemy appears outta nowhere after 7 seconds, and probably again EXACTLY where you are standing.

Its much "Trial and Error" as Rick Dangerous. When Stuart Campbell says when you die for something that didn't kill you before its very unfair, I agree. But, damn it, walking on empty space should ALWAYS be safe... enemies appearing outta of nowhere, with no warning, exactly where are you stading, is as bad as traps killing you with no warning. And this happens in KG a LOT.

And against KG stands its bad graphics, its shoddy collision detection (No, it doesn't "require skills". You die for things you clearly didn't touch), and its not knowing if I want to climb a ladder or jump. Even grabbing a ladder in the middle of a jump seems to be very random.. sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Also, "GWAAAAAAHHHHHHH" sounds a lot cooler than "Oh no!".

Rick Dangerous even with its bad level design, does have its charm, and feels a lot less frustrating than Kid Gloves. You may die by an unseed trap, but you know next time you will get it right. In Kid Gloves you can also die by the shoddy collision detection, the bad controls... and you will be probably be annoyed with the jingle that plays whenever an enemy pops outta nowhere before your first game over screen. Both games have design flaws, but Rick Dangerous is more slick and polished than KG for sure.

So, yeah, none of the games are incredibly awesome, but none of them are also horrible (Yolanda is much worse, for example ). Both can be enjoyable though there are lots of better games on Amiga. None of them probably should be in a list of top 100 Amiga games of all time, and Rick Dangerous is better than Kid Gloves, but just by a small margin

[Bastich]

I always liked both but Rick Dangerous was my favorite.
It's certainly the one I always come back to :-)

[Paul_s]

What a brilliant read, if a little over the top in parts

I remember Rick Dangerous being rather annoying - very average.

Kid Gloves, whilst not as bling as RD it's 'better' but not something I would play all the time.

I voted for RD in this thread a looong time ago but changed my mind - wouldn't give either the time of day But that's not to say someone else would


Arabian Nights/Soccer Kid... now they're well designed platformers I can return to again and again

[JohnnyWalker]

Wow, I just read this entire thread. Stuart Campbell, while he may have rubbed people up the wrong way, took the time to make his points clearly and succinctly. There isn't anything he said that I disagree with.

His points about Rick Dangerous were absolutely spot on.

CodeTapper's points about Rick Dangerous were... non existent, to put it politely. Just because something is popular, doesn't mean it's better. I actually got pretty embarrassed for CodeTapper at various points. He makes insane allegations (there was a big conspiracy to put Kid Gloves in the AP Top 100 because it was on the cover disk, Stuart Campbell didn't "prove" that he didn't pirate games, Stuart Campbell was single-handedly responsible for people being upset with CF2, etc. etc.) none of which were relevant, all of which were childishly made.

(I'm actually amazed someone like that can hold a position of moderator here.)

The weirdest thing of all is that CodeTapper took personal offence to Stuart's reasoned issues with Rick Dangerous. CT: If you prefer RD to Kid Gloves, that's fine. It's your opinion, your entitled to it, but you cannot deny RD's problems. And nobody, not even Stuart, ever said otherwise.

Anubis clearly hadn't bothered to read the thread before posting in it. Retro-Nerd just took random angry shots. dlfrsilver came across as mentally incompetent. StarEye was extremely calm and reasonable.

But the prize goes to CodyJarret, who made the best point of all on the first page of the thread, but which nobody seemed to have bothered to read or consider. Most of the arguments that ensued could have been avoided if people had read and taken it onboard.

Ultimately, as brash as Stuart can be, and even though I don't always agree with his opinions, he took the time to respond to every point in a clear and logical way. Most people arguing with him didn't do him the same courtesy, and just responded with the same level of vitriol they perceived, forgetting to include solid arguments.

PS - Still waiting for that list of 10 things AP got wrong, CodeTapper...! ;P

[Codetapper]

1. Every issue will have a complete game on it.
2. AP will never review unfinished games.
3. Dragon Ninja was awarded 4% because Stuart Campbell can't jump (and a lame apology issued in the middle of the mag 5 issues later, mark upped a measly 10% to 14%). As a comparison Lemon Amiga rates the game 6.51 out of 10 based on 63 votes.
4. Top Secret promoted as the "best PD game ever". Even at the time, this was laughably untrue.
5. Kill the Prez listed as a top 100 game in the AP Top 100 lists, doesn't even exist.
6. AP issue 1 cover says "Classic or turkey? Don't miss the complete low-down on EVERY AMIGA GAME released over the last year!" A foolish thing to claim!
7. Published a letter from Dino Dini (without checks to see if it was genuine, apology issued later)
8. International Rugby Challenge review featured "a scientific test to see how bad" and compared with game with the war in Bosnia, famine in Somalia, Rodney King beating etc. Poor taste, unfunny and obviously wrong.
9. An example of an incorrect review: Turrican 2 roundup implied the game was the same as Turrican 1 and gave it 3 out of 5 stars. Stuart Campbell admitted that whoever reviewed it was spot on (with 20+ years of gaming behind him). AmiLore's statistical ratings give the game 90%, Lemon Amiga users rate it 8.77 out of 10 from 339 votes, it's in a vast majority of peoples top games lists, has possibly the best soundtrack ever made in a computer game, no disk swapping, a technical marvel etc. AP got it wrong big time.
10. Many technical errors in reviews such as stating "parallax scrolling on the Amiga is not difficult" when the game is not running in dual playfield mode, A1200 version features smoother scrolling etc (when in fact several games featured worse scrolling on accelerated Amigas due to the blitter vs CPU speed etc). Maybe these are not obvious to non-programmers, but to those with technical knowledge they are clearly wrong.
11. Regarding the game Toki, the cover of AP3 ponders "The perfect conversion?". Yet the game scores only 87%. The arcade game is 256x240 resolution at 50fps, the Amiga display area is a significantly smaller 223x176 at 25fps. Although a superb conversion, it's nowhere near perfect.
12. Review scores are a bit of a mockery when a game reviewed in 1992 (World Class Rugby) scores 63%, is in the top 100 games of all time for 1993 at 79th, 85th in 1994, missing from 1995, then 82nd in 1996 again.
13. Golden Axe listed in top 100 list in 1991 and 1992, but supposedly worth 35% according to Stuart Campbell (yet 75% on AmiLore
14. Kid Gloves was supposedly the 59th best game by 1996 (73% in LORE, 5.11/10 on Lemon Amiga)
15. How can E-Motion scoring 22% be in the top 100 games of all time?

Incidentally, Rick Dangerous has 7.54 out of 10 from 181 votes as of today. And on EAB, it's 101 vs 11 to Rick Dangerous.

[JudasEZT]

Is funny the claim about CF2 being a best seller, even more than CF1. That statement is practically meaninless.

S.Campbell claims that it was 5 years on top positions of sales. Having in mind that the game was released in december of 1994 ( christmass sales period, always important ) it leaves from 1995 to 2000 as is years of selling leadership.

For Amiga market, the importance of 1996 to 2000 could be described as insignificant years.

Take in consideration too that CF1 was converted to PC, Megadrive, SNES, GB and more formats. CF2 just PC.

IMO, Sensible Golf got more recognition that CF2.



Apart of that, different ratings and reviews of games are interesting to read. Different tastes.

But also, a game consists in rules.. so sometimes the flaws of a game or gamedesing can be overlooked with a correct rules establishment.

In Rick Dangerous, its game locations establish PERFECTLY what kind of traps and tricks are you going to find. Amazon jungle, Egypt Pyramids, Nazi Castles.. all those placements are defined in our imagination with sudden traps and unfair challenges. Thats part of the game and its rules of playing.

Ill never will be tired of recommend Traps'N'Treasures for everyone who likes RickDanergous and Mario games. http://hol.abime.net/1500


As for Kid Gloves.. well its programmer never got characterized for its gameplay abilities. Its first releases were on Spectrum with budget releases ( for Silverbird ). Those games were insanely hard, with great sounds and even speech effects.. which was a not common feature on humbles spectrums. But its gameplay never meant a landmark for anyone.

[BippyM]

This thread is NOT continuing, It deteriorated into a pummelling of Stuart by various members and it will not be brought back up.

You all have your opinions, I have just read 9 pages of shit and we don't need this kind of behaviour here.

Thread closed - If that is an issue and you want to discuss this with me then PM me!