Which game is better? Kid Gloves or Rick Dangerous

[WayneK]

Let's be honest... it's like choosing between a rancid dogturd and a bowl of diarrhea soup. Both games were very poor, RD because (as several people already stated) it's simply a memory test, and Kid Gloves because... well, it's a really badly-programmed generic platformer. RD 'wins' in my view because at least it had some character + 'charm' compared to KG - how many retro remakes of Kid Gloves have you seen lately?

[EmuChicken]

Rick also had the kickass soundtrack that everyone can remember... - and the sound effects that everyone can remember... WAEHEHARGH!

I think I tried KG once - after 2 minutes I got bored :E

[dlfrsilver]

agree with emuuuchicken, got bored too....amateurish game...

[S. Campbell]

Originally Posted by Graham Humphrey

When I first read that I thought "Oh no! What's happened to killergorilla?"

I got a little worried about Kieron Gillen, personally.

[killergorilla]

You should have been worried about me.

[S. Campbell]

Originally Posted by Codetapper

But I'm sure AP had already lined up the first couple of games to be given away by that stage, it would be suicidal not to have any freebies then make a claim like "a free game every month". So they probably knew Kid Gloves would be in the mix...

That's quite an offensive allegation, actually. And entirely wrong, of course.

Well 90% of EAB'ers disagree with you there Stuart, so that is simply incorrect. The poll is on 68 to 8 at the moment! If you check out "fellow professional reviewers"

"Professional reviewers" != "people who know what they're talking about". If those two things were the same, then you'd have to be telling me that Rise Of The Robots was great because at least two of AP's "fellow" Amiga games mags gave it scores over 90%.

The most popular book of recent years is The Da Vinci Code. Westlife were the most successful band of their era. Tom Cruise gets paid millions of dollars. Most people like complete shit - it takes a certain amount of insight to pick out the things that are worth cherishing. I'm always happy to be in the minority, so keep on voting.

[dlfrsilver]

Kid glovy-shit ? lool

[StarEye]

Originally Posted by S. Campbell

The most popular book of recent years is The Da Vinci Code. Westlife were the most successful band of their era. Tom Cruise gets paid millions of dollars. Most people like complete shit - it takes a certain amount of insight to pick out the things that are worth cherishing. I'm always happy to be in the minority, so keep on voting.

And who decides who has that insight? You? Also, what's wrong with Tom Cruise? Are you really jumping on the bandwagon of Tom Cruise bashing?

Also, being in the minority doesn't automatically makes you right either. It's a stupid argument only used by people who wants other people to think they know what they're talking about. But it's not working.

AP was a very successful and popular magazine wasn't it? As you said, most people like complete shit.

[Graham Humphrey]

Originally Posted by killergorilla

You should have been worried about me.

Was it StarEye with his razor?

[S. Campbell]

Originally Posted by StarEye

And who decides who has that insight? You?

Who else? Like, duh.

[Codetapper]

Originally Posted by S. Campbell

That's quite an offensive allegation, actually. And entirely wrong, of course.

If that is true, I have lost a little more respect for Amiga Power. Knowing they put out claims before the first issue saying full games would be given away every issue and not having obtained any games by that stage!

No wonder they had to put out crap like Kid Gloves. Logotron probably knew it would be a turkey on re-release so said "AP can have this rancid pile of turd". I hate to think how much cash AP paid for that dud!

"Professional reviewers" != "people who know what they're talking about".

Well you were a "professional reviewer", so why should we believe your opinion anymore than any other? Afterall AP themselves put Rick Dangerous in the top 100 games of 1991. Kill the Prez was in the top 100 games and didn't even exist. We were reliably told you can't jump in Dragon Ninja. Playing a certain rugby game was worse than a war in Bosnia etc. I could go on.

And for the record, I've never played Rise of the Robots but I'm sure if you started a poll, the collective EAB guys are smart enough to give a fair rating of the game - but I imagine it would not get a high mark.

[S. Campbell]

Originally Posted by Codetapper

If that is true, I have lost a little more respect for Amiga Power. Knowing they put out claims before the first issue saying full games would be given away every issue and not having obtained any games by that stage!

You appear to have confused the marketing department with the editorial team, which is a bit like confusing Cristiano Ronaldo with the guy who manages Man Utd's corporate investment portfolio. We picked the games. They managed the promotions. No crossover, because that way madness lies.

Well you were a "professional reviewer", so why should we believe your opinion anymore than any other? Afterall AP themselves put Rick Dangerous in the top 100 games of 1991. Kill the Prez was in the top 100 games and didn't even exist. We were reliably told you can't jump in Dragon Ninja. Playing a certain rugby game was worse than a war in Bosnia etc. I could go on.

Please feel free. I do enjoy baiting people who think all opinions are equally valid, no matter how idiotic or incoherently-expressed. And if we're talking mistakes, how many have we already had to correct for you on AMR...? I didn't say "Listen to me because I'm a professional reviewer". I said "Listen to me because I know what I'm talking about".

And for the record, I've never played Rise of the Robots but I'm sure if you started a poll, the collective EAB guys are smart enough to give a fair rating of the game - but I imagine it would not get a high mark.

Any idiot can make a judgement with a decade's-worth of hindsight. It's a little harder to get things right at the time when a nervous ad team and months of relentless hype are breathing down your neck - just ask Amiga Action or CU Amiga. AP's been comprehensively vindicated by history about pretty much everything, and no amount of misguided nostalgia about a heap of gameplay-free, trial-and-error, memory-test shit like Rick Dangerous will ever change that.

I've got 40,000 videogames. I've played videogames eight hours a day for the last 20 years. Seriously, truly, are you saying you know more about videogames than me? Because, y'know, that's kinda weird, when you really think about it. I enjoy a McDonalds Happy Meal from time to time, as do countless millions of other people. Does that mean McDonalds should have a Michelin fucking star? If you're old enough to remember the Amiga, you're old enough to have no excuse for trotting out this halfwitted hippy shit. If I'm sick I go to a doctor for advice, not a cab driver.

[Retro-Nerd]

I'm very bored, after reading some of your reviews, Stuart. You start with senseless phrases like "Oh no, not this kind of game again". A lot of reviews are very short. A good example is Secret of the Silver Blades:

Why in hell you reviewed a genre you apperently dislike? You didn't want to read the manual carefully and probably don't understand anything about D&D RPG's. Secret of the Silver Blades was no milestone in gaming history, but you rated it with 8%. No wonder the review was only on a 1/4 page. You wrote 50-100 words and said nothing. Very ridiculous, but funny to read.

Final Fight got 82% !!!! on the same page, reviewed by Gary Penn. Another rating crime. It was a lousy conversion, compared to the technical abilities of the amiga. As i said before: The german mags like ASM or Powerplay were miles ahead.

http://amr.abime.net/review_280

[dlfrsilver]

this brings us to a statement, many magazines where not objective because if they were too hard when noting or reviewing the games, the publishers would have used some kind of retortion on the mag. that's why we have some games who got high marks in mags and then shut down by amigans/buyers in the shops. Just gary Bracey told me on Ocean experience forum that Rainbow islands even having excellent reviews, never had a blockbusters sells in shops.

You want to know the reason ? Steve Turner from Graftgold has explained the reason in the french magazine Joystick. it was "Ocean NEVER allowed us to used a second/third disks to include the latest islands, making the game unfinished. And we know andrew braybook has done a good job to convert the game. We have here a case where the publisher is surprised to see the game didn't do what he expected but he never had put up the little extra which made all the difference.

About final fight, it was utter crap, graphics were under what an amiga could offer and the reviewers were too kind with this game. in france the best mark it gets was 73% no more no less. And yes retro-nerd is right here, a game tester normally picks up the games he likes most not the ones he doesn't like.

About Rick dangerous, it got huge sales in france, 96% of guys having a computer had this game. why ? because of the humour, can stop laughing, funny graphics, good traps to avoid, etc.... You must use your brain in this game. If you run in the sack, then die ! Rick dangerous is so easy when each trap is defeated, and so nice to explore....Same apply for rick2 game is hard, but you have to sharp your skills, and that's excellent.

And to close that up lol, reviewers can say what they want about games. If we buyers say 'this game die' it dies ! We customers have the power to say 'go back home with your pile of crap' or ' hell, you've done a helluvah job!' and then the game sold very well.

I propose ya something, why not comparing the reviews of games done by our english reviewers friends, and those done by their french counterparts huh ?

here is the french test from Joystick hebdo n°38 september 1989

"The designers of this game wanted to recreate the indiana jones universes
by including huge humor doses between "bad sectors". It's important to say that this amiga version is a straight transcoding of the atari ST version without any modifications (those how neglects miggy will perish by it!)..... the levels to their concern, are not really original but seems efficients and enough so we want to see more of them. Rick Dangerous is a good little proggie that will become a pure passion for the most courageous of you."

check how he rated it, marks are not very high, but he has underlined how good the game is. The rest is a best-seller story in the shops.

[Codetapper]

Originally Posted by S. Campbell

And if we're talking mistakes, how many have we already had to correct for you on AMR...?

I'm not sure, is it 1 or 2? Not bad considering 35,000 reviews. The Dragon Ninja correction took ages to find because you said AP apologised in the next issue which was incorrect. AP didn't exactly announce the fact they/you cocked up either, it was hidden away 5 months after the review in the middle of the mag. I can't remember any other mistakes you have corrected in AMR but speak up if you have any!

Any idiot can make a judgement with a decade's-worth of hindsight.

I think most of us realised at the time Rick D was a slick, fun game with great sound and cartoon graphics and that Kid Gloves was a stinking pile of manure! We didn't need a decade to work that out, 5 mins gameplay was enough!

I've got 40,000 videogames. I've played videogames eight hours a day for the last 20 years.

Big deal, anyone can download the TOSEC collection and spout figures like 40,000 games. dlfrsilver and Dr Bong have more than 1,000 originals which is much more impressive than 40,000 downloaded cracked games. You know, those things that you magazine guys said were evil, killing the industry etc yet it's the only way you amassed your collection! Long live the pirates eh...

I completely agree with Retro-Nerd about Final Fight. The only decent thing was the music - which was not even mentioned in the review. 82% is a joke, the game slows to a crawl with multiple baddies, the graphics are terrible, the gameplay is unfair (when you get knocked down by a gang in certain positions, you can't get up as the instant your character does he is smacked down again), it's basically impossible to complete without the cheat etc. What the hell were AP thinking?

Speaking of lousy reviews, the Sim City review takes the cake. Why didn't you just get someone else to review it rather than this sloppy effort?

dlfrsilver: If we have the review data for French mags indexed we can do some nice comparisons. Send me a list of games or whatever else you think would make an interesting comparison.

[Retro-Nerd]

I've expected at least some brilliant written AP reviews, after reading all your uber ego statements in this thread, Stuart. But it seems there were no quality reviews made in this magazine.

This is probably the saddest conclusion of this thread.

For the Sim City review:

You weren't ashamed to write this useless text? It seems you didn't liked your job as a "professional reviewer".

[dlfrsilver]

dlfrsilver: If we have the review data for French mags indexed we can do some nice comparisons. Send me a list of games or whatever else you think would make an interesting comparison.

OK, i need to dig in AMR and french mags. I have anyway a big huge story
to tell you about a game test review in the TILT magazine. The game i'm talking about is Dynasty Wars from tiertex. There was at this time a reviewer called Acidric Briztou who took a huge anger against another reviewer of his magazine, saying how the hell can you give the 'hit' mention to Dynasty Wars? this game is a pile of shit, how do they dare to sell that 249 francs (around 24,99 pounds)? It's a pure rippoff, nothing is good in this game, graphics are rubbish, sound is utter crap, playability horrible.....
He then begins to smack off on strider, saying what a huge pile of shit it was. Alain huyghes-Lacour, his reviewer colleague said 'no, strider is quite good, i don't agree with you, etc.....
You see in this kind of problem that the objectivity of the reviewers was clearly driven by publishers (like if you bash our game, we remove the ads pages we have bought in your magazine to advertise....)

Here the full traduction about acidric Briztou :
"I have never told you how i'm led to give my opinion on one HIT game or another. In generally, everything happens this way : our programming specialist come to meet me meaning "hey look how crap this game is ahah" and i agree with him most of the time...
but here....it's not anymore a question of agreeing or not, it just a total laughin' time!
Is Alain huyghes-Lacour becoming crazy? i didn't review this DW game... But just by seeing the graphics, i just want to throw up until i can swim in it ! "No, impossible this can't be runnin' on Amiga, i can't believe that! i assure you that was my reaction when i saw this pile of crap. graphics seemed to look like Thomson MO6/TO8 graphics. Animation? are you kidding ? it doesn't exist ! Well, some ill-fated text elements movements are programmed, but it can't be called animation at all! This game ranked as a hit is nothing more than madness (this is sparta lool), giving it 14/20 for interest too. Some players will say that "gameplay is
priming on game mechanic". But here the overall programming is so crap, that the buyer
can't correctly play with the game, when the game's price is no less than 200 francs (20 pounds) when this so-said software is running on an Amiga, a 16/32 machine running quite fast, i just can shout that it's outrageous ! am i hard ? am i mean ? am i missing objectivity?
I have a huge rant and anger, and i'm going to far in my rights as a journalist? Yes, yes, yes
and yes !!! i'm revendicating this freedom ! Freedom to say that a Publisher editing such a thing is lowering down micro-computing developpement. freedom to shout my anger to see
this publisher leading people to piracy, because when you see such pile of crap, you don't have any other choice. Freedom at last to react as a technician seeing here a work unworthy of any human being calling himself a programmer !"

[Codetapper]

A full translation of that article into English would make a great trivia article for AMR if you are up for it! And I think Dynasty Wars is crap along with Strider (like all Tiertex games).

[dlfrsilver]

OK, let me do that work, i'll pull up the full article in english

[S. Campbell]

Originally Posted by Codetapper

I think most of us realised at the time Rick D was a slick, fun game

...illustrating my point perfectly, of course. Because it's total shit.

Rick Dangerous has lovely graphics (especially for that time in the Amiga's life), smooth movement and buckets of character. On playing it for the first time, it's easy to like it. Where skill is required is in seeing past the cuteness and spotting the abominable game design it conceals. Killing the player arbitrarily for doing something that worked on the previous screen is awful, awful design - and don't take my word for it, go and ask 1000 professional game designers and see what they tell you - and sadly it's the core (in fact, the only) facet of RD's gameplay. People who know what they're talking about spot that. Idiots go "Ooh, he's like a cute little Indiana Jones!" and as far as they're concerned that's the review done. It's lucky nobody here is reviewing games today, because you'd all be so blinded by the astonishing graphics that are commonplace now that you'd give everything about 350%.