Ivanhoe (Amiga), 11 programmers on it but is the end result good?!

[ZEUSDAZ]

This weeks edition of "Shit Game Time" is Ivanhoe on the Amiga.


This game had 11 programmers working on it and the result?!,...a small play area, terrible frame rate on the characters, awful control system resulting in lack of playability, rather lame in-game music and a high retail asking price as a cherry on the top, I'm not surprised this game has been requested to go into the vault of shitness but am surprised it took so long.

Most magazines gave this a pretty low "meh" rating who felt my exact thoughts above, this was done by Ocean France.

In still the game art look great but as soon as it moves,.... this reminds me of many Amstrad games ,...no really I'm serious!

This has been requested by youtuber "LifeSchool" who personally feels this is an appauling game for the asking price back in the day.


IVANHOE "SGT" VIDEO REVIEW: [ Show youtube player ]

[VladR]

Originally Posted by ZEUSDAZ

This game had 11 programmers working on it and the result?!,...a small play area, terrible frame rate on the characters, awful control system resulting in lack of playability, rather lame in-game music

Where did you get the figure of 11 from ? Maybe it's 11 people total including artists ?

I've only watched the vid briefly, but struggle to comprehend how would you divide the coding work into 11 coders on such game. Artists ? Sure, split all environments accordingly, but this is definitely not a programmer's art here.

I can see 3, maybe 4 (1xaudio, 1xcombat gameplay, 1xscrolling engine,1xthe rest), but 11 ?!? WTF


Does the game offer different styles of minigames/screens - kinda like Raid Over Moscow, where you could split the work by letting everybody work on their specific screen/minigame ?

[Photon]

Some games, especially French ones, updated the screen only when an animation frame changes. This usually results in a terrible experience. IDK if there was some engine that was used in many games, for me to associate it with French games. I guess the best example is the action scenes of North & South, and the one where you're in a prison and peel potatoes, I forget the name but very funny gfx

Some very weird moments in the video, looking like the player is in 3 different spots all over the screen at the same time. And hack'n'slashers/fight and go rights have to be really good to be good, if they're not really good they're basically infuriating crap. Black Tiger/Dragon and Rastan arcade are really good but too tough, so they're crap to play really. :P

[VladR]

The vid shows the credits screen and there's only 5 (not 11) coders listed there.

I certainly love the gfx design. Some environments are actually charming and it's 2024. This must have looked gorgeous BITD, no ?

[TCD]

Originally Posted by VladR

The vid shows the credits screen and there's only 5 (not 11) coders listed there.

Yep. HOL & Lemon both have those five listed as coders and Moby has only three.

[DanyPPC]

I think it's an ST conversion.

[Thorham]

That music

[dirkies]

Originally Posted by Photon

the one where you're in a prison and peel potatoes, I forget the name but very funny gfx

Bobo!

[ Show youtube player ]

[kremiso]

Ivanhoe brings back memories
i have completed this 3 frames game (walk, jump and slash) a couple of times bitd

there was some amosphere afterall

[Megalomaniac]

11 people are credited on it according to LemonAmiga, though that includes Bob Wakelin who (as ever) just did the box art. Three 'Master Programmers' (one more than on the ST version) and two 'Programmers' (same number as the ST , though one is different) among them. Bit like saying a football team has 11 goalkeepers. Still a lot for the time, even something as epic as It Came From the Desert only credits 6 people.

Amusing that the Hit Squad reissue gives Amiga Action's graphics score (83%) rather than the overall review score (57%). Couldn't they have quoted from CU Amiga/64's 80% review?

Comparisons with Shadow of the Beast are obvious, though Ivanhoe is light and comic where Beast is dark and brooding. Both have lovely still graphics, in different ways, but Beast is much better animated, and arguably has better music. Ivanhoe has more moves and some weapon upgrades though, and more enemies on screen at a time. Both seriously tough, and both with quite long loading gaps. Averages just over 5 on Lemon, which from a brief play feels about right.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by Photon

Some games, especially French ones, updated the screen only when an animation frame changes. This usually results in a terrible experience. IDK if there was some engine that was used in many games, for me to associate it with French games. I guess the best example is the action scenes of North & South, and the one where you're in a prison and peel potatoes, I forget the name but very funny gfx

Some very weird moments in the video, looking like the player is in 3 different spots all over the screen at the same time. And hack'n'slashers/fight and go rights have to be really good to be good, if they're not really good they're basically infuriating crap. Black Tiger/Dragon and Rastan arcade are really good but too tough, so they're crap to play really. :P

Let me answer : not enough sprite frames due to the game spec (512kb).

This is why the animations seems to be very poor and bad. With this quality of graphics, you need lots of frames to have a smooth animation.

The refreshing during animations change doesn't explain 100% why it looks so bad.

[acidbottle]

I remember the game well, friend had bought the boxed version on the strength of the nice visuals.

The game was badly designed though and suffered from what many an old game does, a ludicrous difficulty curve. No point having the best graphics when the average gamer would only see a portion of them.

Not totally shit but missed out being a cult favourite due to difficulty I would say.

[VladR]

Originally Posted by acidbottle

The game was badly designed though and suffered from what many an old game does, a ludicrous difficulty curve. No point having the best graphics when the average gamer would only see a portion of them.

Not totally shit but missed out being a cult favourite due to difficulty I would say.

Is there no difficulty setting at all ?

[Oriens]

The game did not involved 11 programmers.
A minimum research on mobygames show the reel developper team : https://www.mobygames.com/game/13810...credits/amiga/
The programmers names also appear on title screen.

[Fiery Phoenix]

Some of the reviews of this game - 97% for the Atari ST version! lol (Generation 4) and 90% for the Amiga (Joystick 6)

The usually a little more respectable CU Amiga still gave it 80%, at least it calls out the animation, the comments actually indicate what would normally be a lower score, calling it boring and repetitive, not something that would normally indicate an 80% score

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by Fiery Phoenix

Some of the reviews of this game - 97% for the Atari ST version! lol (Generation 4) and 90% for the Amiga (Joystick 6)

The usually a little more respectable CU Amiga still gave it 80%, at least it calls out the animation, the comments actually indicate what would normally be a lower score, calling it boring and repetitive, not something that would normally indicate an 80% score

Marks at the time were tricked. Simply because the publisher bought pages of advertisement.

[Megalomaniac]

11 of the other 16 games reviewed in that issue of CU got more than 80%, which is ridiculously generous. I know the quality of Amiga games was improving at this time, but was everything really that good? You hear horror stories of bribes over review scores, but in fairness Activision got an 87% and an 88% in the previous issue, and a 62% for Hot Rod that month, so it can't've only been that. There are games which got good reviews from most mags that we generally don't think deserve them, but there are others from the same companies at the same times which scored much worse.

[Fiery Phoenix]

Yeah well known practice or threats of no exclusives ore review copies of future games....but - least make the score believable! 97% FFS!

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

Marks at the time were tricked. Simply because the publisher bought pages of advertisement.

No. So that 97% score of Zool in Amiga Action was... baloney? I can't believe it!

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by gimbal

No. So that 97% score of Zool in Amiga Action was... baloney? I can't believe it!

I'm talking only for games that were average or bad.

Very good games are not concerned.....

Some magazines testers/journalists confessed about this......