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

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by Jope

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

Actually Amiga Outrun is consistent: play bad AND don't look anything like Outrun

[rabidgerry]

Originally Posted by Tigerskunk

Haha, that game looks awesome...

It's really enjoyable! Very violent.

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

I love it, I love the depraved bleakness of the urban environment and seedyness on offer. Guy masterbating in the corner WTF!!! Pissing on enemies

[d4rk3lf]

Whoever says Franko looks bad, should be banned from this site forever.
Most original graphics ever.
I don't care if it's intentional, or unintentional.

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

Whoever says Franko looks bad, should be banned from this site forever.
Most original graphics ever.
I don't care if it's intentional, or unintentional.

True it doesn’t look bad! It looks bloody horrendous! Seriously though it makes most 1987 games look like works of art!

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

True it doesn’t look bad! It looks bloody horrendous! Seriously though it makes most 1987 games look like works of art!

Hehe...

I basically agree... but I rarely saw that type of childish drawings in the game (where everyone competes with great graphics), and it makes it, somewhat original. It has it's charm.
You know.. I've heard a stories that couple of high-school Polish guys made a Citadel, a 3D game with very good graphics (and slow engine (but still... even knowing how to create ANY 3D engine for Amiga OCS requires great talent)).
These are also Polish guys.. and you see from the game itself... they didn't intend it to be deadly serious.. they probably did it, while they were drunk all the time... and what they achieved, is really (for me), great.
Somewhat graphics might replicate what state they were when they make these games.

Yes, it's horrible graphics, but it comes in league: "It's so bad, that it's good".

At least for me.

[Amigajay]

Of course not all games want to look serious, but regardless if you enjoy the game for what it is, and if it’s ‘charm’ or not….the graphics are of a amateur nature. What i call Deluxe Paint looking, something you ‘knock-up’ within 6 months of first getting your Amiga.

As i say early Amiga games have some of the same style, as graphics got more refined and professional through the years, obviously homemade games had this look as most PD/SW games were a 1/2 person job so the graphics were often done by the programmer too. So whilst this game would have probably been released as PD in the UK or Germany, in Poland were there was less commercial publishers it got published, and hence gets compared to other commercial games.

[rabidgerry]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

Hehe...

I basically agree... but I rarely saw that type of childish drawings in the game (where everyone competes with great graphics), and it makes it, somewhat original. It has it's charm.
You know.. I've heard a stories that couple of high-school Polish guys made a Citadel, a 3D game with very good graphics (and slow engine (but still... even knowing how to create ANY 3D engine for Amiga OCS requires great talent)).
These are also Polish guys.. and you see from the game itself... they didn't intend it to be deadly serious.. they probably did it, while they were drunk all the time... and what they achieved, is really (for me), great.
Somewhat graphics might replicate what state they were when they make these games.

Yes, it's horrible graphics, but it comes in league: "It's so bad, that it's good".

At least for me.

You surely know Citadel had a newer faster version come out a year or two ago right? Original guys worked on it.

Re-Skin Franco and you'd have a masterpiece. Like what they did with Giana Sisters SE. It plays way better than Final Fight original Amiga release. The moves are excellent and control well.

[Fiery Phoenix]

Fright Night & The Godfather looked great (both by Pete Lyon) but gameplay wise sucked (Godfather being the worse imho)

Ones that did not look too hot but played great, the PD game Tanx, Gravity Force & Floor 13

[Cobe]

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

Dont know why but I can still recall the taste of sauseges friend and I ate the evening we played Franko for the first time.
Its like listening to some bad copy of badly recorded demo tape. You can still admire the effort, how much 'soul' it has and how honest it is.

Fiat 126p(peglica) was iconic here too.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by 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 know what you mean, but I don't really think it's that in this case. I had those feelings back then, and I already was quite an experienced RPG player, who always had to cope with no manual since everything was pirated in my neck of woods. And I really wanted to love it too! It's true that Amiga mags scored it highly, but it could have been the case of having their heads turned by the gfx and general lack of competition. On PC, where there were likes of UUII already, the game fared and was reviewed much worse.

Still, I plan to revisit it again and try to give it a fair shake...I'm actually much more forgiving these days

Thinking about it reminded me about my actual Best Amiga Games Ever, which fits this thread perfectly. The SSI's Goldbox series (Pool Of Radiance et al) has very pedestrian gfx and nearly zero sfx, and yet is the pinnacle of CRPG gameplay for me (to this day).

[rabidgerry]

Originally Posted by Cobe

Dont know why but I can still recall the taste of sauseges friend and I ate the evening we played Franko for the first time.
Its like listening to some bad copy of badly recorded demo tape. You can still admire the effort, how much 'soul' it has and how honest it is.

Fiat 126p(peglica) was iconic here too.

Made it to 151 kills last night!

[sokolovic]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

Thinking about it reminded me about my actual Best Amiga Games Ever, which fits this thread perfectly. The SSI's Goldbox series (Pool Of Radiance et al) has very pedestrian gfx and nearly zero sfx, and yet is the pinnacle of CRPG gameplay for me (to this day).

Never played these back then but they seems indeed very much appreciated despite relatively simple gfx.
I should try one one day.

[copse]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

Thinking about it reminded me about my actual Best Amiga Games Ever, which fits this thread perfectly. The SSI's Goldbox series (Pool Of Radiance et al) has very pedestrian gfx and nearly zero sfx, and yet is the pinnacle of CRPG gameplay for me (to this day).

They stumbled onto a great abstraction where even with the sometimes clumsy but not terrible graphics it still created an unmatched pinnacle of CRPG gameplay. If you forced me to play a CRPG, it would be Pool of Radiance especially.

The 2d graphics. The little bits of story from the journals. The quasi 3d view when travelling. The top down view when in encounters. It all provides a good enough approximation of the D&D experience. And the comprehensive keyboard controls.

That's not to say that it couldn't be improved. I think there are some non-visual quality of life improvements that could be made in retrospect (configurable keys, removing some of the clunkiness, preventing overflow in the valuables past 16 bit field limits and so on).

It was sad IMO when the old developers did a kickstart for a more modern game in this spirit. I think a modern version of these games that didn't try to change much would get a lot of sales from fans of the older games, it's wide open.

[SquawkBox]

(Sir) Fred, looks great (at the time it did at least) and plays rather bad, same with Image Works' Brat
Not quite convinced DotC belongs here, same with Fright Night (though I am fine with people disliking the latter)

[Torti-the-Smurf]

Hmmm how about ...

MineRunner: Dosent look like much on a Screenshots but plays so freaking well and is so much fun.

Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo: Looks great as a Screenshot but runs and plays like absolute ... poo.

Looks can be deceiving

[SquawkBox]

A couple more : Onslaught & Raffles aka Inside Outing (pretty, yet jumbled up / dull gameplay).

[CCCP alert]

Lemmings looks shit for OCS chipset ability and is no more than a Mastertronic game, for losers with no taste. Even the music is rubbish.

Ditto SWOS piece of shit.

[Photon]

Agree with SotB [series?] and RD series. I think also Nebulus series has that problem of memorization and frustration.

Agree with Dragons Lair and similar - and this also points a little bit to Another World, and to a slightly lesser extent with its platform levels Flashback, which were mostly about the design and the world.

Originally Posted by CCCP alert

Shadow of the Beast being selected just points to people who are crap at actual arcade quality games.

Memorizing the pixel to stop on a horizontal axis to let the hidden spike up, timing punches onto flying eyeballs, repeat 1000 times, game ends.

Some arcade games are this shallow, yes. They too are horrible to play. In the arcade there was at least the pumping quarters thing, as a computer game it makes no sense. SotB displays a severe lack of ideas.

Bitmap Bros games Xenon 2 and Gods fit the bill I think, as does Stormlord I & II in my book.

Elite looks and sounds rather terrible on Amiga, but I think anyone who picked it up has average 50 hours in it. Partly due to the sim aspect, but also because it was a new intriguing idea. Same for Sim City and probably a few others - and I'm not a "simmy guy".

Lemmings is right up there when it comes to bad looks (it looks absolutely horrible and framerate and audio is terrible), but it was a fantastic new game idea! And you can still pick it up and play.

Amnios is marred by low framerate and too small screen, but uses HBR to great effect and has some things to do over pure mindless shooting.

Gravity-Force by Kingsoft has unimpressive graphics and sound, with all creativity put into crisp control and level progression. Master Blaster doesn't look as good as Dynablaster, but has many options and is better in some respects.

This reminds of PD (if allowed): "Atari 8-bit/Apple II" style game ideas by Activision were pretty solid, and PD conversions of the likes of HERO or Boulder Dash are still playable. These would normally look faithful to the originals, i.e. not Amiga and nice at all.

Many early games, which essentially means American games, suffered from great graphics and an overall terrible gameplay experience. I think of the Cinemaware games, only ICftD is really worth playing. Same for most early-ish Disney games. Ooh! The ultimate one would be Roger Rabbit

Any Dungeon Master-like title that made you click on little arrow icons to move instead of using keys must burn in hell ofc. What an arcane and silly idea. I would put Barbarian by Psygnosis in with them.

While we're slogging off talented and hard-working devs who rarely got to design their own games, I think some games by Titus and e.g. Premiere and other platformers like Nipper vs. the Kats fit the bill - nice gfx and actually technically good but not really a game there apart from a "collect'em up".

As you can hear, I'm passionate about things like this. Great thread actually!

My conclusion is though that in the end, graphics do matter! But at the same time, we kinda know which games we like - because we spent some time in them and return to them. (And not only to enjoy the awesome intro and play for five minutes, guilty as charged heh ) Those games have something for us.

[Megalomaniac]

Nebulus feels a bit too memory-test to me as well, even more so than Rick Dangerous if anything. At least Rick has some internal logic to it, you come to work out where the designers probably put a trap, and why. With Nebulus, time and again you can see two doors, with no clue that the floor to reach one is going to collapse when you step on them, or that there are bullets ready to hit you immediately on the other side of the door.

From an admittedly brief play, Another World feels like a shallow gameplay experience, and I think it's pretty short as well.

As for Shadow of the Beast, I'll quote myself from another thread:

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

The thing with Shadow of the Beast, for me - I didn't get very far in it. Please explain why I should care. The gameplay is repetitive and dull, and completely devoid of strategy (you can't even store the potions for later use), disk accessing is excessive, and by all accounts the first bit is the best looking anyway. It sold huge numbers of Amigas, and thus paved the way for some amazing games that no other system could have done as well, but even by 1992 it was just a museum piece that had been outdone by games that looked at least as good but had more gameplay to them.

I'm hopeless at Kick Off as well, but I'd rather put time into mastering that, as that actually has some evidence gameplay underneath it.

Gods isn't a game that's grabbed me, partly because it's so sluggish and the controls make it harder than it should be, at least has some depth and innovation. I'd rather put time into that than SOTB as well.

[CCCP alert]

Nebulus, on the C64 for sure, is quite a difficult game due to the time limit on top of everything else. Wouldn't say it's brutal, more like a NES game 'value for money' challenging type thing for a fake sense of 'value for money' to make the game's longevity longer due to challenging nature. I would imagine the Amiga port has no slowdown etc like the other 8bit versions of Nebulus. Had it on the ST and Amiga but not played it for decades except on a C64 to be fair though.

I see people are STILL crying over Beast 1 being too much for them, lol get over yourselves already FFS, deal with it lol