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flameboy

Games you remember for anything but the gameplay!

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So yeah the title says it all...games you remember for being great but not because of their great gameplay/gameplay mechanics....So be it stunning graphics, fantastic story, great boxart anything like that but lacked in being a game. This was inspired by RetroLink who mentioned how much he loved the Headhunter soundtrack...

 

Mine has to be Rise of the Robots at the time it looked incredible, great looking graphics and interesting premise (I was obsessed with cyborgs etc... as a kid having watched Terminator at like 8 or something!) easily better looking that both Streetfighter and Mortal Kombat, yet it was a total turd of game, didn't stop me buying it on the Amiga and hating it instantly and feeling robbed of my birthday money.

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Metal gear solid has to be one. It did however have great gameplay though.

 

the gamecube version kinda messed up the gameplay though.

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the gamecube version kinda messed up the gameplay though.

 

Kinda, it broke that game big time.

 

Crysis and Farcry and Farcry 2 all come to mind. Very pretty but not really substantial gameplay.

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Ghostbusters 2 on the Spectrum 48k. The first level had you been lowered down into the sewer systerm shaft to try and get a sample of slime from the river below.

 

It was tough as nails, had awful Red coloured graphics and everytime I failed (never did make it past that level) you had to rewind the tape to reload the level again.

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Ghostbusters 2 on the Spectrum 48k. The first level had you been lowered down into the sewer systerm shaft to try and get a sample of slime from the river below.

 

It was tough as nails, had awful Red coloured graphics and everytime I failed (never did make it past that level) you had to rewind the tape to reload the level again.

 

I vividly remember this from the C64. Fantastic. :grin:

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Kinda, it broke that game big time.

 

Crysis and Farcry and Farcry 2 all come to mind. Very pretty but not really substantial gameplay.

 

I thought Farcry 2 was pants in all regards.

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There was 1 environment though, and the explosions looked damned awful.

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I thought Farcry 2 was pants in all regards.

 

The sense of community and all the scripted events/effects in the opening cutscene were great. Shame that everything they showed you wasn't part of the proper game.

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Great topic!

 

Barbarian: The Ultimate Warrior (Spectrum, Commodore, Amstrad, ...)

 

[ATTACH]3223[/ATTACH]

 

I've never played this game. I don't even want to. It looks like a pretty simple 2D fighting game. There is one reason (maybe two) I remember this game so well which is probably the same reason it sold so well! It stirred a lot of controversy at the time. Google it if you have no idea what I'm talking about.

 

 

Revs (BBC Micro)

 

[ATTACH]3226[/ATTACH]

 

It's a no-frills F3 racing game that seems about as basic as you can get. When the game has loaded, you're there in the driving seat, engine running. No title screen, no options, no nothing, except a block of black in front of you with green bits to the side. No other cars either.

 

That alone makes it somewhat memorable, but I remember it mainly for the controls and learning difficulty.

 

Believe me when I say that it takes about an hour of experimentation to get past the first bend. The handling feels like you're driving a block of ice across a frozen lake. Turn left or right, and 99 times out of that first hundred, the back wheels will spin away from you. Crash, start again. It's a game where reaching a fast speed is a genuine moment of exhiliration because you'll be driving so cautiously the rest of the way.

 

 

Flashback (Amiga, SNES, Megadrive, ...)

 

[ATTACH]3225[/ATTACH]

 

The gameplay was so so, IMO. It borrowed successfully from Prince of Persia and was fun in places. What made it an incredible game for me was the atmosphere, presentation and sound, which elevated the whole gameplay experience significantly. It's a great example of how to do a sci-fi game well.

 

 

The game was noted for its ingenious use of the BBC's hardware in achieving its display: such was the difficulty in squeezing the game into the BBC's limited memory, part of the game code actually occupied part of the screen memory - whilst this would ordinarily have been distractingly visible, timer-based manipulation of the BBC's display palette had the effect of turning all the 'code pixels' blue - thus hiding it in the game's sky!

 

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Great topic!

 

Barbarian: The Ultimate Warrior (Spectrum, Commodore, Amstrad, ...)

 

[ATTACH]3223[/ATTACH]

 

I've never played this game. I don't even want to. It looks like a pretty simple 2D fighting game. There is one reason (maybe two) I remember this game so well which is probably the same reason it sold so well! It stirred a lot of controversy at the time. Google it if you have no idea what I'm talking about.

 

 

Revs (BBC Micro)

 

[ATTACH]3226[/ATTACH]

 

It's a no-frills F3 racing game that seems about as basic as you can get. When the game has loaded, you're there in the driving seat, engine running. No title screen, no options, no nothing, except a block of black in front of you with green bits to the side. No other cars either.

 

That alone makes it somewhat memorable, but I remember it mainly for the controls and learning difficulty.

 

Believe me when I say that it takes about an hour of experimentation to get past the first bend. The handling feels like you're driving a block of ice across a frozen lake. Turn left or right, and 99 times out of that first hundred, the back wheels will spin away from you. Crash, start again. It's a game where reaching a fast speed is a genuine moment of exhiliration because you'll be driving so cautiously the rest of the way.

 

 

Flashback (Amiga, SNES, Megadrive, ...)

 

[ATTACH]3225[/ATTACH]

 

The gameplay was so so, IMO. It borrowed successfully from Prince of Persia and was fun in places. What made it an incredible game for me was the atmosphere, presentation and sound, which elevated the whole gameplay experience significantly. It's a great example of how to do a sci-fi game well.

 

 

The game was noted for its ingenious use of the BBC's hardware in achieving its display: such was the difficulty in squeezing the game into the BBC's limited memory, part of the game code actually occupied part of the screen memory - whilst this would ordinarily have been distractingly visible, timer-based manipulation of the BBC's display palette had the effect of turning all the 'code pixels' blue - thus hiding it in the game's sky!

 

 

I agree totally with all those choices. I owned one of the Barbarian games on my BBC Micro along with Revs! Barbarians was up there with Pitfighter and Rise of the Robots as a good awful fighting game! Also I loved flashback at the time for its cinematic qualities but found it somewhat lacking in terms of its mechanics, frustrating running and jumping controls being a start.

Edited by flameboy

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Flashback was... man! First time I played it I was about 11 years old, and the only reason I picked it from a mate's pile of games was because of the name and cartridge cover thing. Loved teh music, the eerie storyline, the bizarre nature of it all. I'm sure I got no further than some sort of level set in a TV show which had robots coming after me, or something...

 

Hunchback on the gameboy, because i had the game for about 4 years before I managed to even realise how you swam, and probably another year before I got to the 2nd level. I just remember loving the art and the music and taking absolutely forever to get any good at it.

 

World Cup '94 on the master system. Because I learned how to do an unstoppable goal, and because you could set it to real-time, which led to me playing the game to see how many goals I could score in 90 mins only to find after about 25 that the counter couldn't go past 99. To not waste the games time I decided to score 99 own goals.

 

I think I'm probably still this easily amused.

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I think this is a great game still...

 

I'm not saying that the gameplay isn't great, just that I don't remember it that well. It's mainly the style I remember.

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I'm not saying that the gameplay isn't great, just that I don't remember it that well. It's mainly the style I remember.

 

yeah I wasn't arguing that you didn't think it was good lol. I was just backing it up by saying also a great game but yeah when people think of the game its the graphical style more than anything else.

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Ghostbusters 2 on the Spectrum 48k. The first level had you been lowered down into the sewer systerm shaft to try and get a sample of slime from the river below.

 

It was tough as nails, had awful Red coloured graphics and everytime I failed (never did make it past that level) you had to rewind the tape to reload the level again.

Fuck, I had that. The only time I got to saw later levels was when you left it running at the beginning and it gave you a demo.

 

Going down the sewer shaft was alright, but getting back up was nigh on impossible.

Flashback (Amiga, SNES, Megadrive, ...)

The gameplay was so so, IMO. It borrowed successfully from Prince of Persia and was fun in places. What made it an incredible game for me was the atmosphere, presentation and sound, which elevated the whole gameplay experience significantly. It's a great example of how to do a sci-fi game well.

I remember this game being so "realistic" when I first played it, the movements were just so fluid and sexy.

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Sonic R. That ridiculously cheesy music.

 

Hahaha, oh God yes. Even as a naive child I understood that Sonic R's soundtrack was somehow laughable, but that wouldn't stop pulling out the moves to "everybody's super sonic racin'!"

 

Speaking of games from my childhood, two games always stick in my mind that in hindsight probably weren't that special, Cool Spot and Zool on the Amiga. They always seemed like the games I wouldn't be afraid to talk about in the playground just for the coolness factor, and considering the two games were just big advertisements it's a testament to their success that I still remember them that way. I still have the Chuppa Chups logo engrained in my psyche to this day.

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NiGHTS: Journey Of Dreams (Wii)

because it was NiGHTS. Looked great in screenshots, had nice story, decent music...then tried playing it. Framerate from hell made it unplayable.

 

Sonic R. That ridiculously cheesy music.

"You make me want to surviiiiiiiiiiiiive!" Funny enough, this is 1 of the few games that still holds up graphically on the Saturn & doesn't look horribly pixellated. Impossible to control tho.

 

Shatter (PS3)

Amazing soundtrack (bought it off the website before I'd even finished listening to it!) Game got really good reviews, but i just didn't get the gameplay - seemed quite mundane.

 

Castlevania: Lament of Innocence (PS2)

Great atmosphere and story, with 1 of the best soundtracks ever (i'd say on a par with SCIV on the SNES). Gameplay was repetitive & quite frustrating, but still enjoyed playing through it.

Broadcast Yourself
Audio

Broadcast Yourself
Audio

 

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (NES)

- for its 2-colour digitised Obi Wan face popping up and saying "LUUUUUKE!" in really low quality.

1110814774-01.png

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I vividly remember this from the C64. Fantastic. :grin:

 

The original still stands in my memory. It was the first game I played on my brand new c64 back in xmas '91. Took ten minutes to start the thing, as it loaded you got to play a space invaders rip-off, then you were treated to the awesome theme tune played out via the sid chip, and to cap it off it had speech. Actual speech on a c64. Oh yes. Awesome. Even if it was incredibly digitised.

 

"he slimed me..."

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Haha that game was stupid. The space invaders was the best thing about it because there was something to do during the c64 (tape) games' 15 minute load times for once.

 

But once you started playing, it all seemed to go pretty well, you got the hang of building up your car and capturing ghosts.

 

Then the gatekeeper and keymaster appeared on the map, you couldn't do shit to stop them meeting up, marshmallow man appears and destroys a block and it's game over.

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Tiny Toon Adventures Just seemed so fun to me visual wise

 

tiny%20toon%20adventures%20-%20buster%20busts%20loose!-1.jpg

 

Buster Busts Loose was a great little game- I was just talking about it with some friends the other night. I think the American footy level is my favourite but its a tough call to make. It was great the way the levels were longer if you were playing on a harder difficulty! I have the little jingle for when you clear a bonus level on my mobile phone. :grin:

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Tiny Toon Adventures Just seemed so fun to me visual wise

 

tiny%20toon%20adventures%20-%20buster%20busts%20loose!-1.jpg

 

I still think it looks amazing graphics wise!

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