I was unfortunate enough to own outrun on cassette. Between laughable game play and horrific multi loads, this would have been my number one. Great video, Mr Xyphoe
There are some out there that argue OutRun shouldn't be in the top 10 ... their argument is that there are far worse games out there, and I get that.... but you have to weigh it up with the prestige of the licence and the expectation, and just how carelessly and sloppily US Gold handled it. They farmed it out to a relative young and unknown team, gave them a short deadline, and instead of going 'Sorry this isn't good enough' and going back and finding a better team or giving them more time to improve or whatever... they were more concerned in making money in the all important Xmas market and disappointing kids on Xmas morning. The BASTARDS!
I had Outrun and it was shocking. I remember it came with a cassette tape with the music from the arcade game, which I tried to listen to on my Walkman. The heartbreak was unreal…I wanted this game more that any other. The saddest part is that I went through a brief period where I tried to convince myself that I could maybe still enjoy the game. It didn’t last long. Out of all the games I bought in my life, this is the one that hurt the most.
The poor Amstrad CPC got a staggering amount of sub-par games compared to the other 8-bit micros, and yet it stayed on the market as long as it did. It lacked the sprites, scrolling and sound of the C64, and even Speccy ports were usually slower than the originals. There were OK or at least normal games out there, exceptional ones even, but by and large developers inexplicably (?) struggled with the machine back then, while at least the Speccy was often utilized at 100% of its potential.
On some occasions though CPC versions were the best: TLL, Amaurote, Rogue Trooper, Thanatos. Tau Ceti would be too if it weren't lagging so much on a stock CPC (fixable with emulators), in fact this game is better than Amiga's version.
Now that's exactly my kind of video! I wholeheartedly enjoyed the extensive, lovingly ranty reviews and the verdicts. As already mentioned in the comments, I think the glorious Airwolf should have definitely been on the list, maybe instead of Outrun. What a disaster of a game! And I cannot but feel sad that we didn't get Auf Wiedersehen Pet and A-Team for our CPCs!
Sadly there was no Auf Wiedersehen Pet on the Amstrad :( It was recently that someone requested it and we went looking on all the sites during the stream - but alas, it was not released! And cheers Retro Rant! I did very well with not swearing there I think! Oh apart from one that I had to bleep out! xD I'm kicking myself for not putting Airwolf in the 'dishonourable mentions'. But to be honest, despite it's awfulness there's far worse.
@@Xyphoe Oh, damn! Maybe some (masochistic) member of the awesome CPC homebrew community can correct this historical injustice and try to port it over to the Amstrad?! Even though I seriously doubt anyone could manage to get all aspects of this delicious stinker right (=wrong).
Wish I had found this video far sooner... A Friend of mine once came up with the "Bridge-It game of the year award" for any game that had to be from a major publisher that only barely qualified as a Game... OUT RUN (Before I even watch the Video) was one of the winners! The only reason any of us bought that heap of shite was teh free arcade soundtrack cassette! (And I was also a member of BCA and got 5 games for £1.99 - Out Run was one I chose not knowing how bad it was...)
I'd put Airwolf as the worst game on the CPC. A game where it's nigh on impossible to get past the third screen. Was it playtested? Wholeheartedly agree with Outrun, the lcd tiger handheld thing moved faster than the cpc version.
It just missed out on the top 10 - although perhaps I really should have put that and BMX Ninja in the 'dishonourable mentions' at the end of the vid... but there were soooo many bad games!
You have to remember Airwolf came out 1984/1985 for the Amstrad, so early days and to be honest - for most people's initial impressions they thought it was allright - the graphics and music were better than a lot of games from that time. We just assumed it was way to difficult ... not knowing until years later how it was unfinished and impossible to complete!
Hi Xy, love this video, although I miss some of these: - Miami Vice - Airwolf - Breakthru - Winter Sports - Knight Rider Keep up your great work and see ya tomorrow on the Amstream!
Hey Manuel! Great suggestions! I'll reply in turn for each of them - - Miami Vice - I absolutely hated this. Especially controlling the car, which is a shame as it's fairly ambitious with it's crime solving gameplay and the graphics are OK for the time. There's a decent game in there if they could have just fixed those dreadful controls. - Airwolf - hmm yea this is being brought up a lot in comments since this video. Strangely before that it wasn't suggested too much. Most people I think, thought over time, that it was just 'too difficult, but it has really nice graphics and music'. It's only in later years that it was found just how short the game is and it was unfinished / impossible to complete properly! So yea, it just missed the list. There's a challenge here for hardcore gamers. - Breakthru - this was definitely in my list I was scoring, it is an absolutely pathetic amateurish conversion. There are some who defend it (a little) though. It's terrible, but not *that* terrible I feel. - Winter Sports - someone else mentioned this one in the comments, it's one that was never suggested before though and one I haven't played. I think we'll check this out when winter comes around.... - Knight Rider - yea this is crap. The 2 gameplay sections are I suppose competently made, they're just dull, boring and easy to beat. This one was just not quite crap enough to make it on this video! But it's close!
Im here before it starts, i hope world cup [???] was in there, on the commodore it was half decent, but on the 464 the players looked like wombles. One of the only games where i literally threw the tape across the room...
I would of put Green Beret in there for sure. I could almost forgive the scrolling if it wasn't for the horrible collision detection. It was a big game at the time too.
I was actually sorry that the video finished. I wanted to see more of this trash. Also, have you tried "Basun"? That one is a dumpster fire too. Thanks for uploading.
I had never heard of or played Basun before. I now have. Hmmm!!! Well... I kinda like the graphics and sprites, and they move really fast and smoothly. But I'm baffled by the game. Sometimes the switch to lower the rope in the 1st room works, other times for other soldiers nothing happens. When I reach a room with an enemy solider - I'm spamming the fire button and sometimes he shoots ... sometimes he does nothing. Really confused by it!!
@@Xyphoe All I know is that it is a very difficult feat to complete it. I think it has to be done deathless because of some kind of bug, but I'm not really sure. Anyway, happy to be of service. "Enjoy"!
There is a literal rubbish Amstrad game called "trashman" where you basically have to do a bin collection round. A friend of mine was bought it for Xmas. Bionic Commando is awful as well.*Speccy port. It was Xmas misery at my friends house. Oh! and "Gatecrasher" another Amsoft flop.
You make some really solid points at the start. In 1984 games were basic and the CPC was new, games were not aiming high and often fell short. Really important to not compare them equally to 1992 games. I watched this with fear in case you put Caudron II in. I'd have been down to take your CPC away if you had. Roland on the Run should have gone on there though!
Yup and people were still learning how to code for the 464 and what you could do with it. There's amazing new techniques being discovered in recent years that none of even the biggest coders of the commercial era found even by the mid-90's. I'm glad you agreed there, I spent way to long with spreadsheets trying to weigh this up fairly. Some people's ideas of what should be there can be quite odd - just look at that CPC Wiki thread with people asking for games like Barbarian II to be put in there! www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/games/worst-ever-amstrad-cpc-games/ And yes I was tempted to put Cauldron II in there for a laugh ;) I bloody hate that game, technically it's got some talent behind it I can't deny. Roland On The Run got a dishonourable mention at the end though!
@@Xyphoe If you want to do another like this you could do flawed games - games that you're frustrated ended up being terrible but nearly weren't. That's where you might put Cauldron II.
Two pocket money killers for me was something like Kata Judo , still have no idea , no instructions in the cassette case and i still have have no idea was it combat fighter or a training guide The other was Schiphol atc which might have been a real ATC program to train people in ATC towers, flashy box graphics on loading got a green screen with dots and 2 letter, i guess plane ID codes which to a 10 year old was absolutely confusing, again not a jot of instruction in the case nor anywhere to be found on screen .
Outrun : my 12 years old self is still sored at spending a month's worth allowance on that crap....frankly after that i had no qualms about using oddjob/discology if you catch my drift.
I'm actually super impressed by the graphics on pitfighter, that's way more impressive than I could have imagined.... though yeah it looks like playing it is a nightmare.
Lol! What's your beef with Cilla Black? 😂 My most hated game was The Fear: Storm II. Could never get far on it, though I liked the attractive lady on the case. Would love to see a playthrough.
Cilla? See my reply to Jermyn78's comment. Sadly she was a nasty piece of work :( I thought it was pretty common knowledge now. And yus, I really disliked both Storm games!!
Surprised Highlander wasn't there or View to a Kill, good list but there could have definitely been more licensed tosh, especially Highlander considering the back story to that particular pile of crap lol
I have a bit of soft spot and fondness for A View To A Kill especially the Mines level! lol I spent hours exploring that as a kid. But it's going to be featured in a big way very soon on the channel...
Qabbalah could be a candidate for worst game on the CPC. Mind numbingly slow and pretty much impossible to actually do anything. Half decent graphics are its only saving grace...
There is something about Pit Fighter on the Amstrad. I just think it's how ambitious they have tried to be. I also didn't think Outrun was that bad. Disappointing yes. I'd also stick up for Super Space Invaders despite the messy graphics and Altered Beast with it's very low frame rate
But but... Super Space Invaders is so slow and laggy! How is that possible with one of the simplest games of all time! :D Altered Beast is so slow it's unplayable.
@@Xyphoe Classic Invaders does play much better than Super Space Invaders. Maybe I was impressed they were trying to do a little bit more with Space Invaders ( loads of clones about at the time ). With Altered Beast I think they tried to replicate the arcade too closely and it was probably the usual rush job. They needed to take a step back and see that the gameplay was far too slow. One of my picks would be V. Especially compared to C64 and ZX Spectrum. What went on with the main sprite?
There is a literal rubbish Amstrad game called "Trashman" where you basically have to do a bin collection round. A friend of mine was bought it for Xmas. Bionic Commando is awful as well.*Speccy port. It was Xmas misery at my friends house. Oh! and "Gatecrasher" another Amsoft flop.
See my reply to Jermyn in the comments! I thought it was pretty common knowledge now that she was truly dreadful person that was mean and nasty to everyone but her closest showbiz pals. Plenty of verified stories about her to dig up on the net.
Oh I'm sorry dude :( It does really suck when celebs / film stars / musicians we've looked up to over years turn out to be arseholes. There's certain bands I used to really like that I just can't stand listening to any more due to what they're really like as people. :\ It should be just about the music I know.... but it still taints it.
Still after all these years I remember the disappointment that was Out Run. Gutted when I played that over Christmas 87. Another awful coin up conversion that should make it on the list was Typhoon. Dreadful graphics, random collision detection and sound that forced you to mute the game, truly terrible. Arcade was great, another conversion disappointment though.
YES!! Absolutely agreed on Typhoon. Utterly appalling. I certainly wanted it in the list, but it appears hardly anyone owned, played or knows about it so it didn't really appear in any polls or lists I was conducting. I think Ocean silently buried this one back in the day.
I remember that I wanted to buy Winter Games but couldn't find it. I ended up with "Winter Sports" by Electric Dreams, which from the outside looked like a decent winter games style game - but turned out to be my biggest disappointment ever. A Speccy port at its worst. Slow, sluggish, bad controls, bad grafics, almost no sound - some events can barely be played. And of course full price - christmas money down the drain. The controls are so bad that even Zeusdaz gave up for a "Shit Game" review as he didn't manage to play the events for the video.
Oooh I don't think I've played Winter Sports! Come December time I think I might have a look at all the multi-sport winter based games! That will be included....
@@Xyphoe you probably never played it, I am sure you would remember. ;-) Especially Biathlon is bad... I never figured out how I could really move at a good speed and so every screen took minutes to complete.
I've thought of another terrible game that missed this list - _Atomik_ by FIL. It's a French _Breakout_ clone released in 1988 and it's another game that looks and plays like it's written in BASIC (but it isn't). The graphics and gameplay are utterly woeful!
Plenty to read about her on the net! popbitch.com/2015/08/black-out/ forums.digitalspy.com/discussion/1767356/is-cilla-black-the-most-unpleasant-person-in-showbiz etc etc
Wow you hated Popeye? There's a quite a bit of love for that game around, not so much for Psycho Hopper though - but it does get requested a fair bit on Amstreams and stuff... what is it you hated about both games? :)
@@Xyphoe I just found Popeye terribly clunky and slow. I have played it in recent years and not found it so bad, but I hated it back in the day. With Psycho Hopper I found it too hard to control, I've not played it recently, I should give it a go.
@@8-BitRach I think I did a stream thingy a long time ago trying to beat Popeye (pretty sure I eventually did), and I now remember getting terribly frustrated with it not doing what I wanted it to! xD
Have you ever played LA Swat? It is a bad Commando clone, it's maximum frame rate is about 3FPS, it looks absolutely terrible, it has no sound, it's a bad game, and it crashes about five minutes into it on every copy. It's the worst game I've played I think. SORRY, I didn't see the review before I typed this!!!
Oh my... Some of the games here were awful! XD One of the worst games I had on my CPC was a platformer called Dwarf. Its scrolling was... Fabulous! XD A small word about Pit Fighter though. You said that the digitised GFX were too much for the CPC to handle. Granted this kind of GFX asked for massive VRAM, yet Bob Winner had digitised GFX, was gorgeous and playable ;)
I'd never seen Dwarf before, but just watched a little video on RU-vid.... wow that is slow and terrible frame rate. Kinda like the graphics though! Bob Winner... wasn't that the same thing as Prince Of Persia? ie they filmed the movements, replayed them back and traced the character? I don't think this is proper digitised graphics... though I might be wrong.
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