ketmar wrote: ↑Mon May 06, 2024 2:52 am
there is no reason to pretend that Batty will not win, so i will simply do the obvious thing, and choose Batty…
Yep, same here, no guilt when the game is just that incredibly good.
And so...
1)
Batty. The best Breakout clone on the Speccy, no exception. Yes, even better than both Arkanoids (and that is saying something). Still absolutely jaw-dropping that Elite only found this suitable for a volume two edition of six games (the rest being rereleases) and gave it to a magazine as a covertape item. A terrible commercial decision, which you could tell they regretted as it got a £2.99 rerelease on the Encore label (twice the price you could obtain it from YS two years prior and you don't even get the magazine), but Elite's strategic clanger was certainly a beautiful win for us magazine buyers. Batty is absolutely smooth, the graphics are brilliantly defined and it makes such great use of the Speccy's colour palette. You effectively got it for fifty pence. That's still astounding.
2)
Moley Christmas. The first Speccy magazine I bought had this taped to the cover. I'd never played any Monty Mole game before, I wasn't sure what was going on and never could get off that first screen for years, but I absolutely loved it anyway. Eventually I managed to complete it without cheating, the only Monty Mole game I've completed that way. It's got a nice 'meta' story, you're literally in the tape duplicators ensuring the covertape is being made! Yes, it may be a short game and has the feel of a playable demo of a bigger game but it's truly enjoyable. Could easily have made the grade as mid-price or premium budget. You can tell it's there to hype the Monty Mole series as a whole and it's made from the same engine as Auf Wiedersehen Monty (with the same AY music), which is the best Monty game by far. This is where the franchise should have ended instead of the dreadful Impossamole.
3)
People From Sirius. Okay, I don't exactly have a huge love for this or many of the others. While I was pretty terrible at it, the graphics and animation are top notch. Again, I'm baffled as to why this was relegated to being a covertape giveaway but grateful for it. This was a golden age for the YS covertapes which were becoming ever more frequent, with an exclusive covergame from well-known software houses. Blind Panic by Martech was pretty damned good, but this pips it to my third-place pick.
I'd have Blind Panic in fourth place, but also really love the unreleased (commercially) Bobby Yazz Show. Stinkers? It has to be the stuff from Players - utter dreck all the time. Yeah, Players really contributed a lot in exclusive and back catalogue assets to the covertapes, but not much of it was any good.