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Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2003 7:41 pm
by Iain
Dooh! But with CCS you can use your mouse to emulate the paddles!!

Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2003 12:13 am
by ThrustLevel10
Well, I downloaded Arkanoid and just played it, and cant remember what all the fuss was about. I also just downloaded head-over-heals and played it for 1 1/2 hours. I guess some games are just quality.

Now heres a point: I have never played Krakout.
Why? The side-by-side reviews. It looks a bit uglier, and got a much lower mark. But from the comments in the thread, maybe I missed out? (time to rectify this right now!!)

Now WHO IS TO BLAME for this?? GP?, JR? I want B L O O D !!

People people, are we not missing the real point here. Remember the zzap rrap an issue or two later.. Muchos complaints!! Read the reviews of Arkanoid and Krakout again.. Both mention the original Breakout. The review for Arkanoid (if memory serves) calls it a classic arcade game. Yet the Krakout review says that Breakout is an out of date game format..??!!??

WTF??

Now this MUST have been brown envelope time at the zzap!64 towers. If I had written Krakout, and read the review of my "average game, based on an out of date arcade machine" next to the Arkanoid review, "an excellent game based on a classic.." I wouldnt need the 2nd man on the grassy knoll to get the job done.

SHAME ON YOU BOYS!!

Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2003 9:07 pm
by Lloyd Mangram
Well, yes, I totally agree with you 'Thrustlevel10'!
Shame on them! Err, Shame on Gaz actually!
As I said before, in The Games Machine issue 1 they also got reviewed both, and Krakout got a mere 51%, while Arkanoid got away with 89%. You know who was the editor: Gary Penn.
So we know who's to blame, grrrr!
Same thing with Delta btw.
(I get back on that one later)
Ta!
Rob

Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2003 12:19 pm
by SLF
Another one which was heavily underrated is Wonderboy in Monsterland.

I liked the coin-op back then (anything with shops in it, I s'pose...) and was waiting for Zzap!64 review of the c64 conversion. Then they gave it (issue 59, March 1990) 68%. I said OK then, I won't buy it.

Now that I got to play it I must say it's a very well done conversion, which captures the feel of the coin-op, with the shops, secret gold spots, different weapons, adventure overtones, practically all the levels and very nice jolly catchy tunes (I'm whistling one or two right now). All this at the mere cost of a quite hefty (but not the worst in the world) multiload and small (but still decent) gfx. And it plays really well.
So in my book this probably should have sizzled, but even considering that it's a game that matches my tastes (hence I may be a bit biased) WBIML shouldn't have gone under 80% at any cost imo.
I guess it was put down by the apparently appaling Amiga version (which was simultaneously reviewed).

While we're at it, @PaulEMoz (or anyone else who played the game): what do you think about R.I.S.K./K.R.I.S. (that you mentioned earlier in the thread)?
I never really got into it, 'cause the initial difficulty put me off. Is it worth to give it a second thorough chance :?:

Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2003 12:33 pm
by CraigGrannell
The thing is, reviewing is really hard to do, and I'm saying that from experience. A lot of the ratings are guesswork, because you only have a limited time to use whatever you're reviewing. I know from my time on MacUser there have been a few things I've under- or over-rated.

Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2003 2:26 pm
by SLF
CraigGrannell wrote:The thing is, reviewing is really hard to do, and I'm saying that from experience. A lot of the ratings are guesswork, because you only have a limited time to use whatever you're reviewing. I know from my time on MacUser there have been a few things I've under- or over-rated.
Agreed.
But thoughts about Zzap! reviews is what this Review Forum is all about... I'm sure we all agree that most of the time the reviews were excellent. At least I think so. As I said in a similar thread on Lemon a while ago, in my 1987-1991 Zzap! experience I agreed with the reviews 85% of the times, and even when I didn't, they were done so well I could almost always understand if a game was worth buying by my tastes standards or not, regardless of the rating they gave to it. The fact that I disagree on the occasional review doesn't change this at all.