Worst Software House/Label

Chat about all the old and new games
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Professor Brian Strain
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Post by Professor Brian Strain »

Alternative World Games, Avenger, Bounder, Bulldog, Butcher Hill, Cosmic Causeway, Dark Fusion, Deflektor, Footballer of the Year 1 & 2, Future Knight, Greg Norman's Ultimate Golf, Heroquest, Highway Encounter, Jack the Nipper, Krakout, Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge, Mickey Mouse, Mindbender, Monty on the Run, The Muncher, Night Raider, North Star, Potty Pigeon, Re-bounder, The Shoe People, Skate Crazy, Space Crusade, Suicide Express, Supercars, Super Scramble Simulator, Supersports, Switchblade, Thing on a Spring and Thing Bounces Back, Trailblazer, Water Polo and West Bank

- that represents 38 out of the 70 Gremlin games in Gamebase - and they are all good! It's crazy to say that Gremlin were a bad company, but they did publish some rubbish. (Note also how many of these great games are by Shaun Southern...)
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Iain
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Post by Iain »

Funny you should mention Shaun Southern, I've just added the review of Super Scramble Simulator to the site and was very surprised to read that it was by Shaun because it's a pretty crap game and did not get a good review!
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Professor Brian Strain
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Post by Professor Brian Strain »

Iain wrote:Funny you should mention Shaun Southern, I've just added the review of Super Scramble Simulator to the site and was very surprised to read that it was by Shaun because it's a pretty crap game and did not get a good review!
I like it, but it's not his best. Funny you should mention Shaun Southern, I've just interviewed him (and Andrew Morris) for Retro Gamer :wink:
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Post by Fizza »

LeeT wrote:
Fizza wrote:
My suggestions for crappiest software house would be:

Anirog
Games Machine
My reasons for picking Quicksilva and CRL were also because of the sheer volume of games they released - If you look at the amount of games they released for the C64 and how many good ones..Not many really! :)

I had to look-up what games 'Games Machine' actually produced - I enjoyed 'Skull' (I own an original of it) although it is a bit slow.
Fair play m8 8) , did you check out Anirog by any chance? I had a large poster of theirs that I think I got from the '85 PCW show that listed a ton of games and they all looked shite! I should do more research though I guess but I had House Of Usher and that was pretty bad.

I never played Skull actually by Games Machine though, I should look out for it, I had Arrgh! Condor, Egbert & The Fabulous Wanda, and although they were simple games they were mostly coded using character graphics.. in Arrgh! Condor you could hit shift & the commodore key (or whatever the combo was) to switch the graphics around :lol: Proper poo. Egbert wasn't half bad though, I recently dug it out and loaded it up to show the wife how crap these games were and we ended up playing it for about an hour, the fact I had the sound routed through a reverb box I have here* added to the game. I've seen a lot of people rate The Fabulous Wanda game although I thought was cack too. Games Machine = Piss Poor.


* Putting C64 audio through an fx unit is something I recommend for all games actually, chorus, reverb & echo etc.. really can add a lot.
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Professor Brian Strain
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Post by Professor Brian Strain »

Jason "Kenz" Mackenzie at Binary Zone did a brilliant audio tape called Echoes from the Past where he put SID tunes through an FX processor. I still have it here somewhere...
brian_dead
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Post by brian_dead »

i knew my attack on gremlin wouldnt go down well :lol:

butcher hill? that was awful.

wernt gremlin games a bit cheaper, £7:99 instead of £9:99?
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Lloyd Mangram
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Post by Lloyd Mangram »

No, they were full price.
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Iain
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Post by Iain »

You might be thinking of their Spectrum releases, Speccy games wre generally a couple of pound cheaper than C64 games, I guess they were cheaper since they were all green! :)

And shame on you for making me mention the Spec**um in this forum!!
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Post by Fizza »

Highway Encounter was one of my favourites of all time, superb little game that should have Sizzled! Might have to revisit that other thread....

Anyway, was trudging around Gamebase64 and I think Tynesoft must be up there in the shit stakes.
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Professor Brian Strain
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Post by Professor Brian Strain »

Fizza wrote:Highway Encounter was one of my favourites of all time, superb little game that should have Sizzled! Might have to revisit that other thread....

Anyway, was trudging around Gamebase64 and I think Tynesoft must be up there in the shit stakes.
Playing Tynesoft games on tape was a real chore, yes.
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