Harsh Ratings

Did you agree with them etc.
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Professor Brian Strain
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Post by Professor Brian Strain »

Baz wrote:the sentinel was rated as unrateable, is it because the reviewers wanted to give it Overall 100% for it's sheer complexity and cleverness alone but also thought it wasn't the totally perfect game (as what is)? i would of given it 99%.

SEUCK also wasn't without it's noticable drawbacks and was unrated, it's non-rating made it overrated with me.
I think they were right not to rate SEUCK. You can't give it marks for graphics and sound, because they can be changed so much. You can't give it marks for hookability and lastability, because it's not the same as a "normal" game and you can spend hours working with it.
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Post by andy vaisey »

Baz wrote:the sentinel was rated as unrateable...
In Retro Gamers ZZAP! tribute, Gary Liddon says it was his idea not to score "The Sentinel" because he thought it was too original. He also admits, however, that he was being a pretentious tw*t. 8) :wink:
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Post by Sixteen Plus »

brian,
i think SEUCK should've been rated not as a game, but as a utility. as a games creator it isn't perfect but it's pretty close. i wasn't keen on the screen time-limit idea, and no power-ups. whatever game was created they all had that same familiar basicness about it that you could tell it as a SEUCK creation, and it got pretty boring quickly for me. you're right about graphics and to an extent sound although there's no game music option.

hookability i'd put around 95% as i remember those days, but the lastability i'd put around 75%. to get anything more from SEUCK would require proper programming knowledge, erm which i don't have.

andy,
that made me chuckle. if zzap adopted this idea with every totally original C64 game like Tetris, Elite, Wizball, Boulderdash etc etc etc then there would've be a lot less gold medals awarded lol.
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Lloyd Mangram
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Post by Lloyd Mangram »

Baz wrote:
andy,
that made me chuckle. if zzap adopted this idea with every totally original C64 game like Tetris, Elite, Wizball, Boulderdash etc etc etc then there would've be a lot less gold medals awarded lol.
Funny quote I got from Liddon, eh? (just ripped it from Yakyak somewhere) 8)
But Sentinel got a Gold Medal anyway, which means a +96% overall score.
One reader rated it later though, in the Rrap.
Once again I emerge from beneath a massive pile of paper which makes my desk groan to bring you the world’s most amazing posts.
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Professor Brian Strain
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Post by Professor Brian Strain »

Mr.Zzapback wrote:
Baz wrote:
andy,
that made me chuckle. if zzap adopted this idea with every totally original C64 game like Tetris, Elite, Wizball, Boulderdash etc etc etc then there would've be a lot less gold medals awarded lol.
Funny quote I got from Liddon, eh? (just ripped it from Yakyak somewhere) 8)
But Sentinel got a Gold Medal anyway, which means a +96% overall score.
One reader rated it later though, in the Rrap.
Issue 23 - he argued that rating Deus Ex Machina was unfair, when The Sentinel didn't get ratings...
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Post by Palmer Eldritch »

I liked "V" a lot and was looking forward to seeing it reviewed in my favourite mag...
They gave it a measly 40% overall. :roll: Go figure.
To me it was, if not better, then at least as good as Impossible Mission.

Which brings me to IM and IM2. Both hugely overrated in my book.
All three games should overall be in the mid to late seventies.

In issue 19 I would have reversed the ratings for Sanxion and Alleykat, bringing Alleykat up to its deserved Sizzler status.

Hunter´s Moon should have been a GM and Wizball was somewhat overrated IMO and should have missed the Sizzler rating by a couple of points. Basically I just don´t like my shooters uncontrollable.
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Post by SLF »

Palmer Eldritch wrote: Hunter´s Moon should have been a GM and Wizball was somewhat overrated IMO and should have missed the Sizzler rating by a couple of points. Basically I just don´t like my shooters uncontrollable.
Well, the wizball is 'uncontrollable' for about two seconds, until you get the power ups, then is perfectly nice and behaved.

As for Delta and Nemesis, I strongly disagree with the Professor. Delta is a classic, while Nemesis is bland and rather average. Ratings 94% and 65% respectively.
My top games: 1.Hawkeye, 2.Delta, 3.Creatures 2, 4.Armalyte, 5.Bubble Bobble, 6.Uridium, 7.Ikari Warriors, 8.Bionic Commando, 9.Buggy Boy, 10.Archon.
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Post by Fizza »

Just re-read this thread after recalling while reading the worst arcade port thread on Lemon, and a lot of good points raised. One thing that I don't think I made very clear is that Sabrewulf is a good example where the rating basically was saying "don't bother with this game at all" when the game did deserve a look, even if it was a year old direct speccy port (which wasn't that bad compared to the Amstrad version!), especially seeing that pastblasters regularly scored well. So to me that rating is very harsh in light of this.

Paperboy & 1942 were other examples, neither were going to set the world alight, granted, but they were playable games nontheless... I don't consider myselfTo be a fan of crap games, but me and my mates enjoyed them well enough, mind you, you got to say that Sabrewulf was better then those two and Paperboy rated higher IIRC. Ho hum...
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Post by Fab »

Hey, Fizza's post is the first after more than one year. And not only in this thread, in the whole Reviews forum !
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Post by Iain »

Indeed! Not the most popular forum the Reviews one!
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Post by relentless »

Been reading comments about Terra Cresta on Lemon, and i'm not surprised that the majority of people think it was above average(opinions range from 'hard to play but v.good graphics & sound' to 'Outstanding-the best Shump on the 64!'

Several posters also make a point of saying it was underrated in Zzap!. I fall into the group who think it was Superlative(as Mr Penn would say(or didn't in his review!)) I personally would include it in my list of fav 64 games, though I'm not sure at which position it would come in at (have many favs.)

Technically it was great, in particular the sprite multiplexor in the game handling dozens of objects hurtling around the screen at full speed. Must have set some sort of record for sprites on the screen at the time it was released.

Didn't really pay attention to the credits at the time so I was a little surprised to find out the programmer Dave Collier had written quite a few of the mini classics on the 64(Hypersports,Arkanoid, D.Thompsons Decat,Green Beret,Target Renegade, Yie Ar Kung Fu)

IMO it really should have got a score of no less than 75%, and that's with all the reviewers disliking it. Should really have been a Sizzler, and a highly rated one as well. Personally i reckon it should have scraped a Gold Medal due to the fact I never got tired of playing it - one quality that all Gold Medal games must have.

I'm reminded of Jaz and Gaz's Zzapback review of Frankie - You can't please all of the people all of the time.

Seems like in this case they were the ones who weren't pleased.
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Post by andy vaisey »

I always preferred the Slap Fight conversion. Steve Wahid's GFX were better in that game and I found it more of a challenge; a top notch conversion of an arcade game I played to death.
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Post by Sixteen Plus »

andy vaisey wrote:I always preferred the Slap Fight conversion. Steve Wahid's GFX were better in that game and I found it more of a challenge; a top notch conversion of an arcade game I played to death.
Same here, and it even includes the arcade cheat mode which you can get very early in the game pushing you right up the map with full weapons. I always preferred this game to Terra Cresta :)
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Professor Brian Strain
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Post by Professor Brian Strain »

I didn't play Slap Fight or Terra Cresta until many years after ZZAP reviewed them. They are both pretty good conversions but tricky games, but to my mind ZZAP were pretty close with their ratings.
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Post by relentless »

Professor Brian Strain wrote:I didn't play Slap Fight or Terra Cresta until many years after ZZAP reviewed them. They are both pretty good conversions but tricky games, but to my mind ZZAP were pretty close with their ratings.

Er, No. Popular opinion proves Terra Cresta was underrated.


Moving on, there seems to be a lot of talk about Delta's rating in this thread. My 2 cents on the subject is that I enjoyed playing it at the time, though I could clearly see the pros and cons of the game from both sides. Loved the adrenaline rush battling into the later levels while at the same time I was unnerved by the rather fixed path which had to be taken through most of the game. Haven't played it in years so that's all I remember.
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