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 Post subject: Head Over Heels
PostPosted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 10:30 
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So I woke up with the song "How much is that doggy in the window" in my head, which lead to me watching a 50+ minute playthrough of Head Over Heels on my way to work.

Now, I remember this game most fondly, although I could never get that far. Retrogamer has it as their number one isometric game of all time, and pretty much everyone who comments on it online says how good it is.

It looked shit! Anyone who thinks that Rick Dangerous 2 was an exercise in memory would kill themselves if they played Head Over Heels today - some blocks vanish and you die, but they look the same as other blocks. Sometimes the fish you eat to get a checkpoint will kill you instead (although there was a visual clue for those). Some rooms require you to enter from above at a certain angle, or you die.
The final crown you have to collect (the other four being clever puzzles, especially the Penitentiary one) is completely hidden from view, and the only way you'd ever find it is if you decided to try walking between a gap in to insta-death blocks for a while, and then turning right and walking some more - during which you won't be able to see your character at any time. The teleporter to the freedom room is also hidden, although you could argue you can see a tiny bit of it.

Also the Amiga version looked just like the CPC version, only coloured in some more.

So, Head Over Heels, they - possibly not as good as you remember.

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 Post subject: Re: Head over Heels
PostPosted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 10:39 
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Pretty much all games from that era had some seriously player unfriendly stuff in them and are remembered fondly in spite of that stuff; and because that's just how things were at the time. I suspect the amount of play-testing modern games go through as part of their development would iron out much of the shit that people used to put up with back in day. It's possible also that with smaller dev teams, even single guys knocking up games on their own at times, there're less people involved in the game who can point at these kind of things and say, "That's just fucking stupid man, get rid of that."


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 Post subject: Re: Head Over Heels
PostPosted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 11:07 
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I really loved this kind of games. Head over Heels was great as was Cadaver, by The Bitmap Brothers. Another that i have fond memories of is Escape from Colditz, which was a kind of The Great Escape for 16 bits. So, maybe they aren't as good as i remember them, but I'm not going to play them again to confirm that.

I wish there was a revival of these games. There an "old" game on Steam called Mr. Robot, and that's it.


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 Post subject: Re: Head Over Heels
PostPosted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 11:18 
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Retrospec has a glorious-looking remake of Head Over Heels if you did fancy it.

http://retrospec.sgn.net/games/hoh/

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 Post subject: Re: Head Over Heels
PostPosted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 11:19 
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The resolution is disappointingly low, and the FPS isn't a rock solid 60.

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 Post subject: Re: Head Over Heels
PostPosted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 11:28 
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Grim... wrote:
So, Head Over Heels, they - possibly not as good as you remember.


The problem is that you are coming at it from a 2013 angle where every game holds you by the hand and treats you like a simpleton. Even I just completed GTA because it has skip and mid mission saves. I've never completed a GTA before. Modern games are EASY and nanny the player through the gameplay and hammer it home with unskippable tutorials.

You say Head Over Heels is unfair but fail to mention every isometric game that went before it. Knightlore and Alien 8 are far far harder and more unforgiving. Or try something like Hydrofool where you'll just end up frantically swimming around lost yet again.

Head Over Heels in comparison is scrupulously fair. Once you know the game you can pretty much always predict where vanishing blocks will be and the fact it has the restore points at all is a big bonus over the Ultimate games.

Then you complain about the graphics on the Amiga version. This was a budget release only on the 16 bits and was deliberately designed to ape the 8 bits look and feel.

Comparison with Rick Dangerous? RD is an unfair game and a test in memory. Once you start to play Head Over Heels and get a feel for it you won't think it unfair. Tough in places, yes, but unfair I don't think so.


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 Post subject: Re: Head Over Heels
PostPosted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 11:32 
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Full walkthrough on the best version:



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 Post subject: Re: Head Over Heels
PostPosted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 11:41 
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chinnyhill10 wrote:
Even I just completed GTA because it has skip and mid mission saves. I've never completed a GTA before. Modern games are EASY and nanny the player through the gameplay and hammer it home with unskippable tutorials.

If you had to skip a mission on GTA V then you are the worst gamer in the world. Even Bamba could finish it with his controller upside-down.

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 Post subject: Re: Head Over Heels
PostPosted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 11:42 
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The number of times I shot Franklin in the head on the 'chase the boat' mission was a little silly. Didn't have to skip it, but there are certainly frustrating ones.

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 Post subject: Re: Head Over Heels
PostPosted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 11:42 
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chinnyhill10 wrote:
Then you complain about the graphics on the Amiga version. This was a budget release only on the 16 bits and was deliberately designed to ape the 8 bits look and feel.

If I were an Amiga owner I'd be quite annoyed about that.

chinnyhill10 wrote:
Comparison with Rick Dangerous? RD is an unfair game and a test in memory. Once you start to play Head Over Heels and get a feel for it you won't think it unfair. Tough in places, yes, but unfair I don't think so.

This is my main point, and I'll have a go at the Retrospec version, but I'm not convinced. You'd pretty much have to be holding down the 'jump' button on any block you jump to because it might vanish and then you die.

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 Post subject: Re: Head Over Heels
PostPosted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 11:54 
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Cras wrote:
The number of times I shot Franklin in the head on the 'chase the boat' mission was a little silly. Didn't have to skip it, but there are certainly frustrating ones.

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 Post subject: Re: Head Over Heels
PostPosted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 11:56 
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Grim... wrote:
chinnyhill10 wrote:
Then you complain about the graphics on the Amiga version. This was a budget release only on the 16 bits and was deliberately designed to ape the 8 bits look and feel.

If I were an Amiga owner I'd be quite annoyed about that.

chinnyhill10 wrote:
Comparison with Rick Dangerous? RD is an unfair game and a test in memory. Once you start to play Head Over Heels and get a feel for it you won't think it unfair. Tough in places, yes, but unfair I don't think so.

This is my main point, and I'll have a go at the Retrospec version, but I'm not convinced. You'd pretty much have to be holding down the 'jump' button on any block you jump to because it might vanish and then you die.


Put it this way, the game was only £7.99 and in the NCE review I have somewhere Captain Flattop has no complaints at all. It also made every Amiga Power Top 100 after it was released (so all but the first) and was never lower than 33 with a high of 24.

As for jumping onto blocks, if they are positioned in certain configerations it is always wise to be prepared to jump immediately. You learn that early in the room off of the first corridor.


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 Post subject: Re: Head Over Heels
PostPosted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 11:58 
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Cras wrote:
The number of times I shot Franklin in the head on the 'chase the boat' mission was a little silly. Didn't have to skip it, but there are certainly frustrating ones.


Skipped the biker village level after an hour of trying and being shot by the last guy alive.

Also skipped the North Yankton graveyard level as again I had nearly done it and someone materialised out of nowhere and shot me.

Thought the biker level was a tough one for so early in the game. Plan to tackle it again now as I reckon I could walk it.


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 Post subject: Re: Head Over Heels
PostPosted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 12:14 
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I skipped the princess one, as It failed to save the picture to the cloud, so I couldn't take a picture!

(this was just after the multiplayer had been released)

Then I went back and did it properly.

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 Post subject: Re: Head Over Heels
PostPosted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 14:00 
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chinnyhill10 wrote:
Skipped the biker village level after an hour of trying and being shot by the last guy alive.

Also skipped the North Yankton graveyard level as again I had nearly done it and someone materialised out of nowhere and shot me.

Thought the biker level was a tough one for so early in the game. Plan to tackle it again now as I reckon I could walk it.

"Modern games are too easy... here are all the places I got hopelessly stuck and has to use the cheating "skip mission" mode because I was frustrated at all the dying I was doing in this very easy game. It would be better if this optional feature I chose to use multiple times and could easily have ignored wasn't there."


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 Post subject: Re: Head Over Heels
PostPosted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 14:03 
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Doctor Glyndwr wrote:
chinnyhill10 wrote:
Skipped the biker village level after an hour of trying and being shot by the last guy alive.

Also skipped the North Yankton graveyard level as again I had nearly done it and someone materialised out of nowhere and shot me.

Thought the biker level was a tough one for so early in the game. Plan to tackle it again now as I reckon I could walk it.

"Modern games are too easy... here are all the places I got hopelessly stuck and has to use the cheating "skip mission" mode because I was frustrated at all the dying I was doing in this very easy game. It would be better if this optional feature I chose to use multiple times and could easily have ignored wasn't there."

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 Post subject: Re: Head Over Heels
PostPosted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 14:05 
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I think modern games are easier and it probably benefits them. If I'm spending £40 on a game then I want to see the majority of it to get my moneys worth.

Of course, they're not too easy because you can always ramp the difficulty up or chose to not skip missions.

As for Head over Heels, I don't think I'm a fan on the basis that it seemed a bit slow for me and by the time I'd played it I had already played newer games on my Amiga. I hadn't developed my retro fascination at this point.


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 Post subject: Re: Head Over Heels
PostPosted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 14:50 
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I play most story based games on easy these days, as I am time poor.
In GTAV though, I saw the skip option appearing as a taunt rather than a real option ;) No way I was going to use it!


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 Post subject: Re: Head Over Heels
PostPosted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 14:53 
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I don't think I failed any mission more than twice. The temptation just wasn't there for that reason.

I still wouldn't have done, though. Takes all the satisfaction away.

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 Post subject: Re: Head Over Heels
PostPosted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 15:16 
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So, Head Over Heels then? :)


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 Post subject: Re: Head Over Heels
PostPosted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 15:19 
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DavPaz wrote:
So, Head Over Heels then? :)

Chinny wanted to talk about GTA V instead.

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 Post subject: Re: Head Over Heels
PostPosted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 16:04 
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Grim... wrote:
Also the Amiga version looked just like the CPC version, only coloured in some more.

Nah, the CPC and PCW versions had more than one type of doorway design - had unique doorways for Safari, Moon Base and so on. Head Over Heels on the Amiga and ST only has one sort of doorway, just like the Spectrum version.

My parents used to play Head Over Heels late into the night sometimes. Only ever got the Penitentiary and Egypt crowns and died soon after. When they sold the Spectrum to get an Amiga, they really missed Head Over Heels. My mum stills mentions it from time to time whenever we talk about games.

Last time I did a play-through on an emulator, I was quite surprised how short the game is. Seemed like a vast quest back then, but seems like a well-practiced player can get through the game in an hour or so.

I don't think you can judge a western home computer game from the mid '80s by the standards of today, to be honest. It's often deeply flawed by modern standards, yes, but look at its counterparts at the time. Head Over Heels was in a different league to them, and its no wonder that it had sky-high review scores in magazines at the time. The graphics are certainly marvellous too.


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 Post subject: Re: Head Over Heels
PostPosted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 16:15 
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Anonymous X wrote:
Last time I did a play-through on an emulator, I was quite surprised how short the game is. Seemed like a vast quest back then, but seems like a well-practiced player can get through the game in an hour or so.

The play-through I watched was 55 minutes - it wasn't well-practised, though - it was perfect. Perhaps your parents would like to see it? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ornJoqJD1Ks

Anonymous X wrote:
I don't think you can judge a western home computer game from the mid '80s by the standards of today, to be honest. It's often deeply flawed by modern standards, yes, but look at its counterparts at the time.

Well, that's what I was doing - comparing it to the much-hated Rick Dangerous. Chinny thinks that you can second-guess HOH's invisible insta-deaths, but I'm not so sure.

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 Post subject: Re: Head Over Heels
PostPosted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 17:41 
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Anonymous X wrote:
Grim... wrote:
Also the Amiga version looked just like the CPC version, only coloured in some more.

Nah, the CPC and PCW versions had more than one type of doorway design - had unique doorways for Safari, Moon Base and so on. Head Over Heels on the Amiga and ST only has one sort of doorway, just like the Spectrum version.


Spectrum version came first. Ritman said that when he did the CPC version he took the opportunity to tweak and improve the game.

The 16 bit versions are abit of an oddity as they were developed from the C64 conversion which itself was a Speccy conversion. So these versions skip all the little tweaks the CPC and PCW got. Apparently it was done that way as the assigned 68000 coder didn't know his way around Z80 assembler but did know 6502.

The C64 version also has some different rooms from the Z80 versions as they were having speed problems with the 6502. I'm guessing the 16 bit versions also have these differences.


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 Post subject: Re: Head Over Heels
PostPosted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 17:44 
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Grim... wrote:
Chinny thinks that you can second-guess HOH's invisible insta-deaths, but I'm not so sure.


But you just make the assumption that any block placed in a certain fashion will probably explode on you. The pattern is the same throughout the game as set out in the first few screens.

It's the randomness of RD that hacks me off. HOH on the other hand is pretty much predictable. If you see blocks placed across a floor from one side of the other and you are required to cross, one or all of the blocks is going to explode on contact.


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 Post subject: Re: Head Over Heels
PostPosted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 17:53 
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chinnyhill10 wrote:
The C64 version also has some different rooms from the Z80 versions as they were having speed problems with the 6502. I'm guessing the 16 bit versions also have these differences.


The 3d isometric games like this are one of the few areas where the spectrum versions were substantially better than the C64 ones and I remember being disappointed by some of the other "Ultimate Play the Game" titles for the C64 never had that same wow factor that the spectrum ones did.


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 Post subject: Re: Head Over Heels
PostPosted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 19:13 
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zaphod79 wrote:
chinnyhill10 wrote:
The C64 version also has some different rooms from the Z80 versions as they were having speed problems with the 6502. I'm guessing the 16 bit versions also have these differences.


The 3d isometric games like this are one of the few areas where the spectrum versions were substantially better than the C64 ones


Not quite true. The two Z80 machines trounce the C64 for most driving games and anything 3D. The 64's display is optimised for fast moving 2D sprites so once it gets outside it's comfort zone it struggles.

And as the Pickfords have pointed out, alot of conversions of games like Head Over Heels were weak because alot of C64 coders weren't very good. They were used to being bailed out by the sprite capabilities whereas Z80 coders had to write from the ground up.

For example Amaurote is a totally different game on the C64 as they had such a bad time at Binary Design trying to port the isometric Glider Rider to the 64 that they ended up rewriting Amaurote as a 2D top down game instead.


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 Post subject: Re: Head Over Heels
PostPosted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 21:27 
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Grim... wrote:
Anonymous X wrote:
Last time I did a play-through on an emulator, I was quite surprised how short the game is. Seemed like a vast quest back then, but seems like a well-practiced player can get through the game in an hour or so.

The play-through I watched was 55 minutes - it wasn't well-practised, though - it was perfect. Perhaps your parents would like to see it? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ornJoqJD1Ks


Thinking about it I reckon they've ported the original 8 bit sprites somehow. Just look how similar that is to the 8 bit versions. If they were doing a line by line port of the C64 version it wouldn't be that difficult to just copy the sprites.

Amiga/ST (they are pretty much identical and the site doesn't say)
Image

C64 (sorry can't get same screen)
Image

CPC
Image

The game was probably ported to the ST first. The ST, CPC and C64 all have 320x200 screen resolutions available which the game runs at. PAL Amigas are 320x256 but many ported games of the era just added a border. Although users will recall AGA Amiga's could be made to run at 320x200 in the boot menu which eliminated the border on games like Gunship 2000.

Interestingly the highest resolution version of Head Over Heels is actually on the Amstrad PCW as it runs at 720x256 BUT the graphics are the same as the other versions with pixels doubled up. But it does sometimes use the resolution to good effect by displaying the larger rooms all at once. The CPC pulls off this trick as well but to a lesser extent.


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 Post subject: Re: Head Over Heels
PostPosted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 22:07 
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chinnyhill10 wrote:
Not quite true. The two Z80 machines trounce the C64 for most driving games and anything 3D. The 64's display is optimised for fast moving 2D sprites so once it gets outside it's comfort zone it struggles.


I of course had the machine that was perfectly optimised for 3D and had excellent driving games like Elektra Glide and Pole Position , but had absolutely terrible sprites (Atari 8-bit) - really disappointed that it never got a version of Elite but if you compare stuff like Mercenary side by side on the Atari vs the C64 theres no question which was the best for 3D


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 Post subject: Re: Head Over Heels
PostPosted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 22:41 
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zaphod79 wrote:
chinnyhill10 wrote:
Not quite true. The two Z80 machines trounce the C64 for most driving games and anything 3D. The 64's display is optimised for fast moving 2D sprites so once it gets outside it's comfort zone it struggles.


I of course had the machine that was perfectly optimised for 3D and had excellent driving games like Elektra Glide and Pole Position , but had absolutely terrible sprites (Atari 8-bit) - really disappointed that it never got a version of Elite but if you compare stuff like Mercenary side by side on the Atari vs the C64 theres no question which was the best for 3D


Ball Blazer and Rescue On Fractalus are much faster on the Atari than the C64.

I was just watching the enhanced CPC version of Rick Dangerous on Youtube and there's no comparison. RD is unfair. Spikes appearing beneath you and stuff fired out of walls with no warning. Head Over Heels never fires random stuff at you from nowhere.

Games were unfair back then. Jet Set Willy is deeply unfair and we all remember what happens the first time you play Dizzy and walk to the screen with the bridge over the pit to the right. You just fall to your death. Head Over Heels at least gives you a decent amount of lives, provides loads more along the way and the screens on Penitentiary before you meet in the market effectively act as a tutorial easing you into the game.

My recollection of first playing HOH was how much nicer it was than the Ultimate games (which I found frustrating and niggly) and how it had the charm of Batman but with bags more playability.

It's a game I still like to revisit today and perhaps we should do something with it like see how far each of us can get without cheating. Original versions only though, personally I found the remake far far easier than the CPC version I usually played.


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 Post subject: Re: Head Over Heels
PostPosted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 22:44 
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Batman was by the same guys, wasn't it?

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 Post subject: Re: Head Over Heels
PostPosted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 23:24 
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Grim... wrote:
Batman was by the same guys, wasn't it?


Yep. And it almost certainly uses part of the same engine.



For me though it lacks the refinement of HOH. Also feels like an Ultimate knock-off in a way that HOH doesn't.

If you like your isometric action abit more at an arcade pace then Hydrofool is pretty good and has a decent Rob Hubbard tune. Came out at about the same time as HOH and as a result got overlooked.


That's a glitchy recording, music jumps all over the place but you get the idea


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 Post subject: Re: Head Over Heels
PostPosted: Thu Nov 07, 2013 0:44 
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If we're talking obscure and often overlooked isometric classics then try Monster Max on the Gameboy (or on an emulator)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_Max

http://coolrom.com/roms/gbc/4002/Monster_Max.php


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 Post subject: Re: Head Over Heels
PostPosted: Thu Nov 07, 2013 2:45 
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Grim... wrote:
Anonymous X wrote:
Last time I did a play-through on an emulator, I was quite surprised how short the game is. Seemed like a vast quest back then, but seems like a well-practiced player can get through the game in an hour or so.

The play-through I watched was 55 minutes - it wasn't well-practised, though - it was perfect. Perhaps your parents would like to see it? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ornJoqJD1Ks

Probably not a play-through, almost certainly not really, but they still remember the game. My dad used had the PC remake on his work PC at one point. Found it confusingly over-detailed, though. Pretty sure when my brother did a play-through on a Spectrum emulator years ago (as in when we was doing our A-levels years ago) we showed our parents the ending. They found the emperor's throne room a bit of a letdown.

chinnyhill10 wrote:
Spectrum version came first. Ritman said that when he did the CPC version he took the opportunity to tweak and improve the game.

Ah, didn't know that. Assumed the Amstrad versions were made first and they downgraded it slightly to fit the Speccy.

(I tell you though, as a child I used to look at the screenshots of the Amstrad version of the game on the Speccy version box, and be envious! Proper coloured-in graphics and different doorway designs, wow...)

I'm sure that I read somewhere during the years that the dual-character gameplay in Head Over Heels came about because they wanted to use Batman and Robin as playable character in the earlier Batman game, but couldn't get the mechanism working properly. Something like that. However, I do remember for certain that the working title for Head Over Heels was Foot and Mouth.


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 Post subject: Re: Head Over Heels
PostPosted: Sat Nov 09, 2013 12:46 
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zaphod79 wrote:
If we're talking obscure and often overlooked isometric classics then try Monster Max on the Gameboy (or on an emulator)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_Max

http://coolrom.com/roms/gbc/4002/Monster_Max.php

Yes. As I read page 1, I was thinking about this. I have the GB cart of it. Way too difficult for me, but I love it as a 'pure gaming' thing.

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 Post subject: Re: Head Over Heels
PostPosted: Mon Nov 11, 2013 14:31 
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Another obscure console-era isometric adventure is Solstice on the NES. It's much more in the mould of Knightlore and Pentagram than the Ritman/Drummond games, however, and is terrifyingly brutal at times, in the best 8-bit traditions. Nice Follin-based soundtrack too.



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 Post subject: Re: Head Over Heels
PostPosted: Mon Nov 11, 2013 20:10 
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I liked Solstice 2: Equinox, from them blokes what did Magnetic Billiards.

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You are using the 'Ted' forum. Bill doesn't really exist any more. Bogus!
Want to help out with the hosting / advertising costs? That's very nice of you.
Are you on a mobile phone? Try http://beex.co.uk/m/
RIP, Owen. RIP, MrC. RIP, Dimmers.

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