Time to tackle Spain's biggest software label, and producer of the hardest games ever. Nobody has ever completed a Dinamic game, fact. [citation needed] In fact, nobody has got off the first level of a Dinamic game. [citation needed] Actually, nobody at all has even got off the menu screen, they're that hard. [citation needed] All Dinamic games are completely immune to POKEs and if you even think about entering one in, your Spectrum will explode. [citation needed]
Anyway, you have seven days to pick your favourite of these games!
A lot of good graphics, some nice tunes (Simulador Professional de Tenis), but BITD one I liked a lot was a text adventure, Don Quijote (it was a cartoon TV series too), so it's my vote.
1.Dustin - what a legend of a game. When I was a kid I was sure it's based on Papillon, but somebody dispelled that notion in the forum era (I still want to believe thou)
2. After The War
3. West Bank
They were silly and impossible, but I actually did enjoy Game Over, AMC, Navy/Army Moves, in a way. And probably because I didn't have to pay for them. Cobra's Arc looks pretty good, I wish somebody translated it. And Abu Simbel must be the hardest game I've ever played, I mean, I can't make it out of the 1st room, for krissakes.
Great graphics, great music and very playable.
The only slight negative is that it's perhaps a bit too easy? Not often you cam say that about a Dinamic game.
Usually your polls are from software houses not very known outside UK and the choice is easy because I've played a handful of those games. But, I've played too many of Dinamic games. It's difficult to make a choice.
My favourite games:
1.- Freddy Hardest (the first one), because it's the game most hours I spent playing.
2.- Navy Moves.
3.- Comando Tracer..
HM.- Capitán Trueno, Dustin and Satán.
There are games that are more eye-catching. After the War, Astro Marine Corps, maybe Freddy Hardest in South Manhattan, Narco Police and Rescate Atlántida.
There are games that are very good, but are less "mainstream" (most adventures are very good, but not my genre).
Others, like Abu Simbel, Delfox and Game Over are the reason that spanish games are looked as "impossible" games.
So, I'll explain my choices.
Army Moves, Freddy Hardest and Navy Moves are obvious choices for the podium. They are divided in two partes very balanced (arcade+adventure) so they deserve to be higher than After the War (arcade+brawler?), Astro Marine Corps (shooter+shooter). Also, the packaging of Navy Moves was superb. Maps, bookcodes, lore... everything to put you into the shoes of the protagonist.
Comando Tracer... well, I can't explain. I got the game and I played it and seemed like a chaotic shooter. But I played again... and again... and again... so it ended being one of my favourites. Giving scores based on sound, graphics and the like may be useful... but there was something that escaped the metrics and liked me.
Honorable mentions... Capitán Trueno, looks beautiful and it's a very good combo of adventure + platformer. Dustin is a good graphical adventure, easy to get into but not easy to finish. And Satan... well, U.S. Gold sued because they felt that it included a clone of Black Tiger. I don't know if they sued them because of the cloning or because it was a better adaptation than their.
Also, I wanted to discredit Astro Marine Corps. There was nothing more than eye-candy. The pictures looks awesome, but the scroll jumps every 8 pixels and it's very noticeable (other colourful games like Extreme also jumped every character, but was less annoying). The two parts are more or less the same (run and gun), so no variety here. The difficulty... well, it was the "usual" Dinamic one (unforgiving). Technologically, it was awesome to make all those things run on a Spectrum (not to mention being able to play mastermind while loading and that the loader could "retry" bad blocks). At a playability level... not so awesome.
blucey wrote: ↑Sun May 12, 2024 12:54 pm
Wasn't there a game called Basket Master by them?
Yes, it's actually Fernando Martin Basket Master and is definitely included here, although as 'Basket Master' we in the UK could be forgiven for assuming it to be an Imagine game. It was bought by them for the UK market and renamed (after all, we don't know who Fernando Martin is, and I guess a big name like Michael Jordan would be too costly to license).
1. West Bank ( I had both english and Spanish versions. I always thought that the spanish was a licenced translation).
2. Fernando Martin Basket Master.
3. Capitan Sevilla.
I think I spend same time on West bank and FM Basket.
I got a copied tape of Capitan Sevila -It was one of the last ZX games I got. For some reason I thought it was an indie (but nice & fun) game. I saw a few weeks ago the documentary about Capitan Sevilla in netflix. It was interesting and it cleared some things for me.
