The final of this series, for now. It'll return at some point. I'm concentrating on a series of polls about covertape items, but not a retread of the Covertape Wars polls. Honest.
Anyway, here is a poll about Fergus McNeil's games output for the ZX Spectrum, lots of it being Delta 4 text adventures...
I’ve only played one game from this list but it was an absolute classic., and classic was ‘Bored of the Rings’. From the moment I was presented with text that said ‘then, spurring his black mount, he emitted one great and sour fart…..’ I knew I was in good company!
I don't have anything cool to put here, so i'll just be off now to see a priest with yeast stuck between his teeth and his friend called Keith who's a hairpiece thief...
1 - The Big Sleaze
2 - Mindfighter
3 - The Colour of Magic
My top spot goes to the Big Sleaze, despite looking at the solution and realising that I'd never make any progress! That didn't change the fact that it made me chuckle and I enjoyed playing it. I love my hardboiled PI stories, and it has all the mandatory hackneyed nods to the genre, as well as a fresh humourous slant.
For Mindfighter I'm going off the youtube vid and the solution. I like the style and setting, though I wish the scenery would change more often. It's quite different from the rest and I would have guessed it was an Andy Remic game if pressed.
The Colour of Magic. Given that it's not a spoof like the other fantasy games, it looks like Fergus has done a very good, workman-like job here. A good version of the book.
1. The Colour of Magic
2. Bored of the Rings
3. Mindfighter
There's something to recommend about all of them though, and I particularly admire his progression from parody into just telling great stories.
The Colour of Magic wins out for introducing me to the works of Terry Pratchett. There aren't a lot of video games that have led to me finding a new favourite author.
I've played several of these but honestly I can't remember much about it.
1. The Colour of Magic. I've played this game many years before I knew it was based from some sort of books. To be honest it felt like a good adventure game even without the back story.
2. The Boggit. I read the book first. Otherwise I probably would feel weird about it.
3. Bored of the Rings. This place should have been Mindfighter if that wasn't denied.
I must shamefacedly admit I've not played any of the games apart from trying out Mindfighter and Bored Of The Rings (for a few minutes) to check out the hype. If I had to play one game, which one would it be? Something easy to begin with preferably. Must say his games have pretty nice graphics too. I prefer text only games if graphics are crap, but these have a pretty nice atmosphere.
The Colour Of Magic has got this - only just - by five votes!
The Big Sleaze and Bored Of The Rings by Delta 4 were joint second, four votes each.
These four games: Intravoid; Mindfighter; Murder Off Miami and Quest For The Holy Joystick - all have one vote each to be in joint third position.
Proportional results:
Bored Of The Rings by Delta 4 10
Colour Of Magic, The by Piranha 7
Big Sleaze, The by Piranha 6
Mindfighter by Abstract Concepts 6
Boggit, The by CRL 3
Quest For The Holy Joystick by Delta 4 3
Robin Of Sherlock by Silversoft 1
