Games that are crap... but you like anyway

[Bolton80]

Anyone have a special fondness for a game that is... Well, crap?

My one - Cosmic Cruiser by Imagine in 1984. The game is quite simplistic. The physics are way off (your astronaut bounces around the screen like a pinball in space), the graphics are a flickery mess, and the perspective in the inside-the-space-station screen is p***ed. Still, it's one of the games I keep going back to. Probably because it was one of my first Spectrum games ever and the cassette cover looked amazing.

Still, it was better than the C64 and BBC Micro versions, which don't have the inside-the-space-station screens at all. Instead you seem to just pluck the people out through the hole you blew in their craft.

[luny]

I too go back to Cosmic Cruiser every now and then. I think I have a deep urge to try and find some hidden quality in the game. Like there should be more to it. I believe this is sparked by the fact the character can move about freely and sit at the gun etc. It felt a bit of an early experiment in the mega games area.

That's the Spirit is a favourite which I think a lot of people criticised at the time. It's a little of a mess with some odd puzzles, but I like the idea of wandering around an empty city looking for solutions.

[Turtle_Quality]

Pool by Bug Byte -
it's glitchy, no sound (now that's just lazy) and no frills. There are better pool / billiard / snooker games on the Spectrum, but I still go back to it

[Journeyman]

Spectrum Safari!

It's supposedly an educational game, and it's absolutely dreadful, but has a certain charm. You have to try and get a party of three men off an island infested by dangerous animals like the Memory-Testing Elephant, the Proud Lion and the Kicking Sheep.

It's basically a bunch of mini-games programmed in BASIC that are of magazine type-in standards of crapness, and it has pretty much no redeeming features. It's frustratingly difficult to complete as well! Somehow, though, I like it.

[spider]

Tapper (the Spectrum version) although not a bad conversion if I'm honest another 8bit version is far far worse and another one (which might surprise you which) plays so much nicer. However I am still drawn to it.

Another one is Space Raiders, although its a very simple Invaders game I am again happy to play it time and again.

[Journeyman]

I was playing Space Raiders the other day, and as a simple Space Invaders conversion, it's not bad at all. It was obviously one of the earliest Spectrum games, but it reappeared much later on in the Speccy's life on the Arcade Classics compilation, and it stood up quite well.

EDIT: turns out the Arcade Classics game was actually Artic's Space Invasion, which I've not played. Looks extremely similar.

[PeteProdge]

It's always proto-Rock-Star-Ate-My-Hamster pop management game It's Only Rock N Roll But I Like It, from the K-Tel label, bundled in with The Tomb Of Dracula.

It's 100% BASIC with stickmen UDGs, but I really enjoy it. Same thing can be said about Football Manager, but I much prefer this.

Probably the only ZX Spectrum game release that had a TV commercial. (Do correct me if I am wrong, I'd love to know if other games got telly ads.)

[Morkin]

I remember playing Race Ace (on the "Don't Buy This" compilation) rather a lot, given the average quality of the games on that tape.

Also I really enjoyed Bump Set Spike, though admittedly although Crash & YS panned it, Sinclair User though it was decent. I agree..!

[bluespikey]

Theres a type-in called Youth Club.

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/2 ... Youth_Club

Its just another resource allocation game, like Mugsy without the graphics. But I've never beaten it even with looking at the code to see how the numbers relate. And if you do a bad enough job then the youths riot and burn the church hall down. Proper 80s style.

[Journeyman]

Ah, I like a good BASIC sim/strategy game. A particular favourite of mine is Dictator, which puts you in charge of a banana republic. You have to keep the population happy, while adequately resourcing the army and the secret police. On top of that, you have to decide how much to siphon off into your Swiss bank account. The game actively encourages and rewards blatant corruption, although it's tricky to play, and you need to decide when to deploy the "escape by helicopter" option if you're in danger of being overthrown.

[Van_Dammesque]

Renegade III, joking,

[Mpk]

I love a good numbers game. It's Only Rock and Roll is terrific, even though it's not The Biz. I won't have a bad word said about it

Brewery, on the other hand, is indefensible, but I still like it. You have to decide how much beer to make, and how much you sell depends on the weather, over which you have no control or information. It's like the polar opposite of chess.

[Pobulous]

BMX Racers - It was one of the earliest games I got, so I have a soft spot for it.

[Journeyman]

Brewery, on the other hand, is indefensible, but I still like it. You have to decide how much beer to make, and how much you sell depends on the weather, over which you have no control or information. It's like the polar opposite of chess.

This sounds a bit like Sharetrader, one of my efforts for the CSSCGC. You have to buy and sell five different shares, but strategy is completely impossible as the prices are purely controlled by a couple of RNDs. It's basically even more like pure gambling than real life share dealing.

[clebin]

I love a good numbers game. It's Only Rock and Roll is terrific, even though it's not The Biz. I won't have a bad word said about it

Brewery, on the other hand, is indefensible, but I still like it. You have to decide how much beer to make, and how much you sell depends on the weather, over which you have no control or information. It's like the polar opposite of chess.

Master Mariner is like that, but probably more cruel. Get your ship and your crew together, buy your goods, set sail... hit a random storm virtually every time, ship wrecked, game over. Even then I still liked it.

I gave It's Only Rock and Roll a go and didn't do much better. On my first attempt I took out a £5000 loan and had to pay over £1000 a month in interest until I was bankrupt. On my second go I thought I was getting somewhere. I played my first gig in a student's union (love the Football Manager style highlights) only for it to be game over again because I was "over the hill". Tell that to the Stones! It was fun while it lasted though.

[clebin]

I'm just playing Master Mariner now and it's not quite how I remember. You don't have buy your ship or get a crew together before setting sail. I did run into a storm on only my second voyage which sunk me. However, maybe if I hadn't splurged all my money on arms, I'd have been able to pay for a tow. Will give this another try...

[Nick]

Super Gran, it has crap graphics and eardrum perforating sound, but there is something about it that makes me want to play it.

There were also a couple of games on the infamous Cassette 50 that I liked also, Fishing Mission is the one that immediately springs to mind.

[Journeyman]

Haha, Super Gran came bundled with my +2! I think it was the first game I ever played on it. Pretty bad, but I'm nostalgic because I loved the TV series a couple of years beforehand.

[Mpk]

Master Mariner

Too brutal to be any fun, if you ask me. But you can deliver coals to Newcastle, if I'm not mistaken. Gotta count for something.

It's Only Rock and Roll

I've got an asm version of this 80% done for last few years, which draws the screens faster and fixes some of the more egregious maths issues. Your manager, for instance, takes a monthly percentage of your total money in the original game, not a cut of your income as you might expect. So you take a 5 month holiday and half your money's gone when you get back. I got stuck trying to add music. I'll finish it One Day.

[clebin]

Too brutal to be any fun, if you ask me. But you can deliver coals to Newcastle, if I'm not mistaken. Gotta count for something.

It certainly is brutal to the point of being sadistic. I've been playing it for a while now (on 600% speed) and the sheer number of ways it finds to kill you is impressive. You think you've seen it all with the storms, pirates, mutinies, customs inspectors, insurance, wages, taxes, port industrial action and all the rest and it still finds something new.

In one game I was due to make a few grand profit in whiskey that I got cheap. Enough to insulate me beyond the customary 2-4 weeks and "PATHETIC" rating. Then as I went to sell it, "The whisky turns out to be coloured water" Are you kidding me?!

[R-Tape]

Brewery, on the other hand, is indefensible, but I still like it. You have to decide how much beer to make, and how much you sell depends on the weather, over which you have no control or information. It's like the polar opposite of chess.

I'm fond of Brewery too. The hook is the first bit where you get to name your fantasy brewery and headlining beer. I'd happily play that on a loop, followed by a RND chosen outcome.

Needs a DX version Mpk!

[Mpk]

"The whisky turns out to be coloured water" Are you kidding me?!

You've invented diet alcohol-free low sodium whiskey. Just put your prices up, you'll be fine.

[Mpk]

I'm fond of Brewery too. The hook is the first bit where you get to name your fantasy brewery and headlining beer. I'd happily play that on a loop, followed by a RND chosen outcome.

Needs a DX version Mpk!

I'll do it as soon as I finish IOR&R.

[Juan F. Ramirez]

Sorcery. Crappy graphics and movement, linear concept... but I've always loved to play it and go the furthest I can.

[stupidget]

Sorcery. Crappy graphics and movement, linear concept... but I've always loved to play it and go the furthest I can.

I played that quite a bit too as it came in the SoftAid compilation. I actually found it quite creepy.

When I was about 10 or 11 a group of us would go to my mates house for lunch and play Rambo and Styx, both of which are pretty crap games. He was one of those kids that had a spectrum just because everyone else had one and only had those two games. To be honest we only went around because we all fancied his mum. Plus he had a great Casio keyboard and tought us how to play Axle F

Whenever I play Rambo or Styx I’m whisked back to eating cheese and pickle sandwiches at my mates house without a care in the world.