In case some of you have no idea what this is, the Finnish Retro Game Comparison Blog is a thing I've been doing for almost ten years now, with the intention of making very thorough comparisons of old games (ca. 1981-1991) in as unbiased a manner as it is possible for me to do. Since I have no expertise in coding, I can only base my observations on how all the versions of the game feel to play, regardless of how good or bad they compare to other games of their kind on the same platform and in context of what's possible, or what was thought possible back in the day. What matters is, how the versions compare against themselves. All the comparisons are made by using emulators, unless a game requires further examination on real hardware.
Since a few years ago, I started working on FRGCB's YouTube channel with comparison accompaniment videos, as well as an unemulated footage-based series titled "My Nostalgia Trip Games" (currently going at episode 63), and some other things. If you want to subscribe to the channel, here's the link.
https://www.youtube.com/@frgcbdude1484
Now, today's comparison entry on the blog is a game I wanted to avoid making for years, since I knew it to be an abomination across all platforms. But then something unexpected happened, and I got involved in a James Bond theme songs project, and we have two concerts booked for tomorrow and the day after here in my home town. So, just to balance that epicness out, I decided to finally write a comparison of A VIEW TO A KILL, but I actually found it surprisingly interesting to write about, even with the severe lack of quality. Of course, a video accompaniment has been prepared for the occasion by yours truly, which can be found near the end of the text. By the way, if anyone knows with certainty, which platform this game was originally designed for (my guess is Spectrum), it'd be a nice thing to update into the comparison.
http://frgcb.blogspot.com/2023/04/james ... -1985.html
The other Spectrum-related game comparison I did after my last update at the WOS forum was TRAILBLAZER, which was a Commodore 16 original. Can't say I was too well pleased with the Spectrum version, but at least it has more redeeming qualities to it than the Atari ST version.
http://frgcb.blogspot.com/2023/03/trail ... -1986.html
That's it for now; I suppose the next update here will happen sometime during the summer.
Thanks for the instructions, I'll take a closer look at how it goes after this weekend.
Problem is, I strongly dislike isometric adventure games (apart from the Last Ninja series) and wireframe 3D games in general, so many of potentially superior Spectrum games go unnoticed. If I had a partner in this blog who would make comparisons of games that I can't be bothered with, the content would be different. Also, the scoring system is stupid and unrealistic at best, so the thing would be to read the entire comparison and just trust what the playability score says, that is if you agree with any of it. But it's all still how I experience them, for better or worse.
Oh well.
