I'm quite fond of Combat Zone and Dimension Destructors, as I played them both a lot in the early days, but his magnum opus, is surely Head Over Heels.
Loved Match Day and MD II, played those TONS as a kid (and still a lot now)
If this was best overall game then its clearly HOH or Batman, but both those games were like Knight Lore to me, great visuals, beautiful to look at but the games were way too big and i never gave them the time they deserved , plus i was crap at them !
For me its MD II, still not keen on the cartooney graphics but on the toughest level you have some quality games.
I loved Head Over Heels, but based on which game I played the most, almost to death, its gots to be Matchday II for me. Bear Bovver was the first game I ever bought, for no particular reason, and I was more than pleasantly surprised at the quality of the game when I loaded it up. Jon Ritman was, is a God.
Matchday, me and my brother played the crap out of it...didn't like Matchday II. HOH I didn't like at all...been there done that already...was bored by isometric games by the time HOH came out.
A touch one! I loved Matchday and Head over Heels but ultimately it was Batman that first hooked me to isometric games with it's nifty puzzles and cute Batman sprite! Ritman and Clarke were one helluva team!
It is the same for me! I do think that HoH was the better game, but I really loved Batman and it was the first isometric game I liked. (Did not like KL or A8 at all.) So my vote was for Batman!
It's curious for me that I've never played the most voted game, HoH (aka Head Overs Heels :wink:) in the 80's. I was not interested in it either, maybe because at that time, isometric games saturated the games market.
A real good poll this one as it's such a difficult question to answer. I went for HOH in the end but to be honest there's virtually nothing in it between MD/MDII/Batman and HOH for me.
I found it very dificult to choose between Batman and HOH, so I went for Batman, as much as to help the (very slight) underdog (as HOH was bound to get zillions of votes) as anything. Plus Batman came out first, and blew away most other Isometric 3D games before and since (not Fairlight though*).
* Hmmm, imagine Bo Jangeborg's skills combined with Jon Ritmans! Fairlight 3, with ideas and graphics by BJ, and technical tips by JR.
After seeing Ultimate?s Knight Lore (The very day I handed the master for Match Day over to Ocean) I was determined to write an isometric game, it was what I had always wanted, a Disney film that you could control. I knew a friend of a friend called Bernie Drummond who drew a lot of cartoon characters, I asked him if he would like a go on a computer and he was willing ? the session looked like a complete waste of time, watching Bernie create what looked like a random mess of dots with no sign that he had any idea where he was going ? after a couple of hours I was preparing to give it up when Bernie suddenly saw the outline of an eye in the random mess. He went from crazy doodler to craftsman instantly, sculpting a matching eye and then an entire character ? it was without doubt one of the best bits of game art I had ever seen. The character was christened Budweiser and is one of the first characters you meet in Batman.
Bernie and I had a brainstorming session to try and find a known hero we could use, I finally came up with Batman and then dismissed him as quickly on the grounds that the 60?s TV series had been a long time ago and the kids of the 80?s wouldn?t know who he was, Bernie disagreed and told me that the old series was showing on channel 4 and the comics were popular as well.
Batman turned into an epic game and I loved designing all the puzzles ? it was great just programming a physics engine and then just using parts to build puzzles so that the game exhibited a consistent set of rules. Batman was a huge success, getting rave reviews in every magazine and gracing the cover of several.
It is the same for me! I do think that HoH was the better game, but I really loved Batman and it was the first isometric game I liked. (Did not like KL or A8 at all.) So my vote was for Batman!
I liked Knight Lore and Alien8 (along with Ultimate's other games), but I preferred Ritman's games, they felt much more refined and had better level designs and layouts. That's just my personal opinion though! I loved Monster Max on the original Gameboy too, that's very similar to Batman/HoH and worth checking out :D
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Oh, and what about Namtir Raiders on the ZX81?
Although MD2 might give it a run for its money.
If this was best overall game then its clearly HOH or Batman, but both those games were like Knight Lore to me, great visuals, beautiful to look at but the games were way too big and i never gave them the time they deserved , plus i was crap at them !
For me its MD II, still not keen on the cartooney graphics but on the toughest level you have some quality games.
Match Day and Batman too.
I love all Battlezone variations
Bytes:Chuntey - Spectrum tech blog.
There is nothing here in this thread to support that statement of yours :-P but we do know that he is quite capable of spelling "overs" :grin:
Head Over Heels gets my vote.
Oh, did I actually mention before that I really like it?
* Hmmm, imagine Bo Jangeborg's skills combined with Jon Ritmans! Fairlight 3, with ideas and graphics by BJ, and technical tips by JR.
It might be the best isometric game EVER.
If only...
After seeing Ultimate?s Knight Lore (The very day I handed the master for Match Day over to Ocean) I was determined to write an isometric game, it was what I had always wanted, a Disney film that you could control. I knew a friend of a friend called Bernie Drummond who drew a lot of cartoon characters, I asked him if he would like a go on a computer and he was willing ? the session looked like a complete waste of time, watching Bernie create what looked like a random mess of dots with no sign that he had any idea where he was going ? after a couple of hours I was preparing to give it up when Bernie suddenly saw the outline of an eye in the random mess. He went from crazy doodler to craftsman instantly, sculpting a matching eye and then an entire character ? it was without doubt one of the best bits of game art I had ever seen. The character was christened Budweiser and is one of the first characters you meet in Batman.
Bernie and I had a brainstorming session to try and find a known hero we could use, I finally came up with Batman and then dismissed him as quickly on the grounds that the 60?s TV series had been a long time ago and the kids of the 80?s wouldn?t know who he was, Bernie disagreed and told me that the old series was showing on channel 4 and the comics were popular as well.
Batman turned into an epic game and I loved designing all the puzzles ? it was great just programming a physics engine and then just using parts to build puzzles so that the game exhibited a consistent set of rules. Batman was a huge success, getting rave reviews in every magazine and gracing the cover of several.
I liked Knight Lore and Alien8 (along with Ultimate's other games), but I preferred Ritman's games, they felt much more refined and had better level designs and layouts. That's just my personal opinion though! I loved Monster Max on the original Gameboy too, that's very similar to Batman/HoH and worth checking out :D
I never got that much into Match Day II.
it was a toss up between that and bear bovver but i think i did play match day more