To describe Knightlore as better than HoH because it came first is crazy. It like saying R-Type isn't that good because Space Invaders came first. The two games, aside from isometric projection, are very different and Knightlore is a horribly overrated title in truth.
The point would be that Knight Lore came out when there weren't many other isometric games around; the only one of any significance before it was Ant Attack. It was revolutionary.
However, HoH came out against a backdrop of games like Quazatron, Highway Encounter, The Great Escape, Fairlight, Sweevo's World, Gunfright, Spindizzy, etc. It's merely evolutionary.
Oh, and I'll really stir things up now by saying the CPC version is the definitive one. ;)
I would say those two are far superior to HoH. In fact I'd class them as not only the two best isometric games on the Speccy, but possibly two of the best 8-bit games period.
I'd best keep it quiet that I prefer Martianoids to Head over Heels. Actually, I prefer Cylu to Head over Heels, but it's nice that so many other people enjoy it. That's what games are for, folks.
Actually, I prefer Cylu to Head over Heels, but it's nice that so many other people enjoy it. That's what games are for, folks.
Hope you voted for it in the budget game group polls then! :p
Honestly didn't realise how much HoH divided opinion until this thread. It's had such glittering praise from a number of people here who see it as the pinnacle of its genre, and a lot of people have commented on the atmosphere, storyline and additional polish which I may well have been oblivious to 1st time round - I might have to revisit it and give it another shot.
Don't have any particular liking/disliking to these isometric games as a genre, I thought Fairlight was the best of the bunch but I'm sure many would disagree..!
Don't have any particular liking/disliking to these isometric games as a genre, I thought Fairlight was the best of the bunch but I'm sure many would disagree..!
Yup I would disagree I thought it was wank :p
*waits for starglider to swoop in and tell me how much of an idiot I am :D
The point would be that Knight Lore came out when there weren't many other isometric games around; the only one of any significance before it was Ant Attack. It was revolutionary.
It was revolutionary. It just isn't actually all that good. It deserves a place in history but it doesn't make sense to compare against things like HoH, which is fundamentally a very different type of game albeit presented in the same isometric format.
Honestly didn't realise how much HoH divided opinion until this thread.!
I think it's more the Ultimate:PTG titles that really divide opinion here.
If you played Head over Heels first (as I did), then you see it as being utterly fantastic and then when you are told that there other 3D titles. So you try them out and are disappointed at how boring they are and how poorly they play (then you encounter slow down and they get worse!).
If you played all of those ultimate games as they came out tho' its probably more just like a natural evolution of the form over time, so Head over Heels wouldn't have appeared quite as amazing to you when you first saw it.
I don't doubt that ultimates 3D games deserve their place in history - I just don't want to play them. But there are plenty of people here that do so I guess it's not surprising when you talk about Head over heels there are those who will want to talk about Knightlore etc.
If you think the Ultimate games are a bit divisive, you should try Ant Attack and Zombie Zombie; they're even more hit and miss amongst the WOS regulars.
Still, I'd think it all really comes down to whether you enjoy games that are original, if perhaps a bit rough round the edges, or ones that are highly polished if perhaps a bit derivative. I know it varies from person to person but I'm thoroughly in the former camp. For instance, someone could try and tell me how Modern Warfare 2 is thoroughly better than Doom in every possible fashion but I'd still not be interested in playing it as I'd think that the FPS genre has long been done to death. Obviously the millions of people who bought it would beg to differ.
At least so far as HoH goes it still managed to engage me enough at the time to want to complete it, but could it ever surpass Knight Lore or Ant Attack in my affections? Not a chance.
I've always thought that it was overated! That's mainly because I've never been a fan of those kind of games (the isometric adventures). I really don't think that I've actually played one that I've really enjoyed.
Don't get me wrong, I can see where people will enjoy this game. It's very well thought out and has some interesting puzzles etc, but the style of game just doesn't do anything or me.
I've never been a big fan of these isometric games either (except Movie). I have played Head Over Heals a few times, but I never really got into it enough to get very far.
Utterly brilliant. Cute graphics, smooth play with hardly any slowdown, clever ideas and plenty of things to do, progressive levels and difficulty, game saves, a huge map, bits of music even on the 48K Speccy, etc. etc.
The two-character play mechanic was brilliant, and needs to be used in more games. Sadly only Munch's Odysee has ever come close, and that wasn't as much fun. Batman obviously tried out some of the gameplay ideas in the isometric 3D style first, but fortunately I skipped that and went straight to Head Over Heels.
As for Ultimate's 3D games, yes Knight Lore was innovative but it was just too damn hard from the outset and suffered from horrible speed variations. It just didn't have the charm to keep me playing that Head Over Heels did. Head Over Heels always made you wonder what was coming next. Knight Lore and Alien 8 just gave you more and more of the same old things, whichever direction you went.
Personally, I think that most people in this thread are wrong. HoH is a very good game, very good in almost every respect (though it needed a save game feature), but it's not the best of it's class.
I'd say the best isometric 3D game on the Spectrum is Fairlight.
And Knightlore is so over-rated. Yes, it was astounding at the time (I was a Speccy owner then, so I experienced the staggering amazement of seeing it (on my mate's Spectrum, at first), so I know how hard it hit us), but it's not a particularly good game. It's not bad, just not good. If it had come out at the same time as HoH, then no one would even remember Knightlore now, it'd be just another isometric game. I honestly believe that. To me, there are many better isometric Spectrum games, such as HoH, Batman 3D, The Great Escape, and Where Time Stood Still, and yes, Ant Attack.
And not only do I think that Ant Attack is a much better game, playability-wise, but I also think it should be AA that people class as the first game of the type, rather than Knightlore.
I have spoken (huge clash of symbols, and the masses abide by my will ;)).
However, HoH came out against a backdrop of games like Quazatron, Highway Encounter, The Great Escape, Fairlight, Sweevo's World, Gunfright, Spindizzy, etc. It's merely evolutionary. ;)
I would say those two are far superior to HoH. In fact I'd class them as not only the two best isometric games on the Speccy, but possibly two of the best 8-bit games period.
Definitely agree with Highway Encounter, that's in my top 5.
I'd say the best isometric 3D game on the Spectrum is Fairlight.
I'd agree with that. Subjectively, of course... I like the way that the locations in Fairlight don't seem to be laid out on an obvious grid pattern like most of the other isometric adventures. Having said that, I did greatly enjoy Alien 8 and Head over Heels.
Utterly brilliant. Cute graphics, smooth play with hardly any slowdown, clever ideas and plenty of things to do, progressive levels and difficulty, game saves, a huge map, bits of music even on the 48K Speccy, etc. etc.
The two-character play mechanic was brilliant, and needs to be used in more games. Sadly only Munch's Odysee has ever come close, and that wasn't as much fun. Batman obviously tried out some of the gameplay ideas in the isometric 3D style first, but fortunately I skipped that and went straight to Head Over Heels.
As for Ultimate's 3D games, yes Knight Lore was innovative but it was just too damn hard from the outset and suffered from horrible speed variations. It just didn't have the charm to keep me playing that Head Over Heels did. Head Over Heels always made you wonder what was coming next. Knight Lore and Alien 8 just gave you more and more of the same old things, whichever direction you went.
Agree 100% with you on all accounts there joefish. That was also the reason why I did the remake in the first place. I especially agree with the fact that you wanted to see what is coming next, all the new worlds to discover, it was just great.
I hope to finish the remake of Batman one day too, it has stalled at around 90%... have all the graphics but the code doesn't run on Win7 anymore so I would need to do some serious debugging :(
Anyway, HoH will always be #1 ISO adventure for me.
Head over Heels is the only isometric game i like. I've never been a fan of Knight Lore (or any Ultimate game for that matter) but Head over Heels is great. My only gripe is that it can be difficult to judge jumps sometimes because of the perspective.
You don't like ANY other isometric game? So that includes Quazatron , Highway Encounter , Batman , Pyracurse , Glider Rider , The Great Escape , Where Time Stood Still etc etc?
Did HoH really need a save game feature? I can complete it in under two hours without cheating.
I suspect that it'd be more the case that you'd use it whilst you're learning the game. Losing all your lives at some point well into the game could be rather disheartening to someone who knows that they've got to play for over an hour just to get back to that point.
If anything Knight Lore is probably more in need of save games though. Although it can be finished in well under an hour, and most of the rooms are accessible fairly quickly from the start, it's way too easy for even an experienced player to lose several lives in the more random rooms.
I suspect that it'd be more the case that you'd use it whilst you're learning the game. Losing all your lives at some point well into the game could be rather disheartening to someone who knows that they've got to play for over an hour just to get back to that point.
Except that rarely happens, because you have the memory fish, which act a bit like save points. I can see how a save feature would've been handy, it's a big game and there was always the danger of dinner interrupting, but then you could say that about loads of 8-bit games.
HOH was the only Knight Lore type game I liked back in the 80's (I did like some other isometric stuff too like The Great Escape and Quazatron) but in recent years I have come to appreciate Knight Lore, Batman and Pentagram too. I now think Knight Lore is my favourite but HOH is a close second. I would love to see a version of Knight Lore which ran as smoothly as HOH (i.e. at a constant speed).
I wish I could enjoy HoH, but actually I never enjoyed any isometric games. I saw Knight Lore when it came out and thinking it looked amazing, but I just didn't get the gameplay. I think maybe its because I wasn't a fan of non-linear games and I just ended up getting lost and frustrated. Loved Atic Atac, Pssst, Jetman, Sabre Wulf and especially loved Underwurlde.
I remember downloading an RZX of HoH recently and realizing that I didn't stand a chance at all of ever even completing 5% due to the crazy size of the game. Hats off to those with mega-brains enough to enjoy this game, but at the time I preferred my arcade adventures.
I wish I could sit-in on someone who loves this genre playing the game on the offchance I might just suddenly get it.
I wish I could sit-in on someone who loves this genre playing the game on the offchance I might just suddenly get it.
Very good point! I've never got into isometric adventures either, and watching a rzx of them being completed doesn't encourage me. Watching someone play such a game, and play it well, might convince me, also.
The ultimate games were the first 3D games on the scene and i can see why they were revered at the time. But to someone that never played them when they were the best thing available on the speccy they are generally; dull collect-em-ups; slow; graphically poorer; and feature a ridiculous control scheme that involves a whole lot of rotating on the spot. There are people who will tell you this control scheme is a 'great design choice'.
These people are wrong.
Except that these games also came with directional control selectable on the main screen along with keyboard/joystick.
Oh, and I'll really stir things up now by saying the CPC version is the definitive one. ;)
Never played it but to me the Amiga one is the definitive version, it's probably based on the multicolour Amstrad version but probably with better colour combinations as the Amstrad palette was somewhat gaudy. However, I will concur wholeheartedly if you were to say that the Amstrad was the king of the 8bit isometric game genre.
Never played it but to me the Amiga one is the definitive version, it's probably based on the multicolour Amstrad version but probably with better colour combinations as the Amstrad palette was somewhat gaudy. However, I will concur wholeheartedly if you were to say that the Amstrad was the king of the 8bit isometric game genre.
The Amiga one is actually based on the C64 version (same author) - which is kind bad, since it has a few rooms completely changed (because C64 couldnt handle some of the rooms in ZX version and it would slow down considerbly when rendering them) and only one kind of door in all rooms (as the C64 version does too). The amstrad version (and even more so the PCW) has several door types and 4 colours (the mask is used as a second "bitplane" but it looks really nice).
I never liked the colours in the Amiga version though, they seem way too random throughout the rooms.
I played it last night and got bored very quickly. As much as I love isometric games, Head over Heels still leaves me cold. Ah well. The upshot is that I was playing it on emulation, and the file straight afterwards was, Head the Ball! Fantasic. Played that one all evening!
Knight Lore blew me away when i first saw it, played that tons but i didnt play to complete it, ,just kept playing to 'find new rooms' !
Same with Head over Heels, i realised what a huge huge game this was, i couldnt be bothered back then with the time in learning how to complete it when i had 100's of other games to play. Always appreciated how good this game was but again it was a case of just exploring really
Comments
The point would be that Knight Lore came out when there weren't many other isometric games around; the only one of any significance before it was Ant Attack. It was revolutionary.
However, HoH came out against a backdrop of games like Quazatron, Highway Encounter, The Great Escape, Fairlight, Sweevo's World, Gunfright, Spindizzy, etc. It's merely evolutionary.
Oh, and I'll really stir things up now by saying the CPC version is the definitive one. ;)
I would say those two are far superior to HoH. In fact I'd class them as not only the two best isometric games on the Speccy, but possibly two of the best 8-bit games period.
But....Oh, I so love Martianoids!
Hope you voted for it in the budget game group polls then! :p
Honestly didn't realise how much HoH divided opinion until this thread. It's had such glittering praise from a number of people here who see it as the pinnacle of its genre, and a lot of people have commented on the atmosphere, storyline and additional polish which I may well have been oblivious to 1st time round - I might have to revisit it and give it another shot.
Don't have any particular liking/disliking to these isometric games as a genre, I thought Fairlight was the best of the bunch but I'm sure many would disagree..!
Yup I would disagree I thought it was wank :p
*waits for starglider to swoop in and tell me how much of an idiot I am :D
It was revolutionary. It just isn't actually all that good. It deserves a place in history but it doesn't make sense to compare against things like HoH, which is fundamentally a very different type of game albeit presented in the same isometric format.
It is indeed. As Jon Ritman himself has often said. The Speccy version is pretty darn close though.
I think it's more the Ultimate:PTG titles that really divide opinion here.
If you played Head over Heels first (as I did), then you see it as being utterly fantastic and then when you are told that there other 3D titles. So you try them out and are disappointed at how boring they are and how poorly they play (then you encounter slow down and they get worse!).
If you played all of those ultimate games as they came out tho' its probably more just like a natural evolution of the form over time, so Head over Heels wouldn't have appeared quite as amazing to you when you first saw it.
I don't doubt that ultimates 3D games deserve their place in history - I just don't want to play them. But there are plenty of people here that do so I guess it's not surprising when you talk about Head over heels there are those who will want to talk about Knightlore etc.
Still, I'd think it all really comes down to whether you enjoy games that are original, if perhaps a bit rough round the edges, or ones that are highly polished if perhaps a bit derivative. I know it varies from person to person but I'm thoroughly in the former camp. For instance, someone could try and tell me how Modern Warfare 2 is thoroughly better than Doom in every possible fashion but I'd still not be interested in playing it as I'd think that the FPS genre has long been done to death. Obviously the millions of people who bought it would beg to differ.
At least so far as HoH goes it still managed to engage me enough at the time to want to complete it, but could it ever surpass Knight Lore or Ant Attack in my affections? Not a chance.
Don't get me wrong, I can see where people will enjoy this game. It's very well thought out and has some interesting puzzles etc, but the style of game just doesn't do anything or me.
The two-character play mechanic was brilliant, and needs to be used in more games. Sadly only Munch's Odysee has ever come close, and that wasn't as much fun. Batman obviously tried out some of the gameplay ideas in the isometric 3D style first, but fortunately I skipped that and went straight to Head Over Heels.
As for Ultimate's 3D games, yes Knight Lore was innovative but it was just too damn hard from the outset and suffered from horrible speed variations. It just didn't have the charm to keep me playing that Head Over Heels did. Head Over Heels always made you wonder what was coming next. Knight Lore and Alien 8 just gave you more and more of the same old things, whichever direction you went.
- IONIAN-GAMES.com -
I'd say the best isometric 3D game on the Spectrum is Fairlight.
And Knightlore is so over-rated. Yes, it was astounding at the time (I was a Speccy owner then, so I experienced the staggering amazement of seeing it (on my mate's Spectrum, at first), so I know how hard it hit us), but it's not a particularly good game. It's not bad, just not good. If it had come out at the same time as HoH, then no one would even remember Knightlore now, it'd be just another isometric game. I honestly believe that. To me, there are many better isometric Spectrum games, such as HoH, Batman 3D, The Great Escape, and Where Time Stood Still, and yes, Ant Attack.
And not only do I think that Ant Attack is a much better game, playability-wise, but I also think it should be AA that people class as the first game of the type, rather than Knightlore.
I have spoken (huge clash of symbols, and the masses abide by my will ;)).
Oh dear, I forgot about those... yep, I love those too. :smile:
Definitely agree with Highway Encounter, that's in my top 5.
You can say it, but you'd be wrong. Fairlight is crap. FACT. :P Even Sweevo's World is more playable and that's saying something....
I'd agree with that. Subjectively, of course... I like the way that the locations in Fairlight don't seem to be laid out on an obvious grid pattern like most of the other isometric adventures. Having said that, I did greatly enjoy Alien 8 and Head over Heels.
Agree 100% with you on all accounts there joefish. That was also the reason why I did the remake in the first place. I especially agree with the fact that you wanted to see what is coming next, all the new worlds to discover, it was just great.
I hope to finish the remake of Batman one day too, it has stalled at around 90%... have all the graphics but the code doesn't run on Win7 anymore so I would need to do some serious debugging :(
Anyway, HoH will always be #1 ISO adventure for me.
You don't like ANY other isometric game? So that includes Quazatron , Highway Encounter , Batman , Pyracurse , Glider Rider , The Great Escape , Where Time Stood Still etc etc?
I suspect that it'd be more the case that you'd use it whilst you're learning the game. Losing all your lives at some point well into the game could be rather disheartening to someone who knows that they've got to play for over an hour just to get back to that point.
If anything Knight Lore is probably more in need of save games though. Although it can be finished in well under an hour, and most of the rooms are accessible fairly quickly from the start, it's way too easy for even an experienced player to lose several lives in the more random rooms.
Except that rarely happens, because you have the memory fish, which act a bit like save points. I can see how a save feature would've been handy, it's a big game and there was always the danger of dinner interrupting, but then you could say that about loads of 8-bit games.
I remember downloading an RZX of HoH recently and realizing that I didn't stand a chance at all of ever even completing 5% due to the crazy size of the game. Hats off to those with mega-brains enough to enjoy this game, but at the time I preferred my arcade adventures.
I wish I could sit-in on someone who loves this genre playing the game on the offchance I might just suddenly get it.
Very good point! I've never got into isometric adventures either, and watching a rzx of them being completed doesn't encourage me. Watching someone play such a game, and play it well, might convince me, also.
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/forums/showthread.php?t=18351
No Cyclone though!
Except that these games also came with directional control selectable on the main screen along with keyboard/joystick.
Never played it but to me the Amiga one is the definitive version, it's probably based on the multicolour Amstrad version but probably with better colour combinations as the Amstrad palette was somewhat gaudy. However, I will concur wholeheartedly if you were to say that the Amstrad was the king of the 8bit isometric game genre.
The Amiga one is actually based on the C64 version (same author) - which is kind bad, since it has a few rooms completely changed (because C64 couldnt handle some of the rooms in ZX version and it would slow down considerbly when rendering them) and only one kind of door in all rooms (as the C64 version does too). The amstrad version (and even more so the PCW) has several door types and 4 colours (the mask is used as a second "bitplane" but it looks really nice).
I never liked the colours in the Amiga version though, they seem way too random throughout the rooms.
TC
Same with Head over Heels, i realised what a huge huge game this was, i couldnt be bothered back then with the time in learning how to complete it when i had 100's of other games to play. Always appreciated how good this game was but again it was a case of just exploring really