Poll : The best Crash Smash that wasn't.

edited September 2017 in Games
Theres some iconic Spectrum games where its always a surprise that they weren't that highly rated at the time. Whats your favourite game that didn't get a Crash Smash.

(Before the Softaid poll, I didn't know that Kokotoni Wilf had so much love. I thought it was just me).
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Post edited by morph on
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Comments

  • My vote would be for a game not on the list: Renegade. But out of those listed - Turbo Esprit.

    Remember the flak they copped in the forums for months for not making Matchday a Smash?
  • I picked Chaos because I played it so much.
  • I'm not sure I can make a single vote for this one? There's a few there that I'd vote for.
    Every night is curry night!
  • Turbo Esprit for me.

    But If I could, I'd vote for Rex and Laser Squad too.
  • Trap door , espirit should have also been smashed , but i would have picked Match Day .
  • I picked Rex because I liked it a lot back then, the only drawback were the slowdowns.
  • I voted for Turbo Esprit. But I'd have voted for Brian Bloodaxe, or Jetset Willy 2 if they'd have been on the list.
  • edited September 2017
    I eventually voted for Rex yesterday, yup I was the first one to vote that game.

    Why? Well it's bloody great, and I weighed up all the odds and out of all the games here it's the one I've returned to the most out of all of them. Plus it got 82% I feel that even if it was never going to be Smashed it should've had at least another 5% added.

    Finders Keepers is a great game, but I'll be honest I don't think it was worthy of a Crash Smash, there's a few twitchy bits that ruin it for me as a 90+ game. It definitely does deserve its 85% though possibly a couple marks more.

    Laser Squad was amazing for the time, but I've not bothered to return to it since the early 90's. I had a quick go back in the late 90's but the interest was kind of gone, plus you can cheese to win if you want to. Having to force yourself to play a harder game versus exploiting the flaws kind of makes me think it's not worth Smashing....unless you do it with a hammer.

    Trap Door well even with it's annoyances it's a great game, not sure it deserved a Smash though, it's quite slow, and clunky, and a bit unpredictable, and much like it's rather awful sequel pretty much requires you to play it perfectly, this requires a lot of replays and trial and error. Realistically it ends up being quite frustrating.

    TLL innovative, provocative, original, but flawed, unpredictable, and not that much fun when you break it down. I think it deserved an 85%.....Not a Smash.

    Enigma Force....Realistically I'd have gave it about 65% shouldn't even be on the list. I'm not even sure the first game deserved it's Smash tbh? :))

    Turbo Esprit....I've not played the game in years, and I used to love it, and I played it to death back in the 80's.....If Rex wasn't on the list this may have got my vote.

    ATF Never really liked it much, but I see it's merits, I defo wouldn't have Smashed it, but I can see why others may have. I'd have given it about 72%....maybe.

    Kokotoni Wilf.....I thought about voting for this game, but then I thought nah it's not worth a Crash Smash at all. I love this game, but even I can tell it fell short of the mark. I left my rose tinted spex on the table for that one.
    Post edited by dm_boozefreek on
    Every night is curry night!
  • Glider Rider 128
    No one important.
  • It was a toss up between Rex and Turbo Esprit but i went for Rex as i played this a lot back in the day. The explosions were brilliant.
    The trouble with tribbles is.......
  • To be honest, the biggest mistake that Crash! ever made was with Explorer - they only gave it 32% when it deserved something in the high 90s.
  • edited September 2017
    That was one game I always liked the look of.
    Post edited by DavidB on
    No one important.
  • Turbo Esprit. I thought the level of detail was amazing at the time and played it loads.
  • Went for Chaos but I think that Laser Squad and Turbo Esprit also deserved smashes.
  • *Cough* Match Day *Cough*
  • Another game I thought should have been a Smash as it was not only a great game at the time but was a big leap in quality compared to the similar games before it - Daley Thompson's Decathlon. I probably racked up more hours playing that game than any other Speccy title.
  • It was always going to be Chaos or Rex for me, I went for Rex in the end but it was close.

    It wasn't until years after I played it that I found out it wasn't a smash and I was amazed.
  • Not strictly a fair answer but my answer would be Atic Atac because they hadn't invented the Smash at that point.
  • From that list I would go for Tubro Esprit. I think the games on the list were marked fairly as they were all excellent but just lacked that final sprinkling of quality to be true 'smashes'.

    I always thought that Green Beret deserved to be smashed though.

    Airwolf SHOULD NOT have been smashed!
  • Airwolf SHOULD NOT have been smashed!

    Yes it should......with a hammer!
    Every night is curry night!
  • Yeah, well, I should have done a bit more research before I set out the poll. I was positive that Green Beret and Match Day were already smashes. Match Day sat at the top of Crash's readers charts for years.
  • Chaos would be my choice.

    I might have said Turbo Esprit but it's not aged all that well.
  • edited September 2017
    Gift from the Gods missed out on a Smash largely because of its price, which seems a little churlish. Value for money said nothing about quality. It implied that a cheap game was better than a more expensive one, which clearly wasn't and isn't the case, but I guess it took into consideration the limited budgets of young gamers, which was a big deal at the time.
    Post edited by Tayles on
  • edited September 2017
    Tayles wrote: »
    Gift from the Gods missed out on a Smash largely because of its price, which seems a little churlish. Value for money said nothing about quality. It implied that a cheap game was better than a more expensive one, which clearly wasn't and isn't the case, but I guess it took into consideration the limited budgets of young gamers, which was a big deal at the time.

    Ah yeah - that was around the time in Crash that the overall score was done as an average of the 6 ratings (Use of Computer, Graphics etc.). GFTG was given 75% for "value for money", though most other ratings were low to mid 80s so it would still have only got... (gets calculator out)... 86% if that rating was removed.

    It was changed later - I think to the average of the reviewer ratings? Otherwise,
    games like Brainstorm (57% for graphics) would not have been Crash Smashed.

    I think "value for money" is a useful rating, though I do agree that it shouldn't have precluded a game being 'Smashed' just on price basis.
    Post edited by Morkin on
  • Fair enough. I don't know if I've ever played GFTG, but I remember finding it odd that the ratings didn't reflect what I think was a glowing write up.
  • Morkin wrote: »
    Ah yeah - that was around the time in Crash that the overall score was done as an average of the 6 ratings (Use of Computer, Graphics etc.). GFTG was given 75% for "value for money", though most other ratings were low to mid 80s so it would still have only got... (gets calculator out)... 86% if that rating was removed.

    Crash ratings were always a mystery. Shadowfire with its icons and instruction manual that didn't quite make sense got a Getting Started of 90%. Don't Buy This in the same issue got a Getting Started of 27%. Eh?
  • Morkin wrote: »
    Tayles wrote: »
    Gift from the Gods missed out on a Smash largely because of its price, which seems a little churlish. Value for money said nothing about quality. It implied that a cheap game was better than a more expensive one, which clearly wasn't and isn't the case, but I guess it took into consideration the limited budgets of young gamers, which was a big deal at the time.

    Ah yeah - that was around the time in Crash that the overall score was done as an average of the 6 ratings (Use of Computer, Graphics etc.). GFTG was given 75% for "value for money", though most other ratings were low to mid 80s so it would still have only got... (gets calculator out)... 86% if that rating was removed.

    It was changed later - I think to the average of the reviewer ratings? Otherwise,
    games like Brainstorm (57% for graphics) would not have been Crash Smashed.

    I think "value for money" is a useful rating, though I do agree that it shouldn't have precluded a game being 'Smashed' just on price basis.

    That's correct. Up to and including issue 15 (May '85) averaged all of the scores to get the Overall. From then on it was an average of the reviewer's Overalls.

    I always felt that Overall should have been an average of Playability and Addictive Qualities (with Value For Money somehow thrown in) as they were probably the most important marks. Given how epic-ally Knight Lore was received it's 94% is under-rated for me (wrong thread I know). It should have belonged to the 97% Overall club and would have done if Playability (97%) and Addictive Qualities (96%) were averaged.
  • morph wrote: »
    Crash ratings were always a mystery. Shadowfire with its icons and instruction manual that didn't quite make sense got a Getting Started of 90%. Don't Buy This in the same issue got a Getting Started of 27%. Eh?

    Oh yeah, I recall there was some discussion on the letters page about the boosting of ratings for some of the Crash Smashes.
    Vampyre wrote: »
    I always felt that Overall should have been an average of Playability and Addictive Qualities (with Value For Money somehow thrown in) as they were probably the most important marks. Given how epic-ally Knight Lore was received it's 94% is under-rated for me (wrong thread I know). It should have belonged to the 97% Overall club and would have done if Playability (97%) and Addictive Qualities (96%) were averaged.

    Yeah, maybe a new thread, "games that should/should not have been in the 97% club" :D
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