Spacewar 2000

[skip]

To be fair to Jeff lashing out at the Space Giraffe review in the official XBox mag where they gave it 3/10, the person who reviewed it clearly had zero idea that it was not Tempest (and should / could be played differently rather than grind through the levels by limping through) despite it being reasonably clear that 'bulling' was the new game mechanic that elevates the game above the level of just another Tempest clone.

That, and the chaotic graphics / sounds actually being part of the core gameplay, makes this one of his best games by far (IMHO) despite it being quite polarising, which is absolutely understandable. After all these years I'll go back to it occasionally and still get 'stuck' when it gets too difficult. But that's a major part of what differentiates old school arcade type games vs newer games...you don't necessarily get to win by continuing to play or grind through, you actually have to be 'good' at twitch gameplay to succeed.

As far as him riffing on Tempest too much, that's a somewhat fair call, but there's been several dozen of his games on Pocket PC, PC, Mac, iOS, Android, PS4 etc that aren't Tempest-like over the last 25 years, but I guess he's made enough financial success on the Tempest-like games to keep going.

I personally can't wait for the new VR enabled Minotaur Arcade series on PS4, Gridrunner and Goat Up were the most played Llamasoft games on my phone when they were first released

Edited October 14, 2018 by skip

[Lost Dragon]

In fairness though..Jeff's 8 bit stuff polarised a lot of folks on a number of occasions and he threw a tantrum at Zzap64 at the time.

 

Later years saw Defender 2000 (Jaguar) given a 3/10 score by Edge and a similar low score by ST Format as both magazines used the same industry reviewer, The Rev Stuart Campbell, an individual who also laid into Nuon Tempest 3000 big time on his personal website.. (as Edge don't name reviewers, no idea who reviewed it for the magazine, but going off memory i think it got an .

 

I didn't see Jeff single Stuart out at any point.

 

 

Magazines like OXM used a wide range of in house and freelance reviewers and writers, as the industry does and it's far from the 1st or last time a game has been misunderstood...

 

Reviewer moaned you couldn't interact with the creatures in PC Doom (as in enter into dialogue), AVP on Jaguar entered into as if it were a Doom II clone, beta version reviewed..4/10 score..

 

EGM thinking Jaguar CD Battlemorph was based on an arcade game..claimed Jaguar Pitfall Mayan Adventure had no music..

 

Some magazines claimed Super Burnout on Jaguar needed a higher frame rate, despite it running at 60 fps..

 

 

Jeff's been in the games industry for so many years, long enough to understand how the games press work and long enough to either grow a thick skin or rise abI've ill judged review scores i would of thought.

[Lost Dragon]

Damn auto correct on phone to blame for typos above.

 

I meant to say regarding Jeff 'Cherry Picking' reviews to fall out with, at the very same time he kicked off over Zzap64 slagging off Mama Llama for being little more than Revenge Of The Camels, with awful graphics and a bizzare control system dreamt up by Jeff...

 

He did the same with Commodore Users scathing review, presentation 2/5, skill level 3/5, interest 1/5, VFM 2/5 etc.

 

Reviewer described it as boring and ended review saying he had thrown the game cassette into the bin.

 

Jeff's response was to again use his newsletter in which he'd previously described Zzap64 reviews as being written by 12 year old for 12 year olds,to award the C.U reviewew as 'Wally

review of the month' whilst describing it himself as his best game yet...

 

The C.U reviewer described the game as an utter piece of self indulgence on Jeff's part.

 

 

 

Skip forward to 2003 and he admits it was perhaps a bit too weird. .

 

2005 saw Zzap 64's Gary Penn describe the game as too far up Jeff's arse for comfort and it was a pain he wasn't prepared to endure..

 

 

So it was rather surprising to see Jeff react the way he did to critiscm in the press yet again..

 

It's gone hand in hand with his work.

Edited October 15, 2018 by Lost Dragon

[Lost Dragon]

Regarding Battlezone 2000:I have been told at least 1 of the Tramiel family claimed that Battlezone 2000 and Hoverstrike are completely unrelated.

 

Different designs and game structures. .

Different development teams.

 

Other than that details are scarce.

 

No team actually named for Battlezone 2000 and no idea what eventually happened to it either.

[Lost Dragon]

Put this up in Lynx Ultra Star Raiders thread but it deserves to go here as well.

 

Jeff Minter talking of Space War 2000's origins:

 

 

“All I know is that what was going to be Star Raiders 2K has now ended up being Space War. The fate of the SR title is undecided at the moment. Maybe

after I’ve done Defender, and Robotron, and Major Havoc, and Revenge of the Mutant Camels (if only!)…

 

\

(:-) – now, I gotta put in the wave structure and the planet blowing up

/

 

Give it a couple of hours and this'll be on Wikipedia no doubt

Edited November 10, 2018 by Lost Dragon