What's crazy to me is that THQ never went away like LJN did. They have been pumping out bad liscenced platformers ever since! (the tak series and the wrestling games weren't that bad though. Never played summoner.)
THQ made the best wrestling engine of all time. WCW vs nWo, Revenge, Wrestlemania 2000, No Mercy. I only did the WCW games but they're amazing of their ability to have a beginner pick up and just play and know what to do.
I do have to give THQ it's due for the wrestling games. I used to love No Mercy as a kid! But then they make countless Disney and Nickelodeon adaptations that just hurt me inside.
Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street are solid games at their core, IMHO.
I actually enjoy Jaws and Back to the Future quite a bit. Never played Roger Rabbit but it doesn't seem like my kind of game in general.
Friday the 13th is great. Jaws is pretty good, a bit simple but it's almost like an Atari game, great for if you have 15 mins to kill
I use to rip up Jaws pretty hard as a kid, I loved just blasting away at stuff under the water and man when Jaws or Baby Jaws came out....You better look the fuck out!
To me, if a publisher has less than four or five titles, it's just too small a sample size to adequately say they're a terrible publisher. Since that leaves out the obvious Active Enterprises crap (which is still kinda cool for being a garage-based company that had one commercial release, so I kinda give it a pass in that respect anyway), I'd have to go with the consensus pick of THQ. Even though I have a soft spot for Killer Tomatoes, and James Bond Jr. is pretty fun, but the stinkers just outweigh the mediocre positives. Wayne's World, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Wayne Gretzky Hockey...those are just unforgivable wastes of plastic. The only other company in the running was Mindscape, but I've enjoyed a far bigger ratio of games from them than with THQ. If it wasn't for their N64 wrestling games I'd even go so far as to call them the worst publisher of the cartridge era.
What's crazy to me is that THQ never went away like LJN did. They have been pumping out bad liscenced platformers ever since! (the tak series and the wrestling games weren't that bad though. Never played summoner.)
LJN was absorbed by Acclaim pretty much right after Nintendo removed the 5 games per year restriction. They didn't go away, just the brand did. Then again, all parties are now gone anyway. Acclaim went bankrupt in '04, THQ in '13 (although Nordic Games bought the logo and rebranded themselves as THQ Nordic, it's not the same company).
I'm gonna cast another vote for THQ assuming we're sticking with licensed publishers. Just pure doody.
Even if we aren't, most unlicensed companies had average, passable games. They weren't spectacular, but they weren't necessarily shit. I actually prefer most of AVE or Color Dreams/Wisdom Tree/Bunch (they're all the same damn company, so I treat them all as such) games to the bulk of the licensed crap out there. They didn't put out gems by any stretch of the imagination, but most of them had a certain charm to them...kinda like modern indie games. And then when you get companies like Tengen and Camerica, you had companies that had talented developers working for them that simply didn't want to abide by Nintendo's draconian rules to be able to enter the market.
Not to rant or anything, I just hate that blanket "unlicensed = crap" bullshit that I've been hearing for the last decade or so. Hell, some of my all-time favorite NES games are unlicensed.
Does FCI have anything decent published under their name?
Ultima QotA is one of the best RPGs of it's era, and a damn fine port, though not the definitive version of the game.
I'm actually a big fan of Dr. Chaos. It's not a great game, but it's far from terrible.
And for fans of shooters, there's both Zanac and AD&D Dragonstrike.
I also like Pool of Radiance, but it's definitely a shit port.
Conversely, I think the only game there that I'd put in the "sucks balls" list is Ultima: Warriors of Destiny, and it's got less to do with the game itself (which I've heard is great) than how choppy it is when you move. I played it for a couple minutes and felt like I was gonna have a seisure. Even the commonly mentioned "stinkers" of AD&D Heroes of the Lance and Hydlide really aren't THAT bad. HotL is playable, and even kinda fun, once you get into it and figure out what you should be doing...and if you save constantly (seriously, the game's save feature essentially acts like a save-state system). And Hydlide has aged abysmally, and wasn't exactly a masterpiece even in it's heyday, but outside of the early stages of the game it can actually be fun if you let it
EDIT: Fuck, I forgot Bard's Tale! Thanks for mentioning it Tulpa!
Does FCI have anything decent published under their name?
Ultima QotA is one of the best RPGs of it's era, and a damn fine port, though not the definitive version of the game.
I'm actually a big fan of Dr. Chaos. It's not a great game, but it's far from terrible.
And for fans of shooters, there's both Zanac and AD&D Dragonstrike.
I also like Pool of Radiance, but it's definitely a shit port.
Conversely, I think the only game there that I'd put in the "sucks balls" list is Ultima: Warriors of Destiny, and it's got less to do with the game itself (which I've heard is great) than how choppy it is when you move. I played it for a couple minutes and felt like I was gonna have a seisure. Even the commonly mentioned "stinkers" of AD&D Heroes of the Lance and Hydlide really aren't THAT bad. HotL is playable, and even kinda fun, once you get into it and figure out what you should be doing...and if you save constantly (seriously, the game's save feature essentially acts like a save-state system). And Hydlide has aged abysmally, and wasn't exactly a masterpiece even in it's heyday, but outside of the early stages of the game it can actually be fun if you let it
EDIT: Fuck, I forgot Bard's Tale! Thanks for mentioning it Tulpa!
I will definitly have to look more into them. Going off the experince of playing Ultima:Exodus, AD&D Heroes of the Lance and Hylide I didn't realise the company had some decent titles under them.
To me, if a publisher has less than four or five titles, it's just too small a sample size to adequately say they're a terrible publisher. Since that leaves out the obvious Active Enterprises crap (which is still kinda cool for being a garage-based company that had one commercial release, so I kinda give it a pass in that respect anyway), I'd have to go with the consensus pick of THQ. Even though I have a soft spot for Killer Tomatoes, and James Bond Jr. is pretty fun, but the stinkers just outweigh the mediocre positives. Wayne's World, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Wayne Gretzky Hockey...those are just unforgivable wastes of plastic. The only other company in the running was Mindscape, but I've enjoyed a far bigger ratio of games from them than with THQ. If it wasn't for their N64 wrestling games I'd even go so far as to call them the worst publisher of the cartridge era.
I have a bias for Rocky & Bullwinkle because of when I came across it (certain period in childhood, age 4 or 5), but I have to agree - it's a total waste of plastic. One of the best parts of collecting this stuff is seeing how obviously bad it is now, but how awesome it felt back in the day.
The THQ wrestling games are some of the best games of all time, especially No Mercy.
To me, if a publisher has less than four or five titles, it's just too small a sample size to adequately say they're a terrible publisher. Since that leaves out the obvious Active Enterprises crap (which is still kinda cool for being a garage-based company that had one commercial release, so I kinda give it a pass in that respect anyway), I'd have to go with the consensus pick of THQ. Even though I have a soft spot for Killer Tomatoes, and James Bond Jr. is pretty fun, but the stinkers just outweigh the mediocre positives. Wayne's World, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Wayne Gretzky Hockey...those are just unforgivable wastes of plastic. The only other company in the running was Mindscape, but I've enjoyed a far bigger ratio of games from them than with THQ. If it wasn't for their N64 wrestling games I'd even go so far as to call them the worst publisher of the cartridge era.
I think if any publisher lasted more than a couple of titles then they had to make at least one playable game.
To me, if a publisher has less than four or five titles, it's just too small a sample size to adequately say they're a terrible publisher. Since that leaves out the obvious Active Enterprises crap (which is still kinda cool for being a garage-based company that had one commercial release, so I kinda give it a pass in that respect anyway), I'd have to go with the consensus pick of THQ. Even though I have a soft spot for Killer Tomatoes, and James Bond Jr. is pretty fun, but the stinkers just outweigh the mediocre positives. Wayne's World, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Wayne Gretzky Hockey...those are just unforgivable wastes of plastic. The only other company in the running was Mindscape, but I've enjoyed a far bigger ratio of games from them than with THQ. If it wasn't for their N64 wrestling games I'd even go so far as to call them the worst publisher of the cartridge era.
I think if any publisher lasted more than a couple of titles then they had to make at least one playable game.
Agreed, and I made note of a couple of THQ's. When deciding on the cream of the crap though, you have to balance the good with the bad, and THQ's decent titles simply fail to outweigh the crap ones. They are far and away the worst in terms of the quality:crap ratio. Mindscape would probably be my second choice, but after playing a bunch of their games, they really only have a couple that I can't find any enjoyment in, so while many were no better than average, there were few that I would consider to be crap.
To me, if a publisher has less than four or five titles, it's just too small a sample size to adequately say they're a terrible publisher. Since that leaves out the obvious Active Enterprises crap (which is still kinda cool for being a garage-based company that had one commercial release, so I kinda give it a pass in that respect anyway), I'd have to go with the consensus pick of THQ. Even though I have a soft spot for Killer Tomatoes, and James Bond Jr. is pretty fun, but the stinkers just outweigh the mediocre positives. Wayne's World, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Wayne Gretzky Hockey...those are just unforgivable wastes of plastic. The only other company in the running was Mindscape, but I've enjoyed a far bigger ratio of games from them than with THQ. If it wasn't for their N64 wrestling games I'd even go so far as to call them the worst publisher of the cartridge era.
I have a bias for Rocky & Bullwinkle because of when I came across it (certain period in childhood, age 4 or 5), but I have to agree - it's a total waste of plastic. One of the best parts of collecting this stuff is seeing how obviously bad it is now, but how awesome it felt back in the day.
The THQ wrestling games are some of the best games of all time, especially No Mercy.
I rented Rocky & Bullwinkle back when it came out. I'd read a review in GamePro and despite the poor rating, I figured I'd give it a whirl because even then I didn't always agree with the ratings I saw in magazines...and even then it was no exception. Sadly, I actually thought the poor review was a bit too forgiving of the game. One of the rare times I've felt that a poor review was 100% justified.
Does FCI have anything decent published under their name?
Ultima QotA is one of the best RPGs of it's era, and a damn fine port, though not the definitive version of the game.
I'm actually a big fan of Dr. Chaos. It's not a great game, but it's far from terrible.
And for fans of shooters, there's both Zanac and AD&D Dragonstrike.
I also like Pool of Radiance, but it's definitely a shit port.
Conversely, I think the only game there that I'd put in the "sucks balls" list is Ultima: Warriors of Destiny, and it's got less to do with the game itself (which I've heard is great) than how choppy it is when you move. I played it for a couple minutes and felt like I was gonna have a seisure. Even the commonly mentioned "stinkers" of AD&D Heroes of the Lance and Hydlide really aren't THAT bad. HotL is playable, and even kinda fun, once you get into it and figure out what you should be doing...and if you save constantly (seriously, the game's save feature essentially acts like a save-state system). And Hydlide has aged abysmally, and wasn't exactly a masterpiece even in it's heyday, but outside of the early stages of the game it can actually be fun if you let it
EDIT: Fuck, I forgot Bard's Tale! Thanks for mentioning it Tulpa!
I will definitly have to look more into them. Going off the experince of playing Ultima:Exodus, AD&D Heroes of the Lance and Hylide I didn't realise the company had some decent titles under them.
It definitely depends on the kind of games you're into. Ultima: Exodus definitely hasn't aged well, but it was a decent port of the PC game. When it was released there weren't many other true RPGs on the NES, and while it's been vastly outclassed since, it wasn't bad in it's day. And like I said, HotL and Hydlide aren't as bad as their reputations would indicate, but they're not exactly great either. I actually really enjoyed Heroes of the Lance when I beat it, and while I haven't put the time into Hydlide yet, from what I've heard it really opens up after the initial grinding at the start. But yeah, it's not everyone's cup of tea either. Based on those three games I could see why you would judge them poorly though...but they definitely released better titles than that.
Comments
Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street are solid games at their core, IMHO.
I actually enjoy Jaws and Back to the Future quite a bit. Never played Roger Rabbit but it doesn't seem like my kind of game in general.
Friday the 13th is great. Jaws is pretty good, a bit simple but it's almost like an Atari game, great for if you have 15 mins to kill
I use to rip up Jaws pretty hard as a kid, I loved just blasting away at stuff under the water and man when Jaws or Baby Jaws came out....You better look the fuck out!
i love toxie and i love jaws!!! good call eh pal
What's crazy to me is that THQ never went away like LJN did. They have been pumping out bad liscenced platformers ever since! (the tak series and the wrestling games weren't that bad though. Never played summoner.)
LJN was absorbed by Acclaim pretty much right after Nintendo removed the 5 games per year restriction. They didn't go away, just the brand did. Then again, all parties are now gone anyway. Acclaim went bankrupt in '04, THQ in '13 (although Nordic Games bought the logo and rebranded themselves as THQ Nordic, it's not the same company).
I'm gonna cast another vote for THQ assuming we're sticking with licensed publishers. Just pure doody.
Even if we aren't, most unlicensed companies had average, passable games. They weren't spectacular, but they weren't necessarily shit. I actually prefer most of AVE or Color Dreams/Wisdom Tree/Bunch (they're all the same damn company, so I treat them all as such) games to the bulk of the licensed crap out there. They didn't put out gems by any stretch of the imagination, but most of them had a certain charm to them...kinda like modern indie games. And then when you get companies like Tengen and Camerica, you had companies that had talented developers working for them that simply didn't want to abide by Nintendo's draconian rules to be able to enter the market.
Not to rant or anything, I just hate that blanket "unlicensed = crap" bullshit that I've been hearing for the last decade or so. Hell, some of my all-time favorite NES games are unlicensed.
Does FCI have anything decent published under their name?
Zanac, Magmax, Phantom Fighter, The Bard's Tale, and maybe the Ultima games.
Does FCI have anything decent published under their name?
Ultima QotA is one of the best RPGs of it's era, and a damn fine port, though not the definitive version of the game.
I'm actually a big fan of Dr. Chaos. It's not a great game, but it's far from terrible.
And for fans of shooters, there's both Zanac and AD&D Dragonstrike.
I also like Pool of Radiance, but it's definitely a shit port.
Conversely, I think the only game there that I'd put in the "sucks balls" list is Ultima: Warriors of Destiny, and it's got less to do with the game itself (which I've heard is great) than how choppy it is when you move. I played it for a couple minutes and felt like I was gonna have a seisure. Even the commonly mentioned "stinkers" of AD&D Heroes of the Lance and Hydlide really aren't THAT bad. HotL is playable, and even kinda fun, once you get into it and figure out what you should be doing...and if you save constantly (seriously, the game's save feature essentially acts like a save-state system). And Hydlide has aged abysmally, and wasn't exactly a masterpiece even in it's heyday, but outside of the early stages of the game it can actually be fun if you let it
EDIT: Fuck, I forgot Bard's Tale! Thanks for mentioning it Tulpa!
Does FCI have anything decent published under their name?
Ultima QotA is one of the best RPGs of it's era, and a damn fine port, though not the definitive version of the game.
I'm actually a big fan of Dr. Chaos. It's not a great game, but it's far from terrible.
And for fans of shooters, there's both Zanac and AD&D Dragonstrike.
I also like Pool of Radiance, but it's definitely a shit port.
Conversely, I think the only game there that I'd put in the "sucks balls" list is Ultima: Warriors of Destiny, and it's got less to do with the game itself (which I've heard is great) than how choppy it is when you move. I played it for a couple minutes and felt like I was gonna have a seisure. Even the commonly mentioned "stinkers" of AD&D Heroes of the Lance and Hydlide really aren't THAT bad. HotL is playable, and even kinda fun, once you get into it and figure out what you should be doing...and if you save constantly (seriously, the game's save feature essentially acts like a save-state system). And Hydlide has aged abysmally, and wasn't exactly a masterpiece even in it's heyday, but outside of the early stages of the game it can actually be fun if you let it
EDIT: Fuck, I forgot Bard's Tale! Thanks for mentioning it Tulpa!
I will definitly have to look more into them. Going off the experince of playing Ultima:Exodus, AD&D Heroes of the Lance and Hylide I didn't realise the company had some decent titles under them.
To me, if a publisher has less than four or five titles, it's just too small a sample size to adequately say they're a terrible publisher. Since that leaves out the obvious Active Enterprises crap (which is still kinda cool for being a garage-based company that had one commercial release, so I kinda give it a pass in that respect anyway), I'd have to go with the consensus pick of THQ. Even though I have a soft spot for Killer Tomatoes, and James Bond Jr. is pretty fun, but the stinkers just outweigh the mediocre positives. Wayne's World, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Wayne Gretzky Hockey...those are just unforgivable wastes of plastic. The only other company in the running was Mindscape, but I've enjoyed a far bigger ratio of games from them than with THQ. If it wasn't for their N64 wrestling games I'd even go so far as to call them the worst publisher of the cartridge era.
I have a bias for Rocky & Bullwinkle because of when I came across it (certain period in childhood, age 4 or 5), but I have to agree - it's a total waste of plastic. One of the best parts of collecting this stuff is seeing how obviously bad it is now, but how awesome it felt back in the day.
The THQ wrestling games are some of the best games of all time, especially No Mercy.
To me, if a publisher has less than four or five titles, it's just too small a sample size to adequately say they're a terrible publisher. Since that leaves out the obvious Active Enterprises crap (which is still kinda cool for being a garage-based company that had one commercial release, so I kinda give it a pass in that respect anyway), I'd have to go with the consensus pick of THQ. Even though I have a soft spot for Killer Tomatoes, and James Bond Jr. is pretty fun, but the stinkers just outweigh the mediocre positives. Wayne's World, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Wayne Gretzky Hockey...those are just unforgivable wastes of plastic. The only other company in the running was Mindscape, but I've enjoyed a far bigger ratio of games from them than with THQ. If it wasn't for their N64 wrestling games I'd even go so far as to call them the worst publisher of the cartridge era.
I think if any publisher lasted more than a couple of titles then they had to make at least one playable game.
To me, if a publisher has less than four or five titles, it's just too small a sample size to adequately say they're a terrible publisher. Since that leaves out the obvious Active Enterprises crap (which is still kinda cool for being a garage-based company that had one commercial release, so I kinda give it a pass in that respect anyway), I'd have to go with the consensus pick of THQ. Even though I have a soft spot for Killer Tomatoes, and James Bond Jr. is pretty fun, but the stinkers just outweigh the mediocre positives. Wayne's World, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Wayne Gretzky Hockey...those are just unforgivable wastes of plastic. The only other company in the running was Mindscape, but I've enjoyed a far bigger ratio of games from them than with THQ. If it wasn't for their N64 wrestling games I'd even go so far as to call them the worst publisher of the cartridge era.
I think if any publisher lasted more than a couple of titles then they had to make at least one playable game.
Agreed, and I made note of a couple of THQ's. When deciding on the cream of the crap though, you have to balance the good with the bad, and THQ's decent titles simply fail to outweigh the crap ones. They are far and away the worst in terms of the quality:crap ratio. Mindscape would probably be my second choice, but after playing a bunch of their games, they really only have a couple that I can't find any enjoyment in, so while many were no better than average, there were few that I would consider to be crap.
To me, if a publisher has less than four or five titles, it's just too small a sample size to adequately say they're a terrible publisher. Since that leaves out the obvious Active Enterprises crap (which is still kinda cool for being a garage-based company that had one commercial release, so I kinda give it a pass in that respect anyway), I'd have to go with the consensus pick of THQ. Even though I have a soft spot for Killer Tomatoes, and James Bond Jr. is pretty fun, but the stinkers just outweigh the mediocre positives. Wayne's World, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Wayne Gretzky Hockey...those are just unforgivable wastes of plastic. The only other company in the running was Mindscape, but I've enjoyed a far bigger ratio of games from them than with THQ. If it wasn't for their N64 wrestling games I'd even go so far as to call them the worst publisher of the cartridge era.
I have a bias for Rocky & Bullwinkle because of when I came across it (certain period in childhood, age 4 or 5), but I have to agree - it's a total waste of plastic. One of the best parts of collecting this stuff is seeing how obviously bad it is now, but how awesome it felt back in the day.
The THQ wrestling games are some of the best games of all time, especially No Mercy.
I rented Rocky & Bullwinkle back when it came out. I'd read a review in GamePro and despite the poor rating, I figured I'd give it a whirl because even then I didn't always agree with the ratings I saw in magazines...and even then it was no exception. Sadly, I actually thought the poor review was a bit too forgiving of the game. One of the rare times I've felt that a poor review was 100% justified.
Does FCI have anything decent published under their name?
Ultima QotA is one of the best RPGs of it's era, and a damn fine port, though not the definitive version of the game.
I'm actually a big fan of Dr. Chaos. It's not a great game, but it's far from terrible.
And for fans of shooters, there's both Zanac and AD&D Dragonstrike.
I also like Pool of Radiance, but it's definitely a shit port.
Conversely, I think the only game there that I'd put in the "sucks balls" list is Ultima: Warriors of Destiny, and it's got less to do with the game itself (which I've heard is great) than how choppy it is when you move. I played it for a couple minutes and felt like I was gonna have a seisure. Even the commonly mentioned "stinkers" of AD&D Heroes of the Lance and Hydlide really aren't THAT bad. HotL is playable, and even kinda fun, once you get into it and figure out what you should be doing...and if you save constantly (seriously, the game's save feature essentially acts like a save-state system). And Hydlide has aged abysmally, and wasn't exactly a masterpiece even in it's heyday, but outside of the early stages of the game it can actually be fun if you let it
EDIT: Fuck, I forgot Bard's Tale! Thanks for mentioning it Tulpa!
I will definitly have to look more into them. Going off the experince of playing Ultima:Exodus, AD&D Heroes of the Lance and Hylide I didn't realise the company had some decent titles under them.
It definitely depends on the kind of games you're into. Ultima: Exodus definitely hasn't aged well, but it was a decent port of the PC game. When it was released there weren't many other true RPGs on the NES, and while it's been vastly outclassed since, it wasn't bad in it's day. And like I said, HotL and Hydlide aren't as bad as their reputations would indicate, but they're not exactly great either. I actually really enjoyed Heroes of the Lance when I beat it, and while I haven't put the time into Hydlide yet, from what I've heard it really opens up after the initial grinding at the start. But yeah, it's not everyone's cup of tea either. Based on those three games I could see why you would judge them poorly though...but they definitely released better titles than that.