The Lost Patrol, Amiga - Part 3 - Overlooked Oldies

[oooBASTIooo]

wow, he can read..

[JimPlaysGames]

@oooBASTIooo my parents are so proud of me.

[riteasrain]

hahah "where do babies come from. cool vid, looks hard!

[JimPlaysGames]

@riteasrain thanks :)

Yeah it's ridiculously tough. Random unavoidable death is not fun.

[riteasrain]

@JimPlaysGames That's true lol. I've played Fallout 3. At least I can run for it.

[JimPlaysGames]

@riteasrain haha indeed. If only Dogmeat understood that principle too.

[riteasrain]

@JimPlaysGames Oh gosh I forgot about the dog. That was too cool! I've got some add-ons but haven't played in a couple of years so must get them out sometime.

[JimPlaysGames]

@riteasrain yeah I liked the companions, but I ended up finding them more useful as mules for carrying my stuff rather than being any good in a fight.

Fallout: New Vegas is worth a look too, although I still preferred Fallout 3. I love games like that with so much freedom. I've recently got Fallout 1 and 2 and will probably be doing videos about them at some point. They're quite different in style, more like Baldur's Gate, but should be fun.

[riteasrain]

@JimPlaysGames Yes I thought of getting them, but didn't in the end. I have got Baldur's Gate though but I didn't play those games years ago & still have to get them out of the box. I really started with Tomb Raider - got it for my youngest son. Wasn't til a decade later I started playing the series myself. I loved Oblivion too and looking forward to Skyrim. Haven't got F:New Vegas but have looked @ it on youtube.

[JimPlaysGames]

@riteasrain oh yes loved Oblivion. Skyrim is going to eat my life for quite a while when it comes out. I'll be needing a new PC though.

[riteasrain]

@JimPlaysGames Is skyrim 11/11/11? Or am I thinking of Tomb Raider Survivor which has been relegated to next year. Oh well whatever happens happens ;-) I'll have to save up too lol..

[JimPlaysGames]

@riteasrain yeah that's the date I've heard. Maybe we'll get the next Elder Scrolls game after that on 12/12/12, although after that it's going to get problematic unless they invent a 13th month.

I'm trying to avoid any spoilers, but I did watch a clip that involved a fight with a dragon. That was mental. Might do a playthrough of it on this channel, although I'm sure there will be thousands of other people doing that.

[ShadowDevelopment]

@JimPlaysGames

Hi Jim. Good review, thanks.:)

Ian Harling (game artist, LP)

[JimPlaysGames]

@ShadowDevelopment wow really? That's wicked. Nice work man. The graphics were certainly something special. What did you use to make them? Deluxe Paint perhaps?

[ShadowDevelopment]

@JimPlaysGames Hi Jim, thanks:) Yes DP2, I really liked it. It had an animation facility that was about the best of its kind for the time. Pallette restrictions where a bit extreme, we were usually working in less than 32 colours and at 320x200 res' - it's far easier with Photoshop nowadays, but there was something about being that restricted that made you try a lot harder:)

Ian

[JimPlaysGames]

@ShadowDevelopment yeah I had Deluxe Paint (something) on my A1200. I never did anything good, just messing about, but I remember it being very good for animation. With onion-skinning and stuff. Again, you did amazing work especially given the tools.

[ShadowDevelopment]

@JimPlaysGames Thanks JIm, those were the days...:)

[laffer35]

I read an interview with one of the people that made this game long ago (can't remember where anymore, or exactly what it said in much detail) where he said the game didn't end up anywhere near as good as they would have liked... they had much more stuff they had planned to put in there.

I think it was because the publisher wanted the game out quickly, or it might have been to keep the amount of floppies down... can't remember exactly.

[JimPlaysGames]

@laffer35 yeah it sounds like a sadly familiar story. Too often the publishers force the release of a game before it's ready. It doesn't make much sense to me because surely the bad reviews of an unfinished game would hurt sales.

[RazZazStudios]

It seemed your biggest (mistake?) was confusing the 'dig in' command for the 'rest' command.

-Raz

[JimPlaysGames]

@RazZazStudios I thought my biggest mistake was stepping on a mine :P

I was under the impression that dig in and rest are basically the same, except one is longer duration. At least I think that's what the manual said.

[RazZazStudios]

@JimPlaysGames Lmao! This game's unforgivable nature reminds me of Dwarf Fortress... the emulator just made it impossible. : /

-Raz

[JimPlaysGames]

@RazZazStudios wow I just looked up Dwarf Fortress. If a game's difficulty is proportional to it's age, then an ASCII dungeon crawler must be the most difficult game ever.

[RazZazStudios]

@JimPlaysGames Haha, it's not so bad with texture packs. Its one of those games with learning cliff instead of a curve, but the base building aspect is kind of addicting. But it has a rather sadistic tendency to one shot you with random events. : P

[TheUngulable]

Great review of one of my favourite games ever. It felt like I was in the middle of Nam myself when I played it. Oh and the difficulty, LMAO! I have never heard of anyone who completed this game. In fact it is so hard people don't even tell the common "I know a guy who knows a guy who completed the game". Even if you didn't get killed by random encounters you always ran out of food or got to tired. Just awesome.

[JimPlaysGames]

@TheUngulable thanks :)

Yeah this is like the Kobayashi Maru of Amiga games. If Captain Kirk had played it, he would have reprogrammed the game to make it finishable. I don't believe in the no-win scenario :)

[BigDumbFate]

One of my favorite amiga games though it is very very difficult. It is quite frustrating with some of the random events. Some of the worse are when your men get frustrated, refuse to move, go in another direction, or even kill you.....

[JimPlaysGames]

@BigDumbFate the bastards. After all I did for them they'd do that? How dare they go in another direction?!

It seems like a good game underneath it's faults. Reminds of me Sierra adventure games, where the only way to make progress was to save every 2 minutes and reload every time something random and unavoidable killed you.

How far have you managed to get in this game? Have you finished it?

[BigDumbFate]

@JimPlaysGames Nope, I never got through it. I played it countless times and loved the game nonetheless. Dunno why exactly. Think it was just the vibe of the game, and the great soundtrack.

I remember I got pretty far. About 80% of the way to Du Hoc, but I couldn't save games on my old Amiga 500 so it was pretty devastating to get killed at that point. It's been 12 years+ since I played it. Maybe I'll dust of my old A500 and give it a go one of these days. Getting inspired of your videos :)

[JimPlaysGames]

@BigDumbFate bloody hell, I would have been so pissed off. Given the number of random events that can kill you without warning, the odds of completing it without saving must be pretty damn low.

I can imagine if you like the setting it helps draw you in. If it was a sci-fi setting I'd probably be more into it. The music is definitely a big plus. I found a great remix of it, which is in my favourites if you want to check it out.

Also thanks, it's great to reignite interest in these old games :)

[BigDumbFate]

@JimPlaysGames Yeah I've already checked it out. Great stuff. Quite a few different remixes for this theme on here. but yes, can only agree with you. Pretty frustrating at times. Definitely loved the setting, but then again, I am a sucker for movies like fullmetaljacket, apocalypse now, etc. etc.

Well keep it up sir, love your channel!!!

[JimPlaysGames]

@BigDumbFate thanks and I will :D

[Trusteft]

btw, if you really want to try this without the graphical glitch, get the game for the STE. Better graphics than the ST version, although not as good as the Amiga one, but at least you can see everything properly.

[JimPlaysGames]

@Trusteft I thought it might have been because of the Amiga version I was emulating, 1200 probably. But usually if a game doesn't work on that setting it doesn't load at all, so I didn't see that glitch until I was already well into the game. Oh well, I probably couldn't have hit the sniper anyway. I might have a go at the STE version, but to be honest this game didn't grab me. But if it grows on me after some practice I could do another second impression video.

[Trusteft]

@JimPlaysGames The only Amiga I had was the 1200 too, and had the same glitches, so I have no idea how it will perform or any other. On the ST I had it was good, but with a fewer cutscenes, fewer colours, worse sound. On the STE a friend had it it was better looking. On the Mega STE I got later, I didn't have the game any more.

If it grows on you, well, in your case probably not.If you don't like the idea of simulating that patrol in vietnam and the action sequences, don't bother with STE.

[JimPlaysGames]

@Trusteft well I won't write it off just yet. There is another old game that was very hard that I played a lot called Conflict, the Middle East Simulator on the Atari ST, which barely had graphics at all and involved a lot of unfair random events. I think I probably finished that once or twice despite playing it a hell of a lot, including years later on the PC. Maybe I'll do a video of that too at some point.

[Trusteft]

@JimPlaysGames I know the game you are talking about. I still play it from time to time. Among my favourite games, I know it Very well. It's in my top strategy games of all time. Floor 13 is very similar in gameplay too.

Other games (doubt they would make good videos) are Colonial Conquest (v1.1) for the ST, Millennium 2.2 (that's the name, not the version), Starflight, Red Lighting, Conflict Europe, UMS 1 and a few others. :)

[slenkar]

the combat where you hide behind a wall and shoot seems really lame, they can duck in a microsecond

[JimPlaysGames]

@slenkar yeah I think if the minigames were better it would have been a more enjoyable game. It's a pretty ambitious attempt for the time though.

[slenkar]

according to mobygames there is a dos version so i will be playing that

[slenkar]

good game for a lets play

[rhydermike]

Looks a bit flawed. But interesting. Thanks for looking at it.

[JimPlaysGames]

@rhydermike you're welcome :)

Yeah it seems like a decent idea for a game, but the random events that kill you without warning or opportunity to recover are really bad game design in my opinion. Even worse than in a Sierra point and click adventure.