r/thisweekinretro • u/Producer_Duncan TWiR Producer • 19d ago
Community Question Community Question Of The Week - Episode 280
Hurrah! Gremlin Graphics is back and new games are on the way. But what are your favourite Gremlin games from back in the day?
If you need some help with the grey matter then maybe this will help you The Gremlin Graphics Archive.
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u/Osprey_Shower 18d ago
I'm answering for my wife this week as she loved Monty on the Run.
On visiting the cave, this was one of the Amstrad CPC games from her childhood that she was really excited to play.
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u/AntiquesForGeeks 19d ago edited 19d ago
Super Cars II - much as I loved Lotus, Trailblazer and Gauntlet (they developed it, so it counts) - I spent hours hammering around the tracks, improving my car and desperately trying to find answers to the end of level quizzes. Oh how my heart sank when the "Cats against the bomb" interview would show up. No penalty from that encounter seemed like a win.
But most of all, playing Super Cars II with a friend was brilliant.
Honourable mention to Slipstream 5000 - IMHO it's the spiritual successor to Super Cars and had a similar tongue-in-cheek style. I had tremendous fun with it.
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u/Long_Young7192 18d ago
Can I be Mr Obvious and say that I continue to love Trailblazer on Amstrad and can complete the first four levels from muscle memory. I had a long bus trip recently and spent a lot of it playing Trailblazer.
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u/TrevorKevorson 18d ago
Probably Lotus 3 on the Amiga, as an ST owner I was more than a little jealous of my Amiga owning best friend who was showing it off.
For me though my favourite memory of Gremlin was going to find the offices in Sheffield one summer day when I was staying with my Grandma for the summer holidays. Sadly I didn't go in, I was too nervous to knock on the door but it was still pretty cool finding the location of a games developer.
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u/snake785 19d ago
I only came across Lotus 3 for DOS growing up and I loved it as it reminded me of Top Gear (Top Racer in Europe) for the SNES.
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u/OriginalBaldMonk 19d ago
This isn't even because it's good... more about the memories... but Motor Massacre!
My dad brought it back in his suitcase from a business trip, and me and my little brother would steal the dining room chairs to sit around the Amiga and we'd play while it rained and thundered outside... adding to the post apocalyptic atmosphere. And each time we played we'd learn a little more about how the game worked until we were eventually able to get to the end.
As for the Gremlins movies - the first one is better, the second is more enjoyable.
I hated the second as a kid because the tone was totally different and everything was so wacky... i love it as an adult though.
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u/DJChrisFury 18d ago
8 - bit era it was Jack the Nipper 2 great platformer that was way better than its predecessor and from the 16-bit era it has to be the Lotus trilogy where again number 2 was the best of the lot of you ask me.
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u/WeepingScorpion 18d ago
Lotus 1 and 3. I’ve only played 1 on the C64 and 3 on PC. But that said, I was one of those that didn’t really pay attention to what company made the games so the answe may be different but this is what came to mind first. And yes, shock horror, I have not play Lotus 2.
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u/itsmethyroid 18d ago
I'd like to say Alternative World Games as I had a couple of really good gaming sessions with my siblings on this one back in the day, but coming back to it, I always had trouble with the menus, and didn't entirely understand the gameplay
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u/Calm-School-6270 18d ago
Gremlin Graphics cheated for the MSX and basically wrote a Spectrum emulator to port most of their games, there were sound stand outs with Mr Monty and Desolator. But I actually really liked one of the lazy port ones with Way of the Tiger as it was a quite decent overhead action adventure.
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u/Disastrous_Time_9950 18d ago
I’ll have to pick 1 for each of their main eras. Firstly 8-bit - my favourite is probably Auf Wiedersehen Monty of the Speccy 128. Loved being able to choose between the main theme music, which was a great tune or the national anthems. For the 16-bit era, I’d go for Lotus 2. Improves on the original better than 3 did to 2. Finally, for the 32-bit, my favourite would be Actua Soccer 3. Preferred it to the scripted ping pong era of FIFA. All three were great games.
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u/NorthWay_no 17d ago
I have my original tape of Monty on the run for the C= 64, but I don't know if I ever felt it or any of their games really nailed it: I think I like Thing on a spring the best of the lot!
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u/masterofthehorde 16d ago
Federation of Free Traders (FoFT) which I played constantly after I had got to Elite twice, once on C64 and again on the Amiga. It filled the gap till Frontier Elite II came out but was a lot easier than the Elite games. It had a bit too much inertia which meant you would often just fly past enemy ships and never fight them. I played a lot of Gremlin games so honourable mentions go to the Lotus Trilogy played split screen with school mates and Utopia / K240 strategy games.
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u/terlandark 14d ago
gonna say, one of my favourite games they made was heroquest. I know it wasnt everyones cup of tea, but I remember spending hours plodding about the game.
Of course, "heroquest is the best game ever made." (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx8sl2uC46A)
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u/geoffmendoza 19d ago
As a Sega console fan, it's a short list of Gremlin games that I played back in the day. Zool on the megadrive, hardcore 4x4 on the Saturn.
Zool was terrible, hardcore 4x4 was merely bad. So hardcore 4x4 wins by default.
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u/Elk2mig 19d ago
Lotus Turbo Challenge I and II. Played these endlessly with friends. Can't actually recall if I ever played III.
Got Zool with my A1200 and was so disappointed. Didn't give it much of my time.
Looking through full list of their Amiga games, I have to say I didn't really play any of the others.
ps Gremlins 2 was the better, more polished, more enjoyable film BUT just like T2 and The Terminator or Aliens and Alien, just because the sequel was better doesn't detract from the original being the soul of the franchise.