Path: ...!Xl.tags.giganews.com!local-4.nntp.ord.giganews.com!news.giganews.com.POSTED!not-for-mail NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 03 Jan 2025 15:24:20 +0000 From: Spalls Hurgenson Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action Subject: Re: Gamplay "mechanics" you don't like? Date: Fri, 03 Jan 2025 10:24:20 -0500 Message-ID: <2bvfnjhb47c7mq41fj9i7dti4s3dico8db@4ax.com> References: <18b4f5e884cfbee3882bf93e35ec4957318b32ac@i2pn2.org> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 2.0/32.652 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 73 X-Usenet-Provider: http://www.giganews.com X-Trace: sv3-rEvfjOJLhzL1kYOHrYTS81o84DeWHHgbrMH4lsOcbISF/RCOBqsT36SCrrxIBjr08GUdmAGraxqGSeY!PlPxPNeiwSFKcLtIuHJW/Xhu7FsW5EaMCJVHgidoDcl5iw45rXI8bCsnuryZqot/eMLsUPcP X-Complaints-To: abuse@giganews.com X-DMCA-Notifications: http://www.giganews.com/info/dmca.html X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.40 Bytes: 4702 On Thu, 02 Jan 2025 13:09:57 -0600, Zaghadka wrote: >On Thu, 02 Jan 2025 09:59:24 -0500, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, >Spalls Hurgenson wrote: >>On Thu, 02 Jan 2025 16:40:17 +0200, Anssi Saari >> wrote: >>>Zaghadka writes: >>>> My biggest pet peeve: >>>> ESCORT QUESTS. >>>I remember one game which did it right but can't remember the name. Kind >>>of a stab at a PC version of the Amiga classic "Warhead" but with >>>horrendous live action video and the game seemed unfinished. Oh, >>>wikipedia tells me it was "XF5700 Mantis Experimental Fighter". The >>>escort missions went like this: mission starts, you engage autopilot, >>>mission ends. Best escort missions ever :) >>Heh. Finally somebody else familiar with XF5700 Mantis. Truly a >>horrific game. Even after thirty years, it remains my top pick for >>worst voice acting in a game. >>(The gameplay wasn't much better either. But the intro was pretty >>neat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIdUhRNZXRQ ) >That is a deep, deep cut. I'm surprised. I had no idea what either of you >are talking about. Yeah, "XF5700 Mantis" never really gained any traction and it's one of Microprose's least well-known games. Which really speaks volumes for how bad it was. Released in an era when space-combat sims were all the rage (same year as "Wing Commander: Privateer") and semi-sequel to a well-known Amiga game ("Warhead"), and incorporating elements from "Elite" (mainly, it's semi-Newtonian space-flight mechanics) as well as embracing Origin's 'talking-head' sim game mission structures ("Wing Commander", "Strike Commander", "Pacific Strike", etc.), "XF5700 Mantis" _should_ have been a home-run. It utilized some impressive (for the time) 3D graphics, and even released on CD-ROM with digitized video, and with full voice-acting in missions! And yet, it was an embarassing flop. Its reviews were middling to poor, and even in 1993 almost nobody talked about it on Usenet. Nowadays, even as people wax nostalgic about otherwise forgotten games like "Simon the Sorcerer" or "'Vette" or whatever lost classic you look fondly back upon, nobody even remembers that "XF5700 Mantis" even existed. But it's no surprise, really. The gameplay was pretty poor; the missions were dull: repetitive in structure and unexciting to play. The Newtonian space-flight mechanics weren't enjoyable at all; so much so that the best way to finish a mission was just to enable the autopilot and let it do all the manuevering for you. The music was terrible (Microprose always had some of the worst composers of the big-name PC game publishers), and the voice-acting was terrible. Even the visuals worked against it; while technically impressive, they just didn't LOOK as good as what we saw in other contemporary games. "XF5700 Mantis" was a bad game. The only reason I remember it (aside from the fact that I have a kink for ancient DOS games) is for its awful voice-acting. It was almost Ed Wood-level bad, except it dragged on so slowly that any enjoyment you might get from its terrible gameplay would quickly be sapped away through the hours of tedious slog. I'm not sure I'd call it one of the worst PC games ever made --like I said, the production values and concepts behind the game were solid-- but it definitely ranks pretty high on the list.