Guy Spy and the Crystals of Armageddon

ReTroViRuS 2013-09-20
(2/10)
Have fun watching your crosshair slowly jitter across the screen in vain attempts at lining it up with an enemy. Sometimes your gun will fire on the press of the button, sometimes it will refuse to until the next animation cycle. So, while the visuals might have been impressive, Guy Spy features some of the most poorly implemented gameplay I have ever seen.
View all comments (962)

Colonel Kurtz 2013-01-07
(5/10)
While pretending to deliver more arcade-like gameplay than Dragon's Lair, Guy Spy ended up being even less playable, basically because the player is tricked into believing that it will behave and respond like an arcade game.

In Dragon's Lair you knew timing was the key, but at least it was deterministic. Guy Spy requires nearly as much timing, however not only is it largely dependent on chance, but also it does not give you the tools for putting your timing skills in practice! The seemingly greater freedom of movement is totally flattened by the horrible game controls.

After a good half an hour on this, I concluded that the enemy you face in this game is not Baron Von Max or the Mummy or the soldiers firing at you. The awfully unresponsive control method is the real enemy in this game! I'm talking about pressing the fire button four-five times in a row and maybe, just maybe, your character might fire ONE gunshot. Not to mention the terrible, terrible crosshair movement for taking aim!

Then there's the random factor: if your character starts performing an action, the program might just decide to have another enemy throw dynamite or a spear at him while his lengthy animation is running, and you lose. Just like that.

What else... Well, there's the great Readysoft-trademark cartoon graphics and rather substandard audio and annoying music this time around.

I know it was an experiment, but you do NOT release half-baked experiments on the market for £30.
View all comments (274)

PortugueseWarrior 2012-06-08
Rui Albino and Jorge Freitas are Portuguese
View all comments (211)

funkyellowmonkey(ps3 id) 2009-09-10
Cool stuff, i just found out about this game whilst searching for soul crystal! Lol
A fan of dragon's lair and space ace series, this seems an interesting attempt thus far!
View all comments (17)

Robbo 2008-12-29
(8/10)
I actually thought this game was half decent. It was Readysoft's attempt at a game with Dragon's Lair gfx but with a more 'involved' game playing aspect. It had atmosphere, was exciting in places, and not too easy. All in all, not bad at all.
View all comments (14)

radioman970 2008-04-15
I remember being floored by the wonderful cartoon graphics. But everybody here is right....it just didn't work. I never bought the full game but thought about it several times. Just too many others out there that were better.
View all comments (288)

Guybrush Threepwood 2005-06-06
(4/10)
Well this is another Dragons Lair repeat performance really just with different character. Even though the GFX were nice to look at, the control system, loading times, gameplay and appeal weren't there as this got a right slating in most mags at the time.
View all comments (522)

Shunichiro 2005-02-15
(3/10)
Sluggish piece of bad programming, that what Guy Spy was. Slowly waddling sprites and sloppy controls ruin all potential the game might have had. Not that action set-pieces the game offered were anything special to begin with...
View all comments (166)

Trantor 2005-02-13
(4/10)
A valiant attempt by Readysoft to make a playable version of Dragon's Lair. The more interactive predrawn animations make this game feel almost like a regular action game. Unfortunately the large sprites move far too slowly to really convey a true sense of control. A modern realization of this concept would probably offer better results, but considering the advances in cellshading techniques (as seen in Dragon's Lair 3D for example) it almost seems pointless.
A valiant effort, but sadly it neither captures the charm of the original DL and SA games and neither does it really hold it's own as a true sprite based action game.
View all comments (245)