Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story

Excelente recopilación e historia sobre los juegos de Jeff. Hasta hace muy poco descubrí que él era el creador de títulos que marcaron mi infancia jugando con el Atari, como Attack of the Mutant Camels y Gridrunner. Ahora, al explorar su trayectoria y probar sus juegos uno a uno, es fascinante conocer el origen de aquellos clásicos que, junto a mi Atari, dejaron una huella en mi vida. Hoy puedo revivir esos momentos y apreciar la magnífica historia que hay detrás de cada uno de estos juegos.

Llamasoft: The Jeff Minster Story is a game collection focusing on the oeuvre of a single developer and provides lots of literature, scans and videos for a museum experience. All of this succeeds at providing context for Jeff Minster's career and his games. However, I found very few of the games to be fun.

Jogo muito interessante, mostrando a história de Jeff Minter e jogos desenvolvidos pelo próprio, ótimos jogos para a época, ainda hoje são jogos divertidos para serem jogados, tanta criatividade dedicada aos seus projetos, não foi à toa, muita criatividade, por isso os jogos continuam sendo legais atualmente, este jogo possui mais de 40 JOGOS inclusos

This product is a combination of historical information, some video material, some art and snippets of development documentation. It'll give you Jeff Minter's story (partly at least) and a time line of the games he's made over the years. It allows you to play the games, regardless of which platform they came out on. So VIC20, C64, ZXSpectrum, AtariST, etc. Up to 1990 and then as an added bonus Grid Runner reimagined from 2023. All playable with controller or keyboard. A chance to experience many of Jeff's games, up to 1990 in one neat package.

The man who started it all! This is an amazing insight to the creator of such amazing games, with very basic hardware in the 70s going onto the 80s. Jeff Minter. Love him or hate him, as a lot of ZZap! readers back in the day proved, you cannot ignore his prowess and amazing programming techniques. I used to love reading the reviews in Zzap back in the day, still do, and his interviews are always informative, funny and a joy to experience. With all this said, I was never a big Minter fan back in the day, but to see the passion and dedication of this man is nothing short of overwhelming! I tell a lie, I loved Sheep in Space, still do, where a sheep can be "bloated" after eating too much grass! Take a bow, Jeff. Love you.

Grab it on sale. If you like Jeff Minter and want to see the Documentary parts of this, but aren't particularly good at his games, then paying full price for this is too much. I got it on sale, interacted with everything there was, and think I would have enjoyed a full documentary more than this kind of cut up one with extra documents and games. All that said, I'm happy this exists, so I still recommend it. There's a ton of information that's not available anywhere else and it's nice to have it all on a timeline.

I suppose I am glad this collection exists for a very niche group of gamers. But even someone that cut their teeth playing the Vic20, odyssey 2 and Commodore 64, there is little to get excited for. And even less for non pre-NES gamers. On top of that, the game player can be kinda of picky on allowing the player to play. I picked this game up for three basic reasons: 1) I wanted to experience computer games like the very first I ever played on the Vic20/C64, 2) I wanted to play a few of the knock-off versions of popular unlikely to see Steam and 3) I never really heard of Jeff Minter, so I was curious why this collection was even put together. I honestly still kinda don't get it. Perhaps because I'm not European. Most of the games here just aren't particularly special. Even grading for the system and time they came out. The Vic20 stuff would kinda impress me, but as I remember when I family updated to the C64, almost nothing here would have stood out dozens of other games I was playing. Once the NES, Master System and Atari 7800 were around, the games in this collection released then have heart and has a cottage industry feel, but doesn't hold up to its competition at all. Which maybe that is the appeal. But games feel stuck in C64 or earlier in terms of game design. With much just being further iterations of the same idea or, as mentioned, knock off versions of once popular games... or iterative versions of once popular games in the case of something like Tempest 2000. They are mostly a mild curiosity to play a couple of times and never again. To be sure, there are some rough gems in there. I like the Robotron 2084 and 2600 Empire Strikes Back knockoffs. Which might have earned a weak thumbs up from me. However, like the Atari 50 collection, there are some bugs with the UI. Occasionally, the game will just sit at the title screen instead of start when I first try to play. It can sometimes be corrected by moving back the the game menu and trying again or trying a different game and coming back. It is just annoying enough to be a problem. Especially since most of the games here are ones you play a couple of minutes before trying another one. And I suspect little bugs like this aren't going to be patched. Beyond the games, there is a bunch of videos, photos, art, design documents. Neat if you are interested in Jeff Minter. I can't really recommend this collection. Even as someone that can appreciate the games of the era, most of them would have been passed over for other games when I booted up my C64. For gamers will little experience earlier than the NES, I have serious doubts much of anything here would be fun for them. Even if it was, the buggy interface is just annoying enough to steal that way. I suspect by the time I actually write this review, those who know Jeff Minter's work already have this collection. But anyone like me that has some mild curiosity for this collection, they are likely to be underwhelmed. And non-fans of the pre-NES/DOS days of computer/PC games aren't likely to find anything fun here.