The Games We Never Talk About: Monsters Of Terror

Happy Halloween…

So this was supposed to have been one of those Halloween articles that I always wanted to do, alas, I went on various work trips and I totally forgot about finishing this one up, sorry guys but I hope you’ll still love this one anyway.

WIZARDS OF WOR = MONSTERS OF TERROR?

Now this is one of those peculiar titles, back in the 90’s it just popped out of nowhere and the reason I found out about it was that it was on one of those CDs that came with CD 32 Gamer Magazine, back then it was always obligatory to check all files on those CDs as I was in the military and had a limited amount of games with me while being there and in my opinion there were a lot of gold on those CDs over the years, games of the same caliber as Monsters Of Terror.

One of the games I sorely missed when I moved onto the Amiga back in the 80s was actually Wizard Of Wor, me and my brother played that a lot and to be honest both of us expected there to be an upgraded version of that on the Amiga, little did we know that this would take no less than fricking 11 years!

The Presentation Is Marvellous!

Monsters Of Terror is loosely based on the C64 version of Wizard Of Wor, some stuff is pretty much exactly the same albeit in an upgraded form, the Soundfx is even based upon the the original and more or less sounds identical although in better quality, no idea if that sentence made any sense… But it is good 😀

The presentation of the game is actually pretty good, it looks like a kids-friendly version of Wizard Of Wor really, with cutesy sound and graphics, etc oh, and best of all, there’s even a 4-player mode in the game.

There’s Even Couch Multiplayer, 4 Players Arena Madness…

The game variation is pretty much like the original game that it is based on, this means you walk around killing all the creatures in the level and then you will meet a mini-boss or even later on a bigger version of it, oh and of course, you will meet the evil wizard that we all “hated” in the original game if you are too slow finishing up everything or sometimes even totally random lol, yup, he will spawn and respawn all over the map till you finally kill him and I gotta mention that the scary sound is still there and the tension is as big now as it was back in 1982-3 when I first played the original game.

Oh and yes, the game supports your Dynablaster compatible 4-player adapter.

We Got Bosses, Fruits, And It’s Fun…

The game also has some bonus levels where you have to pick up fruits etc before the time runs out, simple fun but it works! 

There’s another thing with this game, it is actually pretty funny at times with some tiny cutscenes and sound effects, maybe I am easily pleased but I certainly always fancied small details like these things in terms of general game design to spice things up a bit with everything from small pause animations or emoji-style effects and so on.

Oh, and you should try and sneak up on a monster from behind, try it (umm, you might have to be a male player though) 🙂 

For a tiny and free 4-player PD game that runs straight from your HD back in ’96 was a pure win for me, because back then there was no such thing as stuff Whdload (JST came out a few months later though) which meant, most games had to be run from Floppy disks…

WHO ARE THESE LAZY COW DUDES THEN?

This is the stuff I love, yup, spreading the knowledge of returning developers or legends if I may call them that. Well, let’s start with what they are most known for back in the day, a few years before making Monsters of Terror they made one of my favorite Amiga Shoot’em ups, Tubular Worlds, a game that I have planned to write about many times in the past but never got around to do it as I have just put it on the “to do” list over and over again…for no particular reason what so ever btw. These two games even share a bit of the same technology and yes both are of course written in pure assembly code (on both PC and Amiga).

After doing Monsters of Terror….complete silence, no one heard from Lazy Cow ever again…I thought so anyway… until I realized that they had made a comeback…

FIRST THERE WERE MONSTERS, NOW LAZY COW PRESENTS YOU WITH TIGER CLAW…EH, WHAT?

A Look At Tiger Claw Collector’s Edition

Yup, Same developer, and while I do remember that I connected a few names back to the good old days with this one, I somewhat totally forgot about Monsters Of Terror, so yes, color me surprised here 🙂

So they did return to the Amiga after all these years, fantastic right? Well, they didn’t go away again as, yup, I even blogged about ANOTHER game by Lazy Cow that came out at more or less the same time as Tiger Claw on the Amiga…

And I EVEN BLOGGED ABOUT THAT TOO… LOL

A Look At PowerGlove Reloaded Collector’s Edition

Exciting times eh?  While I was let down by Tiger Claw (I expected a Bruce Lee port really), Power Glove Reloaded, on the other hand, is a pretty darn good MegaMan-styled game.

Can’t get over that I didn’t see the connection back when reviewing these RGCD boxes in 2019, oh well, one has to learn something new every day to train your skill :p

With that said, Lazy Cow also did a lot of other games that I honestly do not remember at all but will try out as soon as I find the time to try them properly, you can download all their older games from here. Oh and beware, there are some mentions of PC and even a PC-only game there too…

RATE MY MONSTERS DOT COM…

So, how do we score a game like Monsters Of Terror then? I played this one A LOT in single player but I played it even more in multiplayer, especially at demo parties like The Gathering, and Mekka Symposium, and there was even a compo at The Party ’96 even, I may not be brilliant in the game but I like to think I am really good though, I guess RoarTJ will be the one to confirm that one day (as we love to be the best player in all games we play together, haha).  I have not mentioned that Monsters Of Terror is an AGA-only game and that there are some slowdowns at later levels due to a crazy amount of enemies on screen at the same time… but, all in all, it really doesn’t matter as the game is just pure fun from start to finish. I honestly can not give this game less than an 8 really, my glasses might be rosetinted and I am very biased, who gives a shit, this game rocks, and YOU SHOULD TRY THIS ONE, RIGHT NOW!

Want to try it for yourself? Grab the direct download here, free of course.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN GUYS…