Posted by Super Turrican on Oct 2, 2010 22:59 (Oct 2, 2010 22:59)
Core Design were probably best remembered for a handful of classics, Thunderhawk and Heimdall are considered to be strong games within their chosen genres, but it was Chuck Rock that really made their name begin to stand out from other companies on the Amiga scene. It involved the antics of Chuck as he tried to find his wife Ophelia, who had been kidnapped by the parody named villain, Garry Gritter, which is mightily close to the disgraced king of Glam.
It had bright graphics and some simple gameplay, which proved good enough to get it on the consoles and a follow up, which brought in Chuck’s son as the main character. Like most Amiga titles a sequel was promised many years later, but for whatever reason it never materialised.
What this was to the Amiga was one of the closest games it got to compare to the nearly over saturated platform market on the SNES and Mega Drive. The layout was similar in terms of a few normal levels followed by a boss at the end of each group of worlds. It certainly played nicely enough and was pretty tough, even though it looked simple enough to start with.
That hasn’t changed either. Whether it is a mix of the reflexes not being the cat like ways they used to be when I was a kid or the fact that it was like a brick ‘you know what’ house, Chuck Rock is still incredibly hard to get through, unless you have a cheat for infinite energy or something. This could show the platformers of today a lesson in how to be difficult and challenging. It might not be held in a classic regard, but it can hold its stubbly big chinned head up high for giving the computer people a chance to compete with the console kids.