Microdeal’s Leatherneck and Tanglewood for the Atari ST

I’ve never played either of these Atari ST games by Microdeal, but they look like fun. “Look” being the operative word. That’s because, as we all know, a screenshot alone is a poor judge of a game.

In fact, I recall being burned by screenshots many times back in the day. While browsing at Babbage’s or Software Etc. (former software retail chains), my brother and I would flip over various game boxes and ogle amazing, colorful in-game shots that would make us want to buy everything on the shelf.

If we did buy a game, we’d rush home and load it up. Nine times out of ten, those glorious box screenshots turned out to be the only pretty graphical scenes (often static) in the game. Or — even worse — the screenshots were from the uber-colorful Amiga / VGA / etc. version when in fact we were buying the Apple II version of the game (or we only had an EGA graphics card). Doh.

Discussion Topic of the Week: Did you ever buy a game based on graphics alone — then come to regret it later?