I have been browsing for games which lack decent screenshots. Luckily I found a bunch of them (some like Hitchhiker even with no screenshots at all), but it is a rather lengthy task, since there are almost no clues which one need an update until I open each single one of them. So I am going to ask for a little bit of help:

If anyone finds a game with lacking screenshots, but doesn't want to start up the game, doesn't have the game or simply cannot make the screenshots themselves, just post the name here in the forum and I will try to take care of it.

Currently I am going through this list. The most recent game I looked up is: Bermuda Syndrome (page 34 )

I will keep this post updated.

Thanks in advance!

Todo:
Blobby Volleyball (needs a title screen)
Civilization for Windows (needs better screen shots)
Dart 'm Up (needs a better title screen)
Manic Miner (screens look pale)
Metal Marines (some awful screenshots)
Nether Earth (only 4 screenshots, look pale, ZX game)
Pool'm Up (water marks in screenshots)
Premier Manager 3 (needs screenshots)
Roll'm Up (needs a better title screen)
Saboteur (only 4 screenshots, look pale)
Secret of Mana 2 (only 4 very bad screenshots)
The Hobbit (only 3 screenshots, look pale)
Tower (very bad screenshots, needs Windows95+)

Done so far:
3D Cyberpuck
Aces over Deep/Europe/Pacific | Acquire | Adventure | Alone in the Dark | Alpha Waves | Ambush at Sorinor | Airline
Balance of Power | Battle Bugs | Biker Mice from Mars | Bio Menace | Black Thorne | Borderzone | Brutal Sports | Bureaucracy
Captain Gysi | Chaos Engine | Comanche | Conflict Middle East | Cool Spot | Covert Action
Das Boot | Death Gate | Der Planer | Descent | Desert Strike | Desperabis | Destruction Derby | Deluxe Ski Jump | Diplomacy | Dune | Dunkle Schatten
Ein ganz normaler Schultag | Eishockey Manager | Empire Deluxe | Eric the Unready | Eternam
Face Off! | Falcon Beertender | Flug 714 nach Sidney | Flight Simulator 3.0 | Formula 1 Grand Prix | Frontier | Fury of the Furries
Geh aufs Ganze | Gesetzgebung | Global Conquest | Goof Troop | Great Naval Battles IV | Gunship 2000
Hand of Fate | Herrscher | Hidden Agenda | History Line | Hollywood Pictures
Imperium | International Athletics | Indianapolis 500 | Invasion of the Mutant Space Bats | Ivanhoe
KGB
Last Action Hero | Legend | Legend of Kyrandia | Little Big Adventure | Lost Vikings
M1 Tank Platoon | Mad TV | Master of Magic | Master of Orion | Micosoft Entertainment Pack
Nascar Racing | NBA Jam | NHL Hockey
Panzer General | Parashooter | Paratrooper | Pirates! | Populous | Populous II | Ports of Call | Proliferation | Pudgy
Railroad Tycoon | Red Baron | Return of Double Dragon | Rock'n'Roll Racer
Shadow of the Comet | Secret of Mana | Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe | Shadowrun | Siege | Speedball | Speed Haste | Spieleautomat | Stronghold | Stunt Island | Stunts | Super Off Road | Super Street Fighter II | Super Mario Land | Super Metroid | Super Tennis | Syndicate
Tapper | Task Force 1942 |Telekommando 2 | The End of He-Man | True Lies | Tube
Ugh | Ugh!
Vroom
Walls of Rome | Warlords II | Wild Streets | Winzer | WWF Wrestlemania
X-Man Mutant Apocalypse
Zombies ate my neighbour | Z

Sort of… /list/sort%2Cadded/. However, this will still get you the first ~300 games "unsorted", because they have an identical addition timestamp for historical reasons: In the first couple of years, there was no database at all and in the first database-driven incarnation, game ids were applied per system instead of globally; this structure was only "flattened" in 2004. What I did update by hand at some point was the addition dates of the reviews, though. So if you sort by that, it should be more reliable (it will only list reviewed games, but that's almost all anyway).

One major problem you will see is that many older game entries have a too small title screen at the very least. Two or three games' screenshots even have the watermarks of some shareware application on them (example: Winzer). Some have a small 'border' which one application I was using back then automatically added (example: Railroad Tycoon). Another typical problem (which of course requires very close inspection of the individual images) is incorrect resize algorithms having been used on them (cubic or linear downscaling), incorrectly cropped (example: Speedball), distorted (example: WWF Raw) or inappropriate colour reduction schemes having been used (so the screenshots are dithered; example: Silent Service II).

By the way, it's really nice if you do more, but for purely text-based games like Hitchhiker's, the 5-screenshots-minimum rule is not really in effect. Title screen plus one more is fine.

I've noticed recently that Warlords 2 lacks decent screenshots, which can be a chance to also add images for the expansion (the editor) and the enhanced versions.

Yes, that's an example of screenshots needlessly having been scaled down. The Special Edition, though, might warrant its own game entry even, in my opinion.

Thanks! I will add this to my Todo-list.

Works for me. There is just a long delay after the message about the DOS version detected (I don't have the source code handy right now, but I would assume this is probably meant as an intentional annoyance). Anyway, I made some new screenshots of this one, so you can mark it as done.

Same here, no idea. I seriously don't remember how it's played. Probably a Dosbox issue, actually.

I just set up FreeDOS in a virtual machine and gave it another try. Same thing here: You can enter something into the first field but whatever key you press, you can't switch to the other fields. It could be different for a real DOS-machine, but somehow I doubt it. Maybe it's some sort of copy-protection. Who knows...

I have no problem starting Winzer in DOSBox, at the name entry screen type in Herr or Frau, press return, then your surname (return). How come you native German speakers couldn't work that out?

Uh… it must have to do with… cosmic radiation

I blame bad game design. You have two options and have to enter them manually? How about an error message, when you enter something else? Besides, all the other fields in the row say "Ihr" which in German can be either interpreted as a polite form of adress (a more formal "you") or as a possesive pronoun (like "your"). Ah, very confusing!

The funny thing is, that normally for the screenshot runs I enter "Herr" as a forename... don't know why I didn't come up with it here...

Btw: Thank you, Alastair!

Are there any recommendations for SNES-screenshots? I am using ZNES which has a built in screenshot function, but they are limited to a resolution of 256x224 (see attachment). Is this good enough?

This is the system's native resolution, so perfect!

In a game I've been playing recently, I found it appropriate (due to its contents) to enter my name as "Lord Creosote". Only to find that the game had had the same idea, so it addressed me as "Lord Lord Creosote"

Done

Here are some of the screenshots needed by Desert Strike (all taken by me, nothing "stolen" from google

Publisher:



Background of title screen:



Title screen:



More title screen:



Copyright:

About Diplomacy, there's not much more than what's in there already actually


Here's a screenshot showing the game logo, better than nothing:

Here there are some from Warlords II


Title with head:



Title without head:



Some ingame shots:







Is there a way to upload them directly to the game profile?

As far as I can see, you already did – they are in the queue. All I need to do is push the approval button now so that they become part of my next update (Sunday). Thanks for your work!

As for Diplomacy, that title screen is good, but the main problem, I'd say, is the the other screenshots. They are watermarked by some shareware tool.

In general, when taking in-game shots, it would be great to have something a little more than the first seconds of the game among the screenshots. This goes for everyone, not just Otaku – the Empire Deluxe ones from Herr M. have the same problem, but as you can see, I still put them on the site, because compared to the old ones, they were still a major improvement!

Thanks Otaku, and welcome!


Re: Screenshots from the first few seconds:
I know! Actually that is something that is bothering me too. But keep in mind the amount of games and that a really advanced screenshot takes a lot of time (especially for strategy games, where it does take a lot of turns until things get really interesting). Probably I am too impatient. Well, I will give my best and try to use cheats and codes to improve the next screens.