ZX Spectrum - Your memories

[Moby-Dick]

Sounds like the Comcon interface - Frel Electronics.

I met a relative of the chap who invented that a couple of times.

friends had a comcon - I used to happy snap quickshots

[listy]

never had one but one of my mates did many a day spent waiting for it to load

got cd full of snapshots stashed @ my mum and dads after i moved house (was for the amiga but files will work on pc)

will need to dig it out but mrs moans @ me for spending so much on good pc to play spectrum games

[CaseyV9]

Whoa. I had a Spectrum 128K.

Wat a good thread. My favorite game was Werewolves Of London
The first game ever to feature day and night cycle? I never did complete this game. I think I had 1 more of those family members left to kill. Although what the video didn't show is where you eat people. I loved that. And some of the police shoot you start bleeding but when you turned back into a person you stopped bleeding. And If I remeber right you could use the file to go into the sewers.

I also loved Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the Dizzy games were excellent.
Also CJ's Elephant Antics.

Oh yeah, Robocop 2. And what about How To Be A Complete Bastard?

Although, my mate had a C64 which was a lot better.

Does anyone remember the thick manual that came with it. It had pages of code you could type into the Speccy to do silly things.
I had a go once, and only once. I spent hours copying in loads of code and my reward? a few beeps in a crappy tune.

[Betty_Swallocks]

Does anyone remember NiteFlite?
It was a flight simulator with no outside view. You flew by instruments alone. Bloody difficult. There was a mountain half way round the track you had to fly and if you didn't gain enough height soon enough you crashed into it.

[psj3809]

Anyone remember Glug Glug?

Movie? Betcha don't remember Movie. Class it was.

Nonterraqueous?

Mountains of Ket?

Barbarian?

I remember Movie, great graphics but i dont know, bit boring !

Barbarian - Wasnt that the one where if you swung around you could chop their head off ? Controversial at the time.

Remember the great advert though featuring Maria Whittaker

[psj3809]

Although, my mate had a C64 which was a lot better.

Does anyone remember the thick manual that came with it. It had pages of code you could type into the Speccy to do silly things.
I had a go once, and only once. I spent hours copying in loads of code and my reward? a few beeps in a crappy tune.

C64 better ? Blasphemer !

In the early days of the Speccy you used to buy mags with lines and lines of code, used to spend ages typing it all in (praying your machine didnt reset itself) and then you found there were bugs and the whole thing was useless as it didnt work or you couldnt save it due to the bugs.

Must admit learning BASIC back then did help out with my career later in life as it was obviously the basics of programming. Frustrating typing all those lines of code though !!

Its good to read peoples views on some of the older games, please help us if you want to write some reviews of old Speccy games !

www.spectrumgamesbible.co.uk

Trying to write as many reviews as possible of old games, currently done two books (1982-1984 and 1985-1986) and working on the third.

Any favourite games you want to review please let me know. More the merrier.

[Deadlight]

C64 better ? Blasphemer !

In the early days of the Speccy you used to buy mags with lines and lines of code, used to spend ages typing it all in (praying your machine didnt reset itself) and then you found there were bugs and the whole thing was useless as it didnt work or you couldnt save it due to the bugs.

One of the magazines I use to buy waS 'INPUT'.

[Ferral]

Oh hey!!!!!

C64 was the king of the 8 Bit era, don't even go there or I will have to go retro on you!!!

Anyone that knows me on these boards know that I am a huge retro gamer and the C64 is at the heart of it!

Mind you the C64 version of Outrun was utter pants. Spectrum version even on the 48k was way better.

Few other titles that whooped the C64's rear on the Spectrum in my eyes were :

Rastan Saga (Sprite collision and visuals were quite horrid on the C64)
Manic Miner (We only had Blagger, not as good as miner though)
Outrun (Already Mentioned)
Head Over Heels
Afterburner
Robocop (They did the same horrid small graphics again like Rastan)

On the other hand the C64 pulled off games like Last Ninja series, IK series, Wizball (was this released on the speccy? ) and Bionic Commando much better than its rival.

I love the C64 but do respect the Speccy. I play both machines via emulators which I bought legally with loads of games on them (Not forgetting the Wii virtual console C64 games as of late). Got them from HMV, I have the Speccy 99 disc and also a C64 disc with a poor emulator but loads of games! Got Vice to sort that one out!


Oh I remember Softaid also (As per DavidM's post from Scan!!! ), it did have a few good games on it. I remember trying to get the first game to load and took it back to the store because it wouldn't go. I was informed then that it had the Do they know its Christmas song on the front end on both sides and thats why it wouldn't load up !!!

[templetons]

speccies ruled !

my memory is of the horrible loading noises bbrrrrrrrrrrrr bp, brrrrrrrrrr bpbpbpbpbpb!

fave games were horace goes skiing, robocop, carrier command, simcity, target renegade

oh the memories come flooding back !!!

[psj3809]

Oh hey!!!!!

C64 was the king of the 8 Bit era, don't even go there or I will have to go retro on you!!!

Anyone that knows me on these boards know that I am a huge retro gamer and the C64 is at the heart of it!

Mind you the C64 version of Outrun was utter pants. Spectrum version even on the 48k was way better.

Few other titles that whooped the C64's rear on the Spectrum in my eyes were :

Rastan Saga (Sprite collision and visuals were quite horrid on the C64)
Manic Miner (We only had Blagger, not as good as miner though)
Outrun (Already Mentioned)
Head Over Heels
Afterburner
Robocop (They did the same horrid small graphics again like Rastan)

On the other hand the C64 pulled off games like Last Ninja series, IK series, Wizball (was this released on the speccy? ) and Bionic Commando much better than its rival.

I love the C64 but do respect the Speccy.

Thats the thing even though i was a Speccy fan i did appreciate the other machine. Ghostbusters was very good on the C64, dire on the Speccy.

Bomb Jack one of my favourite games was poor on the C64 but great on the Speccy. I loved Skool Daze and Knight Lore which werent available on the C64 either.

Great games on both machines. Talking of the C64 this book is great...

http://www.c64goldenyears.com/

Got my copy, the Speccy one sold out though. Really takes you on a trip down memory lane ! As i said earlier i'm glad retro is still very popular.

[psj3809]

As for Soft Aid the games on this were (For the Speccy)...

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infos...cgi?id=0011356

Side A 1. Spellbound Beyond Software
2. Starbike The Edge Software
3. Kokotoni Wilf Elite Systems Ltd
4. Pyramid, The Fantasy Software [1]
5. Horace Goes Skiing Sinclair Research Ltd
Side B 1. Gilligan's Gold Ocean Software Ltd
2. Ant Attack Quicksilva Ltd
3. Tank Duel, 3D Realtime Games Software Ltd
4. Jack and the Beanstalk Thor Computer Software
5. Sorcery Virgin Games Ltd

Jack and the Beanstalk was awful, Kokotoni Wilf was a classic back then.

[GoNz0]

manic miner and the fact mine didnt have a reset button, but a good smack with my fist in a fit of rage used to reset it

and the manky tape recorder with its 25% chance of loading a game after half an hour

[Ferral]

Kokotoni Wilf and Gilligans Gold were on the C64 version also I think. I kinda remember them, Kokotoni Wilf was the guy that had the wings and you had to get past various obstacles. Gilligans Gold was like Boulderdash. We also got Falcon Patrol and Fred on the C64, looks like it was a better compilation than the Speccy. Gumshoe was really good, reminded me of Elevator Action.

More on Softaid :

http://www.gamebase64.com/oldsite/ga...64_softaid.htm

With some of my 64 games I had to turn the tape deck upside down to get it to load!

[Deadlight]

I was a Speccy 48k/2+ fan, but then I saw 'Uridium' on the C64, like, 'woooooooah!'

[psj3809]

Yeah Uridium was excellent on the C64, not a bad version on the Speccy but i hate to admit it but the C64 won that one !

It was quite sad to see the 8-bit scene decline, i jumped ship to an Amiga (Funny how many Speccy users who were anti-Commodore then got an Amiga !) and the leap in graphics/colour/sound was amazing.

But for old skool memories etc your first 8 bit computer has special feelings !

[Ferral]

Yeah, seemed to be a pretty good early game for Thalamus (Was it released by Thalamus? Not 100% sure).

Sanxion, Armalyte 1 & 2, Hawkeye to name just a few. How about Paralax on the C64. First game ever to use 2 way scrolling. Background changed directions everytime you moved.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalamus_Ltd