ZX Spectrum - Your memories

[Deadlight]

Yeah, I went for the Atari 520STFM, as the CPU was 7mhz faster! LOL! But then I saw one Cinemaware's 'TV Sports Football', and then I started on the Amiga 500/500+/1200(x2)/1500/4000 road...

[Deadlight]

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

I think it was published by Hewson Consultants.

BTW, I didn't know you can get Uridium on the Wii Virtual Console!

[psj3809]

Yeah, I went for the Atari 520STFM, as the CPU was 7mhz faster! LOL! But then I saw one Cinemaware's 'TV Sports Football', and then I started on the Amiga 500/500+/1200(x2)/1500/4000 road...

Used to love that game on the Amiga - TV Sports Football. Was frustrating having to change the disk everytime i scored a touchdown though to load up the extra point sequence !

[Ferral]

At the minute there are 11 Commodore 64 games on the Virtual Console. I am starting to wonder though are they going to add a few other 8 bit machines (especially Speccy). Or add the Atari ST or Amiga as the games on those 2 machines were awesome.

[Steven W]

At the minute there are 11 Commodore 64 games on the Virtual Console. I am starting to wonder though are they going to add a few other 8 bit machines (especially Speccy). Or add the Atari ST or Amiga as the games on those 2 machines were awesome.

I'd love to see some Speccy games on there with modern day versions. Knight Lore, Jet Set Willy, Manic Minor would be my top three.

[Ferral]

I have the modern version of Jet Set Willy on my mobile. Its as hard as the origional and looks really nice.

I would mainly like to see the Amiga on the Virtual Console. I think if they did do the Speccy it would be best if they stuck with the arcade conversions. Quite a few cases the Speccy versions were so much better than the C64, especially the Ocean / Imagine conversions.

For some reason Ocean / Imagine wern't to strong when it came to this side of things on the C64. There were only a few really good ones. Yie Ar Kung Fu and Bubble Bobble are actually actually the first ones that spring to mind as a good conversion at the min (mind you it is getting late! ). At the time Activision were the ones for the arcade hits, Powerdrift & Ninja Spirit were excellent (that reminds me, I am still yet to get Ninja Spirit on the Virtual Console).

Elite dabbled in a few conversions and Buggy Boy and Space Harrier came out best.

Capcom done their own conversions. Some great and some so so, Black Tiger L.E.D Storm, Bionic Commando and Tiger Road to name a few (See I remember the good ones so it can't be that late).

U.S Gold also done a few conversions which once again had mixed results.

Konami also done a few, I think these were their own in house conversions. Visually not to bad but playability on some of them was left to be desired.

Ocean / Imagine had a nasty habit of doing the game sprites quite small on a lot of their conversions. Rastan could have looked so much better and so could Robocop. Robocop was quite enjoyable on the C64 but Rastan was just plain frustrating. Getting over the firepit with the moving ropes near the first level boss was nigh on impossible. Then jump forward to level 5 in the ice and some of the collision detection was terrible. Pixel so much as touched the water on a jump and that was it dead.

Another thing we really need to see on the VC is the independant games. The 8 bit era was fuelled quite a bit by the arcade conversions. Great games like X - Out, Zamzara, Wizball, Head over Heels, Turrican, Retrograde, Hawkeye, Dominator, Vendetta, Rocket Ranger, Eidolon, Barbarian 1 & 2, Bards Tale, Hillsfar, Batman Caped Crusader, BC's Quest for tires and Grogs Revenge, Cauldron 1 & 2 and Total Eclipse to name a good few out of thousands.

All those games are available on the Commodore 64 or Speccy. Total Eclipse really stands out as it was made by the company that created Driller, first full 3D game that actually moved like it was animated rather than a juddery 1 frame per second type thing like on The Sentinel.

For anyone reading the boards and wondering what the hell those games are. Just google them and have a read up and I can virtually guarantee the 8 bit era will capture you. Whether you were about or even old enough to play them they are still worth looking at today.

[psj3809]

Yeah its amazing how popular the 8 bit scene still is. Lots of the old computers still being sold on ebay, vast catalogues of games available to download from some of the big sites.

Scans of all the magazines back then available on dvd or on the net (Eg Your Sinclair, Crash, Sinclair User, Zzap etc).

I'm off to a retro show this weekend in the Midlands, should be good.

[DavidM]

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[DavidM]

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[psj3809]

Yes i'm sure Knight Lore has been remade for the PC, looks amazing.

Theres tons of versions of Manic Miner out there (Also one for the GBA). Theres also an online version (multiplayer) of Jet Set Willy which is a lot of fun, lots of different types of games, eg 'collect item x from room x' and then you see all the players running to the room or 'collect x amount of items' etc

JSW online can be found here...

http://jsw.ovine.net/

Knight Lore remade...

http://retrospec.sgn.net/game/kl

Looks great, many other games there also you may recognise

(Just seen Knight Lore doesnt appear to be finished but Alien 8 is)

[nemie]

River Rescue on the ZX was my game all them years ago.

myspeccy.org/en/games/river-rescue

[Dirk]

I found another one of my favs on you tube....way of the exploding fist!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiBpPtawgO8

[timread]

Argh! I just remembered the name of the game where you drove the 'dragster' type car around a map!

It was TransAm - another game by Ultimate. And it was 16k! I used to love that game

http://www.clive.nl/images/23489.jpg

[CaseyV9]

C64 better ? Blasphemer !

Aw, the memories, the anguish. I was just a lowly school kid with no money. I think the last comparison with my mates C64 was CJ's Elephant Antic's. His C64 seemed to load quicker. And his colours were seperate. Me speccy's sprite's colours just clashed with the background.

Still brings anguish to me now. That and loading up a game, full of excitement and joy and still being sat there 30minutes later and realising it didn't bloody load and then flying into a rage and stamping on my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figures. Rapheal, Donatello, I'm sorry man.

Although, I'm finding it hard to remember half the games I played.

[Ferral]

Not forgetting that the C64 had the loading music and on some of the Mastertronic games they actually had space invaders to play which loaded first before the main game loaded so you could play while waiting!

[manwithnoname]

Not forgetting that the C64 had the loading music and on some of the Mastertronic games they actually had space invaders to play which loaded first before the main game loaded so you could play while waiting!

A few companies tinkered with loading routines on the specy - most to make games load quicker (I think that was mainly trying to stop pirates - a copied tape was lower quality so was less likely to load) but at least one loaded a simple game which you could play while the main game loaded - I cannot recall the games at the moment.