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[Schrödinger's cat]

Every now and then I'll crank out some Hubbard and Galway tunes like Mega Apocalypse, Parallax, Wizball, Thrust (There is a good cover of this using real instruments). I really can't imagine what it would sound like hearing them for the first time today, probably a mess!

I'm in total agreement with you, Gen X. The nosalgia is key. I guess it's not too far from still being fond of blocky pixels in today's current 3D FSAA 1080p graphics world.

For what it's worth, I never heard the Metal Gear 2 (MSX) theme tune until a couple of years ago when Kohina played it. Soooo good.

 

[Gen X]

I edited this into my last post but it would've gotten lost.

Found this when trying to find the version oif Thrust I was talking about although different, really takes me back. If you are familiar with the Thrust theme.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOjBex8HT_s

I think Rob Hubbards last pieces were Desert Strike and Road Rash but I might have to Wiki him up.

 

[meppi]

British games magazines have always, although particularly during the '90s, had a soul to them that I haven't really found elsewhere.

Who didn't love CVG?

SSM was my favourite though.

I like your taste in magazines.

 

[IdreamofHIME]

Sad to think that most of it is probably lost now

Mr Biffo still remains the best games writer I ever read. His hate for Dreamcast fanboys was hilarious.

 

[NemesisPrime]

I worked on some of those 80s Spectrum games

/mysterious smile

 

[Android18a]

I loved NMS and Super Play, and the rivalry between the two mags. Hated Total though, it didn't have SP's heart.

I was born in 83, mostly raised on PC games. Earliest gaming memories are stuff like Castle Master, Paperboy, Commander Keen, Wolf 3D and old demo discs with stuff like Alleycat on. Got an Atari 2600 when I was about 5, and a NES shortly after Mario 3 came out. I only really went 'console' with the Megadrive though, and it was the MD2 with Sonic 2 bundle that did it. Picked up a SNES A couple of years later and from then pretty much lost interest in PC gaming as the point and click died and 3D games took over.

 

[herod]

Was thinking about old 16-bit computer games recently while watching the latest Carrier Command Gaea Mission vids.

The original Carrier Command, Hunter, Midwinter, Battle Command, Armour-Geddon. Consoles had nothing to match these for years afterwards.

 

[mediapulp_wes]

A rough approximation of my UK gaming timeline

Atari 2600 -> Spectrum 128k -> Atari STe (*sobs*) -> 486DX2 PC -> Various PCs -> Laptop
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------> PSOne -> Xbox -> Wii -> Xbox 360
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------> GBA -> NDSLite

I ended up with an Atari STe because my dad paid too much attention to the most knowledgeable tech head in the family. After all, the STe was the better machine...(well we had to cling to something).

Biggest gaming memories. Buying Double Dragon for Spectrum on day one, because I loved it in the arcade. Also, camping out for a Wii on release, then being completely blown away by Wii Sports and playing it almost non-stop for a month.

Although not really into RPGs now, I used to love them on the ST. Games like Bloodwych, Bards Tale, anything D&D etc.

Also, been very fortunate to have been gifted both my original Xbox (wedding present) and the 360 (won by a friend in a competition). Now I'm trying to collect retro consoles. Only added a Saturn to my collection so far, but I'd love to own all the big ones from Sega and Nintendo and some point.

 

[Gowans]

Ahh I remember that it was the Archimedes Acorn that was in schools as the new thing at the time I was in juniors and that's what had Lander that amazed everyone with its rough 3D graphics.

I worked on some of those 80s Spectrum games

/mysterious smile

You were a god to me in my early years.

 

[SmokyDave]

Such an awesome topic. I'll contribute when I've finished bathing in nostalgia.

As for my 80's platform preferences, I went 'VIC20 - Master System - C64 - MegaDrive'.

 

[ThankeeSai]

Again, no real stories, but a lot of great memories.

Started out like a lot of people with the Atari 2600, then moved onto the Acorn Electron with stuff like Chuckie Egg, Elite, Monsters, Citadel and Twin Kingdom Valley.

Moved onto the MSX (never did get Metal Gear for it), but remember classics such as Chack’n Pop and Valkyre.

In between consoles I had an Atari ST and an Amiga which had a ton of games. Again, pirating heaven (Pompey Pirates anyone?). Loved the The Bards Tale, Kick Off, Dungeon Master, Lemmings, Mad Show, Magic Pockets, Cannon Fodder, Xenon, Speedball, Gods etc.

I can remember playing The Bards Tale with my brother and as there was no in game map back then, as I’m sure many others did, we mapped it on maths/graph paper. I also loved the Sierra games on the ST – Police Quest, Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry etc.

Great times, great games!

 

[decaf]

Ahh I remember that it was the Archimedes Acorn that was in schools as the new thing at the time I was in juniors and that's what had Lander that amazed everyone with its rough 3D graphics.

You were a god to me in my early years.

Holy moly, its pretty rare for me to come across games I'd forgotten playing. This sense of nostalgia is something usually only reserved for cartoons. I played the hell out of that at school - I'd always finished my work in class first so I could go play it.

 

[Monty Mole]

One of my best value purchases:

But of course...

And my previous programming books...

 

[JosephManderley]

Anyone else go through Spectrum power bricks at a rate of 2-3 per year? Those things were always burning out on me.

 

[JustAnotherOtaku]

Wait, Bits was released on DVD? :O

Also, I've asked this on GAF and elsewhere before but never found an answer - I remember a C64 game I used to love, was set in space (on the moon I think) and unfortunately all I can remember is that light blue was a predominant colour and the space bar was important. Not much to go on I know, but anyone have an idea what I'm rambling about?

 

[SloaneRangerSW1]

Someone else says/sings it much better...

http://www2.b3ta.com/heyhey16k/

Awww.

 

[Monty Mole]

Anyone else go through Spectrum power bricks at a rate of 2-3 per year? Those things were always burning out on me.

I remember having to replace the internal glass wire fuse inside my C64 at least 10 times. That's when I wasn't tweaking the cassette deck's azimuth to try and get tapes to load. Oh, those were the days.

 

[the androgyne]

Ahh I remember that it was the Archimedes Acorn that was in schools as the new thing at the time I was in juniors and that's what had Lander that amazed everyone with its rough 3D graphics.

Though this was unarguably impressive, i only remember it for how hard it was to actually land! And take off i think too!

 

[NemesisPrime]

You were a god to me in my early years.

TBH I was very young. Just 16 and doing everything in Assembler (I still have my original Z80 Assembler reference guide on my desk

We had to print out the whole program and then try to find bugs by just looking at the code No debuggers like today. In fact we ended up writing a Z80 ASM "emulator" on the QL (Yes!!!!!) years later but by that time I was moving to C and the PC.

 

[2+2=5]

Can we expand the discussion to the rest of Europe? I'm not under the queen!
I have:
c64(no more )->amiga 500->pc->psp->ps3 ... ->vita(at d1 i hope)
Man, amiga 500 is my favourite gaming hardware EVER, second place c64, third place psp.

 

[pulsemyne]

Ah I remember Daley Thompsons as being the destroyer of joysticks. Many a Chettah joystick died to that game. I had a Cruiser joystick which was hard as nails. Brilliant things.

Oh and death to all C64 fans

 

[Asparagus]

I didn't own a computer until '99, always wished I had an Amiga though My first system was an Atari 2600 jr which I pawned off to put towards the Mario 3 pack in NEZ which ended up being my favourite system of all time if I'm honest. I spent a ton of time lending games and playing Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, Shadow Warriors and the like. In fact, thinking back it seems most of my friends owned a NES around 90-93 with a few owning a Master System and one or two having a SNES/MD/Amiga. Maybe it's because we were young and they were so cheap by then though.

I still remember playing my first game at my Uncles, Alex the Kidd in Miracle World. That game changed my life man, I didn't even know what a video game was before then and couldn't get enough of them afterwards. Not sure if that was a good thing though

 

[ThankeeSai]

Ah I remember Daley Thompsons as being the destroyer of joysticks. Many a Chettah joystick died to that game. I had a Cruiser joystick which was hard as nails. Brilliant things.

Oh and death to all C64 fans

Joysticks of choice for me -

Zipstick

Speedking

Speedking was immense for sports games etc.

 

[LordAlu]

First computer I had was the rubber-keyed Spectrum 48k... soon picked up a Spectrum 128k +2, a Commodore 64, an Atari ST and an Amiga 1200.

Strangely the main memory that comes to my mind right now is The Last Ninja II on C64... there was some dragon that would poke it's head out of a cave early in the game that breathed fire and killed you instantly - I never made it past that point. Might have to set up an emulator since I can't be arsed digging it all out of the basement. How did you get past that thing?

 

[Red Liquorice]

Nintendo was definately not on our radar as kids untl the SNES really. It wasn't until the Turtles game for the NES that it peaked our interest and I was all set to get one that Xmas, but that was also the year of the Megadrive, so I got that instead thankfully.

Memories of sitting playing Ms. Pac-man and ET on Atari 2600 for hours, loading games only to have them crash at 99% on Spectrum (getting a cassette with a bunch of games on taped to the front of a magazine was a thrill!), the awesome platformers and especially Wonderboy games on Master System, and the whole Mega Drive catalogue which is still my favourite console ever.

 

[Jeff Albertson]

Joysticks of choice for me -

Zipstick

Speedking

Speedking was immense for sports games etc.

I had the top one but remember using the second at a mates, was good for running in cricket games

 

[Dr Zhivago]

Anyone else go through Spectrum power bricks at a rate of 2-3 per year? Those things were always burning out on me.

It was the keyboard membranes I ended up replacing the most.

I was always surprised to see in magazine how the NES was so popular in the US & Japan - the games seemed so basic!

 

[drugstore_cowboy]

I had a CPC, hated the Spectrum ports and generally anything by the lazy fucks at US Gold.

Ocean and Imagine was where it was at for me, some great coin-op conversions - Renegade (with the code for red blood), WEC Le Mans, Arkanoid, Yie Ar Kung Fu, Operation Wolf, Bad Dudes...shit, loads of them anyway.

Head over Heels was one of the best of the system, I've completed it now using an emulator but at the time it was tough, the shitty Cheetah joystick didn't help.

C64 blew me away, the sounds and scrolling was so far ahead of the CPC it felt like a generation apart in some respects, I already owned a Megadrive when I first heard/played Turbo Outrun on it and was like WOW! such an awesome machine.

 

[pitcairn55]

The ZX Spectrum is arguable the single most evil, despicable, detestable man made creation in the history of humanity. The hardware equivalent of a war crime, and singularly responsible for over 75% of all the world's ills. Little known fact about the Sir Clive Sinclair (inventor of the Spectrum): He also invented AIDS.

I’d forgotten the whole C64 vs Spectrum thing! Two of my mates actually came to blows in the park on the way home from school over that. Madness, but pretty entertaining for the rest of us. Annoyingly, I think C64 kid won the fight.

Just spent my lunch hour looking up old Spectrum games, and I’m now filled with a burning desire to play Penetrator, a magnificent Scramble clone.

 

[djtiesto]

Honestly, the only game I've played (apart from Rare's NES releases) from the halcyon days of British gaming has been a Flash adaptation of Jet Set Willy... I read a lot about these random systems (ever hear of the Amstrad GX-4000, the most obscure 16 bit console?) in Retro Gamer. Do any of these games hold up if you have no nostalgia whatsoever from the era? If so, which ones?

 

[McBradders]

Cut my teeth on the Spectrum, Ritmond and Drummond were my gods at that age. I eventually moved to consoles due to a rather intense love affair with the incredible arcade scene of the 80's.

It was then when I got into Mean Machines. That magazine was like pornography to me at the time, just incredible. I miss the passion behind the production of that time. The closest thing we have to that now is Giant Bomb.

 

[drugstore_cowboy]

Honestly, the only game I've played (apart from Rare's NES releases) from the halcyon days of British gaming has been a Flash adaptation of Jet Set Willy... I read a lot about these random systems (ever hear of the Amstrad GX-4000, the most obscure 16 bit console?) in Retro Gamer. Do any of these games hold up if you have no nostalgia whatsoever from the era? If so, which ones?

GX4000 was too little too late, it looked laughable against the Megadrive and PC Engine, even the NES and Master System trounced it.

 

[Fright Zone]

I started out with an Atari 7800 when I was around 6 then moved up to an Amiga 600 a few years later (as you can see, my parents always went with the technically superior but far less popular versions of home computers!)
Then I became addicted to Street Fighter 2 in the arcade so had to give in and buy a console.

90s UK games mags were the best!
The One Amiga, CVG, NMS, SSM, Mean Machines.
Anyone remember Maximum? Very short lived but had amazing production values.

 

[Clear]

The problem with enjoying games from the 8-bit era is that the sharpness and clarity of modern displays really hurt them.

You have to understand that these were games meant to be viewed on analog CRT displays, and made use of the softness/blearyness of the image to round out their appearance. There were techniques like artifacting, and more commonly (on c64) the way if you placed a strong colour next to a mid-tone grey the two would bleed together to produce a softer colour.

An awful lot of C64 games use bas-relief to build a degree of 3d-ness into the image, and this simply doesn't work on digital displays. Post-process effects can go some way to emulating the original result, but they never seem to quite catch it to me.

Its also an issue that British games were almost always intended to run at divisors of 50hz thanks to the PAL system, so you have to be careful that you're experiencing them at the correct speed in a largely 60hz world.

 

[Endo Punk]

Man the gaming scene in the UK has taken such a fierce hit. But back in the 90s and early 00s it was just amazing. I didn't start gaming in the 80s and my first system was the SEGA Mega Drive in the mid nineties with a 6-game in one case. Believe it featured, Sonic, SOR, Column, Shinobi and Golden Axe, and a moto game.

You guys remember the great gaming TV shows like Bad Influence, Games master, Bits, When Games Attack? Heck I even enjoyed Gamezville!

 

[Asparagus]

Man the gaming scene in the UK has taken such a fierce hit. But back in the 90s and early 00s it was just amazing. I didn't start gaming in the 80s and my first system was the SEGA Mega Drive in the mid nineties with a 6-game in one case. Believe it featured, Sonic, SOR, Column, Shinobi and Golden Axe, and a moto game.

You guys remember the great gaming TV shows like Bad Influence, Games master, Bits, When Games Attack? Heck I even enjoyed Gamezville!

Was that the shitty Sky One show? Ugh.

I loved Gamesmaster and Bits though, not sure I ever saw Bad Influence until a couple of years ago.

 

[Endo Punk]

Was that the shitty Sky One show? Ugh.

It sure was ^^

 

[spirity]

Barbarian:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AE-9OkyvWPQ/TUsI9Dy941I/AAAAAAAAAHE/b5PniDPcl4I/s1600/imagesCAEHKSRZ.jpg

Hah, I remember that. I don't think I ever played the game, but I remember the ad with Maria Whittaker - who apparently married Rebel MC, according to wiki. Rough like a ninja, stinging like a bee!

 

[drugstore_cowboy]

Flying Neck Chop!

So cool when it connects but our Barbarian fights were cheap and boring, lots of rolling and kicking the other player.

 

[spirity]

Keith Chegwin (yes, Cheggers) at Ocean Software, 1988

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmS4LYKRHY4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM3luK9jpv4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhbN4-VQ71M&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U2D6iHXoSo&feature=related

 

[Jeff Albertson]

Anyone tried ios dizzy?

 

[KenOD]

I can remember playing The Bards Tale with my brother and as there was no in game map back then, as I’m sure many others did, we mapped it on maths/graph paper.

I spent so much time mapping things out for all the text adventures, dungeon crawls, and the like. I felt proud when I had finished a game and could look at this taped together grouping of graph paper that showed a world with all it's connections and landmarks and the art I put in to make it easier to see.

Quite honestly I think that's why I became a graphic artist and why I love games like Castlevania and Metroid, getting a 100% on those maps.

Anyone else go through Spectrum power bricks at a rate of 2-3 per year? Those things were always burning out on me.

I got so good at soldering because of that. Replacing fusible links and what have you. Always having a spare plug because of the bad design they made it with. Not something I miss or look back on fondly.

Anyone tried ios dizzy?

Dizzy Prince of the Yolkfolk is good on iOS, a nice update on the original. Yet I find it hard to enjoy, me mind just can't accept non Spectrum graphics for Dizzy.

Well worth it if you want to return and haven't play any of the games in a long time though.

 

[CrunchinJelly]

Anyone tried ios dizzy?

Good game, but you should be aware you can finish it in like a half hour and it is nowhere near as hard as I remember it being.

 

[LamerDeluxe]

I used to have this one (and a number of other Quickshot sticks. still have one I think). I modded it with a couple of diodes so a LED would lit per button, instead of always both. Still was a very clumsy controller, despite the microswitches.

I went

Pong -> Atari 2600 -> VIC-20 -> Spectravideo SVI-328 -> Amiga 2000 -> Atari Lynx -> Amiga 4000 -> GameGear -> PSX -> C64 -> GBC -> NGP -> PC -> Vectrex -> GBA -> GameCube -> DS -> PSP -> PS2 -> PS3 -> 3DS or something :^p

Learned programming starting on the VIC-20, am a software engineer now.

 

[Gowans]

Anyone have fond memories of Head Over Heels? I don't think my young mind was ready for the puzzling element at that point in time, but looking back at it i bet it was one of those long forgotten classics.

I have loads of amazing memories playing this with my little brother. We always though the graphics were great but odd.

One of my more vivid memories.

 

[toddhunter]

My family had an amstrad pcw. Not an amstrad pc.

Only one letter, but so much of a difference.

Lords of time was great though, finally finished it with the aid of a walk through many, many years later.

 

[Mr_Appleby]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_One_(magazine)

and him and his brother managed to nag their dad to sell it and get an Amiga.[/QUOTE]

ahh good kids.

Ahh I remember that it was the Archimedes Acorn that was in schools as the new thing at the time I was in juniors and that's what had Lander that amazed everyone with its rough 3D graphics.

my school had a network of 40 bbc electrons, and 1 archimedes that they had nfi what to do with. we played lander though it was called something else?

fake edit: wiki says "zarch", i thought it was called virus which turns out to be the name of the amiga port.

One of my best value purchases:

But of course...

oh you have excellent taste in games. though your user name should tell me that. had that same thalamus box set, so awesome. made me remember hunters moon

 

[Jakabok]

Ah I remember Daley Thompsons as being the destroyer of joysticks. Many a Chettah joystick died to that game. I had a Cruiser joystick which was hard as nails. Brilliant things.

Oh and death to all C64 fans

Did you know that in Daley Thompson's Decathlon you could use either joystick port? This gave me and my mate the idea to plug in two sticks for some simultaneous joystick waggling action (oo-er). Result? Going so fast that your running speed went further than the max on the speed bar, breaking every world record! Happy days.

 

[CrazyArcadia]

Nice reading

Not UK, but Germany here. For some reason I started out with GameBoy and NES - while most kids I knew had either a C64 or an Amiga 500 or something from SEGA. Maybe I'm not old enough for this topic Anyways, while I later also had an Amiga 1200, I was never allowed to mailorder a harddisk or some real joystick for it (had one crappy one, had to stick to it). So my gaming on that powerful machine consisted of waiting, swapping discs all the time, not being able to properly controll anything and more waiting. In the long run, I'd rather played NES because of that -_- I got introduced to many games like Space Taxi or some metroidlike game with the most amazing animation I've seen back then (forgot the name ) at my friends house, she had a C64 and hundreds of games (even this cassette addon, with MASH and something iirc).

Nowadays, I always wonder how many people played Master System instead of NES. And I'm still irritated that Nintendo gave the NES such a late start in Europe. For everything before that, I'm too young, but I love reading about retro stuff, UKs Retro Gaming magazine is the best gaming related magazine there is in today's market (in case anyone didn't knew which I actually doubt), can highly recommend it! But in Germany, we have our own Retro culture magazine (which also covers 80s movies, general computer history and similiar things).

 

[Gen X]

I’d forgotten the whole C64 vs Spectrum thing! Two of my mates actually came to blows in the park on the way home from school over that. Madness, but pretty entertaining for the rest of us. Annoyingly, I think C64 kid won the fight.

Just spent my lunch hour looking up old Spectrum games, and I’m now filled with a burning desire to play Penetrator, a magnificent Scramble clone.

When I was in High School most of my friends had C64 (as well as myself) and although we used to rag on my mate about his Speccy and how shit it was and only for colour blind people, I was actually jealous of how cool the games were. Not many C64 owners knew that a lot of the time the Speccy had the superior version in terms of gameplay because unlike machines of today, different programmers on different systems had far different designs. Sure the games might not have looked any good but there were some levels of sher brilliance. But you were still all colour blind and needed interfaces for everything.