So, apparently there's some other thread about some other 80s home computer, and as everyone in the UK would attest, there's no way we're going to leave the playground without a fight. It was generally 'my Spectrum's better than your C64' and vice versa, only ever teaming up when someone chirped in with an Amstrad CPC or a BBC Micro bought by over-eager parents for 'educational' purposes. Yeah, most of the lunch time discussion was about which version of Outrun was better, what your 'winky' was for and who's dad was the toughest.

In 1982 Sir Clive Sinclair brought out his opus, the Spectrum 48k, after a few experimental 'disasters' with the ZX80 and ZX81 in the previous years. The Spectrum (so called because of it's colour range) boasted an astonishing 48 whole kilobytes of RAM (although, much like the PS3 developers could only access part of it) with a crystal clear 16 colour display and what he called 'sound'. There were really only 8 colours, each with a 'bright' mode, and the crystal clear display was actually a paltry 256x192 pixel resolution (exactly the same as each DS screen, fact fans) and each 8x8 pixel block could only hold 2 colours at once, one paper and one ink. This lead to the infamous colour clash.



Colour clash or not, by Christmas everyone wanted one. Everyone. Despite only launching with some pretty rubbish games (two featured Hungry Horace, and my Uncle David's favourite shooter Arcadia) kids my age everywhere were write furiously to ol' Santa for a piece of the Spectrum pie. Parents were cool about it (if they could afford it) because this was primarily a home computer, and could do all kinds of crazy things like word processing and money management, and came with a built-in programming language called BASIC with which dads could produce best selling computer games, or at least draw the Union Flag. Either way, the 3.5Mhz processor was three and a half times quicker than the rival C64's, so despite the blocky graphics there was often less slow-down (Ultimate games not included) and a far smoother game experience on the Spectrum.

Sure, we didn't have Super Gran (in all it's CPC green screen glory) but soon the games started to come quick and fast, and before long the dodgy rubber keys would quench our thirst for higher scores no more, and we'd need to look further afield. What did the arcade machines have that our Spectrum didn't...?



The Kempston name still brings a hair to the back of my neck. Touching one for the first time brought the thrill of the arcades home in a rush I didn't experience again until the Dreamcast. It was solid, robust, clicky (thanks to the microswitched version) and the fire buttons were big enough to hammer during a game of Track and Field. Despite the shitty connector you had to plug in (that crashed the game whenever you even thought about going near it) the Kempston was a revelation that stuck until the last days of the machine. Anyone that did any BASIC programming will remember IN 31 with a tinge of nostalgia, as that was the way you read the joystick inputs for use in your own games.

There were plenty of other interfaces too, including the Currah Microspeech which translated text into some kind of voice, albeit quite a scary one (and was used in some games until the devs figured out a way to do it themselves) and several other joysticks. Later Spectrum models sensibly came with joystick ports included (and more RAM, naturally) but I've not only still got my original Spectrum but I've also still got my very first Kempston Pro. And you know what, it still works. They don't make them like they used to.



Likewise with the games, sure, to some they look basic, primitive and ugly but I'm a sucker for pixel perfect gaming and wouldn't dream of trying any fancy upscaling or other visual tricks - the following games all represent great moments (personally) in gaming and all these I still own and play regularly. I've missed loads, sure, but I need a bath and can't sit here typing all day.

So, in no particular order, here's some stunning games for anyone wanting either a trip down memory lane or a key into Spectrum gaming for the first time:



Manic Miner (wiki) and Jet Set Willy (wiki) are both stunning examples of early Spectrum platformers, both created by the vivid mind of Matthew Smith, the esoteric fellow who promptly vanished from the scene. Manic Miner came first, and was a single screen (ie, no scrolling) platformer which gave way to the massive Jet Set Willy with it's huge mansion to explore. Jumps needed to be exact and both games were really, really, difficult to complete - the very mention of the 'Banyan Tree' should make any Spectrum gamer shiver with dread.



Head over Heels (wiki) and Alien8 (wiki) are both great examples of the popular isometric gameplay that was actually birthed by Sandy White with his Ant Attack 3D game but rapidly adopted by Ultimate Play The Game (now Rare) who threw out titles like Knightlore, Gunfright and (shown) Alien 8 on an almost monthly basis. Head over Heels was actually pretty brilliant, and offered an odd single player co-op mode once you'd found the other character in the game.



Jetpac (wiki) will be familiar to Xbox 360 owners and how Electric Dreams managed to squeeze R-Type (wiki) into the 48K model is an enigma that even today baffles my tiny brain. Both are emotive shooters with smooth gameplay and R-Type in particular had stunning graphics and sound. Of course, it was no match for the Arcade machine (and the leap in visuals when I got the Amiga version was incredible) but it remains as a powerful example of how to get the most out of hardware.



There's no theme to this selection, but both StarQuake (wiki) and Three Weeks in Paradise bring back powerful memories of pencils mapping the massive worlds and writing into magazines like Crash asking for hints. Both were pretty tough games but how I ever managed to complete StarQuake back in the day baffles me - it's a stark reminder of how games used to punish all but the most dedicated gamers, with a limited set of lives and no save points. Great stuff.



And finally, two of my favourite games ever (and apologies for the personal trip here) but both Auf Wiedersehen Monty (wiki) and the Dizzy Series (wiki) consumed many, many weeks of my youth and I still claim Auf Monty (as it was known to its fans) as the finest game ever created. Maybe it's the world-travelling motto or the devious puzzles I don't know, but it evokes some kind of explorer in me and is regularly played through at least once a year, usually after re-reading Lord of the Rings or something. Dizzy is the one series that really needs a next-gen remake, the characters were strong and the puzzles clever and the way you'd meet up in the playground on a Monday discussing progress over the weekend is a feeling you'll never get back.



So, here's to Sir Clive and the only console battles that ever counted.

Useful Links:
worldofspectrum.org/ - The ultimate resource for legal game downloads
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX_Spectrum- Useful place to start
http://www.raww.org/ - Spectrum Demo Scene News
ZXF - Great PDF magazine
Jasper - Online Javascript based emulator

Awesome thread. I never did own a speccy as I don't believe they were available here (Australia). At least, I never seen one. However quite a few spectrum ports to C64 were some of the best games on the platform.

There's something very charming about the speccy. The system itself looks awesome with its black and colourful surface, and rubber keys. The games too look fantastic with that colour pallet. I'm going to buy one eventually and have been keeping my eye on a few on eBay.

Mar_ said:

Awesome thread. I never did own a speccy as I don't believe they were available here (Australia). At least, I never seen one. However quite a few spectrum ports to C64 were some of the best games on the platform.

There's something very charming about the speccy. The system itself looks awesome with its black and colourful surface, and rubber keys. The games too look fantastic with that colour pallet. I'm going to buy one eventually and have been keeping my eye on a few on eBay.

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Thanks. The Auf Monty port was a direct conversion to the c64 but had a border around due to the higher res.

Back on these days, I used to have a MSX, and lots of Speccy titles eventually were ported to it. Auf Wiedersehen Monty is, probably, one of my fave games back then; the title theme was awesome (and if I'm not mistaken, the first musical collaboration between Ben Daglish and Rob Hubbard) and the game itself was pretty awesome.

That and MASK 3: Venom Strikes Back, heh. Good ol' days. But I've got to say that most of Japanese productions for the MSX had a better presentation. You know all this talk about recent console titles being downgraded because it was a port? Something along these lines.

LOAD "" indeed!

SuperGran was definitely available on the Speccy, I remember getting it in a batch of tapes my dad picked up at a car boot sale! :lol

The "Wally Week" series by Mikro-Gen were classics (Automania, Pyjamarama and Everyone's A Wally) as were the extremely weird Pi-Man games by Automata (complete with songs on the other side of the tape!)

Oh and SkoolDaze/Bak To Skool of course!

Mar_ said:

Awesome thread. I never did own a speccy as I don't believe they were available here (Australia).

Click to expand...

Actually, I had a ZX Spectrum +2A growing up as a kid (Tasmanian). First gaming platform I ever owned. And if it wasn't for this thread, I still wouldn't have known what the damn thing was called. :lol

nofi said:

Thanks. The Auf Monty port was a direct conversion to the c64 but had a border around due to the higher res.

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Monty was a stand out, as was a game called Vampire which was called Phantomas on the Spectrum. I loved 8bit platformers and the Spectrum seemed to have one of the largest selections. To this day I regret the fact I never bought one. Even though I had never seen one in Australia (Kritz above seemed to have found one though), I read about them all the time in the UK 8bit computer mags. I should have imported or something.

Mar_ said:

Monty was a stand out, as was a game called Vampire which was called Phantomas on the Spectrum. I loved 8bit platformers and the Spectrum seemed to have one of the largest selections. To this day I regret the fact I never bought one. Even though I had never seen one in Australia (Kritz above seemed to have found one though), I read about them all the time in the UK 8bit computer mags. I should have imported or something.

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I don't think this thread will have the appeal of the C64 one because it was mainly a UK machine (and later Spain and Russia, of course) but yeah, in terms of platformers it was absolutely unbeatable.

Pioneering, you might say.

I remember playing my cousin's Spectrum, man those were the days. Loading times, kids these days have no idea.

I was mainly aware of the Spectrum because it often shared box art with the C64 games. You'd always look on the back and see a screenshot labeled "Spectrum" and another "Commodore".

BSS said:

I was mainly aware of the Spectrum because it often shared box art with the C64 games. You'd always look on the back and see a screenshot labeled "Spectrum" and another "Commodore".

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Outside the UK?

I always had a beeb, and I remember going to my cousin's house to play on his spectrum and trying to type out LOAD "", and it just kept saying something else whenever I pressed the L key (LIST?). How frustrating that was for a seven year old.

Jonnyram said:

I always had a beeb, and I remember going to my cousin's house to play on his spectrum and trying to type out LOAD "", and it just kept saying something else whenever I pressed the L key (LIST?). How frustrating that was for a seven year old.

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Yeah, the 'quick-typing' keys took a while to get around, but then you could code in half the time once you've got used to them. I think LOAD was on J. =)

nofi said:

Outside the UK?

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I work with this guy, so yeah, another person from Australia who missed out on the great era that was the Spectrum I'm afraid. If only we knew then what we do now.

I never got into the Spectrum but the one thing which stood out to me about the system (especially while working on the C64 thread) is how vivid the colors are. Sure it may not be as detailed as the C64's but the way the colors pop out is pretty pleasing to the eye. Take a look at this map from the Spectrum port of Myth. It's a excellent example of how a good eye for art can overcome the limitations in tech and color.





Also here's some snippets I made from the couple of Spectrum games I know about. Making these had me wondering how I would've experienced these scenes as a child. I pity those who cannot see the beauty in screens like these even without the nostalgia attached.


Myth








R-Type







Turrican 1 and 2









For those that are actually curious about the systems and the games be sure to check out this site:
The World of Spectrum

Wow, the use of colors in these games is amazing. Making art with so many limitations.

Gattsu25 said:

Wow, the use of colors in these games is amazing. Making art with so many limitations.

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Good to see that even the one eyed beserker has a soft spot for good old school pixel art. Here's another one from Myth.




:bow System 3 :bow

The animation in Myth is incredible too. Take a look at Dan Dare 3 on the Speccy for amazing graphics given the limitations - I can't find pics but I'll grab some tonight.

The platformers were the best on the Speccy - everything from Jet Set Willy through to Roller Coaster and Dynamite Dan. Loved every one of them!

No Treasure Island Dizzy = Thread fails completely!

NoFi. you are completely amazing. Thread of the century.

Psychotext said:

No Treasure Island Dizzy = Thread fails completely!

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Hey, I mentioned Dizzy!

nofi said:

It was generally 'my Spectrum's better than your C64' and vice versa, only ever teaming up when someone chirped in with an Amstrad CPC or a BBC Micro bought by over-eager parents for 'educational' purposes.

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I had both of these.. an Amstrad CPC 464, which was the green-screen version because we couldn't afford the colour one, so I didn't really do much gaming on it, and then later I got bought a BBC Master with a colour monitor and a dual disk drive and the 512k 80186 coprocessor addon. Of course, I played Elite on the BBC, which was awesome, and also games like Repton and Stryker's Run (though I wasn't much good at that) and of course the legendary Chuckie Egg, and I had a subscription to one of the BBC magazines. In the school I was at we had BBC computers too, and there was much swapping of disks and software, and somebody got a speech synthesiser utility from somewhere which everyone immediately put on their bootable disk menus and stuff. I was a whiz at 6502 assembly language too. Ahh, those were the days.

nofi said:

Hey, I mentioned Dizzy!

Click to expand...

Danj said:

I had both of these.. an Amstrad CPC 464, which was the green-screen version because we couldn't afford the colour one, so I didn't really do much gaming on it, and then later I got bought a BBC Master with a colour monitor and a dual disk drive and the 512k 80186 coprocessor addon. Of course, I played Elite on the BBC, which was awesome, and also games like Repton and Stryker's Run (though I wasn't much good at that) and of course the legendary Chuckie Egg, and I had a subscription to one of the BBC magazines. In the school I was at we had BBC computers too, and there was much swapping of disks and software, and somebody got a speech synthesiser utility from somewhere which everyone immediately put on their bootable disk menus and stuff. I was a whiz at 6502 assembly language too. Ahh, those were the days.

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Can't believe I missed Chuckie Egg! I could write a book on all the great platformers, I really could. In fact I might.

Elite was great too, but not so great on the Speccy.

Heh, you had a Speccy nofi?

I had Timex 2048, the Eastern Europe version of ZX.

You missed some fine games such as:

Exolon


Army Moves


Commando:


God, this system was so awesome.

cant believe I missed this thread,

My Speccy was my first gaming love affair, as a kid I remember me and all my buds having one, tapes being copied and swapped at school, I had a rediculous library of stuff.

The pain in the arse that was loading, I will always remember the noise of the loading screens and the coloured lines flashing around. Some were well posh with the music over the loading image too but when it crashed your heart was broken.

I also remeker my clacky chewed atari joysticks and playing with my bro, the biggest fit I ever threw was over Dizzy where I kept missing a tree top jump arg!!!!

I think I still have all the speccy mags in my Dads loft, where you could copy out loads of code to make a simple game or image.

At the end of the speccy run my dad was a ledge and bought a dick drive for it, you could fit tonnes of games onto a floppy and the load times blew my mind. That was not long till I swpped to the Amiga after then tho then held out for ages and ages and then went PC.


Some of the games were so simple get rock hard, loved to many to name.


Also I keep meaning to buy this book http://www.zxgoldenyears.com/ I defo will soon.

Wish some of the old Speccy & Amiga guys would get together and do a series of podcasts Im sure it would be full of awesome, maybe even GAF can arrange it?

ALSO awesome website here http://www.worldofspectrum.org/

Borys said:

Commando:

Click to expand...

So awesome. Nostalgia overflowing.

Gowans007 said:

I think I still have all the speccy mags in my Dads loft, where you could copy out loads of code to make a simple game or image.

Click to expand...

I will buy them. All.

Gowans007 said:

At the end of the speccy run my dad was a ledge and bought a dick drive for it, you could fit tonnes of games onto a floppy and the load times blew my mind. That was not long till I swpped to the Amiga after then tho then held out for ages and ages and then went PC.

Click to expand...

Yeah, we eventually got the disk drive, I remember having two - was that the norm? I don't have them anymore but the wee disks were so cute. And fast. You could type 'cat' to see the listings, I remember that.

Gowans007 said:

Some of the games were so simple get rock hard, loved to many to name.

Click to expand...

But that's the point of the thread! List 'em and I'll go buy them and re-play them again, I've lost track of all the best ones .

this list is pretty spot on: http://zxplanet.emuunlim.com/top-games.htm

here are some classics to

ARKANOID 2 (Imagine)
ATIC ATAC (Ultimate)
BACK TO SKOOL (Microsphere)
BOULDER DASH (Front Runner)
BOUNDER (Gremlin)
CHASE H.Q. (Ocean)
CHUCKIE EGG (A&F)
COBRA (Ocean)
ELITE (Firebird)
FANTASY WORLD DIZZY (Code Masters)
FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD (Ocean)
GAUNTLET (US Gold)
GYRON (Firebird)
GYROSCOPE (Melbourne House)
HEAD OVER HEELS (Imagine)
JET SET WILLY (Software Projects)
LODE RUNNER (Software Projects)
MANIC MINER (Bug-Byte)
MYTH (System 3)
OPERATION WOLF (Ocean)
PANG (Ocean)
POPEYE (DK 'Tronics)
RAINBOW ISLANDS (Ocean)
ROBOCOP (Ocean)
R-TYPE (Activision)
SCRABBLE (Psion)
SIM CITY (Infogrames)
SPY vs SPY (Beyond)
SUPER HANG-ON (Electric Dreams)
TAPPER (US Gold)
TETRIS (Mirrorsoft)
THRUST (Firebird)

Gowans007 said:

this list is pretty spot on: http://zxplanet.emuunlim.com/top-games.htm

Click to expand...

That was the 100 I started with when trying to rebuild my collection, but there's the personal favourites missing from there, like Roller Coaster. Not the best games, but the ones I remember most fondly and still play. Played Roller Coaster last night and it's still hard as nails, but managed to ace the Fun House section without losing a single life, oddly enough.

Hey, there's a wiki for Roller Coaster. I had no idea it ended up being a Dragons Lair Gameboy title!

nofi said:

That was the 100 I started with when trying to rebuild my collection, but there's the personal favourites missing from there, like Roller Coaster. Not the best games, but the ones I remember most fondly and still play. Played Roller Coaster last night and it's still hard as nails, but managed to ace the Fun House section without losing a single life, oddly enough.

Hey, there's a wiki for Roller Coaster. I had no idea it ended up being a Dragons Lair Gameboy title!

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Never played Roller Coaster. Christ my Speccy days are blurry tho. I remember my bro also getting a game called Wonderboy on 5 tapes, and it was rock!!! he was a dick about it and woundnt let me play it as it was hit birthday gift.

I remember all the shit too, sprite swapped licences games, scooby doo, tom Jerry and stuff in games shops in town, walls of cassette tapes awww..

Also




next time im at my pops ill look in the loft I think there are years and years worth of speccy and amiga mags up there.

Gowans007 said:

I remember all the shit too, sprite swapped licences games, scooby doo, tom Jerry and stuff in games shops in town, walls of cassette tapes awww..

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Yeah, good times. I remember getting really excited about some mail-order game (something to do with aliens, a vertical shooter) for weeks until it came and it was crap. Most of the hyped stuff turned out fantastic though, in times when slow down was actually a useful feature (hello, Knight Lore).

I remember Outrun had the arcade music on the back of the tape, so you could turn it over (in between levels in the game), pull out the EAR wire from the tape deck and pretend you were in the arcade. Then had to switch it all back round again at the end of the each course so you could load the next!

Gowans007 said:

next time im at my pops ill look in the loft I think there are years and years worth of speccy and amiga mags up there.

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Cool.

I'm another gaffer from that era who missed the Spectrum train In Australia we had the C64 or Amstrad CPC 464 to choose from.

I used to buy a lot of British gaming mags and always wanted a Spectrum..

When someone makes an Amstrad CPC 464 thread, I'm there! I think they shared a lot of games with the Spectrum.

AH, that brings back memories, when I was little I had a ZX Spectrum 128K +2 (Yes, feel the awesome), and quite a few games, I remember that Manic Miner was the only game my mum was better than me at, apart from that, I loved Jet Set Willy.

Gowans007 said:

At the end of the speccy run my dad was a ledge and bought a dick drive for it

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You're drunk aren't you.

Mar_ said:

You're drunk aren't you.

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Either that or it's some crazy alternative world where men are made of wood and sex aids were flat.

pubba said:

I'm another gaffer from that era who missed the Spectrum train

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I remember I went to some sort of computing summer camp thing or something (where you bring your own computer) and I brought my BBC thinking it'd be the most awesome thing there, but I got completely owned because there was a bunch of Amigas and I was like "OMG they can play music with samples in" because they had Protracker on and all I could do was some crummy Pet Shop Boys chiptunes I got off a magazine cover disk.

I wrote my first ever program on it. Wrote a small calculator with a menu based "UI" to do my homework with. I think I was was about 11.


And yeah, hours and hours on Commando, and actual *days* on elite.

What an awesome awesome system.

I went through and made some more Spectum screens. Colourclash really is an appropriate term as there is something really alluring about how the colors are used to their advantage. But before I get to those I accidentally stumble upon this "map" for a game called Firelord. Check out the size of it.




Anyways here's the screens:


Altered Beast





Cauldron




Double Dragon




Gallivan

Enk said:

I went through and made some more Spectum screens. Colourclash really is an appropriate term as there is something really alluring about how the colors are used to their advantage. But before I get to those I accidentally stumble upon this "map" for a game called Firelord. Check out the size of it.

Click to expand...

I love maps like this, there's a whole site dedicated to them - just pure screenshot maps. This one is especially awesome.