The top 50 underappreciated ZX Spectrum games
The humble Spectrum was home to some remarkable games - including these underappreciated masterpieces...
Here's part two of our countdown....
25. MAKE A CHIP
The ZX Spectrum+ game bundled with a six pack of software at first, that included Chequered Flag (overrated but ambitious), Scrabble (hilarious, once you worked out it'd take any made up word. 'Bamfrilly' on triple word remains a highlight) and word processor Tasword Two.
The oddity, and the attempt to make the pack educational, was Make A Chip. I hated it at first, clearly just wanting to play the games. But I kept getting drawn back to it, not least because I couldn't afford too many games. And while I can't sit here and tell you I had a blast with it, I'm still thinking about it nearly three decades later.
Make A Chip was basically the program, not even vaguely convincingly disguised as a game, that demonstrated remarkably clearly how chips worked, and how they fitted into circuit design. Billed as a tool to teach you how computer logic worked, it was, in hindsight, the one title in that pack of six that still works perfectly well today. Even if there's a bit of you that'd rather be playing Technician Ted (not included in this list, incidentally, because I've read lots and lots of pieces on how much people love it).
24. SHOCKWAY RIDER
A large sprinkle of science fiction overhangs the concept to Shockway Rider, where instead of walking around on pavements, the people of the future travel along moving Shockways. Sadly, so do nasty people, along with numerous grannies, and thus riding them is a dangerous game. It's a good job weapons are at hand.
It did all get a little samey by the time you got near the end, but I wanted to include Shockway Rider because for the first hour, it was amazing. There's a drop of Frogger to it as you jump between the Shockways moving at different speeds, and the surprisingly good graphics serve the game well. But I think I also just loved the idea. As did, seemingly, the planners of every airport constructed since...
23. MY NAME IS UNCLE GROUCHO, YOU WIN A FAT CIGAR
Publisher Automata routinely got on my nerves for making you reload a game at the end of each turn. Fortunately, each turn lasted a while. My Name Is Uncle Groucho, You Win A Fat Cigar was a bumbling title, based around, er, Groucho Marx (Charlie Chaplin would get his own computer game too in time, a beat 'em up disguised as a movie making simulator). It was a brash text adventure, that rewarded outright madness if you wanted to make your way through it. For a whole generation, it was their first introduction to the Marx brothers. Me included.
22. AUF WIEDERSEHEN, MONTY
Some gaming series I never fully warmed to on the Spectrum, which is why there are none of the Wally games here. And truthfully, I struggled a bit with some of the Monty Mole titles. I did love Wanted: Monty Mole a lot though. I do appreciate that Monty Mole is pretty well known, but the reason I've mentioned it here is that it's the controversy that attracts a lot of the attention (due to purported links with the miner's strike of the 1980s), yet it's the game that was brilliant. Auf Wiedersehen Monty was the best one for me though (hence its listing here). It was where every idea seemingly got crammed into the game, as the Speccy's favourite mole traversed Europe with a verve rarely seen since Trashman went globe trotting.
Impossamole was a mess, though, and a sad swansong...
21. TRAP DOOR
Don Priestley will forever be credited with bringing big, colourful chunky graphics to the ZX Spectrum. Had I played it, his take on Minder may well have made this list. I also had a soft spot for Flunky, where your job was to wait on royalty (bloody hard though). But Trap Door was special. For starters, the TV series that it's based on was excellent. But the way the game captured the characters and wit of it, and wrapped it into a fun puzzler remains impressive. The sequel, Through The Trap Door, was faster and more efficient. Trap Door felt like a tighter game though, and a real breakthrough. It deserves more love that it seems to get.
20. KRAKOUT
It seems bizarre that the Spectrum's best Breakout clone appeared in the end on a magazine covertape and never got a full price release (that'd be Batty). The two Arkanoid titles were strong too, although level three of Arkanoid could rightly be described as 'a bit of a bastard'. Krakout remains the forgotten one though, but it was just as devilishly addicted. It felt a little different too, given that it pretty much literally turned the game on its side. There are lots of bonuses, lots of levels, and, truthfully, far too many elements thrown into the mix. But it always was a bit underrated, and I always appreciated the fact that it was trying something just a little different with something oh-so-familiar.
19. MATCH POINT
The best tennis game on the ZX Spectrum was, if I've got my dates right, the first. Sure, the likes of Passing Shot came along later, with much fancier visuals, but Match Point got the mechanics of the game itself bang on. It's a pity a sequel never came along to expand upon that core gamplay, but it wasn't until Sega unleashed Virtua Tennis in the 90s that, for my money, Match Point was beaten.
18. BATMAN: THE CAPED CRUSADER
Is this the forgotten Batman game? The Spectrum played host to the wonderful isometric puzzle Batman (which until Arkham Asylum and Arkham City came along, was the best videogame version of the iconic character for me. Ryan wrote about it here, in his look at how DC characters had fared in videogames. In that same feature, he mentioned Batman: The Caped Crusader, a comic-book feel action adventure, that boasted devious puzzles and a wonderful visual style. It had two stories to work through, and it eschewed the action that's prevalent in most Batman games for a heavy focus on the character's detective origins. That said, when the Batman: The Movie game came along, it seemed to be forgotten about again. A shame.
17. WRIGGLER
Confession: I actually eventually wore my copy of Wriggler out, so never got to see the end of it. Published by the gloriously-named Romantic Robot (mainly known for its Multiface devices), Wriggler is a game about four maggots going for a race. You played one of those maggots and, bluntly, your chances of seeing the end of the game were negligible, irrespective of whether you wore the tape out. The need to constant find food, while avoiding the many nasties on the race route, was tough enough. The fact that the other maggots were near-impossible to beat didn't help either. I've since read that the game featured 256 screens to navigate. I'd be amazed if I saw half of them. Still, this is comfortably computing's best ever maggot simulator. Put that on the box.
16. JUMPING JACK
If you were old enough to have a Dragon 32, then you might remember Jumping Jack under the guise of Leggit on that machine. For the Spectrum though, it was Jumping Jack, a simple game that just required you to jump to the top of the screen.
Naturally enough, this was easier sid than done, with gaps appearing to jump through, and then, as they made their way down the screen, appearing under you feet. Think of it as a moving version of snakes and ladders. With, er, no snakes, and no ladders. Very, very addictive though.
15. JOE BLADE III
Players built up quite a reputation for compelling, well-presented budget games, with Colin Swinbourne's Joe Blade proving to be a real breakthrough for the firm. It was Joe Blade II that proved the massive critical and commercial success though, but for my money, it's comfortably the weakest of the trilogy. Way too easy, Joe Blade II wasn't bad, but the game that followed, Joe Blade III, was genuinely excellent. For some reason, it never really took off, but it expanded on the game mechanic in a far better way, and got the balance right between challenge and polish. One of the best budget games every to grace the Spectrum.
14. TRACK SUIT MANAGER
Football management titles proved to be a welcome source of business for many 8-bit publishers (I could have easily gone for The Double here, or Professional Soccer). They also fuelled a lively self-publishing business for some companies, and Goliath Games was one of those. Its game, Track Suit Manager, went up against Football Manager 2, and while it may not have won the box office battle, it certainly proved to be a hugely ambitious game. Its key gimmick, which had more substance to it than you might first think, was running text commentary. It worked well too. And while Track Suit Manager was focused on international football management only, it was one of the best of its ilk on the Spectrum.
13. KNIGHT TYME
The Magic Knight series of games deserve to go down in folklore, as evidence as to just how exciting and interesting the budget software scene was on the ZX Spectrum. Finders Keepers and Spellbound were both strong, but Knight Tyme was the best for me. It was far more adventure driven than Finders Keepers, and marked the peak of the series, before Stormbringer finished the Magic Knight games off. To be fair, any four of the Magic Knight titles are still worth trying. The Dizzy games were good, but it's surely Magic Knight that's the best budget series of all time on the Speccy.
12. ERIC AND THE FLOATERS
I've lost way too much time of late to the massively multiplayer online take on Bomberman, Bombermine. We wrote about it here. But the roots of Bomberman lie in Hudson Soft's earlier piece of work, Eric And The Floaters. Crucially, it got the core dynamic in place and working from the off too, in that you lay bombs to blow other people up, while getting out of the way yourself. Plus, let's face it, Eric And The Floaters is an extraordinarily brilliant name for a computer game. Nobody can ever convince me otherwise.
11. THUNDERBIRDS
The Spectrum had two excellent Thunderbirds games. The later one, from Grand Slam, tends to be the most remembered (and remains strong). But the earlier Firebird published version (that came in a chunky cassette box) kept me busy for hours. It was a game that used the ships of Thunderbirds and turned them into a puzzle game, as you worked out which craft you needed for which job. It was terrible to look at, but a real time gobbler to play.
10. SPLIT PERSONALITIES
Originally published as Splitting Images before some lawyers wrote a couple of letters, Split Personalities was a computerised version of sliding square puzzle games. Fortunately, quirks were introduced, and they transformed the game into one of the Spectrum's very best puzzle games. The simple use of bombs and a constant countdown to battle against, along with some familiar, characterised faces to put together, made Split Personalities an absolute blast. Surely ripe for an iOS and Android version too...
9. SOFTWARE STAR
The finest beard of the ZX Spectrum era belonged to Kevin Toms, who's best known for the Football Manager series. Toms also wrote a political strategy game, President, but his forgotten gem was Software Star. It was always going to be a title with niche appeal (although D&H put out Software House, on its Cult label, many years later), as the idea was to put together a successful games publisher. Key decisions, which are played out in the industry on a day to day basis, include whether to hype a game up or keep it honest. And should you release a game early, or put in some extra development hours? Simple decisions maybe, but the tension when it came time to release a new title was palpable.
Game Dev Story, for the iPhone, is the only game to really capture the spirit of Software Star since.
8. BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
Tools such as the The Quill, Graphic Adventure Creator (GAC) and the Professional Adventure Writer (PAW) saw a resurgence in the text adventure towards the end of the Spectrum's active life. And for me, it was the Behind Closed Doors games from Zenobi Software that marked the peak. The Spectrum has plenty of acclaimed, humorous text adventures - The Boggit and Bored Of The Rings stand alone - but Behind Closed Doors deserves recognition for both its comedy and its imagination. It's, basically, a hugely entertaining collection of games about being locked in the toilet. You'd never see that on a PlayStation...
7. TURBO ESPRIT
And you thought it was Grand Theft Auto that introducing the whole driving wherever you like around a city mechanic. Durrell Software published games that were notoriously rock hard, but that shouldn't cloud some of the firm's technical achievements. Turbo Esprit was a game where you could ignore the plot if you wanted, and just go for a drive around a seemingly living city (complete with traffic lights to, er, obey). Four free-roaming cities were included in the game to explore, and while the main game was arguably less interesting than the technical breakthroughs here, it was long before Rockstar struck gold in learning that there's a lot of fun to be had going off piste.
6. GHOULS 'N' GHOSTS
I maintain that, outside of perhaps Rainbow Islands and Ping Pong, Ghouls & Ghosts - particularly on the 128k - was about as good a coin-op conversion as the Spectrum ever got. It was nothing special to look at, in truth, but it built on the already-impressive Ghosts 'N' Goblins, and with some style. Any game that reduces you to underwear when the undead get to you has to earn some credit from the off. As it turned out, Ghouls 'N' Ghosts had an excellent platform game underneath all the humour. The last level's a killer, though.
5. TRAVEL WITH TRASHMAN
A controversial release, this one. The original Trashman made much entertainment out of collecting people's dustbins (in theory, a game about picking up rubbish was a gift for critics looking for a lazy headline. Fortunately, Trashman was excellent). Travel With Trashman sent the title character on a litter-collecting adventure around the world. Thus, you had to choose which job you could afford to take, and make sure you collected enough rubbish before your money ran out. The controversy arose with a part of the game which required you to collect tissues dropped at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. To my knowledge, no videogame game before it or since has asked you to do the same.
Travel With Trashman was, being blunt, brutally difficult, as the clock barely ever stopped ticking. But it was damn addictive too, and had circumstances prevailed, then a third game would have followed. However, while it was started, Trashman Through Time was ultimately abandoned. Author Malcolm Evans was also responsible for 3D Monster Maze on the ZX81, incidentally. That one had no rubbish in it.
4. PIPPO
Two quid they asked for Pippo. Two measly pounds. For one of the most criminally addictive Spectrum games I think I ever played. The core concept, of jumping from square to square to change the colour of them, had of course been done before (hello, Q*Bert!). Pippo executed it really, really well though, before then adding in creatures, pick-ups, and a big blob of a creature at the heart of it all. In more litigation-prolific times, the author of Pippo may well have been sent a letter. As it stood, they took someone else's already strong idea, added some quirks, and made it even better. Comfortably, for me, one of the ten most addictive games to ever grace the Speccy.
3. M.O.V.I.E.
The finest isometric adventures on the Spectrum would have to be Jon Ritman's duo, Batman and Head Over Heels. But Imagine's M.O.V.I.E. was quite brilliant too. I'm going to talk about another game shortly that was draped in the clothes of Hollywood detective noirs, but M.O.V.I.E. was rooted in them from the off (not for nothing is it said to have influenced L.A. Noire). Inevitably slow moving, M.O.V.I.E. was and is utterly engrossing, and it was just a shame that its pseudo follow-up, Phantom Club, never worked anywhere near as well. M.O.V.I.E. though is a treat.
2. CONTACT SAM CRUISE
You think Microsphere, and the games that instantly spring to mind are the rightly-regarded Skool Daze and Back To Skool. Both of them are the kind of games that either wouldn't get past a pitch meeting now, or would be subverted into something 'edgier', along the lines of Bully.
There is a sort-of forgotten Microsphere title, built around the same technology that powered the Skool games, and the glorious detective yarn, Contact Sam Cruise. Written by David Reidy, with Keith Warrington providing the distinctive graphics, Sam Cruise is a private detective who could have been pulled out of any number of noir movies of old. The scope and scale remains impressive today, and the underlying humour is just one example of the attention to detail at work. The only thing that lets the side down slightly is the catapulting over bullets being aimed at you. Which was and is a bit of a sod.
More than anything though, Contact Sam Cruise was and is a blast to play. Tragically, it would prove to be the last game David Reidy would write. Disillusioned with the poor sales for Contact Sam Cruise, and finding his old fashioned way of designing games (pen and paper beat assemblers, apparently) difficult to continue with, Reidy elected not to jump aboard the 16-bit bandwagon, and went on to become an electrical engineer. There's a lovely interview with him here.
Contact Sam Cruise, then, remains his final game. It's a flat-out classic, not without its problems, but a delight that videogame history should not forget.
1. DYNAMITE DAN 1 & 2
The ZX Spectrum had no shortage of quality platform games in truth, but it's generally Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy, both grounded in wonderful insanity, that tend to be the most fondly remembered. However, history should not forgot the gloriously addictive Dynamite Dan games.
Pushing the Spectrum hard on both the audio and visual fronts, the goal of Dynamite Dan was simple: collect stick of dynamite. Objects were in different places each time you played, and assorted power-ups were available. The goal was to defeat the evil Dr Blitzen, and there were umpteen foes and obstacles in your way. Using the word 'addictive' barely comes close to covering Dynamite Dan though. And even though the best I ever managed was seven of the sticks of dynamite required, Dynamite Dan was my go-to game for a good two to three years. It was the loyal puppy of the Spectrum years, always by your side, and never failing to entertain.
The sequel expanded the already broad scale of Dynamite Dan, and crucially managed to keep the focus and what made the first game so wildly entertaining, in fact. It's a shame that Dan's adventures stopped after two outings, but both of them are most certainly worth tracking down. They might not be the best ever games to grace the Spectrum, but they deserve to be showered with a lot, lot more love than they usually are. Great music, too...
Honourable mentions:
The Rocky Horror Show (not a very good game, but bizarrely intriguing. The Time Warp through a Spectrum sound system is something to behold).
Sweevo's World/Hydrofool. Both brilliant, but just I figured they were reasonably well known, if not always as appreciated as they should be.
Jack The Nipper In Coconut Capers. The original Jack The Nipper is rightly lauded, but the second deserves mention. The new environment never felt quite right, but the mischief making was still priceless.
Green Beret: Kids! Knife the bad guys! Good job the Daily Mail didn't have a Spectrum. Corking arcade conversion, though.
Rick Dangerous. Just to say that I hated it. The most unfair videogame I think I've ever played.
Hewson: I just wanted to highlight a pair of Hewson titles that often get overlooked. Eliminator is one, but Maze Mania was a lot, lot better than people gave it credit for.
Minder: I never played it, but lots of people tell me it's great. Thought I'd better mention it. Hammerfist, too.
Brewery: My parents bought me a pack of seemingly home-grown management simulations once upon a time, and, worryingly, the one I got hooked on was Brewery, where you basically had to make and sell your own beer. It was pretty crude, save for the graphic of all the unsold beer being poured away. Was I the only person on the planet to play this one?
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That's a really nice list!
There were so many fantastic games made for the Speccy that you could easily make another list of 50 which would be just as memory-invoking.
I remember spending my mis-spent youth mapping out Spectrum games (even the 3D ones such as Head over Heels, in painstaking detail) then posting them to Crash magazine and getting all excited about seeing them published... which of course, they never were :-/
Whilst there are (not literally) a billion games that could be mentioned here, does anybody remember the Hill MacGibbon series of games which included Aztec: Hunt for the Sun-God and King Arthur's Quest? Two of the finest adventure games around at the time that nobody seems to remember!
As a definite child of the 80's who remembers the day that my brother's ZX Spectrum arrived direct from Sinclair, for me there is no such thing as an under appreciated ZX Spectrum game!
What a list. I think I'm in love. Nostalgia overload.
Lunar Jetman, Alien-8, Sabre Wulf... all Ultimate Play the Game games for the Spectrum. And all bloody brilliant.
I had to leave Ultimate stuff out. Never met anyone who didn't love their stuff!
Great list. I was proper obsessed with Turbo Esprit!
Anyone remember The Armaggedon Man (also known as Global Commander, apparently)?
Also the Spectrum Judge Dredd and Nemesis the Warlock games were pretty ace.
Quality stuff!
Chaos (Greatest game ever)
Lords of Chaos
Rebel Star 1 & 2
Laser Squad
Spy vs Spy series
Ant Attack
The Great Escape
Emlyn Hughes international Soccer
Duel
Advanced Lawnmower Simulator
etc
Oh and how could I forget -
How to be a Complete Bastard! (open the umbella indoors and have you character turn into a cooker for the rest of the game...)
X-Out (Way better than R-Type)
Zoids
Jack the Nipper.
Lords of Midnight.
Ivan 'Ironman's Overroad Racing.
Beach Head
Yes, Ant Attack!
Wow....so many memories in this piece, liking the mentions of Operation Wolf and the Robocop game which was a classic.
My favourite here was Bionic Commando and I liked that Batman game too.
Some suggestions I might make would be Metrocross and the adventure game Shrewsbury Key. With it's two word command limit, spent months trying to figure out how to get on a train. It was "Climb Aboard".
Brilliant.
Does anyone recall the Marvel based adventure games? They were great.
Eureka! I tried to win £25k.
Rebel Star Raiders was a favourite of mine.
And finally the game that swept through my school being copied left right and centre was "Soho Sex Quest"
Where the bloody hell was Batty? for shame!!!
It's mentioned under Krakout!
Took me back, thanks! Everyone had their favourites not in the mainstream, mine would be Highway Encounter and an Indiana Jones rip off called Fred!
A nice selection. I was creative director of CRL back in the day. Seems a very long time ago now! A game that never gets mentioned in these kind of lists though is Tau Ceti. In my humble opinion it had some of the best graphics ever to appear on the spectrum. I'm glad you liked Rocky Horror enough to mention it. It was my first ever games design! I agree with your assessment. I worked on both of these games. More CRL games worthy of mention are Juggernaut, a Lorry simulator, Room 10, an amazing futuristic tennis game (both by Pete Cooke, who wrote Tau Ceti), Ninja Hamster and the Lizards of death and the amazing Academy, the Tau Ceti follow up.
I was just going to post about Tau Ceti and Academy when I saw your post. I absolutely adored those games. How such rich "Elite-style" games fitted in to 48k is a source of constant amazement. And the bonkers trapezoidal cardboard box that Tau Ceti came in - brilliant.
Jack the Nipper - classic.
Rebelstar - easily the best £2 I have ever spent. Fabulous game and without it, we wouldn't have X-COM.
I was really impressed by Highway Encounter back in the day. Great graphics and game design - shepherding your drones - surely a precursor to Ico ;o)
Can you drop us a mail at geekcontent@gmail.com? Thanks for the post!
I had a C64 but I have fond memories of playing Target: Renegade all the way to the end on my mate's Speccy.
Agreed on Chaos. Used to wedge 6 of us in my room round a screen playing that for hours!
Fantastic nostalgia. I'm as big a Speccy fanboy as you could ask for back then, I also skipped over the 16-bit machines when they came along in favour of stickin to my faithful old machine. I'd say names like Lords of Chaos but, as said, they're already pretty well known so we're looking for the slightly more obscure. Some of these I've never even heard of before, and I had (gulp) almost 600 Spectrum games...
Others to chuck in...Halls of the Things! Strider! Oh Mummy! Spike in Translyvania! Glider Rider!
I also remember a game called Bumpy that came on the front of Your Sinclair, to this day one of the best puzzle games i ever did play.
Amusingly, re No. 14 Tracksuit Manager - the player featured on your screenshot is my cousin (trivial but true). <proud>
Always loved No 47. Valhalla...and if you did something "naughty" like try to kiss another character, Loki would come on and hit you (give me a break, I was an 8 year old girl - kissing was just getting important!)</proud>
Really nice to see some of the more obscure choices in this kind of list, instant nostalgia, particularly for MOVIE which I played for hours and hours. I'd add:
Twister: Mother of Charlotte
Rollercoaster
Starquake
+1 for Tau Ceti
Sweevo's World
I rescued all the girls in Ant Attack, and printed out the medal that gives you at the end! The first game I ever finished. Insane control system though.
Juggernaut was brilliant, had it on the Amstrad and played it for ages.
Other Spectrum games I loved:
Ant Attack
The Alchemist
3D Starstrike
And there will always be a special place in my heart for the Looney Jetman strip featured in Crash magazine!
<3
Hungry Horace = Superstar!
I'd love to see a similar article for the PSX. We all remember the Tomb Raiders, Tekkens and Ridge Racers well, but what about those forgotten gems such as Star Gladiator, Bishi Bashi Special, MDK and Descent......... Just saying. :)
About time we had another Speccy article! More please!
I see your Bishi Bashi Special, and I raise you a Vib Ribbon...
I grew up with an Amstrad! But there was a cross section of Spectrum games which I could load on Cassette. Usually took about 30-40 minutes and then at the end of the painful whining and screaming from the tape deck, the Amstrad would throw an error! Aha! And SimCity fans think they've got it bad!
Games that stood out for me (possibly not Spectrum games - I don't know!) were:
Enlightenment II - You play a druid running around shooting things. It scared the hell out of me!
Xenon II - Scrolling Space Shooter which was Awesome if ever it loaded.
Biggles - several different mini games in one and bluddy good fun. And the Biggles theme tune through the internal Amstrad speaker was absolutely magical! As were the grenade sounds!
Codemasters - There was a top down driving game much like micro-machines but with BMX bikes instead. It was really great fun. Can't remember it's name!
Sabre Wulf - Panicked far too much to ever complete this - that wulf put the wind up me!
Tau Ceti - No idea what the hell was going on in this game, we didn't have a manual. But I played it for hours and hours and loved it. But still had NO idea what was going on.
Tir Na Nog - Hated it. Absolutely hated every minute of this game. No idea again what was going on - but it had a strange monkey man that wondered around and that kept drawing me back. Yes....the appeal of a strange monkey man will draw me anywhere.
Beach Head was awesome! That was about 8 minigames in one!
Sentient was a great one on the Playstation. Bit too ambitious for the times, perhaps.
Loved How to be a Complete Bastard, good memories!!
Do a list of the Appreciated ZX games! I want to see Jet Set Willy and 180 Darts! Hugo?
Ooh! Ooh! Codename MAT!
I spent many happy hours blast around the universe playing that!
No love for wheelie? So many hours on that game :-)
omg hall of the things....I played that to death.
Fantastic article, Manic Miner was one of my all time favorites.
Just for atmosphere: Myth, Spooked and Scuba Dive.
Great list - some others I still go back to today...Mugsy, Rebelstar & the legendary Mr Wimpy :)
Thanks Simon for another great article from 'our day'.
I'd add Chaos and Megabucks to this list and will also add my voice to the growing support for Tau Ceti.
Glad you mention the Caped Crusader - it always impressed me that you paid one price but got two separate Batman games, one on each side of the tape.
Iron Man was awesome - played it for hours on end!
Been playing Jetpac on my Spectrum emulator this week. Still addictive as hell. And difficult too!
It always amuses me that, over the years I've owned increasingly more powerful computers and I always seek to emulate a return to a 30 year old relic with only 128KB of RAM for my gaming needs!
Nice work with the article. Good to see some old classics get a mention. Dynamite Dan was an awesome game. Thank god you never put Renegade 3 in there. From such a brilliant game that target renegade was, they did a real half arsed job with part 3. Thankfully I never copied... oopppsss bought that one. Myth was another great Speccy game
Nice list! Sam Cruise and Rock Star ate my hamster both have fond memories for me. I also remember 3 budget games not on the list (all one word titles too) : Feud - playing a wizard walking round a village to collect plants that make up various spells in order that you take out your villainous rival who is also trying to collect the same ingredients. So addictive! Colony - playing a blue robot with legs you had to defend a desert out post from ants whilst trying to plant a new batch of crops, it was really fun. And Rescue - dont remember much about this other than it being set on a space ship and you had to rescue a load of trapped scientsts - I just remember it being lightening fast with really smooth graphics, hence a joy to play. Long live the speccy!
Any idea where pete Cooke is now? I'm sure that Retro Gamer magazine would love to interview him.
Speaking of covermounts, anyone remember a game called Cyclone? You had to fly a helicopter around a bunch of islands avoiding the titular cyclone and rescuing stranded islanders and supplies.
It was the nuts!
Pete Cooke recently released a game called Zenfit for iPhones. And never mind Retro Gamer, I'd love to interview him myself for the book I'm working on, They Were Our Gods!
Some fantastic memories there, including Batty off the Your Sinclair Tape, but mine has to be Zombie Zombie. The follow up to Ant Attack. You had a helicopter and could move the blocks, but the sheer panic in trying to get a zombie to jump from 2 blocks high was terrifying. Keep up the good work.
Great article! I lost many hours for Formula One (Michele Alboreto!) and Dynamite Dan became the object of addiction for our entire household. What a rock hard, frustrating and compelling game it was.
Of those not mentioned, I had some fondness for Deus Ex Machina and the attempt by its designer to do something different. The number of times I failed to cue the music tape to start in time with the game...
thanks for bring me back split personalities, i spent hours messing my fingers on it ...
Good article. People must surely be fed-up with identikit "Best Games Ever!" lists so it's nice to see one that deliberately sets out to do something a little different.
The only game on this system that I came close to being obsessed with was Llamasoft's Revenge of the Mutant Camels. Immense fun and completely batshit-crazy. I still miss this game.
Ah, this article brings back so many memories, one I think deserving was a strange little platformer called "Everyone's a Wally" that broke a number of thresholds, firstly it was the first platform style game that let you control multiple characters and secondly it has it's own theme tune sung by Mike Berry (Of 'Are you being served fame), it was about a group of... people who had to complete a day of work each and unlock their wages completing the game. It was an epic little game and I think it was fairly well received at the time but I never hear anything about it. Other notable mentions are: Lords of Midnight/Doomdarks Revenge (I still play these two games to this day...) and everything 'Firebird' Ever released... honestly the days of going to the local sweet shop or even the chemist and picking up some little gem for £1.99.... I miss them days!!! I'm so old...
One I forgot "Feud" by Mastertronic... how could I forget Feud!!... the first 'herb 'em up' game I think I ever played :D
Believe the BMX one was called "BMX Simulator". Two I'd like to add: LED Storm and Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
No Popeye? No Shadowfire? Worst of all, no Stonkers?
Great list, some corkers there I'd completely forgotten about. Itch to play around with emulators is increasing once again... may be a good reason to go pick up a raspberry pi :)
Did you find the Easter egg object outside the city?
Still love Valhalla. "Loki arrives. Thor attacks Loki. You give Loki the food." It was just fun to watch it.
Thanks for including 'Behind Closed Doors' in this illustrious list ... much appreciated. I enjoyed writing every single one of them and only wish my old arthritic fingers were capable of doing all that typing these days !!!
I loved Run for Gold and Formula 1, used to play that for hours with my mates...
Brilliant read. Put me down as a Minder fan too.
Elite the best speccy game EVER
Oh - yes! I had Spider-Man on my Speccy now you come to remind me.
'Zzoom' and 'One Man and his Droid' were probably my two favourite games on the speccy I'm not sure if these are underappreciated or not?
Good article but there are loads of games worthy of a mention
The Devils Crown
Jasper
Beach Head 2
Myth
Jungle Trouble
Tarzan
New Zealand Story
Nonterraquos ( or however it's spelt)
Wearwolves of London
Gilligan's Gold
Loads more but can't think
Ceasefire. Never see it on any lists. Mystified my childhood (and later years) like no other game.
Ignoring the best and dealing purely with underrated....
I finally remembered the name of Destructo via some cross referencing in WofS.
Reviews more or less trash it but this is one of those games that was far more addictive when competing in 2-player mode.
The early Sinclair Research/Psion games Raiders and Chequered Flag also don't get much mention but I found I went back to them in the early 90s for the simple addictive nature of trying to beat your own high scores.
The one that I think is most underrated however is the maze game on the ZX Spectrum+ tape. The tape provided a character map utility that meant you could design your own monsters to chase you through the maze - brilliant!