[CAS FAN]

Nothing more to this thead really than to celebrate the life of the speccy by reminiscing about those glorious days gone by!

I'll start off with some of my fave Speccy games. I feel that some of these games stretched a piece of gaming hardware more than any other computer or console has been stretched since!

R-Type
[youtube]iQrWLmkAj_Q[/youtube]

Starglider
[youtube]iY1TmC1jFLE[/youtube]

Stunt Car Racer
[youtube]0NbZpr4bMLM[/youtube]

Carrier Command

3D Deathchase
[youtube]AFhLM9flwM8[/youtube]

Starstrike 2
[youtube]2J5eaPiwtys[/youtube]

Enduro Racer
[youtube]yQBFF--jZEQ[/youtube]

Super Hang On
[youtube]b2L2mCK8JMM[/youtube]

Wec Le Mans
[youtube]NBn7ZwLZkxY[/youtube]

Target Renegade
[youtube]5-3ytI4EG14[/youtube]

Flying Shark
[youtube]jhKPKXe35l8[/youtube]

Laser Squad (2m 57sec for gameplay)
[youtube]VVZtLlvjHUw[/youtube]

Anyway, that's just a few from me, but they all have fond memories attached. Games like Carrier Command, Starstrike 2 & Stunt Car Racer were simly amazing when you consider the hardware that they were running on.

[kempez]

You don't have Daley Thompson's Decathlon??

[CAS FAN]

Originally Posted by kempez

You don't have Daley Thompson's Decathlon??

Post it up . I've just stuck up a few to get the thread going but feel free to post up your fave games and discuss any memories of them.

There's hundreds of speccy games I could post up (ATF, Bobsleigh, Turbo Esprit, DT's Decathalon, Track & Field, TLL, Cyclone, Wizball, Gauntlet, Knight Lore, Alien8, Skool Daze, Dizzy, Renegade, Rex, Myth, The Fury etc. etc.).

I actually spent ages with a mate playing Echelon. It was a game that got slated (review scores of around 4/10 IIRC) but we had great fun mapping out the game which had a huge game world!

[kempez]

Vid here (soz for language, not my vid)

YouTube - ZX SPECTRUM DALEY THOMPSON DECATHLON DAY 1

Ruined like 4 joysticks playing that game :D

And psst

YouTube - ZX SPECTRUM PSSST

Awesome game and actually pretty tough when you got into it :D

[Paul_T]

ahh, Jet Set Willy 2...

I always remember having a competition with my mates - who could get the most games onto 1 C90 audio cassette...

[Jacksonjnr]

YouTube - Operation Wolf

I used to play this with a light gun but it never worked very well, and it took about 8 minutes to load.

Still loved it though

[CAS FAN]

Yeah, Op Wolf on the Speccy was fantastic! Used to play it loads. It may have been in monochrome, but the visuals were very detailed and it was fairly authenic gameplay wise!

I tried it with the light gun but could never really get decent accuracy.

[TylerDurden]

First 2 games I got with my Specy where The Hobbit and Lunar Jetman, have fond memories of many others Elite, Chaos to name a couple

[namuk]

Atic Atac

YouTube - Atic Atac Walkthrough

[Singe]

Good old Spectrum, could do anything...

YouTube - Windows XP on the ZX Spectrum

...well, almost.

Seriously though, the Spectrum did give us The Lords of Midnight which is my favorite game from that era and I still play to this day.

[CAS FAN]

That video is superb! Love the 'R Tape Loading Error' and I lost count of the amount of times they occured just after a loading screen had finished!

Check these versions of LOM out - LINK & LINK

[UKBOY]

Originally Posted by Paul_T

I always remember having a competition with my mates - who could get the most games onto 1 C90 audio cassette...

Well, some of us used C120's.

I dont know about anyone else but I used to be able to tell what game was loading by listening to the screeches on the tape deck.

Not sure if it was an age thing or just the fact that games used to take an average of 5 minutes to load, but if memory serves, they used to get played for a lot longer than some of the current gen guff.

[Singe]

Thanks for the links mate.

I have tried the Midnight Engine before but never heard of Midnight Flyer, I'll have to check it out.

The remake I usually play is War of the Solstice Remakes

[CAS FAN]

Originally Posted by UKBOY

Well, some of us used C120's.

I dont know about anyone else but I used to be able to tell what game was loading by listening to the screeches on the tape deck.

Not sure if it was an age thing or just the fact that games used to take an average of 5 minutes to load, but if memory serves, they used to get played for a lot longer than some of the current gen guff.

C120's used to snap though!

[SyStemDeMoN]

Zzoom, I loved that game.

Most arcade conversions dissapointed me greatly.

But I was just a kid

[Marv]

I remember playing Outrun and Gremlins on the speccy.

[Snake79]

Originally Posted by UKBOY

Well, some of us used C120's.

I dont know about anyone else but I used to be able to tell what game was loading by listening to the screeches on the tape deck.

Not sure if it was an age thing or just the fact that games used to take an average of 5 minutes to load, but if memory serves, they used to get played for a lot longer than some of the current gen guff.

Yeah, if there was a game you played a lot, the repetition of it loading meant that you knew how it would sound. Never used a C120, I remember someone saying that the longer the tape, the more likely it would snap, stuck with C15 & C60 tapes.

Most would take around 5 mins to load but I think many of the boxed Ocean games were closer to 10, especially 128k versions. Games like Navy Seals & Total Recall were awesome movie conversions for their day. I have a large collection myself, loved the Dizzy series (Fantasy World was my fave) and playing new games on the cover tapes of the magazines like Your Sinclair, Crash and Sinclair User. Many great times were had and I always liked to get several hours of gaming on a Sunday.

[CAS FAN]

One of my most played Speccy games was a strategy wargame called Vulcan!

If you like turn based strategy games then IMO Vulcan is still one of the best games out there. The senarios (all from the WWII North African campaign) were superb and the UI was great.

Full 2 player campaign games would last for around 12-16 hours and many a school holiday was spent playing Vulcan .

Here's a screenshot! (marvel at the visuals!! )

[Tetlee]

Ok, better add my contribution to this thread by sharing a few images of one of my all time favourite games, Chaos: Battle of the Wizzards(Julian Gollop, who of course later went on to produce the X-Com games amoung others).

Me and my best mate must have spent litterally hundreds of hours sat playing this game, a multiplayer classic(I still think it would make a superb XBLA release).

Oh, and the Gooey Blob has to be one of the greatest biological weapons of all time!

Just dicovered that someone has uploading a great little video review on youtube, damn do I miss that game!
[urlhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xj9HvKJ07fA[/url]

[Singe]

Hated the Gooey Blob but the Magic Fire was worse because you couldn't kill it. Always went straight after the wizard who cast any of these before it took over the whole screen.

[Singe]

Flash version of Chaos here

Found a list of some other remakes too
other_chaos_remakes - Doodleblog @ wikihost.org

[CAS FAN]

Chaos was class! My fave Gallop game was Laser Squad, but Lords of Chaos was another classic, which was kind of a cross between Laser Squad & Chaos!

[youtube]NTqGGI3WHMA[/youtube]

[Tetlee]

Originally Posted by Singe

Flash version of Chaos here

Found a list of some other remakes too
other_chaos_remakes - Doodleblog @ wikihost.org

Will take a look at those, had played that Chaos Reborn one before but it was online only at the time(not downloadable like now) and couldn't find anyone to play against, downloading as we speak.

Originally Posted by CAS FAN

Chaos was class! My fave Gallop game was Laser Squad, but Lords of Chaos was another classic, which was kind of a cross between Laser Squad & Chaos!

Haha, not possible to have a speccy thread without me mentioning Chaos and CAS mentioning Laser Squad

Let's not forget yet another Gollop masterpiece, Rebelstar II, God I loved that game, was my single player option for when my mate wasn't around to play Chaos. Found this vid, shame the guy playing doesn't seem to be actually playing, and what are those two maids and a munter all about

YouTube - ZX SPECTRUM REBELSTAR 2

I can still remember how I used to nearly always head up for that weapons storage room in the top right corner of the map, re-group there for a bit and then head for the mothership. Was actually a pretty tough game, had to equip, plan and move your squad wisely, otherwise the aliens would wipe the floor with you

[CAS FAN]

Indeed, a discussion we've had on several occasions!

The Rebelstar games were great, but really they were just warm ups for Laser Squad, which was arguably my all time favourite 8 bit game!

[pault2007]

I had a Speccy 48k (rubber keys) and then the 128K +2A James Bond Pack (with lightgun!).

My favourite games were (in no particular order):

Gauntlet (me and a mate played this for hours at a time - great multi-player game).
Robocop (loved the car yard level, where you picked up a massive gun and also the photo-fit(?) sub-level. I think that game really pushed the Speccy with its innovation.
Wizards Lair
Jet Set Willy
Rebel (steer a tank over switches to unlock gates)
Steve Davis Snooker
Paperboy (Be careful not to knock over the old codgers on the path )
Chase HQ ("This is Nancy at Chase Headquarters" )
Laser Wheel
Renegade

[dng007]

Many of the Ocean £9.99 games were excellent - the likes of Robocop, Batman, etc. One in particular I remember loving (and can still remember the music to) was Midnight Resistance:


[youtube]eoifT0puM2M[/youtube]


Another, rather more bizarre game that for some reason remains strong in my mind, was 'Wriggler':

[youtube]05-_4fN3Cc8[/youtube]


Finally, maybe someone can help me remember the name of a particular game I used to play loads; It played not unlike Jetpac, with you moving round a single-screen, avoiding enemies - the main difference you were a diver laying a pipe along the bottom of the ocean, trying to avoid various sea creatures. Every 20 seconds or so you had to rise to the surface to replenish your air. And it had the most repetitive music ever - the same 10 seconds constantly repeated!!

Anyone remember it??!

[CAS FAN]

Speaking of Ocean, I used to love these classic Ocean releases!

[youtube]hsDP27B6bSs[/youtube]
Where Time Stood Still

[youtube]WOCAlXJT4Rs[/youtube]
The Great Escape

[pault2007]

Does anyone know how many Spectrum games were created throughout the lifetime of the Spectrum?

There must've been thousands of games?

Were most of the games only available in the UK, as that's where the Speccy was built?

I used to have dreams in my sleep of owning a +3 with disc drive and doing away with the long game loading times.

[CAS FAN]

Originally Posted by pault2007

does anyone know how many spectrum games were created throughout the lifetime of the spectrum?

9035.

[pault2007]

I remember I had some boxed games that weren't created by Ocean.

Fiendish Freddy's Big Top O' Fun - Gray Matter

Myth - System 3