Day one games

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Rorthron
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Day one games

Post by Rorthron »

I got my Spectrum for Christmas in 1982. Along with the rubber-keyed wonder itself came three perfectly formed packages of gaming goodness, selected at random by my parents: Meteoroids (the Softek version), Games 5 (Star Trail) and Hungry Horace. None are considered classics, and Meteoroids and Games 5 would probably be considered ropey by others, but I loved them and still enjoy playing them.

So what were your day-one spectrum games, and has their magic stood the test of time?
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Juan F. Ramirez
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Re: Day one games

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

I got my Spectrum plus in 1985, at the end of the school year, with Match Day and Raid Over Moscow. I chose them because of the magazine references (I had never played them before), specifically the advert of Raid, I was amazed of it.

The first days were complicated both to control the players in MD and getting the ship out the first screen in Raid.

Anyway, I remember saving the world from a nuclear holocaust and winning the cup several times that summer :mrgreen:
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druellan
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Re: Day one games

Post by druellan »

My first Spectrum was a Timex Sinclair 2068, with a bundled collection of 8 Quicksilva games. Not sure if all Timex got the same titles, but in my case the collection was very diverse, something I really appreciated later:

Boogaboo
Time Gate
Mined Out
Xadom
Smugler's Cove
Astro Blaster

and...
3D Strategy
The Chess Player
...if I remember correctly

Also, the Horizon cassette, a much better version of the ZX Spectrum tutorial tape.

I don't remember if some cartridges were included, certainly not inside the box, I believe those were added by the shop or my father bought them separately.

Edit: I was looking for images of those cassettes on the Internet and found none, so, not sure how popular was this bundle.
Hank Scorpio
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Re: Day one games

Post by Hank Scorpio »

The pack that came with my Spectrum contained:

Scrabble
Make A Chip
Survival
Chequered Flag
Chess
Horace Goes Skiing
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R-Tape
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Re: Day one games

Post by R-Tape »

The Speccy in our house was my elder brother's, so I'm not sure I have a 'day one'. I asked him earlier if he could remember, and he said "1985ish, came with chipmaker (yawn)". The first games I remember were Horace goes Skiing, Manic Miner, Trashman and Tribble Trubble. Even now, I can play Tribble Trubble and not know what's going on; short of reading the instructions there's nothing I can do.
Juan F. Ramirez wrote: Sun Oct 07, 2018 9:03 am I got my Spectrum plus in 1985, at the end of the school year, with Match Day and Raid Over Moscow.
Aha, now I understand your love of strafeing the Russian capital.
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Juan F. Ramirez
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Re: Day one games

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

Alessandro wrote: Sun Oct 07, 2018 10:06 pm Thro' The Wall
This reminds me of an obvious game I didn't include: Maze Chase, a cute Amidar clone that came with the Spectrum Plus companion cassette. I remember you could change its UDG graphics with the editor that came in the tape as well.

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Dark
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Re: Day one games

Post by Dark »

Christmas Day 1986 me and my brother got a +2, which came from Curry’s with 10 games.

Oh Mummy
Crazy Golf
Alien Destroyer
Treasure Island
Disco Dan
Punchy
Ian Botham Cricket / Superfile
Odd Job Eddie / Witchfiend

No memory of what we loaded up first, but of them, Oh Mummy and Odd Job Eddie became the favourites, while Treasure Island, Punchy and Superfile were deemed superfluous to requirements quite quickly – the rest had a pretty limited time on the Spectrum once we started purchasing games. Sadly have no recollection of what my first bought game was.
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Vampyre
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Re: Day one games

Post by Vampyre »

Christmas Day 1983 got my rubber-key'd 48K. I'd tore open all my gifts and one of them was one of those type-in 50 Programs For Your Spectrum books. Getting very excited, I ripped every other present apart and was gutted that there was no computer anywhere. Cue the sulks and then my dad asked me to go and turn on the record player in the Dining room. Stroppily went to do so and there sitting on top of the stereo was another set of presents - my Speccy :D

Before Xmas dinner, I went through the Horizons tape for an hour or so and then Jetpac was loaded. Spent hours on that and had to be dragged away for my dinner. Back onto Jetpac after bolting down the food, then in the evening going through some of the tapes that my dads mate at work had copied for me.

Me and my mum had a couple of hours on The Hobbit before I commandeered the Speccy again and went through Atic Atac, Timegate, The Oracles Cave and some others, but those three were the highlights. Didn't get to bed until about 1am and was up at 6 to do it all again.

One of the best days of my life and certainly the best and most memorable Christmas Day of my childhood. I still vividly remember it all.

My dad died a couple of years ago and we hadn't seen each other for the best part of 25 (1990-2015). We did get back in touch and I was able to tell him all about that day, and what it meant to me, on his deathbed. He had his faults, plenty of them bloody huge ones, but I'm glad I managed to tell him this and it did ease his suffering knowing that at least one day with him was one I would never forget and treasure.
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AndyC
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Re: Day one games

Post by AndyC »

I think it was a mix of Thro' The Wall and Space Raiders. Many of the early games i played (having a 16K machine in '82) were most likely type ins. And since it would have been my dad doing most of the typing in, I suspect short and slightly crappy ones.

Space Raiders was, and still is, a great game though.
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Pegaz
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Re: Day one games

Post by Pegaz »

I think Thro the wall should not be taken into account because it's the first game for anyone who bought the new Spectrum, including me.
So, my first two commercial games I had were Pssst and Backgammon (Psion).
Both seemed great to me then, but Pssst stood test of time and I still enjoy playing it. :)
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Re: Day one games

Post by stupidget »

I never had that magical Christmas unwrapping sensation as we had our first computer, a Dragon 32, as a 'family computer'. Which essentially meant that one Saturday back in '82 we went into Wolverhampton town centre and picked a computer. After the Dragon died a couple of times we got a full refund from the shop. No refund back to a debit card in those days, they just gave us a wedge of cash!! So my Dad and me ran from the computer shop to Boots and bought a rubber keyed 48k beauty!! Apart from the usual Survival, Make a Chip, Chess, Chequered Flag and Horizons tapes I also got a copy of 3D Luna Crabs. Going from the blocky graphics of the Dragon to the hi-res ones of the speccy blew me away and even though Luna Crabs was pretty crap as a game I'd keep loading it just to see the graphics.
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Pegaz
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Re: Day one games

Post by Pegaz »

Definitely, the first impressions of Spectrum's hires graphics were exceptional.
Before that I had zx81 for a short period of time and then my grandpa and grandma, bought me the new Spectrum.
Since I first loaded the Horizons tape and saw those two hires pictures (Psion logo and Horizons loading screen), it was a jaw dropping effect. :)
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Re: Day one games

Post by Spud »

Hank Scorpio wrote: Sun Oct 07, 2018 3:29 pm The pack that came with my Spectrum contained:

Scrabble
Make A Chip
Survival
Chequered Flag
Chess
Horace Goes Skiing
The above, plus:
Horace and the Spiders
Reversi
VU3D
Tasword Two.

i obviously played the two Horace games to death. I quite enjoyed Chequered Flag, too. No idea wtf was going on in Survival? Perhaps I should have read the instructions :)
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Re: Day one games

Post by Morpheus »

I had bought The Hobbit, Horace & the Spiders and Manic Miner in the weeks leading up to my Spectrum arriving on my Birthday. So they were my day one games. I remember looking at the cassettes counting down the weeks before I could get to play them.
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stupidget
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Re: Day one games

Post by stupidget »

Morpheus wrote: Wed Oct 24, 2018 11:44 am I had bought The Hobbit, Horace & the Spiders and Manic Miner in the weeks leading up to my Spectrum arriving on my Birthday. So they were my day one games. I remember looking at the cassettes counting down the weeks before I could get to play them.
I did something very similar when I got my PS1. I knew I was getting one for Christmas in '98 so a few weeks before I bought Resident Evil 2 and waited with bated breath to play it. The sad thing is that I was 25 years old at the time :D :D
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Re: Day one games

Post by Contact Sam Cruise »

Penetrator, Atic Atac (both lent to us by a friend), and the starter tape that came with the ZX Spectrum+. I think it taught some basics of BASIC and then ended with a Breakout-type game?
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