Spectrum Computing

Daley Thompson's Decathlon, Gift from the Gods or Match Day were (IMHO) probably the first Ocean hits. But the company published in 1983 and 84 a lot of more games. Sometimes arcade conversions, sometimes original ones.

So my proposal for you is vote for your fave game of this lot.

Only one vote. Choose wisely, little grashopper

My vote went to Cavelon. A enjoyable maze game.

I went for Armageddon, narrowly ahead of Cavelon. Cavelon may have been more polished, but I had more fun playing Armageddon.

Hunchback, despite thousands of screaming injustices where I DID catch the rope. I really did.

And I voted differently to ... Moon Alert

It has sentimental value for me. I spent quite a lot of time with it in the 80s although wasn't able to complete it.

And I remember that my version was unprotected so I was able to enter an immortality poke which I found one day in some newspaper. Only then I was able to reach the last sector

R-Tape wrote: ↑Mon Nov 20, 2017 11:22 am Hunchback, despite thousands of screaming injustices where I DID catch the rope. I really did.

Noooooo! I hated that game: slow, fiddly and frustrating. Every minute spent on it was a lost minute of Manic Miner time.

If only there were a downvote button....

Curiously, I noticed only a few years ago that the game was a conversion of an arcade game by Century Electronics (crap game, by the way, I prefer the Spectrum version).

Juan F. Ramirez wrote: ↑Mon Nov 20, 2017 12:31 pm Curiously, I noticed only a few years ago that the game was a conversion of an arcade game by Century Electronics (crap game, by the way, I prefer the Spectrum version).

The game was originally supposed to have been a Robin Hood game. In the original Quasimodo didn't have a hunchback: they didn't bother to redraw the graphics when they changed the story.

I'm not sure why they didn't leave it as Robin Hood. It made slightly more sense as Robin rescuing Maid Marion.

Rorthron wrote: ↑Mon Nov 20, 2017 12:16 pm Every minute spent on it was a lost minute of Manic Miner time.

Heh but that went for nearly every game in my case.

I went with Hunchback because it is seems to be the only one I played of that lot. I thought it was crap though, Jet Set Willy's battlement series of screens were waaaay better.

is there a way of ordering search results by release date?
then I could just see all the screen shots at once to remind me of the games

Went for Kong - not the best conversion in the world but the most playable. (After Krazy Kong by C-Tech of course).

From that lot my fave was Hunchback 2. However, playing that recently I realised it was a load old bollocks.

I did play a LOT of Gilligan's Gold. Never got past the first level. It was the original Dark Souls.

Out of that list, only played Moon Patrol back in the day. Played Armageddon recently and was surprised how good it was. Voted for the latter.

Since I have played fewer than half of these games, and even those I have played have not been touched since the mid 1980s, I thought I would quickly play through them all.

I'll post short reviews below. Feel free to play along!

I'll be playing on an emulator on a touchscreen. I know that's as inauthentic as it gets, but that's all I have time for right now.

ARMAGEDDON

I always liked the artwork on this one. The red sky, the strangely phoenix-shaped mushroom cloud... it all created quite an apocalyptic feel. By the standards of the day, it was pretty slick packaging.

The other thing to note before I get onto the game itself is the loading screen. All the Ocean games I have played from this time had variants of the same loading screen. To me it looks like a horizon and a number of roads. But I feel like I must be failing some sort of Rorschach test, because I have no idea what this has to do with Ocean.

The game starts with a funky menu, which is dragged across the screen by a matchstick man. The end sequence shows similar polish, with a large THE END message, destroyed by explosions. This might not sound impressive now, but in 1983 this was reasonably slick stuff.

In between is a competent and playable Missile Command clone. It's hard to play on a touchscreen, but it's pretty much as I remember it. I can see why I found it playable back in the day, especially with Kempston support.

Overall, a good game and so far I feel happy with it as my first choice.

CAVELON

This one's from 1984 and it shows. It's much slicker. The loading screen, based on Bob Wakelin's art, is superb. The menus are polished. There is a cut scene at the start.

The game's nicely presented, with tidy graphics and a beepy in-game tune. The scrolling is a bit jerky, but this is the Speccy, after all. It's quite fun to play. Unusually it's reasonably playable on a touch screen. But it's too hard for me, just as it was back in the day (yes, that probably marks me out as a gaming dunce).

So the leaderboard is so far as I expected:

1. Armageddon
2. ‎Cavelon (not far behind)

Surprised Gilligan's Gold is winning!

CHINESE JUGGLER

This is from the same period as Cavelon and has a similar loading screen replicating the cover art. That's a bit unfortunate, as its depiction of Chinese plate spinner would probably not be considered appropriate today.

This is the first of the games I have never played before. And sadly it stayed that way. No matter what control method I used, I could move but not perform any actions. Perhaps I am being thick, or there is a problem with the emulator I am using (Marvin). But I got nowhere with this one. From the demo I can see it is a passable Game-and-Watch-style game. The graphics are fine. The sound, though, is insanely annoying: a bleepy tune that runs non-stop through the game and menu. There is an option to disable it, though.

The new leaderboard:

1. Armageddon
2. ‎Cavelon
DNF - Chinese Juggler

Rorthron wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2017 8:04 am DNF - Chinese Juggler

Nay DNS?

R-Tape wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2017 8:36 am

Rorthron wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2017 8:04 am DNF - Chinese Juggler

Nay DNS?

You're quite right.

Neigh.

DIGGER DAN

This is a very basic Space Panic clone. The graphics are simple and crudely animated, moving in whole character squares. Sound is almost non-existent.

The rough edges wouldn't matter so much if the game was fun, but I found it all pretty dull.

Updated rankings:

1. Armageddon
2. ‎Cavelon
3. ‎Digger Dan
DNF - Chinese Juggler

Aye Sam Spade is a much better Panic clone. Not that it redeems the game but Digger Dan has the coolest inlay art.

ESKIMO EDDIE

This has another very good loading screen, but the game does not match it. There is a simple Frogger-like section where you have to rescue a penguin a few times. Then you take the role of the penguin in a top-down maze, where you have to kill the enemies by pushing blocks against them.

The graphics are neat, but not spectacular. Sound is actually decent with a simple polyphonic tune. The gameplay, though, lets it down. It is simple and repetitive, and while there are plenty of simple, repetitive games that manage to be fun and addictive, Eskimo Eddie isn't one of them. There just doesn't seem to be much to the game.

It's a step up from Digger Dan, but still not great.

1. Armageddon
2. ‎Cavelon
3. ‎Eskimo Eddie
4. ‎Digger Dan
DNF - Chinese Juggler

FRENZY

I'm sorry, but this one is just rubbish. I'm not going to waste much time on it. Graphics and sound are poor. The enemy that appears if you stay too long on a screen arrives far too quickly. Next!

1. Armageddon
2. ‎Cavelon
3. ‎Eskimo Eddie
4. ‎Digger Dan
5. ‎Frenzy
DNF - Chinese Juggler