The best Speccy game by Spectrum Games: discussion

[PeteProdge]

Going through the classic A-Z POLL OF POLLS to pluck another software house, we jointly hit Great Escape (Ocean) and Target Renegade (Imagine), which is kind of appropriate because they became the same company really.

Well, I'm considering them as separate brands, so Ocean will have a poll, as will Imagine (including all of Imagine's pre-Ocean-buyout titles as well as its Ocean-owned phase).

This also means I'm bringing in Spectrum Games (which eventually became the behemoth that was Ocean Software) as a software house in its own right.

If you read my First and Final: Ocean post, I covered this very early phase of the Manchester-based software house. I do acknowledge that Kong was the first game under the Ocean label, but wanted to focus on the very beginnings, so I reviewed Road Frog, Rocket Attack and Monster Munch as I didn't which of the three came first. Later on in the thread, a surprise visit from the author of Road Frog was a brilliant insight into this embryonic era and he stated the Frogger clone was the first to be made by Spectrum Games.

Only five games of the Spectrum Games label are actually tangible. (I'm talking from the perspective of the ZX Spectrum, ironically they produced Vic 20 games, and had plans to cover the ZX81 and Dragon 32, which was a tad difficult given their name implied they were dedicated solely to our rubber-keyed hero.)

Caterpilla
Frenzy
Monster Muncher
Road Frog
Rocket Command

Not exactly as prolific as their humongous output when they became Ocean, obviously, and I think the majority of us will only know these games via emulation. Although some of you were right there from the beginning. There would have been four more titles - Cosmic Intruders; Galaxy Invaders; Hopper and Missile Attack - but these don't appear to have been completed.

I propose these five games are in the poll, which should start around this time next Sunday. Your feedback, please...

[WIWC]

There's gonna be a heated debate here.

[Juan F. Ramirez]

I've only played Frenzy, not a bad game.

But I'm afraid the poll will be 'which is the least bad?'

[PeteProdge]

I've only played Frenzy, not a bad game.

But I'm afraid the poll will be 'which is the least bad?'

I see what you mean. But with just five games, there's enough time to play the entire softography over half an hour and reach a thorough conclusion!

[Juan F. Ramirez]

Be sure I will!