The best Speccy game by Imagine: discussion

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PeteProdge
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The best Speccy game by Imagine: discussion

Post by PeteProdge »

Ah, a titan in the ZX Spectrum scene. Then it all went titanic for them and the Liverpool software house was bought out by its rivals in Manchester - Ocean.

I'm covering the Imagine brand as a software house in its own right, including the sports-car-owning-programmers phase and its later era were it was an Ocean-owned label that mainly put out arcade conversions (particularly Konami's titles).

Of course, I'm covering Ocean itself in this discussion thread.

What's surprised me is that there are only 44 tangible ZX Spectrum games under the Imagine brand. Both Ocean and Imagine had masses of advertising across the three major Speccy mags, not just full pages, but many double-paged spreads. I had the feeling that Imagine's output was not far off Ocean's 107 games for the Speccy, but 44? I'm astounded it's as low as that. False memory syndrome at work, I say!

The pre-Ocean stuff is fascinating, not just because of that BBC documentary that highlighted the astonishing hubris of the software house. It's mainly the base for Charlie Brooker's recent Black Mirror special on Netflix. And we've had revisionism from a former Imagine publicist, that got entertainingly torn apart by YS writer Stuart Campbell here.

Looking at the pre-Ocean days, it's all quirky, creative, original and fairly Britain-centric, like much of the early 80s home computer games market. No sign of the coin-op-conversion-spewing monster it would become once it was housed at Central Street in Manchester. Those early games have more of a Mastertronic feel. As part of Ocean, there were a few original titles, but not that many.

As I say, 44 games by my reckoning. I'm including YS covertape exclusive Play For Your Life, like I did with Road Race for Ocean - similar circumstances.

And here we go...

Ah Diddums
Alchemist
Arcadia
Arkanoid
Arkanoid - Revenge Of Doh
Athena
B.C. Bill
Cosmic Cruiser
Dragon Ninja
Galivan - Cosmo Police
Green Beret
Guerrilla War
Hyper Sports
Jumping Jack
Konami's Golf
Konami's Tennis
Legend Of Kage
Mag Max
Mikie
Molar Maul
Movie
Pedro
Ping Pong
Play For Your Life
Psycho Soldier
Rastan
Renegade
Renegade III
Schizoids
Slap Fight
Stonkers
Super Soccer
Target: Renegade
Terra Cresta
Typhoon
Victory Road
Vindicator, The
WEC Le Mans
World Series Baseball
World Series Basketball
Yie Ar Kung-Fu
Yie Ar Kung-Fu II
Zip-Zap
Zzoom

Not included...
Bandersnatch - MIA
Comic Bakery - MIA
Frantic - MIA
Sidney Meets His Match - MIA
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Re: The best Speccy game by Imagine: discussion

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

Cool company. From the first years only Alchemist got my attention, a cool adventure from 1983.

In the later years, great arcade conversions like Hypersports, Renegade, Arkanoid, Green Beret, Mikie..

Green Beret, Hypersports, WS Baseball, Alchemist & Ping Pong are my fave Imagine games.
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Re: The best Speccy game by Imagine: discussion

Post by toot_toot »

When Ocean bought Imagine, they wanted to use it as a label for arcade conversions, so while I can understand why original games like Target Renegade, Renegade III and The Vindicator were on the Imagine label (as they were all sequels to arcade games, Vindicator was originally labelled as “Green Beret II” in the adverts), I never understood why Movie was on the Imagine label (the “sequel”, Phantom Club, was released by Ocean). It’s the one game that really sticks out during the Ocean era. It’s a brilliant game, but it would have been better alongside original Ocean titles of the time like The Great Escape or Frankie Goes To Hollywood and it likely would have sold more too!

(I’m not sure if Play for Your Life counts, it was a Your Sinclair cover game although I’m presuming it was going to be released by Imagine but was rejected).
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Re: The best Speccy game by Imagine: discussion

Post by stupidget »

ooh this is a toughie for me. Arcadia was one of the first games I ever played on a rubber keyed speccy and Hyper Sports is just superb. However Green Beret is easily one of the best arcade conversion on the speccy and Ping-Pong is not just a brilliant game, but, has THE best menu tune ever, so much so that I can still hum it from start to finish 34 years later :lol: :lol:
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Re: The best Speccy game by Imagine: discussion

Post by Fahnn »

I get why you've put all the Imagine releases together, but it does seem odd seeing them all listed like this. I kind of regard the pre-bust hype factory Imagine as a completely different entity to the later Imagine label (which I really just saw as an extension of Ocean, certainly there didn't seem to be much of a distinction between Ocean-branded and Imagine-branded games when they were releasing concurrently). So I'd have split out the earlier ones and the Ocean ones into two separate polls, myself. But that's just me.

Anyway, of the original Imagine games, most of them have aged really badly (of course, quite a few of them were absolutely terrible even at the time) but I genuinely think Jumping Jack still stands up today. Really simple, sure, but still (incredibly frustrating) fun. That said, I don't think any of the original Imagine releases are going to stand a chance here.
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Re: The best Speccy game by Imagine: discussion

Post by toot_toot »

Play For Your Life as a Covertape also reminded me of Road Race, also a Your Sinclair covertape.

It was promoted as being a gift from Ocean, but it was clearly a port of the Konami MSX game Hyper Rally (with the graphics changed a little to be more like F1 cars)

Road Race

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hR8j6ZWXvOc

Hyper Rally (on the MSX)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QjxF2b20D4

I found that out years later, but I wonder if it would have been released on the Imagine label, along with the other MSX ports like Konami's Golf, Konami's Tennis and Comic Bakery.

It's a fun game, but it doesn't have enough in it to justify a full price release in 1986. Maybe adding in stuff like maps or fuel management, like the very similar Great American Cross-Country Road Race on the C64, would have made it more value for money.

What's even more intriguing is that it uses more or less the exact same menu system as Jon Ritman's games -Match Day, Match Day II, Batman, Head over Heels. I wonder if he was involved in it?
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Re: The best Speccy game by Imagine: discussion

Post by Morkin »

Cripes, look at that software list.

This could be a difficult choice...
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Re: The best Speccy game by Imagine: discussion

Post by hitm4n »

Ah Diddums - Fond Memories
Alchemist - Really enjoyed this one, completed it without any pokes or tips too! Lots of trial and error.
Arcadia - One of my earliest games. Got tough fast as i remember.
Jumping Jack - Awesome, so simple but such fun. The urge to get to one more line of the poem was high.
Target: Renegade - Brilliant, way ahead of other fighting games, and one of the very few fighting games i ever enjoyed.
Terra Cresta - lovely shooter
Zzoom - Loved shooting the little guys and spinning them over in the distance...

I don't think Imagine made many super high end games, but they sure made a heap of great fun games and i;d rank their total output quite highly. I wouldn't say its their best game, but the one i played the most was jumping Jack so it'll be my vote. Some great remakes of it out there too.
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Re: The best Speccy game by Imagine: discussion

Post by Fahnn »

hitm4n wrote: Wed Jul 10, 2019 10:53 pm I don't think Imagine made many super high end games, but they sure made a heap of great fun games and i;d rank their total output quite highly. I wouldn't say its their best game, but the one i played the most was jumping Jack so it'll be my vote. Some great remakes of it out there too.
The thing is, as much as I loved Jumping Jack (and still do), I'm not sure I can put it ahead of stuff like Hyper Sports and Ping Pong, or even Arkanoid. I mean, it's inevitable that the later games were better.

Mind you, I wasted days on all those games. This is a going to be a really difficult decision.
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Re: The best Speccy game by Imagine: discussion

Post by toot_toot »

Imagine also published a few Dinamic games in the UK that are missing from the list : Army Moves, Basket Master, Freddy Hardest and Game Over. Imagine also republished Salamander.

Anyway, although Imagine (even in the Ocean days) has sometimes a “hit and miss” catalogue (for every Konami’s Ping Pong theres a Konami’s Tennis) and it’s much easier to play the arcade originals, there are a few genuine classics that I regularly play today, Jumping Jack, Zzoom, Stonkers, Target Renegade, Movie. Even some of the arcade conversions I still enjoy playing today, mostly because of the nostalgia and sometimes they made it a bit easier than the arcade originals that were designed to gobble up your 10ps - Green Beret, Hyper Sports, Mikie.

It’s a tough one, but I’d either go with Jumping Jack or Target Renegade.
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Re: The best Speccy game by Imagine: discussion

Post by Vampyre »

Hypersports without question. An almost perfect arcade conversion and the best sports game on the Speccy by a mile.
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Re: The best Speccy game by Imagine: discussion

Post by PeteProdge »

toot_toot wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2019 8:02 am Imagine also published a few Dinamic games in the UK that are missing from the list : Army Moves, Basket Master, Freddy Hardest and Game Over. Imagine also republished Salamander.
Ah, but these are re-releases, which don't count in these polls. Has to have been originally released by the brand in question.
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Re: The best Speccy game by Imagine: discussion

Post by uglifruit »

There's some good 'uns in that list.
I had great fun with the Beau jolly value pack when I bought it (presumably when it had just come out, after imagine's financial woes) ... Cosmic Cruiser, B.C. Bill, Pedro, Zzoom, Zip Zap, Alchemist. One of the tapes didn't work in my copy and I wrote and complained - and they replaced it with the Imagine boxed versions of the replacements (Zzoom and ZipZap I think).

Anyway, none of those deserve to win. World series baseball, and basketball, were great. Hypersports was very good. Target renegade! Ping Pong! (Joffa's music engine in that one!). All worthy winners.

But Movie. That's the one for me. The film aesthetic, and the isometric look. Great. Even if I didn't get anywhere with it.
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Re: The best Speccy game by Imagine: discussion

Post by Joefish »

Seems a bit weird to me too to list the original company releases alongside Ocean's arcade conversions that just re-used a label they found in a skip... :lol:
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Re: The best Speccy game by Imagine: discussion

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

PeteProdge wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2019 1:01 pm
toot_toot wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2019 8:02 am Imagine also published a few Dinamic games in the UK that are missing from the list : Army Moves, Basket Master, Freddy Hardest and Game Over. Imagine also republished Salamander.
Ah, but these are re-releases, which don't count in these polls. Has to have been originally released by the brand in question.
I'm looking forward to a Dinamic poll! 8-)
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Re: The best Speccy game by Imagine: discussion

Post by Turtle_Quality »

Arcadia and Jumping Jack are far and away the 2 that took up most of my time, Arcadia felt like real arcade quality and Jumping Jack was simple but fun.

After that, I played Arkanoid a fair amount, just because it was a breakout clone, Zip-Zap and Zoom and Stonkers were okay. Schizoids seemed to have the making of a decent game but wasn't finished.

I kind of lost interest when they became just another Ocean label
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Re: The best Speccy game by Imagine: discussion

Post by PeteProdge »

Joefish wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2019 7:31 pm Seems a bit weird to me too to list the original company releases alongside Ocean's arcade conversions that just re-used a label they found in a skip... :lol:
One day I'll probably break them into two separate polls, but for now, I'm going through the major software houses for the ZX Spectrum on a 'lifetime of the brand' perspective.
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Re: The best Speccy game by Imagine: discussion

Post by Hank Scorpio »

The best thing about Play For Your Life was reading the letters of complaint that YS published in a later issue. It's probably safe to say that they received a lot more than they actually published.
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