Spectrum Computing

Imagine. It's easy if you try.

And try they did, with huge showboating publicity, based on the questionable premise of their teenaged programmers earning sports cars. And as we all know that went tits up and the brand got gobbled up by Ocean.

And this is where a controversy about this poll rages, as the 12 ZX Spectrum games published by the original incarnation of Imagine, are really significantly different to the era when it was effectively a cosmetic extension of Ocean. I totally understand the arguments for separating them into two, as it's very 'apples and oranges'. It's a bit like comparing the games of Microprose to Zenobi Software. But hey, I've spent an eon putting up polls like 'What's the best Speccy game beginning with P?', so I'm not going to stop now. (I may run two 'Imagine (original incarnation)'/'Imagine (Ocean-owned)' polls in the future though.) Yes, I'm pitting B.C. Bill against Target Renegade; Ah Diddums against Green Beret... that's the way it goes.

As an Ocean-owned outlet, Imagine was there to mainly put out coin-op conversions - licensed by Nichibutsu, Konami, SNK and Taito. There was a small amount of original stuff, but we're talking single figures. Movie and Play For Your Life were two such efforts, then there were spiritual sequels to coin-op hits that were never in arcades (Target Renegade, Renegade III and The Vindicator).

Almost all of the Imagine-badged output from 6 Central Street is jaw-droppingly different to the days of those yellow/black 'For...' inlay spines.

It does make you wonder why Ocean bothered buying the name. Yes, it's a pretty cool logo, and I think it's the best software house logo of all time, but there's no reason why the 32 post-Liverpool games couldn't have been flung out under the Ocean label. Even Ocean themselves blurred the lines. you see the Ocean logo on-screen in Typhoon, yet it's Imagine on the inlay/adverts. Then there are Ocean releases like Konami's Gryzor and Taito's Rainbow Islands which surely should have been Imagine issues? There's no hard and fast rules really, so don't go looking for too much logic! (At least US Gold's acquisition of Ultimate led to the Birmingham-based behemoth at least capturing the style of Ultimate although obviously falling short on quality.)

Can anyone think of a case where a Manchester-based entity absorbs a widely-recognised icon from Liverpool, but ends up being far less creative?


In that alternative universe where Ocean didn't bother buying the Imagine name and their 32 efforts came under the Ocean label, then the best Speccy game by Ocean poll would have 138 viable contenders. As these forum polls come to a max of 127 entries, we would have needed to eliminate 11 of them at the discussion stage (almost certainly the magazine covertape stuff and Renegade III, obviously.)

Anyway, 44 titles listed here. What will be the winner? I wonder if I can get away with uttering "it's definitely not Stonkers"?..

Results here, 12:40ish next Sunday, UK time.

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

Green Beret for me.An excellent conversion from the arcade game, as good and payable as it.

1 - Green Beret
2 - Hypersports
3 - WS Baseball

Green Beret for me, as it's just an excellent game.

1 - Green Beret
2 - Ping Pong
3 - Arcadia

1. Target: Renegade
2. Green Beret
3. Hyper Sports

1 Target:Renegade
2 Hypersports
3 Renegade

First time I've taken part in my own poll using the proportional system...

1) Target: Renegade
2) Renegade
3) Green Beret

For me it has to be...

1. Alchemist
2. Arkanoid 2
3. Target: Renegade

1. Green Beret
2. Hyper Sports
3. WEC le Mans

1) Jumping Jack
2) A very close 2nd, Arcadia
3) Arkanoid

1. Target: Renegade
2. Mikie
3. Jumping Jack

I'm going to go with Zzoom, as it feels more "Imagine" than the others I'd pick. Slim pickings though, with a few exceptions it always seemed to me that the Imagine label was for the less good Ocean titles.

1. Zzoom
2. Arkanoid
3. Renegade

1 - Green Beret
2 - Target: Renegade
3 - Arkanoid

Starting my spectrum life with a plus 2 meant I missed the first incarnation of Imagine, so to me they were always a software house of the big coin-up’s. I was completely oblivious to their early games and how they started out.

I got Renegade as a free gift when I subscribed to Crash magazine, me and my friends were blown away by it. By the time the sequel came round I was very excited to get it, and although I thought it was brilliant, through the two player option and being able to pick up weapons, it might have been slightly too easy. Thus I give a slight edge to the original. I never played the third in the series, in fact I didn’t even know about it until my recent bout of nostalgia brought me back to the Spectrum. Thus I assume I had moved on to my Sega Master System when it was originally released.

Anyway, my top three Imagine titles are,

1. Renegade
2. Target Renegade
3. WEC Le Mans

1. Konami Tennis
2. Yie Are Kung-Fu
3. Terra Cresta

Really close decision, but in the end I'm going for Jumping Jack for its sheer originality (and longevity). There still isn't really anything else like it (that I can think of, anyway).

1. Jumping Jack
2. Hyper Sports
3. Ping Pong

1 – Target: Renegade
2 – Hyper Sports
3 – WEC Le Mans

Runners up: Renegade, Green Beret

Just came across this Imagine advert, really great:

This is harder than the Ocean poll for me.

1) Movie
2) WEC Le Mans
3) Arkanoid

4) Jumping Jack
5) Renegade
6) Legend of Kage

1. Hypersports
2. Renegade
3. Green Beret

Suprised really that I wasn't rating the later arcade conversions much above The Alchemist.
Looking back, they were churning out arcade versions of some fairly mediocre arcade games. I mean, were people really crying out for the chance to play Mag Max or Legend of Kage at home, or were the software houses so short of (or maybe afraid of) original ideas they'd convert anything going? I guess the appeal of arcade conversions was you could pretend you were playing something with better graphics.

WEC Le Mans was technically brilliant, but I still don't get how so many games like this missed the fact that on most later arcade racers the road started out much wider than the screen - look at how wide it is at the start of OutRun. So why is it squeezed to fit entirely within the screen width with no room to pass?

So for sheer fun and playability my vote goes to Green Beret.

Joefish wrote: ↑Tue Jul 16, 2019 12:34 pm Looking back, they were churning out arcade versions of some fairly mediocre arcade games. I mean, were people really crying out for the chance to play Mag Max or Legend of Kage at home, or were the software houses so short of (or maybe afraid of) original ideas they'd convert anything going? I guess the appeal of arcade conversions was you could pretend you were playing something with better graphics.

I could be wrong here but I have a vague memory that they wouldn't necessarily buy the rights to individual arcade games (I reckon that changed from 1987/88 onwards) but to whatever arcade machines the manufacturer released over a given time. So that's why there was tripe like Mag Max, Rygar, etc which weren't very good arcade games to begin with, but they might as well do crappy conversions and put them out anyway.

Then when the PC Engine and Megadrive arrived in 87/88 the arcade manufacturers cottoned on to the kind of money they could make from licencing deals.

Probably wrong, but I got that impression from somewhere.

Stonkers, I don't consider the "later" games really Imagine. Imagine in name only.

Vampyre wrote: ↑Tue Jul 16, 2019 1:50 pm I could be wrong here but I have a vague memory that they wouldn't necessarily buy the rights to individual arcade games (I reckon that changed from 1987/88 onwards) but to whatever arcade machines the manufacturer released over a given time. So that's why there was tripe like Mag Max, Rygar, etc which weren't very good arcade games to begin with, but they might as well do crappy conversions and put them out anyway.

Could be true - except I actually liked the arcade Rygar! Although mainly for the graphics; the colourful worm sprites and the parallax scenery - but yes, there was certainly no point converting it to the Speccy; particularly with a load of stuff missed out. Thundercats did the same but much better for home systems.

Vampyre wrote: ↑Tue Jul 16, 2019 1:50 pm Then when the PC Engine and Megadrive arrived in 87/88 the arcade manufacturers cottoned on to the kind of money they could make from licencing deals.

I always thought the main thing counting against the MegaDrive was its emphasis on the sort of flash-in-the-pan arcade games SEGA liked to produce. They'd take your money off you for a mind-blowing graphical (and moving-cabinet) experience, but at home, to play over and over again, you don't necessarily want a game that's designed to kill you ASAP to move on to the next punter. I suppose that's true for a lot of arcade conversions.

1. Target; Renegade
2. Hypersports
3. World Series Baseball

Target: Renegade's success will always remain a mystery to me.