Spectrum Computing

Yeah, this is what Ocean Software was originally called and it's fairly obvious why this name couldn't really survive in a market where there just happened to be the tiny matter of OTHER COMPUTERS NOT CALLED THE SPECTRUM.

What we have, are 5 games (obviously I discounted the MIA titles), and yeah, they're all arcade knock-offs.

Caterpilla = Centipede
Frenzy = Berzerk
Monster Muncher = Pac Man
Road Frog = Frogger
Rocket Command = Defender

It's also a rare example of a software label's entire game library being completely compatible for a 16K Spectrum.

Hell, just about every software label was doing this back in the day, you couldn't move for Space Invaders and Pac Man rip-offs littering the scene. Truly a wild west time, and eventually the scene went a bit more professional and started splashing out the money on official licenses. (But the habit persisted, as Ocean's first game was a Donkey Kong rip-off. And yeah, they'd absolve themselves of that particular example by actually making an official Donkey Kong - which was a lot better.)

Anyway, just five games, all of which are trying to be early 80s arcade experiences. I can't put it any simpler than that, get voting, see you in seven days time here for the results...

Caterpilla


Frenzy


Monster Muncher


Road Frog


Rocket Command

This is the hardest poll. I don't know any of them.

Looks like I'm going to have to d/l some pretty P?s? poor games to decide on which is the best of a bad bunch

Caterpilla - your run-of-the-mill Centipede clone
Frenzy - Robotron 2084 kind of stuff with annoying presentation
Monster Muncher - jerky Pac Man clone
Road Frog - scarcely responsive Frogger clone
Rocket Command - basic Defender clone with twisted choice of keys

So

1- Monster Muncher is the most playable
2 - Caterpilla works fine
3 - Rocket Command just because
4 - Road Frog not much responsive in my view
5 - Frenzy ANNOYING presentation

WIWC wrote: ↑Tue Jul 16, 2019 10:26 am This is the hardest poll. I don't know any of them.

It'll take just 15 minutes to go through the entire catalogue and form a justified view.

Crikey - those loading screen!

Before I persuaded my parents to buy me my own, I played a lot on my mate's Spectrum. Our major (for a while only) source of games were these four very badly-recorded C90 compilation tapes that his dad got from someone at work. One thing that really sticks in the memory is that in between each recording, the guy who'd taped them would come onto the tape announcing the next game, always in the same style and in the same monotone voice: "Next program, next program, next program: Penetrator" etc. Always made us laugh for some reason. I wonder if anyone else on here ever had copies of those tapes? Certainly it seemed that all my Spectrum-owning friends around here (Teesside) somehow ended up with copies of them at the time and I wouldn't be surprised if they spread more widely.

This would be mid-1984 so all the games on the tapes were pretty early ones - from 1982 and 1983 - and I'm pretty sure all of the "Spectrum Games" releases were included. ANYWAY, the point of this extended geriatric ramble is that even then, with access to only a limited amount of games, I don't think we loaded any of these more than once, as they were all objectively terrible. Road Frog was particularly amateurish, like a type-in program or something.

I was going to say that Frenzy would be my easy winner but on checking, realised that the game I was actually remembering was Frenzy by Quicksilva. Not sure I'll even vote in this one as I don't think any of these awful, awful games deserve the distinction of being voted "best" of anything.

After some extensive research (all of about 20 minutes) I voted for Monster Muncher.

It's not so much the best game, more like the least crap.

Gawd, none of these are great, I guess there was a glut of this sort of stuff in 82/83.

I think I remember playing Muncher before, it can get a bit annoying that you leave dots around.

Frenzy could have been a half decent game if you didn't keep dying very suddenly and randomly.

Never really been a big fan of Caterpilla type games.

Road Frog might have been OK if it weren't for the non-responsive keys, and the fact that you can't seem to hop backwards.

Not a clue what's happening in Rocket Command.

Have gone for the Frogger game, if I was forced to pick a top 3 it'd be:

1. Road Frog
2. Muncher
3. Frenzy

A superb 2/2/2/2 draw!

If the poll ends this way with such crap games, what we're going to do?

(Voted for Frenzy, by the way. I used the 'less-crap' criteria)

Out of all these, Road Frog was the one I enjoyed the least less

1 - Road Frog
2 - Frenzy
3 - Monster Muncher

Juan F. Ramirez wrote: ↑Wed Jul 17, 2019 8:19 am A superb 2/2/2/2 draw!

If the poll ends this way with such crap games, what we're going to do?

Well yeah, yesterday it was two votes for each of them (except Caterpilla, with no votes). That would mean a four-way tie, which, erm, would probably mean the same votes again. Or I could just look at the proportional votes though.

At the moment though, Road Frog is the winner by just one vote. I hope there is a clear winner, I don't want to put you lot through these games any more!

Morkin wrote: ↑Tue Jul 16, 2019 10:47 pm
Road Frog might have been OK if it weren't for the non-responsive keys, and the fact that you can't seem to hop backwards.

True, or at least I looked for a hop back key and I didn't find it.

Bloody hell these are all terrible!

Sorry to level the scores, but I went for Monster Muncher. It's actually playable. Road Frog is okay, but I had more unexplained deaths than I was prepared to tolerate.

It's been a tough poll, because the games are, um, tough to tolerate.

Out of all five of them, Monster Muncher, the Pac Man clone, is top with 4 votes.

Second is Road Frog, the Frogger clone, with 3 votes.

Joint third with 2 votes each - Frenzy (Berzerk clone) and Rocket Command (Defender clone). Nobody voted for Caterpilla (Centipede clone).

But proportionately...

6 Monster Muncher
6 Road Frog
3 Frenzy
2 Caterpilla
1 Rocket Command