The best Speccy game by Activision: discussion

[PeteProdge]

As we covered Electric Dreams recently - an imprint of Activision - I thought it only best to cover the parent company, who had a few other labels, but mostly published things under their own name.

Therefore, I've proposed the shortlist of all Spectrum games released as purely Activision titles.

Activision were a US-based concern, who established a few bases in the UK for a slice of the European market. They would battle it out with US Gold, Elite and Virgin to get Sega licenses, and were pretty successful at getting them.

These are the 46 titles I'm counting as Activision games for the Spectrum. Let me know if there are any mistakes or any exclusions...

AfterBurner
Altered Beast
BallBlazer
Beamrider
Dragon Breed
Dynamite Dux
Eidolon, The
Enduro Racer
Fighter Bomber
Fighting Soccer
Galactic Games
Galaxy Force
Geebee Air Rally
Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters II
Guadalcanal
H.E.R.O.
Hacker
Hacker II: The Doomsday Papers
Hammerfist
High Frontier
Hot Rod
Howard The Duck
Knightmare
Koronis Rift
Little Computer People
Mindshadow
Ninja Spirit
Pitfall II: Lost Caverns
Power Drift
Predator
Quartet
Rampage
Real Ghostbusters, The
Rescue On Fractalus
River Raid
S.D.I.
Sailing
Sonic Boom
Space Shuttle: A Journey Into Space
Super Wonder Boy
Time Machine
Time Scanner
Toy Bizarre
Wonder Boy
Xcel

Now, as I mentioned, Activision did have other labels (Electric Dreams being a Europe-focused label which we covered in a recent poll). Gamestar was a short-lived imprint, with just four sports games. I'll be treating them separately.

There was Abstract Concepts, the idea that it would be an outlet for adventure games. Three games were announced, although only one release came out on that label, so, well done Mindfighter, you win by default.

A similar story for the mayfly-lifespan label Triple Six, which planned and released literally just one game - Go To Hell.

Right, get talking!

[Juan F. Ramirez]

HERO and River Raid are two great underrated games.

[Turrican]

Where is Enduro???
Not Enduro Racer.

[ZXDunny]

Where is Enduro???
Not Enduro Racer.

Although the omission does need to be resolved, it has to be said that Enduro is best of the 2600.

[hitm4n]

Enduro Racer
Ghostbusters
Hacker
Mindshadow

My top 4. I had the Mindshadow game boxed with book. Loved the book as a kid but never read it all the way through as i was always reading the chapters as i played through the adventure, and i got stuck in the adventure...

Hacker, never could figure that one out. I remember a game called System 15000 or something like that which was a hacking game and it was awesome (anyone remember which game i mean?)

Ghostbusters, could never get this game over the final hurdle and get into Zuul, was always there when they met but couldn't figure out how to trigger the endgame. Sad times.

Enduro Racer. One of my favourite speccy racers, jumps and all.

[PeteProdge]

Where is Enduro???
Not Enduro Racer.

Oopsy!

Well, again, this is why we have these discussion threads. Thanks for pointing out the omission. Enduro will be in the proper poll next week. My apologies!

[Dark]

When I remember Activision it is Rampage and Enduro Racer that come to mind, two great games.

[Vampyre]

The only title I can find that's missing in my cross-reference, other than the already-mentioned Enduro, is Zenji: https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=5850

Other titles associated with Activision were either never released (Atomic Robo Kid, The Corporation), a utility (Designer's Pencil) or a compilation (Kidsplay, Prestige Collection).

[Spector]

I'm sure I remember an interview in Crash magazine circa 1984 with one of the heads of Activision who made it pretty clear that Activision was releasing games on the Spectrum for the money and had nothing but contempt for the machine, seeing it as unable to make proper games, which is why the early games were all so poor. They must have changed their minds later on because the standard did go up.

[PeteProdge]

The only title I can find that's missing in my cross-reference, other than the already-mentioned Enduro, is Zenji: https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=5850

Other titles associated with Activision were either never released (Atomic Robo Kid, The Corporation), a utility (Designer's Pencil) or a compilation (Kidsplay, Prestige Collection).

Cheers. That'll be included too!

And yeah, Atomic Robo Kid only partially surfaced as a playable demo on a magazine covertape. Not quite being a proper realse.

[hitm4n]

My top 4. I had the Mindshadow game boxed with book. Loved the book as a kid but never read it all the way through as i was always reading the chapters as i played through the adventure, and i got stuck in the adventure...

Hmm, got confused with Mindfighter - lol.

[Morkin]

When I remember Activision it is Rampage and Enduro Racer that come to mind, two great games.

Me too. Glancing down the list I knew I'd got my top 2 instantly. Not sure about number 3 just yet...

[Joefish]

Same here. Two great conversions, although Rampage as a game on any system could get a bit repetitive.

The rest of their SEGA conversions weren't so great. Afterburner and Galaxy Force were unplayable messes of sprites all over the place even in their original form. Power Drift was a great arcade game but none of the UK home conversions came close. The ST / Amiga looked OK but quickly lost the plot when they started swinging round sharp corners. The 8-bit versions were just regular pseudo-3D road racers. The only one that seemed to work was the C64, which had a fairly fast update in its character-mapped screen, and recoloured the opponents cars appropriately to add some variety.

Ghostbusters was ambitious but looked awful. Quartet was OK in the arcade but looked terrible on the Spectrum - far too much colour added to the backgrounds such that the sprites couldn't be seen. The fractal games were a great idea but slow; best left on the Atari where they had been efficiently programmed.

S.D.I. was a novel arcade game with a joystick for movement and trackball for targeting; with a mouse and stick it might have worked, but otherwise it was pretty worthless as a game.

River Raid was a solid game, but I think the best of that list, besides Enduro Racer anyway, is probably Dragon Breed. It's not quite up there with R-Type, but it's still an impressive conversion.

[Ralf]

I loved Rampage, it has a great playability.

Enduro Racer is also very good and smooth.

River Raid was a big hit on other platforms. If you talk to Commodore or Atari fan, it will probably
have some cult status for him. But on Spectrum it was "meh", generally went unnoticed without bringing
much emotions. Wonder why?

As for the rest they are mostly okay but nothing more. Generally Activision loses to Ocean
in quality of their games.