Spectrum Computing

1. Enduro Racer
2. Ghostbusters
3. Power Drift

Enduro Racer was a magnificent conversion of a much more powerful coin-op. Along with Chase HQ it remains one of the best racing conversions on the Speccy. As someone already said, vastly superior to Sega's official Master System conversion.

Ghostbusters for the sheer amount of hours I put into it and enjoyed. Yes, the C64 version is waaay superior, but I got a lot out of it.

Power Drift back in the day was a pretty good conversion of, quite frankly, a very oddly laid out Racer, track-wise. It was massively overshadowed by the conversion of Chase HQ, but remains pretty playable.

The raised track sequences of Power Drift are a bit confusing.

I thought long and hard about it, then voted Ghostbusters as I always knew I would. Sure everyone thinks it's crap and they're probably right but I spent many an hour playing away on it catching ghosts and building up a long list of account codes so I could play again with more stuff.

The problem with Power Drift was the original was based on a 3D model of the entire track. Each bit of it was a sprite, but it was like an early voxel landscape engine - you could view the entire track from anywhere in 3D-space. The classic pseudo-3D bendy-road routine of 8-bit racing games just couldn't cope with showing anything like it. No more than it could replicate the tight twisty tracks of a Mode-7 Mario Kart type game.

I honestly barely remember more than a handful of these. The only one that I spent any kind of time on was Mindshadow, so that gets my vote. Adventure games could often be quite impenetrable in those days (especially as in most cases I only had tape-to-tape copies with no instructions) but Mindshadow was really easy to get into and actually make progress. It had a really well-considered level of difficulty (plus quite impressive detail, nice graphics and a great storyline, especially when you get into the second part). It's definitely one of my favourite adventures.

Can't really in good conscience do a top three though, given my ignorance of most of these. Seem to remember Hacker being quite good but honestly don't remember enough about it, really. And I'm kind of surprised that Ghostbusters is getting highly rated as it's one of the few I do remember, and I remember that it was awful.

1. Enduro Racer
2. Rampage
3. Ghostbusters

Only played very few of these games, I have to admit. But Enduro Racer is clearly the one stand out title in their catalogue. Thanks to Giga Games who also developed Nightmare Rally earlier.
I have fond memories of playing Ghostbusters although the game has not aged well.

1 :: Enduro Racer
2 :: Ghostbusters
3 :: H.E.R.O.

Blimey, Enduro Racer is smashing this poll, more than R Type dominated the Electric Dreams poll!

Yes, I have Enduro Racer down as my vote, but I did not expect it to be the lead, maybe somewhere 3rd or 4th. A pleasant surprise.

Most of their arcade conversions were far too ambitious for the Speccy and didn't play well at all.
As for the ports from other 8-bits, they suffered from all the limitations of the original machine plus the Spectrum's colour and sound issues, without any sort of optimisation for the Z80, not leaving you very much to play with at all.

Yeah, surprising results so far.

But more surprising is the vote Howard the Duck got

Juan F. Ramirez wrote: ↑Tue Aug 13, 2019 3:41 pm Yeah, surprising results so far.
But more surprising is the vote Howard the Duck got

That's just depressing.
As is the one for Altered Beast, for that matter...

What title did you expect to lead the poll.

I always liked Hacker so I went with that

WIWC wrote: ↑Tue Aug 13, 2019 8:56 pm What title did you expect to lead the poll.

Nothing specific in mind, but I thought Ghostbusters would be performing really strong. I don't like Ghostbusters - really dull and boring. It's got the feel of a BASIC game. What a missed opportunity.

Apparently, it was some car management game (on the C64, I believe) that was being developed just as Activision got the license for Ghostbusters, so they took what they had and retooled it to be Ghostbusters.

Commercially, it appears it might be the best selling ZX Spectrum game of all time (either that or Robocop). Surely must be the power of the license, because the game is so shoddy. (Robocop however, is a great game, even if you despise the film.)

PeteProdge wrote: ↑Wed Aug 14, 2019 7:27 am Robocop however, is a great game, even if you despise the film.)

Are there actually people out there that despise Robocop?!?! It's one of the best films to brilliantly take a stab at the whole 80's ethos of greed and power. Plus it's just a bloody (pun fully intended) good film.

Most of the early Activision released had a template loading screen with a standardised logo on top and credits at the bottom. (I never understood the need for including the French “par” in those credits BTW. Was there a Canadian connection perhaps?)

I couldn’t help noticing seeing all these titles listed in this poll that there are subtle differences in those screens depending on what company did the conversion.

All conversions by Software Conversions Ltd. have a bright yellow Activision logo:



Whereas all conversions by James Software Ltd. use a white Activision logo:



...Can I claim my Trainspotter award now?

Looks like I’m the only one who’s voted for The Eidolon. Too bad. I think it’s a pretty neat game.

Man, Activision has made a lot of (at best) mediocre stuff, it was real easy to vote for Enduro Racer.
I'm surprised that no one has voted for Dragon Breed though. That would've been my seconds choice.

I liked the arcade Dragon Breed, but looking at it again, it's not a great conversion. I think the sprites are actually a bit too big compared to the arcade, going by the relative size of sprites-to-screen, and the screen just fills up with no room to manouvre. And it's pretty slow and jerky. Again, it was maybe a bit too ambitious. Not exactly Bob Pape's finest. I suspect he was rushed, or maybe just too p*$$*d off after doing R-Type for Electric Dreams to really make a go of it!

St Dragon is better proportioned and a lot smoother on the Spectrum (although without the vertical scrolling and rather useless ability to dismount).

Joefish wrote: ↑Wed Aug 14, 2019 12:36 pm I liked the arcade Dragon Breed, but looking at it again, it's not a great conversion. I think the sprites are actually a bit too big compared to the arcade, going by the relative size of sprites-to-screen, and the screen just fills up with no room to manouvre. And it's pretty slow and jerky. Again, it was maybe a bit too ambitious. Not exactly Bob Pape's finest. I suspect he was rushed, or maybe just too p*$$*d off after doing R-Type for Electric Dreams to really make a go of it!

St Dragon is better proportioned and a lot smoother on the Spectrum (although without the vertical scrolling and rather useless ability to dismount).

It has been a while since I played it, but I do remember that the sprites are pretty big. Perhaps I should have a go at it again to see if I agree with you
But yes - the sizes of the sprites in St. Dragon are much more sensibly sized.

1. Enduro Racer
2. Wonderboy
3. Ghostbusters

1. Rampage
2. Enduro Racer
3. Hacker

Loved Rampage, great as a two player, I thought it just pipped Enduro Racer which is one of the best Speccy racing games.

The hardest decision was what to go for in 3rd place. After a bit of consideration I went for Hacker - a great idea for a game and a good atmosphere (once you manage to log in!).

Well, Enduro Racer has obliterated the others.

25 votes out of the 44 cast. That's 57%!

Its closest contender, sitting in second place, is Ghostbuster, with just 4 votes!

At third, with 3 votes, it's Rampage.

Then the ones with 2 votes each: Power Drift and River Raid.

And in joint fifth place, quite a lot with 1 vote each: Altered Beast; The Eidolon; H.E.R.O., Hacker, Hammerfist, Howard The Duck, Mindshadow and Wonder Boy.

A similar story over in the proportional vote...

33 Enduro Racer
13 Ghostbusters
7 Rampage
6 River Raid
5 Wonder Boy
2 AfterBurner
2 Hacker
1 H.E.R.O.
1 Pitfall II: Lost Caverns
1 Power Drift
1 Time Machine