The best Speccy game by Hit-Pak: discussion

[PeteProdge]

Another budget spin-off from a major full-price label. This time it's Elite's presumed 'B-grade' efforts that are under the spotlight.

Hit-Pak was a brand used for the compilations of Elite's games (which sometimes contained games from other publishers they reached a deal with, like Durrell and Domark). I think it was later used as a budget label.

Now, Battleships is a bit of an anomaly. Originally meant to go out as a full price game with the Elite logo, it apparently reviewed badly, so Elite held it back, then put it out as a budget release. Except, it didn't come out packaged in the Hit-Pak branding, although the loading screen certainly references Hit-Pak. Elite bizarrely put it out as an Encore release, implying (wrongly) that it had been out at full price. Hey, not the first re-release label to do such a thing, but with the loading screen mentioning Hit-Pak, could this be considered a Hit-Pak game?

I've included it in my list. If you call it an Encore game, well, that means considering Encore as a poll, but then, that's immediately concluded by the fact that Battleships is likely the ONLY original release on that label, so it wins by default.

All a bit unusual, and so, these are what I consider to be the five ZX Spectrum games from Hit-Pak...

3DC
Airwolf II
Battleships
Batty
Great Gurianos

Let the disagreements begin!

[Hank Scorpio]

I predict that Batty will run away with this one.

[DouglasReynholm]

Batty was great, wasn't it given away free on a YS cover tape before it was even sold? Great Gurianos was a lot of fun too, port of a little known Taito game as I remember it.

[Ast A. Moore]

Batty obviously is a great game. Probably the best ball-and-bricks game out there. Battle Ships was pretty damn good too, though. Spent a lot of time playing it against the Speccy or my brother. Will decide during the actual vote.

[spider]

Another vote for Batty here, although the first time I saw it was when it was on a cover tape.

If memory serves that might of been its release, I never saw it before then anyway. I think it was also the first and maybe last time I saw that curious uni-load too, thankfully easily taken to bits

Its very good even now but a bit too tough especially with the aliens altering the ball pathway (note to self: try to figure a poke out to remove the aliens)

I tried the versions on other platforms a while back actually, the Amstrad one is quite good the CBM one less so but the Speccy version is the winner between the three simply as it 'feels' better somehow. Not that this sentence is really too relevant to this topic I know.

[StooB]

Now, Battleships is a bit of an anomaly. Originally meant to go out as a full price game with the Elite logo, it apparently reviewed badly, so Elite held it back, then put it out as a budget release. Except, it didn't come out packaged in the Hit-Pak branding, although the loading screen certainly references Hit-Pak. Elite bizarrely put it out as an Encore release, implying (wrongly) that it had been out at full price. Hey, not the first re-release label to do such a thing, but with the loading screen mentioning Hit-Pak, could this be considered a Hit-Pak game?

Battleships is Hit-Pak - released on the Best of Elite Volume 2 before the Encore release. [mention]druellan[/mention] has marked this as reviewed so I'm not sure why it's still wrong.

I've included it in my list. If you call it an Encore game, well, that means considering Encore as a poll, but then, that's immediately concluded by the fact that Battleships is likely the ONLY original release on that label, so it wins by default.

Spitfire is an original Encore release, and possibly Mike Read's Pop Quiz too.

[PeteProdge]

Now, Battleships is a bit of an anomaly. Originally meant to go out as a full price game with the Elite logo, it apparently reviewed badly, so Elite held it back, then put it out as a budget release. Except, it didn't come out packaged in the Hit-Pak branding, although the loading screen certainly references Hit-Pak. Elite bizarrely put it out as an Encore release, implying (wrongly) that it had been out at full price. Hey, not the first re-release label to do such a thing, but with the loading screen mentioning Hit-Pak, could this be considered a Hit-Pak game?

Battleships is Hit-Pak - released on the Best of Elite Volume 2 before the Encore release. @druellan has marked this as reviewed so I'm not sure why it's still wrong.

I'm writing this after the response I gave to you in the Elite thread. First off, thank you, you've got it right again. Battleships will be treated as Hit-Pak.

So, from my current perspective this means Encore only put out one new ZX Spectrum game - Mike Read's Pop Quiz...

I've included it in my list. If you call it an Encore game, well, that means considering Encore as a poll, but then, that's immediately concluded by the fact that Battleships is likely the ONLY original release on that label, so it wins by default.

Spitfire is an original Encore release, and possibly Mike Read's Pop Quiz too.

That's an interesting one. An unreleased Durell game getting a debut on Encore. Right, in that case, it joins Mike Read's Pop Quiz for an Encore poll!

As said on the Elite discussion (when I thought the Encore poll would be Battleships vs Pop Quiz), it's going to be just two games! I'll save it for a fortnight's time.

[Juan F. Ramirez]

Being 3DC a cute isometric adventure, I think Batty stands out of the list.

[spider]

Being 3DC a cute isometric adventure, I think Batty stands out of the list.

The latter is very difficult though! TBH a lot of it is the ball speed I think.

[druellan]

Battleships is Hit-Pak - released on the Best of Elite Volume 2 before the Encore release. @druellan has marked this as reviewed so I'm not sure why it's still wrong.

Yes! It is already fixed and ready to be merged to the next ZXDB update

[toot_toot]

Mike Reid's Pop Quiz was definitely released full price by Elite, I used to have a copy of it years ago (although it's long gone now)

Here's the Your Sinclair review of the full price version

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/mag.php ... 63&page=87

As it's been said, Spitfire was going to originally be released by Durell back in 1987, here's a preview here:

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/mag.php ... 44&page=12

When Elite Systems bought out Durell, it included Spitfire but it was decided to release it as a budget game on Encore.

(I always personally thought of it as being a pseudo sequel to Harrier Attack. Operation Hormuz, which was written by "Durell" but published by Again Again is also another pseudo sequel with it being very similar in gameplay).

Another game that you could technically add to the list is Duet, or Commando 87 as it was originally called.

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=1534

It was previewed in Your Sinclair again back in 87

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/mag.php ... 34&page=10

However, it wasn't released until it was included in the Hit Pak compilation 6-Pak

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=11197

It's marked as being an Elite Systems game, but I think technically it would be a Hit-Pak game.

[PeteProdge]

Another vote for Batty here, although the first time I saw it was when it was on a cover tape.

Yeah, Batty debuted on one of the early Your Sinclair covertapes, back when it was an original game per tape, a while before covertapes became crammed with all kinds of things.

It's pretty odd that it got a release about a year later as a £2.99 budget game. After all, in October 1987, there it was, strapped to a £1.50 edition of Your Sinclair!

[PeteProdge]

Mike Reid's Pop Quiz was definitely released full price by Elite, I used to have a copy of it years ago (although it's long gone now)

Here's the Your Sinclair review of the full price version

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/mag.php ... 63&page=87

Yes, but some magazine reviews would take place prior to a release.

I can't see any evidence for the ZX Spectrum version of Mike Read's Pop Quiz coming out full price under the Elite label.

As it's been said, Spitfire was going to originally be released by Durell back in 1987, here's a preview here:
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/mag.php ... 44&page=12
When Elite Systems bought out Durell, it included Spitfire but it was decided to release it as a budget game on Encore.

Yes, as it stands, Spitfire and Mike Read's Pop Quiz will be the only two games for the Encore poll.

Another game that you could technically add to the list is Duet, or Commando 87 as it was originally called.
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=1534
It was previewed in Your Sinclair again back in 87
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/mag.php ... 34&page=10
However, it wasn't released until it was included in the Hit Pak compilation 6-Pak
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=11197
It's marked as being an Elite Systems game, but I think technically it would be a Hit-Pak game.

Yep, as stands, it's going into the Hit-Pak poll..

HIT-PAK
3DC
Airwolf II
Battleships
Batty
Duet
Great Gurianos

ENCORE
Spitfire
Mike Read's Pop Quiz

[hitm4n]

Batty or the insanely hard Airwolf. Batty it is.

Someone said "maybe the best ball and bats game out there". Well maybe at the time but over the years, Megaball 3.0 AGA on the Amiga is my most loved Breakout clone, it had it all, but i guess thats for the Amiga forums of the world...

[Morkin]

Thought Batty was OK but level 3 was a right git of a difficulty spike.