Spectrum Computing

It's been rather tricky to suss out what original ZX Spectrum games come out under the Hit-Pak label - a compilation/budget brand used by Elite that also dabbled with rereleases from itself, Durell, Faster Than Light and others...

Thanks to this forum, I've determined that these are the six games that originally came out as Hit-Pak titles...

3DC


Airwolf II


Battleships


Batty


Duet


Great Gurianos


Usual thing applies. Seven days from this post, the poll concludes.

Went for Duet.

Might have gone for Batty if it weren't for the difficulty spike(s) so early in the game.

1. Batty
2. Battleships
3. Duet

1 - 3DC
2 - Batty
3 - Duet

I chose 3DC as I love isometric adventures (as this is a cool one). Batty is a good Arkanoid clone (or is Arkanoid a good Batty clone???) and Duet, not being a deserved Commando sequel (teorethically) is cool to play.

1 :: Batty
2 :: Battleships

Haven’t played any of the others!

Went for Batty as it's the only one I've played.

Voted for 3DC.

1. Batty
2. Duet
3. Battleships

1. Great Gurianos
2. Batty
3. 3DC

Duet was a 'surprise' sequel to Commando wasn't it? Nowhere near as good though.

I came back after realising I'd forgotten to give my #2 and #3 votes but it looks like Batty is running away with it..!

For what it's worth:

1. Duet
2. Batty
3. Battleships

No surprise at all to see Batty clear up here. It is a massive landslide victory though, 22 votes, securing 73%! Yep, an utterly stupendous game, the best Breakout clone on the Speccy in my view, even beating things like the Arkanoid efforts. And you could have got it originally for £1.50 on the front of Your Sinclair. Absolutely jaw-dropping!

3DC is the second-placed game, with 3 votes.

Duet and Great Gurianos get 2 votes each, to secure a joint 3rd place.

Then there's Battleships in 4th place, with 1 vote.

No love whatsoever for Airwolf II!

On the proportionals...

12 Batty
7 Duet
4 3DC
4 Battleships
3 Great Gurianos

Still no love whatsoever for Airwolf II!

Oddly I really got into 3DC back in the day. I had that compilation with Great Gurianos (decent but famously has no ending) and Airwolf 2 (which was playable enough). I'm not a fan of isometric adventure games at all but for some reason this one caught my imagination. It was bloody hard though. Nice to see it get some votes.

I seem to remember Duet being half decent.

DouglasReynholm wrote: ↑Tue Sep 03, 2019 4:15 pm 1. Great Gurianos
2. Batty
3. 3DC

Duet was a 'surprise' sequel to Commando wasn't it? Nowhere near as good though.

It was originally previewed as "Commando 87" in Your Sinclair and I'm sure Elite were hoping to do a "Bomb Jack II" by slapping the Commando name on an unrelated game. I think they were also going to try the same thing with "Beyond the Ice Palace", which I'm sure really started off as Elite's Ghosts n Goblins 2...

(or if the rumour is true with Bomb Jack II, taking the original Thundercats game and changing the name- Check out the C64 version with a theme tune that's remarkably similar to something else... and the sprite looks like a certain human-like-cat...)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ff_qqr-e1Aw&t=35s

Command 87, I mean Duet, might not have been very good, but it was a nice as a "Gratis" game on the 6-Pak compilation, which was already a nice compilation anyway!