The best Speccy game by Mastertronic: vote

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The best Speccy game by Mastertronic: vote

Poll ended at Sun Nov 03, 2019 9:56 am

1985 - The Day After
0
No votes
Action Biker
1
3%
Agent X
2
6%
Agent X II
0
No votes
Alcatraz Harry
0
No votes
Alien Kill
1
3%
BMX Racers
0
No votes
Bombfusion
0
No votes
Bosconian #87
0
No votes
Caves Of Doom
0
No votes
Chiller
0
No votes
Chronos
7
21%
Curse Of Sherwood, The
1
3%
Devil's Crown
1
3%
Dynatron Mission
0
No votes
Election
0
No votes
Empire Fights Back, The
0
No votes
Energy Warrior
0
No votes
Finders Keepers
7
21%
Future Games
0
No votes
Hotch Potch
0
No votes
Hyperbowl
1
3%
Incredible Shrinking Fireman
0
No votes
Jason's Gem
0
No votes
Kane
0
No votes
Kikstart 2
4
12%
Kobyashi Naru
0
No votes
Lap Of The Gods
1
3%
Level 5
0
No votes
Loco-Motion
1
3%
Magic Carpet
0
No votes
Majik
0
No votes
Master Chess
0
No votes
Milk Race
0
No votes
Mindtrap
0
No votes
Molecule Man
0
No votes
Motorbike Madness
0
No votes
Nonterraqueous
1
3%
Octagon Squad
0
No votes
Omega One
0
No votes
One Man And His Droid
0
No votes
Panther
0
No votes
Pippo
3
9%
Proof Of Destruction
0
No votes
Prowler
0
No votes
Pulse Warrior
0
No votes
Pulsoids
0
No votes
Rapid Fire
0
No votes
Rasterscan
0
No votes
Rentakill Rita
0
No votes
Rescue
1
3%
Reveal
0
No votes
Rifle Range
0
No votes
Robot Attack
0
No votes
Rockman
0
No votes
Rogue
0
No votes
Rollaround
0
No votes
Rookie
0
No votes
S.O.S.
0
No votes
Solar Invasion
0
No votes
Soul Of A Robot
0
No votes
Space Hunter
0
No votes
Space Walk
0
No votes
Specventure
1
3%
Speed King 2
0
No votes
Speed Zone
0
No votes
Star Farce
0
No votes
Storm
0
No votes
Super Nudge 2000
0
No votes
Super Trolley
0
No votes
Ticket To Ride
0
No votes
Type-Rope
0
No votes
Universal Hero
0
No votes
Vegas Jackpot
0
No votes
Venom
0
No votes
Viper III
0
No votes
Voyage Into The Unknown
0
No votes
Werewolves Of London
1
3%
Whodunnit
0
No votes
Zzzz
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 34

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PeteProdge
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The best Speccy game by Mastertronic: vote

Post by PeteProdge »

Right, to be clear, this is counting 'Mastertronic' as one of the budget giant's many brands, so yes, I'm excluding Bulldog, M.A.D, Mastertronic Plus, etc, as they'll have their own polls. There is scope for a combined 'all of Mastertronic's brands' poll at some point in the future, but not right now. It's taken me an age to list up ALL 80 original titles that full into these parameters.

Yep, we're going for original titles under the vanilla 'Mastertronic' brand. There are also 22 other games but they won't count because they're re-releases and I exclude them from these polls.

Although they didn't get quite the mainstream attention that full price software houses got from magazines (probably because their advertising spending was next to nothing), Mastertronic was an incredibly prolific software label, with - what I think is - the highest amount of games released (if you count all eight brands). I guess I'll be proven wrong in the replies, but hey, if they're not at the top, they're really close.

Here we go, I understand it'll take a long time for you lot to choose, there's just too much to pick from! A lot of turkeys, but some utter gems in there...

1985 - The Day After
ImageImage

Action Biker
ImageImage

Agent X
ImageImage

Agent X II
ImageImage

Alcatraz Harry
ImageImage

Alien Kill
ImageImage

BMX Racers
ImageImage

Bombfusion
ImageImage

Bosconian '87
ImageImage

Caves Of Doom
ImageImage

Chiller
ImageImage

Chronos
ImageImage

Curse Of Sherwood, The
Image

Devil's Crown
ImageImage

Dynatron Mission
ImageImage

Election
ImageImage

Empire Fights Back, The
ImageImage

Energy Warrior
ImageImage

Finders Keepers
ImageImage

Future Games
ImageImage

Hotch Potch
ImageImage

Hyperbowl
ImageImage

Incredible Shrinking Fireman
ImageImage

Jason's Gem
ImageImage

Kane
ImageImage

Kikstart 2
ImageImage

Kobyashi Naru
ImageImage

Lap Of The Gods
ImageImage

Level 5
ImageImage

Loco-Motion
ImageImage

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.php?cat=96&id=2978Magic Carpet
ImageImage

Majik
ImageImage

Master Chess
ImageImage

Milk Race
ImageImage

Mindtrap
ImageImage

Molecule Man
ImageImage

Motorbike Madness
ImageImage

Nonterraqueous
ImageImage

Octagon Squad
ImageImage

Omega One
ImageImage

One Man And His Droid
ImageImage

Panther
ImageImage

Pippo
ImageImage

Proof Of Destruction
ImageImage

Prowler
ImageImage

Pulse Warrior
ImageImage

Pulsoids
ImageImage

Rapid Fire
ImageImage

Rasterscan
ImageImage

Rentakill Rita
ImageImage

Rescue
ImageImage

Reveal
ImageImage

Rifle Range
ImageImage

Robot Attack
ImageImage

Rockman
ImageImage

Rogue
ImageImage

Rollaround
ImageImage

Rookie
ImageImage

S.O.S.
Image

Solar Invasion
ImageImage

Soul Of A Robot
ImageImage

Space Hunter
ImageImage

Space Walk
ImageImage

Specventure
ImageImage

Speed King 2
Image

Speed Zone
ImageImage

Star Farce
ImageImage

Storm
ImageImage

Super Nudge 2000
ImageImage

Super Trolley
ImageImage

Ticket To Ride
ImageImage

Type-Rope
ImageImage

Universal Hero
ImageImage

Vegas Jackpot
ImageImage

Venom
ImageImage

Viper III
ImageImage

Voyage Into The Unknown
ImageImage

Werewolves Of London
ImageImage

Whodunnit
ImageImage

Zzzz
ImageImage


For the completists, I'll list the 22 re-releases put under the 'Mastertronic' label, but you can't vote for them...
Adventures Of St. Bernard, The
Apollo 11
Bullseye (formerly Darts)
Camelot Warriors
Chuckman
Cid, El
Formula One Simulator (formerly Formula One)
Gnasher
Hundra
Kentilla
Legend Of The Amazon Women
Nonamed
Quest For The Golden Eggcup
Quest For The Holy Grail, The
Sailing
Sky Ranger
Spectipede
Stop Ball
Tank Trax
Video Olympics (formerly Video Olimpic)
Wizard's Warriors, The
Xcel

Poll concludes at 10am-ish Sunday 3rd November.
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stupidget
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Re: The best Speccy game by Mastertronic: vote

Post by stupidget »

Love Pippo.

1 - Pippo
2 - finders keepers
3 - Incredible shrinking fireman
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Morkin
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Re: The best Speccy game by Mastertronic: vote

Post by Morkin »

1. Finders Keepers
2. Rogue
3. Hyperbowl
My Speccy site: thirdharmoniser.com
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Re: The best Speccy game by Mastertronic: vote

Post by Firefox »

1. Nonterraqueous
2. Finders Keepers
3. Soul of a Robot
Hank Scorpio
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Re: The best Speccy game by Mastertronic: vote

Post by Hank Scorpio »

1. Werewolves of London
2. Finders Keepers
3. Speed King 2
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hitm4n
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Re: The best Speccy game by Mastertronic: vote

Post by hitm4n »

One of the greatest labels, its a super tough choice as all these below got plenty of play time from me... VERY tough to pick one.

Chronos
Empire Fights Back
Finders Keepers
Future Games
Incredible Shrinking Fireman
Jason's Gem
Loco-Motion
Nonterraqueous
One Man And His Droid
Pippo
Rasterscan
Rescue
Rockman
Universal Hero

Went with Finders Keepers.
I don't have anything cool to put here, so i'll just be off now to see a priest with yeast stuck between his teeth and his friend called Keith who's a hairpiece thief...
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Juan F. Ramirez
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Re: The best Speccy game by Mastertronic: vote

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

1 - Finders Keepers (love this kind of games)
2 - The Curse of Sherwood
3 - Speed King 2
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Metalbrain
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Re: The best Speccy game by Mastertronic: vote

Post by Metalbrain »

1 - Kikstart 2
2 - Star Farce
3 - Reveal
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Re: The best Speccy game by Mastertronic: vote

Post by Vampyre »

1. Kikstart 2
2. Rockman
3. Finders Keepers
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Dark
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Re: The best Speccy game by Mastertronic: vote

Post by Dark »

Mastertronic were a huge part of my growing up with the Spectrum, those yellow cassette cases definitely invoke a huge dose of nostalgia. Several games that mean a lot to me, Future Games, must have been one of the first games I got as it does hold a special place in my Spectrum memories, even if it wasn’t the best. The fact it was on a computer, which seemed futuristic, coupled with the artwork, it definitely had an out-worldly effect on me.

Another game that won’t go down in the annuals of history as anything special was Action Biker. But that didn’t stop me playing it loads, thinking that next time I might just maybe find Colin’s friend and get him to the airport, or whatever it was you were meant to do, my memory on that point is quite hazy now.

In the 80s I loved the ITV show, Robin of Sherwood, thus Robin Hood related games got a lot of playing time on my Spectrum. But I also think Curse of Sherwood was a great game, and I kept revisiting it as such. Don’t think I ever got close to completing it, same with Robin of the Wood and Super Robin Hood.

Agent X 2 seemed super cool to me, and I thought it had great music. No recollection of ever playing Agent X.

Kikstart 2 gets my vote though, especially for the ability to build your own courses, had a great time designing some real random ones.

My top 3 are:
1. Kikstart 2
2. Curse of Sherwood
3. Agent X 2
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Re: The best Speccy game by Mastertronic: vote

Post by Fahnn »

Kind of surprised that Loco-Motion doesn't have more love on here. For me, it's the absolute standout and still plays well today.

1. Loco-Motion
2. Finders Keepers
3. Kikstart 2
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Re: The best Speccy game by Mastertronic: vote

Post by Nick »

1. Curse Of Sherwood
2. Rockman
3. Pippo
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Re: The best Speccy game by Mastertronic: vote

Post by ZXDunny »

1. Finders Keepers
2. Kikstart 2
3. Agent X II

Christ that was a hard choice to make. Like Melbourne House, there was just so much win in their catalogue.
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Joefish
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Re: The best Speccy game by Mastertronic: vote

Post by Joefish »

Chronos is one of the best shoot-em-ups ever made for the Spectrum.
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Re: The best Speccy game by Mastertronic: vote

Post by Fahnn »

Joefish wrote: Tue Oct 29, 2019 12:40 am Chronos is one of the best shoot-em-ups ever made for the Spectrum.
I must admit that this completely passed me by at the time (a lot of these did to be honest), which is a real shame; I've had a quick glance at the walkthrough and it looks like it would have been right up my street.

Interestingly (at the time of writing) it has five votes and is in second place, but nobody who has posted a top 3 has included it in any position yet (OK, not very interesting really).
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PeteProdge
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Re: The best Speccy game by Mastertronic: vote

Post by PeteProdge »

Right, we find ourselves in a tie-breaker as two games have jointly received the top spot, with 7 votes each. That's Chronos and Finders Keepers.

In previous times, I'd have gone with another poll as a tie-break, so this would be Chronos vs Finders Keepers. However, as we now have an optional separate-but-complementary vote - the proportional 'top three' thing in the comments, we can go to that, and it shows Finders Keepers the clear winner.

Rather unusually...
Fahnn wrote: Tue Oct 29, 2019 4:18 pm Interestingly (at the time of writing) it [Chronos] has five votes and is in second place, but nobody who has posted a top 3 has included it in any position yet (OK, not very interesting really).
...this has remained the case. None of the top-three comments has included Chronos anywhere, it's literally got nothing in the proportional system! That's baffling.

Anyway, back to the main phpBB forum poll, in second place, with 4 votes, we have Kikstart 2. (Which should have won, you phillistines.)

Pippo has 3 votes, putting it in third place.

Agent X got 2 votes each, making it fourth placed. It's weird because that is another game not even mentioned in the top-three comments, yet its sequel has scored points (although nothing in the phpBB poll).

A lot of games jointly in fifth place, with 1 vote each: Action Biker; Alien Kill; Curse Of Sherwood; Devil's Crown; Hyperbowl; Lap Of The Gods; Loco-Motion; Nonterraqueous; Rescue; Specventure and Werewolves Of London.

Now, onto the bizarre results of that proportional poll...

Finders Keepers 18
Kikstart 2 12
Curse Of Sherwood, The 7
Pippo 4
Rockman 4
Loco-Motion 3
Nonterraqueous 3
Werewolves Of London 3
Agent X II 2
Rogue 2
Speed King 2 2
Star Farce 2
Hyperbowl 1
Incredible Shrinking Fireman 1
Reveal 1
Soul Of A Robot 1
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Re: The best Speccy game by Mastertronic: vote

Post by Vampyre »

Fair enough that Finders Keepers won. I think it was pretty much the first budget game that could be realistically compared to full-pricers, and is rightfully considered a classic.

Shame that Kikstart II didn't win as it's such a brilliant game, which was criminally underrated by most of the mags at the time. As a simultaneous two-player game it's right up there with Gauntlet and Bubble Bobble IMO.
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