Spectrum Computing

Alessandro wrote: ↑Sat Jul 25, 2020 11:55 am
You forgot my Seto Taisho Vs Yokai, Seto Taisho To Kazan, Doom Pit, Cousin Horace, Funky Fungus Reloaded (as part of the Play On Retro cartridge) and (announced, to be released within this year) Sophia and Sophia II.

Apart from the shameless plug, there's been too much emphasis on physical releases in the last 2-3 years. Being released on cassette is not a guarantee of being a "classic", whatever that might be. I totally agree with @Nienn Heskil upon this.

Yes, sorry, I mentioned Doom Pit, but I forgot all the others. Anyway it was just to emphasize that there are lots of physical releases nowadays, but obviously that's not a requirement for being a classic. There's dozens of impressive Spectrum games never released on physical. I also agree with [mention]Nienn Heskil[/mention] comments.

Sorry [mention]Audionautas[/mention], it seems I failed to locate Doom Pit mentioned in that long string of names

Anyway, just to remain within the topic: I don't think Top 100 lists or "best" lists of any kind are of any "real" worth. As you noticed too, it is a highly subjective matter. In my Annual I picked 25 games which I reckoned to be the most interesting of 2019 in my opinion, and even assigned them some ratings, Michelin guide-style. However I always underlined that it is my personal opinion, motivated of course, but still subjective. No one is obliged to agree

Nienn Heskil wrote: ↑Sat Jul 25, 2020 9:33 amIf you just want to ask, 'if there were any good games released commercially since 1991?', then the answer is, 'yes, plenty - in countries all over the world'.

Heh, this reminds me of an article I once read, I think it was called "The 500 best music albums of all time" or so, and about 490 of them had lyrics in the English language or were from one of the countries where English is a native language. So obviously music that isn't in English isn't worth it then, eh?

RWAC wrote: ↑Sat Jul 25, 2020 10:02 am Not as crazy as All or Nothing at no.3.

And Stop the Express at No. 4... A good game, that I enjoyed, but the fourth best Speccy game of all time?

Rev_Stuart_Campbell wrote: ↑Sat Jul 25, 2020 11:25 am I was pretty sure everyone knew what I meant by "COMMERCIAL releases, not homebrew stuff", but clearly not

Some people (and apparently a lot of them) refuse to understand the simplest things if it doesn't fit their own narrative

Audionautas wrote: ↑Sat Jul 25, 2020 11:22 am

Rev_Stuart_Campbell wrote: ↑Fri Jul 24, 2020 11:23 pm
But did any true Speccy classics get released after it? I'm talking about COMMERCIAL RELEASES here, not homebrew stuff, which is a whole other matter. I'm struggling to think of much that came out after 1991 that would genuinely merit inclusion in a 2021 YS Top 100. Anyone?

Hi

You're talking about "Commercial releases" referring to physical releases, right? In that case there is a lot of commercial games released that way in small batches of hundreds at the most in recent years, obviously not even close to the 80s and early 90s when a game release had thousands of copies, but commercial releases after all. Here is a list of some games with physical version. Classics? I don't know, it's up to each person.

The Sword of Ianna, Los Amores de Brunilda, Carlos Michelis, Twilight - The Land of Shadows, Invasion of the Zombie Monsters, Aliens Neoplasma, Ninjajar!, Cray 5, Castlevania - Spectral Interlude, Ooze, More Tea, Vicar?, Stronghold, Alter Ego, Metal Man Reloaded, Splattr, La Corona Encantada, Gluf, Mighty Final Fight, Mister Kung-Fu, Yazzie, Old Tower, Robots Rumble, The Dark, Tourmaline, Valley of Rains (soon to be released), Gandalf, Double Bubble, The Prayer of the Warrior (cover inlay of the physical edition not included on ZXDB), Black & White, Vampire Vengeance, Retroforce, Genesis - Dawn of a New Day, El Stompo, Zombie Calavera Prologue, Pentacorn Quest, Curse of the Night (Kliatba Noci), Quadrax, Sherwood, Towdie, Vallation, Pietro Bros, Dreamwalker: Alter Ego 2, Lirus, Thieves School (Escuela de Ladrones), Laetitia, Dead Flesh Boy, Karlos, Dirty Dozer, The Dark Hospital, Multitude, Ninjakul 2: The Last Ninja, Qbox, Tiki Taca, The Curse of Trazmoz, The Curse of Rabenstein, ZX Larry, Wanderers - Chained in the Dark, Doom Pit, Sam Mallard and dozens more.

How could I forget Castlevania from my list? I even translated it to portuguese

I think "classic" are only games that were published comercially while the Spectrum was in market (1982-1992).

Alessandro wrote: ↑Sat Jul 25, 2020 2:05 pm Sorry @Audionautas, it seems I failed to locate Doom Pit mentioned in that long string of names

Anyway, just to remain within the topic: I don't think Top 100 lists or "best" lists of any kind are of any "real" worth. As you noticed too, it is a highly subjective matter. In my Annual I picked 25 games which I reckoned to be the most interesting of 2019 in my opinion, and even assigned them some ratings, Michelin guide-style. However I always underlined that it is my personal opinion, motivated of course, but still subjective. No one is obliged to agree

No problem Alessandro.

I totally agree, lists are a completely subjetive matter, but in the end a lot of people loves lists and I think it happens that way because we like to see to what extent the lists fit our opinion or our likings or not. For example I agreed in many ratings of your list in your Annual, but not in others (Aliens: Neoplasma for example , and that's great. The world would be a very boring place if everyone had the same opinions, feelings or likings.

One of the things that interests me most about lists is that they are like a snapshot of a moment in time, they are like a survey in a way. We can see that on the WoS Top 100. What were the games people loved up to 2013-14 (last time Martijn updated WoS)? The same goes to YS Top 100 Speccy Games of All Time. It's a great historical portrait of what people voted back in 1991. Many conclusions can be drawn from these kinds of lists.

I'm pretty sure that today, with a huge number of great homebrew games released, a new Top 100 list would be very interesting.

All the best.

I just checked the archive from *ahem* commercial releases from 1992 onwards and there are very few games.

In some cases the company didn't release any title that year (Imagine) or released only compilations (Elite or Dinamic). The only games I could find were Space Crusade, Bonanza Bros., Robocop 3, The Adams Family or Space Gun, games that I've hardly played them. Definitely not a good year for commercial software.

Anyway, as to YS list, I'm missing games like Hero Quest (included in the readers list), Cyclone, Movie, any Level 9 adventure or a Dinamic game, but I reckon it's difficult to make a list like that.

Juan F. Ramirez wrote: ↑Sat Jul 25, 2020 6:28 pm I just checked the archive from *ahem* commercial releases from 1992 onwards and there are very few games.

There were a few decent game released but certainly nothing that should be included in a Top 100 list.

akeley wrote: ↑Sat Jul 25, 2020 9:47 am The preposterousness of Deathchase being #1 makes this angle completely irrelevant.

The very next issue, Deathchase appeared on the YS Covertape. Yes, they had secured the best spectrum game in the world! A cynical person might raise an eyebrow at this. Not me though, I believe in the integrity of Your Sinclair and Mr Campbell.

Rev_Stuart_Campbell wrote: ↑Sat Jul 25, 2020 6:07 pm
"Classic" just means "a great game that would have been in the chart if it had been released in time".

"COMMERCIAL" means "released by a company who were making games as a business, not somebody who wrote a game for fun 20 years after the Speccy died but happened to make a print run of 50 copies on tape".

But it's clearly far too late to explain that now

Ultrasoft in Slovakia made games as a business until 1995. They also published a magazine called BIT and were distributors in Czech Republic and Slovakia of Ocean, U.S. Gold, Domark and some others, but there business was by mail-order only. I read somewhere that several of their games sold hundreds of copies. Maybe you should check their catalogue, there's a couple of gems hidden there.

On the other hand if you're looking for "COMMERCIAL games" that also were considered "CLASSICS" between 1991 and let's say 1993 good luck! Today I've been reviewing 1991 just to check what it was released that year and the amount of crap games is considerable (Pit Fighter, Final Fight, Cisco Heat, Hydra, Mercs, Out Run Europa, Terminator 2, Skull & Crossbones just to name a few calamities), even if in some cases they were praised by magazines at the time. Those ratings were not real anymore, you just can't compare a 1985 or 1986 Crash Smash to a 1991 or 1992 Crash Smash. Sadly the vast majority of the best Speccy games released in 1991-93 have never been considered "classics" because the Speccy had lost a big part of its fanbase by that time and a huge number of people didn't played those games until emulators popularised in the 90s, so the people never knew those games existed back in the day. Sales were getting lower. Also, a lot of the games were simply ports of 16 bit titles, not designed with the Spectrum in mind, or they simply were budget games for children with an easy and repetitive gameplay seen on previous games a hundred of times. So, very few chances those games became "classics".

IMHO in 1991 you can still find some really good games: Extreme, Battle Command, F-16 Combat Pilot, Heroquest, The Light Corridor, Lone Wolf, Navy Seals, Night Shift, North & South, Pick 'n Pile, Rod Land, SWIV, Switchblade or Zona 0. There were also some OK games like Back to the Future III, Alien Storm, Super Monaco GP, Darkman, Exterminator, Gauntlet III, Hudson Hawk, Lemmings, Loopz, Shadow Dancer and a few others. By 1992 the number of games released dropped dramatically. So, according to your conception of "Commercial games" is not easy to find any "classic game" in the "twilight" years of our beloved machine.

All the best!

Rev_Stuart_Campbell wrote: ↑Sat Jul 25, 2020 8:56 pm

RWAC wrote: ↑Sat Jul 25, 2020 6:53 pm The very next issue, Deathchase appeared on the YS Covertape. Yes, they had secured the best spectrum game in the world! A cynical person might raise an eyebrow at this. Not me though, I believe in the integrity of Your Sinclair and Mr Campbell.

I can categorically assure you that nobody but me had any input into the Top 100 and the decision to get Deathchase for the covertape was only taken AFTER I'd made it No.1. As a freelancer I had nothing to do with any of that stuff.

Good to know!

Incidentally, whose idea was it to print the feature in black and white? A lot of the games had vibrant graphics and black and white doesn't really do them justice.