Top 100 ZX Spectrum Games

[uglifruit]

Batty's brill, but you need a friend sitting next to you to blame when it all goes wrong. (In the fab 2-player simultaneous mode).

[Morkin]

Wasn't a big fan of Batty.

It was fairly impressive for a covertape game but I just found it far too difficult, was really struggling from screen 2 onwards. Much preferred the Arkanoids. But a lot of people seem to rate it quite highly.

[jdanddiet]

No 60 today: gunfright

Into the 50s!

[Juan F. Ramirez]

I enjoy Gunfright (and Nightshade) more nowadays than back in the day.

[jdanddiet]

three games released today!

59.Midnight Resistance
58.Deactivators
57.Rogue Trooper

[RWAC]

Midnight Resistance is fantastic!

Top tip: shoot the fish in the waterfalls on level 4 for extra lives!

[Morkin]

Not sure I've played Deactivators.

Midnight Resistance was a bit late in the Speccy's commercial years for me, I wasn't really playing much at that time.

Rogue Trooper I played a bit, it was refreshing to have a game that wasn't too hard to play.

[jdanddiet]

56: Jack The Nipper
55: Finders Keepers

[RWAC]

56: Jack The Nipper
55: Finders Keepers

I know I'm in the minority but I prefer Jack the Nipper 2.

[jdanddiet]

56: Jack The Nipper
55: Finders Keepers

I know I'm in the minority but I prefer Jack the Nipper 2.

Be boring if we all liked the same games

[jdanddiet]

No 54 today is...Impossible Mission

[cmal]

Yet another game I haven't played yet. So many games, so little time...

[stupidget]

No 54 today is...Impossible Mission

This was one of those games that, for some reason, was really popular at my school and did the rounds on the 'tape 2 tape' market. Took me ages to get a working copy.

[blucey]

Universal Hero (at 69) is a rough one. It's so good at first but the puzzles get really obscure and by the end it is no fun at all.

Myth would deffo make my top ten and the only Ultimate games in my top 100 would be Trans-Am (but it'd be low) and Jet-Pac (somewhere in the 50s).

Enjoying the list though!

[Juan F. Ramirez]

Speaking of Impossible Mission, a question to people who has played it properly... Is part 2 worth playing it? Is it better? worse?

[jdanddiet]

No 53: Night Gunner

[jdanddiet]

Speaking of Impossible Mission, a question to people who has played it properly... Is part 2 worth playing it? Is it better? worse?

To be honest never played it either!

[toot_toot]

Speaking of Impossible Mission, a question to people who has played it properly... Is part 2 worth playing it? Is it better? worse?

Part 2 is still good but in a way it just suffers from being a sequel where everything is ramped up to 11. It’s just too big and sprawling, because bigger is better - right? Wrong! The colour palette also used is absolutely horrible - even on the C64 original it’s disgusting!

And to be honest, if you’re going to play Impossible Mission, it has to be the original C64 versions. That and Pitstop II were the two games I was really jealous of my C64 owning friend. I was so happy when it was announced that impossible mission was being made for the humble spectrum! But there’s something missing... it might be the sound fx which is incredible on the c64. It’s a pity someone hasn’t done a 128k version with AY sound and speech. That would be amazing.

Also the spectrum version can be literally an impossible mission (I never completed it back in the day, despite getting a C64 later on and completing it on the C64 many times as it’s not that difficult).

Sometimes the game cannot be completed because puzzle pieces may be placed underneath certain computer terminals, which the player cannot search (since attempting to do so will access the terminal). Technically the locations of the computer terminals are stored in a table at address $b8c4, so the game code can avoid these locations when distributing lift inits, snoozers and puzzles randomly.

However this table stores the location of a chest of drawers instead of a computer terminal in room $18 by mistake, so a puzzle may be placed underneath that computer terminal. Also this table stores the location of 44 computer terminals, but the routine at address $a32f only copies 43 locations, so another puzzle may be placed underneath the last computer terminal in room $1f.

Fixed using POKE 41780,44: POKE 47332,202

But if you haven’t played it, definitely give it a try. It’s the sort of game that you don’t really get much these days. If you like it then also give the Master System version a go (maybe even the definitive version) and the DS remake that came out. There was also a sequel in the Amiga/CD32 but it’s more level based and the levels are huuuuuuge.

(Fun fact about Impossible Mission II. It was written by Novatrade who would also create Ecco the Dolphin on the Megadrive. I’ve often wondered what the back story to this was and why a Hungarian company with little reference to Epyx developed it. The colour palette used on the C64 even makes me think it might have been developed on the Spectrum first, maybe as a knock off and then submitted to Epyx as a sequel?)

[toot_toot]

56: Jack The Nipper
55: Finders Keepers

I know I'm in the minority but I prefer Jack the Nipper 2.

They’re definitely two very different games, but the sequel was almost like an easier (and maybe more fun) version of the Monty Mole or Dynamite Dan games. You also have to wonder if the sequel started off with another character and if Gremlin thought about making it a Jack the Nipper game in order to sell more copies!

[blucey]

For me, Movie is marred by its icon control system. I'm not sure why it was necessary to make what could've been simple controls frustratingly difficult to use.

And I'm with @RWAC re: The Sentinel - I think I managed to absorb a thing or two, but found it completely confusing and couldn't get off the first level.

Years after the hype, I picked up The Sentinel at a car boot thing and played it. Took a while to figure it out but I eventually beat the first level, enjoying it thoroughly, and then stopped and never even played the second. Very odd but I felt like it'd be better to stop there instead of trying to beat thousands of levels.

[uglifruit]

Years after the hype, I picked up The Sentinel at a car boot thing and played it. Took a while to figure it out but I eventually beat the first level, enjoying it thoroughly, and then stopped and never even played the second. Very odd but I felt like it'd be better to stop there instead of trying to beat thousands of levels.

You 'skip as many levels as you have energy left at the end' meaning you're never going to have to play all the levels. Although there are sill a ridiculous amount to tackle.

[Morkin]

55: Finders Keepers

An enjoyable game, a nice mix of arcade elements and puzzles/objects. Quite liked the way the game incorporated both platforms and the scrolling maze. Preferred playing it to the sequels, as I tended to die of exhaustion/hunger once I started getting anywhere. Pretty impressive for its price at the time.

Did anything happen re: the remake? I remember David Jones discussing it on WoS yonks ago. I think a few tweaks to some of those awkward platform/enemy placements were being considered, as well as 128k enhancements IIRC. Would've been cool.

[RWAC]

55: Finders Keepers

An enjoyable game, a nice mix of arcade elements and puzzles/objects. Quite liked the way the game incorporated both platforms and the scrolling maze. Preferred playing it to the sequels, as I tended to die of exhaustion/hunger once I started getting anywhere.

Me too, except I never managed to get anywhere!

[jdanddiet]

A spooky number 52 yesterday: ghosts n Goblins.

51: harrier attack

Almost time for a 50 game recap!

[RWAC]

Ooh, it's like Top of the Pops!