Spectrum Computing

Surprised Firelord hasn't got any vote yet.

I thought this thread would be a Fairlight/Firelord fight.

I've gone for Formula One.

Ace game, especially considering I don't really follow Formula One.

Some other good games in there - had to think about it a while.

Went for Formula One, spent a lot of time playing that against the Spectrum, and against friends on occasion. Could lose whole afternoons to completing a couple of seasons of that.

But it was a tough choice as I could say the same for Football Manager. While Fantasy World Dizzy was my favourite of the Dizzy games, and I did manage to complete it, something that I was very happy with back in the day.

I had Feud and played it many times, but really got nowhere with it, and at the time struggled to work out why people raved about it so much. Recently I have read that people marked it down as a classic because it was too easy!! I’ll need to revisit that when I get my Next and see if I can work out where I was going wrong all those years ago.

Freddy Hardest is the one I played most, I was atrocious at it, I think I made it underground once. It's not quite special enough to warrant best though.

I narrowed it down to these, high quality and groundbreaking.

Fairlight, FEUD, Finders Keepers.

Fairlight it is.

(Sorry JuanF)

Some very poor quality voting in this category.

I don't think we need a tiebreaker vote this time, Fairlight is clearly the winner.

*sigh*

Bit tough again. There is no denying the technical achievement of Fairlight but it was a game which I never really got into and it so it would feel wrong voting for it.

There are a few games on the list which I know I have sunk a considerable amount of time into over the years, including one of them before the ZX Spectrum, but in the end I have to go for Formula One. That game got a lot of playing time for a few years including the first all-night gaming session for me and some friends.

I think the charm of Fairlight is the chance of exploring a beautifully detailed castle, looking for what's in the next screen. Lovely game.

Looks like Isvar's got it.

Wow! Amazing!

Voted for Frankie Goes To Hollywood.

As Fairlight has an unassailable lead, I was tempted to vote for Fahrenheit 3000. I loved listening to the beeper title music rendition of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor and once you got your head around the jumping mechanic - you can ricochet off the walls if you jump into them - it was a nice little Jet Set Willy clone.

However, Frankie got my vote as it's a memorable game for me. It has an atmosphere unlike anything else I've played on the Spectrum. During the initial scenes where you're wondering through the houses, there's a real sense of something not quite right - and then the pop up windows appear and whisk you away to play several mini games as you try to become a real person. Items that you find in the 'real world' can help you out in the mini games. The graphics are colourful and the sheer amount of stuff packed into 48k (including a beeper cover of Two Tribes) is impressive. Did I mention you get to solve a murder part way through the game too? God knows what Ocean were thinking when they bought the license for Frankie. I'd love to have been a fly on the wall at Denton Designs when they came up with the game and when Denton actually delivered this to Ocean. It's easily one of Ocean's best licenses as it's like nothing else on the Spectrum. Just be thankful it wasn't done later on when Ocean's licenses tended to be more conventional side scrolling affairs - you'd be guiding your character through that club in the Relax video on level one avoiding 'liquids'.

Voted for Frankie Goes To Hollywood.

That was really a weird game. Too weird for me to follow its logic and enjoy it.

But it's very unique. I suppose that if you can get through the weirdness, there is some good game hidden

This is a toughie. Even though I put Fahrenheit 3000 forward I loved Fairlight, Frank Bruno's Boxing and Full Throttle. In the end I've gone with Fairlight purely based on the fact that it was a piece of technical genius. I loved the way that when you killed a guard you could push his helmet somewhere else and when you went back into that room that's where the guard will be rather than the room being reset. Giving object weight and actual real world physics was amazing at the time. I remember me and my mate actually finishing it and seeing the message 'Your Quest Continues in a Trail of Darkness'. Brilliant.

Firelord was also pretty impressive and I loved the 'shwing' sword sound effect on the title screen. Finder Keepers was one of the first Mastertronic games I bought and I didn't have a clue what I was supposed to do

Well, it's a runaway win for Fairlight, getting more than twice the votes of the second-placed game.

Fairlight wins with 12 votes.
Formula One comes second with 5 votes.
Choking in the dust with 2 votes each, we have Feud; Firefly and Frank N Stein.
And then, with 1 vote each... F16 Combat Pilot; Fast Food; Fantasy World Dizzy; Finders Keepers; Fist II; Flight Simulation; Football Manager; The Forest; Frankie Goes To Hollywood; Fred and Future Knight.

A fair win.

Bring on the G thread!

I'm suprised it was so clear cut, I thought Football Manager, FEUD, Finders Keepers and Firelord would be contenders.

Lots of mentions of Fahrenheit 3000 but no votes, I want to like it, it sounds like I just need to try harder.

redballoon wrote: ↑Sun Mar 11, 2018 12:35 pm Looks like Isvar's got it.

Is this great picture exists, as a scr file?

Is this great picture exists, as a scr file?

It can't be saved as scr as scr is always 256x192 pixels (size of Spectrum screen) and this one is bigger.

A central part of it, saved as scr can be found here:

https://zxart.ee/eng/authors/c/craig-st ... airlight8/

R-Tape wrote: ↑Mon Mar 12, 2018 4:01 pm Lots of mentions of Fahrenheit 3000 but no votes, I want to like it, it sounds like I just need to try harder.

If I was playing this for the first time on an emulator I would have given up on it too as the first screen is rather unforgiving. I only persevered with it as I'd spent my pocket money on it and had a lot more free time back then.

Pegaz wrote: ↑Mon Mar 12, 2018 4:04 pm Is this great picture exists, as a scr file?

Ralf wrote: It can't be saved as scr as scr is always 256x192 pixels (size of Spectrum screen) and this one is bigger.

A central part of it, saved as scr can be found here:

https://zxart.ee/eng/authors/c/craig-st ... airlight8/

Thanks! It's actually 3 SCRs stitched together to make 1 large Spectrum pixel illustration. Ralf's right in that you can get the original central part off the illustration as an SCR but I see Diver has converted some of my larger Spectrum illustrations into CH$ format, which is pretty aces! Thanks, Diver, if you read this! I'm not sure how that's done, though.

I would have voted for Fred, probably.