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Who..err...what did you cheat on your Spectrum with back in the day?

Posted: Sat Nov 25, 2017 12:23 pm
by Uto
Which other 8 bit computers, either because you owned them or cause a friend had them did you play a lot with, letting down your Spectrum for a while?

I had a Spectrum, and it was my "first love", but I also had a friend who had an Amstrad CPC and I played a lot in that CPC464. I vaguely used also a C64 from a cousin, and both a CPC6128 and a PCW8256 from some neighbors, but only my friend's CPC464 was used a lot, at least until the 16bits age came.

Note: cheating on your Spectrum with other Spectrums is not actually cheating ;-D

Re: Who..err...what did you cheat on your Spectrum with back in the day?

Posted: Sat Nov 25, 2017 2:14 pm
by Rorthron
All of my friends had Spectrums, so I was pretty faithful. I had a cousin who had a Dragon 32 and swore it was better than the Spectrum for about two years until he dumped it and got a C64. He went very quiet about the Dragon after that. In the Dragon's defence I preferred its version of Donkey Kong to Kong on the Spectrum. But that was about it.

Re: Who..err...what did you cheat on your Spectrum with back in the day?

Posted: Sat Nov 25, 2017 2:22 pm
by R-Tape
A school colleague had a C64, I remember being jealous of the graphics. That was all forgotten when not long after there was Xenon to drool over on my cousin's ST.

I don't think anyone had a CPC, if they did they kept it secret.

Re: Who..err...what did you cheat on your Spectrum with back in the day?

Posted: Sat Nov 25, 2017 4:52 pm
by PeteProdge
A friend boasted that he had a Commodore 64. In reality, it was his older brother's. I remember Bubble Bobble being really good on it, but then, it was great on all the platforms I tried it on, so nothing jealousy-inducing there. Renegade was utter dreck.

Another friend had the Amstrad CPC 464+ package with the green screen from Dixons. Head Over Heels looked beautiful on that system.

Yet another friend had the Acorn Electron, and I was gobsmacked at the speed of the bullets in Commando. Slower than a slug in a bath full of superglue, as you can see in ChinnyVision's all-formats review here.

Towards the fag end of the Spectrum's commercial life, one family I knew had a Sega Mega Drive, and frankly, Golden Axe was absolute perfection on that system. Even better than the arcade. Other great titles were Double Dragon and the Streets Of Rage trilogy. Never did go a bundle on Sonic, although Dr Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine is absolute quality.

In my college years, friends had Amigas, and I eventually got an Amiga 1200 to be 'in' with them. The Amiga being able to emulate the Spectrum by this point was a major factor was to why I picked that platform. Syndicate; Populous 2 and Cannon Fodder really impressed.

Re: Who..err...what did you cheat on your Spectrum with back in the day?

Posted: Sat Nov 25, 2017 5:20 pm
by Wall_Axe
Yeah I played Golden Axe in the arcade around '88 '89 and then just had to get the Megadrive.

Re: Who..err...what did you cheat on your Spectrum with back in the day?

Posted: Sat Nov 25, 2017 9:05 pm
by Juan F. Ramirez
I've always been faithful to my Spectrum!

Re: Who..err...what did you cheat on your Spectrum with back in the day?

Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2017 10:39 am
by Spud
Friends either had speccy or cpc, depending if they had rich parents or not. I particularly loved the CPC Advanced Ski Sim from the Codemasters. They all upgraded before me, I was always playing catch up, but it went speccy or cpc to Sega Master System to Amiga. While I had the SMS I still played Speccy games but by the time I managed to get an Amiga the Speccy was but a distant memory; a lost love.

Re: Who..err...what did you cheat on your Spectrum with back in the day?

Posted: Thu Dec 28, 2017 11:44 pm
by Whacker
Amstrad CPC for me (didn't get my first Speccy until the early 00's). But can see the benefits of both systems equally nowadays, and treat them more like cousins rather than competition.

C64's on the other hand.... never got used to that keyboard......

Re: Who..err...what did you cheat on your Spectrum with back in the day?

Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 10:10 am
by Morpheus
When i was younger i swapped for a weekend with my next door neighbour he had a Dragon 32 - only did it once though and he got a Spectrum not long after :D
Once i started working i picked up a few second-hand machines from adverts in Micro-Mart so i had a Camputers Lynx and I had a few years on the Oric Atmos helping out on Oric User Monthly .

Re: Who..err...what did you cheat on your Spectrum with back in the day?

Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 10:13 am
by Morpheus
Rorthron wrote: Sat Nov 25, 2017 2:14 pm All of my friends had Spectrums, so I was pretty faithful. I had a cousin who had a Dragon 32 and swore it was better than the Spectrum for about two years until he dumped it and got a C64. He went very quiet about the Dragon after that. In the Dragon's defence I preferred its version of Donkey Kong to Kong on the Spectrum. But that was about it.
The Dragon 32 version of Rommels Revenge is a lot better than the Spectrum's IMHO but i think its one of the few. Nice smooth Animation. They do go on about the 6809 being a really good CPU.

Re: Who..err...what did you cheat on your Spectrum with back in the day?

Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 3:45 pm
by Morkin
Knew people with C64, BBC and Dragon 32, though most had Speccies so it was easy to swap games, which were usually better anyway. :D

I admit to being very impressed when I saw Elite on the BBC though, and I remember seeing a couple of text adventures on the Dragon (can't remember which ones?) which I thought would be nice to try using its clicky clacky keyboard rather than rubber keys.

Re: Who..err...what did you cheat on your Spectrum with back in the day?

Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 4:10 pm
by bob_fossil
My mum's friend got their son a BBC Micro B which I got to play on when we went round. The disk drive was impressive and it had some decent exclusives - Repton III, Boffin, Citadel and Frak! However, the lack of big title games kept me on the straight and narrow path. My uncle had a C64. The music was superior - I still remember hearing the music for Thing on a Spring booming out of it - and again it had a disk drive.

I managed to get a +D and a 3.5" disk drive for my Spectrum +2 which kept my faithful for a few years until a fateful visit to see my uncle. The C64 was no longer there. He'd upgraded to a Commdore Amiga 500. This was around the time in the Spectrum's life when it was trying it's best to handle the 16bit games like Stunt Car Racer and Switchblade. Another game I'd read about was Shadow Of The Beast, so that was the first game my brother and I loaded into it. We'd never seen anything like it. The second game we loaded up was Xenon II. We sat in amazement as an actual song with samples was played back to us. With hindsight, these games weren't up to much but the damage was done. We had seen the future and it was 16bit.