The best Speccy game by US Gold: vote

[PeteProdge]

Pheeee-ew. Finally, we have the US Gold poll, one of the most prolific AAA publishers for the ZX Spectrum.

There is, inevitably, a lot of dreck here (hello Super Cycle; Street Fighter II; Legend Of The Amazon Women and Kung-Fu Master). That's bound to happen.

But of course, the quality is also here, and it's tricky to choose stand-out favourite, I'll give you that. When you have Solomon's Key; Spy Hunter; Bruce Lee; Rolling Thunder; People From Sirius; Nightshift; Metrocross; Mad Mix; Impossible Mission; Gauntlet and 10th Frame, just which one can you go for? (And there'll be folk arguing I'll have missed their favourite some this personal shortlist of mine.)

Here are the 114 titles for you to pick from:

10th Frame


4x4 Off-Road Racing


720°


Ace Of Aces


Acro Jet


Alien Storm


Beach-Head


Beach-Head II


Black Magic


Black Tiger


Blue Max


Bonanza Bros


Bounty Bob Strikes Back


Breakthru


Bruce Lee


Buck Rogers: Planet Of Zoom


Buckaroo Banzai


California Games


Chicago's 30


Chip's Challenge


Crack Down


Crystal Castles


Dam Busters, The


Deep, The


Desolator


Dragons Of Flame


Dream Warrior


Dynasty Wars


E-Motion


E-Swat


Echelon


Express Raider


Final Assault


Final Fight


Flak


Forgotten Worlds


G-Loc


Games, The - Summer Edition


Games, The - Winter Edition


Gauntlet


Gauntlet II


Gauntlet III: The Final Quest


Ghouls 'N' Ghosts


Goonies, The


Gunslinger


Heavy Metal


Heroes Of The Lance


Human Killing Machine


Impossible Mission


Impossible Mission II


Indiana Jones And The Fate Of Atlantis


Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade


Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom


Infiltrator


Italy 1990


Italy 1990 - Winners Edition


Kayleth


Killed Until Dead


Kung-Fu Master


Last Mission


Leader Board


Leader Board Tournament


Legend Of The Amazon Women


Line Of Fire


Mad Mix Game


Masters Of The Universe - The Arcade Game


Masters Of The Universe - The Super Adventure


Mercs


Metro-Cross


Moonwalker


Night Shift


Out Run


Out Run Europa


People From Sirius


PSI-5 Trading Company


Psycho Pigs UXB


Raid Over Moscow


Rebel Planet


Return To Oz


Revolution


Road Blasters


Road Runner


Rolling Thunder


Rygar


Saracen


Shackled


Shadow Dancer


Silent Service


Snowstrike


Solomon's Key


Spy Hunter


Starring Charlie Chaplin


Street Fighter II


Street Sports Basketball


Strider


Strider II


Summer Games


Summer Games II


Super Cycle


Super Monaco GP


Survivor


Tapper


Temple Of Terror


Thunder Blade


Turbo Out Run


UN Squadron


Vigilante


Winter Games


World Class Leader Board


World Cup Carnival


World Games


Xevious


Zaxxon


Zorro

[PeteProdge]

Very very hard to make a top three. I've made one though!

1) Bruce Lee
2) Gauntlet
3) Impossible Mission

Incidentally, other parts of the US Gold empire have been covered in previous polls...

Go!, a sort of under-the-radar label for them to put out a few Capcom games and a few other things, but very much rumbled by having the same physical address as US Gold on their inlays, for starters!

A special re-release poll covering Kixx.

I never did do one on Americana Software, their short-lived budget label, so that'll be up next.

[worcestersource]

1 Bruce Lee for two player involvement and replayability.
2 Gauntlet
3 Raid Over Moscow

Bubbling under is Foggy Worlds. Quite a few games I enjoyed back in the day. But as in the other thread, whether the game turned out well or not all depended on who it was farmed out to.

[hitm4n]

Very very hard to put one at the top with all the classics here.
Equal loves for Bruce Lee, Impossible Mission and Mad Mix Game (one of my favourite Pacmans).
And without forgetting Beach Head, Bounty Bob, Flak, Gauntlet, NightShift,
Psycho Pig UXB, Rebel Planet, Revolution, Solomons Key, Spyhunter and Tapper.

I'm gonna go...

1. Impossible Mission (i love games where you are searching and then puzzling parts together)
2. Mad Mix Game (a slick pacman, with some nice twists in gameplay)
3. Bruce Lee (well its just an out and out classic)

Tomorrow i might change my mind

[Pegaz]

1. Zorro
2. Bounty Bob Strikes Back
3. Xevious

[Turtle_Quality]

Absolutely loads of this left me uninterested at the time, even when Psycho Pigs UXB shared a postcode with me, but there were a handful I returned to play again and again. I lost interest in arcade games after about 1983, after that it always seemed to be more graphics and less fun, and mostly US Gold followed that trend.

1) Spy Hunter - maybe one of the simplest games here but definitely the most fun
2) Out Run
3) Gauntlet

Leaderboard didn't quite make the cut

[Juan F. Ramirez]

1 Gauntlet
2 Raid Over Moscow
3 Spy Hunter

[Stefan]

1. Gauntlet
2. Spy Hunter
3. Rolling Thunder

[Mpk]

Has anyone pointed out that that's a H, not a W ?
Would make for a very different game.

1. Solomon's Key
2. Bruce Lee
3. Leaderboard

KuD and the Gauntlet family commiserating at the bar.

[PeteProdge]

SOMEBODY HAS VOTED FOR STREET FIGHTER II.

[RWAC]

1 Tapper
2 Bruce Lee
3 Temple of Terror

[Wall_Axe]

Spy hunter
Bruce Lee
Gauntlet

[Timmy]

Too many choices, but in this case it's fine that a lot of them were very mediocre.

1. Beach Head I. Probably one of the very few games I can win all the levels without cheating. Each level is different and lots of action.
2. Solomon's Key. Very playable, very colourful, very puzzley. Another game by Cecco so that's a plus there. Too many hidden secrets too. Later I realised this game only have few levels of the original, but still fine.
3. Chip's Challenge. Almost as good as Solomon's Key but too many unfair situations. But a lot of levels to compensate that.

There were a lot of games that could have been very close to these 3; this was still really hard to pick from.

[Bubu]

I have voted for "BRUCE LEE". I still play this oftenly. And the 3 that I choose are:

1) Bruce Lee
2) Mad Mix Game
3) Xevious

But I see that some games were not programmed by US GOLD, right? E.g. Mad Mix Game.

[PeteProdge]

But I see that some games were not programmed by US GOLD, right? E.g. Mad Mix Game.

Well, US Gold didn't really have in-house programmers. They were a commissioning publisher, hence lots of stuff from freelancers, Tiertex and even companies like Ocean and Gremlin.

[Paulmelv]

Gauntlet
Tapper
Beach Head

Love the Leaderboard games but the C64 versions so much better it’s makes the Speccy ones hard to play. Bruce Lee very close behind the top 3

[Wall_Axe]

I don't understand why people like tapper, but it's ok-ish.

Most of the games are rubbish unfortunately

Beach head is also good and I really need to check out temple of terror and rebel planet

[Hank Scorpio]

1 Gauntlet
2 Solomon's Key
3 Beach Head

While I understand why most people voted for Bruce Lee, it is a bit too easy. Which is why it misses out from being in my top three.

[Matt_B]

1. Leaderboard - The graphics might take a bit of a dive from other versions but they got the mechanics just right and that's the main thing
2. Gauntlet - About as good a conversion as you could hope from a complex multiplayer arcade game at the time
3. Spy Hunter - Takes a few liberties with the gameplay but it's another very respectable arcade port

10th Frame, Bruce Lee, Killed Until Dead are all worth honorable mentions too.

Most of the rest are good games... on the C64. It's hard to let the subject of U.S. Gold go by without mentioning how shockingly bad their Spectrum ports could be though.

[Nick]

1. Rolling Thunder
2. Metrocross
3. Blue Max

Despite not being one their more well known and better games, there's something about Blue Max that makes me keep playing it from time to time.

[Frankie]

No doubt in my mind, that its Bounty Bob. Would have been Bruce Lee, had it not been so easy. Beach Head is also high up there for me

[PeteProdge]

Pheeeeeeeeeeee-ew! Nearly the biggest 'best Speccy game by...' poll ever (it's only beaten by Zenobi, and even then the top game is still undecided). This is probably the most popular poll I've done, with 48 voters taking part. I was supposed to have delivered these results last weekend and do the usual posting that I do on Sundays, but I was away. Not that I wish to make this all about me, but if you wanted to know, see the spoiler below, but on to the actual results...

Spoiler

Right, this summer's been chaos for me. Spent almost two months being jobless through no fault of my own and nearly a week of that spent over in Ireland on a holiday I had already mostly paid for, so had to pause the job hunting. I began a new job earlier this month which is better than I expected but... well, something mad has happened - in a very good way. Probably not sure I should publicly mention what it is yet. And another amazing thing happened. Sorry for the vagueness. But there's been mental health crashes along the way, the past seven days has been highs and lows. As much as the highs outweigh the lows, I'm feeling mentally battered... although really ready and up-for-it for this new chapter of my life. Had to take last weekend 'off', so to speak, but everything's coming up Milhouse.

Bruce Lee is the standout winner here, gaining 12 votes!

Gauntlet is the second best, with 9 votes.

Joint third - games with 3 votes each: Rolling Thunder; Solomon's Key and Spy Hunter.

Joint fourth - games that caught 2 votes each: Bounty Bob Strikes Back; Chip's Challenge; Impossible Mission; Killed Until Dead and Tapper.

Joint fifth - 1 vote games: Beach Head; The Goonies; Leader Board; PSI-5 Trading Company; Rygar; Street Fighter II; World Cup Carnival and Zorro.

Yes, someone really did vote for Street Fighter II. I'm not making that up.

There's a different winner in the proportional results!:

Gauntlet 18
Bruce Lee 16
Spy Hunter 9
Solomon's Key 7
Beach-Head 5
Tapper 5
Impossible Mission 4
Mad Mix Game 4
Rolling Thunder 4
Raid Over Moscow 3
Zorro 3
Bounty Bob Strikes Back 2
Metro-Cross 2
Out Run 2
Xevious 2
Blue Max 1
Chip's Challenge 1
Leader Board 1
Temple Of Terror 1

[worcestersource]

It was a good poll! I never really held US Gold in the same light as, say, Ocean or Gremlin, but it was good to be reminded of the really great (and numerous) games it did publish.

Sorry you’ve had a tough time but glad things have turned round and you’re on the up again.

As I like to say, when one doors closes, another door opens. Other than that, it’s a pretty good car!

[PeteProdge]

It was a good poll! I never really held US Gold in the same light as, say, Ocean or Gremlin, but it was good to be reminded of the really great (and numerous) games it did publish.

Yeah, the wonderful US Gold book shows them as the ruthless publisher label they were, not that concerned with gaming quality, it's all about the power of the license. Absolutely commercial, more so than Ocean and Gremlin. I suppose that's the unshakeable foundation, because US Gold is still with us in a way, with their distribution arm CentreSoft being a big mover-and-shaker in the current-gen era of video gaming.

Of course, with so many titles (dare I say the biggest of the ZX Spectrum, because, Zenobi wasn't really a brand you could find on the shop shelves even in the commercial era), there were some gems among the atrocities and the mediocre. Bruce Lee, Gauntlet and Spy Hunter got showcased really well here.

Sorry you’ve had a tough time but glad things have turned round and you’re on the up again.
As I like to say, when one doors closes, another door opens. Other than that, it’s a pretty good car!

Heh, in my case, two doors opened! And the boot's got a huge bundle of cash in it and I'm standing back mystified at how all that happened in the space of one week.