Top 100 ZX Spectrum Games

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blucey
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Re: Top 100 ZX Spectrum Games

Post by blucey »

Commando is a solid choice. Certainly pretty playable.
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Morkin
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Re: Top 100 ZX Spectrum Games

Post by Morkin »

Yeah, I'd probably have expected Commando to be in there somewhere.

Until we played it in our recent high score competition I'd forgotten how much of a 'bullet hell' type game it could be.

Fortunately enemy bullets are slowed down to a nice speed that gives you a fighting chance of avoiding them.
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jdanddiet
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Re: Top 100 ZX Spectrum Games

Post by jdanddiet »

Into the top 40 with


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cmal
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Re: Top 100 ZX Spectrum Games

Post by cmal »

You just jogged my memory with this game. I haven't played Spy Hunter for years and was meaning to give it another go the other day but forgot. Now I have to play it. Thanks!

BTW: Commando is a good choice. I still want to go back to this game and try to get further than I did in the HSC competition.
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RWAC
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Re: Top 100 ZX Spectrum Games

Post by RWAC »

jdanddiet wrote: Wed Nov 11, 2020 5:11 pm Into the top 40 with


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Probably my favourite US Gold game.

Most US Gold games did tend to be a bit meh though.
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Juan F. Ramirez
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Re: Top 100 ZX Spectrum Games

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

Spy Hunter is great, even better than the arcade game.
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Re: Top 100 ZX Spectrum Games

Post by Matt_B »

Most US Gold releases were good on the C64 but it was a bit of a lottery with the Spectrum depending on who did the conversion.

Denton Designs did Spy Hunter.
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blucey
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Re: Top 100 ZX Spectrum Games

Post by blucey »

Yeah I loved Spy Hunter back in the day and was shocked at how much I didn't like the arcade version when I finally got to try it.

US Gold's biggest problem was Tiertex who always seemed to do the bare minimum on their games.
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Re: Top 100 ZX Spectrum Games

Post by toot_toot »

Matt_B wrote: Wed Nov 11, 2020 11:38 pm Most US Gold releases were good on the C64 but it was a bit of a lottery with the Spectrum depending on who did the conversion.

Denton Designs did Spy Hunter.
The directors at Ocean owned a percentage of US Gold when it was setup and helped them with the early Spectrum conversions (Denton Designs were ex Imagine staff, so had a strong relationship with Ocean). Interestingly, US Gold created the Go! Label to try and prevent Ocean getting any royalties, claiming it was a completely different label to US Gold, but in the end US Gold had to pay out anyway.

Supposedly they also made a fortune when US Gold was eventually bought out by Eidos. But it was quite strange that the two biggest publishers were so intertwined - Ocean used US Gold’s mastering and distribution facilities (CentreSoft) and also owned a percentage of US Gold!

But yes, I’d say the Spectrum versions were very much hit and miss, whereas the original C64 versions were usually superior. I’d say the C64 version of Spy Hunter is also better, but the Speccy version is still good. Pity there isn’t an AY hack to give us the Peter Gunn theme!
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blucey
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Re: Top 100 ZX Spectrum Games

Post by blucey »

I gave the C64 version a go. The keyboard controls are a nightmare. Other than that it seemed pretty smooth. I feel like the Speccy version had more enemies on screen at any given time though and the colour scheme made it easier to identify what type of cars they were.
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Re: Top 100 ZX Spectrum Games

Post by clebin »

toot_toot wrote: Thu Nov 12, 2020 9:08 am The directors at Ocean owned a percentage of US Gold when it was setup and helped them with the early Spectrum conversions (Denton Designs were ex Imagine staff, so had a strong relationship with Ocean). Interestingly, US Gold created the Go! Label to try and prevent Ocean getting any royalties, claiming it was a completely different label to US Gold, but in the end US Gold had to pay out anyway.
Interesting, I didn't know that. I'm really not a fan of US Gold - most of their games are incredibly mediocre and one-dimensional. I used to wonder why they never made it big on the 16-bits, but looking back it's because they just weren't good enough.

One of US Gold's better games, Gauntlet, was developed by Gremlin of course, who were eventually bought by Infogrames along with Ocean. How Infogrames ended up bigger than both Ocean and Gremlin is still a mystery to me. It must've been that mega-hit Stir Crazy Featuring Bobo...

(*edit: I’m exaggerating for effect with Stir Crazy - they did have some good games, but I never saw them as being in the top division)
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Re: Top 100 ZX Spectrum Games

Post by jdanddiet »

Along that theme, number 39 today is...
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Matt_B
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Re: Top 100 ZX Spectrum Games

Post by Matt_B »

Beach Head is a bit of a mixed bag to me. I liked the idea of a collection of strung together minigames but the overall quality varies a lot. The air and sea battles are good, as is the tank drive up the beach, but the minefield and the fortress both let the side down. I suppose you can just skip the former entirely though.

The C64 version feels slicker overall, but the Spectrum port was OK and kept the gameplay mostly intact.
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Re: Top 100 ZX Spectrum Games

Post by Morkin »

Beach Head never grabbed me at all, but Spy Hunter was decent fairly simple game but enjoyable fast action.
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Re: Top 100 ZX Spectrum Games

Post by toot_toot »

I loved Beach Head! Although it reminded me of the risk of buying games in 84/85, the reviews were always a month or two after the games were in the shops and you’d buy a game based on either the interesting looking cover, or the fact it was from the same label as a game that you really liked. Somehow, I thought that if Beach Head and Bruce Lee were good, then all games from US Gold must be good, right?

Wrong! Buck Rogers was really dire and the Spectrum version of Blue Max was nowhere near as good as the C64 one they had on demonstration in the shop!!!

But Tapper, Raid Over Moscow and Spy Hunter were brilliant, yet Flak was really poor. Just goes to show how hit and miss they were with the early conversions. I wish someone would do those games justice and make new ones!
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blucey
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Re: Top 100 ZX Spectrum Games

Post by blucey »

Beach Head was one of the first games I got. It was part of They Sold a Million which had Daley Thompson's Decathlon (good), Jet Set Willy (good) and Sabre Wulf (very bad). Beach Head felt like a really average game in terms of presentation compared to those but it ended up being good fun.

Raid Over Moscow was better. I expect to see that in the top 40 somewhere.
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Re: Top 100 ZX Spectrum Games

Post by jdanddiet »

No.38 today is
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jdanddiet
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Re: Top 100 ZX Spectrum Games

Post by jdanddiet »

blucey wrote: Fri Nov 13, 2020 1:45 pm Beach Head was one of the first games I got. It was part of They Sold a Million which had Daley Thompson's Decathlon (good), Jet Set Willy (good) and Sabre Wulf (very bad). Beach Head felt like a really average game in terms of presentation compared to those but it ended up being good fun.

Raid Over Moscow was better. I expect to see that in the top 40 somewhere.
Never played raid over Moscow sorry to say
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blucey
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Re: Top 100 ZX Spectrum Games

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It is worth a look.
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Juan F. Ramirez
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Re: Top 100 ZX Spectrum Games

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

jdanddiet wrote: Fri Nov 13, 2020 7:30 pm
Never played raid over Moscow sorry to say
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jdanddiet
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Re: Top 100 ZX Spectrum Games

Post by jdanddiet »

No 37 today is budget legend Knight Tyme
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Re: Top 100 ZX Spectrum Games

Post by jdanddiet »

No 36 today


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Matt_B
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Re: Top 100 ZX Spectrum Games

Post by Matt_B »

Starstrike and Starglider are both great. The only thing I'd hold against them is that they've both got even more technically impressive sequels. You're probably better off playing Starglider 2 on one of the 16-bit platforms though.
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blucey
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Re: Top 100 ZX Spectrum Games

Post by blucey »

A bit like the Ultimate games, I always felt like Starstrike 2 and Starglider were more technically impressive than they were fun.

Starstrike 1 had a bit of that Star Wars coin-op feel and was nicely playable from what I remember. Not played it in 30+ years though!
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Re: Top 100 ZX Spectrum Games

Post by jdanddiet »

Take a deep breath...no.35 today:-


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