Do you remember the last time?

[5MinuteRetro]

...because we most of us remember the first time!

What I mean is that many of us here could probably say what the first Spectrum game was that we played, or at least take a good stab at it. But how about the last one? Okay, 'last' in this context means the last Spectrum game you remember playing back then, before moving on to whatever 16-bit wonder grabbed you. Of course, we're all here playing Spectrum games once more but, as teens or whatever, there would've been for most of us a moment when we loaded a Spectrum game for the 'last' time (for a decade or two, anyways).

For me, I'm pretty sure it was Chase H.Q. I played that game to death, sat cross-legged on the floor in front of my 14-inch Sony portable colour TV in my bedroom, still living with my mum. But, as I was 19 in 1989, it was very likely my last hurrah with my beloved Spectrum 128. I don't remember the literal last time I loaded it but I don't recall playing any Spectrum game beyond Chase H.Q. -- until I started my ongoing dalliance with the retro scene in the mid/late 1990s.

(Incidentally, I honestly have no idea where I went directly after the Spectrum. It definitely wasn't an Amiga or ST -- though those were the obvious options. Nor was it a console. In fact, I think it might've been a rudimentary 286 PC with an amber display, on which I spent an inordinate amount of time in some 3D design package trying to create the famous six-colour Apple logo. Weird, the memories that stick in one's mind.)

[Swainy]

I can remember the last game that I bought was Steg, which I was pretty disappointed with. The last full price games that I bought were The Adams Family (which I wasn’t keen on) and Robocop 3 which didn’t work on my grey +2.

Then I upgraded to an Amiga 600 which I had for a few months before getting an A1200. As soon as I found a Spectrum emulator for it, I was playing Back To Skool again albeit at a snails pace

[Juan F. Ramirez]

That's weird, but the last game I probably played before moving to PC (and Spectrum emulator again) was Jet Set Willy, those days I just felt like making a map of if, I think it was 1990.

I could make a lot of screens, anyway.

[TMD2003]

I have no idea what the last game was, only when it was - and it would have been 1995, the year that my world properly turned upside down. I started 1995 with one parent still alive and being ferried to school every day (seeing as going on the bus was impractical as well as expensive and was only used as a last resort), and by the end of the year I had no parents and was forced into the boarding house. That's what finally put the kybosh on my Spectrum days first time round - I carried on with it after its commercial days, because nobody ever told me to stop.

Three years later, thanks to someone called Philip Kendall (ever heard of him?), I accidentally discovered emulation...

[Alone Coder]

Okay, 'last' in this context means the last Spectrum game you remember playing back then, before moving on to whatever 16-bit wonder grabbed you.

Why there were virtually no people in England who remained on Spectrum through all the 90's and 2000's? In Russia, there are thousands.

[Ralf]

I think it was 1991 when I played a game on my real Spectrum last time.

I remember I owned North&South (actually a "copy" ) which comes from 1991 so the year is certain. But it was a
terrible multiload and not so fun as I expected it to be after playing it on my friend's Amiga.

But I loved Renegade and Target Renegade, played them frequently and they could be my last games.

When I already had PC I very quickly discovered emulation, around 1992-1993. It was the famous emulator by Pedro Gimeno. I remember
dumping a few games. I didn't have a proper cable so it meant sticking naked wires into holes in PC printer port

Through all the 90s I run Spectrum games through emulation but it was not frequent, I had new, more shining toys.

[Lethargeek]

Okay, 'last' in this context means the last Spectrum game you remember playing back then, before moving on to whatever 16-bit wonder grabbed you.

Why there were virtually no people in England who remained on Spectrum through all the 90's and 2000's? In Russia, there are thousands.

guess because by that time virtually all people in England were able to afford peecee

[clebin]

The Christmas I got my Amiga 500 (Batman Pack) I also got a copy of Hard Drivin' for the Spectrum from my Auntie which I'd asked for before knowing I'd be getting the "big present".

The Hard Drivin' arcade machine was a highlight of going to Cardiff ice rink along with Out Run but I'm not sure how I expected it to translate well to the Spectrum. I remember the skid pan and the loop-the-loop, but it was absurdly hard and you can imagine how far I got with a shiny new 16-bit sitting there... So my last Spectrum experience was a bit of a damp squib sadly.

[PeteProdge]

I switched on my grey +2 one day in the spring of 1993 only to see a tiny wisp of black smoke emanate from the back of it, and, surprisingly, I took this experience well by just shrugging my shoulders. Quite a few of my mates' 8-bit computers had been discarded or had succumbed to bit rot. A friend who was still using his Speccy told me there'd usually be a second-hand one in a town centre bric-a-brac shop and sure enough, there was a practically pristine black +2A there, going for just £40. I didn't like the +2A with its slightly muffled sound, but, being a student on the dole and it was just forty quid, so it was amazing to get back to playing Spectrum games within the week.

My family had come into some money that year, so we had our first ever holiday abroad. I'm pretty sure I took the final Your Sinclair with me to read (again) on the plane. It was clear the Spectrum's time was at an end. The Amiga had properly won the 16-bit wars and had the promise of being a serious computer, so that I could get into the then nascent art of 'desktop publishing' and graphic design.

But what had really won me over, was learning in the penultimate Your Sinclair that the Speccy could be emulated. I really didn't want to let go of my Speccy, but knowing I still had an opportunity to play the games (particularly Chaos) on an Amiga, well, that's what swung me. Plus, in a world where there was no Speccy magazine, it was time to move on.

At the time, I had a circle of student friends that was pretty much lead by an arrogant alpha male, who had a few years ago got stung by the experience of leaving the 48K Speccy for the promised 'sunlit uplands' of the Sam Coupe. He had transferred over to a shiny new Amiga 600 and did not mind boasting of its technical prowess. Another of our group had a rather aged Amiga 500 Plus, but at least it had a wider compatibility with the Amiga's games library.

I had persuaded my mother of the idea to get me an Amiga 600 for my birthday, the last big 'splash out' I'd have before accepting my adulthood. Somehow, I had managed to sneakily mention that the Amiga 1200 would be even better, offering a much longer lifespan. (With hindsight, it matched the five years of service I had as a Speccy 128K user, so, not too bad.) This was mostly motivated by being fed up of getting heavily put down repeatedly by the boisterous arrogant Amiga 600 user.

Also in our circle was a guy who was further down the financial hole than I was. With six siblings, living on a council estate near me, the family was pretty skint and their only video gaming opportunities was from a Sega Master System with a games collection you could count on a leper's fingers. We were really good friends, him living close by and popping round a lot. The Amiga owners were on the other side of town, and we had both gotten sick of the Amiga 600 owner always bragging about his income and being a snob towards others.

When I got the Amiga 1200 and received Spectrum Emulator v1.7 on a public domain disk with about 10 .sna files, I was overjoyed, albeit it was about 80-90% the speed of a real Spectrum. I bought a sound sampler that Christmas so I could load in my tapes, and that was it, I was slowly making .sna files of all my favourite games, similar to when I owned a Disciple +D a year earlier. The downside is that the tzx format was yet to exist and I didn't know of any way of getting the multiload games running.

Still, as my favourite game was Chaos (as it was for my Master-System-owning friend, he'd play it regularly with me and his brother), I literally gave away my ZX Spectrum and its tapes over to his family.

Wow, I've rambled on for an age. So, I think the last game I played on a working Spectrum that I owned, would very likely have been Chaos. As long as that loaded up, that's all that mattered. And still does. I still play it.

The two Amiga-owning friends didn't really care much for Speccy emulaton on the Amiga. As far as they were concerned, it was all about jumping into the latest demos from The One and CU Amiga's coverdisks. Oh, and immense piracy too, X Copy was a regular sight as lots of games (mostly Team 17) would be 'backed up'.

Ironically, the arrogant snob would usually get out his Sam Coupe early on before the others turned up, and would play Chaos with me. He too was a fan of the game, but didn't want the others to know, as it wasn't 'cool'.

When I entered working life, I bought some Fast RAM for the Amiga, which brought the emulation speed up close to 100%, and when Spectrum Emulator v2.0 was released, it was bang on. I soon abandoned it for ZXAM, as that could do 128K emulation! Also bought an external CD-ROM drive so I could load in a lot of those dubiously 'public domain' CD-ROMs that came with thousands of Speccy game snapshots. I even bought a C64 CD-ROM just so I could try 'the other side', but could never understand how to get a game running.

Dunno what happened to the Speccy I gave away, as when I started working, we all gradually decreased our meet-ups, but I don't regret my decision to hand it over. I still emulate the Speccy. I have a broken 128K + in a cupboard somewhere, I only keep it for sentimental reasons. If I knew how to get it working again, I doubt I'd use it much, I'm actually okay with emulation, it's a lot more convenient for me.

(I recently acquired a Sega Saturn as they're near-impossible to emulate. I also got a Sega Mega Drive, just for the joy of putting an Evercade cartridge in and being able to play 99% of its games library at the press of a button. That is for showing off to friends, it's a good 'gateway drug' for getting them into retrogaming.)

[bluespikey]

I got a Sam in early 1990, cos that was the most I could afford. Most of my friends were moving on to the Batman edition of the Amiga, but no way would we be able to afford £399 then.

So from then until mid 1993 when I went to uni, all my early Spectrum games actually had a resurgence. Thanks to the snapshot ability and being saved to disk, I was able to re-visit the impossible games like Manic Miner and Lords Of Midnight (Even Worse Things Happen At Sea) and complete them by scum-saving.

The very last game I had was Turrican which I got for 75P at the start of 1993.

[5MinuteRetro]

The Christmas I got my Amiga 500 (Batman Pack) I also got a copy of Hard Drivin' for the Spectrum from my Auntie which I'd asked for before knowing I'd be getting the "big present".

[...]

So my last Spectrum experience was a bit of a damp squib sadly.

Oh man (or lady), that's harsh! Hard Drivin' was a great technical achievement but a truly terrible game on the Spectrum. At least my 'last' was a genuine classic.

[clebin]

Oh man (or lady), that's harsh! Hard Drivin' was a great technical achievement but a truly terrible game on the Spectrum. At least my 'last' was a genuine classic.

Man(child?) Yep, a bit harsh, but I wasn't dwelling on it much that Christmas...

I got a Sam in early 1990, cos that was the most I could afford. Most of my friends were moving on to the Batman edition of the Amiga, but no way would we be able to afford £399 then.

I may have told this story before, but I was going to get a Sam that same year for the same reason. We were about to order direct from MGT in Swansea and my dad got as far as speaking to MGT on the phone.

The lady he spoke to said she also lived in my home town of Porthcawl, about 25 miles away, and my dad said "oh, perhaps you could drop it in to us?" She seemed like she couldn't be arsed and made some excuses. He wasn't impressed and didn't place the order there and then. Eventually my parents decided an Amiga would be a better long-term bet, but that's how close it was...

[Nitrowing]

I'm pretty sure it was Driller
I'd started moving away from the Spectrum in 1987 and was painting Wharhammer 40'000 figures before getting a Yamaha RD200 - after which, games just didn't excite me quite so much

[FFoulkes]

Before the Amiga, I already went for the Atari 800 XL in 1984.
So good Spectrum games I remember as "later" from my perspective were "Cyclone" and "Ant Attack".
Nevertheless, I had much more fun with Spectrum BASIC than with Atari BASIC - and therefore with programming in general - because the Spectrum's system was much easier to handle. So although I abandoned the Spectrum - my unit had broken, when I had tried to attach a "Cheetah SpecDrum" to it (it would have been a case of warranty actually, but I didn't bother to sue anyone), I kept thinking in the categories of its system (256x192 resolution and so on). Still do.

[Morkin]

I think I stopped Speccy-ing around 1990ish, though like Pete I'd mostly been "Golloping" - that's Chaos, Rebelstar & Laser Squad - for the previous year or so, rather than playing any of the Speccy's final-days offerings.

After moving away from home (at which point I parted with most possessions including all my Speccy stuff ) I had a break from computers and gaming for a year or two. I ended up jumping on the Amiga bandwagon, lulled by the arcade-quality looking graphics, though it was handy a computer itself for general life admin, like word processing (though not the household accounts ).

A few years on I got myself a Playstation... I only got another actual computer late 90s/early '00s and discovered the world of emulation, WoS and the 'Speccy scene' etc. fairly late, around 2007 I think. It was nice to be back...

[stupidget]

I think the last game I played was Chase H.Q. in 1989. By that time in my life I'd left school in August and was about to start a YTS in Electrical Engineering. My cousins were about 6/7 years old so I bundled up every single Speccy related item I had and gave them the lot!!! I've since found out that they scrapped the lot in the late 90s as they thought nobody would want any of it the silly tw@ts

In the early 90s my dad got various Amstrads and PC's with his work that I used to mess about with, but I didn't get my own PC until about '96 when I was able to 'liberate' components from work and about the same time I'd already got a PS1 and consoles have been my preferred way to play games ever since.

[XTM]

The last game I actually played on my +2 must have been Worms in 1997. I had been into console gaming for years and at that time, I was owning a Super NES, Sega Saturn and NEC PC-Engine, so Speccy gaming had not been on my mind for a long time anyway.

The main reason I still turned on my Speccy everyonce in a while during the mid 90s was to watch a bunch of demos. I was receiving a monthly German Speccy fanzine (made by the owner of Sintech, some of you may know that company) free of charge in return for writing a two- or three-page demo corner for the fanzine. On one of the disks he sent me was that Worms game/demo, a game which incidentally I did own for the Sega Saturn too. Let's just say comparing the Speccy and Saturn versions was somewhat sobering and pretty much the final nail in the coffin as my interest in the Speccy had waned a lot anyway. I got myself my first Windows PC the year after.

[5MinuteRetro]

The last game I actually played on my +2 must have been Worms in 1997.

I didn't even know that existed on the Spectrum. Still, I just tried it but merely going through the process of redefining the keys made me want to weep. It was definitely time to move on.

[Andre Leao]

Probably Battelfield Germany, the last game I bought, or Laser Squad.