Spectrum Computing

Manic Miner is solid. Still playable, absolutely iconic visuals.

That level with the rays of light was a bit much though. It's not like Manic Miner needed to get harder at that point. But yeah, a really decent and tidy game. Not a personal fave but hard to dislike.

My guess based on this is that JSW will be higher in the list...

jdanddiet wrote: ↑Mon Nov 16, 2020 6:45 pm Take a deep breath...no.35 today:-

Never heard of it!

Morkin wrote: ↑Tue Nov 17, 2020 2:42 pm My guess based on this is that JSW will be higher in the list...

Possibly.

blucey wrote: ↑Tue Nov 17, 2020 2:05 pm Manic Miner is solid. Still playable, absolutely iconic visuals.

That level with the rays of light was a bit much though. It's not like Manic Miner needed to get harder at that point. But yeah, a really decent and tidy game. Not a personal fave but hard to dislike.

To be fair, it is the second to last screen, and you'd already made it past the pixel perfect timed jumps through The Warehouse by that point. Well, unless you were using the cheat code, I suppose, as that was how I first got to see the later screens.

Anyway, I guess it's downhill from here for the list.

34 today





33 also today

Number 32 today is

Starquake did nothing for me.

I tend to see Starquake as a jazzed up Underwurlde. Not being constantly bounced around by the monsters is a big plus, and the additional game mechanics mostly add to the experience, even if it wasn't the most original idea at the time.

That's as opposed to Wizard's Lair, which is a jazzed up Atic Atac, but where most of the changes to the gameplay are for the worse.

I can see why people hate Underwurlde, and why they might go for Starquake instead.

Not me though. I'll always choose Underwurlde over Starquake, even though it's really annoying.

Starquake is good and has a similar quality to it that the Ultimate games have. I haven't played it much but I need to give it another go.
I would like to like Underwurlde more than I do. I'm sure it's a matter of mastering the control and getting used to bouncing around the screen. The game deserves another shot so I'll definitely go back to it.

I wonder if Underwurlde is further up on this list???

If you haven't got your pitch fork out yet, now could be your chance!

Number 31 today

The cool stuff is coming!

Can't argue with the last few (I'm not going to nitpick about the order... ). Nice to see Ping Pong as well, always loved that game.

Interesting to hear the Starquake - Underwurlde comparison mentioned. I wouldn't have made that connection - the gameplay of each game feels completely different to me.

Way of the Exploding Fist is a fantastic game, but once you’ve played the C64 version with the added sound and extra bonus level of “punching a bull in its face”, it’s difficult to go back to the Speccy one!

Starquake is also a great game, it maybe suffers a bit from the thing of “Stephen Crowe takes an Ultimate game and makes it better” but loses a bit of charm in the process (like Wizards Lair=Atic Atac and Firelord=Sabre Wulf, although Firelord might actually be better). I had this on the Crash Smashes II compilation and I remember the instructions being of the frustrating kind where it’s a lovely written piece of backstory but it doesn’t actually tell you what you’re supposed to do! I remember spending ages trying to work out what I was supposed to do and gave up because the game was so huge and just played Monty On the Run instead. It also shows just how important magazines were to gaming at the time. If you didn’t get the tips or maybe even the map, some games were almost unplayable (I’m looking at you MOVIE!!) I’ve watched a play through of Statquake and I might go back and give it a try.

I also think Arc Of Yesod did the Underwurlde platformer type of game a lot better. And thinking of that, Underwurlde isn’t really given that much credit for inspiring a certain type of platformer. One that had a map layout but definitely felt like you were moving on a vertical plane and with a map that corresponded to it (JSW felt just like a lot of random rooms placed together). Starquake,Arc/Nodes of Yesod, Soul of a Robot and its prequel I can’t be bothered typing out, and maybe even Wanted Monty Mole. Was there any game that did this before Underwurlde?

40-31 recap

40.Spy Hunter
39.Beach-head
38.3D Starstrike
37.Knight Tyme
36.Starglider
35.Manic Miner
34.Bubble Bobble
33.Ping Pong
32.Starquake
31.Way of the Exploding Fist

I never played Starglider and only just tried 3D Starstrike. In fact, the only 3D space games I think I had BITD were Codename Mat 1 & 2 on compilations and I thought they were quite boring TBH. Shame Realtime couldn’t have got the Star Wars license for Starstrike as it’s a fab version.

Number 30

Excellent shooter

Juan F. Ramirez wrote: ↑Sat Nov 21, 2020 7:55 pm Excellent shooter

Yep, seconded...

Number 29 today

You certainly got a lot for your money with Booty, especially if you had a Currah Microspeech.

Cracking budget game, I think I remember this winning the "WoS world cup" of budget titles...

Simple but enjoyable gameplay. The only two 'features' that I wasn't keen on were the stuck-on-lift-with-parrot-flying-towards-you syndrome, and the way the collision detection favoured one side of the player sprite.

Wouldn't get into my top 100, but a decent game.

jdanddiet wrote: ↑Sat Nov 21, 2020 4:36 pm
32.Starquake

That is so terribly wrong

I do love Booty and its 'sequel' (same gameplay, same author) Moonlight Madness, this time controlling a boy scout instead of a cabin boy. The rest is the same.