Spectrum Computing

A few software labels would offer something they never commercially released to the magazine covertapes, in the hopes of raising their profile. Here we vote for which of these are the best!

A Nightmare On Robinson Street by Players Software


Batty by Hit-Pak


Blind Panic by Martech


Blob The Cop by Players


Bobby Yazz Show, The by Cybadyne Software


Brat Attack by Players


Flashpoint by Ocean


Hyper Active by Special FX


Iron Soldier by Players Premier


Moley Christmas by Gremlin Graphics


People From Sirius by US Gold


Play For Your Life by Imagine


Quondam by Ocean


Road Race by Ocean


Soldier One by Beyond Belief


Muncher Compo, The by Gremlin


Turbulence by Beyond Belief


Vatman by Players Premier


You've got seven days to pick Batty. Or something that isn't Batty which is probably likely to be trounced by Batty. Sorry, but it is ace.

1. Flashpoint
2. Batty
3. Blob the Cop

I can’t remember how Flashpoint played now except that my brother and I played it a lot - presumably trying to figure out what you were supposed to do. It looked pretty.

We didn’t have Batty but a mate did and we played it at his house. Then he’d want to put Wizball on. Or Bubble Bobble.

Blob the Cop was a good way to pass some time with nicely drawn graphics. It also taught me the word “cache”.

Moley Christmas was okay. The Monty games were fine but I didn’t get loads out of them, to be honest.

1. Batty - because, well, it's the best by a country mile
2. Vatman - it's a bit crap, but I enjoyed it nonetheless
3. Nightmare on Robinson Street - again it's a rubbish Op Wolf clone, but for some reason it stuck in my mind as something I played enough.

I'd give a special mention to Flashpoint, which to this day I'm sure might be a fun game but I could never fathom what exactly you were supposed to be doing and I don't think the instructions in YS made it any clearer.

1. Hyper Active
2. Bobby Yazz
3. Soldier One

I know Batty is going to win this by a mile, but there are some other great games in there.

there is no reason to pretend that Batty will not win, so i will simply do the obvious thing, and choose Batty…

ketmar wrote: ↑Mon May 06, 2024 2:52 am there is no reason to pretend that Batty will not win, so i will simply do the obvious thing, and choose Batty…

Yep, same here, no guilt when the game is just that incredibly good.

And so...

1) Batty. The best Breakout clone on the Speccy, no exception. Yes, even better than both Arkanoids (and that is saying something). Still absolutely jaw-dropping that Elite only found this suitable for a volume two edition of six games (the rest being rereleases) and gave it to a magazine as a covertape item. A terrible commercial decision, which you could tell they regretted as it got a £2.99 rerelease on the Encore label (twice the price you could obtain it from YS two years prior and you don't even get the magazine), but Elite's strategic clanger was certainly a beautiful win for us magazine buyers. Batty is absolutely smooth, the graphics are brilliantly defined and it makes such great use of the Speccy's colour palette. You effectively got it for fifty pence. That's still astounding.
2) Moley Christmas. The first Speccy magazine I bought had this taped to the cover. I'd never played any Monty Mole game before, I wasn't sure what was going on and never could get off that first screen for years, but I absolutely loved it anyway. Eventually I managed to complete it without cheating, the only Monty Mole game I've completed that way. It's got a nice 'meta' story, you're literally in the tape duplicators ensuring the covertape is being made! Yes, it may be a short game and has the feel of a playable demo of a bigger game but it's truly enjoyable. Could easily have made the grade as mid-price or premium budget. You can tell it's there to hype the Monty Mole series as a whole and it's made from the same engine as Auf Wiedersehen Monty (with the same AY music), which is the best Monty game by far. This is where the franchise should have ended instead of the dreadful Impossamole.
3) People From Sirius. Okay, I don't exactly have a huge love for this or many of the others. While I was pretty terrible at it, the graphics and animation are top notch. Again, I'm baffled as to why this was relegated to being a covertape giveaway but grateful for it. This was a golden age for the YS covertapes which were becoming ever more frequent, with an exclusive covergame from well-known software houses. Blind Panic by Martech was pretty damned good, but this pips it to my third-place pick.

I'd have Blind Panic in fourth place, but also really love the unreleased (commercially) Bobby Yazz Show. Stinkers? It has to be the stuff from Players - utter dreck all the time. Yeah, Players really contributed a lot in exclusive and back catalogue assets to the covertapes, but not much of it was any good.

I was playing Batty a couple of weeks ago, and realised how annoying it was... but having given everything else a quick go it's still my favourite game on the list.

1. Batty - harder than Arkanoid but I prefer the game mechanics and the graphics are better
2. Soldier One - surprisingly half-decent scrolling platform shooter
3. A Nightmare On Robinson Street - made me laugh even if I couldn't work out how to beat it, other than "kill Jason Donovan but not Bouncer"

I probably didn't spend enough time on most of the others. Couldn't work out what I was doing with Bobby Yazz or Flashpoint. Blob the Cop and Blind Panic were ok. Wanted to include Hyper Active but it's just not very exciting, although I love the music. Turbulence is a good idea but too blimmin' hard.

I'm going to base this one based on how much I've played back in the day instead of how good it was.

1. Hyper Active. Given that, importantly, this being one of the first cover tapes I got (Batty wasn't released outside UK until much, much later), it was a good, simple game with lots of demo effects and music. Played lots.

2. Iron Soldier. Just a simple horizontal walking game, but really hard. Great graphics made the game, because it's really impossible to complete until I found some pokes.

3. Brat Attack. No other reason rather than the great 128k music. I'm actually listening to the surprisingly short loop while typing this.

==========

Other worth mentions:

Bobby Yazz is still a brilliant game, sadly it was released very late and I had less time playing it. Also the ads are hilarious.

Batty was release much later outside the UK, so I also got it very late.

Flashpoint was just... I'd rather forget the game, too complicated for me.

i should add that Soldier One is a nice game too. could be much better if they'd simply throw away vertical scrolling, and add some colors. i'd rather have some attr clash instead of boring monochrome playfield.

batty
moley xmas
brat attack

moley was a great little game although short, brat attack fascinated me and i wandered around in it for ages
But Batty was the most played.

I'm sure there are some great games in this list, some of them look neat anyway, but these are three i played the most (or even at all).

1. Batty
2. Blind Pamic
3. Moley Christmas

The only ones of these that I actually played BITD were Brat Attack and Road Race. Out of those 2 my choice goes to Road Race because I think it was actually a pretty good racing game. Around the same time in '87 my cousins were 8 and 4 years old and I remember the sheer frustration of trying to get a 4 year old the grasp the simple concept of moving an object on screen from left to right to avoid the other things. I can only assume he'd been dropped on his head a few years previously

1 Hyper Active
2 Batty
3 Brat Attack

PeteProdge wrote: ↑Mon May 06, 2024 10:54 am Still absolutely jaw-dropping that Elite only found this suitable for a volume two edition of six games (the rest being rereleases) and gave it to a magazine as a covertape item. A terrible commercial decision

Of course, it's purely coincidental that the same issue of YS gave the cover, a two page spread and a megagame award to a game Elite were due to release within days of the magazine being published, a game that turned out to be "not good enough" to release.

Despite giving away Batty, it didn't stop people buying 6 Pak 2 with Woolworth's listing it as their best selling compilation in the runup to Christmas.

I was under the impression that Batty was not released because of legal threats from the similarity to Arkanoid, rather than because it wasn't considered "good enough".

Presumably the later releases could happen because nobody cared by that point but it also wasn't really worth releasing as a full price stand alone title by then as the hype around it had mostly been lost.

AndyC wrote: ↑Thu May 09, 2024 10:05 am I was under the impression that Batty was not released because of legal threats from the similarity to Arkanoid, rather than because it wasn't considered "good enough".

StooB is talking about Battleships, which eventually replaced Space Harrier on the Best of Elite Vol 2 compilation a couple of months after 6-Pak 2.

1. Batty
2. Moley Christmas
3. Hyperactive

I actually played Moley Christmas more (still do every Christmas) but Batty was amazing for a full game given away without having been released.

By a very long margin (were you expecting anything else?), it's Batty, the winner that was always obviously going to take this! Yay! 17 votes.

Now over to the very distant second-placed game, which scored three votes - Hyper Active.

In joint third, we have Flashpoint; Moley Christmas and Road Race - two votes each.

Over in joint fourth, with one vote each: Blind Panic and Blob The Cop.

It's a similar story on the proportional results:

Batty by Hit-Pak 22
Hyper Active by Special FX 10
Moley Christmas by Gremlin Graphics 7
Brat Attack by Players 3
Flashpoint by Ocean 3
Soldier One by Beyond Belief 3
Blind Panic by Martech 2
Bobby Yazz Show, The by Cybadyne Software 2
Iron Soldier by Players Premier 2
Nightmare On Robinson Street, A by Players Software 2
Vatman by Players Premier 2
Blob The Cop by Players 1
People From Sirius by US Gold 1

I was playing Batty when my Spectrum broke so I guess I will vote for that lol

Didn't one magazine have Lords Of Midnight as a cover tape at some point? That would probably have been my vote if it was available since it's probably the best game for the Spectrum (in your face Chaos fans!!!). Not sure how comprehensible it would be if it didn't have the manual and the amount of keys is mahoosive.

EDIT: Or I would vote for it but I see the poll is now closed lol

ParadigmShifter wrote: ↑Sun May 12, 2024 7:49 pm Didn't one magazine have Lords Of Midnight as a cover tape at some point?

Well, two magazines had it on their covertapes at various points - Crash and Sinclair User.

But it's not an exclusive game from a recognised brand, as it had been released commercially prior to a covertape appearance.

ParadigmShifter wrote: ↑Sun May 12, 2024 7:49 pm...it's probably the best game for the Spectrum (in your face Chaos fans!!!).

C Nonsense in BASIC, 0:1

ParadigmShifter wrote: ↑Sun May 12, 2024 7:49 pmEDIT: Or I would vote for it but I see the poll is now closed lol

Lords Of Midnight hasn't appeared in this poll because of the reason above, but it will be in the poll about rereleased full prices games on covertapes, as that's where it (along with the greatest game of all time on any system ever) belongs.

Right I should have read the thread before being unable to vote then

Obviously the full price covertape poll will be rigged if Chaos wins and then Lords of Midnight supporters wearing Viking Utarg Helmets will descend on the Spectrum Computing headquarters and run amok.

EDIT: X-COM was better than Chaos surely? And none of those games are Civ4 :p

the greatest game of all times is this.

/discussion

ParadigmShifter wrote: ↑Sun May 12, 2024 8:19 pm Obviously the full price covertape poll will be rigged if Chaos wins and then Lords of Midnight supporters wearing Viking Utarg Helmets will descend on the Spectrum Computing headquarters and run amok.

DISBELIEVE

Zythum (by Mirrorsoft).

Sorry, what was the question?

Ast A. Moore wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2024 5:27 pm Zythum (by Mirrorsoft).

Sorry, what was the question?

But that's a rereleased game, not an exclusive, on the covertape of which the other side had the greatest game of all time on any system (which is also a rerelease and not exclusive).