Games that impacted on you visually

[luny]

I was having a lying in bed thinking moment this morning and started thinking about how some early Spectrum games made an impact on me due to how visual they were and had a great use of colour. I'm talking about when games were mainly acrade conversion and tended to be simple graphics on a black single colour background (normally black). For instance Psytron stood out for me:



This was one of my earliest memories of a game that 'blew me away', it took a fairly simple arcade game concept and gave it loads of bells and whistles. The screens were brilliantly done and very detailed for the time.Also the variation of game play, such as running along the corridor, with the 3d display and the shoot-em parts.

Another was Mugsy



the use of the 'Melbourne draw' routines to create large comic panels. Visually it looked apart from anything at the time, considering underneath it was a basic trading game (with some arcade elements).

And of course, there was TLL:



Costa Panayi's ability to create stunning visuals and fast paced games. This still stands out from the crowd.

Does anyone have the same sort of memories for other games that you would class as visually outstanding?

[Morkin]

Yes, I remember looking at Psytron in the mags too, thought it looked amazing.

Never got to play it until much, much later. Then just couldn't get anywhere with it.

Another one for me was Vera Cruz, I thought it looked pretty cool & stylish, probably just because it was something a bit different.

[Stefan]

The motion when driving over hills in Enduro Racer were just amazing, I actually felt my stomach go woah.

[Juan F. Ramirez]

For me, it was Pyjamarama.

So many detailed rooms, variety of objects, plenty of colours, it was just amazing.

[bluespikey]

Seeing someone else Kokotoni Wilf. The giant dinosaur sprites; the actual loading screen was the game itself.

[Oloturia]

For me it's Starglider. Man, those things were huge!

[Mcoder2]

- "The Hobbit" comes to my mind.

- "Lunar Jetman".

- "Scuba Dive": Maybe my favourite in that sense. Somehow really gave the feeling of diving in the ocean, and that with the simple and limited graphics of the Spectrum.

[rich_r]

Sabre Wulf's bright colourful, complex jungle was always very appealing to me.

[ParadigmShifter]

Yeah the Ultimate games had good graphics in the main (apart from the ugly IMO Underworlde). Shame Sabre Wulf didn't play very well, Atic Atac was a much better game.

I also second the Hobbit which was first speccy game we had.

Animation in Tir Na Nog and Dun Darach was very good too.

[sludge]

Pud Pud for its weirdness.

[MarkRJones1970]

I agree with all the games mentioned in the 1st post. But I’d like to add ‘Tir Na Nog’, ‘I, of the Mask’ and ‘Starstrike II’.







Each one blew me away with the advancement in visuals and, with each title, I’d never seen anything like it ever before on my Spectrum.

[Einar Saukas]

Myth

[Einar Saukas]

Lightforce

[Einar Saukas]

Dan Dare

[Einar Saukas]

Before 1986, there was a few games with great graphics (Saboteur, Lords of Midnight, TLL, etc) but I think only Knight Lore can be considered "visual impact".

[sn3j]

Lords of Midnight and Tomahawk for the stunning open world feeling
and also Knight Lore for sure

[luny]

Lords of Midnight and Tomahawk for the stunning open world feeling
and also Knight Lore for sure

I think Lords of Midnight is unique enough that it made people sit up and notice, which is an impact and it is iconic, or course.

[redballoon]

Absolutely loads!
Trashman - I just live the suburban style and every day life, especially the houses and gardens.
Skool Daze - those lovely crisp character sprites.
Dan Dare/Dan Dare 2 - again, crisp graphics and the use of colour.
Rex - all the lovely detailed graphics.
Knight Lore
Fairlight - taking the isometric style and giving it so much detail and real.
Head Over Heels/Batman - Bernie Drummond’s style was such a large influence on Melkhior’s Mansion.

But really it was FD Thorpe’s loading screens that influenced me the most.

[Morkin]

Just remembered another one, Dark Sceptre.

I was astounded by the preview screenshots. OK, so there's the thick black border around the graphics to avoid the clash, but even so.

I was slightly disappointed when I actually played it though. There wasn't as much fighting animation as I'd expected. And I really had no clue what to do.

[Lee Bee]

It was mostly arcade machines which stunned me with their graphics. (My all-time biggest "wow" moment being Power Drift which still thrills my soul to this day.)

On the Speccy, I was captivated by the immersive realism of Turbo Esprit:



While Prince of Persia was a stunnning quantum leap for character animation:



Totally agree with MYTH! What a truly superb game in every way!