Spectrum Computing

Disparagingly mocked by local rivals US Gold for being based above a Walsall fish and chip shop, and these days, sadly involved in shady dealings over intellectual property.

However, this is all about the games, and like a few other major full price labels, Elite did establish a budget re-release label (Encore) and another budget label (Hit-Pak) for what they considered to be 'B-grade' stuff.

Quite a few arcade licenses, Bomb Jack and Buggy Boy being rather impressive. A few TV tie-ins too, covering American and British shows.

I make it 29 ZX Spectrum games under the Elite label, do tell me if I've got anything wrong.

1942
911 TS
Airwolf
Beyond The Ice Palace
Bomb Jack
Bomb Jack II
Buggy Boy
Commando
Duet
Dukes Of Hazzard, The
Fall Guy, The
Frank Bruno's Boxing
Ghosts 'N Goblins
Grand National
Hopping Mad
Ikari Warriors
Kokotoni Wilf
Mike Read's Pop Quiz
Overlander
Paperboy
Question Of Sport, A
Roller Coaster
Scooby-Doo
Space Harrier
Storm Warrior
Super Trux
Thundercats
Wanderer
World Championship Soccer

The original releases under the Hit-Pak label will be in a thread separate to this...

Keith Burkhill's coin-op conversion output from late 85 to late 86 is up there with the very best of them. Possibly the best of all the great arcade converters.

Bombjack, Commando, Ghosts n Goblins are all playable masterpieces - BJ and Commando are arguably better than the original arcade machines. The conversion of Space Harrier, a game that's not that great but that's the fault of the original, is astonishing for the Spectrum.

Gonna be a tough one this. I absolutely loved Frank Bruno's Boxing on original release too, so some careful thinking required here...

Disparagingly mocked by local rivals US Gold for being based above a Walsall fish and chip shop

Nothing to mock, many current giant corporations started in a garage.

By the way, I suppose some of us in the 80s had totally unrealistic ideas how companies producing Spectrum games and their headquaters look like

We expected something like:


While in fact it was (here's Ashby-de-la-Zouch and Ultimate's site):

Duet should be in the Hit Pak poll, Storm Warrior was never released and it looks like Pop Quiz was possibly Encore only.

So Airwolf does have a proper ending on Spectrum, I just checked? It was impossible to beat on CPC due toa bug.

StooB wrote: ↑Sun Aug 18, 2019 12:56 pm Duet should be in the Hit Pak poll

I concede, you are correct. I didn't realise it first came out as part of Hit-Pak's first compilation, 6-Pak. (And thrown in 'free' so it's effectively 7-Pak!)

StooB wrote: ↑Sun Aug 18, 2019 12:56 pmStorm Warrior was never released

Again, I'm glad you've corrected me!

StooB wrote: ↑Sun Aug 18, 2019 12:56 pmand it looks like Pop Quiz was possibly Encore only.

Looks like you're right again. I can only see it as a full price Elite release if we were to count the Commodore 64 (which is an absurd notion, so no).

Which means, I could take Battleships out of the Hit-Pak poll, because that was a debut-on-Encore release, and then start an Encore poll, consisting - ridiculously - of just two games: Battleships vs Mike Read's Pop Quiz. (No need to do a proportional vote on that!)

Ralf wrote: ↑Sun Aug 18, 2019 10:46 am

Disparagingly mocked by local rivals US Gold for being based above a Walsall fish and chip shop

Nothing to mock, many current giant corporations started in a garage.

It's something that keeps coming up in the Story Of US Gold book. As they were a local-ish software house going after the same big licenses (Elite got Ghosts N Goblins, US Gold got Ghouls N Ghosts), they really had it in for Elite. I suppose a Birmingham vs Black Country rivalry could be a factor?

In any case, US Gold's base is on a dreary soulless industrial estate in outer Birmingham. Yes, they became huge and probably the most commercially successful software label in Britain - kind of morphing into Eidos, so you could say they ended up being the guys who put out the Tomb Raider franchise.

By the way, I suppose some of us in the 80s had totally unrealistic ideas how companies producing Spectrum games and their headquaters look like

Ralf wrote: ↑Sun Aug 18, 2019 10:46 amWe expected something like:


While in fact it was (here's Ashby-de-la-Zouch and Ultimate's site):

I occasionally run past what was Activision's old Wellingborough HQ. It's another 'steel shed' unit on an industrial estate.

Agree with [mention]Vampyre[/mention] , Bomb Jack, Commando and others were great conversions very playable.

And I love the games from the first years (84, 85), like Kokotoni Wilf, 911 TS, Grand National, Roller Coaster or Fall Guy. A really good list of games.

I bet a close fight between Bomb Jack and Commando.

Elite were my favourite software company BITD, it's a shame that in the past few years they seemed to have been on a mission to ruin their reputation.

I'd actually forgotten how many good games Elite put out. For some reason my lasting impression of them has been of a downmarket US Gold, all rushed-out licences of poor-quality US TV shows, but looking at the list, there are some great games there and at least a couple of absolute classics (as others have mentioned, Bomb Jack and Commando have to be two of the best games ever released for the Spectrum). Going to be a tough call

Yep, this is going to be a toughie. I’ve got fond memories of Kokotoni Wilf as it was a Christmas present from my grandparents. We used to go there for Christmas lunch and I’d take my speecy and B&w portable tv and set it up in the kitchen. Ghosts and Goblins was also another favourite even though I couldn’t get any further than the cyan/Ice level. Commando and Bob Jack we’re indeed amazing conversions but I never spent much time playing either of them. Fall Guy really had that ‘just one more go’ appeal to me.

Another tricky one for me as well.

Seems weird to see Commando & Ikari Warriors up against each other, I used to love both of those games.

Wow, some great ones in this list.

Although it was super hard, i always enjoyed the challenge of Airwolf and always thought "yeah, today i'll get further" but never did.
Getting maximum points in every level of Bomb Jack was tough, i could always do the first 5-6 levels or so then it got nuts.
Classic, Frank Bruno's Boxing. U~sed to get close to the last couple of fighters but never got to Frank
Classic, Ghosts 'N Goblins. Muscle memory FTW. Shame i had neither.
Classic, Kokotoni Wilf. WTF was going on here? I dunno, collet stuff, teleport to levels. Die.
Kokotoni Wilf but more collectables and all placed round rides, its Roller Coaster. Got pretty far in this too but only saw it all with infy lives pokes.

Ahh, Scooby-Doo, great game. I think of all these this got the most playtime from me, was a great fun game.

And what an achievement Space Harrier was for a lowly Speccy. This for many years was my most favourite "real" arcade game. I was pretty good at it and loved the hydraulic chair. Always sought one out at Skeggy when on hols.

Scooby Doo for me although i'm not sure that will be a popular choice.

I really loved Paperboy, spent loads of time playing that, even though it was pretty repetitive, but I still got a sense of achievement every time I correctly delivered a paper or knocked a bin over, and I loved smashing windows of folk not part of my route.

The other two stand outs are Bomb Jack and Commando, both games I played loads of and could easily load up today and immerse myself in.

I thought Space Harrier was an incredible achievement on the Speccy and played it loads. A shame that once you got past level 6 there weren't any new sprites to see (except maybe the skeletal dragon). Also that there weren't any tall trees on the first level, even though there were on later levels. But obviously nowadays it's not much to look at, what with so many better conversions and MAME around. Similarly Buggy Boy may have looked great once, but the frame rate is embarrassing if you look at it now.

I never really got into Bomb Jack but love Commando as it was genuinely a better game than the arcade.

But I do like a game of Kokotoni Wilf. I love the time-zone settings, and the way it's a multi-screen game but still in stages. I come back to it more than Jet Set Willy.

And then there's the utterly brilliant Thundercats. Way better to look at and more fun to play than other on-foot scrollers like Rygar and the GnG games.

Honestly never played Roller Coaster, and I utterly hated Paperboy - the diagonal scroll was a bad idea as it always just filled the screen with big blocky houses and forced you into the bottom-right corner where you couldn't see far enough ahead to react to anything.

Bomb Jack, vs. Commando, tricky one as they both got a lot of play from me. Bomb Jack was quite fluid to play. Also put a lot of time into Airwolf but I can't remember if that was due to or in spite of its difficulty! Probably one of the first two.

Blimey, I'd forgotten about Roller Coaster until JoeFish mentioned it above. Can't believe I missed it in the list.

That was another really, really good platform game that I played loads of but never got anywhere near to completing. I'd go as far to say that, other than Manic Miner, it's the best platform game on the Speccy.

Picking an Elite top 3 just got that little bit harder...

hitm4n wrote: ↑Mon Aug 19, 2019 9:30 pm Classic, Frank Bruno's Boxing. U~sed to get close to the last couple of fighters but never got to Frank

You were Frank, the final fight was against Peter Perfect. Actually, I'm sure when you completed it the game mentioned that some additional fighters would be available later. Pretty sure they were never released though?

Vampyre wrote: ↑Tue Aug 20, 2019 6:09 pm

hitm4n wrote: ↑Mon Aug 19, 2019 9:30 pm Classic, Frank Bruno's Boxing. U~sed to get close to the last couple of fighters but never got to Frank

You were Frank, the final fight was against Peter Perfect. Actually, I'm sure when you completed it the game mentioned that some additional fighters would be available later. Pretty sure they were never released though?

Oh yes, that makes sense. lol. Damn these hazy rose tinted memories... I think i may have got to him but he just dodged and hit you after every move, he was impossible to beat.

Difficult to decide although my choices might seem a bit odd.

Kokotoni Wilf or Roller Coaster , simply as I really enjoyed both games. Koko I first set eyes upon on the Soft-Aid tape BITD. Roller Coaster the same I think I might still have my tape for it.

I do recall my brother hiring out (in the days when you could hire games from some video shops although it was miles away) AirWolf amongst other things over time, but it was too tricky. Never really was a great fan of Commando for some reason I think I did not like the control method too much although I think those were the only ones I played 'back then'



The poll when it appears for this is going to be very interesting viewing I think.

Phew. I'm back after a hectic extended weekend up at the Edinburgh Fringe, a week of work where I was catching up on stuff from before my holiday... now back on all of this. Will try to start the polls today. Give me a few hours first...