Alarm

An interesting thread folks. Two great things the Speccy had in its favour was its affordability and ease to develop for. This meant people could take risks and develop unusual titles and if they didn't sell well, then they didn't lose a great deal of money. I think the Speccy has the most diverse range of titles of all the 8-bit computers. Look at games like Skool Daze (effectively a school 'simulator' which also made it to the C64 but the sequel didn't), Chaos (an eight-player massively involving rpg-style arcade game), Lords of Midnight , The Great Escape, Everyone's A Wally (arguably the first arcade game to let you switch between different characters), Tir Na Nog, and many more. It of course had several commercial failures, but some very interesting ones including Fat Worm Blows A Sparky (erm, words do fail me), Deus Ex Machina (weird game that effectively completed itself, came with a soundtrack on cassette) and Juggernaut (an underrated gem from Pete Cooke - a realistic (well...) juggernaut sim - you deliver goods to various places - sounds boring, but the joy was in mastering the controls and the various nice touches). I owned both a Spectrum and C64 (and VCS, MSX, played on a friend's CPC, etc) and did play on the Spectrum a lot more. I think its limitations are part of the charm. Without attribute clash Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy wouldn't have come out like they did (I won't go into why I believe this is so here). Nostalgia is of course playing a part here but it is grounded on knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of the Spectrum as a gaming platform, and a wealth of experience of playing Spectrum (and several other formats') games.

Shut it you muppet. Cor blimey, luv a duck...

Heh, what an interesting thread. I actually know Mike Lamb (the real programmer of Steve Davis Snooker); perhaps I should ask him if he has heard of our friend and this amazing-sounding 128 version? Thanks for the entertainment guys.

It is Journey Escape, thanks for your help. I swear there was some text as a kind of intro (I can't remember the spaceship intro); is it possible the PAL version is different than the NTSC one? What a horrible game! It's very easy on the default setting when you know what to do. The thing that gives you invincibility for the remainer of the level is such a bad idea! I completed it on my third go... Regards, Phil

Hi all, I just joined, mainly to ask a question. I had a vcs years ago with loads of carts, one of which I haven't seen mentioned since. The game in question had a music theme; I think the plot was that you were in a band. There was some text when the game began, in-game tune, I think there were music notes in the game, the game had a black background, and I can still remember the tune now! Thing is, I can't for the life of me remember what the game is called! I've downloaded all the commercial carts from here and scanned the list for a title to no avail. The manufacturer wasn't a well known name (I can't remember it, sorry), and the cart was PAL. I've sorted in Stella by manufacturer, but nothing leapt out and screamed 'here I am'. I'm planning on working my way through all the games I downloaded to see if I find it. This has a pleasant side effect of discovering games I've never played and long-forgotten classics! Any help most welcome! Regards, Phil