Episode 35 - It's time to do a run through the top 50 games for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, the computer that brought affordable commuting to many of us in the UK and introduced us to games.
There are so many excellent games for the rubber-keyed wonder and the 128 kB models. Any list of just 50 titles has to be an individual choice. Some games on this list I totally agree with, others are pretty much unknown to me like your number one. If I was to compile a list like this, I would include 3D Combat Zone and Ant Attack which were the first games I owned for the ZX Spectrum. So I started on the system's strength in 3D graphics, it seems. The list would thus also include 3D Starstrike and Elite, of course, which I played until I finally made it to that final rank. Midnight Resistance and R-Type are on your list, too, and I would add Penetrator which also featured a level editor - brilliant innovation for its time. Strategy games are also numerous on the Speccy with Laser Squad, Hero Quest and Lords of Midnight plus its sequel, and let's not forget about Rebelstar 1 and 2. To name just a few. Finally, I would choose Dragontorc of Avalon over modern RPG and fantasy games like Skyrim. No quest markers and some serious puzzles to get to grips with - and lots of exploring, which you obviously like very much. These are just some examples of what I would mention and I did not even start with things like Sim City, Carrier Command, Starglider 1 and 2, Mister Kung-Fu and all those adventures like the Hobbit or The Pawn. Modern games like Metal Man Remixed, Angels, Valley of Rains and much more stuff like Space Monsters meet the Hardy (multicolor and frantic gameplay) are also a blast. I did miss out on Vectron and Jangler, two of the more unknown favourites of mine. Ah, I could go on and on.... You know what I mean, don't you! 😎
Ah yes Ant Attack, I 'think' I have a copy Signed by Sandy White at one of the spectrum events (Crash live). I was maybe a bit too young to understand it when it came out but remember watching my brother play it through, a real achievement for the time. With the 'new' game sI find them graphically impressive but there isn't any nostalgia there for me so I have only picked a couple up so far. Same with the spectrum Next, I get that it looks cool but I am not really sure what the point of it is really but I get people like it and it is good to see the legacy live on. Still scouring the car boot sales for that 128K Spectrum toast rack model, no luck yet. Sounds like you have a lot of passion for the system and old games, why not start a channel too ? :)
@@37Retro An own channel about the ZX Spectrum and maybe about innovations in home computing which I am collecting (e.g. Vectrex, Virtoal Boy, MB Microvision, Atari Lynx?) Good idea! May come true once I get some time for that.
A great list, they were great times and if you were born in the 70's then you lived through the best times in gaming in the 80's and 90's Some games here I never had but loads of classics I did👍
My top 3 would be Gunship from Microprose, Carrier Command, and Starglider. Other not mentioned games that ate up my time include LED Storm, Pacmania, IK+, Saboteur 2, Dynamite Dan 2, Stunt Car Racer, Xeno, Nether Earth, Microprose Soccer, Klax, Mikie, Astro Marine Corps, Bomb Jack, Bubble Bobble, Rampage, Yie Ar Kung Fu, Crystal Castles, Flashpoint, Escape From the Planet of the Robot Monsters, Eliminator, Ghostbusters, Hydrofool, Intensity, Operation Wolf, Nebulus, Passing Shot, Power Drift, Silkworm, Space Crusade, Sin City, Switchblade, Cyclone, and West Bank
Assuming that Raffaele is of Italian heritage, then the pronunciation would be chek-ko :-) Like the excellent De Cecco pasta in the supermarkets. Excellent List, BTW. I've seen a few of these on TH-cam, and this is the one I tend to agree with the most.
At the ripe old age of 40, I had a dream about turning into a fish and running out of oxygen. I realised it was from a game I played in early childhood but I couldn't for the life of me think what, it's been bugging me for ages and I was starting to wonder if I'd imagined it. Then I watch you video and bam! Slightly Magic! Thanks for including that random fun fact about the fish or I would forever be living in ignorance 🙂
Great video, unusual selection, the first game really shaped your mind :) In my case it was JSW and I remember the shock when I saw the beach for the first time. It was bloody hard for a little kid. Now I finished Manic Miner, have the hardest JSW screens memorized and love to play the different JSW clones.
It annoys me when kids these days say "Why are old people playing COD" or whatever online sweatfest it is. If it wasn't for us old gits buying games like the ones in this video they would never have had games like COD etc. I could rant all day. And i started out on a ZX81 so i have 100% the right to say whatever i like lol
No pre-order bonuses, no legendary and collectors editions, no shitty pre-order DLC, no game breaking micro transactions or pay to win advantages, no day 1 patch or 8 hour download and no gambling EA games 'surprise mechanics'. We didn't know how good we had it. That said it does blow my mind I can go to CEX and buy an XBOX 360 game for a quid when nearly 40 years ago I was paying £2.99 :P
@@37Retro I remember those cheap 1.99 and 2.99 games. Ended up being most of my games to be honest. I played an emulated version of The Hobbit a few years ago and the screens loaded instantly. Yep, all we were missing on the Spectrum was a hard drive haha
some really fantastic choices , a ot different to mine , but with thousands to chose from its always going to be , your number 1 is a superb game and often overlooked
For me, the #1 was, undoubtedly, "Starquake". I miss in your video references to "Elite", "Auf Wiedersehen Monty", "Abu Simbel Profanation", "Fred", "Underwurlde", "Cauldron 2" and many others, including text adventures like "Valkyrie 17".
I did start with a top 100 but cut it down, kinda wish I did the full 100. Elite I know is a great game but I just simply never knew of it when I was a kid. Fred! for sure, I remember being amazed when my brother showed me you could climb out if you ever made it to the top. Spent a lot of time in underwurlde falling cheaply to my death and figuring out you could bypass some of the guardians if you bounced jumped through them at the right angle :)
@@37Retro Yeah, the first one was something special. Visually stunning, great sound and no color clash. It played like the comic, which was damned impressive.
Great list and it is always interesting seeing someone's top games. I'll admit there were several times I was thinking how could he put X game below Y game, but that's the great thing about someone else's list, there's always a lot of surprises in there.
Hey Geoff, been subscribed to you for years, good to see you here. Tried to replicate your Jet Set Willy walkthrough you did but need a LOT more practice yet :) Yeah I guess any list is going to be personal preference, there was such a vast array of games for the Spectrum that even some of the more popular ones some people are not going to have played. Playing some of these games or even modern spectrum games in 2024 is always a bit tricky, you can never get back to the mindset you had back in the 80s. If I see a new game do some cool graphics thing in 2024 I think yeah that's cool, but I have no nostalgia whatsoever for this game so it's hard to make an attachment to them.
@@37Retro The one tip I'd give you on JSW is to plan a route and always take it in the same order, it really helps get the rhythm of the game. Also take some snapshots of the harder rooms, Wine Cellar, Cold Room, Under the Drive etc... and practise them on their own. As for getting back to the mindset you had back in the 80s, I think some of that is you had to wait 5 minutes for a game to load so would put a lot more effort in than just loading a snapshot in a fraction of a second today. There are games I'm sure I'd have loved back in the day, Avalon, Tir Na Nog,... which I can't get into these days.
The Sinclair spectrum +2 Was my first computer And I loved it, Some great games on this list And quite a few I Ve never heard of, I would struggle with a top 10 as there's just so many great games On the speccy And so many memories, You're right it was great we really did have to use our imagination back then And The best thing was there were just so many games We could copy on the cheap 😂
my must play games are any of the dizzy games, hammer fist, survivors, rock fall, one man and his droid, jack the nipper in coconut land, trap door, my list could go on and on
There are so many excellent games for the rubber-keyed wonder and the 128 kB models. Any list of just 50 titles has to be an individual choice.
Some games on this list I totally agree with, others are pretty much unknown to me like your number one.
If I was to compile a list like this, I would include 3D Combat Zone and Ant Attack which were the first games I owned for the ZX Spectrum.
So I started on the system's strength in 3D graphics, it seems.
The list would thus also include 3D Starstrike and Elite, of course, which I played until I finally made it to that final rank.
Midnight Resistance and R-Type are on your list, too, and I would add Penetrator which also featured a level editor - brilliant innovation for its time.
Strategy games are also numerous on the Speccy with Laser Squad, Hero Quest and Lords of Midnight plus its sequel, and let's not forget about Rebelstar 1 and 2. To name just a few.
Finally, I would choose Dragontorc of Avalon over modern RPG and fantasy games like Skyrim. No quest markers and some serious puzzles to get to grips with - and lots of exploring, which you obviously like very much.
These are just some examples of what I would mention and I did not even start with things like Sim City, Carrier Command, Starglider 1 and 2, Mister Kung-Fu and all those adventures like the Hobbit or The Pawn.
Modern games like Metal Man Remixed, Angels, Valley of Rains and much more stuff like Space Monsters meet the Hardy (multicolor and frantic gameplay) are also a blast.
I did miss out on Vectron and Jangler, two of the more unknown favourites of mine.
Ah, I could go on and on.... You know what I mean, don't you! 😎
Ah yes Ant Attack, I 'think' I have a copy Signed by Sandy White at one of the spectrum events (Crash live). I was maybe a bit too young to understand it when it came out but remember watching my brother play it through, a real achievement for the time. With the 'new' game sI find them graphically impressive but there isn't any nostalgia there for me so I have only picked a couple up so far. Same with the spectrum Next, I get that it looks cool but I am not really sure what the point of it is really but I get people like it and it is good to see the legacy live on.
Still scouring the car boot sales for that 128K Spectrum toast rack model, no luck yet.
Sounds like you have a lot of passion for the system and old games, why not start a channel too ? :)
@@37Retro An own channel about the ZX Spectrum and maybe about innovations in home computing which I am collecting (e.g. Vectrex, Virtoal Boy, MB Microvision, Atari Lynx?)
Good idea!
May come true once I get some time for that.
You could skip redundant games in the same genre - E.g. forget about Timegate, Starion, etc and just choose Elite.
A great list, they were great times and if you were born in the 70's then you lived through the best times in gaming in the 80's and 90's
Some games here I never had but loads of classics I did👍
I loved your list, I had a go of each game as you mentioned it. There were some real hidden gems, thanks!
Sorry you had to play Caves of Doom, I don't know why I just love it! Even if it gets ridiculously hard.
@@37Retro I liked COD. It was colourful and cute. Reminded me a little of VVVVVV. I bounced off of The Devil's Crown tho'!
My top 3 would be Gunship from Microprose, Carrier Command, and Starglider. Other not mentioned games that ate up my time include LED Storm, Pacmania, IK+, Saboteur 2, Dynamite Dan 2, Stunt Car Racer, Xeno, Nether Earth, Microprose Soccer, Klax, Mikie, Astro Marine Corps, Bomb Jack, Bubble Bobble, Rampage, Yie Ar Kung Fu, Crystal Castles, Flashpoint, Escape From the Planet of the Robot Monsters, Eliminator, Ghostbusters, Hydrofool, Intensity, Operation Wolf, Nebulus, Passing Shot, Power Drift, Silkworm, Space Crusade, Sin City, Switchblade, Cyclone, and West Bank
Assuming that Raffaele is of Italian heritage, then the pronunciation would be chek-ko :-) Like the excellent De Cecco pasta in the supermarkets.
Excellent List, BTW. I've seen a few of these on TH-cam, and this is the one I tend to agree with the most.
Its always interesting looking at someones fav. zx speccy games, especially with comments
For me there are several games I never heard of, but it's missing some of my favs like Bruce Lee, Skool Daze, and Ghostbusters!!
At the ripe old age of 40, I had a dream about turning into a fish and running out of oxygen.
I realised it was from a game I played in early childhood but I couldn't for the life of me think what, it's been bugging me for ages and I was starting to wonder if I'd imagined it.
Then I watch you video and bam! Slightly Magic! Thanks for including that random fun fact about the fish or I would forever be living in ignorance 🙂
Heh, yeah I sometimes see random spectrum games and it tweaks some lost lost memory. I never did finish Slightly magic, I will go back one day :)
Great video, unusual selection, the first game really shaped your mind :) In my case it was JSW and I remember the shock when I saw the beach for the first time. It was bloody hard for a little kid. Now I finished Manic Miner, have the hardest JSW screens memorized and love to play the different JSW clones.
My three favourite speccy chip tunes in a row... Lemmings, Cybernoid and Robocop, nice!
It annoys me when kids these days say "Why are old people playing COD" or whatever online sweatfest it is. If it wasn't for us old gits buying games like the ones in this video they would never have had games like COD etc. I could rant all day. And i started out on a ZX81 so i have 100% the right to say whatever i like lol
No pre-order bonuses, no legendary and collectors editions, no shitty pre-order DLC, no game breaking micro transactions or pay to win advantages, no day 1 patch or 8 hour download and no gambling EA games 'surprise mechanics'. We didn't know how good we had it. That said it does blow my mind I can go to CEX and buy an XBOX 360 game for a quid when nearly 40 years ago I was paying £2.99 :P
@@37Retro I remember those cheap 1.99 and 2.99 games. Ended up being most of my games to be honest. I played an emulated version of The Hobbit a few years ago and the screens loaded instantly. Yep, all we were missing on the Spectrum was a hard drive haha
some really fantastic choices , a ot different to mine , but with thousands to chose from its always going to be , your number 1 is a superb game and often overlooked
I never had Exolon. I’ve never seen a spectrum game handle colour so well.
For me, the #1 was, undoubtedly, "Starquake". I miss in your video references to "Elite", "Auf Wiedersehen Monty", "Abu Simbel Profanation", "Fred", "Underwurlde", "Cauldron 2" and many others, including text adventures like "Valkyrie 17".
I did start with a top 100 but cut it down, kinda wish I did the full 100. Elite I know is a great game but I just simply never knew of it when I was a kid. Fred! for sure, I remember being amazed when my brother showed me you could climb out if you ever made it to the top. Spent a lot of time in underwurlde falling cheaply to my death and figuring out you could bypass some of the guardians if you bounced jumped through them at the right angle :)
Great list. For me, Dan Dare is always either the top or in the top 3.
Oh yeah, great game. I remember getting really far in the game but never completed it. I played the second game but nowhere near as good as the first.
@@37Retro Yeah, the first one was something special. Visually stunning, great sound and no color clash. It played like the comic, which was damned impressive.
Would have been nice to hear the audio from the games instead of the background music.
I bought marauder based on the interviews and was quite disappointed
Great list and it is always interesting seeing someone's top games. I'll admit there were several times I was thinking how could he put X game below Y game, but that's the great thing about someone else's list, there's always a lot of surprises in there.
Hey Geoff, been subscribed to you for years, good to see you here. Tried to replicate your Jet Set Willy walkthrough you did but need a LOT more practice yet :) Yeah I guess any list is going to be personal preference, there was such a vast array of games for the Spectrum that even some of the more popular ones some people are not going to have played. Playing some of these games or even modern spectrum games in 2024 is always a bit tricky, you can never get back to the mindset you had back in the 80s. If I see a new game do some cool graphics thing in 2024 I think yeah that's cool, but I have no nostalgia whatsoever for this game so it's hard to make an attachment to them.
@@37Retro The one tip I'd give you on JSW is to plan a route and always take it in the same order, it really helps get the rhythm of the game. Also take some snapshots of the harder rooms, Wine Cellar, Cold Room, Under the Drive etc... and practise them on their own.
As for getting back to the mindset you had back in the 80s, I think some of that is you had to wait 5 minutes for a game to load so would put a lot more effort in than just loading a snapshot in a fraction of a second today. There are games I'm sure I'd have loved back in the day, Avalon, Tir Na Nog,... which I can't get into these days.
Wow. many games that are not known for me.
The Sinclair spectrum +2 Was my first computer And I loved it, Some great games on this list And quite a few I Ve never heard of, I would struggle with a top 10 as there's just so many great games On the speccy And so many memories, You're right it was great we really did have to use our imagination back then And The best thing was there were just so many games We could copy on the cheap 😂
Really enjoyed that list. Target Renegade was always my favourite 👍
Always a good choice, especially if you have 2 players. Bonus points if you can get the gunman on level 2 to shoot the enemies with his bullet! :)
@@37Retro only ever played it 2 player. I was always on keyboard 🤦
Great games
Some amazing memories of the classic speccy mate, Eric and the Floaters man! Love it! 😊
Thanks for sharing dude 👍
my must play games are any of the dizzy games, hammer fist, survivors, rock fall, one man and his droid, jack the nipper in coconut land, trap door, my list could go on and on
Ooh yeah, Hammerfist was only in black and white on the main game window but really really detailed graphics. 😊
Can you please put me out my misery...what is the video opening tune from? My brains not working this morning 🫣😂😂
Fab video btw
Dragon Ninja title theme :), another speccy music classic.
@@37Retro thank you, you've put me out of my misery 😂😂 fab game