PLAY - Top Trumps; Computer Games

[Bex Bissell]

Simple rules apply, short description and mark out of 10.

First off we have this, what in the name of hells teeth did they expect you to do with this?
It came in the games pack when you bought the Spectrum.



Make a chip! I'll do better than that, I'll tie the contents of the cassette around a lamp post and see how far I can walk before I get to the end of the tape.
Score 5, for the length of the tape, I got as far as the Green telephone box. which compared to Horace goes sking was pretty good.

[Alycidon]

The Grandaddy of them all, Elite by name Elite by nature, Was the best thing ever crammed onto 48K Score 10 - Right on Commander!!

[AlanM]

This one predates Elite by quite a bit and was a personal favourite of mine



Run around a maze trying to avoid being eaten by a very blocky T-rex, ASCII block graphics and no sound, membrane keyboard and a shoogly 16k RAM Pack. Even at the time this was hardly cutting edge technology but very addictive.

Emulator with this game can be dowloaded here

Score 6

[Bex Bissell]

The aforementioned Horace goes Skiing.
UTTER UTTER UTTER. mince.


But then this, Back 2 Skool, letting off stink bombs, firing catapults, dogging (not in the Stan Collimore fashion), punching teachers & fellow pupils, swearing (as you were able to edit charaters names as well as write on blackboards)




Great stuff 8

[red_kola]

The aforementioned Horace goes Skiing.
UTTER UTTER UTTER. mince.

Agreed. The Movie was much better...

[Bex Bissell]

What a cast.

This game along with many others at the time came with "Lens Lock" which was a bit of plastic that when held over the screen would reveal a special code that had to be entered for the game to work. This was an anti piracy thing.
The only problem was the makers didnt compensate for diffrent sized telly's so the code would be unreadable.



Score 6 decent flight model for something on 48k

[red_kola]

This has to be my favourite web site ever:

It details through the medium of the animated gif what happened when you swore in a variety of ZX Spectrum adventure games...

http://www.monkeon.co.uk/swearadventure/

[Bex Bissell]

Having loaded Make A Chip I was inspired by all things electronic and soon wanted to find out more so armed with nothing more than a screwdriver I went about finding out what all the fuss was about on tomorrows world.

Here one for the boffins.
The following image shows in graphic detail the INSIDES of a spectrum..beware. full frontal circuitry.

[Schiehallion]

This game was cutting edge on the Spectrum unleashing the full power of 128k ...



It was the big breakthrough in 3D. Rather than scrolling left to right across the screen, characters could walk diagonally and get wee-er giving the impression of depth.

[engineer]

ahh where time stood still, classic game.
i remember getting books from the library and typing the programs. typing and typing and typing.....usually for a good few hours only for the bastard not to run because the cant who published the book didn't check it. (though proof reading one of those books would probably require someone from cape canaveral) and if they did run, were utter shite. far worse than any Horace game.
however the sports games that required you to move one hand in a repetitive motion provided me with a muscle tone and rhythm of right hand which i still enjoy today


ps did anyone play that chinese juggler game?

[McShad]

When you are 10 years old and playing with a ZX Spectrum, this was THEE game as an act of rebellion....
Pouring itching powder and tweaking bras!

[McShad]

I never did have the pleasure of playing this game, but the mind boggles at what you actually do?

Walk around with a dour face trying to pick a fight with everyone?

[mrlipring]

I never did have the pleasure of playing this game, but the mind boggles at what you actually do?

Walk around with a dour face trying to pick a fight with everyone?

IIRC, you'd walk around the house a bit, put cling film on the toilet, stab someone with a biro, and drink lots of lager then die.

How about:



or one of the many other games?

I was a fan of fantasy world, magic land and treasure island. Spellbound was cool but didn't feel right. The original was unforgiving to say the least...

[AlanM]

What about the ultimate text adventure game, The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, availble to play online at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hitchhikers/game_new.shtml (updated with the addition of graphics) or at http://www.douglasadams.com/creations/infocomjava.html for the puritans.

Score 9/10

[YokerBloke]

I loved this on the Spectrum...




And this on the C64...