Does anyone have a fond nostalgia for old spectrum games? I love 'em. Jeff Minter was a genius!

Honestly, I know very little about it... well, I know nothing about it. Did the Spectrum comeout around the time of Atari? What were the good games for it? Make us fall in love with it Duncan.

Sorry for the late reply!

Spectrums were among the first home computers, starting with the ZX81 in about 1980, progressing to the 16K and eventually the much loved 48K Spectrum with it's unreliable 'rubber keypad'. They came out shortly after those big old Atari consoles. They were invented by Sir Clive Sinclair and competed in the marketplace against the Commodore 64 for the attention of spotty gaming nerds.

You had to load Spectrum games using audio tape cassettes. This improved the popularity of the computer, as everyone could steal software by 'home-taping' onto cassette, much the same as recording albums onto mix-tapes.

Thing is, because the graphics and sound were so crappy, software engineers had to concentrate on producing addictive game concepts, so the playability made up for lack of style. This is not to say all the games were good - there's tons of bad titles, but many of them went on to influence some of the biggest gaming franchises in history.

A few examples of good Spectrum games -

Halls of the things - see 'Doom'
Turbo Esprit - see 'Grand Theft Auto'
Manic Miner - see every platform game ever!

It should be noted that many Spectrum games are still as infuriatingly addictive as when they came out. One strategy game - 'Rebelstar' still works because it's largely conceptual, in the same way Chess is still playable.

There were also a number of early film 'tie-ins'. Although Atari lays claim to the first example of such a medium, with the dreadful ET , Spectrum caught up fast and produced titles such as Alien, Airwolf and Evil Dead.

Unfortunately, Spectrums were just too dated and clunky and died out in the late 80s/early 90s, replaced by Amigas and Atari STs.

You can still play the games on numerous websites - just do a google search for 'Spectrum games online' or whatnot.

My favourite titles (amongst others) include -

Renegade
Manic Miner
Rebelstar
Saboteur
Bruce Lee
JetPac
Alien
Jet Set Willy
Chuckie Egg
Knight Lore
Lamatron
Stop The Express!
Eric and the floaters

Dubious mention also goes to the film tie-in based on Deathwish, where you got to blow up old ladies with a rocket launcher.

You'll probably look at the games and think they're rubbish, but as a snapshot of where it all started, the ZX Spectrum is worth checking out.

Ok - no-one seems that interested.

How about if I provided a link to a fully playable Spectrum game?

Click on the link below to play Manic Miner. One of the best loved and most influential computer games in history. Enjoy! -

MANIC MINER ONLINE

OK, no-one likes that either.

Blimey - tough audience!

Atari 2600 anyone? I've got one of those too.

Guess not.

It's quiet round here isn't it?

(taps fingers on table)

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You really made me think about the "good old times" I really do like the ease and elegance of the current games but the old ones were quite good as well as Spectrum was creating really good games
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Thanks for the reply!

What made Spectrum really great was the limitations of the computer. Programmers had to come up with really brilliant ideas, because that's all they had!

Things are a bit different now. The games look and sound incredible, but there's not a lot of originality anymore. How many first person shooters do we need? Doom came out well over 10 years ago!

Ahhhh....nostalgia!
The Spectrum 48K is in my humble opinion, the best and most enjoyable system I ever owned. (All in all, I had an Atary 2600, Sega Megadrive, NES, PSOne, PS2 and currenly an Xbox 360.)
I grew up with my beloved Spectrum, and still miss it today and have oodles of fond memories of brilliant games. Yes, the graphics and sound sucked, yes it took forever for games to load (if they wanted to load at all) and the keyboard was horrible, but that doesn't seem to matter.
The best games for the Spectrum was so good, because the a lot of imagination and originality went into them. Not like today where originality is a scarce commodity indeed.
Anyone remember Urban Upstart, The Hobbit (one of the best games ever), Trashman, Sherlock?
I used to LOVE text-only adventure games and I'm baffled why they don't exist anymore.
For any person with intelligence and a love of reading, these games were the best. It was like living inside and controlling the flow of a great novel.
Can you just imagine what kind of text-only adventure could be made with today's technology and memory capacity?
If all the memory of the latest PC's were spent on AI and language parsing instead of graphics etc. something truly awesome could surely be created where conversing with a NPC would be like talking to a real human being. Can you just imagine the possibilities for story, dialogue and total immersion?
Of course, nobody would do it, because there wouldn't be a market for it, as largely the gaming community today seem to be made out of ADD-afflicted IQ-deficient action junkies.
Nothing wrong with a good FPS for adrenaline thrills, but I really miss a good storyline with real player participation etc.
The point-and-click adventures were too weak and crappy for me.
The writer Douglas Adams (of Hitchhiker fame) tried his hand at creating a good text-based adventure game before his death, but obviously nothing much came from it.
Any comments, anyone? (intelligent comments, please)