I've been watching this youtube channel I found at random where some guy reviews ZX Spectrum games he played as a kid. I doubt I'd ever buy a ZX Spectrum, but it is an interesting system that might be worth emulating. What are the absolute best games for the Spectrum? A lot of the games in these reviews turn out to be clunkers that even his nostalgia can't save.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ket8zKYbBaQ&list=PLxnekvAfrfo7casN9akXw-HwYgLuAlLtl&index=21
Oh, look at you lot, all fancy with your shiny new consoles and your flashy graphics, thinking you’ve seen it all. But let me tell you something, you clueless zoomers, the real golden age of video games was back in the day, on the microcomputers, especially the legendary ZX Spectrum. Yes, that’s right, the humble little box that started it all. None of your modern “gameplay” obsession back then, it was about pure wonder, the magic of being able to interact with a tiny pixelated universe inside your very own micro.
See, while you’re busy fussing over 3D graphics and “storytelling,” we were busy scribbling BASIC code, loading games off cassette tapes, and marveling at the fact that our Spectrum could do anything from flipping sprites to creating entire worlds with just a few lines of code. It was a revolution, a proper one, where the focus was on imagination and discovery. Nintendo? Pfft. They’ve brainwashed you into thinking “gameplay” is the only thing that matters, but they can’t match the raw, unpolished genius of the Spectrum.
And don’t get me started on how superior the Spectrum was, it was versatile, affordable, and most importantly, accessible. It gave us the power to create as well as play. You think those shiny new consoles can do that? No, they’re too busy trying to hold your hand through the entire experience. The Spectrum was about independent exploration, about learning and building not just pressing buttons for the sake of it.
So, tell me, do you even understand what it was like? The thrill of loading a game after 20 minutes of cassette whirring, then seeing that pixelated hero on the screen? That’s where it all started, where real passion for gaming was born. And mark my words, the Spectrum, the mighty ZX Spectrum is better than anything your modern fancy toys could ever hope to be. Just sit back and try to grasp that, if you can.
>>11806023I wish we could get a ZX Spectrum thread without this shit.
>>11806023More like "on the spectrum" amirite?
>>11806038>I wish we could get a ZX Spectrum thread without this shit.Then let's have one without it, what's your most favoritest ZX Spectrum game?
WEC Le Mans is the best racing game on the Spectrum. Very smooth, no hiccups you'd expect from it.
>>11805989 (OP)At the time there were better options for 8 bit microcomputers like the C64. You were stuck with ZX Spectrum if you didn't have money to get anything else. I think the only thing that's worth your time when it comes to Spectrum is keeping an eye on the homebrew scene which is very active and keeps pumping out some quality games for it.
>>11805989 (OP)Never touched one of these even in an emulator, don't know the games, but man that rainbow-on-black look in the screenshots always grabs me. Yes I mean this in a complimentary way.
I've played tons of ZX Spectrum but I was so young I don't remember which games I played.
I think Paperboy was one of them. I also remember a helicopter cassette tape but I was never allowed to play that one
>>11805989 (OP)Imagine having this music stuck in your head for 30 years.
Shoutout to Galaxians, an unlicensed conversion of Galaxian. Plays pretty good, better than Atari's oficial port on Speccy.
>>11806023this really oi'd me speccy
>>11806253I really like the speccy's aesthetics. It looks like cheapo handheld games, but for the TV with some colours crudely sprinkled in. Weirdly detailed, mixed with handdrawn bits
Speccy is the one console where the X2SAI Lookin' good filter actually does look good. I
Depends right, like with
>>11806253 the art is actually pretty good, so you shouldn't use it then but most Spectrum games look like garbage so the x2sai actually helps
>>11805989 (OP)Comfy channel. Thanks for sharing
>>11805989 (OP)The problem as I see it is that ZX games, at the time when they came out, were still looking and playing like bootleg arcade games. They look derpy and "glitchy" as sprites tended to flicker, the gameplay loop was shit simple and really unappealing and so on...
They were firmly stuck in "we got arcade games at home" mentality. Meanwhile the next wave of gaming were games that are more complex and offer something more than just a simple gameplay loop at home. NES for instance came a year or two after ZX and offered much MUCH more complexity for home gaming than ZX could muster up.
>>11806865>NES for instance came a year or two after ZX and offered much MUCH more complexity for home gaming than ZX could muster up.Why are you trying to trigger our resident schizo?
>>11806865European computers had a weakness related to storage media. 90% of games came on audio cassettes, which meant that software had to be loaded in one chunk before starting the game and the whole code had to reside inside computer's RAM. You could theoretically create software which would ask for additional loads afterwards, but everybody hated that since it often required rewinding tape and was generally unreliable. Meanwhile, floppy disks could load arbitrary data into RAM at any point of operation and cartridges were exposing their whole contents at all times, making much more complex games possible.
There were actually 10 games for ZX Spectrum released back then on ROM cartridge, taking advantage of the ZX Interface 2 addon device, but the whole format flopped and the carts were limited to only 16KiB of data anyway.
I've always wanted to try Speccy games but haven't been able to figure out how to get emulators to work (same with C64 and others, I have a ton of console emulators working but I guess the home computer thing escapes me lol).
I'm the only human being on this board who knows about this game, let alone played it.
>>11806983Dunno which emulators you've tried but Fuse is extremely easy to use:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/fuse-emulator/files/fuse/
>>11806983Get a MiSTer. Microcomputer emulation on that thing is easy breezy.
I always liked Underworlde, one of the lesser named Ultimate games.
a different take on the platformer
https://youtu.be/x9C_hGywTwo?feature=shared
Imagine playing Ultima on zx spectrum back then. Must have been so dope.
why doesnt the speccybong have retro cheevos yet unironically
>>11808560Back in the day we didn't have achievements and we liked it that way
>>11808560you had to invent your own
>>11808560Microcomputers are all about interacting with the program code and trying to screw around by applying PEEK and POKE commands to game preloaded from tape. Cheating is part of the experience and the modern achievement culture goes against it.
>>11808615>>11808689>>11808706past tense unc, time to get with the times
>>11806265>better than Atari's oficial port on Speccy.Ignore this, I was deceived. Atarisoft port is miles better, it just lacks joystick support.
