I'd have had the Spectrum port of R-Type to the list. It really looked (and played) the business. Colourful, detailed and an amazingly faithful recreation of the arcade original.
I'd tend to agree. The only thing that really disappointed me about the Speccy version of R-Type was the lack of 128K support (which might have made it possible to have all the levels loaded in one go and offer a decent rendition of the original arcade music).
Dizzy always looked great and played great. That was pretty much the Mario or Sonic of Spectrum for me. I remember that Batman game you featured. I always was amazed at how intriguing that game was.
Personally never been much of a dizzy officianado... Only played my first one this year. That said, the Russian 2017 remake of crystal kingdom dizzy is utterly amazing both graphically and aurally... Not sure if you've seen it but here's my.vid ua-cam.com/video/6sWPcquyOtM/v-deo.html
Bazza H thanks for the reply, I appreciate that! I subscribed to the channel so Ill be working through your vids but i followed the link. I recognise that Dizzy. Dizzy 1 title screen music is epic (worth a listen) my fav Dizzy was fantasy land Dizzy (3rd in the series I think).
The scenes from Fairlight, particularly the yellow room at 4:34, evoke such a strong sense of nostalgia. It feels like a room flooded with sunlight, on a lazy afternoon...from a time when I had all of my family that I grew up with.. I miss them greatly, particularly my aunt Shaista who played some of these games with me on the Spectrum and C64.. and she loved Moon Cresta :)
I loved WTSS on the speccy and one of my only gripes when I moved on to an Amiga in 1990 was that the Amiga never got a version of it. In 2014 a fella finally ported the Atari ST version over to Amiga and it made my day :D But the speccy version is gorgeous still. www.lemonamiga.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11948&sid=356761ebac8a86bc72bc8988d11ad9bd
Astro Marine Corps IMO is the best looking game on the Spectrum, Very colorful and even has an amazing parallax scrolling. To help things out, the soundtrack is insanely good and the game plays really well too. First time I saw it I couldn't believe it was a Spectrum game.
Totally agree with you! I remember playing Astro Marine Corps back in the early 90's and also though that the game was outstanding! Remember i couldnt jump over that hole with that creepy thing inside of it before i realised you gotta drop the bomb there in order to jump over! Great game! Spent hours playing it!
I remember "Extreme" and I'm glad it's on this list because, imho, use of attributes and colours was borderline art. "Exolon" was also very nice looking game.
It's not all about graphics. I played Dan Dare 1,2 and 3, and I always found Dan Dare 1 to be the best of the series, by A LOT. It was like being Han Solo, and blowing up the Death Star by yourself, always trying to stay alive and watching the clock. The ending animation was worth playing a game that could take 2h. Other great games were Laser Squad, Archon 1&2, Exolon, TMNT, Army Moves.... way too many to choose only 10.
Great video Bazza. I was a 16k speccy upgrader so this was a treat. You read my mind on pretty much all of them. Subjective of course (I might have put Trap Door or even Ant Attack in there but it's a top 10 and no idea what I'd take out)...subscribed!
I was about to comment with "Savage" but saw it in the list at the end. There's of course Cybernoid & R-Type, but as you mention. It's hard to do these types of lists. Nice work mind :)
I saw and actually got Batman and played it through...in 2021 :) thnx for this insight I just loved it and kids I showed it to,also. I got a special old school joystick(mostly for Double Dragon and such) though and it makes it much easier to control.
As the isometric game I think that the best looking ever was "La abadía del crimen" (the abbey of crime), featured a gorgeous full map of an abbey with plenty of details. Graphics were a bit on the busy side, but perhaps the best isometric game to ever be released on the Speccy (alongside with Batman!)
IMO, if we are ignoring gameplay, then the best iso game is the first - 3D Ant Attack by sandy white. Just beautifully designed environments (The guy was studying sculpture at Edinburgh College or Art, so it's not really a surprise)
Lá abadia del crime is probably the biggest technicaly Marvel in Spectrum specially when ir comes to a.i. unfortunaly the Gameplay hás bot for the same level. Too advanced for it s time.
+eduardo cebrian hi thanks for the kind words.....Yes there was some uproar here in UK about game overs artwork as there was a nipple on show, so it was edited out. Game was released though
the caped crusader - i remember on my later playthrough i just couldn't finish it, having no idea how i completed it the first time around. took me ages to spot that one of the foes is actually joker himself, and you have to beat his teeth out of him to progress :)
I agree Fairight had a certain "climate" to it... And the music (which, sadly, played only once after the game loaded - probably due to RAM constraints), was also amazing - after all these years I can still hear it in my head ;-)
+Cronosoft Chaosmongers yeah tnn is a great looking game although I think dun daraxh is the more atmospheric of the two. Heartland to me just oozes charm
Excellent video that plays to both the Speccy's great strength & weakness. I always thought graphical detail and 3D frame rate, especially compared to the C64 & Amstrad, was the Speccy's greatest asset. But of course you always had to put up with the infamous colour clash. All great machines in the own right
+baggierols 73 thanks for the kind words and support. Agree with your point re comparison against c64 and amstrad. Some amazing coders managed to get some really colourful games out of speccy
+averagegilo thanks for your support, yeah myth is a.pig of a game difficult y wise, and Rex even more so!!! Stunning looking games though and yep many speccy games were brutal
Feud is worth persevering with. takes a while to get the hang of with the different potions and spells but it's a good un. I played Booty last night after Way of the Exploding Fist, and it's still as good as I remembered. One of my first Speccy games.
There was a game called 'Spooked' that I loved. It looked a bit like the second game in this video. It was fun to play and looked great but it was very difficult to complete. The later 'Dizzy' games also looked pretty good if I remember correctly. It's been a long time since I played on a Spectrum!
Bazza H I do occasionally but I mostly play very classic games like the Jet Set Willy series, Attic Attack, School Daze and the likes. It's really good to see that these games haven't been forgotten though. They had a charm that no games seem to capture nowadays!
Please do, that would be awesome! Yeah, they hardy seemed to put a foot wrong. I had a Spectrum in the 80's, but being very young a lot of the best games passed me by. I only really discovered Hewson recently, but wow. I'm hoovering up all of their back catalogue now. Their box art was equally stunning too.
There's a few duffers there.....pyracurse, gunrunner and eliminator I'm not a fan of, but the majority are great. Cecco's games are amazingly difficult though!!
haha, those were the days. i remember being hooked on both skool daze & back 2 skool. the cecco games were good and a lot of the hewson games were..the zx spectrum kept me out of mischief from age 12-15. the last crash magazine i bought was in jan 1989, with batman on the cover. by that time i'd discovered music and ditched the zpeccie almost overnight. i only go back occasionally to see if i can get past the final level on renegade. he kisses his girlfriend and goes back to screen one. maybe that's why crash never smashed it. but thnaks for the video, i might go check out some of those esp fairlight
Great to hear!! Always worth dipping into.the speccy scene even if just to waste half an hour on a bus/train. People are STILL releasing games for it and some of are amazing - check out my homebrew playlist if you want to have a look at some
Spectrum explosions are my favourite kind of explosions. Never got on with the arcade or Mega Drive versions of Midnight Resistance, but the Spectrum one's great.
One game you could have mentioned is The Trap Door. It really went the extra mile to try to make smooth animations with colorful sprites, getting around the severe coloring limitations of the Spectrum.
Just in case you wondered, the Speccy can only produce 2 colours (background and foreground) per 8x8 pixel block meaning it can't give each pixel on the screen a different color. All neighbours in an 8x8 block have to use one of the two colours for that block. Games that "get around the limitations" are really just making sure the sprites move in 8x8 pixel chunks, never less. That way the sprite is always aligned with the colour matrix (32x24 2-color elements). When sprites move in smaller increments than 8 pixels like a lot of games do, the colour blocks no longer align with them so you get horrible color effects. This is why there are a lot of monochromatic games. also if two sprites of different colours overlap each other, the colour blocks will collide too and only one of the two will take precedence in which case the whole 8x8, 16x16, 24x24, etc pixel area, depends on the size of the sprite, which could contain part of sprite 1 and a bit of sprite 2, will be in the foreground and background colour of which ever sprite was prioritized, the other sprite will be partially or completely drawn in the wrong colors. Hence the famous colour clash phenomenon. Keeping sprites aligned with the color matrix gets you around this problem with few issues. Problem is sprites jumping 8 pixels in any direction per frame can look naff and jerky. Obviously there are talented chaps who manage to distract our attention from this by using big sprites and a decent frame rate. Moving per pixel creates way smoother animation especially for smaller sprites which is probably why it's favoured, even if color options were very restrictive.
tbh there were loads of other games that could've been added to this list.rtype is perhaps one of the more glaring omissions, although it does appear elsewhere in another video
Nice list there and just proves with the right programmers the system could achieve a lot! I think Popeye was a good example of a nice looking game too, and Trap Door. Cheers matey!
+interghost yep. That was the problem I had doing all these various top tens...there were so many that could've been included, it was really quite tricky!!
Rex is so good! Very fluid animations, and some mechanics were ahead of its time - I mean it's shooter game with destructible terrain. And multi recoil system? Can't remember a game that had a similar mechanic until Painkiller (2004). Well, at least not in the 1990s.
When my brother and I bought Twilight: The Land of Shadows, our jaws literally dropped. That was the only game for which I connected the Didaktik Gama to a color TV.
Hi, nice vid. However I am missing Savage trilogy in the list. I think that is a most good looking videogame on ZX spectrum with the one of the best music on Speccy (without AY). Also I suggest Lords of Chaos - nice and beautiful detailed colorful graphics, tons of animation everywhere ;-)
Excellent news to hear!! I would strongly suggest getting an rgb to scart lead from retro computer shack, so you can use a modern TV and you may also consider heading to bytedelight website to pick up a divmmc device so you can load games instantly. As for your other point, I've kind of shied away from doing top tens for a while, the reason being they are all very subjective and based on personal opinion. I did a few and, despite saying quite loudly these were my own choices, got several 'why have you missed this one out?' type of comments. Plus, they can become obsolete fairly quickly in that I can suddenly find a new game or games I was never aware of and suddenly think 'oh that should've been in the list'!! That said, once I've got all the various bits and pieces I'm working on out the way, I may be able to look at it. I have done a video on top ten games to recommend someone to play though if you've seen that one?
@@BazzaHSpeccymad Thanks for the tips Bazza! I've ordered an RGB-SCART cable from RetroShack but modern TVs with a SCART connector are rare as aardvark's teeth in Australia. However, I did manage to pick up an ancient (and huge) CRT with SCART today for $20! Now I'm off to ByteDelight!
I completely agree with MYTH being number 1 (usually for some reason all reviewers ignore my favorite game on ZX) but what happened to: * Exolon * Mask III (venom strikes back) * Fox+ ?
+Andy O. Well there could only be ten and I could only go with those games I had personal knowledge of although I fully accept there are still many other games that look beautiful
When you say a 128 do you mean the 'toastrack' version or a +2 model? If you have a +2 model they have an rgb port which you can get a scart connector for to use on a modern telly
With the "Composite mod/hack" you can easily change the "classic" ZX Spectrum tuner picture into a composite AV (Audio-Video) output. It is compatible with all new TVs and you can use the same ZX connector as before. I modified my 48K (takes only 30-40minutes with assembly. Can be done without soldering, though in that case the picture could be little noisier). The new video output is clearer, and fully according to standard, no adapter or expensive special cable needed, just the standard AV (yellow-white-red). The AV socket is available on all modern LCD TV sets on the side, or via the SCART socket's CVBS input line.
+Zoltán Márkus I use spectaculator for the videos so actually don't need to comp mod my 48. When I do do Unemulated Gameplay vids lately, I use my +2b with an rgb to scart lead
Shadow Warriors and Space Gun should definitely be in the list of best-looking ZX Spectrum games, too. R-Type, of course, was already found to be missing. And there is Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, Starglider and ... well so many others ;-) Metal Man and its updated versions like Metal Man Reloaded and Metal Man Remixed are just awesome.
All good choices. I loved lightforce and 3D statstrike. Another flawed beauty for me was Game over. Who could ever forget that original cover as a young boy lol.
Wow never seen MYTH before but that looks incredible. My sort of speccy game! Love the graphics, looks a bit like VENTURAMA, which came later, it was a much simpler game but very similar style of graphics (I suppose the Dizzys were a bit similar too, there wasn't much they could do with the limited colour pallette I guess!) Lot of games Im not familiar with from here actually, need to have a look. Theres a lot of great looking games being made now, but of course theres the hindsight of all the work thats come before, as well as modern development tools, most new games are probably being designed on PC's.
lol. I'll agree with you on that one. I remember reading that Dave created all the machine code for the games and his wife Helen keyed it all in. what a job. all those 1's and zero's. guess that's why their output was so small. great games though like Wheelie, the Skooldaze games and Contact Sam Cruise. I'll look out for your next vid. mike Richardson was another top programmer. I remember being blown away by Thanatos, Turbo Esprit and Scuba Dive. I think it's time to get my Spectrum out of the box! cheers Baz.
Nebulus, Addams Family, Arkanoid Revenge of Doh, Anarchy, Batty, Flying Shark, Hydrofool, Renegade, Target Renegade, Movie, Cybernoid 1 & 2, Rick Dangerous 1 & 2, Athena, Avenger, The Way of Tiger, Batman, Bomb Jack, Bruce Lee, Cauldron 2, Dan Dare, Dark Fusion, Dynamite Dan 2, Dizzy's series, Exolon, Freddy Hardest, Green Beret, HATE, Hong Kong Phooey, Hysteria, Ikari Warriors, Into Eagles Nest, Iron Man 4x4 Off Road, Jack The Nipper, Light Force, Marble Madness, Mask 3, Maze Mania, Pacmania, Plotting, Postman Pat, R-Type, Rogue Trooper, Robocop, Rockman, Rock'n Roller, Rolling Thunder, Saboteur, Sai Combat, Scooby & Scrappy Doo, Short Circuit, Soldier of Fortune, Solomon's Key, Spy vs Spy, Stop The Express, Terramex, Thundercats, Terra Cresta, Tornado Low Level, Top Cat, Knight Lore, King's Valley
'back in the day' i was always impressed at how good Dynamite Dan looked, and sounded, and played. Another game that looked 'interesting' was The Rocky Horror Picture Show ^_^
Great list. Heartland had the best animations if you ask me. Most games back in the day had very awkward controls and they were all very hard. Don't know how i had the patience for them to be honest. ^^
Great to see Batman the Caped Crusader make the top 10, it's an under-rated title. I didn't know about Extreme, it looks like a great improvement over Savage. And Heartland.... :smile: I didn't get much into Dun Darach, but Marsport was fairly atmospheric.
+Mike Davies hi Mike I checked batman as you (i think it was you!!) suggested it when I put the question in one of the fb groups and I agreed I thought it looks great. Of the gargoyle games, I would have been most likely to put heavy on the magick in there, as I think the graphics in that have bags of character
Some more games having some of the best pixel art on ZX are Castlevania: Spectral Interlude, Towdie, Prayer of the warrior, Dan Dare 2, Dan Dare 3, Shark, Metal Man Remixed, Metropolis, Viaje al Centro de la Tierra, Phantom F4, Astro Marine Corps, Savage, La espada sagrada, Cybernoid, Twilight, Lorna, Comando quatro, Mortadelo y Filemon, Mortadelo y Filemon II.
Agreed. There are so many good looking games. Towdie isn't on the list because I didn't know about it when I made the video. I really should look at an update to the video
To be honest I didn't even know of that one and just checked it out....Yes there are many others could be included that work around colour clash such as karnov, dark sceptre, lightforce, El capitan trueno (a Spanish game I found purely by accident when researching Spanish games) but I found it really difficult list to do....some people were surprised I put the skooldaze games in there, but I think those graphics have a lot of charm and character
I believe it was made by the same devs as Midnight Resistance, but I totally agree, there's a lot of games back then that had charm in their graphics, something a lot of modern developers completely miss out in their "retro style" graphics. Oh, check out "I of the Mask" as well, REALLY impressive 3D graphics for the Spectrum! :)
I of the mask is the sandy white game isn't it? Don't think I've ever played it but will definitely check that out. I always remember sentinel looking amazing back in the day - and it still does really - but when I did a review a couple of months back, I was surprised at how slowly it played...similarly with the freescape games. Interesting to see those on the next! I also thought some of the games based on comic strips looked great too, such as garfield, snoopy and Andy Capp. Then of course there's also some other Don Priestley ones....gregory loses his clock and flunky
@@BazzaHSpeccymad Shadow Warriors/Ninja Gaiden looked great on the speccy and played really well. The sprites were huge and it actually played faster than the arcade version.
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I'd have had the Spectrum port of R-Type to the list. It really looked (and played) the business. Colourful, detailed and an amazingly faithful recreation of the arcade original.
+superspudgun yes I'd have to agree with you....I'll be doing another vid soon about space games and r type will be there.
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Alicia Nichols Mm m.m,
I'd tend to agree. The only thing that really disappointed me about the Speccy version of R-Type was the lack of 128K support (which might have made it possible to have all the levels loaded in one go and offer a decent rendition of the original arcade music).
superspudgun yeah r type was a glaring omission on my part
Head Over Heels was very good as well.
Trap door, Popeye and Cobra all looked good on the speccy
And to think that back in those days, the artists and programmers had so little power to work with and they always made such great games.
Exactly!!
Dizzy always looked great and played great. That was pretty much the Mario or Sonic of Spectrum for me. I remember that Batman game you featured. I always was amazed at how intriguing that game was.
Personally never been much of a dizzy officianado...
Only played my first one this year. That said, the Russian 2017 remake of crystal kingdom dizzy is utterly amazing both graphically and aurally... Not sure if you've seen it but here's my.vid
ua-cam.com/video/6sWPcquyOtM/v-deo.html
Bazza H thanks for the reply, I appreciate that! I subscribed to the channel so Ill be working through your vids but i followed the link. I recognise that Dizzy. Dizzy 1 title screen music is epic (worth a listen) my fav Dizzy was fantasy land Dizzy (3rd in the series I think).
Thanks!!! Hope you enjoy
great list of games Fairlight was my first spectrum game. amazing graphics and a nice theme tune.
48K! And amazing games! It''s just incredible.
The scenes from Fairlight, particularly the yellow room at 4:34, evoke such a strong sense of nostalgia. It feels like a room flooded with sunlight, on a lazy afternoon...from a time when I had all of my family that I grew up with.. I miss them greatly, particularly my aunt Shaista who played some of these games with me on the Spectrum and C64.. and she loved Moon Cresta :)
I'm glad the video brought you some nice memories
Very nice presentation and narration! I really enjoyed this video. Thank you!
Thanks
Great video Bazza - so many memories! keep up the good work
Thanks for the support 👍
Great choices, i like also a lot "where time stood still" and "the great escape".
you make two very good calls there....wtss and tge both have wonderfully atmospheric graphics
I loved WTSS on the speccy and one of my only gripes when I moved on to an Amiga in 1990 was that the Amiga never got a version of it. In 2014 a fella finally ported the Atari ST version over to Amiga and it made my day :D But the speccy version is gorgeous still.
www.lemonamiga.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11948&sid=356761ebac8a86bc72bc8988d11ad9bd
Dealing with color clash is an art for its own! Great video. These games indeed look stylish.
Great choices. THKS
Astro Marine Corps IMO is the best looking game on the Spectrum, Very colorful and even has an amazing parallax scrolling.
To help things out, the soundtrack is insanely good and the game plays really well too.
First time I saw it I couldn't believe it was a Spectrum game.
Certainly is a cracking looking game
Totally agree with you! I remember playing Astro Marine Corps back in the early 90's and also though that the game was outstanding! Remember i couldnt jump over that hole with that creepy thing inside of it before i realised you gotta drop the bomb there in order to jump over! Great game! Spent hours playing it!
Park GRONF GRONF!!! :D
Rafael Lima Ha ha, but Bignoses in Usa too.
ooh this one slipped by me. Will have to go take a look.
Skool Daze tho! so takes me back loved it. Nice selection mate!
Thanks!! VERY difficult list to do
Those look really cool, I've never owned a Spectrum but been thinking about picking one up. Thanks for the list :)
Go for it!!
It's amazing what they could, and indeed can still do on the Spectrum.
You're right, still some amazing stuff being made for it!
Excellent video Bazza - I'm now a subscriber! Fantastic content, recorded gameplay and informative dialogue
Thanks Chris
I remember "Extreme" and I'm glad it's on this list because, imho, use of attributes and colours was borderline art.
"Exolon" was also very nice looking game.
I used to spend hundreds of hours with all these games! R-Type should be here as well!
It's not all about graphics. I played Dan Dare 1,2 and 3, and I always found Dan Dare 1 to be the best of the series, by A LOT. It was like being Han Solo, and blowing up the Death Star by yourself, always trying to stay alive and watching the clock. The ending animation was worth playing a game that could take 2h.
Other great games were Laser Squad, Archon 1&2, Exolon, TMNT, Army Moves.... way too many to choose only 10.
Yep quite right there are some games that look decidedly poor yet play fantastically.... Splat is a good example
Great video Bazza. I was a 16k speccy upgrader so this was a treat. You read my mind on pretty much all of them. Subjective of course (I might have put Trap Door or even Ant Attack in there but it's a top 10 and no idea what I'd take out)...subscribed!
Yeah it was a tricky list to do, as you say subjective so everyone will have their own ideas none of which would be wrong!! Thanks for the support
I was about to comment with "Savage" but saw it in the list at the end. There's of course Cybernoid & R-Type, but as you mention. It's hard to do these types of lists.
Nice work mind :)
+FuZion DCA extremely tough!
I would suggest "Exelon" "Renegade" and "Head over Heels" as great looking games to consider. Thanks again for compiling these lists.
All good looking games
Great list and so many good memories.
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it
good video ;) some games are out of the list -obviously- but a really entertaining video. :)
Thanks!! Really sorry for the delay in replying. You're right they're are hundreds of games could be on this list!!
I saw and actually got Batman and played it through...in 2021 :) thnx for this insight I just loved it and kids I showed it to,also. I got a special old school joystick(mostly for Double Dragon and such) though and it makes it much easier to control.
As the isometric game I think that the best looking ever was "La abadía del crimen" (the abbey of crime), featured a gorgeous full map of an abbey with plenty of details. Graphics were a bit on the busy side, but perhaps the best isometric game to ever be released on the Speccy (alongside with Batman!)
+nanoSpawn yep,know the game (covered it in the Spanish games video) and agree....it's gorgeous
IMO, if we are ignoring gameplay, then the best iso game is the first - 3D Ant Attack by sandy white. Just beautifully designed environments (The guy was studying sculpture at Edinburgh College or Art, so it's not really a surprise)
Lá abadia del crime is probably the biggest technicaly Marvel in Spectrum specially when ir comes to a.i. unfortunaly the Gameplay hás bot for the same level. Too advanced for it s time.
Can't fault the Cecco and Perry skills. And a +1 for an eloquent review. Top job.
Exactly, great graphics on display there. And thanks 👍
Hi!, great video. Rex really reminds the game "Game Over". It also had a beatiful loading screen, I believe banned in the UK! Thanks!
+eduardo cebrian hi thanks for the kind words.....Yes there was some uproar here in UK about game overs artwork as there was a nipple on show, so it was edited out. Game was released though
Awesome list, Subbed.
+Pretski thanks!!
Fantastic video. Thanks
Thanks
the caped crusader - i remember on my later playthrough i just couldn't finish it, having no idea how i completed it the first time around. took me ages to spot that one of the foes is actually joker himself, and you have to beat his teeth out of him to progress :)
Lol Ive never put much time into it.... I seem the recall the version I played for this video kept bloody crashing!!
Im So Glad REX Made It Into This List Bazza :)
+LOAD"" automatic choice that one!! Everything else was tricky though!!
Good list. I'd add Sacred Armour of Antiriad too.
I agree Fairight had a certain "climate" to it... And the music (which, sadly, played only once after the game loaded - probably due to RAM constraints), was also amazing - after all these years I can still hear it in my head ;-)
It's a very atmospheric game, with lots of character in the graphics
Some great choices. I love HEARTLAND, and glad that often overlooked personal favourite was in there. I would have personally added Tir Na Nog too.
+Cronosoft Chaosmongers yeah tnn is a great looking game although I think dun daraxh is the more atmospheric of the two. Heartland to me just oozes charm
Awesome list. Didn't know the old ZX could produce such colourful and detailed graphics.
In the right hands some wonderful stuff was produced!!
I enjoyed it! Couple I haven't played as they were after my speccy time...but once my man-cave is built and my speccy setup again, I will try them!
Thanks, and good luck with the mancave!!
Excellent video that plays to both the Speccy's great strength & weakness. I always thought graphical detail and 3D frame rate, especially compared to the C64 & Amstrad, was the Speccy's greatest asset. But of course you always had to put up with the infamous colour clash. All great machines in the own right
+baggierols 73 thanks for the kind words and support. Agree with your point re comparison against c64 and amstrad. Some amazing coders managed to get some really colourful games out of speccy
great video. i could never figure out how to play myth though....that was the trouble with many games on the speccy. the gameplay was 'hidden'
+averagegilo thanks for your support, yeah myth is a.pig of a game difficult y wise, and Rex even more so!!! Stunning looking games though and yep many speccy games were brutal
Feud is worth persevering with. takes a while to get the hang of with the different potions and spells but it's a good un. I played Booty last night after Way of the Exploding Fist, and it's still as good as I remembered. One of my first Speccy games.
+Nick Godfrey good lord I can't have played booty for over 30 years 😄😄
Cobra and Trantor also look pretty good. Nice video.
There was a game called 'Spooked' that I loved. It looked a bit like the second game in this video. It was fun to play and looked great but it was very difficult to complete.
The later 'Dizzy' games also looked pretty good if I remember correctly. It's been a long time since I played on a Spectrum!
+Graeme Pryce spooked I'll have to check out. You must get back to playing!! Do you use emulation?
Bazza H I do occasionally but I mostly play very classic games like the Jet Set Willy series, Attic Attack, School Daze and the likes.
It's really good to see that these games haven't been forgotten though. They had a charm that no games seem to capture nowadays!
Pretty much anything from Hewson on the Spectrum looked absolutely gorgeous.
Yep. One of the consistently great houses. Will be trying to do a hewson vid in near future
Please do, that would be awesome! Yeah, they hardy seemed to put a foot wrong. I had a Spectrum in the 80's, but being very young a lot of the best games passed me by. I only really discovered Hewson recently, but wow. I'm hoovering up all of their back catalogue now. Their box art was equally stunning too.
There's a few duffers there.....pyracurse, gunrunner and eliminator I'm not a fan of, but the majority are great. Cecco's games are amazingly difficult though!!
There's so many gems I need to pick up. Thankfully Speccy games are refreshingly cheap compared to the insanity of retro console stuff nowadays.
+kodoyama there are a few that go for soppy money though.....Martianoids and bubbler for instance
Rex was one of my favourite one.
Tis a bit of a tricky bugger though
Heartland was the first game i ever played on my Spectrum. I was 7 yrs old. Still remember loading.
haha, those were the days. i remember being hooked on both skool daze & back 2 skool. the cecco games were good and a lot of the hewson games were..the zx spectrum kept me out of mischief from age 12-15. the last crash magazine i bought was in jan 1989, with batman on the cover. by that time i'd discovered music and ditched the zpeccie almost overnight. i only go back occasionally to see if i can get past the final level on renegade. he kisses his girlfriend and goes back to screen one. maybe that's why crash never smashed it. but thnaks for the video, i might go check out some of those esp fairlight
Great to hear!! Always worth dipping into.the speccy scene even if just to waste half an hour on a bus/train.
People are STILL releasing games for it and some of are amazing - check out my homebrew playlist if you want to have a look at some
Awesome video!!! It reminds me old times in my speccy....Back to skool and abu simbel profnation best games ever
Back to skool I agree is great but I always avoided Abu simbel as I've heard its very difficult
@@BazzaHSpeccymad of course it was one of the hardest games I have played ever....but it was fantastic,with nice graphics and good playability
All time fave to me is Highway Encounter..awesome loading screen,good gameplay and concept..
Another excellent looking game
Awesome vid mate :-)
Thanks!!
Spectrum explosions are my favourite kind of explosions.
Never got on with the arcade or Mega Drive versions of Midnight Resistance, but the Spectrum one's great.
Think I've played it but only very briefly but yes it did look Great
One game you could have mentioned is The Trap Door. It really went the extra mile to try to make smooth animations with colorful sprites, getting around the severe coloring limitations of the Spectrum.
Yep, agreed very good graphics. I did feature both trapdoor games in my Don Priestley video
Savage
Just in case you wondered, the Speccy can only produce 2 colours (background and foreground) per 8x8 pixel block meaning it can't give each pixel on the screen a different color. All neighbours in an 8x8 block have to use one of the two colours for that block. Games that "get around the limitations" are really just making sure the sprites move in 8x8 pixel chunks, never less. That way the sprite is always aligned with the colour matrix (32x24 2-color elements). When sprites move in smaller increments than 8 pixels like a lot of games do, the colour blocks no longer align with them so you get horrible color effects. This is why there are a lot of monochromatic games. also if two sprites of different colours overlap each other, the colour blocks will collide too and only one of the two will take precedence in which case the whole 8x8, 16x16, 24x24, etc pixel area, depends on the size of the sprite, which could contain part of sprite 1 and a bit of sprite 2, will be in the foreground and background colour of which ever sprite was prioritized, the other sprite will be partially or completely drawn in the wrong colors. Hence the famous colour clash phenomenon.
Keeping sprites aligned with the color matrix gets you around this problem with few issues. Problem is sprites jumping 8 pixels in any direction per frame can look naff and jerky. Obviously there are talented chaps who manage to distract our attention from this by using big sprites and a decent frame rate. Moving per pixel creates way smoother animation especially for smaller sprites which is probably why it's favoured, even if color options were very restrictive.
Thanks!
I'd definitely add Trap Door. It looked great and I loved it back in the day, it played just like the tv prog :-D
What about R Type?
tbh there were loads of other games that could've been added to this list.rtype is perhaps one of the more glaring omissions, although it does appear elsewhere in another video
Bazza H Ok. Well, I just found it cool that the game had smooth scrolling and fast paced action on a 48K....
Fantastic.
Nice list there and just proves with the right programmers the system could achieve a lot! I think Popeye was a good example of a nice looking game too, and Trap Door. Cheers matey!
+interghost yep. That was the problem I had doing all these various top tens...there were so many that could've been included, it was really quite tricky!!
Rex is so good! Very fluid animations, and some mechanics were ahead of its time - I mean it's shooter game with destructible terrain. And multi recoil system? Can't remember a game that had a similar mechanic until Painkiller (2004). Well, at least not in the 1990s.
When my brother and I bought Twilight: The Land of Shadows, our jaws literally dropped. That was the only game for which I connected the Didaktik Gama to a color TV.
6:09 My thoughts exactly! :-P
Heartland, great shout.
It's a lovely looking game
Hi, nice vid. However I am missing Savage trilogy in the list. I think that is a most good looking videogame on ZX spectrum with the one of the best music on Speccy (without AY). Also I suggest Lords of Chaos - nice and beautiful detailed colorful graphics, tons of animation everywhere ;-)
Martin Incognito Enduro Racer, Bignoses in USA.
Nice selection Baz. How about “Top 10 Most Playable”? Thanks to you I’ve taken the plunge and got myself a Spectrum. 😃
Excellent news to hear!! I would strongly suggest getting an rgb to scart lead from retro computer shack, so you can use a modern TV and you may also consider heading to bytedelight website to pick up a divmmc device so you can load games instantly.
As for your other point, I've kind of shied away from doing top tens for a while, the reason being they are all very subjective and based on personal opinion. I did a few and, despite saying quite loudly these were my own choices, got several 'why have you missed this one out?' type of comments. Plus, they can become obsolete fairly quickly in that I can suddenly find a new game or games I was never aware of and suddenly think 'oh that should've been in the list'!!
That said, once I've got all the various bits and pieces I'm working on out the way, I may be able to look at it. I have done a video on top ten games to recommend someone to play though if you've seen that one?
@@BazzaHSpeccymad Thanks for the tips Bazza! I've ordered an RGB-SCART cable from RetroShack but modern TVs with a SCART connector are rare as aardvark's teeth in Australia. However, I did manage to pick up an ancient (and huge) CRT with SCART today for $20! Now I'm off to ByteDelight!
Oh didn't realize that's where you are!! Congratulations you will love the speccy
I completely agree with MYTH being number 1 (usually for some reason all reviewers ignore my favorite game on ZX) but what happened to:
* Exolon
* Mask III (venom strikes back)
* Fox+
?
+Andy O. Well there could only be ten and I could only go with those games I had personal knowledge of although I fully accept there are still many other games that look beautiful
I would also add some of Pete Cooke's games such as Micronaut One, Earthlight and Tau Ceti.
There are dozens more games could've made the list!!
im a 80s kid and love your reviews.. memorys flooding back.. ohh back in the days
+gareth knight thanks Gareth... You should try getting back into them (if you aren't already!!😄)
i have!! i got a plug and play spectrum vega
but to be honest its not same.. have a zx spectrum 128k but i need the old tv
When you say a 128 do you mean the 'toastrack' version or a +2 model? If you have a +2 model they have an rgb port which you can get a scart connector for to use on a modern telly
With the "Composite mod/hack" you can easily change the "classic" ZX Spectrum tuner picture into a composite AV (Audio-Video) output. It is compatible with all new TVs and you can use the same ZX connector as before.
I modified my 48K (takes only 30-40minutes with assembly. Can be done without soldering, though in that case the picture could be little noisier).
The new video output is clearer, and fully according to standard, no adapter or expensive special cable needed, just the standard AV (yellow-white-red).
The AV socket is available on all modern LCD TV sets on the side, or via the SCART socket's CVBS input line.
+Zoltán Márkus I use spectaculator for the videos so actually don't need to comp mod my 48. When I do do Unemulated Gameplay vids lately, I use my +2b with an rgb to scart lead
Shadow Warriors and Space Gun should definitely be in the list of best-looking ZX Spectrum games, too.
R-Type, of course, was already found to be missing.
And there is Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, Starglider and ... well so many others ;-)
Metal Man and its updated versions like Metal Man Reloaded and Metal Man Remixed are just awesome.
Rocksteady simulator (rex), I remember, it was from the same creators and graphics style of Xecutor
All good choices. I loved lightforce and 3D statstrike. Another flawed beauty for me was Game over. Who could ever forget that original cover as a young boy lol.
+Tristan Howden game ooer ad ys called it
brilliant games. Renegade too!
Last Ninja 2, The Dizzy Series are excellent too...
Great vid
Thanks I'm glad you enjoyed it!!
I would of included the last ninja II that's a great looking game, thanks for sharing :)
There were so many other great looking games as well, all of which could've made the list!
Спасибо за видео, товарищ! :)
Wow cool😎
thanks
Wow never seen MYTH before but that looks incredible. My sort of speccy game! Love the graphics, looks a bit like VENTURAMA, which came later, it was a much simpler game but very similar style of graphics (I suppose the Dizzys were a bit similar too, there wasn't much they could do with the limited colour pallette I guess!) Lot of games Im not familiar with from here actually, need to have a look.
Theres a lot of great looking games being made now, but of course theres the hindsight of all the work thats come before, as well as modern development tools, most new games are probably being designed on PC's.
There are tons of great looking speccy games....I really need to revise the list!!
WOW how could I forget Zynaps just read one of your sub comments, Epic shooter spent hours on !!
Far too many good looking games that could also have made it
lol. I'll agree with you on that one. I remember reading that Dave created all the machine code for the games and his wife Helen keyed it all in. what a job. all those 1's and zero's. guess that's why their output was so small. great games though like Wheelie, the Skooldaze games and Contact Sam Cruise. I'll look out for your next vid. mike Richardson was another top programmer. I remember being blown away by Thanatos, Turbo Esprit and Scuba Dive. I think it's time to get my Spectrum out of the box! cheers Baz.
And that skool daze III was planned to be themed around the school sports day. Get that speccy unboxed and stretch it's legs for a bit 😄
Excellent list bud can't fault it
Thanks mate
Nebulus, Addams Family, Arkanoid Revenge of Doh, Anarchy, Batty, Flying Shark, Hydrofool, Renegade, Target Renegade, Movie, Cybernoid 1 & 2, Rick Dangerous 1 & 2, Athena, Avenger, The Way of Tiger, Batman, Bomb Jack, Bruce Lee, Cauldron 2, Dan Dare, Dark Fusion, Dynamite Dan 2, Dizzy's series, Exolon, Freddy Hardest, Green Beret, HATE, Hong Kong Phooey, Hysteria, Ikari Warriors, Into Eagles Nest, Iron Man 4x4 Off Road, Jack The Nipper, Light Force, Marble Madness, Mask 3, Maze Mania, Pacmania, Plotting, Postman Pat, R-Type, Rogue Trooper, Robocop, Rockman, Rock'n Roller, Rolling Thunder, Saboteur, Sai Combat, Scooby & Scrappy Doo, Short Circuit, Soldier of Fortune, Solomon's Key, Spy vs Spy, Stop The Express, Terramex, Thundercats, Terra Cresta, Tornado Low Level, Top Cat, Knight Lore, King's Valley
All fantastic lookers!
Great 8 bits games of spectrum.
sabre wulf best looking and playing spectrum game ever
And so much game to explore.
You're probably right there but I loved Gauntlet 3
I'll have to give that Batman game a go.
'back in the day' i was always impressed at how good Dynamite Dan looked, and sounded, and played. Another game that looked 'interesting' was The Rocky Horror Picture Show ^_^
Great list. Heartland had the best animations if you ask me. Most games back in the day had very awkward controls and they were all very hard. Don't know how i had the patience for them to be honest. ^^
Same could be said for all of us!! Many games were absolute pigs difficulty wise!!
Amazing choices , but like those , there are so many others and much more playable too. Still a great bunch of...
Very difficult list to do
3 weeks in paradise should be in there!
As should many others!!
You could add any Don Priesley game (Trap Door, Gregory Loses His Clock), Thanatos, Head Over Heels, Rainbow Islands and definitely R-Type.
That's the problem with top tens, there are so many other games that could easily be in there
Savage 1-2-3 ? also by probe, also amazingly great graphics and absolutely stunning 48k music - way better than most 128k music even :)
That's the problem with top tens and why I don't do them anymore!!! So many games could make it
Офигеть, бэтмена такого я даже и не видел. И изометрической ходилки по замку тоже. Странно.
Great to see Batman the Caped Crusader make the top 10, it's an under-rated title. I didn't know about Extreme, it looks like a great improvement over Savage. And Heartland.... :smile:
I didn't get much into Dun Darach, but Marsport was fairly atmospheric.
+Mike Davies hi Mike I checked batman as you (i think it was you!!) suggested it when I put the question in one of the fb groups and I agreed I thought it looks great. Of the gargoyle games, I would have been most likely to put heavy on the magick in there, as I think the graphics in that have bags of character
I lost my high school education to the spectrum 48k.
My choice loved the video thanks.
Hey! Where's the Dizzy, AMC and Jungle warrior? They were the example of great graphics! They SHOULD be in the top!
I think at the time I did this video I didn't know amc. But to be honest there are hundreds of games that could all have made it in there
Some more games having some of the best pixel art on ZX are Castlevania: Spectral Interlude, Towdie, Prayer of the warrior, Dan Dare 2, Dan Dare 3, Shark, Metal Man Remixed, Metropolis, Viaje al Centro de la Tierra, Phantom F4, Astro Marine Corps, Savage, La espada sagrada, Cybernoid, Twilight, Lorna, Comando quatro, Mortadelo y Filemon, Mortadelo y Filemon II.
Agreed. There are so many good looking games. Towdie isn't on the list because I didn't know about it when I made the video. I really should look at an update to the video
Why you miss Savage 2/3 ?
We got that Batman game on the Apple //e. I kinda wish we had the isometric one instead.
The isometric one is good but I.always found the viewpoint tricky
How much was a ZX Spectrum back in the day ?
I think £129.95
I'm surprised there's not more games that worked around the colour clash on your list, stuff like Ninja Gaiden Etc.
To be honest I didn't even know of that one and just checked it out....Yes there are many others could be included that work around colour clash such as karnov, dark sceptre, lightforce, El capitan trueno (a Spanish game I found purely by accident when researching Spanish games) but I found it really difficult list to do....some people were surprised I put the skooldaze games in there, but I think those graphics have a lot of charm and character
I believe it was made by the same devs as Midnight Resistance, but I totally agree, there's a lot of games back then that had charm in their graphics, something a lot of modern developers completely miss out in their "retro style" graphics.
Oh, check out "I of the Mask" as well, REALLY impressive 3D graphics for the Spectrum! :)
I of the mask is the sandy white game isn't it? Don't think I've ever played it but will definitely check that out. I always remember sentinel looking amazing back in the day - and it still does really - but when I did a review a couple of months back, I was surprised at how slowly it played...similarly with the freescape games. Interesting to see those on the next!
I also thought some of the games based on comic strips looked great too, such as garfield, snoopy and Andy Capp. Then of course there's also some other Don Priestley ones....gregory loses his clock and flunky
@@BazzaHSpeccymad Shadow Warriors/Ninja Gaiden looked great on the speccy and played really well. The sprites were huge and it actually played faster than the arcade version.