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20 |
Chuckie Egg |  |
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| Somewhat overshadowed on release by Manic Miner, Chuckie Egg was every bit the classic platforming experience of its famous rival. Where Manic Miner went for humour, puzzling and unique environments Chuckie Egg was all about the gameplay, with the player having an unmatched level of control for the time. Henhouse Harry was fast, he was responsive, and he could leap across the screen with no fear of falling to his death (most platformers of the time had a limit to how far you could fall). The game has you collecting eggs and avoiding the birds for the first run of stages, only for the bird bird to burst out of his cage and relentlessly fly after you for the second lot. still loads of fun. | |||||
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19 |
Splitting Images/Personalities |
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| Cleverly constructed puzzle game where the aim is to shift the tiles around the screen to build the face of famous personalities of the time. On top of fighting against the clock, bombs sometimes appear and need to be thrown out before they explode. The game requires some strategy (its best to work on the picture from the bottom up and leave two tiles in the upper right corner to help with ejecting unwanted items) and a lot of quick thinking to succeed. One of the more original and enduring puzzle ideas. | |||||
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18 |
Target: Renegade |  |
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| After porting Technos' arcade game Renegade, Ocean found themselves with a popular game and the option to create sequels themselves. Now, generally when European companies make sequels to Japanese games the results are pretty dire (see Strider, or Bomb Jack) but in this case they managed to retain the essence of the original title whilst developing the gameplay and adding a new flavour. The game is a beat-em-up where you walk from left to right fighting gangs of enemies, every time the enemy count goes below three you can advance. The game gives you a variety of moves (punches, flying kicks, back kicks, wailing on downed opponents), 2-player co-op, lots of environments, and different enemies to fight. It actually kind of feels like the missing link between Double Dragon and Streets of Rage at times and actually holds its own quite well with the big beat-em-ups of the time. Stick to the Spectrum and Amstrad versions. | |||||
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17 |
Midnight Resistance |  |
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| Here's an impressive later arcade port for Spectrum filled with set pieces and over-the-top action and weapons. The game is a run n' gun title where you blast through the stages in an orgy of destruction collecting dropped keys, these keys are then used at the end of each stage to buy weapons and ammo. The Spectrum is really pushed to the max with this game, resulting in it feeling a little clunky and unwieldy at times, but its tons of fun when you've grown accustomed to it, and also provides something very different to the arcade original. The new, chunky art-design and much slower fall rate give the port a very different style and feel, resembling more of a sort of proto Metal Slug than the Contra-influenced arcade original. | |||||
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16 |
Sim City |  |
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| For anyone not familiar with the title, Sim City is a simulation game where you build your own city (placing the roads, houses and power stations and such) and raise income every year from taxation, attempting to keep your population happy. The game was originally a 16-bit computer release but somehow the programmer's here have managed to fit almost all of the game into the Speccy. Sim City is a real impressive feat for the system and it plays as well as ever. | |||||
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15 |
3D Deathchase |  |
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| This is an early action game for Spectrum heavily inspired by the Speeder-Bike sections of the then recently released Return of the Jedi (a scene of which it does a great job of recreating). The concept is simple, shoot the two bikers whilst avoiding the trees, each level you complete adds more trees to avoid. The game is twitch gaming at its finest, and hooks you in to such an extent that the outside world can disappear as you focus on nothing but the game. | |||||
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14 |
MYTH: History in the Making |
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| MYTH follows a struggle against an evil time-traveling Demon named Dameron. The old gods require a champion to fight him but are limited only to humans who believe in them (a scarcity in the 20th century), luckily they manage to find such a person and send the kid back in time. The game is an action-adventure title where you solve puzzles in different era's (clues are printed in the manual), fight mythical monsters and collect orbs which spawn a teleport icon that transports you to the next level. Already a popular game on the C64, when ported to the Spectrum the developer thankfully decided to make a new game only loosely based on the original that would be custom made for the micro. This decision allowed them to make one of the most graphically impressive, atmospheric, and polished games on the computer with huge monsters and lots of variety. The complex control system takes some getting used to, but its well worth persevering with. | |||||
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13 |
Laser Squad |
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| Another classic strategy game from Julian Gollop, this time an expansion of his Rebelstar titles. The game has you taking turns moving your team around firing off shots and trying to complete your mission against the computer player (or preferably a second player). It improved on a lot of the elements laid out by Rebelstar, giving a lot more customisation options, improved CPU AI, and a bunch of excellent scenarios to play. | |||||
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12 |
Turbo Esprit |
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| This is an interesting open world driving game where you play an undercover police officer trying to bust drug dealers. In the game you drive around the city, park into side roads waiting for deals to take place, and then run said drug dealers off the road. Its an ambitious concept for the time that many see as an early inspiration for later games like the popular Driver on Playstation. | |||||
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11 |
The Hobbit |
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| The oldest game on the list, the Hobbit, released by Australian publisher Melbourne House was the first game to appear on Spectrum that could be considered something of a killer app. The game is an excellent text adventure title based on the famous book (and was actually sold with the book included). It had an advanced parser for its time that allowed you to mess around a bit more than usual, and was one of the first to provide the player with in-game illustrations of the environment, which helped to make the game more immersive. The Hobbit remains a fondly remembered title that spawned its own in-jokes amongst fans and is still worth giving a play today. | |||||
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