What was your favourite ZX Spectrum game?

It always had really really awful covers though, which went from cheesy photo-covers in the early days to garish, messy drawings in its heyday.

http://www.sincuser.f9.co.uk/019/su019.gif

Okay, WHAT were they thinking?

I am gonna play the shit out of Marsport today.

b-b-but he's not dancing with a spectrum. he's dancing with a ZX81, isn't he?

fools.

i started with sinclair user, then progressed to crash and -- occasionally -- your spectrum. when your spectrum became your sinclair and started ripping off smash hits left, right and centre, it became my core speccy read, and i heartily wish i'd kept all my back issues. t'zer! markus berkmann! phil south! these people helped define my youth. and the free viz giveaway helped define my puerile adulthood.

xpost lucky sod. i need to shuttle about between hospitals and in-laws' houses and shit.

:-(

Hope everything's okay there dude.

ach, it's a slowly ongoing process involving my ageing father-in-law and his surprising lazarus-style japes ;)

i did keep all my back issues :(

there's always this

First snag: can't find any squared paper in the house and I'm too hungover to go buy some. But Marsport is the most user-friendly of the Gargoyle adventures because of its grid layout, so I'm going for it freehand on plain paper.

I dunno, I had Marsport, but I never liked it as much as TNN and DD. Partly cos it didn't quite have the atmosphere, but partly also because it was an example of a software house coming up with an innovative idea and then repeating it with diminishing returns.

It was like Ultimate after Knight Lore. Alien 8 was OK, but then they just churned out further Knight Lore copies to ever reduced effect.

As to the plastic/rubber keyboard thing, I seem to remember that this was keenly debated by connoisseurs of Daley Thompson's Dectathlon. iirc, the plastic keyboard was WELL-favoured for the running events

Oh yeah grimly - wasn't there a pre-"Urban Upstart" game by the same fella? I seem to recall that it involved a desert island. It was my second favourite adventure game iirc (out of two, natch), but I only got about 1/3 the way through it.

the plastic keyboard was WELL-favoured for the running events

The Spectrum +3's keyboard was essential for my dominance in Hypersports. Rubbish for typing but excellent for doing the tricky left/right/breathe combination for swimming, and also hair trigger enough for me to get a perfect score in skeet shooting practically every time.

xpost

Yeah, the plastic keyboard had quite a responsive kickback, iirc.

I'd forgotten how irritating it is when one of those Sept warrior things mugs you and you have to go back to the start and go through all the same tasks again like a soft fucking bastard.

I seem to recall that it involved a desert island.

This narrows it down to 90% of adventures.

There's an I Love Games thread about modern text adventures somewhere.

No.

90% of adventures involve dwarves.

Both are true. 85% of adventures involve dwarves on desert islands.

The very best thing for Daley running etc was a joystick which was both

a) very small (ie fingertip control rather than grabaround) and
b) programmable (ie up, down, left, right, fire could be assigned to the keys of your choice).

My devious trick was to assign the running buttons to Down and Right, so that the distance between the two was very short.

Yes. I remember insanely waggling my Kempston from side to side, while a vein no doubt bulged on my forehead. Didn't think of the down/right trick though.....

I remember that you couldn't do this in front of anyone else (esp. brothers etc.) as the proto-masturbatory symbolism was bound to provoke laughter.

Ha! Pashmina!

I've just done a bit of googling and found out that the "Forbidden" part of Dun Darach was originally called "Lady Q's" and was a brothel.

I got a very early copy, and mine said "Lady Q's" (not "Ladyo's" apparently) and NOT "Forbidden".

I still couldn't find a way in, but some early copies must have got out before the sign was changed to "Forbidden".

Still the intriguing possibility exists that some may have got out with the centre bit still in.....

"invincible island", it'll be. never played it myself, but think i will:

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/showscreen.cgi?screen=screens/load/i/gif/InvincibleIsland.gif

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/showscreen.cgi?screen=screens/in-game/i/InvincibleIsland.gif

cocks, obviously no hotlinking to that one. WoS wanks.

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseek.cgi?regexp=^Invincible+Island$&pub=^Richard+Shepherd+Software+Ltd$&loadpics=on

JESUS CHRIST SIMON

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0006490

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yt9BsZCifgU&feature=colike

gaming has gone downhill since the 1980s: discuss

challops have gone downhill.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g1KeQUYA5w&feature=colike

RIP Joffa (3:23 into the first docu)

was looking through Javascript books recently and discovered one by Raffaele Cecco of Exolon/Cybernoid fame

barry mcguigan boxing. has still never been bettered for pugilistic thrills and strategy. daley thompson sports a close runner up

― darraghmac, Thursday, 27 September 2007 13:47 (4 years ago)

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Frank Bruno Boxing had better racial stereotypes tho

http://plus4world.powweb.com/dl/covers/f/frank_bruno_side.jpg

pretty sure this game finished off my keyboard

spectrum keyboard held up better than a, b megadrive buttons under the stress of olympic gold 'battery' technique

the old rubber spectrum keyboard eventually stopped working on some keys, the contacts on the sheet underneath must have worn out

luckily this happened just as i was getting old enough to buy booze

'play the big fist' lol

IIRC the +2/+3 keyboard held up better especially to the rigours of Hypersports.

i spent some of my student grant on a Spectrum 128K, obviously they were right to abolish the grant system