Best UK-made 8-bitter, games-wise
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Best UK-made 8-bitter, games-wise
As a clueless American, I've long been interested in the "strange" world of UK home computers. While from a technical standpoint, both the Amstrad CPC and the Acorn BBC Micro both appear to have FAR outclassed the ZX Spectrum, lots of folks (including many writers for your fine magazine) seem to have had the fondest memories of the Spectrum. My question is simple: which of your three "homegrown" systems actually had the best games available and what were those games?
- Matt_B
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Re: Best UK-made 8-bitter, games-wise
Without getting into a big debate as to what was the best system, the Spectrum was a lot cheaper than the other two and sold a heck of a lot more. As such, there was much more game development for it, and almost all the best BBC and CPC titles were ported to it, whilst the reverse was a lot less common.
Anyway, some of my favourite Spectrum games are:
Lords of Midnight
Chaos
Tau Ceti
Vulcan
Nether Earth
Some good CPC ones are:
Spindizzy
Sorcery
Get Dexter
Starstrike II
Head Over Heels
Some good BBC ones:
Elite
Revs
Exile
Firetrack
The Sentinel
Anyway, some of my favourite Spectrum games are:
Lords of Midnight
Chaos
Tau Ceti
Vulcan
Nether Earth
Some good CPC ones are:
Spindizzy
Sorcery
Get Dexter
Starstrike II
Head Over Heels
Some good BBC ones:
Elite
Revs
Exile
Firetrack
The Sentinel
- markopoloman
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As a Commodore 64 man...............
I will buckle under some heavy weight strain and say
SPE
CT
RU
M
OMFG! Did I just say that
I will buckle under some heavy weight strain and say



SPE




OMFG! Did I just say that

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While the Spectrum was the lesser computer on paper, it had some genius programmers making games for it. The Amstrad at seems consisted of a lot of ports from the Spectrum rather than software made from the bottom up to play to it's own strengths.
The BBC had a few killer apps, but was too expensive to hit the mass market.
The BBC had a few killer apps, but was too expensive to hit the mass market.
British 8-bits? The Spectrum by a country mile. The question is whether it's the best 8-bit for games in the world, not the UK.
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[Points at Scapegoat] What he said, sums the entire situation up in a nutshell that does.Scapegoat wrote:While the Spectrum was the lesser computer on paper, it had some genius programmers making games for it. The Amstrad at seems consisted of a lot of ports from the Spectrum rather than software made from the bottom up to play to it's own strengths.
The BBC had a few killer apps, but was too expensive to hit the mass market.
IMO the CPC never really got software support to show what it was capable of because of a deliberate design decision (alliteration!) to use the Zilog Z80 to enable mass ports of Spectrum software giving it a big library of games at launch. I remember Amstrad staff pretty much admitting this in a launch feature in Your Computer magazine many years ago.
Even after that games developed on the CPC were often hamstrung because of the need to do a quick port to the Speccy which had to be accomodated in the original CPC designs.
This is perhaps why the CPC always seem to be the red-headed stepchild of retro machines, very few non-owners remember them fondly because it never had any killer apps.
I was always a Speccy man and of the reasons it seemed to bring out the best in UK/Euro coders was that the machine was simpler and easier to get to grips with than the C64. Nearly everyone I knew with a Spectrum "in the day" had at least dabbled with BASIC, some of us gone on to experiment with assembler but none of my C64-owning mates had ever got very far with coding.
The modern UK software industry (not just games) was built on the Spectrum which is why for me it will always be the best of the 8-bits regardless of what I owned!
Even after that games developed on the CPC were often hamstrung because of the need to do a quick port to the Speccy which had to be accomodated in the original CPC designs.
This is perhaps why the CPC always seem to be the red-headed stepchild of retro machines, very few non-owners remember them fondly because it never had any killer apps.
I was always a Speccy man and of the reasons it seemed to bring out the best in UK/Euro coders was that the machine was simpler and easier to get to grips with than the C64. Nearly everyone I knew with a Spectrum "in the day" had at least dabbled with BASIC, some of us gone on to experiment with assembler but none of my C64-owning mates had ever got very far with coding.
The modern UK software industry (not just games) was built on the Spectrum which is why for me it will always be the best of the 8-bits regardless of what I owned!
- pantal00ns
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Re: Best UK-made 8-bitter, games-wise
The Spectrum is easily the most well known in UK shores, as for the best game suggestions look at the thread below:madcrow wrote:My question is simple: which of your three "homegrown" systems actually had the best games available and what were those games?
http://www.retrogamer.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11302
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