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Best micro/home computer for games?

S

Squeak

Member
Before PCs took over the computer games scene completely in about 1995, there was a whole host of different computer platforms (computer as in machine with a QWERTY keyboard , a dedicated monitor and other apps than games).
Now my question is which of those (counting out the PC) had the best games and the most prolific games?
This is not about which one was most technically advanced, or which one had the most games, this is about the quality and importance of the games.
 
bts_retro.jpg


runner up

ZX-Spectrum-48k-Box.jpg
 
TRS-80A!!!

Man, ASCII never looked so, well, textual!

Or how about that travesty I bought that ended up having NO games (Jupiter Ace.) - or the wonderful Oric-1 I bought 3 days or so before the announcement & release of the Oric Atmos (Arrrghghg)

I must have owned about 8 or 9 different 8bit platforms over the 80's in total, and cockles has got it, c64 & Speccy all the way.

(Cue iapetus & his Acorn pimping in 3...2...) ;)
 
Squeak said:
Before PCs took over the computer games scene completely in about 1995, there was a whole host of different computer platforms (computer as in machine with a QWERTY keyboard , a dedicated monitor and other apps than games).
Now my question is which of those (counting out the PC) had the best games and the most prolific games?
Click to expand...

Would you mind terribly if I pointed out that the various Apple, Atari, Commodore, Spectrum, Amiga, Tandy/Radio Shack, etc. computers were all PC's? If you're talking about the rise of 8088 architecture/MSDOS/Windows based standardized computing platforms versus the other computers, that's another story entirely.

(P.S. I vote for the Atari 400/800/XL/XE series. Star Raiders forever.)
 
Most will probably say Commodore 64, but I think Apple II was the most important game home computer at least until the mid to late 80s. The graphics and sound weren't up to Atari 8-bit/C64 standards, but there were a ton of games and many important franchises and genres started on the Apple II. If you want to talk about the best audiovisual experience, then the Atari 400/800/XL/XE line was tops up until around 84 or 85, then the Commodore 64 was best until the Amiga became (relatively) prolific.

This is a US-centric viewpoint btw. I don't know shit (nor care) about the Euro-scene and their bizarre Spectrums or what have you :lol.
 
impirius said:
TI-99/4A

Burgertime!
Hunt the Wumpus!
Munch Man!
Speech Synthesizer!

(I may be a bit biased)
Click to expand...

I have an unopened speech synthesizer here. No TI to use it with... ONWARD AND UPWARD!
 
Commodore 64 most definitely. So much variety of games. Something the PC gaming scenes lacks completely lately.
 
Amiga 500 for the games and DPaint IV. Onion skin animations!


Or the ORIC simply because it was the only computer I knew with built in sound effects. Type in 'shot' and it went bang (something like that anyway) - I remember being mildly amused at my friends house when he bought one.
 
Vennt said:
(Cue iapetus & his Acorn pimping in 3...2...) ;)
Click to expand...

Actually I was going to go with the C64, for quantity over quality. The BBC Micro did, however, have the best home computer version of Elite, which frankly renders all other systems redundant. :D
 
Attention: Ignore all replies from Americans to this question. This is a European issue.

Putting all personal favourites aside, the Amiga is the end-all be-all of home computers for gaming.

Or you could get really hardcore and invest in an X68000. Now that would make you cool.
 
iapetus said:
Actually I was going to go with the C64, for quantity over quality. The BBC Micro did, however, have the best home computer version of Elite, which frankly renders all other systems redundant. :D
Click to expand...

You da man ;)
 
For once, wobedraggled and I are in agreement on something! :)

I'd probably have to go with the Commodore 64, although the Amiga was really strong, too. I was "into" the C64 for a longer time (it was my main computer from 1983 until I finally got an Amiga in 1992), and most of my fondest computer gaming memories were of C64 games, so that's what I'm picking.

PC Gaijin had some interesting comments above. The Apple II and Atari 8-bit computers also left their imprint on the computer gaming market.

Pimpbaa said:
Commodore 64 most definitely. So much variety of games. Something the PC gaming scenes lacks completely lately.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I agree. In particular, action-oriented games (other than first-person shooters) have sharply declined on PCs over the last decade, after the Amiga and Atari ST disappeared from the market. Emulation is virtually the only reason I play any games on PC now.
 
PC Gaijin said:
Most will probably say Commodore 64, but I think Apple II was the most important game home computer at least until the mid to late 80s. The graphics and sound weren't up to Atari 8-bit/C64 standards, but there were a ton of games and many important franchises and genres started on the Apple II. If you want to talk about the best audiovisual experience, then the Atari 400/800/XL/XE line was tops up until around 84 or 85, then the Commodore 64 was best until the Amiga became (relatively) prolific.

This is a US-centric viewpoint btw. I don't know shit (nor care) about the Euro-scene and their bizarre Spectrums or what have you :lol.
Click to expand...

You stole my post.
 
there was something about the Speccy that was so.... aluring...

the rubber keys perhaps? The distinctive "bbeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-BEEP beeeeeeeeeeeee-bwbudlybwudlybuwdly" of the loading sounds? the fact that the machine got physically red hot after a few hours play? the fact you had to buy a joystick expansion (Kempston all the way!) when the machine got real hot the machine used to smell of slighly toasted rubber - it was magical.

And the games just had a really weird feel to them - it's really hard to explain. Most games just didn't feel "solid"

The big dominant point of the specy was platformers and isometric 3d games - Manic Miner, Jet set willy, Technician Ted, Dynamite Dan, Knightlore, Alien 8, Head Over heals, Batman etc etc...

I personally prefered the C64 as a games machine because the SID chip really did something for me, but hell - for Eurogamers, the spectrum was just an iconic part of gaming. So don't yous US'ers be bitching.
 
I never 'got' the spectrum. The weird rubber keys, the way you even looked at a key and 5 words appeared on the screen made me scared to press anything.

Speccy Vs C64 was an interesting fight though (I had a C64). C64 was colourful but blocky, Speccy was hires but mono (or nasty colour clash). I lusted after the spectrum Operation Wolf, simply becasue it was so close to the arcade version (heh)
 
Nostalgia says Speccy (and C64).
But frankly, Amiga500 was probably the best gaming home computer ever made, and if you were a C64 fan, there was a near 100% perfect C64 emulator for it as well. (spectrum emulators existed but were unfortunately stuck at 5-10% speed of the real thing, so not really playable).
And for that matter Amiga Elite was one that rivaled even the holy grail of BBC micro one :P

But there was just something 'magical' about typing on those Sinclair rubbery keys :P especially the whacky mechanism where you didn't type characters but entire word commands with single keypress, once you got really good at it, it was actually a lot faster then typing out each word normally.
 
DavidDayton said:
Would you mind terribly if I pointed out that the various Apple, Atari, Commodore, Spectrum, Amiga, Tandy/Radio Shack, etc. computers were all PC's? If you're talking about the rise of 8088 architecture/MSDOS/Windows based standardized computing platforms versus the other computers, that's another story entirely.

(P.S. I vote for the Atari 400/800/XL/XE series. Star Raiders forever.)
Click to expand...
By "PC" I mean IBM compatible PC or win/dos PC or whatever you want to call them.
 
Commodore Amiga was the best games machine I have ever owned in my life. I'll probably be fired for saying that but hey, what can you do?

I remember swapping floppy 13 disks over for Monkey Island 2 - LeChuck's Revenge - and it was worth every swap :)
 
iapetus said:
The BBC Micro did, however, have the best home computer version of Elite, which frankly renders all other systems redundant. :D
Click to expand...

Quoted for truth. I still have two BBC Masters around somewhere... they probably even still work. I remember that the school I went to used to have a load of them, before they sold out to RM and got some shitty PC workstations with Windows 3.11.
 
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