Support NeoGAF

[Nitty_Grimes]

Retro Games have announced The Spectrum to be released this November : https://retrogames.biz/products/thespectrum/

48 Essential Games Included:​

Alien Girl: Skirmish Edition • Ant Attack • Army Moves • Auf Wiedersehen Monty • Avalon • Bobby Bearing • Cosmic Payback • Devwill Too • Exolon • Fairlight • Firelord • Football Manager 2 • Freddy Hardest • The Great Escape • Head over Heels • Highway Encounter • The Hobbit • Horace Goes Skiing • Jack the Nipper • Knot in 3D • The Lords of Midnight • Manic Miner • Match Day II • Movie • Nodes of Yesod • Penetrator • Phantis (Game Over II) • Pheenix • Pyracurse • Quazatron • Robin of the Wood • Saboteur! Remastered • Shovel Adventure • Skool Daze • Snake Escape • Spellbound • Starquake • Starstrike II • El Stompo • Stonkers • TCQ • Target: Renegade • Technician Ted - The Megamix • Tenebra • Trashman • The Way of the Exploding Fist • Wheelie • Where Time Stood Still

Key features :

48K and 128K compatibility - Compatible with games for 48K to 128K ZX Spectrum models.

Save your progress - Save your progress in one of four save-game slots per game, and return at any time.

Load your own - Load and play the programs you already own, optionally with the cassette loading effects you remember.

Rewind mode - Rewind your gameplay at any time by up to 40 seconds to help you get through those difficult levels!

 

[Wildebeest]

That's actually a pretty good selection of games.

 

[Impotaku]

No way usa gaf will touch this, the graphics on a speccy will fry their graphic whore brains add in that it pretty much wasn’t a thing for them so there’s no way they will pay that price. However for those odd curious few, thanks to it been probably hdmi it will be the easiest way to play one on a modern screen as getting original old pal RF technology to interact with ntsc TV sets is troublesome at best.

Least it has the ability to load games, will be interesting to see if it copes with more modern spectrum releases that used alsorts of weird programming tricks. With a library of many thousands of games it has something there for everyone. If I hadn’t already got the best emulator on pc for speccy stuff I might have been tempted but not much reason to grab one for me as the mushy rubber keyboard is not going to be fun to play on for extended gaming sessions.

 

[Wildebeest]

No way usa gaf will touch this

This isn't an MSX or Famicom and it has no Nipponese honor. It would be disgraceful for me to touch it. The keys are rubber and not made from steel, folded 1000 times for the ultimate performance.

 

[pachura]

That's actually a pretty good selection of games.

Indeed, Exolon and Starquake are my all time favourites. The only ones I'm truly missing here is Knight Lore (there's isometric Head over Heels, though), Death Chase and maybe something from Wally's universe (Pyjamarama, Everyone's Wally, 3 Weeks in Paradise)

 

[Wildebeest]

Indeed, Exolon and Starquake are my all time favourites. The only ones I'm truly missing here is Knight Lore (there's isometric Head over Heels, though), Death Chase and maybe something from Wally's universe (Pyjamarama, Everyone's Wally, 3 Weeks in Paradise)

They have Jack the Nipper and Spellbound representing that sort of Wally adventure game. I think it's missing something like Chaos or Rebelstar. Maybe something like Tornado Low Level. You could throw in some games like Dandy, Ranarama, or Maziacs. And of course Batty.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

That's actually a pretty good selection of games.

Ctrl+F: "Saboteur"

Saboteur! Remastered

 

[pachura]

And of course Batty.

I liked Krakout even better! (it was horizontal, though)

Ctrl+F: "Saboteur"

Great indeed, an 8-bit Metal Gear Solid

 

[RetroGamingUK]

Spectrum was a piece of garbage when it comes to games, the main reason for nostalgia is that a lot of kids here in the UK had them as their first computer (they were dirt cheap).

 

[Evil Smurf King]

I just can’t wrap my head around the attachment some people have to these ancient computers.

I’m nearly 50 years old and I started out playing video games on an Atari VCS 2600. Not long after that, I got a TRS-80 Color II as a Christmas gift. I think in England, this family of computers was called "CoCo" (short for Color Computer), and in the USA, they were known as Radio Shack (or something like that). This ZX Spectrum was even worse than these...

Here in Brazil, due to a ridiculous market reserve policy, we didn’t have access to better computers (like the MSX or PCs) or even consoles like the Nintendo NES and Sega Master System until around 1989. When they finally arrived, it was a revolution.

Nostalgia aside, these computers were expensive junk and utterly useless in every way. They weren’t even glorified typewriters (there were no word processors for these machines), and the games were terrible and completely amateurish, with no redeeming qualities.

The only "fun" you could possibly extract of these things was maybe programming your own games , and the graphics were only slightly better than the Atari 2600’s. That period was like a dark limbo for video games here — a sort of evil interregnum—and for some godforsaken reason, there are still people who feel nostalgic about them. To give you an idea, the TRS-80 Color Computer II was known in Brazil as the Prológica CP-400, and the ZX Spectrum was sold as the CP-200, and I’m pretty sure it was the monochrome version. There was also the TK-2000 (I can’t remember who made it here), which was a version of the Apple IIe, and I don’t recall any practical use that would justify buying it. BTW, the prices were insanely high, sometimes costing as much as an popular car — like in the case of the CP-500, which I believe was a version of the PC-AT.

Maybe they’d be useful for high school teachers to communicate with personalities from the Middle Ages, like in that Doodlestone episode; even without any network connection, they managed to receive messages that supposedly proved time travel was possible... LOL. It’s just a piece of History of gaming here in Brazil that I wanted to share.

 

[Clear]

C64 rules and Speccy drools!!


Just kidding, very fond of both machines. Just remembering how platform wars used to be fun!

 

[King Dazzar]

Not sure why the hate for retro gaming being shown here and the disdain for classics. The Spectrum was great for games where I grew up. Everyone was always lending each other cassettes at school and it was a cheap entry onto a colour capable platform with literally hundreds of games. The quality of the commodore 64 was better, but the Spectrum was much cheaper. I loved some of the games. And I loved magazines like Crash too. Great days.

That said, I'm someone who believes that sometimes things are best left to memory. So I've wish listed this, but will likely never buy it. Thanks OP for sharing.

 

[ReBurn]

Not long after that, I got a TRS-80 Color II as a Christmas gift. I think in England, this family of computers was called "CoCo" (short for Color Computer), and in the USA, they were known as Radio Shack (or something like that).

It was the Tandy TRS-80. Or affectionately known as the trash 80.

I would like this Spectrum machine. Too bad it's not releasing here. Hopefully import prices aren't awful.

 

[Evil Smurf King]

It was the Tandy TRS-80. Or affectionately known as the trash 80.

I would like this Spectrum machine. Too bad it's not releasing here. Hopefully import prices aren't awful.

Check ou this beast! (The mighty TRS-80 Color II computer Prológica CP-400):

 

[West Texas CEO]

I need one, bro.