Sir Clive Sinclair's greatest invention, the ZX Spectrum, is twenty-seven years young this week and to celebrate we've compiled our list of the top twenty-seven Speccy classics. The games that lit up our childhood!
If we hark back to April 1982, it's not hard to remember why the Spectrum had such a monumental impact on modern gaming. Prior to that we were living in a black and white world of Intellivision-style 'TV games' and endless, (hardly) glorified versions of Pong.
Sir Clive saw all of this and thus he did invent the Spectrum. And it was good. (Except for the keyboard).
Sinclair's humble rubber-keyed joy machine went on to sell seven million units worldwide and – for many of us – was a rare high point in an otherwise dreary, selfish decade marked by wars on islands we'd never heard of, strikes where our mates' dads got picked on by the coppers and lots of blokes dressed up as women on Top of the Pops.
Tape-to-tape piracy
While all that nonsense was going on, we were happily holed up in our mates' bedrooms, illegally copying the latest gem from Ultimate Play The Game or Codemasters on our tape-to-tape machine (sorry Codies) or tricking the sales assistant in Boots to give us an extra copy of the Jet Set Willy anti-piracy colour chart because 'we lost the one in the box'. (And he did! Bonus!)
Pretty much every British male over the age of thirty will argue about their favourite Spectrum games, while a dewy-eyed far-away look creeps across their face.
"Most home computer games were simplistic, flick-screen affairs in which you played a fat mayor jumping over a nettle or something like that," wrote Charlie Brooker in a Guardian column last year. "Then Elite came along and took the piss. A groundbreaking 3D space combat-and-trading simulator that managed to convince me my computer could, when programmed correctly, house an entire alternative universe."
And what a universe it was. If you need to remember, then find yourself a few hours of precious time to kill and Google one of the many emulators out there on the internet. It is officially our favourite way of killing time at work. Just don't tell the boss.
Ooops. We just did.
Here is TechRadar's definitive top twenty-seven ZX Spectrum games of all time. Feel free to argue the toss in the comments!
2. R-Type – Electric Dreams Software
3. Chuckie Egg - A'n'F Software
4. Manic Miner - Bug-Byte Software Ltd
5. Knight Lore - Ultimate Play The Game
6. Back to Skool - Microsphere
7. Football Manager - Addictive Games Ltd
8. Lunar Jetman - Ultimate Play The Game
9. Horace Goes Skiing – Beam Software
10. Boulder Dash – Front Runner
12. Underwurlde - Ultimate Play The Game
13. Super Hang-On - Electric Dreams Software
14. Jet Set Willy - Software Projects Ltd
15. Rainbow Islands - Ocean Software Ltd
17. Ant Attack - Quicksilva Ltd
18. Chase H.Q. - Ocean Software Ltd
19. Deus Ex Machina - Automata UK Ltd
20. Lode Runner - Software Projects Ltd
22. Fantasy World Dizzy - Code Masters Ltd
23. The Hobbit - Melbourne House
24. Atic Atac - Ultimate Play The Game
26. Hyper Sports - Imagine Software Ltd
27. The Way of the Exploding Fist – Melbourne House
(Props to Eurogamer TV's magnificent and mesmerising video ode to the top fifty Spectrum games. It was like watching our childhood in the space of twelve glorious minutes).
Your comments (5) Click to add a new comment
lovlid
April 26th 2009
5. Dynamite Dan? Monty Mole?
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craig.hank
April 23rd 2009
4. Fantastic!! Ah the little ZX eh what a true wonder, rubber keyed was by far the best for me. Don't know how many times I lost many hours flying around the universe in Elite. Would have liked to have seen Dizzy higher up the list though??
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menelaus
April 23rd 2009
3. I agree Chaos was the brilliant, even more so with multiple players.
Daley Thompson should be missed off the list just for the number of joysticks he wrecked.
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liquidindian
April 23rd 2009
2. No Chaos? No Deathchase?
Booooo.
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hornybeast
April 23rd 2009
1. so many to choose from but how can ya miss out such classics as Doomdarks revenge or Raid over Moscow and include such dross as Horace goes skiing...madness I say!!!
and I bet poor old Daley Thompson is turning in his grave for being missed off the list!
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