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Retro Arena: 8-bit computers

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    #16
    Let's get it right.

    The Amstrad has the best looking games in still shots
    C64 had a nes bad washed out colour palette but could move the sprites and scroll.
    Spectrum was like eye aids.

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      #17
      Originally posted by Baseley09 View Post

      Spectrum was like eye aids.


      As someone once said "The Spectrum's colour palette looks like Christmas lights." I find that quite striking. And the sharp detail of Spectrum graphics also appeals to me. I like how all 8-bit computers have their own distinct vibe.
      Last edited by Leon Retro; 11-11-2019, 09:17.

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        #18
        The Spectrum’s colour system was bananas. I made an image some years ago which was true to the system and it took an insane amount of time to figure out and looked terrible. Devs getting good looking Speccy games back in the day were magicians and they have my utmost respect. What some people did with it was nothing short of wizardry.

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          #19
          Speccy graphics were so abstract, so British. Very liquidy. You had to make do with what you had, learn to appreciate. But appreciation brought a very strange, special vibe.

          The C64 had very obvious merits. In some way, it was kinda boring because it was kind of a 'strongman' of a machine, it could do everything easy, it kinda coasted along with its colours and music and smooth scrollage.

          But with the Speccy...it had its mysterrry.

          The Speccy always reminded me of black n white moody comic art. Like a really good pen drawing noir feel.

          ANYWAY. Talking shish again.

          @Leon, ironically I had Jet Boot Jack on the Electron and it was one of the best games I had on that system. And I got it on tape from Laskys, lol.

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            #20
            The best 64 games also required dark magic. It had a better starting point for sure but it’s not like it had built in hardware for parallax scrolling or anything.

            Always wanted to play with a Jupiter Ace but I believe they are very expensive now. Knew someone with an Oric Atmos. Great keyboard on that machine.

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              #21
              PPS, remember this lookin gooood but not sure about the balls, I always thought it was cars tbh:

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                #22
                PPPS Brad, I know man, fug me you got like epic soundtracks contained in half a kilobyte on C64!

                I'm just defending my pal Mr Spectrum. He always walked with a stick.

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                  #23
                  Fair point. Iirc the spectrum had literally nothing in it hardware wise to suggest it could ever be a games machine and yet somehow...

                  It didn’t even have joystick ports!

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                    #24
                    For me, the C64 is definitely the number one choice.

                    As has been said, as a games machine, it's better equipped than most of the opposition. Whilst nothing reaches the dizzy heights of SMB3, I think the best games come close to the rest of the NES library. Hardware sprites and hardware scrolling give you that fast and smooth movement that's lacking in a lot of the competition. The slower CPU means 3D was pretty bad, but none of these machines did a great job of 3D anyway. Of course there's the mighty SID and some of the legends who composed music for it. The fact that in 2019 there are still events celebrating this music shows how special it was.

                    The other huge thing for me is the demoscene. I've been active since I was a teenager. In the pre-internet days to see productions from people in other countries who were working on this machine in their bedrooms just like me was fascinating. There was nothing else really like it. The C64 demoscene is still very active to this day with far more releases than you see on any other 8 bit computer. To me, it's a perfect platform for this kind of thing. The Amiga and PC just became too powerful, but whilst the C64 has limitations, it's still flexible enough to be pushed and pushed. As someone who primarily makes graphics, there's so much variety from NUFLI (which combines sprites with an old trick called FLI to come close to 320x200 with no colour restrictions), the standard multicolour mode (double-width pixels), Spectrum-style 2 colours per 8x8 char pixels , and there's even a growing PETSCII scene (which is making art using the graphics symbols on the C= keyboards). Also, the colours combine far better than any rival machine I've tried, and the "washed-out" look that people sometimes mention is partly because the "pepto palette" (which everyone has used for years) doesn't take into account that on an actual C64 monitor, you can just turn up the saturation!

                    The cartridge port is also a godsend with devices like the 1541U giving you emulator-style ease of use on real hardware.

                    Despite my C64 love, I do have a soft spot for the Spectrum. It was the first computer I owned and the place where I played my first games. Those loading tones, or games like Jet Set Willy, Matchday or Cyclone give me massive feelings of nostalgia.

                    I'll probably grab an Ultimate at some point, seeing I still enjoy playing C64 games. I'll have to find a decent joystick to use with it.


                    I'm a big fan of the Powerplay Cruiser. It has adjustable tightness which means you can set it to be much looser than many other sticks like the Competition Pro. I've had one for over 25 years and it's still going strong! It also comes in some horrific 90s colour schemes
                    Last edited by ZipZap; 09-11-2019, 12:29.

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                      #25
                      Hmm a toughie indeed as i never owned or had friends that had some of those computers. For me it would be...

                      1) Spectrum, was my first ever computer of my own as the first computer in the house was actually a Vic 20 which was my sisters. Played a hell of a lot on my plus 3 i ended up having quite a lot of games thanks to cover tapes containing crazy amounts of them in compilations as the years went on as well as the usual £1,99 jobbies i bought at the weekends using my pocket money. While the graphical colour clashing on the spectrum is painful to look at sometimes the actual resolution of the sprites is actually not that bad actually been quite a bit better than a lot of computers of the day, the only problem is those sprites while they look great on their own they tend to look worse once coloured in. The gap between crap games and great ones was huge as well so it was always a gamble trying something new, the Dizzy games were my jam but codemasters released a few others that i enjoyed like olly & lissa 3 and little puff. Also enjoyed playing monty pythons flying circus & night shift, i played them on my friends Amiga but i had to make do with the speccy versions at home. The spectrum fails at arcade conversions as they ended up been pretty poor copies of the original where it truly excels is at original games made for it these are ones i ended up liking a hell of a lot more. To see what spectrum can really do you just have to look at the fan made indie games made now. It's crazy the stuff they can pull off using the spectrum if someone could send those games back in time it would have blown people away.

                      2) Acorn electron, this was one i first played at a friends house i would spend a lot of my weekends over at his as we played our way through the repton games. Got pretty into it where i would eventually start designing levels on paper to input into the game, my favourite game on that computer is elixir a weird platform game where you play a tiny chemist having to return to normal size. Loved the surreal enviroment of hopping around on the shelves looking for items & drugs. Years later i ended up buying my friends electron off him and playing through a lot of his collection he gave with it i have fond memories of spycat.

                      And thats pretty much it as they are the only ones i owned although i did play a lot of Vic 20 and C16 +4, i ended up been given my sisters vic 20 so i used to play a lot of mega vault but i remember the games taking what felt like forever to load. Also remember not been able to get off the first screen as my coordination was not that great back then actually had a revenge match a few years back via emulation managed to complete it seems it wasn't that hard i just needed 30 years of gaming to do it hehe. Every so often my friend woul let me borrow his C16 +4 for a couple of weeks so i enjoyed playing icicle works and fingers malone along with fire ant and treasure island, and a bike game that was more like a platformer called kickstart oh it was also the first place i discovered the monty on the run games.

                      Still like to go back and play a lot of these old games through emulation, because i grew up with them i'm probably a lot more forgiving but i love seeing the modern stuff made too like Ooze on the speccy. Just a shame theres no decent modern electron emulators as the one i use is ancient and pretty janky but there's only 2 out there on the net.

                      And just to show the spectrum can actually do great games in both graphics & animation here's some corkers, just shows that in the right hands you can get some amazing games on these old machines.
                      Myth

                      Foggys quest

                      Benny hill

                      The incredible shrinking professor

                      Ooze

                      Twinlight


                      Probably the best one of all the remake of crystal kingdom dizzy it's unreal how good it looks & sounds actually better than Codemasters own efforts.
                      Last edited by importaku; 09-11-2019, 16:27.

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                        #26
                        1: C64. For all the reasons others have given, made the speccy look like a toy with its rubber buttons and no joystick port. Speccy's failure rate was appalling as well.

                        2: Atari, aside form the 400 with its silly keyboard the other Atari computers were great, they had a cartridge port for the classic Atari games and also a high-res mode any other computer at the time would die for.

                        3: Texas Ti 99/4a. OK I know it isn't in the list but I really liked it (also it had a 16 bit processor) and loved playing Tombstone City.

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                          #27
                          Later models of the spectrum had 2 joystick ports only the 48k version lacked them.

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                            #28
                            Despite being a die-hard Commodore user (I went VIC-20 => C64 => Amiga), I have a lot of fondness for the Spectrum and though, I did not have as much exposure to the Amstrad CPC range, I rate those highly, too.

                            A [MENTION=6476]JazzFunk[/MENTION] said and [MENTION=39]importaku[/MENTION] showed above, the Britishness of the Spectrum was amazing. The likes of Lords Of Midnight, Knight Lore, Sabre Wulf, Ant Attack, Tir na nog, Valhalla, Fairlight, etc., just had an abstract quirkiness that wasn't found on the C64 (bar Andrew Braybrook's output, Gribbly FTW!).

                            I love the C64, but would love to give house room to all of the 8 bit micros (except maybe the Oric-1, yuck!) and chuck in the Unicorns; Sam Coupe or the Elan Enterprise (how about a Mattel Aquarius) and early retirement (so I had the time) and I'd spend all my time exploring the hardware and software of those systems.
                            Last edited by gunrock; 09-11-2019, 20:34.

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                              #29
                              The speccy is also capable of some pretty astounding music feats, the C64 isn't the only machine to pull this kind of stuff off.


                              I do agree it's certainly a very British feeling computer with some of the stuff that was released almost a snapshot of 80's childhood culture as a lot of stuff got a tie in game. Although there are some pretty amazing games coming from all over the world.

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                                #30
                                Originally posted by Anpanman View Post
                                1: C64. For all the reasons others have given, made the speccy look like a toy with its rubber buttons and no joystick port. Speccy's failure rate was appalling as well.

                                2: Atari, aside form the 400 with its silly keyboard the other Atari computers were great, they had a cartridge port for the classic Atari games and also a high-res mode any other computer at the time would die for.

                                3: Texas Ti 99/4a. OK I know it isn't in the list but I really liked it (also it had a 16 bit processor) and loved playing Tombstone City.
                                The TI architecture is an absolute mess lol. At first glance it should have destroyed the competition. I had one friend with one and always liked the look of it. The keyboard had a bit too much resistance as I recall though.

                                The Atari machines always looked excellent, apart from the 400 as you say.

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