well it seems some people are into computer games on here. and they are amazing, aren't they? flashing lights and explosions and amazing graphics - wow! but they weren't always like this. no, when i were a lad, it was all bbc micros, commodores and spectrums.

so i thought i'd show the kids what computer games used to be like. on one of these - - an acorn bbc.

about the size of a ford focus, this 32k beige beast was hooked up to a floppy disk drive. not the floppy disks that we use these days, but proper floppy floppy disks like these ones for 'elite'.

to get a good idea, each of these discs was approximately four foot wide by three foot high and took two people to load into the drive. this massive leap in home computing technology meant you didn't have to put a cassette into the player and go and have your tea while the game took twenty minutes to load. and if it crashed while loading...gah! start again. and remember to turn the volume down , or you'll get 'screeeooooeeeeaaaarrrrdadadadadadadascreeeeeeeoooooooooaaaaaa!'

so your game has loaded up. what is it? early games were more text than graphic based. games like 'philosopher's quest'.

imagine lara croft, without lara. or any moving pictures. or any pictures at all. if they did have pictures they were like this one, from granny's garden -


now don't get me wrong, these games were good. these games were exciting. we didn't know any better, i can remember spending hours sat in front of the screen with a couple of friends arguing about which door to take, or whether we need to buy the potion from the wizard.

but gradually the programmes got better - some were ripped off from the arcades, some were dreamt up by beeb bedroom programmers. and all had an influence on the games you're playing now.

so what other bbc highlights were there? how about 'castle quest'? a scrolling platform game with puzzles and challenges.

look at those graphics! jump on the stool to pick up the torch. wait for the guard to go on his rounds. make a run for it...

coin-op ripoff? try 'arcadians'.

woo, woo, woo! starts off slow but as they get closer, and as they get quicker, and as the flying ones get louder, and as your gun doesn't reload quick enough, woo, woo, woo! - ah, the adrenaline rush!

elite - the quintessential bbc micro game. sci fi computer geeks everywhere had wet dreams over this. probably the most popular / famous beeb game ever. i never had a clue what i was supposed to be doing.


repton. best. game. ever. fact.

control repton, the little green monster around this platform game. eat through the static fuzz, collecting the diamonds. don't let the rocks drop on your head. spending too long? he's getting impatient and tapping his foot. great music too.

reptons 2 and 3 simply took the idea and ran with it. brilliant. eggs with monsters in them, flashy box things that transport you somewhere else, quick growing deadly weed. see repton here? he's looking around him. if he picks up the diamond below, the egg will fall on him. if he goes in the flashy transporter box, where will he end up? gah, decisions!


want a shoot-em-up? try 'stryker's run'

look at them graphics! now we're talking. run through the levels shooting everything in sight - see them choppers? you can fly them. yup, get in them and fly. fuck, thats cool. does it get any better? well, yes it does. set it in space and call it 'codename droid' -

hoo! look at that title screen! is that not the coolest thing you've ever seen? the fact the game actually looked like this -

didn't matter at all. you could fly, man! and fire laser guns! and when you shot someone, they would turn into a skeleton and then collapse in a pile. boy, this was the stuff.

so these are a few of the bbc micro games i used to play. any other beeb fans out there? or what were you playing on your flashy '64s? fancy sharing some memories? or are you too young to remember this and can't believe grandad pots used to play this rubbish?

please, no post-megadrive stuff here.

i'm off to download repton and try and crack it. again.

My brother had this game on his Amstrad

Happy Days...

Ah, Elite. I spent God knows how many hours of my life playing that game as a kid. Oh, the thrills of being attacked by Thargoids in hyperspace. I only ever got as far as being Dangerous, but I knew someone who was Deadly.

I have so many Sierra games still, I loaded a King's Quest, I managed to get it to run without the sound. Ah, to be young again and enjoy all the Quest games...

That special day in a child's life when they learn the secret of the "Repton Shuffle"...

Great days.

oo OO oo OO

I'm currently making a text based game of Spaced (yippee!!! - I'm gonna do better ones later, just getting the juices flowin'). Will post it soon!

Leisure Suit Larry, Roger Wilco, Zak McKraken and Guybrush Threepwood have whittled many hours form my life!! - Love em all!

I used to make games for the spectrum, written in pascal, gone are those days.

Oh Monty Mole I wish you were here!!

-m0r

My parents had (still do in fact) a Colecovision console which had Donkey Kong, the Smurfs (a platformer that was bloody difficult for a 4 year old), an isometric flying game (can't remember the name, I think it started with an X) and Ladybug, which was a decent enough Pacman rip-off.

My first console though was the Mega-drive (you said nothing post-megadrive so I assume that I'm allowed to post about this) and it had some great games. The Sonic ones were great (up until '3D' which wasn't up to much), Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, but my absolutely favourite games on it were the Shining Force games.

I had SF 1 and 2 as well as the version they made for the Mega CD and they were great role playing games where you would control an ever-growing team of characters trying to defeat forces of Dark Dragon and Draksoul (Shining Force) and Zenon (Shining Force 2). Not only was the turn-based fighting fantastic (it's the same style as Advance Wars uses) but the plots were wonderful, with great characters that weren't only good and bad but quite often very tragic, such as Lord Kane, in the first game, who was portrayed as the main villain at the start of the game but, as you progressed, was found to be under a spell and who was killed by Darksoul after being freed of his spell and trying to do what was right.

Great times, and Shining Force was re-released on the GBA. It's not the same though unless it's on a TV and there's a 60% chance that the game'll crash at the most crucial moment.

I used to love Gift From the Gods on the Spectrum Sinclair thingy or whatever it was called. It looked like this:



I had no idea how to play it.

We also loved a game called The Great Escape:



It took me ages to work out there was a secret tunnel. In fact, I think my cousin told me. I would've been rubbish in the war.

It wasn't Zaxxon, was it?



I've got that for my ColecoVision, along with Donkey Kong and some weird circus game.

I never really got into computer games. I had a console - the first one was a SNES (obviously not one of the classic old consoles as shown here), but computer games really just remind me of dull rainy days stuck indoors because I couldn't play football. I also found they made me quite angry - there are bitemarks in the joypads to this day from my frustrated outbursts when Mario's eyes went dead and he fell off the screen. But carry on everyone!

That's the one right there. Easily my least favourite of the games we have cos I could never get the hang of it as a kid.

I'm going to plug this book because I want the guy to get enough preorders to actually get the thing published.

Who can forget Sensible soccer on the Amiga. I don't think it's ever been bettered.

Italia 90?

-m0r

nah the Amiga version was shit.

The ST FM my friend, that was the way forward!!

Sensible Soccor was actually better than Italia 90, but I90 used the same engine as Dogs of War and you could mod it to kill the other teams (ie FUN!! )

Anybody ever play Dungeon Master? It was a reecht scary game, a sort of staticey 3D envirmonment with Mummies and hidden switches and stuff now that was ace!

-m0r

I had an Atari ST too. So many top games

Midwinter
Xenon 2
E-motion
Turrican 1 and 2
Damocles
Sensible soccer
Kick off 2
Batman

the list goes on

Amiga had Alien Breed though. Fucking fantastic game.
I wish they would do a hand held Amiga or summat or at least bring out more games.
On a future but retro front Im probably going to buy a Gameboy Micro which is the hot thing in Japan at the moment. Its only 40 quid and is absolutely tiny.

We used to bully ST owners in the playground

Who have all　gone on to produce grounbreaking dance music..you cant do that with an Amiga..

ho ho ho! My how people rearrange their memories in order to remain sane.

Nah, I'm not up for the slaggin matches, My Dad got us an ST off of his redundancy money and that was the first 16 bit I knew, When I ended up going to secondary school Thats when I heard of Amigas.

Computers where not the 'in thing' at mine, So it was the usual Nintendo/Sega fannybaws. Although there was always revivalry between me and my Amiga pals.

Still say stick it up the Macs though!! (well the majority of their owners really!)

-m0r

I was digging about in our boxroom the other day and found the box and manual for my ST version of Dungeon Master - great game.

I dont remember it.

BOO!

Yeah. I remember. Top game. Shits all over Gauntlet. (red warrior shot the food)

Cheers for that rebelstar, made me cack myself all over again!!



-m0r

Oooh - looky :

Dungeon Master Java

At work and so cannot play it (will do at home though!!!)

looky what we have here, DHTML Lemmings!!! How cute!



-m0r

The Dizzy games for the Speccy were always a fave of mine, particularly Fantasy World Dizzy.

From my Speccy, back in the day.



My arcade fave, also from back in the day.
It was blacklit and the soundtrack was AWESOME. Sadly I couldn't find a pic of the TRUE machine, with it's round molded display.

I was pleased to notice one right behind Tom Cruise in the film 'The Colour Of Money' when he first meets Paul Newman's character.