Old Computers/Games

[James]

I was clearing out my attic last week, and found my old BBC Micro B. I also found a box with some of my favourite early 1980s games - Chucky Egg; Elite; Castle Quest; Frogger; and Eldorado Gold.

I miss the simplicity of these old games. There wasn't much to them, but they were addictive. Today's games are too detailed, and take ages to complete.

What are your best memories of the first domestic computers, and what were your favourite games?

[Men At Work]

'Lunar Lander' for the Vic 20 which had a tape drive (!) and a whole 3.5K of memory (!!). It produced my first attempt at programming as I hacked the source code to ensure I had unlimited lives http://www.cpfc.org/ubb/smile.gif

[sfchapman]

"Elite" on the BBC or Spectrum is STILL the best game ever made in my humble opinion.

"Jet Set Willy" is also one hell of a classic

[Samo*]

Mine was a Toshiba MSX 64 it had a cartridge slot as well,the best game i had for that was ye -ar -kung fu 2,and a footy game,then got a c64 and had a shed load of games,of which included
rambo2
commando
green beret
paperboy
sam fox strip poker
frank bruno boxing
care to name anymore?i cant be a.rsed*

[Samo*]

Outrun classic game
space harrier
Dirty 1 eyed bean flicker 3

[Matty]

Planetoid (=Defender) on the BBC

[Gavin Axten]

On the subject of old computer games, does anyone know how to get Amiga games to run on a pc and is it difficult to do????

[TAK]

Anyone remeber a game called Oids on the Amiga, so adictive, have been looking for it on Mame and such like for yonks without sucess.

[Men At Work]

Originally posted by Gavin Axten:
On the subject of old computer games, does anyone know how to get Amiga games to run on a pc

Try http://www.orionsoft.cz/amiga/

[Samo*]

Originally posted by Gavin Axten:
On the subject of old computer games, does anyone know how to get Amiga games to run on a pc and is it difficult to do????

You can download emulators that turn your pc in to what ever computer you like,then you can download the games,can be a bit tricky but it works

[Riccardo]

'Lazy Jones' (?) on the C64, you were the cleaner of this hotel and in every room was a different game....cool. Icicle
Works on the Commodore +4 wasn't bad.

Press Play on Tape.....Loading Please Wait....classic. Sensible Soccer on Amiga was brilliant - always scoring from the halfway line with dipping, swirving, curling shots.

[NRM]

Rock star ate my hamster was a good game on the Spectrum, and also the Dizzy collections.

[Fatman]

Spectrum games

Double Dragon
Indiana Jones and The temple of doom
Daley Thompsons olympic challenge

Amoga
Kick off 2...arguably the best football game ever
Speedball 2
Jimmy Whites Whirlwind snooker
Microsoft Golf
Panza kick boxing
Barbarian

------------------
Be Good

[James Varcoe]

Originally posted by Riccardo:
' Sensible Soccer on Amiga was brilliant - always scoring from the halfway line with dipping, swirving, curling shots.

Probably the best game of all time. Still play it to this day!!

Football Manager on the C64 was absolutely rubbish by today's standards but at the time was totally addictive

[nookiebear]

Knightlore and Alien8 on the Spectrum

Groovy 3D graphics...

[Samo*]

Revenge of the killer tomatos

[Mat ov CPFC]

Originally posted by TAK:
Anyone remeber a game called Oids on the Amiga, so adictive, have been looking for it on Mame and such like for yonks without sucess.




Oids ! Ah. Many a happy memory of drinking Scotch and playing that game at TAK's house.

I used to enjoy Manic Miner & Attic Attack on the Spectrum.

And the trainspotter side of me used to enjoy playing the text adventures although I would invariably get annoyed with them after getting stuck somewhere and just give up. Any idea where I could find some of these now just to look up for old times sake ?

[Jason]

If anyone wants to get hold of any of the old stuff, try www.emulazone.com. (http://www.emulazone.com.) My personal favourite is the C64, you can get practically any game for that free at www.lemon64.com. (http://www.lemon64.com.) Anyone remember Kikstart 2. . . I loved that when I was a kid, and have now got it on my PC via a C64 emulator. . . .that and Barry McGuigan's boxing. . . .God I'm sad !

[Strathclyde Eagle]

Sensible Soccer (as previously mentioned) and Lemmings. Used to be great fun as a two player version when your opponent couldn't figure out where you had sabotaged his work!

------------------
Strathclyde Eagles homepage (http://www.crystal-palacefc.co.uk)

[Gavin Axten]

I used to love a game called Wings on the Amiga, would love to get it on the pc

[TAK]

Some sad sod hads just Emailed me to correct me that Oids was infact only on the Atari.

My answer to you my nerdy friend was that in those days I was permantly stoned and had both machines so it is an understandable and acceptable mistake.

and yes I do know it's a rip off of Gravitas but it's better. http://www.cpfc.org/ubb/wink.gif

TAK - you can play OIDS on line at http://www.partytop.com/oids/index.html

plus a lot of other old and new games

[TAK]

Sorry Tim that's not it.

[nookiebear]

Originally posted by Jason:
If anyone wants to get hold of any of the old stuff, try www.emulazone.com. (http://www.emulazone.com.) My personal favourite is the C64, you can get practically any game for that free at www.lemon64.com. (http://www.lemon64.com.) Anyone remember Kikstart 2. . . I loved that when I was a kid, and have now got it on my PC via a C64 emulator. . . .that and Barry McGuigan's boxing. . . .God I'm sad !


Gone to Lemon64, tried downloading an emulator and it won't work. Help!

[Gooders]

Just caught up with this thread - nice one James.

Sensible Soccer on the Amiga - marvellous!

Knightlore on the Speccy - ditto.

Doubt whether anyone had an Amstrad? I did - there was a game that came with it called Classic Racing where up to 6 of you could manage a stable of 16 horses through a season comprising 16 meetings leading up to the "classics" at the end of the season.

Myself and my brothers-in-law used to see off whole weekends playing that game.

It was the DB's.

[arussell]

Try this one ...
www.vintagegaming.com (http://www.vintagegaming.com)

[Gaffer]

At the age of 6 I though nothing would ever beat Blitz on the Vic 20.

Until I upgraded to a Spectrum and started on Manic Miner http://www.cpfc.org/ubb/smile.gif

[PeterH]

Still have my Amiga, but its in the cupboard under the stairs, with loads of games should anyone want a borrow, having been superseeded by the N64.

Preferred Kick Off 2 to Sensible Soccer.

Favourite games: Lemmings, SWIV, Xenon 2 (soundtrack by Bomb the Base),
Speedball 2 (Ice Cream, Ice Cream),
Cadaver, and any number of cute platforms Rainbow Islands being the best.

Also Turrican, Another World, PGA Leaderboard, Premier Manager.

Great war game Sensible ...... came at
the end of Amigas reign.

Classic games all of the them. 4 in the morning with work the next day.

[Ian Hart]

What a great idea for a thread, James. Be careful, though. Neil the Eagle-eyed moderator might be along any minute to decide it's got more to do with Golden Nuggets than CPFC, and send it off to some obscure forum which none of us ever visit http://www.cpfc.org/ubb/smile.gif

I certainly agree with your comparisons with modern games. A colleague at work loaned me two "adventures" along with a step-by-step solution for each so that "You can't possibly fail"; six months later, and I haven't got half way through either of them, even with her answers http://www.cpfc.org/ubb/redface.gif

I loved my Spectrum. Amongst my favourites were some that have already been mentioned - Chucky Egg, Daley Thompson's Decathlon (you'll find it was called) and Attic Attack. However, even better, were the following - Maziacs, Jetpac and (my absolute favourite from the aptly named Addictive Games) Football Manager. The sad thing is that I'm not doing this from memory; I'm reading from the boxes as I type. What a thing to admit at my age.

However, I think I can beat all the above. When sorting through the attic a couple of months back I came across the original "computer" game (although it wasn't really). Do you remember it? Two table tennis "bats" which you manoevered up and down the edge of your tv screen, and a "net" in the middle. Was it called "Pong"?

Ah. Sheer bliss!

[Boyandy]

Think I've done this before but www.retrospec.co.uk (http://www.retrospec.co.uk) and www.retro-remakes.com (http://www.retro-remakes.com) have both got updated versions of old games on them.

They've got an emulated version of the BBC Chuckie Egg and a PC update of Skooldaze that are particularly good.......

[This message has been edited by Boyandy (edited 19 February 2001).]

[Teaser]

I used to love Paperboy and Pacman

[Riccardo]

After being quoted by the great James Varcoe I don't know if I should push my luck, but Y's on the Mastersystem.

I used to love Role Playing Games (RPG's) and this was quality for a console that was pretty dodgy at the best of times (Double Dragon being an example).

[Dan Dan The Canadian Fan]

Nodes of Yesod on the speccy, WICKED

Jet Set Willy 1 and 2
Monty Mole (cool)
Technician Ted
Everyones a wally
Hovver Bovver on c64
The all time great
'MANIC MINER'

[Glaws Eagle]

I remember, when I was still at college, I broke my collar bone.

6 weeks off.

So my mum, bless her, bought me that tennis video game, the one that plugged into the TV.

All you had was 2 knobs to move the bat and a switch for degree of difficulty.

Christ was that simplistic, but at the time, 1977, real fun.

[Glaws Eagle]

Then there was the pub computer games in 1979.

The famous "Space Invaders" and "Breakout", where you had to knock bricks out, getting more score for the bricks at the back of the wall.

The secret was to work on one corner until the ball got through a small gap and into the area between the top of the playing area and the back of the wall.

Happy days.

[James Varcoe]

Originally posted by Riccardo:
After being quoted by the great James Varcoe I don't know if I should push my luck, but Y's on the Mastersystem.

I used to love Role Playing Games (RPG's) and this was quality for a console that was pretty dodgy at the best of times (Double Dragon being an example).

There we were going along just fine and you just had to step over that line didn't you.

That's the last time I quote you (apart from this time)

[Riccardo]

Originally posted by James Varcoe:
There we were going along just fine and you just had to step over that line didn't you.

That's the last time I quote you (apart from this time)



I'll quote you on that.

Gauntlet in the arcades was amazing.

Summer Holiday's in Weymouth, the sun bright and the young girls pretty....and I was in a bl@@dy arcade.

'Don't shoot food' - brings tears to my eyes.

[2can]

I'm afraid I'm a young'un compared to some of you lot but:

Lemmings - still the best game ever IMHO
Shuttle Puck Cafe - or something like that
Dark Castle - the original
Prince of Persia
Breakout
Kick Off
and this ZXSpectrum game I can't remember the name of

[Samo*]

galaxian

[Ian Hart]

Originally posted by Ian Hart:

However, I think I can beat all the above. When sorting through the attic a couple of months back I came across the original "computer" game (although it wasn't really). Do you remember it? Two table tennis "bats" which you manoevered up and down the edge of your tv screen, and a "net" in the middle. Was it called "Pong"?

Ah. Sheer bliss!

I'll ask again, this time more loudly, because nobody seems to have heard the first time:

WAS IT CALLED PONG? http://www.cpfc.org/ubb/mad.gif

[hilairehair]

Doubt whether anyone had an Amstrad? I did - there was a game that came with it called Classic Racing where up to 6 of you could manage a stable of 16 horses through a season comprising 16 meetings leading up to the "classics" at the end of the season.

Cant forget my Amstrad CPC464 with bulit in tape!
http://www.cpfc.org/ubb/smile.gif

Was playing Classic Racing just the other year until mate fell over the keyboard and broke the space bar! Used to take hours to complete a season

Do you remember a football management called SOCCER BOSS? It used to use loads of old Palace player names in the transfer section.

Also:

Sabre Wolf
The Wild Bunch
The Way of the Exploding Fist
Bombjack

Those were the days!

Ian YES IT WAS - well, you did ask...
Someone asked about Pong, so I thought they'd find this useful :
---
Pong FAQ v0.01
This document copyright 1994 by Ben Parrish
For updates and corrections, contact pinback@netcom.com

Q. What's that little white thing on the left of the screen?
A. That is a "paddle". It is used to bounce the "ball" out of your end
of the screen.

Q. What's that little white thing on the right of the screen?
A. That's the other paddle, of course. Your opponent uses it for the
same purpose as your own.

Q. What's the little dot moving around the screen?
A. That's the "ball", obviously. The object of all your affections.
Keep it from going by your "paddle".

Q. What's a "paddle"?
A. It's the little white thing on the- hey, don't mess with my head.

Q. Hahaha, I can't believe you fell for it...
A. Shut up. You ask the questions, dummy.

Q. How do you win?
A. You get the ball by your opponent's paddle 15 times, before he does
the same to you.

Q. What are the "secret moves"?
A. If you rotate the knob left, your paddle will go up. If you rotate
the knob right, it will go down. (Reverse for opposite side) Also, you
can morph into Kano by doing a left-left-left-right combo.

Q. Wrong game. Try alt.games.mk.
A. Oh yeah, sorry.

Q. I move the knob, but my paddle doesn't do what I tell it to do. Why not?
A. Did you put in a quarter?

Q. Yes.
A. Did you press "start"?

Q. Oops. OK, now I get it. Hey, you just asked ME two questions. Why
aren't YOU "Q" and ME "A"?
A. I think you just answered your own question.

Q. That's a little paradoxical for my tastes.
A. Should I leave you alone for a moment to let you compose yourself?

Q. No, I'm OK now. Can I ask one more question?
A. Sure.

Q. Why is this being written in the first place?
A. Your guess is as good as mine.

Q. Why would my opponent want to bounce the "ball" out of my end of the
screen?
A. Don't be a wiseguy. Nobody likes a wiseguy.

Q. Sure they do.
A. Not in the middle of a FAQ, they don't.

Q. Yeah, but this isn't a real FAQ, you know. You're just using this as
an excuse to be silly and waste time, probably due to deep-seated
psychological insecurities and general discontentment with your existence.
A. What's your point?

Q. My point was, you should be worrying less about all of your wonderful
"balls" and "paddles" and make a concerted effort to mend your ways and
find something in life that will bring you true satisfaction and a better
sense of well-being.
A. You mean like, Master of Magic?

Q. You're not getting this at all. Let's set up another appointment
next week so we can talk about this further. You have a long way to go,
but there IS a light at the end of this tunnel, and the first step to
recovery is admitting you have a problem.
A. <sniff> I'm...I'm sorry. I didn't want you to see me this way...I-

Q. Don't worry about it. I'm here for you, man. We're all friends here.
A. I love you guys.

Q. A few people have started asking their own questions for inclusion in
the FAQ. They all are preying on the easy target of this entire
production's inherent irony, in attempt to be cute, or funny. Do you
have any comment on this?
A. I'm all for it. I've learned from my mistakes, though. I used to
answer every question that came down the pike, never stopping to think if
they were asked in jest or not, and only came to my senses after the
rather humiliating experience of hearing them snickering behind my back
about how obtuse I seemed to be. It hurt me deeply, but as they say,
that which does not kill us...

Q. What about the guy who suggested you move this to a "more
appropriate" newsgroup?
A. If he does not believe strategy is an integral part of correct Pong
play, he is deluding himself, and shielding himself from attaining a
higher understand of the science - nay, the art - that is Pong.

Q. What about the guy who wanted a repost?
A. I'll repost when I'm damn good and ready, and not one second before.

Q. You seem sort of hostile today. I thought we were all friends here.
A. Friends can allow a friend to have an off-day. As I've explained
before, these have been emotionally trying times. Because of that, I
haven't been able to commit enough time to my Pong duties as I would
like. This, in turn, depresses me further. It's a dangerous,
self-destructive spiral. Friends will help break the chain.

Q. We'll do what we can, I'm sure.
A. I really appreciate that. I only hope that some day, I'll be able to
reciprocate in kind.

Q. Would it help if I asked some Pong questions?
A. That's...that's real big of ya.

Q. OK. Let's try this one : Are there bonus rounds in Pong?
A.

Q. Hello?
A. I'm sorry...I guess I'm really having trouble focusing. I've not the
energy or the motivation right now to answer Pong questions. I'd rather
remain silent than tarnish the beauty of Pong by answering insufficiently
or incorrectly. Fears...fears. I'm becoming paralyzed by them.

Q. Should we take another break? You've been having a tough time lately.
A. Maybe I better. When can we try again?

Q. How about tomorrow, same time.
A. Sounds good. Again, I'm sorry about this.

Q. Don't be sorry. This isn't just about Pong. This is about you.
Just be happy, if you can.
A. I'll try...

Q. You ready to talk to us today?
A. Absolutely. I'm trying to keep a positive view of things, and not be
so gloomy and depressed all the time. It can't be healthy. So let's get
to it! Let's talk Pong!!

Q. Nice to see you're feeling a little better. OK, let's get back to
the question we brought up yesterday - Are there bonus rounds in Pong?
A. No. The game ends once one player reaches 15 points. After that,
it's over.

Q. As is popular with today's one-on-one games, does the winner get to
continue playing?
A. No, sir. It's over for both players. More play requires more quarters.

Q. So there's no advantage to winning?
A. Winning is its own reward. Like air hockey, which Pong is most
similar to. Like chess. Like...

Q. Like...life?
A. Oh, you see right through me, don't you...Yeah, like life.

Q. You don't sound too happy about it.
A. Well...I dunno. I mean, think about it. Try to look at life like a
game of Pong. We're all our own little paddles, swatting around
figurative balls all over the place, and for what purpose? Money?
Fame? Power?

Q. It depends on what each individual considers "winning", I guess.
A. Well, of course...but take it even further. No matter who wins, or
who loses, when the game's over, it's over for everyone. Think about
chess a little. A friend of mine once noted that the King's greatest
fear in chess is not to lose, but to win!

Q. He fears winning?
A. He fears winning over all. Because when the game has ended, and his
glory is at its peak - he dies. The players wrest him from his
victorious dominion, and throw him in a box, where the life quickly
dissipates from his being - for that which has no purpose, and no hope,
cannot truly be alive.

Q. Aren't you waxing a bit anthropomorphic?
A. Am I? Consider it. Who welcomes death more, he with everything to
live for, or he with nothing to live for?

Q. What are you saying? We should strive to lose at Pong?
A. Should we strive to win, if winning itself would destroy us?

Q. That's irrelevant in this context. In life, again as in Pong, perhaps
it's not WINNING that's its own reward...but playing.
A. But don't we desire to set goals? I mean, ULTIMATE goals; what we
want to accomplish in life. And what then is the point of these goals,
when in truth the end negates any value of anything we do?

Q. The questions you're asking are not new. But the fact remains, you
are here, and you ARE playing the game. I told you yesterday to try to
be happy, and that's what each of us has to do for ourselves. Do not
live only to win the game. Live for each and every POINT. And there's a
lot more than 15 points in life. You'll have hundreds, thousands of them
each and every day. Won or lost, try to savor each volley. Think not of
the end...but of the means!
A. That's beautiful. Inspiring. How'd you get to be so smart?

Q. Played a lot of Pong. The graphics are two dimensional, but the game
has depth you'd never imagine.
A. You wanna play a game, just for fun?

Q. Absolutely. I'd never turn down a challenge like that.
A. Great...here's a quarter.

o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

--
[ pinback@netcom.com : ben parrish : long .signatures indicate insecurity ]

Pong FAQ 0.05 (We're baaaack!)
This article copyright and otherwise property of blah blah, blah blah.
To be on the mailing list, contact pinback@access.digex.net...
To not be on the mailing list, completely disregard the previous line.
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

: Can you believe I have actually delayed doing some real work today
: because I had to stop in to this group to find out if Ben Parrish
: had updated his Pong FAQ ??

: I thought your FAQs were hilarious, and sent them to
: alt.humor.best-of-usenet so that a wider audience nay appreciate them.

: BEAUTIFUL!!!! This gave me the best laugh I have had in a month!

Q. Anything you'd like to say to the authors of the above statements?
(...and you know who you are.)
A. Absolutely. These are some of the kindest, most thoughtful comments
I've ever seen. It does this oft-disillusioned heart good to see
such nice sentiments coming from fellow net users. It's all the more
surprising that these FAQs rapidly became egregiously off-topic,
and truly irrelevant to basically everything, and still, no flames
were received, and many folks went out of their way to express their
appreciation. And for this, I am forever indebted. So again, lemme
just say, thanks.

Q. That was very nice. A true Kodak moment. Can you explain why we
haven't had an update in over five days?
A. Well, I can explain it, but it's not a very good explanation.
Suffice it to say, much as I regret it, my life is comprised of
more than just Pong. I'm working hard to rectify that situation,
but as of this writing, I haven't been overly successful.

Q. Well...just don't leave us out in the cold too long, OK?
A. I promise you, I'll do whatever I can. Because I care, dammit!

Q. Are you ready to talk a little Pong with us, now?
A. I wouldn't even show up here if I wasn't ready to talk Pong.

Q. Glad to hear it. Let's start with this: What sort of updates and
new versions of Pong have become available since its initial
inception?
A. Certainly more that can be mentioned here. As far as Pong's "blood
relatives" go, home versions of the game were very popular around
the time of the Atari 2600, and even before that. Largely ignored
as a sophisticated video game, Pong has only seen a few major attempts
at resurrection since these early console-based versions appeared.

Q. And what would those be?
A. There was a 3-D version of the game released a few years ago. And more
recently, we have Pong Kombat, a satirical cross between Pong and
Mortal Kombat, the popular fighting game.

Q. Can you give us an FTP site or some other way of locating these games?
A. Nope.

Q. Well, what good are you, then?
A. My relationship with the game is on a much higher level than the
bits and bytes that make up the actual software. Herein lies my
value as a commentator.

Q. Fascinating. OK, you've spoken of "blood relatives". What about,
say, "cousins"?
A. Pong's closest cousin, and indeed its most successful relative, is
the game known as Breakout. New versions and interpretations of
the original Breakout can still be found in production today.
Breakout, Arkanoid, Popcorn, all of these incarnations all owe a
nod to Pong for their success.

Q. Why does Breakout appear to be a more popular concept than Pong?
A. I believe it is because Breakout adds one thing to the gaming
environment that Pong doesn't have. Destruction. The idea in
Breakout is not to best your opponent, but to eliminate it.

Q. You believe it's more popular because it's more...violent?
A. Sure. Think about it. Ever since then, over 95% of ALL video games
have been of a destructive sort, in one way or the other. From
Space Invaders, to Asteroids, to Robotron, to Street Fighter II, to
you-name-it, virtually ALL of the successful games in our past, and
present, have featured violent obliteration of the opponent as an
explicit goal.

Q. You sound as if this concerns you.
A. To some extent, it does, but even more, I believe it to simply be
telling. It says a lot about human nature.

Q. You're not going to go off on a long holier-than-everyone soapbox
speech about how we all need to love one another, are you?
Personally, I could do without that.
A. Fear not, young questioner. I do not judge human nature on a scale
of right and wrong, for we are what we are. Nothing more, nothing
less. In order for our earliest ancestors to survive, they had to
be equipped with two things. One, the killer instinct. Two, the
means to satisfy this instinct. By extrapolation, the only members
of those species that survived were the ones "blessed" with an
inherent gift for domination, for killing.

Q. So you're saying we all, deep down, want to kill things?
A. I'm saying we have acquired these tendencies from whence we came.
Almost always, in nature's past, it was the male's job to go out
and kill the aggressor, to protect his mate, his children. And
you'll notice that almost all of the people that play and enjoy these
types of games...

Q. ...are male?
A. You're just too quick.

Q. What does this have to do with Pong?
A. Nothing, of course. That never seemed to bother you before, though!

Q. Of course not. But perhaps your point was, while Pong appeals to
us on an intellectual level, it has not retained its popularity
because games which appealed to a much more fundamental level of
human behavior have long since gained the favor of the gaming
public.
A. Umm. Yeah! That sounds good.

Q. And you meant to point out the similarity between this relationship
and the relationship of, say, chess-
A. We talked about chess last time.

Q. I know, but it's a wonderful game to cite when trying to make points.
Don't interrupt me. As I was saying...and the relationship of chess
to major-league sporting events, which have, basically since their
inception, been more popular with the masses.
A. Makes sense to me. Is there a moral to this story?

Q. I can't really think of one. Who do you think's gonna win the Super
Bowl?
A. ...uh...the Bruins?

Q. You're hopeless.
A. Yeah, well you're ugly!

Q. Shut up.
A. Make me!!

Q. You're embarassing both of us. And after those nice people said all
those nice things to you.
A. I suppose you're right. Sorry, I guess it's that basic instict for
violence and aggression surfacing again.

Q. I saw that movie.
A. What movie?

[Neil the Eagle]

Ian, I've admitted defeat ... Memory Lane is open house (again http://www.cpfc.org/ubb/frown.gif )

Vanguard (Arcade & Atari)
Pac-man (every version)
Battlezone (Arcade)
Scramble (Arcade)
Horace goes ski-ing (ZX81)

[Mickey Droy's twin]

Oh for the days when a great night out could be 1/2 lager and six 10p's piled on top of the arcade machine.
First- Binatone bat and ball
Best- Sensible WORLD of Soccer (better than the original because you could transfer)
Longest- went a whole pub session 10.30am till 3.00p.m. on one credit on track and field, boy did I have two quick fingers, winning £50 from the landlord.
Others of note
Space Invaders, Galaxian, Missile Command,
Leisure Suit Larry.
I love going into the crappiest Arcades at the coast with my kids and discovering some of the old machines.
Can anyone remember the shot sequence to get maximum points from Space Invaders spaceships?

[Argo]

Great thread, favourite games ever are-
ARCADE - Galaxians & Space Invaders (I have a full size 1978 cabinet)
COMMODORE PET 2008 - Space Invaders(again)
TANDY TRS80 - Duck Shoot
ZX SPECTRUM - Dragon Maze (I think?)
AMIGA - Eye of the Beholder (Best ever RPG) & Civilization
PC - Civilization II

[Ian Hart]

Thanks tmjwat.

And I thought it was me who was the saddest person alive. http://www.cpfc.org/ubb/wink.gif

[Ian Hart]

Originally posted by Neil the Eagle:
Ian, I've admitted defeat ... Memory Lane is open house (again http://www.cpfc.org/ubb/frown.gif )

Vanguard (Arcade & Atari)
Pac-man (every version)
Battlezone (Arcade)
Scramble (Arcade)
Horace goes ski-ing (ZX81)

Glad to see a spot of character assasination still works, Neil http://www.cpfc.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

Horace Goes Ski-ing - blimey does that bring back memories! Like most people with a Spectrum, the majority of my games were copies of other people's tapes, and so were often copies of copies of copies etc. This meant they were often extremely temperamental when you tried to load them. Those blue and yellow lines would flash away for a couple of minutes lulling you into thinking all was well, and then just as loading appeared near completion, "Loading Error" would appear on the screen, and you'd have to start again. My version of Horace Goes Ski-ing was particularly prone to this, with the result that I rarely got a chance to master the skills required!

[Sunny Fan]

Has to be manic miner and jet set willy. Anyone else remember the strange colour-coded card thing with jet set willy to deter pirate copies?

[Hypodam]

Originally posted by Sunny Fan
Has to be manic miner and jet set willy. Anyone else remember the strange colour-coded card thing with jet set willy to deter pirate copies?

Just got Jet Set Willy working on my PC with an emulator. Fantastic.
I remember the colour coded card alright, my mate's dad had a very rare (at the time) colour photocopier so he kept all of us in codes.
Happy times.

[Hypodam]

1113 days. Is that the longest gap between posts?

[Boyandy]

The retro game scene has really exploded in the last year or so - so much so that there's even a magazine dedicated to it!

[Hypodam]

Originally posted by Boyandy
The retro game scene has really exploded in the last year or so - so much so that there's even a magazine dedicated to it!
Really, what is that? Is there a website?

[anti-addick]

Originally posted by James
I was clearing out my attic last week, and found my old BBC Micro B. I also found a box with some of my favourite early 1980s games - Chucky Egg; Castle Quest, Frogger; and Eldorado Gold.

I miss the simplicity of these old games. There wasn't much to them, but they were addictive. Today's games are too detailed, and take ages to complete.

What are your best memories of the first domestic computers, and what were your favourite games?

Why don't you get MAME for your PC - then you can have as many of these simple games as you can handle.
Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator - www.mameworld.com :p

[anti-addick]

Originally posted by Riccardo
Gauntlet in the arcades was amazing.

Summer Holiday's in Weymouth, the sun bright and the young girls pretty....and I was in a bl@@dy arcade.

'Don't shoot food' - brings tears to my eyes.


Hey Riccardo, check this:

http://www.hindshaw.co.uk

I built it to specifically remember "Yellow Elf is about to die". It also has around 4000 other games on it :D :D :D

Also, see http://forums.cpfc.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=28730&highlight=MAME

[Neil]

Will never forget my early days as a young lad sitting in front of an Atari 2600 playing Space Invaders, Defender, Asteroids, Pac-Man and Missile Command. I must've broken about 5 joysticks back then!

[PeterH]

Well Psycho is having my Amiga with many games and I will test it out one last time for old time sake over the next few days..........

[Skin Up]

Monkey Island 2 on the Amiga.

If I remember correcty it came on 17 disks!

[Neil]

Those Atari 2600 games used to cost a lot of money back then. When you download them now, it takes a fraction of a second!

[RichieG]

Originally posted by sfchapman
"Elite" on the BBC or Spectrum is STILL the best game ever made in my humble opinion.

Absolutely, on the BBC B, I was Deadly but I never made Elite :(

Hopefully someone who knows their games can make a suggestion of something similar that comes close these days?

[LLCOOLSTEVE]

Bounty Bob

[Dodger]

Was in Virgin the other day and they are selling cd's for the PC which contain the required emulator plus games for Spectrum, Commodre 64, Amiga, Atari games.

This links to the Atari one, £9.99 for 80 games

http://www.virginmegastores.co.uk/pws/GetHomePage.vms?origin=pwstopnav.jsp&event=link(pwshomegamespc)&f=GAM&g=PC
Go to the bottom new in this week

I think the Amiga and Spectrum ones had something like 2000 games on them!

Sure you can download them from the net but for ease of use this might be of interest to some...

Edit: Links not pasting properly for some reason you should be able to find it if interested!

[Neil]

I thought Ultimate had enforced the rights on their games so it would be interesting to see if their games are on those discs.

[Debaser]

being only young, my first video game memory is of Sonic on the megadrive... but i think my dad had one of the ancient consoles :D and it had breakout on it, cant remember which one it was, but it beat the megadrive for a summer! i think it was the novelty... also we had an old BBC with karate kid and grannys garden on it... those were classic games!

[newbureagle]

Soccer Boss on the Amstrad CPC464. Brilliant.
Management games in those days were so much simpler. None of this messing around with placating a left sided player with black hair who has a bad attitude on Tuesdays and misses home nonsense like in Championship Manager, in the old days you bought a player rated 9 for £90000, or an 8 for £80000 etc, put them in the team and off you went!

Player Manager on the Amiga was top notch too.

[#mp3_zone]

sega mega drive emulator and a site with a few games :p

http://gens.consolemul.com/

http://www.retrocomputing-world.com/roms/Sega_Mega_Drive/sega/SEGA.html

[cumbrian_eagles]

had to be kick off 2! I remember the day I beat the old man 21-0 and he went around denying it :)

[daz_eagle]

Originally posted by Skin Up
Monkey Island 2 on the Amiga.

If I remember correcty it came on 17 disks!

good shout (note the avatar).

if i remember rightly MI2 was 11 disks on the amiga, and i thought i was state of the art coz i had an extra floppy disk drive!

monkey island 1 & 2 are the best adventure games ever made, nothing before or since has come close.

[Bobsta]

C64 - Strangeloop
Brian Bloodaxe
Arabian Knights


Amiga - Extreme Violence
Barbarian II
Speedball II

And my first ever console game with my first ever console, Super Mario 64 on the N64, back in the days N64 games were 70 quid :D

[bo04991]

It was all about Yars Revenge on Atari 2600(and I still own it and it works!!)

Another favourite was Double Dragon.

A tip for you all, remember these games as they were, my friend has all the emulators loaded onto his Xbox and playing them the other night was complete shite! Games like sensible socca on the Amiga had me playing for days but it was truly shite compared to todays games!!

[Largeman]

For those interested there is going to be a classic gameing expo held at the Fairfield halls over the weekend of Sat 24th & Sun 25th July.

http://cgeuk.kicks-ass.net/

Here you will be able to play & re-live all your old favs as well the chance to buy some of your favourite old skool computers/consoles.

I'll be there exhibiting under our retro-planet.com label.
This basicly means we'll have stuff to play and stuff to sell so come along and say hello.You never know you might get a discount if you flash your teamcard.

For the record my favs -


Atari 2600 -
Superman
Empire Strikes Back

Intellivision -
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons

C64 -
Paradroid
Rambo
Commando

Spectrum -
Elite
Lords of Midnight
Ant attack
Manic Miner

Atari ST -
Speedball
Populous

[James]

Matov's thread today (asking for emulator help) reminded me of this old thread and the fact that I have recently been reliving my (relative) youth by playing MegaDrive games on the 'Gens' emulator.

I still don't think they have come up with any better games than Tiny Toon Adventure; Bubsy Bobcat and Cosmic Spacehead. The new games today do have incredible graphics and are fantastically long - but something is missing.

[Ridcully]

Agree James they are less 'fun' than they used to be.

[Al From Bromley]

As I type, I can hear my son playing Sonic and Knuckles on the Megadrive which I have kept stored in a cupboard, along with a box full of games like micromachines, Lemmings, PGA tour golf, Brian Lara cricket etc. since about 1995. Have also got an original playstation which he dabbles with now and then.

[kitticat]

Paper boy and Buggy Boy both on the C64 were great :p

[Ridcully]

Flashback on the Amiga/ST...now that was a game

[Micky Spilane]

Two stand out games for the Spectrum for me are

Lords of Midnight
Moon Cresta

[Ridcully]

Originally posted by Micky Spilane
Two stand out games for the Spectrum for me are

Lords of Midnight
Moon Cresta

I have fond memories of Pjamarama and Everyones a Wally

Not to mention 3D Ant Attack and Sabrewolf

[Ridcully]

Ah this thread has made me think Fondly of the first computer I ever played, the Dragon 32 and the first I desired, an Oric 1...ended up with a Spectrum as my Mum sent my Dad to the shops and thats what he came back with....1982, a great year.

[Teamofthe00's]

Anyone remember a game called pacman or supermario? Comic was another addictive game and lets not forget 'Little Big Adventure'