Top 10 best ZX Spectrum games of all time
Computing presents the definitive list of the all-time top games on one of the best-loved home computers
Gamers are spoilt today with 4K graphics, motion-captured ultra-realistic characters, and a dynamic, orchestral, multi-layered auditory experience accompanying their every twitch in-game.
Hands up who remembers the days when you controlled a little blue sprite that turned the background blue wherever it tottered? And if you were lucky your stuttering movements were accompanied by an equally stuttering array of beeps?
Those were the days.
But in those days, gaming was a new frontier. Developers (more often than not a teenager coding in his bedroom) were creating and exploring a nascent industry, and making up the rules as they went. Games varied dramatically in length, quality, and bugginess. But not difficulty - that dial was almost universally set to 11. And with no YouTube walkthroughs available, if you were stuck, well, you were stuck.
But despite all of these deficiencies, or perhaps because of them, we loved the ZX Spectrum and its quirky array of games.
And with various devices designed to allow you to enjoy their games all over again either out now, or coming soon, it seems the world's appetite for weird and slightly clunky games from the '80s hasn't diminished.
Prefer Amiga games? We have you covered with a mammoth three-parter!
But if you want Spectrum games, you've come to the right place. So, without further ado, here's out pick of the 10 best games ever written for Sir Clive Sinclair's ZX Spectrum.
10. Football Manager Forget your fancy modern Football Manager series from SI Games, the 1982 Speccy version, coded entirely in BASIC, was where it was (and still is) at. While earlier versions on the Dragon 32 and Sinclair ZX80 and ZX81 were text only, the Spectrum version exalted in sporting basic animations showing match highlights.
Players selected a team and were instantly thrown into the old fourth division (of English league football) with random players, regardless of where their chosen team were actually playing at the time. There, with the aid of a limited transfer system, they were tasked to take the team back up to the top division, and perhaps win the odd FA Cup along the way.
Beautifully, Dave Carlos, reviewing Football Manager for Electron User, was so smitten he wrote: "I doubt that this game will ever be bettered." And perhaps Dave it hasn't.
Top 10 best ZX Spectrum games of all time
Computing presents the definitive list of the all-time top games on one of the best-loved home computers
9. The Way of the Exploding Fist
Forget your Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter or Double Dragon, nothing has ever come close to The Way of the Exploding Fist. Released in 1985, it was quickly ported to the Spectrum and became an instant classic.
The game is a series of one-on-one karate matches, with increasingly difficult fights as you'd expect. Points are recorded using a genuine traditional karate scoring system known as shobu nihon kumite, with a half yin-yang granted for a non-decisive strike, and a full yin-yang only for full finishing blows.
All the moves and blows are drawn from traditional karate techniques, none of yer charged up flame punches here.
Top 10 best ZX Spectrum games of all time
Computing presents the definitive list of the all-time top games on one of the best-loved home computers
8. Atic Atac
Game developer Ultimate Play the Game had a string of successes across various formats in the ‘80s, with brilliant titles like Jetpac, Tranz Am and Cookie all achieving a measure of critical and commercial success.
But 1983's Atic Atac just takes the prize as one of their best endeavours, only marginally ahead of Sabre Wulf.
In the game the player takes control of a Wizard, Knight or Serf, and roams between rooms in a haunted castle searching for the three pieces of the Golden Key of ACG. And like many Spectrum games, its difficulty was up in the legendary stakes. Three pieces of the golden key? You were lucky if you ever saw even one.
Top 10 best ZX Spectrum games of all time
Computing presents the definitive list of the all-time top games on one of the best-loved home computers
7. Knight Lore
And since we've mentioned Atic Atac, it's only fair we also give some love for the brilliant Knight Lore. Another from the Ultimate stable, its graphics were a step up from earlier release Atic Atac, but it kept the idea of missioning through individual rooms. In the game, the player (controlling Sabreman, a beautifully realised pith helmet-wearing explorer) must collect various objects scattered throughout a castle and brew a cure for his lycanthropy within 40 days.
The game is remembered for its innovative technology; it employed a revolutionary (for the Spectrum) image masking technique known as Filmation, which allowed images to pass in front of and behind one another without corrupting (so no more blue sprite clumsily and temporarily painting the background in his colour).
It was also unusual for its slow release. It was completed a year before it went on sale - being held back in order to protect sales of another Ultimate title, Sabre Wulf (also great), but also to allow the developers to complete another Filmation title before any of their competitors could copy the tech.
Top 10 best ZX Spectrum games of all time
Computing presents the definitive list of the all-time top games on one of the best-loved home computers
6. R-Type
R-Type puts you in control of the most powerful space-ship ever designed with a droopy, blue nose. Still, the graphics are amazing for the era (it was released in 1987), and the level and boss design puts it ahead of most other shooty space games.
The player's ship has a fairly weak forward-firing gun, but you can hold the fire button down to release a satisfyingly powerful large burst to wipe out smaller enemies, or do more significant damage to bosses.
The game was well-received at the time, scoring an impressive 92 per cent in Crash magazine. It was tough though. Dark Souls tough. No, we never finished it either.
Top 10 best ZX Spectrum games of all time
Computing presents the definitive list of the all-time top games on one of the best-loved home computers
5. Manic Miner
Launching our top five countdown is Matthew Smith's 1983 platformer Manic Miner. It didn't simply feature great gameplay, high replay value and impressive graphics considering the limitations of the Spectrum. It was also ground-breaking for two reasons.
Firstly, it allowed background and foreground colours to be swapped without a significant CPU overhead - something few other games on the machine could boast.
Secondly, it enabled constant (or near-constant) in-game music by rapidly alternating CPU attention between the sound and the game itself. Ingenious. You also get crushed by a giant boot when you die, and can be eaten by a roving toilet. So, bonus points for that.
Jet Set Willy, its sequel, was similar, and also great.
Top 10 best ZX Spectrum games of all time
Computing presents the definitive list of the all-time top games on one of the best-loved home computers
4. Skool Daze
In Skool Daze, the player controls Eric, a naughty schoolboy whose mission is to steal his report card from the safe in the staff room. How? Mostly by hitting shields with his catapult, avoiding the school bully, and not getting too many lines. Look, it's a Spectrum game from 1984, it doesn't have to make sense.
It's also educational, with some of the facts and figures spouted by teachers in the lessons Eric has to attend invariably lodging in your head. "When was the Battle of Lexington?" asks Mr Creak the history master. "Please sir, I cannot tell a lie. It was in 1775," replies Einstein, the class swot. See? Educational.
Despite an almost total lack of any marketing effort, it sold 50,000 copies. Being the ‘80s, this meant it just about covered costs, with no huge profit going to developers David and Helen Reidy.
In its superbly titled sequel, 'Back to Skool', Eric gets to visit the local girls school.
Top 10 best ZX Spectrum games of all time
Computing presents the definitive list of the all-time top games on one of the best-loved home computers
3. Head Over Heels
With incredible isometric graphics (either inspired by, or stolen from Knight Lore depending on your perspective), an impossibly cute art-style, and superb, innovative gameplay, Head over Heels was the 1987 adventure game that put authors Jon Ritman and Bernie Drummond on the map (well, even more on the map, since they'd also produced Batman, released a year earlier).
In the game, the player controls two characters, Head and Heels, who can roam around a series of rooms independently, solving clever puzzles as they go, but also combine for bonus speed and jumping ability.
Separately Head can jump high in the air, move as he falls, and because it's the Spectrum so utter madness is expected; fire doughnuts out of a horn in order to freeze enemies on the spot? Of course. Heels, meanwhile, runs faster, climbs stairs and can carry objects around.
And it was tough to complete to the point of practical impossibility. You thought Dark Souls was hard? Try this.
In fact, if you want to see the full game, pretty much the only way to do it is to watch this video. Yes you could download and run it on an emulator, or track down a working Spectrum on eBay, but unless you have the patience of Methuselah, you won't see the end. Or anywhere close to it.
Top 10 best ZX Spectrum games of all time
Computing presents the definitive list of the all-time top games on one of the best-loved home computers
2. The Great Escape
Ever wanted to know what life was really like in a Second World War POW camp? No? Oh. Well fortunately this game skips the horrors and indignities, and instead focuses on intense, gripping gameplay, and adds innovative features and some surprisingly lovely isometric graphics to boot.
Assuming the role of an unnamed prisoner, the player must try to escape from the camp without being caught, or even arousing suspicion. Brilliantly, leave the controls alone and the player character will go about the expected routine of the camp: turning up for role call, attending exercise at the appropriate time, and observing the night time curfew.
Get caught somewhere you shouldn't be, and it's a spell in solitary confinement, and your morale metre takes a hit (brilliantly realised as a waving flag at one side of the screen). Get caught too many times, and your morale hits rock bottom and it's game over.
And there are several different ways to escape too. None of them is obvious, and they're each tricky to navigate, but unlike many Spectrum classics, it is actually possible to complete The Great Escape without devoting your entire childhood to it. Or maybe we just loved it enough to persevere. Either way, it's a work of genius.
Top 10 best ZX Spectrum games of all time
Computing presents the definitive list of the all-time top games on one of the best-loved home computers
1. Elite
Be Commander Jameson. Explore the universe. Trade your way to galactic billions and buy the biggest ship around. Fight your way to the legendary ‘Elite' status, and be feared by criminals, traders and police alike. Beat the mysterious Thargoids in ‘witch space'. Become a military hero for the Federation or Empire, completing ever more dangerous missions. Mine asteroids until your brain crawls out of your ears in search of other forms of entertainment.
Or, crucially, do none of it. That's the beauty of Elite, you're left utterly to your own devices, and can role-play a space bum who whiles away the decades sitting in his pants in space station watching endless re-runs of Doogie Howser MD.
Developed by David Braben and Ian Bell, it was released on the Speccy on September 20th 1984, and enjoyed huge critical and commercial acclaim (much as it did on just about every other platform).
It's latest iteration is Elite:Dangerous. Much the same sort of thing, but using 21st Century tech, which mostly means better graphics. Although you can also now land on planets and rove about on them in a glorified moon buggy.
For our money though, the best graphics were the wire-frames of the original - your brain filled in the gaps far better than today's hyper gaming systems can ever hope to.
And that concludes our rundown of the 10 best ZX Spectrum games of all time. But what did we miss? Which game(s) didn't deserve inclusion? How dare we describe the R-Type as having a droopy blue nose? Tell us all about it in the comments below!