The best Spectrum games you can play on your iPhone
Also available on Google Play, but probably not BlackBerry World
The range of blockbusting games set for a 2017 release is impressive, with Mass Effect Andromeda heading a list of big names which includes Resident Evil 7 (already out), Sniper Elite 4, and the reboot of Prey, to name but a few.
You can read our list of the most eagerly awaited games of this year here, but what about the classics of the past, now available in your pocket?
What used to require 48 kilobytes of Sir Clive Sinclair's finest technology to run, after five or six minutes of anticipation as it loaded from your trusty C-60 (The anticipation! Will it load? Will it fail just seconds from the end leaving you to tear your hair out, adjust the volume slightly and try all over again?), is often now available from the AppStore, or Google Play (sorry, probably not BlackBerry World though).
So we've done some searching, and found some ‘80s corkers which you can get play now on your mobile device of choice.
1. Skool Daze
One of our favourite games from yesteryear, Skool Daze requires Spectaculator, a Spectrum Emulator (available for £2.99 on iOS currently) to run. Casting you as Eric, a naughty schoolboy, it's your mission 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.
We like it so much we ranked it 4th in our list of the all-time best Spectrum games.
The best Spectrum games you can play on your iPhone
Also available on Google Play, but probably not BlackBerry World
2. Lords of Midnight
Available for £2.99 on both the AppStore and Google Play, Lords of Midnight is a faithful port of Mike Singleton's 1984 classic adventure game.
Innovative in many ways for its time, the game is a strategy role-playing game hybrid. The player begins with a four-person party (Luxor the Moonprince, Rorthron the Wise, Corleth the Fey, and Morkin), and can recruit up to twenty-eight further characters to help in the mission to destroy Doomdark, the evil Witchking who has locked the Land of Midnight in perpetual winter.
It is playable in three different ways. Firstly as an adventure game, where the quest is for Morkin to destroy the Ice Crown, the source of Doomdark's power. The second is as a wargame, recruiting a roster of other lords and their armies until you are sufficiently powerful to storm Doomdark's citadel in the far north. A third option, described in the manual as the 'Epic', requires the player to complete the game in both ways simultaneously.
The best Spectrum games you can play on your iPhone
Also available on Google Play, but probably not BlackBerry World
3. Manic Miner
Yours for a mere £1.99, this absolute classic of the era was originally released in 1983 by legendary coder Matthew Smith.
Much-loved by Spectrum owners and critics in its day, Manic Miner 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.
And that leads us on to…
The best Spectrum games you can play on your iPhone
Also available on Google Play, but probably not BlackBerry World
4. Jet Set Willy
The sequel to Manic Miner is also available to your mobile device, so once you've finally helped Miner Willy negotiate his way through 20 caverns* you can move straight on to helping him deal with his fortune.
This takes a similar form to the previous game, in that it's a platform game where you complete each room (by collecting objects), then moving on to the next, but unlike Manic Miner, Jet Set Willy gives you the freedom to complete the rooms in the order of your own choosing.
Whilst a phone's touchscreen won't quite match the peerless excellence of an ‘80s joystick (which usually broke within a few weeks of purchase), or even better the hallowed machine's rubber keys, the game is in most other respects a faithful port of the original.
*this will never happen. It's REALLY hard.
The best Spectrum games you can play on your iPhone
Also available on Google Play, but probably not BlackBerry World
5. Chuckie Egg
Originally released in 1983, Chuckie Egg is a platformer which casts the player as ‘Hen-House Harry', who, because reasons, must collect 12 eggs in every room of what has to be the largest and most labyrinthine chicken coop ever constructed, before a timer runs out.
There are also seeds which Harry competes with the hens to collect, which can stop the timer for a while and increase his score. So, not quite an accurate simulation then of the life of a poultry farmer, but what it lacks in reality it more than makes up for with nostalgic charm.
Yours for £1.99, it's another faithful reproduction of the original.
And that concludes our roundup of the best ZX Spectrum games available on your mobile phone! Are there any we missed, let us know in the comments below!