My New ZX Spectrum Collection

As I've said elsewhere, the first videogame machine I ever owned was a rubber-keyed Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k, received for Christmas 1983. I'd played my brother's Pong-a-like Binatone TV Master prior to that but this was the first that was a) mine and b) any good.  For the next 5 or so  years, the Spectrum got some heavy usage and a fair amount of wear and tear (and that was just from Daley Thompson's Decathlon).  I still owned it (and it still worked, miraculously)  up until the late 90s, when, like a great many other 8-bit computer owners I'm sure, I was told by my Mum that "You've moved out of my house, can you now shift all of  your old junk, please, thanks very much?".  At the time I was living in a small starter home and, despite (I'm sure) an understanding wife, had nowhere to stow my Spectrum and its games and so had to give them away  - my loss was Warnham Church jumble sale's gain (and some lucky proto retro gamer, no doubt).

The collection in full (well, as it was a couple of weeks ago, anyway...)

Fast forward 12 years (and two house moves) and I'd been thinking about buying a Spectrum again for a while. Not a rubber-keyed wonder - I fancied getting a 128K version, so I could give those larger games I'd missed out on back in the 80s a go. Most Spectrum games were only available on magnetic tape and, as I've not had a tape recorder for about 15 years, I decided to go for a 128k +2 , which came with a built-in tape recorder. This machine was produced after Amstrad bought out Sinclair's computer range in the mid 80s and has a passing familial resemblance to Amstrad's earlier  CPC464, bar the numeric pad.

Best. Joystick. Ever.

The 15-year old me actively disliked Baron Hardup-esque businessman, the-then Sir Alan Sugar for his buying out seemingly friendly*, if slightly inept at business, inventor Uncle Clive Sinclair. In that young man's eyes, I've probably sold out by getting an Amstrad machine (even the copyright message when you boot up is 'Amstrad', rather than 'Sinclair Research Ltd' [sniff]). Still - and you'll have to take my word for this - the 15-year old me really talked a load of old cobblers.

Beyond made some absolute classic games

Over the past few months, I've been harvesting eBay for the cream of Spectrum releases from the 80s and 90s. I'd initially decided to only buy great games that I'd not owned or played back in the 80s, such as  Elite, for example, or maybe 128k versions of games either not available (or hosting cut-down, inferior versions) on my old 48k machine (like 128k-only Where Time Stood Still, or the 128k version of Glider Rider). However, over the weeks after my initial purchase of the 128k, I became aware of games that I'd not known about back in the 80s, or that were released after I stopped playing an active interest in the scene (around 1987/88). The fabulous online resource at www.worldofspectrum.org lists thousands of Spectrum games and links to contemporaneous reviews and, through that, I discovered (and subsequently bought on eBay), a number of great games that I'd never heard of before.

I'm a fan of 2000AD, but these games (box-art apart), aren't much good

And that brings us to another question - are these actually great games, or am I playing them for nostalgia reasons alone? I'd be lying if I said nostalgia played no part in my enjoyment of these games but, equally, there are some Spectrum games that are intrinsically great games, regardless of the era. I would argue that their relative simplicity is present in many successful iOS games, though with the Spectrum this simplicity was caused by constraints of the system, rather than the input control method, or the throwaway (given the price points) of many iOS games. Games like Green Beret, Skool Daze, Batman, Bobby Bearing (a sequel to which is available on iOS), Gyroscope, West Bank and many others are still very enjoyable to play.

In any era, these games originally developed by Gargoyle, would be considered excellent

One of the things I found surprising in my trawl through eBay was how many games associated with later, more powerful systems, were also released on Spectrum. Games like Smash TV, Lemmings, Sim City were all developed for the Spectrum (and now owned by me). I suppose this is similar to how games like FIFA or the Harry Potter games were released on PS1 and PS2, long after the focus of mainstream gaming had moved on to subsequent generations. And for the same reasons - if there are gamers gaming on them, there's money to be made for publishers from selling games to them.

Another facet of  late-era Spectrum gaming, was budget-priced re-releases

It has been great to see the works of long-standing names from the UK games industry, which disappeared in the 90s, again.  Chief among those was Ocean Software, a UK behemoth in the 80s, that  was bought out (like another great old developer, Gremlin Graphics) in the 90s.  Great Bob Wakelin artwork on many of their games, they were best known for licensed games (films and arcade games), though my favourite of their games was an original IP, Match Day (if football games can be considered original).

A small selection of the games Ocean released in its life

For the last few generations platform holders have exercised a degree of control over game cases. Other than special edition steelbooks, game cases are pretty uniform. Even big limited editions will generally have a DVD-style 'normal' box secreted in them somewhere. In the Spectrum era there was no such control and boxes of all shapes and sizes were released, from sensible single cassette boxes to big ugly VHS-rental style boxes.  I was surprised, particularly having become used to this uniformity, of how many different styles of cases there were, even in the small selection of the over 10,000 games released on the system that I have purchased.

There are some fugly boxes there

Sports games have always been big business, dating back to the minimalist look of Pong and the Spectrum was also graced with some great sports games (the hours I put into Match Day...). Sports games, like driving games, rarely date well, even between single generations, and that is certainly the case for the Spectrum sports games I've picked up and shown below. Definitely a 'nostalgia only' section of my new;y-obtained collection (I'll own up to still loving Match Day though - nostalgia rules).

Sir Trevor Brooking  was my childhood hero; I had no idea he'd lent his name to a game :)

I've really enjoyed bidding on, winning, owning and playing on my new Spectrum collection and, while I've slowed down my purchasing over the last couple of months - I've got most of the games that I really want now - I think that I'll be scouring eBay for a while yet.  My postie delivered my factory-sealed (though not for long - games are for playing) copy of Sim City only yesterday (together with Solomon's Key, Cybernoid II and Trap Door)  - I'm sure there are plenty more  great Spectrum games out there.  Time to log onto eBay again.

Such quality here

* maybe not completely friendly (if you're Acorn's Chris Curry), though 'fucking buggering shitbucket' is one of my all-time favourite insults http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2009/oct/09/micro-men-sinclair-curry