How many UK games were available in the States? I don’t even recognise half the games people are listing.
IIRC the US were studio based devs and people had disc drives? UK was solo home programmers and tapes. The main US games i remember were on US Gold, and occasionally the games shops had expensive imports, I vaguely remember seeing big Ultima boxes.
I started with tapes but went to a disc drive very early on.
Game hacking groups were very common, as was copying software. I can’t tell you how many times friends brought over something new as a copy of what they had. We were young, we were naive.
Tape to tape stereos and 90 minute tapes meant many games, (with many not loading). We still bought plenty though.
What was the battling car game?
Autoduel?
hmm i vaguely remember something like Car Wars (as in Steve Jacksons) but cant find the name.
Ah yes, the map screen i remember well.
and a familar name.
I well remember my brother Chappers eliciting a sudden anguished cry from one posh BBC owner by stating it was an acronym for Bloody Boring Computer.
Even at the age of 6 I could be very insulting.
I never owned a C64 (DOS4LYFE) but I respected the hell out of it, and a lot of amazing games were cross-platform!
The aforementioned Morpheus was a space game before its time.
Ah yes, the only acceptable reason for owning that red F keyed lump.
I could do a top 10 BBC list, just about but wouldn’t get many replies, although perhaps more than a top 10 Oric list, or a top 10 Dragon 32 list…
I had a friend with a Dragon but I can’t recall a single game. There may have been a text adventure.
We had an Oric at school. It had some interesting default sounds. That’s all I can say about it.
Top 3 Sam Coupe games? All 3 games that were released for it.
10 ZAP
20 SHOOT
30 PING
40 EXPLODE
50 GOTO 10
RUN
Then leggit out of Rumbelows.
I never owned the thing, so I’ll reserve my Microprose listing for my 8bits computer of choice.
Like the Megadrive, there are so many good games it is tough to try to separate them, so I’ll just pick the ones that really stick out to me.
Crossroads: and its sequel, Crossroads Demonium. I think those were type-ins. They are what I’d imagine Doom would look like if it was a one screen maze shooter viewed from the top. There is a sense of an eco-system, as creatures attack and devour each others. I also liked the warping around shot concept, which means you cannot just shoot like crazy in all directions.
Wizball: Pixel poetry incarnate. The gameplay itself is not really great (Defender with a Gradius upgrade system?) but what an atmosphere.
Zenji: Amazing action-puzzle game. Don’t know what else to say.
Law of the West: it is a very simple game of duelling in the Wild West, but the variations, the theme and its presentation are surely unique.
Had no idea it was available on the Commdore. That game has a special something to it. Maybe because of the tone of the writing?
Pitstop II
Summer Games
Gunship
Silent Service
Archon
Skate or Die
Revs
Ultima IV
Impossible Mission
Mercenary
I played many of these on my Atari 800XL but my friend had a C64 so we often would bring the double-sided disks to each other’s homes or I played the C64 version at his place to compare. Pitstop II felt like a totally different game on C64 and it was awesome!
OMG the C64 was the absolute motherlode for this era of computer gaming. Way way too many to list. Throwing this out there though.
also COME ON BARBARIAN
Geez, has no one even mentioned MANIAC MANSION?
Honestly I hardly even remember the games I played on C64. Ultima 4, for sure.
In no particular order
There are possibly some I’m forgetting it has been so long
an honorable mention would be Modem Wars by Bunten