/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.6954953]

>Never THE computer
>Never drew a dime
>Heavy graphical constraints (two colors per each 32x24 grid leading to attribute clashes)
>Shit chiclet keyboard
>Shit RAM capacity even by 1982 standards
>Needed exploits and performance enhancements to make games work
>Later revisions with increased memory broke compatibility with older games and higher failure rates
>LAN system used by nobody, not even schools
>Software mostly stored on cassette tapes that can break easily and can be copied by literal whos having an audio equipment
>Microdrive used by nobody as it's too small and has even more brittle tapes
>Controllers can only emulate keyboard input
>Only one controller can be used for games, except for a limited number of ZX Interface 2 games
>Is the computer equivalent of that one insufferably mediocre middle manager whose sole professional """""""achievement"""""" is using the same shitty machine for over 30 years
>Spent the later life of the system's lifetime buried by superior computers and gaming systems
>The biggest impact it had on the business was millions and millions of shovelware that piggybacked titles originated on higher performance systems and having its legacy siphoned by a failure of an electric vehicle.

[Anonymous No.6955039]

>Huge graphical constraints (each 2x2 group of tiles has to share colours)
>could not actually display the colour yellow
>games plagued by endless slowdown and sprite flicker
>original plans to have >8 sprites per line and a sprite overflow flag failed because they fucked up the PPU design
>Shit RAM capacity even by 1983 standards
>Needed exploits and add-on cartridge hardware to make games work
>Unreliable flaky cartridge slot
>Extremely overpriced and often mediocre games
>Expansion cartridge audio never used outside Japan
>Could not program or write games yourself (unlike the Spectrum where any 12 year old could do it and an entire generation learned programming on the thing)
>Is the console equivalent of that one insufferably mediocre middle manager whose sole professional """""""achievement"""""" is using the same shitty machine for over 30 years
>Nintendo strictly controlled how many games you could make and what content could be in them
>was largely ignored in Europe in favour of the technically superior Amiga and Sega consoles
>was terribly outdated by the early 90s
>The biggest impact it had on the business was mountains of shovelware, generic side scrolling games, and cut down/butchered arcade "ports", all possible because Nintendo had a market monopoly they eventually lost

[Anonymous No.6955043]

>Huge graphical constraints (each 2x2 group of tiles has to share colours)
>could not actually display the colour yellow
>games plagued by endless slowdown and sprite flicker
>original plans to have >8 sprites per line and a sprite overflow flag failed because they fucked up the PPU design
>Shit RAM capacity even by 1983 standards
>Needed exploits and add-on cartridge hardware to make games work
>Unreliable cartridge slot
>Short-lived and pointless disk drive that ended up never being sold outside Japan
>Extremely overpriced and often mediocre games
>Expansion cartridge audio never used outside Japan
>Could not program or write games yourself (unlike the Spectrum where any 12 year old could do it and an entire generation learned programming on the thing)
>Is the console equivalent of that one insufferably mediocre middle manager whose sole professional """""""achievement"""""" is using the same shitty machine for over 30 years
>Nintendo strictly controlled how many games you could make and what content could be in them
>was largely ignored in Europe in favour of the technically superior Amiga and Sega consoles
>was terribly outdated by the early 90s
>The biggest impact it had on the business was mountains of shovelware, generic side scrolling games, and cut down/butchered arcade "ports", all possible because Nintendo had a market monopoly they eventually lost

[Anonymous No.6955050]

>>6955043
The NES lives rent free 24/7 in the heads of every mentally ill Speccy tard because deep down they know their terrible computer is inferior in literally every single way.

[Anonymous No.6955056]

>>6955043
2k of RAM was sufficient to store game variables for the typical 8-bit game. For later games like SMB3 that had more complex physics or game worlds they could put more RAM in the cartridge.

[Anonymous No.6955070]

Unlike American home computers (the major ones anyway) and the major consoles, the Spectrum and, well, the Amstrad to be honest, never had any games that held up or had any lasting impact. There's nothing on there you really need to play.

[Anonymous No.6955081]

>>6955070
> never had any games that held up or had any lasting impact
Kind of a microcosm for Europe's gaming industry as a whole, huh?

[Anonymous No.6955082]

>>6955081
With the lone exception of Rare, yes.

[Anonymous No.6955087]

>>6955082
Rare was a flash in the pan propped up by Nintendo's resources and IP.

[Anonymous No.6955090]

>>6955081
Little unfair. It's more accurate to say European games didn't get good until PCs and consoles. The industry there was held back for a long time by many factors.

>20+ countries, markets, languages, etc impeded the development of genres like RPGs and adventure games due to language issues--pretty much all they could make were arcade games
>half of Europe being locked under communism and not accessible as a market until the 90s
>different video standard than the US and Japan and geographical distance from the main centers of electronics component manufacturing in California and East Asia

[Anonymous No.6955093]

>>6955087
Oh also Argonaut made a few good games with Nintendo supervision now that I think about it. The games they made without Nintendo's involvement were less than stellar.

[Anonymous No.6955103]

>>6955087
The Gollop Brothers also a flash in the pan who had to use an American developer (Microprose) to have the proper development resources to realize their vision.

[Anonymous No.6955112]

>>6955087
They began developing for the NES because they realized they could make better games than they could on the Spectrum.

[Anonymous No.6955135]

>>6955043
Nice try copying the OP, but Nintendo actually discourages NES devs using exploits per their licensing rules:
>Programmers should avoid using exploits or unusual coding methods as they may break compatibility with some hardware revisions of the console or possibly damage hardware

[Anonymous No.6955148]

>>6955135
In the case of the NES, one specific trick they warned against was the use of undocumented 6502 opcodes, although I think maybe two games in total use them. Since all 2A01s use an NMOS core, this isn't a problem but Nintendo weren't sure if they'd eventually switch to a CMOS 6502 core at some point and thus cause some games to not work.

[Anonymous No.6955161]

>>6955135
Micro Machines (made by a Brit dev and unlicensed) does one such trick and may not work on some earlier revision machines.

[Anonymous No.6955261]

Say what you will but the Speccy is a nice looking machine. These threads are tempting me to pick one up. Wouldn't even play it, just for display.

[Anonymous No.6955284]

>>6954953
>created Rare
>created Rockstar
Simple as.

[Anonymous No.6955293]

>>6955261
ZX80 is peak microcomputer aesthetics

[Anonymous No.6955304]

>wall of greentext

I ain't reading that shit nigga

[Anonymous No.6955505]

Based

[Anonymous No.6955519]

>>6954953
>nooooooo you can’t discuss the speccy only nes shovelware is allowed noooooo we only play heavily censored games with artificial difficulty and soulless shit tier box art it’s not fair games should come on cartridges only and cost 60 dollars a pop noooooooooo it’s not fair

[Anonymous No.6955536]

>>6955519
Can't you just make good threads instead of spamming the board and bringing the quality down?

[Anonymous No.6955575]

While the original Spectrum is the most "iconic" computer in that line, the +2, +3 and 128 were common machines that fixed most of the ergonomic issues

[Anonymous No.6955579]

>>6955082
*blocks le path*

[Anonymous No.6955580]

Literally don't even need most of this text, the whole thing is automatically shit because of the keyboard.

[Anonymous No.6955597]

>>6954953
>>6955043

Had them both, loved them both. Simple as.

>>6955070

Hasn't played Gryzor on the CPC.

t.not a poorfag with a horrendous childhood of limited choices

[Anonymous No.6955747]

>>6955081

[Anonymous No.6955852]

>>6955043
Too bad amiga has only shit games

[Anonymous No.6955861]

can someone give me a quick rundown on this autistic anti-NES guy who loves the spectrum/european computer games? What's his problem?

[Anonymous No.6955882]

>>6955861
His inception was speccy and his outlook had formed before the NES hit Europe. It's not a complex situation to understand.

[Anonymous No.6955895]

>>6954953
the keyboard looks good? never understood the kneejerk reaction against "chiclet" keyboards

[Anonymous No.6955908]

>>6955895
I like the look, but the rubber keys are weird and uncomfortable.

[Anonymous No.6955917]

>>6955747
most americans think that all of those games were made in america

[Anonymous No.6955926]

>>6955917
Prove it

[Anonymous No.6955929]

>>6955882
Yep. Of course it's all a larp, in reality he wasn't born until around the N64.

More ironclad reasons on the Spectrum being a piece of shit even for the time is take a look at Alan Sugar - as if anything that idiot ever produced was anything but a turd.

Back in the days of the Spectrum it was just some dumbasses who had no other way of making money or any prospects in their lives who used their parents' money to elbow their way into the market. Even 13 and 14 year olds could make games rivalling the shit that were the best games of the time. The shit the spectrum released is the whole reason for the massive videogame crash. It's just a humiliating failure of the gaming industry in every possible way, the fact that it was ever even a thing, even I'm embarrassed as a videogame player - no as a human, that it ever saw the light of day and was a thing.

[Anonymous No.6955934]

>>6955926
no

[Anonymous No.6955937]

>>6955929
lol you nerds are fuckin weird
also what does amstrad have to do with sinclair? or whatev eri dont fucking care lol gonna go get my dick sucked now later nerds

[Anonymous No.6955968]

>>6954953
YES OI ME AND ME BRUV USED TO PLAY ATIC ATAC EVERY FUCKIN DAY RIGHT ME MUM USED TO SAY OI YOU LADS GET OFF THE SPECCY AND DO YOUR CHORES! BUT ME AND ME BRUV RIGHT WE TELL HER GO GET FUCKED MUM IM PLAYIN ME SPECCY PISS OFF CUNT

[Anonymous No.6955987]

>>6955968
Bong, what would happen if you spoke to your mother that way back in the 80s? I know here in the US she'd have slapped the fuck out of me and probably broken the Spectrum in front of me. Don't you bongs respect your mothers?

[Anonymous No.6955996]

>>6955929
You want the truth? I'm in my mid 30s and American. Never played a Spectrum but the LARP and trolling with it makes /vr/ seeth and it gets boring around here. When the board got spammed with 6th gen shit I decided if it was going to be spammed, it might as well be with ACTUAL RETRO and one that gets a reaction.

I will never admit any of this again and if you meet me in a thread and bring it up I will say you got fooled by some nonce LARPing. G'day cunts.

[Anonymous No.6955998]

>>6955917
nah
most of us think /vr/ is gay tho

[Anonymous No.6956012]

>>6955996
Oh, one more thing: Willyvania shit is me, the Willynician/Technician Ted shitposting is that Australian faggot, he tried to bandwagon the Speccy trolling. Technician Ted is shit.

[Anonymous No.6956025]

>>6955929
>in reality he wasn't born until around the N64

Rampant schizophrenia.

>>6956012
So there's at least 4 of us. 2 bongs, a yank and the mythical roo.

[Anonymous No.6956048]

>>6956025
I started shitposting them when the Famicom pulse thread was still up but I see you guys too. Australianigger is very obvious and cringe. The rest carry on innit

[Anonymous No.6956063]

>>6956048
The guy you replied to initially is probably the roo false flagging. He was always very angry, as I recall.

[Anonymous No.6956070]

>>6956063
He keeps talking about schizophrenia. Like he was diagnosed with it and then in an absurd case of projection goes spamming it around the boards. I have never seen anyone use that word before online as an insult.

[Anonymous No.6956079]

>>6956070
It does apply to that one poster who spams every speccy thread with archive links. That guy definitely has mental health issues, if not schizophrenia. He is lol though.

[Anonymous No.6957327]

>>6955861
Speccyfag is not a real transsexual.
But he thinks he is.
He tries to be.
He's tried to be a lot of things, I expect.

[Anonymous No.6957418]

>>6954953
Two colours for every 8x8 pixel block surely?

[Anonymous No.6957459]

>>6954953

[Anonymous No.6957476]

>>6954953
>two colors per each 32x24 grid
8x8 grid actually. Still shit though.

Also:
>50Hz (not that any games ran at 50fps, but 50Hz CRT flicker is much worse than 60Hz flicker)
>no hardware tiles
>no hardware sprites
>no hardware scrolling
>no hardware audio
>one button joystick standard

[Anonymous No.6957492]

>>6957476
So is frame buffer graphics with bleeper sound. Nobody held that against the PC or Apple II.

[Anonymous No.6957697]

>>6957492
>Nobody held that against the PC or Apple II
they did. this is why computers like the c64 became the best selling machines in history. cope.

[Anonymous No.6958391]

>>6955895
>never understood the kneejerk reaction against "chiclet" keyboards

pretty much, seem as how most of the posters here nowadays post on phones lmao

[Anonymous No.6958449]

>>6957492
>bleeper sound
Not even bleeper sound. PC speaker is driven asynchronously by a hardware timer. Speccy has to count cycles.

[Anonymous No.6958508]

>>6958449
it's still shit bleeper sound, it's just that PCs have a timer to run it off of which means you can have extremely shrill bleepy music playing in games when it wasn't possible on the Apple II or Spectrum.

[Anonymous No.6958529]

>>6958508
>cope
kek

[Anonymous No.6958541]

>>6958508
A few games like Bilestoad tried but the results weren't very nice.

[Anonymous No.6958548]

>>6957476
>50Hz (not that any games ran at 50fps, but 50Hz CRT flicker is much worse than 60Hz flicker)

you sure about that? the Spectrum generates an IRQ each vblank so I'd assume it happens 50 times per second.

[Anonymous No.6958552]

>>6958548
He meant most Spectrum games never come close to reaching the maximum framerate. You're correct though that the vblank is 50hz.

[Anonymous No.6958565]

>>6958548
That's still more than the Apple II which famously has no IRQs and several different methods of testing for the vblank depending on the model, so most game programmers didn't even bother with that.

[Anonymous No.6958573]

>>6958565
mot much better though. devices attached to the expansion port can generate an IRQ but nothing internal to the Spectrum can except the video circuit. it's not like a more sophisticated machine like C64 where there can be multiple possible IRQ sources.

[Anonymous No.6959963]

>>6954953
Had lots of games for it but played only
river raid
renegade
r-type
Dizzy games
Chase HQ
Ikari Warriors
Commando
Everything else was just obscure shit

[Anonymous No.6960459]

no homebrew scene I've ever heard of on the Apple II while the Speccy has a huge one

[Anonymous No.6961302]

The worst thing about Spectrum games I never see mentioned is the flickering software sprites. The most popular model only has a single frame buffer, and the CPU is too slow to update the screen during vblank, so people moved sprites by drawing the background over them then redrawing them. It's worse than NES sprite-limit flicker because it happens with every sprite all the time.

[Anonymous No.6961394]

>>6959963
You should try Target Renegade, it's a great sequel and better than any other version as far as gameplay goes.
Other good Spectrum games:
>Alien
>Rick Dangerous
>Bruce Lee
>Atic Atac
>Exolon
>Skool Daze
>Sim City

[Anonymous No.6962210]

ok

[Anonymous No.6962348]

poor British kids had to play "ports" of arcade games and pretend they were actually playing Double Dragon or Street Fighter on their Spectrum

[Anonymous No.6962354]

>Soviets made better computers than the British did

[Anonymous No.6962431]

>>6961302
on the 128k models you can double buffer but I think the ZX is too slow

[Anonymous No.6963895]

Seeing the ZX Spectrum version of Pac-Man and how all the other games I've seen so far were poor in comparasion compared to something like an Atari 8-bit computer or Commodore 64 really made me doubt the Speccy fans' praise for the thing.