Category Archives: ZX Spectrum

Judge Dredd, ZX Spectrum

Melbourne House‘s Judge Dredd on the ZX Spectrum was released slightly later than the 1986 Commodore 64 version, coming out in early 1987. It was again programmed by Australian software company Beam Software, and it plays similarly to the C64 original. That is: it’s a bit of a travesty.

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Rogue Trooper, ZX Spectrum

Rogue Trooper on the ZX Spectrum was developed by Design Design and published by Piranha in 1986. It was the first showing in a video game of the blue-skinned soldier of the future, from 2000AD comic, and it is not a bad game at all. In fact: Rogue Trooper on the Speccy was probably the first decent video game to feature a character from 2000AD, as all the previous ones had been terrible.

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Strontium Dog: The Killing, ZX Spectrum

Quicksilva‘s second attempt at a Strontium Dog video game in 1984 – released the same year as the awful Death Gauntlet on the C64 – is only marginally better than their first attempt.

The Killing, on the ZX Spectrum, was written by Paul Hargreaves and once again sees you playing mutant bounty hunter Johnny Alpha, trying to survive a gauntlet of hostility on an alien planet. This time, though, he’s voluntarily participating in a contest where vicious murderers fight to the death for cash, in a tournament called “The Killing“.

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Zombi, ZX Spectrum

Ubisoft‘s point-and-click Dawn of the Dead rip-off originally came out for the Amstrad CPC in 1986, and this ZX Spectrum version followed four years later, in 1990. It was converted by a three-man team: Geoff Phillips, Colin Bradshaw-Jones, and S. Chance and is a faithful recreation of the Amstrad original, with the same clunky controls and zombie-bashing combat.

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Rogue, ZX Spectrum

Rogue on the ZX Spectrum was developed by Icon Design and published by Mastertronic Added Diminsion in 1988. And it’s a pretty poor conversion of the classic dungeon-crawler.

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Micronaut One, ZX Spectrum

Micronaut One is another interesting game from Tau Ceti creator Pete Cooke. Mr. Cooke was known for making innovative, unusual, and technically-impressive games for the ZX Spectrum that were different to the norm. This one was published by Nexus in 1987 and involves travelling down 3D corridors and shooting weird alien insects that are infesting a biocomputer.

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Boulder Dash II, ZX Spectrum

It’s not clear who converted the ZX Spectrum version of Boulder Dash II, but the game was published by Prism Leisure in 1985.

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Boulder Dash, ZX Spectrum

Boulder Dash on the ZX Spectrum is a decent, playable conversion, but it isn’t great and does have its issues. It was programmed by Dalali Software and published by Front Runner (a software label owned by K-Tel Productions, a famous British record label) in 1985.

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