Be Excellent To Each Other

You have 7 days to vote on the games you would like to play for the next season of the 8 Bit Challenge. This list has been painstakingly compiled by Zaphod and myself from your nominations. We've checked to see if the games have high score tables and aren't utterly terrible. But we've not played the games in much detail, literally 2 minutes on each, sometimes longer if a high score was needed.

Some games didn't make the grade. A couple of posters didn't send URL's to the games so they have been skipped. My notes are below regarding the other games not included. Sorry if we've missed one of your favourites or swapped it for an alternative version.

The list has been jumbled up, so get voting. And feel free to advocate your favourites, post Youtube clips etc. Don't just jump in and vote, let people sell you why you should play their nominated games.

10 games will be plucked from the list. 9 weeks of gameplay + 1 bonus game we'll be playing for 4 weeks that will result in double points!

Big shout out to Zaphod for helping me tackle the list just when I'd lost the will to live!

To the vote-o-tron.

Out of interest, why does it matter if a game has a high score table? As long as it's a game that has a score at all, wouldn't that have been enough?

Oh and you've got Jumping Jack in the list twice.

No mention of bad dudes v dragon ninja?



Malc

To get this started I'll do some CPC advocacy (you do surprise me - Ed).

Pang on the GX4000. Some of the best 8 bit arcade action anywhere:



On the GX4000 theme here's a Frenchman looking at Switchblade:



Retrogamer recently declared CPC Chase HQ to be the best home conversion. Can't remember who nominated it but here's a clip:



Someone also nominated Super Robin Hood. Sadly no clips on Youtube but its notable for being The Oliver Twins first game for Codemasters and having some terrific for the era sampled speech.

Bugger it, sorry Malc. I had control issues with Arnold on that one. Meant to boot up the PC to check it but among the mass of other games I forgot. Apologies.

As for Jumping Jack being in the list twice, that's annoying. I'd already removed one duplicate which means that must have been in there 3 times for some reason.

I'll reset it.

To the one person who had voted, you need to vote again.

Malc, I've added Dragoninja in. I haven't check it but it's an Ocean game and I simply cannot think of a CPC Ocean game from that era that doesn't have a high score table. If it doesn't (unlikely) we'll cope somehow.

hurrah! I have such fond memories of that game, memories I'd forgotten I had, until I saw it on some ROM site or other...

Malc

Because we ask for verification of the score via a screenshot and it can be a pain trying to do that if the game doesn't have some kind of high score feature.

I had it on budget.

From memory halfway through loading it would flash up with "128k detected, loading enhanced features", which as a 6128 owner caused me to wet myself. There was sampled speech and no multiload IIRC. On the downside it took aeons to load.

Chinny,

Did any games get nominated more than once?

Malc

No.

Last time they did, but on separate formats.

Such diverse interests we all have...

Malc

Just had a vision of everyone voting for their own games, and each game having exactly 1 vote!

I hope more people than just those that nominated vote.

Malc

Jumping Jack was my suggestion. Nice, simple game with three keys (which in the Java emulator end up being Ctrl, Space and Shift) and a simple objective of getting to the top of the screen. Easy. Not that I could bloody do it when I was testing it.

Can i also suggest to try and avoid this that you only vote other peoples nominations , or for a maximum of one that you actually nominated ?

Army Moves was my suggestion, and I suggested the Spectrum version as I knew where the ROM was.
My CPC had a high score table grr rage

Never mind - it was bastard hard.

What was wrong with The Snowman? It was a serious nomination.

CPC version was lush. Speccy version might well have had a high score table but after about 10 minutes of play and not being able to trigger it I gave up.

The Snowman might have been overlooked while I was deliberating over Tapper. Apologies. There were alot of games to test as you can see!

Nice to see Pang in a leading position. It does need quite a high score for it to save the score but this shouldn't be a problem. The low scorers aren't likely to be in the big point scoring positions.

I voted, even though these platforms, except for the spectrum, mean nothing to me. Well, and even then i don't find many spectrum games that i would want to play nowadays.

All the games in the challenge should be Dinamic-made

Come on guys, Zamzara-me-do!

Review of Super Robin Hood from Amstrad Computer User for those not familiar with the game:

http://web.archive.org/web/20070928093156/http://www.blitzgames.com/olivertwins/images/review_AU_robinhood.jpg

Giving a low mark because you think platformers are dated seems a tad unfair with 23 years hindsight. Its not the greatest game ever, but for our purposes it (along with Switchblade) provide something a little different from the usual point racking up challenges we have.

Malc, was it one of your choices?

It was abominable?

The idea I had for excitebike was who could do the fastest lap on the first track.

Sorry, everyone seemed to give long rambling emails giving reasons for their choices. All I did was click on the links and play the games to see if they met the criteria.

Given the amount of votes and games it was the only way. We also missed out on a few good games because there were no links.

No worries, just a heads up for when I vote for it again next time ha.

More clips so you can see the nominated games:

Dragon Ninja:



Tapper



Bruce Lee



Yia Ar Kung Fu

I just voted for zamzara cus Kalmar told me to.

Gutted there's no Renegade. I could have got some seriously high scores on that.

Also: Mountain King. Mountain King. Mountain King. Mountain King. Mountain King. Mountain King. Mountain King. Mountain King.

It's just the best thing ever. I never had an Atari 800 until a couple of years ago and I only got to play this on a friend's XL at the time. The C64 version sucks in a kind of Amiga vs ST way - a great example of using the 800's funky Amiga style hardware. Bags of atmosphere and the best music ever. In the world. Also, the scariest bottom floor out of any game ever.

Definitely Way of the Exploding Fist over Yie Ar kung Fu, although I didn't nominate it.

Good choice with Zamzara.

Not sure why anyone would want to play something as rubbish as dragon ninja, but hey ho.

And the best starting dance ever !

That's right - you too can do this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_mWN4sPawA&feature=related

If you vote for Mountain King.

[vote:Bobbyaro]

I'm vaguely looking forward to playing a CPC or GX4000 game to be honest. The one kid at school who had a CPC continually got the piss taken because he only had a green screen monitor, so I haven't actually played anything on it.

Another recruit for our cause.

Just 3 more days to vote on this!

Solitary-voteFTFY

Shame really as I think its a better game than Fist for the purposes of this competition. But what do I know? I didn't vote for either BTW.

Shame there are only 2 Switchblade votes but I guess that is a game that can suck you in for hours. It's huge.

The people voting for Pinball Quest obviously like that kind of thing. I thought it was dire when I was testing. Pinball Dreams it ain't. In fact Advanced Pinball Simulator it ain't! But what do I know? Nothing!

Looking forward to hopefully rediscovering Super Robin Hood. Didn't test it as I know it has a high score table.

Strangely, I was thinking that. Only the exact opposite- I think Fist is far superior.

Also, please vote for Moutain Kingthanksbye.

The vote closes in about 8 hours so still time to vote!

25 minutes left.

The results are:

Super Robin Hood (CPC) - 7
Way Of The Exploding Fist (Spectrum) - 7
Pang - GX4000 - 6
Arkenoid (Spectrum) - 5
Jack The Nipper 2 (Spectrum) - 5
Chase HQ (CPC) - 5
Barbarian (C64) - 4
Bad Dudes v Dragon Ninja (CPC) - 4
Manic Miner (Spectrum) - 4

I suggest we scrap the idea of a bonus game because so many games drew on 3 points.

Now as with last time I need a respectable mod or reliable person who won't be taking part to randomise the list and also nominate 1 game that will be a double pointer. Volunteers please!

[edit] As a proportion, that's a staggering amount of CPC love we've got in that list! And only 2 games are my fault! Nice to see that the third place 8 bitter still holds a place in peoples hearts (wipes tear from eye).

Yay! 2 of mine, and one in top place!

Malc

Ah, lets just play the order they are listed. I'll start the compo later.