The ZX Spectrum launched the same year I was born, which means it kind of passed me by. However, while my early gaming memories primarily revolve around SEGA and Nintendo, I’ve always had a distant fondness for Sir Clive Sinclair’s iconic creation, despite never actually owning one.
The garish, brightly coloured graphics mean you can always tell a Spectrum game just by looking at it, while its popularity in the UK resulted in the development of hundreds of games with a distinctly British sense of humour.
It goes without saying that I’ve been really excited to try newly released retro gaming console The Spectrum, which is available for £89.99 from retailers such as Argos.
The Spectrum certainly looks and feels the part, sporting a fully functioning keyboard with the classic ZX Spectrum design and iconic rubber keys.
Setting it up is as easy as plugging it into the mains and connecting the supplied HDMI cable to your TV. You’ll need to supply your own 5V plug (which is starting to become a bit of a problem with these kind of machines), but otherwise the start up process is as painless and uncomplicated as it gets.
Beyond the satisfying rubber keys, The Spectrum immediately impresses with menu music so catchy you’ll be humming it all day.
The home menu is also where you’ll access 48 built-in titles that even the harshest critics will have to admit are extremely varied.
You’ve got everything from arcade shooters, modern homebrew hits and football games, to beat-em-ups, platformers and text adventures set in Middle-earth.
You can organise the games by title, publisher, genre and favourites, pressing F on the keyboard or X on a controller to give each game a star rating to sort by rank. On a side note, I like the way the menu icons instantly change back and forth when switching between keyboard and controller.
Highlights so far include Manic Miner, El Stompo, Exolon, Trashman and Alien Girl. Maybe I’m romanticising things, but released at a time when there were fewer conventions and less clearly defined rules compared to modern video games, titles like Exolon provide a greater sense of discovery, forcing players to give things a try, even if the outcome isn’t ideal. This is true of many of the adventure games on The Spectrum, such as Firelord, The Hobbit and Avalon.
Then there are games like Match Day II, which maybe haven’t aged the best, but can be appreciated for being ahead of their time.
While primitive by today’s standards, the ball physics for a football game released in 1987 are pretty impressive (although the less said about the goalkeeper AI the better). The result is an unpredictable game of footy that I was really starting to enjoy once I got the hang of it.
I had a similar experience with Army Moves, which despite initially feeling clumsy and archaic, slowly morphed into something quite addictive after learning the controls.
Speaking of controls, while the keyboard itself feels great to use, the unusual placement of the Space bar and input inconsistencies between each game does take some getting used to.
Of course, you can also plug in and use a USB controller or Joystick, something that I would recommend for anything other than text adventures.
Some games do require occasional keyboard inputs, although you can pull up a useful virtual keyboard by pressing Start and Select simultaneously. It generally feels like the makers of the device have thought of everything.
This includes the addition of other modern conveniences like rewinds and save states. While I’m personally against using the rewind function in games because it feels like cheating, the ability to save is something I’m massively in favour of.
You can save up to four times per title, which includes any games you add to the machine via USB.
The ability to add your own games is another thing I absolutely love about the device, and is sure to appeal to people who grew up with the ZX Spectrum and want to revisit old favourites.
As a big fan of arcade racing games and shooters, I was keen to try the likes of R-Type and Chase H.Q, just to see how the ZX Spectrum was able to handle such demanding games. (I was impressed with the results.)
Then there are iconic ZX Spectrum releases like the Treasure Island Dizzy, not to mention Jet Set Willy (the sequel to Manic Miner), Knight Lore and Chuckie Egg. As a fan of the show when I was a kid, I also really wanted to try the Grange Hill game, as well as the Spectrum port of Bomb Jack, which is one of my favourite arcade games of all time.
If you have any ZX Spectrum game recommendations, please scroll down and leave a comment.
If you’ve ever dabbled in video game emulation, then the process of adding games is pretty straightforward and shouldn’t take much longer than 20 minutes. You just need a USB stick between 4-32 GB in size, and access to a PC.
If you’re new to video game emulation, then it’s probably worth watching the video below for a step-by-step guide.
If you’re really hardcore, then The Spectrum even includes programming functionality, although admittedly this isn’t something I’ve really sunk my teeth into at the time of writing.
The icing on the cake is the inclusion of a special edition of Crash Magazine, which provides some enthusiastic insight into the ZX Spectrum and many of the games included on the device. It also makes mention of the modern Speccy scene, and takes a look at influential releases like Knight Lore that can be added via USB.
In a perfect world I would have liked more background info, interviews and behind-the-scenes footage to accompany each game within the device itself, but that’s because I’ve been playing a lot of Digital Eclipse content like Tetris Forever and the recent Atari 50 DLC.
Still, when your biggest complaint is that you want to further immerse yourself into the ZX Spectrum scene after playing the device, then you know you’re probably onto something special.
As a relative newcomer to the system, The Spectrum feels like treasure chest full of retro gaming goodness that I can’t wait to continue exploring.
VERDICT – 5/5
