The Spectrum Show EP117

[@KevReillyUK]

Harrier Attack was one of the first games my father bought for me when I got my Speccy. Having your parents buy random games was always a risk in the early days because there was some absolute trash on the shelves, but he made a good call with this one. One strategy is to fly low to encourage the enemy planes to dive, then fly above them and drop bombs on them. You can then use the saved missiles to strafe the guns on top of the buildings when you get to the town. The complete opposite of what's intended, but it works. Also, if you bomb your own carrier on takeoff it won't be waiting for you at the end of the island so you run out of fuel and crash. A nice touch. I remember this game attracting a bit of controversy in parts of the media because of its "realistic graphics" and obvious inspiration from the recently concluded Falklands War. Very much the Modern Warfare of its day in that regard.

[@papalazarou6674]

Is it just me or is there anyone else feel the same buzz of waiting for this month's Specy Show like being 15 years old again and waiting for this month's Sinclair User to come through the letter box?

[@London_Native]

Yeah definitely, though I was a Your Sinclair kid!

[@EgoShredder]

@@London_Native I think I had most of them, although CRASH! was the most popular. Your Sinclair, Your Spectrum, Sinclair Programs, Computing Weekly, Which Micro, ZX Computing and others.

[@London_Native]

@@EgoShredder I was also partial to Crash!

[@10p6]

Aww, now we have to wait another month until a new episode.

[@danielt.8573]

Played Harrier Attack to exhaustion back in the day. Good times!

[@geoffneil5073]

Great show as always Paul, although I must have messed up the video on my bit as I'm sure I showed more of the code :-|. Harrier Attack is still one of my favorite games I load it up ever so often but it seems to have become more difficult than it was when I was a kid. Perhaps something to do with needing quick reactions.

[@grantbingham3367]

Yeah the left was partially cutoff but all fine as it was well explained. Great work on jetpac

[@mr.y.mysterious.video1]

It’s funny how nobody figured out that a joypad was far easier to hold than a joystick until the nes appeared

[@stephenpalmer9375]

I dunno if that just wasn't a cultural thing.. I've got joypads for my MSX computers, maybe in the West everyone just wanted to stay the same as we started with joysticks.

[@user-yv2cz8oj1k]

Depends on the games, still plenty of people using joysticks in real competitions.

[@mr.y.mysterious.video1]

@@user-yv2cz8oj1k indeed. I have one but its a massive thing on a desk. Not something small, square and relying on suction cups

[@robm8809]

I have several good quality joypads but still prefer Zipstick or Competition Pro joysticks for most games.

[@SwainyAtRetroAsylum]

Love what Geoff has done to JetPac. Another great episode guys 👍

[@user-yv2cz8oj1k]

Does my head in, it's the wrong sound for the wrong game.

[@geoffneil5073]

Thanks Dean, glad you liked it, it was Paul's idea really I just figured out you could do it with the Next.

[@SwainyAtRetroAsylum]

@@geoffneil5073 I think it works well mate 👍

[@mr.y.mysterious.video1]

I went to school wiith the nephew of the owner of durrell One of those strange companies that only seemed to release 1 game a year. Saboteur was their high water mark

[@palewizarddan]

Best thing on KZbin. Always look forward to these x

[@KillbarrackShoppingCentre]

(In for the algo) I would have used an ashtray to keep the Protocol 4 card held down. good work Paul

[@ZEUSDAZ]

Alright Paul, howz about tackiling either Dynamite Dan I or II on future show 👍

[@symonenry7442]

I seem to remember some controversy over Harrier Attack back in the day. Something to do with the British armed forces southern holiday the year before.

[@andrewdunbar828]

The magazine ads for the Trickstick used to fascinate and tempt me back in the day but I can't remember if I ever saw them reviewed.

[@robm8809]

I'd like to know how the hardware actually worked too.

[@stevesgaming7475]

Great as always! Thank you for doing these.

[@user-yv2cz8oj1k]

And that's why anyone with sense bought a Comcon, plus it supports two fire buttons.

[@SimRacingCorner]

Awesome stuff Paul.

[@stuartsinclair6269]

Paul, a Speccy fan here, were there any games that when you actually was loading a game you could play a simple game while it was loading, was there anything else like that way back??

[@carlosbragatto]

Joe Blade 2 has a tiny PacMan clone available for playing while the main game loads

[@unbearifiedbear1885]

Before Namco got its claws in!

[@nicksmith8557]

This is a brilliant show!

[@frankowalker4662]

I liked the RAT, untill the membrane wore out. Then I wired up a Kempston socket to it and I could use any joystick I wanted at a distance. LOL. Great job Geoff. Keep it up guys, love the show.

[@geoffneil5073]

Glad you liked it, there will be something completely different for the next episode.

[@frankowalker4662]

@@geoffneil5073 Oohh, I'm intrigued. :)

[@JimmyCall]

The Dark game looks amazing on KimJustice channel. I think the last holy grail would be a Dungeon Master port to Speccy.

[@BuckingTheTrend2008]

I reviewed The Dark a while ago now, and it’s impressive. Have you tried Bloodwytch on the Speccy?

[@JimmyCall]

@@BuckingTheTrend2008 No sorry. The Dark I think is a revamp using same name, so maybe check out Kim Justice channel to see if new version is the one.

[@Alancalan]

Is there a video of how that trick stick works. Could not find anything.

[@crcomments8509]

My 48K Spectrum plus, has a joystick related fault. in31 constantly returns a number ( I can’t remember which one), even with no interfaces attached, which makes it impossible to use on many games, if you try and use a Kempston interface. If anyone has any ideas where the fault may lie, please let me know.

[@craigwalker3194]

I wondered what AGF was it was used in a lot of Ultimate games.

[@tendrosstoodross2976]

I cant think of one Ultimate game that used AGF.

[@habitek]

As ALWAYS - great content ! Thank You. My lovelly first speccy zx48. I'm dreaming about ZX128+3 Also: I tried find out Polish interface with fantastic BASIC. I had 25 yrs ago. Right now - cant find. Maybe somebody now something about ?

[@stuartsinclair6269]

For your next episode, could you find out that in today’s technology with a spectrum you could play games or communicate to another Speccy operator👍🏻

[@unbearifiedbear1885]

Spectrumnet! lol fk Elden Ring, gimme multiplayer co-op on Warlock of Firetop Mountain 😂

[@bryngunn]

Paul. Brilliant as ever. Thank you.

[@billybollockhead5628]

I’m sure I played a demo of Toki on a cover tape once.

[@Lbf5677]

It would be a good troll if you insisted on wearing latex gloves when pushing buttons on the speccy, like you're trying to protect it against moisture damage or something

[@kins749]

I loved the way you junked the Trickstick, makes a change from people opening things up and spending time and money trying to fix them. In the bin I say!!!

[@BuckingTheTrend2008]

I did spend a bit of time trying, but decided I was not really electronically minded enough to get it working. Would have been nice to see it working though.

[@robm8809]

@@BuckingTheTrend2008 I'm sure someone in the Speccy community would help?

[@sumwan2042]

❤️

[@samcadwallader2899]

Don't edit out the disaster of dead hardware. Document it and then we can be as disappointed as you when it fails. It is clearly the Spectrum way to do things. My Spectrum life in the eighties was a constant stream of mostly failure and some reward.