The weirdest games ever made - ZX Spectrum

[@gerryh8367]

These games were more imaginative than any of the crap seen today....... imagine a world without the 8 bit machines...... I'm so glad to have been a teen in the 80s

[@ClassicReplay]

Amen! Brother 🙏🏻

[@asthalis]

yes, less pixels and colors but tons of fun, ideas, gameplay and interesting concepts... nowaday's games have better graphics but very few really have invented something really new since then. One of my favorite ones : Crafton & Xunk (also known as Get Dexter) on Amstrad CPC (my first computer).

[@jeremygregorio7472]

To be fair they kind of had to be given how primitive the hardware was

[@crusader77_retro]

The "Deus Ex Machina" is incredible... what an idea and what a soundtrack 😁

[@ClassicReplay]

It must have cost a small fortune to do, they should have continued in this vein. But apparently it didn't sell all that well.

[@Hologhoul]

Nice one! Thinking about it, there are some classic arcade games where the weird and ridiculous premise is overlooked a little, for example in Dig Dug and Mr Do!

[@ClassicReplay]

100% it would be good to explore this

[@hyperboreal]

Great video. Except for "Jet Set Willy" and "Dynamite Dan" I didn't know any of the other games. What an inspired era. I wonder if the image of the female robot face from "Deus Ex Machina" inspired the movie "Ex Machina".

[@ClassicReplay]

Great times. Making it up as they went along. Powered by brute force creativity

[@jamestheblacksmith]

Ever played 'Everyone's a Wally'? That came with a fun soundtrack and was completely bonkers. Just recovered my brother's ZX from the attic and will be playing loads of old favourites. Barry McGuigan Boxing and Street Hassle are going to swallow up my Sunday I reckon.

[@ClassicReplay]

I had it as a kid, brilliant game! McGuigan's boxing was absolutely brilliant back in the day. The only thing I didn't like about it is that the CPU controlled leg movement. Never heard of Street Hassle 🤷‍♂️

[@williamwright9079]

Thank you sir. What a wonderfully weird video. Cheers!

[@ClassicReplay]

Thanks my friend

[@TeZXSpectrum]

Love some of these odd bod games. I'm a huge fan of Benny Hill mad cap chase. Ace video sir 👍

[@ClassicReplay]

Thanks my friend. If this goes well, part 2 ;-)

[@perfectfutures]

My mind is blown by Deus Ex, if only people would make such innovative games nowadays. Sometimes I think having all the graphical power is a distraction, as you have to spend so much time making something presentable, you run out of time to actually design the game itself. Plus many of these games I’d never even heard of before, I’ll have to try them out.

[@ClassicReplay]

Tetris proves graphics don’t make a game 👍 thanks for watching my friend

[@AMcAFaves]

Dwarf Fortress is a modern game that demonstrates the distraction of modern graphics well, and how more innovation can be put into gameplay, if graphics are neglected more.

[@DingKong]

Pud Pud - Joffa Smiths first Speccy game. His wacky humour and imagination was already apparent. Frankie really was a weird game. Totally bizarre and different. Deus Ex Machina - was it the first 'interactive experience?'. Not really a game but a bit of an experience.

[@ClassicReplay]

A game can be an experience as well ;-)

[@olafpieters]

The Deus Ex Machina soundtrack is still incredible to listen to. Croucher was way ahead of his time.

[@ClassicReplay]

The whole experience still stands up today. Plus there's a modern remake. Imagine being a seven year old back in the 80s and playing this.

[@stewsretroreviews]

Love all speccy stuff mate, cool song at the end, but very weird 😂

[@ClassicReplay]

I blame drugs, proper hard stuff 🤣

[@TheSudsy]

I "downloaded" PudPud from a TV show onto video. Played the audio of the video back into Speccy and PUD PUD!! well at least a level demo.

[@ClassicReplay]

That would have been amazing for the time, hardly anyone would have understood what you were up to and the seed it would have planted. You were a pioneer

[@AMcAFaves]

Thanks! I hadn't heard of Fat Worm Blows A Sparky before. I am impressed by its flat shaded 3d graphics!

[@ClassicReplay]

Brilliant! Exactly why I do this. If you could share I’d be eternally thankful 👍🏻

[@AMcAFaves]

Sure thing!

[@adw147]

Knot in 3d is a 3d tron cycle clone , great video

[@ClassicReplay]

Cheers 😀

[@stevefoden1622]

Go To H**l was another one like Soft & Cuddly. Came out about the time Chiller came out in the arcades. There was this whole mini sub-genre of these weird, kinda icky games that was thankfully short-lived.

[@ClassicReplay]

Too much of a good thing then 🤷🏻‍♂️

[@davidnorton2473]

Knot in 3D is definitely a recipe for epilepsy.

[@ClassicReplay]

IT never got me that way, but definitely a mind fcuk.

[@davidnorton2473]

@ClassicReplay oh man I reckon as a kid that shit would've done something fucked up to my brain. I remember back in the late seventies I had fucked up dreams of squiggly lines along with this crazy beeping noise. That's all I dreamt for ages, and it was seriously disturbing. It was from playing the original pong machine, you know the orange one with the twistey knobs.I was probably 6 or 7, maybe 8 ha ha didn't sleep properly for years 😅 I think it messed me up. Luckily, I was so young, and I didn't have a clue, so feeling strange didn't bother me too much. Haha I will say it definitely affects your brain waves and not in a positive way.

[@deagt3388]

Speccy forever! ;-)

[@deagt3388]

I'm so glad for this heart! ;-)

[@retrogamerecluse]

As much as i loved my Spectrum i could never get into Jet Set Willy. I heard there's some sort of glitch that makes it impossible to complete?

[@ClassicReplay]

On initial release there was a bug where the game crashed if you entered the Attic and then entered the kitchen. This was fixed on later versions. A patch was released for existing copies. It’s truly a brilliant game, just spend ten mins with it and it should hook you.

[@funkyfoodster]

Nice vid.

[@ClassicReplay]

Thanks! Really appreciate it 👍🏻

[@oldmossystone]

Some other weird games... Splat! is pretty strange and really great - so odd that the screen scrolls randomly and you have no control over it, but it works really well. 'Micro mouse goes debugging', where you run around a page of basic code and fix the errors to make it run Mel Croucher's other games Pimania and uncle Groucho are both pretty odd Dark Star was weird too, not the game itself, but on the back of the cassette there was a sort of teletext style diary sort of thing from the devs that you needed a code to access, took the a while to release the code too..."everyone's a nervous wreck' iirc. SO many games were weird because they were so bad, either the graphics, or the controls or whatever else just made them strangely surreal, just the idea that anyone considered them to be a viable product, particularly things like Kokotoni Wilf, massively hyped, but just a really bad game in pretty much every way. Jack and the Beanstalk is another that was surreally bad. Some were not bad, technically impressive, and potentially deep, but impenetrable like lords of midnight and valhalla... just very speccy :)

[@ClassicReplay]

Some of those I’ve never heard of. Thanks I will check them out and thanks for watching. Don’t forget to watch my other ZX Spectrum vids 👍🏻

[@chessoc7799]

Dynamite dan was great :)

[@ClassicReplay]

Very difficult game, pixel perfect precision timing on some of those jumps

[@speedygonzales378]

What's that song at the end?

[@ClassicReplay]

That’s the song that came on side 2 of the game.

[@blatherskite3009]

Obviously the Spectrum (or any computer or console pre CD-ROM) wasn't capable of that kind of soundtrack, so Deus Ex Machina took the interesting approach of having the gameplay be synced to a full studio-recorded soundtrack with professional musicians and voice-actors, which was on the other side of the cassette. If you imagine a War of the Worlds game that played synced up to the full Jeff Wayne album then you'll have the idea. It's like a combo of game and concept album.

[@gipgap4]

Pud Pud is Joffa Smiths first Spectrum game as I understand it. Author of Hypersports, Green Beret and Cobra. I’d also add Bounder to the list of strange games. Me playing as a bouncing tennis ball? Ok then.

[@ClassicReplay]

That figures, I’m sure I knew that already. That guy must have been on really hard stuff even back then 😥

[@jonathancauldwell9822]

By no means anything like the weirdest games on the Spectrum. All original but Deus being the only work of genius.

[@ClassicReplay]

Interesting 🤔 which games are you thinking are weirder?

[@BartothebartobangX2]

Deus Ex Machina. If that were released today, it could be subtitled "No Edibles Necessary". What a trip.

[@ClassicReplay]

🤣🤣🤣

[@williamwright9079]

What are the skulls in berets on soft and cuddly? Gotta be something to do with Alice Cooper in special forces, right?

[@ClassicReplay]

He obviously inspired the programmer when he toured with the album in 81/82 in the United Kingdom or mainland Europe.

[@blatherskite3009]

@@ClassicReplay Yep. Games from that era were very free with referencing stuff that the programmer liked, e.g. Jet Set Willy has blatant shout-outs to The Furry Freak Brothers (stoner comic) and the "Animals" album by Pink Floyd. Copyright law hadn't really caught up with gaming yet, so you felt free to reference whatever you liked.

[@knkn5049]

i m going to watch reviews for benny hill, i liked this show as a youngster, i m intrigued to compare game to original)

[@ClassicReplay]

If you can get past the controls, it’s definitely a good laugh. Let me know how you get on

[@knkn5049]

@@ClassicReplay i believe 3rd level (that i have seen) is the last because it is so unfair and cheap... also i was a bit dissapointed because there were no young women in underwear (

[@ClassicReplay]

@@knkn5049 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@davidhealy4534]

Amaurote? Phantom club? Deviants?

[@ClassicReplay]

Brilliant! Thanks

[@williamRE]

I clicked because "weird games" for the spectrum? The whole damned system is weird you silly europeans! 😂

[@ClassicReplay]

You hold a valid point there. Gotta love the charm of those ‘silly Europeans’ and their unique creations! 😂

[@Concreteowl]

Soft anf cuddly you play a man trying to find the scattered body parts of your mother so you can sew her up and bring her back to life so... Interesting reinterpretation 😁

[@ClassicReplay]

Less barbarous by modern standards 😉

[@joechip4822]

The weirdness of the games came simply from the fact, that the Spectrum and it's best programmers were British 😅 Just kidding... There also were masters like Costa Panayi.

[@ClassicReplay]

And taking lots of drugs 🤣

[@bjh3661]

Jet Set Willy is NOT a good game. Please people. Stop this nonsense.

[@garcemac]

Goodbye.