When the ZX Spectrum BEAT the Commodore 64!

[@81632bit]

Yeah, so I've removed a comment I felt was derogatory, and all the replies as seen as some folk are incapable of understanding just how insulting their comment was. ANYONE found using any kind of ableist, racist, misogynistic, etc terms will see their comment removed immediately. This isn't a home for your prejudices.

[@81632bit]

@@retrotronics1845 It bothered me, and it's my channel.

[@winstonslone2797]

That's right. We are here to discuss the failings of a primitive 8 bit software and hardware. Not promote bigotry or racism.

[@drewwagar]

Anything with vectors or 3D, the ZX Spectrum blew the C64 away. If it was horizontal/vertical platformers/shooters, the C64 was generally better - though there were notable exceptions such as Manic Miner etc.

[@arostwocents]

Commodore sucks 😂 Jk. The dull colours work great on certain games. Rose Tinted Spectrum is a BRILLIANT Spectrum channel! As much as i hate to say it, given i love Speccy, i think, after trying it last year, the Amstrad is superior to both in the right hands. Id love for Zosya Entertainment to make Amstrad games.

[@bierundkippen720]

C64 is so much better. And you know it.

[@Synthematix]

C64 was an awesome computer seeing as it came out the same year as the spectrum there's no contest, commodore wins in all areas including Microsoft basic and a proper keyboard with an awesome sound chip.@@bierundkippen720

[@winstonjlee7474]

Excellent video, just subscribed. We had a ZX Spectrum 128K before moving onto a C64. I must say that I found that lots of games looked better graphically on the Spectrum than the C64. The only thing we found was that C64 games had better colour. Having said that Power Drift on the C64 was really, really good 😊

[@zawtowers]

An interesting selection of four games: I probably agree on three of them being a better version on the Spectrum here - Chase HQ, Star Wars and Enduro Racer. Operation Wolf was well converted on both formats and whether you had a Spectrum or C64, you'd have got a solid playable conversion. Please do bear in mind plenty of C64Cs came with the NEOS Mouse and Cheese, so a lot of people (me included) had that mouse for playing Operation Wolf and Arkanoid - it did make a massive difference to the playability and control. I'd also say that Robocop is a masterpiece on the Spectrum, whereas the C64 version is too difficult, and as found out later, full of game breaking bugs on its original release. Generally speaking also the Dizzy standard series of arcade adventure games worked a lot better on the Spectrum or Amstrad than the C64 too.

[@RetroCave-wr9tl]

Spectrum was not limited by any sprite size so devs could do some creative stuff as long as the machine could handle. I also remember playing isometric games in mono color on C64 that were probably Speccy ports. Surprised by not seeing one on this list.

[@natxcross]

It was never just the hardware that was the issue, of course, but I guess the developers are harder to quantify. Look at Target; Rengade - the hardware's there to make the C64 version far superior to the Speccy version, but it ended up significantly worse.

[@arostwocents]

Developers were mainly brand new to the industry, many were teenagers - you only need to compare Zosya Entertainment games to premium games from the 80s and the modern homebrew are literally a world away in quality. Modern homebrew also shows that clash was mainly laziness as Devs now can make games with big colourful characters that don't bleed everywhere. Masking has come a long way. Also games like Gandalf and Manic Pietro which somehow cheat the colour rules are just mind blowing.

[@clauscombat418]

Such a British battle 😗

[@PooperScooperTrooper]

I remember my mate at school raving about Chase HQ. I had moved on to the Atari ST so poo-pooed him but it is genuiunly a pretty good looking game. I wish I could go back and tell him!

[@ZTTINGS]

So funny that after 40 years, the battle still rages on in the hearts of some XD Although I don't disagree with some of the points made, switching to two colours back then made a huge difference to performance. If I recall back at the time, the C64 had WAY better gfx and sound capability than the ZX84 so obviously it usually tried to showcase them. Speccy didn't really have that option so it focused on other aspects of quality and therefore sometimes won out on playability. To be perfectly honest, unless you were there, you can't possibly understand just what a massive sea change these machines were at the time. Whichever machine you had, you revelled in what it gave you and learned to live with the failings. I was a speccy owner and often had this argument with my Commodore mates, yet there were games both sides secretly envied. Having worked in the industry I can now also say that without knowing the codebase and implementation of the port, it's hard to say if the game actually did the platform justice. What I remember as one of the standout argument winners for us speccy owners was that we didn't need to shell out a bunch of cash for an unecessarily bespoke tape drive with vastly inferioir baud rate and load times of your standard home tape deck. Also, the platform you had back then was often defined by when you bought the machine. Vic20 predated the speccy and people who bought Vics obviously upgraded to c64. Speccy was also a cheaper option, if I recall. I don't think I could have afforded a C64. All these factors obviously played hard into the hard fought teenage platform wars of the eighties. XD

[@81632bit]

Oh, there is no battle here. I'm already working on the counterpoint video of examples of the C64 hammering the Speccy.

[@markdillon5494]

I was a C64 owner and would still take the C64 over the Speccie but in all honesty I loved both machines. They were just a call back to great times of wonderful childhoods. I think about the 8 bits all the time when it comes to gaming.

[@mmadmic]

Jetpac is also a game where the Speccy was far better than the C64, even the V20 version is better than the C64.

[@NotSuitableForMum]

I always tought the c64 version of Endur rqacer looked liek you were riding a vespa scooter instead of a motocross bike.

[@naturalroyalflush]

Atic-Atac and the other versions were very entertaining. Starion was butter smooth. It was great fun. PC's never generated excitement for me....the Amiga did, so much so, we bought 600 of them and built slot machines with them.

[@PooperScooperTrooper]

The other game you could add to this is Bomb Jack - atrocious on c64, fantastic on the speccy

[@GigerPunk]

I'm certainly not going to argue chase hq but you might want to try op wolf on the C64 with a neos mouse, that REALLY improves the game massively over the Speccy version...

[@81632bit]

I don't doubt it does. But the way I, and the majority of folk will have experienced it is with either keyboard or joystick controls, so I'm still going to give it to the Speccy.

[@ZTTINGS]

@@81632bit No mate, C64 owners were all rich kids, they had the joysticks XD

[@youuuuuuuuuuutube]

Answer seems to be "never". Those 4 examples look better on C64 to me :/

[@Synthematix]

And me, the spectrum was too slow with too much colour clashing and of course the c64 Sid chip was far superior

[@TheStuffMade]

This is more like when the ZX Spectrum got a better port than the C64, but I guess you know that already and you wrote the title as more of a click bait.

[@jacquesy2520]

Don't know what the consensus is, but I generally prefer the version of R-type for the Spectrum to any other. Hell, there's noticeable slowdown in the Amiga version, even if there's more colours.

[@81632bit]

The Spectrum version of R-Type is incredible. The games coder wrote a book about it.

[@CommodoreVic20]

I guess this is about RoboCop

[@81632bit]

Watch it and find out...

[@takedeepshhh]

hi there. id like to ask where in the uk are you from?

[@SuperJim]

Boooo with your Speccy rubbish 😁 C64 FOREVER! Haha nah the Speccy definitely had some quality compared to some of the dodgy C64 ports. Really enjoyed the video!

[@alexanderwingeskog758]

Well I do agree with the these games. But they are as you say really bad conversion on the C64... on not really representative of the C64, it had lost of great racing games, Grand Prix circuit was great, played that a lot (music was just awesome!) and good graphics/feel. Buggy Boy was also great! Different racing, but fun and nice. Stuntcar racer was also good I think (maybe it was good on ZX 48 also though?) Now I can not remember exactly but I think Skool Daze was better on ZX48 then the C64 somehow... or it was pretty much the same (I don't really remember that well).. maybe you should check that out...

[@markenetube]

Most 3D stuff was better on the speccy. Wire frame stuff was great. I really enjoyed 3D Starstrike. C64 ws beeter on most side srcolling stuff though

[@mattruddick8919]

Jetpac

[@Synthematix]

The c64 2 best games were raid over Moscow and beach head II, I really didn't like the graphics or sound of the spectrum, action biker was way better on the c64

[@alexsorin9346]

Let it go man. The Spectrum vs Commodore wars ended over three decades ago.

[@natxcross]

NOTHING IS OVER! NOTHING! YOU JUST DON'T TURN IT OFF!

[@cnfuzz]

And use the real things when you compare for a video not emulators

[@arostwocents]

​@@cnfuzznah it makes no difference. People who say a channel should spend millions on real everything are just excluding people who can't afford it from making videos, which is disgusting. Rich people dominating everything and somehow convincing people that they are inherently superior is one of the worst problems with the world today. All of media is dominated by only the rich and honestly I am more interested in hearing someone who isn't just a rich a**hole doing it for the money like so many big channels are

[@ZTTINGS]

@@arostwocents sorry mate, although I agree with your point about everyone having the right to make videos, there is a big difference between running code on actual hardware or an emulator. They don't perform the same, especially on code back then, due to the really crazy small amounts of memory and the things coders did to squeeze performance out of each machine. As someone who actually owned, played and grew up with these machines, I'm super happy to see these kinda posts on KZbin still after forty years, but it's a valid point that comparisons on emulators can't be relied on as like for like. They may not be far off a lot of the time, but it's no guarantee. Even so, it's nice to see someone bring up some of these old games out for us to see and discuss so I'm all for it. All the best!

[@ZTTINGS]

@@natxcross love it XD