Wish my mum had never thrown my Spectrum out
Anyone over the age of thirty knows that as far as pure gaming goes, retro is where it is at. In my day, an X-Box was an impolite term for the recently vacated post of "girlfriend" (not that we had any back then of course, we were too nerdy busy blazing a trail through the very first virtual worlds, before it became cool).
This is a picture of the awesome Speccy +2.

Amazing isn't it?

No doubt some of you are wondering what the tape recorder thingy is for. Well, you put your cassettes in it, type LOAD "", press play and then wait ten minutes before the fucking thing crashes, getting you a beating from your mother because you yelled "You cunt!" in abject frustration as you were forced to rewind the tape and repeat the whole process again teaching you much about anticipation and patience in the meantime.

Grand Theft Auto IV? Pah, you think GTA invented gratuitous automobile related violence? Ladies, gentlemen and geeks I give you the wonderful Turbo Esprit, from 1986

Okay, the games may have lacked a certain amount of sophistication, but what you lacked in True Colour graphics, you made up for in imagination.

Strap yourself into the state-of-the-art Lotus Esprit, in this realistic simulation of high speed urban driving with not a GATSO in sight as you hunt down the ruthless drug dealing scumbags.

Ah, bugger... It's still loading isn't it...

Right okay, forward on a few frames... Better not pay too much attention to the aesthetics of the menu screens, every byte is precious and all that.

Ah, here you go... Right, we're motoring now... You can gun down innocent pedestrians and drive recklessly around virtual streets and avenues.

Retro gaming and original consoles are worth a fortune, I'm beginning to wish I'd never thrown out my trusty +2 eighteen years ago. I wonder how much it's worth now?

Better at least give this new fangled GTA IV a bash then.

Arse.

In retrospect, my ancient Spectrum is probably better off in the skip where I left it. I think I'll stick to emulators if I need to get my retro gaming fix.
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Mon 18 Aug 2008, 16:28, 10 replies)

Ahhh...
Turbo Esprit was my favourite - that and Wheelie.

As to what the +2 is worth now, I saw one at a boot fair a few weeks back going for the grand sum of 2 quid.

I tried to haggle to £1, but he wasn't having it, so he's still stuck with it now.
(dchurch bah, Mon 18 Aug 2008, 16:34, closed)

Good stuff!
But, was I mistaken when, under 'Choose City', it said:

'Romford'?

*checks* - No, I wasn't! Romford? Love it.
( Devil_In_Tights the *real* DiT!, Mon 18 Aug 2008, 16:48, closed)

way of the exploding fist
daley thompson's decathlon
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Mon 18 Aug 2008, 17:26, closed)

Daley Thompson's decathlon rocked
and caused me to break a couple of joysticks through playing it. Having said that, my favourite game was Atic Atak.

Oddly enough, I have 2 ZX Speccy+2s (one slightly dodgy/maybe knackered), along with about 100 games lurking in a cupboard in my flat. I need the space more than the computer if anyone wants any of them. :D
(ninja chinchilla, Mon 18 Aug 2008, 17:46, closed)

ahh, the happy memories!
daley thompson, disco dan, manic miner, punchy.
all loved, all played, all part of the reason i hardly went out the door for 2 years...
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Mon 18 Aug 2008, 18:00, closed)

I was there too!
Back then, computer hardware was not very capable when it came to graphics and sound, so games had to be playable.

Realism? Who want's realism? It's a computer game ffs!

PS. I've still got my Atari 400 and 200 or so 5.25" floppy disks.
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Mon 18 Aug 2008, 19:36, closed)

I would leave emulators alone
I tried reliving my old Atari XE days and found to my dismay that the fantastic classic games I used to spend ages waiting to load and hours playing are actually all a bit shit. You spend a while trying to convince yourself that they are still great fun, that modern games could learn a thing or two from the oldies and that a classic can never tarnish but eventually you realise that you are wrong and that it wasn't the games that you were nostagic for at all but the time. Rose tinted spectacles are OK until you take them off I suppose.
(Prof. Moriarty put his foot in it on, Tue 19 Aug 2008, 0:26, closed)

^ This
I spent a while playing around with emulators for everything from the old Atari console to N64. After hours and hours of nostalgia I realised the only games worth playing any more were Populus on the Atari ST and Mario Party on the SNES. The rest fell well below my expectations.
( Noeli overtheshoulderboulderholderthingstraplatchboobs, Thu 21 Aug 2008, 11:44, closed)

Ah yes!
Populous. A great reason for justifying WinUAE on my PC.

That and the collection of old skool demos which are surprisingly good twenty years on, despite being knocked together by spotty coders in their bedrooms.
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Thu 21 Aug 2008, 16:18, closed)

Populous FTW!

( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Thu 21 Aug 2008, 17:56, closed)