Hungry Horace
Looking like a copyright infringement of my arcade fave, Pacman, I play Horace, nabbing food in the form of flowers from around a park while avoiding the park's overzealous security forces. Horace is an iconic cartoon-style character, all eyes and feet, and keen to gobble a dropped lunch. The bell causes the parkkeepers to panic and, like the ghosts in Pacman, they become edible for a short time. It's speed and versatility that make Hungry Horace a classic. Getting evicted from the park like a member of Occupy London, Horace obviously didn't fare too badly and was later seen skiing and fighting spiders.
Developers William Tang/Beam Software
Publisher Melbourne House
Platforms Sinclair Spectrum
More Info Moby Games' Hungry Horace page
Jet Pac
Jet Pac - from the prolific Stamper brothers - was so addictive yet with so simple a premise: rebuild my spaceship, fuel up then blast off. Ah, but this being a game of the shoot-'em-up genre there are some pesky aliens who would thwart me is my simple goal. Luckily, I have a laser gun in built into my jetpack to deal with such circumstances. Ledges strewn with spaceship parts, fuel pods and bonus point niknaks are all easily navigated with a simple thrust. Blasting off takes me to a new planet each with new aliens to avoid or attack. Shame Jetpac Refuelled, released in 2007, just couldn't live up to the original.
Developers Tim and Chris Stamper
Publisher Ultimate Play The Game
Platforms Sinclair Spectrum, Vic-20
More Info Moby Games' Hungry Horace page
Next page: Knight Lore
COMMENTS
Jeff Minter
Strangely missing from the list unless I've overlooked something?...
Elite was incredible. I lost months of my childhood to that game. I still play the updated Oolite today.
Getting in on the titles-you-didn't-pick wagon...
Chaos? Xeno? Bruce Lee? Stop the Express? Nebulus? Driller? Exolon? Target: Renegade? Thrust? Splat? Turrican? Dan Dare? Wizball?
I'm confident those were all very good.
Let's not forget that before EA owned nearly all the sports franchises, we had a few sports classics.
Who can forget Daley Thompson's Decathlon? Those poor soft rubber keys on the Spectrum didn't stand a chance.
Re: Whatever.
Okay, we get the impression you're Californian. Most of the games in the article were for the Sinclair Spectrum, an English computer that played a role in our memory of the eighties. If you read between the lines in the article, you might spot a theme: Enjoyment despite lack of graphical prowess by means of imagination and charm. One title is even a pure text based adventure game.
At the same time, many of us would have still been losing skin by falling off BMXs- and have fond memories of doing so. Being told now that someone had a 125cc motocross bike at the time wouldn't dent those memories.
