Wasn't that Sabre Wulf? Not that I ever actually played it, but it was mentioned a lot by Sinclair User magazine. Actually that mag had some of the best cover art I'd ever seen. Anyone remember Kamikaze Bear?
Time to list a few of my favourite pre-'90s games...
Atari 2600:
We had one of these. My favourite game was Pole Position. You had a birds eye view of the full circuit and would guide your car around it. There were a number of different tracks and you could also drift the cars around on ice.
Combat:
I loved this one - brother vs. brother in tanks or planes. Lots of options including invisible tanks / planes (could see them when they fired a shot or hit a wall) homing missiles, fast and slow bullets, clouds to hide behind in your biplane or jet, and lots more. I think this one was free with the console.
Asteroids:
I never played this one in the shops but played it all the time on the Atari. I think this is the only game that I've ever managed to make the score max out and reset to zero.
Coin-op:
Xevious
This was in my local corner shop. The first coin-op I spent any time with. I never really got into shoot-em-ups but I kinda liked this one and thought the scrolling graphics were the best thing I'd ever seen.
Out Run - I could finish it, but only on one or two routes. Used to play it every Saturday after my junior league. I loved the idea of a convertible Testarossa, even though I was always a Countach kid at heart. I thought this game was so realistic at the time
Power Drift - the machine was miles away from me but when I got a chance I was in it. Very arcadey but I loved that game. Everything happened really fast, the graphics were fantastic, the car was controllable, the music really pumped, and I was quite good at it. I thought it was so cool sliding around on an elevated road made of logs, with so much oversteer that the pixellated driver was looking back at me instead of where we were going! There was a selection of cars, which was nice, and one of these was a blue beach buggy thing, which seemed to be a good choice.
Slapfight - one of the few shoot-em-ups I got along with. Again I liked the graphics, but I also liked the selectable weapons sets. I used to get three speed improvements, then I think it was the 4 guns, then the homing missiles... I was into science fiction when I was a kid and this and Xevious just appealed to the geek in me.
Hard Drivin' - as mentioned before, the best steering feedback for years. Also one of the first with a clutch and h-pattern gearshift, if I recall. My favourite ever coin op game.
Sinclair ZX Spectrum
I had a 48K Spectrum, with the rubber keys. This was my first computer, and my first experience with a keyboard of any description. The Spectrum is the reason that even now, people at the other side of the office can hear me typing (CLACK CLACK CLACK).
My fave Spectrum games:
Manic Miner! 20 levels of craziness. I can still remember the demented theme tune and the daft flying killer telephones and bouncing cheque. Complete madness.
Turbo Esprit:
I was a car nut even as a kid and the Turbo Esprit was my favourite car. I'd have taken one of these over a Countach! I particularly liked the way the dashboard was rendered so accurately (for a Spectrum game..), the steering wheel moved, the indicators flashed and the traffic lights changed. I never managed to actually complete a level of this game, but I did get pretty good at zooming past cars parked at a pedestrian crossing, and running over the pedestrian!
Combat Lynx:
For some reason I really loved this game. It was difficult, lengthy, and a huge amount of fun. I never could defend any of the outside bases (I couldn't even find any base other than base 1) but I spent hours on it anyway. I set up the controls for two joysticks and had one joystick attached to my chair to act as the collective!
Football Manager:
Played this game for hours and hours. I had a system for identifying the sprites and used this to keep records of the team's results and how many goals everyone had!
Formula One Manager:
Odd one this. The day I first played it was a very black day for the friend I was playing it with, and this made me superstitious against ever playing this game on a Saturday. Still, I played it a lot on the other six days of the week. You'd manage a formula 1 team, buy one or two drivers and watch them race instead of racing yourself, and you'd make tyre and pitstop decisions for them (and perform the pitstops yourself). This game probably softened my attitude towards GT4's b-spec mode, which I view as a very poorly designed game-within-a-game. Perhaps b-spec might evolve into a decent team manager mini-simulator in the future.
Chuckie Egg 2:
Used to play this one with my mates. A bit like Jet Set Willy - you run around a huge map collecting things and avoiding big drops and rogue, um, gloves... Lots of fun.
There were plenty more Spectrum games that I used to play often. I don't know where I found the time... especially considering it took 5 minutes to load... if the load didn't crash!
PC: Got our first PC around 1989 or 1990. I used to play GP-CGA on it (perhaps it was GP2-CGA). You could drive a McLaren, Williams or Ferrari on a number of tracks. Also had Test Drive 2 which I played for hours, until I discovered Wing Commander... but I think that takes me well into the '90s.
Kamikaze Bear:
