> But there were lots of great games, the Dizzy series, RoboCop, Strider, R-Type, and many many more.
There was also the peculiar experience that the Spectrum version of a game would often be more playable or essentially faithful to its arcade parent than that of platforms with more power (even the C64).
Because the Spectrum developers had to work hard to make the game playable in essentially monochrome, with nearly no sound. There is no better way to make art than through constraints, and the Spectrum was all constraints.
All 8-bit systems benefited from this art-through-constraints situation, though, and gaming culture owes everything to it. This could be why I am more inclined to play a cartoon MMORPG like Dofus than anything else; if a games designer is unwilling to choose their own constraints I am going to find the game uninteresting.
[Edit to change last sentence: wrong choice of words]
There was also the peculiar experience that the Spectrum version of a game would often be more playable or essentially faithful to its arcade parent than that of platforms with more power (even the C64).
Because the Spectrum developers had to work hard to make the game playable in essentially monochrome, with nearly no sound. There is no better way to make art than through constraints, and the Spectrum was all constraints.
All 8-bit systems benefited from this art-through-constraints situation, though, and gaming culture owes everything to it. This could be why I am more inclined to play a cartoon MMORPG like Dofus than anything else; if a games designer is unwilling to choose their own constraints I am going to find the game uninteresting.
[Edit to change last sentence: wrong choice of words]