ZX Spectrum or Atari 2600 - best for shumps early 80's?

[Jonesyy]

I currently own a few good shmup platforms - master system, mega drive, pc engine, ps1 and 2 - and I love them all, but I'm looking for something a little older now. Something that was around in the early 80's, and the two platforms that spring to mind are the the Atari 2600 and the ZX Spectrum.

Been born in 1984 in the UK, I remember both of these systems in our household when I was very young (under 5 years old I would think!) but I was too young to have any real memory or appreciation of them, but I would like to revisit one of them.

I've messed around with a few emulators this week and both seem to have some nice old shooters that I would enjoy. Which one would you recommend?

I know neither system will set the world on fire in terms of graphics etc, but what I'm looking for is a good solid library of shumps from an older period than I'm currently used to.

Any other platform recommendations are welcome, although I do have a slight soft spot for the two mentioned. I don't want anything that is too expensive to collect for either.

Thoughts?

[RocketBelt]

The 2600 and spectrum are in different leagues really. The 2600 is a very basic console indeed. The spectrum started out very unsophisticated as a home computer, but was around for so long that the last models ended up with 128k ram, a disk drive and a pretty good sound chip which actually made it an alright platform.
Being born in 1976 in the UK, my older brother, who is nearly ten years older than me, had a 2600 whereas I had a 128k spectrum. They really are leagues apart in terms of capability. There are actually a handful of spectrum games enjoyable today I think, without the rose tinted spectacles of nostalgia (It had a very good version of R-Type). I don't know if the same could be said of the 2600, the technology is just so basic.

[andykara2003]

Many arcade shmups/games at that time were just so much better than the equivalents on the Spectrum so I would just go with those in some form or another.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

The classic Imagic's Demon Attack for the Atari Video Computer System (VCS) which was later renamed the 2600 when Atari released it's 5200 Super System console back in 1982 is a stellar Space Invaders clone but with some cool wrinkles added in to spice up the gameplay. The framerate is quite high and doesn't let up even when the gameplay/difficulty factor gets quite heated. Game variation #7 with fast guided missles is an ol' favorite of mine with the 2600 version of DA. The artwork that was shown on the Imagic slipcase box covers were quite imaginative and colorful -- some artwork even used practical props that were repainted to give 'em that slick vibe and overall visual presentation.

Vanguard from Atari for the 2600 features both horizontal and vertical shooting levels on the way to defeat the eventual Gond boss.

Activision's Mega Mania is another cool STG on the 2600 with it's various sprite-based enemies.

U.S. Games' Space Jockey is another STG worthy on the 2600 platform.

Atari's 2600 versions of Centipede and Millipede are a shoe-in for their classic shooting gameplay. The original MSRP of the 2600 Centipede port was priced at $34.99 USD back in 1983 and sports a cool main title screen with animated sprites that comprise of the Centipede title itself (quite impressive feat at that current point in time) + a cool comic book was included to tell how the Centipede story got started.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Classicgamer]

I owned both back in the day and they both sucked, even then.

The spectrum loaded games on cassettes and it took 20 minutes to load each one, if it worked at all. The games themselves were all very basic. Not much better than those LCD games. It never had a built in joystick port either. We had to use an adapter that broke the computer if you put it in at the wrong time.

There was a Spectrum +3 with a built in disc drive but whatever - still sucked.

The 2600 was a lot simpler to use with it being a cartridge console but the games were still very basic. It had the worst joystick of any system ever which didn't make the games any more enjoyable.

I wouldn't waste your time going any further back than the Amiga / Atari ST / NES / Master System generation. I can't imagine anyone choosing to play on 2600 in 2018 for anything more than morbid curiosity.

I remember being super jealous of my friend with an Atari ST which came with a whole selection of arcade ports like Double Dragon and Space Harrier while my stingy dad left us with that awful Spectrum.

[orange808]

The 2600 predates the proper "shoot em up" genre. It predates all genres. We didn't have them figured out at the time.

As for "sucks", well... that's a matter of opinion. I don't know of any game successful game console that found significant popularity and "sucked".

The 2600 library has multiple gems. There are also some notable new releases that are worth playing.

The Atari home computers were also lovely machines, but that's a rabbit hole. (Everything in gaming is.)

[FinalBaton]

Interesting thread, I'll be following this one as I'm thinking of picking up an Atari 2600(or another older console) and am looking for worthwhile games on it. We had one growing up so it'd be quite the nostalgic trip, I have played a lot of Joust on there as a kid, as well as Defender, Missile Command, Jungle Hunt and Crackpots. I'm keeping my expectations in check though regarding the game library. Should be a fun diversion nontheless

I was actually considering picking up an Atari XEGS, as the Atari 8-bit line of computers seem to have a pretty juicy library of ports from that golden era of arcades, plus with this particular machine you can absolutely use it as a standalone console.

I'm also a bit intrigued by Colecovision and Intellivision(although I never had them growing up), they seem to have a pretty nice library as well, look to be even better than 2600. 5200 has a couple worthwhile ports I take it? but not that many it looks like. and that controller... if I saw one locally selling for peanuts I'd probably grab it though

[NoAffinity]

I never had a spectrum, but the 2600 was the staple in our household in that era, following which, PC's took over and I didn't get back into consoles until the Genesis. I got my 2600 from my parents' attic a while back, complete with all 63 games that we ever owned for it, joysticks and controllers of all types. I spent maybe a couple hours going down nostalgia lane, and haven't revisited it since. Tried out Dig Dug, Pitfall, Donkey Kong jr., Dragster, and a couple other titles. The arcade ports are sad at best. Pitfall was fun for about 20 minutes.

One kinda cool thing - Genesis controllers work on the 2600, so you are no longer stuck with this thing:

Spoiler

At the time, it was the best we had, or as good as it got at a certain (affordable for most) price point. The technology and staying power hasn't aged well, imho. Everyone has their preferences, but if you're going to drop money on putting a 2600 in your collection, maybe spend some time on the games via emulation first to make sure you really want to spend your hard earned money on it. It just isn't as fun as it was 35 years ago (just one collector's opinion).

Heck, my buddy found a couple 2600 TV plug n play's at a thrift store and picked them up for a couple dollars each. He gave me one and we messed around with it for maybe 10 minutes this past weekend. It was about 5 minutes too much.

[Pedro Lambrini]

I'll always have a soft spot for the Speccy but for my old school shmup fix I always go back to the VCS. Beamrider, Space Invaders, Demon Attack, Phoenix, Galaxian and newer ports such as Juno First and Draconian are all fantastic. The VCS is super responsive. There's no lag at all and feels great even by today's standards.

For me, the Speccy is the king of single/flip screen platformers of that era. The system does have a few great shmups but I'd still choose the VCS over it for that genre.

[Jonesyy]

After playing around with both systems (emulators) I can honestly say I think the 2600 is more fun to play today!

The games in general are very basic (of course!) but they are very responsive and the actual game play on some of them is very fun and addictive. A lot more so than I was expecting.

Some of the 2600 games I've enjoyed playing the most, not all strictly shmups, are demon attack, phoenix, spider fighter, space invaders, missile command.

There also seems to be a good community of players too. I found a site that even runs an active high score league (50+ active players) where a different game is chosen every week and players compete for league points etc. I was pretty impressed with that for such an old system, but like I say, the games are still surprisingly playable. The current game they are playing this week is called cosmic ark. The idea is you control a space ship in the centre of the screen and aliens attack you from either above, below, left or right, and you have to hit the joystick in that direction to shoot before the alien ship reaches your ship and blows you up. It starts out easy, with a good two second window to react, but it soon speeds up to a frantic pace with only milliseconds to react. Its a pure twitch reaction game and I'm terrible at it - but its an interesting game and I can see how competing for high scores would be fun for a while!

The spectrum on the other hand has been a big let down unfortunately as I was hoping that system would be the better choice for me!

The speccy has better sound and graphics by far, but this does not seem to translate into better games. I have found a couple of decent shmups, namely river raid and r-type, but they are vastly out numbered by absolute rubbish. And R-type doesn't excite me too much since I already own it on the pc engine.

A lot of the games have terrible colour clash. Its almost impossible to tell the bullets from the background in some of them, like really bad! And some just run very poorly - very clunky and low fps.

When I play speccy games I always feel like there is probably a better version of the game on another console, whereas the atari games feel more original. I may be wrong as I was not around then - but that's the felling I get.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Spectravision's Planet Patrol is another cool horizontal side-scrolling STG for the 2600 in that it scrolls from right to left (rather than the traditional way of left to right as with the classic Gradius STG on the NES). Planet Patrol even has cool built-in distortion graphics of your fightcraft (as the main gameplay session takes place somewhere out there in the desert). The only minor gripe is that you'll lose all your lives if your fightercraft crosses the dotted line if all the missle silos aren't destroyed.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Jonesyy]

Spectravision's Planet Patrol is another cool horizontal side-scrolling STG for the 2600 in that it scrolls from right to left (rather than the traditional way of left to right as with the classic Gradius STG on the NES). Planet Patrol even has cool built-in distortion graphics of your fightcraft (as the main gameplay session takes place somewhere out there in the desert). The only minor gripe is that you'll lose all your lives if your fightercraft crosses the dotted line if all the missle silos aren't destroyed.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

Very nice game! Thanks for the recommendation!

[RocketBelt]

The spectrum on the other hand has been a big let down unfortunately as I was hoping that system would be the better choice for me!
The speccy has better sound and graphics by far, but this does not seem to translate into better games. I have found a couple of decent shmups, namely river raid and r-type, but they are vastly out numbered by absolute rubbish. And R-type doesn't excite me too much since I already own it on the pc engine.
A lot of the games have terrible colour clash. Its almost impossible to tell the bullets from the background in some of them, like really bad! And some just run very poorly - very clunky and low fps.

I agree with all of this, but have a go at speccy Flying Shark. It really is very good.

[Jonesyy]

The spectrum on the other hand has been a big let down unfortunately as I was hoping that system would be the better choice for me!
The speccy has better sound and graphics by far, but this does not seem to translate into better games. I have found a couple of decent shmups, namely river raid and r-type, but they are vastly out numbered by absolute rubbish. And R-type doesn't excite me too much since I already own it on the pc engine.
A lot of the games have terrible colour clash. Its almost impossible to tell the bullets from the background in some of them, like really bad! And some just run very poorly - very clunky and low fps.

I agree with all of this, but have a go at speccy Flying Shark. It really is very good.

Yeah I agree its a good game. It's certainly one of the better ones I've found. However I'm not a fan out that yellow monochrome colouring, I have a lot of difficulty seeing exactly which bullet killed me!

I'd throw Zynaps out there as another decent game. Certainly looks a lot better.