22. Eye of Horus

I’ll admit, I never actually bought Eye of Horus, I borrowed it from a friend who then moved to Canada a few months later and I forgot to hand it back. Daniel Fry, if you’re reading this I do apologise and no you can’t have it back, I don’t know where it is.

Eye of Horus was more of a classic exploration, shoot ‘em up, and puzzler that brought back the game’s cartographer after their hiatus from the Spectrum days. A neat touch was being able to change into a bird and shoot your way through some of the sections.

21. Slayer

Zynaps was a great game and a hit on the Spectrum for Hewson. Slayer, which is very similar, didn’t fare quite as well.

One of the reasons was the extreme difficulty level, and the fact that it didn’t bring anything particularly new to the table. But once you mastered it, Slayer came into its own and you began to enjoy some of the extra features – like being able to angle the ship to slide through some tight sections of the levels.

20. Forgotten Worlds

Forgotten Worlds was a pretty impressive arcade machine, with a dial where you could aim the gun through a full 360 degrees.

Naturally, you didn’t get the dial on the ST conversion, and there were other elements missing from the arcade with this release, but on the whole it was a really smooth and entertaining scrolling shooter.

Having another player to fight alongside you was even better, even when the inevitable question of “why are we flying, and what the hell I am supposed to be doing?” cropped up.

19. Footballer of the Year 2

I was never very good at football games, probably because I didn’t play football, but I enjoyed both the Footballer of the Year games on the Spectrum.

Footballer of the Year 2 on the ST didn’t differ a great deal from the Spectrum version, except for the better graphics. You could still end up losing yourself within the many layers of buying goal cards, take a chance mini-games, and that odd transfer routine where the scout was looking for a player who is excellent, and you were classed as being excellent, and he still wasn’t interested in you. Despite the fact you’re the only who has scored for Norwich City over an entire season!

18. Fallen Angel

As far as scrolling beat ‘em ups go, Fallen Angel was, admittedly, pretty dire. But there was something oddly addictive about it that made you want to carry on beating up chaps in suits and bowler hats, who hit you with umbrellas – because that’s what every Londoner looks like.

Flawed though the game may be, it actually looked and sounded better on the C64 than the ST, it was pretty cool and caused untold damage to the joystick as you beat up a hairy busker on the Underground.

17. Academy

Tau Ceti on the Spectrum was simply ground breaking, an astonishingly good game that took the old rubber keyboard by storm. Its sequel, Academy, did even better.

On the ST though, it didn’t fare quite as well, being squashed in between the more advanced 3D games that had already launched for a more powerful platform.

Academy is still a treat to play though, and if you enjoyed Tau Cetiand Academy on the Spectrum, then the ST version will put a smile on your face.

16. Blood Money

You couldn’t move for side scrolling shooters at one time, and the ST was the perfect platform for them to flourish on.

There were lots of them. One I had was a weird indie title, which escapes me now, that had you flying a ship that looked like a frying pan. It was silly, but incredibly addictive. Another shooter that I played until the disk went caput was Blood Money.

This was a startlingly good game, with superb sampled speech at the intro, an excellent soundtrack, fantastic animations, and some cunning level design where you could rise or fall vertically and enter a shop to spend your collected coins at. It was also David Jones’ (of Lemmings and GTA fame) second game after Menace.

15. Midwinter

It’s really quite amazing how far the ST could be stretched when there was an exceptionally talented programmer(s) behind the keyboard. In the case of Midwinter, we have an early form of FPS, set over a huge frozen post-apocalyptic wasteland map, where you’re tasked with recruiting individuals to the militia to help fight off an invading force.

It was years ahead of its time, and quite a complex game to get into. Once you dug deeper though, and traversed the land on your skis, you soon came across a hang-glider, snow buggy, and you could ride cable cars up the mountains. A remarkable game that no one seems to mention these days.

14. L.E.D. Storm

L.E.D. Storm was a cracking little game that I managed to pick up for a mere $1 from a charity shop. A top down racer that was fast, frantic and exceptionally addictive, L.E.D. Storm was a Capcom conversion that worked particularly well on the ST.

The L.E.D. part, as I’ve just discovered, stood for Laser Enhanced Destruction, not that it mattered a huge amount as you were glued to the screen from the second you started a level. In fact, you could finish a level and realize that you didn’t blink or breathe throughout the entire time. Also, there’s another amazing chip tune from Tim and Mike Follin, who (among other games) did the music for Chronos on the Spectrum.

13. Lethal Xcess: Wings Of Death 2

The vertical scrolling shooter scene was dominated by visions of Xenon and Xenon 2: Megablast, but in my humble opinion, the best vertical shooter for the ST was Lethal Xcess – yes, even better than the original Wings of Death (I’ll prepare to be flamed on that one).

The large sprites, frantic gameplay, two-player mayhem and so many enemies and gun fire on screen at once that your face turned into a grim mask of concentration when playing. It’s just one of those games you can happily play for hours on end, even after hearing that scornful laugh whenever you lost a life.

12. Sidewinder

While we’re on the subject of vertical scrolling shooters, another fine example is the vastly underappreciated Sidewinder. A Mastertronic budget title that, although simple, was immensely playable and had some great digitised explosion sounds.

Once the screen started to fill up with the enemy the noise that came from the old ST was chaotic. It also had a weird electric guitar-sounding title tune as well, if I remember correctly. Either way, another game that I spent far too much time in front of.

11. Electronic Pool

Dodgy physics aren’t a modern gaming phenomenon. Take Electronic Pool, a game where you could pot every ball from the off and struggle to pot one that’s directly over the pocket.

There was something oddly compelling about Electronic Pool though. The strange explosion sound as you hit a ball, the fact that the white could rocket around the table at warp 9, and the inevitable problem where the rules of Pool seem to be totally ignored. Still, regardless of all that, Electronic Pool was one of those games that I played when I just wanted my mind to wander aimlessly – the kind of thing you’ll find on MiniClip these days, I suppose.

10. Paco and the Tunnels of Doom

This odd little Boulder Dash game was, I think, something I picked up off the front of a magazine. It was written in STOS BASIC, and had Paco digging his/her/its way through the dirt to pickup diamonds. But you couldn’t move upwards unless you had dirt above you to dig into.

This resulted in a clever bit of forward planning as you started each level. It wasn’t particularity hard, but there were times when you suddenly realised there was no way you’d be able to get the half dozen or so diamonds left in the top corner of the screen. A fun waste of time.

9. Graham Gooch World Class Cricket

Moving away from the frantic blasting of aliens and such, the more sedate sport of cricket was often seen being played on my ST toward the end of its life.

I bought this game for my dad, who loved playing Test Match on the Spectrum, but rather than a resource management kind of xricket game, Graham Gooch World Class Cricket involved some fast thinking and joystick/mouse movement that he simply couldn’t get into.

I liked it though, and it lasted until I traded in the ST for my first PC.

8. Flood

Flood was an amazing platformer that you had climbing, jumping, swimming and blowing enemies up while you tried to find a portal to the level.

Each level was slowly flooding, hence the name, so you had to be quick enough to collect all the empty pop cans, packets of crisps and so on before the water level reached too high a point. And there was also a strange anti-you who followed you around the level intent on killing you off.

Between that lot, the levels got a little frantic, but the whole thing tied together nicely in a neat little package.

7. ATF 2

I absolutely loved ATF on the Spectrum, and ATF 2 on the ST was just as good as far as I was concerned.

It didn’t have the complexity of a full on flight sim, and there’s a lot more tactics involved than in the standard shooter or something visually similar like Afterburner. It was all about tipping the balance of power in your favour, something which could take some time but when you put the effort in was very rewarding.

6. Bonanza Bros.

Bonanza Bros. first appeared in the arcades, but I only got to play the ST version after borrowing it from a friend. It was a great little stealth game where you controlled Robo and Mobo who are tasked with testing the security of an unknown financer who pays you for lifting certain objects per level.

It’s a large, colorful game with a tight time limit and a difficulty level that’s soon ramped up. There are a few games recently that are a nod to the genius of Bonanza Bros., which just goes to show you how good it was, and still is. Although, to be fair it was a bit too short; two players though was immense fun.

5. Gobliiins

Gobliiins was a thoroughly odd, but interesting puzzle and adventure game. You control three goblins with different abilities, moving them through the wonderfully drawn scenes to find objects and solve puzzles, with the view to eventually stop the evil wizard from torturing the king with a voodoo doll.

Some of the puzzles were a little obscure, but the game was certainly original, and it had some great animations and comic moments.

4. Rod-Land

Okay, so Rod-Land is a bit of cutesy, simple platformer, but I rather liked it. The game was a little like Bubble Bobble, and probably a thousand other games of that type. But it was smooth, fun to play, and had some great animations.

The main draw for me was the fact that it actually felt like an arcade game in my bedroom, and not some shoddy conversion that lacked the key factors that made arcade games so good. It’s a game my daughter now plays via emulation and loves it. I even get to play two player with her, which as far as I’m concerned is what gaming is all about.

3. Tonic Tile

I have to admit that I never really liked Arkanoid. I can’t tell you what it was about Arkanoid that I didn’t like, but I much preferred the likes of Batty on the Spectrum, and especially Tonic Tile for the ST.

Tonic Tile had everything, a great soundtrack, fantastic graphics, fast gameplay, and that annoying issue with all break-the-wall games, when you’re left with a single brick that’s near impossible to hit. In my opinion, a much forgotten game that was better than Arkanoid.

2. Warhead

An amazing, yet unbelievably difficult game to master. Graphically, Warhead was incredible, a true 3D space shooter with nausea inducing tendencies and a cruel learning curve.

Once you got into it though, and mastered the whole quad-thruster and missile targeting thing, it was pretty splendid and you could spend hours warping from one star system to the next taking on the Sirian Armada.

1. Utopia

There was no shortage of city-wide management and god games available for the 16-bit platform. SimCity, Populous, Warmonger, and others were great titles, but one that doesn’t get quite as much love as the rest is Utopia.

Set somewhere between SimCity and Populous, Utopia has you building your colony in the familiar kind of 3D isometric view that most of this genre stuck to, utilising the advice from a collection of elders, and trying to increase the Quality of Life for your colonists while keeping attacking aliens at bay.

It was one of those games that draws you in, and won’t let you go until several hours have passed, and you realise your dinner has gone cold. There’s a lot going on in Utopia, and keeping on top of every little detail and micro-management was well worth the time invested.

Honourable mentions:

Mean Streets – A puzzle game where you got to fly around in a hover car and call up digitised people on your futuristic carphone. You also received faxes in-car as well. A bit dull at times, but interesting if you got into the mystery.

Impact – Another Arkanoid clone, looked really basic but as you broke the bricks it played a little tune.

Advanced Rugby Simulator – A Codemasters classic, I can’t remember if this is the one where the streaker appears mid-game?

Virus – Not so much underrated, but not talked about much these days. Virus was light years ahead of its time, but difficult to master.

Tai-Pan – Loved this on the Spectrum, pretty much everything was the same, even the music.

Star Trek: The Rebel Universe – An okay USS Enterprise sim, but with odd images of Kirk and Spock appearing to wear lipstick and pout.

Creatures – A decent, but tough, Thalamus title. Artwork by the legendary Oliver Frey too.

Anyway, what are your suggestions?