Villordsutch reviews Speccy Nation Vol.2 “The Digital Decade”…
The ZX Spectrum and myself go back a long way. Anyone who has stumbled across any homebrew gaming reviews or interviews of mine will see that I have an affinity with this classic, rather fantastic, Great British home computer and when the ability comes around to review something else attached to it, I grab it with both hands before anyone else gets the slightest chance to even look in. So, when Dan Whitehead announced that he was releasing Volume 2 to his 2012 Speccy Nation Vol.1, I was virtually sat upon his doorstep.
Dan Whitehead’s approach to recounting his life in gaming through the years of 1982 – 1992 isn’t done in a normal (as such) approach. Don’t get me wrong, it reads well and the information is all there, however reading Dan’s words you feel like you’re more in a conversation with a newfound classic gaming friend, who shares a love for your obsession too. You step from chapter to chapter, in this Digital Decade, covering such topics which include, “Toys and Cartoons”, “Pop Goes the Speccy” and “The Big Screen” and classic titles emerge including RoboCop, Trap Door and EastCnders and Dan doesn’t just pile on facts’n’figures there’s love for these games (or not) and it shows.
In the three-hundred plus pages there are numerous titles covered and it’s not just the big hitters that are placed in amongst the covers to fire the nostalgia synapses and make you feel warm inside. Mr. Whitehead also takes us down the path of the long-buried titles, the ones in which us teenagers – at the time – with hard-earned pocket and birthday money, wasted on dross like Droids, V along with the game that needs to be erased from history, Super Trolley. It’s odd looking back to see the nightmares that publishing companies spewed out at us, the unsuspecting kids of the day.
With nearly every game comes a screenshot; this is delivered in black & white – though clear – and it’s here I think the only minus point comes into play. Granted there are perhaps publishing costs to consider, but the ZX Spectrum was all about the colour – perhaps the clash too – so it would have been grand to have seen these images in glorious technicolour.
Speccy Nation Vol.2 “The Digital Decade” is an excellent piece of ZX Spectrum gaming history and anyone who loves the classic machine should be buying this today.
Rating: 9/10
Speccy Nation Vol.2 “The Digital Decade” is available to purchase from Amazon UK.
@Villordsutch
Originally published February 20, 2017. Updated March 2, 2020.
