From the addictive maze of Splat!, we turn to one of the Elite’s greatest titles that in truth never actually received a true official release, but first appeared as the free covertape game for Your Sinclair back in 1987. Batty has finally arrived in the Top 100 countdown, and it is one of this reviewers most favourite games ever!
Elite were famous for a number of titles including Commando, Bomb Jack and Ikari Warriors, and though routinely ribbed for being a two man team above a chip shop by certain members of the U.S. Gold team [as you can read in the The Story of U.S. Gold by Chris Wilkins] they still continued to publish strong titles. One such title was Batty; though it was unfairly judged next to Arkanoid – another Breakout clone – released a year earlier from Taito and on the home computers by Imagine Software, Batty was something extra special.
Where Arkanoid was visually a stark empty sterile affair that is clearly a Breakout clone, with a few additional power-up pills and aliens added, Batty – though still wearing Breakout on its sleeve – brings in a better looking, slightly larger screen, the bricks look better as do their game area layouts, and the power-ups are easier to make sense of; everything in the planning of this game has been given a shine.
When it comes to installing a new emulator on any machine the first game I trial is always Batty – if it runs well I’ll keep the software, however if it plays poorly I’ll ditch the software knowing Batty isn’t at fault.
Batty is one of the games that should be in everybody’s Top 10 ZX Spectrum games ever!
Originally published June 24, 2016. Updated June 30, 2023.
