Back in the 1980’s when I wasn’t high as I kite on Wham Bars, Highland Toffee and Tizer, you would either find me in a darkened corner of my bedroom listening to the screeches of my ZX Spectrum loading, or huddled in another corner trying to out-number my friends with the current favourite pack of Top Trumps. That’s how we rolled. Now decades later, from Gift Alien, comes something that feeds into two pieces of my childhood in one lovely cassette box.
For those that never had the pleasure of Top Trumping, the game involved a pack of cards with a particular theme: high-powered cars, dinosaurs, or something to do with War; generally at the time boy stuff. These cards came with ‘stats’ relating to super cars, tanks etc and they were dealt out amongst you and your mates, it was then your job to out ‘stat’ your mates until you had all the cards. Top Trumps are still going now, though they’re more for all genders and quite collectable, I’m looking at my unopened Borderlands 2 deck as I type. Yes I am a nerd.
However, going back to Gift Alien’s latest release, the “ZX Spectrum Classic Game Challenge” shows their love of both Retro and all things ZX Spectrum, as they’ve brought together something rather beautiful to break out on game nights amongst friends of a similar ilk. Following the same idea as the classic Top Trumps, the deck is split amongst friends (recommended two, but I’ve played it with three easy) and instead of super cars or machines of war to stare at, you’re playing with computer games that appeared on the ZX Spectrum.
Titles range from the classics such as Wanted Monty Mole, Skool Daze, Manic Miner and Jack the Nipper, to the not so classic Pi-EYed, New Wheels John? and Ninja Scooter Sim. As before it’s then a battle of the stats, which include Playability, Graphics and Addictivity. Here you can win or lose the hand and eventually the deck, with the final two stats on the card reading, “Runs on 16K” & “Exclusive to ZX Spectrum”; these being both a difficult stat to beat.
The cards, as you can see, look quite brilliant. Each delivering a clear colour screenshot of the game, the ZX Spectrum font used for the stats and surrounding each card is the loading screen “Yellow & blue” or “Red&Blue”, the loading screen depends on the two final stats. Along with this the back of the cards are totally black except for the Sinclair rainbow and the Get Alien logo. Then rather fantastically, they are stored within a plastic cassette box for a real dose of nostalgia.
If you’re a ZX Spectrum fan, retrogaming fan or know somebody that is and fancy just being nice to them today you can pick the ZX Spectrum Classic Game Challenge now from GiftAlien.com at only £4.99 including postage (UK) and I think they’d be very happy with it.
Originally published July 27, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
