ZX Spectrum VS C64

This has probably been done to death on these forums but I missed out completely on the C64.

My experience with the Spectrum is quite limited too as I owned one for about a month before it just stopped working, they were super unreliable.

I also owned a VIC20 with a bunch of cartridge games someone left at their house when they moved out but I can only remember Radar Rat Race and the rest weren't worth playing.

But I did have a friend who's house I would go to alot and he was all about the Speccy and spent hundreds of hours (mostly watching) him pay loads of games and found them to be on the most part really good games.

Sure it could only have 1 colour per an 8x8 square of pixels and sounded quite basic but the games had something about them. Maybe it was the high clock speed that kept them running smoothly on top of the colour limitation, reserving clock cycles to concentrate more on the fps. The games also had a kind punk aesthetic due to the 8 (*gasp) colours splodging all over the place and mostly a black background which really leant them a certain charm...

I would have really enjoyed exploring the library but sadly it wasn't to be.

But would I have been better off with the C64 which has such a superb sound chip and I love electronic music too and may even have found out how to compose with it.

It's ancient history now but interested to hear people opinions on which would have been the best to own, way back in 1987.

I had a C128 fairly late. But, I dumped it in favor of a Tandy 1000SX (PC) which, in turn, I dumped for an A500 Amiga. I never messed with the Spectrum.

@jun_aka_pekto: No-one messes with the Spectrum. You treat it with ultimate respect at all times. Or it will crash on you.

As much as I loved my speccy, C64 was boss.

Commodore 64 was king. The Spectrum had a certain charm though, I will give you that. Check out Defender of the Crown on Commodore 64 as a proof to how advanced the machine was.

I've been watching a comparison video (I added to the opening comment) and I have to say, I'm 1 hour into the video and whilst, obviously the c64 has the mighty sid chip so is (almost) always going to win on music, I am eering on the side of the spectrum.

Those 8 colours are actually quite well chosen and really brighten up the screen whereas the c64 has more colours but has chosen a watercolour palette, even if it can do a different colour for each pixel.

The Spectrum games seem to be playing alot better, that is smooth frame rates, bigger sprites, more action. Poor colour and sound, sure but the games have a real playability to them I think.

I had a Spectrum as a kid and my cousin had a c64, so I got to play both, personally I preffered the spectrum because of the Dizzy games and Bomb Jack

@jackamomo: I had a 128k Spectrum and my sister had a C64, I think the C64 was better. The exception was Double Dragon which was better on Spectrum!

Spectrum for me, specifically for Chaos: the Battle of Wizards (which is like pretty much the only game to genuinely have aged well imo).