It's the final Countdown!
It's got to that time again. As I write, a deadline is looming for the one publication that I [still] opine for, and that's the now famous (almost) BreakSpace. My previous record for number of reviews was in the low 20s, but for this issue, I've gone a couple better. One only imagines how many reviews I could have written if I wasn't wasting so much time playing Sinclair ZX Spectrum games.
It hasn't gone unnoticed that the quality of entertainment software is now much better than it was in the early days, and by that, I mean from around 2002 onwards when new wares were in the hands of just a few people. Now we're in a very definite peak. A stock market analogy would be that it's a Bull Market, and there's a feel of the good old days about it, when you almost couldn't keep up with new releases on popular systems like the Spectrum.
What's helped is not just a renewed interest in the rubber-clad micro, but the numerous clones, including The Spectrum which if nothing else continues to be a commercial success, likely far outselling all other clones regardless of how much "better" those [clones] happen to be. I still say the Omni 128 HD is the best clone of all, although nearly everyone disagrees with that sentiment. But I'm used to being an outlier with a different world view than others.
All of this has me pondering a question: when will this Bull Market become a Bear Market?
My own daughter has some nostalgia for Speccy software, she loves the EggHead games; especially EggHead II. But then she is her father's daughter. There is one person who may carry on the 8-bit legacy into this century and who is currently under the age of 35. I suspect that she isn't the only one: her friends enjoy 8-bit games too, because there's something refreshing about them to this new generation of gamers. Most are way more difficult than modern titles, even those inspired by 1980s and 1990s gaming. There is no hand-holding. You are thrown into the deep end and expected to swim right away. No tutorials. No explainers. Just get on with it!
Whatever the future holds, 8-bit computing and gaming has been a part of my life since the 1990s, and if I'm the last person alive still entertaining myself with these ancient technologies, through programming, gaming or whatever they can do, then so be it. But enjoy this time: Bear Markets don't last forever!
