Best BBC Micro Game

For the purposes of my computer game commentary I refer to Acorn's BBC Micro of 1981 as a Western computer game machine. The BBC Micro is also known as "The Beeb".

The BBC Micro is powered by an 8-bit MOS Tech 6502/6512 clocked at 2 MHz. RAM on the BBC Micro ranges from 16 to 128 kbytes.

The BBC Micro features eight main video display modes that range from high-resolution broadcast teletext modes to low resolution "gaming" modes. With coding tricks modes can even be used in combination. For example, 2D cockpit graphics displayed by one mode and 3D viewport displayed by another. As with most micros, the higher the resolution the lower the color-count. For example, the Beeb can display B&W (monochrome) in 640x256 or 16 colors in 160x256. Unlike the ZX Spectrum, the Beeb does not suffer from color-clash.

The best BBC Micro game is David Braben's Elite of 1984. In my estimation Elite is the greatest computer or video game of all-time (and Sid Meier's Civilization is the greatest franchise).

Another ground-breaking BBC Micro game was Geoff Crammond's Revs of 1985, which was the first fully 3D autoracing simulator to appear on a personal computer.

Early BBC Micro shoot 'em ups include Simon Vout's Vortex and Peter Irvin's Starship Command. Vortex is a Gyruss-like whereas Starship Command is an Asteroids-like.

Jeremy C. Smith's Thrust of 1986 was another BBC Micro-first. Thrust is a Gravitar-like.

cf.

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• History of Computer Games (Master Index)