Review: The Story of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum in Pixels Volume 2
I reviewed The Story of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum in Pixels Volume 1 a little while ago. You can read what I thought about that book here.
Volume 2 continues with the same amount of love for the subject matter, attention to detail and massively high standards set in the first book. Volume 2 is set out in a similar way to volume 1, featuring screenshots and box art of classic Speccy games and memoirs from people who love the Spectrum.
The book opens with the former editor of Retro Gamer; Martyn Carroll, who talks about the lost art of loading screens. Who could forget the shrill sound of the tape loading or the slowly cascading pixels as they appeared on the screen? This would whet your appetite for the game to come. It would also be the screen you would stare at for the next 5 or so minutes hoping and praying that the game didn’t crash. Its a great way to open the book.
Then there are a couple of pages featuring peripherals for the Spectrum before we get onto the main section of the book and once again my favourite part; the games.
There are close to 100 games that appear in the book, all beautifully presented with double pages featuring; the box art, loading screen, logo of the publisher and screen shot from the game itself. Then there is a paragraph reminiscing about the game. This was my favourite part of volume 1 and it is my favourite part of volume 2. Its like walking down memory lane reading this beautiful section.
The final section of the book features more memoirs from members of the industry such as Oliver Frey who created some of the wonderful and memorable covers for Crash magazine. These pages also feature classic adverts for the Spectrum that would have appeared in computer game magazines back in the day.
Once again Chris Wilkins has produced a wonderful book, beautifully presented and is a must own for any lover of the Spectrum. I await volume 3 with bated breath.
The Story of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum in Pixels Volume 2 can be purchased from Fusionretrobooks.com
Review by Chris (co-host of 60 Minutes With and ‘The Same Coin‘)
