Attack of the Clones

Years before I ever played games like Asteroids, Pac-Man or Defender in the arcade I played a number of very (very) similar games on my older brother's BBC Micro B. Only, they weren't called Asteroids, Pac-Man or Defender, they were called Meteors, Snapper and Planetoid and they were some of the many clones created by companies like Acornsoft, Micro Power and Superior Software. I never questioned the similarities at the time, but thinking about it now, the BBC B had rather a lot of blatant rip o— ahem, I mean clo— err, I meant homages to classic arcade games. And although I cannot speak for many other computers and consoles of that era, I'm pretty sure systems like the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum had their fair share of clones too.

Here are a few of the BBC B games I can remember — see if you can work out what arcade games they were based on:

 

 

 

I think you'll agree, all rather blatant and I doubt, in today's more copyright conscious society, Acornsoft, Micro Power or Superior Software could have got away with it. Still, as my memory serves, they were generally pretty good clones.

For more classic BBC B games check out http://www.bbcmicrogames.com

MTW