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But it is worth it because the device itself is a considerably better made piece of kit than the Vega.
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You can also use a PC monitor but the whole set-up seems needlessly restrictive to us. Why you’d want to do that we’re not sure but the only option at the moment for using a television is to stream it to a smart TV.
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It’s essentially a Bluetooth controller, but for some reason it’s obsessed with getting you to play the games via your phone or tablet – rather than a TV. Just as it implies it’s an actual recreation of the original computer, with all the keys and even the ability to program in BASIC. The Vega’s rival came out this week and takes an entirely different approach to reliving your childhood (or your dad’s at least). Vega does what it says on the tin, but none of it particularly well and all of it for an outrageously undeserved price. But if that’s the case the lack of curation on the ones that are included is baffling, as it’s missing dozens of major classics and is filled with tons of no-name games we’ve never heard of.
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You do get those 1,000 games but these are essentially free anyway, as we’ve been advised that it’s perfectly legal to download and play (by putting them on a SD card and slotting it into the Vega) any of the games from World of Spectrum. It all seems exceedingly cheap for what is basically an emulator in a box, which would be fine if it was actually cheap, but it’s not. The picture quality is poor whatever you seem to do and the whole device appears to have been designed without any awareness that HDTVs actually exist nowadays.
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The Vega plugs directly into your TV via a composite cable, but there’s no HDMI option and not even a power plug – just a USB socket that never seemed to work properly when plugged into our television. A fourth is used to bring up a menu and an onscreen keyboard.
There are another three ‘auxiliary’ buttons beneath them but they’re tiny and not suitable for action. These are made to look like the old Spectrum keys but they’re not as spongy and insubstantial as they used to be. It’s not a very ergonomic or well-made gamepad though, but instead a cheap-looking slab of black plastic with a D-pad on one side and four buttons placed rather awkwardly on the right. Instead it’s basically just a custom gamepad with 1,000 built-in games. As you can see it takes a fairly liberal approach to the Speccy’s ’80s aesthetic and doesn’t try to replicate the keyboard or any of the ordinary computer functions of the original. If you're a Speccie fan you'll probably want to get both, but it's hard to see how either will end up doing more than gathering dust after an initial burst of retro nostalgia.There must be some demand for these machines because although it only came out on August 24 the Vega is already sold out, and they’re not expecting stock back in until the end of this month. Both capture elements of the experience - the Recreated Spectrum is a beautiful rebuild of the original hardware, while the Vega crystallises the swarming, manic, creative community whose games fuelled part of the Spectrum's story - but both miss out on making what should be a definitive Spectrum time capsule.Īnd in the context of innumerable 'retro' gaming emulators, systems and websites, many of which are better-made or just cheaper than either of these, it's hard to recommend either of the Spectrums as more than a curiosity, at least at the current price. Unfortunately the truth is that neither the Recreated or Vega Spectrum do an excellent job of conjuring the magic of the old machine. The result is that using the Vega feels a little random and bizarre - flitting between various no-name games with barely sketched-out mechanics, occasionally stumbling on something amazing, but doing it all with a piece of hardware that is neither cheap, nor all that fun to use. So what's the difference, and if you must get your retro Spectrum fix, which is best?
Which is odd, because 2015 has seen not one but two resurrected versions of the console released to a relatively mainstream audience: The full-size, Bluetooth Recreated Sinclair ZX Spectrum (£89.99), and the mini ZX Spectrum Vega (£100). The original hardware was always, and still is, buggy and slow, while even the greatest games of the thousands programmed for the system are rough diamonds at best. What that means is that the Spectrum, in its varying forms, is both beloved and difficult to love.
But it also relied to some extent on enthusiasts and small teams coding relatively simple, often imperfect games, and looking back lacks a library of stand-out, globe-spanning classics enjoyed by some other contemporary systems, arcades and slightly later machines like the Nintendo Entertainment System. Commercially it was tremendously successful in the UK, and was available in varying forms for a decade after its 1982 release. The ZX Spectrum exists in an uneasy position in the annals of retro video games.
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