When did you stop playing 8bit games?

[CCCP alert]

For me it was mid 1988, Salamander C64 is the last 8bit game I bought/played then the C64 was packed away forever.

You?

[dreadnought]

Never. Well, at least in my mind There's always a game of Renegade or Laser Squad going on in there.

[jPV]

When I got an A500 around 1990... my C64 was given in exchange to finance the A500. Years later I got few Commodore's 8bit machines again, and tried old favourites couple of times, but can't say I'd got into them anymore.

[kremiso]

never also here
back then, i reached to keep the c64 when i bought the Amiga

probably i have a bit abandoned both the Commodore machines during the first PS1 years, but surely not a divorce

[CCCP alert]

Weell quite, I did buy a VIC20, VCS and C64 again in the early 90s but I stopped buying/playing 8bit games for half a decade after R.I.S.K and Salamander and my best friend's CPC stopped working in 88 too and he also got an A500 along with my cousin who replaced his 64 in 88 too so none of us really had access to 8bit games and the NES/SMS was not for us and it was onto 16bit tech to match arcade hardware we had been playing since 86.

I actually prefer 8bit to 16bit games now and play them often but for that half decade period it was Amiga, 486 PC and 16bit consoles and nothing else.

I think it was the iconic 100 most remembered C64 games Amiga demo that rekindled my interest in 8bit so I swapped a Casio LCD pocket TV for a 64C and loads of games in the local paper around the time I got an A1200/486 PC in Oct 1992.

[gimbal]

Around the time I got games for the Amiga I guess My only 8-bit action was an Atari 2600.

[Amigajay]

Probably around 1992, even though i had my MS, then MD and GB then Amiga i certainly don’t stop playing older games because i have more advanced hardware in the house, a fun game is a fun game. Iirc my mum took the Spectrum to play scrabble on it and that was the last i saw of it!

[Predseda]

1991 C64 <--> A600.

I still play 8bit games time to time, but it is very rare occasion and those are mostly new games (Sam's Journey, Wolfling, Pigs quest).

[lmimmfn]

I sold my CPC around March 1990 for about 75% of the cost of an Amiga which I bought(saved some extra cash from summer work) ~September/October 1990.

The last CPC game I bought was ChaseHq which I finished and loved, so went out on a high note.

It was annoying not having a computer for several months but I enjoyed playing Golden Axe on my mates CPC.

I still play 8 bit games but do find some too hard now, probably because I don't have the patience I had back then(new games were expensive, even if a new game was difficult or crap I would play it until I could afford the next).
Also I guess we are getting slower with age

[DJ Mike]

It took until May 1994 before I moved up from a Speccy to the Amiga 600 I got as a birthday present. Up till then I laboured on in 8 bit. Let me tell you that felt like a lonely place indeed after the last UK magazine (Your Sinclair) packed up in 1993.

[Paulee_Alex_Bow]

I didn't - I had my original NES for ages, and in 1998 I got "Speccy Classix '98" on CD for my Amiga and played loads of Spectrum games that way.

[Anubis]

I did not stop, at least not yet.

I still like to mix games from all generations, for example just other day while testing Batocera I played a bit HERO for Atari 2600 followed by some Dreamcast and GameCube games.

[Coagulus]

I've never stopped. Once I stopped using my original machines I was using emulators instead and still do.

[CCCP alert]

I think the first emulators I got were for my PC around 93 downloaded from internet PCs at Uni for me. One I do remember is C64S for DOS and the first game I played on that was Wanted Monty Mole, still have that disk somewhere.

[Megalomaniac]

Great question.

Stopped originally in early 1992, kept the Spectrum in use for about 6 months after getting the Amiga, as I hadn't totally exhausted all the games I'd bought and I got the Amiga relatively suddenly. Even bought a couple more games that were very cheap, think I got Klax for something like £3 when the Amiga version would have cost me £20 and is probably little better. In 1987 a lot of 8-bit games were good enough to justify buying them for £10 instead of something similar on the Amiga or ST for £20-25, but by 1991 the gap had usually widened. C64 Turbo Outrun or Spectrum / Amstrad Chase HQ beat the Amiga versions of those games, but did they beat other well-coded similar Amiga games available by then?

Went back in the early emulation era once I had a PC, as 8-bits could be emulated to a decent standard so much earlier than Amigas. Not as early as 1993 though, I can't imagine the emulation performance having been great, especially for something as custom-chip-based as the C64 as opposed to the more off-the-shelf hardware of the Spectrum, same reason why the ST could be emulated sooner and on less powerful hardware than the Amiga. In truth it's generation 4 that has the biggest appeal to me, both in terms of nostalgia and the actual games, simply because by the time I got my first computer the 16-bits had come along. I was jealous enough of the C64 (and Amstrad, if there were any) screenshots on the box, long before seeing Amiga ones...

[PortuguesePilot]

Well... I would love to say "I never stopped" but I kinda did. In Christmas 1989 I got my brand new 512KB KS1.3 Amiga 500 and my trusty old Spectrum 128K +2 was almost immediately cast aside. I say "almost" because most of my school mates and friends still had the Spectrum and our game trading still was mostly done with Spectrum games. But the Amiga was a whole different level and I just didn't had it for the Speccy any more. I had craved an Amiga for so long, after watching some TV clips on a program called "Ponto por Ponto" [ Show youtube player ] and after having some experience on my dad's 16-bit XT-clone that once the Amiga came, it was virtually 'game over' for the good old Spectrum. So yeah, roughly 1990 I stopped playing on the Spectrum. Then, if I'm not mistaken roughly 1991 I got a NES and had a stint of Super Mario Bros mania but it was short lived as it felt lacking compared to what the Amiga provided. I'm excluding the Game Boy and the Game Gear from the conversation 'cos there were no 16-bit handhelds at this time. So yeah, playing an 8-bit with gusto, I stopped at around mid-1991.

It was about... can no longer precise but circa 2004/2005 that nostalgia came back kicking and I plugged back both may Amiga 500 and my Spectrum 128K +2 and I have been retrogaming with them ever since.

Fuelled by my new retrogaming phase, I started buying many old systems that I always wanted but never had (Mega Drive, SNES, PC Engine, MSX2, Atari ST, Amstrad CPC, etc) and have been actively playing with them 'till this day.

So, in effect, I only had a small pause from ~1991 to ~2005 in 8-bit gaming.

[roondar]

I kind of stopped playing circa 1992. And then I started again after 2010 or so. Though on a much lower level than other types of games.

[CCCP alert]

Yeah, that's aa good point, I got some disk contacts for the Amiga around 88, aa nice couple who lived close to my sister and they gave me loads of demos and a few games.

My 64 was in use still while I had my 520ST because they excelled at different types of games and I only had a tape deck as a 1541 was like half the price of what I paid for my ST and disk drive lol.

Mr friend got an STFM in 87 and gave me loads of ST cracked games because he hated me playing on the 64 as he was an Atari fanboy lol but you know there is nothing like Uridium and I can live with saving £10 on Bubble Bobble C64 etc. lol he kept bringing round ST demos with YM renditions of SID tunes too. Sword of Sodan was the turning point, I thought ST Defender of the Crown was great etc vs 64 port, Xenon 1 was cool too, better music than the 64 port too lol weird transition time.

[Lilura]

I'm another one who never really stopped gaming on the 8-bits, even after the advent of the 16-bits.

There were just too many good games on the C64 and Speccy. For example, the C64 hosted 23 shoot 'em up masterpieces between '84 and '87.

Commodore 64 Shoot em ups Listed in Chronological Order

For me, the C64's games catalogue was too extensive to shelve it. And still I find myself playing C64/Speccy games in 2024.

[phx]

As soon as the A1000 was set up and running (spring 1987) the C64 went into the shelves and was never used again (still have it, together with the VIC-20).

This doesn't mean I never played an 8-bit game again. I certainly played a game of Paradroid or Fort Apocalypse via emulation at some point. But I never really looked back to the 8-bit systems, like I'm doing to the Amiga today.