It’s been almost 30 years since Bug-Byte released Matthew Smith’s ZX Spectrum classic Manic Miner with great success, and now Elite Systems are working on bringing that very game to the current generation on XBLIG. First it has to go through the “peer review” process however, meaning that other developers on the platform need to verify its contents before it gets green-lighted for release.

They have been developing and publishing games since 1984 so Elite Systems have quite a history in the industry and they’ve also ported ZX Spectrum games to mobile platforms with ZX Spectrum: Elite Collection on iOS and even a Blackberry version of the classic newspaper-throwing arcade game Paperboy, but this is XBLIG and that’s quite a different beast altogether. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad choice for a console port of Manic Miner though!

And if anyone is worried that this will be some fancy remake that has little in common with the original: Stop worrying right now and look at the screenshot below, because I’d say that’s a clear indication that this port is as close to the original as possible.

Still not convinced?

• Full-screen and bordered portrait play/display modes
• Pixel filtering on/off option
• ‘Auto-save’, on exiting the game
• Authentic ‘Spectrum’ sound
• Infinite lives option

While some will without a doubt prefer original look, there are those who prefer using a visual filter to get rid of them. And speaking of staying true to the original, they’re certainly going the extra mile: “Authentic ‘Spectrum’ sound”. It won’t be something to test that new 5.1 setup with, but this is a port and not  a remake so anything else would seem a bit out-of-place.

With the original version of Manic Miner selling in excess of 5 million units and several ports in the years following its initial release, there’s no denying its status as a classic and as such, expectations are bound to be high for this version. Time will tell if it makes it through the peer review in one piece!

For more info on Elite Systems, check out their website and follow them on Twitter.

(Source)

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