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Knightlore really was groundbreaking. I could not believe how amazing it was when I played it when it first came out.

@lucasoheyze4597

2 жыл бұрын

Don't be daft

@raggersragnarsson6255

Жыл бұрын

@@lucasoheyze4597 it was damn great as a kid at the time

Thank you for 37 minutes of pure nostalgic joy. Interesting and fascinating, too. Hearing that "bip!" when a Spectrum game finished loading still gets me excited!

After the brilliance of Atic Atac, Sabre Wulf and Knight Lore, I couldn't beilieve how bad Nightshade was.

I used to play Gunfright on the MSX at a friend's house, back in the days. We really got into it, trying to track down the outlaws. Only with the release of Rare Replay did this game take prominence in my consciousness again and did I realize it was a Rare / Ultimate game.

Superb documentary, thank you for the memories. JET PAC - who thought it was hard? Well, my older brother noticed the score (like almost all UPTG games) was only 6 digits, 000000. He wondered what would happen if you got to 999999 - then what happens? But he set himself the challenge of getting there without killing anything! WTH? Just repeatedly building the spaceship. He made his own 'Achievement' lol before they even existed! And of course he did it - maybe just to prove how awesome big brothers can be? :)

Ahhhhh man you beat me! I was going to do this one! hahahaha. Love Ultimate

Used to go in to their parents newsagents on “The Green” in Ashby-de-la-Zouch (where I went to school) to buy the new Speccy games. Ultimate games were great.

A Thumb-up for the superb KnightLore guitar solo alone! Thanks Kim -- loved this content. Pure nostagic escapism.

An excellent video and pretty much spot on with regard to accuracy and sentiment. I remember back in 1983 before I had even heard of them, or played any of their games.....being completely spellbound and in awe at their magazine advertisements. Even the ads had an air of magic and mystery, and that something very special was there to buy. Oh and yes, it really was sheer excitement and fever pitch with each release. The days of either going to town to buy them, or round to a friend's house after school and seeing the smug grin on their face, because they happened to get the game before you did. Also although the Commodore 64 games were bad and their community did not take to ULTIMATE games (none of my C64 owning friends had a single game), the same was not true for the Amstrad CPC. Just about all the games played and looked as good if not better than the ZX Spectrum. I owned both computers during the 1980s, so I remember and owned all the versions very well.

I'm ill today and not in work. But this cheered me up no end. You're awesome and I love you.

@tomkrawec

7 жыл бұрын

P.S. I played many of these titles in their BBC B conversions which, I suspect, were pretty faithful unless my nostalgia for the Beeb is covering up my memories. Sadly they were cheap pirates without manuals and I never had any idea what I was doing. Atic Atac was my favourite but even then I felt like I was traipsing around randomly. I played hours of Sabre Wulf and had no idea it was even completable -- I'm not sure I even collected one of the four MacGuffins which end the game.

fantastic documentary and brought back so many good memories..hours, days, entire summer holidays gobbled up by Ultimate games. Lunar Jetman was, and is, always my favourite, then Alien 8, but the '83 first wave of titles are just astonishing. I remember being very underwhelmed by Nightshade though, especially as I'd saved pocket money for weeks to buy it. Ultimate PAY The Game. thanks again, really enjoyed it

This is great. I'd love to see a video on Hewson Consultants - another true legend of the Spectrum era.

@count69

6 жыл бұрын

Avalon/Dragontorc is possibly the greatest game ever created. It's up there with Doom/Quake.

The first game that I played on a home computer as far as I remember outside of Pong or an Atari. Whist my parents were food shopping I visited a computer store in 1983 and played Jetpac on a demo Spectrum. It was so good I was announced on the shopping centre tannoy as a lost child lol. I never shut up about this experience after that. That year at Xmas my parents queued for hours to buy me a speccy 48k for Xmas and I received one then played this game to death. Thanks parents once again. That computer shop visit changed my life. I've always had a lot of respect for Ultimate games as they did have some quality for the money at the time when your paper round money was tight. Thank you for this once again. Also Knight Lore ruled as well. I would love to play it again.

This was wonderful. I have no connection to any of these games, but this was wonderful nonetheless. Always been curious about Knight Lore since Solstice always looked so cool...

Brilliant bass playing from Kim and a fascinating documentary about Ultimate.

another great retro-vid, glad i subscribed. i remember playing all the ultimate stuff first time around from 83 onwards, i still have the entire map to most of the games memorised in my head! thanks for sharin, always a joy to watch :)

Wow, you are making the absolute best gaming related documentaries on KZread! Thank you so much for the time and effort you put into this, it really shows and I've learned a lot from them :)

Excellent documentary. Thank you!

didn't have a zx growing up but Sabrewulf is one of my top 25 games

haha audio from Knightmare @ 8:52 that UTV show where school kids walked around green screen "dungeons" while their mates gave them terrible suggestions and directions. You are killing it with the music Kim!

@Etcher

6 жыл бұрын

oh and then watching for anther 40 secs shows me why the music is there :)

Thank you so much for your hard work. These retrospective documentaries are brilliant.

The high quality of your releases continues! This was another excellent video! Well done Kim!

Oh my. Knight Lore and Sabre Wulf. Two games that I spent many an hour playing. Wonderful stuff.

Thank you for this, well worth watching, s usual, very much appreciated. I look forward to the next one!

From the days of Jetman and Sabreman, we soon got Kuros (Wizards & Warriors), Digger T. Rock, the Battletoads (Pimple, Zitz and Rash), Fulgore, Jago, B. Orchid, Banjo & Kazooie, Juno & Vela, Joanna Dark, Conker & Berri, Cooper Chance (Grabbed by the Ghoulies), Kameo, the Pinatas and the pirates of Sea of Thieves. Brilliant!

Thanks SO much for making these vids bruv. They've really given me a blast from the past. Cheers

This was my favourite dev on the speccy. Loved all their games I played and Yes. Atic Atac was my favourite. Luv and Peace.

aaaaahhhhhhh......great days. loved the black big boxes. so expensive looking. great video.

My uncle absolutely LOVED Sabre Wulf and I had to wait hours for a go at the computer :P (and I absolutely love him, not the least for introducing me to those games)

Second time I've watched this - really good documentary with loads of background info.

I wonder if the 1983 arcade game 'Congo Bongo' also had a small influence on Knight Lore? Also Isometric and features a main character in a safari suit! Another great video, as always. Thanks Kim.

Just a note about the distribution of Sabre Wolf. I think I remember correctly that it was Centresoft who insisted that you bought 50 copies of the game or they wouldn't allow you have it on the release date. I worked at a small computer shop at the time and had to convince the managers that it was worth it!

Great video! It's nice to see footage from some of the games i used to play as a kid.

underwurlde is one of the most frustating games I have ever played, and I bought it when it first came out

@tufty7026

2 жыл бұрын

Same. But you could get mobs to glitch bounce you past the guardians ;)

Its awesome coming home from work and seeing a new Kim justice video has been uploaded :)

This is probably my favorite retrospective of yours. :)

one of the misic tracks you played nearly drove me mental. I knew I knew it but all kept thinking was Castlevania II but I finally remembered that ot was Nightmare on Elm Street on the NES. Anyway another great video. I usually will have them constantly replaying them in the background whilst writing , at my job and even whilst playing games!

Ah, Ultimate! These were by far and away the one house whose games were worth spending money on every time. Jet Pac was glorious, Lunar Jetman was infuriatingly addictive, but all of them had their charm and I played almost all of them for hours. Atic Atac was the one I probably spent the most time on and I never actually completed it. But when I saw Knight Lore, I was blown away by it. I'd never seen the humble Speccy do so much and, if anything, it delayed my dropping old rubber keys in favour of the C64 by many months. I still remember this company fondly for the many, many hours of entertainment they gave me back in my early teens.

Wow, thnks' for posting.....started with a zx81 graduated to a spectrum 48k and was a massive ultimate fan....had most of the titles....thanks' for the memory :O)

another great video, love these 8 bit memories.

Great documentary. I was there! Thanks so much.

Great stuff! Thanks for making the video!

I am new to your videos but I just have to say they are totally amazing. Really professional, well constructed and narrated. Better than most of the TV we have. I have really enjoyed the ones I have watched and looking forward to the others.

@pecker2-9

4 жыл бұрын

Yeah, if your a child of 1980s England it really is a trip down memory lane, I had forgotten about a lot of these spectrum games & what they looked like.

My first 2 ZX games were Phoenix and Cookie and you're right Cookie was very difficult but fun.

Fantastic video as always, Kim :) Got so pumped when I heard the Knightmare theme.

@antster1983

7 жыл бұрын

"Where am I?" "You're in an 8-bit computer game."

7:24 Wait a second, did the computer just drop an F-bomb? Haha! Funny.

Glad to hear the Knightmare tv theme, you do nostalgia well!

Another brilliant video. I love this sort of stuff. And I've never really even heard of Pssst before.

The ultimate bass intro. One of the greatest documentaries about a speccy development company ever. 😃💊💉😎😘😃

I was counting the days until your next documentary and was taken by storm as I had thought it would be for another European software house but had no clue the Rare had British roots, again I can't say this enough but that's for this amazingly made piece of art you simply rock Kim Justice.

@KaitainCPS

Жыл бұрын

British roots? Ultimate/Rare are British, full stop.

Thks a lot for this great story as Ultimate and Codemasters are still my two fav Speccy game studios!

Excellent documentary, loved it.

Thanks for posting this informative and great video. Most of the Ultimate titles you mentioned I spend many hours on on the MSX. Cyberrun was strange enough one of my favorites. Btw, I discovered your channel through Ashens channel who mentions you in his latest video.

My dear uncles loved Ultimate games (specially Sabre Wulf) and as such they're my earliest memories ever of video games 🥰

I enjoy your stuff so much, keep up the amazing work!

fun fact: dave thomas was also behind the c64 port of the little known arcade game buggy boy, one of the better arcade ports on the micros.

Great work Kim. What an epic burst of creativity Ultimate enjoyed in 1984! The gaming equivalent of Frankie Goes to Hollywood!.

Great documentary, well done 👌👌

These are great. Thanks!

Just seeing clips of Lunar Jetman caused PTSD style flashbacks. That game was suicide inducingly frustrating and I don't know anybody who managed to survive more than about twenty seconds at a time. They don't make games like that any more!

thank you SO MUCH. Way back in the early 1990s my brother or cousin rented an NES game that was way beyond me. I've been wanting to try it as an adult for the longest time, but had no idea what it was called and describing it no one knew what I was talking about. But I'm 98% sure that it's SOLSTICE! Thank you!

Awesome as always Kim!

I remember playing Sabre Wulf on my Commodore 64 but it was called Wizard's Lair (and mimicked the wild colors of the ZX Spectrum as well).

@andyarch73

8 жыл бұрын

Wizard's Lair was a different game, by Bubble Bus software. It just looked very similar to Sabre Wulf.

Spectrum was never popular around here, so these retrospectives have been quite informative. Even Solar Jetman makes some sense now.

Another great one, thanks!

Just found your channel! awesome!

@nuketowncity

8 жыл бұрын

+SupaNintendoGirl Supa !!!!

@sams1170

8 жыл бұрын

+SupaNintendoGirl cool :) you're in for a treat

Another great video, thanks.

Awesome vid!

OMG that Mire Mare fan game at 28:38 looks AMAZING! Even for today! I'd totally love to play a game like that and exactly the same graphics on modern systems.

Each Ultimate release back in the day was the talk of the playground everyone wanted to play them, and we would wait with baited breath for the first friend to get a copy. Great day's.

Superb. Thank you!

Amazing video! Thanks

Your videos are fantastic.

Ah, the good old days. I enjoyed Ultimate's games on my old Amstrad CPC464. Those were the good days...

Very nice bit of two handed bass hammering or tapping or whatever you call it 🤘🔥

Only subbed your channel a few weeks ago but made good progress going through your back catalogue. Outstanding channel you have here, wonderfully captures the nostalgic glory of our retro gaming days in a very detailed and witty way. I really like the way you are developing your programming skills in these more recent documentaries. Ultimate were by far my most favourite software house from the early 80s. Atic Atac will always be my most favourite and memorable of the lot. oh and the Curah speech... awesome bit of kit, not only bring voice synthesis but also made the speccy sound come out the TV... who needed a C64 with Vectron title tune coming out the speakers!!!!! -Tim Follin FTW!

Me parece increíble la calidad de los juegos que hacían en ultimate para la spectrum, nunca tuve la suerte de tener esta maravilla de pc gaming,pero si pude ver juegos y la misma spectrum. Si tuviera que comenzar a coleccionar seguramente lo aria con spectrum, cuanto potencial en una sola cinta de cassette, buen video!

Excellent documentary

Well done Kim another great video, I even shared it on my Twitter

@FoxyStoats

8 жыл бұрын

+Playnation Games If not U.S Gold, then I wouldn't mind seeing the rise and fall of Imagine.

lol i had the curra speech addon but I wish you would review the sinclair microdrive or even the cartridge gadget my cousin owned,grrrrrr(This had support for two joysticks. lol) As bizarre as your videos are I feel you do total justice. well done and please keep up your video reviews as I find your content very entertaining and of great historical value. ps i have been truly intrigued by your reviews and dare I admit it addicted to 8 bit to this day:) Thank you kim and GOD BLESS YOU!!

Great bio, i remember all the games!...

love this intro! more of that please kim! :-)

Jetpac can also be found in Time Splitters 2

Another great vid I think a lot of the big software companies can learn from these guys and gain a lot of respect from gamers. Infact with Indie games getting the same status as bedroom gamers this is a great example on how to run your buisness

love the bass intro ! \m/

Sabrewulf is one of my all time favourite games, didn't complete it until I got it on the Xbox One

Before cancelled RARE games like Dinosaur Planet and Project Dream became a thing, Ultimate became known for their unreleased but often mythical Sabreman game called Mire Mare. There was a theory that Mire Mare was almost finished but was left unreleased due to Ultimate already being purchased by US Gold and the Stamper Bros already formed RARE to focus on reverse engineer the Famicom.

6:23 - Music to HIGH SPEED on the NES..LOVED that game!!!

Excellent documentary +Kim Justice, that brought back many memories. D'you know if that guitar intro taken from in-game is an original song or composed for the actual game? Also, any plans of doing a Gargoyle Games documentary?

It was Jet Pac which changed my mind about the Speccy. I was a C64 guy at first who rated the Spectrum as a mere curiosity with spongy rubber keys and laughable frogs-and-crickets sounds that emanated from the builtin speaker. Then a friend of mine got one and three games: Atic Atac, Penetrator and Jet Pac. I fell in love with Jet Pac and we spent many hours playing the game to hell and back. The lesson I learned from this was that it's all about the game and gameplay, not the machine it runs on. Later on a C64 port was announced but never saw the light of day, this was what finally made me buy a 48k Speccy and the game. I stupidly sold my Speccy stuff in the 90s but now own a +2 again and keep on playing all the good games the system has to offer, and there are loads and loads of them.

@leopold7562

4 жыл бұрын

Interesting that you went from the C64 to the Spectrum. Everyone I know (including me) went in the other direction.

It's a shame that there isn't the same excitement now, as there was when each (not just particular) new game was released back in the early to mid eighties. Or is it just me?

@mrpositronia

8 жыл бұрын

+Lynchology101 nicely put. Another example: I buy a budget title because I liked the artwork on the cassette cover, it turns out to be a great little game. I then get to tell my mates at school about it because it hasn't been mentioned in any mags previously.

The ZX Spectrum originally shipped with either 16 or 48k from it's initial release. 2:50

@alien8r33d

6 жыл бұрын

I was about to point this out myself.

I love Mondays. I've re-christened it Kimday

Hey Kim. Any chance you could do a video on Codemasters and the Dizzy games? Absolutely love your videos. Easily the most informative.

@LucasRazorBlade

7 жыл бұрын

Yeeees! I'd love if he'd do that!

Awesome vid....

An interesting retrospective. My favourite Ultimate games were Jetpac, Sabre Wulf and Knight Lore. I gave Lunar Jetman and Atic Atac a fair go, but they just didn't quite hook me as much.

Awesome video Kim! learned lot about Brit games

@gastonalexisestevez1417

7 жыл бұрын

ijjzjjk

Jetpac was the very first video game I played in my life.

Good documentary with a nice style! So these Stamper brothers did created original Battle Toads? I've never expected that they were from ZX Spectrum basically if so.