Xenon On PC Format wasnt really just a 'free coverdisc game". It was a series of "how to program" articles in the magazine, where you coded along with them to make said game. (Which is why it's not super fast/finished/music/etc etc)
Kim. I love your eloquence and your ability to captivate through simple yet, enthralling narration. Your wordsmithship creates a tone making what could be dull and tedious into an interesting fact based cacophony of encyclopaedic warmth. It's a wonder you haven't been invited to present on a terrestrial platform. Keep up the great work. I love it
I get the sense that if it werent for Debbie, Team 17 May not have made it till today. She turned a sort of sleepy company that was about to lose its steam to a publishing label that excites me with every release and announcement that they make. I'm glad to here she got the recognition she deserved!
“While this didn’t necessarily translate to all night cocaine binges”…. You don’t know how many times I have uttered that exact same sentence while figuring out my documentary on my own life! 😂😂😂
Bitmap brothers are legends, if you finished God's you felt like a fucking God. Still kicking my arse to this day, I'm sure it was on Megadrive too and a pretty decent port.
Incredible work, Kim... though I wish Gremlin, Bullfrog, Psygnosis and Ocean could've made an appearance too! Part 2, anyone...?! All love - merry Christmas
Outstanding commentary and I really like to see the people, magazines, gameplay and all visual bits. Great research and presentation. I'm really happy to catch up on the stuff I didn't know back then. Thanks for that! Happy Holidays!
Bitmap Brothers were one of my favourite Amiga devs back in the day and Speedball 2 was one of my favourite Amiga games, great single and multi player. Choas Engine was pretty cool too
I only just found your channel and as you can probably tell by the amount I'm spamming your comment section that I'm really enjoying your content. I'll try to chip in and lend you a little monetary support in the new year. Thanks Kim!
Good in depth video I'm pleased to see my favorite Amiga 3d game Wings get the proper respect it deserves thank you I have spent countless hours dogfighting back in the day and with the 1mb memory upgrade on my A600hd it ran like a dream
These were such awesome documentaries! I've seen 100s of videos about the rise and fall of Commodore and the tedious business aspects of the Amiga, so it's refreshing and very welcome to get a comprehensive documentary about some of the games and developers - the stuff most of us Amiga owners were most interested in. Thanks Kim.
Kim, I say this in kindness, but I love your videos despite knowing next to nothing about the British home computer scene of the 80s. I can honestly tell your love an adoration to the topic and I love it.
This video started autoplaying after some other and I kept listening. At the first mention of Bitmap Brothers I immediately remembered Speedball and Chaos Engine (namely #2 of both) from my youth with Amiga 500. Had to Google for it and turned out my memory was indeed correct. Didn't remember Cadaver though which was one of the big ones for me along with the two others mentioned above. Oh boy, those guys were legends back in the days.
I'm an American, and I never understood US Gold until you mentioned it wasn't in America. Thank your for this fantastic compilation- I've been trying to look into game development history outside of the US.
Wings and It came from the desert are still among my favourite games. Me and a friend spent most part of a whole summer playing them without ever growing tired of it. Wings sparked my interest in the WW1 war in the skies and after reading Richthofen's diary and other document from that time it seems as if Cinemaware really managed to capture the feel of the time and were really accurate about the dates. At one point in the game you are being chased by the Red Baron and have one hell of a nightmarish time trying to beat him. If I remember correctly that exact date is when Richthofen was shot down and wounded for real.
I'm going to rewatch all these in this nice all in one video; the Bitmap Brothers was the first attempt I remember at trying to pesent video game developers like they were pop stars. Haven't quite seen anything quite like it since.
Oh man this is a bit of a blast from the past. Worked briefly over at the Bitmaps office (think it might have been QA on Speedball 2000). Z though :( I hate RTS games anyway and installing this and solving a level of the game was part of the interview at GT! I somehow bluffed my way through it lol John Hare used to pass through GT sometimes, I'd always say hello and all that. Our GT 11 a side football team played Sensi's team in a match. Seem to remember it being really close! Those were the days. Also had to work on that 3D Sensi on the PSX too...oh dear Nice video!
Gods remastered is on Steam but by a different developer. You can change from the original game to the remastered one. Just checked to see if it's still on Steam shop but has now been removed since the 27th of March.
team 17 pushed the amiga to the limits,project x one of the most graphicly best games in that time on limited hardware.had the amiga 1200/amiga cd survived who know what they would have brought out.
Looking back, Amiga Power got it right. A LOT of Amiga games scored FAR too high in magazines. Especially when you compare, say Body Blows, to what was on offer on consoles (and that's fair, especially considering what the Amiga was actually capable of). Team 17 had a few nice titles (really liked first Alien Breed), but most of them were, meh (Project X), just clunky (Assassin) or very average (Super Frog). Certainly NOT the Game gods some people thought they were. Didn't agree with the low score on Worms though, but this was not really a title by Team17 themselves (nor was Apidya ofcourse). Great vid!
Just a few notes on pronunciation - silicon is 'silakon' (not the tiling and boobjob stuff, lol), Tír na n-óg is nearest to 'cheer na noeg', and Riordan would be 'reerdan' (In Ireland, anyway), though yous was nearer to how the syllables are treated in Irish
There are so much more British companies that haven’t yet been covered: Elite Systems Hewson Consultants Argonaut Games Rare (formerly known as Rareware) DMA Design Reflections TT Games Stainless Games (creators of Carmageddon) Core Design Climax Domark/Eidos Criterion (creators of Burnout and Black) Creative Assembly (creators of Total War)
So, I've seen all of those back in the day. What surprised me was Cinemaware. They started with a brilliant business decision: "Average Amiga owners won't play typical games, we need to be different!" and died because of "Let's FMV *all the things!*. No matter there are little to no CD based systems out there!". Seems they lost patience and went too wild.
35:00 As for what became Bitmap Brothers founders, Eric Mathews was appointed at a big wig executive at SCEE and I think he was for a time head of studio of Sony Cambridge. Not quite a programming position in the end :)
on donkey kong and donkey king on the Dragon 32 u have have to master the pattern of the barrels thrown down - i did this and i have mastered the game fully with over 900,000 points
I personally wouldn't put Team17 and Bitmap Brothers in quite the same sentence together. While it's true they we're both very polished at what they did, Team17's flair did not extend to their gameplay. Their games were at best always solid and technically excellent but largely forgettable for the most. I quite enjoyed Super Frog's first couple of Levels but it's clear they didn't know how to make it great. Alien Breed is probably their best efforts but even that loses it's appeal once you go to single player. ATR isn't too bad though I guess. They we're ok but were seen as being better for their levels of polish. People mention them from memory half the time and that's the problem Bitmap Brothers also did some somewhat average games like Xenon 2, Magic pockets and Speedball but when they got it very right, they smashed it. Chaos Engine, Speedball2 and Gods are killer titles in a way Team17 just couldn't do. That all said, I am being both honest but also a little disrespectful. I'm glad of Team17's existence and while it's clear they didn't quite have the ability to reach the highest standard across the board, they always gave it their 100% .Also one of my favourite tunes is Alien Breed 2 and Superfrog has two very accomplished tracks as well. I still look back fondly of the time especially as I regularly play the Amiga still
Great video, Xenon 2 was awesome on the Atari ST. I had an STE by the time I bought the game so I don't know if there was any difference between playing it on an ST or STE.
I mean they had a point... a lot of the critics at AP only ever worked for AP and after leaving went on to other industries.. Why? Format, GM and One were far better mags.
shame the bitmaps wrote primarily for the ST and never took advantage of the Amigas power. scrolling suffered cause of this on magic pockets, gods and xenon 2
*In "Raid over Moscow," you don't get to drop a nuke on Moscow.* You have to infiltrate the Soviet air defenses using a Stealth fighter, destroy all the enemy launch sites and on your final mission, you get to shoot it out with the KGB at the Red Square in Moscow. After killing dozens of KGB soldiers and partially destroying the Kremlin, you get into the nuclear reactor, sabotage the robot in charge of keeping the reactor cool, then get out again and fly off to the west and safety, while the Soviet warmachine blows up in a nuclear explosion. If you do not complete a mission in time, the launched enemy ICBMs will reach their target, one of several major American cities and you lose a city. If you destroy the enemy ICBM site where the missiles were launched from before they can detonate, they will not destroy anything for whatever reason.
I love Chaos Engine but I wanna know why there is no sound effects for your guns?? I wonder if someone could hack the SNES or Genesis ROM and add gun sounds..? The game would feel complete IMO 23:27
Worms kinda shows AP was a bitchy mag. I mean Linda Barker wasn't even a gamer! Thats why when it collapsed she left games journalism... LOL. I remember when younger I was explained "you only buy AP for the demos" ...
