Ultimate: Play the Game - the Story Before Rare (ZX Spectrum) - Kim Justice 

If you liked this then think about having a gander through my social media, and get yourself on my Patreon: www.patreon.com/KimbleJustice

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

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

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!

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.

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

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

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? :)

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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...

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.

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!

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

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!

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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 :)

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!

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)

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)

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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).

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!

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

Excellent documentary. Thank you!

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

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.

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

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

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

Great Thank you... Ashby is so close I regard it almost as Derbyshire, but yes its Leicestershire. Ultimate used to reply to our letters bitd. The Rare building is still going and our Lara Croft Way is a thing.. Great video !

This is probably my favorite retrospective of yours. :)

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

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

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.

Ultimate games on the Spectrum where just magical, Thanks for this great video pure magical trip back to the best gaming era of the 80s,

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.

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.

Great documentary. I was there! Thanks so much.

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.

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

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

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

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!

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

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.

another great video, love these 8 bit memories.

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

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?

My favorite Ultimate Games for my ZX Spectrum 48K. Are Jetpac and Alien 8.

since this more, more info sprung up about the stampers' pre ultimate career. they had developed at least 1 game at parent company, dingo (which got a spectrum port). prior to that, he was working for zilec, a brittish subcontractor for jaleco. the games they developed for zilec/jaleco are saturn (a generic space shooter) and blue print(a donkey kong esk game about an inventer triing to assemble a nuke to libberate his girlfriend being held hostage by an ogar). the latter is considdered an underraited classic in the US, where it recieved ports to most of the major demestic consoles (atari, colecovision, etc). zilec also made at least 2 games without the stampers: invaders revenge (an unlicenced sequel to space invaders) and merlin's money maze (a pac-man clone).

Great stuff! Thanks for making the video!

Just found your channel! awesome!

Will you consider covering the Rare side of Ultimate’s history, from 1985 to now? It would be interesting to see Donkey Kong Country, GoldenEye 007, Battletoads, Blast Corps, Jet Force Gemini, Killer Instinct, Banjo-Kazooie, Perfect Dark, Conker and Viva Pinata in more detail.

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

there was a game called willow pattern that i loved to play on my c64. it was definitely influenced by sabre wulf to put it mildly lol. great game though but bloody tough.

Knight Lore is such a difficult game. I have finished Atic Atak, Sabre Wulf and Underworlde no problem, but I have never even gotten close to finishing Knight Lore.

Excellent documentary, loved it.

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 as always Kim!

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

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!

Great documentary, well done 👌👌

These are great. Thanks!

Wahey! As a child born in the 70's who grew up in the 80's I cpuldn't help noticing the music to Knightmare played over the review of Atic Attack. At the time I thought game and TV show were very similar.

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.

Jetpac can also be found in Time Splitters 2

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

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!

Another great one, thanks!

Another great video, thanks.

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

I always presumed "Mire Mare" was pronounced to rhyme with "Fire Hair".

In the Specturm era, there were two types of games: Ultimate games and the rest.

Amazing video! Thanks

Superb. Thank you!

Jetpak DX on GBC is a great game and feels like it easily could have been a genuine retail release. Truly modernises Jetpak in a really awesome way. Does Lunar Jetman say 'Fo** You' when you die? 😂 Theres quite a few here that ive never played either at all or as an adult so many grab a pack and go through their catalogue later on. Completed Skullmonkeys and i would love a video on it. One of the best games ever, most underrated of all time. Truly a masterpiece.

Awesome vid!

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!!

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

We used to pause Gunfright at the draw, worked nearly every time. I got as far as Ma baker using that trick.

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