10 Mastertronic ZX Spectrum Childhood Favourites | Kim Justice

[@officiallunatic01]

love these slightly shorter, more personal videos to compliment your awesome docs kim! always love hearing about your own childhood memories of the speccy, amiga and arcades.

[@joedent3323]

Well said 😊

[@Kim_Justice]

Did you have any childhood favourites of the budget variety, Mastertronic or otherwise? Games that may not be amongst the most loved but you adored? Have a shout in the comments, and thanks for watching. :)

[@elmosexwhistle]

Rescue :)

[@martinr3993]

@@Kim_Justice Hear me out - Firebird’s ‘Viking Raiders.’ I know, it’s a super basic turn based strategy game but I’ve always found it addictive. It’s a nice way to spend ten minutes or so, I can easily spend a lot more than that on it when I have the time.

[@mamehaze]

The majority of these were personal favourites too as the majority of my library back then was budget games. I actually preferred the budget titles over the full price ones too a lot of the time and the few full price titles I had just got left on the shelf because so many of them were annoying multi-loads. Even in cases where the 128k versions loaded it all in one, the load time was longer than the patience I had so these smaller budget games were just better by default. It also helps that many were designed for the 8-bits, rather than trying to be licensed arcade conversions which the system was never going to do a good job of. Even when some of the budget games were basically unofficial conversions, such as Destructo clearly being inspired by Bally Midway's Two TIgers, the developers had the freedom to do their own take on things and the end result was a better game than even the arcade.

[@afx7696]

No one seems to remember 'Rockstar ate my hamster' only me, and it was fantastic.

[@mikeuk666]

Always enjoy your retro documentaries Kim. Superb content

[@sheppertonstudios8253]

I worked with Gary Hughes (of 180 fame) at Blitz on several titles. Such a nice bloke, I think he went on to work at Freestyle afterwards. I remember nearly having a fit when he told me he converted the Argus Press Software version of "Alien" to the Spectrum lol

[@IanWitts]

THIS is the type of Kim video that I love. For someone that had mostly budget games (many Mastertronic) this was awesome to watch. Those little personal touches about you having the game, loving it despite it clearly not being the best, your parents liking it, etc. is what steeps it all in nostalgia. Destructo! That is a game that I had completely forgotten about, but absolutey loved when I was a kid. Looking at it now I appreciate it's pretty simplistic, but I played it to death the day I got that game. I'm also stoked by the fact that you included Chronos, accepting that it's not brilliant but at that stage in your life / video game history it was perfectly good and a great game to play. My dad and I both loved it (same as you - if my dad was interested in it then it must have been good)! Brilliant video - thank you.

[@cardbaudit]

LOVED Warewolves of London on the Speccy! It was just so atmospheric. Love the skyline background when you're up on the roof.

[@chrissyboy7047]

I loved it for the C64. Remember it well buy hardly see it get a mention anywhere

[@VaultBoy1974]

It could have done with a cheeky Lee Ho Fuks or pina colada references dropped in lol.

[@Telbee75]

Loved seeing 180 as one of your personal favourites. Played it loads when it came out and have a lot of memories playing friends on it. I also enjoyed playing the other versions when i got into the emulation . Love your content 👍🏻

[@mrpositronia]

Lovely video Kim. I was a Speccy kid in the 80s and, while I played lots of games during that time, there are still tonnes of Mastertronic titles that I've yet to play. So hooray for emulation! The very first Mastertronic game I played was BMX Racers. So, off to a not so flying start, there.

[@Hologhoul]

It's mad how much there is to discover via emulation, we're so spoiled!

[@meh78336]

Ah the good old pocket money and/or paper round round money games. Good times.

[@anactualmotherbear]

Thank you for another great episode. I enjoy listening to and watching your videos through my chores and exercise.

[@jimmywhyte7181]

Scubadive, Gulpman, Carpet capers, Meteoroids, Neds garden, Syd the snake, Moonlight madness, Jack the nipper 1&2, Jetpac, Underwurld, Attic Attack, Dizzy, Dan Dare, Dynamite dan, Monty mole, Manic Miner & Jet set willy. Some of my favs, there were effing tons of great fun games on the ZX.

[@piero_75]

Lovely video full of great quips and info. Run the World and Milk Race were 2 budget favourites of mine.

[@davylyons5704]

Amazing - despite all the arcade magnificence you cover, I love the Mastertronic and Codemasters vids the best 😁🙌❤️ there were so many great Mastertronic games it's hard to choose one, but its got to be said the David Jones knight games were unbelievable value, they were definitely as good as pretty much any full pricer from Firebird in a big fancy box😁 Will have to watch this about twenty times now until you make a top 100 😊

[@Retr0Rewind]

Love this. I totally forgot about Dr Destructo until I watched the video!!

[@stefanschomburg8456]

Thank you, Kim! Loads of memories.

[@jameshood802]

Favourite KZbinr :) Love all your vids Kim.

[@craigwalker3194]

Enjoyable Vid as always Kim. Certanly remember these games, & played a few as well Back in the day.

[@Boogie_the_cat]

0:04 That's a very interesting way to market games. Reminds me of the pervert in the motel alleyway, except there are clothes underneath the coat.

[@Scimarad]

I had that Werewolves game on the CPC. It tend's to pop into my head whenever I hear that song.

[@williamRE]

"Ariolasoft" is a highly underrated company name 😂

[@spidericemidasiosmusicprod1309]

@@williamRE highly suss 🤣🤣

[@retronetic6988]

love the video,i still have most of these games including my spectrum from 1982 which still works, just one thing, you called the M.A.D label Mastertronic added design but it's actually Mastertronic added dimension, sorry to nitpick must be my autism picking up on the finer details. Excellent video

[@VaultBoy1974]

Remember that Ninja on the C64 was a go to game when I was a kid.

[@marclong8399]

Love your content. Many thanks.

[@GregsWildlife]

One of my childhood favorites was The Curse of Sherwood Forest. I must have played it hundreds of times, but I always got stuck in the same place. It wasn't until I was an adult and went back to it via emulation that I was finally able to complete it. Of course, I had to look up the solution and use the emulator's save state to get through the very nasty swamp section with invisible quicksand!

[@adz693]

Yep - I did literally same as you. It was relatively straight forward till that swamp bit. And even when you had the map it was just a confusing series of arrows pointing in all directions. You couldn't' work out where to walk. Finished it 30 years later with save states.

[@garrycowan4394]

Brilliant topic that unearthed some long forgotten nostalgia

[@andyhodgson7692]

I loved 180. Great AY and SID chip versions of the tune too.

[@yoshiyoshi518]

Well done Kim this is fantastic 🎉

[@jamestolson6368]

I loved Werewolves in London! I had it on the Amstrad! As a 10 year old, the thrill of eating loads of people and making it through to the morning without getting killed by the police was immense! The speccy game looks totally different. Great game and memories! An 80s werewolf gta..for 10 year olds!

[@mrdsjenzie]

hells yeah for doctor destructo, a FABULOUS little time pilot clone, played that for hours! played a tiny bit of werewolves, kikstart a bit more, but the middle part of those four i didn't buy ... those last three will be enjoyed a lot!

[@nathanjones1008]

Mastertronic that brought back some memories.. still got a load of old Spectrum tapes in my Mom's attic...nobody called Spectrum Speccy in my part of the country though.

[@noneofyourbusiness4616]

6:00 - was this a deliberate poem? "It's a damn good game / and the clue / to what you do / is basically in the name."

[@bufordmaddogtannen]

What a nice set of memoroes. The Specturd will always be my favourite 8 bit when it came to static monochrome graphics. 😁

[@scifigeezer5271]

I had, and loved, 180 and Dr Destructo. Great memories.

[@nosferadu]

Also I have an amusing story re: Rockman. For the life of me I couldn't remember the name of this game I hadn't played in 30 odd years. All I could remember was that it was a puzzle game and that the game had level codes, where the code for one of the early levels was ONYX. I think the only reason I remembered this odd detail was because it had the same name as a department store in town. So a couple of years ago I tried my luck on a Facebook group and someone not only remembered what game it was, but also which level the code was for. What a legend!

[@SimianScience]

i never owned a amstrad, a zx spectrum, an amiga, an atari st or a achamedes but i can listen to Kim talk about it for hours.

[@jeremygregorio7472]

In America I had a commodore 64 and we seemed to mostly get the good mastertronic games. So Master tronic here was a sign of quality similar to Konami on the NES. The downside was we had everything on disc which is nice for load times but it meant everything cost a lot more. I had my commodore at the end of its life cycle though so I was still only paying about 15 to $20 for a game which would be I think equivalent to about 8 to 10 British pounds back then. But that's still 35-40 bucks today

[@boriscovidscamson2911]

@@jeremygregorio7472 do your disc games still load after all this time?

[@jeremygregorio7472]

@boriscovidscamson2911 I don't have it anymore. I long since got rid of my commodore 64. I wish I had my copy of RoboCop on disc because I was able to get to the end of the level that you're not supposed to be able to but I didn't know you needed to walk up and punch the wall so I could never finish the level. I'm always wondering if had I known that if I could have finished the game

[@boriscovidscamson2911]

@@jeremygregorio7472 I've heard about that game, what a shame. And no I'm not a poet. 😂. Disc drive weren't common in the UK, discs and drive too expensive for most people and some decent games were available for just £1.99, so an easy decision to make for us

[@Hologhoul]

I'm going to try Chronos and Zub from this list, nice vid!

[@simonsays335]

180 was probably the best darts game ever on The Speccy!!! As kids we found the dog "weeing" by the bar at certain points throughout the game was absolutely hilarious!

[@MarK-x9y]

I had Zub & Destructo on my cpc. Great games. Zubs ascending nature gave you a fear of heights, dreading the misstimed jump

[@Zardoz-mq4pt]

My Mastertronic childhood favourites were Apollo 2 a fun yet frustrating little game where you had to land your Lunar module on the Moon's surface and Advanced Soccer Simulator. Had hours and hours on Soccer Simulator, just loved it and as far as I know only the only Football game that combined the entire English football league clubs with most of the Scottish league clubs. I thought that was fantastic idea, great times

[@WaltTFB]

10:17 Wasn't it Mastertronic Added Dimension?

[@pnvgordinho]

The Zub character had potencial to be in better games. The character design is cool.

[@nosferadu]

The Island of Dr. Destructo was one of my favourite games as a kid, because it had a two player mode and I played it with my friends quite a lot.

[@MT-cd7cs]

180 was one of the first Speccy games I owned and it was a family favourite. Still great today.

[@antster1983]

The only Mastertronic game I remember with any clarity was _Hotch Potch._ It was a slide puzzle game aimed at younger children.

[@appalling22]

Dr Destructo was great on the C64 too, it was the first game I got for mine back when my parents got me a C64 for my 8th birthday

[@steinarvilnes3954]

I think there is one thing you did not cover. When I had my Commdore 64 in the period 1985-1989. I read the mags and think I recollect a huge controversy where the full price publishers wanted the Mastertronic games removed from the sales charts? Any knowledge about that?

[@jazzygeofferz]

I loved Kikstart 2 on my C64. The original on Commodore +4 was a lot of fun as well.

[@blackbellows]

I loved Space Hunter from Mastertronic, could play for ages but never really got up the rankings from Rookie.

[@big_ry82]

One Man and His Droid was one of my childhood mastertronic favourites 😊

[@YTWanderer]

I checked Tim Follin`s credits on mobygames. Almost solely musical ones, but out of all things he happened to write and direct *Contradiction* (2015), one of the imo best FMV adventure games of the past 10 years. Colour me surprised 😮

[@plume...]

Chiller on the MSX was fantastic for me! I got loaned an MSX from my uncle many years ago and still cant remember a few of the games. One was an isometric game getting through an alien space station (not Alien8, This game was monochrome green graphics too) and another was a single screen game with pipes all over. the name was something like tribble trouble, but wasn't that game. I also loved Vampire and Rasterscan (especially the music which isn't available for the MSX version anywhere on the internet it seems :() EDIT: Also, Feud was best on MSX and Speccy than C64, except for the soundtrack.

[@willrobinson7599]

Wasnt we lucky being able to pick up a game for a couple of quid with ya pocket money , just look at the back of the box ,and then wait five mins for it to load So many great titles on this budget label along with codemasters and the mighty hit squad

[@LunarJetwoman]

I always remember playing a mastertronic one called chiller. Thought it was the shit at the time.

[@LunarJetwoman]

@ 🤣 I also had the plinkety plonk shit

[@8bvg300]

I loved speedboat assassin sooo much back in the day ❤

[@ChrisHopkinsBass]

Speedboat Assassin kind of reminds me of the Domark "Live and Let Die" James Bond game.

[@DixieDaydreamer]

Studio? Studio?! Nah mate that's modern parlance, we called them "software houses" or "game companies" back in the day! Ha ha! I always liked Molecule Man as it game with a maze builder, you could build the mazes, save them on cassette for loading into the actual game, pretty neat idea at the time, decades before Bethesda made a song and dance about giving away their build tools.

[@lancebaylis3169]

Zub's music will forever be burnt into my memory.

[@zawtowers]

Some interesting selections here, and always good to have more personal fond memories. Naturally, as mentioned, Kikstart II on the C64 is a budget classic. What was interesting was Rockman - it's a completely different game to both the original Vic-20 (unexpanded) version and the Commodore 16 and Plus/4 versions, and seems at least playable with no annoying music that other formats had. Out of the ten, Gregory Loses His Clock is classic Don Priestley at his finest for that machine, and Chronos has the best soundtrack (just how did Tim Follin do that? Utter alchemy.)

[@TheRetroEngine]

"One-hundred and eigghhttyyy!" and dog pees on the bar.

[@MisterPatel]

I loved werewolves on the C64 eating all the yuppies!

[@dweston76]

Dr Destructo looks like my jam!

[@crankgreenwatts]

I loved played Kikstart on the C64 💚

[@MephProduction]

as a c64 user its cool seeing the Mastertronic games we didn't get. Wacky Darts is much better than 180, it's got more gameplay, options and less repetitive. 180 only really works as two player game. One of my favourites on both systems was Bombfusion.

[@big_ry82]

Was Colony from mastertronic? Loved that

[@bryangarcia5599]

4:11 You mean Taylor Swift _lied?_

[@Naedlus]

I wonder where Kickstart 2 compares against Motocross Maniacs (GB) on the timeline

[@geehaf]

Love this. Do you have a C64 version too? Thanks for your content.

[@jonnyspeed8974]

Kikstart 2

[@billybollockhead5628]

Am I right in that kikstart2 had the music from the tv show in the menu? Or did i imagine that memory?

[@zawtowers]

On the C64, a version of the TV theme show music played in-game (both in the original and sequel). On the Spectrum, no music at all.

[@chiefkingdingaling8688]

I wondered if you can help, I am trying to remember a game that was on the Amstrad 464 about the same time as the living daylights and you played a roman with and this was a side scrolling game and you went under ground in the sewer. thanks

[@andrewalexander4331]

I had Zub for the C64. One day it stopped working, and popped up with a message which said (from my childhood memory), "Hi, from Phil and Mike and Jim. Get lost hackers!". And the game would no longer load! Anyone any idea how this happened?

[@SweetStevieAaron]

Werewolves is a fascinating concept and an early sandbox game where you’re the bad guy. I feel bad it never came out at full price but you’re right to say the Amstrad version is miles better (as is the C64 version). I got it on holiday in ‘89 from Whitby’s Woolworths (of all places) and played it more on my mate’s CPC, which was happily on the other side.

[@SweetStevieAaron]

Btw, if you like that, play indie PC game Death of Night where you play a vampire. Clearly inspired by this and very good.

[@kerbal666]

The only Mastertronic game I had was Chuckman. It had rather epic cover art that of course in no way represented the game at all haha

[@ShanetheFreestyler]

Apparently, the Atari 8-bit version of Kikstart found its way here stateside through Mastertronic's US branch. Too bad Kikstart II didn't because it looks like the better game all round! As for Zub, clever bit of animation making it look like Zub is passing his gun between his hands for no reason other than to justify appearing ambidextrous when his sprite flips. I've always imagined other game characters doing that whenever you faced the other way; like Link being "Oh! I'm being attacked from behind! I better swap my sword and shield before I face the other way!" But of course that's memory limits for you, and good on the Pickford Brothers for addressing that classic limitation IN UNIVERSE!

[@theyamo7219]

So did Action Biker (both Kikstart and Action Biker came on "flippys" where one side of the disk had the C64 version, and the other had the Atari 8-bit version. I do think the C64 version of Kikstart II was actually released her in North America.

[@Ray.Norrish]

I used to buy Mastertronic Rob Hubbard music. Sometimes it came with a free "game".

[@marcraygun6290]

My version of werewolves of London had speccy on one side of tape and PC other side , prefer graphics on PC but prefer wolf headed monster on zx

[@xxsemb]

Have you stopped streaming on twitch these days? I keep looking each evening and you are not on anymore.

[@nulsh331]

Top stuff! Do more! Ta!

[@pnvgordinho]

Dont know why but I thought "The island of dr destructo" was called Two Tigers.

[@roscohaines8508]

That's what the Arcade game it was based on is called.

[@billcook4768]

KJ: Making a video covering all their games would be pretty damn difficult. Me: Have you seen some of your other videos :) Actually, speaking just for me, I appreciate the shorter more focused videos.

[@greedygreggor]

loved 180 :)

[@joedent3323]

GO KIMBO!

[@properjob2311]

Limp Wrist Larry :)

[@mr.y.mysterious.video1]

I always felt codemasters had a better quality in general

[@garyjbaker]

Chronos… “reviews for this game were pretty average, with the main criticism being that the gameplay was generic”… It was Scramble and R-Type… on the Speccy… FOR TWO QUID !!!!! What’s not to like!

[@jamesmcgeachy5433]

🎉

[@billybollockhead5628]

Nipplesoft.... really?

[@spidericemidasiosmusicprod1309]

I prefer my nipples hard

[@TheVanillatech]

Speccy sucked, lets face it. But it did have CHAOS! My friend got it (free on a covertape) and we played the crap out of it for at least a year. The original deathmatch.