[AMSTRAD CPC] 💦 Jet Bike Simulator - Longplay & Review + Philip Oliver (Oliver Twins) Interview!!

#amstrad #amstradcpc #amstradcpc464 #jetbikesimulator #olivertwins
Longplay and review for "Jet Bike Simulator" on the Amstrad CPC!
Codemasters decided to erm 'splash out' on a new mid-priced 'Plus' range stuffed full of goodies and "Jet Bike Simulator" was the first game to launch it all! Did this "Super Sprint" style game but with water physics make waves? Or was it to sink the new Codies sub-label to the bottom of the lake? Well we're going to find out definitively because we're very lucky to have one half of the coding team behind the game, and one half of the famous Oliver Twins... Philip Oliver with me doing a live video interview during the longplay answering all my questions!! Philip very kindly gave up his precious time to have a really lovely and amusing chat! So we have a very in-depth 'making of' the game here with some great insight and interesting tales!
At the end of the video we also take a look at the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 versions too for comparison. This was also a Patreon suggestion from a member of the Amsquad "Chief89", who's been desperate for me to cover this game for such a long time!! So I hope you like this matey!!
(c) Codemasters 1988
www.cpc-power.com/index.php?p...
www.olivertwins.com/jetbikesi...
Unlisted video of 'just' the longplay ▶ • [AMSTRAD CPC] Jet Bike...
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Background music featured - "See You ThereX" & "Golden Age" by "24:7" - 247retro.bandcamp.com/
Timings -
00:00 Video Intro
00:43 Game Info & Physical Box
05:33 Booting The Game Up
08:01 Longplay
09:47 Longplay & Interview
36:24 Longplay Ending & Review
41:12 ZX Spectrum & C64 Versions
45:53 Final Thoughts & Outro

[@Chief89Music]

Awesome. Amazing that the video even also got to be a making of with the personal comments (and riding footage) that Philip Oliver was so kind to share . . . :) As for the game I totally loved the over the water drifting physics and besides the cute graphics and nice music and sounds that really made the game a special favorite that I found enjoyable to play quite often and a lot too . . . so again thank you Xyphoe and thank you Oliver Twins of course for such a great game there.

[@Xyphoe]

Ahh the man himself! I'm glad you enjoyed this buddy! I finally got round to doing it for you! It wasn't easy to beat and because... me being me... I wanted to get 1st in every (expert) race like an idiot! That meant it took much longer, but here we are ... and of course I'm delighted Philip talked to us! So this turned out much better in the end than expected! :)

[@jackthursby5794]

Very interesting interview with THE Phillip Oliver! Great stuff! 👍🏻

[@Xyphoe]

Thank you mate! Well he's a fantastic and perfect interview subject - endlessly enthusiastic, still passionate about their games, lovely and delightfully friendly. Just perfect and very refreshing! Again - thank you Philip!

[@DavidB-rx3km]

It's cool how he still has all old material archived and has such good memory of it all, 40 years later!

[@Xyphoe]

Yes! They both kept all their development stuff - notes, disks, and all! Plus anything in the media etc! They were very wise to! Some of it is on their website -> www.olivertwins.com/jetbikesimulator

[@poppichicken]

An absolutely fantastic interview! That was really great! The bit about how the "AI" was done was very interesting.

[@Xyphoe]

Thank you! And yes it was to me too! I could have swore it was AI this time given how good some of the drone racers were - there were a few tracks that were nearly impossible for me to get 1st place in!! So Philip and Andrew had some serious gameplay skills back then!!

[@Mooza1976]

Brilliant video. Loved the chat from Philip, especially on the technical constraints.

[@Xyphoe]

Thanks Mooza! Glad you enjoyed it! Philip was great!

[@mirkovragovic]

Xyphoe I am so happy whenever i see a longplay from you! But this was up and above with the interview, allowing us to hear details and some secrets. I.e. I could never understand how they made Replay function. I would´ve never guessed that they applied such a simple method #nospoilers hehe. Thank you for your ever good work!

[@Xyphoe]

Thank you Mirko! What a lovely comment :) And as I said elsewhere too - sometimes the simplest solutions are often the best! That worked for the AI / drone players, and then of course that made it easy for the action replays too!! Cheers again :)

[@purplezebrahoover]

Love this! Phillip is such a treat to listen to. Thanks Xyphoe pal!

[@Xyphoe]

He is! Love the enthusiasm, such a joy! Glad you liked it :)

[@CPCGameReviews]

What a fascinating video, and it's nice to hear from one half of the legendary Oliver Twins discussing their games. 😀 Here are some of my own comments: 5:21 - There are some additional differences between _Championship Jet Ski Simulator_ and _Jet Bike Simulator_ - the order of the 'docks' courses is rearranged, there is only one set of courses for each difficulty level (lakes for standard, docks for expert), and the digitised speech has been re-recorded with a female voice (Melody White's, I believe). 15:33 - There was actually at least one other game in the CodeMasters Plus range - _The Race Against Time,_ also by The Oliver Twins (which makes it even more surprising that Philip had forgotten all about it!). That also didn't turn out to be anything like the success that CodeMasters and The Oliver Twins had hoped for, for a number of reasons. That could be worth investigating for a future video (hint, hint)! It was also very interesting to learn why _Jet Bike Simulator_ and _Pro BMX Simulator_ were re-released as cut-down versions; the reason Codemasters did that never crossed my mind in all these years. As for ratings, I gave _Jet Bike Simulator_ 8/10 on my own reviews site, although _Championship Jet Ski Simulator_ only got 6/10 because I found the expert mode to be far too difficult, and there's only one set of courses for each of the two difficulty levels.

[@Xyphoe]

Thanks Nick! Thanks for the info re Championship Jet Ski Simulator - I've not actually booted that one up to try, the many MANY hours of slogging through the expert courses trying to get 1st place in each of the races on Jet Bike Simulator was ENOUGH for me! 😂 And oh yea!! You're absolutely right about "The Race Against Time" being another game in the "Plus" range! Darn it! To be fair to them... it was now over 35 years ago and that game wasn't particularly memorable! But well done for remembering!

[@blakecasimir]

I never had this. Interesting game. Great interview sir. Premium Amstrad content. 😁

[@Xyphoe]

Cheers Blake! I try and make my Amstrad videos count and the best they can be - which sometimes mean they take a little longer to come out now, but hope they're worth it! (Although I can't always get interviews, or such great interview subjects like Philip!!)

[@SmoothEmJay]

The yearly video has arrived and what a belter. Nice work, Xy.

[@Xyphoe]

LOL! Cheeky! But thank you mate! ❤

[@Joliie]

Thank you, Philip (and Andrew) from going on here and other retro channels they give a lot back to the community and share freely of their origin story and the game industry in the 80s :). Never grow up :)

[@Xyphoe]

Very true Joliie - it's important to acknowledge how much they give back to the retro community, and how quick Philip was to give up his busy day to such a small KZbinr like me.

[@EgoShredder]

I bought the original on cassette when it first came out in the 80s, and I could tell straight away it was technically a step up from their previous racing simulators. Good game and yes the CPC has the best version. Brilliant interview by the way and learned a lot.

[@Xyphoe]

Thank you! It's very close between all 3 versions I think, I don't mind which one gets picked as the best really! 😄 So little in it. But glad you enjoyed it!

[@trecool099]

So cool, I loved the single tape version. Great to have the interview over the top!

[@Xyphoe]

Great! Thank you Tre, I did worry some people wouldn't like it distracting from the longplay (but I can always upload that as a separate unlisted video if asked) so am glad you enjoyed it!

[@trecool099]

@@Xyphoe I think it works exceptionally well, with gameplay essentially being variation of driving round in loops there's only so much you can say about each loop and the techniques to beat it. Imo this was a great way to show the game

[@CPCGameReviews]

I remember buying the Amstrad CPC disc version of _Obliterator_ in 1995 from a computer shop in Comber, Northern Ireland, not far from where I lived at the time. I was in the shop with my mum, and I distinctly recall being astonished that tucked away in a corner was a selection of CPC games for sale - and I was even more astonished that they were still trying to sell them for close to full price! 😲 Despite this, Mum let me buy _Obliterator_ for £9.95!

[@EgoShredder]

Here in England by 1990 I had to rely on using mail order to get new games, and there were loads still from them. The high street stores and shops had all but stopped selling any by then though. It seemed to happen quite suddenly because in 1989 the stores carried many shelves of titles for the CPC.

[@Xyphoe]

Wow! Nice memory and recollection! Also nice to know I wasn't the only kid buying Amstrad games from shops in 1995!! 😂 I wonder if anyone else here has any other similar tales or has an even later year of buying games?!

[@NobletheSavage]

Thanks for the heads up, this is a great interview. Had the game, not a big fan but I loved the Twins story.

[@8589brian]

Brilliant game and interview. Maybe you could fill the gap left by the media and review Grand prix simulator 2 on your channel 👍

[@Xyphoe]

Cheers Bri! I hope to get round to that game one day too - yea! 🏎

[@GreenTeaViewer]

Nice video. I tried the game for the first time and it totally defeated me haha. They made them tough in those days...

[@waldnew]

Great video 👍

[@Xyphoe]

Thanks Waldon! Hope you're keeping well mate!

[@craigwilson.2367]

I still own this, the budget titles ate my paper round money.

[@Xyphoe]

Yea thank the 8-bit gods for Mastertronic and then the Codies for giving us the budget games market so we could have semi-regular games to play!!

[@respergu13]

Great interview! Interesting how they didn't use AI but instead recorder the gameplay keys in different difficulties!

[@Xyphoe]

Thanks Lord Respergu! Sometimes the simplest solutions are the easiest and best!

[@rickyzambrossiakachristian5727]

Great job, Xyphoe 👍👍👍

[@Xyphoe]

Thank you mate! My pleasure! Glad you liked!

[@mark-andrews]

I think Captain Blackheart might appear in Bubble Dizzy?

[@Xyphoe]

Just checked - YES he is mentioned in the Bubble Dizzy manual at least and yes he does appear in Crystal Kingdom Dizzy having quickly skipped through a longplay video.

[@thelaststraw1987]

Great video. But being coded in summer of 88 and reviewed on the april issue of AA sounds a bit weird, doesn’t it? Music takes a leaf out of DM’s Never Let Me Down’s book.

[@Joliie]

What ghost plays... I feel so cheated :D