Company Documentary Crunch - Bitmap Brothers, Team 17, U.S. Gold, Cinemaware | Kim Justice

A special long compilation video with four documentaries about legendary computer and video companies -- we have the full stories and games for the Bitmap Brothers, Team 17, U.S. Gold and Cinemaware here. 3 and a half hours of goodness to enjoy. :)
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0:00 The Story and Games of The Bitmap Brothers
37:35 The Story and Games of Team 17
1:27:00 The Story and Games of U.S. Gold
2:26:30 The Story and Games of Cinemaware
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#retrogaming #kimjustice #videogamedocumentary

[@akalyx]

i'll fall asleep to this for at least a year...

[@MS-ho9wq]

I hear ya. So relaxing to listen to. I fall asleep to a Kim video quite often.

[@UNIRockLIVE]

Same

[@travnewmatic]

About to do that right now 💤

[@billybollockhead5628]

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)

[@davidbugden8548]

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

[@katieblackmore2004]

Were you the creator of Scrabble?

[@davidbugden8548]

@@katieblackmore2004 no, Pictionary

[@AvroHawker]

Seriously, your videos are amazing and professional. I find them really relaxing when dealing with lockdown stresses. Thanks!

[@jordanlarsen8950]

proffesional! "when SFII port turned out to be utter dogshit"

[@s4tchm0j0n3s]

The companies of my childhood. Oh the Amiga and ST. How good you were.

[@onionheadguy7094]

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!

[@azmodanpc]

So many memories. Amiga was the gen x go to intro to computing and games. Especially if you grew up in Europe.

[@flonkplonk1649]

Absolutely! Started my love for 3d graphics/animation

[@plume...]

Your videos are always an amazing deep dive. Incredible amount of research Kim, thank you :)

[@phoenixzappa7366]

Great video

[@spider-ham7140]

Bitmap Bros games are my childhood. Thank you for an absolutely wonderfully detailed documentary on them ❤️

[@DangerousDevilOfficial]

“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! 😂😂😂

[@hanslanda7319]

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.

[@megatronbison]

Excellent as always

[@plisskensghost2951]

These are the videos that got me watching Kim, i loved the Ocean one in particular.

[@duncanself5111]

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

[@unbearifiedbear1885]

Incredible work, Kim... though I wish Gremlin, Bullfrog, Psygnosis and Ocean could've made an appearance too! Part 2, anyone...?! All love - merry Christmas

[@voffie]

Amazing compilation, thanks for all the great documentaries, pure gold.

[@waynehickman8317]

Speedball 1 and 2 were also released on the C64

[@Chadius]

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.

[@teosto1384]

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.

[@duncanself5111]

Alien Breed is a stone cold classic. I played that game for so many hours when I was a kid

[@greenelf6506]

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

[@duncanself5111]

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!

[@oldskoolraveruk]

Nice compilation of some of the best oldskool gaming documentaries on youtube.

[@Codoloco1]

This is amazing, thank you for all you do Justice!

[@MarcosZanet]

I've been watching these over and over again. Amazing work.

[@rolling-roadkill]

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.

[@rosco5765]

Very well done Kim, I thoroughly enjoyed all four

[@brightbluesmurf]

Some incredible graphics from Cinemaware up there with Psygonosis IMHO but the latter had a better grasp of the custom chips

[@the_secret_raven]

You make fantastic documentaries KJ! Absolutely loving them, thank you! x

[@No-jb6fy]

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!

[@DanHammonds]

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.

[@juhaolkkonen8390]

I had so much fun to listen your documentaries. Quality is very professional and stories are interesting. I like your voice.

[@grantd165]

Ah amazing. These compilations are just great.

[@mssh76]

Great work! Thank you, Kim!

[@tonyburns6259]

Another masterpiece well done Kim

[@BaskuraCorp]

Another cracking video Kim!

[@soundminedd]

Merch idea: "Ask me about US Gold" shirt... You're the best, Kim!

[@jonhoyles714]

great video KJ just relived alot of my life loved it x dam bro so good x

[@dazsaund3206]

Another amazing video. So underrated. Should have far more subscribers

[@davedogge2280]

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.

[@spaniyell]

Wow, great stuff! Hour in but need a break. Ben-Hur length! Shall digest over the next few days :)

[@mikkifly]

I'm loving the retro series good stuff kim.

[@robinbrowne5419]

Happy New Year, Kim. BTW, it's the year of the Tiger. Cool. I love your videos. So entertaining and informative. Have a wonderful 2022. Grrrrr... 🐅

[@rphilipsgeekery4589]

"the design is perfect" "were running out of elements", " do you want to come on my side"

[@daniexists6]

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.

[@flonkplonk1649]

British?! It was European!

[@ItsCrapContent]

Wow kim this is epic ....well done you 👍❤️

[@ultimatesnacks6190]

I lost a summer Holiday to wings as a kid. Don’t regret it for a second😂

[@Paul_Henshall]

Great video Kim.

[@agaragar21]

Wow !...that was amazing !!!

[@Asphodellife]

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!

[@duncanself5111]

Sensible Software were brilliant. I spent so many hours playing Sensible Soccer against my mates and the huge single player as well

[@sds7870]

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.

[@MousePotato]

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.

[@andychaloner9889]

Speedball 2 got an 8 bit port to the C64.

[@warman]

Amazing, amazing, amazing!

[@zaf4155]

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 :)

[@8_Bit]

re: Bitmap Brothers games on 8-bits, both Speedball 1 & 2 are on C-64, and supposedly Xenon II was on GameBoy.

[@RespectTheLogos3]

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)

[@kraftwerk974]

Bitmap Brothers 🙏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

[@xnuttius174]

I love the bit map bwothews weally cool games they made back then

[@coevin]

Speedball 1 and 2 came out on the c64

[@tangodelta]

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.

[@Grind24hours]

I believe in truth, justice and the American way. Grind on, man!

[@seamusoblainn4603]

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

[@ms-ex8em]

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

[@DuckAlertBeats]

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!

[@samusvikerness661]

I can't even imagine how long it must have taken to make this video. It's three fucking hours!

[@jamesfield1674]

Legends they made the great "Magic Pockets". I always thought they were kind of like The KLF of game developers

[@kennethgibson456]

Was gods not a phone in game too. I'm sure I remember it on maybe going live?

[@williamwathern]

I love team 17

[@gildan]

Great video.. all of your documentaries are... one small error... Speedball got an 8bit port on the C64 version.

[@sssembler]

Team 17 of today is nothing like it was - not at all. In name only.

[@Konsker]

big fan of team 17's body blows games

[@lecturesalternatives8421]

The Bitmap Brothers really need to make a new pixellated retro game.

[@UNIRockLIVE]

Wow, i cant believe that Elviss death had such an affect on other bands

[@TheZombieCurryKid]

I love your viddddddsssssss!!!!!

[@anthonyciantar6015]

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.

[@adroharv9213]

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

[@theweeangryscotsman8766]

Great games. Still tempted to buy Gods Remastered on XBOX, but never really played it much.

[@antster1983]

I bought the _Alien Breed_ trilogy on Steam for mere tuppence a month ago.

[@Jason-fv4rg]

This is good, but can you do a more in-depth documentary on Team 17?

[@Dezzasheep]

"Ice cream!"

[@DazMataz]

GODS was remastered on Nintendo Switch.

[@bighairydel]

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

[@tubewatcher97]

Just one question - whats a bitmap?

[@razerow3391]

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.

[@ccshade7294]

I'd like to hear the story of EA, how they went from 'our artists are real artists' to the greed-driven machine it is today

[@justsignmeup911]

I'm glad I'm not the only one to not understand RTS games.

[@craiggilchrist4223]

I worked at Centresoft

[@darrenporter1850]

Why am I the only person who hated Speedball 2? The icecream and getting points at side of the field was wierd and stupid?

[@jamesthompson3023]

and stay out of the Woolworth's you think he means all or just that one

[@jmarra07]

You sure throw a lot of W's into words that don't have them

[@AudieHolland]

*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.

[@burbercat3558]

all i can see is Maxwell's eyebrows.

[@chadbrick67]

Eccles cakes potato cakes

[@larzy5249]

:)

[@mrburns366]

1:29:39 🤣😂🤣😂😁

[@razerow3391]

AP was such a bad magazine. I mean look at FM and Champ manager... 6.7 is average score for a player... It's just how it is.

[@razerow3391]

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" ...

[@davidwilson-parr9260]

Pity all of their Amiga games were lazy ST ports with improved sound at most

[@andreaswolf8982]

#50:30 Apidya is mentioned as Team17 game? A my god what terrible mistake. You should not trust googles first result.