The ZX Spectrum Magazine Covertape Wars (+ The Best Covertape Games) - Kim Justice

[@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

[@ArabKatib]

Here in Dubai we miss the days of UK's video games magazines from the 80s.. Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Amstrad, Commodore 64.. etc.. mags like C+VG among others.. Its a different world we are living in right now..

[@arcadely]

Another great video Kim! I was an SU reader because, when I started out, they'd still print programs in the magazine most months that you could type in, which to my 9 year old mind was pure wizardry. Sadly that didn't last very long, and it all become about the games and Kamikaze Bear. My departure from the Spectrum scene came abruptly at the end of 1989, just before the covertape wars really kicked off in earnest, when I switched to the C64. That didn't last long either: sold the C64 in about October of 1990 and put the money towards an Amiga 500, with my parents making up the difference and giving me the computer for Christmas.

[@JohnSTF72]

This episode brought a wide smile to my face.Plus, i had quite a few of the covertapes and said magazines featured in this video.Good times, and these are never coming back.We live in the digital age now.

[@621pw]

I've just discovered this channel and it is awesome. I am struck by your knowledge of the era; you hit the nail on the head so many times. I was a Speccy owner back in the day and can't quite believe how my own experiences mirror that of your narratives. As far as the cover tapes are concerned, I absolutely detested them. As you rightly point out - and the key point of the video, I think - the magazines themselves suffered and were reduced to mere pamphlets. The disappointment of picking up a copy of Crash! for it to be only 20 to 30 odd pages and a shadow of its former self (the jam-packed, wonderful Christmas issues of past years a distant memory) - was gut wrenching. I'm not sure YS suffered in the same way with this. As far as I was concerned the cover tapes could just ***k off. I wanted my magazine back. Not only that, but I remember on more than one occasion feeling totally cheesed off seeing a game on the tape that only a few months earlier I'd purchased at near enough full price having saved up all my pocket money to get. Utter turds, those tapes in my opinion.

[@bluebull399]

I'm absolutely loving watching all your videos, it's true nostalgia heaven especially where the spectrum is involved. Keep them coming!

[@Etcher]

Props to Kim Justice, this was a great vid - really enjoyed watching it. Gotta be the only documentary online about this very specific part of the Spectrum's history. The most enjoyable war ever undertaken by mankind.

[@twrmois]

Pretty interesting video, also noticed my name at 30:52 at the bottom right, becoming a patron for your channel is something im glad i did. Really hope you never stop making such amazing videos!

[@troyperkins8158]

I had a 48k Spectrum as a kid and can remember getting Sinclair User every month. My mate used to get Your Sinclair, never knew anyone who bought Crash.

[@PaulMonaghan73]

23:00 Tir Na Nog was produced by Gargoyle Games not Hewson Consultants

[@pablorai769]

Same thing with Sweevo's World and Dun Darach

[@Wolfie_D]

Can't believe that I missed this vid before! Go Bear Go! I absolutely loved that game, but couldn't for the life of me remember its name until now. One of the first cover tapes that I bought. Thank you Kim! :)

[@paule6101]

I'm a new subscriber after hearing your interview on the Retro Hour.. Loved this, thanks.

[@wildbilltexas]

This was a great video. The magazines look awesome. Cover tape wars never happened in the USA in the 80's-early 90's. Most C64 and other computer users had a disc drive by then. I wish some magazine would have at tried one. It would have given us a reason to dig out the datacassette.

[@martinhowser4094]

Can’t believe how many I remember so clearly just by a few screenshots.. games I’d forgotten about..

[@patricklonergan3]

The magazines were definitely a big part of the whole Spectrum scene. Some of the covertape games were better than full price games, and more memorable too.

[@ANJIN79SAMMA]

OH MY GOD!!! I remember the cover tapes! EPIC TIMES!.....I think nostalgia just blew my mind! subbed

[@mamehaze]

I absolutely loved 'Whole New Ball Game' on that Crash tape, level editor meant it was endless fun.

[@mibri]

great stuff kim, thanks. rest in peace mr. cohen.

[@radagastaddams3703]

Fantastic vid. Thanks buddy. So many memories of all those tapes. Cyclone was one I played tons. They used to do PlayStation demo disks but even that died out.I still have a CD with all the licenses unlock on Gran Turismo. Fun time to be a speccy gamer though.

[@HelloMisterJAMWAH]

As a relatively poor kid, these tapes were a lifeline, as were C-90s full of games from my cousins and Hit Squad/Codemasters budget 4-packs. This vid takes me back to the days when I could sit cross legged on the bed without losing circulation. Can anybody remember a very late tape with a digitised segment of Milli Vanilli's 'Blame It on the Rain' and a weird (Polish?) animation called Baruska about a guy who accidentally kills his pet ladybird by crushing its matchbox?

[@shepshepherd]

I used to love the Crash Powertape. There were some bloody great games on them :)

[@jindownes]

Magnificent video Kim. Really loved this one.

[@ItsMatticusFinch]

Brilliant video Kim, you're consistency and quality never falters. I think I could listen to your talk about the ZX Spectrum endlessly, keep up the great work.

[@EMarkMoore]

This looks like it's going to be another cracking feature, Kim - just making a start on it whilst cooking tea!

[@mjfeder]

I remember all those cover tapes. This has brought back so many memories

[@TheGebs24]

Ahhhh 😊My very first gaming experience. I loved my ZX Spectrum to death back in the 80s

[@deadpan666true]

Covertape Wars were great for me, as like yourself, I was coming to the party a little late, only picking up my Speccy in 1989! Mailstrom and the Batman demo from the SU covertape were my first Speccy experience, after the Lightgun games that came with the computer!

[@boblowes]

I suppose I was fairly late to the Speccy - I got mine in 1989, a +2A with light gun, shitty Sinclair SJS2 joystick, and a load of crap light gun games. First game I bought was Batman the Movie, which was glorious. Then, it was Your Sinclair. The magazines were just finally giving up on the one or two games or demos on a tape by this point. With a few months, Your Sinclair, Crash and Sinclair User were shovelling out multiple older games on cover tapes - and I loved it. It was a great way to build up a decent game collection when you didn't have much money to spare. N.O.M.A.D., The Hobbit, Dynamite Dan, Trantor, all great games which came to me via covertapes. By about 1992, I'd moved on to the mighty Amiga 500+, and as with the Spectrum, there was plenty of magazines supporting the machine. Amiga Format, Amiga Power, Amiga Shopper, CU Amiga, The One Amiga, Amiga Computing, Amiga User International - all of which had cover floppies (or soon did have) and the were offering one full game (usually something public domain) and one complete application. But by god, it was good. Very quickly, I amassed a copy of Protext (handy for school essays), followed extremely quickly by CrossDos (allowing me to take those essays to school to print out (handy when I didn't have a printer of my own), then KindWords 3, various programming languages, good PD games, demos, etc etc. It was fantastic. Great video, Kim. Really enjoyed that.

[@shineonugrzydieman]

Excellent - thanks for making and uploading

[@apemoon1731]

It may have been good for your games collection, but I look back with sadness at the 'cover tape' wars. I got into the Spectrum at it's height of it's popularity. I'd buy 'Crash' every month, and usually one of the others too. It was sad to see the magazines get thinner and thinner as the number of games on the tape increased. In the end, it was a tape with a pamphlet attached.

[@markwhatever256]

During my Amstrad CPC days, i was always jealous of Speccy owners mag covertapes. Great video

[@adamfrazer5150]

I have one solitary cassette, taken from a mag in the UK and hauled along with my 11 year old self to the frigid tundra of 🇨🇦. It's got the soundtrack for AFTERBURNER on one side 😎

[@rdkarlov]

Your vids are getting better and better! Cheers!

[@rodoherty1]

That was excellent, Kim. Thank you!!

[@GtBFilms]

Just finished watching this, really enjoyable trip backing time to what I consider the heyday of Spectrum ownership (who was to know it wasn't to last? Well everyone, I suppose, but not me!)

[@Larry]

Wasn't the original Imagine Software working on cover tapes for a magazine back in 1982, but the deal fell through and they published them as full games or something? They never gave them back the deal money either.

[@miaouew]

You and Kim are my favorite UK-ites. UKers? UKanites?

[@lucasoheyze4597]

The word you're looking for is "twats"

[@pedroamaralcouto]

@@miaouew, as far as I know, it's "British". Cambridge Dictionary: "from or relating to the U.K"

[@makeitthrough_]

​@@lucasoheyze4597 Why are you even here?

[@lucasoheyze4597]

@@makeitthrough_ This is not the time for philosophy

[@exiledred77]

I actually have a cartoon published in the July 1983 Crash, with the Dun Darach cover. I was 12 when I sent it in. I loved that magazine but by 1989, the only thing i played was 'The Sentinel" and everyone I knew had an Amiga or an Atari ST. I got a Sega megadrive in 1990 and haven't pushed play on a cassette recorder to load a game ever since. I loved my speccy, but who the hell was still buying games for it in 1990?

[@TomMannCenturia]

Terrific video, forgotten how many of these games I'd had.

[@loganjorgensen]

Not a lot of love for covertapes behind the scenes but they were essential to the lifespan of the platform, mostly if they could have found an optimal balance between magazine and tape to stick to there wouldn't have been such conflict. Sounded like a lot of fun though. :)

[@marks.6480]

i used to have a big box full of these magazines but threw them out when i moved house. i still have the covertapes though!

[@chewfat7644]

Sinclair User swallowed Crash, Your Sinclair outlasted both magazines and almost always were way ahead of the other 2 magazines in terms of circulation. Crash went out of the races long before the other two

[@PassiveSmoking]

YS started off being published by Dennis Publishing, it later got bought out by Future (hence all the jokes about the YS shed, regarding how little resource their new owners were willing to allocate to YS at that point)

[@hoagieimpact9189]

Great video, and best version of True Love Waits.

[@scifigeezer5271]

Your Sinclair was always my favourite

[@awesomeamericanpanda]

Amazing, as always. Love the music too.

[@bathuk80254]

great video mate, more of these please

[@Funem]

Conversly you should check out a tape based magazine that came out for the ZX Spectum before the cover tapes wars, it came out in the early 80's and was called 16/48. If I remember correctly it was a proper cassette with inlay stuck on the front of a thin magazine, but you loaded and read it like a magazine. It had programs, reviews and games on it. I used to rip bits of code out of the programs and make my own from them. They are uploaded onto WOS I think.

[@YOLKFOLK]

thanks for the video. loved the Bobby Yaz show.

[@WarrentheGunner]

I remember batty well , I brought the cover tape in a market because I missed the mag when it was out.

[@nephildevil]

These magazines and their freebies were an important part of the hobby back then, I guess you can compare it today to KZbin and that one or two gaming pages you follow, otherwise there is nothing like it today imo

[@Skerries73]

the best cover game released had to be Julian Gollops Chaos which I still play today

[@1simo93521]

Skerries73 do you know he's made a new version recently 'Chaos reborn'?

[@neilreilly3966]

yes, I backed it on Kickstarter when it was announced. I even played against Julian himself in the Beta

[@Jordellfreshbreeze]

Me too. Chaos and Rebelstar II were probably my most played games from covertapes.

[@paullittle8719]

Yes!!!!!!!!!!!! Chaos was unreal. Caused many a fight with me in my brothers trying to spy on the keyboard to see if you cast an illusion! hahah

[@mUbase]

superb. :) recognize many of these games.

[@jimmyjarrett939]

Does anyone remember a gaming magazine from the early 90's called Total? I had a robocop 2 and Battle Toads poster on my bedroom wall that came from it. I think it was pretty short lived but I loved it. I can't remember if it was only for Nintendo or it covered multiple platforms.

[@martinhowser4094]

Omg.. I remember blind panic.. had no idea

[@Tossphate]

wow what a wonderful video thanks Kim. I've never heard any shadow of the beast music in spectrum before and thought it sounded really good!! I will definitely go and hunt that out. quick question, what is that lovely song at the end of the vid? one last thing before my chow mein arrives- as I'm sure others have/will point it out, I believe it's pronounced shir Na noog. see you next time mate.

[@Kim_Justice]

The song at the end is the original live bootleg recording of "True Love Waits" by Radiohead.

[@jcardboard]

Watching this on 2019 and it's interesting to see history repeating in a way with gamepass, epic, twitch etc all giving away free games.

[@MrNeil1210]

no mention of the fantastic your sinclair,april fools by having lawn mower simulator ,reviewed in the same issue think they gave it 9/10 :)

[@jdgonzo1982]

AND batty!!! i'm starting up the emulator now!!

[@chrisw5654]

Do one for the Videogame Magazine CDs that appeared on various videogame Magazines for PC, Saturn, Playstation (all gens) and Dreamcast.

[@chrisbomber101]

loved batty back in the day

[@battmann7089]

Batty was ace and so was Road Race.

[@StRoRo]

I don't think the C64 cover tape was so prolific. I remember a few but they were usually filled with durge, from what I remember.

[@waltherstolzing9719]

It all makes sense now ... the C64 magazine I used to buy never carried ads for 'Everything You Need to Know About Girls' ... so THAT's why I turned out to be a complete loser.

[@Wintericecrystal]

Targeted advertising. These buggers knew what they were doing.

[@AlexBazan1978]

I did not know that there was a Castlevania for the Speccy, it looks like simon's quest, are there more Castlevanias for the Spectrum???

[@pjomayo]

I miss Crash and Your Sinclair a lot.I know Super Play,another great mag covering the SNES had a lot of YS humour . Sincalir User??? Hahahaa.......well...they had a good covertape for POKES...

[@SE09uk]

AS a c64 user i was told zx48k users didn't have any genitalia hehe

[@ZyllAvatar]

Tapes in the 90's? I started using PC's and Apples in the mid 80's, and they were all disk based. I didn't know or hear of anybody using tapes in the 80's in the US.

[@Wintericecrystal]

Completely different environment.

[@m1nt9reen]

What's the music for 'The Content' section? Sounds familiar

[@jamestoney6108]

amazing video

[@daddad7453]

Sinclair User = Cwap !

[@helenFX]

i hated the cover tapes - they almost never had anything worth bothering with and i blamed them for the collapse in all the editorial i used to love in the magazines.

[@pjomayo]

Unfortunately,i was a necessity.Crash in particular was a shadow of its former greatness by then.It was a insult that Sinclair User,of all the mags bought it out and did nothing with the Crash name.

[@paulleach3612]

Sinclair User readers order corn on the cob instead of gravy at KFC...

[@whatamalike]

Am I imagining that Matthew Smith did a game for a very early speccy cover tape based on the willy franchise or am I imagining it?

[@Kim_Justice]

No you're not - he wrote a type-in game for CVG all the way back in 1984 (so not on a covertape strictly) called "Andre's Night Off". It's awful though.

[@whatamalike]

Ahh that explains where i've seen it then! I'm guessing if its a type in game it'll be in basic and practically unplayable? :P

[@Kim_Justice]

madcapoperator It is indeed, in BASIC, and rubbish BASIC. They had the nerve to present it as "the lost screen of Jet Set Willy!". I guess that Matthew was quite busy with other matters around the 3rd time that a desperate CVG editor called on deadline day to devote much time to it.

[@alexstokoe2542]

Hmm....practice for the inevitable Amiga Power video? I hope so.

[@alexstokoe2542]

Aha-ha - I wrote that even before the 'for others, it was just the beginning...' sign-off. Ooh, I am excited...

[@planetretro4581]

Because you were so late to the computer revolution this actually helps you in this topic for once because by then the ZX spectrum was pretty much the shit stain on the Victorian toilet bowl lol with the more successful parents shoving ST/Amiga/Megadrives at their kids lol

[@handsomebrick]

I wonder if Alan Sugar appreciated all this cheap software increasing the value of his hardware (a la iPhone), or if he made the Spectrum cheap and abundant specifically to avoid that and was irritated by the market flooding that was pushing him upmarket.

[@dorp2falt739]

Out of interest, what's the music from around 10:41? Sounds kickass

[@robertsutton7949]

What’s the music at 3.51 approx?

[@matrix26uk]

Who went to the Barras for their games?

[@TwiddleFingersDB]

Hey, we're the same age!

[@Tenraiden]

Least remembered? Sinclair User along with Your Sinclair (and ZZAP!) is quite literally my childhood! Reading them and the feeling I got from them are some of the best memories I have.. I never actually read Crash, until much later, on the internet. and 11:18 Moon Cresta

[@chewfat7644]

Sinclair User swallowed Crash, Your Sinclair outlasted both magazines and almost always were way ahead of the other 2 magazines in terms of circulation. Crash went out of the races long before the other two

[@JonsBasicGaming]

Just found this channel. As a life long gamer (48 years old) this is a stroll down memory lane. Thanks and more power to you.

[@warman]

you rule! All of this was a big part of my teens and knowing there is so much history to know is jawdropping.

[@TheVanillatech]

I remember a friend of mine getting a covertape for his Speccy, and it had Julian Gallops "Chaos" on it, the full version. We played that game probably more than any other game in history (except JetSet Willy 2 perhaps) on his Speccy. I still play it now, some 35 years on, with an emulator.

[@RTAC_1234]

super soccer was a dreadful game...i know, i played it quite a bit!

[@MrNeil1210]

yeah played it a lot and you could hack players and they would not get back up for the rest of the match,lol

[@MaxSpender]

Speeded up on an emulator, it becomes ... moderately playable. 😂

[@drewhunter4821]

one thing that should of been mentioned about the cover tapes was the reliability of them. buying the magazines for the cover tapes was nearly always a hit and miss affair at least for the c64 anyway. Commodore formats (future publishing) 'power pack' is a prime example with actually loading the games, in particular the full price game demo being a pain in the arse!!

[@SuperFurry100]

Loved this, Kim. I got a game published on a Crash covertape back when I was 14. I still remember the call from Richard Eddy offering me a hundred quid for it.

[@StuartVallantine]

A slight error on Your Sinclair early on in your film. The magazine was originally published by Sportscene Specialist Press (when known as Your Spectrum) before the company changed its name to Dennis Publishing. As Your Sinclair it was sold to Future Publishing in Spring 1990. That issue aside, a fantastic video up to your usual high standards. Keep up the good work.

[@DJAA1978]

Is that the cover tape tune Hold My Hand Very Tightly by Whistlin' Rick Wilson (aka David Wilson) about the 4 or 5 minutes in the background!

[@Mark-pr7ug]

My 8bit home computer was the cpc 464. It wasn't until later in its life that a magazine came with a cassette. In my years of using the amstrad I recall only one cassette at Christmas. Later I moved on to the 16bit machines. Before this cassette thing, I can remember booklets attached to magazines filled with type-in programs. I think I recall CVG including a booklet at some point. It claimed to have games for all the major ho.e computers. Sadly, .my computer found probably 2 listings.

[@1simo93521]

I can't help but notice the modern parallel between playstation and xbox with their 'free' games each month

[@glenaitken9403]

I was a Sinclair User,..... erm.... user. Great mag. I still remember the demo tape with the Operation Wolf demo. Great times.

[@onaretrotip]

Great video, Kim. Really interesting. Cover tapes were before my time, but I have very fond memories of all the different Amiga cover disks.

[@deadcatthinks6725]

The mags (YS being my fave) were denied a lifeline when the SAM Coupe failed to appear.

[@DirtyBoySingToGod]

Wow, that game " Revolution " ( never seen it before this vid ) has some great animation on it. Was it a good game to play ?

[@Kim_Justice]

I like Revolution a lot - it's very difficult, but a fun concept. Vortex Software were great developers...most of their games ended up on the covertapes after they wound up (Ditto the almighty Gargoyle Games - those are always marked as Hewson's on the tapes I have, so I presume they had the rights to them).

[@DirtyBoySingToGod]

I was solely a C64 owner, though played my friend's Speccy 48k a lot at his house. I always found that the Speccy handled the iso3D games a LOT better, with much smoother animation than the C64 could manage. Those types of games always ran a lot faster on the Speccy too. Seriously, i don't think I've ever seen a video you've put out there Kim that i DIDN'T like or love. Thank you for continuing to upload all this great stuff!

[@jasejj]

C64 had hardware sprites, Spectrum compensated with brute force through a more powerful processor and simpler video circuitry. So with games that suited the C64's graphics capability it won out (easily), but with isometric stuff both machines had to rely on raw computing power to display everything and therefore the Spectrum had the edge, provided the coding was good. Looking back, rather than sniping at each other in the playground perhaps we should all have had both machines :)

[@Villordsutch]

Great video Kim, but I'd say Viz was more like YS. I remember when a "pilot" like issue - of Viz - came out with YS, and the mad parents Brigade went mental.

[@lucasoheyze4597]

Went mental where and how?

[@RBCraneGongfu]

You're an awesome content creator, Kim. Please keep it up, I always find it very interesting to hear about games from a UK perspective.

[@realshompa]

This brings back a lot of memories. I even remember the time before the tapes. Page after page with text. "code your own game". Yes. Before tapes they printed basic code that you had to type yourself. Zzap 64 and the Barbarian cover... wow.

[@mr.y.mysterious.video1]

When crash went big on the cover tape the magazine shrunk to a fraction of its size with review shrinking from 2 pages to a quarter . That when I stopped buying, all the tech features gone, the heart of the mag ripped out

[@Zadster]

Way back in the ZX81 days, I remember getting a magazine with a cover mounted "vinyl" (actually some sort of cheap plastic) record single. I can't remember what was on it, but I do remember it was almost impossible to load.