LGR - SimCity on the BBC Micro - First Impressions

[@SevCaswell]

This was the first version of SimCity I ever played, my father was a broadcast engineer for the BBC and he rescued and fixed several BBC computers that were thrown in the skip at work. We had this game and a bumper selection of arcade games, including pacman, frogger, space invaders and galactica.

[@desther7975]

That color scheme... It looks like SimCity in Hell.

[@nicholasbrooks7349]

Ivan Karamazov why not green

[@Jono98806]

The BBC micro only had 8 colors.

[@Dj3ndo]

Something soothing about the static and your voice combined with the button presses haha. Cool to see this old video. Crazy how many ports SimCity has!

[@cheerio1993]

Oh my gosh, I have just figured out that the BBC micro was what I used to love playing on in school! We had this awesome maze game on it that I was addicted to playing in Primary 1! Thank you LGR, for brining back that awesome memory.

[@Gogohunter]

punzele is that a pun

[@Gogohunter]

infact please tell me its your real name

[@cheerio1993]

Gordon Hunter Of course not! It's Lauren!

[@Gogohunter]

My real name isn't Gordon Hunter it's Maximilian Ultimate Mega High Kamehameha .

[@louiseogden1296]

Granny's Garden. Just saying. British version of the Oregon Trail but less dying of dysentry involved.

[@SpAMCAN]

That intriguing map is the UK... xD

[@TangoBunnie]

I really love these reviews of games on old somewhat-forgotten computers. Since consoles took the lead, it's rare to see people talking about BBC Micros, ZX Spectrums, Acorns, Amstrads, Tandys, and so on! I'd love for you to do more reviews of games on these kinds of systems!

[@eddiehimself]

Funnily enough, we were actually the first country to have a full-scale nuclear power plant, but that wasn't until the 1950s.

[@LGR]

@Chromeize Thanks. Although I'm not sure what you mean, since I didn't show my keyboard in this video... unless you mean the BBC Micro computer on my desk?

[@LGR]

@Feenicks01 Thanks! It hasn't left my face for 8 years now so it's around for the foreseeable future.

[@LGR]

Try thirty years younger :)

[@JennyverseLive]

I remember getting this for my birthday when I was a kid - a friend of mine had SimCity on a black and white Mackintosh Classic and was less than impressed. But when you think about having to do something like this on a BBC Micro...seeing those sites develop...nothing being green...running out of money very, very quickly...you've really brought some memories back!

[@LGR]

@charles9655 As I mentioned in the video, I will be reviewing SimCity and its other versions in a full-length special at some point. C64 included :)

[@DeisFortuna]

Is it just me or are there three games that have been ported more or less to every computer, console, handheld, calculator and harmonica?

[@armornick]

Like Donkey Kong, Bubble Bobble, Puzzle Bobble, and Doom?

[@keiyakins]

Tetris, Sim City, Lemmings, Doom. That's four. I guess Doom is only things that can run it.

[@iac8757]

Keiya Bachhuber Minesweeper too

[@nicksalvatore5717]

Sim city, Tetris and doom

[@russianbot8576]

soon it will be four: tetris, doom, sim city, _skyrim_

[@djjoel1]

Clearly that was the best monster of any game, on any system, ever. 14:33

[@LGR]

@kargaroc386 That's the question I was asking repeatedly in the video. I assume they either didn't have the ability to include time-specific inventions or just forgot.

[@LGR]

Yes, a majority of both 48k and 128k games should be compatible.

[@LGR]

@nybiker1 You have the option to save to disk from the game menu.

[@googleboughtmee]

I never thought the map of Britain looks like a monster before, but you have a point

[@LGR]

@VTS1337 Yup, as long as your motherboard and BIOS support your floppy drive, Win7 is just fine with it and even command line programs can access it.

[@LGR]

@Monstoday I actually have it hooked in to a USB video capture device, which is then hooked into my Windows PC. It's currently the only display I have for the Beeb, and although it's not the clearest of pictures it certainly works!

[@LGR]

@Ownederd13 Thank you. It's a very useful mix, actually, allowing to create disks for many of my DOS machines directly from disk images on my hard drive. Windows 7 having 5.25" floppy support is freaking awesome.

[@LGR]

@farcher3 You know you can just type in a simple search on my channel or look in my "Hardware Reviews" playlist... but no, I have not yet made a BBC Micro review.

[@LGR]

@thatguyontheright1 Eventually. If not on its own then in the SimCity review.

[@LGR]

@Drakortha Well, for starters I wouldn't call it a SimCity clone. Felt a bit more like the Caesar games than SC. It's more of an experiment in social integration simulation mixed in with urban urban theory and planning. Not really my cup of tea, but an interesting title nonetheless. The sequels, the Cities XL games, are also quite interesting with beautiful graphics, but I never got into them to any true extent. I really wanted to though and I'll try again someday!

[@LGR]

@Raggikomm Evar evar? That would be SimCity 2000 Special Edition for Windows. Favorite SimCity original would be SimCity Classic / Deluxe for Win/Mac.

[@LGR]

@UKRetroGames Ah, got confused since the floppy disk is labeled as having a Side A and Side B (40 track and 80 track sides). I'll have to give it another go knowing this! That TurboMMC has certainly been useful many, many times now!

[@Nivaya]

I think this is one of the first games I ever played, on my best friend's brother's BBC Micro. Never looked back. Deeply looking forward to Sim City 5 :D

[@rars0n]

I had no intentions of watching 17 minutes of this, but for some reason, I did and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's really awesome to see how something like Sim City plays on machines like the BBC Micro.

[@LGR]

@Bakemon13 Very cool indeed! Especially when you got both 5.25" and 3.5" versions (or low- and high-density versions) of the game in the same box.

[@LGR]

@farcher3 It's cool. I plan on doing the BBC Micro review sometime over this summer!

[@anonUK]

Every British primary (elementary) and secondary school had BBCs from about 1984 to about 1990. In primary schools, a single BBC was often put on a trolley and wheeled about, like the school TV/ VCR setup.

[@LGR]

@LLWut The BBC Micro's?

[@LGR]

@DylanMayhew Yeah, I made a similar observation after I cut off the camera... perhaps this is more SimMars than SimCity.

[@PortalPottyMan]

Oh. Either way, long time watcher of lgr, love it :)

[@LGR]

@VTS1337 I'd love to take do a restrospective/history/collection vid on Looking Glass, Apogee, Epic Megagames, Accolade and many others. But Maxis is the only "complete" collection I have at the moment!

[@simonparker14]

One of the first computer games I ever had. Thanks for the memory.

[@ILikeStyx]

It'd be cool to see some of these old videos re-recorded... 11 years later I suspect we could see quite the "upgrade" - not to say the old videos aren't any good ;)

[@aoifeamari]

Perhaps the nuclear power plant could not be built because the game year is 1902.

[@LGR]

That's a really awesome way to think about it.

[@LGR]

@Zontar82 Got mine on eBay, it was only a few bucks.

[@LGR]

It probably will, but I can't say for sure as I haven't tried it. Only Sinclair I have is a 48k

[@LGR]

@atombat Ha, I'm pretty sure I remember a novelty candy with that name back in the mid-90's...

[@ExtantWill]

Ah, beautiful FARTCYcftddd, how I missed your... red brown decaying hillside... and golden paved roads.

[@ZuluRomeo]

The Beeb version was the first version of SimCity I owned. It was my favourite game for several years.

[@farcher3]

@phreakindee I've searched your playlist. Its awesome but I wanted to make sure that you hadn't pulled a BBC computer vid you'd made down for space or something. I was surprised that you would do a vid about a game for the BBC and not a vid for the BBC itself 'cause that computer in working condition is a good get and I thought you make an awesome vid about it first. But that's cool I'll wait. Your vids are sooooo awesome and you're a great guide to computer history!!!!!!

[@amichaelthomas83]

The acorn archimedes version was awesome if memory serves.. I used to play it at my primary school.

[@LGR]

@RetroGamerVX Haha, who knew the British Isles looked so much like a monster shooting fireballs from its mouth? At least, to this American's untrained eye...

[@johnsimon8457]

“Luckily this BBC is equipped with awesomeness!” *menu to title screen in two seconds, loading screen only gets in the way* Talk about bottlenecks!

[@ZuluRomeo]

This takes me back.

[@sinnohen]

This guy looks 20 with the mind of a 40 year old. That's awesome.

[@JasperJanssen]

7 years later, he still does.

[@AwesomeRepix]

I don't know why.. But I love those graphics!

[@ImSquiggs]

I'm still in the middle of the video but I get a real "Sim City on Mars" vibe from it that's pretty cool.

[@KrazyKupo]

Wow I can recreate my home town of Bognor Regis on this, it would be pretty accurate looking. Looking forwards to the Sims Medieval review as I'm on the fence about that game.

[@endofthelinejoel]

phreekin' awesome! 8-bit roolz. Amazing that someone coded this great strategy game into 32K.

[@LGR]

@ExtantWill Just wanted to promote your most excellent comment.

[@danilosupertramp]

Just a question from a noob, but if someone put one of those cassette tapes inside a recorder to play, which kind of sound comes out? I'm almost sure it's not an 80's tune XD

[@LGR]

It sounds a lot like a fax machine or dial-up modem transmitting data. And if you don't know what that sounds like, Google/KZbin it :)

[@danilosupertramp]

Lazy Game Reviews Thanks! :D I just read at Wikipedia that there was some radio stations in the past that used to broadcast the computer programs themselves to allow the users to record and run them later. It should be very interesting.

[@sarahts21]

Danilo Nunes This wasn't that common a method of transmitting software, it was tried a few times but wasn't particularly reliable. What you would often find is CEEFAX pages with program listings, as you could pause each page individually and enter it into the system; naturally several 8bit magazines also had similar things in them regularly... and regularly the programs printed wouldn't actually work as the people writing them either didn't quite know what they were doing or couldn't be bothered to fix typo's in the listing. As to the noise the cassette would make in a regular player, either find a youtube vid of a Spectrum 48k loading a program (you can hear the tones as it loads) or imagine a speaker shattering BEEEP, WARBLEWARBLE BEEP... HISS... WARBLE for 5min. You didn't hear this when doing tape 2 tape copies for friends obviously :)

[@felneymike]

Danilo Nunes in Japan they had a thing for the SNES which could pick up games "broadcast" through the TV, and it stored them on an internal tape. But I think they were only broadcast once each. Imagine buying this expensive peripheral and then there's a power cut! A 90's videogame show in the UK would broadcast 'data blasts', which were loads of text pages that lasted half a second, the idea being you'd video it and then pause the tape to read the text... though pasued tapes always had big lines of static across them

[@sistaledaren]

+felneymike It was broadcasted via sattelite to the SNES, not through the tv

[@LGR]

@ObamaGoesPostal Heh, so I suppose that makes us nothing alike except that we both make gaming-related videos. Ah well, thanks though, glad you're enjoying!

[@Bag0HaZe]

Hey Clint, time flies doesn't it! I wonder if you imagined the amount of polish your channel would have years later. I'm really happy for you , I'm sure it wasn't easy..... anyways you will probably never read this but keep on keeping on!

[@LGR]

Thank you, it’s been quite a journey!

[@CherryPixelBun]

Have you played Micropolis, a Java port of SimCity?

[@39zack]

Watching this for the first time in 2018, and when Clint got to "city name" I shout out "fartville" before he said it and it made me laugh when he said it too 😂

[@stephencresswell4760]

Elite is on that list of games! Greatest game ever. IDST.

[@rhydermike]

@R33Racer Yeah, I remember seeing it at a computer show in London. One of the devs was going on about how realistic it was, and my friend and I were laughing because the monster was on the rampage.

[@LGR]

@Tainted107 Quite often. Still never heard/seen/whatevered the guy though!

[@vwestlife]

Gotta love those error messages: Mistake! Bad program! ERROR!

[@LGR]

@HalfLife4Life Close, mine's the X223w

[@slhc15]

FARTVcname. omg I cannot stop laughing holy crap.

[@KosanRio]

2011 Clint is adorable.

[@manneroo]

I remember when i first discovered your channel. Back when you were called phreakindee (sorry if that's spelt wrong). Thank you for the uploads. Genuinely, thank you.

[@joman66]

Love your shirt, RIP MSDOS

[@louiseogden1296]

I would have killed to be able to play Sim City on the Beeb. I would have been a psychopathic ten year old, but I would have killed for it. Also that is just awesome for a Beeb.

[@alchemik666]

This video was loading really bad for some reason... But, it gave me excuse to spend 12 mins playing the youtube Snake. xP

[@TheGopherbuddy]

This man has a wonderful voice.

[@ElielChen762]

Old games' generation has respected.

[@DBW913]

At first glance I thought the city name was Fartchddd. And I thought that sounded rather Welsh, so appropriate for the Micro.

[@bassist4msc]

Great, as always, man.

[@RetroGamerVX]

Sim city for the Beeb??

[@SimpleCarGuy]

@8BitPicklez I don't know about the 80s (i was born in 1990)... but I played my SEGA mega drive until 2005 or so... best console ever!

[@SlightyDisturbedNBK]

This looks way better than the c64 version.

[@andyukmonkey]

I have the Amstrad cpc version of Simcity. I thought that was a quite impressive conversion squeezing it into 64k but putting it into 32k on the BBC. Wow. Oh btw that little map icon is a mini British isles.

[@TantricPlays]

So when are you going to be the mayor of ""No"?

[@josmasterofvideos]

Looks like a really fun game to play!

[@jasonz7788]

Great work Sir thank you

[@Ownederd13]

I'm digging your 5.25 drive, mixed in with the Antec 300.

[@LGR]

@mommydaddy999 Heh, no wife or kids here.

[@RetroGamerVX]

@phreakindee Yep, I'm so well trained, I could spot it on my screen lol :o)

[@dosnostalgic]

Interesting! (Now that's a fucking t-shirt! I need one like that).

[@pikuorguk]

I liked the PalmIII version of SimCity. I especially liked it in boring lectures at Uni ;-)

[@hackett152332]

Hi mate, would like to suggest a few game reviews like Rise of the Triad, Blake Stone and also Skool Daze for the Spectrum...they did a remake of Skool Daze called ''Klass of 99'' which is brilliant!

[@2j4ez]

All sinclair 128k software will work on +2 most if not all 48k will work on a +2 because it has a 48k mode

[@detectingretro6313]

That’s a cool SC box

[@mspeter97]

@tudythegangster in fact in the early 80s most of the computer used cassettes

[@Poki3]

SimCity on Mars apparently.

[@spagget]

even i play this at 1994 i may not enjoy this game, but hey, this how simcity were born! :D

[@NPC999]

You're shirt reminds of a teacher I had in junior high, Her name was Ms. Dos.

[@Xxfancythat79xX]

13:27 is my favourite part of this video! "What the crap??!!"

[@PassiveSmoking]

Still better than Sim City 5

[@hellonpluto]

Yes they do work...a +2 is a 128k computer.

[@joelcr250]

His videos deserve more views !

[@csanderson7850]

my favourite port is the super nintendo version with the cool unique features (mario statue, bowser etc.) doughnut city design strategy FTW.

[@ZoeMofo]

The monster is hillarious!

[@rautamiekka]

Now imagine playing this in multiplayer :D