This AWFUL Game GOT A SEQUEL?!

Truly, these are some of the worst games I have ever come across (not just on the ZX Spectrum) - From a time where game design as we know it is floating in the breeze of the future like some magical carrier bag that longs to be recycled.
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[@ashens]

There's a bit of extra horror: The first 2 games support the monstrous squawkbox that was the Currah MicroSpeech. Enabling it in the emulator will allow you to hear Satan himself hissing incomprehensibly at max volume, just like you always wanted!

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

Oh dear Christ, thank god I didn't know that!

[@kevinhardy996]

I had the first game. Hated it I had the speech unit. Loved it. You could make your Spectrum swear, there’s nothing finer than that to a nerdy 12 year old.

[@blatherskite3009]

The most impressive speech I ever heard coming out of a Speccy (with or without a Currah MicroSpeech) was in a humble chess game called "The Chess Player" ... which, when it finished loading, said the game's name in beautifully clear speech. Turned out it was totally cheating and the speech was actually recorded on the cassette, straight after the code.

[@ashens]

@@blatherskite3009 That is genius, to be fair

[@ChrisShadowens]

Watched a demo, it's about what one'd expect from an early 90s Poundland Electrolarynx.

[@arostwocents]

The ending to the first game was awesome for Spectrum. The second game where you got the "Elixiur" 😂

[@Formula_Zero_EX]

15:50 Awakened giant jumpscare

[@pixelcrunch300]

Analog Horror Jumpscares be like:

[@samcadwallader2899]

I remember being massively impressed visually by Jack and the Beanstalk when it came out. It stood out from other games at the time as it was so garish and weird looking. You have to remember for the most part those of us into the hobby of 'collecting' games using a tape to tape recorder didn't have time to actually play any of them. We were too busy working out just how many you could fit on a C120 and making note of the tape counter readings.

[@blatherskite3009]

Gotta love the magazine advert for the first game, "Jack and the Beanstalk," which proudly proclaims it to be (and I quote) "The Most Graphical Arcade Simulation Ever Produced" ... which must surely be a contender for The Most Meaningless Advertising Blurb Ever Produced. "It's like, how much more graphical could this be? And the answer is None. None more graphical." It has all the graphics.

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

And as we all know, graphics are the most important part of a game.

[@explodingmonad4535]

​@@RoseTintedSpectrum Without graphics, games would be much harder to see

[@MQsto]

@@explodingmonad4535 Seems that these Jack games were pretty damn hard to see even with graphics.

[@mendelovitch]

You shouldn't build your condor-shaped aeroplanes from gold. Gold is both a very soft and a very dense metal.

[@KingSidJames]

Also if I correctly recall, the Condor fired a death ray lazer from its fucking wings thus the flying gold bird should of melted, killing the three little pretentious little shits and the bloke with a face like a monkeys arse.

[@fremenondesand3896]

watching your videos is a treat. Don't know why, it's like looking in someone's bin and going "Oh, that might have been nice at some point, remember when things were nice?" I'm reminded in this video how much I really disliked the "sound" and "music" that the speccy made, and was blown away the first time I heard soundblaster sounds on a PC.

[@impfinityspectrum3210]

Unexpected Mysterious Cities of Gold!

[@steve16384]

A true vision of Hell: being forced to play Jack games for eternity, and each time you complete one, Satan releases another sequel.

[@Sashko_Dee]

But Satan puts out the best games. All them hillbilly American churches couldn't stop talking about how Pokemon or Doom or whatever was in cahoots with Satan and corrupting the youth. It's the overtly Chrisitan games that suck bucket fulls of ass...You can see it in other media too. Just think of all the awesome metal bands in league with Satan now think of a decent Chrisitan metal band. Stryper is the best that anyone could come up with as an answer and they aren't very good to begin with.

[@MrFunsocks]

Shows how much I think I've been confusing Manic Miner with something else. Not sure what, though. I had Wee Shuggy on the Acorn Electron which is obviously very similar to Manic Miner.

[@Formula_Zero_EX]

8:25 IS THAT THE SHREK 2 FAR FAR AWAY MUSIC?!

[@gearsofgames]

Level 4 completely broke me and if I never come back to this game for the rest of eternity, it's way too soon! Still haven't worked up enough courage to try the third game! But the pants level looked significantly lower than the first two, so maybe I should give it a try!

[@edwardake1256]

'So, be wary of that.' Cheers for the heads up as I'm for sure going to be playing!

[@RichardHallas]

Why does everyone always think you have to jump over that first bush in Manic Miner and risk bashing your head on the guardian above? Just walk under that bush and THEN jump up onto the platform above. MUCH better.

[@theflyingninja1]

Shit, you're right.

[@barry-allenthe-flash8396]

I've never heard of the term before - heck, I never even thought about what it could be! - but I DO suppose "an un-hidden turd" _would_ accurately describe the exact opposite to a hidden gem. That's why I like this channel; makes me think... 😀 Thanks again for diving into the ol' ZX Spectrum mines to show off something awful for our amusement. And regarding that third one, something not awful for our enjoyment, because man, I cannot state enough just how *funny* it was to hear _such genuine happiness_ from you being able to utter the phrase, "Oh yea-- THE SOFA DOESN'T KILL ME! Oh my goodness...."

[@TimberwolfK]

Why did they model the other giant off flipping Ringo from the Beatles cartoon? WHY? It's no wonder Sir Clive wandered off to invent Zikes and bicycles made out of ironing board leg mechanisms instead.

[@Shundi12]

Extra thumbs up for Mysterious Cities of Gold music at the end :)

[@misjavanlaatum]

I mean, we all know colour clash is a drawback of the speccy architecture. But these games actively take it to a whole new infernal level 😱

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

The only bits that didn't have colour clash were the bits where you could barely make out your yellow character against a green background.

[@plisskensghost2951]

Had the first one on the CPC and it was just as horrific. Of course never seen the end screen back in the day so thanks for that ha

[@tonyp3824]

Love the video- thank you. You, Sebs Place and Kim Justice are easily my favourite KZbin channels, love it when your content drops. Tony

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

Good choices!

[@bozmanga1]

The Mysterious Cities of Gold ending is briliant!

[@SmoMo_]

So number 4, that’s gonna be a corker, when they get around to making it!

[@slopesgameroom]

hahaha never heard of this one... great video... sorry you had to sit through it

[@Rich_H_1972]

Reminds me of some of the stakeholders I've worked with on projects over the years. Didn't have a clue what they wanted me to do either.

[@retrogamerdiaries]

Absolutely brilliant. Love your channel

[@Zirus_Blackheart]

"Ya know what's worse than level 3? level fukin 4!" ahahha :-D

[@DemonTomatoDave]

I spent this video in a weird spinny sort of flux, observing that the game is bad, but for some reason wanting to play devil's advocate. Why? (I know why, I'm about to say why, but first I'm going to gibber on.) I remember Speccy reviews making sense, so if the reviews for these were relatively positive, there must be something he's missing, I reckoned. I thought I'd got it at 12:28 when the Crash review comes on screen and the details say it's MicroSpeech compatible. That was a big gimmick, so I was wondering well what if these games were made FOR that tech, and playing them without it would be like playing a game designed for a transparent screen overlay without putting the overlay on your telly. You know, I'm imagining it was shouting "warmer! warmer! Noo, colder" to guide you on the right path between the nonsensical damage hitboxes. But no, because there's Ashens in the comments with all the info and of course it turns out they just used it for more nonsense. So I think the reason I wanted to like this game is just because it seems to bring into real life the feeling that all Speccy games had when you were too young to properly comprehend them. You know, five years old, computer's first getting plugged in, nothing on the screen makes sense and everything demands a completely new attempt at parsing reality from clues you don't understand. This is not how Speccy games looked, or worked. Moving the sprite creates completely random reactions from the whole world around it. There's no tiles or anything that makes sense, it's like you're just moving a sprite around on top of a full drawing, a piece of weird art, which you'd think the Spectrum's limited memory would preclude. How DID they draw that full-screen giant with all his details? I remember trying to draw a dragon for a text adventure in Graphic Adventure Creator and being shut down after about ten lines because the RAM was all used up. So this game is a bit of a wonder, isn't it. What is it? How does it work? What does it mean? What does it ask of us? How did it get released in a way that people encountered it, why did people review it, why did they review it positively? Why does going up the wrong pixel of a ladder fully kill you? This game revives in adult players the primordial fairyland brain feeling of being a toddler confronted with computer games for the first time. It's sort of wonderful.

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

These are all thoughts I would also have if I was looking at it rather than attempt to play through it, and sadly, my furious rage wiped all of that away

[@RetroSegaDev]

Great video, incredible ending

[@misterdodgy4229]

My brain had archived this shite in some far remote place. I’ve got PTSD now. At least they gave not a shite about the colour clash & just embraced it.

[@Nosaveddataretro]

The anxiety is strong watching you play the game, it was intense. Then when number 3 came on, I strangely felt good 😂

[@oldhedders]

I kept it together until that last line. Then I lost it completely.

[@RetroBytesUK]

No cities of gold is the perfect ending, never change.

[@raggersragnarsson6255]

Thank goodness my acquired version never loaded. 8 bit games were killer but this seems too difficult.

[@NobletheSavage]

I'm amazed that they made Footballer of the Year. That was a cracking game.

[@WhatHoSnorkers]

It's like the opposite of the Godfather films! What the fuck were they thinking?

[@Spectrum4e4]

Okay, first I am TOTALLY SHOCKED by this but I have several of things to say on this one! 1:- I owned 3 spectrums in the 80s an original rubber key 16k, an original 48k that was put into a dk'tronics keyboard and a spectrum 128k. and I had between 220-240 games, all original no copies (yes NOT one pirate copy!) and you know what? out of those 220+ games, my absolute and utter favourite game was Giant's Revenge!!! I played it frequently 2:- While your review did sting greatly with your outpouring of such hate and dislike on my favourite spectrum game, I am not a bitter man and I respect your right to your opinion and I'm not complaining about that at all (even though it pained me) 3:- I do not hold grudges, even for people who shit upon my favourite spectrum game ever, so I will click on subscribe and I will watch more of your videos, perhaps from the safety of behind a cushion in case you shit upon more games I dearly love. 4:- I will further prove I don't bear grudges by clicking the like button

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, in your younger days you can pick up a new game and it doesn't matter what the quality is like, you play that thing to the ends of the earth and you fall in love with it regardless. Lord knows some of my own favourites are absolute horse radish.

[@KingSidJames]

Very true. As a youngster my go to game was New wheels John? I had no concept of capitalism or the motor trade, but the sheer thrill of selling a crap car to an unsuspecting punter was a major high for me. Also naming the business a rude name (Wankey Wagons was a favourite) was a bonus. I now work in the motor trade, so it was luck I guess that my favourite Speccy game was not Fantastic voyage....I might of ended up as a gynecologist!

[@biggsywolves3279]

All those people that failed the copy protection and never loaded it again have no idea how lucky they were.

[@gordoneyton-williams8777]

Great review, top ending!

[@mattsmith4536]

I smear your joyful tidings all over my grubby keyboard whenever you post a new vid. You make the world a better place.

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

So long as it's not a pile in the corner of your bedroom

[@vermis8344]

2:50 I knew it was a good idea to subscribe. 🤣

[@WurlyBurger]

really enjoyed this video.

[@Nocturnic]

It's like the Renegade trilogy in reverse.

[@peter.jibbetson5601]

Do a vid on Thumb Bandits... would be fun!.

[@Quimbyrbg]

I would rather play Sonic Adventure. I think I would choose The House that Jack Built over Sonic Adventure 2 though.

[@TromaDogg]

It's funny now seeing that the third game isn't actually as bad as the first two, as I've deliberately avoided it all these years based on how shite Giant's Revenge was, and it being even worse than Crap and the Beanstalk. Not that I'm in any rush to try it myself anytime soon 😂😂

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

Yeah, it's the shame of sequels really - all 3 were shat out in one year, and the third manages to finally learn the lessons of the previous two but by that point... Who would be waiting for it?

[@PaoloLery]

Hilarious stuff, great work thanks

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

Much appreciated!

[@fattomandeibu]

That 5/5 review is even more ridiculous than Rise of the Robots getting 90% in CU Amiga. I didn't think we could get any lower.

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

There's always a new lower.

[@marcgoesblindgaming2076]

I agree with you a 100% both these games are absolute dog $h1t , Whoever created this didn't have Jack's magic beans, They had taken magic mushrooms Or maybe they were just having a laugh 😂

[@TheTootyFrooty]

I just failed No Nut November thanks to that level 4.

[@ManicMiner89]

When's that Dali game out?

[@Tubeite]

Before I watch, it's not Custer's Revenge is it?

[@vidarlystadjohansen9829]

forgot about this game series

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

Deservedly

[@vidarlystadjohansen9829]

lol yeah :) @@RoseTintedSpectrum

[@burbercat3558]

As soon as I saw the beanstalk I thought fuck that shit. I bought that game full price and it can just get fucked. It promised the world and doesn't deliver. The game itself is the equivalent of buying some magic beans and realising you've been conned. I didn't buy Giants Revenge. Having already bought the magic beans I wasn't getting ripped off again.

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

Mate, you bought the second best game in the trilogy

[@burbercat3558]

@@RoseTintedSpectrum there's a third one?????

[@sheets75]

This seems less a game (series) and more like the gom jabbar/pain box test from Dune.

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

Jack is the mind killer.

[@Justin-TPG]

This is rubbish! I prefer Sonic Adv no, you're right, I just can't do it

[@OvercookedOctopusFeet]

I know nothing about Spectrum, but after that little insert of a turd sat next to a fruit bowl.. yep, i cannot help but sub 👍

[@burbercat3558]

Pretty sure those are cabbages hes shooting out of his face. I know this as i researched it in my mind

[@Nosaveddataretro]

It's a speccy game so probably true

[@ItsCrapContent]

Im not sure which is worst the game or someone who spent 22mins explaining why this game is pants or worst still someone watching 22mins to see someone explain the game is pants ……still enjoyed the vid boss 👍

[@ctrlaltrees]

Unseemly

[@RaposaCadela]

Wow it's impressive how much they messed up a simple concept! It's 3D but it isn't, floors aren't floors, walls aren't walls, they can kill you or act like the other randomly for no reason... Plus DAMN is it ugly, that's actually the worse color clashing I have ever seen. I'd love to see what's under the hood of this game to understand just what path you are supposed to take, because the one you took looks like a glitch, but who knows since floors can randomly kill you and that also looks like a glitch, but it's just how the game is :p

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

It's truly some of the most baffling design choices I've ever come across. The fact they got to game 3 is beyond me.

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

Oh, and I failed to mention, all 3 were released in the same year.

[@blatherskite3009]

@@RoseTintedSpectrum And the following year, the same dev sharted out the godawful "Monty is Innocent" ... which was nothing like the proper Monty Mole platform games, and was basically a _fourth_ "Jack" game, with the same unreadable perspective nonsense, and the same illogicality and incomprehensibility.

[@mamehaze]

That's because it's a maze game... just instead of showing you the maze they show you a random pseudo-3D drawing from Jack and the Beanstalk. If they just rendered the maze it would probably be a decent, albeit rather short maze game with deadly walls.

[@RaposaCadela]

@@mamehaze IT'S A MAZE WHERE YOU CAN'T SEE THE MAZE AND THE WALLS KILL YOU, it's a baffling design choice aklsdjaskldjakl I love it

[@ChrisShadowens]

Ha! Take that, James Corden & Jack Whitehall! ...wait, are we supposed to not like Jack? I know Corden is a twat who definitely went all "Hollywood" but, surely, the guy who gave us "Bad Education" and "Travels with my Father" can't be all bad...can he?

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

I largely put him in there because he's called Jack, but also he's a nepo and his wobbly headed posh shtick reminds me of McIntyre who's also a shart.

[@ChrisShadowens]

@@RoseTintedSpectrum Asked and answered...dunno how I didn't get the"Jack" part of it. I get it now. Cheers, dude!

[@raggersragnarsson6255]

All the percentage reviews were clearly just for graphics

[@mysterycrumble]

the house that... fuck offff

[@bryngunn]

Fee-fi-fo-fuck 🤣

[@primokarmasilver]

ur mum had a sequel

[@bigjaffa02]

Your endings are acceptable

[@RaposaCadela]

eyooo look who's posting to kill my boredom!

[@iainlee]

*elixir

[@RoseTintedSpectrum]

Elixir the Kidd

[@Justin-TPG]

*elixiur. It says it right there. Come on, Iain, pay attention.

[@blatherskite3009]

elixiur 4 life

[@mr.a8315]

🏆 😂👍

[@darrenmarsh3312]

Yeah. I cares for my mum while she was dying of cancer, I don't want to hear about this shit. Cheers

[@xxnoxx-xp5bl]

Nothing wrong with Sonic Adventure.

[@heyhonpuds]

Unnecessary mouth sounds at start 👎 Otherwise good vid

[@docthefaust4519]

N all your friends in-tow search-for-the-cit-es-ies-le-d'orrrr