The Best ZX Spectrum Cover Tape Game....Ever!

The Cover Tape war between the three big Speccy magazines will always be legendary but what was the best EXCLUSIVE game to ever appear on a cover cassette tape?
I played over one hundred games to bring you what I think are the best ten (or so) games you can play right now.
Find all these games over at : spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index...
Seymour Take One
Shuriken
Pieces of Eight
S.A.S. Combat Assault
Ethnipod
Soccer Cup Quizmaster
Ceasefire 2: Night Run
Starburst
Go Bear Go!
The Bobby Yazz Show
Hyper Active
Pixy the Microdot 2
Credits:
James Bond Spectrum Advert: @advertarchive
Darkman Trailer: @ScreamFactoryTV
00:00 Intro
04:07 Top Ten
13:11 Top Five
15:08 Top Three

[@dennyhaynes3]

Another great idea for a video mate, so fresh as i don't know what to expect whats coming up. The pick for me is the clone of the Defender game, another to add to my collection when i release that particular video. Top stuff mate, you've done it again 👍

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Cheers Denny, yeah good choice, great little game!

[@RetroGod1982]

Andy Remic sadly passed away. He produced the Memoirs of a Spectrum Addict series of documentaries

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Yeah I have since found this out. Will probably do something to honour him. So sad

[@mercuryvapoury]

@@SebsPlaceYT Joffa Smifff is also no longer with us, he died in 2010.

[@kins749]

My first thought was Batty, I couldn't believe that was a cover game. If it hadn't been released on a compilation.

[@MonkeyJug]

I saw the video title and immediately thought of Batty.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Yeah I had to mention Batty as it's the classic cover game everyone knows. Bloody good game.

[@markwrightrf]

Haven’t watched this yet but the obvious answer is Batty :-) Edit: Having now watched this well-researched humorous vid, I can well remember all of the Speccy mags bending off the shelves with their two or three tapes attached, but Ij’d been reaching for the likes of Amiga Format or CU Amiga for many years by this point. Dennis Publishing copied Smash Hits who had long been giving away freebies with its relaunch of Your Sinclair, EMAP’s C&VG and Sinclair User quickly followed, with Newsfield playing catch-up. Sad times for those of us who enjoyed the editorial content of our favourite magazine basically becoming a pamphlet.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Haha! Nope! It is in the video though 😄

[@mikeynma]

I agree, easily a full price game given away...still play it today

[@DavidB-rx3km]

I remember the front page of the magazine actually sagging off the shelves like magma down the side of a mountain under the weight of the stuff stuck to the front!

[@johnbishop9188]

I used to love the freebies, they probably made up the bulk of my collection back in the day. Well done for playing them all, your service to mankind is noted. I haven't owned a Speccy for about 30 years now, and haven't even played the emulator for a long while, but have a real urge now. Top video cheers!

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Cheers John, you should. So many games are just as playable and fun today (some are most definitely not though 😄)

[@mercuryvapoury]

I was today years old when I discovered there was a "Pixy the Microdot 2". I remember my dad typing it in, and it being really fun, if incomprehensibly tricky to play. As for games featured on covertapes that never got a commercial release, there was "Play For Your Life", which was a tennis style game where you had to hit your enemy with the ball. that featured on a YS covertape, and also "Road Race".... one of, if not the first full game to be put on a YS covertape.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Haha love it. Pixy 2 is great. I did play both Play For Your Life and Road Race. I thought Play for your life looked great but was horrible to control. Road race was just horrible full stop 😁 cheers!

[@johndd9140]

Great vid - I remember the tapes stuck to the ever increasing thinning mags, but I don't remember playing any of these games!

[@PooperScooperTrooper]

That last game looks awesome! Thanks for introducing it to me :-)

[@SebsPlaceYT]

No problem 👍

[@WhatHoSnorkers]

Great video, and a lovely selection of games!

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Cheers mate

[@mrburgess1698]

Great list which brought back some memories. I started buying Sinclair mags when YS offered Moley Christmas as a cover tape late 87 and played it loads. I remember the early cover tapes weren’t exactly free as the cover price increased from £1 to £1.50 when a tape was included.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Yeah, never actually free... never mind the premium rate number you had to call to play some of the games too!!!!

[@leighbennett1961]

Moley Xmas and Play For Your Life were my first covertapes when I got my brand spanking new +2 xmas 87.

[@nelsonhibbert5267]

Damn yeah, Moley Christmas.... Where Monty climbed up lengths of unspooled cassette tape.

[@delboy3k1]

Cracking video. Great start to the new-year. Not sure if there was a xmas monty mole but I seem to remember 1 lol excelsior sir

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Yeah it makes a small cameo in the intro if you missed it 😊 it was horrible, which was sad as I liked the Monty games. Cheers mate!

[@garyhart6421]

I remember a game called "Survivors aka The Survivors" --- which was on Crash issue 78: July 1990. 3 robots with differing abilities dig, move rock + teleport survivors = Loved it. Originally published by Atlantis Software (1986) for £2.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Nice! I'll have to check that out.

[@l3eatalphal3eatalpha]

Atlantis had some good games. Shame they went under.

[@stewsretroreviews]

Loved this mate, I remember Star Burst and Hyper Active, both brilliant freebies back in the day 😀 👍 Always loved Batty of course too. Great content, liked and subscribed dude 👌

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Thanks Stew, appreciate it!

[@BigCar2]

Batty is a great game. I think the best Pong clone for the Speccy.

[@arostwocents]

Star Burst with masking on sprites and bullets to make everything stand out would have made that an incredible shmup it looks like.

[@arostwocents]

Masking was underused so much, some of the modern Russian Speccy games are ten times better than anything classic. Zosya games have so many utterly stunning titles. I think the racing game with 1920s cars and combat is my favourite. Really, really fun gameplay.

[@arostwocents]

Zosya show in some of their games how masking eliminates clash entirely. When you play their stuff you realise what a shame all the monotone games were. 😢

[@geezerdiamond]

Thanks to the algorithm dropping this on me, you now have a new sub! Great video and great memories. For my money, I would have put Earthshaker high up the list 👍

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Thank you, very kind! Have had a lot of love for Earthshaker. It was defo the best boulderdash game I played researching these games but maybe by that point I was boulder dashed out. It seemed everyone sent in a boulder dash game to the magazines at one point. Even someone in the comments admitted they did! :-)

[@tonyduffy7441]

@@SebsPlaceYT ​My mate at Uni sent his game in to Your Sinclair and was miffed, to say the least, when it was featured in "Crap Game Corner' one issue. I think he sent a sternish letter in response and lo- Earthshaker ended up on the cover tape soon after. So cool that people have a love of it after all these years. Mike'd be stoked :) On the back of that he was given a summer holiday job to fix up some mess of a game called Tai Chi Tortoise (I saw the alpha - it was beyond sh*t). Later going to store and seeing a physical copy of his game on a shelf, surreal.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Great story Tony, love little stories like this, brings it all to life. Thanks for sharing

[@kevinchester0533]

Great choice for Number 1, loved playing that

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Brilliant little game

[@onlineamiga]

Good video! and I was an avid magazine collector back then, so was surprised i didn't recognise the vast majority of these games. Maybe I had moved onto the Amiga when they were coming out if it was after 1992 and was getting Amiga magazines now. I do remember Seymor goes to hollywood and loved the fact you could reply the movie you made. The computer playing back something you did was really novel back then and I would try and make crazy movies even i you did only get a few seconds.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

I was the same. So many I hadn't played because I had moved on. Cheers for the comment

[@andrewfishpool89]

Wow, I had forgotten about Hyper Active. That was great fun. My personal favourites though were Egghead and Rockfall.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

I enjoyed egghead and its sequel. Good shouts

[@daveash9572]

I distinctly remember a few cover tape gems from Your Sinclair. One was one of the Dizzy games which was enormous fun and a brilliant game. Another was a Dan Dare game which was absolutely brilliant and spectacularly tricky. I remember getting a Trainspotter award from Your Sinclair, after I noticed a mistake on a cover where a guy was brandishing a curved sword, but had a straight scabbard for it.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Haha Love it!!! The only Dizzy exclusive was 3.5 which was really short but I think they gave away some of the full price ones too which were not exclusive. Same with Dan Dare I think.

[@daveash9572]

Correct on both counts. The Dizzy game was a full game, and you are quite right, it was previously released. The Dan Dare was either a playable couple of levels of a full price game, or possibly the full game, published a few months after it had been released as full price. I am now going to see if i can still find my trainspotter award!

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Would love to see it!!

[@blatherskite3009]

@@SebsPlaceYT I was the designer on Dizzy 4 and I only found out "3.5" existed many years later. Codemasters never told me about it, and I had nothing to do with it 😄 Maybe they felt obliged to explain why Dizzy was in another world and how he got there? (shrug)

[@frankowalker4662]

My favorite exclusive cover-tape game is PEKING (Your Sinclair, Jan.92). It's a solitaire Mah-Jong game. I play it a lot when I just want to relax.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Good shout!

[@stuartdavidson162]

Batty was a Your Sinclair game - On my £3.00 a week paper round money I was a real treat gatting this. My cousins used to get Sinclair user my best mate used to get Crash with his brother as he had a Speccy and his brother a C64 - we used to read each other's mags :)

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Love it!

[@TheTurnipKing]

Advanced Lawnmower Sim 4tw Honourable mention to Venturama, tho

[@SebsPlaceYT]

I actually played it for the first time doing this. I'm gonna do a video on it I think. An April fools joke that went on for over a year 😄

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Venturama was decent actually. Think it came in my top 20

[@TheTurnipKing]

@@SebsPlaceYT arguably still to this day

[@oddball72]

Batty! I'd completely forgotten about that. Must have spent hours playing Batty(Arkanoid)

[@TheSudsy]

The best giveaway game i had was Pud Pud. had to record on video from tv, take audio from VHS to tape and load it up. It worked and I thought it was good. It may have been a full version release though later.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

That's so cool it worked! I remember tapes being so temperamental, so nice one getting that working!

[@DigitalBreaks]

I had a few of these back in the day. My favourite from this list would have to be Hyper Active Some of my favourite cover tape exclusives would be Earth Shaker, Brat Attack and People From Sirius. I remember putting a fair amount of time into those

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Some good shouts there. Earth Shaker was the best of the gazillion boulder dash games I had to play making this video 😄 People from Sirius was also pretty good, just really sluggish. As for Brat Attack, I nearly put that in the video just for the bonkers story line about all the editorial staff being turned into babies apart from Pam or whatever her name was who was stuck in the loo 🤣 game is bonkers!

[@nickbungus]

Another great video Seb. Great way to spend your Christmas. I built a Bluetooth dongle for my Amiga and C64 so I can use the kids Xbox controllers.😂. How about doing the same premise of cover tape games but for the C64 and Amstrad in future videos?

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Haha cheers Nick, I think your Christmas project was more fun than mine 😄 I will defo do some C64 and Amstrad stuff. I'm actually on the look out for a cheap 464 on ebay but not having much luck 😩

[@linalmeemow]

International Cricket. Came with YS I think, played it for months and kept coming back. Best cricket game on the Spectrum by miles.

[@jasejj]

Think that was a rerelease of an old Argus Press game wasn't it?

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Yeah Jason's right, it was basically a re release so doesn't count. I did play it though and I have to agree it's a pretty good cricket game. Quite a lot to master but pretty decent. Cheers

[@linalmeemow]

@@SebsPlaceYT Oh really, I didn't realise it had a proper release!

[@linalmeemow]

@@SebsPlaceYT Looking around online it appears it got a full release AFTER it appeared on the cover tape!

[@tubbiele2]

My faves were Brat Attack and Blind Panic because of the atmosphere, and Vatman because it had some Cobra vibes, good humour. Cheers

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Thank you 😊 Some good shouts there! Brat Attack is a good shout just for the bonkers premise alone! That game did make me smile 😃

[@Asobitech]

Great list of games. Cover tapes were the best way to get new games with your pocket money. I remember very much enjoying Blind Panic, Bear a Grudge, and Zar Jas from the cover tapes, that didn't make your top 10.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

There has been a lot of love for Bear a Grudge so you are not alone :-) Cheers for the comment.

[@davefennessy8250]

My favourite was Peking on the front of Your Sinclair. It was a monochrome simplified version of MahJong and extremely addictive. If you got a good layout you could clear the piles of tiles within 5 minutes. The cursor/arrow would drag infuriatingly slowly across the screen but that was the only real gripe.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Yeah I enjoyed that one. It confused me a little as to what tiles around the edges I could or couldn't match but is a fun little game.

[@andrewfisher3609]

Easy: Chaos. I would happily play it even now.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

I have heard it's good by others in the comments here but was a commercial release so doesn't count. Cheers

[@mooker5600]

Which led to laser squad and lords of chaos rebelstar and why we have xcom. Chaos was so amazing and probably best game for free on a magazine.

[@blatherskite3009]

Chaos is my all-time favourite Speccy game. I already owned the original "Games Workshop" release, but it was still nice to get it on a covertape - couldn't hurt to have a "free" backup copy, just in case anything unfortunate happened to my original tape :)

[@stuleyland9490]

I'd like to give a mention to Dustin which came free with Your Sinclair issue 34. Had a lot of fun with that game.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Blimey that game looks familiar. Was released commercially in Spain by the looks of it but I'm sure I played and loved this. Thanks for the comment, I'm gonna look into it.

[@MatthewLenton]

I can imagine the mild uproar when someone saw it said Notts Forest

[@drvonpinken]

one of my favourites was A Whole New Ball Game, think it was with Crash, also not sure if it was ever sold. I played this game alot.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

That finished 19th in my list. Very clever little game having to deflect the ball around. I spent ages on it. It's a good shout I can see why you enjoyed it. Cheers

[@Sionnachsalach]

That remains one of my favourite games. Pete Cooke was a genius. I also loved his Tower of Babel on the Amiga.

[@CortinasAndClassics]

For me Earthshaker was the best game I ever played on my Speccy 48K. Amazingly it was ported to the Xbox 360 & I downloaded it.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Ha! How cool 😎 Earth Shaker was the best of the many boulder dash clones for sure

[@mamehaze]

I think my favourites have to be A Whole New Ball Game (done by Pete Cooke, who also did Brainstorm etc.) and Earth Shaker (Boulderdash clone) Not in small part because both came with level editors, and any game with a level editor I would spend hours on. People from Sirius always seemed like an interesting one too, even if I never knew what I was doing on that one, loved the animation. Technically that DID get released commercially in Spain, in Spanish but the English language version was covertape only.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Hi - A Whole New Ball Game ended just outside the top 10 here, great little game. Earth Shaker was a good Boulderdash clone but I must of played a gazillion of them when going through these games and was getting "boulderdashed" out.... I also did play People from Sirius, great looking game but not a great experience to play sadly. Cheers Mamehaze!

[@gravious]

loved Ethnipod :) I would have thought Bear-a-Grudge or EarthShaker would have been on here? or am i wrong about them being covertape only?

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Ethnipod is pretty cool 😎. Bear a grudge was the space harrier one which was too frenetic. I didn't enjoy it. Earth Shaker was one of the gazillion boulder dash clones I had to play lol. It was one of the better ones though. I just checked my list and it came 28th in my chart overall, so not too shabby. Good shout. Cheers.

[@CortinasAndClassics]

Ethnipod was awesome, And Earthshaker

[@LockPickingCuber]

Wow! So much nostalgia! My favourite was a game whose title I can no longer remember, but I think it was something like "Mutants" and I vaguely remember the art-work for it featuring green mutanty monsters. It was a platform game... I'd love to know if anyone remembers it...

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Hmmmm I'll have a think 🤔

[@LockPickingCuber]

​@@SebsPlaceYTthank you! I think it was on Your Sinclair probably around 1988 or 1989, but I might be wrong...

[@chloemarietaylor4036]

My favourite since Batty is excluded was a rogue-like rpg game called Portals of P'thaal. Simple basic written game but addictive. Was on a Sinclair User tape, pretty sure it was never released elsewhere.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Good shout. Adventure games were hard to review properly as you really need to invest a lot of time understanding what is going on. Definitely an exclusive though 👌

[@gitara2D]

I only played Batty. One of the best speccy games.

[@gooseman247]

When I saw Hyperactive at 2, I had to wonder what was at 1. Hyperactive was the first thing I thought of when I saw the title of the video. It was great fun, and it was on a cover tape! What's funny is that I recently got a RG36S and along with the Ultimate games and some of Steve Crow's work, Hyperactive was one of the first games I added.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Great little devices eh! Perfect for games like Hyper Active. Pixy the Microdot, not so much :-)

[@veritanuda]

Thanks for this. But wasn't Sophistry by CRL also a cover game? I seem to remember it was, though I'll be dammed if I can remember what was on the reverse. Either way, it is one of the best free games I remember playing, as it has unique game play and mechanics that make it so damn addictive. I loved the opening montage of Speccy mags covers, and it made me smile to think I remember them all. Cheers Seb!

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Cheers for the comment. Sophistry was a cover tape but wasn't a magazine exclusive as it went on general sale prior to being a cover game, so wouldn't count in this list. I've not played it, though, and it does look interesting, so cheers for the shout. I also checked what was on the other side of sophistry for you. It was a demo of The Real Ghostbusters 😊

[@veritanuda]

@@SebsPlaceYT Ahh Cheers, now that does ring a bell, thanks. Honestly, you should play Sophistry as it is strangely compelling with all the different types of rooms and challenges you have and the dismay when you are in a tricky room and a seeker comes for you. I never completed the game, but I really feel I should make a concerted effort to.

[@jasejj]

Nice selection, I remember a fair few if these. No Riptoff was a surprise though!

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Hi Jason.... don't get me started on boulder dash clones... flippin eck, everyone was writing one and sending them in to magazines., I must of played 20 lol. Riptoff was one of the better ones if I look back at my notes but I found it too sensitive to control. Cheers for the comment mate

[@jasejj]

@@SebsPlaceYT LOL... even I wrote one and sent it in to Crash in 1992... they even seemed interested as I got a reply asking for improvements but Newsfield went bust shortly afterwards and Europress didn't seem interested in reader games at all. I have it on tape somewhere, I really should upload the thing!

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Haha brilliant! Let me know if you do, I would love to play it!

[@rickoneill9948]

To be fair, if there was going to be one Boulderdash type game on there, I reckon it would have had to be Earth Shaker. It's just so well put together in all respects and just oozes class. Though I am rubbish at it, like.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Yeah Earth Shaker is definitely the best one. 👌

[@ivanski28]

Ahh wow i forgot about Shuriken. I always noticed they stole the mushrooms from Stormlord. Great video. Surely Earthshaker should be here?

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Oh did they? Interesting. Earth Shaker was definitely the best of a gazillion boulder dash clones I had to play 😁

[@LurkingCrassZero]

My fave cover disk game was Sinclair Users, Bear a Grudge.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

The space harrier type one? I really liked it but found it a bit frantic. Definitely one of the better ones though!

[@Kels1701e]

Batty was by far and away the best game ever given away on a cover tape.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Not exclusive though. I always thought it was, but it went on sale as part of a hit pak.

[@Kels1701e]

@SebsPlaceYT yes I had forgot about that.

[@LordmonkeyTRM]

Pixy the Microdot probably has the record for smallest player sprite in a video game. Well unofficially at least.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

😁😁 true!

[@davidpowell9965]

Marsport got on SU and YS and I am obsessed with that game. Yet I couldn't make any sense of the other two Gargoyle games in the series

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Marsport is a great game 👍

[@OnafetsEnovap]

My personal favourites (one from each Spectrum magazine): Sinclair User - Hyper Active Your Sinclair - Ano Gaia Crash! - Mission: Fallout (the loading screen advertises a special 128K version, which, as far as I know, never saw the light of day - not even the Internet has anything regarding its existence)

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Cheers good shouts there. I did go on a mission (pardon the pun) to find that 128k version but you are right, nowhere. You had to send a quid with a blank cassette or disk and he'd copy it and send it back.... maybe no-one did lol.

[@TheKevolution]

Some solid memories there, but for me Hyper Active took the crown.

[@simontoseland4152]

Have you played Breakpoint which was a conversion of the snooker quiz game, ‘Give us a break’ which was on a Crash tape? Like the look of Soccer cup quizmaster just brought that from ebay...👍

[@SebsPlaceYT]

I haven't but I just looked it up. Looks like a lot of fun. Enjoy Soccer, it is pretty addictive. Tough to score though, especially with my general knowledge!

[@PhilipHarvey71]

Pixy 2 is a very interesting game, for some reason I missed that one in the day.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Me too.

[@Mindrax]

Andrey J. Remic also known as Andy died of cancer 2022. His latest project 8-Bit Wars fell in limbo and his wife Linda doesn't know what to do with it. So sad :( 8-Bit Wars was almost finished sadly. Maybe someone can help his wife Linda to complete and release it. Andrey J. Remic (1971-2022) Rest in peace.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Yes, I discovered this after someone else in the comments was wondering if it was the same chap. Very sad. He did an interview with Kim Justice, where he talks about the worst game he ever played. I was thinking of doing a video on the game as a mini tribute od to him. I played ALOT of his games, making this video 🙂 rip Andy.

[@FilipeSousa1976Porto]

I have back in the day 1986 micro computer manufactured in Portugal called Timex computer 2048 a clone of zx spectrum but a lot of games dont loaded because compability....my parents buy me many games but 50 percent not loaded....but i have many memories of a many games i played back in the day like Robocop....Commando...Chuck egg....Spy Hunter....who dare wins...Exolon....Out-Run...Renegade...Target Renegade....sabouteur 2...Head Ove Wheels....The Great Escape...many have a good cover tape....but almost played copies...many software houses make copies from original games...i have buy a lots of games in this way....

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Nice 🥰 good memories

[@stuartdavidson162]

"Inspired by Exolon" :D

[@Banderpop]

For me it was Bear a Grudge, but then I was a Space Harrier fan (still am) and was able to play quite far into it. I don't recall how many stages there were but I think it looped after about ten. Superb visuals and music, beating most full price commercial releases including many Sega arcade game ports, but it would have benefitted a lot from some time spent on gameplay tweaks before release. Moley Christmas was my first ever ZX Spectrum game that I bought. I wasn't any good at that one though. Seymour Take One was amazing, it was just a shame that Seymour Goes to Hollywood, which it was promoting, wasn't quite as inventive! And then the other Seymour games in turn weren't as good as Goes to Hollywood.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Great comment, thanks. I thought Bear a Grudge looked fantastic, but I just couldn't get to grips with the gameplay. Just kept dying... I might try again. Moley Christmas was a big disappointment 😞

[@andrewz4718]

Only remember playing Hyperactive of all of these. Best cover tape game for me was Deviants which had been released as a budget title so couldn't make this list but it was the only game I invested serious time in.

[@moardargons8160]

Deviants was great! I made a map of it back in the day. I also remember hacking it to extract the level codes.

[@andrewz4718]

@@moardargons8160. Also made a map. Went one further and made a whole remake in early 2000's

[@leecollins5479]

i love retro gaming on my anbernic rg353p some classic spectrum games have been put on there

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Yeah best Christmas present I got!!!

[@johnabbitt690]

Ahh, those days when things were coming to an end and the magazines got thinner and the tapes were crammed with more and more games. In term's of original games, I always remember three. One was a puzzle game where you must rotate mirrors to shine a laser beam around a room to pop all the yellow dots. I have a feeling that was a game originally sold in the shops, though. Another was a platform shooter called BlobTheCop. Lastly, I can't remember the name, but you were a postman walking down the street, but you had to fight off enemies. You could jump into your post van that followed, and it had a gun turret that would pop up from the roof and shoot people. Can't remember the name for that one.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

A whole new ball game was the one with the mirrors I think. It's pretty decent and I rated it in my top 20. Blobocop was troublesome for me, I couldn't get it working but it looked pretty cool. I'll try and find the postman one.... leave that with me 😁

[@johnabbitt690]

@@SebsPlaceYT I got bored and started searching, and then the name hit me, Mailstrom. I found a video, and it's a 1986 game by Ocean, so it must have been a 90s cover tape re-issue.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Just watched some gameplay on it. Looks right up my street. I've never heard of it. Cheers for the recommendation. I'll give you a shout out if I ever do something on it 😁

[@Synthematix]

Zorgons revenge on the oric-1, raid over moscow, Wizball and Beach head II on the c64 were my favourites, the only game i liked on the speccy was I-Ball Thrust on the atari 65xe was a great game too. along with 180 darts

[@excitedpixelsmedia]

I quite like the space harrier clone that appeared on one of the mags with a bear. Hover bovver or was that released as a commercial game too like batty ?

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Yeah thst was an exclusive, I just didn't like it 😕 it was too busy, couldn't see what was going on. Looked great though

[@excitedpixelsmedia]

@@SebsPlaceYT maybe it helps to be vitally impaired lol. :) great video. I'm sure if they didn't publish batty that would be up there.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Ha - 100%

[@nelsonhibbert5267]

People from Sirius. It was a work of genius if you ask me. But then I caught my chopper in a drawer once.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

🤣🤣🤣 brilliant

[@stuartdavidson162]

Wot no Your Sinclair classic Lawn Mower Simulator? :D It was an April Fool :)

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Ha yep! Gonna do a video all about that one at some point.

[@twankistevenson3884]

My two personal faves were Dustin from YS and Star Raiders 2 (which I think was an SU cover tape) far from the best ever stuck to the front page but the two I remember most fondly

[@SebsPlaceYT]

You could get some right crackers on those cover tapes. I've not played Dustin. Looks like originally a Spanish title, might have to check it out. Cheers.

[@tubbiele2]

​@@SebsPlaceYTDustin was a commercial title in Spain, it was made by Dinamic

[@dav1dbone]

I remember a magazine tape with Bubble Bobble supposed to be first few levels but for some reason I was able to play on up to 80 odd until it crashed, putting in the pokes from crash tipshop might have affected it?

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Whoa that's crazy!!!

[@dav1dbone]

@@SebsPlaceYT pretty cool, I was curious if the pokes would work as I'd had issues before if the game was not original i.e. a rerelease on budget label or compilation they refused to work. I'm thinking the level skip poke might have inadvertently caused it to happen, if you held symbol shift to skip a level, obviously if the full game was still there and they were lazy and just wrote a routine to loop after x level, seems plausible. Recompiling the game with just a few levels would have involved too much work and testing etc.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

That's brilliant and makes sense I guess. Thanks for sharing, love that.

[@dav1dbone]

@@SebsPlaceYT I'm guessing it would be fairly easy to download that version from Ys or crash demo tape archives and give it go, if you're interested? Would also make for interesting viewing, possible video 😁

[@dav1dbone]

There's definitely more to this, apparently it was released on the cover tape of Ace magazine issue 2, they accidentally sent the full game out, it was discovered the night before distribution, however plenty still got shipped. I downloaded the tape although the strange thing is that it contains the actual demo (5 levels) they initially intended, nevertheless I am keen to try the pokes to see if it will skip past level 5.

[@1977bonesaw]

Good selection especially batty and unbelievably free which I always choose of arknoid. Another particular favourite of mine which also came with your Sinclair was a game called Dustin, (escaping a prison)I still to this day load it up on mame just for the nostalgic hit.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Cheers - I've had Dustin come up a few times. It was released commercially so didn't make this this list but I'm intrigued. Cheers

[@trevorrobinson7614]

Well the best magazine that had a cover tape that i bought was a crash magazine tape with dizzy and moon cresta on for the spectrum

[@SebsPlaceYT]

They had some great games on those tapes

[@davidpowell9965]

I liked Bumpy, single-screen puzzle platformer. Though I mostly played it with the 99 lives cheat

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Not heard of that one, will take a look. Cheers.

[@stunthumb]

Armalyte was good, but for me the absolute best covertape game has to be Batty, that was such a surprise that game, we loved it more than anything we spent money on.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Hi - Armalyte interestingly, was never released so could potentially have made this list but was put on a cover tape as a demo and not a full game so doesn't count. Batty is flippin awesome but was sold as part of a pack of games before becoming a cover game, so doesn't count either as an exclusive.

[@stunthumb]

@@SebsPlaceYT My bad, wasn't Armalyte, was thinking of Amaurote, a weird but good isometric game with spiders.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Ah ok, another released commercially game so didn't count on this list but weirdly RoseTintedSpectrum just did a video on that very game and it's a flippin great video : kzbin.info/www/bejne/jIGWpZuPlqZjnKM

[@stunthumb]

@@SebsPlaceYT Yeah - damn I had no idea how to play that game as a kid, great video though. There seems to be a lot of new speccy videos right now.

[@nightbeast8105]

Best cover game ever was probably Batty the Arkanoid clone. nobody expected that kind of quality on a magazine tape at the time. i think was released on budget a while after the cover tape release. (sorry writing this while watching lol) yeah it was a Your Sinclair cover tape. Movie was another good one.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Yeah it's a great game. Cheers for commenting (whilst watching 😁)

[@davidretrogamesplayedbadly3533]

I thought I had played most of the covertapes over the years but was surprised to find I remember hardly any of these. I recall enjoying the kamikaze bear game, do you recall the other one? Terrible rip off of space harrier 💩. Great video.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Ha yeah! That was horrible. Could barely play for 10 seconds before dying each time. It was called Bear a grudge. Cheers for the comment

[@hanniballecter4924]

I loved my Speccy lol

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Me too 😁

[@kickstart-1.3]

12:45 'Code'? The fourth letter is E, there's a river E in Scotland and E is the most commonly used letter in the English language, helpful when deciphering codes eg. Morse code. Edit: Nevermind

[@SebsPlaceYT]

😆

[@newsbender]

8:36 They pinched the sound effects from the excellent Roller Coaster with this one!

[@DavidB-rx3km]

Does anyone remember the "Son Of A Crap Games" section in one of the Spectrum magazines? It review games sent in by readers and was very funny.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Yeah 😁 occasionally the games were actually pretty good and ended up on cover tapes. I played quite a few of those doing this video 😁

[@zubazub66]

I seem to remember playing the hell out of, and enjoying, an F1 racing game that was given away free. I cant remember what it was called though 🤔

[@zubazub66]

After a minute or two of googling I think it could be Road Race from YS. It certainly doesn't look as exciting as I remember 😅

[@SebsPlaceYT]

This one? spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/4160/ZX-Spectrum/Road_Race

[@zubazub66]

@@SebsPlaceYT That's the one 👍

[@merlin5476]

Cadaver. It was a released game but they also did a cover version special too.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Was it called something else? I can't find that one anywhere.

[@merlin5476]

@@SebsPlaceYT cadaver was an isometric style game that had a sequel called Cadaver the pay off, the company ( i think may be called Renegade if my memory serves me right) done a level just for a magazine cover which may have been Crash magazine, its been a long while now so memory is fading 👍

[@SebsPlaceYT]

I'm still struggling to find it but I'm not giving up!

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Is this it? : www.mobygames.com/game/1980/cadaver/ Looks like it was Amiga \ ST, never on the Speccy.

[@merlin5476]

@@SebsPlaceYT oh dear !!!! Sorry. I did say it was a long time ago. You're correct. Its an Atari game not a speccy. I feel a bit foolish. I've been through a lot in the last 40 odd yrs. 👍

[@toastedfallenstar584]

Moley Christmas, followed by Batty.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Batty was great but was also commercially sold 🫣

[@toastedfallenstar584]

Yeah saw that in the video, don't remember it though @@SebsPlaceYT

[@chrishowarth6623]

Ript off was always a decent freebie

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Yeah was one of the gazillion Boulder Dash clones I had to play. Not a bad one though.

[@chrishowarth6623]

@@SebsPlaceYT can you remember typing the basic games from some of the early mags - spent a couple of hours copying them out verbatim only to get a error when trying to run it. Safe to say that put me off of trying to learn basic and machine code

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Ha yeah - I've been there! So frustrating. Also, when you did get them working, they were ultimately shit 😄

[@Cycl0id]

No Chaos.... shocking!

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Only Chaos game I had in my list was Cosmic Chaos, which was a pretty terrible shoot-em-up. Be interested to know more about the game you are referring too in case I missed it?

[@Cycl0id]

Chaos: The Battle of the Wizards by Julian Gollop. Came free with Your Sinclair, I believe. @@SebsPlaceYT

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Ah yes. I've never played it but I have heard good things about it before. It was commercially released before being on a cover tape so doesn't count in this list as these are just games that were exclusive to the magazines. But thanks for the recommendation, I'll add it to games I should check out.

[@Cycl0id]

Ok fair enough! @@SebsPlaceYT

[@retrorobbins]

Very pleasing and great entertaining video their Seb , and I wonder if that Andy remic is our very own light Andy remic who did confessions of a Spectrum owner video and the 8-bit Wars ? As I knew heated a bit of programming himself in the early days ,Hi I Am the new cover tape 4 Crash or fusion retro books , and have recently released four tapes with more newer games on if you've got crash on mail order you will see my name on the front page Wayne Robbins , with a barmy but intends to be fun KZbin channel RETRO ROBBINS, love your videos perhaps we should do a small video together maybe fun if you are interested .. great stuff mate

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Wow impressive mate! I'll take a look! Cheers!

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Gonna search Andy up now lol 😆

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Looks like it was the same chap. Watched a bunch of stuff. Looked like a lovely fella who sadly passed away last year. How sad 😔

[@CasperUK31]

13:00 DECODE? 4th letter and a river D (Dee) morses words, code, unravelled, decode?

[@CasperUK31]

Yeah instead of pausing and working it out, maybe I should have carried on listening for 20 seconds :)

[@SebsPlaceYT]

haha - hats off to you for working it out though!

[@EdWalker]

Batty, next?

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Nope! Was sold as part of a HitPak collection (subsidiary of Elite systems). Even got reviews in the magazines. Great game though.

[@EdWalker]

It started as a cover tape game though. It was only released because everyone said it was so good.

[@lashed1980]

Quasitron

[@peedeeboy2543]

I remember YS giving away Ocean's unreleased Hyper Rally knockoff, Road Race: kzbin.info/www/bejne/noObm2mQjL2phcU I remember it was flippin' hard, and I only got off the first stage once - in a run of incredible luck that was never repeated, I made it to the first night level where you can't see the edge of the track.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Yeah I played that one, was flippin hard. You did well to get anywhere in that game 👍

[@mehere3013]

no pyramania

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Bug-,byte released it

[@garrycowan4394]

Cover games where cool but nothing like a type in...6 hours of syntax errors to find they where absolute garbage 😂

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Very true lol.

[@ukrpgfan4029]

Shame on Britain.....

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Go on....