The Story of the Hit Squad - The UK's Biggest Budget Gaming Label? | Kim Justice

[@Kim_Justice]

How many Hit Squad games did you have? Is it still something you look for? Have a sound off here! And if you're interested in NerdCon, you can find details and tickets at www.nerdcon.co.uk :) Thanks for watching!

[@xenomorphman3380]

I forgot just how many Hit Squad games i had, until i saw the displays of tapes in this video. Mainly brought from my local Micro shop bargain bin, yes it was an actual bin lol.

[@50factsabout]

It was hard to tell when half of your games were copied tapes with handwritten label haha :) Or if you were feeling really fancy, using the Scotch / 3M sheets of transfer letters to make it look "professional" lol

[@mehere3013]

did you ever fix the x68000 you got ?

[@xenomorphman3380]

@@50factsabout you mean you didn't use them to write expletives on school equipment lol?

[@DeanoTube]

Wow! Brilliant, top class video! Many thanks again! The Hit Squad games I had on C64 were IK+, Target Renegade, Batman, Rastan, Operation Thunderbolt, The New Zealand Story, Bad Dudes vs Dragon ninja, Salamander, Renegade III and Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters

[@Retro_B8]

Wow, I really don’t know what to say…. I am a huge collector of the Hit Squad, was very lucky to complete the C64 set and not far off the amstrad and spectrum set although I doubt I’ll find those last couple to complete them. Thank you so much for including my pictures in the video, I’ve watched your channel for such a long time and to feature in one that is about my favourite collection is absolutely amazing. Great work as ever, absolutely loved the video, just great stuff all round and as always I look forward to the next one!

[@SuperJim]

Thanks for showing a few of my photos Kim ♥️

[@joypadretro2797]

A day's work done, a cold beer and a new Kim Justice video. Life's good.

[@DeanoTube]

Wow! Brilliant, top class video! Many thanks again! The Hit Squad games I had on C64 were IK+, Target Renegade, Batman, Rastan, Operation Thunderbolt, The New Zealand Story, Bad Dudes vs Dragon ninja, Salamander, Renegade III and Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters

[@Jiren261]

I never owned a Speccy, C64 or the like as I started with the Master System but I always love these videos focusing on this era & These consoles. It's a part of gaming history that's often ignored.

[@TheInfiniteMiseryJumper]

Oh Kim, that 'got, got, need' quote kicked me right in the nostalgia bits. I hadn't thought of those swapsie moments in decades, thank you!

[@edpistemic]

Me too!

[@kildogery]

Ooh, shiny!

[@svenred6eard757]

Do you remember sometimes having a few of the same more common cards and sometimes you could swap them for 1 better card? They were like playground currency.

[@slyguythreeonetwonine3172]

I'm 34. I've loved video games since I was given my NES. I've been learning all I can about them over the last 20 years and it's always fun to discover new games and consoles. And I find it fascinating how it seems each region had it's own idea of video games. I grew up with cassette tapes as music! It would have blown my tiny little mind back then to learn video games could also come on cassette tape!😂

[@gavinguy148]

Love the supermarket ads at the start from Jersey! “Benest’s of Millbrook and Fine Price!”

[@simplesimonhadapie]

Nothing like a new kim justice video. This is one that has so many memories to me as i thought hit squad was its own label as a kid simply as we had so many of them at one point since i inherited my c64 in 89/90

[@christianfairhurst3877]

Great stuff Kim. Mastertronic next please, and although possibly a bit niche, growing up in Spain in the late 80's can we have the story of Erbe please?

[@Debagio]

Always good to see a new Kim Justice video.

[@LondraCalibro9]

you are doing gods work kim! love seeing your channel and skills continually growing throughout the years - great research, concept and execution - thank you for the hard work and for always pushing yourself to give us better and better content!

[@tomdavies6368]

I loved how many shops used to sell games back then. Newsagents, petrol stations, supermarkets, chemists, grocers.... a rack of cassettes for £1.99-£2.99 was such a common sight back in the late 80s.

[@paulnash9851]

I love the way that Kim actually approaches these videos from a proper/solid journalistic way. Excellent stuff (as usual) Kim. It’s an absolute pleasure to watch these + see how you improve in both research + presentation with each new instalment. Can’t wait for the day when you finally turn your full attention to the brilliant Amstrad CPC-464 + also the story/games of Amsoft. I’m sure with your skills + way of doing these you’d do it “justice”. Looking forwards to the next one, best wishes etc...

[@lanceuppercut3498]

Another cracking video, been binge watching your last 3 videos (SNES Football games, and the 2 Konami videos) over the past few days and this was another fantastic video. The amounts of budget titles I bought for the Spectrum and Amiga that were either Hit Squad, Kixx and to some extent Ricochet. It was a great way of collecting re-released full prices titles at an affordable price for kids like me who didn't have too much to spend until I got my fist part time job

[@kungfuclassics1770]

Oh yes! I remember Hit Squad games for the Spectrum. Looking forward to watching another stellar documentary

[@dafpuw4478]

Another excellent video Kim. Most of my speccy collection was from various budget publishers, full price games only really showed up at Christmas. As others here have mentioned, would love to see a video on Mastertronic.

[@nickmandleberg]

Hi Kim just wanted to say thanks - you bring back so many memories from when I had a speccy as a kid and then an Amiga 500... I don't collect now or anything but your videos awaken such happy memories!! Your presentation and commentary style is excellent too 👍

[@IamHedgehog]

I think my first Hit Squad was Wizball on the C64, classic!

[@tolindaniel]

I had SO many ST games in Hit Squad boxes as a kid. Used to visit a stall in the Coventry Town Market on weekends that always had them.

[@enemyplayer]

has anyone said "great job Kim never stop documenting cool ass stuff" to you in the last 5 minutes? because I'm telling you now as a curious American and this is a jam of a vid.

[@Aights]

Worst part is where you signed off and we didn't get your insight. Best part is where you signed off and gave us an age of port comparisons with audio (C64 fan here) :) One of your best, Kim.

[@grantd165]

I had no Idea about these being collectable. I've got some in the loft, god knows if they work but I'm going to have a look!

[@BillsOldandNewGaming]

Don't think it will matter if they don't work. If you have a certain few of them people will pay good cash for them. Good luck.

[@grantd165]

@@BillsOldandNewGaming that's crazy, but there is a lot about the whole market I don't really get!

[@AudieHolland]

When I first started buying games for my Commodore 64 (not just 'getting them for free' from our local network that traced all the way back to German hackers) I remember being amazed at the low prices, even including shipping when ordering from The Netherlands. After having ordered 3 or 4 games, I think they were Gunship, Dracula (adventure) and two others, I waited for a few weeks but nothing arrived in the mail. So I wrote a letter in my best Dutch Highschool English, expecting an apology that they did sent the stuff and there was nothing they could do about my not having received the aforementioned items. To my surprise and amazement, the items were delivered the following week! Played them a bit, then decided I really needed to buy the floppy disk version of Gunship before the cassette loading times would drive me insane, but Dracula was a very atmospheric, at times horrifying game while Firelord was okay, probably had expected more but it was an upgrade from the Spectrum version I later learned.

[@davedogge2280]

These bargain compilations were inspired by the Now That's What I Call Music! tapes that started in 1983. The first bargain compilation I bought was the 'Soft Aid!' compilation tape for the C64 and it had some weird and wonderful stuff on it, it was meant to support famine Relief in Ethiopia, I remember it had Fred and Kokotoni Wilf on it.

[@petercorr784]

No it wasn't, was it? These were compilations of games that had already sold many copies a long time before. Now! albums were compilations of current chart hits. Other than them both being compilations, I don't get the connection? Compilations existed before Now albums and there was game compilations (just not 'classic' ones) before the budget labels too. 🤔

[@bucksby]

I managed to collect all the c64 hit squad games many years ago before the collecting frenzy took off. Got my c64 Xmas 1989 and throughout 1990 would always go in WH Smith’s to look at their games. Always wanted to buy the first Batman game for the c64 didn’t realise years later it wasn’t issued! The best thing about collecting hit squad games is that the instructions were always included in the inlay unlike kixx where their instructions often went missing. The hit squad reissue of wwf European rampage has the wrong colour code (has movie instead of sport). They definitely changed the code slightly on some as the original ocean spectrum issue of Cobra wasn’t compatible with the 128. +2A buy the hit squad version was. There’s a few games I am surprised didn’t make it reissue, Adidas championship tie break, Tai-pan. Robocop 2, I know was was cartridge only but some was cyberball and that got a reissue on cassette.

[@merman1974]

I've got 17 Hit Squad releases, plus two of the three They Sold A Million compilations, for C64. Very cool video, and I agree that the branding was a key part of the collecting appeal. Splitting games into categories was an interesting idea. I thought it was a good idea that Ocean initially specified an 18-month gap between full price and budget release, but they eventually abandoned that.

[@edpistemic]

I love it! This is Prime Rib Nostalgia for me. I think our era/experience with the UK micros must be quite similar. Thanks for all your great videos :)

[@tomkrawec]

I definitely owned some Hit Squad games for my Amiga. Maybe this video will remind me of what they were?

[@Steve_UK77]

Great video, as always. Obviously i can only speak for myself but, being a kid right in the middle of the C64/Spectrum era, I would say that nobody REALLY collected games like they do nowdays. Most kids at school only had copies. My games were all stacked in a vegetable rack! The important part was always the ACTUAL game quality. It's very different nowdays.

[@fandangobrandango7864]

I don't recall any kid at school that had copied c64 games, we all used to swap games with each other. I know c64 disk games were copied a lot, but I don't know anyone that had a disk drive lol.

[@Steve_UK77]

@@fandangobrandango7864 They were tapes that passed between the kids at school, I frowned upon it myself as i liked the 'proper boxes'

[@davidspencer7254]

There weren't enough kids who wanted a c64 for there to be copying at my school, was almost ad unpopular as the Electron. It was all speccy and a bit of c64.

[@RobsonRoverRepair]

Solid 1/3 of my collection as a young lad was hit squad from my local shop. £1.99, £2.99 and big spending £3.99 at times. Rarely a bad game from them and many find memories. Thank you Kim!

[@ThePerradox]

I don't think I had even heard of this label before. Excellent video Kim. 👍

[@speedincooper]

God, the research that goes into these video is phenomenal!

[@deku812]

Just a smaller correction, Budget re-released on consoles started well before Sony. Nintendo had it's Player's Choice for SNES games late in the SNES era. Sega had something similar for Genesis, inclucking a 3 or 6 pack of Genesis games which included the Original Sonic. And these were released in the North American market.

[@featuremusic8354]

Oh wow! Already know this is going to be amazing. I loved hit squad tapes

[@steinarvilnes3954]

Does not seem anyone ever made a video on the story about Mastertronic? Remember the debate about that label was quite intense at times, with the big ones wanting them banned from the charts.

[@jonarsenal]

Impressed once again keep these vids going 👏

[@seanjackson8175]

Certainly be looking out for these now at car boot sales had no idea how much they were worth until watching your video . Keep up the good work have watched all your videos

[@sobo5476]

I remember going to the local post office and they had a spinning rack with Amstrad and Spectrum games on it.

[@lucasoheyze4597]

What an amazing story, thanks for sharing 👍

[@FintanMoloney]

Really enjoying looking at these. They look fantastic when put together as a full set !

[@Rockysbeats]

i remember owning quite a few of these HitSquad titles, Dragon Spirit, Rainbow Islands, Altered Beast spring to mind fun times ;)

[@thebigchecka]

Another cracking video from Kim Justice! I have a Hit Squad bundle somewhere, I think for the Spectrum....ooh I'm really struggling to remember the games...I'll have to have a look and reply to my own message. Oh and I *loved* that Bruce Lee game on the Spectrum years ago. Was an easy load and endless fun.

[@Savoy1984]

Ace idea for a video, I think I noticed James Belushi’s cigarette 🚬 airbrushed out on one box and the untouchables had the full cast on the Amstrad box 📦 I believe unlike the poster advert for the game which I have on my wall.

[@qwaH]

ah the good ol days where after a while a full price game would drop to £1.99 or £2.99 on a budgest label, how I remember it, of course I also remember a lot of shovelware tat in the budget ranges as well but thew could be avoided if you had mates unfortunate enough to try them

[@willrobinson7599]

Loved collecting them back in the day on the c64 . Still got some of the more common ones now. I did sell off cyberball and escape from planet of robot monsters a few years ago

[@arostwocents]

I'm certain there are Hit Squad games in our Spectrum collection. Did they do big box releases of collections? I definitely remember the compilations either way! There's so many awesome videos I kinda wanted to watch but thought I hated the channel presenter. Realising I'd confused Kim Justice with another channel has been such an awesome surprise ❤❤❤

[@ZEUSDAZ]

I preferred collecting the original release boxes, they looked more classy of the shelf.

[@shamus2503]

Great video, thank you for the hardwork, some great memories!

[@stevezpj]

25:47 - who on Earth gave Head Over Heels a 62% rating??? It's still a game I enjoy playing now and has to be the ultimate in isometric puzzlers!

[@GadgetUK164]

Excellent video Kim! Nostalgia ooozing out of this video =D

[@TheHobbyLodge]

Great video, I have just begun my quest for a full C64 Hit Squad collection so this was great to watch thank you!.

[@LordPapula]

Excellent! The massive amount of Work you’ve done here is evident.

[@johngammon963]

Excellent work Kim! I can't wait to get into this one. Being the proud owner of many a Hit Squad game :)

[@AndreaOsiander]

i remember the hit squad advertisings and the reviews in the italian edition of Zzap! but finding the hit squad games in the shops here in italy was not easy

[@RJRC_105]

Now the 8 bits were before my time as my first computer was an Atari STE. But the 16 bits also had budget games. While the full priced games came in big boxes like on the PC or Amiga, the budget ones came in squared off flat boxes or sometimes a sort of oversized CD case. They usually had a folding paper instruction sheet as opposed to a manual or even had that on the back side of the cover sheet. Real cost cutting. My Encore budget release of Beyond the Ice Palace consists of an oversized CD case, a disk, and a bit of glossy paper that has the cover art on one side and instructions typed very small on the other. Despite this the budget releases were sometimes changed. Robocop on the ST originally was released on two single sided floppies (a lot of early STs only had single sided drives but from 1987 the STFM had double sided as standard) while the budget was on a single double sided floppy. The budget release also had DRM which the original release didn't have. New Zealand Story also got a change. The cheat in the budget release was "fluffykiwis" while in the original release was "motherfuckinkiwibastards." I think they were both Hit Squad.

[@YoJimBoHugabaJoe]

That arcade nerdcon is hosted at is great,£15 for day ticket and unlimited play on all cabinets,though the industrial estate its located in looks like detroit in robocop

[@middleagedgamerguy]

Seriously such the best choice of venue for our event - Nerdcon is gonna be fantastic

[@craigwalker3194]

I certanly remember the hit squad. I had quite a few of them but they only put the 48k spectrum version on even if you had a 128k spectrum.

[@svenvaltik5657]

As an American emulating NES due to rare/pandemic prices, it blows my mind the Spectrum has games going for these prices...

[@coen123]

27:40 don't think that michael owen's impression stuck past me! oh who am i kidding, i will "have fun".

[@skeletorrobo]

Thanks. I liked the coverage of the game compilations 'they sold a million'. Game compilations may be another topic.

[@fatherjack636]

I think Operation Thunderbolt on the C64 had the Full Price version reviewed by Zzap! 64 which was never finished or released. The Hit Squad was a different version.

[@RTAC_1234]

I only used to buy budget games. I hardly ever bought a full-price Spectrum game, and then I pirated all the Amiga games. In my defence, I was a child living in the 80s, in one of the crappiest towns in England - I didn't have any money! No-one did!

[@davedogge2280]

Were you in Preston !?!

[@RTAC_1234]

@@davedogge2280 No, crapper than Preston.

[@davedogge2280]

@@RTAC_1234 I was

[@iandavis1723]

@@davedogge2280 I'm from Preston. I used to buy games from a shop in Lostock Hall!

[@davedogge2280]

@@iandavis1723 that shop in Lostock Hall was run by an old looking middle aged bloke who seemed middle class in accent which was unusual for the area in Lancashire but not unheard of. The shop had arcade machines in it or a pool table or something I remember, it was on Brownedge Road, can't remember the name. The owner was trying to make it into a club of sorts when he realised that he couldn't make money selling games, location, location, location and all that .... Didn't the owner get cautioned by the police there as he was allegedly selling pirated copies of the games in his shop at cheaper prices ? or allowing youths to get drunk in his 'gaming club' ... something like that.. EDIT: actually take the above with a pinch of salt. The reason why the shop owner got in trouble I think I remember, was due to (allegedly) some rather uncouth girl who smoked a joint in the shop (remember it was a gaming youth club of sorts also) and the police found out; the girls name was Ronda maybe (allegedly). This was in the late 80s and I didn't go to that shop / club often after a bad experience with some of the youths there, it didn't attract the best in society.

[@AtariLegend]

Another beautiful documentary. Great subject. Really enjoyed it, thanks a lot!

[@pda1799]

My first gaming experience -Sinclair. Best games -C64 (if only for the music and System 3 games). It was very much the same with Snes (=c64)/Megdrive (=Sinclair). Probably it’s the music that won me over? Myth/LN2/Midnight Resistance/RASTAN(!!!)… I love this video… just too much Spectrum)

[@druventus9699]

Another great video Kim, I remember buying loads of Hit Squad games, first for the Spectrum, then C64, then finally the Amiga. Unforgettable Saturday mornings where pocket money never disappeared so quickly.

[@antster1983]

This video contains tremendous and superlative gaming value. Benest's of Millbrook and Fineprice, St. Clement's Coast Road.

[@djgeneralbounce]

I was always shocked at how low the first YS review of Space Gun was. That was easily one of the best conversions on the Spectrum even though the multi load was brutal.

[@TheSocialGamer]

I really enjoyed this upload Kim! Many thanks, love your content! See ya on a live stream!

[@kildogery]

I never owned a CPC and only had a go on one a couple of times, but when there's a decent artist involved, some of the graphics it spits out, trigger all my 8bit nostalgia feels. A good looking Amstrad CPC game, even if it played like a dog, just does it for me in terms of representing the era best, even though I'm a Master System guy.

[@ninjapirate47]

It took you only 2 mintues before showing Target Renegade... Bless you, Kim!

[@darthwiizius]

That C64 James Bond music at the start makes it sound like Bond, James Bond is out on a bender one night.

[@fattomandeibu]

Just a quick note on the loader music; all the Hit Squad games I have with loading music used either Ocean Loader 4 or 5 music. Wizball was the biggest disappointment, they removed the epic Ocean Loader 2(maybe 3?) and replaced it with a silent countdown. You could imagine my horror after having experienced that hype-train at my dad's house, then my mum gets the budget release and... yeah... black screen with a small white countdown in the corner. Not even any raster splits.

[@TheMadAfrican1]

Watching this feeling glad I don't also collect for the micros, then realising that I collect for the Gameboy and that's even worse, price-wise!

[@NobletheSavage]

Please give Mastertronic some love. My favourite budget label.

[@IamHedgehog]

Another outstanding videos, fun fact used to call budget games as budgie games as a kid

[@lowlifelenny]

As a 40something gamer I don't remember the collectability aspect of these cheap cassettes at all. My lingering memory is daily starvation so I could waste my school dinner money on whatever looked good in the newsagents. Picked up quite a few gems I missed at full price.

[@reinhard3209]

Another excellent video, thanks Kim! 👍🙏

[@michaelanderson3614]

I’m not familiar with the old gaming PCs, but the video was very interesting.

[@hawkeyepearce1066]

'Crapped in the mouth' good, 'bummed in the gob' (translated from the original Glaswegian) better. Great retrospective!

[@Idiotatwork]

I'm not sure but I believe that ninja games being 'sports' games was due to the restrictions on the word ninja as per teenage mutant hero turtles name change. As a sport ninjas, throwing stars and martial arts are allowed, as a entertainment product they were banned.

[@toastedfallenstar584]

Oh i do like the way you did the different computer section at the bottom for the last section \o/

[@SabretoothBarnacle]

This'll be good

[@Rick_Todd]

Easter Egg Time . He did do a few bug fixes to some games . and also he changed the name bill on the original Rambo score board to his own . because Bill Barna was who did the original rambo loader and he did the hit squad version so it has his name on instead.

[@sorrows_touch]

Was that a cheeky little Michael Owen's world League soccer 98 'have fun' at the end?

[@mrpositronia]

I didn't have any Hit Squad games. As they were re-releases, I already had the originals and by the time I jumped into the 16-bit world, with the Mega Drive, I'd lost faith in the Speccy, as I felt the computer was only receiving mediocre titles, at best.

[@TheRealKaiProton]

I had "they sold a million 3" on CPC 6128!! a DISK multi pack, and played Ghostbusters over and over, then played it at a friends, wiht his copy, on his 6128.. Mine was changed, first his was multi load, once mine was loaded that was it, done.. and the final get through the marshmallow mans legs on mine was crazo, as they used the sprite from the map screen for the marshmallow man, so seeing when his lets were open to run though was near impossible, I think he got a nice ending too, scrolling to the top of the building and the portal being closed, where mine just was a well done screen.. all these years, I ever thought for a moment they would of gone in and changed the game, but as I recall, it was a single disk, with four games on, or maybe double disk with 2 on each,,,

[@leighbennett1961]

I remember my mate buying Rambo for the C64 on Hit Squad and it never the classic Martin Galway loading tune that he made especially for that game. Instead it had Jon Dunn's horrible screechy Ocean loader 5 or whatever it was called.

[@pvfckev8348]

Memories of forget the toys and running to the hit squad section in toys r us

[@jakeconer]

12:10 Well you are going to have a heart attack when you see the spines of American PS2 games

[@Rick_Todd]

Paul Hughes asked Jonathan Dunn for a certain length tune for the hit squad loaders and that's were Ocean loader 4 came from. Also the only reason he had to re master the loaders was because the place were they used to master all the Tape releases had gotten rid of the quality hi tec tape master equipment and only had a cheaper tape master devices which could not keep up with the original fast loaders . so he had to remaster them all at a slower speed. ok for his ocean imagine re leases but a right pain for some of the other software houses hit squad versions. because he had to hack his way into to get access to the code.

[@figureheaduk]

First couple of seconds "Benests Of Millbrook, and Fine Price!"

[@cartoonvandal]

Pocket money, Saturday afternoon, WH Smith - Mid 80s, 12 years old, bliss.

[@sinjeet1]

Thanks

[@Kim_Justice]

Well, thank you very freaking much! That's super kind of you!

[@sinjeet1]

@@Kim_Justice no worries mate, love your content 😊

[@djcactus]

Great label had a fair collection in my youth

[@themarchinggoblin8294]

The panini stickers bit got me bad. Got got need got need need got. Actually still got a full prem 96 album from when I was a kid. Anyone remember getting free McDonald's from the backs of the special stickers? :D

[@arpz]

Great stuff as always, thank you

[@kildogery]

Most of what you say could be absolute bs and there's not another person on this earth with the knowledge to challenge you. Keep it up! Nostalgia is all that's keeping me going.

[@RapideWombaticus]

Excellent work Kim

[@RUOK2000]

Yay! Classic Kim this. Looking forward to it