The ULTIMATE Story of Ultimate Play The Game +RARE Footage!

[@Mong00se22]

I remember getting the Jetpac rom and beating every level using the keyboard. Once you get past the spaceships it starts over again. The inerface 2 was good with those little roms.

[@gipgap4]

I loved Underwurlde myself. It was hard but then so were most games back in the day. The environmental details always impressed me for an 8 bit game.

[@WilliamSalmela]

Atic Atac forever!

[@Wadyface]

I saved for a year to buy my 16k specky because I played jetpack at my friend's house. It still has a place in my heart. And 5hen only ultimate game I clocked. :)

[@barryb1490]

Great background video of a truly golden home computer era!

[@tonybkent]

Pssst! Was my first ever game (83) and I loved Cookie too. I ended up buying all the Ultimate games up to and including Gunfright and I spent many hours mapping out Sabre Wulf, Knightlore and Alien 8 on paper with my mates. SW and KL were my standout favourites. I remember hearing Lunar Jetman "speaking" through my Currah Microspeech too. Happy days...😂

[@robgardner4754]

Braben and Bell and the Stamper brothers. What an era for gaming that was!

[@notbugs]

Atic Atac was my favourite, and i remember that i spent many hours playing it and eventually also wrote down a map that i could follow. Amazing how they managed to get all that good stuff into 48k. The next time i would be impressed was when the game Movie was released, that game map was simply ludicrous because of its gigantic size and still so many different rooms all within 48k again..

[@Brett_is_Veng]

Ashby - de - la - zooch is the pronunciation of the place name

[@RetroSpexx-yt]

It's a tricky one, but thanks!

[@ZXSpectrum128K]

Don't forget 256x192 = 6912 bytes of the 16k is video memory so you loose that leaves less than 10kb and its all contentioned!

[@spiritusinfinitus]

Jetpac was, and still is one of the best arcade style games out there. Ultimate were next level and nobody really came close to their games.

[@wings9925]

They were true geniuses. Even as a BBC and Archimedes user I enjoyed their products (and wished more were available). As a N64 and Gamecube owner, wow! Rare was God-like!

[@Faeryn]

great video spexxy, your pretty good at being a commentator and teacher/explainer

[@speakertreatz]

Brilliant, thanks Mr Retrospexx. I felt a bit cheated though at how little attention and love you gave Lunar Jetman, my favourite UPTG title and shocked that Alien8 got no attention at all. Other than that, I loved it, thanks

[@RetroSpexx-yt]

Thank you for the comment, it was difficult to fit everything in, but I hear you.... I love Alien 8 👍

[@speakertreatz]

@@RetroSpexx-yt just watching back now two years later, you done a great job

[@lurkerrekrul]

I'm in the US, so I had a C64, not a Spectrum. When I hear Ultimate Play the Game, I think of Staff of Karnath. I liked it, but I never finished it. There were whole rooms where I had no idea what to do. There didn't seem to be anything important in them, but then why were they there?

[@goport]

I am at a loss as to why this has had so few views given the heritage of Rare and UPTG. I remember eagerly ordering the Ultimate's first 48k games, Atic Atac and Lunar Jetman, when they were announced. Atic Attack arrived within a few days with a note to apologise about development delays with Lunar Jetman. When Jetman finally arrived it came with a free Ultimate Play the Game baseball cap to apologise for the delay.

[@MacSociety]

Fun video. Well done!

[@rotorportor3119]

My all time favorite. The only think I would improve is the difficulty curve. After the last ship the game loops and alas on the initial difficulty level.

[@kellerkind6169]

I've been Rick rolled :D Thx for a great video.

[@RetroSpexx-yt]

I forgot about the Rick roll...😂 I'm glad that you enjoyed it, thanks! 😁

[@kellerkind6169]

@@RetroSpexx-yt I certainly did! =) I grew up with the UPTG titles on my Spectrum. When I had "beaten" my (illegal) copy of Sabre Wulf (by applying a "helpful" no-life-limit-POKE * g*) I had to get Underwurdle ASAP. IIRC it has been the first computer game I ever bought and in contrast to a lot of other people I loved the game and even finished it without any cheats.

[@Corrus]

Good video. Subscribed!

[@RetroSpexx-yt]

Thank you, I'm glad you liked it!

[@mattsmedley.onehandedgamin9029]

Trans AM was my absolute favourite game on my little rubber key speccy & black & white TV back in the day. Yes I liked jet pack and it was a must have title but Trans AM has a very special place in my heart.

[@TJ-cg8mq]

...that Sabre Wulf cover is the same typo style of Jim Henson' s The Dark Crystal - :) Great vid - have you also covered ATLANTIS ?!?

[@RetroSpexx-yt]

Atlantis Software? No I haven't, but I know that they published a lot of games for all the mainstream home computers back in the day... that'd be a long video! 😆

[@ianbailey3924]

When Sabre Wulf showed up in Killer Instinct, I whooped. I'd no idea that Ultimate had become Rare. Ultimate were consistently the best game developers, every company wanted to be them, the magazines fawned over them. They were everything that Imagine pretended to be before it crashed. It's funny, because I never completed one of their games and got bored with them very quickly. Their games were always 'next level' but they never hung around at any new level long enough to produce something with the substance of maybe Avalon, Fairlight or Elite.

[@felixduke8754]

I realize I am quite randomly asking but does anybody know a good website to watch newly released tv shows online ?

[@Vlad-bu3mr]

damn you and that RickRoll!! Great Video Man my childhood in 18.56 there

[@RetroSpexx-yt]

Sorry about Mr Astley's, rude interruption there!! ; )

[@jimmymatt154]

Great video, thanks!

[@RetroSpexx-yt]

Thanks Matt!

[@Vargon7]

Thanks. Enjoyed your video. I largely agree with you. I never liked Tranz Am or Underwurlde, either. Still love Cookie! It would have been great in the arcades, too. Alien 8 was the last of their games I bothered with. I remember one of my mates buying The Staff of Karnath, expecting it to be along the same lines as Knight Lore. What a disappointment.

[@Vlad-bu3mr]

andddd watching this again

[@johnny5805]

"So sit tight, as we go back to 1982......" when his mic was made. 😀

[@itnaklipse1669]

UPTG was really something else. And today's games aren't half as good as Cookie (...or PSSST, or Jetpac, or......you know the score)! Nor as hard... Lunar Jetman still kills me. So true about Underwurlde... god i hate that game! i tried and tried and tried and tried...and tried. And tried.