What Were Ocean Thinking? | MAILSTROM | ZX Spectrum

[@davidretrogamesplayedbadly3533]

Funnily enough this game was on my radar for quite a while. The cover really looks like it could be a Bob wakelin cover. Turns out it isn't, unusually for an ocean game it's signed. Very strange/pointless/boring game. Great video though. Incidentally I could never figure out cosmic wartoad either.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Haha love this. Thank you 😊

[@crafty_tams]

Not gonna lie, I loved this game as a kid. ❤

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Haha, I probably would have aswell. 😁😁 not so much now...

[@tommygrandefors9691]

Just totally wonderful. A masterpiece. Thank you!

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Thank you, Tommy, very kind 😊

[@Rustem_A_]

Living in the former USSR I had no idea that each zx game was released separatelly. That each game had a manual - absolute must for 99% titles of the era! So wе used to get all the info from "Hints for 500 zx games" issues. I remember Mailstrom intriguing art in one of those "hints book", which unfortunately didn't have a single word on the game itself, so I could only fantasize on how cool the game might be😅 Never expected it to be so slow and boring!

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Fascinating, thank you! The artwork is brilliant and certainly over hypes the game! Cheers for the comment!

[@Nomenloony]

I got that odd bundle with my Spectrum +3. It really was a weird collection of stuff. Thankfully I also got Short Circuit & The Great Escape in the box too which redeemed it a little.

[@OperationPhantom]

Thanks for the fun video! Probably a lot more hilarious hearing you talk about it than playing the darn thing! Unfortunately... this was never converted to the C64, the computer I had at the time. Though a Rob Hubbard soundtrack would not save it, it is funny (to me) imagining this having really energetic music like the Commando music to go with it.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

😁😁 that would've been pretty awesome! Cheers for comment!

[@Mandrax1138]

Used to love this game, I still have it on emulation. It was released on a cover tape if I remember correctly. It wasn't a very exciting game, granted, but I was mostly interested in seeing what upgrades I could collect for the van.

[@SeanONeill-ef5vb]

I actually stood up and gave a round of applause for that pause icon joke. 😂

[@SebsPlaceYT]

🤣😂🤣

[@darthkek1953]

So it was Paperboy : The Royal Mail Years

[@SebsPlaceYT]

That title would have made me buy it 🤣

[@matthewmillaisgray]

Good day Seb, I hope this message finds you well. I recently came across your revealing review of the ZX Spectrum game from 1986/7, and I wanted to express my gratitude for shedding light on this enigmatic title. As someone who experienced this game back in the day, I always wondered why I struggled to fully grasp its mechanics and objectives. Being an Ocean game with a good reputation for production, I believed that my lack of skill or understanding prevented me from truly enjoying it. The original packaging, with its premium feel, only added to my anticipation. However, your review helped me realize that it wasn't my shortcomings as a player, but rather the game's inherent design that left me feeling overwhelmed and eventually bored. Your insights into its flaws and missed opportunities resonated with my own frustrations. I appreciate your thorough analysis and the way you presented your findings. Thanks to your review, I finally have closure on this long-standing ZX mystery. It's comforting to know that my experience was shared by others and that I wasn't alone in my struggle to connect with the game. Once again, thank you for your dedication to uncovering the truth behind this ZX Spectrum game. Your review has not only provided valuable insight but has also given me a renewed appreciation for the importance of game design and the impact it can have on the player's experience. Best wishes from South Africa

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Thanks Matthew, glad it helped you!

[@arcadeplayer77]

Still can’t believe this was a bundled game for the Plus 3. I remember playing it back in the day at a mates house. I found it an interesting game to be honest but my friend found it quite disturbing, in fact as an adult he renounced a lot of stuff and became a vicar, and I still think this game contributed to that life choice.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

🤣 you win the comment of the week award. Love it 😀

[@hanniballecter4924]

Does anyone else remember Run The Gauntlet? It was a TV gameshow made into a game.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Yeah I do I think. I have a recollection that I liked it but it was a multi loader and a big pain in the arse!!

[@newsbender]

6:55 that REALLY needed a Withnail and I "GET IN THE BACK OF THE VAN!" clip inserted

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Haha yes !!! I need you in my script writing team!!!

[@johneccles4701]

Game just popped back in my head, trying to find some info on this game. Can't believe there's a video all about it, you tube's crazy 😂

[@SebsPlaceYT]

😂😂 love it!

[@johnbishop9188]

Cosmic Wartoad! "Nice legs, shame about the face" Or something like that.

[@edz]

I really liked that game when I was a kid. Maybe that's why 38 years later I keep getting Facebook recommendations to join the "Dull Men's Club".

[@SebsPlaceYT]

🤣🤣

[@bjornh1527]

Fascinating game, maybe not to play, but that it exists!

[@SebsPlaceYT]

100%

[@WhatHoSnorkers]

Nice one and what were they thinking? The gun turret on the van being a pillarbox was a nice touch though.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Yeah I did like that. 👍

[@sheepshead77]

Yeah I got this on the SU cover tape. Kind of enjoyed it as a kid although didn’t have a clue what to do. I loved Batman the Movie demo on the other side of the tape

[@GreyHulk2156]

To misquote Doctor Who - "For some people, small, amusement experiences is what life is all about!" ;P

[@SebsPlaceYT]

😁 love this

[@twankistevenson3884]

Miami Vice broke my heart when I first played it... but yeah weird doesn't come close to desribing this one

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Yeah, what a waste of a great license!

[@Simon-xc5oy]

Heh...yes. But Miami Vice was great on the C64. I was amazed. It got good reviews at the time for the Commodore, and when I eventually got my C64 I picked Miami Vice up in a bargain bin in CHIPS computer shop. For about £3 as I recall. And it was great fun to burn around listening to the music and blasting things...

[@GamerbugUK]

I had no idea what I was doing in this game so it was twice as boring to me... down sides of a D90 full of games I guess.

[@jekylthorn8969]

Like delivering post in Camberwell.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

😂

[@tubbiele2]

Good video, thanks

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Glad you liked it! Thanks 😊

[@fredsmith1970]

What have the Roman's ever done for us?

[@SebsPlaceYT]

A game about a roman postal service might have been more interesting 😁

[@iestyndavies7287]

Brought peace?

[@SeanONeill-ef5vb]

The Aquaduct

[@Simon-xc5oy]

All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us? Brought peace??!!?? SHUT UP!!!

[@marcraygun6290]

What were they thinking?

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Indeed....

[@SelfIndulgentGamer]

I had this game, I liked the look of it, but never understood it :)

[@robwainfur2073]

These days this could be classed as a rather accurate Evri Delivery Simulator.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@bufordmaddogtannen]

What lovely bunch of Specturd games... 😂

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Specturd 😁

[@chloemarietaylor4036]

Loved the game, not sure why it was so addictive. Never got past about the 4th or 5th day due to ammo scarcity

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Games certainly hit different when we were kids I think. Imagination helped keep the game more interesting. You play it as an adult though, and wonder what was I doing 😂

[@chloemarietaylor4036]

@@SebsPlaceYT Indeed, often nostalgia holds as long as you don't replay the game ever hehe

[@wisteela]

How very strange. I must check out the Great Escape as the graphics looked great.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Great Escape is erm....Great!

[@dweston76]

Good video!

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Thanks!

[@Collect-Retro]

When’s the next snes video mate?

[@SebsPlaceYT]

I'm putting together a few letters in one video mate. Will be soon 👍

[@Collect-Retro]

@@SebsPlaceYT sweet mate really look forward to those videos! All the best!

[@retrorobbins]

good video seb

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Thank you 😊

[@dennyhaynes3]

I'm literally lost for words, not one comment comes to mind than, "this is a work simulator". So boring it actually feels like being at work. Ocean were renown for dog shit games from time to time. Who can forget Knight Rider. As for dry toast, you've not lived until you have cheese and onion crisps on dry toast. Butter is for dirty buggers 🤣 Top stuff Seb, just what i needed after work 👍

[@SebsPlaceYT]

🤣🤣🤣 cheese and onion crisps on dry toast is a new one!!!!!! Cheers Denny, made me smile 😊

[@Simon-xc5oy]

Didnt they do Street Hawk as well? They were notorious for advertising the game for about five years with a couple of tiny screenshots and then not releasing it. Eventually it comes out and its total garbage. There were a few games like that on the Spectrum, advertised for seemingly ever, then just as people start to think its myth, a turkey of a game is released and everyone realises why it was advertised for so long....it was crap!

[@BottIsNotABot]

Well I 100% had this game, as it would have come bundled with my +3 but I cannot ever remember playing it. Maybe by a stroke of luck it wouldn't load or something! Having said that, I think with a few tweaks and more gore it could have been a pretty cool game.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Yeah!! I agree. There is a good game in there I reckon.

[@Jonlarm]

Do a review of batman the caped crusader on home computers

[@SebsPlaceYT]

I will if you will......

[@GnrMilligan]

I always associate Ocean with acquiring big movie licences, then making the game a platformer regardless of the theme of the movie.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Often true....

[@stewsretroreviews]

Never played Postman Pat, and don't think I'll try it either. It seems really exciting 😂😂 Zzzzz Nice content mate 👍

[@SebsPlaceYT]

😆😆 thank you!

[@nelsonhibbert5267]

The only thing I'll say is, try making one yourself. That was my ambition as a kid, and I started off ( and got no further) than writing games in BASIC, which ran far too slow. My attempts at assembly language failed miserably, as I had no clue how loading registers and PUSH/POP RCL etc. commands related in anyway to game play. Every time I'm playing a shit game, I always take a moment to appreciate what the coders could do that I couldn't. Which is pretty much everything to be honest.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

100% - I tried a few things in BASIC when I was younger, which were awful. Writing good computer games, especially back then, when it was done by less than a handful of people per game is commendable......however...... if you are running a youtube channel that looks at these games, you are not going to just look at the good ones or be nice about the bad ones. You have to be honest with your output. A lot of these guys are good with it. I've had a few developers say "I worked on that game and yes it was crap" in my comments and have been genuinely lovely about it (with the exception of Simon Butler, but that's a different story 😁) cheers for your comment. Appreciate it 👍

[@nelsonhibbert5267]

@@SebsPlaceYT Thanks Seb, I've just re-read the first line of my comment. Didn't mean that to sound offensive if it came across that way. I suppose I've always looked at games and wondered how the hell the coders did that, it's beyond my comprehension. It would be cool if there was an interview with a former Ocean guy/gal that could run through a "coding for morons that makes the background scroll sideways" or some similar theme. I had Mailstrom as it came with YS, or might have been SU. I didn't have a clue with it so just used to run over pedestrians and wonder why it kept calling me Michael. A mate of mine did the same thing and we used to quote it at school "I heard you failed your maths test Michael". Good luck with the channel, I've only been following you the last couple of days and some of it cracks me up!

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Thanks mate, appreciate it. I would love to do a series of interviews with some of these old devs.... maybe one day 😍😍 love your mailstrom story, brilliant Michael! 😁😁

[@nelsonhibbert5267]

@@SebsPlaceYT Yeah that would be cool. I've got a few other random stories, the time I got into an actual fight over Way Of The Exploding fist, a strange way a keyboard got broken, a POKE I thought was a program and a certain game that inspired my attempt at an amatuer sports career.... I might share a few of these on your other videos as I work my way through. Until then, keep up with the good work Michael..👍

[@SebsPlaceYT]

😂😂 please do !

[@thenodfather]

This really looks like a great steaming load of tedium. IMAGINE PLAYING THIS FOR 4 HOURS?! That's just machochistic. I wonder if there was games made of jobs that exist today what would they be like? A lot would involve using a computer or phone so probably not much fun to look at or play. Maybe you could do deliveries for Just Eat, (done a bit like Paper Boy), or Amazon. For Amazon you'd have to fly a drone and get penalised if you go for a wee. Thanks again Seb for another title I didn't know of, (but no surprise it wasn't on any other platform 🤪).

[@SebsPlaceYT]

A Just Eat game would be great! Chucking Pizza at peoples doors!

[@ZX48K]

Nah, oddest Ocean game was Frankie Goes To Hollywood

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Yes!!! That is a very odd game. I had a copy of it when I was a kid. Big box if I remember.... I had no clue what I was doing even with the instructions 😁 At least with that game Ocean were trying to create something that was odd in the first place. I mean all that pleasuredome nonsense. FGTH were a bit odd really in the first place....

[@darthkek1953]

But it was also a great game, like amazing great. Esp on the C64 with the music.

[@johnabbitt690]

So apart from blowing yourself up, are there any more threats? Does the angry looking woman try and hit you? I don't remember it being that boring. I think it was too impressed with the van's super pursuit mode at the time!

[@SebsPlaceYT]

😆 well....some pedestrians take health off you but you can get it back at the hospital. If you run too many over I think you get points on your license which ends the game. If you don't get enough sacks each day you also get game over. I think that's it all but don't quote me on it 😂

[@andyc8257]

You can get drunk IIRC, then if you try driving the van the police arrive. You can technically get away if you're careful but if you kill the cop a police van shows up. I weirdly loved this game back in the day. I even tried mapping it to figure out which postboxes were worth opening (if you open them all you run out of ammo for opening them). I think there was the kernel of an idea for the game, but it just doesn't really go anywhere.

[@dazza1970]

Ok im new to your channel and while the vid was good.. my mind could not shake the question of why you have a pacman cabinet that has 6 buttons when pacman needs none..? Yes i know its not an original arcade cabinet.. but seems a strange choice for the label.. haha.. im sure you get asked this all the time.. and no.. never seen or heard of this game in all my years with the speccy.. hardware or emulated.. And kind of glad about that too.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

😁😁 Welcome Dazza! The cabinet.... yeah, it's a mame cabinet, sadly I don't have the room for dedicated cabs (wish I did) so although Pacman is one of my favourite games, if I limited the buttons I would be massively limiting the games I can play. So I just went with the artwork because I love it 😁 Cheers for watching, really appreciate it 👍

[@Calilasseia]

Still not as ... well ... bizarre as Sqij ...

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Sqij is bonkers.....😁

[@Nosaveddataretro]

Miami vice was accurate. Not remember the episodes where Crock and Tubbs car used to explode when they touched a blade of grass

[@SebsPlaceYT]

😂😂 to be fair, I haven't seen MV in many years. I imagine it hasn't aged well. I used to love it though.

[@Nosaveddataretro]

@SebsPlaceYT honest mate it's brilliant. If you download freevee all the episodes are on there. The music, the cameos it's ace

[@SebsPlaceYT]

Awesome! Thanks, I'm gonna do that!

[@Simon-xc5oy]

At the time some friends of mine watched its first episode and said it was crap. I loved the music and the intro credits though, then switched it off. I ignored it for years then saw it on an obscure channel on a repeat run and got into it. Its so unbelievably 80s it hurts. Its one of those shows where if anyone you know wishes to understand what it was like in the 80s, just show them an episode of Miami Vice. That was America then. In the same way that Moonlighting was. Its a triumph of music, style, colour, 80s fashion and synth keyboards, crap hairstyles and acting. Its your usual run of the mill buddy cop show. But this one is all about them chasing drugs and dealers, so that makes it a bit different. And its set in Miami, so it looks gorgeous. But relating to it when you lived in a wet and windy North East of England was pretty hard to do! People watched it for the glamour of the USA and the action...its ridiculous and fun and sometimes weird and boring all at the same time....

[@Nosaveddataretro]

@Simon-xc5oy couldn't have said it better myself

[@skarecrowster]

Haha I remember this game, it was terrible.

[@simonbutler-bq8yb]

Not wishing to be in any way insulting, but you really should do a little research before making sweeping statements regarding Highlander. I worked on this project and there were great expectations for the title when it was first designed but it was pretty much down to the decision of one person that reduced it to the "turdfest" as you called it. To claim that the Company as a whole "clearly couldn't give two brown ones" is patently untrue and you should have at least attempted to track down some of those involved to find out if your suppositions were in any way correct. Sadly, they weren't.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

So Canvas cared for the game then? I can't specifically call out individuals but surely the buck stops at the door of Canvas as a whole, regardless if the final say was down to any individual?

[@simonbutler-bq8yb]

@@SebsPlaceYT The buck most certainly doesn't stop at the door of Canvas as a whole because as a whole Canvas was not responsible for Highlander (the title I should have stated I was involved with). There were those who designed the game, senior to me and those who simply did as they were told and pushed pixels, and this is my area. I had no say in what the game mechanics were, nor did anyone else in the art team. The clock was ticking in those days from the second you started on a project with no room for revisions or long discussions about what was going wrong or how you may or may not have agreed with what the "planned" design for the game might have been. I and other members of the art team were given sheets of graph paper with all of the sprites designed by senior management and simply told to draw them in the various art packages on the different machines. The original design was, as far as I was told at the time, supposed to have been markedly different from the final product, with a platforming adventure element. Why this never happened is something I have never known. What I do know is that there were ditherings in other departments and the final decision was made by one particular member of the directors to simply "Give it to Ocean as it is. They release so much shite they'll never notice." I may be paraphrasing, perhaps not, but that was the general statement made by the guy who "signed" off on the title subsequent to it being delivered to Ocean. Maybe you should track down my podcast. I discussed it many years back. One cannot blame employees for decisions made by their employer.

[@SebsPlaceYT]

"Give it to Ocean as it is, they release so much shit, they'll never notice" kinda proves my point and arguably Ocean are pretty culpable too. Although..... I understand what you are saying. It must of been terribly frustrating seeing projects with such promise basically turn to shit. Especially when actually the artwork, character sprites etc are by far the best part of the game. Some of the games software houses decided to put out and basically rip kids off with annoys me. Ocean knew what they were doing. Robocop is a good example on the C64 when they sold it fully knowing it was unfinished. Cheers for the feedback Simon, super interesting. Would love to hear some stories on the podcast if you could point me in the right direction.... always wondered who came up with the idea for Cosmic Wartoad.... bonkers or genius, I can't decide 😁😁

[@simonbutler-bq8yb]

​@@SebsPlaceYT I created the character of the Cosmic Wartoad. I was simply doodling while at Denton Designs one day and as luck would have it David Ward from Ocean came to the office. He saw my doodle and asked if there was a game behind this character, to which Steve Cain seeing an opportunity, instantly replied in the affirmative. He and David then went into another room and signed a deal for a game that did not exist. Once David had gone the task remained for him and John Gibson to come up with something. Hence, the oddball madness that was Cosmic Wartoad.

[@Zhixalom]

Me and the spiders (up in the corners) were crying an Ocean of tears laughing at that intro of yours... You seem to have ended up within the moral mist of the immortals... whatever the hell that means... - "Moral mist" and "immortals" obviously both being anagrams of "Mailstrom", which makes just about an equal amount of impressive non-sense as that game's backstory. 🥸😆

[@SebsPlaceYT]

😂😂 I'm pleased that the spiders (and you obviously) enjoyed it. Thank you for the anagrams, now the game makes even less sense......