The Weird and Wonderful world of '80s British Video Game Shopping!
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- Опубликовано: 5 окт 2024
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Something a little different this week, lets look inside the recreated '80s video game store and see what games, publishers and developers lined the shelves. Does this spark memories of your own video game purchases or was it different in your part of the world?
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I remember Rock Star ate my hamster well. When things start to take off for your band, a headline will pop up, "John Peel backs ....' your band name'..." I named my band 4skin. Luckily, I'm all grown up now, and haven't changed a bit.👍
There's a English Oi! band called The 4-Skins which was formed way back in 1979 lol
@@spidervenom14 Did not expect oi references in these comments!
I had it to, pirate or legit I can't remember. I had a c64 and the mate a spectrum 128k (I think). Well done I remember manic miner, dizzy and back 2 school. Rolling thunder on the spectrum. Good days when life was simpler. Anyone watching who misses all those, check on the mister. Neil's video on it made me go out and buy it. Mainly for home computers. But it has everything.
Rock star ate my hamster was a riff on the famous sun headline freddy ate my hamster where comedian freddy Starr supposedly did just that
it was a great game, that
£1.99 cassettes, wow the memories come flooding back. British home stores basement in stockport circa 83 - 84 picking up games solely based on the box art, Burger Time, Impossible Mission, Spy Hunter, Time Pilot just to name a few. Great video RMC 👍
I grew up in rural Virginia and never saw a computer software shop like this. All of my software came from the occasional jaunt to the nearest big city or via mail order. Thanks for sharing this look into your world!
In the UK all of those cheap games meant a boost in gaming, while in the us it was called the great game crash.
Well observed. I think many people think the videogame crash was global when it reality it was in most part unique to the US market.
You have to remember that Americans think they are the whole world though, recently watched a series of videos called the dumbest thing an American has ever said to you.
This was the video I didn’t know I needed. I hadn’t seen some of those game covers in over 35 years but they were still instantly familiar. Thank you.
I live in the UK born in 84, two older brothers, our first computer was a Spectrum ZX. I always remember game/ video shops and how they changed over the years. I’m still a gamer to this day. We had lots of these titles, nostalgic overload!
Superior Software published a short book in 1987 called "Success in Software" and written by Richard Hanson that gave people advice on how to get their own games published. They sold it through mail order (£1.95), and I still have my copy here in my bookcase.
I thoroughly enjoyed this video. I hope you do more in this series
As a non British person who had no access to computers at all in the 1980's I would have loved to see some of the stuff actually played. Without any footage it's a trip down somebody else's memory lane that I can't really relate to. Especially as I don't actually know a great majority of these games.
I am not saying it's not interesting or entertaining. But it's lots of bones with no meat on.
@@catriona_drummond It's like you say, that you sadly had no access to computers at all... I too am not British, but in Malta we had these shops all over the place.
@@catriona_drummond The purpose was to show a physical shop and games on shelves as seen in the 80's ie as nostalgia trip for those who experienced it. If you want to know about the games themselves, just search for any of these publishers eg "Mastertronic games" or specific game on youtube. There are literally thousands of gameplay videos.
This takes me back, great video. Around 1988, my mum and her partner at the time opened a small game shop near my school and not once did I get bored of going there on my way home. It was a wonderland. Long after it closed we still had loads of old stock big box games, many still shrink-wrapped. When my mum moved house around 10 years ago I found them and gave them all away to someone off the Retro Gamer forum. Wish I had kept them now, but hopefully he found some joy in them (or made a few quid).
Damn those would be worth millions today
You bloody fool he'll have made a fortune 😳😳😳
This is fantastic. As a US consumer who purchased his C64 in 1982 when I was 11, the store layout and collection of 1.99 pound games was not our experience. It’s nice to see it and understand it - thank you.
I do remember these titles appearing in the backs of magazine- like RUN magazine. I had no idea of these titles as they seemed like ripoffs of arcades and I was worried of being taken as they weren’t that inexpensive in the mags. I wasn’t aware of the scene in the UK. I wish I had.
Everyone here had disk drives, and swapped more expensive games all the time.
One of my favorite moments was when Archon released with the amazing music intro for Freefall Associates. EA did a nice job with their early games like seven cities of gold, murder on the zinderneuf, mule, racing construction set and others.
Very interesting to see the UK game-buying experience of the 80s! Where I lived in the US back then, we didn't have small shops that sold computer software, we had a 30 minute drive to the nearest Toys R' Us. There they had one extremely long aisle of games, Commodore 64 on one side, and Atari and Apple on the other. Very few cassettes too, but lots of floppy disk games in those square sleeves that looks sort of like slightly smaller vinyl record sleeves.
I never knew just how knowledgeable the host is. It's nice when someone who is genuinely passionate about the subject is the one running the RUclips channel.
I don't claim to know it all but passion is very much the driving force! Thanks for taking the time to watch
This is incredible. Im from Ireland, and it was the same here with the same games. Magazines like Zzap!, Crash, Commodore Format were on the shelves in my area, and a family right 'round the corner from me had a Spectrum.
I remember seeing "Chase HQ" on the spectrum, being very impressed. I got it on the C64, and was horrified as to how horrible it was! I couldnt admit to the Spectrum family that "their" version was brilliant and better!
Thats the wonderful thing about the multiple computers at the time. Be it Amstrad, C64, Spectrum, each version of the same game looked, sounded and sometime then, played and ran differently. And Id be in awe looking in say, CVG magazine at how things looked on the Amiga, or Atari ST.
The c64 sid chip is still one of my fave sounds in the world. This is a superb lookback at the wonderous world of computer games in the 80s.
Was at the video game museum in Sheffield earlier this year and they had a wall with 15 screens, each running a Donkey Kong on a different hardware platform. It illustrated your point perfectly!
I bought my first ever Mastertronic game from a carpet shop of all places, Duck Shoot for the Vic 20. However for a decent selection WHSmith was the place to be so having had the pleasure of experiencing the RMC Shop in person, it took me right back to those 80s days when 8 bits was more than enough! Good stuff!
Just discovered your channel, and as someone who has just turned 43 and grew up in the 80’s playing my CPC 464, I watched this video with a massive smile across my face. Thank you.
What a brilliant video ! This took me right back to visiting WH Smith on a Saturday morning and inevitably being disappointed when I couldn't find the new release I was looking for. Still, at least you could browse the gaming magazines while you waited for your mum :) As soon as you showed the tape of The Last V8, all those memories came rushing back. I can remember the music and synthesized voices vividly, as well as the intense frustration when I crashed into a small shrub for the 1000th time. Grrr.
This is similar to my memory. Going in WHS to see if my comics were in, check the star wars figures and the games.
One of the publishers I remember was Melbourne House (The Hobbit, The Way of the Exploding Fist, Horace goes Skiing) and was absorbed into Mastertronic in 1987
My main one from them was Mordons Quest a text adventure, had Horace too :) still have them somewhere :)
I live in the US, and when I needed to do a silkscreen project for my high school printing class, I used the Firebird logo. It was cool, it was simple enough, and I remember getting a good grade as well as a cool t-shirt. Thanks for the nostalgia!
Brilliant stuff! So many memories... I'm from Australia, I recall a lot of these titles and companies. The C64 was the almighty machine here in the 80s and took up most of the shelves from memory.
Really takes you back.
Still have all my games going back to the zx spectrum, must get them out one day.
Way of the exploding fist for action was great.
Hope you kept them in a dry place.
It's rare I get a hit of nostalgia like this, even though I read Retro Gamer and watch Kim Justice vids. There's something very tactile here, brought back some memories of newsagents and shops I'd long forgotten. As time passes it feels like the only history recorded of 80s gaming is 'the crash' and the NES, so you're really doing a service here!
Wow! So much 8-bit nostalgia. Some of those games bring back many memories. The ZX Spectrum was my first computer. Thanks for sharing.
You know, I may not have been born (not even visited) in the UK, but I have to admit: British consoles/computers and games fascinate me. I'd love to tinker with such machines at some point.
I have been in this very room when visiting Neil at the cave and can confirm it is fantastic and takes you back immediately to the days when all this was new. The whole set up is well worth a visit.
Commando was the first computer game I ever played. This video has unlocked so many memories. My mate’s dad did the cover art for a few Codemasters games, including Rockstar Ate My Hamster
It's amazing the explosion of creativity during those times! I started getting interested in games in the early 90s in France and a lot of those British companies were among the most recognizable. France also had its share of companies like Infogrames, Ubisoft, Delphine, etc. but I don't think it started as early as it did in the UK. Also the Amstrad CPC was very popular in France.
As somebody who worked in a computer store throughout the 80's and early 90's that brings back a lot of memories. Our shop kept the 1.99 cassette games in an old music cassette rotary locked display (you know the type one key at the top released the lock in that section and you could lift the tape out) they were very popular and we ended up with 2 displays each holding about 100 tapes. We also had a section with display computers that we could test the tapes in (as countless people used to bring them back for exchange or a refund after copying them!)
Excellent video! Man i remember we used to buy Amstrad CPC 464 Cassette tapes from Woolworths, Boots the Chemist lol 😂, inShops in Stratford (his games were so expensive! but he had the big name boxed titles), and a proper Computer Game shop on Barking Road, Plaistow - I would also borrow CPC 464 tapes from Holborn Library in London. Amazing times.
What a fantastic video,thanks.As a 51 year old gamer this was the era i remember most fondly,where it all started off,for me woth the 48k Sinclair Zx Spectrum(Rubber keys).Happy Memories.Spending my pocket money on £1.99 Codemasters games or clubbing together with your friends and getting a £9.99 game on cassette and copying it onto blank cassettes so everyone could get a copy 🙂
38 minutes of pure nostalgia 😍
Looks like WH Smiths software section! Good stuff. Nothing was ever sealed back then as far as I remember though. The tapes were never displayed in the boxes because kids would always nick them. So stuff like the Mastertronic card-backed packaging was something I'd never seen before. Ultimate releases were always big events and always mind-blowers. I remember waiting several hours at our local games store for the courier to bring the first shipment of, iirc, Night Lore.
Me and the rest of the 'nerds' had either C64s or Spcecys, although one poor chap only had a Vic-20. Commodore vs. Sinclair 'debates' were often heard in the classrooms. I was a Speccy-man but our 'gang' were split pretty evenly between the two camps.
One other addition that would be appropriate for a store display would be a little colour CRT showing one of the games in action. I remember most of the shops back then had one behind the counter or, in the case of Smiths, on a shelf with a Spectrum you could actually try out. Saturday afternoon was always busy in that area of the shop 'cos it was like a free arcade machine.
You were likely to also see some hardware. Like Kempston joysticks, joystick interfaces, RAM packs, tape players, etc.
This video bought a lot of memories back.
I had an Electron when i was growing up,and i'm sure i had snooker and snapper plus one other game in the bundle, but i got Elite as a birthday present happy days . Was a gamer, still a gamer, will carry on being a gamer till i die.
Working at one of the first WHSmith home computer shops from 1982 for 3 years based in Birmingham city centre, this all brings back so many memories for me. I have played games on a Mattel Aquarius, and Oric 1 and many more mainstream hardware platforms. We sold everything from the ZX81 up to what must have been one of the first IBM PC clones, the Advance A86 which was so basic it didn't even have a hard drive and loaded software from a cassette interface. I even wrote a program for that running at a computer show at the NEC - quite a claim to fame at the time but tell the kids that these days...
Lovely walk down memory lane. Thanks.
55 now and this brings back memories. Just seeing the artwork and remembering it was very nostalgic. C64 and the Speccy were the consoles of choice then - the amount of pirating from cassette was astronomical at school. Great times.
I stumbled upon this video the morning - and WOW! We didnt have anything like this in Canada - especially the budget games. What would be fantastic is to find a company to release all of these on a compilation DVD for Windows/MAc/PS4/XBOX/Switch. This seems so foreign but super interesting .
Loved this, I've had my RUclips icon as the Microdeal guy since day one, many fond memories of so many games in this video
So many happy memories. I remember in Wallasey there was an independent shop called Micro Byte who seemed to have a connection to Bug Byte as they also had their branding and logo on the sign. You could go in and ask to try a game before you bought it, there was always a buzz about the place.
I also remember arguing with my dad about buying Elite for the Electron. I didn't like the look of the monochrome graphics - how wrong I was! We played that game for months, we'd take turns to fly a mission each and discuss what to buy and where to sell.
I also remember the amount of abject garbage you used to be able to buy, there were so few reviews and especially down at the £1.99/99p price point there were some terrible, terrible games with enticing box art.
Remember the shop well, I bought a cheap Konix clone joystick there, was great.
What was the name of the other great game shop there, I remember there been two great shops there, one on Seaview Road, and one on Liscard road.
If we travelled further afield the was Computer Adventure World in Birkenhead that was pretty great too...
Wallasey was in many ways the Cult Capital of UK gaming, it was the home of Mathew Smith of Manic Minor fame, and Bug Byte themselves funding Mathew Smith to produce Manic Minor and Jet Set Willy.
think there might have been one in Crewe too.
Elite truly was an epic game when it came out! Also, yes; there were some horrible games back then.
I'm not sure. Here in Wakefield we also had a Microbyte (if it is the same company). One of the execs there set up 17-Bit Software here in Wakefield, which subsequently became Team17.
A great episode - over here in Australia the department stores sold Commodore games in a dedicated section but sometimes they hit the shelves 3 months after the UK release date (same with the magazines) I do remember a store in Melbourne that used to import the games from the UK usually a week or two after the release but with extra costs for the luxury. Mastertronic titles I do remember being sold at Target stores for $9.99 instead of what should have at least $5.00 but as usual over here we had to pay extra as we are so bloody far away!
The extra charge was revenge for flooding the UK with Aussie soaps 😛😂😂 I actually didn't mind some of them 🤣
Loved this video! One thing that we have covered on CocoTalk was just how much better the cassette cover artwork in the UK was compared to most of the North American ones, even for the same titles. They just seemed to always present it much better. Also, I wanted to point out that the Dragon actually was a best seller in late 1982-mid 1983 (being consistently 2-3 place for some months in 1983), but that it didn't stay at those positions past 1983 (and the Dragon 64 wasn't as popular). The Register had a cool article in 2013 that covered the sales of micros in the UK in 1983, which was based on published sales data from Personal Computer News magazine. Between June and September of that year, the Dragon 32 was in 2nd or 3rd place in sales (this was a shock to me, as many people - including Dragon owners at the time - did not think that it sold well). But it was outselling the Vic 20, ZX-81, Atari 8 bits, and the BBC most or all of the time during that time period. Here is the article (click on the chart to make it more readable): www.theregister.com/2013/01/03/charted_1983_home_computer_sales_in_uk/
Mastertronic's colour system made selecting games really easy: yellow for Spectrum, red for C64, pink for C16/Plus 4, brown for Amstrad, green for Dragon 32/64, white for MSX, blue for Atari, purple for BBC/Electron & light blue for VIC-20 such a brilliant innovation. Even rivals CodeMasters and Alternative used the colour code system too.
This is like a warm blanket. I worked in a Games store in 1990 and saw a lot of these games on the shelf. We sold a lot of Amigas, and the consoles on display were the Megadrive and Super Nintendo. I distinctly remember playing Castle Of Illusion with my co worker and she killed it. Wish i could get in touch with her now. The Dizzy games were bundled with the Amiga and I couldn’t for the life of me understand why they were so popular.
What an excellent skip down memory lane, there. I left school in 1980 and by '85 was out of college and in a job so I was in the enviable position of being able to buy pretty much any game that took my fancy in those days. In my home town of Harlow in Essex we had all the big names like WHSmith, Boots, John Menzies etc. and, at one point, no less than three indie computer games shops to choose from (plus Special Reserve, down the road in Sawbridgeworth) so a mate and I would spend most Saturday afternoons trawing around the town for whatever was new and I'd invariably come back with a new game each week for either the Speccy or C64 (and later, Amiga). I sorely miss the days of the UK hobbyist, tiny independents and bedroom coders all fired up by this new technology. Of course, it could never last but it was great while it did.
Back when it was a cottage industry before the Japanese giants took over.
Some of the boxes give a bigger nostalgia hit than actually playing the game would.
especially when you open them up and find a full size physical map, manual, book, trinkets, etc :D nowadays you have to buy the £300 collector's edition to get anything physical
My family had a Philips console to play games on in the 80s. My dad bought the games from a speciality shop since they weren't sold in the big stores where all the spectrum games, etc were. I still remember marvelling over the gorgeous artwork on the box of Quest for the Rings and then the disappointment of the game itself that didn't live up to that picture. That was such a thing, computer games being nowhere near as lovely as the box art.
At Primary school they had a grandstand games console with pong and a number of other similar games which must have been old even back then. And that at least made our Philips look state of the art in comparison.
I've fond memories of spending the night at my friend's house and playing on the zx spectrum, getting stuck on the Flintstones game and Jet Set Willy, and playing The Hobbit game. And when we finally got an Amiga 500, the graphics of Shadow of the Beast 2 absolutely blowing me away with how beautiful it was, and how amazing the music was. But oh were Amiga games expensive, compared to the price of the spectrum games, they were out of pocket money range and into the birthday/xmas gift category.
A wonderful video. I was extremely lucky as a young teenager in the 80’s I worked in a games shop selling all those games and many others. I loved the 8bit days but the Amiga days were the pinnacle of gaming for me!
If you're interested in finding out more about British software houses then here are some brilliant places to look:
Kim Justice Gaming Documentaries Playlist ruclips.net/p/PLbQabA7N5NN_cE7eXnwZE7SCP7ThuKxjX
They Create Worlds Podcast www.theycreateworlds.com/
Commercial Breaks Imagine & Ocean Software: ruclips.net/video/ChmQBK_EaUQ/видео.html
And our recent talk with the Oliver Twins here in The Cave:
ruclips.net/video/FVqfA5cK3z8/видео.html
Neil - RMC
So many memories, I was seeing things in the background that you didn't mention and awww. Thank you! I love your videos anyway but this one got me!
Extremely interesting topic, sir!
Learned many things, like the Elite history on the BBCM. Just a thought: not one MSX game among the misc micro?
@@RetroDream I had an msx so I’m curious . 🙂
Kim Justice's channel is absolutely incredible if you are into 80's euro video games. Long formats, playlists, she has everything. 🙏
@@remka2000 definitely my favourite gaming RUclipsr!
It’s hard to imagine now but I bought all my games from boots, I would spend hours in there looking at the games, now I just go there for strepsills
Who could forget the movie tie ins aswell? That unforgettable "Ocean Loader" music permanantly parking its way into memory as RoboCop's awesome loading screen arrives onscreen? 🤘👍 Alas, too bad they forgot to finish making the game correctly, as a later level was virtually unplayable and impossible to finish! Platoon was a brilliant conversion - varied levels and a Stunning Sid chip Soundtrack.
This was a great video, brought back lots of memories. I'm from a slightly older era and started gaming on the ZX81. J K Greye and Artic created my first games, 3D Monster Maze and Espionage Island.
was gonna mention JK Greye - I adored Catacombs
@@UKMrStephen Yep, my brother and I loved Catacombs too.
Durrel did scuba dive which was amazing. Loved that game.
Durrell always had a really nicely animated player character
As a kid with an Amstrad CPC in the 80s I loved this trip down memory lane. I used to love visiting JKL computers in Uxbridge to see what was on offer in the '199ers' or '299ers' as we called them.
There were always machines to play on in the shop and one or two junior assistants helping out who were interesting characters. One was about 6'5" and we assumed was mainly there to retrieve things from the top shelf. Another was a crotchety character we sentimentally referred to as 'greaseball' who always had opinions on what games we shouldn't be buying (presumably because they were 'too advanced'- he seemed to like them) and once amusingly chased a school friend out of the shop shouting "come back here, chicken shit!" after he accidentally broke a pin on a joystick port.
Another time we met professor Heinz Wolff in there and managed to snag his autograph. A very pleasant chap he was too.
Good times!
wow!!!! nostalgia heaven. Late 80s I'd be doing the same, going to my local gaming shop Watchdog to pick up a new spectrum game. Even my mom at the time was a huge fan of the Dizzy games. I can still remember the 'dial up internet' sound as the games loaded. Thank You for this.
Love this so much. Our shops in the US looked like this as well. Such amazing memories of scanning the shelves for a good deal that I could blow my limited kid-funds on, bringing it home, reading every bit of packaging and paper that came with it and then praying that the game would run properly.
My favourite Firebird game, and possibly favourite C64 game ever was The Sentinel. A truly unique game at the time, and other than a couple of later remakes, I can't think of a modern equivalent.
I was born in 1976 and this video brought back so many memories from when I was a kid playing games on my old rubbers keys system (spectrum 48k).
ahhh memorys. I used to make my pilgrimage to Walthamstow market in the 80s. 2 - 3 game shops on the road. Love it! Jet set willy & manic minor! Bards tale!
Beautiful video! Thank you so much, Sir..
A great nostalgic trip to days of old, I miss those days I could spend hours looking round all the shops at the different machines and software.
Superb video. Im in my 50s and live in the UK, and the decor and layout of your game-shop corner really reminds me of my local Software Plus store from the mid 80s. I started gaming in seaside arcades in the 70s and been hooked ever since. Of the 8-bit home micro era I had a ZX81, an Atari 400, a 48k Speccy and an Amstrad CPC464. So many great games, fun gaming magazines and good times with friends. I used to love strolling into town on a Sturday and hunting out the best bargains across WH Smith, Boots, Our Price, Dixons, Woolworths, the outdoor markets and independent stores ... I still love searching out bargain games nowadays, old habits die hard I guess, lol :-)
I was born in 1981. My dad bought a bbc micro in 1984 and I was hooked.
The game shop was always magical!
The box art was often better than it is today
Rich Dad!
@@douglasfreeman3229 definitely not. Not sure where he got it from!
What an absolutely wonderful video! Thank you. All the best from Sweden 🙌🏻
Great times . Saturday afternoons consisted of chippy dinner , local arcade , then we would all put some money together buy a game & copy it ! Then the following weekend take it back saying it didn't work and exchange it 😂 and repeat the cycle ! The only games we never made copies of was Dizzy ( codemasters) I'm sure they were £3-5 so we didn't bother
I got an Acorn for christmas one year and saved up my poclet money so that once every two weeks I could go to the local electrical shop and buy a game, if I was lucky it would be two. Snapper was amazing. Now I complain if my vast open world sand box doesn't load fast enough or if my fps drops. Simpler times. We are spoiled now.
Man I love this guy, he's very unassuming and he seems genuinely humble and nice great job
I had a Commodore 16 for my first computer. The indoor market in the town centre where I lived, used to have a small stall which had the latest games on cassette for most computers. Every Saturday, I would visit the stall, spending hours pouring over all the games and cover art to help me decide how to spend £1.50 on a new game. The other attraction was because I could watch the latest game release on one of the two small colour tv's mounted on the wall. That stall was ahead of its time!!
What an insanely cool way to display your collection. Recreate a shop. I can't believe other RUclipsrs don't do this. LGR should do this. His would be insanely massive though. I truly hope RMC makes more videos like this. Next time we need to see the big box games on his left.
Great video, all the cassette boxes and artworks arranged like that bring back waves of comforting nostalgia. I got the Dixons Ocean Top 20 compilation with my Amstrad CPC 464 and that kept me busy all of Christmas 1988. Great memories of playing Freddy Hardest, Game Over, Head Over Heels, Tai Pan, Yie Ar Kung Fu, Arkanoid. Thankfully no Amsoft bundles by that time although used to love playing 3D Stunt Rider on my mates CPC before i got mine. Software Plus was the place to buy games in my local town in the late 80s and they had a Golden Axe arcade machine in there as well which made visiting even more magical.
Brilliant trip down memory lane - thanks. I had a Dragon 32 back then (yep, it was me that bought it!) and loved some of the games on there, but was always envious of the Spectrum titles like JetPac and The Hobbit that my mates were playing. Moved to the C64 after that and never looked back. Keep up the great work RMC, will definitely pay you a visit one day.
W.H. Smiths and Boots had a wide selection for popular systems. For those not in the UK...W.H. Smiths is a high street News Agents (sells news papers) which diversified which at the time had a computer, electronics and music sections. Even now, in a lot of small towns, Smiths is THE towns bookshop and music retailer! Boots is a pharmacist/chemists again dabbling into the music, computer and electronics market in the 80's and early 90's
The box art was better than a lot of the games back in the 80's.
The amount of times I got duped into buying a bad game just because of the box art. 🤣
That's so like the computer shop I went to as a kid, even down to the colour of the slatted wall and the font on the signs. Happy memories of my dad picking me up once a week from school and taking me there to browse through all the tapes.
Those slat walls were the look of every computer shop everywhere right up until the late 90s when Gamestop started screwing up everything. (Kidding. It was a shift in the market. Gamestop was just the "winner".)
Just looking at those shelves and the set up bought back huge nostalgia for me. The downstairs games department at Boots in Coventry town centre or Dixons where I bought a C64. Those were the days.
My clearest memory of the ZX Spectrum was playing Scuba dive while listening to Faith No More's album The real thing.
I also loved Dizzy, Gryzor, Slightly Magic, and finders keepers.
I played Finders Keepers too. Never did get far in the game, always dying of exhaustion.
Literally a walk down memory lane for me. Mid 80's I lived in Southampton UK. Boots, WHSmiths, all of that rings bells. I really miss those times honestly.
I got a Toshiba MSX in 1985. Although the quantity of games, especially on cassette, was limited you could buy cartridge games from Konami including Nemesis and Antarctic Adventure. Most of these games were purchased from a local Toshiba dealer. Cassettes were on sale in places like Boots and Woolworths.
Dude, this is fantastic lol. Just last week I was telling the missus about being a gamer in the 80's. Cassette carousels in the corner shop or long trips to Liverpool for the good stuff lol. Brilliant vid. I must have bought half of these and remember them all.
Watching it again later with the missus ,,
What a brillant vid. As a 51 year old this brought back a lot of memories for me, especially the names of all the publishers I'd forgotten. I also really like the presenting style... no hype, just a fond commentary. I ended up working on computer games magazines and used to work with the PR lady for US Gold on ST Format, as they were still going at that point a few years later.
I think we all must be around 51 now Ed😅Happy Days😉
Great vid ! A real blast from the past, brought back some forgotten memories too
1998 in Germany there was a magazine for the C64 with advertising from Shops that offered Big Compilations of C64 Games where I ordered a set of 50 Games, All Originals, Low Budget and Orginal Box Games. For the first time I could play Zak Mckracken!
Great to see all of those old publishers and games, I do recall some of the shops (maybe more boots an WH Smith) used to have a special display shelf, so that the top 10 games could be displayed face on, rather than side on - that would be quite a good rotating display ....
I love "Ricochet" being used as a "greatest hits/platinum" line. It's much more esoteric, nerdy, and fun! This is a fascinating dive into a subset of a culture I didn't know I wanted to learn more about!
Fantastic memories from the eighties. Thanks, more please
When I were a lad, we got an 8 bit computer with a carrier bag full of tapes (some with covers some copies) from whoever had got old enough to get the hell away from where we lived.
Also all their lead figures etc; good times!
We were 35 miles from the nearest place where you could actually buy games and it was around the time of Quake (went there the first day that you could buy the game and got a t-shirt! - i wish i still had that) when I first discovered the luxury of a shop where you could buy stuff!
I still struggle with the concept of a street sometimes.
I remember this time fairly clearly. I remember the shops I used to visit; one in the middle of town, one near a big horse shop I'd go to when my elder sister went to it, Makro and Boots. I've seen another youtuber (can't recall names) dismiss Boots as a silly place to buy Nes (and other video) games. Boots was a premier shop back in the 80's and had the best real estate, usually with a multi-level store. Mine was like this and it had a whole half-floor for games, with shelves arranged in a big square shape. I used to buy my 64 games there and later my Nes games. I can recall going to Makro and hey used to have their games on a large rack (like later Toys'r'us stylee) all encased in hard plastic as the cases had the actual games. I bought Beamrider, Ghostbusters and others there, all hard clamshells.
The little computer shop next to the yuge Horse shop, I know I bought Valhalla (64) from there, I always thought of it as a treat and knew if my sister was going hre it'd be a trip and I'd go and get a game. The lil shop I knew in the middle of town was tucked away in a side's side street, hidden, but gamers knew where to find it. It sold all the PCs', like Dragon, Orics etc, they seemed like magic to me at the time, and as I write this I can recall more mainstream ships, Dixons..and Rumblelows? They'd stock the small computers I can't recall the name off, and a small shelf usually for games. The lil independent shop always had a great stock of games, I think WH Smiths also sold games on a single shelf. With the mags where you could get code to write your own games. One of my fave top 3 games was Bruce Lee, can't remember where I bought that.
As the 80's turned into the 90's the lil shops started to go, and Toys'r'us appeared which had aisles of games! Nes, Megadrive, Amiga etc. Boos started to slough off too. Great times.
Getting great ‘jumpers for goalposts’ vibes watching this… Sir Clive’s rubbery 48K keypad, Daley Thomson’s decathlon, skreeeeeeeeeeeeeee bup… marvellous isn’t it?
Great set up with the shelving - reminds me of shopping for Spectrum games as a little kid in WH Smith’s and John Menzies.
This is a great idea Neil and its very enjoyable. Another software company I remember which may be from the UK was Durell. They made the excellent Critical Mass game. Please do more of this if you have time, which I'm sure is difficult these days in the Cave with so much going on! Thank you.
And the brilliant Saboteur.
Durell were indeed a British software company. Critical Mass was a brilliant game - one I've not thought about for many years. I think I need to load up Vice and give it a go. Saboteur also.
@@rogerwilco2558 I'm lucky to still have a clamshell copy of it.
So many memories just from looking at your selving. I recall The computer store's shop looked similar. Thank God there was 1.99 and 2.99 games back in those days. Probably took me a few weeks pocket money to be able to purchase a cheap game. Good times 😎
awww that's a lovely video Neil. I was pretty big on Firebird back in the day. If you have some of their earlier releases from around the Booty era, you might find an advert to join the Firebird club, a newsletter they used to send out. If you have any I'd love to see them again.
I really miss those days as a kid. My parents used to drive into Helston (Cornwall) to dp shopping every Saturday, while I spent the whole time in the game shop. Good thing was, I had a Saturday morning job helping the milkman in our village and used to earn a fiver every week, so I always had plenty of money to spend on games for my C64.
I mostly had an experience of 1980s 8-bit gaming only vicariously, hearing my friends talk about their favourites like Dizzy, Rock Star Ate My Hamster, Chuckie Egg, Boulderdash and Paperboy. We had a Commodore 16/Plus 4 but I wasn't much into computers before I was ten and though I enjoyed a couple of games, it didn't grip me. I did occasionally watch/play games at friend's houses; a couple of mate's had Speccys, another an Amstrad, and a few years later another had an Atari ST (I remember watching, impressed, at my first experience of an open world game- Mercenary. My friend demonstrated the freedom of the game by driving into the sea).
When I was a small kid here in rural Northumberland, the upstairs of my local Boots had a corner that had a Woolies style tape rack in the middle with one side of it dedicated to C64 budget jewel case tapes, the other side split between Amstrad and Spectrum, with more Amstrad than Spectrum. There were two walls with shelves similar to yours, and one wall was dedicated to cardboard boxed and floppy based 8-bit and PC titles and the other wall was Amiga and Atari ST stuff, big box and budget "dual tape case with a floppy in it" style boxes.
This, of course, is a slightly later period than yourself, I'd say '87 to '92, and I guess the change was a reflection of the times(mostly C64, a decent selection of Amstrad, Amiga and ST titles, some token Spectrum and PC games to round it out.
Robocop - Emil Antonowsky's photo fit ate so many lives. Awesome game, great soundtrack
I had Skips action biker clumsy Colin on the Commodore 64! What a flashback….thank you so much.
Brought back so many memories watching this! I loves the Crash zx spectrum magazine that had games on the front.
Also loved the Julian Gallop strategy games like Rebelstar II, Laser Squad, Chaos etc
Great memories, Boots and WH Smiths were the main stockists where I lived. Had a few short lived independents. You could also find the £1.99 in weird places, there was a long defunct clothing chain and even a local off licence.
I remember that a lot of the 'big box' games from Rainbird (the Pawn, Guild of Thieves, Starglider, etc...) and Microprose (F15 Strike Eagle, Silent Service, Gunship etc...) were always placed on the top shelves with the full box art facing forwards. These were generally priced at £15 + therefore got a bit more of a premium display. Would be good to see a small section like that displayed somewhere in the cave, even if it's not in the shop itself.
Great video, I lived in Folkestone as a kid, and remember spending hours choosing what game to get with my £2. Upstairs in Boots, then there was Debenhams, Cheriton Toys, Ludlows, WHSmith... the good old days :) You need to get a turnstile for the mastertronic games. That's how they were sold everywhere. :)
Lots of memories of these classic games. I also used to get magazines and send away for games advertised in them as the local selection of acorn games was somewhat limited.
What a wonderful trip down memory lane Neil, great vid. I’ll be along again soon to The Cave.
Interesting to recall just how much mimicry/outright plagiarism there was between games back then. The similarities between Repton and Boulderdash are surely no accident! Really lovely piece. Lots of nostalgia for Gamer and Softcentre in Brighton in the 80s.