The World's Greatest Computer Games with Chris Tarrant (UK 1984)

[PeterJ]

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/3 ... De-bugging

[EdToo]

I had this recommended on my watchlist today. I suspect he was being económical with the truth raving about the racing game which then absolutely crawled along.

[PeteProdge]

Wow!

Well, I'm a webmaster, writer and archivist for TiswasOnline, the Tiswas fan club endorsed by ITV and Chris Tarrant, so this is a bizarre way in which two of my key interests have collided! This would have been made ten years after Tiswas first aired (fifty years ago now, trivia fans!) and he was pretty much employed by TV-am at this time, plus appearing on and voicing over loads of TV commercials.

I have worked and socialised with him on quite a few things. He's notable, in the past, for hosting 'any old s--t' (his own words), quite a lot of his 1980s/1990s presenting jobs were for gameshows that are barely remembered, then along came Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.

Anyway, I doubt he even touched a Spectrum, save for doing so on camera here.

Here are the ZX Spectrum games he covered:

Micro Mouse Goes Debugging by MC Lothlorien
Grand National by CRL
The Skull by The Games Machine
Manic Miner by Bug-Byte
Rommel's Revenge by Crystal Computing
Volcanic Dungeon by Carnell Software
Black Crystal by Carnell Software
The Wrath Of Magra by Carnell Software
Valhalla by Legend
Caesar The Cat by Mirrorsoft

Full version of the 30-minute VHS video here, which strays into other territories, like arcades, Oric and C64:


Now to post this on the Tiswas fan group and endure people's incorrect recollections of 1980s computers.

[Mpk]

endure people's incorrect recollections of 1980s computers.

25 minutes to load a game!

[PeteProdge]

25 minutes to load a game!

The video game crash of 1983 was catastrophic and no games were made across the world!!!!11

[Joefish]

I assume this was some sort of promotional thing for retailers, rather than ever actually broadcast on TV. It doesn't appear to be part of any known broadcast program.

[PeteProdge]

I assume this was some sort of promotional thing for retailers, rather than ever actually broadcast on TV. It doesn't appear to be part of any known broadcast program.

It was "available for sale, rental or merely on view, in computer retail outlets", according to Crash magazine #04: https://www.crashonline.org.uk/04/news.htm

There's a critical review of the show there!

The production company, TV Choice Ltd, still exists, though now sticks to educational/corporate videos, a lot of them have titles like the things Alan Partridge would present for businesses: https://web.archive.org/web/20231128100 ... ce.uk.com/

[akeley]

25 minutes to load a game!

True story with some titles on C64, and I think also Atari 8 bit.

[WhatHoSnorkers]

From what I recall, the Commodore 64 disk and tape drives had to be backwards compatible with the VIC20, hence the glacial loading speeds (and people wrote their own loaders and that). And the BASIC was basic so Simon (which one? Who knows) made his own!

Carrier Command and Starglider 2 could take a while in 128K mode, but nowhere near 25 minutes. I remember loading Project: Stealth Fighter which I think was still a multiload and watching the news while it loaded.

[Joefish]

The production company, TV Choice Ltd, still exists, though now sticks to educational/corporate videos, a lot of them have titles like the things Alan Partridge would present for businesses: https://web.archive.org/web/20231128100 ... ce.uk.com/

There is a hint of Partridge about it! It's a very weird world you only ever see bits of; the celebrity hired to present awards at obscure industry events, or appear in a corporate informational video. But I have to assume there's lots of money in it. It leads to a weirdly cut-throat, ruthless situation where even successful circuit comedians would murder each other for the tiniest bit of TV exposure. And, of course, the likes of Chris Morris can get them to read out any old stupid words on camera for the right fee.

[PeteProdge]

There is a hint of Partridge about it! It's a very weird world you only ever see bits of; the celebrity hired to present awards at obscure industry events, or appear in a corporate informational video. But I have to assume there's lots of money in it.

Absolutely true. I've worked in that area and occasionally still do. Corporate production money is insane. My ambition was to work in regular broadcast TV, but the majority of salaries there are rather tepid, often very poor (ITV still offering salaries now that I couldn't afford to live on a decade ago).

One of the regular 8-bit gaming reviewers on YouTube (occasionally on this forum) has it as his day job.

A few years back, I found out in a chat with Paul 'Mr Biffo' Rose that we both went for the same job at a satellite channel in 1996, we were both turned down, only he got to learn what the salary was (I never did). NINE GRAND! WTAF!?

It leads to a weirdly cut-throat, ruthless situation where even successful circuit comedians would murder each other for the tiniest bit of TV exposure. And, of course, the likes of Chris Morirs can get them to read out any old stupid words on camera.

Ah, the comedy circuit. I'm not at the pro level but I've heard some shocking stories and I'm astounded how telly/radio/festivals are willing to overlook the criminal behaviour of some big names just because no revelations have hit the mainstream yet. *shudders*

[SkoolKid]

Carrier Command and Starglider 2 could take a while in 128K mode, but nowhere near 25 minutes. I remember loading Project: Stealth Fighter which I think was still a multiload and watching the news while it loaded.

I think Football Director II is the longest-loading game I've come across. It's the only game in the t2sfiles repository that needs to override the default timeout of 900 seconds to 921 seconds (15m21s).