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A TRIBUTE TO THE BITMAP BROTHERS - FEATURING GORDON RAMSAY'S PEDALO NIGHTMARES

6/8/2018

21 Comments

 
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"Wotcha, pillocks! Gordon 'Swearing' Ramsay here. Unquestionably, The Bitmap Brothers were one of the highest profile game fakking studios in Britain during the late-80s and fakking 90s - one of the original 'rock star' games studios. This is why I've been asked to present this listicle - because I'm the original 'rock star' chef. Whatever that fakking means.

"Unfortunately, I recently opened a new boating lake, and some of the rental pedalos are staying out beyond their allotted fakking hire period. So, I'm going to have to try and sort that out while giving you a brief overview of The Bitmaps' history.

"Of course, the company's immediately identifiably, chunky, visual style - basically, no hard fakking edges - was matched by the quality of their fakking games. Rarely did the company dabble in the same genre more than once - beyond a sequel or two - and they were one of the few reasons fakking console owners looked enviously at the fakking Amiga.

"Alas, the Bitmaps - led by MD Mike Montgomery - haven't developed a brand new game since 2003 (though ports of some of its most iconic titles have appeared on smartphones). That's a fakking shame, in this era of homogenised triple-A releases.

"Here's a brief celebration of their finest fakking achievements. Come in number 9, your time is fakking up! Fakking liberty. Fakk's sake."

XENON 2: MEGABLAST 
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The original Xenon put The Bitmap Brothers on the map, but its sequel - Megablast - took the visuals, gameplay, and, perhaps most famously, the soundtrack, to a whole other level. The game used the track Megablast (Hip Hop on Precinct 13) by long-defunct 90s dance music bards Bomb The Bass - based upon John Carpenter's Escape From Precinct 13 movie soundtrack. This was one of the first examples of "proper" music being faithfully recreated in a game. Also: it was painfully difficult.
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"Right. Fakking hell. Here's a list of all the pedalos which need to come in NOW. Nine, eleven, fifteen, and twenty three. Get here now, you bunch of fakking wasters! I'll teach you to take liberties with my fakking pedalos..."
CADAVER
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By the time Cadaver was released, isometric games had fallen out of fashion. Typically, however, The Bitmap Brothers gave the genre an adrenal shot in the anus. A puzzle-heavy fantasy nonsense, it might remain the Bitmap's most glorious visual achievement. Also, look at those floor tiles. They look like slabs of fudge!
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"If you don't get back here right this fakking second I'm going to charge you for an extra hour! Watch out for the fakking swan, you muppet!"
SPEEDBALL 2: BRUTAL DELUXE
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Probably The Bitmap Brothers' most famous game, the sequel to Speedball was part beat 'em up, part sports sim. Despite being set in a 2000AD-inspired future, it was better than most competitive "real" sports games of the era. But then, when has adding punching to a thing been anything less than an improvement?

There was an ill-recalled further sequel, Speedball 2100, released for the PlayStation, but it lacked the fast pace and glorious graphics of its predecessor. To wit: nobody cared.
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"BRING YOUR PEDALO BACK HERE NOW!"
GODS
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What would today be called, somewhat irritatingly, a "Metroidvania" type of game, Gods saw The Bitmaps trying their hand at a platform game. Sporting the high level of challenge that became a trademark of the developer, it's a rare example of the console version of a Bitmap Bros. game being better than the home computer original. You see, it ran faster and more smoothly on consoles (though this made it even more difficult). What do you make of that, Amiga owners?
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"Oi! Twat on the far side of the lake - you're pedalling towards the roped-off area. Turn around and bring the pedalo back to the fakking shore!"
MAGIC POCKETS
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Another Bitmaps' game with a licensed song on the soundtrack - in this case Doin' The Do by 90s doyenne Betty Boo - Magic Pockets saw the company turn their hand to a Mario/Sonic-style cutesy platformer. It had a bizarre premise; a boy with magic trousers must enter his pockets to retrieve his toys from the creatures who live within. We've all been there.

Nicely, each area within the game endowed the boy with a different magical ability, and the slick visuals stand as testament to the fact that not every old game was an overt pixel-fest. Pay attention, indie game developers.
THE CHAOS ENGINE
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The Chaos Engine and its sequel saw The Bitmaps going steampunk - long before steampunk became tiresomely ubiquitous - in a top-down, co-op multiplayer shoot 'em up. The plot and setting was heavily inspired by the novel The Difference Engine; widely credited with starting the steampunk genre.

​The sequel - unlike its predecessor, released only for the Amiga and (ha ha) CD32 - ditched the co-op mode, and was more a split-screen deathmatch, against either another player or the computer. It also ditched the original's earth colour palette for more garish hues. 
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"Oi! Am I talking to my fakking self here? Stop going round in circles, and bring the fakking pedalos back! Oh, don't start crying!"
Z: STEEL SOLDIERS
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For one of their final games, The Bitmap Brothers released a sequel to the well-received Z, a real-time strategy game featuring armies of battlebots. Z: Steel Soldiers - released only for the PC - added more of a tongue-in-cheek plot element than its predecessor, and gave the genre a faster, more arcade-like, pace than it was used to. It was decent, but failed to topple the all-consuming Command & Conquer franchise from its lofty perch.
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"Right. This is your final fakking warning. If you don't bring those fakking pedalos back here right this fakking instant, I'm going to start grabbing handfuls of this gravel, and lobbing it at your fakking faces. Don't think I can't reach you from here, because I fakking can!"
WORLD WAR II: FRONTLINE COMMAND
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To date, the final original game developed by The Bitmap Brothers, World War II: Frontline Command was another RTS, but lacked any of the company's hallmark visual quirks. A sign of shifting tastes, it was a more sombre, simulation-led effort.

Though relatively well-received, shortly after its release The Bitmaps fragmented into embarrassing bits. The company website remains, but hasn't been updated since before the release of Frontline Command, where they state that they intended to work on a new version of Speedball. A sorry epitaph to one of the Amiga's finest.
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"That's it. I fakking give up. I hope you all fakking drown!"
21 Comments
DEAN
6/8/2018 11:30:43 am

Oh man, your Gordie just made my fakking morning!

Love the one with the pencil behind its ear; so..... human; you can see how what separates us from it is less than what we have in common.

I often consider which one of them is the greatest unwashed anus... I usually go for Jamie because he pretends to be really quite a good decent upstanding sort.

And I think Marco has to be the original Rock Star Chef - I've been in several of his restaurants and they're pretty much narcissistic shrines devoted to the coolest mofo to ever whisk an egg with some flour and butter, and many a picture on the wall has the classic cigarette hanging off the lip pose with plenty featuring his bare chest and badboy pout.

BANDANA.

In fairness, though, he is better than the 2 wankers.

Why are so many chefs drunk and angry? Stress.

And that's fair enough, right? I mean it's not like they're just poncing about on a battlefield or twiddling their thumbs on a weekend shift at A&E.

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RichardM
6/8/2018 12:34:42 pm

Keith Floyd will always be my choice of TV chef. Drinking, talking to the crew, admitting when he fucked up: nobody has ever surpassed his style.

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MENTALIST
6/8/2018 11:49:05 am

There's a programme on CBBC where Gordon Ramsay has forced his kids into making some sort of travel / cookery show.

I find it very uncomfortable to watch.

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DEAN
6/8/2018 11:56:31 am

https://www.optrex.co.uk

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RichardM
6/8/2018 12:38:00 pm

All these games sadly passed me by as I didn’t have access to an Amiga, except Speedball 2 which must have had a console release? Or maybe I did the emulator thing. Definitely want to try The Chaos Engine and Cadaver.

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Grembot
6/8/2018 12:58:48 pm

Amiga, hah! I had an Atari ST, the thinking mans Amiga. I had Xenon 1 and Magic Pockets both were too difficult for me at the time, now I’d be worried I wouldn’t live through the loading times. And another thing they used to give away demo discs on magazines, the demos kept me interested enough that I never felt the urge to buy many full games. I wish I’d got Volfied though, I’d like to play that again.

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Chris
8/8/2018 09:13:58 am

"The thinking man's Amiga". What were they thinking? "I'd rather spend a bit less on a computer and get something fakking shite"?

Floop
6/8/2018 01:44:41 pm

Jamie Oliver has ruined the fizzies with his sugar tax shenanigans, I certainly wouldn't shed a tear if he choked on his fat tongue in his sleep

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Clive Peppard
6/8/2018 02:26:48 pm

Ice cream, ice cream

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Lummox60N
6/8/2018 08:14:54 pm

Every damn time "ice cream" is mentioned anywhere near me, EVEN NOW, I "do" the Speedball "Oice Cream".
Ah, how my children regard me with confused, pitying looks upon their faces.
None of them will play Speedball 2 against me. Because children today are soft.

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Robobob
6/8/2018 07:58:12 pm

Magic fakking trousers? What?

Anyway I didn't know (having heard of it but never played it) that The Chaos Engine was inspired by The Difference Engine.

I've read The Difference Engine, and it infuriates me by being (in my rubbish opinion) a brilliant alternative history concept but a complete letdown of a story in itself, and then literally the final page of the entire book is the most amazing epilogue ever, except it's incredibly frustrating as it doesn't seem really all that related to the entire book that came before and it just makes me feel like I want to read THAT story instead. Unless (as is probably the case) I'm just too fakking thick to join the relevant dots with it all.

Anyway, sorry. Games! Not books!

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Dr. Budd Buttocks, MD
6/8/2018 08:27:47 pm

Bomb the Bass last had a record out as recently as 2014

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Dacanesta
6/8/2018 10:14:30 pm

And its pretty good too.....The Fallen is an awesome track.

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Andi Peters
6/8/2018 08:39:39 pm

Does anyone remember the Saturday morning kids tv show where people phoned in and played magic pockets over the phone using the numbers as a joypad? Or have I just had too much gin again.

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Today's Gaming Drama
6/8/2018 11:13:41 pm

Motormouth! They also has the surreal Weird Dreams as a phone in game too, never understood that game but loved it all the same for its odd Tim Burton-esque vibe.

Pre Motormouth was Get Fresh where they used Xenon as the phone in game.

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Marro
6/8/2018 08:52:54 pm

I've always thought of the Bitmap Bros as saucer-eyed, gurning ravers - coding games next to strobe lights and pounding bass bins.
I suppose that crappy looking WWII RTS is them putting on a suit and going to get a "straight" job at a bank.

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James Walker
6/8/2018 11:49:03 pm

Yep. Jamie twatface Oliver has indeed, "ruined the fizzies".
I dinae buy em anymore and you can hardly find the cheap cans o pop in Heron now without em being fakking "zero" or some shit like that.

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SevenLegs
7/8/2018 09:42:05 am

you know the film is 'Assault on Precinct 13' and not 'escape' and you've just put it there to goad me haven't you well it's not going to work so you can just pack it in right now

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Rawce
7/8/2018 12:33:53 pm

Basically my pre and early teens summed up in one neat listicle (with added Ramsay)

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Paul howard
7/8/2018 01:16:48 pm

Not sure if this or the Noel Edmonds one is funnier bit theyre both great

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Fancy Pants
8/8/2018 05:04:00 pm

Hmmm. Never really got on with their stuff. Always seemed like ST ports to me. No hardware scrolling or any of that caper.

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