Ultimate Play The Game / Ashby Computers and Graphics / Rare Limited

The Green, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, LE6

Ultimate Play the Game was the trading name of Ashby Computers and Graphics. You probably already know the name if you're interested enough to read this blog but not including Ultimate would be like writing about football teams and not covering Manchester United because they are too famous.

Their first game, Jetpac, was released in May 1983, initially for the 16k ZX Spectrum and followed by versions for the VIC-20 and BBC Micro. The lead time of magazines in 1983 was so long that the first review comes two months later in COMPUTER AND VIDEO GAMES issue 21 (July 1983 page 136) where the unnamed reviewer can't wait to tell us, "the tape loaded successfully first time and while the game was loading an impressive title screen was displayed."

K-tel / Front Runner

620 Western Avenue, London, W3

I was a ZX Spectrum kid, and I don't want this blog to over-focus on Sir Clive Sinclair's rubber-keyed wonder. I should make a gesture to potential readers out there who chose a different path; but what? Back in the eighties my knowledge of other home computers was limited to: 

• a friend with a ZX81, whose parents refused to upgrade. 
• my aunt who brought a Dragon 32.
• a weird Superman comic in which he teamed up with some kids who owned a computer*.
• a couple of kids in my class with Commodore 64s.

Martech

Bay Terrace, Pevensey Bay, BN24

DATELINE 1985, PEVENSEY BAY. I like to imagine a group of designers and programmers from the Electronic Pencil Company walking along the seafront arguing over the hierarchy of Zoids. Their forthcoming game Zoids: The Battle Begins required the player to recover the scattered pieces of the mighty Zoidzilla and your personal Zoid becomes more powerful as each piece is found. Obviously the player must start as a lowly and weak Spiderzoid before climbing the ranks to become (the mighty) Zoidzilla, but what comes in between? More importantly, what were Zoids and why are they in an East Sussex village?

Firebird / Telecomsoft

 Wellington House, Upper St. Martin's Lane, London, WC2H

Firebird, or Telecomsoft to give them their more formal name, first appeared in late-1984 with impressive, and presumably expensive, colour double-page adverts in the major computer magazines. Here's an example from COMPUTER AND VIDEOGAMES issue 38 (December 1984 page 82). The lavish advertising campaign was one way of establishing the cheaper Firebird Silver range as different from its major rival Mastertronic, who didn't advertise at all. The other difference was the price. Firebird Silver games cost £2.50. Mastertronic games cost £1.99. The extra 51p was significant in 1984. There was also a Gold range which sold games at full price. A massive £5.95 for the first two titles Demons of Topaz for the Commodore 64, and Buggy Blast for the Spectrum. The Gold and Silver labels were joined in 1985 by the Rainbird label and with some minor tweaking and rebranding all three survived until Telecomsoft was brought by MicroProse.

The Map

Recently I found this article in a 1991 issue of THE ONE magazine (October 1991 page 50).

It's a snapshot of the UK industry at a time when everyone still thought 16-bit was the future, and the release of the PlayStation -which really would change everything- was four years away. Liverpool and Manchester are represented by Psygnosis and Ocean, alone. The gaming heritage of both cities has been whittled away until just two massive companies remain. Elite is still going, as are Domark and US Gold who have both yet to regenerate into Eidos. And over in Reading, Thalamus have just survived the liquidation of their original parent company Newsfield; publishers of CRASH and ZZAP64.

I'm surprised to see how few of the companies I've covered; right now (with now being October 2022) I make it four, Elite, Mirrorsoft, System 3, and Virgin. It shows how much my own personal nostalgia is biased towards the 80s 8-bit industry, and though I did go 16-bit with an Atari ST, and even 32-bit with a PlayStation, those machines don't hold the same soft spot in my memory.

Oh, and Dartford residents won't have been happy to be lumped in with London. It may be on the inside of the M25, unlike Slough which just squeaks outside, but it's part of Kent. Not Greater London.

Why?

My imagination was captured by the advert on page 89 of CRASH issue 47 (October 1987). It wasn't the far-out salaries (£10K a year to design games, imagine that!) but the accompanying picture. A futuristic cityscape showing a monorail delivering bright-eyed citizens to a multi-level plaza. This could only be the headquarters of Elite Systems Ltd. What an amazing, fantastic, futuristic place it was. How I wished I could live in Anchor Road, Walsall.