Nah. Least this one you could get a bit of free software out of the deal. The other two listed are just shit all around. One of which had paid DLC shit for the base shit. xD
I actually think squij for the 64 looks pretty fun. The graphics are appealing, and the constant loss of energy from enemies and walls can keep it engaging. Might give it a try soon
I tried playing the C64 version and seriously, you get dammaged super quickly, with no invincibility after you get hit, the enemies constantly respawn at an absurd rate and come at you diagonally and you lose a shit ton of health when you just touch the ground or any of the platforms, which is unavoidable given the tunnel like layout of the level. So how the hell is anyone supposed to do that ?
@Metagalactic Llama I mean sure but....if they didn't have the enemies respawn every two seconds and if you could touch the ground or platforms without taking dammage, then this would be a lot more playable. And those were both things the person had to purposefully code in, I'm pretty sure it would have been easier to have the terrain _not_ harm you and I know jack shit about programming XD
I swear you made this just for Ashens... given that he talked about it in his presentation at the Norwich Gaming Festival... which by chance I watched 2 hours before this video went live... great job as ever Kim!!
I always knew that art of the bird as the cover for Psygnosis' Obitus, I had no idea it was from a different game originally! I wonder how that came to happen.
I'm delighted to have recently discovered your videos, Kim! Will tweet about this, just as Squij himself might have, had he been able to do anything at all.
Yay Football Manager on the speccy! Goalkeepers were non-existent but still it took years for Champ to catch up to actually being able to see highlights rather than text. Me and my neighbour used to play that and Formula 1 (manager) for hours in his garage, listening to the top 40. I think a lot of microcomputers ended up relegated to garage duty when the consoles arrived. Up until 2003/4 I was still running an A500 in the car-hole. Your videos bring back so many memories for me!
Quick question Kim, where would you put the infamous Cassette 50 on that list of worst ZX Spectrum games? SQIJ may be a bad game written in basic, but what about 50 bad games written in basic?
Honestly, I'd put in the argument that SQIJ is still the worse game. One of the things you notice when watching SQIJ is how boring it is to play, even once you've gotten past the bug. And there's a number of games in the Cassette 50 that are... okay, not great, but at least tolerable, and nearly all of them are better than SQIJ.
Hey Kim, great stuff as ever! Id like to request some videos on the Worms series- surely the 2nd best game of all time next to Sensi Soccer! As proven by its longevity... and an oldskool UK game at that. x
God I thought I'd never see anything worse than 'The A-Team' on the Commodore 64 but SQIJ on the Spectrum lowers the 8bit shitness benchmark to new depths. Great video though :)
The thing to remember about this game, however, is that this game was made to _intentionally_ be crap as "revenge" by the author. So, in that case, maybe the number 2 game on that list should claim the worst game prize? JW3HH
I feel like a traitor, as a brit I should have loved the spectrum but didn't. The commodore 64 was so great it was never an option for me. I still love to watch these videos though.
I wonder if the name Squij was supposed to be a reference to the owl Squib from a series of children's books. Only thing that makes sense to me though I mostly say that due to the cover art.
Fairlight ! :D The C64 version had a truly wonderful little SiD ditty. Ran like crap, compared to the speccy version tho ! I recommend the c64 game of The A-Team (complete with the star wars theme for some reason) for any future reviews of 8 bit oddities with that special little something about them. That might be the very worst on that machine :)
Nice review. The ZX Spectrum was way before my time but I've played it and the Commodore 64 at the games club I go to. Some... interesting stuff on those consoles. I'd like to play the BBC Micro at some point as well.
as someone kindly linked I wrote a feature on this game for eurogamer. I still find it funny how people say stuff like 'It's not as bad as star wars battlefront' 😂
damn they released to commercial retail production a totally broken build for the game ! what a shame this wasn't released in this age, then a nice online update would have sorted it. That's not an owl like on the cover ... that is a sitting pigeon !
Was the box art reused for some other game? Because I have some memory of having seen it back in my C64 or Amiga days but I have no recollection of any game called SQIJ ever :)
This is so bad. I've seen Game Maker, Renpy(I'll give you one guess which Renpy game I have played), and even RPG Maker games with more functionality, and were also made by one person. Even if all Renpy games(even the most popular ones) have barely any gameplay. Only story with a possible minigame thrown in there for good measure.
Oh dear. Ohhh, dear. I know this one. People can't say _shit_ about Big Rigs, or ET, or any piece of shovelware tat because at least those games are at least _SOMEWHAT_ bloody playable.
love your videos. Any chance of doing a video on System 3 - makers of Last ninja and IK+. They had a few massive years in the mid to late 80's. The music and graphics on their C64 versions are up with the best on the machine.besthank
I'm not convinced I believe that account from the 'author' of this title. Given he never released anything else, I suspect he somehow managed to persuade the publisher he was a competent programmer and was given the job of converting the title, and the publisher got the promotions etc ready for release. He was rumbled and the publisher was left with no option but to release the title, warts and all, and this is all they had. This doesn't explain the re-release on the compilation though. The Power House were a reasonable enough company in their day, I believe they were related to CRL who were well respected.
Oh it’s supposed to be a port of a C64 game. I’d always wondered why the author chose a pigeon as a main character ua-cam.com/video/WHzV02gRXns/v-deo.htmlfeature=shared
It's nice to see such "gems" finally unearthed, because I haven't seen the ZX Spectrum version on any list of the worst games ever... And it definitely deserves the spot, probably even more then "E.T." or "Big Rigs". Ashen played this on his Stan Up to Cancer stream recently and I was frankly shocked to see a game of such state of being unfinished and broken. By the way, sorry for not being active on the channel lately - lots of stuff going on. Hope to catch up soon. As always - your videos are great and very informative.
WOW! Somehow u took a worthless shitty game that deserved no time and made a truly interesting and entertaining 15 minute video about it, well done! Awesome.
I am computer programmer and have been programming in just about every language for over 20 years. I mention that just to shed some light on my curiosity. I'm also American by the way so ive never seen a speccy. But on the speccy why is it some games bleed colors onto the player and enemy sprites? Is this a fault of the speccy or the programmer? Is it done on purpose or is it just novice programming... Can someone shed some light on this for me.? Thank you in advance
It’s something called “attribute clash” which is a quirk of the Speccy and an artefact caused by limitations of the hardware and its design. No more than two colours (INK and PAPER) can ever appear in one 8x8 square set of pixels. Some games used workarounds to try and avoid the effect (the laziest method being to simply make the graphics all monochrome) whereas other games simply embraced it as part and parcel of the Speccy experience (games like Dizzy).
Why have such epic C64 music (Aztec Challenge and Glider Rider) on a video about a shit Spectrum game? If people are delusional to say the Spectrum was better than the C64, don't rely on the C64 epic music to make the spectrum video better. ;)
Mark Constable Wow, this tongue in cheek post was posted nearly 2 weeks ago and yet bothered you enough to post an insulting reply. Sounds like you got some issues you need to sort out. Go and sulk in a corner for a bit and come back when you've grown up.
Wow that kid scratching his head with the barrel of that lightgun sure as hell wouldn't fly these days.
SQIJ sounds like the kind of thing I'd try and bluff in a game of scrabble.
Next time try "Jozxyqk". It's the cat word for when you get your sexual organs caught in something.
Note to self: Remember to link to this video the next time I hear someone whinge about E.T. or Sonic '06...
Good games
I mean, at least Sonic 2006 had some bloody good music and some ambition.
Nah. Least this one you could get a bit of free software out of the deal. The other two listed are just shit all around. One of which had paid DLC shit for the base shit. xD
In the words of Stuart Ashen, "Game doesn't bloody exist."
There are many shit spectrum games. I find it difficult to separate the crap from the crap
6:57
For anyone who doesn't know what 'six of the best' means, Kim's basically saying it deserves a caning.
SQIJ in the C64 version looks incredibly similar to an Angry Bird.
I actually think squij for the 64 looks pretty fun. The graphics are appealing, and the constant loss of energy from enemies and walls can keep it engaging. Might give it a try soon
Obscure Media different game by different Jason
SQIJ is so bad it doesnt even has an wikipedia page
I tried playing the C64 version and seriously, you get dammaged super quickly, with no invincibility after you get hit, the enemies constantly respawn at an absurd rate and come at you diagonally and you lose a shit ton of health when you just touch the ground or any of the platforms, which is unavoidable given the tunnel like layout of the level. So how the hell is anyone supposed to do that ?
@Metagalactic Llama I mean sure but....if they didn't have the enemies respawn every two seconds and if you could touch the ground or platforms without taking dammage, then this would be a lot more playable. And those were both things the person had to purposefully code in, I'm pretty sure it would have been easier to have the terrain _not_ harm you and I know jack shit about programming XD
I swear you made this just for Ashens... given that he talked about it in his presentation at the Norwich Gaming Festival... which by chance I watched 2 hours before this video went live... great job as ever Kim!!
ashens played it in his 5 hour video last week
And now he's included an update on SQIJ! in his second Terrible Old Games You've Probably Never Heard Of book, credited to Kim Justice.
The word Sqij sounds like it could be another name for jizz.
It's also a synonym for puke. Appropriate, I'm sure you'll agree.
There was also a game called "Pud Pud" which in my school was slang for what wanking sounds like. hahaha.
The speccy version deserves a true-to-original port to the latest hardware along with a Steam greenlight.
Let's post a Kickstarter project to revive this piece of history!
4K Sqij in VR! Now with even less functionality.
Infernape7890 but we could add online multiplayer to keep it modern
clray123 Then everyone will be playing as an immobile bird thing. Brilliant!
Infernape7890 immobile bird on a mobile vr device
I always knew that art of the bird as the cover for Psygnosis' Obitus, I had no idea it was from a different game originally! I wonder how that came to happen.
Have an idea, the cover designs/art were owned by CRL, Crl came to an end in 1992 (I think) they just sold off the copywrite to raise some cash
Squi! on the C-16 looks extremely similar to Slimer from GhostBusters!
Entertaining as always Kim, loved Limmy's wee sour face at the start.
I'm delighted to have recently discovered your videos, Kim! Will tweet about this, just as Squij himself might have, had he been able to do anything at all.
Imagine getting this and Aif wiedersehn pet on your Christmas morning and loading them both up with excitement
Sqij by Jason sounds like a pound land hair styling product.
Oh damn, there's a reference to "There's Something about Mary" in there.
Hey Kim great job on the reviews in Retro Gamer! I look forward to reading RG every month and have thoroughly enjoyed your reviews.
Top 10 games written in Q-Basic!? Make it happen! =)
*Yoink*
Gimme!
Yay Football Manager on the speccy! Goalkeepers were non-existent but still it took years for Champ to catch up to actually being able to see highlights rather than text. Me and my neighbour used to play that and Formula 1 (manager) for hours in his garage, listening to the top 40. I think a lot of microcomputers ended up relegated to garage duty when the consoles arrived. Up until 2003/4 I was still running an A500 in the car-hole. Your videos bring back so many memories for me!
Quick question Kim, where would you put the infamous Cassette 50 on that list of worst ZX Spectrum games? SQIJ may be a bad game written in basic, but what about 50 bad games written in basic?
Honestly, I'd put in the argument that SQIJ is still the worse game. One of the things you notice when watching SQIJ is how boring it is to play, even once you've gotten past the bug. And there's a number of games in the Cassette 50 that are... okay, not great, but at least tolerable, and nearly all of them are better than SQIJ.
Hey Kim, great stuff as ever! Id like to request some videos on the Worms series- surely the 2nd best game of all time next to Sensi Soccer! As proven by its longevity... and an oldskool UK game at that. x
9:45 oh noooo that screen full of if-then gotos that has to be evaluated a line at a time. They don’t have hash tables in basic. What a nightmare
God I thought I'd never see anything worse than 'The A-Team' on the Commodore 64 but SQIJ on the Spectrum lowers the 8bit shitness benchmark to new depths. Great video though :)
The thing to remember about this game, however, is that this game was made to _intentionally_ be crap as "revenge" by the author.
So, in that case, maybe the number 2 game on that list should claim the worst game prize?
JW3HH
It was.
Nice to hear my favourite Speccy music playing, from Beyond the Ice Palace!
The game is so bad, but I "recommended" Huchi Mata, Highlander and EastEnders, tree of the worst games for Spectrum!
Namaste.
Cool, I didn't know Birdemic: Shock and Terror had game version.
Worst game? More like ahead of its time! Today it's called an idle game and is enjoyed by millions, trying to get the highest score.
I actually own this original tape. I'm so happy.
I think we need a picture of Galactus facepalming to match the amount of fail seen in this video.
Poor sqij! He/she doesn't have any legs or much wings, no wonder it's slow lol
You're the only person on UA-cam who got past the first room in SQIJ. Congratulations?
Nope he's not
I feel like a traitor, as a brit I should have loved the spectrum but didn't. The commodore 64 was so great it was never an option for me. I still love to watch these videos though.
I found out about this game through Zeusdaz’s channel; he did a “Shit Game Time” review of it a few months ago.
I wonder if the name Squij was supposed to be a reference to the owl Squib from a series of children's books. Only thing that makes sense to me though I mostly say that due to the cover art.
No it was a made up name
Was written in Laser Basic, not sure if it was compiled too.
sqij was clearly the inspiration for the twitter logo. i smell lawsuit
2:00 Oh hey, I didn't know the BMX Bandit got his own Spectrum game!
I wonder if Melbourne House were aware of this game when they employed the author.. Surely he didn't show it to them as part of his portfolio :D
why?
No I didnt.
If I may disagree - your country's greatest computer is actually the Raspberry Pi (forgive me, Sir Clive).
I'd love to see a video on Kosmik Pirate too some day : D
Think I heard beyond the ice palace in there.
Love your channel btw... Brings back a lot of great memories.
You did. Batman The Movie too.
Still better than half the stuff on Steam Greenlight
Fairlight ! :D The C64 version had a truly wonderful little SiD ditty. Ran like crap, compared to the speccy version tho ! I recommend the c64 game of The A-Team (complete with the star wars theme for some reason) for any future reviews of 8 bit oddities with that special little something about them. That might be the very worst on that machine :)
if you go to Lemon64 dot com and look for the game, you can stream the soundtrack from the site :)
DirtyBoySingToGod Or you could just type it in youtube. There are video's with the full intro (aswel as the full gameplay)
Nice review. The ZX Spectrum was way before my time but I've played it and the Commodore 64 at the games club I go to. Some... interesting stuff on those consoles. I'd like to play the BBC Micro at some point as well.
The C64 version actually looks ok
as someone kindly linked I wrote a feature on this game for eurogamer. I still find it funny how people say stuff like 'It's not as bad as star wars battlefront' 😂
damn they released to commercial retail production a totally broken build for the game ! what a shame this wasn't released in this age, then a nice online update would have sorted it. That's not an owl like on the cover ... that is a sitting pigeon !
Was the box art reused for some other game? Because I have some memory of having seen it back in my C64 or Amiga days but I have no recollection of any game called SQIJ ever :)
Yes the art work was reused in around 1990, three years after Power house went bust
I wonder how much quicker it would run if put through the compiler?
Hey Kim. Do you know about the portable Spectrum ZX dealy? Would be interesting to get your opinion on it.
It took a homebrew remake of SQIJ for it to be competent. Like, it has similar vibes to a Ultimate Play the Game title
Ha ha Basildon. The beauty parlour of Essex.
No word about the music track on the B-side of the cassette, then? =P
I thought the worst spectrum game was a game about allocating resources in a election
This is so bad. I've seen Game Maker, Renpy(I'll give you one guess which Renpy game I have played), and even RPG Maker games with more functionality, and were also made by one person. Even if all Renpy games(even the most popular ones) have barely any gameplay. Only story with a possible minigame thrown in there for good measure.
The cover is the same as Psygnosis Obitus... a much better game
My favorite thing about this game is that it was released twice for the zx spectrum, both individually and in a compilation.
Yes it was, that was a surprise to me. Powerhouse were going 'bust' and they needed to get as much money in....
Please do more videos from the top 100 worst ZX games list.
Glorious work :)
Oh dear.
Ohhh, dear. I know this one. People can't say _shit_ about Big Rigs, or ET, or any piece of shovelware tat because at least those games are at least _SOMEWHAT_ bloody playable.
nice beyond the ice palace tunage in the background there
Please do more reviews of terrible games, it's such a guilty pleasure haha
love your videos. Any chance of doing a video on System 3 - makers of Last ninja and IK+. They had a few massive years in the mid to late 80's. The music and graphics on their C64 versions are up with the best on the machine.besthank
I remember this cover of Psygnosis game on amiga
brilliant video yet again , cheers ;)
Ended with bit of AKA Rush n Attack. Nice!
I'm not convinced I believe that account from the 'author' of this title. Given he never released anything else, I suspect he somehow managed to persuade the publisher he was a competent programmer and was given the job of converting the title, and the publisher got the promotions etc ready for release. He was rumbled and the publisher was left with no option but to release the title, warts and all, and this is all they had. This doesn't explain the re-release on the compilation though. The Power House were a reasonable enough company in their day, I believe they were related to CRL who were well respected.
Bit more to it than that
a 15 minute review of SQIJ!!! HAHA
Longer than it took to make.
Oh it’s supposed to be a port of a C64 game. I’d always wondered why the author chose a pigeon as a main character ua-cam.com/video/WHzV02gRXns/v-deo.htmlfeature=shared
I need this in my life.
It's nice to see such "gems" finally unearthed, because I haven't seen the ZX Spectrum version on any list of the worst games ever... And it definitely deserves the spot, probably even more then "E.T." or "Big Rigs". Ashen played this on his Stan Up to Cancer stream recently and I was frankly shocked to see a game of such state of being unfinished and broken. By the way, sorry for not being active on the channel lately - lots of stuff going on. Hope to catch up soon. As always - your videos are great and very informative.
SQIJ is such a great nonsense title for a game that makes little to no sense.
Interesting and entertaining...cheers!
It's a toss up between Sqij or Hareraiser for worst game of all time I reckon.
SQIJ is what you show a cancer victim to make them feel better.
Worse than the A Team game?
Edit: Interesting, when the bird dies in the C64 it turns into a pile of poo. A metaphor perhaps?
What is the game called at 0:30
WOW! Somehow u took a worthless shitty game that deserved no time and made a truly interesting and entertaining 15 minute video about it, well done! Awesome.
actually i for one am more interested in the GOOD spectrum games :P
Not a patch on advanced lawnmower simulator.
Very interesting!
I bought ready steady go(number 8 on the wos bad list) as a kid. you have zero control in that game very bizarre
wait... are those monsters Ghasts!? 😂
Yah the really early years of gaming had games that made big rigs look like gta 5.
It's really not that bad if you play high on a combination of heroin, ecstasy, mescaline and pure sugar injected intravenously.
I am computer programmer and have been programming in just about every language for over 20 years. I mention that just to shed some light on my curiosity. I'm also American by the way so ive never seen a speccy. But on the speccy why is it some games bleed colors onto the player and enemy sprites? Is this a fault of the speccy or the programmer? Is it done on purpose or is it just novice programming... Can someone shed some light on this for me.? Thank you in advance
Its a problem with the spectrum
It’s something called “attribute clash” which is a quirk of the Speccy and an artefact caused by limitations of the hardware and its design. No more than two colours (INK and PAPER) can ever appear in one 8x8 square set of pixels.
Some games used workarounds to try and avoid the effect (the laziest method being to simply make the graphics all monochrome) whereas other games simply embraced it as part and parcel of the Speccy experience (games like Dizzy).
At least the cover art looks cool
Is sqij on c64 actually bad? It looks alright
Basildon's not bad...Ever been to Harlow ? The H is silent by the way...
I cobbled together better games than that on the Spectrum at the age of 12.
Music at 4:35? Can't remember the game
Beyond the Ice Palace
Yes!
I'm going to Basildon tomorrow
Fun fact: this was made by a 13 year old who was 16 when he finished it
Why have such epic C64 music (Aztec Challenge and Glider Rider) on a video about a shit Spectrum game? If people are delusional to say the Spectrum was better than the C64, don't rely on the C64 epic music to make the spectrum video better. ;)
*ahem* Glider Rider is Spectrum 128k music! Aztec Challenge was just a good fit...
Ahh I stand corrected, on half of it ;)
StRoRo here we go, some moron starting this system is better than that one, get a life and buy both on ebay
Mark Constable Wow, this tongue in cheek post was posted nearly 2 weeks ago and yet bothered you enough to post an insulting reply. Sounds like you got some issues you need to sort out. Go and sulk in a corner for a bit and come back when you've grown up.
StRoRo had my sulk but if i grew up i would'nt be playing the games in the first place. Takes a long time to reply as i am very busy on pornhub
Hm, I think this game doesn't get the credit it deserves. Afterall it looks like it was the first ever IDLE game... :P
Have you tried compiling it?
I had the compiler which was my intention but just couldnt be arsed in part to the memory constraints. Shit is shit so why bother ?