"And just like that, the world was racing at their computers. Studying braking markers, searching for tenths of a second." I got teary eyes listening to this.
This takes me back to my childhood. My dad bolted a steering wheel from a scrapyard to a potentiometer and plugged it into the joystick port. Must have been one of the first to have a home steering wheel setup. Later added a single pedal, fully down was full throttle, fully up was full brake. You got used to it!
@Alexander TM-290 Hi. No I've searched and can't find a photo unfortunately although I'm sure one existed at one time. It was basically a real wheel bolted to a metal box which also had a red fire button to change gear and a three way switch for accelerate, off throttle and brake. This switch later got replaced with a single pedal. I also had a piece of metal holding down the space bar which enabled a wider steering range, and a golf ball on the T button to automatically restart the engine if I crashed! The golf ball had to be weighted down with a copy of Frank Herbert's "Dune". 🤣
This was like watching an Ahoy video, but through the lense of retro sim racing - I hope this does well enough to warrant more videos like it, because this is genuinely one of the highest quality videos I've ever seen about sim racing.
He was definetly "the Father" of all modern racing sims. And Microprose the Mother of the whole simulation gaming. I was surprised some weeks ago: a viewer posted a comment in one of my GP4 videos. It was him that actually wrote GP4´s entire graphics code, both Direct X and C++.
That was me 😉 . Thanks James. I was part of the very small team (ie. 2 of us) who worked on the core graphics engine for GP4 on PC and XBOX versions (latter was very close to completion but never released). I also spent so much time playing Revs in my childhood on my BBC and C64 machines 👍🙂
Just wanted to drop a line to say the presentation on this video is next-level. Apart from lack of actual on-camera interviews with developers (something obviously beyond the resources of a UA-cam channel), this is professional documentary level stuff. Takes me back to the days of watching "Icons" on G4.
This was quite simply one of the best edited, most interesting and well-voiced videos I have ever watched. This is almost more of a documentary than a straight-up UA-cam video, and I cannot praise it enough. It is simply brilliant. Looking forward immensely to Part 2 with the Grand Prix series - fantastic job!
I was here sharpening my pitchfork for your bold assumption of Revs being the 1st sim, but then you mentioned Chequered Flag for the ZX and a great summary of it's characteristics. You're safe... GREAT VIDEO!
Brilliant video. Took me right back to being huddled over my BBC Micro trying not to smash the he'll out of the keyboard and throwing the whole thing out of the window. It was very frustrating but at the same time very addictive. Been racing sims ever since my addiction started in 1984
there are people that you dont know them personally but you feel you ought to them a big thank you.. GEOFF CRAMMOND IS ONE OF THEM . geoff a big big big thank you for all these great games. you are a legend
I can barely put it into words how great this video is. Not only is it a very, very valuable piece of simracing history, it's also SUPERBLY well done. The music, your narration, the way you design your videos - brilliant. Simply brilliant. The quality of your (free!) content is outstanding. Please, GPLaps, never change your formula. Keep doing this.
Excellent video. Keyboard Revs veteran here who is going to hunt down the steer assisted version as I think this game will have aged well. The only true racing sim I've ever played, but I've never enjoyed AI in a racing game more. They race each other, not just you. They are broadly consistent performers but can have varied performance race to race to spice it up. If you played multiplayer and instantly abandoned qualifying you could name the other 19 drivers as real drivers to increase immersion for your race. And so true about the accomplishment of milestones. A child faced with the impossibility of even starting the car, gets moving, then makes constant progress over weeks and months. One of only two games ever to make me feel like I was doing something impossible (the other being Frequency on PS2).
Brilliant work. I bought the cassette version of REVS the day of release and later received the 5 track version on floppy disk as a Christmas present. I spent countless hours pounding round Silverstone, looking for that perfect lap. Wonderful memories, thank you🙂
Me too. I converted my BBC joysticks into a steering wheel and pedals, crudely made out of wood. Every so often in the heat of battle it would break and I'd have to "pit" in my workshop to repair it before I could race again :)
I watched this all the way through with the biggest grin on my face! I played this for hours back in the day--and I read every word of those manuals and instructions! It was a magnificent experience. Thank you for this respectful tribute. Edit: Just a couple more things. First, I didn't know later versions of Revs for the Beeb had Computer Assisted Steering, but I've discovered a version of Revs which I can play under emulation with this feature, so thanks for letting me know this detail. Second, Revs was such a good simulator that you could turn the car around on the track and drive around the circuit backwards, which was surely a first for any computer driving game on any platform. If you did this during the race, you could (deliberately) crash head-on into the computer cars. If you did this with enough force, the computer car would be disabled, and remain in position on the track as a wreck, which you (and the other cars) would have to avoid on each subsequent lap.
It's so good to see your interest in both the history of motor racing and the history of sims. I had mentioned Revs on your channel a while ago, it is virtually forgotten now, sadly, so it is a real treat to see this video on this classic game, which I never played but which seemed the ultimate test for the budding driver with a limited budget.... F3 around Silverstone. The ultimate challenge in keeping your speed up on a fast track with fairly under-powered cars, so the name was particularly appropriate. Those were the days when the BBC held, maintained and deserved the respect of the people. How things have changed! Not just in the sim world, either.
Oh my childhood....my parents couldn't afford a BBC Micro but of course we had them at school and a couple of friends had them....having a pirated copy of Revs and sneaking it into the school computer room was a big hobby!
Wow - EXCELLENT. I am actually one of those old farts who used to be addicted to playing Revs on a BBC micro - and it fostered a life-long love of racing. I own most of the "current" sims of the past 10 years or so (AC, RF2, PC2) but I find some of them rather overwhelming; I don't want to have to spend hours fine-tuning complex setups (I could cope with Revs and GPx setups); I just want to get out on a (virtual) track and enjoy RACING - and whittling down lap times. Your videos have inspired me to have another bash, maybe with iRacing Formula Vees or some historic cars in AC. That BMW e30 looks fun :-) Thank you Sir!
This was excellent! I had a ZX Spectrum back then and played "Chequered Flag" and I remember thinking then why the game onscreen didn't match the cover art of the cassette tape. How far we've come...
Nice documentary! I basically learned to drive with Revs. I was 15 years old when my Dad came home with a BBC Micro model B (the good one). Revs taught me about power bands and apexes. It really was a training simulator. Loved it so much I wrote a review in a local fanzine. Got the 4 Tracks add on. Acornsoft set the bar in this era. They were cutting edge and quality. Next was Crammond’s Formula 1 and then the question with every new driving game after that for me was ‘yeah but is it a game or a simulator?’ I could never get over how he managed to get a full sim into 32k of memory. Truly mind boggling. Then came Elite and the boggling hit new heights!
I loved this game and played it for hours on my C64. I got to a point where I could win every race on a C64 or BBC. It could be played with the keyboard (without any steering assist). The key was learning to use the space bar to amplify the steering motion plus some feathering of throttle and brake keys.
As someone who first came to Crammond's work in F1GP on the Atari ST, this back story starting before I was born is fascinating. BBC Micros were still in use in British primary schools as late as the mid 90s, I would never have believed it would have been capable of running such an accurate simulator!
Even if I am too young to remember this game, I very fondly remember its follow up, World Circuit, as my first racing simulation (along with IndyCar Racing). After the console racing games which were all pure arcade racers, it was a revelation to race on the real tracks, at realistic speeds and with advanced car settings. Crammond truly was a pioneer.
Now this was a fantastic video! Thank you so much. I had a humble Speccy and when I saw my friend had a BBC and played Revs I was blown away. What got my attention was that you could actually see the road ahead for example you could see a chicane approaching rather than the road just bending left or right.
Until today I'd never paid any attention to Revs. Now it looks like I have another eBay purchase to make, and I don't even own a BBC Micro. Excellent video.. well done!
Man I love this video. Such an awesome tribute. Love the whole look back at the history of racing games. Crammond had a massive influence on my childhood having spent so much time playing the Grand Prix series. Also, completing a championship season in GP1 on the same pc using hotseat mode, is one of my favourite memories of my time with my dad. We had a C64 prior to getting our first DOS pc but we never had REVS. Such a shame because I only discovered the game a few years back and it blew my mind how awesome it was for such an old game.
@GPLaps - you're quite simply knocking it out of the park. The editing, the information, the music, the speech delivery - absolutely perfect. I'd say you're becoming one of the best sim racing channels around but that would be reductive, you're not just going around virtual tracks here - you're looking into the history of the genre and what makes it so compelling and popular. Revs - the grandfather of all racing sims. Unfortunately, due to only having a cassette deck being the standard in most of Europe as well as relying primarily on pirate cassettes you'd find in the newsagents, I only discovered this game whereabouts 1991/1992, in the final months of my Commodore 64 "career" - but man, did I play the wheels out of Revs during that time. I had the original C64 "2 tracks" version - I mastered Silverstone quite well, but Brands proved to be too much for me. Even then, the game was mindblowing for me as there was simply NOTHING remotely similar around. Then, a bit later, I got a spanking 486 and Formula 1 Grand Prix came out, again courtesy of Geoff Crammond. Can't wait to see what kind of content you'll be able to make about that one.
Once again I have the confirmation that this is one of the best automotive related channels, the effort you put in each one of your videos is unreal and honestly I can’t wait to see where this series will go, since Crammond is one of the most interesting person in the whole gaming industry
What a fantastic video! The final phrase was an amazing touch and gave me goosebumps. Definitely what was coming on 1991 was TRULY special. I still can remember the music, every frame of the intro and have the same feeling that I had back then. Crammond is without doubts one of the heores that inspired me to become a game dev myself.
Good to see a new video from one of my favourite content creators. I actually owned a BBC model B back then but Revs somehow passed me by. I did have Frontier (forerunner to Elite) and the original Football Manager as well as a modem and a Prestel account, which was the internet before there was an internet :) The Beeb was a great micro and truly influential to a lot of the tuff we know and love today. Geoff Crammond was/is a genius and I owned all his Grand Prix games. Thanks for this excellent walk don memory lane Jake.
I had a BBC B with Revs, but never the extended track pack. As a 9 year old I don't think I appreciated how unique it was. Later Grand Prix for the Atari ST, but never knew Crammond did both until later. Also Sentinel for the BBC by Crammond... many hours spent. Basically all my favourite games I later found out were made by the same man. No coincidence, what a legend.
I only spent a few hours on an emulator a few years ago but the vibe of this ga.. sim was very positive! Very professional video. I'm not sure if I see the value (i.e. you spent a lot of time and effort) on the general gaming history, as there are so many channels that cover this already) but I appreciate the effort to make it a broader than simracing video.
Man you knocked it out the park i lived thru all this like many older sim racers and the love you put into this piece was gr8 hats off to you I look forward to what comes after hugely appreciated keep it up mate.
Incredible video. You deserve to feel really proud. As a UK'er who had this back in the day on the c64 you've done the game and it's place in history proud. Silverstone is only 30 minutes drive from me. I used to watch a lot of races their in the mid to late 80s. In Revs if you got the angle right at the chicane you could launch over the curb and land on the straight and carry on :-)
Oh boy, I was so hooked on this when it came out, spent hours racing with a tiny joystick on my BBC Micro, how devastating to see the graphics now when I remember them with such fondness!
Wow, what an awesome video! I remember playing Revs on my mates C64, it was bastard hard but ultimately extremely rewarding if you got it right. And the mere mention of the greatest game ever, Elite,gets my vote any day!!
Great vid. I owned a C64 in the 80's, looking back I am amazed that some games I played were in actual 3d, I tought there was some trickery used to make it look 3d without being 3d, but no, it actually was.
This sim was tough as hell, especially using a primitive (homemade) analogue joystick, but once you started to master it the feeling was glorious. I've loved Crammond's games ever since I first discovered how to fly under the bridge and buzz the trees in Aviator.
Superb video. Excellent history lesson with all the context to make sense of how ground breaking Revs was. Terrific soundtrack that matched the video, too. Can't wait for part two!
I remember I owned this game for the C64, but never played it for more than a few seconds. I tried to build an analog controller by my self with parts I purchased in german radio shacks but failed miserably in doing so. The first racing sim game I actually played for a very long time and extensively with an industrial produced analog controller was "F1 GP" on my Amiga 2000 B (Motorola 68020 Turbo Board, 1.2 GB SCSI-HD, 7 MB RAM). That this sim was also programmed by geoff crammond I learned only years later. I watch your channel for quite a while now and am always astonished how factual and entertaining your vids are. Time to subscribe... Greetings from Germany.
That was a joy to watch. I was born in the early 90s and so raised on the Microprose games, but it's incredible to watch the work Crammond did just a few years before and how far the humble racing game evolved
Throughly enjoyed that doco well done man remember the game like it was yesterday. Admittedly i was one of those that struggled with keyboard controls, and to this day still do 👍👍
Henlo @GPLaps - just wanted to say that this was an incredible watch - I loved the music; the artwork; clips; presentation - you told a very cool story and did it brilliantly! I really hope there will be a "Part 2" covering what came next! Keep living the dream!
Well made video. Thanks. Love me some Geoff Crammond. He got me into "sim racing" with his F1Grand Prix game on the Commodore Amiga. That game made me learn tracks, corner speeds and gears. That game and it's successor was the first time I took full control of a car in a game doing all the acceleration and braking myself with only auto gears (at the time). Good, good times indeed.
What a wonderful piece. Revs is an amazing bit of work for the time, and you've gone above and beyond showing just how pivotal a work it is. And lining up for a whole Crammond racing retrospective series? OH MY.
I was twelve years old when Pole Position came out. My friends and I would imitate the "prepare to qualify" voice. Fun City at Central Mall is where we played.
Just a quick shoot out to the graphic designers of acornsoft games. The sleeves are beautiful (and alte haas grotesk bold rules). Great vid man, making an history of sim racing as a genre had to be done.
Pitstop 1/2 also semi-sim games on the C64. Speedking was a great motor bike sim that worked really well. It wasn't until the PC/Amiga that sim racing became a reality. Indy 500, Stunt Car Racer, F1GP, Vroom, No Second Prize...... all 'felt' as real as they could at 8 fps! Plenty of imagination required back in those days. For me, it wasn't until I actually played Grand Prix Legends that I felt anything bordering on realism when it came to computer sim-racing.
Indy 500 and Papyrus's other sims were great too. Stunt Car Racer was Crammond's game also and it was released on C64. I remember playing it as a kid and loving it.
Nice one Jacob .Your insightful knowledge has reminded me that my best friend STILL has a stand up original of Pole Position. I am going to have to visit him and show him this very well done video. It still works too. Very well done ,and Thank you!
I loved revs on the c64, a friend an I used to use his Atari 2600 paddle controller for analog steering :) as someone who started there it is truly amazing to see how far we've come
We even played a text based simulator that calculated the race results from the quality of the parts you use to your management skills depending on the choices made and drivers you hired... yeah, not too exciting but it ran well on a 386.
Played Revs and then Revs+ to death on C64, the start of my personal sim racing adventure... Awesome retrospective, much appreciated, and demonstrates the massive strides forward that simracing has made since the eighties... I wonder if I'm alone in hoping for a classic eighties F3 mod for rfactor 2 or AC ????
We've come a long way from the first races of Richie Axelson ^^ But I really love what is happening to this channel, and this video especially is a really seriously good video essay, my full respect for that
Excellent production value here, thoroughly enjoyed it. Please let this be a series dedicated to the legend that is Geoff Crammond?? Stunt car racer, F1GP and so on. There is really nothing on him really. Would love like in this style.
Scary how much game was made from such a meagre machine as a BBC Micro - Almost F1 engineer-like thinking outside of the box with the borrowing processor cycles from the graphics chip. Real Blue Sky thinking... Gloria Slap should have made it to F1, underrated talent having to toil about in British F3
I had a friend which had the C64 version. I loved to play it, and I was pretty excited about the car physics, which was not like any other game at that time. Good memories. Later I got to play Grand Prix on my Amiga 500.
Thank you for an amazing video of a range of superb games from the awesome Geoff crammond. I remember fondly playing for hours on aviator and hours of playing revs as well love your awesome video and keep up the great work
I got a big Ahoy vibe from this, and that is the best compliment I can give. Looking forward to more like this.
"RetroAhoy: Doom" but in a simracing jacket
I love this as well. A retro ahoy style not about guns!
I had to double check if I hadn't accidentally clicked in a Ahoy video lol
Came here to comment this as well. Great style to take inspiration from & works perfectly for this format. I loved it!
I was about to comment the same thing
"And just like that, the world was racing at their computers. Studying braking markers, searching for tenths of a second." I got teary eyes listening to this.
Me too. Great great video.
This takes me back to my childhood. My dad bolted a steering wheel from a scrapyard to a potentiometer and plugged it into the joystick port. Must have been one of the first to have a home steering wheel setup. Later added a single pedal, fully down was full throttle, fully up was full brake. You got used to it!
Your dad was bad-ass!!!
@Alexander TM-290 Hi. No I've searched and can't find a photo unfortunately although I'm sure one existed at one time. It was basically a real wheel bolted to a metal box which also had a red fire button to change gear and a three way switch for accelerate, off throttle and brake. This switch later got replaced with a single pedal. I also had a piece of metal holding down the space bar which enabled a wider steering range, and a golf ball on the T button to automatically restart the engine if I crashed! The golf ball had to be weighted down with a copy of Frank Herbert's "Dune". 🤣
You had a home sim rig decades before it was cool, awesome
@@worldcomicsreview354 It's not cool now XD
This was like watching an Ahoy video, but through the lense of retro sim racing - I hope this does well enough to warrant more videos like it, because this is genuinely one of the highest quality videos I've ever seen about sim racing.
Check out other videos by GPLaps; they have a different style but come close in content.
He was definetly "the Father" of all modern racing sims.
And Microprose the Mother of the whole simulation gaming.
I was surprised some weeks ago: a viewer posted a comment in one of my GP4 videos. It was him that actually wrote GP4´s entire graphics code, both Direct X and C++.
That was me 😉 . Thanks James. I was part of the very small team (ie. 2 of us) who worked on the core graphics engine for GP4 on PC and XBOX versions (latter was very close to completion but never released). I also spent so much time playing Revs in my childhood on my BBC and C64 machines 👍🙂
Ah nice to see you around JB ;)
@@swingtrader9239 The C64! My God! My first was the Spectrum made by Sinclair! Radio tape small black and white tv set and here we go! Cheers bud!
@@graysonbyass-rascoe4326 Roscoe! Jake's channel is our Pub! 🥂
@@swingtrader9239 So it's actually your fault, I had to buy a new computer whenever a new GP Release came out... 😂
Just wanted to drop a line to say the presentation on this video is next-level. Apart from lack of actual on-camera interviews with developers (something obviously beyond the resources of a UA-cam channel), this is professional documentary level stuff. Takes me back to the days of watching "Icons" on G4.
Can't wait for pt2 where Geoff unveils his true masterpieces. GP and GP2.
gp 2 was great
If it's anything like the UA-camr that this is styled after, you'll have to wait a year
Considering the tech limitations at the time, I will always view revs as his true masterpiece.
@@jacksmith4460 better than GP3 in some ways...
@@andyenderby2305 GP4 was a great comeback.
This was quite simply one of the best edited, most interesting and well-voiced videos I have ever watched. This is almost more of a documentary than a straight-up UA-cam video, and I cannot praise it enough. It is simply brilliant. Looking forward immensely to Part 2 with the Grand Prix series - fantastic job!
As a long time subscriber, I love the direction you are taking with the channel. Really enjoyed this one and excellent quality as always thank you.
If this was on Netflix, I'd watch it. Great production values. Well done.
These videos feel like a production done by a team of professionals, very impressive
I was here sharpening my pitchfork for your bold assumption of Revs being the 1st sim, but then you mentioned Chequered Flag for the ZX and a great summary of it's characteristics. You're safe...
GREAT VIDEO!
I was BBC B and Revs player, just got a direct drive motor for my sim rig the bugs still there , great video.
Brilliant video. Took me right back to being huddled over my BBC Micro trying not to smash the he'll out of the keyboard and throwing the whole thing out of the window. It was very frustrating but at the same time very addictive. Been racing sims ever since my addiction started in 1984
there are people that you dont know them personally but you feel you ought to them a big thank you.. GEOFF CRAMMOND IS ONE OF THEM . geoff a big big big thank you for all these great games. you are a legend
I can barely put it into words how great this video is. Not only is it a very, very valuable piece of simracing history, it's also SUPERBLY well done. The music, your narration, the way you design your videos - brilliant. Simply brilliant. The quality of your (free!) content is outstanding. Please, GPLaps, never change your formula. Keep doing this.
That was awesome thank you. I have fond memories of Revs. I guess the sequel to this has to be be another Crammond classic - Grand Prix! Can't wait!
Excellent video. Keyboard Revs veteran here who is going to hunt down the steer assisted version as I think this game will have aged well. The only true racing sim I've ever played, but I've never enjoyed AI in a racing game more. They race each other, not just you. They are broadly consistent performers but can have varied performance race to race to spice it up. If you played multiplayer and instantly abandoned qualifying you could name the other 19 drivers as real drivers to increase immersion for your race.
And so true about the accomplishment of milestones. A child faced with the impossibility of even starting the car, gets moving, then makes constant progress over weeks and months. One of only two games ever to make me feel like I was doing something impossible (the other being Frequency on PS2).
Brilliant work. I bought the cassette version of REVS the day of release and later received the 5 track version on floppy disk as a Christmas present. I spent countless hours pounding round Silverstone, looking for that perfect lap. Wonderful memories, thank you🙂
Me too. I converted my BBC joysticks into a steering wheel and pedals, crudely made out of wood. Every so often in the heat of battle it would break and I'd have to "pit" in my workshop to repair it before I could race again :)
I watched this all the way through with the biggest grin on my face! I played this for hours back in the day--and I read every word of those manuals and instructions! It was a magnificent experience. Thank you for this respectful tribute.
Edit: Just a couple more things. First, I didn't know later versions of Revs for the Beeb had Computer Assisted Steering, but I've discovered a version of Revs which I can play under emulation with this feature, so thanks for letting me know this detail. Second, Revs was such a good simulator that you could turn the car around on the track and drive around the circuit backwards, which was surely a first for any computer driving game on any platform. If you did this during the race, you could (deliberately) crash head-on into the computer cars. If you did this with enough force, the computer car would be disabled, and remain in position on the track as a wreck, which you (and the other cars) would have to avoid on each subsequent lap.
It's so good to see your interest in both the history of motor racing and the history of sims. I had mentioned Revs on your channel a while ago, it is virtually forgotten now, sadly, so it is a real treat to see this video on this classic game, which I never played but which seemed the ultimate test for the budding driver with a limited budget.... F3 around Silverstone. The ultimate challenge in keeping your speed up on a fast track with fairly under-powered cars, so the name was particularly appropriate.
Those were the days when the BBC held, maintained and deserved the respect of the people.
How things have changed! Not just in the sim world, either.
Thank you for the memories. I started on a Spectrum ZX81 and now have a wee more power...
Oh my childhood....my parents couldn't afford a BBC Micro but of course we had them at school and a couple of friends had them....having a pirated copy of Revs and sneaking it into the school computer room was a big hobby!
Wow - EXCELLENT. I am actually one of those old farts who used to be addicted to playing Revs on a BBC micro - and it fostered a life-long love of racing. I own most of the "current" sims of the past 10 years or so (AC, RF2, PC2) but I find some of them rather overwhelming; I don't want to have to spend hours fine-tuning complex setups (I could cope with Revs and GPx setups); I just want to get out on a (virtual) track and enjoy RACING - and whittling down lap times. Your videos have inspired me to have another bash, maybe with iRacing Formula Vees or some historic cars in AC. That BMW e30 looks fun :-) Thank you Sir!
This was excellent! I had a ZX Spectrum back then and played "Chequered Flag" and I remember thinking then why the game onscreen didn't match the cover art of the cassette tape. How far we've come...
same - brands hatch !
That's the first sim racing game for me. The grand daddy of them all.
Nice documentary! I basically learned to drive with Revs. I was 15 years old when my Dad came home with a BBC Micro model B (the good one). Revs taught me about power bands and apexes. It really was a training simulator. Loved it so much I wrote a review in a local fanzine. Got the 4 Tracks add on. Acornsoft set the bar in this era. They were cutting edge and quality. Next was Crammond’s Formula 1 and then the question with every new driving game after that for me was ‘yeah but is it a game or a simulator?’ I could never get over how he managed to get a full sim into 32k of memory. Truly mind boggling. Then came Elite and the boggling hit new heights!
I loved this game and played it for hours on my C64. I got to a point where I could win every race on a C64 or BBC. It could be played with the keyboard (without any steering assist). The key was learning to use the space bar to amplify the steering motion plus some feathering of throttle and brake keys.
As someone who first came to Crammond's work in F1GP on the Atari ST, this back story starting before I was born is fascinating. BBC Micros were still in use in British primary schools as late as the mid 90s, I would never have believed it would have been capable of running such an accurate simulator!
Even if I am too young to remember this game, I very fondly remember its follow up, World Circuit, as my first racing simulation (along with IndyCar Racing). After the console racing games which were all pure arcade racers, it was a revelation to race on the real tracks, at realistic speeds and with advanced car settings. Crammond truly was a pioneer.
This was my FIRST Sim Racer - I still have the cassette in the original box. Brilliant video my friend!
Now this was a fantastic video! Thank you so much. I had a humble Speccy and when I saw my friend had a BBC and played Revs I was blown away. What got my attention was that you could actually see the road ahead for example you could see a chicane approaching rather than the road just bending left or right.
Also, if you want an oddity racing sim game to try have a look at Ferrari Formula 1 for Amiga/Dos. You controlled the head instead of the wheel!
Until today I'd never paid any attention to Revs. Now it looks like I have another eBay purchase to make, and I don't even own a BBC Micro.
Excellent video.. well done!
Man I love this video. Such an awesome tribute. Love the whole look back at the history of racing games. Crammond had a massive influence on my childhood having spent so much time playing the Grand Prix series. Also, completing a championship season in GP1 on the same pc using hotseat mode, is one of my favourite memories of my time with my dad. We had a C64 prior to getting our first DOS pc but we never had REVS. Such a shame because I only discovered the game a few years back and it blew my mind how awesome it was for such an old game.
Geoff Crammind’s games had great manuals,also loved the manuals that came with the gate fold boxed version,which I still own of GPL.
@GPLaps - you're quite simply knocking it out of the park. The editing, the information, the music, the speech delivery - absolutely perfect. I'd say you're becoming one of the best sim racing channels around but that would be reductive, you're not just going around virtual tracks here - you're looking into the history of the genre and what makes it so compelling and popular.
Revs - the grandfather of all racing sims. Unfortunately, due to only having a cassette deck being the standard in most of Europe as well as relying primarily on pirate cassettes you'd find in the newsagents, I only discovered this game whereabouts 1991/1992, in the final months of my Commodore 64 "career" - but man, did I play the wheels out of Revs during that time. I had the original C64 "2 tracks" version - I mastered Silverstone quite well, but Brands proved to be too much for me. Even then, the game was mindblowing for me as there was simply NOTHING remotely similar around.
Then, a bit later, I got a spanking 486 and Formula 1 Grand Prix came out, again courtesy of Geoff Crammond. Can't wait to see what kind of content you'll be able to make about that one.
Once again I have the confirmation that this is one of the best automotive related channels, the effort you put in each one of your videos is unreal and honestly I can’t wait to see where this series will go, since Crammond is one of the most interesting person in the whole gaming industry
Been watching you evolve so much over the last year, THIS VIDEO IS SO HIGH QUALITY. Great. Freaking. Job!
Great stuff. I remember trying to get Revs and Aviator to work on my lowly Electron back in the day. Coders could really optimise back then.
Wow, just wow. The quality of this video is just incredible.
What a fantastic video!
The final phrase was an amazing touch and gave me goosebumps. Definitely what was coming on 1991 was TRULY special. I still can remember the music, every frame of the intro and have the same feeling that I had back then. Crammond is without doubts one of the heores that inspired me to become a game dev myself.
This really is great. I'm so pleased to see it get the recognition in such a wonderful way.
I love these gaming history lessons they're amazing don't stop doing them!
Good to see a new video from one of my favourite content creators. I actually owned a BBC model B back then but Revs somehow passed me by. I did have Frontier (forerunner to Elite) and the original Football Manager as well as a modem and a Prestel account, which was the internet before there was an internet :) The Beeb was a great micro and truly influential to a lot of the tuff we know and love today. Geoff Crammond was/is a genius and I owned all his Grand Prix games. Thanks for this excellent walk don memory lane Jake.
I had a BBC B with Revs, but never the extended track pack. As a 9 year old I don't think I appreciated how unique it was. Later Grand Prix for the Atari ST, but never knew Crammond did both until later. Also Sentinel for the BBC by Crammond... many hours spent. Basically all my favourite games I later found out were made by the same man. No coincidence, what a legend.
I only spent a few hours on an emulator a few years ago but the vibe of this ga.. sim was very positive!
Very professional video. I'm not sure if I see the value (i.e. you spent a lot of time and effort) on the general gaming history, as there are so many channels that cover this already) but I appreciate the effort to make it a broader than simracing video.
The way I see it, the extra general gaming history helps contextualise the feats of Geoff Crammond's work in that time.
This was outstanding, thank you! Nothing more I can say.
I play so many hours in 1984 with REVS, the best ever and ever....
I disabled AdBlock for this and gladly watched 2 minutes of ads.
Great stuff.
Man you knocked it out the park i lived thru all this like many older sim racers and the love you put into this piece was gr8 hats off to you I look forward to what comes after hugely appreciated keep it up mate.
Incredible video. You deserve to feel really proud. As a UK'er who had this back in the day on the c64 you've done the game and it's place in history proud. Silverstone is only 30 minutes drive from me. I used to watch a lot of races their in the mid to late 80s.
In Revs if you got the angle right at the chicane you could launch over the curb and land on the straight and carry on :-)
Oh boy, I was so hooked on this when it came out, spent hours racing with a tiny joystick on my BBC Micro, how devastating to see the graphics now when I remember them with such fondness!
Talk about a trip down memory lane! 😯 stunning video that took me right back to my 13 year old self 👍 excellent, can't wait to see pt2 of this 😉🕹🏎
I can't even imagine the amount of hours I played this with our C64... This game launched me to the racing sims for years to come.
birth of a lifetime passion for so many, includimg me.. We salute you Crammond.
The best racing game ever. Those sounds and funny names took me right back. Thank you.
Brilliant dude, just amazing, thank you so much
Wow, what an awesome video! I remember playing Revs on my mates C64, it was bastard hard but ultimately extremely rewarding if you got it right. And the mere mention of the greatest game ever, Elite,gets my vote any day!!
Man, this is top notch, only because I don't have a term greater than top notch.
What a lovely video!
I remember "Revs + 4 tracks" and "Elite", back in the day
Great vid. I owned a C64 in the 80's, looking back I am amazed that some games I played were in actual 3d, I tought there was some trickery used to make it look 3d without being 3d, but no, it actually was.
This sim was tough as hell, especially using a primitive (homemade) analogue joystick, but once you started to master it the feeling was glorious. I've loved Crammond's games ever since I first discovered how to fly under the bridge and buzz the trees in Aviator.
Superb video. Excellent history lesson with all the context to make sense of how ground breaking Revs was. Terrific soundtrack that matched the video, too. Can't wait for part two!
Another stellar documentary!
I remember I owned this game for the C64, but never played it for more than a few seconds. I tried to build an analog controller by my self with parts I purchased in german radio shacks but failed miserably in doing so. The first racing sim game I actually played for a very long time and extensively with an industrial produced analog controller was "F1 GP" on my Amiga 2000 B (Motorola 68020 Turbo Board, 1.2 GB SCSI-HD, 7 MB RAM). That this sim was also programmed by geoff crammond I learned only years later. I watch your channel for quite a while now and am always astonished how factual and entertaining your vids are. Time to subscribe... Greetings from Germany.
Really enjoy these long format videos taking a dive into sim racing history, thank you.
That was a joy to watch. I was born in the early 90s and so raised on the Microprose games, but it's incredible to watch the work Crammond did just a few years before and how far the humble racing game evolved
Throughly enjoyed that doco well done man remember the game like it was yesterday. Admittedly i was one of those that struggled with keyboard controls, and to this day still do
👍👍
Henlo @GPLaps - just wanted to say that this was an incredible watch - I loved the music; the artwork; clips; presentation - you told a very cool story and did it brilliantly!
I really hope there will be a "Part 2" covering what came next!
Keep living the dream!
Well made video. Thanks. Love me some Geoff Crammond. He got me into "sim racing" with his F1Grand Prix game on the Commodore Amiga. That game made me learn tracks, corner speeds and gears. That game and it's successor was the first time I took full control of a car in a game doing all the acceleration and braking myself with only auto gears (at the time). Good, good times indeed.
What a wonderful piece. Revs is an amazing bit of work for the time, and you've gone above and beyond showing just how pivotal a work it is. And lining up for a whole Crammond racing retrospective series?
OH MY.
I remember that. It took me a while but I was able to perform decently on all the tracks. Decently being the key word here.
Superb - I love history videos. Looking forward to the next one!
this video is so underrated.
WOW! What a great retrospective on the origin of sim racing. Top notch effort this.
What a fantastic video oh my goodness.
I was twelve years old when Pole Position came out. My friends and I would imitate the "prepare to qualify" voice. Fun City at Central Mall is where we played.
Just a quick shoot out to the graphic designers of acornsoft games. The sleeves are beautiful (and alte haas grotesk bold rules).
Great vid man, making an history of sim racing as a genre had to be done.
Fantastic production quality, I really appreciate this retrospective.
This video is magical
Pitstop 1/2 also semi-sim games on the C64. Speedking was a great motor bike sim that worked really well. It wasn't until the PC/Amiga that sim racing became a reality. Indy 500, Stunt Car Racer, F1GP, Vroom, No Second Prize...... all 'felt' as real as they could at 8 fps! Plenty of imagination required back in those days. For me, it wasn't until I actually played Grand Prix Legends that I felt anything bordering on realism when it came to computer sim-racing.
Grand Prix Legends was hard as **** but great.
Indy 500 and Papyrus's other sims were great too. Stunt Car Racer was Crammond's game also and it was released on C64. I remember playing it as a kid and loving it.
Outstanding. Thanks for the huge effort you go to for this amazing content. Keep up the awesome work.
Nice one Jacob .Your insightful knowledge has reminded me that my best friend STILL has a stand up original of Pole Position. I am going to have to visit him and show him this very well done video. It still works too. Very well done ,and Thank you!
Great video. I still play revs today, absolute masterpiece.
I loved revs on the c64, a friend an I used to use his Atari 2600 paddle controller for analog steering :) as someone who started there it is truly amazing to see how far we've come
Loved this! Thanks for making the film.
We even played a text based simulator that calculated the race results from the quality of the parts you use to your management skills depending on the choices made and drivers you hired... yeah, not too exciting but it ran well on a 386.
Played Revs and then Revs+ to death on C64, the start of my personal sim racing adventure... Awesome retrospective, much appreciated, and demonstrates the massive strides forward that simracing has made since the eighties... I wonder if I'm alone in hoping for a classic eighties F3 mod for rfactor 2 or AC ????
We've come a long way from the first races of Richie Axelson ^^ But I really love what is happening to this channel, and this video especially is a really seriously good video essay, my full respect for that
27:40
Who is behind me???
Jeff: Don't worry, he is Miles Behind.
The names are hilarious
I love Hugh Jengine!
As a pro game dev: Printing blue text to the sky is now my favorite performance hack, damn
Good video, thanks. Brought back great memories! Looking forward to Grand Prix and any others you do 👍⭐️
This kind of ahoy style documentary is exactly what we need in the sun racing community! Keep it up!
Excellent production value here, thoroughly enjoyed it. Please let this be a series dedicated to the legend that is Geoff Crammond?? Stunt car racer, F1GP and so on. There is really nothing on him really. Would love like in this style.
Loved this game, played it for hours. Iwas in my teens then but still have the same passion for sim racing as I did then
The Competition Pro ist not an analog joystick, but that is the single minor flaw in this superb documentation!
Scary how much game was made from such a meagre machine as a BBC Micro - Almost F1 engineer-like thinking outside of the box with the borrowing processor cycles from the graphics chip. Real Blue Sky thinking...
Gloria Slap should have made it to F1, underrated talent having to toil about in British F3
With Willie Swerve as her team mate!
I had a friend which had the C64 version. I loved to play it, and I was pretty excited about the car physics, which was not like any other game at that time. Good memories. Later I got to play Grand Prix on my Amiga 500.
Thank you for an amazing video of a range of superb games from the awesome Geoff crammond. I remember fondly playing for hours on aviator and hours of playing revs as well love your awesome video and keep up the great work
Thoroughly excellent video, brilliantly researched!
Here was me simply waiting for Ryan Axelson's next Indy race, and instead I am spoiled rotten with a wonderful Ahoy-esque documentary. Wonderful work!