 Welcome back. So then, in 1990, Amstrad joined the console wars. As we know now, the decision was a complete disaster. By the beginning of 1992, the then popular Amstrad Action were already running a competition to see who could find the cheapest GX4000 console. For those that don't know, and according to Amstrad Action, Peter Robeck was the driving force behind the GX4000. The console arrived in September 1990 and was priced at £99. After just 8 months, Amstrad threw in the towel. Just 15,000 machines were sold. The GX4000 was being flogged for as little as £30. Amstrad were exposed for still being trapped in an 8-bit world. Alan Sugar respected the Nintendo and Sega 8-bit consoles, but the Sega Master System and NES had already been around for quite some time. In comparison, Amstrad felt the new GX4000 looked space-aged. The console was bundled with two game pads and the excellent burning rubber. In fact, this was the game that went on to be a shining beacon. An advertisement that showcased the GX4000's early Pro-S. Ocean software, Gremlin graphics, Titus, Loresell and Domark were all on board. So what went wrong with the GX4000? On the surface, the console appeared to be quite remarkable. It had the looks with more eye-catching futuristic style than the NES or Master System. Developers could choose from a colour palette of 4096 colours, 32 of which could be displayed on-screen at once. This time around, the GX4000 had built-in support for hardware sprites, which allowed for go-faster graphics and a faster screen. Better still, Amstrad permitted any software publisher to create software for the GX4000. Packaging had to adhere to a strict format. In terms of the actual software, software houses were completely free to develop whatever they wanted. Amstrad introduced their new console at the CNIT centre in Paris, August 1990. The Amstrad CPC had always been popular in France, and Sir Alan Sugar was eager to capitalise on this. The Amstrad 464 Plus and 6128 Plus were released at the same time as the GX4000, with the difference being that the former only played games and the latter were two fully functional computers. At the launch of the GX4000, Alan Sugar said, the end user doesn't know whether it is 16-bit, 8-bit or if it's working with gas or steam or with elastic bands. Rightly so, the media considered it odd that an 8-bit system was produced at the time when 16-bit was becoming the norm. Peter Robach made it plain that he considered the GX4000 an entry-level machine aimed at youngsters. At launch, games such as Batman the Movie, Shadow Warriors, Operation Thunderbolt, Chase HQ2, Fire and Forget 2, RoboCop 2, Klax, Crazy Cars 2, Escape from the Planet of Robot Monsters and Kickoff 2 were apparently on display. Another remarkable asset of the machine was you could use the aerial socket or a SCART connector. Not even the Sega Mega Drive had SCART support. It does appear that Amstrad did throw their weight behind the new console. 80 million was spent on a pre-Christmas campaign. Commercials aired on television stations across Europe that were in-store demonstration units similar to those available in a game store that you find today for the PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch which displayed the console in all its splendor, offering up the opportunity to try before you buy. When Amstrad engineer Chris Lawson was interviewed by Retro Gamer and asked why the console failed, he pointed that it should have been supplied sooner and it would have been better if the machine had been 16-bit. Just before we get started there's also a fantastic website by Zypho and it painstakingly covers every little detail of the GX-4000. What this guy doesn't know about the GX-4000 isn't worth knowing and I think there's even a feature where he made an appearance in Retro Gamer. Before we move on to reasons as to why you need this console in 2022, let's just take a step back and look at the competition for the time and try to understand where Amstrad were going, were they aiming at a niche market and did a beefed up CPC. Ever stand a chance? So already at this point the Sega Master System retailed at around £80. It was generally considered that it was superior to the NES but spoiled by a generally average library of games. The feeling at the time was this should all change now the European software houses are supporting the machine. The machine even had its own magazine called the Sega Mag. You could also purchase 3D glasses and a light phaser to boost the lasting interest. Coming in at £100 was the now ageing 8-bit machine the NES with a funny display system, limited palette and leany sprites. But it had Super Mario games and the full backing of the largest video game company on the planet. Believe it or not Atari the 2600 were also on the scene. The ancient VCS was still doing the rounds and it came in at £40. Yes, crap graphics but the games played well and you could get them for around a tenner. In the UK it was reported as being the best selling console of Christmas 1989. Don't quote me on that I don't know how true it is but at that time it was 10 years old. As if things couldn't get any worse for the old GX4000 coming in at £90 was the Nintendo Game Boy. A wonderful little device with stereo sound, small but monochrome LCD screen, small enough to slip in your back pocket and run with up to 16 hours and one set of batteries. It hadn't yet launched in the UK but it was set to launch later that year and most people were buying them on import and to make matters worse there were loads of games already available. It was also the PC engine that came in at a whopping £180 but it was a brilliant 8-bit machine with go faster stripes. Neat, compact and extremely good at being a games machine. Sadly us Europeans could only get it on import. Then there was the SNK Neo Geo, the ultimate console of the moment. However this box of tricks cost around £400 and the games around £200 a piece. The Atari Lynx and Atari 7800 were also fighting for their own survival. So it doesn't take a brain surgeon to tell you that Amstrad already have a problem. I don't know I can't say for sure but if they'd have released this console two years earlier it might have found a niche market but the real killer blow was yet to come. Waiting in the wings was the Sega Mega Drive and the Super Nintendo. By this point the Sega Mega Drive or better known in America as the Genesis had already wiped out the PC engine. So even despite decent 8-bit specs the poor old GX4000 never stood a chance. What I'd like to do now is take a look at the games. A console without games, no matter how powerful. It's like a Sunday roast without gravy. As mentioned Burning Rubber was the first to be released. Yes Burning Rubber was a good start, a great packing title but the console definitely needed more. They should have thrown in World of Sports and probably something like Batman. Could you have imagined if it would have launched with Pang or Switchblade? But to be fair this is a good game and Amstrad Action gave it 92%. Oh my god they had the cheek to charge for this. It came with just four levels for Christ's sake. But despite that I quite enjoyed each of the events especially the surfing. This event the BMX track is ripped straight out of California games. But whilst it lasts it's fun and you can quite clearly see the upgrade in the sprites, the scroll and the graphics. A few more levels and this could have been brilliant. Now this is the first of many insults on the GX4000. Not because it's a bad game I actually quite like this. I enjoyed it but it's exactly the same game that you got on the stock Amstrad CPC. And by this time you could buy it on cassette for around about £1.99 or £2.99 when this cartridge was retailing around something like £25. They didn't even try to enhance it. Talk about a low blow. They should have released the original Barbarian and enhanced the graphics. Now a great game is a great game regardless of the system or the price. But this is just another rehash. The colours have changed slightly but there's absolutely no improvement to the game whatsoever. In fact there's a bit of slowdown and the games are tad more difficult and once again why would you buy this you can get it on the stock Amstrad CPC for around about £1.99. I get that they were trying to flood the system with games but this is just daylight robbery. I might be on my own with this one. This was my Grand Theft Auto. I thought it was brilliant. It was as open world as you could get on an 8-bit. It was completely up to you as the player. Which route you took to reach your destination. I think at the time I was just obsessed with the USA. Now I've made it sound better than it actually is but at the time it was better than the original. Sadly you couldn't complete it due to a nasty bug. Now Dick Tracy is a flipping cool game on the Sega Mega Drive. It's probably one of my favourites. Sadly on the GX4000 it sucks balls big time. The music is terrible. The sprites look like they've just been stuck on. To an almost half decent scrolling background it could have been a killer game for the Amstrad GX4000. Instead GX4000 owners were delivered a dog's dinner. This was the second game to arrive on the GX4000 and the second game to be reviewed by Amstrad Action. You can quite clearly see the Sega Master System version at the top right and the Amiga 500 at the bottom and you can quite clearly see how lackless the graphics are. The sky looks good but the clouds are missing and when compared to the other versions you might as well be driving the world's slowest car. A Peel P50. What on earth were Amstrad Action thinking awarding this 94%? Geez oh guys, come on. Now Amstrad owners didn't get a good version of Tetris. It was slow and full of bugs. So step forward clacks which for me personally is a fantastic little puzzle game. It starts you off nice and easy, lulls you in and I personally wasn't able to put this one down but sadly it's another game that's absolutely 100% identical to the stock Amstrad CPC version. They could have at least made a bit of an effort. Now then, I really like this one. It's a bit difficult and that might put the majority of people off. The main protagonist as sprite here looks like he's suffering from a recent hip replacement but this guy is battle hardened. He's looked death himself in the face. And just smiled and waved. Now the colours and these graphics would have been impossible really on the stock Amstrad CPC but it's good to see the GX 4000 being pushed. When the GX 4000 wasn't suffering from a rehash of old games it had to suffer rubbish like this. So instead of talking about this god awful game let's just take a look at this article here where Amstrad axed the top post the people behind the Amstrad GX 4000 over 35 people lost their jobs over the failure of the GX 4000. A spokesperson for Amstrad said that the principal problem has been the lack of widespread and high quality software support. Barry Young went on to work at Sega. Now this one I played with my cousin and we quite enjoyed it, we liked it but now playing it in 2022 I realise it's bad, it's not good at all. It had the potential to be good but it's just ill thought out and not fun in the slightest which is a shame because I quite like the intro, the music and I love shoot em ups. You'd have been devastated if you'd have spent £25 on this cartridge. Now this is much better but I never saw this game back in the day I heard about it but could never find it so I think it was only ever available on mail order but it's a great little shoot em up and you could use the light gun as well unfortunately I never owned the light gun it was a different connector to the stock Amstrad CPC I did kind of get into a bidding war the once on eBay for the light gun but it just got silly The difference between this and the stock Amstrad version is that this one had sound and music and I don't believe the stock Amstrad CPC version did but it's a half decent shoot em up for the GX4000 and so it's a great one to have in your collection especially if you're a shoot em up nut but it doesn't push the GX4000 in any way so it's one of those games that anyone can play and should enjoy I absolutely loved Operation Wolf and Operation Thunderbolt on the stock Amstrad CPC and I really like this on the GX4000 as well but unfortunately once again it's just a rehash the colours on the display have been enhanced slightly can you imagine the disappointment if you'd have forked out £25 for this I think I'd still be having nightmares still it's a good game but sadly you can't use the light gun now this is like chalk and cheese the quality of this game compared to most others on the GX4000 is absolutely phenomenal now Stuart Middleton was interviewed by Retro Gamer he's the guy that programmed pang on the GX4000 now when they asked him could Amstrad have done anything to improve their machine or was it simply doomed from the start he gave a really good answer and I've posted it in the video above and it does make you wonder Amstrad themselves said they'd spoken to the developers listened and would produce the goods this is another one I really liked and it was also fantastic on the Sega Mega Drive as well this one takes quite a bit of practice the martial artist and pugilist amongst you will appreciate it and you really have to put the hard work into progress this game also looks really good on an old CRT PAL TV the controls are tight there's lots of moves there's new moves as well along the way and you know what I still want to play this is that good? who doesn't love a great puzzle game the graphics are small, colourful but cute and it wasn't until late in the 90s I found this one and I paid good money for it but the best thing is that it's too clear don't get me wrong it can't hope to match Tetris but apart from clacks it's certainly the next best thing the programmers have done a fantastic job for me personally back in the day when I played this it worked because I just fancied a change and I couldn't put it down now you can't beat a good pinball game and whilst Amstrad owners today have pinball dreams back then the GX4000 had pinball magic now despite the cramped small screen I played this a heck of a lot but today as I revisit it's very limited and if I'm honest I quickly lost interest I think I prefer time scanner so I think this one Switchblade is definitely my favourite GX4000 game and it's one that I've revisited and spent hours playing still apart from the colour this game also existed on the stock Amstrad CPC as well and lost nothing in way of gameplay it's a challenge from beginning to end and trust me you will not put this down until you've completed it it's platforming perfection two tennis games on one system and I have to say I quite like this one as well it's less sophisticated than the other tennis game on the GX4000 but I still really liked it I guess I'm just a bit of a sucker for a half decent tennis game now the graphics don't look anything special by today's standards but back then I thought it looked alright I found this one just incredibly boring the graphics looked alright and there's some good cutscenes but the actual gameplay it was a missed opportunity and for a console that boasted stereo sound this one sounds bloody awful I'm not sure who the games aimed at but kids won't want to play this and adults will complete it on their first or second go so a great license completely ruined by idiots I personally swear by Real Sports Tennis on the Atari 800 XL but pro tennis tool offered up a great serve to anyone willing to give the GX4000 a try there's a fantastic level of variety and strategy and I have to say that pro tennis tool provides simple yet addictive gameplay on this limited system it tries to deliver a realistic physics based tennis experience and for an 8 bit it pulls it off this is a great little two player game where each player tries alternatively to complete each round apparently you've had enough with your daft everyday mundane life and now you've packed your bags packed your guns and you've decided to try your look at the international pro skate shoot tool better still you get to travel the world in style you can visit some of the greatest sites on earth including Sydney Harbour, Australia unfortunately the only way you can experience this game is with a Trojan light phaser good luck with that more Coronation Street than Wild Street 1 it looks an absolute mess 2 the controls are atrocious and 3 it's probably just as boring as Kylie Minogue's sister Danny Minogue so regret all round sadly I should be so lucky so I think we've got the majority of the games out of the way that came out originally on the GX4000 what a beautiful loading screen now Chase HQ 2 existed on the Amstrad GX4000 if you do a search for the opposite of Jesus he uploaded a video of Chase HQ 2 running on an Amstrad 6128 Plus but the pitch is a bit grainy and blurry if you did an actual playthrough of the game you'd probably get like a million views so this game is classed as the holy grail of the GX4000 and apparently only 2 copies exist sadly the same programmers that did Cisco Heat did this but now we come to the real reason why you need a GX4000 and it opens up a world of not only existing Amstrad CPC 464 games but new games as well they're starting to trickle onto the GX4000 as we speak now you'll need one of these hardware devices a C4 CPC now there is an issue you can't use the existing power supply that came with the GX4000 you have to use a special 9 volt and when you finally get it up and running it's an absolute thing of beauty a thing of wonder now it uses an SD card and you just literally download the games copy them to the SD card on your PC and then just transfer the SD card over to your C4 CPC now you can run plus games anything made for the GX4000 and pretty much all of the 64K games that came out for the stock CPC what you can't do is run 128K games unless you've got a memory upgrade now the website CPCWiki the fan community there modded, patched a lot of the existing CPC 464 games so that the controls work with the gamepad I'll put a link in the description so that you can visit but it's a fantastic little discovery because there's all sorts you can run on this thing and in fact let's find something let's have a quick look ah I know what here we go this one allegedly came out on the GX4000 but I've been unable to find it however it did come out on the stock Amstrad CPC here we go Gazer 2 I think at the time this was probably the best footy game on the Amstrad although some will argue that title belongs to Emmeline Hughes International Soccer now this is Elcon 2020 which most people will probably know a slap fight and this arrived in the post about a month ago and so I haven't been able to put it down it's a fantastic game it's so smooth so that's kind of why I'm recommending the GX4000 today but wait there's more Sonic GX it's coming it's coming to the Amstrad GX4000 and these games are breathing new life into failed hardware and we're all getting a glimpse of how things might have been and I have to say this is looking promising I'm excited my personal humble opinion on the GX4000 is that it could have been a small success it could have found a niche market but Amstrad seemed to have messed up on the distribution side of things me personally I felt like I was cheated robbed out of a console that could have been good and I think if the games would have been available from day one and they hadn't mixed things up like people had bought cartridges and found that the wrong game was in there or the label was the game that it stated but actually a different game entirely and I was always impressed with the stereo sound from the GX4000 and you can kind of hear it now it's called DMA and it's got a very distinct sound that's unique to Amstrad what we're also seeing here this is an actual game, not a demo is that the GX4000 was as good if not more powerful than the Nintendo Entertainment System and the Sega Master System and the great news as well is there's more to come so Sonic the Hedgehog fans will probably want to hunt this down anyway but hats off this looks absolutely brilliant and I can't wait to play it so probably my favourite game of all time is Ghosts and Goblins and this doesn't disappoint it's almost arcade perfect I think Arthur might have been the first half-naked protagonist as well but seriously this is a fantastic game unbelievable and if like me you need to be that person that plays every arcade conversion of Ghosts and Goblins you'll need this there's other games as well and there's more games coming there's one that was released a few years back called Bez and it's a really good RPG believe it or not so we've reached the end I hope you enjoyed this video please share, comment and until next time bye