Evercade Retro System To Receive Oliver Twins Collection Cartridge, All Profits Will Go To Charity

I grew up in that age and the Oliver twins were hugely respected. I can’t recall the games, I suspect like many retro games they will be punishingly hard, but will look forward to reviews.

Evercade is becoming more appealing too. A few more speccy classics and I could be tempted!

Well done on the donations angle too.

It even has the classic Code Masters logo on it!

No Fantasy World Dizzy? That was my favourite one, from what I can remember.

It doesn't say which version of Dizzy they're releasing, Speccy, Amiga or something in between?

Aww I owned and completed all the dizzy games on Amiga 500 they were fantastic. Pretty sure I was able to download them all a few years back on my laptop.

That's nice to see such generosity - also curious as to which charity - although I don't think they should feel obliged to say – because sometimes there are charities the general public wouldn't understand the value of – just curious that's all.

I am rather sad that Fantasy World Dizzy and Magicland Dizzy are not on here. They were both fantastic. Some of these look like "new" entries in the series. Not all 8 bit as the box claims! I am still interested, though!

These games are awesome, great deal for the evercade.

No Linus Spacehead?

I had a multicart on NES as a kid with treasure island dizzy, super robin hood (which I recommend giving a whirl to anyone who gets this cart), linus spacehead and some game about a kid with a boomerang. Possibly boomerang kid. I liked it.

with all profits going to the National VideoGame Museum charity

@ryancraddock
The link to their website doesn't seem to work for me.

@OorWullie
Fantasy Land Dizzy was a great game, best of the series. I had most of them on the Speccy and thought Fantasy Land was mindblowing compared to the other games I'd been playing. I miss playing all those CodeMasters and Mastertronic games (Curse of Sherwood was cool too).

@dew12333 Apologies, that should be fixed!

@Collette @brunojenso We mentioned the charity in the article...

"The cartridge is a special edition project between Codemasters, The Oliver Twins and Evercade, with all profits going to the National VideoGame Museum charity".

Treasure Island Dizzy, was the best and played it to death.
Only one problem with the version on the C64 (which I had) there was a bug that you could never reach the final coin.

Wait so this is the mascot of the Aladdin Deck Enhancer? I remember that thing could toast any NES that is not the original front loader.

Has anyone ever gone back and played any of the Dizzy games? I had the collection for my Speccy and boy did my 10 year self find them unbelievably hard. I don't think that I even came remotely close to completing a single one but have nostalgic memories of this series all the same.

@ryancraddock Ah sorry, my apology.

All I want is this on PS4. I loved these games.

Looking forward to this, never played any of these games, so they'll be new experiences for me.

Evercade comes increasingly more tempting.... it'll let me get upset all over again with failing to complete pixel perfect jumps and rolling into water/lava/slightly angry trolls.

@retro_player_77 makes sense, I believe the Aladdin deck enhancer was something to do with codemasters back in the day

I thought Dizzy was coming to Switch when I saw him on here and now I'm disappointed! Anyway I always preferred the Commodore 64 versions to the console ones. Much better atmosphere and music.

@KIRO Me too! I was playing them on Amstrad CPC 6128! I remember playing a lot of Dizzy titles. Were one of my favorites. Good luck to the donations.

Oh, a reason to buy the Evercade.

@DevlinMandrake
Curse of Sherwood! Love that game. 🙏🏻

@ryancraddock Its important to note that these versions are all the NES games - some of which were released as standalone unlicensed carts, some of which were part of the Quattro carts and some of which were only on Aladdin Deck Enhancer. Nevertheless, all NES versions. The reason this is important is that these games are primarily remembered for the MUCH more basic Spectrum, CPC and C64 versions, which could either put people off from trying this collection, or disappoint them if they are looking for the specific version from their childhoods.

Also, 16 bit Amiga, ST and DOS PC versions of many of the games were available, and people who grew up with those might see these as inferior, though I'd argue the NES versions are very decent versions.

One last point: DreamWorld Pogie, Wonderland Dizzy and Mystery World Dizzy are NES versions made in the 90s but unreleased as they were cancelled by Codemasters/Camerica, but were recently released on very limited edition carts, as reported on this very website. The carts are now very expensive, so having these as a legal way to own the games is a steal!! The Dizzy games are enhanced ports of the older (much better known) games Fantasy World Dizzy and Magic Land Dizzy.

My personal opinion is that including the NES versions of these games is very sensible as the NES emulator already existed for the console, and those versions are very good. Better than the 8 bit home computer ports, and more consistent than the 16 bit ones. However, Fantastic Dizzy is best on the Master System and Game Gear as they are the only version with every mini game included, and the inventory controls are better than the 16 bit versions.

For anyone who remembers the classic Dizzy games on home computers and is confused by missing games or some new names here you don't recognise:

"Mystery World Dizzy" = (Enhanced) Fantasy World Dizzy
"Wonderland Dizzy" = (Enhanced) Magicland Dizzy
"Dizzy the Adventurer" = Prince of the Yolk Folk

"Dizzy the Ultimate Cartoon adventure", Spellbound Dizzy and Crystal Kingdom Dizzy are not represented here. But with Treasure Island, Fantasy World, Magic Land, POTYF and Fantastic Dizzy, in most people's opinions, that's the best 5 games of the mainline series covered, so personally I'm very happy.

The only thing that is confusing the issue is "Fantastic Dizzy"... it specifies 8 bit games, and the only 8 bit version of that game called that is the Master System / Game Gear one. The NES/Aladdin version was called "The Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy" and had different cover art from that shown on the site... but being that every single other game here is the NES game and there have been no Master System games released on Evercade yet, I'm willing to bet its the NES version, just with a truncated name. Shame, as the NES one is arguably the worst version. Its still a brilliant game though. [EDIT] Yes, my suspicions were correct, its the NES version with the wrong name and cover art. Ah well.

@OorWullie its the NES/Quadro/Aladdin versions. They are very decent ports.

@Ooyah They are all 8 bit, they're the NES versions, all made in the 90s. Magicland and Fantasy World Dizzy ARE included, just with different names, as they are enhanced console ports - see above

Man. Never played Dizzy but read a review in Total magazine for one of them about a million times hoping to play it. Never got around it

Awww, no Ghost Hunters?

@Tipehtfomottob Played them again last year! Some are hard but some like Prince of the Yolkfolk are pretty easy. They are mostly all still amazing.

Ah yes, that’s what DJ Slopes was teasing in his Evercade review...

@Roam85 that was Quattro Adventure, a beautiful golden cartridge...
as a child, I was obsessed with Linus Spacehead and IMHO the Robin Hood game is the better Zelda 2. mesmerising soundtracks, sadistic difficulty. good times.

@samuelvictor thanks for all of that info. I never realised the Dizzy games and their names were so confusing! The only way it could be more confusing is if there was a Gryzor Probotector Dizzy.

I only recall the Commodore 64 Dizzy games (with their big boxes) from my childhood, so I’ll have to check out the NES versions.

@GravyThief No worries, I know it was a bit of an info dump but for most of us in the UK of a certain age, the Dizzy series on the 8 bit micros is a huge part of their childhood, way bigger than worldwide internet history tends to realise. The second I read the article I knew there would be a tonne of people asking why Magicland and Fantasy World "weren't included"

And just a personal note, if you've never played a console version of a Dizzy game, the Master System Fantastic Dizzy is essentially a "greatest hits" massive game with most of the best areas, story beats and characters from the previous games, plus mini games based on Dizzy Down the Rapids, Bubble Dizzy, and many more. As I previously mentioned, the NES version included here, and the 16 bit versions are missing some content, and the inventory system is slightly borked. Still a really nice adventure on any system though, by far the biggest and most polished.

@ralphdibny Yes, the Aladdin Deck enhancer was distributed by Camerica, who for all intents and purposes were "Codemasters-America"... though they were based in Canada lol. A separate company but the only things they distributed were all the NES Codemasters indie games, the Game Genie, and the Aladdin & its dedicated carts. The Aladdin hardware itself was invented by Richard Darling, co-founder of Codemasters.

I had a lot of these games on the Amstrad, So long ago, I can’t remember if these were £1.99 like Mastertronic Games.
Absolutely loved Super Robin Hood (had speech, which was always impressive on 8 bit)

Who needs evercade when I've form my Amstrad and nes, ironic that some ps4 games take longer to instant than to load a cassette on my 464 plus.

@samuelvictor Hey, look who's back.
How have you been doing, mate?

@Gerald - yup, £1.99 or £2.99 in some cases. Codemasters generally released at the same price point as Mastertronic (when I were a lad...)

@ThanosReXXX Hey dude! I'm not too bad thank you, given the state of the world right now at least lol. I've had an extremely bumpy couple of years with a lot of personal issues and life changes, so for my own mental health I had to sign off from social media completely. I've still been reading this site every day though, just logged out. This story and its missing of (easy to miss but pretty vital for those who care about it!) information made the pedant / fanboy in me have to finally log back in so I could post! lol. Hope you are well my friend.

I’m in, as I have been with every Evercade cartridge.

Update: Yes, as I suspected, "Fantastic Dizzy" is indeed the NES version, but mislabeled (actual title "The Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy"), now confirmed by Evercade.

For those interested to see what the NES versions look like compared to the more famous C64/CPC/Spectrum versions, they've now added screenshots at:
https://www.evercade.co.uk/oliver-twins-collection-cartridge/

Side note: I was on the fence about this system, as on release, I already owned most of the games for real, and I wasn't sold on the 16:9 screen. Several of my YouTuber buddies gave it glowing reviews... however the control mapping and glitching issues experienced by Joe at Game Sack completely killed my interest.

However, the recent releases of the "modern retro" stuff like Coffee Crisis, Tanglewood, and Xenocrisis were making me significantly more interested. This collection with Rare/unreleased games has tipped me over the edge. They now have my money. I've just placed an order for the system plus every currently available game. I think it will be nice to collect them and have each one on my shelf. The little boxes and cartridges look cute

I hope that the bugs and niggles Joe noticed can be patched out with software updates... this thing does have a USB connection after all. Either way it'll be a nice thing to own.

@samuelvictor I am well, thank you, global pandemic and some other things considered, and good to hear you got out okay on the other end of that tunnel you were in. And a solid addition to the comments section AND the article. I didn't even know there was that much to know about these games. I only ever played the Amiga versions, and probably not all of them either.

@ThanosReXXX Glad you are doing well man. Yeah I'm a huge fan of the Dizzy games, I've got a complete collection including some super rare ones like Excellent Dizzy on Game Gear sealed which is probably worth £500+ nowadays or something crazy like that. I never see it on ebay, not even a loose cart.

Essentially there's 8 main puzzle platform style games, and 7 spin off arcade style games, but each one has between 3 and 8 versions for different platforms and often the differences between the ports are really huge.

As I'm lucky enough to attend a lot of UK retro shows and events as press or an industry guest, I've spoken to the Oliver Twins a few times at length and they are genuinely lovely people, I'm not surprised they are donating the money to charity.

I was planning on making a in depth YouTube series about Dizzy, and they messaged me on Twitter to show support, so I might actually see if they'd like to get involved, and expand it to an Amazon documentary after I finish my Sonic one

@samuelvictor Well, I've never even met them, but most of what I've read about them, only speaks in favor of them, so I'll easily take your word for it that they're good people.

By the way, have you ever considered talking to the NLife management about featuring your game-related stuff on here? It could potentially be good marketing for you.

@samuelvictor that's brilliant, sounds about right! I watched a VGH video on it a while back. It does sometimes amaze me how these British companies (one based in Surrey, no less!) are known worldwide. I mainly like their micro machines games.to be fair.

I just clicked on the IMDb link on you're profile. I do SA work sometimes, I haven't worked on anything listed there but I'm sure it's not everything, I wonder if we've worked on the same thing before 🤔

Apologies in advance to everyone this post is very off topic, its a personal response to people above, so feel free to ignore!

@ralphdibny Oh totally. And I love the Micro Machines games!

As for SA work, that's awesome! I wasn't ever really a "proper" SA myself, I actually helped run an SA agency back in the day, called "the Lynch Mob", as it was set up by one of my friends who I had co-starred in 2 movies with where we were both the lead males characters. It started off just as a facebook group then expanded to a website etc as our roster grew, it was fronted by my friend, who did the business deals, and I did most of the organisation, phoning round the SAs, getting forms filled in etc. It was a fun time. So If you ever did anything with that agency or anyone affiliated around 2007-2011 we probably worked together. Quite a few people from that group have gone on to be quite famous

However, though it was fun, it soon grew to be full time work, and I left as I was more interested in producing, writing and directing my own projects (you might have seen on the IMDb that I have quite a few producing credits). So the films that I have personal SA credits for were all either ones that we did casting on, or ones I produced, or both. Those were very fun times.

The only SA work I've done on "major" films is random stuff at Pinewood, Shepperton and Leavesden (I have friends with offices based there) when they needed people at the drop of a hat due to drop outs and they phoned around. Because of that I've done uncredited work on big series like many Marvel, Xmen, James Bond, Harry Potter, Clash/Wrath of the Titans and a few others. IMDb lists me as an SA in Rogue One, but thats not strictly true - I was working with the Star Wars brand on various things and as a favour got offered a nice little part in Rogue One playing Torius Chord, which was a part with several scenes and lines - although by the final cut only one of them remains. Wookiepedia and various official Star Wars products have my character name correct, but for some reason IMDb will only accept "Blue Two" as the character name isn't specified in the rear crawl. Grrr, film politics

Sadly, nowadays the budget/straight to DVD market I used to produce for is non-existent (Netflix do NOT pay even a fraction of what I could get for wholesale DVD orders), so I've moved into far higher budget films - which is a blessing and a curse as they involve a LOT more time to make, money, red tape etc, (and more risk of course) so not many of these projects are on IMDb as yet until they will be announced at comic-cons / Variety/Hollywood Reporter etc. I'm currently directing a superhero film for a major company, we were meant to start filming in April (I even moved house and country to fully commit, as the film will take 2 years to make!) that was meant to be annouced at London Film and Comic Con in July, but sadly the virus has delayed both filming and the comic cons by at least 6 months.

Again, apologies in advance to everyone this post is very off topic, its a personal response to people above, so feel free to ignore!

@ThanosReXXX Yes, actually I spoke to @Damo in depth a couple of years ago once he found out about my film work and being in Rogue One and working on animation with Don Bluth he messaged me on Twitter, if memory serves. I actually have several projects I think he will be interested in which I'll message him about when they are more ready... essentially the Sonic documentary series, but also, I got a Nintendo developers license a while back and have recently started a retro style game production company and ... so hopefully in the not so distant future they'll be previewing and reviewing my games

It all came about cos of the super hero movie mentioned above: Its based on an indie comic, and the lead character has an obsession with 90s culture, and there is a LOT of retro game references in there (I'm working with various retro game brand, hoping to get permission from Nintendo to use some of their stuff too like the zapper and some mario sound effects, but they are more particular than most so I'm keeping my fingers crossed). So, I pitched that we also make a retro style beat-em-up game to go along side the film. I used to make C64, Amiga and DOS games for fun years ago so I've gotten back into it.

The engine I've developed is compatible with PC, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, Xbone, PS4 and Switch. WiiU and Dreamcast ports should theoretically be relatively easy with some work. However, as well as the beat-em-up project, as I've been teaching myself the language and building the engine, I've made prototypes of a pretty robust engine that can also work for platformers, shmups, and various simple arcade clones.

It started as a learning tool for me but now I'm working with a few pro voice actors and an animation company and combining them to make a kind of "ultimate retro game" where the overworld is like a light RPG, the main platform level sections are joined with either run and gun or shmup sections to get from one to another, and each town has various arcade mini game side quests. Its kinda like my "ultimate game" that I could have imagined when I was a kid. Essentially Neo-Geo/System 32 style graphics limitations of colours and resolution, but with absolutely no memory limitations for number of frames, variety of sprites, number of levels, voice samples, etc. Its a super fun project and would be the perfect game for Switch, without a doubt. Since the film work was delayed by 6 months or so, and the area where I'm living is in a pretty extreme lockdown, its given me an excuse to dive head on into it, and its very exciting.

@samuelvictor Button remapping is being included in all upcoming Evercade carts, BTW - and it's really not as big an issue as Game Sack made out.

@Damo Good to know, thanks! I'd hope a firmware update could "fix" the previous issues as I seem to remember hearing the emulators themselves are stored on the console not the cart? Though, as a Master System kid, I'm used to some games having jump and attack the "wrong" way round

@samuelvictor that's great stuff, you've certainly been busy! I sort of started around 2011 with the likes of war horse, Captain America and Jack the giant slayer. I've done a load of stuff since (some films and TV I am very visible in like Kingsman, EastEnders and the Benedict cumberbatch brexit film).

I'd have loved to get more into acting and voice acting but I never really found an "in" so to speak. SA work is great, especially if you're working with a good bunch or it's a project you're really interested in. Normally for me that's superhero stuff, EastEnders and projects where im a fan of the cast/crew involved but it's very demoralising when you are bottom rung and on countless projects (not everything by a long shot) just treated like children because of a few bad apples that "leak stuff"

I was going to say i'd love to know about the superhero film you're working on but I suspect you are sworn to secrecy on it (based on my own experience with superhero film) though it seems youve been quite candid about it in another post!

@samuelvictor Man, that all sounds mighty interesting. Guess I've got to keep an eye on you now. Or, you could tag me whenever you've got something new and interesting to report...

@ThanosReXXX Thanks! And will do! lol

@ralphdibny I was a last minute SA on the first Captain America. So long ago now I can't remember what scene. Just deep background, you can't really see me in it lol. Yes as you've found out the superhero and high budget stuff they are very scared of leaks. I have NDAs coming out my ears on the current film I'm directing - they wat to very carefully control the slow leak of information for building hype via comic-cons, events, press releases etc. I had to sign a contract to say I'd be charged a million dollars for every infraction, so I have to be so vague when I talk about it. When I was on Star Wars it was the same. I couldn't even tell anyone I was in it til the day it came out. And even then, I did a local radio and press interview and though I was extremely careful not to say anything wrong I still got a slight ticking off and I had to go back and forth via quite a few emails confirming that I'd actually stuck to the NDA to the letter lol

My advice for getting deeper into the industry is to do SA and Runner work on much lower budget films not financed by a major company. Indie stuff, gangster films, horror films etc. If you are willing to work for free or expenses you will never stop working and can easily find 2-5 projects a week if you are in the London area, or another big city. You can find loads of jobs like that on Star Now, but avoid too many "student" films as sadly in my experience 90% of them don't get finished or turn out bad, so they aren't really useful for your CV or showreel. However, if you work on some very low budget $5k-$100k but actually professional projects from experienced teams, you'll find two things: Firstly, they are a lot more friendly, and if you network well and give a good impression you are likely to get "promoted" and given a few lines etc... and secondly, you'll start bumping into the same groups of people again. Its a very incestuous industry so you'll often find the same few ADs, aound, lighting etc etc . If you stay in contact with the crew and leave a good impression, you will certainly be invited back onto pretty much every project they are working on. Its hard to find reliable, hard working, and pleasant to be around people who are willing to work for free/cheap. Do that in your spare time for six months or so and I guarantee that those SA jobs will have turned into a few lines here or there, which means eventually you can build a cv and showreel and get even bigger roles, albeit in tiny budget straight to dvd / online indie stuff. And if you are actually good, that's when you will be able to get a decent agent who can put you forward for the higher budget stuff.

@ralphdibny OR.... ya know, nowadays anyone can film a movie on their iphone (or preferably a DSLR cos they have a nice movie like shallow DOF - you can get a semi decent one for £300 on ebay), edit and grade it on their laptop and if they are talented enough, use that to launch a career. Plenty of people do that every day I've seen at least 30 people from our old SA agency become very successful actors and directors, a few of whom are now names and faces you'd recognise and are worth tens of millions if not more. There are tonnes of fantastic free courses online that will teach basic filming and editing tricks to make your footage look cinematic. Its mostly in the framing, selective focus, semi reasonable lighting and sound, and choosing the right aspect ratio (2:39), framerate (24p) and colour grading - none of that costs anything other than taking the time to learn what looks good.

So, either option is basically free and very achievable... BUT involves a lot of hard work and putting all your free time into doing it. Honestly, that's the secret sauce. I'm aware the practicalities of doing that are not as easy as I make out and most people are so exhausted after a day at work they can't even contemplate any thing like that. But if you can, I guarantee you can get results if you have even the smallest modicum of talent Hope that makes sense and helps somewhat dude.

@samuelvictor great stuff, cheers for the advice. Unfortunately I'm at the age now where I can't work for free a lot, though I'd be happy to on some things if the job/people were good. Also I'm a union man through and through (even though I'm not part of a union lol) so I'd hate to be taking jobs from people just because I'm willing to do it for free. It's a problem in my main occupation which is IT, you can have all the experience, knowledge and common sense in the world but if somebody will do the job for half the price and scrape by with average or no feedback then your up the creek.

I do know what you mean though, I'm just not really in the circles to get offered that type of stuff. I have a mate who makes movies not too far from where I am but by the time I get the low down on it I am usually booked on a long string of paid work.

Maybe when I come out of my hidey hole in a post covid world, I might start looking into it more. I'm always on the look out for opportunities but typically, at least pre covid, I was always just always busy and knackered from the job I do, or DIY or some other activity. I'm sure I got another 30-50 years in me so hopefully something comes in in the not too distant (but still post-vaccine) future!

@ralphdibny Lol yeah, the virus really put a kabosh on literally everything in the film world... can't really complain though there's many people many times worse off of course, very minor in the scheme of things. Good luck with everything though!

@samuelvictor appreciate it, best wishes to you too!

Even when i was a kid, there was something reassuring about that Code Masters logo, like you knew you were in safe hands and wouldn't go far wrong spending your pocket money on one of their games.

Enjoying the off-topic chat, but can’t for the life of me work out what SA stands for?!?

@OorWullie Looking at the website I'd say the screenshots look like the NES versions of these titles. Definitely not the Amiga or Spectrum or Commodore versions. Also it says Collection .1. so I suspect that Fantasy Dizzy might be put onto a future collection. Just a guess.

I was interested in this console, but it hasn't been available on Amazon since before its release.

And the games are always NES, Mega Drive, SNES and Atari versions. It's not like that's a problem to me.

@Ooyah Need to give people a reason to buy Collection 2!

Treasure Island Dizzy...
...was my first dizzy game and I think it was on my ZX Spectrum 48K.
Introduced it to my younger 4-5-6yrs old sister at the time, and she absolutely loved it (and just as much just watching me play it).
Might have been on the Amiga 500 now when think of it.
Oh well, was fun, loved it then. Love it now.
The games today should focus more like Dizzy did, and not like now, just running around shooting everything, andglowing ray-tracing.
Who cares about ray-tracing when the todays games are so bad?
Ok, im getting old... srry kids!!

I still want this system, I forgot all about it.

Mystery solved! Somewhat off topic, but this made me go look up these games as I remember renting Quattro Adventure (Super Adventure Quests) from Blockbuster. The theme for "Boomerang Kid" has been stuck in my head for almost 30 years! I could not, for the life of me, remember what game it was from and listened to a bunch of retro NES music trying to find it. This article lead me to the answer, so thanks everyone involved!

@ryancraddock Here in the Netherlands we've got a nice videogame museum too. Would've been nice if they'd donate to that as well but if their just going to cherry pick which museums are and aren't worth donating to then they won't be getting a penny from me.