Retro Video Gamer

[align=center:311nfx14](http://i940.photobucket.com/albums/ad242/zapiy/RVG/gx4000.jpg)[/align:311nfx14]

Go on tell me you had one, sadly never managed to get one of these as of yet.... Sure i will at some point.

nope never had one of them
if you want one theres one here
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/AMSTRAD-GX-4000-BOXED-1-GAME-VERY-RARE-BARGAIN-L-K-/330553052856?pt=UK_VideoGames_VideoGameConsoles_VideoGameConsoles&hash=item4cf67f4eb8 (//http)

Cheers fella I like the frill of the hunt at car boot sales and so on. eBay will be my last resort. Lol

yeah i should try and get to a car boot sometime and see if i can find some old console's

I never had one of these either but I do love old consoles maybe I'll look for one myself. What games did this console have?

I only have one game for it, Burnin Rubber. If my memory serves me right only 25 games were ever released.

I don't think I ever had one of them but I believe my older brother may of had one. I also agree car boot sales or some charity shops will be the best bet of getting one of these! There is a fair few boot sales which happen around my home-city so I shall keep an eye out

I remember playing on this console in Dixons when I was a kid and thought it was terrible 

I bought an Amstrad GX4000 via eBay a couple of years ago for some reason I've not yet being able to fathom. It came CIB including Burnin' Rubber and I've since bought the following games cart-only,

Batman
Crazy Cars II
Klax
Operation Thunderbolt
Pang
Robocop 2
World of Sports

A couple of them are passable but it's hard to enjoy playing on the console as the joypad is an abomination. In summary, the Amstrad GX4000 is by far the worst console I've ever had the misfortune to play.

P.S. This is my first post so 'Hello' to everyone!

I had one some 10 years ago, then sold it.  Then bought another one around 1 year ago for £10 boxed.  Now want to collect all the games but they are a tad expensive in my opinion.

Thats a great price.. Agreed with the cost of the games though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6oG7DRdBgI (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6oG7DRdBgI)

We had the CPC Plus which had a GX4000 built into it. RoboCop was pretty good but bloody hard. The best titles for me though were Switchblade and Pang. This was only gaming machine I had for a year until the arrival of my Super Famicom at the end of 1991...I don't think I touched the games on this system again!

Wow! That sucks!

2 completely different perspectives on this machine:

Firstly from an American who has never even heard of Amstrad!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlaEL5NFZsI (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlaEL5NFZsI)

And now from a veteran English gamer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=se9S4n033hk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=se9S4n033hk)

I bought an Amstrad GX4000 in 1991 in Dixons. It was on "sale" for £19.99, and I knew by that point the machine had commercially failed, but I just wanted to play Burnin' Rubber and maybe pick up another game or two on the cheap. Right away I noticed the AY chip from my Speccy 128, and the gameplay was basically Wec Le Mans from the year before. It stuck faithfully to the Amstrad tradition: more colour, less speed and the feeling you might have wasted your money. The Spectrum version of Le Mans actually played better; the only thing Burnin' Rubber had over it was the very attractive change from day to night made possible by the 4096 colour palette.

Most amusing for me was the picture on the side of the console box showing two children happily playing the GX4000. Closer inspection showed the cartridge in the photo had been superimposed onto the console slot, meaning    the kids weren't actually playing anything!! What a surprise!

There was an Amstrad helpline contained in the box, so I phoned them the day after buying the machine and screamed "Death to Sugar!" before hanging up. Then I destroyed the console with a hammer. All in all a good laugh for twenty quid.

Liar! I reckon you sleep with it on your pillow every night! 

Quote from: "The Laird"Liar! I reckon you sleep with it on your pillow every night! 

You're getting me mixed up with TMR and his Commodore 64!!

Quote from: "Spector"

Quote from: "The Laird"Liar! I reckon you sleep with it on your pillow every night! 

You're getting me mixed up with TMR and his Commodore 64!!

Or possibly DreamcastRIP and his Wii U

I've only really seen the game in magazines, but I did get to play on one at 'Geek Expo' in Margate.  I played 'Klax' on it.  It was okay, but rather like the Commodore 64GS it was a misfire for Amstrad.  When you have a console based on an already established computer(with a few exceptions - the CD32 did okay I believe) it doesn't seem to work. 

Quote from: "The Laird"

Quote from: "Spector"

Quote from: "The Laird"Liar! I reckon you sleep with it on your pillow every night! 

You're getting me mixed up with TMR and his Commodore 64!!

Or possibly DreamcastRIP and his Wii U

Which one? I have the white Wii U 'Basic' model and both the white and the black 'Premium' models. Gotta collect 'em all...

Cheers to DreamcastRIP. Single handly saving Nintendo one console purchase at a time.

Quote from: "DreamcastRIP"Gotta collect 'em all...

We will make a Pokemon fan out of you yet!

Quote from: "Tachi"

Quote from: "DreamcastRIP"Gotta collect 'em all...

We will make a Pokemon fan out of you yet!

Oh no you won't!! 

LOL

Why is it that all our threads seem to turn to Nintendo, eventually? I swear, you guys remind of that one anime trope. The girl who's always teasing and insulting the boy she likes because she's too afraid to tell him the truth. "Oh, Nintendo, how I love you. And yet I hate you! And yet I love you. And yet I hate you! And yet I LOVE you."

...Oh, right, we were talking about the Amstrad, weren't we? Well, since this is Amstrad we're dealing with here, I guess we can all go ahead and say that it probably wasn't very good. When Ocean is your best developer, you know you've got problems right from the get go.

Quote from: "Bobinator"Well, since this is Amstrad we're dealing with here, I guess we can all go ahead and say that it probably wasn't very good.

Spot-on!

I think 2013 is the year for me getting one of these.

Quote from: "zapiy"I think 2013 is the year for me getting one of these.

Good luck! Let me know when you acquire one, so that I can look out for it on Ebay the following week.

Lol i dont sell stuff once i get it.. Not often lol.

First time for everything!!! 

I have a CPC Plus, which of course can play GX4000 cartridges. It's in perfect nick but I actually have no idea whether or not it works or not, as I don't have a monitor.

Quote from: "Havantgottaclue"I have a CPC Plus, which of course can play GX4000 cartridges. It's in perfect nick but I actually have no idea whether or not it works or not, as I don't have a monitor.

You can get TV adpators for them you know!

Oh I know all right, it's just not a very high priority!

Here is the computer version of the GX4000, the Amstrad CPC Plus:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28Wmn7EY-Wk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28Wmn7EY-Wk)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8Sl4IC7BhI (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8Sl4IC7BhI)

I have only gone a bid on one lol.

A few GX4000 games:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtjPLaIbvrA (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtjPLaIbvrA)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiL5UewBBIk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiL5UewBBIk)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arN0KALRCds (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arN0KALRCds)

Scans of the GX4000 and its games from C&VG console guide:

(http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z280/mrkizza/comgucon00022_zps3ed950e4.jpg)

(http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z280/mrkizza/comgucon00058_zps6b72ae4a.jpg)(http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z280/mrkizza/comgucon00059_zpsab1a4be5.jpg)

Quote from: "The Laird"Scans of the GX4000 and its games from C&VG console guide:

(http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z280/mrkizza/comgucon00022_zps3ed950e4.jpg)

(http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z280/mrkizza/comgucon00058_zps6b72ae4a.jpg)(http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z280/mrkizza/comgucon00059_zpsab1a4be5.jpg)

LOL Mean Machines was originally planning to cover the PC Engine, but they dropped it (at last minute) as the decision was made to cover the Amstrad GX4000 instead! ( i sh*t you not!).

Fire And Forget 2 was pretty bloody good on the humble MS, so what on earth happened with the GX4000 version?it should have been THE 8 Bit version, after all your talking of a console with more colours than a MD (4096), hardware sprites and hardware scrolling, yet we see a jerky, ugly, unresponsive version of the game here.

Looks like the title screen at least used the extra colours and a few found their way into main game.

Reviews wise, seems Amstrad Action originally scored it at 94% (Some pressure from elsewhere to get good media coverage of machine i wonder?), but that was later changed to 55%, Mean Machines scored it at 33%

Quote from: "Rogue Trooper"LOL Mean Machines was originally planning to cover the PC Engine, but they dropped it (at last minute) as the decision was made to cover the Amstrad GX4000 instead! ( i sh*t you not!).

It was supposed to cover the 7800 and Lynx too, they were even listed on the cover of all the early issues without ever appearing in the mag  >:(

Quote from: "The Laird"

Quote from: "Rogue Trooper"LOL Mean Machines was originally planning to cover the PC Engine, but they dropped it (at last minute) as the decision was made to cover the Amstrad GX4000 instead! ( i sh*t you not!).

It was supposed to cover the 7800 and Lynx too, they were even listed on the cover of all the early issues without ever appearing in the mag  >:(

Where was this? I own all the mags, none of them have the 7800 or Lynx on the cover, must be getting mixed up with another mag.

The Gx4000 was removed from the cover after Issue 6.

I have them all too, and I was so sure there was text along the top that said 7800 and Lynx. But now I look I can't see that on any of them so I think I might be getting mixed up with the console specials that C&VG did. 

I'm sure issue one had the PCE on the cover too, but no coverage inside.

Quote from: "Crusto"I'm sure issue one had the PCE on the cover too, but no coverage inside.

Nope, it had the MS, MD, GX4000, NES....

Issue 0 the publishers test Issue had 'Turbografx' along the top in words and a picture of Gunhed on the cover showing their intention to review PCE games, but as said the decision probably by the publishers rather than the reviewers to change for the GX4000.....wonder why they didnt cover the C64GS?! 

I got to play a few GX4000 games over the weekend at Revival, ones I hadn't played before on it like Klax and Switchblade, both games are good but this is really is a terrible console that is not helped by the atrocious joypads.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ukKuZeBkXQ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ukKuZeBkXQ)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIW8P0Ex72A (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIW8P0Ex72A)

A scan I just came across on my hard drive from C&VG announcing the new console:

(http://i.imgur.com/pOBR5Cv.jpg?1)(http://i.imgur.com/7JTLC59.jpg?1)

Sugar was hawking the tarted up CPC6128 for £329 without a monitor in 1990 when the 16-bit Atari ST could be picked up for £299? Comedy gold!

Oh, and one would never guess Rignall was a C-64 nut given his comments there about the sound chip, lol!

Quote from: "DreamcastRIP"Sugar was hawking the tarted up CPC6128 for £329 without a monitor in 1990 when the 16-bit Atari ST could be picked up for £299? Comedy gold!

Oh, and one would never guess Rignall was a C-64 nut given his comments there about the sound chip, lol!

:-) He was also quite a CPC nut it seems, he wrote some angry comments in reply to a reader, who wrote into Zzap 64 slagging the C64, think he described him as 'blinkered' and had he not seen Ping Pong, Highway Encounter, Batman etc?

I was really curious about this one, never having owned an Amstrad (unless we're talking late model Speccy's).  Picked one up off Ebay, plugged it in and absolutely hated it.  As has been said before, the controller is really atrocious and the whole experience didn't do anything for me.  It got packed straight back into the box, and put into the loft.

This is one of the worst consoles ever released IMO, there are just two or three decent games and neither of them were groundbreaking. Only for Amstrad fans.

A friend of mine bought one some months ago and also hated it immediately! :24:

EGM scan

Gotta love that EGM article for having stated,

QuoteAnd game quality? At this point it is standard Amstrad stuff, which translates into a pretty lackluster level of gaming.

 ::)

Quote from: "DreamcastRIP"Gotta love that EGM article for having stated,

QuoteAnd game quality? At this point it is standard Amstrad stuff, which translates into a pretty lackluster level of gaming.

 ::)

EGM...ahhh are'nt they the mag that gave Aliens:Col.Marines on 360 90%?

EGM

Erection Gobbling Morons!!!

Operation Thunderbolt and Robocop 2 were mentioned earlier in the thread so here they are:

[AMSTRAD GX4000] Operation Thunderbolt - Longplay (Part 1 of 3) (//http)

[AMSTRAD GX4000] Robocop 2 - Review & Longplay (100%) (//http)

Quote from: "The Laird"Operation Thunderbolt and Robocop 2 were mentioned earlier in the thread so here they are:

[AMSTRAD GX4000] Operation Thunderbolt - Longplay (Part 1 of 3) (//http)

[AMSTRAD GX4000] Robocop 2 - Review & Longplay (100%) (//http)

Title music on Op.Thunderbolt sounds way too 'jolly' for game of this type.

In-game:Visually, lot of nice. big sprites, but purple mountains? yeuck.

Robocop 2:

Loved the title music, looks great, but...screams to me of a standard 8 Bit platformer, just with a very fast moving Robocop sprite in it.

Not personally what i'd expect or want from a Robocop game.far too little shooting for myself.

All this GX4000 chat has lead me on a journey into the depths of the loft and I have returned with my GX4000 console!  I'm hoping to fire it up over the weekend.

Quote from: "Mire Mare"All this GX4000 chat has lead me on a journey into the depths of the loft and I have returned with my GX4000 console!  I'm hoping to fire it up over the weekend.

Make sure you wear protection.

Quote from: "The Laird"

Quote from: "Mire Mare"All this GX4000 chat has lead me on a journey into the depths of the loft and I have returned with my GX4000 console!  I'm hoping to fire it up over the weekend.

Make sure you wear protection.

My only aid, as an ageing gamer, will be spectacles.  I'll be using a Philips monitor and the sad, but true, fact is that a 14" screen means that specs are necessity.  Even with these I may still be suffering severe asthenopia come Monday and a sick day may be required!

The system looks like it can generate a lot of colorful graphics for it's time. Shame...could have done a nice version
of Gorf on it.

Fascinating and disturbing at the same time, this advert has the mark of Sugar all over it: like so many of his "products", it tries desperately to be something it clearly wasn't. Quite what the R2D2 rip-off droid in the picture is supposed to represent is anyone's guess since there was no Star Wars licence on the machine, but I think the Batman character with the "A" symbol is the naffest of a very naff bunch. Grim, just grim.

I came across this amazing quote a while ago and just realised I had forgotten to post it!

From the mouth of Amstrad chief designer Cliff Lawson:

QuoteThe GX4000, is technically, at least on a par with the SNES and the machine only faltered due to a lack of games and Amstrad not having the marketing budget to take on Nintendo and Sega properly.

Quote from: "The Laird"I came across this amazing quote a while ago and just realised I had forgotten to post it!

From the mouth of Amstrad chief designer Cliff Lawson:

QuoteThe GX4000, is technically, at least on a par with the SNES and the machine only faltered due to a lack of games and Amstrad not having the marketing budget to take on Nintendo and Sega properly.

A breathtaking piece of bullshit, even by Amstrad's standards. Remarkable.

I found one of these going pretty cheap on ebay yesterday so bought it...I guess I'll regret it when it turns up not working...but hey. I had an Amastrad 464 plus years ago and it had Burnin' Rubber packaged with it...it'll be good to replay that game and hear that kick ass theme tune again! Does anyone know what outputs the GX4000 has on the back?

Thanks

Quote from: "Tomleecee"I found one of these going pretty cheap on ebay yesterday so bought it...I guess I'll regret it when it turns up not working...but hey. I had an Amastrad 464 plus years ago and it had Burnin' Rubber packaged with it...it'll be good to replay that game and hear that kick ass theme tune again! Does anyone know what outputs the GX4000 has on the back?

Thanks

One of the best features is that it actually has a Standard Scart socket on the back so you can use any standard scart to scart lead.

I still own my Gx4000 with some games but i would have to say not to spend much money on the games as they are not that great and overall the machine and games are not worth the price people ask for them. Some fun to be had if you got it cheap but even the best games are bettered elsewhere for a fraction of the price.

One thing i thought odd about the machine was the sprite movement in some games; I think Robocop II (or III?) is a good example. It just looks unnatural somehow, like it's been taken from another game, though that could be a case of bad programming rather than a fault with the machine. The 4096 colour palette was rightly trumpeted as a reason to take it seriously, but the machine is unevenly balanced in specs, and console gaming was being played by companies far bigger than Amstrad; it never had a chance.

A few more GX4000 games that I haven't posted in this thread yet:

[AMSTRAD GX4000] Burnin' Rubber (Gameplay Run-through) (//http)

[AMSTRAD GX4000] Pro Tennis Tour (Great Courts) (Gameplay Run-through) (//http)

[AMSTRAD GX4000] Batman (The Movie) - Speed Run (1 of 2) (//http)

Its an odd beast isnt it, I only knew 1 person with one (and he didnt seem to boast about it!).

I'd like to have one some day I think if only to avoid the load times!

I remember back in the day a friend who was given a choice between one and a Mega drive for Christmas.  He went for the GX4000 

Quote from: "Lorfarius"I remember back in the day a friend who was given a choice between one and a Mega drive for Christmas.  He went for the GX4000  :24:

Ok i only went and got one now..

You poor soul!!

Lol, i always wanted one and i could not stop myself.

Haha good for you! Good luck getting some games at decent prices!

Why are they so expensive?

Mainly because they werent released in big numbers, some a few thousand, others in the hundreds, did look a few yearsago to collect but prices too much.

I will get the odd one here and there i guess... no rush to collect them all lol.

Yeah at least theconsole is cheap! Look at the Commodore64GS on ebay £240-£250 each! Crazy!

Yeah the GS is another grail console to me. 

I quite like both, the GS was on show at a retro event several years back and I think I played Double Dragon on it.  It was a neat little system but all I could think was cheeky it was they'd expect people to fork out around £40 for carts when the cassettes were a couple of quid. Same with the GX4K.

Yeah, both tried to get some of the 8-bit MS/NES market which was big esp the MS in the UK which is why both launched here first (and ultimately only place!)
Had they been 2 years earlier it might have been a different story, but again you could say that about any machine 

I had a mate who was given one at Xmas with an Amstrad monitor and Burning Rubber.  Looked fantastic at the time and I remember going round to play it a couple of times, problem was he didn't even get pocket money so had no chance of buying more games!

I have done some digging and i might have found some more games at a bargain price..

Give me a shout if you get any doubles. I'm looking for some donor carts ;-)

Ok pal.

Don't ask me why but there is just something about the GX4000 that makes me want to code for it. It does have some nice features hardware wise...it seems however, either they really suck, the features are not real( IE done in software like sprites) or the dev teams where not worth the price of admission to Amstrad.

According to the specs I've read on this machine, it should have been a winner....well...maybe.

Good to hear even if you don't actually code for it. I have yet to go on mine that i purchased..soon i will have some real opinions on it lol.

Quote from: "zapiy"Good to hear even if you don't actually code for it. I have yet to go on mine that i purchased..soon i will have some real opinions on it lol.

I did say maybe.... :4:

Quote from: "Gorf"Don't ask me why but there is just something about the GX4000 that makes me want to code for it. It does have some nice features hardware wise...it seems however, either they really suck, the features are not real( IE done in software like sprites) or the dev teams where not worth the price of admission to Amstrad.

According to the specs I've read on this machine, it should have been a winner....well...maybe.

Could it have competed with the MD and SNES in terms of power?

Quote from: "Lorfarius"Could it have competed with the MD and SNES in terms of power?

Not at all but it could have done better than it did if it had come out a year or two earlier - it came out in 1990 in the UK and the Atari 2600 was still on sale only in 1989 so there was certainly perceived interest in a low priced console at that time.

I think the issue was, over here at least, the 16 bit computers like Amiga and Atari were really dominant at that time so a console like the GX4000 just wasnt going to cut it.

Couple of interesting photos, this is the Amstrad CSD. A  machine that was in-store to demonstrate the hardware of the Amstrad plus.

(http://www.cpcwiki.eu/imgs/6/69/Csdscreen1.jpg)

(http://www.cpcwiki.eu/imgs/b/b7/Csdscreen2.jpg)

(http://www.cpcwiki.eu/imgs/thumb/7/74/Csdface.jpg/800px-Csdface.jpg)

(http://www.cpcwiki.eu/imgs/thumb/a/a3/Csddaughter.jpg/800px-Csddaughter.jpg)

I'm just glad most games cost over £50. Means I won't be blowing any money on one 

Quote from: "Lorfarius"I'm just glad most games cost over £50. Means I won't be blowing any money on one  :113:

http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/CPC_GX4 ... _Cartridge (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/CPC_GX4000-Multi_EPROM_Cartridge)

(http://www.cpcwiki.eu/imgs/3/30/CPC_GX4000-Multi_EPROM_Cartridge-1.jpg)

Or you can make one for £15.

Quote from: "zapiy"Or you can make one for £15.

Yup there are instructions on the wiki link I posted [emoji2]

Quote from: "Lorfarius"I'm just glad most games cost over £50. Means I won't be blowing any money on one 

I own 23 games. mostly loose and I got them by accident.

a lot of games can actually be got for under £20

If anyone is thinking of picking one up you get burnin rubber with it. I have a spare cart only barbarian 2 and a spare console as well somewhere.

http://youtu.be/JdEG6QyAcIA (http://youtu.be/JdEG6QyAcIA)

Great resource i think.

A couple of those don't look too bad, but I can see why it didn't do very well. I like those cases the games came in though.

I agree, its gets a hard time really but i think its a half decent system.

Just saw this posted on YouTube...

[align=center:bgk1uyn0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-jRQE2EEWA&feature=em-subs_digest[/align:bgk1uyn0]

Still can't believe I got this for £20 un-opened last year! New PSU and C4CPC now

All those Amstrad games, Dizzy.... Green Beret...

Looks nice, and great deal!

Cracking deal chap. I love the console personally.

Nice! Wouldnt mind one t o play some CPC gaming, is there a flashcart with a proper cartridge shell out there?

I've been working my way through every game and doing footage on Youtube of late (just search GX4000 on the channel page for more):

http://youtu.be/CXX-s7Tc2DI (http://youtu.be/CXX-s7Tc2DI)

I've done all but 6 games so far and a system review but will be finishing off in the next week or two. I also have the flash cart which I did a vid for, makes it possible to play everything:

http://youtu.be/OnDkttMitEY (http://youtu.be/OnDkttMitEY)

Quote from: "AmigaJay"Nice! Wouldnt mind one t o play some CPC gaming, is there a flashcart with a proper cartridge shell out there?

Cheers all

See here - http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/amstrad-cpc ... -one-more/ (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/amstrad-cpc-hardware/cpc-plus-cartridge-replacement-one-more/)

Here is a nice video review of the Amstrad GX4000...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-jRQE2EEWA (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-jRQE2EEWA)

Cracking video, really under rated system.

Collection of old reviews and adverts i put together for this machine.

https://issuu.com/amigajay/docs/gx4000 (https://issuu.com/amigajay/docs/gx4000)

I love this ones..

Cheers mate, are you getting many hits on them?

Amiga CD32 and Psygnosis getting the most hits, the latter getting the most reads.