Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe

Episodes – DOS Game Club

The original Speedball from 1988 was already a highly acclaimed futuristic sports game, lauded for its action-packed arcade-style gameplay and superb audiovisual presentation. But when the Bitmap Brothers released the sequel in 1990 for Amiga and Atari ST they truly outdid themselves. Both horizontal and vertical scrolling at a blistering pace was an achievement rarely seen on home computers at the time, let alone combined with an excellent AI. It's still remembered as one of the Amiga's greatest games.

But less well-known perhaps is the 1991 PC port, also by Bitmap Brothers. How does the DOS version hold up to its famous Amiga counterpart? That's what we're here for to find out!

Joining hosts Martijn ("Tijn") and Florian ("rnlf") to talk about this game is DGC veteran Hannes ("MrCreosote") and DGC newcomer Jeremy ("ZorroBandito"), who both played tons of the Amiga version back in the day and know all the ins and outs of what makes this game great.

A big shout out to DGC member Niklas ("killershrew") who was previously on the Dark Forces episode and had planned to be on the Speedball episode as well. He's a big football games fan and we would have loved to have him on, but sadly he has suffered a sudden medical condition and is recovering from that for the foreseeable future. We all wish him the best and are thinking of him. We hope to see him back on for a future episode as soon as he his able. Take care, Niklas!

https://www.dosgameclub.com/podcast/2023/07/ep82.mp3

[ download mp3 ] (163 mins, 186 MB)

We got help from DGC member console editing this episode (again!). Many thanks to him and all who make this show possible!

RELEVANT LINKS:

* Chapter from the Bitmap Brothers book on the making of Speedball 2

* DGC episode 47 on Z in which we talk more about the history of the Bitmap Brothers

* Famous chiptune artist Master Boot Record did a cover of the Speedball 2 theme tune

* DGC episode 18 on Death Rally which was mentioned in passing as having a relatively similar gameplay loop as Speedball 2

* twitch.tv/martijnf where host Martijn streams DOS Game Club games about once a week