PHILIP AND ANDREW OLIVER HAD ALREADY ENJOYED DIZZYING SUCCESS BY THE TIME THEY MADE JET BIKE SIMULATOR. BUT WOULD GAMERS RACE TO PLAY THEIR LATEST CREATION OR WOULD A GAMBLE WITH A NEW PRICING STRUCTURE CAUSE IT TO SINK?
The cover of Jet Bike Simulator made something of a splash – internally at Codemasters at least. In a list of features promoting the virtues of this top-down racer (among them a free colour poster and an official Codemasters sticker, no less), were the words “by the famous Oliver twins”. Five words which, as it turned out, made Philip and Andrew Oliver cringe ever so slightly.
When the game was released in 1988, the brothers had indeed made something of a name for themselves. They'd achieved success on the Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 with Robin Hood, Ghost Hunters, Grand Prix Simulator, Professional Ski Simulator, 3D Starfighter and Dizzy so it made sense to promote their undoubted prowess.
But whether or not they were actually famous was another matter. “[It] was Bruce Everiss [Codemasters’ marketing manager] doing it as a joke,” Andrew Oliver told Amstrad Action in September 1988. “Now all the mail we get at Codemasters is addressed to 'The Famous Oliver Twins!’”
Japes aside, Codemasters certainly had lots of faith in the Olivers. When they were given the go-ahead to develop Jet Bike Simulator, the publisher earmarked it for a Codemasters Plus release, reckoning the Olivers had more than enough clout and talent to pull off a game that would retail for £4.99 – half way between budget and full price. “It was one of the launch Codemasters Plus titles,” Philip tells us. “Codemasters was selling all of its games for £1.99 to £2.99 at the time and it wanted to increase the price without going full price which it felt wouldn't be well-received by consumers.”
The idea for Jet Bike Simulator had emerged in the summer of 1987. “We were spending Sunday afternoons riding on jet bikes in the Cotswold Water Park with the Codemasters' founders Richard and David Darling and this inspired us,” Philip says. “We were riding high from the success of Grand Prix Simulator and Pro Ski Simulator and we wanted to follow them up with another aspirational sport.”
While enjoying the pursuit, the Olivers believed the adrenaline rush they felt on the water could be replicated on-screen. “When you can finally get going, jet biking is exhilarating but, like riding a bike, it isn't easy at first,” Philips explains. “When we first tried, we turned up, got kitted up in wetsuits and had a briefing about safety and how the acceleration and cut-off switch worked. It basically cut the engine in the event you fell off and that initially happened most times you tried standing up!”
