Yet another TV sports game was planned by the excellent Cinemaware, and late into the C64’s life. Sadly this was never to be it seems.
Cinemaware’s website describes the game as follows:
“Lace up you hightops and get psyched for a fast breaking, in-your-face, full court, 5-on-5 pro basketball simulation that looks exactly like a network broadcast. TV Sports: Basketball gives you total control over an entire squad, including player substitutions and strategic double teaming. Your skills as player and coach will receive their ultimate test as sudden shifts in momentum and fatigue take their toll.
Go head-to-head against another human or face an awesome computer opponent. You’ll marvel at the Cinemaware quality animation and graphics; real arcade action on offensive and defensive; individual and team statistics; even the post season playoffs! TV Sports: Basketball is truly Phi Slamma Jamma of basketball simulations!”
In typical Cinemaware style, this was an excellently presented game on Amiga and PC, and no doubt a C64 conversion would have been very close (If judging by the past efforts of the previous TV Sports Football conversion).
So what happened?… We are not really sure. We’re guessing that TV Sports Football was to be their swansong on the C64 platform, and probably the game didn’t get great sales as they expected. That was a sign to move away from the machine, and hence any work which may have been started would have been scrapped.
Richard Hewison who worked at Mirrorsoft doesn’t recall a C64 version or seeing one at all. Cinemaware did ST versions at Mirrorsoft’s request for Europe, and the Football conversion for the C64 was also requested. It is unknown if the Basketball title was in the C64 request list from Mirrorsoft. It could well be down to finding the developers of the Football game to find out if th
We have added credits from TV Sports Football with question marks over them – as it could well have been the same developers involved. We’ll need confirmation of it. It is very likely that Jim Simmons would have done the music, as he did this for most of Cinemaware’s games on the C64.
