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Prehistorik Kart

2001 Titus Interactive

Platform: Nintendo Game Boy Advance

Prehistorik Kart is a new entry into the GTW archives that should have a compilation bonus title to go along with the Nintendo Game Boy Advance release of Prehistorik Man – a 1995 Titus title that was released originally on the Super Nintendo.

kart large 1

When the Game Boy Advance update was planned, it was clear that Titus felt that there needed to be something a little extra included, and the plan was for a spin-off Mario Kart clone based on the franchise.

Continue reading

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Genjin Show – Tobidase! VB Genjin

1995 Hudson Soft

Platform: Nintendo Virtual Boy

Bonk was a very popular character from Hudson Soft that featured in a number of popular platforming titles, especially on the PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16. The first title for the game was known as PC Genjin in Japan, and BC Kid everywhere else and would almost make it to the Virtual Boy too.

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The popularity would see a number of other titles produced, many of which featured on the NES and SNES platforms. So, it comes as no surprise perhaps that when Nintendo announced the Virtual Boy, Bonk would look to try and make an appearance. Continue reading

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Mighty Max

1994 Ocean Software

Platform: Amiga 1200 (and possibly CD32)

Mighty Max was based on the popular toys and subsequent cartoon of the time (huge in the US!), and was initially developed on the Amiga 1200 as the primary platform, with possible plans for an enhanced edition for the CD32 shortly afterwards. It wasn’t long though until focus would switch over to console editions.

MightMax16

Developed by WJS, who had done a series of titles for the likes of Psygnosis, Ocean and Microprose, the team had approached Ocean with their very own platform title around 1993 time. Ocean liked what they saw, and asked the team to reskin the game into a Mighty Max licenced title. Continue reading

Posted in: Amiga, Amiga CD32, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Basketball Kid

1993 Krisalis Software

Platforms: Various

A very short entry for now and for a potential sequel to Soccer Kid, a platformer game where you control a kid with a football who can perform a series of special moves to defeat enemies and progress through the game.

It was a successful title that saw conversion to a number of platforms, including SNES, Playstation and many more. The game had built upon the engine that had been created for Arabian Nights. Continue reading

Posted in: Amiga, Amiga CD32, Mega Drive, Reviews, SNES | Tagged: | 2 Comments

Archer Maclean’s Atari concepts

1982-1983 Archer Maclean

Platform: Atari 400/800

In August 2023, Chris Wilkins (Fusion Retro Books) entrusted Games That Weren’t with the task of preserving all of Archer’s development disks. Whilst going through Archer’s 5.25″ work disks, a series of significant discoveries were made which show how Archer was testing out different Arcade concepts as he got to grips with the hardware.

We have created a special video that goes through the findings and talks about them in more detail:

Within the disks we found early graphic tests for Donkey Kong, Tempest and also a Pole Position clone that Archer had named Road Roller, which included what seems to be a series of road routine drawing tests. Continue reading

Posted in: Atari 400/800, Reviews | Tagged: , | 3 Comments

Muffett

1983 SEGA

Platform: Atari 2600 (possibly VIC-20 and others too – unconfirmed)

Team member Fabrizio Bartoloni recently brought to my attention a very intriguing title which SEGA announced as part of their first line up of games for various home platforms, including the Atari 2600. In particular, it was the rather cool game cover artwork that caught my eye.

Muffett 1

Simply called Muffett, the game was based around Little Miss Muffet, and was advertised by SEGA in their press kit and at Winter CES in 1983. It showed a slightly darker/creepy variation of the nursery rhyme character, wearing some kind of singular shades and firing a small gun. In the background you can see a series of spiders crawling down in the background. Continue reading

Posted in: Atari 2600 / Atari VCS, Reviews, Vic 20 | Tagged: | Leave a comment

GTW64 February 2024 update

Already into the second month of 2024, and plenty more updates for the GTW64 archive. So here is what we have for February 2024:

Two new recoveries

Thanks to Csaba Virag, two more seemingly unpreserved games have been found. It isn’t clear if they were actually released or not, but here they are:

Pong Mini and Quizer

11 other new entries added

Then we have a new batch of titles added to the archives thanks to our contributors (each credited in each piece). The archive continues to grow even today!

3D Killer PillerABCBndrsntchBombuzal editorCurse of the PharaohsDr. Jekyll and Mr. HydeEuchre for FourField of FireQuest for CyrusRuba e fuggiTwo hearts and a chickenpot

12 entries updates

Then as usual – we finish with a series of updates to entries already in the archive. Details of what has changed/been added can be found in the history tab for each title.

Chain Reaction V1DelphianForbidden PlanetFurther Adventures of Alice in VideolandMetal PiramidMorgolPirates of the OceanPulsatorSpeed FighterThe 4th DimensionTyger TygerWho Dares Wins

New area on Archive.org for Allan Pinkerton

Allan has been helping out GTW64 for many years with various preservation efforts, and he is now uploading many more over at Archive.org, so be sure to check things out:

https://archive.org/details/@1madmax

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Global Golf: The Earth Invitational

1993 ICOM Simulations

Platform: PC and Mac

ICOM Simulations, the makers of Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, were to follow up with a title called Global Golf: The Earth Invitational.

global folf

Announced around Summer 1993, the game would give you the chance to play on hypothetical holes on places like Everest, the desert and the Grand Canyon. The game had been in development for sometime, and PC Player magazine showed a single screenshot of the game in action (in what seems to be at the Grand Canyon). Continue reading

Posted in: Macintosh, PC, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Franko 2: No Mercy

1995-2003 Mirage Media / World Software / Horn

Platforms: Commodore Amiga 1200/CD32, PC and Game Boy Advance

It may have been a basic fighting game with simple graphics, but Franko: The Crazy Revenge did pretty well in the Polish games market in 1994 and has a hardcore set of fans today. It resulted in a sequel that was started in 1995, with a whole host of new features and enhancements over the original game.

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Early build on either Amiga/PC.

When mentioned in snippets as early as 1995, the game was said to be including digitized backgrounds and characters, with a series of new moves being developed. You would be able to interact more with your surroundings, picking up garbage cans and the like and using as projectiles, and the game was to be a lot gorier! Your main character would also have over 200 frames of animation, compared to the dozen or so which the original game’s character had. Continue reading

Posted in: Amiga, Amiga CD32, Game Boy Advance, PC, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Snow Bros

1992 Unknown

Platforms: PC Engine

Following on from our report about a possible Gods conversion on the PC Engine, we now take a look at what seemed to be a conversion of Toaplan’s Snow Bros that was due for release in the early 1990s.

snow bros shot
A PC Engine screenshot, or a screenshot from another platform?

Advertised in Electronic Gaming Monthly Magazines in September 1992, it appeared with a number of others for sale from a company called Gametronix. Present was a single screenshot, which may or may not have been from the PC Engine game.

Considering just how well Parasol Stars came out on the platform, there’s no doubt that Snow Bros would have been a great fit for the machine. But as with conversions on other platforms, such as the Amiga, the game would never see release in the end.

As the game was shown just in a short advert, there was no detail about when the game was coming out or how it was looking/playing. The screenshot may have even been from a different platform, and therefore we don’t know yet if any conversion was actually ever started or not.

Was the screenshot a rare glimpse of a conversion that got far? Or just vapourware overall? If you know anything more about the conversion, please do get in touch.

With thanks to Paranoia Dragon for flagging up the title and for the scans.

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Posted in: PC Engine, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment