1990 ARC
Platforms: Atari ST, Atari Falcon, Commodore Amiga
Cyber Assault was a vector-based obstacle course game announced by ARC. In the game you must control a character called TRAX (an exo-skeletal humanoid), who can run, jump and walk through a 3D universe. Impressively he would have displayed over 70 faces animated accurately at 15 frames per second.
The story would go that years ago, you murdered a civi-cop and were then imprisoned for life. Once a year, the worst prisoner is given the chance of freedom by entering the Cyber Assault. A deadly obstacle course race. Win and you are free. Fail and you are a dead man.
The game was due for release in December 1990, but was never to be for reasons currently unknown. Now for years I thought ARC were ARC Developments, but I’ve been educated properly this week and have found they are not – so we learn something every day :) . ARC was an Atari label which did games for Amiga and ST, and nothing to do with the development team.
Interestingly, Ross Sillifant found an old news group item from 1992 where Sam Tramiel says the following to suggest an Atari Falcon version was also in development when talking about upcoming games for the Atari Falcon:
“We, Atari, have contracted about a dozen games and they will be released over the next few months and there are a number of developers busy working away on some great games. I have seen demos in the US and in Europe, titles such as; Raiden, Road Riot H4WD, Cyber Assualt, Steel Talons and Eclipse has a great spaceship game. The special new joystick which works on the STe, Atari Falcon 030 and Jaguar will be shipping in February. It has three fire buttons and a 12 key numeric keypad.”
With thanks to Karl Kuras for the heads up about the title, and additional shots, information and scans from Ross Sillifant.
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