Games That Weren't^®

1991 System 3

Platform: Commodore Amiga

Once known as Borderline during its early development, Turbo Charge was inspired by the driving section that featured within Vendetta, an earlier game by System 3.

The game was released on the Commodore 64 in late 1991 to much acclaim, making up for the terrible conversion of Chase HQ from Ocean. You see, this was very much heavily inspired by Chase HQ, where you had to hunt down criminals across a number of stages.

As well as a C64 edition though, an Amiga version was also on the cards and to follow that release. It got pretty damn far too by the looks of the many screenshots that would feature in the press at the time.

According to one magazine source, the game was being developed by Mark Rochoter, who was aiming to add larger roadside objects, dips and curves compared to the C64 game. However, in December 2021, contributor Gerry (see comment) found that according to French magazine ST Magazine (issue 56), it was Michael Raasch (Daryl of Atari ST demo group “The Exceptions (TEX)” who was programming both the ST and Amiga versions. We hope to get hold of Michael soon to find out more!

Some of the magazines suggest that the road routine was running very fast and System 3 were claiming that it was going to be the greatest racing game on the Amiga. So what happened after so much promise?

According to Amiga Power magazine, after many months of work – although the game was running quite fast, System 3 were rumoured to not be happy. Perhaps the release of Lotus Turbo Challenge 2 had made them reconsider?

It would be very interesting to see just how well it was shaping up and compared to the C64 edition that many of us love so much. Hopefully we’ll be able to track down Mark/Michael to shed some light, perhaps even share something of the development.

With thanks to Karl Kuras for the suggestion, Hall of Light for some of the scans, Gerry for the developer lead and Stephen Stuttard for the rest of the scans.

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