1991 Empire Software
Platforms: Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum
Empire wasn’t a label one would normally associate with the Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum, with just a handful of titles (Pipe Mania, Dr Doom’s Revenge, Gazza’s Super Soccer, Gazza 2) and a compilation (Soccer Stars) under it’s belt.
Following the success of their Captain America and Spiderman crossover game Dr Doom’s Revenge, Empire picked up the licence to produce a stand alone game featuring Spiderman.
The Amazing Spiderman was the result and the game was released on the Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga and Atari ST and featured you as the web crawler as you went though a movie studio to rescue Mary-Jane Parker from Mysterio. The game was very well received, but sadly (to me) it never came out on the Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum.
But, Amstrad Computer User reviewed the game in their March 1991 issue, with the game gracing the front cover. It was very well received by them and got their Gold Award and the CPC screenshots looked good too.
However, people started querying this review as they were under the impression there was only a preview version ready. Amstrad Action contacted Empire to query this and they printed in AA66, in the March 1991 issue that Empire replied to them “That’s because there is!” which shows that ACU reviewed a preview copy (not the first time, nor the last time they would do this *ahem* Mega Twins). As for the Spectrum version, it was mentioned but never shown in the magazine, despite advertisements proclaiming Amstrad and Spectrum versions/
So it leads the question – is this preview copy in existence anywhere? It’s mentioned that the released versions were coded by Oxford Digital Enterprises Ltd, but did they do the Amstrad and Spectrum versions? Were these versions outsourced to a different developer? Is it possible the full game could exist out there somewhere?
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