Monthly Archives: July 2026

Total results: 10

Army Men: Sarge’s Heroes 3

Army Men: Sarge’s Heroes 3 thumbnail
Posted: by Frank Gasking

Army Men: Sarge’s Heroes 3 was in development at 5000 Feet and Climax for the PlayStation 2, but was ultimately never released. Very little has surfaced from the project over the years, though footage from a prototype build was thankfully saved and re-uploaded before the original source disappeared.

The available footage shows a main menu, a level where the player can explore a military base whilst battling Tan forces, and a very early boat section. It is possible that additional vehicles may also have been planned, though little else is currently known about the game’s development. Continue reading →

In: Reviews, Sony PlayStation 2 | Tagged: | 1 Comment

New Mountain King Atari 8-bit Prototype Recovered

New Mountain King Atari 8-bit Prototype Recovered thumbnail
Posted: by Frank Gasking

Another nice preservation update to highlight today, this time thanks to the Atari community. John Hardie has recovered a previously unseen prototype of Mountain King for the Atari 8-bit computers from a disk that once belonged to a former Roklan employee. The prototype appears to be largely complete and seems to represent a build prepared before the game was handed over to K-Byte, who later acquired the publishing rights.

Compared to the released cartridge, the prototype features a plain title screen with no mention of either K-Byte or CBS Software, a more vivid floor colour and the absence of the flashing level indicator shown when starting a new game. Continue reading →

In: Atari 400/800/XL, News, Preservation, Prototype | Leave a comment

Super Mario’s Wacky Worlds

Super Mario’s Wacky Worlds thumbnail
Posted: by Frank Gasking

It still feels strange to imagine a traditional Super Mario platform game appearing on anything other than Nintendo hardware, but thanks to Nintendo’s short-lived agreement with Philips, that almost became a reality.

Super Mario’s Wacky Worlds was in development at NovaLogic as a follow-up of sorts to Super Mario World, bringing Mario to the Philips CD-i in what promised to be a globe-trotting adventure. Rather than taking place in Dinosaur Land, the game would have seen Mario travelling across real-world inspired locations including Ancient Greece, Egypt, haunted castles, pirate ships, jungles, the Arctic and a series of increasingly bizarre “wacky” worlds filled with neon cities, geometric landscapes and giant pipeworks. Continue reading →

In: Philips CDI, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Unnamed Shoot-Em-Up

Unnamed Shoot-Em-Up thumbnail
Posted: by Frank Gasking

Next up into the Games That Weren’t archives is a very early single screen shoot-em-up, which was being developed by David Bradley. The game has no name at this stage, and was recovered from some work disks thanks to Dean Hickingbottom.

There are around 4-5 nice attack waves in total, before the game crashes. There are no enemy bullets and you cannot die, but you can shoot the enemies to progress through each wave.

It’s a nice simple early concept, and a shame that it didn’t get any further by the looks of things. We assume this would have been a nice budget with more complex attack waves, possibly some background graphics and maybe larger ships too. Hopefully at some point we’ll learn more from David about the game and what the intentions were for it. Continue reading →

In: Amstrad CPC, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Ninjanimal

Ninjanimal thumbnail
Posted: by Frank Gasking

Ninjanimal was one of the more curious titles listed in Titus’ 1990 release schedules. Planned for the Commodore 64 on tape and disk, the game never surfaced on any platform commercially, leaving many to wonder just what it was meant to be.

Thankfully, unlike many unreleased projects, we do at least have a glimpse of what was planned. Prototype builds of the Atari ST version have surfaced over the years, whilst screenshots from the Amiga edition also survive. They reveal a colourful side-scrolling beat-em-up with some similarities to Ninja Rabbits, though with a rather unique twist. Continue reading →

In: Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Two Long Lost Commodore PET Adventures Recovered After 45 Years

Two Long Lost Commodore PET Adventures Recovered After 45 Years thumbnail
Posted: by Frank Gasking

The original Commodore PET editions of Brian Cotton’s Catacombs and Goblin Towers, published by Supersoft back in 1981, have been recovered after being considered lost for around 45 years thanks to Marcel Lansing.

Until now, only later Commodore 64 releases of the games were known to survive. The original PET versions were believed lost until Colin Haynes came forward with his original disks, allowing them to be carefully preserved using original Commodore hardware. Continue reading →

In: Commodore PET, News, Preservation | Tagged: | 1 Comment

Masters of the Universe – The Super Adventure & The Arcade Game

Masters of the Universe – The Super Adventure & The Arcade Game thumbnail
Posted: , last updated: by Patrick Furlong

Masters of the Universe – The Super Adventure and The Arcade Game were two games based on the Filmation cartoon Masters of the Universe, released by US Gold in 1987.

The games have you as He-Man, who fights to deal with the evil forces of Skeletor, who is determined to take over Eternia. The franchise has received a cult following over 40 years, culminating in the release of a new live action movie in June 2026 by MGM Amazon.

The Super Adventure is a graphic adventure on the Spectrum and C64 but text only on the BBC. The Arcade Game is an exploring game but received pretty badly – at the time, it was voted 2nd Worst Game of the year by readers of Crash magazine. Continue reading →

In: Amstrad CPC, Commodore 16 and Plus/4, PC, Reviews | Tagged: | 2 Comments

Raiden (Amiga/Falcon) and Space Junk (Atari Falcon) Source Code

Raiden (Amiga/Falcon) and Space Junk (Atari Falcon) Source Code thumbnail
Posted: by Frank Gasking

A very exciting development has come from our recent Raiden post, with source code recovered for two long lost Imagitec projects – the unreleased Amiga/Atari Falcon versions of Raiden and the ambitious sci-fi adventure Space Junk.

The discovery came completely by surprise. Shortly after our Raiden feature went live, Amiga legend dlfrsilver got in touch to say they had an archive containing an old Imagitec hard drive image. Digging through it revealed source code for both Raiden and Space Junk, originating from an Atari Falcon development system.

The archive itself was originally shared by “tomseddon” on the Atari Forum back in November 2025, but seems to have largely gone unnoticed. According to the forum post, an ex-colleague rescued an Atari Falcon hard disk from an Infogrames/Gremlin storeroom in the late 1990s, with the Raiden and Space Junk development folders still intact. Continue reading →

In: Atari Falcon, Commodore Amiga, News | Leave a comment

R.A.I.L

R.A.I.L thumbnail
Posted: by Frank Gasking

To coincide with the launch of Richard Hewison’s excellent new Kickstarter project, “Memories of Rainbird and Beyond Software”, we are taking the opportunity to preserve and share a fascinating piece of Rainbird history. If you have an interest in Rainbird Software and the people behind it, we highly recommend supporting the project and helping bring it to life.

One of the more intriguing projects from Rainbird’s archives was R.A.I.L. (Rainbird Adventure Implementation Language), a sophisticated text adventure authoring system created by John Jones-Steele. The intention was for R.A.I.L. to be used in-house to create a number of commercial adventures before eventually being released to the public as a complete adventure creation package. Continue reading →

In: PC, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment