Following on from a series of 2000AD themed games, Halo Jones was the next in line from Piranha on their ambitious (And eventually fateful) climb forwards in the games market.
Halo Jones was rather different to the other titles, and was more a of Tir Na Nogg/Redhawk clone of sorts. From various screenshots seen of the game, it looked pretty good and coming together well. Ok, at least on the Spectrum it was looking ok – as the C64 version never got much of a mention, apart from being listed in the Piranha adverts as coming soon for the C64 as well as the Speccy.
Well, it seems that this game was also caught up in the downfall of Piranha like with Judge Anderson (Which at least something has sneaked out). Not even the nearly complete Spectrum game could quite sneak out it seems.
But just how much of a C64 conversion was started?… Nothing was ever seen in the likes of Zzap to the scale of what was seen on the Spectrum platform, so was it even started? Who developed it too?… Was it the same guys who did Judge Death?
Commodore User in April 1988 had the following to say…
“Where is she? We’ve been counting the moments until that wonderous woman, Halo Jones finally steps out of the pages of Alan Moore’s futuristic cartoon world, the Hoop, and onto the screens of a nation’s 64s/ It was back in December that we first told you that Halo was a comin’ your way, courtesy of Piranha. Eventually our daily weeping phone calls to Piranha HQ have yielded the following horrific information: The Ballad Of Halo Jones hasn’t even begun to be programmed on the 64.
The powers that be have decided in their wisdom to complete the Amstrad and (ughhh) Speccy versions before even embarking on the 64 work, so we won’t be likely to be seeing our ‘Alo much before June. June!! So, just to keep y’all going till then we thought we’d just print a glorious technicolour cut-out n stuff under your pillo pic of the woman herself.”
Well, Richard Hewison helps to confirm further that sadly the C64 version of Halo Jones was never actually started. Spectrum developer Mike Lewis confirmed that there never was a C64 version of Halo Jones. He had completed the Spectrum and Amstrad versions and delivered the master tapes the day that Piranha was wound up by MacMillan. The plan was to get a C64 version converted once the games were released… but it was never to be.
So this is it… another case which can sadly be closed. Nothing to find, apart from maybe a full Spectrum/Amstrad game some day soon. Mike Lewis was responsible for another game with a similiar engine which you can read about more on Richard’s website.
Case closed!…
Contributions: Richard Hewison, Mike Lewis, Ross Sillifant, Fever
The link to ‘Judge Anderson’ on this page is broken
Seems that it was later discovered that the game was going to be called Judge Death and the link should point here?
https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/judge-death/
Also Word of Spectrum no longer seem to hold a screenshot for Halo Jones so that link is kind of bust too…
Thanks Fever – looks like a very old page that hasn’t been updated for a while. Just tidied up and fixed many of the links – thanks for that! Credited you in the credits segment.
That Eurogamer article about all the 8bit 2000Ad games was actually a totally zarjaz read for this aging Squaxx dek Thargo (as we were apparently called – I had to look it up) so thanks for that too!
Yeah, Graeme did a brilliant job with that one :)
Forwarded on an article from CPC press, Halo Jones featured and signs things were very, very wrong in the CPC camp…
Thought it’d make great addition to troubled history of….
Cheers Ross, adding now :)
Were Piranha not also looking at possiblity of a game based on 2000AD’s Ace Trucking Co comic strip as well?
Also, didn’t Alternative Software, own ALL the budget rights to ALL the games Piranha produced and were claimed to be negotiating for the Halo Jones Licence, for use on their Again Again label?
I’m not sure Ross, that’s the first i’ve heard about it. Thing was, Halo Jones got canned fairly early on before anything was really started on the C64 unfortunately, so they would have had nothing to release sadly :(
Ace were claiming C64 version would launch alongside ZX Spectrum+Amstrad CPC versions in March’88 with an Atari ST version to follow in May of that year.Given status of the C64 version, bet ST version was never started either :-(