Mission Shark was found out about thanks to HVSC recently digging out a series of tunes by Adam Gilmore. This one was titled Mission Shark, but without any credits or company names. Sadly Adam could not recall what it was for.
With a big thanks to Avram Dumitrescu, we have now established that it was a Zeppelin based game which was due in 1991 and got a release on the Atari platform.
The game is a flip screen shooter where you control an army bloke running around and shooting things. The inlay describes things better as follows:
"Mission Shark – operation code RED.
Briefing…..
Parachute into occupied territories at 04.00 hours …. Identify and gain access to enemy’s high security HQ …. Confront aggressive forces and eliminate any potential opposition….. Retrieve movement information from high security areas.
Destroy main holding zones … Retreat…. Helicopter liaison for base return.
Intelligence…. Sources acknowledge that enemy defence units are prepared for imminent agent infiltration….."
So there we have it… but who were behind the C64 version (The same as the Atari maybe?) and why did it never get a release?… What happened?
It’s still very early days, so we need your help. Do you know anything about the C64 conversion?…
Well, Andy Roberts does – as he confirms he was behind the C64 graphics. So there is a game, but confusingly Andy mentions that the game was a Operation Wolf clone. The game was being developed by a Scottish developed named Kevin Mackintosh and Andy was helping do all the graphics. However, after producing a quick loading screen and some game graphics, Andy heard no more about the game, never got paid and that was that. He is hopeful that he still has all the graphics, so some day GTW hopes to be able to show these. More details from Andy about the game can be read in Creator Speaks.
As for the game itself, we do not know what happened, but hope now to find Kevin to dig deeper on this game… Getting there slowly!
Do you know any more?…
Contributions: Jazzcat, Adam Gilmore, Avram Dumitrescu, Andy Roberts
Supporting content
Available downloads
Creator speaks
Andy Roberts speaks to GTW about Mission Shark...
"Due to the fact that I was a rabid Zzap! fanboy (and avid contributor to their tips sexction), I spent many an hour on the phone with Paul Rand, who later left and went to work for Zeppelin as their Development Manager. Having always been an aspiring artist, but with no real skills to speak of, I contacted Paulin 1990 to see if there was any work in the offing.
The project which came up was Mission Shark; the game was being coded by a Scottish guy calle Kevin Mackintosh, a really nice guy with an incredibly thick accent. I remember talking with him at length about the game and the graphics he required, and completely getting the wrong end of the stick...!
Essentially, Mission Shark was an Operation Thunderbolt clone, with enemies that ranged from single-sprite soldiers to multi-sprite tanks. After submitting the first batch of graphics, Paul Rand came back to me and said that the backgrounds had to scroll; thus, it was back to the drawing board to revamp the background graphics.
Subsequently, Paul contacted me again to ask where the loading screen was; there was no specification or written contract, so I had no option but to knock up a loading screen in a day or risk not getting paid for the work (a rather feeble 200 quid, if memory serves correctly).
I've no idea what happened to Mission Shark after that point; I certainly never received payment from Zeppelin for my work, and shortly after, Paul Rand left the company.
I dare say there are sprites, backgrounds, and possibly the loading screen on a disk somewhere - but my recollection is that the graphics were shockingly poor."
Andy Roberts.
