I’m not completely sure why we haven’t looked into this one before, but it was flagged up recently on the Lemon 64 forum about if a UK release of Victory Road ever existed.
So did it? Well between 1987 and 1989, Imagine Software advertised the game as being released for the C64, Amiga, ST, Spectrum and Amstrad platforms. Certainly all the other platforms got a release, including the ZX Spectrum version.
The C64 version however never seemed to get a review in any of the magazines. Although i’m sure I have seen a write up in the likes of CU or CCI on the C64 version, I could not find the said review – and am wondering if I have in fact just got mixed up with the Amstrad review in an issue of CVG? If anyone knows of a C64 review in any of the UK magazines, please let us know!
Interestingly, but nothing uncommon, but Victory Road did see release in the US by the infamous Quicksilver company who did the very poor Ikari Warrior ports, seemingly by the same developers. This was back in 1987 though, which suggests that it is likely that Imagine had their own UK version in development.
It is early days yet – but we began asking those at Ocean Software if they can recall anything of the development and if they really did intend to just re-release the US version. So far, no recollections at all.
Ross Sillifant found a snippet from CU (see scans) which suggests that Ocean had cancelled the C64 version. It almost suggests they had two versions cancelled, but they are most likely referring to producing a playable game, as the US version was terrible. So who was behind the C64 version?
In 2017, we recovered what seems to be a loading screen from the game which was produced by David Bradley. It was found by Dean Hickingbottom, but he couldn’t recall where it came from. It seems that Video Images may have been in discussions to handle the UK conversion of the game at some stage.
More soon as we find out!
Contributions: Lemon64 (Forum post on game), World of Spectrum (Scans), Mort (Scans), Ross Sillifant, Dean Hickingbottom, Martin/Stadium64
Supporting content
Available downloads
Gallery
Update history
- 17/12/17 – Potential loading screen found
- 24/06/14 – Catalogue added thanks to mt153
- 22/06/14 – News snippet scan added thanks to Ross Sillifant
More images if you are interesed to add:
-http://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=45725&sid=4eeff4d3337172b5818e23042cc8ba69
-http://theoceanexperience.co.uk/ downloable Ocean/Imagine catalogs from 1987 to 1990 citing Victory Road
Thanks! Added the catalog and updated :)
:-) Check your email, sent you mag scan from C.U on this one (and few others).Looks like there were 2 attempts to code a playable version.Both failed.