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Ambermoon

Last updated: by fgasking

1993 Thalion

Platform: Atari ST and PC (DOS)

Amberstar was a great RPG title released on the Commodore Amiga, Atari ST and PC back in 1992 by Thalion, and was to be part of a trilogy that was never to be. However, a sequel was created at least in the shape of Ambermoon, and released for the Commodore Amiga in 1993, but not two other platforms that we are about to explore.

Just as an aside, there was an unofficial third game in the form of Albion, which was being developed as a sequel to Ambermoon at Thalion, before it closed its doors and the work was transferred over to Blue Byte.

ambermoon dos5

Though back to Ambermoon for our next entry, where there was planned to be not only an Amiga version, but PC DOS and Atari ST editions at one stage. Interestingly, in the December 1991 issue of Power Play magazine in Germany, they talk about the new Amberstar game due to be released that Christmas. Continue reading →

Posted in Atari ST, PC, Reviews | 7 Comments

International Karate

Last updated: by fgasking

2017 Eric Hilaire

Platform: Commodore Vic 20

Our next VIC-20 entry is sadly one only announced in recent years as a new development. A conversion of System 3’s classic one-on-one fighter International Karate.

Started in 2017 by Eric Hilaire and announced on the Vic 20 Denial forums, the conversion would require an 1024KB Ultimem cartridge to be able to run and hold around 186 large software sprites and features.

There would be up to two players with joysticks via the use of the Protovision 4 player interface.

The sprites were stored as data, with 4 copies of each of the sprites 2 pixels-shifted and with their corresponding masks. The sprite data would also take up 300kb unpacked.

Eric posted some screenshots of his progress, and also an early video – and it was looking pretty good overall.

It isn’t sure how the music would have been handled exactly, but we suspect there would have been a conversion of Rob Hubbard’s famous music. The graphics would be ported from the C64 and tidied up at a later date too. The video above shows a very early set of placeholder graphics.

Unfortunately, Eric decided to cancel the development in 2020 after losing motivation on the project, due mostly to comments about the choice of requiring Ultimem to run the game.

Eric was asked about releasing remains of the development, but doesn’t wish to do so. It is hoped that he may decide to return to the project some day.

Sometimes we need to be more mindful of what a privilege it is to still see new VIC 20 games being produced today, no matter the hardware requirements.

With thanks to Fabrizio Bartoloni for flagging up.

Gallery

Posted in Reviews, Vic 20 | Leave a comment

Wing Star

Last updated: by fgasking

1994 TBA Software

Platform: Acorn Archimedes

Wing Star was the start of a new journey for developer Martin Piper, though he didn’t quite know it at the time. As you might well guess, the game was heavily inspired by the recent release of Star Fox (Star Wing in some places) on the Super Nintendo in 1992.

wing star2

Owner of an Archimedes, Martin and his childhood friend Alan Peters, decided to see if they could make something similar on the platform and started to create a tech demo in late 1992. It wasn’t planned to be a full on clone of Star Fox, which of course would have resulted in all kinds of legal issues. Continue reading →

Posted in Archimedes, Reviews | 1 Comment

Early screens Robocop, Predator, R-Type

Last updated: by fgasking

A few quick early screens that have been spotted by Martin Inter recently, in particular for the C64 conversions of Robocop, Predator and R-Type in Zzap Italia.

Predator and R-Type are quite small oddities, but for Robocop, in the Zzap Italia review was a factory level with a very different looking background with different colours and also doors not present in the final game:

robocopv1

With Predator, there are some early screens with slightly different graphics and no score panel at all: Continue reading →

Posted in Commodore 64, GTW64 news, Prototype, Unused materials | Leave a comment

Thank you!

Last updated: by fgasking

Just a quick post to say thank you to the contributor today who passed on some information regarding some C64 titles. They didn’t leave a proper email/name for credit, so hence this post.

Most appreciated, and I’ll update the relevant pages + add new content sometime next week.

Posted in GTW64 news, News | Leave a comment

Early screens from XCOM

Last updated: by fgasking

Platforms: Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft XBOX 360, PC and Mac

Released eventually in 2013 as The Bureau: XCOM Declassified, the game was a long and troubled development overall, having started way back in 2006.

xcom5

GTW staff member Ross Sillifant dug out some screens from a GamesTM magazine article which shows a few screens during the transition phase over from XCOM to The Bureau: XCOM Declassified, where the game moved from a first person shooter to a more tactical-based game. Continue reading →

Posted in iOS, PC, PlayStation 3, Prototype, Xbox 360 | Leave a comment

Platoon early differences (C64)

Last updated: by fgasking

Platoon was a superb movie tie-in game from Ocean Software back in 1988 with some excellent varied levels that captured the essence of the movie.

Thanks to contributor Martin Inter, here are some slightly earlier Commodore 64 screens which show some differences to the final game.

platv1 1

Firstly we have a very different and early score panel for the tunnel section in the game, followed by another level that shows “Stamina” and “Bullets” as text instead of “Morale” and “Ammo” like in the final game. Continue reading →

Posted in Commodore 64, GTW64 news, Prototype | 3 Comments