Games That Weren't^®

Due to come out on the C64 in 1989, International Soccer Challenge was one of several games due for release by Microstyle in the 1989/90. ISC was also released on the Amiga, Atari ST and PC platforms, but the C64 version never came out – why?

The game itself seems rather odd in presentation; the viewing screen of the game is a giant stadium screen, with information dotted around it on smaller screens. While an innovative attempt to stand out from the rest of the genre, it does seem to unnecessarily limit the screen space dedicated to actual game play.

Microstyle, the company publishing the game, were the UK home of software giant Microprose, who also had an American equivalent of Microstyle, called Microplay, though I cannot find out if this label actually released anything. I have to admit to finding this a bit confusing simply because the title of the game, with the word ‘soccer’ instead of the UK and European term, ‘football’, would suggest an American company – perhaps Microprose chose the title or the name was designed to appeal more to an American market, which is where the largest market for the C64 was, after all.

Alternatively it may be simply that the game didn’t receive particularly great reviews on the other systems, and with the market leaving the 8-bit scene behind they decided to pull the plug on the C64 version. Although we have an advert with reference to a C64 version, others have no mention of the Commodore 64 so it seems the game was possibly pulled even before the release of the 16-bit versions. This could suggest they ran into difficulties with a C64 port, and decided to scrap it altogether.

Of course, all this is conjecture, there’s no real way of knowing what happened to the C64 version of International Soccer Challenge, or how fully the game was developed, unless we track down and speak to someone who worked on the game itself or with Microstyle at the time. Of the four games Microstyle did release on the C64, it seems the team working on each game was completely different, so it seems unlikely that someone who worked on one of the games, such as Rick Dangerous 2, necessarily worked on ISC. For now it’s a dead end, but we can remain hopeful that something of the game exists, it has been spotted on a list of cart games in Commodore Format again suggesting they were confident it could be made and released, its just up to us to find it – now that’s a challenge!

Did it ever get started?…

Rugby sims have always been underrepresented in the computer gaming market. Football sims have dominated Europe, while in the USA its American Football that has dominated. It doesn’t help that the rules of rugby are awkward to translate fluently to a computer whilst retaining the fast pace of the game.

Its even worse for the C64, a search of the GB64 database reveals a mere four results under ‘rugby’ out of over 18,000 entries, one of which is a management game. Compare this to World of Spectrum where from over 6,000 games around ten or so appear.

As such the possible appearance of another Rugby sim becomes quite important. The C64 has an abundance of platform games, action games and so on, but if a new Rugby game were discovered, it would increase the genre by over 20% (Nice use of statistics, eh?).

In International Rugby, a game I spent many hours playing on the Spectrum, the aim is to win the Grand Slam playing as one of the ‘Five Nations’, that is England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales or France. A major benefit is the two-player option, which I played with my brother on for many hours. Admittedly one of the easiest ways to score a try (which is the equivalent of a ‘goal’ for you soccer-heads or ‘touchdown’ for any American Football fans!) is simply to run with the ball and dodge your opponents, but it still provided hours of fun and taking kicks was always a good test of skill.

The only evidence we have for a C64 version of International Rugby, which was released on the Spectrum and later on the C64, is an advert, for the Spectrum version, that states that the C64 and Amstrad version were ‘soon to be released’. The Amstrad CPC version saw the light of day, but the Commodore version didn’t.

The main question is why did the C64 version not get released? Possibly it was due to the market the computers held. The Spectrum dominated in Europe (with Amstrad lagging behind it) while the C64 held dominance in the USA, where rugby is even less popular than football (or ‘Soccer’ as our American audience will know it!). Maybe Artic, the company behind International Rugby, felt there wasn’t enough demand for a rugby game on the C64 and shelved the game. However, if that is the case, why develop it in the first place?

According to Lemon64, the first C64 Rugby game appeared in 1988, three years after International Rugby would have been released. Certainly there would have been little or no competition from similar games then, in fact, as possibly the only rugby game on the market it would have dominance for at least three years until Codemasters’ own rugby game came onto the market.

Interestingly the rights to the Spectrum version ended up with Blue Ribbon, who re-released the Spectrum game in 1987. What has this got to do with the C64 version you ask? Well, looking at their release list on the Spectrum, they went from being prolific in 1985 to barely releasing anything in 1986 and nothing in 1987. They released far more games on the Spectrum than the C64, where their only 1986 releases were text adventures. They folded, probably in 1986 after which Blue Ribbon bought the rights to International Rugby (although bizarrely a game called World Champion Icehockey was released on the C64 in 1991 by an ‘Artic Computing Ltd.’ – was it the same company trying to make a comeback?). Is it possible that by the time International Rugby was released, they were focusing more on the larger Spectrum market in an attempt to stave off bankruptcy, and as such pulled the release of the game at the last minute?

Ultimately the game never saw the light of day, though the release of the CPC version makes me believe that the C64 version was made, but was pulled for some reason and hasn’t been heard of since. This is a real shame, as the discovery of a new rugby game would genuinely give the C64 scene something extra, as opposed to another clichéd platform game no-one really needs.

Will we ever see this long lost game?…

Another fleeting reference to an unreleased C64 game here, this time found in Zzap Issue 13 (Page 92, no less!). The text is quoted below:

It has a broadly Ultimate type look and feel, however the graphics are stronger and more detailed. The 3D is very realistic, with FULL perspective throughout. In achieving real smooth 3D animation more than 16,000(!) different sprites are generated. Movement is totally free, one can climb, pick up objects, throw objects and fire guns – using the joystick alone, and with ease.

Before you get excited at the thought of a piece of unreleased C64 software to rival anything released during its heyday, bear in mind the issue of the magazine, May, meaning it was released in April. Was this an April’s Fool Joke? The reference to 16,000 sprites seems ludicrous enough to suggest it is, but then if it is why didn’t they reveal it in the next issue?

There’s nothing much else to say about this as nothing else is known about the game. One for the archives I think, as unless someone who worked at Microclassic at the time comes forward with more information, or the reviewer of the piece can remember any information about it (I.E. Actually playing/seeing the game rather than being told about it from Microclassic) it seems like this is a total dead-end for now.

Can more be found out about this game?…

Interceptor 2160 AD was a superb sounding game which boasted 4-layer parallax scrolling Defender/Choplifter/Falcon Patrol/Sanxion style action.

Produced by Marc Walters, sadly nothing more than a scrolling demo was ever created, and nothing playable ever surfaced..

Marc tells GTW that it would have been very nice if he had finished it. The game was sadly abandoned due to time constraints.

This is a open and closed case really for GTW, but hopefully soon Marc will be providing the small demo which was made for the game to demonstrate the look of the game which would have been.

Coming to your screens soon…

Another quick entry due to a lack of information. Inside Trader was a stock market game which was mentioned in Commodore User September 1988 for the PC Show 88 preview.

The game came out on the PC, but not on any other format it seems. A sequel was also planned too, of which we also have an entry for.

If you know anything more about this potential development, please do get in touch.