THE

GAME CONSOLE
encyclopedia
 DaddaRuleKonge
This PDF/book is made by a nonnative with bad grammar skills
who is also borderline computer illiterate. Thus, this PDF is made
by someone who has most likely less knowledge on any of the sub-
ject matter found between these pages than the person reading this
right now (that’s you :)). Don’t take any information (or grammar
spelling) found here as correct before checking other sources.
Then why do I try to make something I have almost no knowledge
about? Because I like to learn about different video games and their
systems.
If you are happy with this PDF/book, then please look at some of
the web-sites on the “Reference Guide” page.
If you are annoyed, or the owner of some of the content i took,
send an email to me: sennep@hotmail.com.
Similar books/PDF`s in the same format are books on NES, SNES,
PSX, SMS, N64,etc.
http://daddarulekonge.itch.io/
You won’t find anything original in these books/PDFs as everything
is sourced from other places—either from web-pages or magazines.

NoCopyright © 2022 by DaddaRuleKonge

All rights are NOT reserved. EVERY part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any
means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the
publisher. I do not own anything in this book. You use part of this publication on your OWN RISK though, since places in this book
may have a copyright by the original owner.
 CONTENT
Reference Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Commodore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Page Break-Down . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Commodore TV GAME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Commodore TV GAME 2000K . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Commodore TV GAME 3000H . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Commodore MAX Machine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Commodore MAX Machine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Technical specifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Games List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

C64 Game System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Commodore 64 Games System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Technical specifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Unreleased Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
C64CGS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Games List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

CDTV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Commodore CDTV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Technical specifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
CD-ROM Titles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Unreleased Titles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Hardware & Accessories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
Bundles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
CDTV Prototypes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314
CDTV-II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
Wonder TV A6000 / A6060 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
Games List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324

Amiga CD32 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333

Amiga . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
Persons of Interest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338
Amiga Chip Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340
Amiga CD32 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342
Technical specifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344
Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
CD-ROM Titles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 568
Unreleased Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 599
Hombrew Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 661
Hardware & Accessories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 685
Bundles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 708
Region Variants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 711
CD32 After-market Variations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 712
Games List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 724

Commodore
Emulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 730
After Market Consoles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 732
Commodore Computers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 736
Amiga Computers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 742
index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 752
 Reference Guide
These are web-sites that I have used a lot for pictures/screenshots and much
of the information. If I have sources other than Wikipedia on a game descrip-
tion, then I have tried to credit it at the bottom of the text.
I can recommend all of these websites, as they are very informative and fun
to look through. If you are the owner of one of these sites and want something
removed from this book/PDF, then please send me an e-mail and i will make
the necessary change to your wish.

mayhem64
“All about the C64 - articles, scans, reviews and
especially cartridges!”
• Used for some pictures and rarity scores.
A great webiste detailing every C64 and C64GS
cartridges along with a rarity score. Great place
if you are collecting carts for the systems, or
interested in the C64 in general.
http://www.mayhem64.co.uk/
Lemon 64
“Lemon is all about Commodore 64!
This is your one stop site with anything about every-
thing regarding the popular Commodore 64 computer”
• Used for pictures and information.
A large site with a lot of information on C64
games, among other interesting things.
https://www.lemon64.com/

Games That Weren’t

Moby Games
“MobyGames is the oldest, largest and most accurate
video game database for games of every platform
spanning 1979-2022”
• Used for some pictures and information.
A good site for text and pictures on most of the
commercially released games.
http://www.mobygames.com/
“Covering unreleased and cancelled video games,
plus prototypes and early versions of games on a
variety of consoles and computers”
• Used for some pictures and information.
A great place with lots of articles and informa-
tion on games that were cancelled, or changed
into something else before release.
https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/

6 • Reference Guide
 CDTV Land
“Welcome to CDTV Land! This website is all about
Commodore’s interactive multimedia player called
CDTV, that was released in 1991” CD32 Allianz
“Welcome To Tomorrow”
• Used for a source of information mostly for
the pages regarding hardware. • Used for some of the cover images and
information regarding different software.
A very detailed and informative site on the inter-
nals of the CDTV and its hardware, with large German site with detailed information and pic-
pictures and pretty web design. Recommended to tures on Amiga CD32 and CDTV software.
browse through, even if you don’t like the CDTV. http://www.cd32-allianz.de/
https://cdtvland.com

Big Book of Amiga Hardware

“Probably the largest Amiga hardware reference on Amiga Hardware Database
the net!”
“A data collection about the Amiga computer
• Used for some of the information regarding and its expansions”
hardware.
• Used for some of the information regarding
Great site with tons of pictures and information hardware.
on Amiga hardware, accessories, systems, etc.
Gigantic site with detailed information and pic-
https://bigbookofamigahardware.com tures on Amiga hardware.
http://amiga.resource.cx/

AmigaJay
“Creating Commodore CD32/CDTV Discs, amongst
other retro gaming stuff!”
Stone Oakvalley Studios
• Found his CDTV PDF when I was near “One Crazy Multi Talent”
completion on this PDF. Used his PDF for
fact checking and some of the information. Creator of SOASC=, which includes MP3
recordings of C64 music tracks using authen-
UK guy (I think) who also makes PDFs/books tic SID sound chips. Other projects includes
in the same vein as this, but by a person who scanned computer magazines, original music,
understand grammar and with knowledge of the movies, and a lot of other nostalgia evoking feel-
systems he writes about. He also writes the stuff ings.
himself (and not some shoddy copypast shit). His
https://www.stone-oakvalley-studios.com/
stuff can freely be found at archive.org. Easily
recommended.
https://ko-fi.com/amigajay

Reference Guide • 7
 Antstream Arcade
“Antstream Arcade is the world’s first FREE retro
games streaming platform with over a thousand care-
fully curated games to choose from.
With one account across multiple devices (from gam-
ing consoles to phones and tablets), take on friends
or foes in our exclusively coded challenges or try
your hat at our casual esports tournaments. It’s your
choice whether you dip in, or go deep!”
Antstream Arcade is a ‘freemium’ cloud gaming
service developed and operated by Antstream Ltd.
It places a heavy emphasis on ‘80s-era arcade and
non-PC computer games for the Commodore 64,
Amiga, and Spectrum ZX. The platform has over
1100 licensed retro games across an array of retro
consoles with regular titles being added, usually
weekly.
All games are hosted locally on their
servers and streamed via their client to the end
user through Microsoft Azure servicing multi-
ple locations around the world. The majority of
games have global leaderboards allowing users
to compare their best scores with other players
around the world.
A unique feature of Antstream Arcade is
the addition of custom challenges this adds differ-
ent mini games and expands on the core mechan-
ics of each original title.
Antstream was founded in 2013 by CEO Ste-
ve Cottam after the platform was crowdfund-
ed through a Kickstarter campaign and raised
£70,301.
Originally Antstream was a paid service
with a £9.99 / $9.99 monthly charge however
they transitioned across to an ad funded freemium
model. The premium ad-free membership costs
$39.99 a year, or $7.99/month (2022).
Antstream is available across a variety of devices
mainly Mac, PC, Android tablet, mobile devices,
Nvidia Shield, Amazon Fire Stick, Epic Games
Store and Steam.
pcmag.com gave the platform a score of 3/5 and
wrote in their closing argument; “To get the most
out of Antstream Arcade, you need a soft spot
for ‘80s-era arcade and non-PC (Amiga, C64,
and Spectrum ZX, not DOS or Apple) computer
games”.
(ed—not an ad, nor a recommendation)
https://www.antstream.com/
8 • Reference Guide
Indie Retro News
“The best gaming website for Indie and Retro Gam-
ing News. Amstrad CPC, C64 and ZX Spectrum to the
latest Free Indie PC Releases we’ve got it all!”
• Used for some information.
Fun and informative articles about old and new
games and hardware.
https://www.indieretronews.com
Amiga history guide
“The complete history of the Amiga from 1980 to the
present...”
• Used for some information.
A website with a large amount of information
and pictures of the Amiga series.
http://www.bambi-amiga.co.uk/amigahistory/index.html
These are links to sites that archives
video game magazines:
- outofprintarchive
http://outofprintarchive.com/magazine_catalogue_UK.html
- digitpress
http://www.digitpress.com/library/magazines/
- retromags
https://www.retromags.com/magazines/
- Internet Archive
https://archive.org/details/magazine_rack
- chebucto
http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/~ab443/mags.html
- Retro CDN
https://retrocdn.net/Category:Shared_magazine_scans
- Magazines from the Past
https://magazinesfromthepast.fandom.com/wiki/
Category:Database_Publications_magazine
- RetroAction
http://retroactionmagazine.com/retrolinks/videogaming-
magazine-preservation/
- Classic Computer Magazine Archive
https://www.atarimagazines.com/
magazine article;
Australian Commodore & Amiga Review Vol.12 #9 (sep. 1995);
Surfing
By Adrian De Luca
• The Internet, a practically infi-
nite resource of information, still
continues to defy all predictions of
its growth rate, with an estimated
4,851,873 host computers con-
nected to it, compared with only
2,476,641 at the same time last
year. Researchers believe the Inter-
net is growing by 24% per quarter.
What does all this mean, I hear you
ask?
Well, a whole lot more Ami-
ga Web pages to surf through of
course - according to these statis-
tics, the number of World Wide
Web pages double every 57 days!
The Amiga has always enjoyed
much support on the Internet - just
look at Aminet, the largest Amiga
software repository in the world,
which now boasts over 10,000 ac-
cesses by Amiga users every day.
And since the sale of the Amiga
to Escom, WWW pages in support
of the Commodore buyout have
been popping up everywhere.
These cover
all aspects of the
takeover and make
available all the juicy
information - transcripts
of press conferences, rumours,
pictures and user opinions.
If you’ve not already guessed,
I spend a lot of my free time (and
non-free time) surfing the informa-
tion rollercoaster and searching for
the latest and greatest Amiga stop-
ping points available on the net.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve
compiled a list of WWW sites
which every new Amiga Internet
surfer should check out.
The Amiga Home Page
http://www.omnipresence.com/
amiga.html (CLOSED)
The home of the Amiga on the
Internet. The Amiga Home Page
provides a jumping off point for an
abundance of information on our
lovable machine.
You can find things like detailed
descriptions of the Amiga hard-
ware, a complete history of how
the Amiga was born, the low-down
on all the latest software releases,
examples of the Amiga at work
(SeaQuest, Babylon 5), links to
all the greatest software archives,
links to plenty of Amiga support-
ing companies, Amiga related user
groups, newsletters and BBS’s all
around the world, and more!
Aminet
http://ftp.wustl.edu/~aminet
New site; http://aminet.net/
No Amigoid can go past the
greatest Amiga Internet phenom-
enon ever, Aminet!
Most if not all new Amiga free-
ly distributable software makes
its first stop at Aminet, the largest
Amiga software repository in the
world.
Aminet holds better than three
and a half gigabytes of software,
and it’s very neatly organised into
categories so you won’t have a
hard time finding what you’re after.
If you get stuck, there’s an ex-
cellent search facility to query its
large database of files. Aminet’s
RECENT page is updated every
week with all the latest uploads,
and you can even have your own
personal new uploads page that
simply tells you what’s new since
you last looked.
For all the latest in shareware,
Aminet is your one stop shop!
magazine article • 9
 The Amiga Web Directory
http://www.prairienet/org/ community/clubs
/cycug/amiga.html (CLOSED)
This is a comprehensive guide to Amiga resources
on the Internet and can be directly compared to The
Amiga Home Page. It’s run by the Urbana Commo-
dore Users Group in Mexico, and is constantly up-
dated with all the latest ESCOM news and links to
all the new Amiga Web sites popping up on the net.
The Amiga Web Directory covers almost every
aspect of the Amiga - online magazines, ESCOM
press conference transcripts, retailers and devel-
opers, frequently asked questions (FAQs), latest
hardware reviews, links to major software archives,
Amiga newsgroups, telenet to Internet bulletin
boards and links to the more exotic Amiga Web
pages on the net.

If you ever need to find anything about hardware,

software, retailers or developers, this site will point
you in the right direction.

Amiga Mosaic
http://www.omnipresence. com/amosaic/2.0/ (CLOSED)
Amiga Mosaic, the one and only World Wide Web
browser available for the Amiga, has an amazing site
filled with everything you need to know about the
software, from general discussion groups through to
snazzy screenshots.
Amiga Mosaic is currently in version 2.0, Beta 1,
and has been dramatically upgraded from previous re-
leases.
It now boasts a much easier to use interface, support
for forms, background masking and an improved hot-
lists; it’s a more robust and reliable program all round.
I have used 2.0 for these reviews, and found it to be

10 • magazine article

much more stable than previous re-
leases.
I believe it could now finally be-
gin to compete with the PC’s Net-
Scape!
This page contains complete in-
stallation instructions, access to the
software archive, access to copies
of the AMosaic Digest Newsletter,
full of details to join the mailing
lists, a list of developers and com-
prehensive FAQs.
NEWTek
http://www.newtek.com
Newtek have a Web site too,
supporting their Video Toaster vid-
eo boards and their ever popular
raytracing software, LightWave.
There’s example images, update
and third party software and com-
plete US price lists.
Scala
http://www.scala.com/scala/
Welcome.html
For all you multimedia buffs,
SCALA have only recently set up
a WWW Home Page providing
lots of information on their popular
products.
SCALA have a whole heap of
data on their Multimedia, Info-
Channel and Interactive TV soft-
ware lines. The page also contains
news, press releases, and a thor-
ough and probably not interesting
corporate background.
Although this page is not as
spectacular as I would have
thought, I’ll be curious to see what
SCALA come up with in the fol-
lowing months.
If you’re after a peek at the lat-
est multimedia software, or are
thinking of upgrading your exist-
ing package, pay SCALA’s home
page a visit.
Amiga Report
Online Magazine
http:///ramiga.cts.com:80/amigareport/
New site; https://www.amigareport.com/
Over the last couple of months
there’s been an explosion of elec-
tronic Amiga magazines floating
around on the net for techies, hard-
core gamers, CD32 users and ordi-
nary users, but none is more suc-
cessful than Amiga Report.
Amiga Report has been provid-
ing up-to-the-minute information
on the Commodore buyout proc-
ess, with transcripts of everything
that was said at the Commodore
auction and the ESCOM press con-
ferences. Now that the saga is over,
Amiga Report continues to provide
the latest news to the Amiga com-
munity.
Amiga Report is put together
by a very serious bunch of young
journalists from the U.S. and Can-
ada, and it contains hardware and
software reviews, FTP announce-
ments, latest ESCOM news and
occasionally the transcripts of any
special IRC conferences held on
#amiga channel.
The page contains all the back
issues, and details on how you can
get onto the Amiga Report mailing
list and have the magazine sent to
you automatically.
Amiga Mailing Lists
http://www.iam.com/amiga/
lists.html (CLOSED)
If you really want to keep tabs
on all the latest information on
new products or services and can’t
be bothered searching for the info
yourself, then subscribe to mailing
lists and let the information come
to you!
This site contains details of mail-
ing lists of some popular hardware
and software products and serv-
ices like Aminet, Parnet, Imag-
ine, Linux, AmiTCP, Blitz Basic,
AMOS, PGP and heaps more!
The author of this site also pro-
vides some precautionary tips on
mailing lists for beginners. Unfor-
tunately, you can’t automatically
subscribe to the mailing lists, but
there are all the necessary details
on how to do it.
Catch all my favourite Amiga
sites on my own Amiga Home
Page:
http://yallara.cs.rmit.edu.au/~s940
7327/AmigaPage.html (CLOSED)
Happy Webbing!
•
magazine article • 11
 text from Wikipedia;
Commodore International (other names include
Commodore International Limited and Commo-
dore Business Machines) was an American home
computer and electronics manufacturer founded
by Jack Tramiel. Commodore International (CI),
along with its subsidiary Commodore Business
Machines (CBM), was a significant participant in
the development of the home personal computer
industry in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s. The
company developed and marketed the world’s
best-selling computer, the Commodore 64, and its
Amiga computer line. With quarterly sales end-
ing 1983 of $49 million (equivalent to $109 mil-
lion in 2020), Commodore was one of the world’s
largest personal computer manufacturers.
Commodore co-founders Jack Tramiel and Man-
fred Kapp met in the early 1950s while both em-
ployed by the Ace Typewriter Repair Company
in New York City. In 1954, they formed a part-
nership to sell used and reconditioned typewrit-
ers and used their profits to purchase the Singer
Typewriter Company.
In 1958 Tramiel started importing port-
able typewriters manufactured by a Czechoslo-
vakian company. Tramiel and Kapp incorporated
Commodore Portable Typewriter, Ltd. in Toronto
to sell the typewriters. Commodore funded its op-
erations through factoring over its first two years,
but faced a continual cash crunch. To bolster the
company’s financial condition, Tramiel and Kapp
Irving Gould
Jack Tramiel
12 • Commodore
sold a portion of the company to Atlantic Accept-
ance Corporation, one of Canada’s largest financ-
ing companies, and Atlantic President C. Powell
Morgan became chairman of Commodore. In
1962, the company went public on the Montreal
Stock Exchange, under the name of Commodore
Business Machines (Canada), Ltd.
With the financial backing of Atlantic
Acceptance, Commodore expanded rapidly in
the early 1960s. It purchased a factory in West
Germany to manufacture its own typewriters, be-
gan distributing office furniture for a Canadian
manufacturer, and sold Pearlsoud radio and ster-
eo equipment.
In 1965, Atlantic Acceptance collapsed
when it failed to make a routine payment. A sub-
sequent investigation by a royal commission re-
vealed a massive fraud scheme in which the com-
pany falsified financial records to acquire loans
funneled into a web of subsidiaries in which C.
Powell Morgan held a personal stake. Morgan
then either pocketed the money or invested it in
a series of unsuccessful ventures. Commodore
was one of the Atlantic subsidiaries directly im-
plicated in this scheme, but the commission was
unable to find any evidence of wrongdoing on the
part of Tramiel or Kapp despite heavy suspicion.
Nevertheless, the scandal left Commodore in a
bad financial position because it had borrowed
heavily from Atlantic to purchase Wilson, and the
Manfred Kapp
loan was called in. Due to the fi- monochrome monitor, and tape re-
nancial scandal, Tramiel could corder for program and data stor-
only secure a bridge loan by paying age, to produce the Commodore
interest well above the prime rate PET (Personal Electronic Trans-
and putting the German factory up actor). From PET’s 1977 debut,
as collateral. To extricate himself, Commodore would be a computer
Tramiel worked with a financier company.
named Irving Gould, who brokered Commodore had been
a deal to sell Wilson Stationers to reorganized the year before into
an American company. Commo- Commodore International, Ltd.,
dore now owed Gould money and moving its financial headquarters
still did not have sufficient capital to the Bahamas and its opera-
to meet its payments, so Tramiel tional headquarters to West Ches-
sold 17.9% of the company to Chuck Peddle ter, Pennsylvania, near the MOS
Gould in 1966 for $500,000. As part of the deal, Technology site. The operational headquarters,
Gould became the new chairman of the company. where research and development of new prod-
In the late 1960s Commodore started sell- ucts occurred, retained the name Commodore
ing electronic calculators produced by companies Business Machines, Inc.
like Casio under the Commodore brand name. By 1980, Commodore was one of the
In 1969, Commodore began manufacturing its three largest microcomputer companies and the
own electronic calculators. Commodore soon had largest in the Common Market. The company had
a profitable calculator line and was one of the lost its early domestic-market sales leadership,
more popular brands in the early 1970s, produc- however; by mid-1981 its US market share was
ing both consumer as well as scientific/program- less than 5%, and US computer magazines rarely
mable calculators. However, in 1975, Texas In- discussed Commodore products. BYTE stated of
struments, the main supplier of calculator parts, the business computer market that “the lack of
entered the market directly and put out a line of a marketing strategy by Commodore, as well as
machines priced at less than Commodore’s cost its past nonchalant attitude toward the encour-
for the parts. Commodore obtained an infusion of agement and development of good software, has
cash from Gould, which Tramiel used beginning hurt its credibility, especially in comparison to
in 1976 to purchase several second-source chip the other systems on the market”.
suppliers, including MOS Technology, Inc., in or- Commodore reemphasized the US mar-
der to assure his supply. He agreed to buy MOS, ket with the VIC-20. The PET computer line was
which was having troubles of its own, only on the used primarily in schools and did not compete
condition that its chip designer Chuck Peddle join
Commodore directly as head of engineering.
Through the 1970s, Commodore also pro-
duced numerous peripherals and consumer elec-
tronic products such as the Chessmate, a chess
computer based around a MOS 6504 chip, re-
leased in 1978.
Chuck Peddle convinced Tramiel that calculators
were already a dead end and that they should turn
their attention to home computers. Peddle pack-
aged his single-board computer design in a metal
case, initially with a keyboard using calculator
keys, later with a full-travel QWERTY keyboard,
Commodore PET 2001 (1977)

Commodore • 13
 well in the home setting where graphics and
sound were important. This was addressed with
the VIC-20 in 1981, which became the first com-
puter to ship more than one million units. A total
of 2.5 million units were sold over the machine’s
lifetime.
In 1982, Commodore introduced the
Commodore 64 as the successor to the VIC-20.
Thanks to a well-designed set of chips designed
by MOS Technology, the Commodore 64 (C64)
possessed remarkable sound and graphics for its
time and is often credited with starting the com-
puter demo scene.
In 1983, Tramiel decided to focus on mar-
ket share and cut the price of the VIC-20 and C64
dramatically, starting what would be called the
“home computer war”. TI responded by cutting
prices on its TI-99/4A, which had been introduced
in 1981. Soon there was an all-out price war in-
volving Commodore, TI, Atari, and practically
every vendor other than Apple Computer. By the
end of this conflict, Commodore had shipped
somewhere around 22 million C64s, making the
C64 the best selling computer of all time.
At the June 1983 Consumer Electronics
Show, Commodore lowered the retail price of
the C64 even more, and stores sold it for as lit-
tle as $199. At one point the company was sell-
ing as many computers as the rest of the industry
combined. Its prices for the VIC-20 and 64 were
$50 lower than Atari’s prices for the 600XL and
800XL. Commodore’s strategy was to, accord-
ing to a spokesman, devote 50% of its efforts to
the under-$500 market, 30% on the $500–1000
market, and 20% on the over-$1,000 market. Its
vertical integration and Tramiel’s focus on cost
control helped Commodore do well during the
price war, with $1 billion in 1983 sales. By early
1984, Synapse Software—the largest provider of
third-party Atari 8-bit software—received 65% of
sales from the Commodore market, and Commo-
dore sold almost three times as many computers
as Atari that year.
Commodore by early 1984 was the most success-
ful home computer company, with more than $1
billion in annual revenue and more than $100
million in net income while competitors had large
losses. The company’s revenue in the fourth cal-
endar quarter of 1983 of $425 million more than
doubled the $176 million of a year earlier. Al-
though Creative Computing compared the com-
pany to “a well-armed battleship [which] rules
the micro waves” and threatened to destroy rivals
like Atari and Coleco, Commodore’s board of di-
rectors were as impacted as anyone else by the
price spiral and decided they wanted out. An in-
ternal power struggle resulted; in January 1984,
Tramiel resigned due to intense disagreement
with the chairman of the board, Irving Gould.
Gould replaced Tramiel with Marshall F. Smith,
a steel executive who had no experience with
computers or consumer marketing. Tramiel’s
departure at the moment of Commodore’s great-
est financial success surprised the industry; he
founded a new company, Tramel Technology
(spelled differently so people would pronounce
it correctly), and hired away a number of Com-
modore engineers to begin work on a next-gener-
ation computer design.
Now it was left to the remaining Commo-
dore management to salvage the company’s for-
tunes and plan for the future. It did so by buying a
small startup company called Amiga Corporation
in August 1984, for $25 million which became a
subsidiary of Commodore, called Commodore-
Amiga, Inc. Commodore brought this new 32-

14 • Commodore
bit computer design (initially codenamed “Lor- and only the Apple Macintosh would survive the
raine”, later dubbed the Amiga 1000) to market in industry-wide shift to Microsoft Windows run-
the fall of 1985 for $1,295. ning on PC clones.
But Tramiel had beaten Commodore to
Adam Osborne stated in April 1981 that “the
the punch. His design was 95% completed by
microcomputer industry abounds with horror
June. In July 1984 he bought the consumer side of
stories describing the way Commodore treats its
Atari Inc. from Warner Communications which
dealers and its customers.” Many in the industry
allowed him to strike back and release the Atari
believed rumors in late 1983 that Commodore
ST earlier in 1985 for about $800. The Amiga
would discontinue the C64 despite its great suc-
chipset was already demonstrated at the CES in
cess because they disliked the company’s busi-
1984, however the Atari ST was ready for retail-
ness practices, including poor treatment of deal-
ers sooner.
ers and introducing new computers incompatible
As more execs and researchers left Com-
with existing ones. One dealer said “It’s too un-
modore to join up with Tramiel’s new company
settling to be one of their dealers and not know
Atari Corp., Commodore followed by filing law-
where you stand with them.” After Tramiel’s
suits against four former engineers for theft of
departure, another journalist wrote that he “had
trade secrets in late July. This was intended, in
never been able to establish very good relations
effect, to bar Tramiel from releasing his new com-
with computer dealers accused Commodore of
puter.
treating them as harshly as if they were suppli-
Throughout the life of the ST and Amiga
ers or competitors, and as a result, many have
platforms, a ferocious Atari-Commodore rivalry
become disenchanted with Commodore and
raged. While this rivalry was in many ways a
dropped the product line”. However, upon the
holdover from the days when the C64 had first
1987 introduction of the Amiga 2000, Commo-
challenged the Atari 800 (among others) in a se-
dore retreated from its earlier strategy of selling
ries of scathing television commercials, the events
its computers to discount outlets and toy stores,
leading to the launch of the ST and Amiga only
and now favored authorized dealers. Software
served to further alienate fans of each computer,
developers also disliked the company, with one
who fought vitriolic holy wars on the question of
stating that “Dealing with Commodore was like
which platform was superior. This was reflected
dealing with Attila the Hun.”
in sales numbers for the two platforms until the
Tramiel’s successor Smith left the com-
release of the Amiga 500 in 1987, which led the
pany in 1986, as did Smith’s successor Thomas
Amiga sales to exceed the ST by about 1.5 to 1,
Rattigan in 1987 after a failed boardroom coup.
despite reaching the market later. However, the
Commodore faced the problem, when market-
battle was in vain, as neither platform captured
ing the Amiga, of still being seen as the compa-
a significant share of the world computer market
ny that made cheap computers like the C64 and
VIC; the C64 remained the company’s best seller
but its technology was aging. By the late 1980s,
the personal computer market had become domi-
nated by the IBM PC and Apple Macintosh plat-
forms and Commodore’s marketing efforts for
the Amiga were less successful in breaking the
new computer into this now-established market
than its promotions for the 8-bit line had been in
making Commodore the home computer leader.
The company put effort into developing and pro-
moting consumer products that would not be in
demand for years, such as an Amiga 500-based
Atari 1040 ST (1986)

Commodore • 15
 HTPC called CDTV. As early as 1986, the main-
stream press was predicting Commodore’s de-
mise, and in 1990 Computer Gaming World wrote
of its “abysmal record of customer and technical
support in the past”.
Commodore failed to update the Amiga
to keep pace as the PC platform advanced. CBM
continued selling the Amiga 2000 with 7.14 MHz
68000 CPUs, even though the Amiga 3000 with
its 25 MHz 68030 was on the market. Apple by
this time was using the 68040 and had relegated
the 68000 to its lowest end model. The 68000 was
used in the Sega Genesis, one of the leading game
consoles of the era, PCs fitted with high-color
VGA graphics cards and SoundBlaster (or com-
patible) sound cards had caught up with the Ami-
ga’s performance and Commodore began to fade
from the consumer market. Although the Amiga
was originally conceived as a gaming machine,
Commodore had always emphasized the Amiga’s
potential for professional applications. But the
Amiga’s high-performance sound and graphics
were irrelevant for most of the day’s MS-DOS-
based routine business word-processing and data-
processing requirements, and the machine could
not successfully compete with PCs in a business
market that was rapidly undergoing commodi-
tization. Commodore introduced a range of PC
compatible systems designed by its German divi-
sion, and while the Commodore name was better
known in the US than some of its competition, the
systems’ price and specs were only average.
In 1992, the Amiga 600 replaced the
A500 as a cost-reduced design. It was released
with fewer features than the A500, but for a high-
er price. David Pleasance, managing director of
Commodore UK, described the A600 as a “com-
plete and utter screw-up”.
In 1992, Commodore released the Amiga
1200 and Amiga 4000 computers, which featured
an improved graphics chipset, the AGA. But the
advent of PC games using 3D graphics, and in-
compatible with the AGA design, such as Doom
and Wolfenstein 3D signified the end of Amiga as
a gaming platform, due to mismanagement.
In 1993, the “make or break” system,
according to Pleasance, was a 32-bit CD-ROM-
based game console called the Amiga CD32, but
16 • Commodore
it was not sufficiently profitable to put Commo-
dore back in the black. This was not a univer-
sal opinion at Commodore with hardware expert
Rainer Benda who worked for Commodore Ger-
many in Frankfurt stating ‘The CD32 was a year
late for Commodore.
By 1994, only the operations in Canada,
Germany, and the United Kingdom were still
profitable. Commodore announced voluntary
bankruptcy liquidation on May 6, 1994, causing
the board of directors to “authorize the trans-
fer of its assets to trustees for the benefit of its
creditors”, according to an official statement.
With Commodore International having reported
a $8.2 million quarterly loss in the US, hopes
were expressed that the UK and European divi-
sions might be able to continue trading and even
survive the demise of the parent company, with
a management buyout considered a possibility.
Other possibilities included the sale of profitable
parts of the company to other parties, with Philips
and Samsung considered “likely choices”.
The company’s computer systems, especially the
C64 and Amiga series, retain a cult following
decades after its demise.
Excerpt from Byte Magazine, August 1994;
“Commodore’s high point was the Amiga 1000.
The Amiga was so far ahead of its time that al-
most nobody—including Commodore’s market-
ing department—could fully articulate what it
was all about. Today, it’s obvious the Amiga was
the first multimedia computer, but in those days it
was derided as a game machine because few peo-
ple grasped the importance of advanced graph-
ics, sound, and video. Nine years later, vendors
are still struggling to make systems that work like
1985 Amigas.”
Amiga 1000 (1985)
Following its liquidation, Commodore’s former
assets went their separate ways, with none of the
descendant companies repeating Commodore’s
early success. Both Commodore and Amiga prod-
uct lines were produced in the 21st century, but
separately with Amiga, Inc. being its own compa-
ny and Commodore computers briefly being pro-
duced by Commodore USA, an unrelated Flori-
da-based company that licensed the brand name.
Other companies develop operating systems and
manufacture computers for both Commodore and
Amiga brands as well as software.
Commodore UK and Commodore BV
(Netherlands) were the subsidiaries that survived
the bankruptcy but failed to place a bid to buy
out the rest of the operation, or at least the former
parent company. Commodore UK and Commo-
dore BV stayed in business by selling old inven-
tory and making computer speakers and some
other types of computer peripherals. Commodore
BV dissolved in early 1995, leaving Commodore
UK left to make a bid. However, Commodore
UK withdrew its bid at the start of the auction
process after several larger companies, including
Gateway Computers and Dell, became interested,
primarily for Commodore’s 47 patents relating to
the Amiga. The only companies who entered bids
were Dell and Escom. The successful bidder was
German PC conglomerate Escom on April 22,
1995. Commodore UK went into liquidation on
August 30, 1995.
In 1995 Escom paid $14 million for the
assets of Commodore International. It separat-
ed the Commodore and Amiga operations into
separate divisions and quickly started using the
Commodore brand name on a line of PCs sold in
Europe. However, it soon started losing money
due to over-expansion, went bankrupt on July 15,
1996, and was liquidated.
In September 1997, the Commodore
brand name was acquired by Dutch computer
maker Tulip Computers.
In July 2004, Tulip announced a new
series of products using the Commodore name:
fPET, a USB Flash drive; mPET, an MP3 Player
and digital recorder; eVIC, a music player. Also,
it licensed the Commodore trademark and Chick-
en Lips logo to the producers of the C64 DTV,
a single-chip implementation of the C64 compu-
ter with 30 built-in games.
In late 2004, Tulip sold the Commodore
trademarks to Yeahronimo Media Ventures for
€22 million. Yeahronimo Media Ventures re-
named itself to Commodore International Cor-
poration and started an operation intended to
relaunch the Commodore brand. The company
launched its Gravel line of products: personal
multimedia players, with the hope the Commo-
dore brand would help them take off. The Gravel
was never a success and was discontinued. On
June 24, 2009, CIC renamed itself to Reunite In-
vestments.
The Commodore Semiconductor Group
(formerly MOS Technology) was bought by its
former management and in 1995, resumed op-
erations under the name GMT Microelectronics,
utilizing a troubled facility in Norristown, Penn-
sylvania that Commodore had closed in 1992.
By 1999 it had $21 million in revenues and 183
employees. However, in 2001 the United States
Environmental Protection Agency shut the plant
down. GMT ceased operations and was liquidat-
ed.
Ownership of the remaining assets of
Commodore International, including the copy-
rights and patents, and the Amiga trademarks,
passed from Escom to U.S. PC clone maker
Gateway 2000 in 1997, who retained the patents
and sold the copyrights and trademarks, together
with a license to use the patents, to Amiga, Inc.,
a Washington company founded, among others,
by former Gateway subcontractors Bill McEwen
and Fleecy Moss in 2000. In 2003, Amiga, Inc.
transferred its rights over past and future versions
of the Amiga OS to Itec, LLC, later acquired by
KMOS, Inc., a Delaware company. In 2005,
KMOS changed its corporate name to Amiga,
Inc. The Commodore/Amiga copyrights were
later sold to Cloanto. AmigaOS (as well as spin-
offs MorphOS and AROS) is still maintained
and updated. Several companies produce related
hardware and software today.
Commodore • 17
 GLOSSARY
These pages contains a glossary of names and
obsolete computer terms some people may be
unfamiliar with.
Kickstart ROM
Kickstart is the boot-
strap firmware of
the Amiga comput-
ers. Its purpose is to
initialize the Amiga
hardware and core
components of Ami-
gaOS and then at-
tempt to boot from a bootable volume, such as a
floppy disk. Most Amiga models were shipped
with the Kickstart firmware stored on ROM
chips.
Upon start-up or reset the Kickstart performs
a number of diagnostic and system checks and
then initializes the Amiga chipset and some
core OS components. It will then check for con-
nected boot devices and attempt to boot from
the one with the highest boot priority. If no boot
device is present a screen will be displayed ask-
ing the user to insert a boot disk—typically a
floppy disk.
The Commodore CDTV featured additional
firmware ROMs which are not technically part
of the Amiga Kickstart. The CDTV’s original
firmware ROMs must be upgraded in order to
install a Kickstart version later than 1.3.
Workbench
Workbench is the desktop environment and
graphical file manager of AmigaOS developed
by Commodore International for their Amiga
line of computers. Workbench provides the user
with a graphical interface to work with file sys-
tems and launch applications. It uses a work-
bench metaphor (in place of the more common
desktop metaphor) for representing file system
organisation.
Confusingly, “Workbench” was also the
name originally given to the entire Amiga oper-
ating system up until version 3.1. From release
3.5 the operating system was renamed “Ami-
gaOS” and subsequently “Workbench” refers to
the native file manager only.
The desktop (Workbench) uses the following
representations: drawers (instead of folders)
for directories, tools for executable programs,
projects for data files, and a trash can as a folder
intended to contain deleted files. These repre-
sentations may be considered somewhat unu-
sual by a modern user, but at the time there were
no commonly accepted metaphors and Com-
modore chose to use different idioms from their
competitors (Apple
had already pursued
legal action to pre-
vent other software
companies from of-
fering graphical user
interfaces similar to Workbench 1.0

its own).
Workbench was
CD+G shipped with all
Amiga models from
CD+G, CD-G or CD+Graphics, are
Commodore.
CDs that can include low-resolu-
1985 Workbench 1.0
tion graphics alongside the audio data. These Workbench 2.0
1990 Workbench 2.0
discs were often used for karaoke machines.
1992 Workbench 3.0
The CDTV and Phillip’s CD-i had CD+G com-
1994 Amiga OS 3.1
patible CD-ROM.
1999 Amiga OS 3.5
The CD+EG is a similar format that
2000 Amiga OS 3.9
allows for better graphics, but has very rarely
2006 Amiga OS 4.0
been implemented in releases.
Workbench 4.0

18 • Glossary
Hold-And-Modify
Hold-And-Modify, usually ab-
breviated as HAM, is a display
mode of the Amiga computer. It
uses a highly unusual technique
to express the color of pixels,
allowing many more colors to
appear on screen than would
otherwise be possible. HAM
mode was commonly used to
display digitized photographs
or video frames, bitmap art and
occasionally animation. At the
time of the Amiga’s launch in
1985, this near-photorealistic
display was unprecedented for
a home computer and it was
widely used to demonstrate the
Amiga’s graphical capability.
However, HAM has significant
technical limitations which
prevent it from being used as a
general purpose display mode.
With the release of AGA in
1992, the original HAM mode
was renamed “HAM6”, and a
new “HAM8” mode was in-
troduced. With AGA, instead
of 4 bits per color component,
the Amiga now had up to 8 bits
per color component, resulting
in 16,777,216 possible colors
(24-bit color space).
HAM is unique to the Amiga
and its distinct chipsets. To al-
low direct rendering of legacy
images encoded in HAM for-
mat software-
based HAM
emulators have
been devel-
oped which do
not require the
original display
hardware.
Left: Original full color image
Right: Amiga HAM 4096 color image
Caddy
In computer hardware, a caddy
refers to a container used to
hold some medium, such as a
CD-ROM. Its functionality is
similar to that of the 3.5” flop-
py disk’s jacket.
Early CD-ROMs, such as the
CDTV, often used a caddy.
While caddies have become
obsolete, some websites still
sell them, although they have
become quite
expensive.
PC booter
PC booter refers to a self-boot-
ing disk which is a floppy disk
for home or personal comput-
ers that loads directly into a
standalone application when
the system is turned on, by-
passing the standard operating
system. This was common in
the late 1970s to early 1990s,
with video games being the
type of application most com-
monly distributed using this
technique.
The term PC booter is
also used, primarily in refer-
ence to self-booting software
for IBM PC compatibles. The
term “PC booter” was not con-
temporary to when self-booting
games were being released and
was introduced later.
Data disks
Data disks for Amiga sys-
tems is the collective term for
a software expansion pack.
For games, a data disk could
include additional maps, or
levels. These disks were often
given away with magazines, or
found on message boards.
Datasette
The datassette (or datasette)
was Commodore’s name for a
modified cassette tape recorder
for use as a data medium; a da-
ta-cassette recorder.
Clip Art
Clip art is a form of electronic
graphic art that consists of sim-
ple illustrations as opposed to
photographic images.
Homebrew
Homebrew, when applied to
video games, refers to games
produced by hobbyists for pro-
prietary hardware platforms
that are not typically user-pro-
grammable, primarily video
game consoles. But the word
homebrew are also used as a
non-professional developer for
a system intended to be user-
programmable, though, the
corect term is actually hobbyist
(rather than a homebrew devel-
oper).
note;
I use the incorrect term fre-
quently in this book when
adressing a hobbyist developer.
Glossary • 19
 Games
This is a PDF of every game released (probably not every game though. ‘New’, often obscure, titles
are still found to this day) for the different console/computer hybrids developed by Commodore. The
consoles and it’s pages are listed chronological (when they were released).
Commodore TV GAME (1976-77)
Commodore MAX Machine (1982)
C64 Game System (1990)
CDTV (1991)
Amiga CD32 (1993)

The C64GS is compatible with the huge library of games released on cartridges originally for the C64
computer (though some are not usable, since a keyboard is required to start the game). These are not
included in this book/PDF. Only games released specifically for the console listed here.

Page Break-Down Classic Board Games

This is a break-down on what the ‘main’ Developer Merit
pages (the games) in this PDF consist of. Publisher Merit
Release date 1991
Genre Board
A. Info
Mode 1-2 Players
This is the Info box. You won’t find any-
thing original in this book/PDF as every- A Classic Board Games includes video
thing is sourced from other places—either game conversions of three different
from web-pages or magazines. board games; Chess, Checkers and
I mainly used Wikipedia or mo- Backgammon.
bygames.com for help on information
C
about many of the individual games. I
used different sources for different con- B
soles as a guide (such as hol.abime.net
for the CD32 console) and would only
include information on developer/pub-
lisher if the site listed it. Publishers are
often listed on other sites, like mobyg-
ames, wikipedia, etc., but this could be
wrong information, as games were often D
released by different publishers on dif-
ferent platforms.

B. Title Screen
This is the title screen from the game. I
mainly used lemonamiga.com and mobyg-
ames for help on the pictures. If a screen-
shot from another system is used instead,
then a text under them is written, e.g. “PC-
98”, “MSX”, etc.
E Other Releases
F Amiga 1990

20 • Page Break-Down
C. Screenshot
This is a random screenshot from the game. I mainly used lemonamiga.com
and mobygames for help on the pictures. If a screenshot of another system is
used, then a text under them is written.
D. Cover Art
This feature the cover art from the box the game came in. Different releases
often featured different cover art, such as ‘regular’ release versus ‘budget’
release, or games released in another region. They are chosen at random (no
set rule that, say, only cover art from games released in North America are
featured here).
Some games featured in this PDF includes an image of the game (car-
tridge, CD, etc.), while some don’t. Sometimes an image was not found, but
mostly they were not included because they would not fit the ‘content box’, or
would be out of place.
If a game were released without a box, and only released loose, or with
only a manual, or I am not able to find an image of it online, then either cover
art from another system is used (with text under the image stating what system
the cover belongs to) or only the game itself (floppy, cassette, cartridge, CD,
etc.) is used. Some titles does not include cover art if no image was found for
it.
E. Other Releases
This box includes information on what other systems a particular game were
released for. Games are often multi-platform releases and have versions of the
same game on different and incompatible consoles and computers.
I have used mobygames as a source when listing the names of the dif-
ferent console versions. The release date is also sourced from mobygames,
which can be unreliable. Different version can also be missing from this list.
F. Links
A link that may have additional content on a game, or subject, are sometimes
included next to the console name in the ‘Other Releases’ text box.
This PDF (if you’re reading the paper version, disregard this entry)
also includes links to other sites online when clicked. These links may ‘die’
and stop working at some point. The links can contain downloadable files or
links to different websites.
I have not vetted many of these links and, as such, can not guaranty
your safety. But I believe they should all be safe and not contain any harmful
files. Please take precautions and use safety when clicking on these links.
The links for games are either linked to a storefront where you can buy
a downloadable version of the game, or physical purchasable games, but most
links to free downloadable versions.
If a game can be freely downloaded from a site, a link is provided.
These links are either from a site that owns the game, or from when a game
is ‘abandoned’. Abandoned, or Abandonware, are games that are in public
domain. I may have included a wrong link (which would download, as some
would call it, an illegal file—a file that have a copyright connected to it), but I
think most a legal downloads.

Page Break-Down • 21
 Steam
This links to the Steam store front where you can buy a digital
copy of the game. This is a trusted site and games can (almost)
always be downloaded without fear of being infected with harmful pro-
grams. You will need a Steam account to be able to play the games
purchased through Steam.
Steam is a video game digital distribution service and storefront by
Valve. The service is the largest digital distribution platform for PC
gaming, estimated around 75% of the market share in 2013. By 2017,
users purchasing games through Steam totaled approximately $4.3 bil-
lion, representing at least 18% of global PC game sales according to
Steam Spy. By 2021, the service had over 34,000 games with over 132
million monthly active users.
The initial revenue split for sales on Steam is 70/30, meaning
Steam takes 30% of sales and the remaining 70% goes to the developer.
This split is further adjusted to 75/25 once a game has made over $10
million. And again to 80/20 when the game makes over $50 million.
Games listed on Steam will often go ‘on sale’ and can be bought
for a reduced price. Some games can also include additional content, or
support for different platforms (i.e. Linux, Macintosh, etc.).

GoG.Com
This links to the GOG.com store front where you can buy a digit-
al copy of the game. This is a trusted site and games can (almost)
always be downloaded without fear of being infected with harmful pro-
grams. This purchase platform are often the preferred site for purchas-
ing downloadable games because of GoG’s good developer support and
their DRM-free (DRM is a way to protect copyrights for digital media,
which can sometimes fail, hindering the user to start the program or run
it correctly) video games.
GOG.com (formerly Good Old Games) is a digital distribution plat-
form for video games and films. CD Projekt was founded by Marcin
Iwiński and Michał Kiciński in 1994 for the purposes to trying to bring
legitimate sales of foreign game titles into Poland, knowing they would
have no easy way to compete against pirated copies. They would ob-
tain import rights from foreign publishers, and where possible, provide
in-game localization for text and voice lines, typically through reverse
engineering to decompile the game’s code.
GOG.com works to offer older games as well as new releases to
users, with the product lacking any type of digital rights management
to give consumers the ability to install the game anywhere and as many
times as they want.
GOG.com offers indie developers a typical 70/30 split on rev-
enue (meaning GOG.com takes 30% of the sale), as well as an option
for an upfront payment to the developer, with GOG.com then taking
40% of the sales until the upfront payment has been covered, reverting
the cost back to 30%.

22 • Links
MyAbandonware
This links you either to a site on the MyAbandonware website
containing links for you to click on, or the link will download the
file directly to your computer. This is a trusted site and files are most
likely safe to download, but you should still use more caution then
what you would on a site like GOG.com. MyAbandonware is a website
where you can freely download games directly without the need for an
account of any sort.
An abandonware is a game that is no longer sold by its company,
in physical stores or online. Abandonware has never been a clear cat-
egory in software, sometimes the software editor or publisher simply
closed or have been bought. Many games get out of abandonware status
now with GOG.com or Steam, and these games usually run instantly on
modern computers.
If the MyAbandonware symbol is present besides the name of
a particular console/computer, a ROM file (a file that you can use on
either an emulator on your computer, phone,etc., or a file that can be
transferred and played on the physical console, can be downloaded.
The ROM file may need configuration in the emulator you are using in
order for it to run properly.
MyAbandonware feature more than 21,100 games that can be
downloaded from the site. The site are tailored to mostly older games—
late 90’ and older—but present releases are also featured there.
Many people see MyAbandonware and similar sites as immoral,
or even illegal, but others, including me, feel that this is perfectly ac-
ceptable and legal (though some downloads may be there despite their
legal owners rejecting the present of their game on the site, and I, of
course, agree that if that is the case then it should be removed without
question. But I think the MyAbandonware people are very good at re-
moving games when owners contact them or when old games gets re-
released as paid purchases. It seems like they have removed most of the
Nintendo titles, maybe because of their re-release on Nintendo’s virtual
shop where user will have to pay to play them, but I think it is more
likely that Nintendo lawyers contacted the site with a threatening let-
ter). Also, countries have different laws placed on games found on sites
like MyAbandonware. It may actually be illegal to download them in
your country. You should do research on the laws of your own country
before clicking on a link to the MyAbandonware site.
MyAbandonware asks you in their FAQ to please buy the game
first if it is possible (not counting used physical games).

Website links
This symbol represent a clickable link button that will send you
either to a website featuring an article or reference to a game, or
it could download a file. A text is accompanied the symbol which de-
scribes what the clickable links does.
A few other symbols are also included in this PDF, which oper-
ates the same as this symbol.

Links • 23
TV G A ME
 The two Commodore TV GAME consoles is a
so-called “Pong system” — a “single-chip” video
game-system.

For more on the Commodore TV GAME,

then you would want to visit;
floodgap.com
oldcomputr.com
retroport.de

NoCopyright © 2022 by DaddaRuleKonge

All rights are NOT reserved. EVERY part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any
means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the
publisher. I do not own anything in this book. You use part of this publication on your OWN RISK though. As places in this book may
have a copyright by the original owner.
CONTENT
Commodore TV GAME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
TV GAME 2000K . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
TV GAME 3000H . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

These pages about the Commo-

dore TV Game are low on con-
tent, since the console(s) was self
contained Pong-clones where the
games were programmed into the
console. No external games were
available for these consoles.
 BARREL

FRONT GRIP
GUN STOCK

BARREL

LOCK NUT

LONG BARREL

GROOVE RAIL FRONT GRIP THUMB SCREW

28 • Commodore TV Game
 Commodore TV GAME
MOSTek, a manufacturer well known in the micro computer market, released a quite
advanced line of video game chips in 1977: the MPS-7600 series. Rather than inte-
grating the components of a complete PONG game, this type of chip contained some
circuits to display graphics and generate sound effects, all of which were driven by a
simple processor and a 512-word ROM (Read Only Memory).
Two Pong-like dedicated consoles—TV Game 2000K and TV Game 3000H—were
released after Commodore’s acquisition of the MOS technologies. The two consoles
are almost identical inside with the most obvious difference to be their difference in
appearance. It is not clear where the K or H suffixes originated from.
The consoles were only distributed in Europe. They were therefore designed in its
known variants for the PAL video standard. Individual details today indicate that even
an NTSC version, presumably for the US market, was at least thought about, if not
prepared. It is unknown how many number sold or it’s sales history.
These were also the only “Pong-systems” to use the MOSTek MPS-7601 chipset.

text from the manual

You are now the proud owner of the latest technological development
in Commodore’s microprocessor TV GAME. You can play 4 different
Games on your TV screen — with automatic on-screen scoring and real-
istic sounds. The TV GAME is for one, two or four players. Set up Tennis
or Hockey for 4 players and compare your skills.

Commodore TV Game • 29
 Commodore TV GAME 2000K
The Commodore TV Game 2000K was
black and could handle up to four knobs,
two of which could be parked in the unit’s
pockets. The other pair of paddles would
plug into ports on the back of the machine.
A turn-dial selects between the available
games, while switches select between oth-
er options.
The console includes three Pong variant
games and one target shooting game. The
games can be played with up to four play-
ers and features settings for skill level (ei-
ther side of the fence), manual or automat-
ic serve, two or four player mode (for the
pong variants) and moving or skeet shoot-
ing for the target shooting game. The target
shooting game uses a light-gun.

Football Tennis Squash Target

POWER AUTO SERVE EXPERT / AMATUER

OPTION GAME SELECTOR LEFT / RIGHT

RESET POWER
SERVE
ONLY ONLY

CONTROLLER
CONTROLLER

30 • Commodore TV Game
The text labels on both consoles are
written in English and German. The
consoles generates it’s own sound
with the built-in speaker. The devic-
es could alternatively be operated
with the included 6v (9v according
to the 3000H user manual) power
supply or with 6 X LR6 batteries.

INTERNAL COMPONENTS

LIGHT-GUN
The Commodore Light Gun (6G1530) can be as-
sembled to a rifle or used just as a pistol. The gun
consists of four parts and connected to a desig-
nated port on the console. The light-gun was avail-
able as an optional accessory, but was also sold in
a bundle with the console.

FRONT

BACK

Commodore TV Game • 31
 Commodore TV GAME 3000H
The 3000H seems to be the later unit based
on its smaller and apparently cost-reduced
form factor, but its only additional feature is
a skeet target mode on the 2-4 player op-
tion switch.
The console features two paddles (sliders),
one internal and one connected by wire
(with 2 additional optional sliders). There’s
also a port to connect the optional light-gun.
Strangely, the 2000K seems supe-
rior to the 3000H where the controllers are
concerned. Unlike the 3000H’s “sliders”,
the 2000K has more versatile and easier
to grip controllers. The 2000K controllers
are also separable from the unit, unlike the
3000H’s built-in controller.

Football Tennis Squash Target

ADDITIONAL PLAYER JACK RIFLE JACK DC 9V JACK

GAME RESET
SERVE
BAT CONTROL

GAME SELECTOR ADDITIONAL BAT CONTROLS

SERVE

POWER

SPEED HANDICAP

PLAYER/TARGET

32 • Commodore TV Game
The four games included are; Tar-
get, Tennis, Football and Squash.
They can be played with up to four
players. The console also feature a
gauge for difficulty level (handicap),
and another for the number of play-
ers and other settings.
Of all the “Pongs-on-a-chip” that
were produced by a plethora of
manufacturers (most notably Gen- INTERNAL COMPONENTS
eral Instruments, National Semicon-
ductors and Texas Instruments), the
MOS 7600 (NTSC)/7601 (PAL) mi-
crocontrollers are probably the most
interesting. Unlike other systems FRONT
like those based on the GI AY-3500,
the 7600/1 actually contains a crude
microprocessor that reads game in-
structions from an internal 512-word
ROM, and then displays screen
graphics accordingly. The graph-
ics, however, were not programma-
ble, and the weaker 3000H’s 5601
doesn’t even manage the colours
of the 2000K’s 7601. The graphics
are, in fact, generated by dedicated
circuitry and cannot be coerced into
drawing other kinds of shapes.

text from the manual

CAUTION
With prolonged playing periods of un-
interrupted game use, the playing field
lines of the TV GAME may show up as
a shadow on your TV screen. To reduce
this possibility, we recommend that you
reduce the Brightness and Contrast con-
trols on your TV set when you use the TV BACK
GAME. Also, the Game should be turned
off when not in use.

text and images from;

floodgap.com/voxodyssey.com/oldcomputr.com/

Commodore TV Game • 33
 The console/computer hybrid, Commodore MAX
Machine, was the basis for the Commodore 64, and
the first computer of the C64 hardware family.

For more on the Commodore MAX Machine,

then you would want to visit;
c64preservation.com

NoCopyright © 2022 by DaddaRuleKonge

All rights are NOT reserved. EVERY part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any
means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the
publisher. I do not own anything in this book. You use part of this publication on your OWN RISK though. As places in this book may
have a copyright by the original owner.
CONTENT
Commodore MAX Machine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Technical specifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
article; The Commodore Max Machine sales brochure (1982) . 44
Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Games List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
articles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
 Commodore MAX Machine
マックスマシーン
The Commodore MAX was released after the
Commodore VIC-20 and at the same time as the
Commodore 64. It was intended to be Commo-
dore’s low-end offering, whereas the C64 was en-
visioned as a high-end product.
The development of the Commodore MAX starts
with the VIC-20 and when Commodore Inc.
bought MOS Technology. Unable to sell their
technology in the mass market, MOS Tech ap-
proached Commodore in hopes of collaborating
with their latest 6501 microprocessor. MOS had
hoped to sell the microprocessor to console man-
ufactures, but Commodore had other plans. MOS
was also eager to sell their new SID sound chip
in hopes that partnering with Commodore would
give them an edge in the digital sound market.
The iconic sound of the MOS SID chip was con-
sidered ground breaking at the time, and video
game sound composers used it to create entire in-
game audio tracks.
Jack Tramiel, co-founder and President
of Commodore Business Machines, felt that the
microprocessor was perfect for the new line of
computers he had in mind. The chip would be the
main microprocessor for the VIC-20.
The project was given to Commodore Ja-
pan; an engineering team led by Yash Terakura
created the VIC-20 (released as VIC-1001) for
the Japanese market.
38 • Commodore MAX Machine
Yash Terakura
was the technical
director, lead engineer
and production manager for Commodore Busi-
ness Machines Japan. He developed the first
Commodore PET Computer and was responsible
for designing and engineering the hardware for
the VIC-20, MAX Machine, and Commodore 64.
In an interview with Michael Tomczyk—assist-
ent to Jack Tramiel and who played an important
role for mapping out plans of several of Com-
modore’s home computers—said that the VIC-
20 was called the VC-1001 in Japan, because the
movie 2001: A Space Odyssey was popular and
apparently 1001 is more “friendly’ in Japan than
20”. The name was chosen by Tony Tokai—
vice-president of Commodore Japan. The name
may also have been taken from NEC’s PC-8001,
the most successful Japanese computer
in those days.
The VIC-20 was also changed in
Germany, to VC-20, because the pro-
nunciation of VIC with a German ac-
cent sounds like the German expletives
“fick” or “wichsen”. The term VC was
marketed as though it were an abbre-
viation of VolksComputer (“people’s
computer,” similar to Volkswagen and
Volksempfänger).
The VIC-20 became a massive success
and was the first computer of any de-
scription to sell one million units.
Tramiel wanted to expand with the success of the the company”. When Tramiel left, a mass talent
VIC-20, but wanted a more powerful computer, exodus from Commodore occurred soon after,
while retaining a low price.
Commodore began the game console/computer
hybrid project, codenamed VICKEY, that would
use the new chips and being engineered by Yash
Terakura.
VICKEY became known as the Commo-
dore MAX Machine, which would change name
to Ultimax in the United States and Canada and
VC-10 in Germany. It was a small black machine
that Commodore hoped was going to revolution-
ize the home computing field. Tomczyk had iden-
tified the four basic killer apps for home com-
puting: word-processing, spreadsheets, database
management, and graphics. All four apps were
built into the hardware of the MAX, along with a
256 word speaking vocabulary. Commodore also
planned to fix any bugs and provide software up-
dates on a plug-in cartridge, a very elegant way to
do upgrades that addressed the problem of having
the software apps on chips in the motherboard.
Commodore were also going to provide software
programs to go with the spreadsheet, database,
etc.—templates—for such things as mortgage
calculations, some rudimentary accounting and
so on.
Jack Tramiel was voted off the board in
January 13, 1984—the season Commodore were
supposed to launch the MAX—and, according to
Tomczyk, the leadership left in place. Many of
the board members, who came mostly from out-
side the computer industry, had a pen-
chant for getting back into the business
computer market, where they thought the
price margins would be higher. That shift
in strategy from home and personal com-
puters to business computers—includ-
ing the development of PC clones sold
in Europe—was the beginning of the
end for Commodore, and it began with
the cancellation of the MAX. Tomczyk
comments that The MAX Machine “was
killed by the incoming management team
that took over when Jack Tramiel left
including Terakura and Tomczyk.
The Commodore MAX was inexpensive, but
lacked even basic features such as a user expan-
sion port. In reality, the MAX was a severely lim-
ited C64. Thus, Commodore made it their low-
end offering ($150-200), whereas the C64 was
envisioned as a high-end product ($595).
Software was loaded from plug-in car-
tridges and the unit had a membrane keyboard
and 2 KB of RAM internally and 0.5 KB of color
RAM (1024 × 4 bits). It used a television set for
a display. It used the same chipset and 6510 CPU
as the C64, the same SID sound chip, and com-
patible ROM cartridge architecture so that MAX
cartridges will work on the C64. The MAX com-
patibility mode in C64 was later frequently used
for “freezer” cartridges (such as the Action Re-
play), as a convenient way to take control of the
currently running program. It was possible to use
a tape drive for storage, but it lacked the serial
and user ports necessary to connect a disk drive,
printer, or modem.
Some productions also used a 6566 video
chip (the NTSC C64 uses the 6567; the PAL C64
uses a 6569). Regardless of video chip, both vari-
ants offered only a single graphics resolution of
320x200 and could not (easily) utilize the ‘multi-
color’ functions available on the C64.
Commodore MAX Machine • 39
 The Commodore MAX Machine was released
by Commodore International in Japan, beginning
in early 1982. It would be the predecessor to the
popular Commodore 64, even though it was re-
leased simultaneously in Japan with the Japanese
version of the C64. The C64 manual also men-
tions the machine by name, suggesting that Com-
modore intended to sell the machine internation-
ally.
Why the MAX saw only a Japanese re-
lease was answered by Tomczyk who said that
Commodore (under Tramiel) gave a large amount
of freedom to country-managers to customize and
adapt computers for their markets. He assume
that Tony Tokai in Japan saw the possibilities of
the Max and gave it a shot in his market, because
the U.S. management team had an entirely differ-
ent focus.
Although the MAX had better graphics and sound
capability, Commodore’s own VIC-20, which
sold for around the same amount, was much more
expandable, had a much larger software library,
and had a better keyboard—all of which made it
more attractive to consumers.
Even though the MAX Machine was
among the cheapest options among it’s Japanese
competitors, a computer boom had just started at
the time of its release. Tomy released the Pyuuta
(a cheaper TI-99/4A clone) and Sord released the
M5 (very close to the MSX computer) at almost
the same time as MAX Machine. Soon after, more
competitors computers also came, including the
popular MSX, which started the 1986 “Home
Computer Wars”.
Unlike the VIC-20 and C64, the MAX
never sold well and was eventually cancelled af-
ter just a few machines (some say around 50,000)
were manufactured for the Japanese market.

some text from

commodore.ca / giantbomb.com
for a more in-depth article, please read the interview:
“What was Japan To Commodore?” [link]-

40 • Commodore MAX Machine

 FRONT

BACK

INTERNAL COMPONENTS

pictures from
Michael Steil@pagetable.com

42 • Commodore MAX Machine

Technical specifications
• Built in Language: MAX BASIC (on cartridge)
• CPU: MOS 6510 (6502 compatible)
• Speed: 1 Mhz
• Co-Processor: SID (Sound chip), 6566 VIC-II (Video chip)
• RAM: 2.5 kb
• ROM: 2kb
• Text Modes: 40 x 25
• Graphic Modes: 320 x 200
• Colors: 16

Compared to the Commodore 64, the MAX Machine has a number of

hardware differences, including the following:
• Only 2 KB of RAM compared to the C64’s 64 KB
Power port RF output
• No Serial Port, meaning no external devices such as a disk drive or printer
• No User Port External PSU : Feature mono audio via a 1/8”
• No ROM is present, meaning a cartridge must be present to provide AC100v, 50/60Hz, 25VA / jack; the C64 has RF output in
functionality, DC 5v 1.2A / AC 9v 0.45A addition to composite, chroma/
• Access to the datasette is only possible with the “MAX BASIC” car- luma and mono audio via a DIN
tridge, and the maximum program size is 2 KB connector

Rear-mounted power con-
nector and power switch;
the C64 has these on the
right-hand side
Audio jack
6581 SID:
3 voices, 9 octaves Channel select switch Cassette port
Datasette connector (12 pin; I/O)
for connecting a 1530 or C2N
on/off switch standard C64 cartridge port

Joystick port
One joystick port on each side of the system;
the C64 has both joystick ports on the right-
hand side

KEYBOARD
A membrane keyboard instead of the bet-
ter full-travel keyboard.
4 function keys, 2 arrow keys.
<-, CONTROL, RUN/STOP, SHIFT LOCK,
C=, SHIFT (x2), CLR HOME, INST/DEL,
RESTORE, RETURN

Commodore MAX Machine • 43

 text / images from; The Commodore Max Machine sales brochure (1982)
INTRODUCING THE COMMODORE
MAX MACHINE.™
From here on in, all video games
can be divided into two categories:
the Commodore Max Machine and all
the others.
What’s so special about the Com-
modore Max?
IT’S A TRUE COMPUTER.
Unlike other game machines, the
Max Machine is a programmable
computer. It can be used for simple
record-keeping, filing, even for pro-
gramming your own games, all of
which can be stored in a Commodore
Datassette Recorder.
Don’t know how to program a com-
puter you say?
The Max will teach you, simply and
comprehensively.
As computers are fast becoming a
standard means of worldwide com-
munication, a working knowledge
of programming is essential. No one
offers an easier introduction to this
world than the Max.
IT’S THE ULTIMATE
GAME MACHINE.
The very same challenge, sound,
graphics, and colors that make arcade
games so popular are now available in
your home through the Commodore
Max.
As a matter of fact, you’ll find the
very same games found in the ar-
cades: GORF, OMEGA RACE, and
WIZARD OF WOR, to name just a
few names.
44 • magazine article
IT’S A MUSICAL SYNTHESIZER.
Instead of a few measly boings and
beeps, the Max contains the sound of
a $500 music synthesizer. You can
compose your own music by recreat-
ing the sounds of real musical instru-
ments (harpsichord, trumpet, piano,
drum, organ), as well as the sounds
of instruments not yet known to man-
kind. Or womankind, for that matter.
The musical capabilities of the Max
are so unique, we could write a whole
chapter on them.
ALL THIS FOR UNDER $200.
Why not?
Amazing value is typical of any
Commodore computer. The reason is
we don’t have to buy anyone else’s
technology. We develop our own,
make our own chips (the heart of a
computer), and pass the saving along
to you.
In the late 1400s, Gabriel Biel said,
“You get what you pay for.” In 1982,
Commodore says that to get it, you
don’t have to pay more.
THE WORLD OF VIDEO
GAMES IS NO LONGER FLAT.
You are about to enter another di-
mension. A dimension of 3D sight. 3D
sound. 3D color.
COMMODORE
SPRITE GRAPHICS.
With other video machines, you
plug in their cartridge which locks
you into their graphics, their colors
and their games. The Commodore
Max, however, being not only a game
machine but a true computer as well,
encourages you to use your imagina-
tion.
With Sprite graphics, the choice
is yours. Our Sprite Graphic Display
chip is what makes it possible for you
to make up your own games. Experi-
ment with 255 possible border/back-
ground color combinations.
Dazzle yourself with not 8 colors
(which the competition offer), but 16
colors which can be used simultane-
ously.
You also have the option of creat-
ing 8 independently movable display
objects.
Like the excitement of a good
crash? Collision detectors will tell
when one object hits another. You can
even control objects by moving them
in front or behind each other. (Giving
you the ability to literally run circles
around the competition.)
 THE SOUNDS OF
MUSIC SYNTHESIS.
Think the video capabilities are ex-
citing? You ain’t heard nothing yet. At
least not until you’ve hooked the Max
up to your hi-fi speakers and heard
the effects of our music synthesizer
through your own sound system.
Comparing the sound of the Max
to the competition is like comparing
a kazoo to a symphony orchestra. (If
you happen to love the kazoo, don’t
worry. We can play that as well.)
However, sound isn’t the only in-
comparable feature of the Max:
Feature MAX
Video Game Options:
Cartridge Games Yes
Joysticks
Paddles
Yes
Yes
Lightpen Yes
Home Computer Options:
Keyboard (Included) Yes
Programmable Yes
BASIC Cartridge Yes
Cassette Storage Yes
Music Synthesizer:
Sound Generator Yes
Polyphonic Tones
Music Synthesizer Cartridge
Yes
Yes
Hi-Fi Audio Output Yes
WHY YOUR KIDS WILL
START HANGING AT HOME.
“You’re wasting your money.”
“You’re in a bad crowd.”
“You’re homework is more impor-
tant.”
Let’s face it. These three popular
guilt-provoking reasons for pull-
ing kids out of arcades don’t usually
work. One look at the Commodore
Max should.
The reason are quite simple. At
worst, the Commodore game car-
tridge rival the arcade games. And, at
best, beat them flat out.
GORF, OMEGA RACE, WIZARD
OF WOR, KICK-MAN are just a few
of the exciting names you
can drop into the MAX.
(In fact, the Max Mach-
ine unfolds a whole
new world of video
challenges.)
And unlike other
video games which
tend to disappoint you when you get
them home, Commodore’s graphics
resolution, colors, sounds, challenge
level, and ease of controls (joysticks,
paddles, keyboard) are just as exciting
on the home screen.
Kids too young to reach the coin
slot on arcade games can enjoy games
like Mole Attack from our Children’s
Fun Series, and painless learning
through our Home Babysitter Series
of education games. (There’s even a
computerized “Mr. Potato Head.”)
However, judging by the number
of adults seen going in and out of the it in each Max Machine.
The music circuit consists of 3 syn-
arcades unaccompanied by children,
you obviously don’t have to be under thesizer voices with a 9-octave range
which can be used independently or in
18 to fully appreciate the Max.
conjunction with each other to create
Atari VCS Intellivision
FOR UNDER $30, YOU CAN complex sounds.
SEND YOUR KIDS TO With music cartridges, you can
Yes Yes PRIVATE SCHOOL. control the pitch, harmonic content
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
and volume to recreate a wide range
No No No yearly tuition. of musical instruments, as well as de-
No blazers or pleated skirts to press. veloping a unique sound of your own.
No No
No No No parent/teacher conferences.
No No The only perquisite for the Com- COMPOSE YOURSELF.
No No
modore Max Machine’s Children All those years of music lessons
Yes Yes Learning Series is $29.95 on down to won’t be wasted on the Max. Use a
Yes
No
No
No
$9.95 for each cartridge or cassette. music cartridge and hook the Max up
No No The education series goes from pre- to a Commodore Datassette Recorder,
school (counting and alphabet games) compose your own music on the Max
to elementary grades (math improve- keyboard, and immortalize your great
ment tutor) through high school (with works on tape. If you’d like to im-
games like the Visible Solar System). prove the sound of your composition,
So despite what most parents think, just hook the Max up to your own hi-fi
thanks to Commodore, it’s now pos- speakers. (The competition is flat by
sible to study in front of the television. comparison.)
You just have to make sure it’s tuned
in to the right program. MAX THE MUSIC TUTOR.
One of the learning cartridges avail-
FOR THE PRICE OF THE able for the Max is a Music Tutor. Just
MAX MACHINE, YOU GET plug in the Music Tutor cartridge and
THE EQUIVALENT OF A $500 accompany yourself on the Max con-
MUSIC SYNTHESIZER. sole to learn what you’re plating as
you play. The notes will appear on the
THE SOUNDS OF MUSIC. screen as the tutor takes you, step by
We’ve taken the incredible versatil- simple step, up and down the scales.
ity of a professional music synthesizer, No video game out today can touch
put it into a microchip, and included the 3D sound quality and versatility of
the Max Machine. Because no other
video game has the Max’s built-in ap-
preciation for music.
FROM GAME MACHINE TO
COMPUTER WITH A FLICK
OF THE WRIST.
Do you think any amount over $25
is too much money to spend on some-
thing just for the kids to play with?
Well, consider the fact that the
Commodore Max Machine is not a toy.
magazine article • 45
 HOW TO TELL A REAL COMPU-
TER FROM A GAME MACHINE.
Does it have a built-in keyboard?
(The Max does.) Can it speak BASIC
language of computers? (Max can.)
Can a data storage device be attached?
(Yup.) Can the user save and load pro-
grams? (Yup again.)
Next to the Max Machine, all other
video games are just video games.
NEVER TOUCHED A
COMPUTER?
MAX WILL BE GENTLE.
Learning how to program a compu-
ter is a little like learning how to drive
a stick shift: It takes a little practice.
You won’t find a more patient
teacher than the Max.
All you have to do is get a Max BA-
SIC learning cartridge. With it comes
a simple-to-follow, step-by-step guide
to BASIC language (the language
computers speak) and computer pro-
gramming.
Just flick the cartridge into the Max
console, open the manual, and let the
Max take you through the simplicities
of a home computer.
After you’ve seen how you can
control color, sound and graphics, you
can put them to practical use.
CONGRATULATIONS.
YOU’RE A COMPUTER
PROGRAMMER. NOW WHAT?
Unless you happen to run a major
corporation out of your home, you
don’t need a big-business compu-
ter. What you can use is the Max’s
capabilities to develop charts, keep
records, plan budgets and store lists.
Children can use it as a tool for do-
ing homework, or for avoiding home-
work, but making up their own games.
But let’s say you can do your own
budgets with a pencil and paper. And
your kids don’t need any help with
math. This brings up another question.
CAN ONE LIVE A FULL LIFE
WITHOUT COMPUTERS?
In Bora Bora, maybe.
But in a 9 to 5 world where we deal
with banks, airlines, ready-cash ma-
chines, credit bureaus, supermarkets,
etc., the answer is no.
The time will come, and soon,
46 • magazine article
when every bit of information we
need will be stored in computers.
To take advantage of this informa-
tion, like it or not, a knowledge of YOU CAN GET A VIDEO
computers is essential and nothing GAME FOR $150. A MUSIC
can give you a simple, more practi- SYNTHESIZER FOR $500. A
cal, more comprehensive introductory PERSONAL COMPUTER FOR
course to computers than the Max
$300. OR THE CAPABILITIES
Machine.
For this reason alone (never mind OF ALL THREE IN THE COM-
MODORE MAX MACHINE
games, or music, or record-keeping,
or pretty colors, or math homework), FOR UNDER $200.
the Max is worth every penny.
HOW MUCH IS THE MAX
MACHINE REALLY CAPABLE
OF DOING?
YOU TELL US.
We don’t define the limits of the
Max Machine. You do. That’s the real
beauty of it.
The Max is not just a game ma-
chine, not just a true computer, not
just a music synthesizer. What is it
with its cartridges is a combination of
all three, giving you one of the most
versatile home entertainment centres
you can buy.
BEYOND THE HORIZON.
Computer technology is racing
ahead and we don’t plan to allow the
Max to fall behind.
At this very moment, we’re adding
new games, designing new learning
programs and working on ideas to fur-
ther extend the versatility of the Max.
We’ve thought far enough ahead to
realize that someday you may need
a more complex computer, than the
Max, say the Commodore 64, for ex-
ample.
With that in mind, we designed the
Max cartridges to be compatible with
the Commodore 64.
text / images from; The Commodore Max Machine sales brochure (1982)
Games
ゲーム

The Japanese-only Commodore MAX Machine

was the companies first console (hybrid, since it
could also be used as a standard computer). Not
many MAX games were released for obvious rea-
son, but the games released for the console were
also compatible with the Commodore 64.
The small library of Commodore MAX games
were mostly recycled versions of the VIC-1001
games made by HAL Laboratory.
HAL Laboratory is a Japanese company that de-
veloped and ported several games to Commodore
systems, including many early VIC-1001 titles. At one point in early development, Nintendo
Although nowadays they’re a popular video game and Michael Tomczyk negotiated a contract for
company which is strongly connected to Ninten- all of their games to be ported to Commodore
do, at that time HAL Laboratory was very young computers, and they seemed, according to Tom-
and small. The company had been established czyk, pretty excited about the prospect of being
with a few associates just seven months before on home-based machines. At the last minute—
the VIC-1001 was announced. when the contract was ready to be signed—Jack
HAL Laboratory was one of very few de- Tramiel without warning told Tomczyk he was
velopers capable of programming cartridge based cancelling the deal. Tomczyk believe that his ef-
video games in the early 80s’. Only the following forts to evangelize home computing to Nintendo
companies had been supplying cartridge based had a direct impact on their decision to go into
video games at work: Atari (Atari VCS, Atari the game console market, because they weren’t
400/800), Magnavox (Odyssey2), APh Technol- really thinking about that before they were ap-
ogy (Intellivision), Kagaku Giken (Supervision proached with the licensing deal. Tomczyk be-
8000), Texas Instruments (TI-99/4A) and their lieve that Tramiel decided to snub Nintendo be-
second parties such as Milton Bradley and Scott cause Commodore had an agreement in place
Foresman. So HAL Laboratory must have been a with another prolific developer at the time, Bally-
valuable asset to Commodore even though they Midway.
were small, because they had know-how for vid-
eo game development about both hardware side
and software side. After leaving Commodore,
Yash Terakura later be-
came the president of
HAL America, the North
American branch of
Japanese company HAL
Laboratory.

some text from

commodore.ca / giantbomb.com

Commodore MAX Machine - Games • 47

 Billiards
Developer HAL Laboratory
Publisher Commodore Business Machines
Release date 1982
Genre Sports
Avenger Mode 1-2 Players

Developer HAL Laboratory

A simple pool game. The player set the
Publisher Commodore Business Machines crosshair where they want the ball to hit,
Release date 1981 choose the strength of the shot, then hit
Genre Shooter a button to shoot it.
Mode 1 Player
The game was an early release from the
Avenger is a Space Invaders variant. Japanese developer HAL Laboratory,
The player has to defend Earth from know for the Kirby and Earthbound se-
endless rows of attacking aliens. Flying ries along with other Nintendo games.
saucers can be shot for extra points.
3 different versions of the game have
been found so far. The first two are
marked V.01 and V.02 respectively on
the title screens and play identically. The
code is very similar between them, but
the offsets give away that it’s a reassem-
bly from source. The third version is a
completely different program and was
likely redone for the C64 release. It is,
however, still an Ultimax mode cartridge
and should play on a real MAX.
some text from c64preservation.com

Bowling
Developer HAL Laboratory
Publisher Commodore Business Machines
Release date 1983
Genre Sports
Mode 1 Player

Bowling plays like many of the early golf

games where the player must hit the but-
ton at the correct time to hit the pins.

Other Releases
Commodore 64 1982
VIC-20 1981

48 • Games - Commodore MAX Machine

Clowns
Developer Commodore Business Machines
Publisher Commodore BM., Bally/Midway
Release date
Genre
1982
Block breaker
Jupiter Lander
Mode 1-2 Players Developer HAL Laboratory
Publisher Commodore Business Machines
Clowns is a block breaker game first re-
Release date 1982
leased for arcades (as Circus) by Exidy Genre Action
in 1977, and distributed by Taito in Ja- Mode 1 Player
pan. The game has been copied and re-
leased under different names by numer- Jupiter Lander is a clone of Lunar Land-
ous other companies in both the United er. It was first released in 1981 for the
States and Japan. Another alternative VIC-20 and was in 1982 an early release
name of this game was Acrobat. for the new C64.
The game is a re-themed variant of At- Like Lunar Lander, players must use the
ari’s Breakout, where the player controls thruster control to land the spaceship on
a seesaw and clown in order to pop all the surface of Jupiter. Fuel consump-
the balloons in the level. For the collect- tion and speed readings are important
ed balloons the player get points. The for the player to determine how to land
jumping clown has to land exactly on the the craft. They can choose from three
free space of the seesaw board or he will landing pads of varying difficulty. Easiest
fall. After 3 falls the game is over. landing pad multiplies the player’s score
by 2, hardest by 10.
This port is a pretty accurate conversion
some text from mobygames.com
of the arcade game, with the scoring,
music, and sounds taken from the origi-
nal arcade game. 2 versions of the MAX
release have been found.

Other Releases
Commodore 64 1982
VIC-20 1981
PC-8001 1981

Other Releases
Commodore 64 1983
VIC-20 1982
Arcade 1977

Commodore MAX Machine - Games • 49

 Gorf

Gorf was originally released for the arcades in 1981 by

Midway Manufacturing, whose name was advertised
as an acronym for “Galactic Orbiting Robot Force”.
The name of the game is also Frog spelled backwards;
“Frog” was the nickname of designer Jamie Fenton dur-
ing college. Gorf was one of the first arcade machines
to feature synthesized speech via a Votrax chip. It was
also one of the first games to feature multiple screens.

Gorf is a fixed shooter in which the players take con-

trol of an unnamed starship from the Interstellar Space
Force, capable of moving freely on all directions around
the lower third of the screen, in an attempt to prevent
the Gorfian Empire from conquering Earth. Game-
play comprises four distinct missions; each mission
presents its own distinct playstyle, but the central goal
of each is to destroy all enemies.
The arcade version included a fifth level, which
was a clone of Galaxian, but because of copyright is-
sues, the level was removed from almost all versions.
Publisher Commodore,
Bally/Midway The Commodore MAX version may have only been
Release date 1983 a prototype. A copy showed up in early 2008, and al-
Genre Shooter
though the cart did have an official-looking MAX label,
there were wires sticking out of it like a prototype, and
this is the only one ever found.

Gorf was originally intended to be a tie-in with Star Trek:

The Motion Picture but after reading the film’s script,
the game designers realized that the concept would
not work as a video game;
however, the player’s ship
still resembles the Starship
Enterprise.

Other Releases
Arcade 1981
Atari 2600 1982
Atari 5200 1983
Atari 8-bit 1982
ColecoVision 1983
Commodore 64 1983
Jaguar 2006
VIC-20 1982

Commodore MAX Arcade

50 • Games - Commodore MAX Machine

Kickman
Developer Commodore Business Machines
Publisher Commodore BM., Bally/Midway
Release date 1982 Le Mans
Genre Block breaker
Mode 1 Player Developer HAL Laboratory
Publisher Commodore Business Machines
Kickman, also known as Kick, is a side Release date 1982
view game similar to Space Invaders or Genre Racing
Mode 1 Player
Arkanoid. Players control a clown on a
unicycle that has to catch, or pop, the Le Mans is a racing game played in a
balloons that fall from the rows above. bird’s eye view. The object of the game
Further on, players need to form columns is to drive as far as possible in a certain
instead of popping them. Different color time. By overtaking other racers without
balloons fall at different rates and gives causing a crash, points are added to the
different points. Pac-Man and ghosts fill score. Next to the normal track, players
in for some of the balloons after the first need to master driving on ice, in curves,
level, with differing effects. at night and on motorways. If they crash
some text from c64-wiki.com they’ll need to drive into the PIT.
There is a homebrew version of Le Mans
called Wheelchair Race, which is exact-
ly the same game, however, the graph-
ics of the cars have been swapped by
wheelchars.
some text from c64-wiki.com

Other Releases
Commodore 64 1982
Arcade 1981

C64 box art

Other Releases
Commodore 64 1983

Commodore MAX Machine - Games • 51

 Money Wars
Developer HAL Laboratory
Publisher Commodore Business Machines
Release date 1982
Genre Action
Mole Attack Mode 1-2 Players

Developer HAL Laboratory In Money Wars the player takes the

Publisher Commodore Business Machines role of a robber that has to retrieve and
Release date 1982
Genre Racing
deliver bags of money without getting
Mode 1 Player shot. The robber has to move across the
screen to grab the money bag and then
Mole Attack is one of the earliest com- return to the starting position. From the
puterized Whac-a-Mole variants. Moles top, deadly arrows are shot towards him.
pop up from nine holes, and the player The player can use two special func-
has 60 seconds to send them fleeing tions—one that increases speed and
back underground by bopping them on one that creates a force field that de-
the head with a hammer. After 60 sec- stroys arrows. These cost energy and
onds, the game ends and the score is the player is awarded bonus points for
shown. the amount of energy that is left. When
a bag of money has been delivered an-
other one appears and the game goes
on until the player has lost all three lives.
some text from mobygames.com

Other Releases
VIC-20 1981
PC-8001 1981

Other Releases
Commodore 64 1982
VIC-20 1982

52 • Games - Commodore MAX Machine

Omega Race

Omega Race is a shoot ‘em up arcade game designed

by Ron Haliburton and released in 1981 by Midway. It
is the only arcade game with vector graphics that Mid-
way created.

Set in the year 2003, the player controls an Omegan

Fighter spaceship to destroy enemy droid ships in a
rectangular “track.”

The game plays similar to Asteroids, where players

can turn the spaceship or give it a thrust by activat-
ing the rocket propulsion. Instead of asteroids play-
ers need to shoot UFOs and their mines, which gives
points. Hostile shots from enemy spaceships and ob-
stacles as well as collisions with the enemies destroy
the player ship. The game is over when all three ships
are destroyed.
In contrast to Asteroids, there are protective
shields at the border of the screen, where the ship will
bounce off. So players cannot fly further than the bor-
Publisher Commodore,
Bally/Midway
der of the screen. In the middle of the screen there is a
Release date 1982 rectangular protective zone, where the high-score and
Genre Shooter the ships that are left are displayed.

At least two different versions of the MAX release have

been found; one with a white background and one with
black.

Other Releases
Arcade 1981
Atari 2600 1983
ColecoVision 1983
Commodore 64 1982
VIC-20 1982

Commodore MAX VIC-20

some text from c64-wiki.com

Commodore MAX Machine - Games • 53

 Radar Rat Race
Developer HAL Laboratory
Publisher Commodore Business Machines
Release date 1982
Genre Action
Mode 1 Player
Pinball Spectacular
Radar Rat Race was released on car-
Developer HAL Laboratory tridge in 1981 as a launch title for the
Publisher Commodore Business Machines
VIC-20. The game is a licensed clone of
Release date 1983
Genre Block breaker Namco’s Rally-X arcade game and was
Mode 1-2 Players also released in Japan by Commodore
Japan K.K as Rally-X.
Pinball Spectacular is a single-screen
top-view game which is a cross between The player guides a mouse through a
pinball and Breakout where the player large maze. The goal is to eat all of the
control two bats on the bottom and mid- pieces of cheese, shown for the entire
dle of the screen to hit various objects maze on a radar screen, without get-
to score as many points as possible. On ting caught by a rat or bumping into a
screen there are blocks to remove, bum- stationary cat. By pressing a button, the
pers to hit and letters to hit to light up the mouse can disperse a limited amount of
word “COMMODORE”. If the ball goes magical dust which confuses the rats for
past the bottom bat then a life is lost. a few seconds. Once the round is com-
plete, the game starts again, with more
Two players are able to play with each rats and faster play.
player taking it in turns to play when the The gameplay is accompanied by
other player loses a ball. a frenetic, rhythmically altered version of
some text from mobygames.com a phrase from Three Blind Mice, which
cycles endlessly.
Computer and Video Games, although
criticizing the game’s controls and re-
petitive sound, called the Commodore
64 version “quite exciting and amusing
to play”.

Other Releases
Commodore 64 1982
VIC-20 1982

Other Releases
Commodore 64 1982
VIC-20 1981

54 • Games - Commodore MAX Machine

Road Race
Developer HAL Laboratory
Publisher Commodore Business Machines
Release date 1982
Genre Action
Mode 1 Player

Road Race is a clone of Atari’s black and

white 1976 driving game Night Driver.
Played from a 1st person perspective,
the player steers left and right as the
road and turns rapidly approach the
player. The vehicle has 4 gears, and hit-
ting the sides slows the player down.
The goal is to travel as far as possible in
99 time units.
Two versions of the MAX release have
been found. They are almost identical
apart from different engine sound.
some text from mobygames.com

Other Releases
VIC-20 1981

Commodore MAX Machine - Games • 55

 Sea Wolf
Developer Commodore Business Machines
Publisher Commodore BM., Bally/Midway
Release date 1982
Genre Shooter
Slalom Mode 1-2 Players

Developer HAL Laboratory Sea Wolf, first released by Midway for

Publisher Commodore Business Machines
Release date 1983
Genre Sports
Mode 1-2 Players
Slalom is an obvious clone of Taito’s ar-
cade game Alpine Ski.
Players control a skier who races down
a mountain. The skier can speed up by
pushing a button. Obstacles includes
trees and rocks. Points are awarded
by passing through the gates, or penal-
ized five seconds by missing them. If
the player reach the goal within the time
limit, they will advance to the next stage.
arcades in 1976, is based on an earlier
coin-operated electro-mechanical Mid-
way game, Sea Devil, itself based on
Sega’s 1966 coin-op electro-mechanical
arcade submarine simulator Periscope.
Sea Wolf was designed by Dave
Nutting and sold 10,000 arcade cabi-
nets—the highest-grossing arcade vid-
eo game of 1976 and 1977 in the United
States, and Japan’s fifth highest-gross-
ing arcade video game of 1976.
The player takes the role of command-
er of the Sea Wolf and is in charge of
sinking and destroying all enemy ships.
The Sea Wolf is armed with 4 torpedoes
which will reload after fire. The primary
targets are the small P.T. Boats which
travel quickly through the water.
some text from mobygames.com

Other Releases
Commodore 64 1983

C64 box art

Other Releases
Arcade 1976
Commodore 64 1982
VIC-20 1982

56 • Games - Commodore MAX Machine

Super Alien
Developer HAL Laboratory Speed/Bingo Math
Publisher Commodore Business Machines
Release date 1982 Developer Commodore Business Machines
Genre Action Publisher Commodore BM., Bally/Midway
Mode 1 Player Release date 1982
Genre Edutainment
Super Alien, also known as just Alien, Mode 1-2 Players
is a clone of the 1979 game Heiankyo
Alien. Speed / Bingo Math, also known as El-
ementary math / Bingo Math, is a collec-
Super Alien is a single-screen action
tion of two educational math games. The
game. The player moves through the
game helps improve skills in addition,
maze and can place traps on the floor.
subtraction, multiplication and division.
When a monster walks into it, it becomes
Points is awarded based on speed and
trapped and the player can kill it by filling
math problems get harder the higher the
in the hole. Each defeated monster re-
current score. Difficulty adjusts automat-
wards points while touching them results
ically to player skill.
in a life loss. The maze is shown from
the usual top-down perspective, but the some text from mobygames.com
characters have a side-view.
some text from mobygames.com

Other Releases
Bally Astrocade 1978
Commodore 64 1982
Other Releases VIC-20 1982
VIC-20 1982

Commodore MAX Machine - Games • 57

 Wizard of Wor
Developer Commodore Business Machines
Publisher Commodore BM., Bally/Midway
Release date 1982
Genre Shooter
Mode 1 Player

Wizard of Wor was originally released by

Visible Solar System
Developer Commodore Business Machines
Publisher Commodore Business Machines
Release date 1982
Genre Application
Visible Solar System is a computerised
animated presentation of our solar sys-
tem. Users can gain information about
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter
and Saturn. The planets of Uranus, Nep-
tune and Pluto are not included in the
program, thus indicating that “visible” in
the title refers to planets visible with the
naked eye.
Midway in 1980 as an arcade game.
Gameplay consists of a never-ending
series of maze-like dungeons, randomly
drawn from a large pool of pre-set de-
signs. Each dungeon has doors on ei-
ther side that warp around to the other
side (similar to Pac-Man). Players con-
trol “Worriors”, and must clear each dun-
geon of monsters.
The original arcade version may be
played by one or two players simultane-
ously. The players can cooperate to bet-
ter defend against the enemy hordes—
but shooting the other player’s Worrior
grants a large score bonus, which can
potentially encourage competitive play.
Three version of the MAX release has
been found, which consists of minor dif-
ferences.

Other Releases
Commodore 64 1982

Other Releases
Arcade 1980
Atari 2600 1982
Atari 5200 1983
Atari 8-bit 1983
Bally Astrocade 1982
Commodore 64 1983

58 • Games - Commodore MAX Machine

 MAX BASIC
Developer Commodore Business Machines
Publisher Commodore Business Machines
Release date 1982 Mini BASIC I
Genre Application
Developer Commodore Business Machines
Two BASIC cartridges was released for Publisher Commodore Business Machines
the MAX Machine. BASIC (an acronym Release date 1982
of “Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic In- Genre Application
struction Code”) is the Commodore MAX Mini BASIC I contains a cut-down BA-
and C64’s onboard programming lan- SIC V2 with 510 free bytes.
guage. The following commands are missing:
The MAX BASIC cartridge contains the ATN, CLOSE, CMD, COS, DEF, DIM,
full BASIC V2 with 2047 free bytes. EXP, FN, INPUT#, LEFT$, LOAD, LOG,
MAX BASIC will not run in software MAX ON, OPEN, PRINT#, RIGHT$, SAVE,
emulation on a real C64, but the actual SIN, SQR, TAN, USR, VAL, VERIFY and
cart probably does. The reason for this WAIT.
is that the cart itself had the 2K RAM Mini BASIC I will run on a C64 in soft-
underneath it’s ROM, so it twiddles $01 ware-MAX mode, but isn’t really useful.
constantly to accommodate this. This some text from c64-wiki.com
wouldn’t be very useful on a real C64,
anyway.
some text from c64-wiki.com

60 • Games - Commodore MAX Machine

Music Composer
Developer Commodore Business Machines
Publisher Commodore Business Machines
Release date 1982
Genre Application

This title is listed as Music Composer MultiMAX Cartridge

even though in the title screen it’s identi-
fied as Music Maker. The MultiMAX is a cartridge for the MAX
Machine developed by Rob Clarke and
some text from c64-wiki.com
Michael Pleban. It was introduced at the
Vintage Computing Festival in New Jer-
sey in April 2014. The price of a com-
plete cartridge was $29.95, although it is
sold out as of December 2020. It is also
compatible with the C64 and C128.
The MultiMAX PCB uses a 1 megabyte
EPROM (27C801) which contains all
published games and applications for
the Commodore MAX Machine. A 2 ki-
lobyte RAM chip (6116) is also installed,
as it is required for “MAX BASIC”.
After powering on the computer, a pro-
gram menu appears where the user can
select a program. The cartridge also
feature a reset button so the user can
switch between programs without need-
Music Machine ing to power cycle the computer.
Developer Commodore Business Machines some text from c64-wiki.com
Publisher Commodore Business Machines
Release date 1982
Genre Application

Music Machine allows users to produce

music on the MAX Machine’s SID chip.

Commodore MAX Machine - Games • 61

 Commodore Max Machine Games List
This is the small list of games released for the system.
The list includes the Japanese title and a checklist for collectors
(C (cart) I (info/manual) B (Box)).

Game Title Japanese Title C I B pg.

Avenger アベンジャー 48
Billiards ビリヤード 48
Bowling ボーリング 48
Clowns クラウンズ 49
Goof ゴーフ 50
Jupiter Lander ジュピター·ランダー 49
Kick Man キック·マン 51
Max Basic マックスベーシック 60
Mini Basic I ミニ·ベーシックI 60
Mole Attack モール·アタック 52
Money Wars マネーウォーズ 52
Music Composer ミュージックコンポーザー 61
Music Machine ミュージックマシン 61
Omega Race オメガ·レース 53
Pinball ピンボール 54
Radar Rat Race レーダーラットレース 54
Road Race ロード·レース 55
Slalom スラローム 56
Super Alien スーパー·エイリアン 57
Wizard of Wor ウィザード·オブ·ウォー 58

62 • Games List - Commodore MAX Machine

advert; Commodore - The Microcomputer Magazine 3; article; Your Computer (October 1982);

COMMODORE MAX MACHINE, Multi-role MAX Christmas launch

3 in 1 Computer-Game “A RETAIL-ORIENTED, games-playing
Machine-Music Synthesizer, computer” is how Commodore describes
Sure to Change the Old-Fashioned the MAX. After months of rumoured launch-
Video-Game Buying Habits of Consumers es and cancellations the machine will finally
appear in the shops around Christmas for
The Commodore MAX Machine, a revolutionary three-in-one £100. The MAX is like a skeleton Commo-
home computer-game machine-music synthesizer, was un- dore-64. It uses the same video and sound
veiled at the Summer Consumer Electronics Show (CES) at chips and has the same sprite and sound
Chicago’s McCormick Place. generator but it lacks the real keyboard of
The MAX Machine, shown in prototype at the Winter CES the 64.
under the code name ULTIMAX, drew raves for its extraordi- With only 2K RAM and no resident
nary versatility, price/performance ratio and three-dimension- Basic, the MAX will need plug-in cartridges
al-style color game graphics. Now encased in an innovative to bring out its potential. A mini-Basic is
futuristic housing, it will be sold late this year with an array of available on cartridge, which increases the
arcade games, as well as educational and musical programs. memory to 4K, but lacks arrays and trigo-
At the suggested retail price of $179.95—about the same as an nometric functions. Commodore claims
ordinary game machine—the Commodore MAX Machine is that MAX has three roles: as games ma-
certain to change consumers’ old-fashioned video-game buy- chine, music synthesiser and home com-
ing habits. puter. But probably only beginners will be
Relying on a new display chip designed by Commodore’s sub- interested in its programming possibilities.
sidiary, MOS Technology, the MAX Machine produces color
and graphics formerly available only with a highly sophisticat-
ed character generator. And because the MAX is a real compu-
ter, users do not have to rely only on pre-programmed games,
but can actually create their own games, then save them on
cassette tape for future use. Its 40 column x 25 line screen and
16 colors give the MAX great flexibility for unique and excit-
ing graphics.
Using a new Sound Interface Device, the Commodore MAX
Machine produces music and sound effects that rival many of
the best music synthesizers now available. The MAX produces
three independent voices, each with a nine-octave range, con-
tains a programmable ADSR (attack, decay, sustain, release)
generator and a programmable filter, and has variable reso-
nance. With these sophisticated features, the MAX Machine
can command astounding orchestration when it is used with a
good quality audio system.
With a BASIC language cartridge, Commodore MAX Ma-
chine users can learn the fundamental language of comput-
ing and write their own programs using simple BASIC com-
mands. MAX Machine BASIC can be translated for use with
all other Commodore systems, and is capable of handling eve-
rything from word strings to math functions. With the MAX
Machine’s nine-digit numeric accuracy and built-in math func-
tions, users can write a variety of useful programs for home
applications.
The heart of the MAX Machine system is a new microproces-
sor, the 6510—designed by Commodore’s MOS subsidiary—
to the 6502 chip—also designed by MOS—that made micro-
computing a household activity. However, the 6510 contains
additional input/output (I/O) lines to handle the processing
required by the new system.

magazine articles • 63
 Unlike the 1982 MAX Machine, the C64GS is
internally very similar to the complete C64, with
which it is compatible.

For more on the Commodore Commodore 64 Games System,

then you would want to visit;
commodoreformatarchive.com

NoCopyright © 2022 by DaddaRuleKonge

All rights are NOT reserved. EVERY part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any
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CONTENT
Commodore 64 Games System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Technical specifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Cheetah Annihilator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
article; Wicked! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
article; Sixty Four Games in One Second! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Unreleased Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
articles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
C64CGS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Games List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
 Commodore 64 Games System

The Commodore 64 Games System (often abbre-

viated C64GS) is the cartridge-based video game
console version of the Commodore 64 computer.
It was released in December 1990 by Commo-
dore into a booming console market dominated
by Nintendo and Sega.
The C64GS is basically just a repackaged Com-
modore 64 without a keyboard, port access, or
standard ROM chip. Apart from the cartridge slot
being on top, the arrangement of ports is very
similar to the C64. At the rear of the machine
there’s a composite video output for monitors and
a standard RF output. On the right side there’s the The new release date for the C65 was set
two joystick ports, power input and on/off switch. to be March 1991, but Commodore UK found the
new release date to be to late, and wanted a new
The idea for the C64GS grew from Commodore cartridge system before the end of 1990.
UK who, in 1989, wanted a C64 system that Jeff Porter and his team in the US were
could compete with the lower end console market given the new project, which became the C64GS.
(like the Sega and Nintendo) and to stay competi- Through the summer of 1990, C65 engineers
tive with the other 8-bit micro computers (like the were pulled off their work to produce the C64GS
Spectrum and Amstrad CPC range) at the same for the UK market in a very short time frame.
time. They also wanted the cassette tape format New ROM revisions, including a new display
removed from the system. Commodore’s PR screen that appeared if the GS was turned on
manager Andrew Ball is reported to have said at without a cartridge were added to the system. A
the time that tapes were the C64‘s “biggest prob- mere few months after the C64GS project were
lem. Games are now bigger, and cassettes are a first proposed, Commodore Germany’s Braun-
frustrating slow medium. They’re also unreliable schweig factory produced 20,000 units.
and a favourite format for pirates. The C2N (the
official cassette deck that came with the C64) Prior to the console’s release, Commodore had
crosses more counters to and from repair than generated a great deal of marketing hype to
they ever do being sold”. drum up interest in an already crowded market.
Commodore UK were introduced to a Zzap!64 and Your Commodore, Commodore 64
project by Commodore International. Their engi- magazines of the era, reported that Commodore
neers were in development of a cartridge based had promised “up to 100 titles before Decem-
system, which became the C65. In the late ’80s, ber”, even though December was two months
this was very different to the prototypes that sur- from the time of its writing. In reality 28 games
faced in the ’90s. It was going to have a heav-
ily marketed cartridge port and Nintendo
style controllers, as well as technology
that could link up machines for multi-
player games. It would also have com-
patibility with the C64. It had been due to
be released to developers by September
1989, but multiple chip problems meant Commodore 65
it was heavily delayed.

68 • C64GS
were produced for the console during its shelf
life—most of which were compilations of older
titles, and a majority of which were from Ocean. article ZERO magazine;
Of those 28 titles, only 9 were cartridge-exclusive
titles, the remainder being ports of older cassette- COMMODORE’S KORKER
based games. Commodore’s C64GS looks good
enough to drink in a cup of tee.
By the time of its launch, the fourth-generation of Like Amstrad, Sega and Nintendo, Commo-
16-bit consoles was underway, and consoles such dore has finally come clean about its new con-
as the Sega Mega Drive were available, along sole. Called the C64 Game System (C64GS
with well-established third-generation consoles for short), Commodore’s machine is based on
existing C64 technology. In fact, the Game Sys-
such as the Nintendo Entertainment System and
tem is simply a C64 without the keyboard.
the Sega Master System. In addition, despite be- The GS will retail at just £99.99 and come
ing a cut-down version of the Commodore 64, it with a controller and four-pack cartridge. The
was no cheaper to buy than a standard Commo- four games on the cartridge include Domark’s
dore 64 and offered no improvements in perform- Klax, Fiendish Freddy’s Big Top O’ Fun from
Mindscape, System 3’s Flimbo’s Quest and In-
ance. Also, a competing package that appeared to
ternational Soccer.
have been sold for £159.99 by Commodore itself Commodore’s new machine is 200 per cent
at the same time included a C64, two Annihila- compatible with the huge range of C64 soft-
tor joysticks, a Datasette, and two games (Night- ware. The only thing software houses have to
moves and Mindbenders). do is convert existing cartridge format. Many
software houses are keen to adopt the new car-
The C64GS was plagued with problems from tridge format and it’s expected that the majority
the outset. Firstly, despite the wealth of software of new C64 software will appear on cartridge
(the C64 has a cartridge which is compatible
already available on cartridge for C64, the lack
with the GS’s affair),
of a keyboard means that most cannot be used
with the console. This means that much of the
cartridge-based C64 software, while fundamen-
tally compatible with the C64GS, was unplay-
able. The standard C64 version of Terminator 2:
Judgment Day was designed for the console, but
was included on a cartridge that required the user
to press a key in the initial menu to access the
game, rendering it unplayable, despite the game
itself being entirely playable with joystick only 80,000 units are said to have been produced, but
on a conventional C64. less than 25% of them eventually sold. Most of
the remaining units were taken back and disas-
The console sold poorly in the UK and would sembled for parts for the C64.
soon force dealers to sell it off at ridiculously low
prices to get it out of their stockrooms (some- Today the console is highly sought after, as are
times as low as £30. Commodore promptly tried many of its games.
to introduce the GS to the Danish market in 1991, The C64GS completely derailed the C65 project,
where it had much the same effect. Commodore which was never released. Incredibly, Commo-
Deutschland GmBH was rumoured to be gearing dore went on to make a lot of the same mistakes
up to try to introduce the GS in Germany but they again with the Amiga CD32 console.
denied it from the beginning and the GS never did
appear in that country.
some text from
commodoreformatarchive.com / UK retro-gamer
for a more in-depth article,
UK retro Gamer article;“Revisting the C64GS” [link]-
commodoreformatarchive.com artice; “Commodore’s attempt at a C64 console” [link]-

C64GS • 69
 FRONT

SIDE-VIEW

BACK

INTERNAL COMPONENTS

70 • C64GS
Technical specifications
text from the manual
• CPU: 6510 IT IS MOST IMPORTANT TO
• Speed: 0.985 MHz (PAL) / 1.023 MHz (NTSC) REMEMBER THAT THE
COMMODORE 64
• Co-Processor: VIC II (Video), SID (Sound) MUST BE INACTIVE (SWITCHED OFF)
• RAM: 64 KB FOR AT LEAST 30 SECONDS
SHORTER SWITCHING INTERVALS
• ROM: 20 KB
MAY CAUSE UNDESIRED EFFECTS
• Sound: 3 voices / 6 octaves (sound output through TV)
• Graphic Modes: several, most used : 320 x 200
• Colors: 16
Cartridge Slot

Control Ports On/Off Switch Power Port

RCA Phono Socket Video/Monitor Socket

C64GS • 71

Cheetah Annihilator
The C64GS came with Cheetah Interna-
tional’s Annihilator joystick. It has a sec-
ond independent fire button, giving the
C64GS more button options. It is con-
nected between pin 7 (+5V) and 9 (PotX)
and is therefore compatible with the right
button of a Mouse 1350.
The joystick is infamous for being of hor-
rible quality and easily break.
In addition to the C64GS version, there is
also an almost identical-looking version
in which both fire buttons have the same
function. A sticker on the bottom is used
to distinguish them.
C64GS games that support the second
independent fire button includes;
Myth - History in the Making
Double Dragon (Ocean)
Last Ninja Remix
Chase HQ2
RoboCop 2
RoboCop 3
Turrican II
72 • C64GS
Review by Zzap64 Magazine #71 (Mar. 1991);
Cheetah Annihilator
Only available with C64GS (one included
free) or in a special £29.99 pack which in-
cludes one stick and the four-game GS car-
tridge - Klax, Fiendish Freddy, International
Soccer and Flimbo’s Quest).
• This cream-colored stick with red trim is
a combination of two joysticks: the grip is
from the Cheetah 125 while the compact
base comes from Cheetah’s Exterminator
stick. The standard fire-button action comes
from the trigger and thumb buttons, while the
single base button acts as the secondary fire
action. As a sticker points out, the rewired
based button obviously won’t work with soft-
ware not written for it. Currently that seems
limited to System 3 games (for picking up
usually), plus SCI (turbo), Robo II (jump))
but hopefully even tape and disk games may
support two-fire-button sticks eventually.
Four sucker feet provide a bit of desktop
stability, while the base is small enough for
comfortable handheld play if your hands are
adult-size.
1. (playing Venom Wing (Thalamus)) A short
travel and good directional control make this
pretty effective. The fire buttons have a good
feel, although unfortunately the one best
suited for building up rapid fire is the base
button, which is the secondary button most
likely used for selecting, not firing weapons.
An autofire would’ve been useful as well, but
that’s probably asking a bit much of a low-
cost stick.
2. (playing Creatures (Thalamus)) With this
type of stick a inevitable. However, the An-
nihilator performs than expected: all the di-
rections were easily accessible and it could
be trusted in all but the tightest of situations.
3. (playing Creatures (Hit Squad)) Despite
the size of the handle, there’s quite a short
travel which makes building up speed fairly
easy. The leaf-switches won’t last as long as
microswitches but it’s good for this type of
joystick.
4. (dropped from the window) Hardly a
scratch. The plastic is tough and the stick
lightweight enough to mean the only thing
likely to break are the leaf-switches, eventu-
ally.
ZZAP! Verdict: ★ ★ ★ A surprisingly good
low-cost stick.

Old computers never die - they just turn in for con-
soles! The C64 has had more facelifts than Doctor Who,
and this time it doesn’t even have a keyboard. PHIL SOUTH
went to Commodore for a look at the new beast, and speculate on the
future of the seemingly immortal games machine.
K
elly Sumner is not only
Commodore’s National Sales
Manager, but he’s also
worked for the company for over a
decade. So if anyone knows the whys
and wherefores of the C64GS, he
does. After taking a look at the new
GS in action, we settled down in his
office for a loose chat about the C64,
past and present.
Why do this to the C64? Why make
the GS in the first place?
“There’s a few reasons. The main
reason is that we want to get a ‘cra-
dle to grave’ situation. When the cus-
tomers buys a product, like a game
console, when they upgrade later we
want them to keep with Commodore.
That’s one of the reasons the Amiga
is so successful at the moment, due
to the number of 64s that we sold. It
just carries through. Another reason is
that we believe there is a market there.
We don’t think it’s as big as a lot of
people may want you to believe, but
it’s important if there’s a market there
for Commodore to have a slice of that
market. At the same time, the third
reasons is if we have a console on the
market, it waters down the market for
our competitors. So those are the main
reasons. Also we think the 64 is right
for that market. People are happy to
write for the 64, and let’s face it most
of the people who buy the 64 buy it
as a games machine. So now they’ll
have a choice: they can either have
it purely as a games machine for £60
less that the computer version, or they
can have the computer version for
educational or productivity type ap-
plications.
74 • magazine article
article; Commodore Format #1 (October 1990)
written by: Phil South;
Wicked!
Commodore nearly brought out
a console before, after all weren’t
the 64 and the Amiga both consoles
originally?
“Not really the 64. The 64 came out
of the VIC 20 which was sold as a
computer and the first 64s, which at
the time were retailing at £345 I may
add, were being used for businesses.
In fact the guys on the team still get
people who are using them as word
processors and business computers.
So it was a business/hobbyist ma-
chine, that’s how the 64 came out-
“The Amiga technology was devel-
oped by guys trying to bring the ul-
timate machine for the hobbyist mar-
ket, whether it be games or whatever.
So neither were ever really a console.
There have been rumours of an Ami-
ga console, but quite frankly, because
unlike other manufacturers we make
our own chips, we have limitations
on the number of silicon wafers we
can produce. So it makes no sense to
go into the console market with the
Amiga product at the moment. Maybe
in a couple of years time, but not at
the moment. We just couldn’t fill the
demand. But on the 64 technology it
makes sense for
us to go for a con-
sole. Because it is
a C64; apart from
one ROM there
is no difference
between the Com-
modore C64 and
the Commodore
64 Game System.
How do you see the C64GS’ chances
when it is launched?
“I think it will become the number one
product this year, depending on the
amount of product the software hous-
es can get onto the market. Mostly be-
cause of the Commodore 64 name as
it has a fantastic reputation out there.
And also we’ll be better than our
competitors because of the software
support from the major publishers in
the UK. If you look at the market:
there’s an base of 55,000 Nintendos in
the UK, there are just under 200,000
Segas, there are no Amstrad consoles
at all because they haven’t launched
the product yet! But the 64 console,
or at least machines that can take the
cartridges that the 64GS will work on,
has an installed base of 1.4 million.
Let’s not get carried away with that
figure, let’s put it in perspective. Last
year we sold 206,000 C64s, the year
before that 145,000 C64s. If you take
that with what we will sell this year,
you’re talking about a minimum, base
of 500,000-750,000 people in the UK
who can use cartridges. Now that’s
a very important number as far as a
software house is concerned. They
have limited capability for pro-
ducing titles, they’re obviously
going to look into what the user
base is. It can see there’s poten-
tial user base of 500,000 people
that will obviously sway him to
produce for the 64GS.”
There are going to be buyers
for the new games, even when
nobody has bought a console
yet?
“Yes, you look at the Amstrad...
I’m not having a go at Amstrad
at all here, by the way... they
launch their console in Sep-
tember. If I was a publisher, I
wouldn’t bring out any software for it
pre-Christmas, as most of them aren’t
going to be used until 25th Decem-
ber. So because we have this large
installed user base, people are rush-
ing to bring out software for it before
Christmas for the launch. They know
that from Day One it’s going to be a
goer. And quite a sizable one. You add
up the user base of Nintendo and Sega
and you still only add up to 250,000
units, which is half of the Commodore
64 base.”
And I imagine it doesn’t take long
to transfer games from other media
to cartridge, either?
“No, it takes a couple of days. Let’s
take Batman, for example, that could
be put on a cartridge in about two
days. Obviously you have to produce
the cartridges, which takes about 8
weeks, but the actual working model
would take two days. The advantage
to Ocean is that you can have a much
bigger Batman game on a cartridge.”
Is the capacity you can get on a car-
tridge that much bigger then?
“Yes it is, the traditional old
style cartridge is 128K. But
most people will be using 256K
cartridge, as opposed to 175K
for the Commodore disk drive.
And we ourselves are using a
512K cartridge, so there’s quite
a bit more capacity on there.
Some of the games you’re go-
ing to see before Christmas are
going to take advantage of that,
but more and more, as cartridge
technology takes off, they’ll Been there, seen it, done it. Kelly Sumner’s
be using that capacity.” twelve years at Commodore have made him con-
vinced the console’s inevitable success
Hot Game
The machine comes with four games up front
all on the one cart: Fiendish Freddy’s Big Top O’
Fun, Flimbo’s Quest, Klax and the old chestnut,
International Soccer.
At the time we spoke to Commodore they
had 46 games confirmed as being cart releases.
Commodore estimates that there will be 60-70
top games on cartridge available before Christ-
mas, and virtually hundreds next year. The rea-
soning behind the all-new games move is to give
you big incentive to get the hottest new games
on cart. There will come a time, not too far in
the future it says, when games will be cartridge
only releases and not on disk or tape at all.
So just like when disks first became
available, games will develop to
take advantage of the new format?
“Yes that’s right. They’ve also got to
give the person a reason to purchase
a cartridge over and above cassette
or disk. A cassette typically is £9.99,
whereas a cartridge is going to be
£19.99. What does the guy get extra?
I think the most important thing is
that he doesn’t have to wait 30 mins
to load a cassette, which normally he
has to on a C64. I personally would
pay that money to have instant load.
What else does he get? Like you do on
CD’s you’ll get more tracks or, in this
case, other levels. I think the major
reason people put their C64 or Spec-
trum +2 in the cupboard is not that the
products aren’t good, because they are
good. It’s just the hassle of cassettes.
The technology hasn’t changed for 8
years! I think that if I was a 64 owner
today, I would go to cartridge because
there’s a limited time you can play af-
ter you’ve done your homework and
before you go to bed. Your wasting a
quarter or even a half of your playing
time waiting for the thing to load.”
Also there’s the new technol-
ogy angle, where 64 owners look
around and see new technology,
Amigas, CD ROMs, springing up
all over and they say “Where’s
the new technology for me?
“I think cartridge is the way it’s go-
ing to go. It doesn’t do anyone any
good to have cassette based tech-
nology. It’s no good for publishers,
it’s no good for Commodore and
it’s no good for the users. The pub-
lishers loses through piracy, Com-
modore loses through returns and
the user wastes a lot of his leisure
time. I really don’t know what people
do for thirty minutes while they load
a game! Oh yes, and unlike a cassette
there’s no degradation. The cartridge
user will be able to play their game
year after year.”
It’s like a CD again, the quality of
the product doesn’t wane with use.
“I think in the market as a whole over
the next two years you’ll see cassettes
and disks disappearing completely,
and really the only media you’ll see
around will be cartridge or CD ROM.
It’s better for everyone; the capac-
ity and longevity of those formats is
much, much better.”
They are also less easy to reproduce,
as in piracy.
“We have to keep this industry strong,
and pirates are ripping us all off. I do
feel sorry for publishers, but cartridg-
es should help.”
How much longer has the 8 bit com-
puter got?
“It depends what people do with
it. I’ve worked for Commodore for
twelve years, so year on year I’ve
heard people say the 64’s only got an-
other year. And it’s still around. It’s a
good product! This Christmas is go-
ing to be another 64 Christmas, and
I think we’re going to have at least
another couple of years out of the 64.
I’m sure it will celebrate its tenth an-
niversary in style. The software guys
have now got to grips with the ma-
chine, they’re now producing great
software, and some of it is as good as
the 16 bit software you see on other
machines. So I think it’s got a few
more years yet.”
magazine article • 75
 magazine article;
SIXTY FOUR GAMES IN ONE SECOND!
The C64 Games Console is ready to roll. For
£99.99 it seems like a bargain, but what differ-
ence will it make to the games we play? We talk
to Mark Cale, head of System 3 and find he’s a
fan.
“System 3 have continued to push forward the bound-
aries of the Commodore 64 since it’s conception in
1983. With classic games like International Karate,
Last Ninja 1 & 2 and IK+ gaining international ac-
claim and sweeping numerous awards, System 3 set
the standard for 64 games.
“Having continued in this vein over the past year with
suck smash hits as Tusker and Vendetta, the superb
Myth and the totally addictive Flimbo’s Quest, the
company has further enhanced its reputation as the
leading original-product software house.
So why, when lots of companies are deserting the 64 is
System 3 producing more product than ever?
“The 64 has continued to surprise the industry with
its longevity. An excellent marketing campaign by the
American company has breathed new life into a mar-
ket where the 8-bit machines is supposedly dead. The
64 GS console goes further to support that fact. The
8-bit Commodore market is alive and kicking.
“Such is System 3’s commitment to it that we’re do-
ing something special for the new owners of this ma-
chine who weren’t around when The Last Ninja 2 was
sweeping the market. The game has been remixed and
relaunched onto the market as the greatly enhanced
Ninja Remix. Having closely analysed the market for
76 • magazine article
The Cartridge
Cartridges have two main advantages
over tape or disc system. Storage capac-
ity and speed. Being able to access vast
areas of memory instantly allows games
designers to be creative beyond the con-
fines of the 64K machine.
Sub games wildly different from the main
storyline can be inserted and accessed at
any point during play.
You don’t even have to wait for a disk to
load. All 64 console software is instantly
playable through all levels. So you can
forget having to twiddle your thumbs for
six minutes while the next level of aliens
is ported from tape. You can carry on with
the action immediately.
the past 18 months, System 3 now feels it is capa-
ble of producing 64 product comparable with console
games.
So what new features does Remix offer?
Remix now has an exciting and technically brilliant
intro sequence, the likes of which were only previ-
ously seen on console systems. State of the art anima-
tion techniques and even greater graphic content pro-
vide the new C64 owner with a whole new concept
and with a redesigned status area.
“Inevitably with such a strong back catalogue, the
company is producing versions of Myth and Vendetta
to appear alongside Remix on the console. They’ll all
be available before Christmas. “Flimbo’s Quest” is
included in the C64GS pack and the eagerly awaited
Ninja 3 will be launched on the console for Christmas
too.
Who Else?
All the major software companies producing 64
product at the moment seem to be committed to
producing cartridge games. Domark, Ocean, US
Gold and - of course - System 3 have a hefty
catalogue of forthcoming attractions.
Games
Commodore 64 has a game library of around 300
cartridges (still is a very small amount compared
to the 7000+ games in total the C64 is said to have)
that works with the C64GS (and vice versa), many
titles requires users to press a key on the keyboard
to start the game, making them effectively unplay-
able on the C64GS. These games are not included
in this book/PDF. Only games released specifically
for the console.
It was announced that there would be up to 100
games available at launch, but in the end only 28
titles were released specifically for the C64GS in
its short production run, almost all from third-party
software houses such as Ocean, and some of these
were versions of games that were previously avail-
able on tape for the Commodore 64. Many of the
games, when released, were already available on
tape for £3.99 as a budget re-release, but marked on
cartridge at £19.99.
Ocean was the C64GS’s biggest supporters, releas-
ing games on the cart format for C64 users for two
years after the console was discontinued. Some of
the earliest Ocean cartridges had a manufacturing
flaw, where the connector was placed too far back in
the cartridge case. The end result was that the car-
tridge could not be used with the standard C64 com-
puter. Members of Ocean staff had to manually drill
holes in the side of the cartridges to make them fit.
Other developers that released C64GS titles
included System 3, Domark and The Disc Compa-
ny. A number of Codemasters and MicroProse titles
were also reworked and released as compilations
for the C64GS.
Commodore never
produced or published
a single title for the
C64GS beyond the
bundled four-game
cartridge.
article; ZZAP! (November 1990)
UK CES ‘90 COMMODORE ROCKS SHOW;
FRUITFUL FORECAST
When the official briefing began, Commo-
dore UK boss Steve Franklin was quick to
boast about ‘a fantastic year’ with numer-
ous digs at Atari, who weren’t attending
the show and are losing the ST/Amiga war.
More generously Steve noted that 1,3 mil-
lion sales were expected by all computer
manufactures, a figure which indicated a re-
turn to the ‘halcyon days of the early Eight-
ies’.
Spearheading Commodore’s Xmas of-
fensive was the C64GS, being launched to-
day. Steve expected to sell 80,000 before
1991 with strong software support. As for
the C64, with its ‘educational’ component,
140,000 sales were expected—8,000 more
than last year.
The most exciting Amiga news was left
until last, namely the launch of the CDTV.
OCEAN SHOCKER
For the moment though, the C64GS is cen-
tre of excitement and Ocean are firmly be-
hind it. From now on virtually all Ocean
C64 games will be on cartridge alone. The
only exceptions are games Ocean are legally
prevented from putting to cartridges due to
agreements over producing Nintendo games
(which must be the only cartridge versions).
Cartridge-only games include SCI (Mid
November), Navy Seals (TBA), Toki (Early
December), Plotting (Early October) and
Robocop II (Early November, supposedly,
but the programmer’s left!). For the fu-
ture, Ocean have the license to write games
based on The Simpsons cartoon series,
Wings of Apache (the helicopter version of
Top Gun) and Darkman (from the maker of
Evil Dead, it features a disfigured vigilante).
The price of Ocean cartridges is a very rea-
sonable £19.99.
C64GS - Games • 77
 After the War

After The War is a side-scrolling action game in which

the player must navigate through a hostile post-apoc-
alyptic city.

Although the name of the city is not mentioned in the

game itself, both official promotional and unreleased
artwork by Luis Royo and Alfonso Azpiri suggest that it
is a post-nuclear version of New York City.

The game is structured into two parts. The first part is a

side scrolling beat ‘em up, and plays in much the same
way as other staples of the genre, such as Streets of
Rage. This first act takes place in the streets of the
city, and consists of a sequence of fights with minor
enemies and occasional bosses.
The second part is set in the tunnels and sta-
tions of the city’s underground rail transport. The game-
Developer Dinamic Software play in this section differs from the first, as the player
Publisher Dinamic Software now has the ability to shoot enemies, shifting the genre
Release date 1990
Genre Beat ‘em up
closer to a shoot ‘em up game such as Contra.
Mode 1 Player
The C64 version received a score of 4.2/10 from 41
votes from lemon64.com, where most was critical of
the difficulty.

There are numerous differences between the versions

released, depending on which system the game was
developed for. Some ports featured more complex
graphical effects. The C64 cartridge version is a port
from the earlier released tape/disk media.

Other Releases
Commodore 64 1989
Amiga 1989
Amstrad CPC 1989
Atari ST 1989
MS-DOS 1989
MSX 1989
ZX Spectrum 1989

Commodore 64 Amiga

78 • C64GS - Games
The cover artwork for After the War was created by
artist Luis Royo. At the time development began,
Spanish comic book author Alfonso Azpiri was a col-
laborator with Dinamic for the creation of the box art
for their games. Azpiri drew an initial version of the
intended cover artwork for the game. However, due
to its protracted development schedule, by the time
the game was completed Azpiri had ended his col-
laboration with Dinamic to work with software com-
pany Topo Soft. After the War was then released
with new cover art commissioned to Royo.
 Aspar GP Master A.M.C.: Astro Marine Corps
Developer Dinamic Developer Dinamic
Publisher Dinamic Publisher Dinamic
Release date 1989 Release date 1989
Genre Racing Genre Run and gun
Mode 1 Player Mode 1 Player

Aspar GP Master (also released as A.M.C.: Astro Marine Corps is a side-

Grand Prix Master) is a motorcycle rac-
ing game recreating the now-defunct
80cc world motorcycle racing champi-
onship. It was licensed around Spanish
ace Jorge Martinez ‘Aspar’, and his rac-
ing rivals including future 500cc World
Champion Alex Criville.
The game features 8 bikes to choose
from, a full practice mode as well as
qualifying and races.
The game is viewed from overhead, and
the controls are, unusually, direction
based, so to take a straight which (in the
overhead view) involves going up and to
the right, the player must push the joy-
stick in that direction.
The game was originally released for
the C64 on tape and disk as Grand Prix
Master. The cartridge version, like all
Dinamic carts, is a very rare release.
some text from mobygames.com
ways scrolling shooter in which the play-
er control a member of the Astro Marine
Corps who has to blast his way through
the various alien infested levels.
The player have three lives and each life
has an energy bar which is depleted by
contact with aliens and can be replen-
ished by picking up the ‘E’ powerup. Oth-
er powerups include three way fire and
an overhead shield. There are various
instant death hazards to avoid such as a
killer plants and a dragon.
some text from mobygames.com

disk/tape version

disk/tape version

Other Releases
Other Releases
C64 (Grand Prix Master) 1988
Amiga 1989 Commodore 64 1990
Amstrad CPC 1988 Amiga 1990
Atari ST 1988 Amstrad CPC 1989
MS-DOS 1989 Atari ST 1990
MSX 1988 MSX 1989
ZX Spectrum 1988 ZX Spectrum 1989

80 • Games - C64GS
BadLands

Badlands was originally released as a 1989 arcade

game by Atari Games. The C64 port was done by
Teque—a well known freelance group.

Badlands is set in the aftermath of a nuclear war

and races around abandoned wastelands with many
hazards. The game is a re-themed version of Atari’s
previous racing games Super Sprint and Champion-
ship Sprint with the addition of vehicular combat.

Badlands pits three cars against each other in a

three lap race around a small, single-screen circuit.
Bonuses are present in the form of wrenches which
can be traded for goods such as extra speed, extra
acceleration or better tires.
Unlike the Sprint games, Badlands expands
upon the formula, taking place in a post-apocalyp-
Developer Teque tic environment and equipping each of the players
Publisher Domark with cannons. In reality, the cannons do little except
Release date 1990 to slow cars down by repeatedly shooting at them,
Genre Vehicular combat
Mode 1-2 Players
but the shop between levels offers the possibility of
arming the car with missiles which will destroy the
target car, placing it at a severe disadvantage as a
replacement is brought onto the track, taking a few
seconds.

The game has been re-released as part of Mid-

way Arcade Treasures 3 for the PlayStation 2,
GameCube and Xbox.

Other Releases
Commodore 64 1990
Amiga 1990
Amstrad CPC 1991
Arcade 1989
Atari ST 1990
ZX Spectrum 1990

Commodore 64 Arcade

C64GS - Games • 81
 Batman

Batman (also known as Batman: The Movie) is an

action game based on the 1989 Michael Keaton film
of the same name. The Amiga version was a smash
hit at the time and boosted sales of the home compu-
ter in Christmas ‘89.

The game consists of five levels based on events

from the movie. Each stage has a time limit and a
health gauge (represented by Batman’s face turning
into the Joker’s), with Batman losing a life if he runs
out of either. The levels have varying gameplay:
The first stage is styled as a side-scroller
where Batman must fight his way through the Axis
Chemical Plant to confront Jack Napier.
In the second level, Batman drives his Batmo-
bile across Gotham City, dodging traffic and using a
grapple to turn corners at high speed.
Developer Ocean
The third level is a Mastermind-like puzzle set
Publisher Ocean
Release date 1990 in the Batcave.
Genre Action The fourth level takes place during the Joker’s
Mode 1 Player parade, in which Batman must fly the Batwing and
cut away balloons filled with poisonous gas.
The fifth and final level is styled similarly to the first.

The game, on most platforms, received positive re-

views. Computer Gaming World recommended the
Amiga version, but reported that the C64 version
was too buggy, but was well received by Commodore
Format magazine and was seen as one of the best
movie tie-in games released for the platform.

Other Releases
Commodore 64 1989
Amiga 1989
Amstrad CPC 1989
Atari ST 1989
MS-DOS 1990
MSX 1989
ZX Spectrum 1989

Commodore 64 Amiga

82 • Games - C64GS
 Battle Command Cyberball
Developer Ocean Developer Quixel
Publisher Ocean Publisher Domark
Release date 1991 Release date 1990
Genre Simulation, Action Genre Sports
Mode 1 Player Mode 1-2 Players

Battle Command is a futuristic 3D tank Cyberball: Football in the 21st Century

simulation game. It was written by Re-
altime Games and is a development of
their successful title Carrier Command.
But unlike Carrier Command which in-
corporated significant strategic ele-
ments, Battle Command is a simple ar-
cade game reminiscent of Battlezone.
The game is set in some unknown time
in the future, where armies of tanks bat-
tle for supremacy.
The player command a single “Mauler”
assault tank in a series of scenarios.
These range from a railway ambush to
escort duties and a raid on a riverside
hideout. The player may equip their tank
with a variety of weapons, the choice of
which will depend on the nature of the
mission.
was first released in arcades in 1988
by Atari Games. The game is a 7-man
American football game using robotic
avatars of different speeds, sizes, and
skill sets set in the year 2022.
Gameplay is essentially the same as
the real sport, although the ‘downs’ are
replaced by the bomb’s heat gradually
increasing towards ‘critical’. After this
it will explode and possession will be
swapped. This is prevented when the
player cross the 50-yard line, lose pos-
session or score a touchdown, in which
cases it resets to ‘cool’. Field goals and
punts are not featured.

Other Releases
Commodore 64 1990
Amiga 1990
Other Releases Amstrad CPC 1990
Arcade 1988
Commodore 64 1991 Atari ST 1990
Amiga 1990 MS-DOS 1990
Amstrad CPC 1991 Genesis 1990
Atari ST 1990 NES 1991
MS-DOS 1990 ZX Spectrum 1990
Windows 2020
ZX Spectrum 1991

84 • Games - C64GS
Chase HQ 2

Chase HQ II: Special Criminal Investigation, also

known as S.C.I.: Special Criminal Investigation, is a
1989 vehicular combat racing game originally pub-
lished by Taito for arcades. It is the sequel to the 1988
original Chase H.Q.

Three girls have been reported missing including the

mayor’s daughter, and Chase Special Investigations
has asked protagonists Tony Gibson and Det. Ray-
mond Broady of the first game to track down five ve-
hicles, mentioned in the mission briefing, who are be-
lieved to be involved in the kidnapping.

Instead of the black Porsche 928 of the first game, the

player commands a red example of the just-introduced
(at the time) Nissan 300ZX Z32 T-Top Turbo.

Developer Probe Software The gameplay is similar to Chase H.Q., but there are
Publisher Ocean a few differences. For example, cars travel in both di-
Release date 1990 rections instead of one, and some of them will catch
Genre Racing, Action
Mode 1 Player
up to the S.C.I. car and shoot at them. At least once in
every stage a helicopter does a fly by and drops gre-
nades the player can use to further damage the target
vehicle. Unlike the first game, the player is also able to
fire at offending vehicles.

The arcade version became Japan’s third highest-

grossing dedicated arcade game of 1990. The arcade
game was also a major hit in Europe, particularly the
UK where Taito shipped 1,500 units by January 1990.

Other Releases
Commodore 64 1990
Amiga 1990
Arcade 1989
Atari ST 1990
Sega Master System 1992
TurboGrafx-16 1991
Wii 2008
ZX Spectrum 1990

Commodore 64 Amiga

C64GS - Games • 85
 Double Dragon

Double Dragon was released in 1987 as a beat ‘em up

arcade game developed by Technōs Japan. It is the
first title in the Double Dragon franchise. Home ver-
sions were ported and released on a large number of
different systems.

Double Dragon introduced several additions to the

beat ‘em up formula, such as a continuous side-scroll-
ing world adding a sense of progression, two-player
cooperative gameplay, the ability to arm oneself with
an enemy’s weapon after disarming them, and the use
of cut scenes to give it a cinematic look and feel.

Set in a post-apocalyptic New York, Double Dragon is

the story of Billy and Jimmy Lee, twin brothers trained
in the fighting style of Sou-Setsu-Ken. The player takes
control of Billy as he fight his way into the turf of the
Developer Imagitec Black Warriors gang in order to rescue his girlfriend,
Publisher Ocean
Marian. In most iterations, a second player will take
Release date 1992
Genre Beat ‘em up control of Jimmy, but Ocean’s C64 release only sup-
Mode 1 Player port one player.

Billy can jump, use punches and kicks, as well weap-

ons found on the ground or from enemies.

Double Dragon were first released for the C64 by Mel-

bourne House in 1988 (released on tape, cart and
disk). It was ported by Binary Design and was heavily
criticized for its poor quality and is often considered
one of the worst commercially released C64 games
and one of the worst arcade conversions of all time.

Other Releases
C64 (Melbourne House) 1988 Lynx 1993
Amiga 1989 MSX 1990
Amstrad CPC 1988 NES 1988
Antstream 2019 Nintendo 3DS 2011
Arcade 1987 Nintendo Switch 2018
Atari 2600 1988 PlayStation 4 2015
Atari 7800 1989 Sega Master System 1988
Atari ST 1989 Wii 2008
MS-DOS 1988 Wii U 2013
Game Boy 1990 Xbox 360 2007
Game Boy Advance 2003 Xbox One 2020
Genesis 1993 ZX Spectrum 1988 Commodore 64 Commodore 64
(Melbourne House) (Ocean)

86 • Games - C64GS
 After a previous porting attempt had
led the original programmers to abandon
the team, Virgin Mastertronic handed the
task of salvaging the conversion to other-
wise well-regarded programmer pair Ash
and Dave. However, they were given only
six weeks to port the entire game, resulting
in a fatally rushed port that lacked almost
all of the gameplay elements of the arcade
game. Only two weapons are available
and backgrounds are static and the battle
with the final boss at the end is absent. The
game also featured a visible gap between
the characters’ upper and lower bodies
due to a poorly coded sprite multiplexer
routine; the instruction manual included an
apology message from the programming
team for this visual artifact.
Ocean released another C64 port of the
game two year later. The game was initial-
ly only released on cassette and disk, with
a cartridge version being released some
time later.
Arcade Amiga
Ocean’s cartridge version came on
a special 32k bank-switched cartridge to
store extra enemy types. This was also
Ocean’s last cartridge release for the C64.
It was apparently only sold at commodore
trade shows. Like many other of the C64
carts released for the C64GS this had a
very limited production run.
The Melbourne House version received a
score of 2.9/10 from 130 votes from lem-
on64.com. The Ocean release received
4.9/10 from 46 votes and has since been
met with a more positive response.
NES Sega Master System
C64GS - Games • 87
 Narco Police
Developer Iron Byte
Publisher Dinamic
Release date 1990
Genre Strategy
Guldkorn Expressen Mode 1 Player

Developer SilverRock Narco Police is set in the near future

Publisher SilverRock
Release date 1991
Genre Action
Mode 1 Player
Produced as a product tie-in with OTA’s
honey puff cereal, Guldkornexpres-
sen (or Kalaspuffsexpressen) revolves
around the brand’s bear mascot, who
drives a train filled with honey puffs. His
task on each level is to pick up boxes of
the cereal, add honey and drive the train
to the end of the level, where the cargo
is loaded into a big box of Guldkorn.
some text from mobygames.com
(2003) where the world is virtually ruled
by drug barons. The players mission is to
equip and position three squads of elite
cops on the perimeter, and guide them
through the enemy’s network of tunnels.
Once through they must level the factory
with explosives.
The game plays like a strategic third per-
son shooter. The player control the com-
mander of the current squad, and can
switch between the three. The loadout
and starting positions are predefined,
but the player can change the loadout,
choosing from two types of ammo, three
types of rockets, explosives, first aid kits,
transporters, and armor.
some text from mobygames.com

Other Releases
Commodore 64 1991
Amiga 1991 Other Releases
MS-DOS 1991
Commodore 64 1990
Amiga 1990
Amstrad CPC 1990
Atari ST 1990
MS-DOS 1990
MSX 1990
PC Booter 1989
ZX Spectrum 1990

88 • Games - C64GS
Last Ninja Remix

Ninja Remix is part of the Last Ninja video game series,

released after the third title in the series. Remix a re-
made Last Ninja 2 with new music, a new introductory
sequence, slightly changed graphics (most notably the
screen border) and fixed bugs. Confusingly, the 16-bit
versions of the original The Last Ninja game were also
released in 1990 as Ninja Remix.

The protagonist of The Last Ninja series is Armakuni,

the sole survivor of a ninjutsu clan that was destroyed
by an evil shogun named Kunitoki. This struggle leads
him to modern-day New York City.

Ninja Remix is an action/adventure game where the

player, controlling a powerful ninja, must fight his way
through opponents while collecting necessary items.
The game is split into various levels, each of them
depicting a different locale and divided into several
screens. The view is isometric and the ninja can move
Developer System 3 in four different dimensions and jump.
Publisher System 3 Enemies, armed with fists and various ninja
Release date 1990 weapons, wander around the levels. The ninja must
Genre Action-adventure fight them either bare-handed or with the weaponry he
Mode 1 Player
finds along the way; in either case, he has a number of
blows and attacks at his disposal, as well as the ability
to block.

The first game in the series, The Last Ninja, was re-
leased in 1987 for the C64 and was one of the most
successful games for the system.

Other Releases
Commodore 64 1990
Amstrad CPC 1990
ZX Spectrum 1990

Commodore 64 Amstrad CPC

some text from mobygames.com

C64GS - Games • 89
 Myth

Myth: History in the Making, released on the NES

as Conan: The Mysteries of Time, is a 2D platform
game.

The player controls a teenage boy from the 20th

century, who one day falls through a tear in the
space-time continuum and is transported to the
“Time of Legends.” There he is rescued by a high
priestess, who informs him that their world is un-
der attack from Dameron, the Dark Angel of Time,
who must be destroyed if he is to have any hope
of ever getting home. Armed with an enchanted
sword, he takes on Dameron and the legions of
demons and monsters under his command, even-
tually succeeding in his mission and being re-
turned to his own time.

Each level is centred on a certain location, such

as in Hades, an Egyptian pyramid and ancient
Developer System 3 Greece, where the player must collect a magic orb
Publisher System 3 in each to finish. The gameplay consists of running
Release date 1990 and jumping through each level, collecting objects
Genre Action-platformer and weapons, fighting enemies and solving puz-
Mode 1 Player
zles. Each level contains a mythical boss enemy,
such as Medusa, Thor and a Hydra. Puzzles in-
volve using the right object in the right location to
progress, such as throwing skulls into a pit of fire
to summon a monster, and using the right weap-
on against enemies, such as attacking a specific
monster with tridents.

Other Releases
Commodore 64 1989
Amiga 1992
Amiga CD32 1994
Amstrad CPC 1989
Antstream 2019
NES 1991 Commodore 64 Amiga
ZX Spectrum 1989

90 • Games - C64GS
Navy SEALs

Navy SEALs is a shoot ‘em up platform game based on

the film of the same name and follows the protagonist,
Lieutenant Dale Hawkins, progressing through five
side-scrolling levels.

The game features a total of five levels with varying

locations and begins with allocating five lives to the
player. The main objective of the game is to locate and
place time bombs on boxes containing Stinger mis-
siles, in which the player is required to escape before
the time runs out. The enemies featured in the game
are Arab terrorists; the player must neutralise them by
shooting them with their selected weapon, which is a
handgun by default. Other weapons available in the
game include machine guns, rocket launchers, and a
flamethrower, which are only accessible through find-
ing hidden crates.
Developer Ocean The second level of the game is in Beirut, and
Publisher Ocean focuses on the player, along with a group of Navy
Release date 1990 Seals, rescuing hostages in a 3D presentation of the
Genre Shooter city. If the player is successful in rescuing the hostages
Mode 1 Player
and recovering all missiles, the remaining forces will
rendezvous at a submarine.

The game received mostly positive reviews upon re-

lease. lemon64.com gave it 8.4/10 from 56 voters.
Steve Fielder of Commodore Format praised the
game’s ability to fully utilise the colour palette of the
Commodore 64, in which Fielder praised the “smooth”
side scrolling levels and “wonderfully” detailed back-
drops.

Other Releases
Commodore 64 1990
Amiga 1991
Amstrad CPC 1990
Atari ST 1991
ZX Spectrum 1991

Commodore 64 Amiga

C64GS - Games • 91
 RoboCop 2

RoboCop 2 is a platform shooter based on the 1990

film of the same name. Other versions of games based
on the movie was released for several platforms, in-
cluding Amiga, Amstrad GX4000, Atari ST, Game Boy
and ZX Spectrum.

Players take control of the Detroit cyborg cop known as

RoboCop, who must stop a drug distributor, Cain, from
spreading a new drug known as Nuke.

The NES and C64 versions of RoboCop 2 is mission-

based. Missions have various objectives, such as de-
stroying Nuke drug canisters or killing all the enemies.
If the player didn’t destroy/kill enough, they’ll be trans-
ported to a training mission, which is a first-person per-
spective shoot ‘em up. Should the player also fail the
training, they must go to the beginning of the previous
mission. Successfully completed mission or enough
Developer Painting by Numbers points scored by training allow them to proceed to the
Publisher Ocean
Release date 1990
next stage. Unlike in the first RoboCop, there’s no time
Genre Platformer, Shooter limit, and RoboCop are able to jump.
Mode 1-2 Players
The C64 version received positive reviews from mag-
azines at the time. Commodore Format praised the
sound and gameplay of the Commodore 64 version,
but criticized the “gaudy” graphics, stating that they
lacked atmosphere. Nintendo Power, reviewing the
NES version, noted that the character of RoboCop can
be initially difficult to control.

Other Releases
Commodore 64 1990
NES 1991

Commodore 64 NES

92 • Games - C64GS
RoboCop 3

RoboCop 3 is a platform shooter based on the 1993

film of the same name. Like the prequel, different it-
erations of the game based on the movie were also
released, including Amiga, Atari ST, DOS, NES, SNES,
Game Gear, Master System, and Sega Genesis.

Probe’s RoboCop 3 for 8-bit computers combines two

different styles of gameplay: the first level is a shooting
gallery, while the rest are side-scrolling platform levels.
RoboCop’s enemies are mostly “Splatterpunks”
and “Rehabs”, while bosses include Otomo Ninjabots,
a tank, and ED-209. In the platform levels, RoboCop
can collect weapon power-ups, which upgrade his
standard weapon first to rapid fire, then to a three-way
shot. Also available are a flamethrower, laser gun and
a guided missile (each with limited ammunition).
In level three, RoboCop use a jetpack to fly
across the area, but must walk back the same way in
Developer Probe Software
Publisher Ocean level four. In all levels, he can collect repair tokens,
Release date 1992 which allow the player to repair specific areas of the
Genre Platformer, Shooter cyborg’s body in a repair screen between levels.
Mode 1 Player
The C64 version also received positive reviews like it’s
prequel. lemon64.com gave it 6.1/10 from 39 voters.
The ZX Spectrum version were also given good
revies. The magazine Crash called it the best Robo-
Cop game released up to that point. Ed Laurence of
Sinclair User praised the graphics of the ZX Spectrum
version, but criticized the difficulty, partly caused by an
awkward control set-up.

Other Releases
Commodore 64 1992
ZX Spectrum 1992

Commodore 64 ZX Spectrum

some text from mobygames.com

C64GS - Games • 93
 Pang

Pang was originally released as an arcade game

by Capcom. It was later ported to a vast number
of computers and consoles. The majority of the
US versions were renamed Buster Bros., includ-
ing the arcade game. In Japan it was released as
Pomping World.

Pang is a puzzle-action game where players are

tasked with destroying balls that are terrorizing
famous landmarks. The balls have a predictable
path as they hop across the stage, but each will
burst into smaller and harder to hit balls and in
greater numbers will quickly overwhelm players.
The player has a single harpoon gun that
fires straight up and will damage a ball that touch-
es any part of the chain. However, the player can-
not fire again until the harpoon has hit the ceil-
Developer Arc Developments
Publisher Ocean
ing or one of the balls, which can put them at a
Release date 1990 disadvantage if they misfire. The player can earn
Genre Action power-ups that increase the number of simultane-
Mode 1-2 Players ous harpoons or allow them to stick to the ceiling
for a few seconds.

The arcade game was a hit in Japan, and had a

successful launch in North America. The game
also received a positive review from Commodore
User magazine, scoring it 8 out of 10.
The C64 ports were also received positive-
ly by reviewers and C64 users. The game scored
7.5/10 from 59 lemon64.com users.

Other Releases
Commodore 64 1990
Amiga 1990
Amstrad CPC 1991
Arcade 1989
Atari ST 1990
Game Boy 1993
TurboGrafx CD 1991
ZX Spectrum 1990
Commodore 64 Arcade

94 • Games - C64GS
Satan
Developer Dinamic
Publisher Dinamic
Release date 1990
Genre Shooter
Mode 1 Player
Players take control of a warrior in search
of three magic scrolls in order to rescue
some wizards. As with so many Dinamic
games, the game is split into two inde-
pendent games—completing the first
gives an access code for the second.
Satan is a scrolling hack ‘n’ slash game.
Contact with enemies drains the limited
energy, and players are also working
against a time limit on each section. As
well as magical powers, players can col-
lect swords to attack, as well as lightning
bolts which can be collected to destroy
all enemies on screen. In part two, van-
quished foes release coins which can be
spent at shop sections on rechargers,
shields and teleporters amongst other
things.
some text from mobygames.com
Skærmtrolden Hugo
Developer ITE (SilverRock)
Publisher Silverrock Productions
Release date 1991
Genre Action
Mode 1 Player
Skaermtrolden Hugo (Danish for “Hugo
the TV Troll” / “Hugo the ScreenTroll”)
is the first Hugo video game that was
based on the original Eleva2ren TV
show scenario and was developed and
published by SilverRock Productions.
After the Hugo TV show received more
minigames, this game became one of
them, known as Labyrinth.
The game resemble the early editions
of the TV show; the player guides the
titular protagonist to save his wife and
children from the evil witch Scylla. To
rescue his family, Hugo must navigate
safely through dangerous environments
in various minigame scenarios.
The C64 received a score of 7/10 from
12 lemon64.com users.

Other Releases
Commodore 64 1990
Amiga 1990
Amstrad CPC 1990 Other Releases
Atari ST 1990 Amiga 1991
MS-DOS 1990 MS-DOS 1995
MSX 1989
PC Booter 1990
ZX Spectrum 1990

C64GS - Games • 95
 Shadow of the Beast

Shadow of the Beast is a platform game developed by

Reflections and published by Psygnosis for the Amiga
in 1989. The game was known for its graphics, with
many colours on screen and up to twelve levels of
parallax scrolling backdrops, and for its atmospheric
score composed by David Whittaker that used high-
quality instrument samples.

The player take control of Aarbron, who have been

kidnapped by an evil wizard and transformed into a
man-beast servant to do his bidding. When Aarbron
sees his father killed by the evil wizard his memory
returns and he sets off on a quest for revenge.

Shadow of the Beast is a side-scrolling platformer with

a side-shooter elements. The player has to navigate
through several areas filled with enemies and traps,
Developer DMA Design collecting keys and activating triggers that open new
Publisher Ocean areas or give Aarbron the means to overcome a sub-
Release date 1990 boss. While most enemies die with just one hit, the
Genre Action-platformer player must time each attack accurately. The player
Mode 1 Player
has only one life with 12 hit points that can be replen-
ished by collecting objects hidden in the level, which
also contributes to the difficulty level.

Shadow of the Beast was designed by Martin Ed-

mondson and Paul Howarth of Reflections Interactive
over the course of nine months, and it was their sec-
ond 16-bit game after their previous game, Ballistix.

Other Releases
Commodore 64 1990
Amiga 1989
Amstrad CPC 1990
Atari ST 1990
FM Towns 1991
Genesis 1991
Lynx 1992
Sega Master System 1992
TurboGrafx CD 1992
ZX Spectrum 1990 Commodore 64 Amiga

96 • Games - C64GS
 The developers wanted the game to
push both the Amiga and Atari ST to their
technical limits. To achieve this, the Amiga
version was written first, so that they would
take advantage of all of the computer’s ad-
vanced hardware capabilities. The devel-
opers made use of the hardware sprites
and scrolling rather than using the blitter,
which they felt that the blitter “does not run
quite as fast as some people would be-
lieve.” To get the speed they wanted, the
developers employed difficult techniques
such as the sprite multiplexing. The game
uses up to twelve levels of parallax scroll-
ing, and up to a maximum of 128 colours
on screen.
The developers designed the game
to be as difficult as possible; Edmondson
remarked that he liked difficult games at
the time and he “used to get frustrated if
The cover art for the game was painted by famous artist
Roger Dean.
the game was too easy.” This also became
the main criticism of the title—the brutally
high level of difficulty and lack of any form
of continues.
Shadow of the Beast spawned two se-
quels, Shadow of the Beast II, which was
ported to many systems, and Shadow of
the Beast 3: Out of the Shadow, which re-
mained an Amiga exclusive. The sequels
didn’t improve on the criticisms of the origi-
nal and in some respects were considered
even more difficult to complete—as puz-
zles would not reset, forcing a player who
had made a mistake in a puzzle to restart
the entire game.
A re-imagined version of Shadow of
the Beast was released for the PlayStation
4 in May 2016. The original Amiga version
is included along with the remake.
C64GS - Games • 97
 Space Gun

Space Gun is as a first-person shooter originally re-

leased by Taito for arcades in 1990. The game is set
aboard a crippled space station that has been over-
run by hostile alien creatures. The objective is to res-
cue human crew members while destroying the alien
creatures. The original arcade release lets the player
shoot limbs off the creatures, resulting in blood splat-
ters. It was also one of the few games for the Atari ST
and Amiga to support a light gun.

Players use the crosshairs to target and shoot ene-

my aliens that have invaded a research vessel and
abducted its crew. The player must save human hos-
tages from the creatures. Occasionally, a hostage will
mutate into an alien. In addition to the standard rapid-
fire weapon, there are four other weapons: a flame-
thrower, grenade launcher, freeze bomb, and blade
bomb.
Developer Images
Publisher Ocean The levels are split into subsections, each with
Release date 1992 its own end-of-level boss. Players can often choose
Genre shooter their own path through the level by selecting a door
Mode 1 Player or arrow using the gun. Most versions includes multi-
player game, but the Sega Master System, C64 and
ZX Spectrum versions only includes single player.

On release for home platforms, the game received

mixed reviews in the press, ranging from 76% in Com-
modore Force to 92% in Zzap! magazine. lemon64.
com users gave it a score of 6.2/10 from 21 users.

Other Releases
Commodore 64 1992
Amiga 1992
Amstrad CPC 1992
Arcade 1990
Atari ST 1992
Sega Master System 1992
ZX Spectrum 1992

Commodore 64 Amiga

98 • Games - C64GS
Toki

Toki is a run and gun platform game released in ar-

cades in Japan in 1989 by TAD Corporation. De-
signed by Akira Sakuma, the game has tongue-in-
cheek humor mixed with the action.

The player controls an enchanted ape who must

battle hordes of jungle monsters with energy balls
from his mouth. The ultimate goal is to destroy the
evil wizard who cast a spell on the title protagonist;
thereby transforming him from an ape back into a
human, and rescuing the kidnapped princess.

The player must traverse several levels with a mini-

boss at the end. Toki’s main attack against his ene-
mies is by spitting at them although he can also hop
on them to defeat them. Toki’s normal spit can be
changed to a fire breath by finding the correct item.
Other items includes a football helmet which tempo-
Developer Ocean rarily shields Toki, high jump shoes, clocks that add
Publisher Ocean
time, coins which add to Toki’s life count, and fruits
Release date 1991
Genre Platformer which add to the total score.
Mode 1 Player
An arcade-style platform game with similarly-look-
ing simian characters was in development by Ocean
Software for the Atari Jaguar under the working title
Apeshit but was later renamed to Toki Goes Apespit
at one point during development due to Ocean still
retaining the license to Toki, with plans to be pub-
lished in Winter 1994. However it was never re-
leased, likely due to the failure of the Jaguar both
commercially and critically.

Other Releases
Commodore 64 1991
Amiga 1991
Arcade 1989
Atari ST 1991
iPhone 2009
Lynx 1992
NES 1991

Commodore 64 Arcade

C64GS - Games • 99
 Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Terminator 2: Judgment Day is a 1991 action game

based on the 1991 film of the same name. It is a se-
quel to The Terminator, itself based on the 1984 film of
the same name. The game features several gameplay
styles such as driving, fighting, and puzzle-solving.

The game loosely follows the story from the movie, in

which two Terminator machine models, the T-800 and
the T-1000, are sent back from the future. The T-800 is
tasked with protecting a boy named John Connor, who
will eventually become the leader of the human resist-
ance in a war against machines. The T-1000 has been
sent back with an order to kill young John, ensuring the
rise of the machines. In the game, the player largely
takes the role of the T-800.

The levels are based on prominent scenes from the

Developer Dementia film, including one in which the T-1000 drives a truck in
Publisher Ocean pursuit of the T-800 and John, who are riding on a mo-
Release date 1991 torcycle. Other scenes recreated in the game include
Genre Action Sarah’s escape from a mental hospital, a sabotage of
Mode 1 Player
Cyberdyne Systems’ headquarters, and a showdown
between the Terminators in a steel mill.
Each level features one of several gameplay
styles, such as beat ‘em up fighting between the two
Terminators, or vertically scrolling driving sequences.
Sarah’s hospital escape is played as a side-scrolling
level. Other levels are played as a sliding puzzle game
in which the player must perform repairs on the T-800.

Other Releases
Commodore 64 1991
Amiga 1991
Amstrad CPC 1991
Atari ST 1991
MS-DOS 1991
ZX Spectrum 1991

Commodore 64 Amiga

100 • Games - C64GS

The game was developed by Dementia
and published by Ocean Software. Ocean
secured the rights to a video game adapta-
tion of the film while it was in the post-pro-
duction phase. Kevin Bulmer and Richard
Costello, the heads of Dementia, had met
with Ocean to seek funding for a potential
role-playing video game. Ocean manag-
er Gary Bracey was impressed with their
proposal but wanted them to develop a
Terminator 2 video game first. Ocean had
been impressed by Dementia’s previous
game, titled Corporation. Although Bul-
mer was a Terminator fan, he was initially
hesitant to accept the offer, later saying
that Dementia already had other projects
planned and that “there’s less money to be
made out of doing conversion work than
original games.” In January 1991, Bracey
gave Bulmer a copy of the Terminator 2
film script. After reading it, Bulmer gained
an immediate interest in developing a vid-
eo game adaptation. Ocean wanted the
game to be completed within six months.
Dementia picked scenes from the script to
form the game’s levels.
Atari ST Amstrad CPC
Shortly before the game’s release,
it was reported that Bulmer’s house was
robbed, and among what was stolen was
some of his work for Terminator 2. While
Ocean had backups of the data, several
days worth of the game’s development
was lost.
Most versions of Terminator 2: Judgment
Day received praise for its graphics, es-
pecially its character sprites. Some critics
also praised the gameplay variety, as well
as the sound.
Jeff Davy of Your Commodore stat-
ed that Terminator 2 “clocks in as one of
the best ‘game-of-the-film’ adaptations”
available for the C64, further writing, “No
game can capture the film’s atmosphere
and power but this’ll go a fair way.” Stu-
art Wynne of Zzap!64 called it a “huge
and professionally executed movie tie-in,
rarely brilliant but always competent”. Nick
Roberts of Crash criticized the levels for
being repetitive, but otherwise enjoyed the
game and called it “a great conversion” of
the film.
MS-DOS ZX Spectrum
C64GS - Games • 101
 Vindicators

Vindicators is a 1 or 2 player top-down, run-and-gun,

shoot-em-up action game, first released by Atari for
arcades in 1988.

Vindicators takes place in the year 2525, outside

Galaxy TR-15. The mission is to intercept and de-
stroy the invading forces from the evil Tangent Em-
pire by proceeding through multi-level stations, and
securing each station by demolishing its control
centre, using the SR-88 Strategic Battle Tank.

Players control a tank, navigating through multiple

levels and shooting enemies (enemy tanks, turrets
and flying saucers) and obstacles while their tank’s
fuel levels gradually decrease. The tanks have
shields, which deplete when hit by enemy shots. As
fuel decreases, the tank’s speed slows. Once all fuel
Developer Consult Comp. Sys. is lost, the tank explodes and players are charged a
Publisher Domark life. Throughout the levels, players can collect addi-
Release date 1990 tional fuel, stars (the game’s currency), shields, and
Genre Shooter
Mode 1-2 Players
power-ups such as homing missiles and bombs.
Players navigate their tanks towards the end
of the level, as the screen scrolls bottom-up, much
like a traditional shooter’s level design. Each level
contains a key that is required to open a door at the
end of a level.

Vindicators for the NES was an unlicensed Ninten-

do release. As such, the cartridge used an alternate
chip to defeat the 10NES lockout system.

Other Releases
Commodore 64 1990
Amiga 1989
Amstrad CPC 1989
Arcade 1988
Atari ST 1989
NES 1989
ZX Spectrum 1989

Commodore 64 Arcade

some text from giantbomb.com

102 • Games - C64GS

C64GS Cartridge

The C64GS cartridge came packaged with the con-

sole and contained International Soccer, Flimbo’s
Quest, Klax and Fiendish Freddy. This was the only
cartridge by Commodore released specifically for
the C64GS.

Klax is an Atari puzzle game where the object is to

catch colored blocks tumbling down a machine and
arrange them in colored rows and patterns to make
them disappear.

Fiendish Freddy’s Big Top o’ Fun is a collection

of mini games based on various circus acts. The
gameplay is similar to many of the multi-event sports
games of the time, such as Epyx’ California Games,
Winter Games and Summer Games.

International Soccer is a relatively simple game of

Publisher Commodore soccer—there is no offside rule and no possibility to
Release date 1990 foul opponents. The game was well received, gain-
ing a Certificate of Merit in the category of “1984
Best Computer Sports Game” at the 5th annual
Arkie Awards.
The C64GS cart is com- The C64GS cartridge version was rewritten
mon and should be found for use with the C64GS since the original iteration
on auction sites with little needed the function keys to start the game.
effort, at least when com-
pared to most other C64GS Flimbo’s Quest is a 2D platform/adventure game
carts. in which players take control of Flimbo, and quest
through short and linear levels to save his girlfriend
Pearly.

Klax Fiendish Freddy’s International Soccer Flimbo’s Quest

Big Top O’Fun

C64GS - Games • 103

 Funplay

The Funplay multi-cart contained a collection of

three Codemasters budget games: Pro Skateboard,
Pro Tennis and Fast Food. When the mult-cart was
released the games could already be picked up in-
dividually for much less.

Pro Skateboard is a sports game with 7 levels of

gameplay, each featuring a skate park, and a cross-
country section with a top-down view. In the skate
park the goal is to collect all the flags, without leav-
ing the tarmac too much, and within a strict time
limit. In the cross-country event the player must
skate between a series of flags. This time there are
hazards such as trees and buildings to avoid hit-
ting.

Pro Tennis, also known as Pro Tennis Simulator,

Publisher Codemasters
Release date 1990
The Funplay and Power-
play multi-carts were also
sold together as a bundle.
The only difference was
that they came in a larger
box which contained both
cartridges.
is a one or two player tennis game. There are 3
computer skill levels on offer, and matches can be
1, 3 or 5 sets. The gameplay is viewed from above
and behind the net, with a slight 3D effect. The type
of shot played is determined by how high the ball
is as its hit.
Fast Food have similarities to Pac-Man and Boul-
der Dash. The objective is to collect all fast food
on the screen—which means, food that is moving
fast. While doing so, the player will have to avoid
the monsters. There are 30 levels, increasing in dif-
ficulty from very easy to extremely difficult.

Pro Skateboard Pro Tennis Fast Food

some text from mobygames.com

104 • Games - C64GS

Powerplay

The Powerplay multi-cart contained a collection

of three games: Rick Dangerous, Stunt Car Racer
and Microprose Soccer.

Rick Dangerous is a comedic platform/action

game inspired by Raiders of the Lost Ark. The game
is based on linear progression through four sepa-
rate levels. The levels have their individual themes
and contain many traps with no visible warnings
which will instantly kill the player, making the game
more about trial & error pattern memorization than
most platform games.

Stunt Car Racer differentiates itself from other rac-

ing games by having races that take place on ele-
vated race tracks with nothing to prevent the player
from accidentally driving of either side of the track.
Publisher Microprose The action is viewed from within the car throughout
Release date 1990
the 3-lap races and players has the ability to burn
a limited amount of turbo boost fuel as a way to ac-
celerate faster and achieve higher speeds.

All three games on this mult-
cart have been met with posi-
tive reivews from C64 users.
Every game have scored
over 8/10 by users from lem-
on64.com.
Microprose Soccer, also known as Keith Van Eron’s
Pro Soccer, is an arcade-style soccer game devel-
oped by Sensible Software. It was the fore-runner
to the 16-bit Sensible Soccer.
The game can simulate a full 11-a-side
game of football on a grass pitch, or 6-a-side soc-
cer, based on the American indoor league of the
time.

Rick Dangerous Stunt Car Racer MicroProse Soccer

C64GS - Games • 105

Article from; Commodore Format #1
(Oct. 1990)

T
he 64 has been the game plat-
form of choice for more peo- Unreleased Games
ple in the world for longer
than any other computer ever made,
so turning it into a pure games play-
Listed here are the known and rumoured C64GS titles
ing machine is no surprise. It already that were in development for the console at some point
sports features like hardware sprites in time.
which modern game machines claim is
a new feature and it has an enormous Several of the games planned for the console would be
software base out there: nearly one
cartridge ports of already exciting C64 titles released
and a half million users.
Thousands of games have been on ether disk, tape, or both. The titles which had al-
written in the eight years since the re- ready received a C64 release are listed with a cover and
lease of the 64, so whatever Commo- an icon of the format it was released on.
dore does, it can’t lose by altering the
form of the machine itself. Please visit gamesthatwerent.com for more on these
Of course, just because the GS
(Game System) is here doesn’t mean and other unreleased video games.
that the 64 itself will die out. Good-
ness knows, Commodore would have
to shoot people to stop them buying
the 64 anyway. Sales continue to climb
with no more advertising than the an-
nual note in the press about this year’s
package deal. But the GS will turn
people on to the 64 who don’t want a
fully blown computer, or can’t handle
tape and disk loading (loading from
cartridge is virtually instantaneous).
Take a look at the back of your 64.
Did you know your machine had a
cartridge slot already? It wouldn’t be
surprising if you didn’t. The cartridge
technology never really took off when
the 64 was originally made, so car-
tridge games have been in somewhat
short supply. Not any more though.
With the release of the GS, major soft-
ware manufacturers are committed to
producing all their hot new games on
cart format. So all of us will be able
to benefit from the GS, right away. If
you’ve got a 64, write software for it
or sell it, then the GS is a lot of good
news.
The trick with carts is that you
can’t copy them, so piracy is cut off
at a stroke. Secondly, the games load
in seconds, rather than minutes from
tape or disk. Thirdly, the game is
yours forever, not just until the disk
gets bent or the tape gets caught in
your datasette heads. So your invest-
ment in the game is secure, and you
can swap games in the knowledge that
what you’re getting is going to be good
quality, not bugged or broken. Which-
ever way you slice it, the cartridge
boom is going to be great for everyone.

C64GS - Unreleased Games • 107

 The Addams Family Armalyte 2
Ocean
1992 Armalyte 2 was sup-
Action-platformer posed to be the se-
quel to a horizontally
scrolling shooter de-
veloped by Cyberdyne
Systems in 1988.
Armalyte 2 was being developed for the
C64, with an intended 1990 release date.
The game was to feature around 6 levels
in total. Flickering problems from the first
game were to be removed and other vari-
ous improvements. But when Cyberdyne
B.A.T. Systems were contracted out to System 3
Ubi Soft to work on projects such as Deadlock and
1991 Last Ninja 3, Armalyte 2 was shelved.
Adventure
In 2013 the two developers who worked on
the game, Dan Phillips and Robin Kemp,
announced that they had reunited and
were resuming work on Armalyte 2.

Bloodwych Battlestorm
Mirrorsoft Battlestorm is a shoot’em up developed by
1990 Titus Software released for the Amiga in
Role-playing, Adventure
1991.
The unreleased C64 version was on
a schedule list from 1990, with also a
planned release on tape and disk.

Bubble Ghost Buggy Ranger

Accolade
Buggy Ranger is a a side-scrolling shoot’em
1988
Action
up by Iron Byte. It was published by Dinam-
ic Software for several home computers in
1990.
The C64 version wasn’t advertised, but the
Spanish instructions included C64 loading
instructions.

108 • Unreleased Games - C64GS

Barbarian 3 California Games
Barbarian III was in development by Pal- Epyx
1987
ace. It would be the sequel to their 1988
Sports
game Barbarian II: The Dungeon of Drax.
Steve Brown, the designer of the original
games, were involved in the development.
The third game in the series would follow-
ing a similar structure as the last release,
but would scroll instead of being flick
screen based.
Brown left Palace some time in early de-
velopment and Simon Birrell would take
over the development in terms of the game
design. Birrell wanted the game to have Crazy Bikes
more platform action overall and made a
Crazy Bikes is a Titus Software title which
new direction for the title. The title was also
was mentioned in a schedule list from
changed at this stage to Super Barbarian,
1990 for the C64 on tape and disk, and
as part of a duo of updates to two clas-
later for cartridge.
sic Palace games. The other game was
Super Cauldron, which would see release Little else is know about the game other
much later. Super Barbarian was never then the title.
completed for any system, but a Swedish
magazine in June 1992 mentioned a 16-
bit version of Super Barbarian. The game
was essentially to be split into two parts.
The first part would be a tourna-
ment game placed in a Colosseum-like Crazy Cars 2
arena where the player fight against either Titus Software
16 computer controlled enemies or up to 8 1989
Racing
players.
The second part was to be a ac-
tion adventure where the goal is to rescue
the good wizard’s daughter held captive in
Drax’s tower.
The game was rumoured to be at a play-
able stage by 1992, but Palace would sud-
denly go bankrupt and Titus would buy
them out.
some text from
gamesthatwerent.com Magazine article;

BRIEF BITS
US Gold will be supporting the new machine
with conversions of a few of its old catalogue and
a promise to produce cartridge versions of all its
forthcoming releases. The most likely candidate
for release at the moment are the excellent Strider
(and sequel), Turbo Outrun and a few of the Cap-
com games. Up and coming are Super Monaco GP,
Shadow Dancer, G-Loc, and that’s just for starters.

C64GS - Unreleased Games • 109

 Crime Does Not Pay The Games: Winter Edition
An action game by Titus Software. Re- Epyx
1988
leased in 1991 for home computers.
Sports
Gameplay are said to be a cross between
King of Chicago and Disney’s Dick Tracy.
Object of the game is to use the mafia to
get elected as the mayor of a city by using
bribery, extortion, and outright murder.

Dick Tracy The Games: Summer Edition

Titus Software
1990 Epyx
Action 1988
Sports

Falcon Magazine article;

Falcon is a combat flight simulator and the BRIEF BITS

first official entry in the Falcon series of the Biggest shock of the month revolves around the
F-16 jet fighter’s simulators by Spectrum announcement by US Gold that they’re NOT
HoloByte. going to be releasing the famous Epyx Games
series of games. This seems a great shame see-
The unreleased C64 version were pub- ing as this much acclaimed series is perfect to be
lished by Mirrorsoft—who released it on converted and would suit a cart well.’
the Amiga, CDTV, and Atari ST. Other US Gee carts to come will be Ghouls ‘n’
Ghosts and Squadron.
Domark’s new releases are actually old ones.
Along with Vindicators we’ve got Badlands and
Cyberball - a game that we reviewed absolutely
yonks ago and never appeared on tape or disk.
Fire & Forget II System 3 are not just happy with converting
Titus Software the company’s existing product, all future C64
1990 games will support the machine that has already
Shooter blasted one competitor out of the water. IK De-
luxe is the sequel to International Karate +, and
will be also programmed by Archer MacLean.
We also have the second Myth game, and that’s
just for starters.

110 • Unreleased Games - C64GS

Gazza II IK Deluxe
Active Minds
International Karate Deluxe / IK Deluxe /
1990
Sports
IK++ would be the third instalment in Archer
Maclean’s International Karate series. De-
velopment started in late 87’-early 88’ and
was initially planned for the ST and Amiga
platforms. But the game were cancelled be-
fore a release on any platform. Archer sug-
gests that nothing was started on a C64GS
edition and the press must have got hold of
merely a rumour and nothing more.

Golden Axe Retro Gamer interview with Archer Maclean;

Virgin Games
1990 Was it true you were developing an Interna-
Beat’em up tional Karate Deluxe (aka IK++) game for
the ill-fated C64GS?
Not for the C64GS but I did do an unre-
leased IK++ for the Atari ST and Amiga in
about 1987/8. It basically allowed the user to
collect fighting moves and define which one
would be in use for any given section of the
game—which saw your fighter(s) explor-
ing bigger scenes than IK+ had. At the same
time I didn’t want to lose the very direct sin-
gle control action of the joystick system that
IK+ had. So the user was allowed to visit a
Hard Drivin’ move-inventory and pick out their selection
Domark and assign them to where ever they want-
1989 ed around a joystick, or concentrate some
Racing moves into a bigger sequence. But yeah, it
did exist and somewhere I’ve actually got an
ST version of it running, plus a grab of the
move assignment screen.

Hook Kick Off 2

Ocean Anco
1992 1990
Platformer Sports

C64GS - Unreleased Games • 111

 Last Ninja 3 Plotting
System 3 Ocean
1991 Unreleased on C64
Action-adventure Puzzle

Plotting is a tile-matching puzzle game pub-

lished by Taito for arcades in 1989. It were
released for several different platforms in-
Moonwalker cluding a nearly completed C64 version.
US Gold
The C64 version of Plotting were complete
1989
Action enough that Ocean had sent out review
copies of the game.
It was rumoured that the reason of it’s C64
cancellation was because of someone who
worked at Ocean leaked the game onto the
cracking scene.

Orcus Prohibition
Infogrames
Orcus was a scrolling
1987
shoot-em up which Shooter
was in development by
Electronic Zoo in 1989.
Beta versions in different stages of devel-
opment have since been released online.

Pro Tennis Tour 2 Putty

Pro Tennis Tour 2, also released as Great
Courts 2 and Jimmy Connors Great Courts
2, was developed by Blue Byte Software
and originally released by Ubi Soft for the
Amiga in 1991. Later releases includes the
Atari ST, DOS & IBM Compatible PCs.
Putty is a platformer developed by System
3 and released in 1992 for the Amiga. Later
releases were for the SNES and CD32. A
C64 version was at some time in develop-
ment, but was cancelled when it became
too complex for the system. A beta version
has since been found and released online.

112 • Unreleased Games - C64GS

 Puzznic Space Rogue
Ocean Origin Systems
1990 1989
Puzzle Simulation

Magazine article;

UPDATE The Spy Who Loved Me

Puzznic will be out in the next few weeks on Domark
the ST, which should be quite similar to its 1990
Amiga counterpart - even in price. C64GS Action
and Amstrad GX4000 cartridge (£24.99)
and Spectrum cassette (£9.99) versions are
to follow. The audio-visuals aren’t exactly
complex, so the 8-bit versions shouldn’t suf-
fer greatly.

Rampart Starglider 2
Domark
Starglider 2 is a 3D space combat simula-
1992
Strategy
tor published in 1988 by Rainbird as the se-
quel to Starglider. It was released for the
Amiga, Atari ST, MS-DOS, Macintosh, and
ZX Spectrum.
The original Starglider was released for
C64 on tape and disk in 1986.

Rick Dangerous II Subbuteo

MicroStyle Electronic Zoo
1990 1990
Action-platformer Sports

C64GS - Unreleased Games • 113

 Turbo Charge Venus The Flytrap
System 3
Venus the Flytrap is a 1990 side-scrolling
1991
Racing
shooter-platformer from Core Design and
Gremlin Graphics. It was released for the
Amiga and Atari ST.
In the game, the player control the epony-
mous robot insect across a number of stages
earning power-ups and destroying enemies.

Turrican II Wild Streets

Rainbow Arts Titus Software
1991 1990
Action-platformer Beat’em up

Ultima VI Wrath of the Demon

Origin Systems ReadySoft
1990 1991
Role-playing Action

Vendetta X-Out
System 3 Rainbow Arts
1990 1989
Action-adventure Shooter

114 • Unreleased Games - C64GS

article; Raze Magazine #4 (Feb.1992)
by: Les Ellis
Commodore advertising is every-
where this Christmas. Little does
the unsuspecting punter realise
that he could have got a computer
version of the C64GS five years
ago
It’s great to see the old C64 be-
ing given a new injection of life
with Commodore C64GS console.
It seems that all the major manu-
facturers are realising this great
opportunity and releasing overly-
expensive carts containing games
that have already been out for the
C64 at a fraction of the price. To be
fair, most manufacturers are setting
their price point at £19.99, which
is an acceptable price for console
carts.
• System 3 seems to be supporting just about
every console. And you can bet they’ll get a
warm welcome on the C64GS, a console who’s
insides they’re all too familiar with. Their ev-
er-impressive Ninja series makes it to the GS
this month with Ninja Remix. It will be joined
by Myth and Vendetta, games that have already
proved so successful in C64 cassette form. In
early 1991, you’ll be able to get Last Ninja III,
with IK Deluxe following shortly after.
US Gold have at last made a definitive deci-
sion on their releases for the C64GS. They have
decided that the superb Games series will defi-
nitely not be converted. Last month they were
quite hopeful for a conversion, but they seem to
change their minds with their socks so there’s
still a chance for the Epyx anthologies.
Other games that “may or may not” be coming
out for the C64GS from US Gold include Ghouls
‘n’ Ghosts, Strider I and II and UN Squadron.
But, as I said, no-one at US Gold seems to know
what’s going on from one day to the next.
From Domark I have at last got some solid
news. I’ve actually got the following carts in my
hands! Cyberball is a futuristic one- or two-play-
er game loosely based on American football;
Badlands is a Tengen coin-op conversion similar
to Super Sprint; and Vindicators is another one- or
two-player game set in the future. The first two
are branded new games, while Vindicators has
already proved successful on other computers
(including the C64). The whole range of Domark
games are just £19.99 each — what a bargain!
article; ZZap!64 Magazine #66 (October 1990)
C64GS OVERSHADOWS
CDTV!
In a surprise move, Commodore has decided not
to launch the CDTV at the CES Show, prefer-
ring to concentrate attention on the new C64GS
console. The CDTV, which will now be un-
leased on the world in October, is a machine
which a lot of corporate hopes ride on with the
announcement of poor financial results for last
year. Worldwide profits fell from $51.3 million
to $5.1 million, although the drop in sales was
less dramatic — $939.7 million to $887.3 mil-
lion. Moreover Commodore UK is doing well,
sales here rose from £40 million to £74.3 million
with 163,000 Amiga and almost 200,000 C64s
shipped out. The marketing spend was put at al-
most £8 million, presumably including all those
PC ads — let’s hope this year the C64GS gets as
much hype!
article; Commodore Precious-Ore Mat (Dec 1992)
“Reader question answered by Danielle Woody-
att—Public Relations Manager at UG GOLD”
Why didn’t US Gold release any cartridge soft-
ware for the C64/GS? The obvious potential for
this format would have been to re-release games
which were previously crippled by multi-load.
Surely the Games Series would have sold well
on cartridge?
Richard Mullen, Hants
With the Games Series there was a technical
problem in that it would have required a differ-
ent kind of loader and needed players names to
be typed via a keyboard, which the 64GS didn’t
have, (Um, as you probably can tell, I’m not a
technical bod, so I got this info from someone
at USG who knows about this sort of thing).
There are similar problems with all conversions
to cartridge which makes process too compli-
cated to contemplate (so I’m told), especially if
the game’s already enjoyed a full commercial
release.
magazine article • 115
 C64CGS
The C64CGS is a rumoured special variant of
the C64GS which were apparently only released
in UK and Ireland. It is supposed to have been
a cream-coloured unit resembling a C64, but
with a GS cartridge slot and a green power light
(Commodore almost always used red). The pic-
ture featured is apparently only a mockup.
The C64CGS is said to have been only sold as
a bundle, together with the C64GS joystick and
multi-cart. The ROM of the C64CGS is sup-
posed to be a special mix of an ordinary C64
kernal with some routines of the C64GS kernal.
In 2017, the German-language edition of
the magazine Retro Gamer Spezial had the topic
C64: Everything about the legendary bread box
C64. The C64CGS was also mentioned in this
issue; “So-called C64CGS systems - a GS with
a real keyboard - are said to have been sold in
Ireland.”
Numerous requests and threads on many
Internet forums looking for a photo of a C64CGS
remained to this day unsuccessful.
There is no photo, no mention by the press and
above all no mention by the Commodore com-
pany about the existence of this variant C64GS.
The only place this variant have been mentioned
is on fan websites, and with no credible back-
ground at all.
118 • C64CGS - C64GS
The question of why a Commodore
Game Station should be equipped with a key-
board and cartridge ports is already suspect,
since the end result would largely be an ordinary
C64 computer.
Even the alleged BASIC 4.0 as the op-
erating system makes no sense, since it does not
have sufficient compatibility to use Basic 2.0
programs, which is a serious disadvantage given
how widespread it was at the time. The C128
had already been on the market for five years,
and with it the significantly improved BASIC
7.0. Even BASIC version 10 was well advanced
in development towards the end of the 1980s,
since it was announced for the planned C65.
Equipping a new C64 variant with BASIC 4.0
in 1990 would be completely unreasonable.
The basis for this myth was possibly a bundle
offered by Commodore consisting of a C64C (a
redesign of the C64) and the joystick Cheetah
Annihilator as well as the C64 Games System
module collection. Such a bundle was, for exam-
ple, the C64C Playful Intelligence Edition from
1991, which was mainly marketed in Great Brit-
ain. The C64C was mostly manufactured with a
red LED, but a green one is not uncommon.
Of course, it is also conceivable that the
rumour originated from a modded console by a
hobbyist. A photo of a C64GS modded in this
way was possibly seen in an Irish com-
puter magazine and was misinterpreted.
A modded C64 from 2018.
The module bay is at-
tached like a C64GS
some text from c64-wiki.de
C64CGS Games List
This is the tiny list of C64GS carts released for the Rarity Score:
console. It does not include the hundreds of regular Common 1
C64 carts compatible with the system. Uncommon 2
The list includes a rarity score made by mayhem64. Scarce 3
co.uk, and a checklist for collectors (C (cart) I (info/ Rare 4
manual) B (Box)). Ultra Rare 5

Title R C I B pg.
After the War 5 78
Aspar GP Master 5 80
Astromarine Corps 5 80
Badlands 3 81
Batman 1 82
Battle Command 2 84
C64GS cartridge 1 103
Chase HQ 2 1 85
Cyberball 3 84
Double Dragon 4 86
Funplay 3 104
Funplay/Powerplay cartridge 4 104
Guldkorn Expressen 4 88
Last Ninja Remix 3 89
Myth 4 90
Narco Police 5 88
Navy SEALs 2 91
Pang 2 94
Powerplay 3 105
Robocop 2 1 92
Robocop 3 2 93
Satan 5 95
Shadow of the Beast 1 96
Skaermtrolden Hugo 4 95
Space Gun 2 98
Terminator 2 1 100
Toki 1 99
Vindicators 3 102

C64GS - Games List • 119

 The CDTV was a repurposed Amiga 500 that fo-
cused on multimedia games and applications in the
early 1990s.

For more on the CDTV,

then you would want to track down the
Commodore CDTV Disc Reference Guide

NoCopyright © 2022 by DaddaRuleKonge

All rights are NOT reserved. EVERY part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any
means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the
publisher. I do not own anything in this book. You use part of this publication on your OWN RISK though. As places in this book may
have a copyright by the original owner.
CONTENT
Commodore CDTV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Technical specifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Included Accessories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Letters from readers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
CD-ROM Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
CD-ROM Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
CD-ROM Arts & Leisure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
CD-ROM Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
CD-ROM Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
CD-ROM Compilations/Shareware/Productivity . . . . . . . . 223
CD-ROM Demos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
CD-ROM Miscellaneous . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
CD-ROM Cancelled Titles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
article; CD-I Storms in to Challenge CDTV . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
CD-ROM Hardware & Accessories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
Bundles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
CDTV Prototypes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314
CDTV-II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
article; Chinese Amigas stopped by Gateway 2000? . . . . . 319
Wonder TV A6000 / A6060 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
Letters from readers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
Games list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
 Commodore CDTV
The CDTV (from Commodore Dynamic
Total Vision, later treated as a backronym
for Compact Disc Television) is a home
multimedia entertainment and video game
console–convertible into a full-fledged
personal computer by the addition of optional
peripherals—developed by Commodore Interna-
tional and launched in April 1991.
The CDTV is essentially a Commodore Amiga
500 home computer with a CD-ROM drive and re-
mote control. With the optional keyboard, mouse,
and floppy disk drive, it gained the functionality
of the regular Amiga. Commodore marketed the
machine as an all-in-one multimedia appliance.
As such, it targeted the same market as the Philips
CD-i. The expected market for multimedia appli-
ances did not materialize, and neither machine
met with any real commercial success. Though
the CDTV was based entirely on Amiga hard-
ware, it was marketed strictly as a CDTV, with
the Amiga name omitted from product branding.
Commodore announced the CDTV at the summer
1990 Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago,
promising to release it before the end of the year
with 100 software titles. The product debuted in
North America in March 1991 (CES Las Vegas)
and in the UK (World of Commodore 1991 at
Earls Court, London). It was advertised at £499
for the CDTV unit, remote control and two soft-
ware titles. The device was released in the United
States for $999.
124 • CDTV
The CDTV was hailed as the next com-
puter evolution, moving the machine from the
bedroom into the living room. Nolan Bushnell
even went on record as saying, “CDTV will truly
change the way people learn and are entertained.
It’s the real new media of the nineties.”
Since the CDTV was intended as a media appli-
ance rather than a mainstream personal compu-
ter, its housing had dimensions and styling that
were fairly comparable to most household stereo
system components of the period, and it came
with an infrared remote control. Similarly, it
was initially sold without a keyboard or a mouse
(which could be added separately, and were later
bundled with the machine).
The CDTV featured a single speed (153
kB/sec) caddy loading CD-ROM drive and no
floppy disk drive as standard. The supported CD
formats are ISO-9660 CD-ROM, Audio CD,
CD+G and CD+MIDI.
It feature expansion slots for installing or
swapping out the video module, such as SCART,
NTSC or PAL video output. On the back of the
machine are also computer-standard parallel, se-
rial ports and a standard Amiga RGB output port.
The CDTV was supplied with AmigaOS 1.3,
rather than the more advanced and user-friendly
2.0 release that was launched at around the same
time. Notably, the CDXL motion video format
was primarily developed for the CDTV, making
it one of the earliest consumer systems to allow
video playback directly from CD-ROM.
In 1990 Computer Gaming World stated that
Commodore had a poor reputation among con-
sumers and developers, citing “abysmal record
of customer and technical support in the past”.
 CDXL
Commodore chose Amiga-enthusiast magazines CDXL is a motion video file format developed
as its chief advertising channel, but the Amiga by Commodore. It is notable for being one of the
community on the whole avoided the CDTV in earliest formats created for motion video play-
the expectation of an add-on CD-ROM drive for back from CD-ROM.
the Amiga, which eventually came in the form of
In an era shortly after the introduction of CD-
the A570. This further hurt sales of the CDTV,
ROM drives and before low cost MPEG decod-
as an A570-equipped A500 was electronically the
ing hardware became available the CDXL for-
same as a CDTV and, consequently, could run
mat was created, primarily for the Commodore
CDTV software, so there was very little motiva-
CDTV, to permit playback of video from CD-
tion for an Amiga owner to buy a CDTV. Howev-
ROM. CDXL is tailored for the Amiga chipset
er, Nolan Bushnell, one of the chief endorsers of
and takes advantage of DMA transfers, thus
the CDTV, argued the system’s high price alone
achieving playback with a low CPU load. As a
was enough to explain its market failure: “... it’s
result, CDXL can only support weak video com-
very difficult to sell significant numbers of any-
pression and therefore relatively low video reso-
thing at more than $500. ... I felt that I could sell
lutions and moderate frame rates.
a hundred thousand of something that costs $800
standing on my head. I thought that it would be a The CDXL format initially allowed playback
no-brainer. And I can tell you that the number of of up to 24 frames per second with up to 4096
units that we sold in the U.S. at $800 you could colors encoded in HAM-6. Audio support allows
put in your eye and not draw tears.” for 8-bit mono or stereo sound. With the advent
of the Amiga CD32, the CDXL format has been
By 1994 Computer Gaming World described the
extended to support AGA color modes (up to
CDTV as a “fiasco” for Commodore. Though the
262,144 on-screen colors from a 24-bit color pal-
company later developed an improved and cost-
ette) and higher display resolutions.
reduced CDTV-II, it was never released. Com-
modore discontinued the CDTV in 1993 with the Playback performance can be thought of as im-
launch of the Amiga CD32, which again was sub- pressive at the time of release given the CDTV’s
stantially based on Amiga hardware (in this case Motorola 68000 processor, OCS chipset and sin-
the newer Amiga 1200) but explicitly targeted the gle-speed CD-ROM drive constraints. A single-
games market. speed CD-ROM drive permits resolutions equiv-
alent to 160×100 with 4,096 colors at 12 frame/s
In December 2021 an unofficial free ROM up-
with 11025 Hz 8-bit mono audio. At these set-
date was released for CDTV (2.35), which brings
tings audio and visual quality is perceived as
compatibility with 68030 accelerator boards and
considerably worse than VHS.
32-bit Fast RAM, allows non-CDTV titles to
boot, fixes bugs and restores several features that
were lost in the 2.7 and 2.30 ROMs. Because of
copyright reasons the custom ROM is distributed
in patch form.

CDTV • 125
 BACK
FLOPPY DISK DRIVE PORT
For connecting an optional Amiga compatible
floppy drive to store information

REMOTE CONTROL PORT

For connecting an optional hardwire remote controller

KEYBOARD PORT
For connecting an optional computer style keyboard
or game controller

AUDIO OUTPUTS
Stereo audio outputs for connecting to a hi-fi system

MIDI PORTS
Midi in & out connectors for plugging in midi compatible
musical instruments

MAINS INPUT
AC mains power supply

FRONT
REMOTE SENSOR
Receives commands from the infra-red remote control

DISC L.E.D.
Lights up when the CDTV is loading data

POWER SWITCH
On and off switch for CDTV operation

MAINS LED
Lights up when CDTV is turned on

HEADPHONE SOCKET
Used for private listening to CDTV audio

CD DRIVE
Slot for inserting CDTV discs
(These should always be in a caddy)

EJECT BUTTON
Press to remove a disc from the CDTV

REMOTE CONTROLLER
ESCAPE KEY
To escape from an application, consult a help screen, or
choose further options

NUMERICAL KEYPAD
For entering numbers and choices

GENLOCK
Allows you to mix video or TV signals with
any CDTV information

DIRECTION CONTROLS
Used to move the highlight or pointer around
the CDTV screen

ENTER KEY
Confirming or signalling that you have
finished a particular action

126 • CDTV
 SERIAL PORT
Allows an optional printer or modem to be used

PARALLEL PORT
Allows an optional parallel printer to be used

RGB VIDEO PORT

Connection for computer style monitors

PAL CONNECTORS
PAL TV connectors for plugging in a domestic
television and external aerial

EXPANSION PORT
For optional networking, genlock and modem accessories

TRACK DISPLAY
Displays time, track and volume information

TRANSPORT CONTROLS
CD audio controls for play, pause, stop,
fast forward, rewind and skip

VOLUME CONTROL
Increases or decreases audio volume from the CDTV

RESET BUTTON
Restarts any CDTV application

CD / TV BUTTON
Switches between CDTV and normal TV viewing

MEMORY CARD SLOT

Removable cover for optional memory cards

CD/TV KEY
Switches between CDTV and normal TV viewing

JOY/MOUSE
Switches between joystick, mouse or other hardware type
computer control

POWER BUTTON
On and off Switch for CDTV operation

SELECTION KEYS
Used to make a choice or confirm an action
within a CDTV application

VOLUME KEYS
Increases or decreases audio volume from the CDTV

STOP KEY

CDTV • 127
 Technical specifications Input/output ports
• Keyboard (5 pin mini-DIN)
• Operating system: AmigaOS 1.3 (Kickstart 1.3/Workbench 1.3)
• Mouse (4 pin mini-DIN)
CDTV firmware
• RS-232 serial port (DB-25M)
• CPU: Motorola 68000 at 7.16 MHz (NTSC) / 7.09 MHz (PAL)
• Centronics-style parallel port (DB-25F)
• Speed: 7.14 MHz
• Floppy disk drive port (DB-23F)
• Co-Processor: Denise (8373 SuperDenise), Paula, Agnus, Gary
• MIDI (in and out)
• RAM: 512 KB (later expanded to 1Mb Chip RAM)
• Audio out (Two RCA and 6.35 mm stereo phone jack)
• ROM: 256 KB Kickstart ROM,
256 KB CDTV firmware ROM • Analog RGB video out (DB-23M)
• Sound: Four 8-bit PCM channels (two stereo channels) • RF audio/video out (RCA / RF loop through)
• Graphic Modes: several, most used : • Composite video out (RCA)
320 x 240 (32 colors) / 640 x 240 (16 colors) • S-Video out (4-pin mini-DIN)
• Colors: 4096 • SCART audio/video out

INTERNAL COMPONENTS

128 • CDTV
Included Accessories

Remote Control Auto RF Switch

A CDTV remote control was included
with each CDTV player. It has a four
button D-pad, an [A] and [B] button, 10
number keys, an Escape and Enter key,
volume control buttons for the CDTV’s
built-in headphones output and stan-
dard playback CD player controls (Play/
Pause, Stop, Prev/RWD, Next/FWD).
It also has a button to control the
optionally fitted genlock device, a button
to switch between CDTV and TV RF out-
put (on NTSC models), a power on/off
button and a button to switch between
joystick and mouse mode.
Two revisions of the CDTV Remote Con-
trol were created. The second revision
saw the problematic Joystick/Mouse
mode button replaced by a switch, mak-
ing it easier to see which mode the Re-
mote Control is operating in.
some text from cdtvland.com
The Auto RF Switch
was packed togeth-
er with the CDTV
main unit in North
American markets.
The Auto RF Switch
can switch between
the cable or antenna
RF television signal
and the signal coming from the CDTV.
Switching between the TV signal and
CDTV signal can be done by pressing
the CD/TV button on the Remote Con-
troller, Trackball Controller or console.
The Auto RF Switch was not sold sepa-
rately nor available in the PAL markets.
The CDTV PAL signal was daisy chained
into the cable/antenna RF signal itself di-
rectly. The CD/TV button therefore has
no function on PAL CDTVs.
some text from cdtvland.com

PAL RF Cable
PAL releases recieved the PAL RF Ca-
ble instead of the Auto RF Switch. It’s a
cable that plugs into the antenna socket
of a TV and the RF Out port of the CDTV.

Power Cord Audio Cord

Also included was a
standard RCA cord for
connecting the CDTV to
an audio system, among
other things.

CDTV • 129
 Letters from readers sent to
video game magazines.
CU Amiga Magazine #32 (October 1992)
BackChat
CDTV QUESTIONS
I’ve read a lot of hype about Commodore’s
CDTV, but have been unable to find out much
about its basic specifications. I’m seriously in-
terested in getting one, but is it really any
good, or is it just a CD player stuck on the side
of an A500?
I know that Commodore are trying to play
down the computer part of the machine by
calling it ‘A family entertainment centre’, but
some of us want to know about this aspect of
its abilities.
1. How fast does software load compared to
normal floppy drive or a hard drive?
2. What are the graphics like on a normal TV
set? Are they much better than the A500?
3. How much RAM does it have, and is it
expandable?
4. How much chip RAM can it handle? If
not much, do you foresee any problems arising
as a result of this?
5. I’ve heard that a number of A500 games
won’t work with the CDTV, why?
6. How fast is its processor chip compared
to the A500?
7. From what I’ve heard the remote con-
troller for playing games is crap. Is there an
alternative?
8. Is it possible to expand the CDTV into
a work station complete with keyboard for
DTP, word processing, music, etc. I ask this
because of Commodore’s attitude towards the
word ‘Computer’, acting as if it’s a dirty word
where the CDTV is concerned, which is strange
considering that computing is their business.
9. Is it possible to connect the CDTV
and a normal Amiga up to each other?
10. What do you think the CDTV should re-
alistically be selling for?
P. Ebbans, Walsall, West Midlands
130 • Magazine letters - CDTV
Answer from the editorial. -
I don’t know the CDTV’s exact loading speed,
but it’s slower than a decent hard drive and a
bit faster than floppy disk. Essentially, the CDTV
is an Amiga with a high capacity CD player;
its graphics are exactly the same as the A500’s.
However, thanks to the massive storage capacity
of the disks, there is the potential for graphics
that would have proved too expensive in terms of
disk space for an A500.
The CDTV has one Meg of chip RAM, in-
ternally expandable to two. I don’t foresee this
causing any problems that don’t already exist on
the A500.
It’s processor runs at 7.14MHz, the same
speed as that of an A500 Plus (whose operating
system it shares).
You can use ordinary mice and joysticks with
the CDTV, and there are a range of additional
peripherals such as monitors, disk drives and
keyboards available for it, letting you turn it
back into an A500! Alternatively you can con-
nect it to an A500 using a PD program called
Parnet.
It’s true that Commodore did seem to forsake
their die-hard computer users by trying to pitch
the CDTV as something it wasn’t. In my opinion,
this has rightly backfired on them because the
ordinary public weren’t interested in it, and com-
puter retailers felt betrayed.
Many computer users are bored with hearing
the CDTV talked about in almost reverent tones,
not to mention the comically late CD-ROM
drive. Many have perhaps come to suspect that,
based on the currently available crop of soft-
ware (Fred Fish Collection, Lemmings and Sim
City excluded), it’s not worth spending £100 on,
much less £499!
 New Computer Express #132 (May 1991)
Shopping Express
Betamax 2?
WHAT’S ALL this fuss being made about
CDTV? Everyone who is anyone realises
that soon as Sony gets its marketing
people into gear and its CD-I product
fully developed, Commodore’s attempt at
multimedia will vanish into the realms of
Betamax and Video2000.
Martin Firbanks, Kircaldy, Scotland.
Answer from the editorial. -
OK Martin but just remember Betamax was a
Sony format won’t you?
CU Amiga Magazine #30 (August 1992)
BackChat
WHERE DO COMMODORE GO FROM HERE?
I bought one of the first A500s (with
an awful TV modulator). I bought a
RAM upgrade for £140, and later one
of the first V1.3s. I put up with poor
software, but KNEW the machine was
a winner. I dutifully filled in every regis-
tration card, and knew Commodore had
put me on their database due to the
junk mail sent to my various pseudo-
nyms. I have recently bought a CDTV,
and I believe it to be a good machine,
but once again, it would seem it is up
to people like myself to have to estab-
lish the machine, only to be rewarded by
having to upgrade all too soon. I expect
the CDTV will eventually be released
with Full-Motion Video and hard drive
as standard, at a competitive price, but
once again, Commodore will ignore people
like me. I don’t expect something for
free, but just to write to us, offer us
the upgrade at reasonable cost and to
feel they give a damn would help. My
next step would normally going to be
left feeling bitter again. I’ll keep the
CDTV for the software I have, but
the A500 will go.
Dave Walker, West Sussex.
CU Amiga Magazine # (August 1991)
Questions and Answers
CDTV VS AMIGA
Now, at long last, the CDTV has been
launched. So when will the CD-ROM drive
for normal Amigas become available?
Also, is the CDTV that much better
than the normal A500 or is it just the
sound that has been improved?
David Walker, East Harling, Norwich
Answer from the editorial. -
Whilst there are no firm release dates available for
the A690 (CD-ROM), there are rumours afoot that
September is a possible launch date. It seems high-
ly likely that Commodore will at least release it in
time to cash in on the Christmas spending sprees. As
for making a comparison between the A500 and the
CDTV: they are targetted at entirely different mar-
kets, and as such I’m not sure if a direct comparison
is really valid. Commodore are vociferously claiming
that the CDTV is not a computer, despite its distinctly
computeresque attributes. They prefer instead to use
phrases such as ‘home entertainment centre’ when re-
ferring to their latest innovation.
Whatever term they use to describe it, it does have
many points in common with the Amiga. The great-
est difference, is the inclusion of an optical drive that
reads information stored on CD type disks as opposed
to 3.5 inch floppies. These CDs have a massive 650
megabytes of storage space, and this information can
be accessed far faster than if it were stored on normal
disks. It has the same graphics modes as the Amiga
range, so software run on the two machines is likely
to look very similar, through the storage capacity of
the CDs makes it far more viable to include lots of
very detailed graphics, especially in software that
doesn’t require animation. The CDTV has the further
advantage of being able to play CD sound tracks
and effects whilst you play games. The main problem
seems to be the exclusion of a keyboard with the pack-
age. This means that, initially at least, you will not
be able to use the machine with applications that are
keyboard-oriented. Many people currently feel that
it’s worth waiting to see what becomes of the A690
before committing themselves to the expense of what
may be a very costly executive toy.
CDTV - Magazine letters • 131
 magazine article from; “Special Report” Amiga World Magazine
(July 1990) written by: Doug Barney and Louis R. Wallace

MILLION DOLLAR

B A BY
Combine a CD-ROM drive with a high-pow-
ered Amiga, and what do you get? A hot,
interactive, CD-based, home-information/en-
tertainment system, that’s what; and, while it
ain’t exactly from the five-and-ten-cent store,
it won’t cost you a mint, either.

IMAGINE YOU’RE JUST home from
the office. You sit back in the Lazy-
Boy, kick off your shoes, turn on the
tube, and click a few buttons. A menu
appears, offering information about
Paris, a terrific city.
You select the Louvre option, and
soon you are admiring the “Mona
Lisa,” by Leonardo da Vinci. You
forget where Leonardo lived, so you
select the Personal History icon.
“He’s from Tuscany? I thought he was
Venetian!” you explain after scrolling
through a few crisp, bitmapped para-
graphs.
No. This isn’t a scene from The
Jetsons. It’s just typical of the type of
application expected to be offered by
a deceptively simple-looking new de-
vice currently doing business on the
q.t. under the informal moniker “The
Baby”.
While Commodore has been ham-
mering out final details of the new
machine (expected to be released
later this year), we went behind the
scenes—meetings in parking lots,
seedy diners, dive bars frequented only
by motorcycle gangs and techies—to
tap some “deep-background” sources.
The result is this AmigaWorld Special
Report.
Baby: One Smart Kid
If you have heard of “interactive com-
pact-disc technology” at all, chances
are it was being mentioned by so-
called industry experts in conjunction
with such phrases as “maybe next
year... or perhaps the year after that.”
Well, as always, these “knowledge-
able industry sources” forgot to take
a look at what Commodore has been
up to. But, as the company has been
a leader in bringing innovative con-
sumer electronics to market for nearly
a decade, it comes as no surprise that
Commodore will be the first to pro-
duce a CD-based, multimedia, home-
information/entertainment system at
an affordable price.
The Baby is actually a marriage
of technologies. In addition to a CD-
ROM drive that can play standard au-
dio CDs, it also has infra-red devices
that allow you to control it from the
couch, just as you would your TV or
VCR. This alone, of course, is not in-
teractive compact-disc technology, so
many people will ask, “What is it that
gives Commodore the edge over the
other would-be interactive CD-ROM
developers?”
The answer, obviously, is a mul-
titasking, high-powered Amiga! Al-
though The Baby has been designed
to look much like a stereo component,
this hot, audio/visual compact-disc
system is every inch an Amiga. It
combines the core innards of an Ami-
ga 500 (a 68000 CPU, the Enhanced
Chip Set, and one megabyte of RAM)
with a state-of-the-art CD-ROM de-
vice. The unit can be tied into a home
stereo system and then to the TV, de-
livering a number of functions. It can
act as a plain old CD player or provide
new forms of home education and en-
tertainment. But make no mistake: It
is the Amiga that acts as the brains
and brawn of this first-ever interactive
CD-ROM system.
The Baby offers all the benefits of
a sophisticated computer, plus high-
quality audio, ease of use, massive
storage, and an unprecedented use
of still and moving images—all for a
sum rumoured to be less than $1000!
The system is even expected to run
full-motion video in a quarter-screen
window. What is particularly exiting
about Baby’s built-in CD-ROM player
is that it offers an astonishing amount
of storage capacity—more than half a
gigabye. (To put that in perspective,
think of a half-gigabyte as more than
500 standard floppies!) With that kind
of potential, developers can make
generous use of sound, high-quality
images, partial-screen video, anima-
tion, and, of course, reams of text.
That all sounds plenty fine to us.
At this price, and with this technol-
ogy, Baby is sure to send consumers
scurrying off to stores and competi-
tors racing off to their drawing boards.
People will have to cool their jets for a
whole, of course, but let’s hope Com-

132 • magazine article

modore gives birth to Baby soon.
That shouldn’t be too hard to take,
however, and while your waiting,
think of this: All of Baby’s capabilities
are expected to be offered to existing
Amiga owners through a CD-ROM
peripheral. This peripheral should
also include a file system modified to
handle CD-ROM data. But because
this may cost as much as $600, many
Amiga users may simply opt to buy a
full Baby.
For Baby customers who catch
Amiga fever, a number of options
should be available that will turn the
new system into a full-fledge Amiga.
These include drives, keyboards, joy-
sticks, genlocks, and more. The sys-
tem will come standard with a remote-
control device having function keys,
pointer keys, and so forth.
Clothes Make the Child, Too:
Baby Applications
The Baby itself may be exciting, but
the real proof will be in the applica-
tions pudding. The vast CD-ROM
storage space offers developers in-
credible freedom of expression. CD-
ROM itself will allow for the creation
of applications never seen before on
any system.
Add to CD-ROM a multitasking,
graphics computer such as the Ami-
ga, and you get a true, multi-media-
application server. We will see games
with unparalleled backgrounds, lev-
els, and interactively, as well as easy-
to-negotiate interactive information
(kiosk-style), education, and training
systems. We may even see a brand-
new way to distribute music-one that
includes images of the band, histories
of the players, or new ways of select-
ing songs.
These applications are sure to have
a distinct Amiga look and feel, be-
cause by and large they will be devel-
oped with popular Amiga tools. De-
velopers are apt to use programs such
as DeluxePaint III to create back-
grounds and design characters, and to
add musical scores and sound effects
with a wide variety of current Amiga
sound and music programs.
The fact that the Amiga is an ideal
platform for digitizing and manipulat-
ing images and sound will help ensure
that Baby applications are both pleas-
ing to the eye and stimulating to the
ear. For home use, this is sure to beat
reruns of Mork and Mindy; for devel-
opers, it could be the challenge of a
lifetime.
Parenting: Amigas Make Good Dads
The appeal of Commodore’s new
Baby is two-fold. As we have already
said, it incorporates a rich, new varie-
ty of applications possibilities through
its unique inclusion of built-in CD-
ROM drive. The Baby, however, also
benefits from the Amiga’s own ar-
chitecture. The Amiga custom chips
provide snappy multitasking, mean-
ing that the unit can handle all sound,
graphics, and mouse operations as
separate, though simultaneous, tasks.
These custom chips are likely to make
The Baby the most interactive, inex-
pensive, multimedia-delivery plat-
form for years to come.
Amiga users who have been spoiled
by true multitasking will have to for-
give Baby’s limitations. Multitasking
is expected to have a different defini-
tion on the new machine. The system
assumes that only one application is
running at a time. Applications, how-
ever, are free to multitask “within
themselves.” Developers can, if they
choose, override this feature and build
applications that will work with other
applications. These, however, will be
subject to the system’s one-megabyte
Specifications As of Press Time
Motorola 6800 running at
7.16 MHz
1 MB RAM
Internal nonvolatile RAM
CD-ROM drive
Interfaces (rear):
External disk interface
RS-232 serial interface
Can use plug-in keyboard
and remote control instead
of infrared devices
Interfaces (front):
Stereo headphone jack
Infrared controller jack
RAM limitation.
Creating The Baby was not as sim-
ple as sticking a CD-ROM drive in an
Amiga and building a new case. Com-
modore had to mesh the CD-ROM
technology with that of the Amiga.
Many of these efforts focused on the
creation of a special file system that
would work with The Baby but also
allow existing Amigas to access and
manipulate external CD-ROM de-
vices. The new file system is reported
to be an extension of the Amiga file
system, not a full replacement.
Because many Baby customers
will be unfamiliar with the Amiga,
Commodore is designing a new user
interface. This promises to be so easy
to use that you can tell it what to do
while sitting on a couch eight feet
away.
The Baby opens up an entirely new
world for the Amiga community. Ap-
plications can be delivered on the
more stable CD-ROM format, and
will be able to include more code,
images, and interactive tutorials. A
whole new class of applications that
truly fulfil the promise of multimedia
will be available, at an attractively af-
fordable price.
Even if all you care about is playing
Baltic Avenue-priced games, Baby
will enable you to do it with Park
Place style and panache.
Video Outputs
Digital RGB, analog RAGB
Composite color video,
S-Video, and RF (as option)
Options:
Infrared keyboard
Infrared trackball
Infrared joystick
Expansion module with
floppy drive
Module can also house a
model, hard drive, etc.
Genlock
Miscellaneous:
Real-time clock
magazine article • 133
 magazine article excerpts from; “CDTV Special Report” Amiga World Magazine
(June 1991) written by: Doug Barney

CDTV
BIRTH OF A NOTION?
As Commodore’s long-awaited interactive
multimedia system for the home finally hits
the market, people are wondering whether
this CD-ROM/Amiga hybrid is a revolution-
ary breakthrough or just another fancy flash
in the pan. AW’s Editor in Chief ventures a
few answers in this Special Report.

L ike D.W. Griffith’s seminal film

75 years ago, Commodore’s
CDTV could represent a similar pio-
neering effort in a different medium.
The interactive CD-ROM system,
which marries CD-ROM and Amiga
technologies, just might be the ticket
that raises “multimedia” from hyped-
up buzzword to living-room byword.
It’s taken the wizards from West
Chester a while to deliver the goods:
AmigaWorld first brought you the
news about CDTV in an investigative
story of our July 1990 issue. Commo-
dore called it “The Baby” then, and
while 11 months is a tad longer than
the normal human gestation period,
the company finally began rolling out
CDTV in selected markets just as we
were getting the issue ready for press.
Throughout the long delivery,
Commodore has been diligently refin-
ing the product. Also during that time,
the company lined up scads of devel-
opers, nailed down the distribution
through retailers such as Montgomery
Ward and Macy’s, set a suggested list
price of just under a grand ($999),
and, finally, polished off the product.
In order to have enough time to do a
full-scale, hands-on review of CDTV
for this issue, however, we were
forced to use a very late-model proto-
type and an array of equally late beta
software. In addition, we received one
final operating-system upgrade in the
middle of writing the article!
Hybrid Vigor: Highlights of CDTV
While some things have been altered,
the basic hardware behind CDTV
(Commodore Dynamic Total Vision)
has not changed much form what we
described 11 months ago. It is still
a CD-ROM player tied into a 7.16
MHz 68000-based A500. The front
panel includes mainly standard CD
functions (Play, Pause, Head-Phone
Jack, and so forth), plus a port for the
Personal RAM card. Meanwhile, the
back is jammed full of ports and plugs
that computer users around the world
generally loves to see. There are par-
allel and serial ports, a floppy drive,
keyboard and remote mouse/joystick
ports, audio out, MIDI in and out, and
an array of video outputs, including
RF, Composite color video, Digital
and Analog RGB, and S-Video (sup-
porting PAL and NTSC). Also on the
back are a DMA expansion slot and a
video slot.
The system still comes with one
megabyte of RAM, which limits the
amount and quality of either anima-
tion or video, but keeps the price
down to a reasonable level.
Although CDTV uses the tried-and-
true A500 as its base technology, it
is shockingly and purposely unlike
any computer ever made. The physi-
cal device is decidedly uncomputer-
like. A key difference is the 28-button
hand-held remote device that handles
all control function. Unfortunately, its
four-button cursor does not allow for
the fine control possible with a mouse,
making intricate menus and drawing
out of the question. (Commodore
will, however, offer a remote-control
mouse later this year).
In general, the remote device of-
fers fewer choices, and it will take a
bit more time to achieve the desired
result. But those intimidated by the
complex of a VCR, or scared stiff of
computers, will appreciate the total
shielding of all computer elements.
With the remote, users also gain
tremendous freedom. There is simply
no cord binding you to your compu-
ter. When you sit back in that easy
chair, soda in hand, and start moving
through screens, the advantages really
sinks in.
Another advantage of CDTV is
its ability to play the rare (there are
only about 30) but interesting CD+G
(Compact Disc Plus Graphics) discs.
These CDs include graphics that are
played on a television. We’re not ex-
actly talking rock video here, but the

134 • magazine article

images do add flavor to the musical
content.
For playing standard CDs, Com-
modore has added a slick graphical in-
terface. You control the CD by poking
buttons on the remote device. Then
you see an animated representation of
the portion of the CD that is played.
In addition to programming the se-
quence of cuts or skipping through
tracks, the interface gives you the
ability to preview the first ten seconds
of each song, as well as to control the
CD+G and CD+MIDI function. By
the way, the MIDI function is a new
addition to the original design, allow-
ing MIDI devices to input to CDTV
and vice-versa.
Out of the Box... And Into the Chair
There are several options for hook-
ing up CDTV. If you have an existing
stereo monitor, you can simply plug
in your CDTV audio cords and play
away. This makes for a nice, com-
pact desktop unit, although the sound
quality cannot match a typical home
stereo.
Commodore assumes that most of
you will hook CDTV up to your TV
set, using the supplied RF Modulator,
with audio then going through your
stereo system. This clearly yields
the best sound quality and also puts
CDTV where Commodore wants it—
right in your living room!
If you don’t have a stereo in your
living room, you can connect CDTV
directly to your TV, although the
sound quality leaves a bit to be de-
sired—at least with the TV I tried.
Once you’ve set up your system,
you will be in for a treat when it comes
to operating it. CDTV defines a whole
new style of computer interface—one
that is more kiosk-like than computer-
oriented. Because the unit is meant to
be commanded by an individual sit-
ting on a couch using a low-res point-
ing device, all menus are simple and
clear, all fonts are quite large, and all
screens are decidedly uncluttered.
Basically, you navigate through a
series of large boxes—pushing “A” to
advance, select, or enter and “B” to go
back. Although there is an enter but-
ton, it is used only to save informa-
tion to bookmark memory (about 2K
“Interactive” is the byword of CDTV —
with users choosing options from simple
graphical menus and control panels by us-
ing the remote controller.
of memory used for such small tasks
as saving a place in a game) or to con-
firm an “A” command. There is also
an escape button, but this is used pri-
marily as a help key. In joystick mode,
“A” acts as the firebutton.
Commodore provided CDTV de-
velopers with interface guidelines
stricter than any imposed on Amiga
software. The goal of these guidelines
is not just ease of use, but also uni-
formity in look and feel. One problem
developers must overcome, however,
is the slowness of the CD drive. Each
program must inform the user when
a command has been accepted and is
being processed; otherwise, the impa-
tient user will continue to pound away
at the remote.
Loading and unloading programs
is about as simple as it gets. Simply
pop the CD in to load or out to un-
load. CDTV reboots at each exit, and
all applications are completely auto-
booting.
Because CDTV is not marketed pri-
marily as a computer, there is a wealth
of new terminology to describe com-
mon computer functions. For in-
stance, peripherals are “accessories”
boot becomes “start,” cursor becomes
“pointer,” icon becomes “symbol,”
RAM becomes “memory,” and soft-
ware becomes “title.” Some terms,
such as guru and directory, have been
dispensed with altogether.
Report Card
In terms of overall performance,
CDTV garners mixed, but generally
excellent, grades. Like any Amiga,
the graphics, screen changes, and
cursor movement have a nice snap.
For those accustomed to speedy hard
drives, however, the access time from
the CD-ROM will seem a trifle slow.
This is a problem with all CD-ROM
devices, not just CDTV. As develop-
ers learn a few more preloading and
memory-saving tricks, their applica-
tions should become more lively.
For now at least, many people
may find themselves pushing the but-
tons again and again to make sure
they have properly issued their com-
mands, which can sometimes take a
few poundings. Applications such as
Applied Optical Meda’s World Vista
Atlas solves this input problem by is-
suing a solid beep when the key press
has succeeded.
On the other hand, the combina-
tion of simple, bold graphics, near-
photographic images, hand-held con-
trol, and CD-quality sound is quite
remarkable—regardless of speed.
CDTV could represent a new, ex-
citing, and very different era for many
Amiga users. Hard-core users may not
like the sluggishness of the CD drive,
the limited RAM, or the remote-
control device. Others, though, will
welcome the excellent sound and the
innovative style of application. But
anyone contemplating shelling out a
grand for such a system should get
some demos first. Since the proof will
be in the applications, let them help
you decide.
magazine article • 135
 Better take note. One CD inserted into
the new Amiga CDTV stores the equivalent of
up to 700 floppy discs. That’s 550 megabytes of
memory or 250,000 A4 pages of text.
CDTV also gives you access to over 3,000
Amiga titles and over 100 CDTV discs, covering
everything from arcade quality games to educa-
tion. And CDTV can be used as a regular audio
CD player when connected to your stereo. The
Amiga CDTV Computer Pack, complete with
THE WORLD’S MOST INTERACTIVE INTERACTIVE HOME ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM
qwerty keyboard, disc drive, mouse and infra
red remote control can be yours for only £499.99
including our free Public Domain Collection
disc. The Amiga CDTV Player Pack comes in
even lower at only £399.99. All of which proves
one thing.
When it comes to the ultimate in home
entertainment, you won’t find anything better
than the Amiga CDTV.
article from ACE Magazine 34, July 1990

THE GAMES
Everything’s here to produce the games machine
you’ve always dreamed of. Two player IR interface,
overlaid CD sound, IR remote controls, the existing Games
Amiga graphics capability, MIDI for blasting synth
accompaniment, high score RAM cards, and the Much of the CDTV library of titles does not in-
promise of full motion video in the future. Wow! clude games, but other types of software, like ref-
So what’s going to hit the shelves in the near fu- erence titles and interactive books.
ture?
The answer, predictably, is nothing like as much The CDTV titles are categorised into six genres;
you’d like. ACE has uncovered a large ring of UK Entertainment (games), Education (children’s
software companies who are producing software
for the CD-TV, but none of them (except Virgin) books, learning software, etc.), Arts & Leisure
were prepared to discuss their plans with us since (miscellanious, reference software, etc.), Refer-
this article was prepared before the official launch ence (interactive text books, encyclopedias, etc.),
of the machine. However, we can make some firm Music (music software) and Productivity/Compi-
predictions... lations/Shareware (PD compilations, tools, etc.).
First, there are the titles Commodore have or-
ganised for the machine’s launch. These include Other categories includes Demos (official demos
products from Randy-McNally (an interactive at- released for the system) and Miscellaneous (titles
las), Lucasfilm (what’s the betting it’ll be a version that don’t fit on any other category, like some of
of Loom with enhanced audio?), Virgin Interactive the CD+G Audio CDs). Commodore gave almost
(North Polar Expedition), and even some CD-TV every CDTV title one of these label (excluding
versions of the famous Beatrix Potter stories for
younger (or young at heart) players. Demos and Miscellaneous), but I have moved
There’s a superb foreign language disk as well, some around when I don’t thought they fit. Last
where you can click on words and hear them spoken category is Cancelled, which is self-explanatory.
in French, or Spanish, or whatever. And of course
the CD means proper human speech — none of this Some CD-ROMs listed on these pages were re-
synthesis rubbish and more. One application — the leased as both an official CDTV and CD32 ti-
Family Health Adviser — even diagnoses common tle, and some were only CD32 compatible, but
family illnesses. And Jack Niklaus himself will be wrongly sold as CDTV compatible. Most CDTV
giving you practical tips on golf and shots of him
playing in the CD-TV version of Jack Niklaus Golf. software will also work on the CD32 and the
In fact, most British and American software Amiga 500 (with the A570 CD-ROM drive).
houses have expressed an interest in producing soft-
ware for the machine, giving it a greater degree of
support than any other computer has had at launch
date. That in itself must be encouraging.
Naturally, many softco’s will be producing en-
hanced versions of existing games and the two
player IR interface bodes very well for the latest
trend towards multi-player entertainment.
New software design techniques are also prom-
ised, as programmers produce scenarios with vari-
able difficulty levels for each character, allowing,
for example, better gamesters to compete on equal
terms with their younger relatives. ‘We’re looking
forward to a whole new category of family games,’
said Commodores’s Gail Wellington, ‘...where peo-
ple can play together and the level of difficulty suits
EVERY player, yet all are involved in the same
scenario. This is very much a home information or
entertainment device.’
In fact, it could be the final realisation of the
Amiga dream — persistently marketed since birth
as a business machine, against all the instincts and
desires of us gamesters, the CD-TV could give it a
glorious games rebirth.

CDTV - Games • 137

 Air Warrior

Air Warrior was a multiplayer online combat flight

simulation game launched by Kesmai in 1988. It
was hosted on GEnie and used that service as a
server for client software running on a variety of
personal computers available in that era.

The game included 17 WW II era fighters (P-51D

Mustang, P-38J Lightning, F4U Corsair, Spitfire
MK IX, BF-109F, FW-190, YAK-9D) and bombers
(B-17G Flying Fortress, B-25J Mitchell, Junkers
JU-88) from 5 nations for use in aerial dogfights
and bombing missions.
Each plane had unique features in regards
to performance, manoeuvrability, and flight control
characteristics. Using the keyboard control help-
screen during flight could help reduce the learning
curve. Chat communication in real-time air battles
was limited to keyboard text, which made quick
Developer Kesmai abbreviated responses a necessity.
Publisher On-line
Release date 1992 Air Warrior was played over modems and host-
Genre Simulation ed on the GEnie online service provider. Players
Mode 1 Player
could choose one of a number of World War II air-
craft to fly, along with ground vehicles, and play in
a multiplayer “arena” with hundreds of other play-
ers. The game focused mostly on dogfighting, with
a secondary strategic role of capturing forward air-
bases near the centre of the map. Several updat-
ed versions were released, and additional service
providers were added over time.

Other Releases
Amiga 1990
Atari ST 1991
MS-DOS (SVGA) 1992
Macintosh 1990
FM Towns 1992
Terminal 1988

CDTV FM Towns

138 • Games - CDTV

 The original version of Air
Warrior ran on Macintosh, Ami-
ga, and Atari ST computers, had
simple black and white wireframe
graphics, and cost over $10 per
hour to play. Over time, Kesmai
produced improved versions of
the game, starting with SVGA Air
Warrior in 1993, and continuing
with Air Warrior for Windows in
1996, Air Warrior II in early 1997,
Air Warrior III later in 1997, and
finally Air Warrior III Millennium Version in text from advert;
2000. Development of Air Warrior II was
directly overseen by Bill Stealey, founder
We don’t know from friendly skies
of the game’s publisher, Interactive Magic. You’ve beat all the flight sims? A furball
Kesmai also did business deals doesn’t raise a sweat anymore? Ten minutes of
WWI combat isn’t even challenging?
to provide access to Air Warrior through
Hmm...
additional on-line services, including Del- Maybe you are ready for Air Warrior®.
phi, CRIS, CompuServe, America Online, That is, if you think you can handle the most
Earthlink, Gamestorm and CompuLink. A realistic combat flying there is. Because Air
version of Air Warrior for Windows was Warriors does more than correctly model 28
different WWII aircraft, complete with spins,
ported back to the Macintosh in 1997 in an
stalls and buffering.
Internet open beta, and then later moved It puts you up against other human beings.
to America Online. In 1999, Electronic Online, in real time, for as long as you care
Arts purchased Air Warrior, and became to play.
provider of the latest version of the game, That’s why Air Warrior attracts the aces. So
if you’re just looking for a friendly loop-the-
only to discontinue it in 2001.
loop, look elswhere. If you’re interested in a
career, sign on to Air Warrior — only on GE-
Online multiplayer gameplay is no longer nie®.
possible today. The game, however, can
be played offline, but only solo flights are
possible and much of the graphical detail
witnessed in online multiplayer combat is
absent.

Air Warrior was one of the first massive

online games, hosting hundreds of users
during busy periods. It inspired WarBirds,
which in turn inspired Aces High, while
other members of the WarBirds team went
on to produce World War II Online. Today
there are a number of similar games, like
WarThunder, most of them based on a
freemium model.

some text from mobygames.com

CDTV - Games • 139

 Talking Electric Crayon:
All Dogs Go To Heaven
Alistair in Outer Space Developer Merit Software
Publisher Merit Software
Developer Altered Images Release date 1993
Publisher Altered Images Genre Edutainment
Release date 1993
Genre Interactive-book, Mini-games The Talking Electric Crayon series con-
sisted of updated versions of their Elec-
Alistair in Outer Space is a multi-media tric Crayon Deluxe series which saw re-
CD based on the children book of the leases on the Amiga and MS-DOS.
same name by Marilyn Sadler. A narrator
reads the story while cartoon clips and All Dogs Go To Heaven is a title in this
sound effects plays along. series of digital coloring books. It is
based on the 1989 American–Irish ani-
The CD also includes a variety of mini- mated adventure film of the same name.
games that cover spelling, numbers, in-
cluding puzzles, matching game and a Users can choose from 30 pictures
coloring book. based on events in the film that they
can color with the use of a simple graph-
ics editor. Updates from the earlier ver-
sion includes spoken words, music and
songs from the movie, 22 colors instead
of 16, and printer options.

140 • Games - CDTV

Battle Chess

Battle Chess is a computer game version of chess

with animated 3D graphics. It was originally devel-
oped and released by Interplay Entertainment for the
Amiga in 1988 and subsequently on many other sys-
tems. It was the first title developed and published
by Interplay Entertainment themselves after ending
their relationship with Electronic Arts, besides Neu-
romancer.

Battle Chess has been quoted as “a chess game for

people who don’t like chess”. Each piece is brought
to life by adding comical animations to them, moving
across the board and violently attacking one anoth-
er. There is a different animation for each permuta-
Developer Quicksilver tion, depending on which pieces are capturing or be-
Publisher Interplay ing captured. It is also possible to play in 2D without
Release date 1992 animation.
Genre Puzzle The game’s opening library includes 30,000
Mode 1-2 Players
different moves, ensuring a variety of games will un-
fold across the 10 skill levels.

The Amiga CDTV version also features a fully voiced

introduction describing the movements of the pieces
for the benefit of beginners.

Battle Chess was critically acclaimed and commer-

cially successful, resulting in two official follow-ups
as well as several inspired games. A remake, Battle
Chess: Game of Kings, was released on Steam in
2015.

Other Releases
Acorn 32-bit 1993
Amiga 1988
Amiga CD32 1994
Apple II 1990
Apple IIgs 1989
Atari ST 1989
Commodore 64 1989
MS-DOS 1989
Linux 2021
Macintosh 1991
NES 1990
PC-98 1990
Sharp X68000 1989
Windows 2017
Windows 3.x 1991
CDTV Commodore 64

CDTV - Games • 141

 The Case of the
Battlestorm Cautious Condor
Developer Titus Developer Tiger Media
Publisher Titus Publisher Tiger Media
Release date 1992 Release date 1991
Genre Shooter Genre Action-adventure
Mode 1 Player Mode 1 Player

Battlestorm is a top-down space shooter The Case of the Cautious Condor is an

that differentiated itself from other shoot-
ers at the time by being multi directional.
The game takes place above the surface
of a ruined, devastated planet: each lev-
el starts within a large area, in which the
players ship has free movement. Avoid-
ing surface hazards, such as auto-aim-
ing turrets, the goal is to destroy enemy
spacecrafts that hover around the large
area in groups. A boss will chase the
player around the playfield after the end
of each level.
The CDTV version recieved mostly
mixed to negative reviews at the time,
most because of being a pure Amiga
disk port without any updates to the new
CD format.
“mobygames.com”
adventure game in an interactive comic
book style developed by Tiger Media for
FM Towns in Japan in 1989. It was one
of the first games made specifically for
CD-ROM.
The player controls detective Ned Pe-
ters, who has to figure out the identity of
the murderer by wandering around the
rooms, looking for clues and overhear-
ing conversations between the other
guests aboard the flying boat Condor
on a cruise over the Atlantic. The game
has no text: the dialogue is played only
as audio and the interface is completely
mouse-driven.
According to the game’s developer, it
had disappointing sales, in part because
CD-ROM drives were not yet widespread
at that time.

Other Releases
Amiga 1990 Other Releases
MS-DOS 1991 FM Towns 1989
MS-DOS 1992

142 • Games - CDTV

The Curse of RA
Developer Cyberstyle
Publisher Rainbow Arts
Release date 1992
Genre Board Classic Board Games
Mode 1 Player
Developer Merit
The Curse of RA (known in-game as RA, Publisher Merit
and not to be confused with the 1998 Release date 1991
Genre Board
game of the same name) is a top-down
Mode 1-2 Players
tile-matching puzzle game.
Featuring an Ancient Egyptian theme, Classic Board Games by Merit Soft-
Ra has players controlling a scarab bee- ware includes video game conversions
tle (known as Scara) on a board full of of three different board games; Chess,
stones as they clear pairs of stones with Checkers and Backgammon. Games
matching hieroglyphics on them. Scara can be played single player or against
can shift certain stones around the open another player.
void, which are often required to manip- It also feature digitised instructions and
ulate the board to match pairs safely (as commentary in six spoken languages,
they can only be matched when on the including Japanese.
same row or column, regardless of dis-
tance, and disappear once matched).
The game can be played in two distinct
game modes; Logic or Arcade mode.
“giantbomb.com”

Other Releases
Amiga 1990

Other Releases
Amiga
Atari ST
Commodore 64
MS-DOS

CDTV - Games • 143

 Chaos in Andromeda:
Eyes of the Eagle
Casino Games
Developer KirkMoreno
Developer Saen Software Publisher On-line
Publisher Saen Software Release date 1992
Release date 1992 Genre Role-playing
Genre Casino Mode 1 Player
Mode 1 Player
Chaos in Andromeda: Eyes of the Eagle
Casino Games offers playable video is set in the 22. century. The object of the
game conversions of the casino table game is to free a kidnapped scientist on
game Roulette, a slot machine called the planet Andromeda.
Fruitmania and a poker card game vari- The majority of the game is exploring the
ant called Fullhouse. map from a top-down perspective. Play-
The game received mostly mixed re- ers can interact objects and characters
views. The presentation was seen as in the world. There are also enemies
a negative, with basic blue backdrops roaming on the planet which, because
and boxed screens. The game is also movement happens in real-time, may be
plagued with unnecessary pauses both avoided or fought on a separate battle
when loading games and during play. screen—later in the game helpful an-
Amiga Format gave the game a droid can be used during combat. The
score of 21% and said “A rather sorry player character can divide points on
compilation of three arcade games. A character statistics like strength or wis-
choice of music tracks is available, but dom.
makes no difference to the poor games. “mobygames.com”
There’s better stuff available in the pub-
lic domain”.

Other Releases
Amiga 1991

144 • Games - CDTV

E.S.S Mega
Developer Tomahawk
Publisher Coktel Vision
Release date 1991
Genre Simulation
Mode 1 Player
E.S.S Mega (European Space Simula-
tor Mega) is a space shuttle simulation
using 3D-modelled graphics. It recreates
ESA’s space vehicle concepts of the ear-
ly 1990, specially the Hermes Shuttle.
The game balances realism and play-
ability, offering real-time 3D graphics and
management of many mission details.
For example, the player needs to setup
space shuttle cargo, crew and fuel. Mis-
sion steps include launch, orbital pilot-
ing (deploying or maintaining satellites,
building and visiting a space station) and
landing on a carrier. The in-game space
database provides information.
Joystick magazine gave the PC floppy
version an 89% score and the CD-Rom
version 91%. Amiga Joker gave the
CDTV version a 3/5 score.
Guy Spy and the
Crystals of Armageddon
Developer ReadySoft
Publisher ReadySoft
Release date 1993
Genre Action
Mode 1 Player
Guy Spy is a cartoon adventure similar
to Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace but with
longer sections.
The player control a British spy whose
mission it is to stop the evil Baron Von
Max who are in search of the legend-
ary Crystals of Armageddon. Max needs
these crystals to power the dooms-
day machine he has constructed in the
mountains at an unknown location.
On every level the player have to do
something different such as shooting the
foes, different fights, several chases, etc.
Progressing in game allows the player to
watch the colorful animation of perilous
adventure.

Other Releases
Other Releases Amiga 1992
Atari ST 1993
MS-DOS 1991
MS-DOS 1992
Atari ST 1991
Macintosh 1992

CDTV - Games • 145

 Cover Girl Strip Poker

Cover Girl Strip Poker, alternately titled Cover Girl

Poker, is a 1991 erotic video game based upon five-
card strip poker and originally developed and self-
published by Emotional Pictures—a subsidiary of
Danish company InterActive Vision A/S. Cover Girl
Strip Poker is the original Danish title; it was retitled
Cover Girl Poker outside of Denmark in the rest of
Europe, and the title was subsequently reverted
back for the European CDTV and CD-ROM DOS
releases.

The player can play with up to three players against

one of eight digitized women. Each time the AI los-
es, a digitized female model removes one item of
clothing in video footage presented on the screen of
a digitized cinema; different models display varying
Developer Emotional Pictures levels of nudity. Four of the eight models in-game
Publisher On-line have video footage alongside the standard still im-
Release date 1991 ages; the frame rate and graphic quality of these
Genre Cards videos differs between versions of the game.
Mode 1-3 Players
The game features the possibility to set a
preferred language and to turn on or off the girls’
comments. It also contains a zoom function.

In the CDTV and CD-ROM DOS versions, the mod-

els’ in-game banter with the player is voice acted,
and the CDTV version also adds eleven music
tracks. The CDTV version also has fifteen minutes
of full motion video footage.

The CDTV version was origi-

nally released as a big box
version (extremely rare),
but was later released in the
more common format of a
simple shrinkwrapped CD
jewel case.

Other Releases
Amiga 1992
Commodore 64 1991
MS-DOS 1991
CDTV

146 • Games - CDTV

Tabloid magazine Daily Sport worked with
Emotional Pictures in the development of
Cover Girl Strip Poker in that models who
have appeared in Daily Sport appear in
the game. Cover Girl Strip Poker was ex-
hibited at the Arets Amiga Expo in Copen-
hagen, Denmark in March 1992, and Trine
Michelsen promoted the game at Emotion-
al Pictures’ booth while dressed in lingerie,
singing karaoke with attendees.
Danish gaming magazine Det Nye
COMputer interviewed Trine Michelsen,
who stated that she was not informed
what the video footage and photos were Commodore 64
for, and that other models were never paid
for their work; she stated that she was paid
1000 Danish krone (equivalent to around
$265 in 1992), and that “It was not at all
clear what it would be for, and I did it as
a favor [for someone I knew]. Apparently
some of the other models weren’t paid at
all.” COMputer briefly interviewed Kenneth
Bernholm, the CEO of InterActive Vision
A/S, the parent company of Emotional Pic-
tures, to ask how much the models were
paid, and Bernholm stated that “You can
ask, but you won’t get an answer”. Cover
Girl Strip Poker has a disclaimer explic-
itly stating that the game is “Not manu- Amiga
factured, distributed or endorsed by any
of the models appearing in the product”;
Amiga Power questioned the legality of
this disclaimer.

The UK Amiga release endorsed by The

Daily Sport included a free poster calendar
featuring former Miss Denmark and late
Danish model/actress Trine Michelsen.

Cover Girl Strip Poker received negative

to mixed reviews from critics; many re-
views criticized Strip Poker’s ‘poor’ digi-
tized graphics, ‘bad’ AI, and several re- MS-DOS
views criticized the game’s sexual content,
calling it ‘unappealing’ or ‘sad’.

CDTV - Games • 147

 magazine article excerpts from; “CDTV Special Report” Amiga World Magazine
(June 1991) written by: Doug Barney

COVER GIRL
STRIP POKER
On-Line, £TBA

M
ost reviews of strip poker
games end with a sarcastic
comment like, ‘why spend
your money on this when you can buy
a pack of cards and a porno mag?’. Fly-
ing in the face of convention, we’ll be-
gin with this thought, and (after a cold
shower,) ask whether a game like this
has any real merit at all?
The software company’s response to
this question is usually ‘but magazines
and videos aren’t interactive’. I suppose
this depends on what you mean by ‘in-
teractive’ (keep that filthy witticism to
yourself), but the young ladies in Cover
Girl Strip Poker play such a shocking
game of cards it won’t be long before
you strip them beyond the bare essen-
tials.
Splash the cash
Both you and the girl start with $2500.
If her funds fall below zero she has to
remove an item of clothing and ‘sell’ it
for $2500 so she can carry on playing.
Some models ‘treat’ you to a black-and-
white cinematic strip before reverting to
the badly digitised colour still that sits
next to the cards. others don’t. I’ve no
idea what happens when you run out of
dosh as I’ve never managed to play that
badly (and Ian’s been playing in a cor-
ner of the office with this a lot! —Ed),
but if she wins enough money from you
she can buy back her togs.
‘But what about the speech sam-
ples?’, I hear you cry. Well they’re cer-
tainly clear (considering they’re on CD
they damned-well should be). Mega-lo-
mania on the standard Amiga sounded
better than this. Okay the samples were
digitised, but at least they used profes-
sional actors.
‘But you can’t play poker on your
own’ screams a desperately sad indi-
vidual who wants to buy this crap and
claim it’s just for the card game. Maybe
not, but there are plenty of PD sims
available, and CGSP plays a lousy hand
Is this the game for you? We
of cards anyway. And let’s face it, do we
sincerely hope not!
really need another game that portrays
women as sex objects? When was the
last time you saw a fully-dressed wom-
an in a computer game... long
time ago, wasn’t it? No won-
der 95% of gamers are male.

DEVELOPERS: EMOTIONAL PICTURES

DISKS: CD
PLAYERS: 1-3
GENRE: CARD GAME
1200 COMPAT: N/A
HD INSTALL: N/A

Enter your name as

INDIGO for a sad
Depraved, tacky, demean- cheat to win every
ing — probably the worst game and get to see
excuse for entertau\inment the girlies undress.
that we’ve ever encountered.

Cover Girl Strip Poker is definitely not a good game.

Okay so I got to see plenty of flesh, but that was only be-
cause everyone else in the AMIGA FORCE office kept losing so
badly? The actual game left a lot to be desired, and not in the way A lousy game.
you’re thinking either. The game feature jerky, monochrome stips Nuff said?
and poorly designed stills, which makes a really bad job of utilis-
ing the CD’s capabilities. Basically this isn’t worth it. Let’s hope
that somebody puts the CD32 to better use in the future.

148 • magazine article

 Defender of the Crown

Defender of the Crown is a strategy computer

game designed by Kellyn Beck. It was Cinema-
ware’s first game, and was originally released for
the Amiga in 1986, setting a new standard for
graphic quality in home computer games.

The game is set in England in 1149 during the

Middle Ages where, following the death of the
king, different factions are fighting for territorial
control.

The player assumes the role of a Saxon knight

and tries to fight off the Norman hordes and
wrestle for control of England. Eventually, the
player must fight for control of all territories, and
Developer Cinemaware
potentially those controlled by other Saxons, if
Publisher Commodore
Release date 1991 they have become antagonistic. The player must
Genre Strategy amass armies and fight for control of opponents’
Mode 1 Player castles. The player may engage enemy armies
in battle and loot or lay siege to opposing cas-
tles. Territories can also be won in the periodic
jousting contests. From time to time the player
may attempt to rescue a damsel in distress and
can appeal for help from the legendary bandit
Robin Hood.
The game’s strategy boils down to a war
of attrition as the player tries to amass larger ar-
mies than his opponents and manages to attack
their territories at the right time.

COMPATIBLE

Other Releases
Amiga 1986 Game Boy Advance 2002
Amstrad CPC 1989 iPad 2011
Android 2014 iPhone 2011
Apple IIgs 1988 Jaguar 2018
Atari ST 1987 Macintosh 1987
Browser 2001 NES 1989
CD-i 1991 PC Booter 1988
Commodore 64 1987 Windows 2014
MS-DOS 1987 ZX Spectrum 2016

CDTV

150 • Games - CDTV

Due to financial strains, Cinemaware de-
cided to release the initial version without
all the features originally planned for be-
cause of their need for revenue. Some fea-
tures were partially implemented, but were
removed so the game could be shipped.
Some additional features completed but
never seen in the shipped game include
flaming fireballs (launched via the cata-
pult), more locations (more varied castles
to attack), and more in-depth strategy.
Some of these features were implemented
in the ports of the game.
The CDTV version features minor graphi-
cal improvements and major sound en-
hancements (incl. two CDDA soundtracks)
over the 1986 Cinemaware disk release.
Unlike the disk release, the CDTV
version contains an abridged on-line man-
ual.
Text from the manual;
The nation is in turmoil following the death of Eng-
land’s ruler, King Richards. To save their beloved
country, the bold Saxon knights clash against the evil
forces of the plundering Normans. Only the strong-
est, most skillful and courageous knight can over-
come the obstacles and win the crown to become the
King of England.
Defender of the Crown™ is an interactive tale of
brave knights whose days are filled with daring
jousts, breathtaking sword fights, beautiful damsels
in distress and enemy castle sieges.
It all comes to life through the magic of CDTV™
Multimedia — the innovative technology that in-
tegrates full-color illustrations, CD-quality music,
sound effects and speech.

Defender of the Crown became a commer-

cial hit. In 1989, Video Games & Compu-
ter Entertainment reported that it had been
purchased by “almost three-quarters of a
million gamers worldwide”. Sales had sur-
passed 1 million units by 2001.
NES
After a string of successful games and
game series, Cinemaware eventually went
bankrupt. In 2000, however, Lars Fuhrken-
Batista and Sean Vesce bought Cinema-
ware’s name and assets, and founded
Cinemaware Inc., naming a remake of De-
fender of the Crown for modern PCs as one
Commodore 64
of the reformed company’s first projects.
The new version, titled Robin Hood: De-
fender of the Crown was released in 2003
for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Windows.
The new company also created “Digitally
Remastered Versions” of classic Cinema-
ware games, including Defender of the
Crown.
Amiga

CDTV - Games • 151

 Defender of the Crown II

Defender of the Crown II is an Amiga CD32/CDTV

exclusive sequel to Defender of the Crown.

King Richard has been imprisoned on his way

back from the crusades. In order to free him
£20,000 worth of ransom money must be gath-
ered. The nobles of the land aren’t willing to give
up their wealth, so this money must be obtained
through tournaments, raids and outright battle
against individual provinces. All of the nobles
have castles, so at times siege equipment must
be used.

Defender of the Crown II improves over the game

by upgrading the arcade sequences. Here, unlike
the original game; sword fighting is about meth-
Developer Cinemaware od and is not just wild clicking of the mouse but-
Publisher Master Designer
ton. The siege sequence is also enhanced with
Release date 1993
Genre Strategy different types of ammo (such as Greek fire) to
Mode 1 Player toss into the castle. The jousting is now easier to
control and the lance no longer bounces around
wildly.

The lead developer of the game was Jim Sachs,

who was the graphic editor of the first game.

Other Releases
Amiga CD32 1993

CDTV

some text from mobygames.com

152 • Games - CDTV

Falcon

Falcon is a combat flight simulator video game and

the first official entry (not counting the 1984’s F-16
Fighting Falcon) in the Falcon series of the F-16 jet
fighter’s simulators by Spectrum HoloByte. Original-
ly developed by Sphere for Macintosh and MS-DOS
in 1987 and ported to several platforms between
1988 and 1992, the game earned commercial suc-
cess and critical acclaim.

The players have their choice of flying one of 12

missions—with awards for flying missions at higher
skill levels. There is a choice of different ground at-
tack and air-to-air weapons, although these are also
limited by several factors. The enemy occupies the
western areas of the game’s playable map—itself a
large square divided into 9 smaller squares.
Developer Rowan Software Falcon feature a semi-dynamic campaign where the
Publisher Spectrum HoloByte player can roam the airspace, sweep for hostile air-
Release date 1991
Genre Simulation
craft, and attack ground targets. Destroyed buildings
Mode 1 Player and SAM sites remain destroyed for fixed period of
time, and hostile and friendly forces engage each
other on the ground back and forth.

Computer Gaming World in 1987 called Falcon “one

of the most detailed and accurate flight simulators
on the microcomputer market today.” It reported that
an F-16 pilot with the 474th Tactical Fighter Wing
“gave it good marks for accuracy”.

Other Releases
Amiga 1989
Atari ST 1988
MS-DOS 1987
Macintosh 1987
PC-98 1988
Windows 2015
CDTV Atari ST

some text from mobygames.com

CDTV - Games • 153


Holiday Maker
Developer PM Entertainment
Publisher Software 2000
Release date 1990
Genre Adventure
Mode 1 Player
The first of Phoenics’ and Software 2000
Artventures series, Holiday Maker tells
the story of four young people who de-
cided to spend their vacation on an un-
inhabited island. Before long a series of
strange events and accidents take place,
so that the youths soon find themselves
in the midst of a murder mystery.
This is a German adventure game that
utilizes digital pictures with live actors
and photorealistic still backgrounds. The
interaction with the game world is done
via an icon-based interface.
Fantastic Voyage
Developer Centaur Software
Publisher Centaur Software
Release date 1991
Genre Shooter
Mode 1 Player
Fantastic Voyage is a vertically scroll-
ing shoot ‘em up where the player con-
trols a miniaturized submarine, that has
been injected into the blood stream of an
ill patient, where it must destroys blood
clots and bacteria. It is based on a 1966
movie of the same name.
Besides shooting enemies, there are
also various passages in which the play-
er needs to guide the submarine through
narrow corridors without touching the en-
vironment. On the way the player needs
to collect nine circuit boards required
to destroy the blood cot; those may be
hidden in dead ends or alternate ways.
This means the player can move back
and forth to try other routes at forks. It
is also important to pick up oxygen and
fuel canisters in order to keep the sub-
marine functional.
“mobygames.com”

Other Releases
Amiga 1992

Other Releases
Amiga 1991

154 • Games - CDTV

 Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade:
The Graphic Adventure

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic

Adventure is a point and click adventure game, re-
leased in 1989 (to coincide with the release of the
film of the same name). It was the third game to
use the SCUMM engine.

The game is set in 1938 and adventurer Indiana

Jones is joined by his father on this quest, prevent-
ing Adolf Hitler from capturing the Holy Grail. He
will have to deal with Nazi guards, the Luftwaffe
and enemy spies as he tries to stop the tyrannical
Nazi leader. While it follows the plot of the film in
broad terms, it also adds to existing sequences for
the film, or creates new ones altogether, presum-
ably to flesh out the experience.

Developer Lucasfilm
Last Crusade was one of the most innovative of
Publisher Softgold the LucasArts adventures. It expanded on Lu-
Release date 1992 casArts’ traditional adventure game structure by
Genre Adventure including a flexible point system—the IQ score,
Mode 1 Player or “Indy Quotient”—and by allowing the game to
be completed in several different ways. The point
system was similar to that of Sierra’s adventure
games, however when the game was restarted or
restored, the total IQ of the previous game was
retained. The only way to reach the maximum IQ
of 800 was by finding alternative solutions to puz-
zles, such as fighting a guard instead of avoiding
him. This countered one common criticism of ad-
ventures games, whereby since there is only one
way to finish the game, they have no replay value.
Also, the point system helped the game to appeal
to a variety of player types.

Other Releases
Amiga 1989
Atari ST 1989
MS-DOS 1989
FM Towns 1990
Linux 2016
Macintosh 1990
Windows 2009

CDTV

156 • Games - CDTV

Many of the scenes unique to the game
were conceived by George Lucas and
Steven Spielberg during the creation of
the movie. Last Crusade was also the first
Lucasfilm game to include the verbs ‘Look’
and ‘Talk’. In several situations, the latter
would begin a primitive dialogue system
in which the player could choose one of
several lines to say. The system was fully
evolved in The Secret of Monkey Island
and remained in all later LucasArts adven-
tures, with the exception of Loom.
The CDTV version was a Germany only
release and is essentially the same game
as the Amiga floppy version just on CD.
This version also retains the look up copy
protection—which is odd for a CD game at
the time.
The Last Crusade became a “sizeable hit”,
according to LucasArts director Hal Bar-
wood. It was Lucasfilm’s best-selling game
at the time of its release, with sales of over
250,000 copies.
Amiga Atari ST
UK magazine Computer and Video
Games gave the PC version a score of
91%, praising the graphics, sound and
playability and calling it “a brilliant film tie-
in and a superlative game in its own right”.
In 1989, Dragon gave the game 5 out of
5 stars. The game was ranked the 28th
best game of all time by Amiga Power.
Charles Ardai of Computer Gaming World
gave the game a positive review, noting its
cinematic qualities and well-designed puz-
zles. Game Informer’s retro review section
awarded the game a nine out of ten.
In 1991, PC Format placed The Last
Crusade on its list of the 50 best computer
games of all time. The editors wrote, “Indy
is recreated on the monitor screen every
bit as impressively as on the big screen.”
A second Indiana Jones graphic adven-
ture, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlan-
tis, was released in 1992 for DOS, Amiga,
and Macintosh.
FM Towns Windows
CDTV - Games • 157

The Hound of the Baskervilles
Developer On-line
Publisher On-line
Release date 1991
Genre Adventure
Mode 1 Player
Hound of the Baskervilles is a CD-ROM
adaptation of the classic Sherlock Hol-
mes novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Players must comb a visual novel and sift
through clues—including photographs,
documents, maps and items—from the
case to eventually reach their own con-
clusion as to the mystery’s solution.
Reviews at the time were mostly nega-
tive. Amiga Format gave the game a
score of 12% and wrote; “you must navi-
gate your way through huge wodges of
on-screen text and look at the odd digi-
tized photograph. It’s a terrible way of
reading a book and it does not add any
real element of interactive enjoyment”.
Log!cal
Developer Rainbow Arts
Publisher Rainbow Arts
Release date 1991
Genre Puzzle
Mode 1 Player
The levels in Logical are all played from
a top down perspective. The goal of
the game is to fill a varying number of
gears with coloured marbles. The gears
can hold any number of colours but only
once it has been filled with marbles in a
matching colour, the gear will ‘explode’.
Once all the gears have been cleared,
the level is beaten. The game has a time
limit and is throwing many marbles at the
player that enter the screen through one
or more pipes. The difficulty lies in using
all the gears to transport the marbles to
their designated destination, while trying
to keep the gears in one colour. Later
levels in the game feature advanced
pipes/effects such as colour changers or
transporters.
“giantbomb.com”

Other Releases Other Releases

MS-DOS 1993 Amiga MS-DOS 1991
Atari ST Game Boy Color 1999
Commodore 64 PC-98 1993

158 • Games - CDTV

Murder Makes
Strange Deadfellows
Developer Tiger Media
Publisher Tiger Media
Release date 1991
Genre Action-adventure
Mode 1 Player
Murder Makes Strange Deadfellows is
an adventure game by the same devel-
opers of another CDTV adventure game,
The Case of the Cautious Condor.
In this murder mystery players guide
Nick, great-nephew of the late Randolph
Steere, through the rooms of the haunt-
ed Steere mansion. Nick aims to find out
where is the last Randolph’s will, and
how did he really died. There is a limited
time for gathering clues through obser-
vations and talking and listen to people.
Game play is non linear but, be-
cause of the time limit, players must be
careful when choosing options.
The graphics recall the comic book style,
no animations, just pictures with voices
and music.
“mobygames.com”
Other Releases
MS-DOS 1992
Power Pinball
Developer KarmaSoft
Publisher KarmaSoft
Release date 1991 (1995?)
Genre Pinball
Mode 1-4 Players
A pinball game also released on the Ami-
ga. The CDTV release have 13 pinball
tables in addition to the 5 tables con-
tained in the floppy release.
The game have been rewarded negative
reviews by both critics and Amiga own-
ers.
The CDTV version was believed to have
been unreleased, until it turned up in
1995 in a mail-order ad by Better Con-
cepts Inc. It was later sold through dis-
count stores that carried old stock.
Text from the packaging;
Pinball at it’s best! Over a dozen games for the
price of one disk! Power Pinball is a truly realistic
pinball simulator. It reacts with the same snap, the
same action. Each machine offers different chal-
lenges, digitized sounds and exciting graphics.
CDTV - Games • 159
 Lemmings

Lemmings is a puzzle–strategy game originally

developed by DMA Design (later becoming Rock-
star North) and published by Psygnosis for the
Amiga in 1991 and later ported for numerous oth-
er platforms.

The objective of the game is to direct a group of

green haired, blue-shirted, lemmings from point A
to point B. The game is based on the myth that
lemmings migrate in large groups and follow a sin-
gle leader, who would often lead them off a cliff to
their demise. In the game, lemmings constantly
march in one direction unless they run into an ob-
stacle, at which point they turn around and walk
the other way. Being fearless and unaware of their
own mortality, the lemmings will blindly run into
fire, jump off cliffs, become crushed and fall victim
Developer DMA
to numerous other pitfalls.
Publisher Psygnosis
Release date 1992 The player must command the lemmings to
Genre Puzzle, Strategy do certain tasks in order to complete each stage
Mode 1-2 Players and get a certain percentage of lemmings to safe-
ty. These actions include digging, using a pick axe
to dig diagonally, using their arms to punch hori-
zontally through terrain and building staircases to
traverse large gaps.
All levels in Lemmings consist of at least
one entrance, and at least one exit. The aim in
each level is to safely get an allocated amount of
lemmings towards an exit.

Other Releases
3DO 1994 Genesis 1992
Acorn 32-bit 1991 J2ME 2005
Amiga 1991 Lynx 1993
Amiga CD32 1994 Macintosh 1993
Amstrad CPC 1992 NES 1992
Atari ST 1991 PC-98 1991
CD-i 1993 SAM Coupé 1993
Commodore 64 1993 Sega Master System 1992
MS-DOS 1991 Sharp X68000 1992
FM Towns 1992 SNES 1992
Game Boy 1994 TurboGrafx CD 1992
Game Gear 1994 ZX Spectrum 1991
CDTV

160 • Games - CDTV

The game was programmed by Russell
Kay, Mike Dailly and David Jones, and was
inspired by a simple animated character
sprite in an 8×8 pixel box that Dailly cre-
ated while experimenting with the Amiga
graphics editor Deluxe Paint.
Levels were designed based on a
Deluxe Paint interface, which allowed sev-
eral of DMA Design team to design levels,
resulting in “hundreds of levels”. There
were several internal iterations of the lev-
els, each designer challenging the others.
Music was originally created by Bri-
an Johnston (the younger brother of Scott
Johnston—one of the game designers of
the game. Also, their mother was the first
voice of the lemmings), who sampled bits
of copyrighted music. This had been com-
mon practice, but at that point there was
a growing awareness of music copyright.
Psygnosis asked Tim Wright to replace the
offending tracks, who often used arrange-
ments and reworkings of classical and tra-
ditional music to avoid copyright problems.
The CDTV are basically the same version
as the Amiga floppy version.
Lemmings was one of the best-received
video games of the early 1990s. It was the
second-highest-rated game in the history
Commodore 64 MS-DOS
of Amstrad Action, and was considered the
eighth-greatest game of all time by Next
Generation in 1996. Lemmings is also one
of the most widely ported and best-selling
video games, and is estimated to have sold
around 20 million copies between its vari-
ous ports. The popularity of the game also
led to the creation of sequels, remakes
and spin-offs, and has also inspired similar
games. Many retrospective reviews have
cited it as one of the greatest games of all
time.
Lemmings has also been called a pred-
ecessor of the modern real-time strategy
(RTS) video game genre. A 1991 Amiga
Power article claimed that Lemmings “was
the first major game to introduce the ‘in-
direct-control’ concept,” an element that is
now common in many RTS games.
The IP of Lemmings stayed with the initial
publisher Psygnosis, who were acquired
by Sony Computer Entertainment in 1993.
Sony gained the IP for Lemmings from this
acquisition, though only had two entries:
the 2006 Lemmings for PlayStation con-
soles, and the mobile title Lemmings: The
Puzzle Adventure in 2017. Sony eventu-
ally licensed the rights to Exient Entertain-
ment, who published the mobile title.
FM Towns ZX Spectrum
CDTV - Games • 161
 Loom

Loom is a 1990 fantasy-themed graphic adven-

ture game by Lucasfilm Games. It was the fourth
game to use the SCUMM game engine, and the
first of those to avoid the verb–object interface
introduced in Maniac Mansion.

Players take control of young Bobbin Thread-

bare. Following cataclysmic events early in
the game, Bobbin goes on a quest of fate and
prophecy. Throughout the story, players interact
with an enchanted swan with whom Bobbin is
mysteriously connected.

The interface in Loom is unlike any of the other

SCUMM games; Bobbin interacts with his sur-
roundings by using a musical distaff (a tradi-
tional weaving tool), which replace the standard
adventure game commands. Musical phrases
played on the distaff control Bobbin’s surround-
Developer Lucasfilm
Publisher Softgold
ings in various ways. In the harder difficulty set-
Release date 1992 ting, the distaff’s notation is removed, and the
Genre Adventure player must correctly select the correct area of
Mode 1 Player the distaff to play specific notes, without assist-
ance. The distaff can play a full 8 notes, from
middle C to C.
Four-note “Drafts”, or musical phrases
can be played backwards for the opposite affect,
on occasion; ECED will open, DECE will close.
Bobbin can learn drafts by observing an
object that possesses the qualities of the de-
sired draft; for example, by examining a blade
while it is being sharpened, Bobbin can learn the
“Sharpening” draft.

Other Releases
Amiga 1990
Atari ST 1990
MS-DOS 1990
FM Towns 1991
Linux 2015
Macintosh 1990
TurboGrafx CD 1992
Windows 2009

CDTV

162 • Games - CDTV

The original package offered an audio
tape with a 30-minute audio drama that ex-
plained the nature and history of the world
of Loom, and the circumstances of Bob-
bin’s birth. The game is a direct continua-
tion of the story. The drama was enriched
by original music composed by Jerry Ger-
ber.
The package also offered an illus-
trated notebook, The Book of Patterns,
supposedly belonging to apprentice weav-
ers in the game world. Its purpose was to
optionally note there the drafts that could
be learned, as well as describing some
that were not seen in the game, with inter-
esting tales related to each draft.
Loom was originally published for DOS
on floppy disk with 16-color EGA graphics
in May 1990. This version was soon after
released on the Amiga, the Atari ST, and
Macintosh.
The CDTV version is identical with
the disk version, but have become ex-
tremely rare since it was never really of-
ficially sold.
Amiga Atari ST
According to Rogue Leaders: The Story of
LucasArts, Loom was a critical success,
but “failed to sell in sufficient numbers to
warrant sequels”.
Orson Scott Card praised Loom,
writing in Compute! that it was “like noth-
ing you’ve ever seen (or done) before ...
a work of storytelling art,” and cited the
game’s flexibility in adapting to playstyles,
whether using action or puzzles. Dragon
gave the game 5 out of 5 stars.
In 1996, Computer Gaming World
declared Loom the 81st-best computer
game ever released. In 2011, Adventure
Gamers named Loom the 61st-best ad-
venture game ever released.
Due to a licensing agreement with (now
defunct) Mindscape, the DOS CD-ROM
version became commercially unavailable,
and until 2006, the DOS floppy-disk ver-
sion was the only one purchasable from
LucasArts.
FM Towns Windows
some text from giantbomb.com
CDTV - Games • 163
 Prey: An Alien Encounter
Prehistorik
Developer KirkMoreno
Developer Titus Publisher KirkMoreno
Publisher Titus Release date 1993
Release date 1991 Genre Adventure
Genre Action-platformer Mode 1 Player
Mode 1 Player
In Prey the player is sent to asteroid KG-
Prehistorik is a side-view platform game 42 since all contact was lost with it’s colo-
with a superficial similarity to Chuck nists. The player’s objective is to rescue
Rock. In it, the eponymous caveman as many colonists as they can. Poison
Prehistorik sets out on a quest to sate gas fills the corridors, so the player has
his hunger, requiring the player to gather to act quickly before their oxygen supply
a certain amount of food before being runs out.
able to finish a level, either by collect-
ing edibles he finds or by stunning and The game world is navigated in steps of
eating his enemies. The game features pre-rendered video footage of corridors
four regular levels with three boss levels and halls. Players can use their map to
between. help them navigate the labyrinth, finding
rooms containing survivors. Occasion-
A sequel, Prehistorik 2, was released for ally, radio contact is made and mission
MS-DOS and Amstrad CPC. objectives for the player will be updated
“giantbomb.com” for them to go to a specific location. Af-
ter obtaining a gun, it is also possible to
fight aliens, which are the source of the
disturbance in the asteroid.
“mobygames.com”

Other Releases
Amiga 1991
Amstrad CPC 1991
Android 2011
Atari ST 1991
MS-DOS 1991
iPad 2010 Other Releases
iPhone 2010 Amiga 1993
Macintosh 2017 Amiga CD32 1993
Windows 2017

164 • Games - CDTV

Psycho Killer

Psycho Killer casts the player into the role of an

unnamed male protagonist, who was one day
driving through the countryside on a cold autumn
day, and suddenly saw an escaped killer chasing
a woman. Now he must figure out a way to find
the killer and stop him.

The entirety of Psycho Killer is narrated over by

the protagonist and puzzles often involve click-
ing the correct object within a certain time frame.
Players can navigate the environment by using
arrows in the corner of the screen, and the game
contains full motion video, however, all video ap-
pears tinted red due to color compression. The
game also includes a fully voiced tutorial mode.

The game received negative reviews on re-

Developer Delta 4 Interactive lease. Amiga Format gave it 13% and wrote in
Publisher On-line their review; “On-Line are one of the few vision-
Release date 1992 aries to realise that they can use the Amiga to
Genre Adventure develop real interactive movies. Sadly, they have
Mode 1 Player
come up with an interactive home video. The
whole thing is shot as if it were a movie using still
photographs which are then digitised.”

Other Releases
MS-DOS 1993

CDTV MS-DOS

some text from mobygames.com / giantbomb.com

CDTV - Games • 165

 Raffles

Raffles is an isometric action-adventure game

first published in 1988 by The Edge as Inside Out-
ing for the 8-bit homecomputers Amstrad CPC,
C64 and ZX Spectrum. It was re-issued as Raf-
fles in the same year for unknown reasons. In the
U.S. it was published as Devon Aire in the Hidden
Diamond Caper by Epyx. The CDTV version is a
one-to-one copy of the Amiga counterpart.

The player control a professional thief named

Raffles (called Devon Aire in some versions). He
has been hired by the widow of a dead million-
aire. Before his death, the millionaire hid all his
money and gems in obscure places around his
large house.

Raffles must explore the large mansion looking

Developer Softek for valuables, while avoiding the various hostile
Publisher The Edge creatures that inhabit the house. Contact with en-
Release date 1991
Genre Action-adventure
emies reduces some of the energy on one of the
Mode 1 Player players 3 lives.
Each room of the house is viewed iso-
metrically, and contains items one would expect
to find in a large house, from cookers and tele-
phones to pool tables and paintings. Each one
can be picked up, pushed, pulled and used, with
the diamonds located in intricate and surprising
places.

Other Releases
Amiga
Antstream
Atari ST
Commodore 64
ZX Spectrum
CDTV Commodore 64

some text from mobygames.com

166 • Games - CDTV

 Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective

Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective is a FMV

game released in 1991. It is based on a tabletop
game-gamebook hybrid of the same name first pub-
lished in 1981, and feature the detective Sherlock
Holmes, created by Arthur Conan Doyle.

The game uses live actors and sets as the player con-
trols Sherlock Holmes and his partner Dr. Watson,
trying to solve three separate crimes: The Mummy’s
Curse, The Mystified Murderess and The Tin Soldier.

Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective can be de-

scribed as a hybrid of adventure game and simula-
tion. Gameplay process involves traveling to various
locations in London, interrogating suspects, gather-
ing clues, checking out the newspapers, and eventu-
ally presenting all the evidence to the judge; if the
Developer Icom latter finds the circumstances incriminating, he will
Publisher Icom accept the results of the investigation, and the case
Release date 1991
Genre Adventure
will be considered solved. Though the basic game-
Mode 1 Player play is rather typical for adventure games, the amount
of real detective work and the focus of the game on
purely case-related actions rather than exploration
and manipulation of items makes it comparable to a
simulation of a criminal investigation.

The game is notable for being one of the earliest

“multimedia” titles, having been released on a CD-
ROM and featuring rather long video sequences with
live actors as introductions and cutscenes, which fre-
quently occur when the heroes investigate suspects.

Other Releases
MS-DOS 1991
DVD Player 1999
FM Towns 1991
Macintosh 1992
SEGA CD 1992
TurboGrafx CD 1991
VIS 1992

CDTV Sega CD

some text from mobygames.com

CDTV - Games • 167

 SimCity

SimCity is a city-building simulation game released

in 1989 and designed by eventual Sims creator Will
Wright. SimCity, being Maxis’ first game and original-
ly based on the Commodore 64, has been adapted to
several different personal computers and game con-
soles and has gone on to become one of the most
successful and popular games of all time.

The objective of the game is to create a city, develop

residential and industrial areas, build infrastructure,
and collect taxes for further development of the city.
Importance is placed on increasing the standard of
living of the population, maintaining a balance be-
tween the different sectors, and monitoring the re-
gion’s environmental situation to prevent the settle-
ment from declining and going bankrupt.
Developer Maxis
SimCity includes goal-centered, timed sce-
Publisher Infogrames narios that could be won or lost depending on the
Release date 1991 performance of the player. The original cities were
Genre Strategy based on real-world cities and attempted to re-create
Mode 1 Player their general layout. While most scenarios either take
place in a fictional timeline or have a city under siege
by a fictional disaster, a handful of available scenari-
os are based on actual historical events.

The CDTV version is not a direct port of the Amiga

floppy version. The CDTV version shows a closer
view of the city for easier viewing on a television. Oth-
er changes include a user interface more suited for
use from the CDTV’s
remote control, use
CD-DA for music,
and the addition of
three scenarios.

Other Releases
Acorn 32-bit 1993 OS/2 1994
Amiga 1989 Palm OS 1999
Amstrad CPC 1989 PC-98 1990
Atari ST 1990 Sharp X68000 1990
BBC Micro 1990 SNES 1991
Commodore 64 1989 Symbian 1999
MS-DOS 1989 Wii 2006
Electron 1990 Windows 1995
FM Towns 1990 Windows 3.x 1992
Macintosh 1989 ZX Spectrum 1990
CDTV

168 • Games - CDTV

SimCity was independently developed by
Will Wright beginning in 1985, and would
not see its first release until 1989. While
working on the game Raid on Bungeling
Bay, in which the player flies a helicopter
dropping bombs on islands, Wright found
he enjoyed designing the islands in the
level editor more than playing the actual
game. This led him to develop increasingly
sophisticated level editors.
The first version of the game was
developed for the Commodore 64 in 1985.
The original working title of SimCity was
Micropolis. The game was unusual in that
it could neither be won nor lost; as a re-
sult, game publishers did not believe it was
possible to market and sell such a game
successfully. Brøderbund declined to pub-
lish the title when Wright proposed it, and SimCity yielded several sequels. “Sim”
he pitched it to a range of major game games of many types were developed—
publishers without success. Finally, Braun, with Will Wright and Maxis developing
founder of the tiny software company Max- myriad titles including SimEarth, SimFarm,
is, agreed to publish SimCity as one of two SimTown, Streets of SimCity, SimCopter,
initial games for the company. SimAnt, SimLife, SimIsle, SimTower, Sim-
Wright and Braun returned to Brø- Park, SimSafari, and The Sims, which
derbund to formally clear the rights to the spawned its own series.
game in 1988, when SimCity was near
In January 2008, the SimCity source
completion. After Brøderbund executives
code was released as free software and
Gary Carlston and Don Daglow saw Sim-
renamed to Micropolis for trademark rea-
City, they signed Maxis to a distribution
sons. The release of the source code was
deal for both of its initial games. With that,
motivated by the One Laptop Per Child
four years after initial development, SimC-
program.
ity was released for the Amiga and Mac-
intosh platforms, followed by the IBM PC
and Commodore 64 later in 1989.

SimCity was a financial success, selling

one million copies by late 1992. In the
United States, it was the ninth best-selling
computer game from 1993 to 1999, with
another 830,000 units sold. It was critically
acclaimed and received significant recog-
nition within a year after its initial release.

FM Towns ZX Spectrum

CDTV - Games • 169

 Snoopy in
The Case Of The Missing Blanket
Read With Astérix: Developer Softek International
Astérix And Son Publisher
Release date
The Edge
1991
Developer Eurotalk Genre Adventure
Publisher Eurotalk
Snoopy in The Case Of The Missing
Release date 1991
Genre Interactive-book Blanket, also known as Snoopy: The
Cool Computer Game, is a simple ad-
This CD is an interactive comic book and venture game where players take control
tells the story of how Asterix ended up of Snoopy as he solve various puzzles.
taking care of a baby. The images and Gameplay consists mostly of picking up
story are taken from the comic book of objects and dropping them at certain ar-
the same name. eas, which will result in a new sequence
The story feature over 400 comic imag- to the plot. Players can only perform five
es and around 60 minutes of narration. actions: move left/right, jump, pickup/
French and English versions of the CD drop and Object Information.
were released.
The software is part of the “Entertain-
ment” genre, although it would be more
fitting to be included in the “Education”
genre.

Other Releases
Amiga 1989
Amstrad CPC 1989
Atari ST 1989
MS-DOS 1990
ZX Spectrum 1989

170 • Games - CDTV

 Spirit of Excalibur

Spirit of Excalibur is a 1990 adventure/strategy game

developed by Synergistic Software. It is a spiritual
descendant of the 1989 game J.R.R. Tolkien’s War
in Middle Earth.

Spirit of Excalibur is an adventure/strategy game

based on Arthurian legend. Continuing where the tra-
ditional tale ended, the game depicts a new king and
a new group of Knights of the Round Table attempt-
ing to end the threat of the sorceress Morgan le Fay
once and for all.

The player control Constantine, who is King Arthur’s

successor. The game is divided into five chapters.
Within each chapter the player must guide charac-
ters between locations to fight, gather allies, or col-
lect items. Because items (such as strength potions
or alchemical reagents) carry over between chap-
ters, it is important to gather as much as possible as
early as possible. The chapters provide specific chal-
lenges: for example, in the third chapter the king and
most of the Knights of the Round Table are trapped in
Camelot, and the player must use their limited forces
outside the castle to free them before invading Sax-
Developer Synergistic ons conquer England.
Publisher Virgin Mastertronic
Release date 1991 Though well regarded, the game was considered so
Genre Adventure, Strategy difficult that Virgin eventually began to package a hint
Mode 1 Player book with the boxed game.

Spirit of Excalibur was followed the next year by

Vengeance of Excalibur.

Other Releases
Amiga 1990
Apple IIgs 1991
Atari ST 1990
MS-DOS 1990
Macintosh 1990 CDTV Atari ST

some text from mobygames.com

CDTV - Games • 171

 Die Stadt Der Löwen
Strip Poker Live Developer
Publisher
PM Entertainment
Software 2000
Developer Porky’s Production Release date 1990
Publisher Porky’s Production Genre Adventure
Genre Cards Mode 1-2 Players

A strip poker game. A version was also
released on seven floppy disks for the
Amiga. The game feature CDXL video
clips and speech.
Text from the packaging;
Absolute world prèmiere: the one and only
POKER game with alive opponents you can
undress for real! No pictures, only positively true
films.
Invitire your best friend home and...
have a great time!
Die Stadt Der Löwen (“The City of Li-
ons”) is a follow-up to the first so-called
“Artventure” game by Phoenics and
Software 2000, Holiday Maker. A wom-
an named Christine travels to the Orient.
She stays in Singapore, enjoying the city
life, its inhabitants, and the Asian culture.
However, soon this relaxing trip turns
into a nightmare. A mysterious force is
threatening Singapore, and it is up to the
player to find out what is behind it and
to solve the mystery, that will take place
across many locations of the Orient.
Like its predecessor, Stadt der Löwen
features digitized pictures of live actors
and real backgrounds. The interaction is
performed via an icon-based interface.
The game also contains some light erot-
ic images.
“mobygames.com”

Other Releases
Amiga 1989

172 • Games - CDTV

 Team Yankee

Team Yankee is a computer wargame adaptation

of the 1987 Harold Coyle’s World War III novel
Team Yankee that was developed by British stu-
dio Oxford Digital Enterprises for several different
computer systems.

Team Yankee is a mixture of real-time strate-

gy and simulation game with a 3D environment
and 2D sprites. The player is able to use several
well-known late Cold War-era tanks and other ar-
moured vehicles, including the M1 Abrams, M2
Bradley IFV, M113, T-72, T-62 and BMP-2.
The control interface of the game is some-
what unique as it features a four-way split screen
with different control options in order to grant di-
rect orders to four individual platoons of tanks.
The game simulates instruments of war including
thermal imaging in a detailed manner, as well as
Developer Oxford Digital Ent.
Publisher Empire, ReadySoft giving access to scrolling maps of the battlefield
Release date 1992 as combat unfolds.
Genre Simulation
Mode 1 Player 1992 and 1994 Computer Gaming World surveys
of wargames with modern settings gave the game
two stars out of five, describing it as “an arcade-
like product trying to pass as a simulation of mod-
ern tactical armored warfare”.

Two sequels followed: Pacific Islands and War in

the Gulf.

Other Releases
Amiga 1990
Atari ST 1990
MS-DOS 1990

CDTV MS-DOS

some text from mobygames.com

CDTV - Games • 173

 Trivial Pursuit
Developer The Kremlin
Publisher Domark
Release date 1992
Genre Board
Mode 1-6 Players
Space Wars
This is the earliest home computer in-
Developer Odyssey
carnation of Horn Abbot International
Publisher Odyssey
Release date 1992 Ltd’s classic board game, Trivial Pursuit.
Genre Shooter The game involves answering questions
Mode 1-2 Players on one of six subject categories to gain
moves, and answering questions on
Space Wars, known as Space War on
special squares to gain one of the six
the Amiga 500, is a space-themed mul-
‘Wedges’ you need to gain the right to
tidirectional shooter with gameplay simi-
take on the final winning question. Ques-
lar to Atari’s 1979 game Asteroids. Lev-
tions are aimed at British players—many
els includes space, asteroids, black hole
entertainment questions are based on
and the sun.
British TV, and sport questions relate to
The CD also included a 14 minute trailer popular British sports.
for the eventually cancelled Lunar Res-
Two game modes are available: Single
cue.
Player (which involves answering ques-
tions against the clock) and Multiplayer.
“mobygames.com”

Other Releases
Amiga 1988 Commodore 64 1988
Amiga CD32 1994 MS-DOS 1987
Amstrad CPC 1987 MSX 1986
Amstrad PCW 1987 Sega Master System 1992
Atari 8-bit 1987 Thomson TO 1986
Atari ST 1988 ZX Spectrum 1986
BBC Micro 1988

174 • Games - CDTV

Town With No Name
Developer Delta 4 Interactive
Publisher On-line
Release date 1992
Genre
Mode
Adventure
1 Player
The Town with No Name is an interac-
tive Western point and click adventure
“game” akin to Plumbers Don’t Wear
Ties.
The Story of The Town with No Name in-
volves “The Man With No Name” getting
off a train at the station in the Town with
No Name. His path will take him to The-
Hole-In-The-Wall gang and he’ll have to
figure out a way to pass through them.
Gameplay consists of two game modes;
a standard point and click interface,
usually with multiple options presented
onscreen with a short animated scene
following what decision the player has
made. The other mode is a light gun
game played with the Amiga CDs’ game-
pad, or mouse, where the player must
take out multiple villains not unlike Mad
Dog McRee.
“giantbomb.com”
Other Releases
MS-DOS 1991
article; The One Magazine 42 (mar. 1992)
HIGH NOON
ONE OF THE BIG-
GEST SMASH HITS
in the arcades last year
was the laserdisc shoot
‘em-up Mad Dog Mc-
Gee, licensed in Europe by Atari Games. Influ-
enced by this and the spaghetti western films
starring Clint Eastwood, On-Line Entertain-
ment is attempting to bring cowboy capers to
the CDTV.
Town With No Name is the brainchild of
Fergus McNeill, the creative force behind Psy-
cho Killer and Bored of the Rings. According
to him, the whole project started when he saw
a friend wearing a pair of cowboy boots! “He
looked so comical,” comments McNeill, “My
mind was turned towards the whole genre of
Spaghetti Westerns. It was begging for me to do
something with it.”
On-Line Entertainment describes the game as
a ‘vast interactive feature film’, with you play-
ing the lead role. The game is a strange blend of
digitised graphics, rotoscoped animation and 3D
scenery. “I guess the aerial and crane shots of
the town are my favourite sequences,” McNeill
reveals, “It gives the impression that you’re fly-
ing around like some hopeful vulture.”
CDTV - Games • 175
 Turrican

Turrican is an early shooter platformer originally

developed for European home computers, best
known for its heavy metal soundtrack by Chris
Huelsbeck.

Turrican is a 1990 “run and gun” shooter/platform-

er akin to something like Contra. The player, as
the bio-mechanical mutant warrior The Turrican,
must make their way across a semi-non-linear
world and defeat a boss before they can move
onto the next world. The Turrican can change its
weapon type, but any weapon besides the default
will require finite ammo which must be found in the
environment first.

The series started in 1989 on the Commodore 64

with a demo level of the full game which was re-
leased in 1990. Turrican became popular due to
Developer Factor 5
Publisher Rainbow Arts, its high technical achievements, demonstrating
Softgold graphics which many did not believe to be possi-
Release date 1992 ble on a C64. Turrican was developed mainly by a
Genre Run and gun single programmer/designer, Manfred Trenz.
Mode 1 Player
The Amiga and Genesis conversions are the best
known versions. This is due in part to the music
composed by Chris Huelsbeck for those versions.
Turrican also saw releases for the Game Boy and
TurboGrafx-16. Numerous homebrew attempts
have been made to reboot Turrican for the mod-
ern era.

Other Releases
Amiga 1990
Amstrad CPC 1990
Atari ST 1990
BlackBerry 2013
Commodore 64 1990
Game Boy 1991
Genesis 1991
TurboGrafx-16 1991
ZX Spectrum 1990 CDTV Commodore 64

some text from giantbomb.com

176 • Games - CDTV

 Turrican II: The Final Fight

Turrican II: The Final Fight is the second game

of the Turrican series. The game, developed by
Factor 5 was released in 1991 for the Amiga. The
Amiga version was finished before the C64 ver-
sion, but Manfred Trenz cites the C64 version as
the original design.

The game follows a soldier who uses an advanced

exoskeleton to seek revenge on behalf of his fallen
comrades.

Turrican II is notable for it’s fast-paced gameplay

and high level of difficulty. A platform based shooter,
the game features weapons upgradedable through
pickups well as the ability to shoot in a full 360°
motion. The game contains several similarities to
the game Metroid, featuring large levels which can
be explored in a non-linear fashion and the ability
Developer Factor 5
Publisher Rainbow Arts, to turn into a ball and place bombs. Unlike Metroid
Softgold however, each stage has an end, with an elaborate
Release date 1992 boss battle taking place at the end of each one.
Genre Run and gun At stages throughout the game, it ceases
Mode 1 Player
being a platformer and becomes a R-Type style
shooter. Though unlike R-Type the levels contain a
vertical aspect to the level design.

Chris Hülsbeck does the soundtrack again. The

Amiga version is the most well known among the
Turrican community as it takes advantage of the
stereo sound.

Other Releases
Amiga 1991
Amstrad CPC 1991
Atari ST 1991
BlackBerry 2013
Commodore 64 1991
MS-DOS 1995
ZX Spectrum 1991
CDTV Commodore 64

some text from giantbomb.com

CDTV - Games • 177

 Will Bridge
Intermediate /
Developer Will-Bridge Perfectionnement
Publisher Will-Bridge
Genre Cards

The Will-Bridge Practice series is a se-

ries of card games published by Will-
Bridge. The 5 CD series were released
with French and English versions and
was acknowledged by the European
Bridge League. Each CD comes with
one and two player games and includes Advanced /
lessons and quizzes.
Standard
Bridge, or Contract bridge, is a trick-tak-
ing card game using a standard 52-card
deck. The object of the game is to score
points by bidding and winning tricks. A
trick is created by each player picking a
card. The winner of the trick is the player
with the highest ranking card.

Introduction To Bidding / Competition /

Initiation Aux Encheres Competittion
The first title in the series came accom-
panied with a booklet about strategies
and rules on bridge. It is aimed at new
players, and each following title expect a
higher degree of player strength.

Advanced Competition /
Haute Competition

178 • Games - CDTV

Winzer
Developer Golden Gate Crew Tie-Break
Publisher Starbyte
Release date 1992 Developer Starbyte
Genre Simulation, Strategy Publisher Starbyte
Mode 1-4 Players Release date 1991
Genre Sports
Winzer (German for vintner) is a busi- Mode 1-16 Players
ness simulation about the cultivation of
Tie-Break, also known as adidas Cham-
wine.
pionship Tie Break, is a tennis simula-
The player starts by choosing a vine- tion that uses a top-down scrolling per-
yard in southern Germany. There they spective.
must cultivate and harvest grapes, press
The game supports up to 16 players in
wine and sell it on the national or inter-
singles matches on a variety of court
national markets. The quality of the wine
surfaces. It includes all of the major
depends on the type of vines, when the
world tournaments—the four Grand
grapes are harvested and how they are
Slam events at Melbourne, Roland Gar-
fertilized.
ros, Wimbledon and New York, plus the
The player must deal with hiring
Davis Cup and Masters events.
personnel and buying equipment, regis-
tering new wines with the authorities and “mobygames.com”
advertising the products. It is also pos-
sible to sabotage competitors or illegally
water down the wines.
“mobygames.com”

Other Releases
Amiga 1990
Amstrad CPC 1990
Other Releases Atari ST 1990
Commodore 64 1990
Amiga 1991 MS-DOS 1991
Atari ST 1991 ZX Spectrum 1990
Commodore 64 1991
MS-DOS 1991

CDTV - Games • 179

 Xenon 2: Megablast

Developed by The Bitmap Brothers for the Amiga

and Atari ST as a sequel to the original Xenon
(also by Bitmap Brothers), Xenon 2 Megablast is
an evolution of the blueprint set by the first game.
It is also one of The Bitmap Brothers’ most re-
nowned games, responsible for a large part of
their cult following in retro gaming.

The game takes place a millennium after the pre-

vious title. The goal of the game is to destroy a
series of bombs planted throughout history by
the Xenites, the vengeful antagonists of the first
game.

Xenon 2 Megablast is a vertically scrolling space

shooter, in which the player controls the Megab-
laster, a small battlecraft that can move in mul-
tiple directions, is equipped with a raygun as an
Developer The Assembly Line offensive measure, and is shielded from enemy
Publisher Image Works, Kixx
Release date 1992
attacks and collisions for a temporary period.
Genre Shooter The game is split into scrolling levels ranging in
Mode 1-2 Players theme from the Cambrian era to futuristic metallic
spaceways, ending with a level boss creature.
Destroyed enemies leave behind curren-
cy which can be used at “Crispin’s Swop Shop”,
which the player can access twice per level. Play-
ers can purchase upgrades for the Megablaster
like better weapons, speed and health upgrades,
etc. Some upgrades can also be picked up during
the levels.
Xenon 2 is
primarily single-
player, but allows
for two players to
play intermittently.

Other Releases
Acorn 32-bit 1993 Game Boy 1992
Amiga 1989 Genesis 1990
Antstream 2019 Jaguar 2016
Atari ST 1989 PC-98 1991
BlackBerry 2013 Sega Master System 1991
MS-DOS 1990 Sharp X68000 1991

CDTV

180 • Games - CDTV

Xenon 2 Megablast was conceptualized
and designed by The Bitmap Brothers
(consisting of Mike Montgomery, Steve
Kelly and Eric Matthews) and published by
Image Works. It is the third major release
by The Bitmap Brothers after Xenon and
Speedball. The development team drew
inspiration from Scramble, Gradius and R-
Type, and attempted to deviate from the
shoot ‘em up formula by making the ene-
my characters less predictable and prede-
termined. The Megablaster’s ability from
the previous title to transform into a tank
was omitted to make the gameplay more
straightforward.
The audio was created by David Whit-
taker, who arranged the Bomb the Bass
track “Megablast (Hip Hop on Precinct
13)” as the game’s background score. The
game’s subtitle is derived from this track.
The arrangement heard in the title screen
includes the samples from the original ver-
sion, while the arrangement heard during
gameplay is slightly stripped down. The
development team had been eager to in-
clude the track in a shoot ‘em up game,
Amiga Atari ST
with Matthews saying “It’s perfect music
for a shoot ‘em up. It’s instrumental, which
makes it relatively easy to reproduce on
computer, and the title says it all.” Rhythm
King founder Martin Heath and Bomb the
Bass headman Tim Simenon were both
avid fans of computer games, and their fa-
vourable response resulted in “Megablast”
being licensed for the game.
The CDTV version includes a high
fidelity remix of “Megablast” as well as
voice acting for the character Crispin pro-
vided by Richard Joseph.
The original release of Xenon 2: Megab-
last was met with critical acclaim and com-
mercial success, with reviewers praising
the detailed visuals, addictive gameplay,
variety of weapons and innovative sound-
track.
The CDTV version recieved mixed
reviews. Damien Noonan of Amiga Format
rated the CDTV version a paltry 32%, com-
menting that, while innovative at the time
it was first released, the game had aged
poorly and its gameplay was not well-bal-
anced.
Sega Master System Genesis
CDTV - Games • 181
 Ultimate Basketball
Developer
Wrath of the Demon Publisher
Context System
Context System
Developer Abstrax Release date 1991
Publisher ReadySoft Genre Sport
Release date 1991 Mode 1-2 Players
Genre Action-platformer
Ultimate Basketball is one of the few
Mode 1 Player
sports games available for the system. It
Wrath of the Demon is a 1991 hack and is a mostly unchanged port of an Amiga
slash developed by Quebec-based de- game developed by DesignStar Con-
veloper Abstrax. sultants and released in 1989 under the
The player controls a hero on a quest name Omni-Play Basketball. The CDTV
to defeat a demon. He begins the game version looks like it goes under the “edu-
on horseback, jumping over obstacles, cational” CDTV title banner because of
beating flying creatures, and collecting its yellow stripe on its cover.
potions on the ground. Afterward, the Ultimate Basketball contains two distinct
hero must proceed on foot through side- basketball games, with 3 skill levels and
scrolling platforming levels, destroying sets of players. One recreates the real
creatures with his blade as well as col- game closely, offering a full league for 1
lecting potions and additional weapons or 2 players. The other is faster-paced,
he will need on his quest. with easier shooting.
“mobygames.com” Shot time limit and match length can
be varied, as can kit and court colours.
Long range shots and slam-dunks are all
available. The game features 9 years of
historical statistics for teams and players.
“mobygames.com”

Other Releases
Amiga 1990
Atari ST 1991
Commodore 64 1991
MS-DOS 1991
Other Releases
Amiga 1989
Commodore 64 1989
MS-DOS 1990

182 • Games - CDTV

 Mind Run
Developer Créalude
Publisher Créalude
Release date 1991
A Bun for Barney Genre Edutainment, Puzzle

Mind Run is a mental training game that

Developer MultiMedia Corporation
Publisher BBC Multimedia is made up of a number of tests that are
Release date 1991 divided into four different categories:
Genre Interactive-book, Mini-games Memory, Stress, Sounds and Reflexes.
In each activity there are forty
A Bun for Barney is a combination of
questions or tasks and for each one
a storybook and an exploration game
that’s successfully answered the play-
aimed at children. The story is about
er earns points. The number of points
Barney the Bear who learns to say ‘no’.
earned depends on which of the five dif-
It features narration of Tom Baker of Dr.
ficulty levels is chosen. All tasks have to
Who fame and is animated by Melendez
be completed before the time runs out.
Films.
The pop-up world contains animations, “mobygames.com”
surprise word and number games and
hidden nursery rhymes which children
can explore by clicking on different parts
of the screen.
“mobygames.com”

184 • CD-ROM titles - CDTV

 Barney Bear Goes to School
Developer Free Spirit
Publisher Free Spirit
Barney Bear Goes Camping Release date 1991
Genre Interactive-book, Mini-games
Developer Free Spirit
Publisher Free Spirit Barney Bear Goes to School consists
Release date 1990
of two parts, where the first is a story
Genre Interactive-book, Mini-games
book where the player has to help Bar-
Barney Bear Goes Camping is part of a ney Bear to wake up and get ready for
series of educational games for children school.
aged two to six. The second part include two games and
This title consists of two parts, where a coloring book.
the first is a story book about Barney
Bear where he walks around the forest
and interact with animals. The story is
told through narrated pictures and for
each one the player can interact with the
scene by clicking on various objects. To
continue the story a specific object has
to be clicked on.
The second part include different games
and an coloring book program.

Other Releases
Amiga 1990
MS-DOS 1992

CDTV - CD-ROM titles • 185

 Fun School 3
Fun School is a series of educational pack-
ages developed and published in the United
Kingdom by Europress Software, initially as
Database Educational Software. The origi-
nal Fun School titles were sold mostly by
mail order via off-the-page adverts in mag-
azines owned by Database Publications. A
decision was made to create a new set of
programs, call the range Fun School 2, and
package them more professionally so they
could be sold in computer stores around the
UK. Every game comes as a set of three
versions, each version set to cater for a
specific age range.
The CDTV received the third set of educa-
tional games. The three individual games
aimed at children aged under 5 years, be-
tween 5 and 7 years and over 7 years re-
spectively. The games and their age ranges
took in to full account of the new National
Curriculum and the school syllabus content
at the time.
The Amiga version was hosted on the “Com-
modore 1990 Christmas” talk show along
with AMOS 3D. The Amstrad PCW version
won the European Computer Leisure Award
as “Best Home Education Package” and
also got the 8000 Plus Seal of Approval.

Fun School 3: for the Under 5s

Publisher Database Educational Software
Release date 1991
Genre Edutainment
Mode 1 Player

For The Under 5s includes 6 Games:

Counting, Letters, Matching, Actions,
Painting, and Gallery. Most games have
multiple difficulty levels, which reveal
themselves after the easiest has been
solved.
Counting game; players must correctly
count the numbers of everyday objects.
Letters game; players must match the let-
ters displayed.
Matching game; players must recognise
which items that can be paired up.
Actions game; players must choose an ac- Other Releases
tion word to make the teddy bear act it out. Amiga 1991
Painting; players can choose the colours Amstrad CPC 1990
Amstrad PCW 1990
of different items to form a picture. Atari ST 1990
Gallery game; involves matching pictures Commodore 64 1991
MS-DOS 1991
with the correct label. ZX Spectrum 1991

186 • CD-ROM titles - CDTV

Fun School 3: for 5 to 7 Year Olds
Publisher Europress Software
Release date 1992
Genre Edutainment
Mode 1 Player

For 5 To 7 Year Olds includes 6 Games:

Counting, Letters, Matching, Actions,
Painting, and Gallery.
These six small educational games star
Freddy the Frog. Each uses simple con-
trols to ensure that children can play with-
out difficulty from the software.

Other Releases
Amiga 1991
Amstrad CPC 1991
Amstrad PCW 1990
Atari ST 1990
Commodore 64 1991 Amiga
MS-DOS 1991
ZX Spectrum 1991

Fun School 3: for the over 7s

Developer Database Educational Software
Publisher Database Educational Software
Release date 1991
Genre Edutainment
Mode 1 Player

For the over 7s is aimed at children age

seven and over and consists of six pro-
grams with four games starring Robbie
the Robot and two utilities. Each game
has various skill levels and can be ad-
justed to suit the child’s needs.

Other Releases
Amiga 1990
Amstrad CPC 1990
Amstrad PCW 1990
Atari ST 1990
BBC Micro 1990
Commodore 64 1990 Amiga
MS-DOS 1991
ZX Spectrum 1991

CDTV - CD-ROM titles • 187

 Ordicode
Japan World
Developer Almathera
Publisher Educom Developer Global Learning Systems
Genre Edutainment Publisher Global Learning Systems
Release date 1991
French driver license learning software Genre Edutainment
where users can practice for their test by
reading about road traffic rules, etc. Im- An educational muli-media CD about Ja-
ages and sound is also used. pan where users can learn about the his-
Uncertainty over a tory, language and culture of the country.
commercial release of Japan World contains fourteen chapters
this title, but the Com- with pictures, music, narration, including
modore CDTV Disc trivia questions.
Reference Guide have Amiga Format gave it a score of 89%
it listed as released. and a positive review in their 1992 Octo-
ber issue; “probably the best Amiga CD
title to date, this exploits the potential of
multimedia better than any yet released.”

article; CU Amiga Magazine 12 (feb. 1991)

NEWS SOFT
Derbyshire schoolchildren will soon be experiencing
Japanese culture and language without leaving their
classrooms — thanks to a technological breakthrough
by Commodore.
Commodore’s revolutionary CDTV combines the tech-
nologies of the computer and the compact disk with
an ordinary television. The Dayshire scheme is part of
the CDTV pilot marketing prior to its launch in Spring
1991. Japan World is the first dedicated educational
program for the new machine and was developed by
Global Learning Systems Ltd and Derbyshire County
Council following Toyota’s decision to build a £700
million car assembly plant in the country.
Commodore will be supplying CDTVs to the second-
ary schools taking part in the scheme, which is designed to fos-
ter a better understanding of the Japanese language and culture.
Using a simple infrared remote control unit, the Derbyshire
schoolchildren will be able to experience Japan on their class-
room TV screen in full colour and stereo sound, complete with
text, graphics and motion video.
By linking the presentation of audio and visual info to their re-
sponses, students are able to work at their own pace and teachers
can tailor programs to individual needs.

188 • CD-ROM titles - CDTV

 Learn French With Astérix
A language learning software split between two
CDs. The software contains lessons in the form
of a story spoken in modern French and illus-
trated throughout. It include almost 60 minutes
of spoken French, 400 drawings, and accom-
panying French and English text.
The software uses a combination of memory
aids to teach the language. Users can explore
the home of Asterix and improve their French
by finding over 1,500 vocabulary items.
Each disk are said to offer over 15 hours of
study using all the options available.
Learn French With Astérix is also one of the
few CDTV titles compatible with the Microde-
al’s Voice Master. A section on the software
called “S’Enregistrer” allows users to record a
phrase, and then play it back to compare it with
Developer Eurotalk the spoken French on the disk.
Publisher Eurotalk
Release date 1991 The disks retailed at £34.99 each at the time of
Genre Edutainment release and were released as both English and
French versions.

CDTV

CDTV - CD-ROM titles • 189

 Language TV: English
Developer Jeriko
Publisher Jeriko
Release date 1991
Genre Edutainment

A French educational program for learn-

ing English. Most of the content are
facts about the UK and it’s culture, which
Heroic Age of Spaceflight makes the program more of a geograph-
Developer Troika Multimedia ic fact course then a language experi-
Publisher Troika Multimedia ence.
Release date 1991
Genre Edutainment

Heroic Age of Spaceflight - NASA... The

25th Year is essentially a 50-minute vid-
eo-on-a-disc. It feature a menu where
users can choose clips from the video.
This was one of the first programs to use
Commodore’s CD-XL format, which pro-
duces a 1/4 screen, 10 frames per sec-
ond video with stereo sound.

Pinocchio
Developer Si-Lab
Publisher Giunti
Release date 1993
Genre Edutainment
Mode 1 Player

Pinocchio includes a one hour long com-

puter animated story based on the clas-
sic fairy-tale of the same name.
This CD also includes a game where the
player, as Pinocchio, must complete dif-
ferent mini-games.

190 • CD-ROM titles - CDTV

North Polar Expedition
Developer Virgin
Publisher Virgin
Release date 1991
Genre Adventure
Mode 1 Player My Paint CDTV
In North Polar Expedition the player is Developer Saddleback
tasked with leading an expedition to the Publisher Saddleback
Release date 1991
North Pole. The story and setting are Genre Utility
inspired by an actual transglobe expedi- Mode 1 Player
tion by Sir Ranulph Fiennes. The game
uses photographic footage from the ex- A paint and coloring program aimed at
pedition in question. children aged 3-13. The drawing pro-
gram includes different tools, such as
In the game the player is presented with
brush-sizes, fill-em-up and different ef-
all kinds of different situations in which
fects, like mirror-mode. It also includes
the player must choose how to act,
over 100 pictures that can be colored in,
mostly in a choose-your-own-adventure
including sound effects.
style. Points are earned and a score is
kept to compare different expeditions. Reviews for it were mixed, mostly be-
Each new expedition presents the player cause of the difficulty using the remote
with different problems. The player takes control with the program.
on the role of different members of the
expedition in different situations.
The game came with a copy of Sir Ran-
ulph Fiennes book To The Ends of the
Earth.
“mobygames.com”

CDTV - CD-ROM titles • 191

 Sprachrätsel Series
Developer Ingenio
Publisher Ingenio
Release date 1991
Genre Edutainment, Puzzle

The Sprachrätsel discs is a series of German

crossword puzzle games disguised as educa-
tion titles. They all look and play the same.
Another title, Fremdsprachenrätsel Latein
1 (“Foreign Language Puzzle Latin 1”), are
said to have been released, but images of the
physical copy have not been found.

Fremdsprachenrätsel Spanisch 1
(“Foreign Language Puzzle Spanish 1”)

Sprachrätsel Englisch 1
(“English Language Puzzle 1”)

Sprachrätsel Englisch 2
(“English Language Puzzle 2”)

Sprachrätsel Englisch 3
(“English Language Puzzle 3”)

Sprachrätsel Französisch 1
(“French Language Puzzle 1”)

192 • CD-ROM titles - CDTV

article from Amiga Format Magazine (mar. 1992)
THE DISCIS CHILDREN’S BOOK SERIES
This is a delightful collection of popular chil-
dren’s picture books brought to the television.
Each one is operated in the same way, so in ef-
fect we’ll deal with them as one collection.
The series is biased towards American books
with American narrators and American spelling,
but since the majority of children’s television
cartoons are now American-made, that would
only be a problem for the fussiest of English par-
ents. It also gives rise to an interesting feature of
the series, in that every book can read in Span-
ish, America’s second language, if you so wish.
The format is the same for each book. The
book is spread open in front of you, with the
illustrations from the original printed versions
reproduced in digitised form. And there’s music
playing throughout, too, which makes the whole
experience very like watching Jackanory.
To move through the book, you click on the
dog-eared bottom-right corner to turn the page
or move a slider at the right-hand side. If you
just want to listen to the story, you click on the
little loudspeaker icon at the start of each para-
graph and the narrator will read, turning the
pages, to the end of the story. Each sentence is
highlighter while it is read.
The only mild problems with the control sys-
tem is that the CDTV tends not to take input
when it’s doing something else, such as loading
the next page or music or narration. This means
that sometimes you click and nothing will hap-
pen: which could be just a bit to fussy for impa-
tient little fingers.
The CD books are just as likely to become
treasured possessions for younger children as
‘real’ books do already. They’re nicely presented
to a very high professional standard. Of course,
different stories will be preferred by different
people according to the subject matter.
All in all, the only question you have to ask
yourself is do you really want to pay that much
more for a CD than a book? Kids’ books have
very few words, which translates into very few
minutes of CD-watching, which makes them ex-
pensive at only one story per disc.
Books have a ‘feel’ as objects which is en-
tirely their own and many parents would prefer
to get their kids away from the telly to read. On
the other hand, it keeps them quiet and encour-
ages the kids of the video age to pay attention to
words, it has to be good. Your decision. It’s the
price that really makes it seem unviable.
verdict 70%
Discis Knowledge Research
Discis Knowledge Research is a com-
pany, founded in Toronto in 1988, that
acquired rights to children’s stories and
published them as CD-ROM-based inter-
active children’s books.
By 1993, the company had published
20 interactive titles and sold more than
300,000 discs, primarily across North
America.
Discis’ two main brands are Little Kids
Can Read and Kids Can Read.
Discis Interactive Storybook
Discis released several titles for the
CDTV. These were more like interactive
books than games and are based on ex-
isting childrens books. All titles follow a
similar template and plays the same.
The main portion of the game is the sto-
rybook part where a narrator reads the
story while pictures and text are shown
on screen. Music and sound effects are
sometimes played along with the story.
Using the controller, users can click on
any word in the text or on items in a pic-
ture to obtain the correct pronunciation,
explanation, and syllable breakdown.
Some titles also includes simple games
and programs, like a coloring/paint pro-
gram.
Most—if not all—were also released on
the VIS (Visual Information System), Ma-
cintosh and Windows.
Reviews at the time were mostly mixed
to positive.
CDTV - CD-ROM titles • 193
 The Paper Bag Princess
Developer Discis
Publisher Discis
Cinderella: Release date 1992
The Original Fairy Tale Genre Edutainment

Developer Discis Based on a 1980 book written by Robert

Publisher Discis
Release date 1992
Genre Edutainment
A story based on the Cinderella fairy-tale
illustrated and written by Paul Galdone.
This retelling of Cinderella is a little more
positive than most other iterations. She
still marries her prince, but she also finds
rooms in the palace for her two stepsis-
ters—and even arranges aristocratic
matches for them.
Munsch and illustrated by Michael Mart-
chenko.
The story reverses the princess and
dragon stereotype. As a result, it has
won critical acclaim from feminists, in-
cluding an endorsement from the Na-
tional Organization for Women, which
sells the book on its website.

194 • CD-ROM titles - CDTV

A Long Hard Day
On The Ranch
Developer Discis Moving Gives Me A Stomach Ache
Publisher Discis
Release date 1991 Developer Discis
Genre Edutainment Publisher Discis
Release date 1992
Based on a 1989 book written and illus- Genre Edutainment
trated by Audrey Nelson.
Based on a book written by Heather
The story follows a young boy who is va-
McKend and illustrated by Heather Col-
cationing on his aunt and uncle’s ranch
lins.
for the summer. Written in the form of
a letter home, A Long Hard Day on the It tells the story of a child’s reaction to
Ranch shows how a young boy imag- moving house. The little boy has been
ines his days at the ranch—while ac- given a big box to pack up all of his fa-
companying illustrations show the more vourite belongings—his bear, his cray-
mundane reality. ons, his books and marbles—but how
will he fit in his tree, or his best friend?

CDTV - CD-ROM titles • 195

 The Night Before Christmas
Developer Discis
Publisher Discis
Release date 1992
Genre Edutainment
Mud Puddle Based on a book written by Clement
Developer Discis Moore and illustrated by Arthur Rack-
Publisher Discis ham—one of the leading figures during
Release date 1992 the Golden Age of British books.
Genre Edutainment
The Night Before Christmas is a yuletide
Based on a 1981 book written by Rob- poem, originally known under the title A
ert N. Munsch and illustrated by Sami Visit from St. Nicholas.
Suomalainen. Moore was an American professor of
It tells the story of a mud puddle who Oriental and Greek literature, as well as
continually ambushes a little girl named Divinity and Biblical learning, and the
Jule Ann. She eventually have to find a poem (which has been labelled ‘the best-
way to outsmart the puddle. known verses ever written by an Ameri-
can’) is largely responsible for concep-
tions of ‘Santa Claus’ popular from the
mid-nineteenth century until today.

196 • CD-ROM titles - CDTV

Heather Hits her First Home Run Scary Poems For Rotten Kids
Developer Discis
Developer Discis
Publisher Discis
Publisher Discis
Release date 1991
Release date 1991
Genre Edutainment
Genre Edutainment
Based on a 1989 anthology book of hor-
Based on a 1989 book written by Ted
ror poems for children written by Sean
Plantos and illustrated by Heather Col-
O’Huigin and illustrated by John Fraser
lins.
and Scott Hughes.
It tells the story of a girl named Heather
Poems includes The Body, The Pocket,
playing Tee-ball and deals with the value
The Fog, Acid Rain, and The Day the
of sportsmanship and team spirit.
Mosquitoes Ate Angela Jane.

advert from CU Amiga Magazine 30, Aug. 1992

If you bought CDTV and are now living to regret it read on

“..Commodore made multimedia available to the masses
with the Dynamic Total Vision (CDTV), but it looks set
for dinosaur status in the light of Phillip’ impressive Com-
pact Disc-Interactive (CD-I). Chris Cain’s (Senior Staff
Writer PCW) comparison of the two systems game him
the best hardware experience he’s had for five years...
Personal Computer World July 1992
Did you bet on black and it came up red?
Did you buy Betamax when everybody bought VHS?
Have you booked your summer holiday in Yugoslavia?
I bet you’ve got CDTV.

Well don’t worry we won’t take the micky anymore because your not the only person
who fell for all the hype, but don’t panic, Captain Diamond as always is here to save the
day. You can bring your old CDTV into any branch of Diamond until the end of August
and we will give you a brand new all singing all dancing CD-I system for only £449

CDTV - CD-ROM titles • 197

 The Tale of Benjamin Bunny
Developer Discis
Publisher Discis
Release date 1991
Genre Edutainment
The Tale Of Peter Rabbit
Based on the sequel to The Tale of Peter
Developer Discis Rabbit book, it tells of Peter’s return to
Publisher Discis Mr. McGregor’s garden with his cousin
Release date 1992
Benjamin to retrieve the clothes he lost
Genre Edutainment
there during his previous adventure.
Based on a book written and illustrated
by Beatrix Potter. The tale was written
for five-year-old Noel Moore, the son of
Potter’s former governess, Annie Carter
Moore, in 1893. The book were released
in 1901.
The story follows mischievous and dis-
obedient young Peter Rabbit as he gets
into, and is chased around, the garden
of Mr. McGregor.
The Tale of Peter Rabbit has been trans-
lated into 36 languages, and with 45 mil-
lion copies sold it is one of the best-sell-
ing books in history.

Thomas’ Snowsuit
Developer Discis
Publisher Discis
Release date 1991
Genre Edutainment

Based on a book by Robert Munsch. It

tells the story of Thomas who don’t want
to use his new snowsuit.

198 • CD-ROM titles - CDTV

 Advanced Military Systems
Developer Dominion Software & Design
Publisher Dominion Software & Design
Release date 1991
Genre Multi-media

Multimedia CD-ROM for Amiga CDTV/

CD32 featuring images, music, informa-
tion, video clips and narration covering
Dinosaurs for Hire different kinds of military hardware.

Developer Wright Works III

Publisher Wright Works III
Release date 1991
Genre Multi-media

Dinosaurs for Hire for the CDTV is a digi-

tal version of three issues of the comic
book series of the same name. It feature
digitised images and voice-over.

Text from the packaging;

Over one thousand breathtaking action shots of the

world’s most exciting and powerful military systems.
From the agile grace of the U.S. Air Force’s F-15
Eagle to the awesome power of the Soviet subma-
rine fleet, to the sleek and dangerous lines of German
Leopard Tank.
Advanced Military systems brings you the very best,
including the MiG-29 Fulcrum Jet, M1A1 Abrams
Tank, Iraqi Al-Abbas Missile, Israeli Kfir Jet, Nim-
itz-class Aircraft Carrier, Typhoon-class Submarine,
F-117A Stealth fighter, and much, much more!
This display of international military might is art-
fully combined with hours of music and narration to
create an exciting and informative interactive multi-
media production.

200 • CD-ROM titles - CDTV

Women in Motion
Developer On-Line
Publisher On-Line
Release date 1992
Genre Multi-media
Animals in Motion
Women in Motion, billed as “an encyclo-
Developer On-Line
pedia of movement”, contains images Publisher On-Line
and animated sequences taken of naked Release date 1992
women by Eadweard Muybridge. Genre Multi-media
Amiga Format gave it a score of 55% Animals in Motion is the second CDTV
and wrote; “A collection of animated se- title in the series of photographs by Ead-
quences of fat, naked Victorian ladies. weard Muybridge. This CD includes
A useful if eccentric resource for anima- a large library of
tors”. black-and-white
Excerpt from the packaging; digitised pictures of
You can examine animals. The files
each frame of ani- are stored as IFFs
mation, print it out, and anim files.
or load it into an art
package and work
with it.

CDTV - CD-ROM titles • 201

 GardenFax Series
Publisher Intersearch
Release date 1991 Fruits, Vegetables & Herbs
Genre Reference
Includes information on over 170 kinds
of common and exotic edible plant spe-
The GardenFax series included four cies.
discs which retailed at £35 each at the
time of release.

The series are meant as a tool for gar-

dening and plants. Each disk feature a
menu system where users can choose
a plant they want information on. Each
plant listed include an image and tips
on how to best raise it healthy. It also
includes info on re-potting, seed laying,
etc.

Indoor Plants
Includes information on over 200 kinds
of common and exotic houseplants.

excerpt from
Amiga Format review;

The Gardenfax front-end

is one of the best seen on
any multimedia disc, even
though it looks pretty hor-
rible.

Garden Plants Trees, Shrubs, Roses & Conifers

Includes information on over 400 kinds Includes information on over 300 kinds
of common and exotic plants. of common and exotic plant species.

202 • CD-ROM titles - CDTV

Fractal Universe
Developer Almathera
Publisher Almathera
Release date 1992
Genre Reference

Fractal Universe is an educational ad- The Connoisseur:

vanced mathematics tool. Users can cre-
ate their own fractals and learn about the Fine Art Collection
Mandelbrot set and the complex math- Publisher Lascelles Productions
ematical formulae used to create them. Release date 1992
A fractal is a pattern, that when seen Genre Reference
as an image, produces a picture, which Contains images, information text and
when zoomed into will still make the background music for over 400 histori-
same picture. cal works of art from nine periods in art
Fractal cosmology is a set of cos- history.
mological theories which state that the
distribution of matter in the Universe, or
the structure of the universe itself, is a
fractal across a wide range of scales.
The Mandelbrot set is an exam-
ple of a fractal in mathematics. It is a
particular set of complex numbers which
has a highly convoluted fractal boundary
when plotted.

CDTV - CD-ROM titles • 203

magazine article; CU Amiga Magazine 30 (aug. 1992)
TRADE-IN DEAL FOR CDTV
With relatively poor sales so far, Commodore are
launching a summer offensive to promote their
beleaguered CDTV. From mid-July, Amiga 500
owners will be able to trade in their machine for a
£200 discount off the price of the newly-launched
CDTV Multimedia Pack. The Multimedia Pack
includes a CDTV, plus keyboard, mouse, and disk
drive and retails normally at £599, although with
the trade-in offer it can be yours for £399.
Commodore are quietly confident about the
success of the deal, particularly as the same tech-
nique was used to boost the ailing Amiga in its
early stages of development. A deal was struck
whereby C64 owners could upgrade to the Amiga
by trading in their 8-bit machines for a hefty dis-
count. Commodore’s Kelly Summer commented:
‘People can hand in a four of five year-old Amiga
1.2 and get a brand new Amiga with CDROM and
a 12-month warranty. It’s a cracking deal’.
The plastic in question being your trusty
Amiga 500, of course. Because if you take it
along to your local stockist and trade it in,
we’ll exchange it for a new generation Amiga
CDTV multi-media computer pack for only
£399.99.* That’s £200 less than the normal
retail price. And remember, that includes and
Amiga CDTV player with keyboard, mouse,
floppy disc drive and a 12 month warranty -
the whole shooting match. This fantastic offer
to our Amiga customers closes at the end of
September. So hurry, as they say, while stocks
last. And don’t forget the plastic.
*Trade-in machines must be complete and in working order. Offer ends 30th Sep-
tember 1992. Available at selected high street stores including Dixons and specialist
independents.
 Fakta Leksikon
Developer TEXTware
Publisher Commodore, Nordisk Forlag
Genre Reference

Fakta Leksikon is a Danish lexicon by

Gyldendal publishing house.
Caplex The disc contains more than 40,000 ar-
ticles with over 1000 pictures.
Publisher Cappelen Fakta
Release date 1991
Genre Reference

Caplex is a digital version of the one-

volume Norwegian lexicon by Cappelen.
It was billed as the first multimedia ency-
clopedia in the Nordic countries and one
of the first in the world.
The CD-ROM version of Caplex con-
tains over 1500 images, 200 maps, 350
sound clips, etc.

Enciclopedia Italiana Grolier

Publisher Grolier Hachette International
Release date 1991
Genre Reference

Italian encyclopedia by Grolier publish-

ing house. This was the first of several
different CDTV encyclopedias by Grolier.

208 • CD-ROM titles - CDTV

Enciclopedia Italiana Grolier
Edizione 1994
Publisher Grolier Hachette International
Release date 1993
Genre Reference

The updated release includes more con-

tent, such as CDXL videos, maps, flags,
audio clips, faster loading time, etc.
Grolier’s Enciclopedia Italiana were re- The Hutchinson Encyclopedia
leased for several different systems, in- Publisher Attica Cybernetics
cluding CD-i, and were updated yearly Release date 1991
up till at least 2001. Genre Reference

A digital version of the Hutchinson En-

cyclopedia—a general encyclopedia re-
leased as a single volume. It attempts to
be readable by reducing the use of tech-
nical language.
The CDTV version includes 25,000 en-
tries, with sound-clips, maps, images,
etc.

Edizione 1993 Edizione 1995

Edizione 1996 Edizione 1997

Edizione 1998 Edizione 1999

CDTV - CD-ROM titles • 209

 Il Dizionario
Multilingue
Publisher Grolier Hachette
Release date 1993
Genre Refrence
The New Grolier
Italian ‘Multi-lan-
Electronic Encyclopedia guage’ dictionary
Publisher Grolier Electronic Publishing with sections on
Release date 1991 different topics
Genre Reference such as economy
and money.
The Grolier Electronic Encyclopedia is a
digital version of Groliers print encyclo-
pedia series. This was an update from
their previous 1985 CD-ROM release.
This title contains the 21-volume Aca-
demic American Encyclopedia series.
It includes over 2000 images, including
excepts from animals, speeches, music,
Il Dizionario
etc. Say it in English
An updated CDTV compatible version Publisher Grolier Hachette
was released a year later for the CD32. Release date 1993
Genre Refrence

Italian dictionary on the English lan-

guage. It contains over 370 drawings
and one and a half hour of English voice
recordings accompanied with Italian text.

210 • CD-ROM titles - CDTV

Insight: Technology
Developer Optonica
Publisher Commodore
Release date 1994
Genre Reference
Insight: Technology was the first title in
the Insight Encyclopedia CD series for
the CD32, CDTV and A570 systems. It
consists of in-depth articles on how dif-
ferent items work, from everyday object
like the ball-point pen to how a space
shuttle functions.
The CD includes over 300 computer
graphic images, video clips, diagrams
and animations. It also includes a photo
library of over 700 pictures—some with
narrations.
Insight: Technology received mostly
good reviews by magazines at the time.
CU Amiga gave it a score of 91% and
wrote in their closing statement; “Al-
though the number of topics isn’t vast,
there’s enough here to stimulate both
adults and children, and it’s the ideal tool
for learning how everyday objects work”.
Insight: Dinosaurs
Developer Optonica
Publisher Optonica
Release date 1994
Genre Reference
Insight: Dinosaurs was the second title
in the series. It was released just after
Jurassic Park and the “dinomania” the
film caused.
Insight: Dinosaurs is a CD encyclope-
dia about dinosaurs and includes arti-
cles with photos, illustrations, computer
graphics, sound effects and animated
sequences. The articles are also narrat-
ed. The CD also includes simple games,
like quizzes and a coloring program.
Insight: Dinosaurs was well received at
the time. Amiga CD32 Gamer gave it a
score of 85% and wrote in their closing
statement; “A well presented and smart
package that the programmers have
crammed full with every titbit of info you
could imagine on dinosaurs”.
CDTV - CD-ROM titles • 211
 Sherlock Holmes On A Disc
Publisher Animated Pixels
Genre Reference

Contains every Sherlock Holmes story

by Arthur Conan Doyle. It also includes
reproductions of original woodcuts and a
search engine.

The Illustrated Holy Bible

Publisher Animated Pixels
Genre Reference

Contains the complete text of the Old

and New Testament. It includes illustra-
tions and a search engine.
This was the first of three titles released
by Animated Pixels. These titles were
similar and featured basic menus with
no music or speech.

The Illustrated Works of

Shakespeare
Publisher Animated Pixels
Genre Reference

Contains the complete text of all Shake-

speare’s plays, poems and sonnets. It
also includes reproductions of original
woodcuts and a search engine.

212 • CD-ROM titles - CDTV

American Vista Atlas
Developer Applied Optical Media
Publisher Applied Optical Media
Release date 1992
Genre Reference

American Vista Atlas and World Vista

Atlas are two atlas application software
World Vista Atlas
released for the CDTV. Developer Applied Optical Media
This is an atlas over the US. It feature Publisher Applied Optical Media
Release date 1991
digitized maps, a state-by-state tour and Genre Reference
each state has a slideshow of digitized
images. World Vista Atlas is a world atlas appli-
cation. Unlike American Vista Atlas, this
includes less detail on each nation. As
well as seeing the maps and flags and
looking at pictures of scenery, users can
listen to national folk music and learn a
few words of the language of any coun-
try.

CDTV - CD-ROM titles • 213

 Time Table of History
Business, Politics & Media
Publisher Xiphias
Release date 1991
American Heritage Genre Reference
Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary Includes over 6000 articles covering dif-
Publisher Xiphias ferent events from
Release date 1991 the Trojan Horse to
Genre Reference Desert Storm. Im-
An 80,000 words interactive digital refer- ages, maps, charts,
ence book. It con- etc. are featured
tains illustrations, within the articles.
facts and figures,
geographic and bi-
ographical informa-
tion, etc.

Time Table of History

Science and Innovation
Publisher Xiphias
Release date 1991
Genre Reference
Great Cities of Our World
Includes over 6200
Florence: Art, History and Mystery articles covering
Developer Giunti Multimedia different key events
Release date 1991 in science from the
Genre Reference Big Bang to the
Users can go through 3000 years of the U.S. military tech-
history of Florence, a city in Central Italy. nology.
It contains topics with information on dif-
ferent periods of time and events.
Uncertain if this title had an official com-
mercial release, but the Commodore
CDTV Disc Reference list it as released.

214 • CD-ROM titles - CDTV

Deutschland Kompakt
Publisher MSPI
Release date 1991
Genre Reference

Multimedia travel guide for Germany.

Includes information and quizzes about
the country and 150 of it’s cities.

12 Centuries of Art
Palermo
Publisher DigiPublishing
Release date 1992
Genre Reference

A some sort of tourist guide containing

a large collection of art and images from
the city of Paler-
mo, Italy. It also in-
cludes maps, his-
torical facts, and
information about
the city.

Deutschland Kompakt 2
Publisher MSPI
Release date 1991
Genre Reference

The second CDTV multimedia travel

guide for Germany contains information
on only 100 of it’s cities, but with an im-
proved menu system and better content.

CDTV - CD-ROM titles • 215

 Timbres de France & Monaco
Publisher Dèpöt Lègal Seriat
Release date 1992
Genre Reference
The Guinness
Timbres de France & Monaco (“Stamps
CDTV Disc Of Records from France & Monaco”) is a stamp col-
Developer New Media lecting software. It feature a glossary,
Publisher CDTV Publishing images and prices.
Release date 1991
Genre Reference

This is a digital version of the popular

Guinness Records book series.
Users can browse the different records
by selecting one of the 11 main topics,
using the search menu or the index. It
also feature six video tours consisting
of full screen slides, accompanied by a
narrator.
An updated version, also developed by
New Media, was released two years lat-
er for the CD32.
“cdtvland.com”

Il Guinness Dei Primati 1994

Publisher Grolier Hachette International
Release date 1994
Genre Reference

Italian version of
the 1994 edition
of The Guinness
Book of Records.
This version was
not released in
English.

216 • CD-ROM titles - CDTV

Cinque Anni Di Ansa Sport
dal 1988 al 1992
Publisher Grolier Hachette
Release date 1993
Genre Reference Dodici Anni Di Gazzetta Ufficiale
“Five Years Of Ansa Sport - from 1988 to attraverso comunicati e sommari ANSA
1992” was an Ital- Publisher Grolier Hachette
ian release where Release date 1993
users could read Genre Reference
about different “Twelve Years Of
sport accomplish- Official Gazette
ments by search- through ANSA
ing through the press releases
different catego- and summaries”
ries. was an Italian re-
lease with content
similar to the pre-
vious release.

The New Basics

Electronic Cookbook
Publisher Xiphias
Release date 1991 Cinemabilia
Genre Reference
Developer Media Sat Production
Includes over 1800 recipes with narration Release date 1993
by Shirlee Rosso and Sheila Lukens. An Genre Reference
on-screen presentation allows the user Cinemabilia, released in Italy, is an in-
to choose recipes by specific ingredi- teractive archive for films. It includes
ents, mealtime or special occasion. information of 30,000
movies, with informa-
tion about actors, di-
rectors, poster images
and photos from movie
sets (similar to what
imdb.com is).
Thought to have be
cancelled, but Com-
modore CDTV Disc
Reference Guide list it
as released.

CDTV - CD-ROM titles • 217

 Dr. Wellman
The Human Body Publisher
Release date
CDTV Publishing
1991
Publisher Giunti Multimedia Genre Reference
Release date 1994
Dr. Wellman: A Guide to Good Health for
Genre Reference
You & Your Family is a medical guide. It
This multimedia disk teaches users was also one of the launch titles for the
about the human body. It also includes a CDTV.
“guided tour” that plays like a documen- It’s content includes over 2500 images—
tary and feature pictures and video-clips some animated—music and narration
with narration. and an “adult health section” that offers
restricted access via a password secu-
rity system.

Le Monde
Les Chronologies Du Monde 1944 - 1991
Publisher Le Monde-Act Multimedia Homèo-CD
Release date 1992
Genre Reference Publisher HMAC
Release date 1993
A French release Genre Reference
of a database of
Created with the
the entire history
help of the Ho-
from 1944 of the
meopathic Medi-
French newspa-
cal Association of
per Le Monde.
Canada and in-
clude 500 ‘recom-
mendations’.

218 • CD-ROM titles - CDTV

 magazine article from; “CD Column” Raze Magazine 6 (April 1991)
CD
H
ow would you like to be
SIGHTS ON
able to take a CD and then
re-sequence it? To take a
Madonna CD, for example, ex-
tract a couple of parts from it,
merge it with your own sam-
ples and sequences, loop them,
reverse them, repeat them, etc.
etc! Sounds good, eh? A DIY
home studio, even?
You will have the chance to
do just that when the CDTV
appears because Microdeal are
in the midst of producing the
ground-breaking software re-
quired to do it. John Simes at
Microdeal had a few (hundred)
words to say about their CD
Remix project.
“The best way of doing it
would be to take a CD single
with around four re-mixes of
the same track on it. Then, from
our controller, you would be
able to tell the CD to play track
one from part A to part B, then
go to track two and play part
C to part D. Then to load the
parts into the computer’s mem-
ory and overlay them or use the
DJ Paul “Jazzie
built-in drum machine to add a
Master” Rigby
drum beat.”
gets a compact No separate hardware will be
studio on com- required. All you would need to
pact disc for the do is load the CD Remix pro-
CDTV (little gram from CD, then put in the
regular CD music disc to use as
things please lit-
data.
tle minds etc...) There are certain limits to the
program, though. For example,
there will be no links to other
programs such as Deluxe Paint
or AMOS. However, you will be
able to use Microdeal’s Quartet
and AMAS sampling software
with CD Remix.
“You can, if you wish, plug in
extra CDTV units together via
220 • CD-ROM titles - CDTVa
the MIDI channels and then use
the one CDTV as a master to
control the other machines. DJs,
for example, could take tracks
with the same sort of bassline
and the mix them in together.”
Don’t be misled, though,
Remix is not aimed towards the
professional market. Remix is
a program for everyone. The
program is structured so that it
will not contain a “language” as
generally perceived. There will
be no clunky GOTO or FOR...
NEXT statements here. The best
comparison I can give you is
that you will form a batch file
or macro of Remix commands
which are defined by icons.
“For example, you’d have
an icon of ‘play’ and within
that icon would be what track
to play, what areas to play and
when it should begin play-
ing. The next icon might be to
‘play a sample in the compu-
ter’s memory’ then ‘send out a
MIDI start command to switch
to another CDTV’ then ‘wait for
MIDI start’ then ‘play Quartet
voice set’ and so on.”
You would then be able to
save that sequence command
file to the CDTV’s smart card
which you get with every unit.
This allows a quick repeat of
that worked sequence whenever
required, like at a party.
The possibilities of this piece
of software are endless. From
making your own demos to be-
coming part of a professional
music studio, CD Remix looks
like being one of the more inter-
esting software developments
for the CDTV. We wish Micr-
odeal good luck... and hope
they’ll send us a copy soon!
COMPACT STORIES
★ Microdeal are working
wonders with CD Remix.
Especially so as they do
not even have a CDTV yet!
They only have the develop-
ment kit to work with at the
moment. It makes you won-
der what Commodore are
playing at since, at the time
of writing, the CDTV is ac-
tually due for an American
release in February!
★ Expect to see the Sierra
games Jones in the Fast
Lane and King Quest V on
CD-ROM for the IBM PC
(probably Sierra’s own hard-
ware system) and CDTV.
Gawk at those graphics! Could this be
the prettiest computer game EVER!
Apparently, Sierra wanted a CD-
ROM machine built in as standard
on the first PC. They didn’t get it, of
course, which is a pity because if they
did, we could all be playing CD-ROM
games now instead of disk. Even so, Si-
erra are producing startling products
like the impressive King’s Quest V, as
pictured here on the PC.
★ Gremlin’s CDTV version
of Little Devil is still ten
months away from release.
★ It is an open secret that
Sierra consulted IBM when
the latter was working on the
PS/1 and asked for the inclu-
sion of a CD-ROM player. It
is also rumoured that Sierra
were bitterly disappointed
that the CD-ROM failed to
materialise in the PS/1 ma-
chine. It now appears that
IBM are working on a CD-
ROM player to be sold as an
add-on. Initially through the
usual retail outlets but also
through Sierra themselves!
CD Remix: The D.J. in a Box
Developer
Publisher
Microdeal U.K.
Microdeal U.K. Music Maker
Release date 1991
Developer Omnibus Records & Tape
Genre Music
Publisher Omnibus Records & Tape
A music creator that enables users to Release date 1991
Genre Music
take audio CDs and get them to play in
loop and sequences, giving them the op- Music Maker is divided into four main ar-
tion of making their own remixes. It also eas;
includes drum sequences, speech, over Juke Box offer seventeen ‘popular’ full
100 different samples, and volume con- length cover songs (such as Madonna,
trols. The Beatles, Dire Straights, etc.), ac-
companied by individual thematic low-
res graphical slideshows.
Play Along mode provides a selection
of sampled instruments (synths, pianos,
horns, etc.) which with to play the same
17 music tracks’ melodies atop the CD
music in various ways. It is also possible
to record each button press on the key-
board for later use.
Drum Along feature four different drum-
kit samples. Users can use drum effect
when playing through one of the includ-
ed songs.
Quiz Time is designed for 2 to 4 players
CD Remix: Version II and plays like Trivial Pursuit type board
games.
Developer Microdeal U.K.
Publisher Microdeal U.K. When compared to CD Remix, info mag-
Release date 1991 azine, March 1992 Issue 48, wrote in
Genre Music their review; “Though CD ReMix is more
An updated version to The D.J. in a Box. challenging to use and master, it’s also
Includes more samples and patches. much more contemporary, cutting-edge,
and geared towards those of you who
yearn to apply some inventive creativity
into programming your music.”
“InfoMagazine issue 48”

CDTV - CD-ROM titles • 221

 Musicolor

Musicolor is an educational game that

teaches music theory to children. It is
based upon the music teaching method
developed by Candida Tobin and con-
tains 15 lesson, each with a number of in-
teractive activities. Most activities involve
listening to sounds as they are played
and then clicking on various icons or
graphics on the screen. Sometimes the
player is asked questions regarding the
sounds being played. Some activities are
built around colour and work like colour-
ing books. There are also a composition
tool that allow the player to freely create
tunes.

The game is split between two CDs and came

Developer Binary Vision in a large box that contained a coloring book, a
Publisher Virgin
Release date 1992 chord ruler, worksheet, among other things.
Genre Edutainment
Mode 1 Player

some text from mobygames.com

222 • CD-ROM titles - CDTV

Compilations/Shareware/
 Cubulus & Magic Serpent

Cubulus & Magic Serpent includes two games in one

package for the CDTV. Although the games were
available on floppy, standalone versions of Cubulus
and Magic Serpent were never released for CDTV.

Cubulus is based around the rubik’s cube concept.

The game is viewed from the top with all sides dis-
played, and allow the player to choose the number
of sides, from 4 to 25. A large number of different
starting arrangements are offered, grouped by diffi-
culty. A number of different songs are provided, writ-
ten by Team 17 cohort Bjørn Lynne.

Magic Serpent by Magic Soft is a Snake variant.

The player controls a snake called Lenni who has
to eat all fruits which are divided over the scrolling
level. Said levels are constructed like mazes, i.e.
Publisher Software 2000 many small gangways. Every time a fruit is eaten,
Release date 1991 the length of Lenni grows. The player needs to con-
Genre Compilation
trol Lenni (he moves and turns automatically when
meeting a wall; the player only needs to intervene
when another turn is in order) in a way so he does
not get in his own way. Each level has to be com-
pleted within 60 seconds, but collecting clocks ex-
tends this limit. It is also possible to pick up different
power-ups, including teleports and speed changers.

Other Releases

Cubulus;
Amiga 1991
Commodore 64 1991
MS-DOS 1991

Magic Serpent;
Amiga 1991
Commodore 64 1991

Cubulus Magic Serpent

some text from mobygames.com

224 • CD-ROM titles - CDTV

Global Chaos

Text from the packaging;

Welcome to Global Chaos - CDTV, an amazing future enter-

tainment product from HEX. Global Chaos turns your CTV
into a multidimensional recreation system allowing you to play
CD music., cyber-graphics and a platform games from one disc.
•GLOBAL CHAOS, 4 hardcore-techno CD tracks each with
never-repeating rave graphics •ETERNAL RAVE, continuous
rave-graphics for parties, night clubs etc. •TOP BANANA, a
“stunning original” environmental platform game with sampled
sound/graphics and a manual in 4 languages.

Global Chaos CDTV is a compilation disc that in-

cludes a CDTV port of Top Banana, 8 ambient and
hardcore techno tracks as well as continuous rave-
style graphics.
Publisher Hex
Release date 1992 The included game, Top Banana, is an environmen-
Genre Compilation tally-themed platform game originally produced by
Hex and Psycore for the Acorn Archimedes in 1991.
The plot of the game is about trying to save the en-
vironment from pollution using love.
Reception for Top Banana was polarized;
some reviewers praised the game’s techno sound-
track and ‘original’ environmental plot, while others
heavily criticized the game due to its ‘repetitive’ and
‘difficult’ gameplay and ‘difficult to parse’ graphics.

Amiga CDTV

CDTV - CD-ROM titles • 225

 Shiftrix & Lettrix

Lettrix & Shiftrix includes two games in one pack-

age. Although the games were available on floppy,
standalone versions were never released for CDTV.
Both are puzzle games that supports two players.

Lettrix is a puzzle game in which the player gets

presented with a structure, e.g. a big “A”. This needs
to be rebuilt by using eight differently formed blocks
(some reminiscent of Tetris shapes) which can be
rotated and placed on the playfield. Those blocks
are limited in number, e.g. the player may have ten
of one and six of another available to use. Wrongly
placed blocks can be picked up again, but the play-
er fights against a time limit.

Shiftrix is a puzzle game where the player is pre-

sented with a top-down level with differently col-
Publisher Software 2000 oured blocks. Those blocks can be moved in any di-
Release date 1991 rection, but they automatically move into the chosen
Genre Compilation
direction until they meet an obstacle, e.g. a wall or
another block. The goal is to vaporize all blocks by
combining two or more blocks of the same colour.
Each level has to be solved within a certain time
frame and a limited amount of bombs can be used
to kill off single blocks.

Other Releases

Lettrix;
Amiga 1990
Atari ST 1990
Commodore 64 1990
MS-DOS 1990

Shiftrix;
Amiga 1991
Atari ST 1991
Commodore 64 1991
MS-DOS 1991
Shiftrix Lettrix

some text from mobygames.com

226 • CD-ROM titles - CDTV

Multimedia Toolkit
Developer Weird Science
Publisher Weird Science
Release date 1993
Genre Graphics Pandora’s CD
The Multimedia Tookit has very little to Developer Optonica
do with multimedia, but is instead a huge Publisher Optonica
collection (reportedly over 10,000) of re- Release date 1993
Genre Graphics
source files including 500 images in 24-
bit HAM8 and HAM format, more than Pandora’s CD contains a collection of
3,000 clip art files, hundreds of Com- clipart, sound effects and images. It also
puGraphic, Type 1, Postscripts and bit- includes demonstrations showing the
mapped fonts, 750 music modules and uses of multimedia and CDTV.
2,000 sound samples. It also includes This title belong to the “Arts & Leisure”
a viewer/player program for running the category, but are included here as it’s
files on the disc. more of a collection of PD disks, then a
stand-alone title.

CDTV - CD-ROM titles • 227

 The Fred Fish Collection
Publisher HyperMedia Concepts

These were compilations of The Fred Fish

Fred Fish floppy disks with shareware titles. The CDs
retailed at £20 at the time of release an came
Fred Fish was out every few months.
a computer pro- The earlier CD releases came with both un-
grammer notable compressed and compressed files on the
for work on the same disc.
GNU Debugger
and his series
of Fish disks of
freeware for the The Fred Fish Collection
Amiga. He was a Version 1.0
pioneering spirit pervasive in the Amiga Release date 1990
community.
First release of the Fred Fish CD-ROM col-
The Fish Disks (term coined by Perry
lection. Not much information was found on-
Kivolowitz at a Jersey Amiga User Group
line on this (and many of the later releases).
meeting) became the first national rally-
ing point, a sort of early postal system.
Fish would get his disks off around the
world in time for regional and local user The Fred Fish Collection
group meetings who in turn duplicated
Version 1.1
them for local consumption. Typically,
only the cost of materials changed hands. Release date 1991
The Fish Disk series ran from 1986 to January 1991 release.
1994. In it, one can chart the growing so-
phistication of Amiga software and see
the emergence of many software trends.
The Fish Disks were distributed at com-
puter stores and Commodore Amiga en-
thusiast clubs. Contributors submitted
applications and source code and the
best of these each month were assem-
The Fred Fish Collection
bled and released as a diskette. Since Version 1.2
the Internet was not yet in popular usage Release date 1991
outside military and university circles,
The third title in the se-
this was a primary way for enthusiasts to
ries contains Fred Fish
share work and ideas.
PD disks 1 - 480.

228 • CD-ROM titles - CDTV

The Fred Fish Collection The Fred Fish Collection
Version 1.3 Version 1.6
Release date 1991 Release date 1993

Includes Fred Fish February 1993 re-

PD disks 1 - 530. lease. Includes Fred
This would be the last Fish PD disks 1 - 800.
title with both uncom-
pressed and com-
pressed files on the
same disc.

The Fred Fish Collection The Fred Fish Collection

Version 1.4 Version 1.7
Release date 1992 Release date 1993

Contains the entire 600 floppy disks of the October 1993 release. Includes Fred Fish
Fred Fish library. PD disks 1 - 900.
The CD includes ExpressFish which is a
“high speed” utility for copying files from the
CD to floppy (average The Fred Fish Collection On-Line
of 2 minutes).
Version 1.4
The CD also in-
cludes ParNet—soft- Release date 1993
ware that let users to The On-Line series of Fred Fish disks were
network the CDTV aimed for bulletin board owners. It includes
with an Amiga com- Fred Fish PD disks 1 - 600.
puter and use it as an
CD drive.

The Fred Fish Collection On-Line

Version 1.5
The Fred Fish Collection
Release date 1992
Version 1.5
Release date 1992 November 1992 re-
lease. Includes Fred
August 1991 release. Fish PD disks 1 - 750.
Includes Fred Fish PD
disks 1 - 700.

CDTV - CD-ROM titles • 229

 17 BIT Collection
The Fred Fish Collection On-Line
Version 1.6 Publisher Almathera
Release date 1993
Release date 1993
The 17 BIT Collection contains 2300
public domain games, animations, dem-
os, music, sound samples, applications
The Fred Fish Collection On-Line
and utilities split between 2 CDs.
Version 1.7
Users would need an external floppy
Release date 1993 disk drive for playing the games on a
Last title in the On-Line collection. CDTV. The CD starts with a menu with
a list of all the programs. Clicking on the
titles calls up a brief description, and to
Fred Fish start a program the CD copies the title
to a blank floppy, where it plays from. It
Vol.1
can not play the program directly from
Release date 1993 the CD. But this made it easy to share
A continuation of the On-Line collection. the programs amongst other users.
October 1993 release. Includes Fred Not all programs are compatible
Fish PD disks 1 - 900. with the CDTV.
Amiga gave it a score of 98% and wrote;
“If you have the hardware to run these
Fred Fish CDs and you’re interested in the public
Vol.2 domain scene then you should snap this
up before Seventeen Bit realize their
Release date 1993
mistake and up the price.”
Released in December 1993. The 17 Bit Collection series belong in
the “Entertainment” category, but are in-
cluded here as it’s more of a collection of
PD disks, then a stand-alone title.

Kickstart Public Domain

Nr. 1-550
Publisher Mirko Geuther
Release date 1993

A German collection of PD floppy disks.

The disc includes the German Kickstar
floppy disks 1 - 550, Fred Fish disks 691
- 840 and some additional PD games.
The Kickstart floppy disks were the Ger-
man alternative to the American Fred
Fish disks.

230 • CD-ROM titles - CDTV

17 BIT - The Continuation Disk
Publisher Almathera
Release date 1993
Second compilation disk from 17 BIT.
The CDTV needs an external floppy disk
drive to play the games included with the
CD. it is
Includes 500 17-Bit disks along with
disks from the Assassin, Amigan, ARUG
and N.Z archives.
Text from the packaging;
Sequel to the Double Disc Collection
Over 500 megabytes from the 17-Bit stable, plus a
multitude of extras! 17-Bit’s own disk collection,
as well as selections from the Assassins, Amigan,
ARUG and N.Z archives. Games, animations, clip-
art, astrology, sound samples and music modules,
pools predictors, utilities, and some of 1993’s best
EuroScene releases from Kefrens, Silents, Space-
balls, TRSI, Andromedia, Sanity, LSD, And more.
17 BIT - Phase Four
Publisher Almathera
Release date 1994
Genre Compilation
The third and last 17 BIT release for
the CDTV. Like the previous releases,
it needs an external floppy disk drive to
play the games.
Includes around 550 17-Bit disks includ-
ing hundreds of other PD disks.
Text from the packaging;
Sequel to the Sequel to the...
The 1994 update to the 17 BIT collection of CDs.
This release contains the year’s disks from 17-Bit’s
archives. Games. Animations. Clip-art. Music
modules. Utilities. Applications. Slideshows. Many
AGA-specific disks to take advantage of the new
generation chipset. And of course, the best from the
‘Scene with Virtual Dreams, Andromeda, Complex
and Polka Brothers. And more!
CDTV - CD-ROM titles • 231
 Assassins 2
Publisher Weird Science
Release date 1995

Compilation CD comprised of hundreds

of public domain and shareware games.
It includes the entire Assassins games
floppy disk compilation 1 - 250, 60 utility
Assassins disks plus other various game disks.
Publisher Weird Science Some of the programs require a key-
Release date 1993 board and mouse.
The Assassins Ultimate Games were re-
leased by one of the premium PD com-
panies at the time. This CD contains a
compilation of 200 disks that were pre-
viously only released on floppy. The
games are accessed via a menu system.
Some of the programs require a key-
board and mouse. Some programs are
in packet in the .DMS format and have
to be de-archived with the Amiga Guide
document provided.

Assassins 3
Publisher Weird Science
Release date 1997

Includes the Assassins games floppy

disk compilation 201 - 261. Also includes
other shareware games, such as demos,
patches, etc.

232 • CD-ROM titles - CDTV

Assassins 4
Publisher Weird Science
Release date 1999

Contains over 500 public domain and

shareware games, none of which have Super Games Pak
appeared on previous Assassins collec- Publisher Odyssey
tions. Release date 1991
Genre Compilation

This compilation was Odyssey Soft-

ware’s first release for the CDTV. It in-
cludes three games and a demo for the
unreleased Lunar Rescue game.
Byte Man is a scrolling maze game. It
supports a two-player mode.
Deathbots is an action game with 6 lev-
els.
Jail Break is a breakout-type game. It
includes 100 levels with different power-
ups.

CDTV - CD-ROM titles • 233

 CDPD II
Publisher Almathera Systems
Release date 1992
Genre Compilation

Compilation disk with 100 Fred Fish

disks, the entire
CDPD Scope disk col-
Publisher Almathera Systems lection up to disk
Release date 1992 220, the AB20
Genre Compilation Archives, among
other things.
CD-PD was essentially a UK licensed
version of the previously floppy released
Fred Fish Collections on CD-ROM. It
contains the full contents of 600 Fish
disks as well as a number of other utili-
ties, such as a music creator, and Work-
bench 2 and 1.3 installed. Keyboard is
required.
The disc came included with the A570
drives.

CDPD III
Publisher Almathera Systems
Release date 1992
Genre Compilation

Volume 3 of the Amiga public domain

and shareware CD Library. Includes
Fred Fish disks 761 - 890, dozens of
scans, clip-arts and video clips.

234 • CD-ROM titles - CDTV

CDPD IV
Publisher Almathera Systems
Release date 1992
Genre Compilation

Volume 4 includes Fred Fish disks 890

to 1000, complete GNU/ C/C++ compil-
er, music tracks, guides, manuals, etc.

AMOS PD CD
Publisher Weird Science
Release date 1994

Contains over 33,000 AMOS related soft-

ware, including source codes, sprites,
samples, text files, etc.
Users will need to first download the
games from the CD to a floppy to run a
game.

Network CD
Publisher Weird Science
Release date 1994
Genre Compilation

Contains over 36,000 files of shareware

software for a range of Amiga platforms,
including IBM PCs.
Content are mostly aimed at networking
and include Workbench, Fred Fish disks,
images and Amos PD. disks, among
other utilities.

CDTV - CD-ROM titles • 235

 Demo II
Publisher Almathera
Release date 1993

Contains over 100 public domain and

shareware games, including a large
number of sound samples, music mod-
ules, demos and images.
The Demo Collection
Publisher Almathera
Release date 1992

Contains over 12,000 files from nearly

700 floppy disks. Includes dozens of
shareware games, demos, images and a
music program with over 4000 samples
and 1000 tracks. Some of the programs
require keyboard.
This title belong to the “Arts & Leisure”
category, but are included here as it’s
more of a collection of PD disks, then a
stand-alone title.

Saar AMOK
Publisher Media Team GbR
Release date 1992

A German collection of PD floppy disks

covering the Saar disk collection 1 - 630
and AMOK disks 1 - 97.
Most of the programs on this CD require
a keyboard, and a few programs require
a 68020, 2MB RAM and a hard disk to
be used properly.

236 • CD-ROM titles - CDTV

Demos
 Welcome Disk
Publisher Commodore
Release date 1991
Genre Demo

The CDTV Welcome Disk contains differ-

ent tutorials, like ‘How to use CD titles’,
a ‘Tech’ guide (explains the expansion
VidDISC options and the CD-audio panel among
other things) and an ‘Available Software’
Publisher Creotec Corporation section (feature a batch of title screens
Genre Demo with voice-overs).
This seems like a disc meant to adver-
tise Creotec’s VidDISC Authoring Sys-
tem—a software creation tool for CDTV.
The software was created for develop-
ers to license.
VidDISC was developed as a all-in-one
solution for producing multimedia ap-
plications for the CDTV. Creotec would
provide a script writing and content
analysis service, but also carry through
to supplying graphics, music, foreign
language translation, CD replication and
update support.
The VidDISC provides different multi-
media applications with a user friendly
interactive interface and allows the pro-
duction of data diversant information re-
trieval systems to suit different multime-
dia requirement. The software supports Commodore Amiga CDTV
both the CD XL motion video format and Hören & Sehen
the AVM (DCTV) image format.
Publisher Commodore
Genre Demo

Hören & Sehen (“Hear & See”) was a

German promotional CD that looks like it
was distributed free of charge.
The CD includes audio-tracks and data
files advertising the CDTV and it’s fea-
tures.

238 • CD-ROM titles - CDTV

Come - Corporate Media
Publisher DADC Austria
Genre Demo

Apparently some sort of Photo CD sys-

tem.
Frankfurt 1992
Publisher DADC Austria
Genre Demo

Includes 8 karaoke music songs.

Commodore Amiga CDTV /

Amiga 600 / Amiga 600 HD
Info
Publisher Commodore
Release date 1992 Read with Asterix
Genre Demo
Publisher EuroTalk
Information CD which contains a lot of Release date 1991
technical and sales related material for Genre Demo
the Amiga CDTV, 600 and 600HD. A demo of Read with Asterix.
It looks like this was disc 2 of the Psyg-
nosis Demo CD (Planetside demo).

CDTV - CD-ROM titles • 239

 magazine article; CU Amiga Magazine 15 (may 1991)

GOING TO
THE MOVIES
‘The interactive product will become an integral part of
the shooting of a film’, speculates Psygnosis boss, Heth-
erington. “We’re not trying to replicate a movie on the
computer screen. There are only certain parts in a movie
that are relevant to a game. We’ll go for things that we
While other developers can capitalise on. We’re trying to run in parallel using
clips from the film to set the scene. It has to be a game
talk about ‘interactive in its own right reinforced by elements from the movie.

movies’, Psygnosis has

CD-ROM platform. No special vid-
a prototype running on eo compression hardware (used to
CDTV. Rik Haynes grabs capture and replay ordinary video
a front-row seat and or movie footage) is required to
starts stuffing the pop- produce the film-like images seen
corn! here. The first Fractal Engine game,
entitled Planetside, will run on any
working hard on CD projects,’ ac-
cording to Hetherington, ‘Cinema-
ware has given up. AIM is basically
writing CDI product. We have the
only viable CD-ROM technology.
Companies who have sat back and
waited are already 18 months be-

A
s a games company, Psyg- CDTV. hind us. They will never catch up.
nosis are more likely to    ‘We can call this full-screen It’s nothing to do with games de-
make a good interactive full-motion video at 20 frames per sign at this stage. It’s a pure tech-
product than say Warner Broth- second,’ Hetherington explains. nology fight. The people with the
ers or Columbia Pictures, claims ‘Whether you would describe it best technology will win.’
Ian Hetherington, it’s co-founder. as video is debatable. Given that    Not everybody fulfils their
‘With our CD-based Fractal En- you’ve got 320x200 with 32-col- dreams. Cinemaware, a pioneer
gine we can do Star Wars, Top ours it’s as good as anything else of the ‘interactive movie’ recently
Gun, The Last Starfighter and any- is going to be. We cannot afford to collapsed. Hetherington believes
thing of that ilk. We’d have a lot of wait for one or another video com- he has learned from other people’s
difficulty doing Three Men and a pression technique to succeed. You mistakes. ‘I think the whole ‘inter-
Baby though.’ hear an awful lot of crap in the CD active movie’ concept is still-born,’
   Psygnosis has pumped over marketplace. There’s a lot of peo- he reveals. ‘It won’t happen. Peo-
£100,000 and six months into this ple in the business dreaming about ple are expecting to be Robocop or
exciting new project for the CDTV. what sort of hardware they’d like to Tom Cruice. Sorry, they ain’t. We
The Fractal Engine is, in fact, write for’. don’t want to con people.’
hardware independent. It’s a ‘soft-    ‘There are probably half a    Planetside is pitched at the
ware solution’ adaptable to any dozen companies around the world middle-ground between an arcade
flight-sim and Top Gun action
film. ‘Interactive movies are go-
ing to come in various forms,’ says
Hetherington. ‘We don’t like con-
ventional game structure spliced
into video-retrieval. The video
bits quickly become boring like in
Putting the video-style graphics together requires interactive graphics, 3D modelling and the
odd bit of visual trickery. Psygnosis uses whatever graphical options it thinks appropriate
Dragon’s Lair. A CD-game has to
— from hand-drawn sprites and computer-generated polygons to ray-traced 3D models and be 500-megabytes of graphics and
fractal-generated landscapes. Any combination of these graphics primitives linked in 3-Space audio data organised in way that it
produces a huge variety of imagery as you can see. Planetside is being produced by: David
Worell (Project Leader), Jim Bowers and Neal Thompson (Graphics), Graham Everett and is compelling to go through. You
John Gibson (programmers).

240 • CD-ROM titles - CDTV

 Psygnosis Demo CD
(Planetside demo)
Developer Psygnosis
Publisher Psygnosis
Genre Demo

Planetside was a planned CDTV shoot-

er. A demo of the game was first pre-
viewed on a FM-Towns computer sys-
tem. Screenshots from the demo were
The plane arrives on the featured on a Lemmings CDTV demo
planet’s surface from outer
space via an orbiting space
disc. The game never went into produc-
station. You’ll see pods drop- tion and all that was ever created was
ping down onto the planet
and you’ll control things like
the demo.
satellites and repair vehicles. The technology and game ideas were
used in Microcosm and NovaStorm
have to make the play elements a reward rather (which was started for CD32, but left in-
than a special effect.’
complete).
   ‘We’ll wean people through a game. It’s or-
ganised like a movie. The video-style sequences
are there to specifically link interactive portions of
the game. The ‘video-game’ will progress whether
they interact or not. There are no gaps between the
theme, they’ll feel as if they’re playing the movie.’
   One of the greatest problems for Psygnosis is
how they should communicate to the player that
the level of interactively is varying. Success will
herald the next generation of Amiga games. Get it
wrong and Planetside will either bore the game-
splayer rigid or shock a couch potato into cardiac
arrest.

Understandably, Ian Het-

herington refuses to go
into much technical detail
about how these amazing
graphics are actually cre-
ated. It’s a mixed bag of
graphics primitives creat-
ed via realtime and
off-line plotting and
processing. What
you see on the screen
is a composite of a
whole number of Psygnosis create the visuals in Plan-
things that are going etside using Sculpt Animate 4D and
on inside the machine. Deluxe Paint III running on Amiga
3000 micros with massive memories
and filled-to-the-brink hard disks.

CDTV - CD-ROM titles • 241

Miscellaneous
 Fred Fish Collection
Miscellaneous Genre Compilation

These pages includes CDTV discs German re-

that did not fit in either of the other lease. Most
categories. The release on some of likely a collec-
these titles are questionably, such tion of Fred
as discs not included in the book Fish floppy
Commodore CDTV Disc Reference disks.
Guide, which are not seen as official
CDTV disc releases.
Some of the discs were also incor-
rectly labeled with CDTV compatibil-
ity, and were either programmed with
the wrong start-up sequence or re-
quire a Workbench disk to be booted Your Privacy Assured
first. Publisher Better Concepts, Dark Unicorn
Release date 1995
Genre Multi-media

Adult multi-media disc. Even though it

was advertised
as a CDTV title,
it is not compat-
ible according to
1001 Girl the Commodore
Developer M’Soft CDTV Disc Ref-
Publisher M’Soft erence Guide
Release date 1994
Genre Multi-media

A multi-system CD compatible with Win-

dows machines, CDTV and CD32. It
contains 1001 images of girls in various
stages of undress.
Sexual Fantasies
Developer Better Concepts
Publisher Better Concepts
Release date 1994
Genre Multi-media

A CD contain-
ing images and
video clips of
girls in various
stages of un-
dress.

244 • CD-ROM titles - CDTV

 Ten on Ten
Publisher Almathera
Release date 1995
Genre Compilation

Ten on Ten is a compilation of 10 CDs, most of

which had already had stand-alone releases. Re-
tail price at the time was £39.95 for the whole col-
lection.
CD1 is the only bootable disc in the pack. It will
load Workbench which will let the user switch it
out with one of the other disks.

Almathera Fonts & Clipart includes thousands of

clip-art and font files.
Photo Library CD includes 600mb of image files
and a demo of Photogenics.

CDTV - CD-ROM titles • 245

 Interoffice
TeleGames Publisher Interactivision
Publisher Merit Software Release date 1993
Release date 1991
Interoffice is an office suite with three
Genre Board
Mode 1-2 Players programs;
Interword is a word processor with op-
(ed.— Unknown release, as I can’t find tions such as changing font size, spell
anything on a CDTV version other than checker, etc.
the mobygames.com page. This may Interspread is a math editor for making
have been a homebrew port). large calculations, among other things.
TeleGames is a collection of three clas- Interbase is a database software sys-
sic board games. On the Amiga version tem for sorting and storage of informa-
it could be played against a remote op- tion.
ponent via modem or null-modem. This
version also came included with a phone
book to keep track of remote opponents.
The board games are chess, checkers
and backgammon. The graphics are co-
lourful, and can be seen both in 3-d from
several perspectives as well as in a flat
view from straight above.
On the CDTV version only local multi-
player is possible. Another difference is
that it features spoken directions on how
to play the game. These are recorded
in six different languages: English, Ger-
man, Japanese, French, Spanish and
Italian.
“mobygames.com”
CDTV Burn-In #2
Publisher Commodore
Genre Miscellaneous

Not sold commercially, but was used

for production testing in Japan, continu-
ously cycle the machines through a pre-
determined set
of tests while the
machines were
“burned in” after
assembly. 2,000
copies of this
Other Releases
disc were report-
Amiga 1987
edly produced.

246 • CD-ROM titles - CDTV

 CD+G Beethoven - Symphony No. 9
The CD+G culpability of the CDTV Publisher Time Warner Interactive
was heavily advertised and a few of Release date 1991
Genre Music
the CDs were aimed especially for
the CDTV. Some of these titles are A CD+G title with music from Ludwig
listed here. van Beethoven.
It is one of few
titles which were
released on the
CD+G format. It is
included here be-
cause of it’s inclu-
CD + MIDI sion in a French
Publisher Time Warner Interactive CDTV brochure.
Release date 1991
Genre Music

The CDTV support CD-

MIDI—a format used to
store music-performance
data, which upon play- Mendelssohn - Symphony No. 2
back is performed by - Hymn Of Praise
electronic instruments that synthesize
the audio. Hence, unlike the original au- Publisher Time Warner Interactive
dio CD, these recordings are not digitally Release date 1991
Genre Music
sampled audio recordings.
This CDTV title were billed as “The first- A CD+G title with
of-its-kind Midi Disc”. It combines digital music from Felix
audio with user-controllable midi and Mendelssohn. In-
on-screen graphics and was meant as a cluded here be-
preview of new musical possibilities. cause of it’s inclu-
This was one of the few titles ever sion in a French
released on the CD-MIDI format. CDTV brochure.

for more on the CD-MIDI and the CDTV,

please visit journaldulapin.com

Jubiläumsdisc
20 Jahre Commodore
Anniversary Disc 20 years Commodore.
Unknown content. Only found it men-
tioned on cd32-allianz.de.

CDTV - CD-ROM titles • 247

Cancelled
 Cancelled Titles Angel of the City
Developer Tiger Media
These pages includes CDTV titles Genre Adventure
that were never released commer-
Adventure game in the same vein as Ti-
cially.
ger Media’s previous releases Cautious
Because of the low number of copies Condor and Murder Makes Strange Bed-
released for many of the CDTV titles, fellows. The game never appeared on any
it may be possible for some of these system.
to have been released in very small
numbers.
Blockbusters
Developer Domark
Air Traffic Controller Genre Trivia

Developer Logic Plus
Genre Simulation
Simulation game where the player would
operate an international airport. The game
were cancelled and didn’t appear on any
format.
Amiga Format magazine article;
Health... and Safety!
Flight sims there have been aplenty, but
never a simulation based on the real sharp
end: Air Traffic Control. Logic Plus, a new
company headed by William Owen, are set
to change that with Airways, a sim based
in the ‘greenhouse’ of a major international
airport. “Flight controllers have one of the
most stressful jobs in aviation” says William.
“Airways will be very close to the real thing.
Because the CD platform allows us to store
more data than ever before we’ll be able to
include realistic incidents like near misses.”
Even more realism could come in a later
enhancement: “We have a multi-user version
in the pipeline which will be produced in as-
sociation with a highly-regarded simulator
supplier. This will allow an Airways player
to talk down a player piloting a simulator on
another machine.” Now that’s interactive!
Based on the quiz show of the same name.
It plays similar to games like Trivial Pursuit.
Domark released a version in 1984 for the
Commodore 64 (and in 1986 for Commo-
dore 16). The CDTV version were said to
include spoken questions, images, video
clips and music along with the questions.
This version never appeared on any sys-
tem.
Cult Of The Severed Head
Developer CRL
Genre Adventure
Adventure game which were in develop-
ment for the CDTV. The player would need
to solve clues and riddles to complete the
game.
Dawnscape
Developer Psygnosis
A game planned for release on both the
CDTV and PC Engine CD, but failed to ap-
pear on any system. Game details are un-
known.

250 • Unreleased Games - CDTV

text from Ace Magazine - issue 37 (Oct. 1990);
CDTV
SWITCHES
ON
With the launch only a month
or two away, ACE talks CDTV
software...
THE CULT OF THE SEVERED HEAD
CRL get gruesome
C RL stole a march on most soft-
ware publishers by developing
their EGADS utility, later rechris-
tened DUNE. The system enables
a designer to script and develop
hypergame scenarios for CD and
computer without programming
skills. It works by linking mixed
media files (sound, graphics, and
routines) together to build a com-
plete scenario that is then driven
by clicking on ‘buttons’ — areas
of the screen that lead one into a
new sequence or effect. Combine
this with the use of icons and ani-
mation sequences and, in theory,
you could put together a pretty
complex beast without ever hav-
ing to code a single byte.
CRL’s first DUNE release, Here-
with the Clues is being converted
for CDTV and is broadly similar
to the original Amiga version but
with enhanced graphics. The Cult
of the Severed Head, however, is
their first dedicated CDTV DUNE
product.
A frame from the CDTV version of Herewith
the Clues — that cuppa looks a lot better than
the original Amiga version.
Developed by Nicholas Gard-
ner, the game is the first in a pro-
posed series, detailing incidents
from the casebook of Nathaniel
Tallantire, a fictionalised Rev-
erand who is the senior exorcist in
the Church of England. The story
starts in 54BC when one Galatius
sought to save retreating Druids
from the Roman army by conjur-
ing and evil spiritual manifesta-
tion generated by conjuring an evil
spiritual manifestation generated
by human sacrifice. The Druids
aren’t overwhelmed by gratitude
when he succeeds in saving them
and imprison the demon before
killing Galatius. As magical chaps
will do, however, he resurrects and
teaches his tormentors a few les-
sons before disappearing into his-
tory.
By now the mention of severed
heads and human sacrifice will
have alerted the knowledgeable
to the fact that CRL are up to their
old tricks. Having braved indus-
try scorn with their earlier horror
releases (Jack the Ripper, Drac-
ula, and others), the company are
now drooling at the mouth at the
thought of the enhanced possibili-
ties of CDTV. At least: 550 mega-
bytes of blood, gore, and spine tin-
gling suspense!
This jolly chap will shortly be
‘claymating’ in the Cult of the
Severed Head
By the time you get hold of the
game, the scenario will have shift-
ed to the 1920’s, where the Rev-
erend Tallantire is summoned to
Wales to investigate some ‘strange
disturbances’. The game is being
put together using a combination
of claymation, traditional compu-
ter animation, manuscripts, and
diagrams. Ess-entially an adven-
ture scenario, it will include clues,
riddles, and detective work for the
player who must unravel the secret
behind the incidents.
The game will make full use of
the CDTV’s IR controller, boasts
4096 HAM graphics screens, text
vocalization if required, hypertext
descriptions (i.e. you can click on
passages for more details or devel-
opments), and stop frame clayma-
tion. In addition, up to 250 photo-
graphs of the actual district where
the action takes place will be in-
cluded in the game.
It all sounds, well, rather horri-
ble. We can’t wait for the review
copy!
CDTV - Unreleased Games • 251
 magazine article from Amiga Format 35 (Jun 1992).
“Preview (in-depth)”, by Neil Jackson;

Hyde and Sleek Adventures

Every picture tells a story. At Palace, they are
going just one stage further by telling their
stories with live-action digitised pictures. Neil
Jackson pays them a visit to check up on the
plot.

F
act one: film studios are organised chaos. and
Palace Software’s hastily-prepared set-up is no
exception. Lamps and cables litter the down-
beat spare office which is being used for filming Jekyll
and Hyde. In an adjoining room, actors and actresses
jostle for changing-room space amid row upon row of
shelves containing a collector’s dream of Victoriana.
Fact two: this is normal. Behind the camera
is one thing: the view on the silver screen is another,
never would you think that such quality could come
from such disorder. In this instance though, the silver
screen isn’t where you’ll see this masterpiece. Instead,
your Amiga is where Palace hope to run their film —
Palace’s producer Peter Stone, explains: “We got the “Jekyll and Hyde is not an adventure or a role-playing. It’s
idea after Demoniak. That was an attempt to convey somewhere between the two. There are similar elements
pure fiction in a real-time world with scripted char- and goals, but the emphasis is on character interaction.”
- Peter Stone, Producer.
acters, using accepted techniques. The user interface
was all-text but for most people that was unacceptable
and too experimental. It worked, but it wasn’t a huge rival scientist who’s trying to steal Jekyll’s secret for-
success. mula. You affect the ‘world’ with actions and decisions
“The text stage was to make it almost entirely you choose to make. There is artificial intelligence for
graphics. We spent nine months experimenting with each character (which took programmer Chris Stang-
digitised live action using a Rombo VIDI-Amiga sys- room four years to perfect), so their responses change
tem.” And it worked well enough to warrant the film- depending on what you do.”
ing of Jekyll and Hyde — an ambitious game where The trouble with so many possible actions and
you choose the character you want to become. reactions is it means there must be many more graphic
images to represent them. This makes filming a night-
Choose a personality mare in story-boarding. Scriptwriter Chantal Riches
Peter explains how it works: “Each character has their worked out every possible case of what could happen
own objective. But you don’t have to be the mad sci- to each character. Every emotion has to be provided:
entist, Dr Jekyll — you could play Inspector Harris, angry, sad, happy, lustful — the list is endless.
the policeman investigating Hyde, or Dr Lanyon, a
I’m and actor
“Our aim is CD. We’re To cope with such varied emotion, Palace used profes-
making a version for disk sional actors and actresses, from Coronation Street,
and an enhanced one for Minder and TV ads. During filming, each character
CD. We’re keeping all the goes through the different expressions and movements
rushes (the un-edited video
footage) because where we
that will be used in the digitised artwork. The live-
use two or three frames on action sequences are shot on broadcast-quality High-
a disk version, we could use band U-matic video for the best possible results. Even
the full 50 on CD.” the only one frame in 12 is good enough to use in the
- Tom Lisney, Art Director.
next stage: digitising. This is done in monochrome us-

252 • Unreleased Games - CDTV


ing 16 shades, while others are expanded to
256 colors. When you consider there are 60 to
70 locations in the game, plus 22 characters,
that’s a heck of a lot of work.
The finished images are combined
with the AI routines and scrolling text win-
dows which do the story-telling. Still pictures
are used to show which characters have ar-
rived on the scene or are interacting with one
another. You control your character using a
dynamic menuing system which lists your
options and enables you to build sentences
from verbs and nouns. According to Peter (it
provides a wealth of possible responses. You
can even embark on a campaign of blackmail
and violence if you so desire — but beware of
the consequences. Other characters may have
less-than-subtle ways of dealing with you.
Jekyll and Hyde could be the most
exciting project we’ve seen for ages, and it’s
breaking ground many software houses have
shied away from: live-action interactively.
Peter doesn’t expect to see the game coming
together before autumn, so there’s plenty of
time for things to change and problems to sur-
face. But leaving the studio at the end of film-
ing, I couldn’t help thinking the most difficult
part of the project was behind them.
QUIET ON THE SET PLEASE
Being both an exer-
cise in programming
and film-making,
Jekyll and Hyde re-
quires more than
the usual ‘program-
mer, artist and musi-
cian’ to make it take
shape. There are no less than nine full-time work-
ers on the project (and this doesn’t include all the
actors, assistants and helpers that pitch in daily to
help things along).
Jekyll And Hyde
Publisher Palace
Genre Adventure
Jekyll And Hyde was supposed to be an
interactive movie from Palace Software,
which was due for release on CDTV. The
scenes were shot with real actors which
were digitised.
At present, it is unknown just how far the
development at got—but the article from
Amiga Format seems to suggest there
was still a long way to go, and it was at
the stage of trying to complete all the
scenes/actions.
magazine article;
Industry News
British publisher Palace Software’s Jekyll
and Hyde moves a step further in human-
oriented computer role-playing. Their Vic-
torian-era mystery can be played solitaire
(with the computer operating the other three
teams of characters), but the beauty of the
game occurs when humans play all four
teams of three characters each. The teams
include: Dr. Jekyll’s team (trying to wean
the doctor from the formula and marry the
girl), Lanyan’s team (attempting to kill
Jekyll and steal the formula), the crimi-
nals (functions as pure mercenaries in the
plot line) and the police (trying to solve
the murders and stop the problem). Palace
Software is best known for their resent text
adventure, Demoniak, but the new adven-
ture will be menu-driven with highlighted
options which will speed up the decision
process for all four players. The connec-
tive technology is solid enough that CGW
saw two Amigas and one IBM compatible
connected and functioning together during
a demonstration game.
CDTV - Unreleased Games • 253
 Dominion Murder, Anyone?
Developer Dominion Software & Design Publisher CDTV Publishing
Genre Board Genre Adventure

Strategy war board game set in late 21st
century where players buys and sells na-
tional resources to fund their military war
campaign.
Adventure game developed by LaserDisc
Corporation and released for Japan in
1984. Players follow a detective on a mur-
der case. A CDTV version was planned but
never materialized.

Dracula
Developer Psygnosis
Genre Action
An action game loosely based on the 1992
film of the same name. The game appar-
ently started development with the CDTV
in mind, but were moved to the Sega Mega
CD in 1993 after the CDTV failed.
The Lawnmower Man
Developer The Sales Curve
Genre Action
The Lawnmower Man is a collection of
minigames based on the 1992 feature film.
It was published by The Sales Curve and
released on MS-DOS, Macintosh and
SEGA CD, but development started ini-
tially for the CDTV. The game was in mid-
development when it was cancelled in fa-
vor of the 3-D Cyberwar—a game similar
in structure, improved only cosmetically.
A 16-color demo of the CDTV ver-
sion were featured at the European Com-
puter Trade Show in 1993.
“amigareport.com”
Many Roads to Murder
Publisher CDTV Publishing
Genre Adventure
Many Roads to Murder was the sequel to
the interactive LaserDisc game Murder,
Anyone?. It was initially set to be released
in the USA in 1983, but due how unsuc-
cessful LaserDisc was as a medium, it only
saw development and release for the Jap-
anese market.
22 seconds of the American version have
been found, featured in a news story that
was uploaded to Youtube in 2014.
The plot is said to follow a similar story
to the first game in the series, centering
around a detective trying to solve a murder
case.
“lostmediawiki.com”
screenshot from the
22 sec clip
Jap LaserDisc box art

254 • Unreleased Games - CDTV

Lunar Rescue:
The Colossus Incident
Developer Odyssey
Publisher Odyssey
Genre Adventure

Lunar Rescue was a planned adventure

game for the CDTV. It was due for a Fall
1992 release.
The game would be set in space and
the player would travel to the moon in
search of a crashed space craft and it’s
astronauts.
A 14 minutes animated film advertising
the game was featured on the compila-
tion pack Super Games Pak and Space
Wars CDTV.

CDTV - Unreleased Games • 255

 magazine article from Amiga Computing 60 (May 1993),
by Paul Roundell;
UNIVERSAL MONSTERS
E
verybody knows how
Ocean just love to buy
up licenses — if an action
film is around on general
release, chances are that sooner
or later the game will come our
way courtesy of the boys from
Castlefield.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce
Willis, Mel Gibson, Kim Basinger
and more have all had the pleas-
ure of witnessing their pixellated
forms wandering around an artifi-
cial world on our monitor screens,
and all to varying degrees of suc-
cess.
Now Ocean are moving in a
slightly different direction.
“What — leaving the licensing
malarkey?” I hear you cry.
Oh no. In fact nay, nay and thrice
nay, as Dick Emery or someone
like that used to say, because they
have in fact done just the opposite.
Instead of purchasing the rights
of explotation for a single movie,
they’ve taken a trip to Hollywood,
parted with huge amounts of wan-
ga, and walked away with the game
rights to all of Universal Studios’
monsters.
Yes, monsters — you know, like
Dracula, and Frankenstein, and his
bride, and the Wolfman and the
Mummy and the Creature from the
Black Lagoon. All six have sold
their collective souls and appear en
“Frankie, do you remember me...” Alex
gets down to the new-look Sister Sledge
256 • Unreleased Games - CDTV
Ocean own more dodgy licences than a cow-
boy taxi firm, and they’re about to add some
more. Or are they?
masse in this nostalgic isometric
adventure.
The story goes that famous vam-
pire hunter Professor Van Helsing
has died, bequeathing his thankless
job to grandson Alex.
The aforementioned ghoul-
ies have long since been captured
and banished to another dimen-
sion from where they can inflict no
further harm on two-bit Tinseltown
scriptwriters, but in order for them
to remain there a ceremony must
be performed every so often — the
Rite of the Bloodstar.
What with the funeral and all
though, Alex misses the number
39 bus to Other Dimensionsville
to perform the ceremony, and the
monsters begin to enter our world
Is that Stuggs out of madness with the
sunglasses and rigamortis?
Alex enters the
dungeons of
doom.
Woooooo...
through Van Helsing’s castle. Not
only that, but by some mysterious
and unexplained circumstance, the
Bloodstar has been broken into six
pieces, which are spread around the
castle. With grandpops dead, it’s up
to you as Alex to find the six pieces
and return the monsters to their
limbo.
Considering the limitations of
this type of game, the graphics are
very nice indeed. The Alex sprite
is large and chunky, and the back-
grounds, while not differing a great
deal from each other, are colorful
and reasonably well detailed.
Each Universal monster com-
mands his or her (or its) own do-
main within the castle, and in each
domain you will find — or at least
Not even Indiana Jones could get out of
this spiky stew
you should unless you’re daft —
one piece of the Bloodstar.
Find the all-important bit and
you are in a good position to kick
the beasty back to where it came
from. A good position, but not a
great one, because each monster
has to be confronted with a partic-
ular item before they can finally be
vanquished.
The obvious example is Drac-
ula, who will only be subdued by
a crucifix. The Creature from the
Black Lagoon takes a harpoon and
Wolfman a silver bullet and so on.
An isometric perspective pre-
vails, as you can tell from the
screenshots, and the rooms of the
mansion scroll smoothly through-
out.
Apart from the obvious prob-
lem of avoiding the monsters long
enough to enable you to perform
the ritual, there are pitfalls and
booby traps throughout the castle
where it’s easy to come a cropper.
Minor monsters roam freely
in all the levels: unlike the main
characters, these can be killed, al-
though it’s a though task since Alex
doesn’t carry any weapons.
As you would expect of a rich
person, your grandfather didn’t
trust people with his treasures,
and consequently kept most of the
rooms in his home locked.
Therefore keys play an important
role in the game, not only for ac-
cess to rooms where the monsters
may lurk, but also in enabling you
to find treasure and magic potions,
which provide you with temporary
powers of ESP and invincibility.
Hidden platforms, huge remote
spikes and a host of other nasty
surprises are littered around the
place; useful items are the teleport-
ers which transport you from one
end of the castle to the other.
A menu can be accessed from
any point in the game, giving de-
tails of your potions, Bloodstar
and the remaining strength of your
adversaries.
Universal Monsters is a large
enough game, and it’s important to
keep on your toes at all times for
threats from all kinds of places.
Due to its size though, there are
occasions when little or nothings
happens for minutes at a time, and
tedium begins to creep in.
This type of game was popular
about five years ago when Spec-
trums were still in demand, and
Universal Monsters will not be
looked back upon as a gaming
milestone.
In all fairness though, the pro-
grammers have worked hard at
bringing the game up to date, and
have succeeded to a point. Univer-
sal Monsters doesn’t make my list
of all-time-favourite games — in
fact it doesn’t receive a nomination
— but it’s easy to get into, easy to
play, and provides a real challenge
for anyone prepared to take a step
back in time.

Universal Monsters
Developer Ocean
Publisher Ocean
Genre Action-adventure

Universal Monsters was due for release on the

Amiga and Atari ST platforms, but it hit develop-
ment and design issues which would ultimately
see it cancelled.
Universal Monsters
is a throwback to the After two years in development, the game’s pro-
old days - an isomet- grammer, Mike Halsall, began struggling with the
ric adventure in the
best traditions. It looks a little dated
code and eventually threw in the towel with the
today, but represents excellent value game 90% complete. At that same time, Ocean
for money. found the franchise had flopped, so ‘Universal
Monsters’ was canned. “It was a series of bad de-
cisions that turned a simple idea into an unwork-
able mess!”, Ocean Development Director, Simon
Butler said in an interview.
“abime.net”

CDTV - Unreleased Games • 257


The Sea Beast and Barnacle Bill
Sea Beast and Barnacle Bill was a la-
ser arcade game concept created by
Bluth Group, in 1984. The game would
feature improvements compared to the
earlier Don Bluth games, Dragon’s Lair
and Space Ace, and would include more
advanced graphics, a two-player mode,
and full character control. But the Bar-
nacle Bill IP ended up shelved along
with Dragon’s Lair: Legend, after Bluth
and his company moved back into the-
atrical animation after accepting Steven
Spielberg’s offer to do the animation for
the more traditional An American Tail,
released to theatres in 1986. It was later
planned as an console release, but this
too never materialized.
The story would take place in the 1940’s
where a sailor named “Barnacle Bill” has
to rescue a mermaid princess from a evil
sea beast.
258 • Unreleased Games - CDTV
Text from The Games Machine Magazine 31
(Jun. 1990);
DEATH OF THE LASER DISC
Don Bluth’s laser disc games Dragon’s Lair and
Space Ace caused a commotion when they ap-
peared in the early Eighties. The combination
of TV-quality sights and sounds set games play-
ers alight. Sadly, arcade games containing laser
discs proved unreliable; arcades were naturally
wary of taking on new releases. The laser disc
market died.
Even though laser disc technology has ad-
vanced tremendously in the last few years, it’s
going to take a long time, and some hard sell,
before arcades will readily accept games of this
type again.
Don Bluth’s The Sea Beast and Barnacle
Bill was supposed to follow Space Ace into
the arcades — but due to various reasons the
game never appeared. The good news is that the
game will appear for computers and consoles in
around a year’s time.
It’s very likely that The Sea Beast will be Sul-
livan Bluth Interactive Media’s first CD-ROM/
CD-I game. CD-I will offer arcade-quality au-
dio and video in the home, so there may never
be the need for laser disc to reappear in arcades.
Here’s to 1991.
Also in the pipeline are Dragon’s Lair II:
Time Warp and Space Ace II: Borf’s Revenge.
Again, these aren’t likely to appear this year.
The storyline for The Sea Beast has yet to be
worked out, so don’t get too excited just yet.
Murder off Miami Road to the Final Four:
Developer Domark NCAA Basketball
Genre Adventure Publisher Bethesda Softworks
An updated version of a Genre Sports
1986 C64 game. Would A planned port of a MS-DOS basketball
most likely include digi- game released in 1991.
tised graphics and en-
hanced audio.

Senny and Foo

Developer Almathera
Amiga CD Football Genre Edutainment
Publisher Commodore
Genre Sports
Educational adventure game where chil-
dren would follow the lizard Senny and Foo
This was a re-working of Cinemaware’s TV through four levels. Games would involve
Sports Football 2 (unreleased due to the knowledge and dexterity.
company’s bankruptcy). Due to lengthy de- Never released for any system.
lays, it was never released on the CDTV
either because of the dying market and
was instead released on the CD32 as Ami-
ga CD32 Sports Football. Sign of Four
Reportedly, the CD32 version is not Publisher On-line
compatible with the CDTV despite being
originally developed for it and the game No information are known about this title.
icon being named ‘CDTV Sports Football’.
“hol.abime.net”
The Terminator
Psycho Killer II Publisher Bethesda Softworks
Genre Action-adventure
Developer On-Line
Genre Adventure A port of a MS-DOS game released by
Bethesda in 1991. No version of this game
A sequel to the CDTV game Psycho Killer
were released for any Amiga system.
in which the player, as a psychic investiga-
tor, track down the killer who got away in
the original.
This follow-up, projected for spring 1992, Treasure Quest
was extensively filmed (but not coded) but
Developer Almathera
was canceled when it became apparent
Genre Board
CBM was no longer supporting the CDTV.
On-Line’s Michael Hodges reports Treasure Quest would be an animated
that it would have involved a lot more art- board game built around a random mon-
work and would have been significantly ster maze. The game was 50% complete
more interactive. when it was cancelled.
“amigareport.com”

CDTV - Unreleased Games • 259

 Dune
Developer Ubi Soft
Genre Adventure, Strategy
The CDTV version of Dune
was developed along side
the Amiga floppy disk ver-
sion. It would reportedly
feature voice acting and
digitised footage. The
CDTV version were later
moved to the CD32, but
this also were eventually
cancelled.
Dungeon Master
Developer FTL
Genre Role-playing
Dungeon Master is a role-playing game
developed and published by FTL Games
for the Atari ST in 1987. This game be-
came the prototype for the genre of the 3D
dungeon crawlers with notable clones like
Eye of the Beholder.
According to “The Definitive CDTV Retro-
spective: Part II” by Peter Olafson, Dun-
geon Master was ported to the Amiga
CDTV but this version was never complet-
ed because FTL could not obtain reliable
information from Commodore about saving
games to memory cards.
This would be a moderately en-
hanced version with improved music and
animation including a special animation
player.
260 • Unreleased Games - CDTV
Fascination
Developer Coktel Vision
Genre Adventure
Fascination is a mature-themed adventure
game released for the Amiga, MS-DOS
and Atari ST.
The CDTV version of E.S.S Mega (also
developed by Coktel Vision and published
by Tomahawk) was released on a multi-
disc—compatible with both an MS-DOS
computer and the CDTV. This version had
the CDTV logo on the disc as well as both
MS-DOS and CDTV info on the back cover.
An MS-DOS version of Fascina-
tion may also have been released on a
CDTV compatible multi-disc, but this has
not been verified. An im-
age of this version have
been found online and
shows the same CDTV
info on the back of the
jewel case. It is specu-
lated that an Italian only
release of this version
may have had a very
limited release.
Gobliiins
Developer Coktel Vision
Genre Adventure
Gobliiins is a puzzle
game with adventure
elements, in which the
player controls a team of
three goblins who must
find four magic compo-
nents.
Like Fascination, a multi-disc version com-
patible with the CDTV may have had a
very limited release. The cover scan image
is rumored to be of the Italian-only CDTV
compatible release (the same as Fascina-
tion).
Future Wars:
Adventures in Time
Publisher Interplay
Genre Adventure
Future Wars is an adventure game from
Delphine Software International, released
in 1989.
Interplay does list it as one of its two CDTV
releases, and CDTV retailers in the UK
suggest it may have surfaced in Germany.
But not much more information about it’s
release have been found.
“hol.abime.net”
Herewith the Clues
Developer Domark
Genre Adventure
Herewith the Clues is a detective game
based on the 1939 Crime Dossier of the
same name, originally devised by Dennis
Wheatley and J.G. Links. While the origi-
nal format devised by Wheatley and Links
was a cardboard folder full of physical
documents and replica clues such as ciga-
rette ends, movie ticket stubs, locks of hair,
newspaper clippings, etc., this video game
adaptation uses black and white digitized
photographs of the clues and presents
them laid out on a desk to be inspected
and looked through using a point & click
interface.
It was published by Actual Screenshots
and released on Amiga, Acorn 32-bit, and
Atari ST. Domark had plans on releasing a
CDTV version, and later a version for the
CD32, but this never happened.
Microcosm
Developer Psygnosis
Genre Shooter
Microcosm is a 3D rail shooter developed
and published by Psygnosis in 1993. A port
were released for the CD32, but it was ini-
tially a CDTV project.
A short, non-interactive demo of the CDTV
version—along with a Planetside demo—
can be found on the Psygnosis demo CD.
The CDTV version appears to have been
similar to the CD32 release in concept.
The main differences are that the graphics
are largely in shades of gray.
“amigareport.com”
article from CU Amiga Magazine 31, Sep. 1992
The Competition
The CDTV is not the only home multimedia sys-
tem available, the CD-I unit (CD Interactive)
which you may have seen advertised in various
magazines and on huge 16-sheet hoardings. The
CD-I standard is set so other consumer electronics
manufacturers will soon join in, giving a choice of
units from JVC, Sony and the like. Initially, these
units will be fairly expensive because they are not
based around a computer, but around dedicated
hardware. The software likely to be produced
promises in time to incorporate full-frame anima-
tion at a decent speed, but at the moment this would
require some additional hardware like the MPEG
compression chip, bumping up the price even
more. Although launched after the CDTV, titles are
being released for CD-I at a faster rate and more
developers are sure to join the fray on the side of
CD-I because it will probably have a much greater
marketing budget. Also edging into the arena is the
Sony Data Discman and look-a-likes. These units
work on smaller disc (the 3” ones which used to be
used for audio CD singles) and are designed to be
used as travelling notebooks. Time Out magazine
has already a number of City guides in the Elec-
tronic Book format. Although the discs have only
about 200Mb capacity this is easily enough for
games, reference works and language translators.
CDTV - Unreleased Games • 261
 Jack Nicklaus Golf
Publisher Accolade
Genre Sports
Jack Nicklaus’ Unlimited Golf & Course De-
sign is a 1990 golf game released for the
Amiga, MS-DOS and SNES. A version for
the CDTV was announced in June 1991.
The CDTV version would be an original
game and not a straight port of the Amiga
floppy disk version. It would be using 9,000
digitised course photos of Muirfield, 16 col-
or sprite animations of the players, an orig-
inal CD soundtrack and over 20 sampled
sound effects.
Atari later bought the rights and announced
a version in June 1994 for their Atari Jag-
uar CD for an early 1995 release. Early
demos used the original CDTV graphics as
placeholders, but the failure of the Jaguar
would send the game into another cancel-
lation.
A CDTV beta version are said to have been
leaked online at some point.
CDTV placeholder images used to
advertise the Atari Jaguar release.
Rainbow Collection
Platform Arcade
Developer Ocean
Genre Compilation
A compilation disc containing three arcade
games; Parasol Stars, New Zealand Story
and Bubble Bobble.
262 • Unreleased Games - CDTV
The Secret of Monkey Island
Developer CDTV Publishing
Genre Adventure
A 1990 point-and-click graphic adventure
game developed and published by Lucas-
film Games. A CDTV was announced, but
never completed.
Commodore had funded development for
the game, along with Indiana Jones and
Loom. Monkey Island were cancelled and
the two other titles only received limited re-
lease in European countries.
A correspondent from Germany reports
trying out a gold-disk Monkey Island in
1992 at Germany’s CeBIT fair and finding
it a more or less straight port of the disk-
based version. With one difference—the
four-voice music had been replaced by 16-
bit CD audio.
“amigareport.com”
Spy vs. Spy
Publisher CDTV Publishing
Genre Action, Strategy
Would most likely be a compilation of the
first three Spy vs. Spy games—Spy vs.
Spy, Spy vs. Spy: The Island Caper and
Spy vs. Spy III: Arctic Antics—which saw
Amiga releases in 1989.
Animated Colouring Book
Developer Gold Disk
Genre Graphics
A graphics editor aimed at
children. 60 colors would
be available and the abil-
ity to make animations.
Read With Astérix: Quiztime!
The Secret Weapon Developer EuroTalk
Developer Eurotalk Genre Trivia
Publisher Eurotalk A quiz game with over
Genre Edutainment
1,500 questions, 4 player
Little information on mode and 9 selectable
this title and The Secret categories, including his-
Weapon has been found, tory, film, science, etc.
other than a mention a The questions would
few places. It was most be accompanied with
likely cancelled. sound, images and music.
It would probably follow the same formula
as Read With Astérix: Astérix And Son, and
would include a digitised comic version of
the physical comic of the same name. The Baby File:
Conception to Birth
Developer EuroTalk
Genre Reference
Read With Astérix:
A teaching tool aimed
The Black Gold at expecting parents,
Developer Eurotalk schools, health and train-
Publisher Eurotalk ing centers. It includes
Genre Edutainment
information and images
The third planned title in the Read With As- on pregnancy and birth
térix series. preparations, development of the fetus and
The story of Asterix and the Black Gold the birth itself.
describes Asterix’s and Obelix’s voyage to
the Middle East.
Asterix and the Secret Weapon parodies
feminism and military secrets. Learn English With Astérix
Publisher Eurotalk
Genre Edutainment

Eurotalk released two other double-disk

Fun School 4 titles in their Learn English With Astérix se-
ries; Astérix and the Black Gold and The
Publisher Europress Software
Secret Weapon for Mac and MS-DOS. A
Genre Edutainment
CDTV release was planned but never ma-
Europress Software planned to release terialized.
their Fun School 4 series (Under 5’s, Mon- They also planned to release the titles on
key Island 5-7 year olds and 7-11 year Spanish, including French and English.

CDTV - Unreleased Games • 263

 Listen Mind Run II
Developer EuroTalk Developer Crealude
Genre Edutainment Genre Puzzle

Educational software A sequel to the CDTV

that would contain ten game Mind Run was fin-
lessons, each covering a ished but CBM wasn’t in-
topic such as food, travel terested in the project.
and home. The sequel focused on
machines, logic, space
and numbers, and was designed along
much the same lines as the original.
Living Book Series “amigareport.com”

Developer Digigraphic
Genre Edutainment
The Treehouse
Digigraphic’s series of interactive story- Developer The Learning Company
books aimed at children were planned for
a CDTV release, but ended up on other No information on what type of title this
systems instead. would be, but it was most likely an educa-
tional title.

The Maths Collection

Developer Schools Software
FidoFax
Genre Edutainment Developer Intersearch
Genre Reference
A compilation of a series
of math games previous- A tool for dog owners.
ly released on the Amiga; It would include helpful
Math Tutorials, Magic tips about dog care and
Maths, Maths Mania and info about the different
Better Maths. breeds.

Ninja High School Comix CDTV Disc Jockey

Developer The Learning Company Developer Sassenrath Research
Genre Miscellaneous
No information on what type of title this
The second comic CD-ROM after Dino- would be, other than that it was in develop-
saurs for Hire. It was released on MS-DOS ment by the same developer that designed
but the CDTV version was cancelled. the CDTV OS.

264 • Unreleased Games - CDTV

Video Creator
Developer Almathera
Genre Applications

A video creator where

users would be able to
make their own music
videos by playing an au-
Independent Soccer Disc
dio CD and adding ef-
fects or images to it. They Developer New Media
Genre Reference
could save their video by
connecting a camcorder to the CDTV. This would be a soccer almanac with data
from the 1990-91 soccer season. Users
could lock up details on players, clubs,
matches, etc., along with trivia and pic-
Composer Quest tures.
Developer Dr. T’s Music Software

Looks like a music reference title where

users could learn about the history of mu- Our House
sic, starting in 1600 to the present 90’s.
Developer Context Systems
Genre Reference

A multi-media disc about the history on do-

mestic appliances. Users could explore a
MIDI Music Machine house and look and read about everyday
Developer Music Machine objects found in each room.
Genre Music The title was displayed at Commodore
A music sequencer that would run directly trade shows, but never appeared commer-
from a CDTV or Amiga CD-ROM dirve with- cially for the console.
out the need for an external soundcard. There is another title named Our
The program would also include around House which were also released by Con-
500 sound samples. text Systems in 1992 for systems such as
the MS-DOS and the Memorex VIS, but
this is based around the Family Circus
comic strip and does not look the same.
Voice FX
Developer Microdeal
Genre Applications

Voice recorder program that would let us-

ers use a voice changer—pitch, echo,
etc.—in real time. It would also be possible
to sing along over audio CDs.

CDTV - Unreleased Games • 265

 A Study In Scarlett Monach Notes
Genre Edutainment Unknown developer and content, other
than it would be a title.
Based on a novel by Arthur Conan Doyle.
The developer of the title is unknown.

Multimedia Birds Of America

Developer CMC Research
Emergency Languages
No information on what type of software
Unknown developer and content, other this would be, other than that it would be a
than it would be a ‘Reference’ title. ‘Reference’ title.

Family Drug And Poison RAF Hendom Museum Series

Information System Developer Almathera
Developer Northeast Louisiana University Genre Reference

Most likely a reference software with con- Would include information and thousands
tent based on the title. of photographs of planes in the Royal Air
Force.

Hutchinsons Encylopedia Scientific Atlas Series

(Version 2) Developer Giunti Multimedia
Developer CDTV Publishing
Genre Reference Giunti Multimedia planned a series of titles
in their Scientific Atlas series. Not much in-
An updated version of the previously re- formation other than the title was found.
leased title.
Scientific Atlas: Astromony
Scientific Atlas: Psychics
Insight : Living Body Scientific Atlas: Zoology
Developer Optionica
Genre Reference
Scientific Atlas: Human Evolution
This would be the third title in the Insight
series. It was cancelled near completion in This software would go through the age of
early 1994, probably due to the Commo- humans—from the stone age to the mod-
dore bankruptcy. ern age. It would include different sections
with images about the development of hu-
man kind, like the advancements of tech-
nology.

266 • Unreleased Games - CDTV

Athens & Sparta 18 Classical CD+G Titles
Developer Giunti Multimedia Developer Warner New Media
Genre Music
Most likely a ‘Reference’ software.
A CD+G disc with eighteen tracks of clas-
sical music. The songs would be accom-
panied with graphics and text information
Time Table of History: about the composer.
Arts & Entertainment
Developer Xiphias
Genre Reference
Karaoke Hits I & II
This would be the third title in the Time
Developer Music Sales
Table of History series. It were released in Genre Music
1992 for the Tandy VIS and MS-DOS, but
the CDTV version never appeared. Two karaoke titles with popular songs for
the time that was planned for a CDTV re-
lease. They would be compatible with the
Genlock and a camcorder, and would also
US History be playable on a normal CD player.
Unknown developer and content, other
than it would be a ‘Reference’ title.

Karaoke Christmas
Developer Music Sales
KIM Genre Music
Developer Lascelles Productions
Christmas version of Music Sales’ Karaoke
Lascelles Productions had previously re- Hits. It would include Christmas carols, in-
leased The Connoisseur: Fine Art Collec- cluding White Christmas and Rudolf the
tion for the CDTV. It is unknown what type Red Nosed Reindeer.
of software this would be.

Karaoke Hits vol. 1 - 20

CDTV Karaoke: Developer New Media
Successi Italiani Vol.1 Genre Reference
Genre Music This was meant to be a series of 20 ka-
The first in an Italian ka- raoke discs. Each CD would contain 20
raoke series. 13 Italian hit tracks, which would be accompanied with
songs were planned, in- lyrics on the screen for the user to sing
cluding “Sapore di sale”, along with.
“Questo piccolo grande
amore” and “Senza una donna”.
It would also be compatible with the Gen-
Lock, which would let users create their
own karaoke videos

CDTV - Unreleased Games • 267

 B.A.T.
Other Amiga Versions
Ubi Soft
These games were either released 1991 (Amiga, C64)
Adventure
on an Amiga computer or the CD32
console. The CDTV version would B.A.T. is a mixture of
most likely be straight ports with little first-person adventure
game and role-playing
to no differences from the original.
with a cyberpunk sci-fi
setting.

A Night At The Races Bargon Attack

Context Systems Coktel Vision
1989 (Amiga, C64) 1992 (Amiga)
Adventure Adventure
Rebranded version of An Italian advert of the
Omni-Play Horse Rac- game list an upcoming
ing, an Amiga disk game release for the CDTV.
originally released in The CDTV is also men-
1989. tioned in the Amiga
manual.

A.G.E. Battletoads
(Advanced Galactic Empire) Mindscape
Coktel Vision 1994 (Amiga, CD32)
1990 (Amiga) Beat ‘em up
Action, Simulation A CDTV version were
A.G.E. is a first-person originally due for release
space exploration game in 1992, but ended up
and a follow-up to Ga- being moved to the
lactic Empire (1990). CD32 after heavy de-
lays.

Aquaventura Bill & Ted’s

Psygnosis Excellent Adventure
1992 (Amiga) Capstone
Shooter 1991 (Amiga, C64)
A 3D shoot-’em-up Action-adventure
where the player must Based on the movie of
prevent extinction of the the same name. The
human race by defeat- player control Bill or Ted
ing aliens. who must search for
specific items.

268 • Unreleased Games - CDTV

 Brides of Dracula Epic Space Flight Simulator

Context Systems Epic

1992 (Amiga) Ocean
Action 1992 (Amiga)
Simulation
A two-player split-screen
game similar to Spy vs. A space shooter with
Spy in gameplay. Drac- surface missions taking
ula must collect women place on different plan-
and Van Helsing must ets.
kill him and his harem.

The Cardinal The Games

of the Kremlin Context Systems
Capstone 1992 (Amiga)
1991 (Amiga) Action
Simulation, Strategy A port of The Games ‘92
A global management - España—released for
simulation where the the the Amiga on 4 flop-
player takes the position py disks. Based around
of US project leader in an the 1992 olympic games
arms race against USSR. took place in Barcelona.

Challenge Golf Garfield: Winter’s Tail

On-Line The Edge Interactive
1991 (Amiga) 1989 (Amiga)
Sports Action
A golf game with four An action sports game
courses (18 holes with three different mini-
each). Other features games. A CDTV version
are a handicap system, was in development but
16 clubs and a replay was cancelled over lack
system after shots. of funds.

Drakkhen Garfield:
Infogrames Big Fat Hairy Deal
1989 (Amiga) The Edge Interactive
Role-playing 1988 (Amiga, C64)
A fantasy role-playing Action-adventure
game with a visual pre- Earliest licensed video
sentation that combines game based on Jim Da-
3D landscapes and 2D vis’ Garfield comics.
interiors.

270 • Unreleased Games - CDTV

International Karate Plus
System 3 Software
1994 (CD32)
Fighting
International Karate Plus,
also known as IK+ or
Chop N’ Drop, was re-
leased on C64 in 1988
and updated to CD32 in
1994.
Indoor Sports
Context Systems
1987 (C64, Amiga)
Sports
Also released as Su-
perstar Indoor Sports.
Includes four sports
games; bowling, darts,
air hockey and Ping-
pong.
James Pond 2:
Codename Robocod
Millennium Interactive
1993 (Amiga, CD32)
Platformer
Originally released on
the Amiga in 1991, and
in 1993 as one of the
early launch games for
the CD32.
Private and Confidential: KGB
KGB
Virgin
1992 (Amiga)
Adventure
The CDTV version
would probably be simi-
lar to the re-released
enhanced CD-ROM ver-
sion titled Conspiracy.
Fables & Fiends:
The Legend of Kyrandia
Virgin
1992 (Amiga)
Adventure
Point-and-click adven-
ture game developed
by Westwood Studios
and released in 1992.
Litil Divil
Gremlin Interactive
1994 (CD32)
Action-platformer
Players control a devil
who must find his way out
of a dungeon. The game
started as a planned
CDTV release, but end-
ed up on the CD32.
Mad TV
Softgold
1991 (Amiga)
Simulation
A television station man-
agement game originally
developed and published
by Rainbow Arts in 1991
for Amiga and MS-DOS.
Maelstrom
Softgold
1994 (Amiga)
Simulation
A managerial space
strategy and simulation
game initially released in
1992 for MS-DOS.
CDTV - Unreleased Games • 271
 Grand Prix Pinball Dreams
World Circuit 21st Century Ent.
MicroProse 1992 (Amiga)
1991 (Amiga) Pinball
Racing
A pinball simulation game
Originally released as with four tables covering
Formula One Grand themes such as the wild
Prix, but also referred to west, space rockets, a
as Grand Prix 1 or Mi- haunted graveyard and
croProse Grand Prix. pop music.

MiG-29 Fulcrum Plan 9 From Outer Space

Domark Gremlin Graphics
1991 1992 (Amiga)
Adventure Adventure
A combat flight simulator A point and click adven-
game where the player ture game adaptation
flies a Mikoyan MiG-29 of the film of the same
on solo missions against name. Most versions
a range of enemies came with a VHS copy
around the world. of the film.

‘Nam 1965-1975 Pool

Archer Maclean’s Pool
Ocean
1991 (Amiga) Virgin
Domark 1992 (Amiga)
Sports
A strategy game set
during the Vietnam war. A sequel of sorts to Jim-
The player must man- my White’s ‘Whirlwind’
age military resources Snooker, the game
and the public opinion to replaces the snooker
the war. theme with that of pool.

Pac-Mania Pro Tennis Tour II

Domark Ubi Soft
1988 (Amiga, C64) 1991 (Amiga)
Action Sports
An isometric variation on Initially released as Jim-
the game Pac-Man. The my Connors Pro Ten-
player controls Pac-Man nis Tour and endorsed
as he must eat all of the by Connors. The game
dots while avoiding the offers tournament and
ghosts that chase him. single play.

272 • Unreleased Games - CDTV

Reach for the Skies Shadow of the Beast
Virgin Psygnosis Limited
1993 (Amiga) 1989 (Amiga)
Simulation Action-platformer
A WWII combat flight The gameplay is a com-
sim where the player bination of action and
can take part in the war puzzle solving, with an
either at the Royal Air emphasis on the latter.
Force or the German Known for its graphics
Luftwaffe. and parallax scrolling.

The Return Of Medusa Shadow of the Beast II

Starbyte Software Psygnosis Limited
1991 (Amiga) 1990 (Amiga)
Strategy Action-platformer
A 1991 role-playing and Players take the role
strategy video game hy- of Aarbron again, who
brid. It’s also known as seeks out to rescue his
Rings of Medusa II. baby sister from Male-
toth.

Sensible Soccer Shadow of the Beast III

Renegade Software Psygnosis Limited
1992 (Amiga), 1993 (CD32) 1992 (Amiga)
Sports Action-platformer
The CDTV version was The third and final game
largely done, but Ren- in the Shadow of the
egade wound up turning Beast series. Aarbron
it into a CD32 version must fight against Male-
instead. toth again.

Silly Putty SimEarth

Starbyte Software Ocean
1992 (Amiga), 1994 (CD32) 1992 (Amiga)
Action-platformer Simulation
A platform game where A life simulation video
the lead character is a game designed by Will
blob of putty. Released Wright in which the play-
on CD32 in 1994 as Su- er controls the develop-
per Putty. ment of a planet.

CDTV - Unreleased Games • 273

 Space Quest III Ultima VI:
Sierra The False Prophet
1989 (Amiga) Sierra
Adventure 1992 (Amiga), 1991 (C64)
A graphical adventure. Role-playing
Players take control of The sixth part in the se-
Roger Wilco again, who ries and the third and fi-
must escape an inter- nal game in the “Age of
stellar garbage hauler. Enlightenment” trilogy.

Their Finest Hour Unreal

Domark Ubi Soft
1990 (Amiga) 1990 (Amiga)
Action, Simulation Action
Follow-up to Battlehawks An action game made
1942, Their Finest Hour up of eight levels and
recreates the Battle of contains a mixture of
Britain during WWII in 2D and 3D graphics.
the summer of 1940. The goal is to save Prin-
cess Isolde.

Thexder Wayne Gretzky

Sierra Hockey II
1987 (Amiga) Bethesda Softworks
Action platformer 1991 (Amiga)
Thexder (テグザー) is a Sports
run-and-gun platform A top-down hockey
game from Game Arts, game. The player par-
originally released for ticipates in a match
the NEC PC-8801 in against either Canada
1985. or the USA.

Trump Castle Wing Commander

Capstone Mindscape
1988 (C64), 1989 (Amiga) 1992 (Amiga), 1994 (CD32)
Casino Action, Simulation
Players can visit Don- A space flight simula-
ald Trump’s casino-hotel tion game interspersed
“Trump Castle” and play with shipboard dialogs.
six casino games; Black- It later came packaged
Jack, Craps, Keno, Pok- with the CD32 system.
er, Roulette, and Slots.

274 • Unreleased Games - CDTV

 advert from CU Amiga Magazine 34, Dec. 1990
McGee
The Learning Company WHAT IS CDTV?
1990 (Amiga) Simply put, CDTV mixes CD sound and Amiga type
Edutainment software in one easily controlled unit, and allows
An educational game you to “interact” with the results through your tele-
vision. On the outside the CDTV Standalone Player
for young children. The is a sleek, elegant black box. Inside it contains the
game is entirely word- workings of the UK’s most popular home compu-
less and tells its story ter, the Commodore Amiga, but with two major dif-
through graphics and ferences. Instead of a keyboard and mouse it uses a
video style remote controller for simple operation
sound.
and, instead of a floppy disk drive, there’s a compact
disc drive.

MUSIC & SOFTWARE

As well as being able to play standard studio com-
Mickey’s 123’s: pact discs in high quality stereo sound, the CDTV
The Big Surprise Party can also use software stored on CD. This is similar
to Amiga software, with thousands of Amiga pro-
Disney Software grams available. You also get much, much more -
1993 (Amiga) a CDTV Disc is equal to over 600 floppy disks in
Edutainment capacity.
Educational games for WHAT CAN IT DO?
pre-schoolers featuring With CDTV you can listen to your favourite pop
Disney Characters. group, look up history, play the latest arcade games,
have a Karaoke night or learn French. In one unit,
CDTV can do things you would otherwise need a
video CD player and computer to do! You can watch
as Neil Armstrong walks on the moon, listen to him
speak and read the fascinating details of how Apollo
got there!

The Learning Company INTERACTIVE MOVIES

A new kind of movie; hi-fi sound tracks and moving
The Learning Company pictures just like cinema films, but you determine
1992 (Amiga) the outcome and how the plot turns out! Will Bat-
Edutainment man really save Gotham City? Interactive movies
An educational game are set to arrive on a CDTV near you soon.
which is set in the locale EDUCATION
of a child’s bedroom. With its huge storage capacity, colour graphics and
Users can click on vari- easy control, CDTV is ideal for education. Levels
from primary education to adult foreign language
ous objects and be re- courses are available.
warded by games.
ENTERTAINMENT
Packed with masses of colourful graphics, hi-
fi sound and huge levels, CDTV games are set to
dwarf their Amiga counterparts. The CDTV award
The Classic Collection winning version of Sim City for instance, has 10
Megabytes of extra graphics, studio recorded sound
School Software for CD Audio quality, more detailed game play (new
1991 (Amiga) zoom mode) and 4 different eras (Medieval, West-
Edutainment ern, Actual and Future).
A compilation of four MORE FORMATS
educational adventure CDTV can play CDTV software, CD audio discs,
games where children CD+G (audio discs with lyrics and pictures),
CD+MIDI (special tracks along side the audio tracks
play through four mod- control MIDI instruments attached to the CDTV).
ernized fairy-tales. With the aid of a floppy disk drive and keyboard,
CDTV can also run most Amiga software.

CDTV - Unreleased Games • 275

 magazine article; New Computer Express #136 (June 1991);

As Phillips launches CD-I in the US, Express asks: “Have Commodore

CD-I STORMS IN TO
After half a decade of hype and speculation, CD-I (Compact Disc Interactive) has finally
seen the light of day. The four companies involved — Phillips, Matsushita, Sony and Nin-
tendo — are, respectively, the three largest consumer companies and the biggest computer
entertainment corporation on the entire planet. But has Commodore’s rival CDTV system
already built up too much of a lead in Europe to be caught? In this special report, Express
assesses the odds and attempts to pick the likely winner.

P
hillips has won the race to
produce and launch the
world’s first commercially
available Compact Disc Interac-
tive (CD-I) player, beating Sony
into the market.
Price for the system is currently
$1,400 - though Julia Davis of Phil-
lis Multimedia in the UK told Express
this week: “The planning has been for
a price of $1,000. We are not sure why
the extra $400 has been added, it’s just
the way they do things over there.”
Express can reveal that the UK ver-
sion of CD-I will differ in important
respects from the US one. Scheduled
to take place within the year, it will be
badged Phillips rather than Magnavox
and, crucially, will include full-motion
video facilities. The US machine re-
quires an add-on cartridge to achieve
the same effect.
As for Commodore’s rival CDTV
machine, Sandy McKenzie of Phillips
Multimedia is little short of contemp-
tuous: “When you take one PC maker
versus one of the world’s largest con-
sumer electronics manufacturers, it’s
like David and Goliath. We don’t see
Commodore as a serious threat.”
Using its American consumer elec-
tronics name, Magnavox, Phillips
demonstrated its CDI190 at Chicago’s
enormous CES show. Like Commo-
dore’s competing CDTV (Commodore
Dynamic Total Vision), the CDI190
looks like a conventional home video
recorder except it is fitted with a draw-
er-loading CD bay. This takes both
standard 3-inch and the “album” five
inch compact discs.
COMPUTER-FREE ZONE
Taking the Commodore angle that
the keyboard is the add-on most non-
computer users find off-putting, the
CDI190 makes use of an infrared con-
troller in the form of a one-handed
‘thumbstick.’ It controls an on-screen
pointer used to interact with the WIMP
interface. The thumbstick can also op-
erate as a joystick in game play.
Software for the system is already
being developed by Nintendo, the
Smithsonian Institute and the Chil-
dren’s Television Workshop (home of
Sesame Street).
Two titles are to be bundled with the
machine, chosen from four categories:
children, music, games and special in-
terest — which includes the Time-Life
Photography CD. Users focus a simu-
lated camera on a moving picture and
take a virtual photograph. This is then
displayed on screen and shows blur-
ring, framing and lighting.
TIME BANDITS
The CDI190 demonstration occurred
during a multimedia seminar where
Tandy’s Multimedia PC (MPC), Ko-
dak’s Photo CD and Commodore’s
CDTV were also on show.
However, jockeying for media at-
tention appeared to be in full effect.
Phillips’ demonstration over-ran its
alloted time, leaving Commodore’s
Head of Interactive Multimedia De-
velopment, Nolan Bushnell, with just
a few minutes to illustrate the qualities
of CDTV.
The seminar eventually overran by
half an hour, but not before further
CDTV versus CD-I statements were
made by the CD-I side.
The in-fighting escalated when
Phillips and Kodak both denied Com-
modore’s claim that CDTV would be
compatible with Kodak’s Photo CD
project, maintaining that Commodore
would need to develop a CDTV2 ma-
chine to make this feasible.
According to Commodore, CDTV
owners will be able to take their holi-
day photographs into high street bu-
reaux, and have them converted over
to CD format.
The new, Compact Disc quality
snaps can then be loaded onto CDTV
and played back using a standard tel-
evision set. Each CD will be able to
hold up to 100 35mm frames.
June 1992 is the planned date for the
introduction of the system in this coun-
try. CBM’s managing director in the
UK, Steve Franklin enthused: “Photo
CD will help drive the sales of multi-
media and the CDTV player.”
Kodak in the UK, however, seems to
have a different attitude to CDTV and
Photo CD. In fact a spokeswoman for
the company refused to confirm any of
the details.
The implication is that Commodore
will be independently adapting CDTV
for compatibility with Photo CD with-
out recourse to any official agreement
with Kodak.
• Nintendo makes a stand at CES - and climbs
into bed with Phillips.

276 • magazine article

and CDTV really got a snowball’s chance in hell?
CHALLENGE CDTV
• Phillips’ CD-I and Commodore’s CDTV: which will win the CD war? Commodore’s Steve
Franklin and company are adamant that they’ve built up too long a head-start to be caught. But
when the world’s three biggest consumer electronics companies are on your tail, you’d better be
very sure indeed that you’ve done your sums right.
THE VIEW FROM EUROPE
The projected European launch of
CD-I is an event of massive impor-
tance and interest, both to Commo-
dore’s rival CDTV project, and UK
software developers.
Commodore Press and Public Re-
lations Manager Andrew Ball sounds
confident that CDTV can beat off CD-
I: “We already knew there was going
to be competition, and from what we
know about CD-I it’s got some very
nice features. There is no doubt that it
Everything you’ve ever likely to need to know about CD-I
• CD-I is a new computer system developed
by the three largest consumer electronics
companies in the world — Phillips, Sony and
Matsushita — with Phillips beating the pack to
the punch with the world’s first commercially
available Compact Disc Interactive (CD-I)
player, the CDI190.
• CD-I, like CDTV from Commodore, com-
bines text, sound and pictures on a single
650Mb CD — the equivalent of 900 floppy
disks, With all that storage space available,
software developers have plenty of room to lay
the text, sound, animation and pictures on top
of one another to create a multimedia environ-
ment.
• At the heart of the two module system is the
Multi Media Controller (MMC) which pro-
vides system control and signal processing
and features ports for RS232 communications,
printer, keyboard and joystick besides video
and audio input/outputs.
• There’s also a built-in Personal Memory Card
slot enabling users to safeguard program ma-
terial, input their own data and store personal
information, in much the same fashion as a
will be a close, er, battle.
“But CDTV is already available in
this country — a year ahead of CD-I —
and we’re building up a very healthy
software base. By the time CD-I gets
over to Europe CDTV will have had
a good year’s drop on it, a lead which
should not be underestimated. By the
end of next year we intend to have
at least 150 titles up and running for
CDTV.
“One crucial point is support for the
devices.
floppy disk. The 1Mb MMC connects to the
CD-I Player Module which houses the CD
drive.
• All user interaction is achieved by an infra-
red remote control (or mouse) incorporating
on-screen cursor control, via a tiny joystick.
There’s also a full array of search, play and
channel switching buttons.
• An as yet unpriced optional Expansion Mod-
ule provides twin 2Mb 3.5 inch floppy drives
for program data storage, a built in modem and
interfaces for hard disk, SCSI and Ethernet.
• This module enables program developers to
convert both Macintosh and PC image, graph-
ics and sound files to CD-I format via two soft-
ware based CD-I Author packages.
• Up to a whole hour moving videos can be
stored on either three or five-inch CDs and
displayed via a standard television. As such,
the system opens up tremendous opportunities
for leisure, education, training and simulation
applications. As a ‘world standard’, CD-I is
configured for would-be software authors to
produce their own program material.
• In its initial stages, CD-I was specifically
“It’s like the Betamax/VHS battle
again. It is absolutely vital to get de-
velopers in hardware and software to
support the products after the initial
buzz has worn off.
“We have funded software develop-
ment, and we are not going to continue
this because we don’t think it’s neces-
sary any more. People want to develop
for CDTV.
“It should also be borne in mind that
we are not frightened to license our
technology out to anyone. It is practi-
cal to think of a badged CDTV system.
“In fact we’ve been in discussions
with developers, whom I can’t name
in both the United States and Japan.”
One company approached for de-
velopment work by both Commodore
and Phillips is Virgin Games. Every-
thing seemed to be going well — until
the CD-I project began to sour. Virgin
boss Nick Alexander explains how
Virgin feel about CD-I: “CD-I has
been waiting in the wings for some
time now.
targeted at the leisure market, with education
and business ranking second and third in im-
portance. With Japanese games giant Nintendo
declaring its support for the Phillips CD-I de-
velopment, this aim is further enforced.
• The intended price of around £750 should
ensure massive sales particularly as the unit is
designed to sit along side hi-fi equipment and
run through conventional television sets.
• Already just about every leading leisure
software company in Europe and the USA is
known to be developing CD-I titles — indeed
Phillips has gone so far as to set up a CD-I
production facility at one of its UK sites in
Dorking and is inviting potential publishers to
co-operate on joint ventures.
• Meanwhile, the company has tied up pub-
lishing deals with top publishing groups such
as Time/Life, CBS, Columbia and Polygram,
along with leading international television
companies and museums.
• CD-I systems will be available in Japan and
the US later this year, with European launched
pencilled in for mid-1992.
magazine article • 277
 “Although it is potentially a very
powerful system, from a European
perspective there is no clear idea as to
Phillips’ software position, which is a
perception across the board in the UK.
“In fact, since our early discussions
with Phillips they would appear to
have adjusted their position dramati-
cally, and as a result we are seriously
reconsidering our position.”
• CD-I: some lucky swine in Chicago gets to
have a go
PHILLIPS CDI190:
THAT TECH-SPEC IN FULL
So it’s finally arrived - a commercially viable
CD-I (Compact Disc Interactive) player has
finally seen the light of day. Software sup-
port, from Japanese software giants Nin-
tendo among others, and hardware support,
from Matsushita and Sony, are certainly im-
pressive.
But what does the actual hardware offer to
users? Find out below...
PRICE:
• $1,400 (predicted UK price, June 1992: £750)
COMPATIBILITY:
• Three and five-inch standard audio CD
• CD+ graphics discs and visuals
• Photo CDs
• CD ROM-XA ‘bridge’
SPECIFICATIONS:
• Maximum audio capacity: 19 hours
(audio only on CD)
• Maximum text capacity: 250,000 pages
(text only on CD)
• Maximum graphic capacity: 7,000 photographs
(graphic data only on CD)
• Maximum full motion video capacity: 72minutes.
(Video only on CD)
• Motorola 68070 co-processor
• Infra-red remote control, as well as mouse and
keypad operation
• 1Mb RAM
• 16 million colour variations
• Digital video and audio processing
• Bitstream Digital/Analogue conversion
• Full-motion, full-screen, based on Motion
Picture Engineering Group (MPEG) standards.
• Compatible with PAL, SECAM and NTSC
television standards. Further adaptability with
High Definition Television (abbreviated,
predictably, to HDTV)
• Playable via all current television and stereo
hi-fi systems
ACCESSORIES:
• Mouse
• Infra-red reciever
278 • magazine article
EXPRESS COMMENT:
THE CD WAR STARTS HERE
The launch of Phillips Magnovox CD-I sys-
tem is bang on schedule. Similar CD-I unit
releases in Japan will happen later this year
from companies such as Sony, Technics, Pa-
nasonic, Sanyo and Pioneer.
With that kind of International high
street muscle just waiting to kickstart the
new platform into gear you’d expect Com-
modore to be quaking in tis boots: CDTV is
being pitched as a ‘buy and play’ unit, too.
The marketing men of both factions
insist that both CD-I and CDTV are con-
sumer products with no overt computing
connection: they’re not meant for techies,
so we’re told, they’re meant for lounges.
The vagaries and frustration of PC-style
keyboard input simply don’t belong in the
modern world’s sitting rooms: what the
everyday Joe wants is to turn on and tune
in. Simple as that. We can therefore expect
much of the marketing conflict to be tak-
ing place in the showrooms of high street
stores and the glossy pages of supplements
and style mags.
CDTV:
THE AMIGA OWNER OPTION
But what then are we, the computer literate,
to do? If neither is designed for people who
know about computing and who want to
use them for computing applications, how
are we to get in on the act without resorting
to forking out £600 or so for a stand alone
magic box?
Commodore has got its approach right,
lining up both a CD drive you can plug into
your Amiga and disk drives and infra-red
keyboards for the CDTV itself. There, at
least, is a clear invitation to upgrade.
If you already own an Amiga you can
get your hands on some kit that will bring
you the digital delights of CD-ROM tech-
nology. If you don’t own an Amiga you can
buy a CDTV and run all the Amiga soft-
ware you can find. Results? Commodore
wins both ways.
Phillips, though, isn’t interested in sup-
plying these. It has no plans to introduce
any keyboards or disk drives for CD-I,
which is probably just as well since it has
no software base and no familiar operating
system.
Sure, it has professional CD-I machines
which offer real computing facilities but
these are designed for development and
authoring applications. But then perhaps
Phillips isn’t unduly concerned about the
mere 600,000 Amiga owners Commodore
claims will buy add-on CDTV drives. It
has a longer history of better distribution
and marketing to target the whole wide
world in its sights. And it has Sony and
Matsushita (Panasonic) as partners.
CDTV:
A SLIGHT REASSESSMENT
In the past Express has intimated that it sees
no long term future for CDTV once CD-I
comes to town. We now want to revise that
position just a tad. (Cue sound of swallow-
ing pride.) We expect to see CDTV succeed.
Not because of any technical superiority,
far from it, and not because it’s got a whole
clear year to grab the high ground before
CD-I arrives here. But simply because of
its Amiga compatibility and the installed
base of Amiga software.
How big that success will be is, of
course, a different question. While it’s per-
haps artificial to draw too many compari-
sons with the VHS and Betamax video war
at the beginning of the eighties, it’s true
that Betamax lost out despite technical su-
periority and massive backing from Sony.
It lost because it didn’t have the software
titles to support it.
For the computer user, CDTV is clearly
the format to go for and in this industry it
will clean up. So if you’re into computing
forget CD-I. Buy CDTV now. Better still
buy a £300 add-on drive for your Amiga
when they come out in September.
But in the electronic showrooms of to-
morrow there’s no competition. Sony owns
the rights to just about every film, video
and music title you can name. And what
they don’t own they’ve leased. In five years
time there won’t be any CDTVs in the na-
tion’s lounges. There will be CD-I units.
CDTV will be back where it belongs — in
the bedrooms.
magazine article; New Computer Express #136 (June 1991)
by Colin Campbell;

CD-I CALLS
THE SHOTS
Software is piling up for Phillips Compact Disc Interactive
system. But is it any good? You can bet your life on it.
Colin Campbell investigates...

I
f you’re suffering form a deep fatigue
brought on by the incessant babbling
of “future technology” freaks, then
it’s time for a break. Let’s stop talking
about how great things might be, and
start looking at how fantastic they are.
Right now.
CD-based computing is, without
a doubt, the corner stone of comput-
ing for the next decade, so it was no
surprise to see well over a thousand
delegates at the second Compact Disc
Interactive Conference in London re-
cently. They had all come to see how
Phillips’ hardware platform had been
exploited by the software developers.
They wanted to know if it was any
good, and most of them left not only
with their doubts dispelled, but with a
quivering sensation that, at last, they
were involved in something really spe-
cial.
Bernie Luskin, president of CD-I’s
leading software developer, American
Interactive Media (AIM), set the tone
of the two day event when he produced
a large aerial photograph of the USA,
with all its cities lit up by a clear light.
“That,” boasted Luskin, “is the
CD-I market in America. Do you
see where all those lights are? That’s
where the plugs are, and that’s where • One of Sony’s prototype CD-I ma-
chines due for release next year. Is this
we’ll be pushing CD-I.” ghetto blaster with stereo sound and
Now that’s optimism. British pub- built-in colour LCD screen the ultimate
lishing magnate Robert Maxwell yuppie accessory?
might now know as much about CD-I
as Luskin, but he reckons he’s on to
a good thing. “I know how to make
money,” he told the glittering assem-
bly of computer and publishing busi-
ness people, “I urge you to get into this
thing.”
The point is this. Powerful men and
women have seen CD-I, and they are
very impressed. Not you the experi-
enced computer user, but you the con-
sumer. • And for the serious about town fun-
Here’s why. CD-I is an extremely ster, there’s the hand-held CD-I unit
impressive piece of kit. It’s ridiculous- - with its LCD screen taking portable
entertainment way beyond the primitive
ly easy to use and could promise a way realms of today’s Nintendo Gameboy.
of dislodging tedious television as the
nation’s favourite info/entertainment
medium. Generations brought up on
TV, video and games consoles will
feel at home with CD-I - it’s more of
the same but much better.

THE NO NONSENSE ‘IT’S EASY AS ABC REALLY’ GUIDE TO CD-I

Commentators are often apol- except there are no commands. gramme, you dip in and out
ogising that CD-I is somehow Everything is point and click where you please.
a “difficult concept”. This isand all icons are presented as • It’s like an electronic book,
nonsense. an easy to understand picture but the index is built in so that
of what the windows repre- it’s all around you.
• It’s the same as a computer sents.
except you use a CD instead You can get any piece of in-
• It’s the same as TV, except formation just by following a
of a disk.
instead of being forced to take clear and simple route. Every-
• It’s the same as a computer a linear route through the pro-
thing is cross-indexed.

magazine article • 279


• One of the first CD-I machines off the shelves - the Phillips 900 - like a cross between a video and
a CD player for around £700.
SPECIAL BRANCHES
Delegates were whizzed through half a
dozen CD-I titles, all of which were far
more fantastic than any piece of soft-
ware or demo you’re likely to see on a
standard home computer format.
Harvest of the Sun is a life and works
biography of Vincent Van Gogh. After
a short introduction sequence you are
presented with a model of the great
artist’s village. Each house represent a
different icon which you can click on,
and each in turn offers more branch-
es to follow. So, you might be inter-
ested in Van Gogh’s private life, or
his disturbed mind. There are dozens
of strands for you to follow. Each one
presents you with smoothly changing
stills of contemporary drawings, or of
the man’s work.
In reality, you could glean all that
information from a one hour TV
documentary, but CD-I offers you the
chance to point and click your way
through the database at will. You take
in what you want when you want.
That’s the lowest level of interaction
CD-I offers.
Harvest of the Sun took nine weeks
to produce, it’s to be released in
French, Japanese and English under
the Arts and Culture label. There’s no
Full Motion Video in the program, but
the production is so smooth and pro-
fessional it is hardly missed. We’ll
come back to FMV after.
Budding photographers can actually
improve their technique with Time-
Life’s 35mm Photography tutorial.
You are presented with a shot to take,
of say, a man rowing a boat and then
invited to choose a camera from sev-
eral models before picking the shutter
speed and such like. The boat rows in
280 • magazine article
front of you, you take the shot, and a
few seconds later the result is on the
screen. Perhaps you should have used
a wide angle lens, suggests the pro-
gram.
CDs vary vastly in levels of so-
phistication. There’s a disc of Pavar-
otti’s works. You just click on the
name of your favourite song, and it’ll
start playing with Karaoke style lyric
guides (in Italian and English) scroll-
ing up the screen.
At the other end of the scale is Es-
cape From Cyber City, a game featur-
ing animation sequences of the quality
you would expect to see on Saturday
morning children’s television. But you
don’t just watch it, you’re playing.
The gameplay looks not far removed
from Dragon’s Lair. The difference is
that Lair was pretty much a one-off
for the 16-bit machines, Cyber City is
what CD-I games normally look like.
Another cartoon adventure is
Sandy’s Circus Adventure which is
drawn in the cutesy Baby Muppets
style, but which gives kids the choice
of which on-screen characters the hero
(a seal) should interact with.
CD-I Golf
THE TOP CD-I TITLES ON THEIR WAY
The following titles will be the first to ap-
pear for CD-I...
• Sporting News Baseball.
Motion picture quality baseball game with
you facing the pitchers. Includes play-by-
play commentaries.
• United States Atlas.
Pick any state, and see and hear its major
attractions.
• Paintschool.
Electronic colouring book includes 200 dif-
ferent alphabet-based pictures to encourage
learning.
• Sargon Chess.
Not just computer chess. There’s also a re-
plays of great games in history, move analy-
sis and a history of the game. 16 levels of
difficulty.
• Tell Me Why.
Interactive learning book complete with pic-
tures. As easy to use as teletext.
• Time-Life Photography.
Study the work of three leading photogra-
phers. Attend 25 interactive workshops.
• Treasures of the Smithsonian.
A walk through the famous Smithsonian In-
stitute with 200 treasures to view and learn
about.
• Wings.
Exciting World War One arcade adventure
• CD-I Golf is bound to be one of the major
software titles for the machine. It’s incom-
parably better than anything you’ve seen on
even the best home computers or dedicated
game consoles.
• Children’s Bible Stories.
A series of interactive adventures based on
the Good Book.
• Louis Armstrong.
All the jazz man’s greatest hits, as well as
some pretty animations, an interview and
a visual biography. Other popular singers
should follow.
• Hot Seat.
Adult trivia game with Max Headroom style
host.
• ABC Sports Golf.
Motion picture quality graphics. Should
become the best selling CD-I title, and will
probably help sell the entire system.
 Donkey Kong and
Super Mario will both
New Computer Express #138 (June 1991);
be among the Nintendo
titles. Imagine this tidy COMPUTER VIRUS WITH
little package being pre- THE HUMAN TOUCH
sented to the American A citizen of the United States is claimed
public. An interactive to be the first man ever to catch a virus
TV set that plays your from his computer.
favourite video games The ‘story’ was broken in American
(and has a mind-blow- Scandal magazine The Weekly World
ing golf game to boot.) News. It concerned a Philadèlphia-based
• Cyber City: Fun with slick interactive ani- Pretty irresistible for a middle class programmer called John Stevens who
says: “I was careless about borrowing
mated fiction. suburban family with disposable in-
software programs from other people,
come, eh? Many of the kids who might
REPEAT PERFORMANCE people I didn’t know too well”.
have plumped for CDTV because of Corroboration for the infectious tale
All these programs, plus many more
the impressive games list could well comes from Stevens’ doctor, Mark Ford-
(see box) were on display in a mini ex-
be having second thoughts. land. The good doctor, whose medical
hibition, and there was much playing
speciality is surprisingly not mentioned
around and experimenting under way. WHAT ABOUT FMV? in The Weekly World News piece, main-
Jan Timmer, Phillips’ chief execu- Neither CD-I nor CDTV feature Full tains that the symptoms shown by his
tive officer, is the man who was large- Motion Video (proper moving pic- patient are the same as those found in a
ly responsible for turning the audio tures, rather than animations). This is computer virus. He says: “Stevens has
CD into a success. He’s hoping for a because video uses up a vast amount of become forgetful, like something is eat-
repeat performance. “It’s eight years memory. CDs can hold a great deal of ing up his memory, his data. He can’t
since we introduced the CD, which information, but once you’ve got the hold on to his thoughts. Even an electro-
was a revolution in sound reproduc- text, narrative, stills and animations on encephalogram (EEG) of his brain waves
keeps changing. It’s becoming more and
tion. In the beginning there were only the disk there’s not a lot of room left.
more erratic. The virus could eat him up
a few who believed that it would work, However, Phillips has announced until his mind is a blank and he’s like a
and the pioneers were those who saw that it has signed a deal with US firm vegetable”:
the opportunities. C-Cube Systems which specialises in Express attempted to contact the illus-
“We felt certain that we had a suc- video compression chips. The firm’s trious, if computer illiterate, Dr. Fordland
cess then and it’s the same now. I am job will be to squeeze video on to the this week for confirmation of his history
convinced that CD-I is going to be a disks, necessary for the development making diagnosis.
success. My company has decided to of even more attractive CD-I titles. Stunningly he was not mentioned in
put its money where its mouth is. We the Philadelphia directory. Nor was any
address of a medical practice with a Mark
will be the pioneers of CD-I, the most WHEN, WHERE
Fordland listed.
versatile publishing medium ever in- AND HOW MUCH? However, The News is obviously close
vented.” CD-I’s American and Japanese mar- to the medical miracle man. Fordland
kets are likely to be more receptive to continued his in-depth analysis of his pa-
HOW THE NINTENDO DEAL the new medium than Europe, and we tient’s position with the following searing
MUST SCARE COMMODORE will have to wait until about this time smile: “Borrowing software programs
Until very recently the European next year. Pricing has to be officially from friends and strangers is like having
games software producers were all in decided, but don’t expect to have much sex with someone you don’t know too
agreement. As far as the traditional change out of £700. Software will cost well. When you sleep with someone, you
games player were concerned, Com- anything from £20 to £100. sleep with everyone they’ve ever slept
with. When you borrow someone else’s
modore had done a better job than
program, you’re connected to everyone
Phillips in wooing top games software who’s ever used that program”.
developers. Obviously the story has no basis in
Commodore’s rival CDTV boasts fact.
an impressive software list, with a There is no way in which a virus,
wide ranging of good titles from re- which is merely a piece of computer-
spectable publishers. However, the code could transfer from its silicon-based
sales figures of all these games put host to a carbon-based victim.
together pale into insignificance when Or is there?
compared with the performance of just • Open Sesame: Big names have already been
one of the Nintendo games which will signed up.
be appearing on CD-I.

magazine article • 281

 Letters from readers sent to
video game magazines.
CU Amiga Magazine #31 (September 1992)
BackChat
A600 BLUES
Commodore have undeniably done quite
well with the Amiga, but with a prod-
uct like the Amiga it’s quite hard to
go wrong. The A500+ and A600 are
obviously good machines but would be
so much better if they had received
the proper release and support they
deserved. Leaving third party devel-
opers and magazines such as yours to
pick up the pieces and explain things to
the bewildered public is inexcusable. The
mind boggles to think what could have
happened if the Amiga had fallen into
the hands of half-competent computer
manufacturer. Good God, Commodore!
What the hell are you playing at?
Stephen Sweet, Kent
Answer from the editorial. -
It certainly looks like Commodore have an-
gered a few people with the release of the
A600 so soon after the A500+. Who knows
what people’s reactions will be when the
32-bit A800 is released in the Spring of next
year, Do Commodore really deserve the Ami-
ga? Will incompatibly problems rear their
ugly head once more? I’m all for innovation
and change, but with three new Amigas and
a new version of the CDTV in development,
it’s certainly difficult to know exactly which
machines is best suited for which purposes.
282 • magazine letters
CU Amiga Magazine #46 (December 1993)
Ask the Experts
SEEDY ROMS
I have an Amiga 500 with 3Mb of
RAM and a GVP A500HD+ series II
hard drive. I am interested in fitting a
CD-ROM drive - can this be hooked up
via the SCSI connector on the back of
the hard drive?
Francis Laus, Malta.
Answer from the editorial. -
Yes, you can do it - all you need is the correct cable to
connect the GVP drive to the CD-ROM mechanism
and probably a power supply for the drive as well.
As far as software goes, you will need to get hold
of a CD-ROM handler so that the operating system
can communicate with it. Several software drivers
are in the public domain (such as AmiCDROM) so
ask your favourite PD library.
Alternatively, you should concider getting a CDTV.
At the moment the prices are extremely low, far
cheaper than a stand-alone CD-ROM drive. You can
link the CDTV to your A500 via Parnet and save a
bundle, as well as being able to use the CDTV spe-
cific titles which are available.
.info for Amiga Magazine #49 (April 1992)
Reader Mail
I think someone should walk into CBM and
give ‘em a good kick in the a-- and tell them
to get their act together or the Amiga and
CDTV will most likely die.
I just read the comparison between the
CD-I and I’m madder than hell. I think
CBM should upgrade CDTV to make it at
least equal with CD-I. They should make
it laserdisc compatible so that it could play
movies. I think that the Amiga will end up
like my Vectrex game system; it was good
but it died because the Atari 2600 and
7200 were easier to use. I don’t want the
same thing to happen to Amiga.
Cliff Griffith
 CU Amiga Magazine #34 (December 1992)
Amiga Workshop Letters

VTDC
Let me first congratulate you on the CU Amiga Magazine #32 (October 1992)
BackChat

great Multimedia feature in the October CD PRICE WAR?

issue. However, isn’t it a bit backwards of Now that Commodore have finally re-
Commodore to try selling the CDTV with- leased the A570, I wonder if we can
out at keyboard? I went and had a go on expect to see the high cost of Cd discs
one in Dixons, and it was like trying to drive to come down. Since the launch of the
a car without pedals or steering wheel! CDTV, disc prices have been astronomi-
What is the point of splashing out all cally high and have probably put off
that dosh on a computer when you can’t many people buying a system.
even work it properly? Software on con- I really cannot see any justification for
soles is written specifically for machines the high cost of CDs. Let’s face it, if a
without keyboards, so it’s not a problem, game comes on two or more conventional
but what happens when you boot up your floppies, then theoretically at least, a
CDTV and click on the CLI icon? Absolute- CD should be the cheaper alternative.
ly nothing, unless you’ve gone and bought CD discs can be pressed for as little as
the keyboard separately, and a floppy disk 59 pence these days whereas a floppy
drive. It’s little more than a CD player costs roughly 30 pence per disk. Okay,
that can show pictures. The future of so you could argue economy of scale, but
home computing and entertainment? Pull I think a lot of Amiga owners will either
the other one. take advantage of the CDTV upgrade
John McCready, Edinburgh offer or buy the A570. Hopefully, if this
is the case and CD sales take off, we can
expect the price of CD-based software
to nosedive. It may be a pipe-dream,
but I hope it happens.
CU Amiga Magazine #34 (November 1992) Paul Badkln, London.
BackChat

AMIGA IS CRAP!
I’m just writing to say that the PC Answer from the editorial. -
is far better than the Amiga, and It might already be happening, John. Ren-
anyone who disagrees is a complete egade have just announced that they will be re-
lemonhead. leasing their number one hit, Sensible Soccer
on the CDTV for only £19.99. Let’s hope more
J Cartwright, Middlesborough.
companies follow suit.

CU Amiga Magazine #34 (December 1992)

Amiga Workshop Letters

PC IS CRAP!
In response to J Cartwright’s let- CU Amiga Magazine #34 (December 1992)

ter (Backchat, November 92), I’d Amiga Workshop Letters

just like to say that the Amiga is Answer from the editorial. -
better than the PC any day, and Right, that’s this month’s PC vs
anyone who disagrees is a complete Amiga debate over with. And these
bananahead. two were probably the most con-
structive!
I Borem, Macclesfield

magazine letters • 283

 article from Amiga Power Magazine (July 1991)
Acronym nuts will be pleased
to learn that CDTV apparently
stands for Commodore Dynam-
ic Total Vision. But most of us
can happily bimble through life
clutching two very simple abbre-
viations. They are CD and TV,
and they are self-explanatory.
However, CDTV’s
grand title is the seed
from which all manner WHY NOBODY KNOWS
of trouble has grown.
When important peo- WHAT THE HELL IS
ple were first shown the
CDTV they were utterly
enraptured. That was
GOING ON...
two years ago, and still CDTV
is not in the shops. In the mean-
time, everyone and their word
processors have been busily
attempting to quantify and ex-
plain, what the hell is going on.
Commodore confused the mat-
ter further by launching the dear
thing every time more than half
a dozen journalists assembled
in the same place. One industry
wit described it as ‘the ship that
faced a thousand launches.’
Hacks from everything from
The Daily Telegraph to Toy
Trader duly started scribbling
about how ‘hard it is to explain’
before introducing our friend the
businessman, who made a point
of talking nonsense about mixed
up multimedia generations, thus
making the prediction nicely
true.
Much of the confusion stems
not from CDTV’s undoubted ca-
pabilities as a games machine,
but from its untested capabilities
as an information database. Pro-
grams in the offing includes The
Complete Works of Shakespeare,
the Illustrated Holy Bible, and
the World Vista Atlas, and with
284 • magazine article
that sort of thing sitting along-
side straight shoot-‘em-ups it be-
comes easy to see where some of
the confusion comes from. The
problem isn’t just that nobody
knows what the machine can do,
it’s that nobody knows who it’s
meant to be aimed at.
But anyway, back to the infor-
mation database stuff. Instead of
flicking through paper versions
of these fine works, you wan-
der through pictorial databases
soaking up information at will.
If, for instance, you were inter-
ested in bonkers Shakesperian
characters, you could easily call
up all information on King Lear,
Hamlet, Lady Macbeth and Titus
Andronicus. It’s not a game, but
it can be more fun than wading
through a Penguin edition of the
Bard’s doings. Other interesting
little fancies include All Dogs Go
to Heaven and Electric Crayon,
which acts as a digital colouring
book for youngsters.
But let’s get back to games.
You’ll recognise many of the ti-
tles on offer simply because soft-
ware houses are smart enough to
try their best games on the new
format. This means we won’t
be offered a heap of old rubbish
(though the existence of Psycho
Killer tends to refute this) but the
best in entertainment software.
Falcon, Future Wars, Xenon
II, Pro Tennis, BAT, Lemmings,
Battlestorm. They’re all here as
well as some pretty odd offer-
ings which, we’re told, are be-
ing written with the intention
of making the most of CDTV.
Tiger Media’s Airwave Adven-
ture — Case of the Cautious
Condor is an Agatha Christie-
style detective romp featuring
more than 1,000 scenes.
It’s kind of like watching
a movie, except you call
the shots. The CD-based
FM Towns version has
already been scooping
awards in Japan.
Move style games are
top of the agenda for forward
thinking producers and it’s no
surprise that Lucasfilm have
waded in with an extended ver-
sion of the Battle of Britain
cracker Their Finest Hour. Tal-
ented animation team Sullivan-
Bluth of Dragon’s Lair fame are
also working on a science fiction
extravaganza.
Programs cost anything from
£30 for an Amiga conversion,
to £50 for a really special game.
When you consider that the
hardware costs £600, it’s hardly
a purchase taken lightly.
For current Amiga owners
(and I’m guessing there are quite
a few of you reading this) there
is the option of a £299 CD drive
which, it is being claimed, will
turn your machine into a CDTV
(though, of course, it won’t pack
it away in the snug black box).
Optimistically, Commodore
expect 80 per cent of Amiga own-
ers to come up with the cash.
We’re not so sure. There’s no
doubt that your pals will be im-
pressed if you tool up with some
CDTV kit, but your bank manag-
er might not be so overwhelmed...
Hardware & Accessories
 Hardware & Accessories
These pages consists of different types of hardware released
for the CDTV. Not a lot of hardware managed to get released
before the console was dropped by Commodore, but the CDTV
is starting to see a resurgent of popularity which have increased
the interest in after market expansion hardware.
Hardware includes official Commodore releases, third-party,
after market and cancelled devices.
Since the CDTV is almost an Amiga computer a lot of third-par-
ty accessories are compatible with the system, but only hard-
ware that is specifically aimed for the system are listed here.

Wireless Mouse
Wired Mouse Publisher Commodore
Type Controller
Publisher Commodore Release date 1991
Type Controller Model nr. CD1252
Release date 1992
Model nr. CD1253 The official CDTV wireless (infrared)
mouse. The mouse have a timer that
A standard wired mouse that connects to will power it off automatically if it is not
the back of the CDTV player. used for a few minutes. A button on it’s
The wired mouse was not available un- side can be pushed to activate it again.
til 1992 and it’s not known if it was sold The mouse could at times be awkvard
separately. It came in a plain white box, to use since it requires a line of sight be-
which suggests it would have been part tween the mouse and the CDTV’s infra-
of a bundle. However both the CD1500 red sensor to function.
Professional pack and the CDTV Multi-
The mouse was sold separately in retail,
media Pack came bundled with the CD-
but it was also
1252 wireless mouse.
available as part
some text from cdtvland.com of the CD1500
Professional Bun-
dle and the CDTV
Multimedia Pack.
some text from
cdtvland.com

286 • Hardware - CDTV

Trackball Controller
Publisher Commodore
Type Controller
Release date 1991
Model nr. CD1200
The wireless trackball controller feature
all the keypad buttons that the standard
remote control has, but replaces the four-
way directional pad buttons with a track-
ing ball. The tracking ball makes it easier
and faster to control the mouse pointer
in CDTV applications or games. It also
replaces the A and B buttons with proper
left and right mouse-style buttons.
The CD1200 also has two standard joy-
stick ports at the bottom of the unit that
enables users to connect any pair of reg-
ular 9-pin D-connector joysticks to the
CD1200 and it will transfer the joystick
movements wirelessly to the CDTV.
The CD1200 controller came included
with 2 “C” batteries, warranties, instruc-
tions, and a cable for a wired connection
to the CDTV.
some text from cdtvland.com
Keyboard
Publisher Commodore
Type Keyboard
Release date 1991
Model nr. CD1221
The CD-1221 is the official CDTV key-
board. It was available in various layouts
(US, UK, German, French, Italian, Scan-
dinavian, AZERTY, etc.) and hooked up
to the back of the CDTV player
A less common variant of the CDTV key-
board has grey key caps similar to the
Amiga computer keyboards, instead of
the CDTV black. The variant was most
likely released as an cost saving mea-
sure.
The CDTV keyboard was available sep-
arately or as part of several CDTV bun-
dles.
some text from cdtvland.com
CDTV - Hardware • 287

Disk Drive
Publisher Commodore
Model nr. CD1411
Genre Hardware
The CD-1411 disk drive has a diskette
station with two read/write heads. It is
identical to the beige colored Amiga
1011 disk drive, except for the casing
which was made to be a color match for
the CDTV.
article from Amiga Computing Magazine #31 (Oct. 1998)
WEB HACKER STALLS THE INTERNET
Hacker, Eugene Kashpureff, plunged the Internet
into chaos last month with the most spectacular
hack since the 1998 Internet Worm paralysed the
Net.
Kashpureff claims to have exploited a loophole
in the Domain Name Service software normally
used to look up addresses of Internet sites which
allowed him to add his servers to the official list of
Internet domains and ‘top level’ servers.
The hacker’s actions were apparently a protest
against InterNIC’s monopoly on top-level domain
names and prevented Internet users all over the
world from connecting to their desired sites.
288 • Hardware - CDTV
CD Caddy 2-Pack
Publisher Commodore
Type Accessory
Release date 1991
Model nr. CD1400
The CDTV Player’s CD-ROM drive can-
not accept optical media directly. Any
CD or CD-ROM needs to be placed into
a caddy before it can be inserted into the
player. Every CDTV player came packed
with one free black caddy.
The official CDTV branded caddies were
sold in 2-packs and cost $30 a pack.
Only the packaging carries the CDTV
and Commodore branding. The caddies
themselves were industry standard and
do not seem to carry any branding.
The CD Caddy 2-Pack were included with
some CDTV bundles that were released
mid-1992 in North America (CDTV Pro-
fessional Pack,
CDTV Library
Pack and CDTV
Learning Pack).
some text from
cdtvland.com
Cerbenet was one of the few ISP’s to escape the
chaos. According to Cerbenet’s Technical Direc-
tor, Justin Kerry “The Internet still depends on a
level of trust and community. The InterNIC’s mo-
nopoly on domain naming runs contrary to this
spirt, and yet depends on co-operation by all ISPs
in that we must all choose to use the official root
name servers. Most ISPs don’t even realise they
are effectively bolstering the IncterNIC monopo-
ly. Sadly the whole Internet has suffered the con-
sequences of unilateral action taken by AlterNIC
to smash this monopoly by overriding our name
server choices”.
 1084S-D2
Publisher Commodore
Release date 1992
Model nr. 1084S-D2
Type Monitor

The Commodore 1084 was Commodore’s flag-

ship monitor. It was a monitor that worked with
everything they produced in the late 1980s,
including a lot of non-Commodore computers.
The monitor was introduced in early 1988, not
long after the Commodore 2002 monitor, which
was the first monitor Commodore billed as a
universal monitor.
The initial 1084 The only difference between the 1084
units were made by and 1084S monitor is the 1084S had two
Philips. Philips sold identical- speakers, and therefore, two speaker in-
looking monitors under its own label in puts, to accommodate the Amiga’s ste-
North America at the same time. Com- reo sound.
modore flipped 1084 production from Pricing could vary, but Tenex Computer
Philips to Daewoo and back multiple Express advertised the 1084S for $319
times. There are at least 13 variants of in its winter 1991 catalog. The non-S ver-
the 1084, varying just in case styling sions tended to sell for closer to $300.
and which company made them.
The 1084S-D2 version does not carry
The 1084 feature Analog RGB to match any visible CDTV branding, but it was
the Amiga’s output. However, it also created specifically for the CDTV line. It
worked with digital RGB like IBM CGA
is part of the 1084 series of Commodore
and the Commodore 128’s 80-column
monitors. It was released in 1992, after
display, and composite video like the
Commodore repositioned the CDTV as
C64. It was a universal monitor that
an Amiga computer. Whereas the CDTV
worked with every computer Commo-
keyboard, mouse and disk drive were
dore made at the time. The 1084 also
available both separately and as part of
worked with many non-Commodore
the CDTV Multimedia Pack, this monitor
computers, including the Apple IIgs and
was generally sold separately (although
Atari ST.
individual dealers might have sold it
bundled with CDTV packs).

FRONT PANEL

BACK PANEL

some text from dfarq.homeip.net / cdtvland.com

CDTV - Hardware • 289

 PAL Video Module
Publisher Commodore
Release date 1991
Genre Video
Each region received the same CDTV
model, but with a different video module
that matched the video standard in each
region. The video modules are remov-
able which lets users choose whatever
video module they want for their CDTV.
A key, included with most video
modules, is used to disconnect
the module from the back of the
CDTV unit.
The PAL Video Module were installed on
CDTV systems sold some places in Eu-
rope and the UK.
SCART Module
Publisher Commodore
Model nr. CD1321
Genre Video
The SCART video module gives the
CDTV the ability to connect to a TV with
scart connector. The SCART module re-
places the CDTV’s original video module.
SCART was a European standard and
include both composite and RGB video,
stereo audio input/output and digital sig-
nalling.
The SCART Video Module was sold as
a separate accessory in most markets,
however it seems that CDTV players
sold by Commodore France had the
SCART video module built-in as stan-
dard instead of the base RF/composite
video module. France used neither PAL
nor NTSC as their video broadcast stan-
dard, but instead had their own SECAM
standard. Given that there do not seem
to exist any CDTV SECAM video mod-
ules, including a SCART video module
and SCART cable seemed to solve that
problem.
“cdtvland.com”

NTSC Video Module

Publisher Commodore
Release date 1991
Genre Video

The NTSC Video Module, which were

installed on CDTV systems sold in Noth
America, feature Composite Video, S-
Video, RF Out and a Channel Select
Switch.

290 • Hardware - CDTV

 Memory Card
Genlock Module Publisher Commodore
Publisher Commodore Type Hardware
Model nr. CD1300 / CD1301 Release date 1991
Genre Video Model nr. CD1401, CD1405

The Genlock Video Module is a device
for maintaining synchronization between
a video signal and the CDTV, enabling
video images and computer graphics to
be mixed.
It is possible to plug any com-
posite source video signal (like a VCR,
video camera or Laserdisc player) into
the Genlock Video Module and then use
the CDTV to add titles or graphics to this
video signal and record the result to e.g.
a second VCR.
Two versions of the Genlock Video Mod-
ule were released. CD1300 is the NTSC
genlock and CD1301 is the PAL genlock
module.
“cdtvland.com”
The CDTV player has a memory card
slot that is accessible through the front
panel were users could install either
a 64K or 124K CDTV Memory Card (a
common misconception is that these are
PCMCIA cards). They were meant as a
way to save a game state. Because they
plugged straight into the CDTV’s ad-
dress bus, they were also addressable
as regular RAM. This means they could
expand the total amount of memory of
the CDTV, which could have let it per-
form various tasks, such as installing
drivers (resident modules), or as Amiga-
DOS devices. But, these features re-
mained unused during the original life of
the CDTV.
Not many memory cards were manu-
factured, because they were very ex-
pensive technology back in the early
1990s. This makes them very hard to
find nowadays, especially the 256K card
(CD-1405), which can fetch over $500
on auction sites.
some text from cdtvland.com

Genlock Demo
Publisher Commodore
Genre Demo

Instructions on how to
install the CDTV genlock
and provides simple infor-
mation and software for EJECT
overlaying video titles on
VCR action.

CDTV - Hardware • 291

 article from
Amiga Computing Magazine 42,
(Nov. 91)

24-bit art
Everybody seems to be talking
about 24-bit graphics nowadays.
There has been an explosion of
cards and add-on boxes providing
all sorts of extra graphics modes
for every Amiga and to suit almost
every pocket.
Ranging from the £299 HAM-
E to the £1,500 Harlequin board,
these products have one purpose: to
provide better quality graphics on
the Amiga.
But these boards also have
one major drawback: they are all
completely incompatible. To make
things worse Commodore will, no
doubt, soon launch their A2410
graphics boards for the Amiga 2000
and 3000. At the moment this only
works under Unix, so don’t expect
it too soon.
Until one of the products es-
tablishes itself as the standard you
won’t find much software that will
support these products. In America
a standard appears to be emerging
— which, unfortunately, is prob-
ably the least technically capable of
all of the options: Digital Creations
DCTV.
Commodore even appear to be
backing this as the official 24-bit
upgrade for CDTV. At the moment
DCTV is NTSC only, so it won’t
work on European PAL systems.
A PAL version is being worked on,
but it won’t be here for a while.
All of these add-ons — with
the exception of the higher resolu-
tion boards like the Harlequin, and
the Video Toaster, which is much
more than just a 24-bit card — may
be rendered obsolete overnight if
Commodore release the new su-
per-enhanced chipset they are ru-
moured to be working on. This will
have DCTV/HAM-E quality graph-
ics built-in to the Amiga chips.

292 • Hardware - CDTV

DCTV
Publisher Digital Creations
Release date 1991
Genre Video

The DCTV is a video digitizer that turns digital

data from the RGB port to composite televi-
sion signal. It connects to both the video port
and the parallel port of an Amiga or CDTV.
The DCTV is capable of grabbing an image
from virtually any video source and display-
ing full color spectrum video signals on a
composite output.
The information is encoded into spe-
cial Amiga display screens that DCTV rec-
ognizes by a signature in the upper-left cor-
ner. These screens contain the digitized and
compressed form of the analogue waveform
data required to create the composite display
The resulting composite image qual-
ity could be either far better, or much worse
than a normal Amiga RGB display. It excels
for pictures that contain a lot of color changes
(like photographic materials), but in case of
pictures with a lot of detail (like text) the dis-
play is blurry.
It supports resolutions from 640×200 to
736×482/566 (NTSC/PAL) in 24 bit. CDTV Version

Included with the DCTV, other then the man-

ual, were several disks with software, such
as a paint editor, software that converts im-
ages created by the digitizer into standard WHAT IS DCTV?
Amiga files and tutorials on how to use the INPUT
digitizer.
COLOR VIDEO CAMERA DIRECT MOUSE INPUT

It retailed for $495 in 1991 and was available

in both PAL and NTSC versions. Therer were STILL VIDEO CAMERA
DIGITIZE
PAINT

two versions of the DCTV—a larger and a IFF, ILBM, HAM, TRUE COLOR
UP TO 24-BIT. REGISTERS UP
TO 256 COLORS, DCTV DIS-
smaller—but these seem to be identical in- VCR WITH GOOD
FREEZE FRAME
PLAY, RGB8, RAW - PICTURES

ternally and only different in the size of the

plastic case. A rare version were designed LASER DISC PLAYER
WITH FREEZE FRAME 24-BITFILES FROM

especially for the CDTV and included a mod- OUTPUT COLOR SCANNERS

ule to install in the CDTV video slot.

Although DCTV does not interfere with nor- VIDEO CONVERT 24 BIT

mal genlock operation, its output cannot be

fed into a genlock without the DCTV RGB
COMPOSITE MONITOR 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 COLOR ILBMs 24-BIT FILES FOR USE IN
Converter. VCR
VIDEO TILTING
HALFBRITE
HAM
DESKTOP PUBLISHING AND
PRINTING
ANIMATIONS
“amiga.resource.cx” 35MM SLIDERS FROM SCREEN

CDTV - Hardware • 293

 RocGen+
Publisher Roctec
DCTV RGB Converter Release date 1992
Genre Video
Publisher Digital Creations
Release date 1992 RocGen Plus is a genlock device. It
Genre Video feature composite input, output and
passthrough (3× RCA). It was reportedly
The DCTV RGB Converter is an expan-
notorious for poor quality and sufferered
sion for the DCTV that allows the DCTV
from inexplicable colour loss and over-
to output its display onto an RGB moni-
all bad image quality. Furthermore it re-
tor instead of composite. It also allows a
quired a constant video feed to behave
genlock to superimpose the DCTV pic-
normally.
ture over live video.
It has separate Amiga and video dissolve
knobs for varying degree of overlay or
keyhole effect on the front of the device.
“bigbookofamigahardware.com”

Back Panel

VDAmiga II
Publisher Merkens EDV
Genre Video

VDII is a fast external color digitizer com-

patible with any Amiga model including VD-4 Amiga
CDTV. The digitizer supports all resolu-
Publisher Merkens EDV
tions and B/W.
Genre Video
The front feature a switch (switching be-
tween digitizing and printing), CHR/TRIG VD-4 have mostly the same features as
and Video. the VDAmiga II.
“bigbookofamigahardware.com” “bigbookofamigahardware.com”

294 • Hardware - CDTV

 BigRAM CD
Elbox CDTV/2
Publisher W.A.W. Elektronik
Release date 1994 Publisher Elbox
Genre Memory Release date 1997
Genre Memory
A 1 MB Chip RAM expan-
sion unit for a total of 2 2Mb RAM by Polish publisher Elbox. It
MB. It connects to the Fat plugs directly into the CPU socket.
Agnus’ socket which is An 8Mb RAM card were released a year
replaced with Super Ag- later. Both cards feature real time clock
nus. With the 2 MB Fast with auto-recharge battery.
RAM, an adaptor board
has to be connected to
the Gary’s socket.
“amiga.resource.cx”

BigRAM CD8
Publisher W.A.W. Elektronik
Release date 1994
Genre Memory

A provision for up to 8 MB
ZIP RAM (earlier boards
had sockets, later the
ZIPs have to be soldered
onto the board) that con-
nects to the diagnostic slot and can be
installed together with the BigRAM CD
“amiga.resource.cx”

magazine review; CU Amiga Magazine 40 (jun. 1993)

CDTV 2Mb RAM Card

Inc. 2Mb Zero Wait State Fast-RAM
Auto-Recharge Battery Real-time clock
Fits easily into the CPU 68000 socket
Fully auto-configuring Fast-RAM
Increases the speed of your Amiga CDTV
£49.95

296 • Hardware - CDTV

magazine review; CU Amiga Magazine 40 (jun. 1993)

CDTV Memory Switch

If you’ve got an 1Mb CDTV, you’ve probably
realised by now that you can’t actually use the
full megabyte. The CD drive uses a buffer of
50K to keep the access times as low as possible,
but it takes this 50K from your 1Mb of RAM.
This isn’t too much of a problem in most cases,
but some programs needs the whole megabyte
to run properly. This is the cause of virtually all
CDTV incompatibly problems.
The switch simply disables the CD drive, and
reclaims that extra 50K. Installing it is quite
straightforward, but you have to take the case off
the CDTV, which will void your warranty. A dia-
gram is included with the instructions to help you
locate the jumper on the circuit board. There’s
no neat way of passing the wire through the cas-
ing of the CDTV, but it works fine if you put it
through the gap and around the PCM-CIA slot at
the front (although it does look a bit messy).
It works perfectly, but if the machine breaks
down, it’ll be up to you to get it fixed. At £12.99
it’s a bit pricey, considering the parts can’t cost
more than about £2.
Review score: 69%
magazine review; CU Amiga Magazine 40 (jun. 1993)
DISABLE CDTV
memory utility
Applications software is usu-
ally configurable in a number
of forms, which can often
avoid incompatibly prob-
lems, but quite often a few
games have fallen foul of the
CDTV’s memory loss. We tested a hardware solution to the
problem, but at £2.00, the software alternative does sound
tempting.
The utility itself comes on an autobooting disk, but
the idea is that you add it to your startup sequence. It cures
the memory shortage problem if you’re using AmigaDOS
disks, but doesn’t survive a reset, so it’s no use with most
games. This is a bit of a shame, as it’s games that are worst
hit. Even so, if you’ve got a Workbench compatible program
that needs that little bit extra RAM, Disable CDTV will do
the job.
Review score: 75%

Megachip
Publisher DKB
Genre Memory

The Megachip is designed

for the A500, A2000 and
CDTV. It includes a new-
er Agnus chip (as found
in the A3000) to address
2MB of CHIP RAM. The megachip has a
wire which needs connecting to either the
CDTV RAM 68000 CPU socket or pin 36 on the Gary
Chip.
Publisher Micro-Luc
Release date 1994 “bigbookofamigahardware.com”
Genre Memory

2 and 8 Mb RAM were

released for the CDTV
by Polish Micro-Luc.
“amiga.resource.cx”

CDTV - Hardware • 297

 Brick-Ette
Publisher Expansion Systems
Model nr. CD1321
Genre Controller accessory

The Brick The Brickette allows the user to connect

a standard Amiga joystick and mouse to
Publisher Commodore the “PS/2” style mouse port of the CDTV.
Release date Unreleased
Genre Controller accessory The adapter con-
tains a small 8bit mi-
The Brick, or the Two-Player IR interface, croprocessor which
as it was referred to in early news articles, provides three ad-
was a solution by Commodore for using ditional features; 3
a 9-pin D-Sub standard Amiga joystick speed rapid/auto
with the CDTV. The Brick would be able fire, 1 and 2 pixel
to relay the joystick movements wire- mouse resolution,
lessly to the CDTV player using infra- and reset.
red light. The Brick were shown on early
Some were bun-
press photos, such as the 1990 CDTV
dled with one or
press kit, but ended up quietly cancelled.
two Python Micro
Even though The Brick was never re- Switch Joysticks.
leased, the CDTV Trackball controller “bigbookofamigahardware.com”
have the same features and can also
wirelessly transmit
joystick events to
the CDTV player.
“cdtvland.com”

Remote Control Adapter

Publisher amiga68k.com
Genre Controller accessory

An after market adapter for using the

CDTV standard remote controller on oth-
JoPort er Amiga systems.
Publisher Interactive Multimedia It is plugged into the mouse or joystick
Genre Controller accessory port on an Amiga computer. The func-
tionality is equivalent to the conventional
The JoPort is an expansion for the CDTV
Amiga mice or joysticks. It is compatible
which provides it with two standard Ami-
with the A500, A1200, A1000, A2000,
ga 9pin Joystick / Mouse ports.
A3000 and A4000. The A600 is problem-
“bigbookofamigahardware.com” atic for mechanical reasons.

298 • Hardware - CDTV

Melody CDTV
Publisher Kato Developments
Release date Unreleased
Genre Audio

The Melody CDTV was a

Voice Master
sound card designed for Publisher Microdeal
the CDTV, but appears to Release date 1991
have been cancelled be- Genre Audio
fore commercial release. Voice Master includes a microphone and
The Melody CDTV was a CDTV connector. The microphone is
largely based around the connected to the parallel printer connec-
Melody 1200 Pro (which Melody 1200 tion slot on the back of the CDTV con-
is reportedly very similar sole. No software came included with
to the Melody 1200). the package.
The analogue output module of the CDTV The Voice Master can be used with dif-
is removed and CDTV’s onbord logic and ferent CDTV programs, such as Kara-
parts are used, no mechanical changes oke software and EuroTalk’s Language
to the housing are required. This allows Trainer.
the original RCA outputs of the CDTV to
produce both the native Amiga sound, as
well as sound from the melody.
The Melody CDTV would have the same
18/16bit DA-Converter that is used on the
Melody Z2, but without 20bit resolution.
The CDTV’s native audio, as well as CD-
ROM audio could be mixed with the au-
dio from the Melody. The Melody CDTV
would not support hardware MPEG de-
coding that other versions of the Melody
support.
The early versions of the card were ac-
tivated by booting from a CD, but there
were plans to offer upgraded CDTV
ROMs to contain the software for driving
the Melody.
“bigbookofamigahardware.com”

CDTV - Hardware • 299

 CDTV Flash Memory
Publisher Commodore
Release date 1990
Genre Hardware

Not sold as a consumer product, but de-

Blizzard CDTV
Publisher Phase 5 Digital Products
Release date Unreleased
Genre Accelerator
The Blizzard CDTV was a planned accel-
erator (PowerUP) card by Phase5 Digi-
tal Products, who already had released
a series of accelerator cards for different
Amiga systems. The CDTV card would
feature 2Mb RAM, sixteen 1M×1, 70 ns
SOJ chips, with a 68000 @ 7.14 MHz.
Blizzard accelerator cards has two differ-
ent processors, a Motorola 68000 series
(68k) and a PowerPC (backronym Per-
formance Optimization With Enhanced
RISC – Performance Computing), work-
ing in parallel, sharing the complete ad-
dress space of the Amiga computer sys-
tem. The idea is that the PowerPC can
be used to run software which supports
it, much faster than
any 68k processor
can, with the 68k
providing compat-
ibility with existing
68k Amiga soft-
ware.
“amiga.resource.cx”
signed and supplied to CDTV develop-
ers who were members of CATS (Com-
modore Amiga Technical Support). It
contains flash memory which allows the
CDTV’s PROMs (U34 and U35) to be
upgraded without having to
physically replace the chips
each time an
update was
released.
“bigbookofamigahardware.com”
Turbo CD
Publisher W.A.W. Elektronik
Release date 1994
Genre Accelerator
Turbo CD is a 68020 CPU 32-bit proces-
sor with a 68881 FPU clocked at 14.2
MHz. It fits into the CPU socket of the
CDTV, but does not have any additional
option for adding RAM. The card can be
switched back to 68000 mode for com-
patibility reasons if required by using a
jumper located on the card.
“bigbookofamigahardware.com”

300 • Hardware - CDTV

CDTV-Kick
Publisher Jopower
Genre Software upgrade

A kickstart switcher for

the CDTV which sup- SCSI-TV / SCSI-TV/570
ports two versions of
Publisher AmiTrix Development
kickstart, with an exter-
Release date 1994
nal switch for changing Genre SCSI Controller
between them.
“bigbookofamigahardware.com” The SCSI-TV and SCSI-TV/570 are
SCSI controllers. A 2.5” Quantum GO
drive may be mounted on the SCSI-TV
circuit board and an external connector
can connect to hard drives, scanners,
and tape backups, to a total of seven de-
CDTV-Kick vices.
SCSI-TV supports the Amiga AU-
Publisher ADN Design
TOCONFIG™ standard, providing auto-
Release date 2005
Genre Software upgrade booting capability with Rigid Disk Block
support, as well as the SCSI-direct pro-
After-market Kickstart switcher that al- tocol allowing many backup programs to
lows the installation of Kick- use SCSI tape drives.
start 3.1. It requires
The SCSI-TV installs in the expansion
CDTV bootROM v2.30
port accessible at the rear of the CDTV
to work.
or A570. It protrudes 1.75 inches out the
“amiga.resource.cx” back of the CDTV, and includes a black
endcap for the unit.
The SCSI-TV/570 is designed for the
A570 and extends approximately 5
inches out the back of the system, and
CDTV-Kick includes a white end cap for the unit to
match the A570.
Publisher W.A.W. Elektronik
“bigbookofamigahardware.com”
Release date 1993
Genre Software upgrade
SCSI-TV SCSI-TV/570
Allows the installation of
two Kickstarts simultane-
ously—1.3 / 2.0 / 3.1. It
is designed to fit around
other W.A.W. CDTV
expansions.
An external switch is used for selecting
between Kickstarts.
“amiga.resource.cx”

CDTV - Hardware • 301

 magazine article; CU Amiga Magazine 43 (September 1993)

MASS
written by: Jolyon Ralph

Sooner or later we all complain that

our Amiga doesn’t have enough
memory. But with a massive range
of hardware to choose from what’s
the best expansion for you? Jolyon
Ralph looks at the options.

l
STORAGE
remember when I longed for the storage that a 3.5”
floppy disk drive would give me - over 700Kb, on one
disk, and so fast! Nowdays, with modern games often
taking up 2Mb rather than the 32Kb of 10 years ago, and
even the simplest of productivity programs requiring lot
more still, the floppy drive is showing its age. Most Amiga
owners now see the need for a hard drive, but hard drives
aren’t the only options for expanded storage.

FLOPPY
FLOPPY DRIVES
DRIVES
The A4000 was the first Amiga to officially sup-
port a High Density drive, which was included
as standard.
The floppy drive is growing up. The
drive supplied with the Amiga 600
and 1200 is functionally identical
to the drive supplied with the Amiga
1000 back in 1985. It’s the same speed
and the same 880Kb capacity (al-
though now with Fast Filing System in
Kickstart 2.04 and above you can store
slightly more on each 880Kb disk).
Amiga external floppy drives are plentiful and
reasonably cheap. Most suppliers stock a range
of drives.
However, starting with later models of the
Amiga 3000 and 3000Tower, Commodore start-
ed fitting the 1.76Mb Hi-Density disk, storing
exactly double the data of the older model. It is
now fitted as standard in the Amiga 4000.
Of course double storage doesn’t come for
free. You can’t use normal disks as high den-
sity disks (usually labelled MF2-HD, DS-HD,
or 1.44Mb) which have an extra hole
cut into one corner of the disk. You
can try cutting holes into normal disks
if you want to convert normal 880Kb
disks to high density, but you’ll almost
certainly find the disks don’t last very
long, so I wouldn’t recommend it.
The other drawback to high density
is speed. The Amiga couldn’t handle
high density drives previously be-
cause the custom chips couldn’t han-
dle the data transfer rate from the high
density disks (double that of normal
disk drives). Commodore ‘solved’ this
by making the drive spin at half nor-
mal speed when high density disks are
used. This means formatting and cop- The composition of a standard 3.5” disk. The
ying these disks takes twice as long as data carrying layer is sandwiched by a protective
layer embedded in the plastic case.
normal! Standard 880Kb disks can be
read as normal in these drives, so you
will have no problems with software into an Amiga 500/1500/2000 requires
that is supplied on normal disks, and a little alteration to the drive, you may
I’ve not seen anything that isn’t! have to remove the outer casting and
This drive can be fitted to any Ami- swap with your current 880Kb drive.
ga 500, 1500, 2000 or 3000, if you can For those who require more than
get hold of it! The drives are very rare, just double floppy capacity, but want
and are made especially for the Amiga more flexibility than a single hard
3000/4000. The model to look for is disk can provide, the Insite 21Mb
the Chinon FB-357A, rather than the Floptical drive may be the answer.
normal Chinon FB-354 model, which Using special 3.5” floppy disks that
is the 880Kb standard drive. Fitting can store 21Mb (the same as an A590

302 • magazine article

hard drive), simply buy another 21Mb
disk when you have filled up the last
one. You will need a SCSI interface
to use this drive, so it’s ideal if you
already own a hard drive which you
have grown out of, although the 21Mb
size may be too small if you are seri-
ous about multimedia, 3D graphics or
desk top publishing, which can often
need large amounts of storage space
readily available.
ago had some decid- py the heads never touch the
2ND RULE OF
edly ropey drives in their hard disk (unless something
HARD DISKS
range, now supply nothing goes wrong). The heads float
but excellent products. YOU CAN NEVER HAVE
TOO MUCH STORAGE!
a thousandth of a centimetre
It used to be difficult Data will always expand above the surface of the disk,
to fill the hard disk space
buying hard drives, but available, a bit like Koi tens of times smaller than the
now I can honestly say Carp in a large fish pond,
but not as colourful.
width of a human hair. The
that unless you are look- gap is so small that atmos-
ing at specialist applications (such pheric particles, such as pollen or even
as digital video editing or CD-ROM cigarette smoke, are large enough to
mastering) you should go for the most get stuck between the head and the
megabytes per pound that you can af- disk, causing the drive to fail. For this

HARD
HARD DRIVES
DRIVES
ford, regardless of manufacturer.
The last important thing to realise an air pressure equalization vent cov-
It’s now reached the stage where se- when planning to buy a hard disk is ered with an ultra fine microfilter).
rious work on the Amiga invariably never underestimate the amount of
requires a machine fitted with a hard space you will need.
disk. There are literally thousands of Unless you are really not serious py disk, a magnetic read/write head
combinations of drives and control- about your Amiga, I’d suggest that moves over the surface of a spinning
lers available for the Amiga, so mak- anything under 60Mb is too small disk to read and/or write data.
ing the right choice is more difficult whatever. You will not believe how
than it may seem.
First, you have to chose the right
fast space can go. As i write, the
80Mb hard drive in this hard disk is
interface. This will depend on what
Amiga you have. Then check where
89% full. Having said that, the 1Gb
(1024Mb) of hard disks I have at the
you need to put the drive in. Check office is also over 80% full.
what drive bays you have available,
if any. If you do not have any inter- PLEASE EXPLAIN
nal space to put a hard drive, you will So, we know what sort of hard disk
probably need an external drive, but is needed, we know what size (both
beware — this can cost anything up physically and in capacity) is re-
to £100 more than the quired, we even know whatever
equivalent internal unit. 1 ST RULE OF drive we get it’s bound to be too
Most modern hard HARD DISKS small eventually, but what ex-
drives are very fast. CALCULATING SPACE actly IS a hard drive?
Add up however many
Compared to drives of Workbench disks, data Hard disks have developed
even two years ago, etc. that you will want to
disks, application disks, incredibly over the last 10
it’s difficult to find a install immediately on your years, but still rely on the same
hard disk and multiply by
‘bad’ drive on the mar- four. That will give you a basic technology. Inside the
ket. Quantum, Maxtor, that you should look for.
minimum megabyte size case is at least one hard metal
Toshiba, Digital and Fu- disk, called platters. Large
jitsu all make drives that are popular 1.2Gb devices can have nine or
with Amiga owners, and even Seagate more. Unlike the flimsy plastic disks
and Western Digital who, two or three inside a floppy disk, the platters are
tough 2mm thick metal, hence
the name hard disk. These
have a magnetic coating, sim-
ilar to the coating on a floppy
disk, but made at a much
higher precision.
The platters spin at 3600
revolutions per minute when
the hard disk is operating, giv-
ing it the characteristic hard
disk whining noise. Some
modern drives rotate at 4500
rpm, or faster.
A typical bare drive mechanism. Such devices are generic Above and below each disk
and will work on any machine providing you have the float the heads. Unlike a flop-
right interface.
reason the drive is sealed (except for
Apart from this, hard disks work in
almost exactly the same way as a flop-
REMOVABLE
REMOVABLE
DRIVES
DRIVES
A lot of people suffer from the sec-
ond law of hard disks syndrome —
there’s always too much data and not
enough hard disk space. What do you
do? Well, if you’re rich you buy a re-
movable hard drive system. There are
several now available and they use
a variety of different technologies to
achieve the same effect.
SYQUEST
The Syquest drive is the most popu-
lar of the removable drives on the
Amiga. It works in a very simple
way. Take the hard rigid disk from a
hard drive, and mount it in a remov-
able cartridge. When you have filled
up one disk you can take it out, put
in another cartridge and you can carry
on without problems. Syquest is avail-
able in 44Mb, 88Mb and now 105Mb
forms with both SCSI and IDE inter-
face versions. Slightly slower than a
normal hard disk, but not something
you’d notice unless you were running
a speed check program.
MAGNETOOPTICAL
MagnetoOptical (or MO) is the big
brother to the Syquest. This uses a
combination of magnetic and opti-
cal technology (hence MagnetoOpti-
cal) to provide access to phenomenal
amount of data storage. Available in

magazine article • 303

 A570
If you have an Amiga 500
or an Amiga 500+ you can
buy the Commodore A570
CD-ROM. This is currently
a bit of a bargain at £149. In
fact, if your A500 has been
relegated to the cupboard, or
for the kids to play games on,
now might the time to swipe
Commodore’s A570 gave CDTV it back, just to use it with this
The innards of a standard magneto-optical drive and car- compatibly to the A500 but, unfortu- wonderful drive. You can
tridge. Notice the magnetic at the centre of the board.
nately, nothing else. transfer files from CD to the
floppy drive, or you can use the Parnet
two forms, the more affordable 128Mb the magnet is so tiny, so you can get parallel network cable (available for
MO, available for under £1000, and 128Mb of data into a cartridge only a around £20) to link your A500/A570
the less affordable 600Mb MO, avail- little larger than a 3.5” disk. to your newer Amiga and access the
able for around £2000. There are sev- The third removable hard disk op- CD-ROM over the network from your
eral advantages of MO technology. tion is by far the simplest. Take a main machine.
First, the price of the cartridges. A standard 3.5” or 2.5” hard drive, and
128Mb MO cartridge costs less than put it in a box that can be removed CDTV
a 44Mb Syquest cartridge, and obvi- from your computer. Buy another With some places now selling the
ously much less per megabyte. Once drive and removable frame, and you CDTV at under £200 or less, this is
you have bought a drive and a few can swap them around. Not the cheap- again a bargain that serious Amiga
cartridges, the most expensive MO est and not the most ideal option, but users should consider. Buy a CDTV,
begins to pay for itself. The technol- it uses real hard disks running at real stick it under your monitor, and link
ogy is also much cleverer, and I do hard disk speeds, and it’s also secure. it to your Amiga with the Parnet cable
like clever things. Do you work at the office, unplug the mentioned before. You can then ac-
Normal magnetic media works by drive at the end of the day and lock it cess CDs from your Amiga with ease
dragging an electromagnetic over a in your safe, or you could even take it
magnetically sensitive surface that home and plug it into another Amiga. SCSI CD-ROM
changes state, or magnetic polarity (N For those who want top perform-

CD-ROM
or S), in a magnetic field. The prob- ance, the best way is with a real SCSI
lem with standard magnetic technol- CD-ROM drive (such as the Toshiba
ogy is making the magnet in the read/ XM3401B) linked to your Amiga. You
Now becoming increasingly popular
write head small enough that it only will need a SCSI controller and some
on the Amiga is CD-ROM. Whether
changes the data in the area under the special Amiga driver software (called
you want the latest game, hundreds of
head, and not the data in the area im- a CD-ROM filesystem), but you have
fonts, libraries of 24-bit image files,
mediately around it. And of course, if the advantage that it will run between
or the entire Fred Fish Public Domain
your little brother/kid/neighbours cat three and six times faster than using
back catalogue, buying them on CD-
decides to do their Iron Filings and a CDTV or A570 over a Parnet link.
ROM would save a fortune than it
Magnet experiment on top of your CD-ROM drives are read-only.
would otherwise cost in purchasing or
drive/cartridge, or someone decides to This means you can’t make your own
downloading the files from sources.
clean up the place and put those nice disks (unless you have lots of money
Currently there are three ways to link
shiny cartridges safely on top of the and time to spare) but there are plenty
a CD-ROM to your Amiga.
hi-fi speakers, then it’s goodbye data... of Amiga and CDTV discs out there to
MagnetoOptical gets around this buy, and you can access data on
with a two stage process. It uses a standard PC CD-ROM discs and,
material that is not magnetically with the correct CD-ROM file-
alterable at room temperature, but system, Macintosh discs too. You
only when heated up. Writing data can even play audio CDs
to this type of disk requires both CD-ROM discs look identical
a magnetic write head and a laser to the standard Audio CDs your
which is focused on a tiny area of Hi-fi takes. The great thing about
the disk which then heats up to the It was revolutionary but, unfortunately, the CDTV failed CD is that there are no moving
required temperature to change. As to capture the imagination of the consumer at large — in parts touching the disc, so they
the laser can focus extremely accu- spite of being black and expensive. Some groundbreak- should, in theory, last an awfully
ing software was produced for the machine though, and
rately, the area actually changed by many discoveries will be re-implemented. long time.

304 • magazine article

 They are made by taking a circle
of clear plastic, stamping the CD data
onto one side with a machine that
looks like a hi-tech printing press, and
then coating that surface with an ultra-
thin aluminium layer. This is topped
off with another thin layer of plastic,
the label is stamped on, it’s put in a
box and wrapped up for sale.
Most CD-ROM drives take CDs in
a special case called a caddy. It looks
like an overgrown floppy disk with
one transparent side. You flip open
the top, insert your CD, and you no
longer have to touch the actual CD,
it’s in its own protective case. Unfor-
tunately, Commodore decided to drop
the caddy for the new machine, the
Amiga CD32, but the A570, CDTV,
and almost all SCSI CD-ROM drives
still use the caddy. It may be slightly
more expensive, but it’s worth it to
keep your valuable discs safe.
Within 18 months it is highly likely
that the majority of Amiga software
will come on these silver discs rather
than on floppy. Not only can you get
over 660 disks worth onto a CD, but
it’s cheaper to produce on CD than the
four or five disks an average Amiga
product now comes on.
As CD-ROM drives conform to the ISO9660
standard anyone will do, even those designed
with the PC in mind.
CD32
Although no more an Amiga compu-
ter than the CDTV, the CD32 is likely
to be better supported and so may be-
come a route by which Amigas can
access CD-ROMs in an Amiga sort
of way instead of via a separate SCSI
drive as they do at present.
Upgrades have been promised for
the A1200 and the A4000 to allow them
not only to access CDs in this way, but
also to emulate the CD32 console.
This could be more important
than the A570 was, as the CD32 will
shortly support an MPEG cartridge al-
lowing it to confirm to the VideoCD
standard of Full Motion Video. This is
the standard which will also be sup-
ported by other CD consoles such as
the excellent but overpriced CD-i unit
TAPE
TAPE
STREAMERS
STREAMERS
The last group of storage devices to
gain a mention are probably the least
widely used on the Amiga.
Tapestreamers are older than hard
disks in technology terms. They
sound primitive, a cassette holding a
long reel of tape being read and writ-
ten to by a stationary magnetic head.
Although they can be used as a stor-
age device in their own right, tape
streamers have become a single-role
device on modern systems, a role ig-
nored by far too many users: back-up.
When 10Mb hard disks were the
norm it was not much of a hardship to
back-up your drive to floppy disk once
a day. When 20Mb hard drives took
over, the once a day back-up became
every other day. Now I’d challenge
anyone with a larger than 100Mb hard
drive to prove that they do floppy disk
back-ups other than in dire emergen-
cies. Often these dire emergencies are
immediately after a serious system
crash, exactly the wrong time to do
a back-up. Tapestreamers provide a
simple way to back-up large amounts
of data to tape in case of accidents.
There are several types of tapes-
treamers available on the Amiga. All
the ones I have used are SCSI devices.
CD6000 TYPE: Standard 150/250Mb
tapestreamers, such as the popular
Archive Viper, take industry-standard
CD6150/6250 tapes to store either
150Mb or 250Mb of data. They can
back-up at over 5Mb per minute and
are ideal for small to medium sized
hard drives. High density tape drive
versions can use similar sized cartridg-
es to store up to 545Mb on one tape.
4MM DDS (DIGITAL DATA STORAGE:
4mm Tapestreamers, or DAT tapes-
Backing-up is hard to do, unless you have a
nice tape-streamer. The latest models employ
DAT technology.
treamers use the little matchbox-sized
DAT (Digital Audio Tape) cassettes
to store obscene amounts of data (up
to 2Gb, or 8Gb with hardware data
compression) at the incredible speed
of 14Mb per minute. For anyone with
over 600Mb of hard disk space at DAT
back-up system is almost essential.
8MM EXABYTE: 8mm is similar in
principle and performance to 4mm
DAT, except it uses 8mm tapes, iden-
tical, at least in casing, to Hi-8 Video
Tapes. About 1.5-2 times the cost of
an equivalent DAT system, 8mm has
the advantage of capacity. It can store
5-10Gb on a tape with ease, and future
8mm systems promise much, much
more. Only for those with serious sys-
tems to back-up.
Whatever system you choose, you
will need tape back-up software. This
varies from the simple and cheap PD
software (BTNTape and TAR are a
good back-up combination for tape
use) to high quality packages like
Quaterback 5.0 and AmiBack 2.0,
both of which support all three types
of tape drives well.
DEVICE SIZES
Most storage devices conform fairly closely to one of five
standard sizes.
2.5”: The size of the miniature hard disk that fit in the
A500/1200.
3.5”: Standard sized 3.5” hard drives are 1.6” high. Only
larger capacity 3.5” drives now come in this format.
3.5” 1” HIGH: As the name suggests, the same as 3.5”,
but only 1” high (some floppy disk drives are now even
thinner than this)
5.25” FULL HEIGHT: Giant monster-sized boxes com-
pared to 2.5” drives, the format used by the original 5Mb
and 10Mb hard drives 10 years ago. Now only very large
capacity hard drives (>1000Mb) and more complex opti-
cal drives are supplied in this format.
5.25” HALF HEIGHT: The most common format for
CD-ROM, Tapestreamers, Syquest, etc. It’s just what
it says, exactly half the height of the 5.25” Full Height
drives, but equal in other dimensions. The Amiga
2000/1500/3000T/4000/4000T all have 5.25” Half Height
bays to add expansion devices.
It’s possible to mount smaller hard drives in a bay
designed for a larger device, special mounting frames are
available just for this purpose, and most Amiga SCSI con-
trollers have room on the card for mounting a 3.5” device.
magazine article • 305
 ALL
ALL ABOUT
ABOUT
INTERFACES...
INTERFACES...
All the devices mentioned in this arti-
cle will need some sort of interface to
connect to your Amiga. Some of these
interfaces are included as standard to
your Amiga, others you will have to
buy separately.
For those with Zorro capability,
finding an interface isn’t hard — vir-
tually every interface is available as a
standalone card. Most of these cards
actually combine more than one in-
terface standard (dual IDE and SCSI
combination are common) and may
include extra RAM capability as well.
When choosing an interface it is
important to bear in mind future ex-
pansions as well. You don’t want to
have your Amiga bogged down with
interfaces with one drive attached
to each. For this reason many peo-
ple choose a SCSI drive, as it allows
many more units to be connected to
the same interface. However, there is
more than one type of SCSI. Here is
a brief selection of the range of inter-
face available.
FLOPPY INTERFACE
External floppy drives, both standard
880Kb and the newer 1.44Mb hi-den-
sity drives both connect to the stand-
ard 23-way floppy disk port on your
Amiga. Some external tapestreamers
can connect to this port, too.
IDE
The AT-IDE interface is now included
as standard in the Amiga 600, 1200
and 4000 computers. Optional AT-
IDE interfaces can be bought for all
other Amiga models. IDE, or Inte-
grated Drive Electronics, is used to
link cheap hard drives to the Amiga,
both 2.5” in the A600/1200 and 3.5”
in the Amiga 4000. IDE is limited
in two devices, called Master and
Slave, and currently only hard disks
and removable drives (e.g. Syquest)
are available for IDE but, contrary to
popular belief, it is actually quite fast
and similar in performance to a decent
SCSI-1 set up.
IDE comes with two different
types of interfaces; 40pin, which is
used on the 3.5” drives found in the
306 • magazine article
benefits. There are three different va-
rieties of SCSI-2:
SCSI-2 (standard). This is just a new
SCSI command set (a set of rules for
data transmission) that makes more
efficient use of standard SCSI-1-type
cabling. Most new devices support
SCSI-2 commands.
SCSI-2 FAST: This is the standard
supported by the new Commodore
A4091 SCSI-2 board for the Amiga
4000. It uses all 50 pins of the SCSI
cable rather than the 25 used previ-
ously, so external SCSI-2 ports use
a miniature 50-way connector rather
than the normal 25-pin connectors
A standard hard drive expansion for the Ami- found on the A590, Amiga 3000, GVP
ga consists of a ZORRO II card containing cards. etc. It can transfer data at over
the interface with the drive mechanism piggy-
double the speed of standard SCSI.
backed on top.
SCSI-2 WIDE: SCSI-2 Wide is cur-
Amiga 4000, and 44pin, used on the rently supported by only two or three
small 2.5” drives for the A600/1200. drives worldwide, and no Amiga con-
Although it’s possible to get adaptors trollers yet support this. It takes SCSI-
to convert between the two standards, 2 FAST but transfers data 32-bits at
it’s not easy and not highly recom- a time, double normal SCSI-2. Up
mended. If you have a 44pin con- to four times SCSI-1 data transfer is
nector, stick to 2.5” drives, and if available with SCSI-2 wide.
you have a 40pin connector, use 3.5”
drives. OTHERS
Various other interfaces are still avail-
SCSI (OR SCSI-1) able. MFM and RLL are obsolete in-
The SCSI Interface is the favourite terfaces which were found on PC hard
amongst third-party suppliers and drives until two or three years ago.
professional Amiga owners. SCSI They are difficult to set up, slow and
stands for Small Computer Systems unreliable, but since they have gone
Interface, and allows you to link up to out of fashion they are also very cheap
seven SCSI devices to your computer, (which is one thing in their favour).
including hard disks, optical drives, The Commodore A2090 and A2090A
scanners, tape streamers, CD-ROMs, used these drives, as does the Cumana
etc. The recommended SCSI-1 inter- Com-201 interface. Another PC inter-
faces are — GVP HC-8/HD-8 (For face that hasn’t survived in popularity
A500/1500/2000/4000), now that SCSI and
Commodore A2091 (For IDE have taken the
A1500/2000 only — world by storm is
does NOT work well ESDI. Unfortunate-
with A4000). ly no-one ever made
an ESDI interface
SCSI-2 for the Amiga, and
The new replacement it seems very doubt-
for SCSI is called SCSI- ful that anyone ever
2. It is compatible with will, so the only way
SCSI (SCSI devices to use ESDI drives
will work with SCSI- with the Amiga is
2 controllers, and vice via some kind of PC
versa, but only at stand- The SCSI-2 interface for the Amiga Bridgeboard.
ard SCSI speeds) but of- has arrived in the shape of the ICD
fers major performance Trifecta card. by: CU Amiga
 WHAT INTERFACE DO YOU NEED?
Some Amigas have hard drive interfaces built-in as standard, others do not. Here
are our suggestions for expansion cards to use with those that do not.
MODEL HD FLOPPY IDE SCSI SCSI-2 DAT/TAPESTREAM CD-ROM FLOPTICAL

Amiga 1000 no various various no no SCSI only Insite via SCSI

Amiga 500 Power XL/Chinon various various no via SCSI A570 / SCSI Insite via SCSI

Amiga 2000 Power XL/Chinon Zorro Card A2091 Fitted Trifecta via SCSI SCSI only Insite via SCSI

Amiga 1500 Power XL/Chinon Zorro Card Zorro Card Trifecta via SCSI SCSI only Insite via SCSI

Amiga 3000 fitted Zorro Card fitted Trifecta via SCSI SCSI only Insite via SCSI

Amiga 3000T Amiga 3000T Zorro Card fitted Trifecta via SCSI SCSI only Insite via SCSI

Amiga CDTV no Taurus Taurus no no fitted no

Amiga 600 Power XL/Chinon fitted no no no no no

Amiga 1200 Power XL/Chinon fitted GVP/ICD card not yet via SCSI SCSI/CD32 upgrade Insite via SCSI

Amiga 4000 fitted fitted GVP HC8+ A4091 via SCSI/SCSI-2 SCSI/CD32 upgrade Insite via SCSI

Amiga 4000T fitted fitted GVP HC8+ A4901 via SCSI/SCSI-2 SCSI/CD32 upgrade Insite via SCSI

Bodega Bay™ advert;

WHAT TO GET WHEN YOU’VE

OUTGROWN THE AMIGA 500

drives. So don’t worry, you can’t out-

BODEGA BAY™
MODULAR EXPANSION CONSOLE
Finally, you can take advantage of the
assortment of A2000 cards available
without giving up your A500. With
the Bodega Bay you can expand your
grow your A500 because now you’ve
got the power to make it grow with
your needs.
EXPANSION
OPTIONS RIVALING THE A2000
IN POWER AT A MUCH LOWER PRICE.

Amiga 500 with four A2000 compati-

FULL ACCESS TO
ble 100-pin slots. There are three over- ALL THE A500 EXTERNAL PORTS
lapping IBM® XT/AT slots as well
that allow you to use a Bridge Board. Check amibay.com if you are interest-
In order to run all those new add-ons, ed in the Bodega Bay.
we’ve included an internal high watt-
ERGONOMICALLY
age power supply. And, we’ve incor-
DESIGNED AND EASY TO INSTALL porated space for three internal disk

magazine article • 307

magazine article; CU Amiga #15 (may 1991)
CDTV HD
When is a CDTV not a CDTV? When
it’s a CDTV-HD of course. Confused?
So was Nick Veitch.
LET’S GET HARD
There’s one really annoying thing
about the CDTV. Well, in fact, there
are probably quite a lot of really an-
noying things about the CDTV, but
I’m only going to talk about one of
them: expandability.
Commodore designed and launched
this device as a ‘multimedia entertain-
ment system’. In that respect it is an
excellent piece of kit, but maybe they
made it look a bit too much like a hi-fi
separate. Although inside beats a heart
that’s pure Amiga, it’s that of a stunt-
ed Amiga — it’ll never be more than
4’11”. The one things that would have
spoilt the sleek lines of the CDTV is
an expansion port. Without such a port
the world of hard drives, memory ex-
pansions etc., is almost closed. But not
quite.
Calculus Stores now have CDTV’s
available which have internal hard-
drives already installed. Everyone by
now must have realised that an Ami-
ga without a hard-drive is an Amiga
with which it is very difficult to run
proper application software. In fact,
some of the software released recently
requires a hard-drive to run (Profes-
sional Page and Professional Draw
spring to mind).
HARD-DRIVE NECESSITY
Too few CDTVs have been sold to ac-
curately judge the sort of people they
are selling to, so it is difficult to say
whether the ability to run certain ap-
plications could a critical purchase
factor. However, it is unlikely that the
ability to play the same games off disc
instead of disks is going to be a tre-
mendous selling point.
A hard drive is very useful if you use
Workbench a great deal. A hard drive
is very useful if you create files which
are very large (e.g.
graphics, sound,
DTP, etc.). A hard-
drive is very useful
if you value your
time. A hard drive
is very useful if
you don’t want
to end up wad-
ing through small
squares of plastic.
There are thou-
sands of reasons.
The Compact Disc may be a won-
derful retrieval system for reading
information, but you can’t write any-
thing back to it. This is a major disad-
vantage unless you have an alternative
mass-storage device, like a hard-drive.
It’s a bit pointless being able to access
the full Adobe font library from CD if
you can’t run the DTP software that
could make use of it.
THE DRIVE
The mechanism itself, and the con-
troller, sit inside the CDTV case.
The drive itself may vary, but most
are likely to be supplied with a SCSI
mechanism with an access time of
around 18-20 milliseconds, which
doesn’t quite match the speed of the
drives you might find in a 2000, but
is about as fast as your standard A500
drive.
There is very little possibility what-
soever of getting another drive to fit
in as well, so you are limited to your
initial choice, unless you replace the
mechanism entirely. It could be possi-
ble to situate a drive outside, but only
through some nasty and unreliable
ribbon-cable connections sneaking
out the back.
It may look like just another CDTV,
but this unit houses a fully functional
Amiga hard drive, making it more
like a multimedia application plat-
form and less like a quirky CD player.
A hard drive is as necessary to the
CDTV as the keyboard.
CONCLUSION
The unit is well put together, prob-
ably quite reliable and an excellent
solution for this who want to use the
power of CD-technology not purely
for its entertainment value, but also
for its productivity potential. The
hard-drive aspect of the machine will
not be so important for those who buy
the CDTV to use purely as an enter-
tainment system, but for those who
consider it more as an Amiga inside
a CD-player.
CALCULUS STORES £699
EASE OF USE 84%
VALUE FOR MONEY 76%
EFFECTIVENESS 88%
FLEXIBILITY 76%
INNOVATION 80%
OVERALL 80%
The alternative to getting a CDTV with a
hard drive is obviously getting an Amiga
with a CD-ROM and hard-drive. The
A670 (or whatever they call the CD-ROM
for the A600) isn’t available yet. but pre-
suming it is in the near future (and pre-
suming it costs no more than the A570),
this could make it possibly more advan-
tageous to buy an A600HD with a ROM
drive, giving greater expansion possi-
bility and a more conventional looking
machine. On the other hand, it wouldn’t
be black, and it would certainly be a lot
more messy with all those power supplies
knocking about.
magazine article • 309

External Hard Disk Drive
Genre Storage device
The CDTV-HD unit includes 65Mb of hard
disk storage with SCSI interface. The unit
came complete with Workbench 1.3 and
all necessary cables.
Retailed at £269.99 in May, 1993.
“bigbookofamigahardware.com”
HD CDTV
Publisher ZCL
Genre SCSI Controller
A device which allows a hard drive, stan-
dard keyboard, mouse, 2MB of RAM and
floppy disk drive to be added to the CDTV.
Nothing else is known about this device.
“bigbookofamigahardware.com”
AdIDE 40 (Prima)
AdIDE 44 (Novia)
Publisher ICD
Release date 1990
Genre Storage device
AdIDE Prima and Novia are small 1” by
3” IDE controllers that connects to the
68000’s socket. They fit in the CDTV if a
shallow IDE connector is used.
AdIDE 44 is compatible with 2.5” inter-
nal drives. It covers the Paula and CIA
A chips. Mounting brackets and screws
were supplied for mounting the hard disk
inside an A500.
AdIDE 40 is compatible with 3.5” internal
drives. Drives can be fitted into an A500
in place of the built-in floppy drive using
the Shuffle Board.
Autobooting is problematic with the
CDTV—either a boot floppy has to be
used, or after a reset by selecting the hard
disk in the Early Startup Menu (which re-
quire at least Kickstart 2.0).
The controllers are incompatible with
Western Digital and IBM hard disks and it
rules out accelerators that connect to the
68000’s socket.
“amiga.resource.cx”

CDTV-SCSI
Publisher Matthias Heinrichs
Release date 2013
Genre SCSI Controller

After-market SCSI con-

troller released as an im-
plementation of the Com-
modore reference design
(A575).
“amiga.resource.cx”

310 • Hardware - CDTV

CDTV SCSI
Publisher Jopower
Genre SCSI Controller

A clone of the CDTV to SCSI Interface

by W.A.W. Elektronik. It
connects to the rear ex-
pansion slot on the CDTV CDTV to SCSI Interface
and provides it with an
Publisher W.A.W. Elektronik
internal 50pin connec- Release date 1994
tor and an external DB25 Genre SCSI Controller
SCSI connector. The
backplate also contains A SCSI interface for the
an on/off switch. CDTV which plugs into
“bigbookofamigahardware.com” the rear expansion port.
It provides the CDTV with
a 50pin internal SCSI
connector and an exter-
nal DB25 connector. The
blackplate has a switch
CDTV SCSI for disabling and enabling
the device.
Publisher Toms “bigbookofamigahardware.com”
Genre SCSI Controller

An SCSI controller that

connects to the rear ex-
pansion slot on the CDTV.
The backplate contains an
on/off switch and LED—
presumably to show hard
drive access. The card
uses the WD33C93-PL
SCSI chip.
“bigbookofamigahardware.com”

CDTV A577/CD577
Harddisk installed inside the CDTV
Publisher Commodore
Release date Unreleased
Genre SCSI Controller

CDTV A577/CD577 Proto-

type SCSI Adapter.
“bigbookofamigahardware.com”

CDTV - Hardware • 311


CDTV RGBtoHDMI Expansion
Developer Solarmon
Publisher RetroFletch
Genre Video
This is an open source hardware project
that allows the use of a Raspberry Pi Zero
to achieve HDMI output of the CDTV.
The expansion board plugs in the video
slot on the back of the cdtv and connects
with a flexcable to an adapter that goes
under the “denise” chip.
It has built in buttons to access the set-
ting menu and make changes to the built
in configuration as well as doing calibra-
tion for a specific setup.
The hardware and software develop-
ment is a joint effort by several people
including Hoglet87, IanSB, LinuxJedi
and Solarmon.
Additional items for making this compat-
ible with the CDTV includes a Raspberry
PI ZERO or Zero2, MicroSD Card 2gb,
or bigger, that’s com-
patible with raspberry
pi, and a mini HDMI
cable or adapter.
This item is still for
sale and retails at
$55.
“tindie.com”
312 • Hardware - CDTV
magazine advert; CU Amiga Magazine 21 (nov. 1991)
SOUND AND VISION
Words and Pictures
CDTV
IMAGINE, IF YOU CAN, A NEW, MORE
POWERFUL AMIGA...
...An Amiga with 1 MegaByte of memory, and
a compact disk drive of almost infinite size. A
disk drive so vast, it could store hundreds of
millions of digits of data. This data could be,
speech, animated pictures, digitised stereo
sound, computer images or whole encyclope-
dias... and more.
IMAGINE THIS, AND YOU CAN START TO
GRASP THE CONCEPT OF CDTV.
The integral compact disk drive is the key to the
power of CDTV. Its storage capacity is equivalent
to around a quarter of a million full pages of text.
This when integrated with the 1 MB of internal
Amiga circuitry, creates a system, which from a
CD disk, can give you access to an unimaginable
spectrum of real world images, never seen com-
bined before. These vivid images, with words and
sounds, give you a whole new dimension in home
education, entertainment & information technol-
ogy. And... Don’t forget, that CDTV can play in
superb quality, and normal audio music CD, and
it can also play the new CD+G disks, which give
digital sound and on screen graphics.
On CD disks now available, there are educational
packages, encyclopedias packed with reference
information, stunning games, music systems and
many other new and varied subjects, including
whole world Atlases or even the complete works
of Shakespeare.
EACH ON ONE CD DISK!!!
Bundles
The CDTV were released as several dif-
ferent bundles, most of which were cre-
ated by the computer stores that sold
them—like the Gordon Harwood Starter
Pack (£599.95 - November 91’) which
came with few games, including the
standard accessories.
Other bundles were named and creat-
ed by Commodore themselves, like the
CDTV Learning Pack and CDTV Profes-
sional Pack.
CDTV Multi Media Pack
• CDTV
• Keyboard
• Wireless Mouse (CD1252)
• Remote Control
• Floppy disk drive (CD1411)
• Caddy
• Welcome CD
• Workbench
• Power Cord
• Stereo Audio Cable
CDTV Standard Pack
• NTSC Auto RF Switch / PAL RF Cable
• CDTV
• Operating System Software
• Remote Control
• Documentation
• Caddy
• Welcome CD The outer box included the CDTV
• Power Cord “Standard Pack” box, along with the
• Stereo Audio Cable original packaging for the mouse,
• NTSC Auto RF Switch / PAL RF Cable keyboard and floppy drive.
• Operating System Software
Some packs included additional
• Documentation
items, like one that sold for £479 in
The Standard Pack, which came with May 93’, which came with Fred Fish
only the bare essentials, came in a red CDPD Collection and Sim City.
and blue Commodore box.

CDTV - Bundles • 313

 CDTV Prototypes
The CDTV project first popped up as the Later, the designers started calling the
CDA-1 prototype in various magazines CDTV prototype the ‘Baby’ when it was
during May 1990. At this stage the black, demonstrated to various magazines.
VCR style box was dubbed an “Interac-
tive Graphics Player” and it was Com-
modore’s attempt to create an entire new
CDTV CDA-2
market, before the market itself was even
established.

CDTV CDA-1

Two months after the CDA-1 was demon-

strated, Commodore revealed a second
prototype version of the machine in June
1990. Dubbed the CDA-2 by bambi-ami-
ga.co.uk.
The case layout differs from the CDA-1
The CDA-1 was’ demonstrated to vari- showing a greater resemblance to the
ous magazines during May 1990. The final release model. The only obvious
basic specifications were still sketchy at changes to be made after this period is
this point so it is uncertain if these are the the removal of the raised ‘Interactive
same as the final release. Graphics Player’ text under the Commo-
dore logo, and the addition of the CDTV
The case layout differs slightly from the name.
final machine. The most obvious differ-
ence is that the name badge is different
to indicate its prototype status, but there
is also some writing underneath the Com-
modore logo. Rather than the familiar
CDTV logo, the badge reads ‘Interactive
Graphics Player’. The volume controls
also move from underneath the CD drive
in the pre-production version to the right
of the machine in the final release.

text from: bambi-amiga.co.uk

314 • Prototypes - CDTV

text from; Amazing Computer Magazine (August 1993)
“Roomers” column by “The Bandito”;
CDTV is now being fire-saled at only $299,
which is a heckuva bargain. And the A570 CD-
ROM drive is out for a mere $259. The CDTV
Pro pack (with disk drive, keyboard, and mouse)
is going for only $99.
The big question really is what happens
next. Will Commodore be able to manufacture
CDTV and the A570 at these new price points?
Will they want to? In other words, is this inven-
tory reduction a way to close out this line of
hardware completely, or will we see something
replace these items? The Bandito has heard
that we may be seeing the long-awaited new
CDTV after the current inventory is all gone.
Of course, Commodore may yet change its
mind and decide that there’s not enough sales
potential in the new hardware to justify its re-
lease. The Bandito thinks that CDTV at $299
is a good deal, and Commodore should keep
selling it even if they decide to come out with
CDTV II. At $299, CDTV is a better deal than
the Sega CD, which also costs $299, but you
have to buy the Genesis for $99 if you don’t
already have one.
If Commodore really keeps CDTV around
at $299, it’s head-on competition for Sega CD.
And there’s a huge title library for it. One way
to beat Sega in the marketplace would be to put
compilations of Amiga games on one CDTV
disk, offering a lot of play value for the money.
The CDTV II hardware that’s been designed
is competitive with the other second-generation
CD-ROM hardware that’s coming up; it can
even hold its own with the 3DO player. While
CDTV II can’t do full 24-bit graphics, HAM-8
is good enough (particularly the NTSC resolu-
tion) to make it functionally the same. The ani-
mation speed of the AGA chips is fast enough
to do fullscreen 30 fps, so that’s not a problem.
The 3DO machine reportedly has some hard-
ware support to do graphics manipulations, but
those sorts of things may have only dubious
value until people learn how to program them
and design them into their products. CDTV II
also has a more development environment, and
a large library of titles already available, though
most aren’t full AGA. Best of all, CDTV II is
easily expanded into a complete computer with
a full complement of ports, while the 3DO ma-
chine can’t do that at all. The price point may
even be similar, though it’s likely that CDTV II
would come in at $999 rather than $699,
Where Commodore can’t keep up with 3DO
is in the software development and PR blitz de-
partments. It’s not enough to have good hard-
ware; you have to have compelling new soft-
ware to make a platform hit. A library of old
titles really won’t do the trick. Commodore was
notably unsuccessful in persuading developers
to support CDTV — they had only a few really
interesting new titles appear, while most of the
titles were shovelware. And after CDTV’s less
than stellar track records, developers would be
much, much harder to convince.
Amiga CDC
The Amiga CDC (Amiga CD Console)
was a mock-up image made in 1993 by
the Amiga Format magazine of what they
believed the “new” Amiga CD32 console
would look like.
Their desired specification of the
console would include a 68020 micro-
processor, AGA chipset and 2 MB of
RAM as standard.
CDTV - Prototypes • 315
 CDTV-II (CDTV-CR / CDTV-500)
Over the years there have been a
number of rumours that Commo-
dore developed a follow-up to the
CDTV. Some said it was a CDTV
with a DCTV (video display and
digitiser) built-in, others said it was
an expanded machine with Amiga-
OS2, more memory, keyboard and
disk drive. These rumours were
confirmed in March 2000 when
two machines appeared on eBay. The first The machine has been described by a
was sold for $199, the second for $1000. A number of names; Jeff Porter (R&D de-
third prototype was owned by National Ami- veloper on the A500) referred to it as the
ga, who sold it to Oliver Hannaford-Day, the CDTV ‘B’, Dave Haynie (former chief engi-
CDTV.org administrator for $250. neer at Commodore International) called it
The CDTV-CR was completely redesigned the CDTV-CR.
and was based on the architecture of the Dave Haynie explained in an interview with
Amiga 600 (released right after the CDTV). the Team Amiga ML;
It also included two chips not used in any “We called that the CDTVCR (CR =
other Amigas. The first, ‘Beauty’ had a part Cost Reduced), but it was much better; I
number 391246-01 and the second chip, re- think Hedley Davis (prominent Commodore
ferred to as ‘Grace’ had a 391245-02 part engineer) also worked on that one. It looked
number. The machine also included the Fat pretty much like a CD player or VCR, but
Agnus 8375 2MB found in the A600. it was, for the most part, CDTV done right.
You have to realize that CDTV was not
Comparing this machine to the CDTV, the
done in the usual engineering way, it was a
first thing one notices is that the CD-ROM
project that began in the ‘Special Projects’
drive uses a standard slide out tray instead
group. Special Projects had long been sort
of the CDTVs caddy. Other differences in-
of a ‘loophole’ group; they would build some-
cludes the proprietary memory card which
thing necessary to, say, sell 10,000 comput-
was replaced with a PCMCIA card. The
ers to a country’s school system, etc. Small,
front LCD display was raised and includes a
strategic projects.
display for recognising the CD. It has LCD’s
It was very good that CDTV started
for CDTV titles, Audio CD’s & MPEG vid-
there. We had thrown around the notion of a
eos. Chip RAM was mounted on a SIMM
‘living room’ computer since the C128 days,
card-like slot. It is also A600 accelerator
but there was never the time or demand
compatible. The modulator card used a new
to allow this to happen in the more closely
connector and included an onboard video
watched primary Engineering group. So it
port (previous versions were mounted on
probably only could have been done in Spe-
the motherboard). Also notable is the addi-
cial Projects. But unfortunately, they didn’t
tion of a 1411 compatible DSDD floppy disk
have the practice at making things cheap,
drive internally mounted with convenient
so it was more expensive than it should
front access.
have been. CDTV-CR fixed this.

316 • CDTV-II - CDTV


This is the feature list for the machine according
to existing information;
CPU: 68000 7.14 Mhz CPU
Chipset: Enhanced Chipset (ECS), 2
Meg Angus
Memory: 1MB Chip RAM,
72-pin SIMM connector
Operating System: Kickstart 2.05 (one of the pro-
totypes have been upgraded
to OS 3.1), FMV software may
have been built-in.
Expansion: 44 pin 2.5” IDE connector
PCMCIA card (replaces the
proprietary memory card).
Expansion slot on modulator
for FMV card (early version of
CD32 FMV card).
Macintosh-style serial port
Amiga video connector has
now been moved onto the
modulator card.
Drives: 880Kb 3.5” floppy disk drive
CD-ROM
text from; Amazing Computer Magazine
(May 1993)
“Roomers” column by “The Bandito”;
What’s happening with CDTV II?
The Bandito hears that Commodore
isn’t sure what to do with this beast.
CDTV has done OK, but it hasn’t set
the world on fire. The price seems to
be its best selling feature. And you
can bet a CDTV II would be sig-
nificantly more expensive, perhaps
even over $1000. Could Commodore
continue selling the original CDTV
while trying to sell the new CDTV II
for a higher price? Probably not, un-
less they did some clever marketing
magic—not something Commodore
is well known for. So we may never
see CDTV II, especially if Commo-
dore doesn’t feel there’s a big sales
opportunity. This new 3DO machine
and others may steal the limelight
from any CDTV II release.
The Bandito has a better idea than
CDTV II. How about an Amiga mod-
el with a CD-ROM drive built-in?
One of those new mid-range AGA
machines that remains unannounced
because there’s still too much A3000
inventory to clean out. A nice, com-
plete package for a street price well
under $2000 would be a goal to shoot
for.
text from: bambi-amiga.co.uk
CDTV - CDTV-II • 317
 Retr oactive
magazine article; AmigActive #1 (Oct. 1999) by: Jason Compton

Information Appliance? Convergence Device? Multimedia Computer? Amiga’s plans are decade-old news...

W
hy wait for Amiga to
come out with informa-
tion appliances? Com-
modore beat them to the punch
almost a decade ago! Join us for a
moment of solemn reflection as we
look back on the CDTV; the first
Amiga information appliance.
It wasn’t called an “information
appliance” back then though. Oh no.
That’s 1999’ term for the next, revo-
lutionary generation of computing.
Nor was it a “set-top box” - that’s très
1995. No, the CDTV was a plain old
“multimedia computer.”
It was to be both extensible and
scalable, with a variety of I/O ports
allowing new devices to be added
without any additional hardware or
software support. It caused flutters
in the Commodore and Amiga indus-
tries, where journalists struggled to
explain how Commodore could turn
their back on their bread-and-butter,
the desktop computer. It would take
the 90’s by the throat and redefine the
way people thought about computers.
Or not. In the end, the CDTV will
perhaps be best known for looking
cool. Oh, and for finally answering
the age-old question, “can Defender
of the Crown single-handedly carry a
new platform to success?”
censed developers fills several pages
of very small type and reads like a
who’s who of high-tech corporations.
Commodore did their job of prepro-
duction hype, and it looked like an
embedded consumer appliance Amiga
could be a real success.
The problem Commodore never
really managed to address, however,
was that no-one wanted one. Unlike
its contemporary, the Phillips CD-I,
it died a quick death rather than be-
ing released and re-released in a se-
ries of increasingly inane infomercials
on late-night American TV. When it
came down to it, the CDTV looked
like a super-slick, super-expensive hi-
fi CD component.
The only afterlife for the CDTV
was the A570, Commodore’s single-
speed CD sidecar for the A500 that
could in effect turn a 500 into a CDTV
— they shared the same heritage to
begin with. However, few jumped
on the chance to give up their single-
speed CD in the days before the Ami-
ga CD-ROM explosion of 1994-1995
— we were demanding a far superior
performance by then.
It seemed that the CDTV was
doomed to failure. It was the first
product of its type to market, beating
Phillips’ CD-I despite the latter hav-
ing a considerable head-start in Hol-
land. We’ve all been subjected to the
anecdote about how you can identify a
pioneer — he’s the one with the arrow
sticking out of his back.
Then there’s the tale from Com-
modore legend of the CDTV sales
promotion that never was. The story
goes that Commodore would give
away a CDTV for free with purchases
of an Amiga 3000, and include a net-
work cable and software to link the
two together. Genius! Commodore’s
high-end multimedia authoring sta-
tion paired with a sample of their mul-
timedia delivery system! It’s going to
work! It’s going to turn the tide!
But someone wrote down the specs
for a ParNet cable incorrectly, and
Commodore received a big batch of
worthless cables. The promotion was
scrapped, and the CDTV became a big
black shiny footnote.

Multimedia Failure
The CDTV was, in effect, the first
unqualified failure of the Amiga era
at Commodore. Not that there hadn’t
been close calls before: The A1000
never really sold very well, and the
A3000 was elegant and feature-filled,
but so expensive that it was hard to
justify. Plus, you needed a hacksaw
to install a Newtek Video Toaster
(ed- combination of a video switcher,
a genlock, a framebuffer and special
effects device).
The CDTV failed to meet its goals,
despite garnering tremendous interest
from the industry - a list of CDTV li-

318 • magazine article

magazine article from; Amiga Format Magazine #102 (October 1997)
Chinese Amigas
stopped by
“You’ve got a friend in the business”®
T hose of you who live in the
Far East may have heard of
a new computer called the Won-
der TV A6000. Developed by the
Rightiming Electronics Corpora-
tion, it is based on Amiga technol-
ogy licensed when Escom were
the owners. It will only be on sale
in China and other far eastern terri-
tories, and sources say that it is an
advanced machine, offering DVD-
ROM and fax facilities as just two
of its more hi-tech features. This
machine has been built, but its cre-
ators are working on software to
drive it, presumably based around
Workbench, and plan to launch it
at the start of 1998.
LEGAL WRANGLES
However, it may just be that this
piece of kit never sees the light of
day in the Far East, let alone Eu-
rope because of a conflict with the
Amiga’s current owners — Gate-
way 2000, Lotus Pacific, Inc., a
partnership of various Asian busi-
nessmen used its direct subsidiary
The Wonder TV A6000 — the new “advanced” machine at the
centre of the licensing row.
?
Regent Electronics Corporation
to buy the patents, licenses, trade-
mark and copyrights for Com-
modore-Amiga from Rightiming
Electronics Corporation, solely for
use in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong,
Macao and the bordering countries
between China and the former So-
viet Union. They paid for it with
US$5M and eight million shares
of common stock in Regent Elec-
tronics Corporation.
However, Gateway disputes
Rightiming’s right to sell such as-
sets and refutes Regent Electron-
ics Corporation and Lotus Pacific,
Inc’s right to such assets. They
have issued the following state-
ment:
“As owner of all Amiga, Inc. pat-
ent rights worldwide, we at Gate-
way 2000 want to clarify a recent
story on the apparent sale of all
Amiga patents, trademarks and
copyrights by Rightiming Electron-
ics to Lotus Pacific, Inc. for use in
China, Taiwan, Macao and the bor-
dering countries between China
and the former Soviet Union.”
“Rightiming purports to hold a
license to manufacture Amigas and
has apparently attempted to sell this
purported license to Lotus Pacific.
We dispute their license, their right
to sell any license, and we dispute
any claims they have made with re-
spect to Amiga patents, copyrights,
or trademarks. Gateway 2000 owns
all Amiga patents, copyrights and
trademarks worldwide and will
continue to license Amiga technol-
ogy to qualified companies.
Undeterred, Lotus Pacific an-
nounced their co-operative effort
with the largest TV manufacturer
in China — Sichuan Changhong
Electronics Group Corporation of
China, to build more than 200,000
units of the Wonder TV 6000 be-
fore the end of 1998.
As yet, no-one from either Gate-
way, Amiga International or Lotus
Pacific has been willing to make a
statement concerning the future of
Wonder TV 6000, and the reasons
why Gateway appears to have been
taken by surprise by this move, but
rest assured, Amiga Format will
bring you the truth just as soon as
we find it.
Just who are Lotus Pacific? We¨ll
know more when they answer their
phone and email.
magazine article • 319
 Wonder TV A6000 / A6060
The Wonder TV A6000 and A6060
is of a similar concept to the CDTV.
It was manufactured by DCE for a
Chinese firm called Regent Elec-
tronic Corporation and was de-
signed as a multimedia delivery
platform.
Out of the box it is capable of playing VCD’s
and karaoke discs as it has a built in hard-
ware MPEG decoder, as well as audio CD’s,
CD+Gs and CDTV CDs. An optional add-on
for handling Photo-CD’s was also available.
Like the CDTV the REC Wonder TV
also includes a infra-red wireless remote
controller and can be booted directly from
the internal CD-ROM.
The Wonder TV uses standard PC
1.44MB disks and PC Keyboards, but it is
not known whether it is capable of reading
native Amiga disks.
News of the console came in late 1997
when Chinese company, Lotus Pacific an-
nounced they had bought the Amiga pat-
ents. The Western world had focussed upon
the Gateway acquisition and were shocked
at the thought of the machine being sold
again. The basis of this announcement was
investigated by Gateway, who took legal
action against the company. Lotus Pacific’s
claims stemmed from a 1995 deal between
Newstar/Tianjin Family Electronic and Es-
com to sell Amigas in the Japanese market.
When they went into liquidation the com-
pany was bought by Rightiming Electronics
Corporation (REC), which in turn was taken
over by Lotus Pacific. The newly-formed
Amiga International disputed this, stating
the previous agreement could not be trans-
320 • Wonder TV A6000 / A6060
ferred to another company. An examination
of the original Escom press release indi-
cates a licence was only given for produc-
tion and trading, not complete ownership of
Amiga patents in that area of the world. For
a time there appeared to be a huge court
battle looming over the Amiga again, until
the two companies reached an agreement
and Lotus Pacific appeared on the list of
official licenses at the beginning of 1998.
They reportedly had to pay Regent a million
dollars each year, in compensation for the
use of the patents. The first annual payment
was made in August 1997 and one of the
agreements was that they would have to or-
der 300,000 sets of circuits and parts from
Regent, at a price of $86 per set.
The WonderTV A6000 and A6060 machines
appear to be based upon a custom Amiga
motherboard, designed by several ex-Com-
modore employees and DCE of Germany.
They represent one of many attempts at
bridging the gap between computer and
information appliance, combining the differ-
ent functions.
The TeleWeb Broadcast Information Serv-
ice were announced in October 1997 when-
Lotus Pacific announced a cooperation
with the Chinese Central Television Tele-
text based upon the Wonder TV A6060
that would give subscribers access to ca-
ble channels and the internet. This eventu-
ally led to the development of the TeleWeb
broadcasting network. This is an Internet
based system that broadcasts information
to the home user through the cable TV net-
work. It is similar to schemes throughout the
US and European market; a “small” monthly
 monthly fee is required, allowing ac-
cess to community networks, pro-
viding local information, as well as
programme information, shopping,
finances and education. The system
was only available to Shanghai resi-
dents.
In the past, REC have referred to an A5800
desktop model that was just waiting for cer-
tain patents to be registered in China. It Wireless Remote Controller
seems that with the confirmation of Gate-
way as the legal owner, REC were forced
to back off and only release the systems in
production at the time. Later versions of the
WonderTV—the A8000 and A9000—were
designed around an x86 CPU and used the
Windows CE operating system.

Mic. 2
Mic. 1

FRONT
Joystick
Externally it looks much like the Joystick/Mouse
CDTV. Internally, the Wonder is PS/1 Keyboard
much like an expanded CD32 Printer
Serial
VGA

BACK RF-TV
SVideo
Video
R/L
text from;
bambi-amiga.co.uk / bigbookofamigahardware.com

Wonder TV A6000 / A6060 • 321

 Letters from readers sent to
video game magazines.
Amiga Format Magazine (May 1993)
Reader’s Letters
CDTV15
Are CDTV owners something of an odd-
ity? I have recently returned from Wem-
bley’s International Computer Show
very disappointed. After travelling all
those miles, wallet in hand, thinking
‘Now I’ll get to buy lots of exciting CD
software’, not only was there no decent
software there, but when I enquired at
one of the stalls, I was stunned to hear
the retort “CDTV, I never realised that
anyone had one.”
Ok so CDTV is still under development,
but are we always going to be treated
like “Creatures From The Black Box La-
goon”? Also, will Amiga Format Live fea-
ture CDTV?
Andy Stephen
Answer from the editorial. -
CDTV owners are somewhat of an oddity, not
meaning to be offensive, but it’s hardly your
average machine is it? Apart from being the
world’s first CD home multimedia unit, it can
also run some (but not all) of the Amiga’s vast
collection of software. Yet despite this and its
undeniably attractive black appearance, it has
failed to take the home computer market by
storm.
Never fear though, we are sure the Big C are
working on CDTV 2, which we expect to have
the AGA chip set, and if it doesn’t improve the
popularity of CDTV, nothing will. Though let’s
hope they stop bleating about the possibility of
Kodak Photo CD compatibility and actually do
it. Any stall holders failing to realise the poten-
tial of the CDTV market place will be cutting
their own throat in the long run.
As for the Amiga Format Live show, since it
has the complete support of Commodore them-
selves, I’ll warrant there will be a fair number
of CDTV products on show. The stuff we’ve seen
from Psygnosis, most notably Dracula and Mi-
crocosm, look very impressive.
322 • magazine letters
CU Amiga Magazine #36 (February 1993)
BackChat
PIRATES AHOY!
People are constantly writing to CU Amiga
saying how software prices are so dear and
if companies would lower their prices, that
piracy would be reduced. I agree with this,
because living in New Zealand gives a whole
new meaning to high prices.
Take budget games, for example. In New
Zealand we have a grand total of about six
budget games. Recently, one game I saw on
a budget label was being sold for the same
price as a full-priced game. If software
companies would introduce budget games at
budget prices into New Zealand, then piracy
would be reduced. In one extreme example, I
saw TV Sports Football being advertised by
a mail order company for $135. As the NZ$
works out at around $3 for £1, that makes
TV Sports £45! And this is a budget game!
Games I see advertised in your magazine for
£25 retail here for about $115 — that is
£37.
These prices are hardly justified even ac-
counting for postage costs. If companies
such as Ocean are really serious about wip-
ing out piracy (in New Zealand at least) then
they are going to have to make the first
move by dropping prices.
Matthew Alexander, Christchurch, New Zealand
Answer from the editorial. -
The old argument of cost/piracy rears its ugly head
once more. The simple answer is that piracy is theft,
theft is immoral and illegal — don’t do it. If you can’t
afford a game then though luck, you must do without.
Save up for a bit longer or get a job! That said, I must
agree that the prices being charged in New Zealand
do seem excessive, but without knowing the full de-
tails of the economy over there except, of course, that
it is seriously screwed up, it would be impossible to
comment upon whether the traders are being unfair
or not. That still doesn’t change the basic argument,
it just makes it one of those little injustices in life that
an honest person must live with.
 CU Amiga Magazine #53 (July 1994)
Ask the Experts
THE SAMPLE FACTS
1. I have a lot of PD music disks that
have whole sampled songs on them, yet
they run perfectly well on a 1 Mb Ami-
ga. I would love to be able to do this, so
please tell me, how is it done?
2. I have read somewhere that I could
expand my A600 up to 10Mb of RAM, I
have only seen 1, 2 and 4 Mb upgrades.
3. I am planning to add a CDTV to my
A600, with the sole purpose of using its
CD-ROM drive. What peripherals would
the CDTV need?
4. How much should I pay for a second
hand CDTV?
5. Why is CU AMIGA so good?
Billy Ramsay, Harthill, Shotts.
Answer from the editorial. -
1. There are two ways of getting really long samples, for
example an entire song, to play back on 1Mb machines.
The first is to split the song into chunks and sample
each: for example, intro, chorus and verse. Then use a
tracker program like OctoMED to play the chunks back
in the right order. It takes time to get the sample lengths
perfect, but it can be done.
The other way is to get hold of some sampling soft-
ware that will play samples back from the disk. The
playback rate will be quite low, but you can fill the en-
tire disk with sound if you like...
2. The A600 comes with 1Mb of Chip Ram. You can add
another 1Mb of Chip Ram (and a clock if you like) in the
trapdoor, but 2Mb Chip is the maximum. You can also
add more memory via the PCMCIA slot on the side, but
although theoretically it’s possible to add another 8Mb
card here, in practice the largest available seems to be
4Mb. Adding memory in this way is expensive, but un-
fortunately the A600 isn’t very expandable.
3. The CDTV won’t need anything else - only the spe-
cial parallel cable to connect it to the Amiga. Unlike its
replacement (the CD32) the CDTV has every possible
interface on the back of the case.
4. Check that it’s working perfectly and comes with disk
drive and keyboard, and then offer £150. No more. Re-
member you can get a brand new CD32 for 250.
5. Shucks, I dunno. Could it be because it’s written by
dedicated Amiga fans?
CU Amiga Magazine #43 (September 1993)
Commodore Writes
Six months ago I bought a Commo-
dore CDTV. Now, I’m told that the
machine was a mistake and I should
go out and buy a CD32 console in-
stead. I have spent £700 on my
present system and feel that it’s
been a waste of time and money. Will
there be an upgrade/trade-in deal
for CDTV owners or are you just go-
ing to ignore us?
Phillip Alderson, Wirral
Answer from Director of Commodore UK,
David Pleasance.-
I have to admit we get many letters of this
nature, and it is frankly quite a dilemma.
The pace at which technology is advancing
is quite staggering, and we are forced by the
actions of our competitors, to continue to of-
fer ‘more for less’.
When we launched the CDTV it was revolu-
tionary, offering performance standards sec-
ond to none. Unfortunately, the high cost to
manufacture meant a retail price too high for
mass market appeal. We at Commodore are
renowned for offering more upgrade oppor-
tunities than any other manufacturer. I will
be talking to the corporation about CDTV
owners, but it is very difficult when the cost
of the Amiga CD32 is so much less than the
CDTV. I shall, of course, let you know of the
outcome.
magazine letters • 323
 CDTV CD-ROM List
This is a list of the different titles released on CD-ROM for the console.
The list includes a checklist for collectors (C (cart) I (info/manual) B (Box)).
R = Rarity. The score is taken from the Project CD32 website (https://cd32.amiga.live/index.php)

Title Category R C I B pg
Air Warrior Games 6 138
Alistair in Outer Space Games - 140
Talking Electric Crayon: All Dogs Go To Heaven Games 4 140
Battle Chess Games 6 141
Battlestorm Games 5 142
The Case of the Cautious Condor Games 3 142
The Curse of RA Games 6 143
Classic Board Games Games 5 143
Casino Games Games 8 144
Chaos in Andromeda: Eyes of the Eagle Games 6 144
E.S.S Mega Games 8 145
Guy Spy and the Crystals of Armageddon Games 2 145
Cover Girl Strip Poker Games 4 146
Defender of the Crown Games 5 150
Defender of the Crown II Games 9 152
Falcon Games 8 153
Holiday Maker Games 7 154
Fantastic Voyage Games 6 154
Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure Games 8 156
The Hound of the Baskervilles Games 6 158
Log!cal Games 7 158
Murder Makes Strange Deadfellows Games 8 159
Power Pinball Games 4 159
Lemmings Games 2 160
Loom Games 7 162
Prehistorik Games 6 164
Prey: An Alien Encounter Games 4 164
Psycho Killer Games 2 165
Raffles Games 6 166
Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective Games 6 167
SimCity Games 3 168
Read With Astérix: Astérix And Son Games 4 170
Snoopy in The Case Of The Missing Blanket Games 5 170
Spirit of Excalibur Games 7 171
Strip Poker Live Games - 172
Die Stadt Der Löwen Games 7 172
324 • Games list - CDTV
Title Category R C I B pg
Team Yankee Games 7 173
Space Wars Games 6 174
Trivial Pursuit Games 4 174
Town With No Name Games 3 175
Turrican Games 8 176
Turrican II: The Final Fight Games 8 177
Will Bridge Introduction To Bidding Games - 178
Will Bridge Initiation Aux Encheres Games 8 178
Will Bridge Intermediate Games - 178
Will Bridge Perfectionnement Games - 178
Will Bridge Advanced Games - 178
Will Bridge Standard Games - 178
Will Bridge Competition Games - 178
Will Bridge Competition Games - 178
Will Bridge Advanced Competition Games - 178
Will Bridge Haute Competition Games - 178
Winzer Games 6 179
Tie-Break Games 7 179
Xenon 2: Megablast Games 8 180
Wrath of the Demon Games 1 182
Ultimate Basketball Games 6 182
A Bun for Barney Education 4 184
A Long Hard Day On The Ranch Education - 195
Barney Bear Goes Camping Education 4 185
Barney Bear Goes to School Education 4 185
Cinderella: The Original Fairy Tale Education 7 194
Fremdsprachenrätsel Spanisch 1 Education - 192
Fun School 3: for 5 to 7 Year Olds Education - 187
Fun School 3: for the over 7s Education - 187
Fun School 3: for the Under 5s Education - 186
Heroic Age of Spaceflight Education 4 190
Japan World Education 5 188
Language TV: English Education 4 190
Learn French With Astérix CD 1 Education - 189
Learn French With Astérix CD 1 Education - 189
Learn French With Astérix CD 2 Education - 189
Learn French With Astérix CD 2 Education - 189
Mind Run Education 5 184
Moving Gives Me A Stomach Ache Education 4 195
Mud Puddle Education 6 196
My Paint CDTV Education 5 191
North Polar Expedition Education 9 191
Ordicode Education 7 188
CDTV - Games list • 325
Title Category R C I B pg
Pinocchio Education - 190
Scary Poems For Rotten Kids Education - 197
Sprachrätsel Englisch 1 Education - 192
Sprachrätsel Englisch 2 Education - 192
Sprachrätsel Englisch 3 Education - 192
Sprachrätsel Französisch 1 Education - 192
The Night Before Christmas Education - 196
The Paper Bag Princess Education 7 194
The Tale of Benjamin Bunny Education 5 198
The Tale Of Peter Rabbit Education 5 198
Thomas’ Snowsuit Education 5 198
Advanced Military Systems Arts & Leisure 6 200
Animals in Motion Arts & Leisure - 201
Dinosaurs for Hire Arts & Leisure 9 200
Fractal Universe Arts & Leisure 6 203
GardenFax: Fruits, Vegetables & Herbs Arts & Leisure 4 202
GardenFax: Garden Plants Arts & Leisure 4 202
GardenFax: Indoor Plants Arts & Leisure 4 202
GardenFax: Trees, Shrubs, Roses & Conifers Arts & Leisure 4 202
The Connoisseur: Fine Art Collection Arts & Leisure 8 203
Women in Motion Arts & Leisure 6 201
Caplex Reference - 208
12 Centuries of Art Palermo Reference - 215
American Heritage Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary Reference 4 214
American Vista Atlas Reference 4 213
Cinemabilia Reference - 217
Cinque Anni Di Ansa Sport dal 1988 al 1992 Reference - 217
Deutschland Kompakt Reference 3 215
Deutschland Kompakt 2 Reference - 215
Dodici Anni Di Gazzetta Reference -
217
Ufficiale attraverso comunicati e sommari ANSA
Dr. Wellman Reference - 218
Enciclopedia Italiana Grolier Reference - 208
Enciclopedia Italiana Grolier Edizione 1994 Reference - 209
Fakta Leksikon Reference - 208
Great Cities of Our World Florence: Reference -
214
Art, History and Mystery
Homèo-CD Reference - 218
Il Dizionario Multilingue Reference - 210
Il Dizionario Say it in English Reference - 210
Il Guinness Dei Primati 1994 Reference - 216
Insight: Dinosaurs Reference - 211
Insight: Technology Reference - 211
326 • Games list - CDTV
Title Category R C I B pg
Le Monde Les Chronologies Du Monde 1944 – 1991 Reference - 218
Sherlock Holmes On A Disc Reference 6 212
The Guinness CDTV Disc Of Records Reference - 216
The Human Body Reference - 218
The Hutchinson Encyclopedia Reference 3 209
The Illustrated Holy Bible Reference 3 212
The Illustrated Works of Shakespeare Reference 7 212
The New Basics Electronic Cookbook Reference 5 217
The New Grolier Electronic Encyclopedia Reference - 210
Timbres de France & Monaco Reference - 216
Time Table of History Business, Politics & Media Reference 6 214
Time Table of History Science and Innovation Reference 6 214
World Vista Atlas Reference 4 213
CD Remix: The D.J. in a Box Music 6 221
CD Remix: Version II Music - 221
Music Maker Music 5 221
Musicolor Music 6 222
17 BIT - Phase Four Comp./PD/Productivity 3 231
17 BIT - The Continuation Disk Comp./PD/Productivity 3 231
17 BIT Collection Comp./PD/Productivity 3 230
AMOS PD CD Comp./PD/Productivity - 235
Assassins Comp./PD/Productivity - 232
Assassins 2 Comp./PD/Productivity - 232
Assassins 3 Comp./PD/Productivity - 232
Assassins 4 Comp./PD/Productivity - 233
CDPD Comp./PD/Productivity 4 234
CDPD II Comp./PD/Productivity 4 234
CDPD III Comp./PD/Productivity 4 234
CDPD IV Comp./PD/Productivity 4 235
Cubulus & Magic Serpent Comp./PD/Productivity 6 224
Demo II Comp./PD/Productivity 5 236
Fred Fish Vol.1 Comp./PD/Productivity - 230
Fred Fish Vol.2 Comp./PD/Productivity - 230
Global Chaos Comp./PD/Productivity 6 225
Kickstart Public Domain Nr. 1-550 Comp./PD/Productivity - 230
Multimedia Toolkit Comp./PD/Productivity 4 227
Network CD Comp./PD/Productivity 4 235
Pandora’s CD Comp./PD/Productivity 3 227
Saar AMOK Comp./PD/Productivity - 236
Shiftrix & Lettrix Comp./PD/Productivity 6 226
Super Games Pak Comp./PD/Productivity 5 233
The Demo Collection Comp./PD/Productivity 4 236
The Fred Fish Collection On-Line Version 1.4 Comp./PD/Productivity - 229
CDTV - Games list • 327
Title Category R C I B pg
The Fred Fish Collection On-Line Version 1.5 Comp./PD/Productivity - 229
The Fred Fish Collection On-Line Version 1.7 Comp./PD/Productivity - 230
The Fred Fish Collection On-LineVersion 1.6 Comp./PD/Productivity - 230
The Fred Fish Collection Version 1.0 Comp./PD/Productivity - 228
The Fred Fish Collection Version 1.1 Comp./PD/Productivity - 228
The Fred Fish Collection Version 1.2 Comp./PD/Productivity - 228
The Fred Fish Collection Version 1.3 Comp./PD/Productivity - 229
The Fred Fish Collection Version 1.4 Comp./PD/Productivity - 229
The Fred Fish Collection Version 1.5 Comp./PD/Productivity - 229
The Fred Fish Collection Version 1.6 Comp./PD/Productivity - 229
The Fred Fish Collection Version 1.7 Comp./PD/Productivity - 229
Come - Corporate Media Demos - 239
Commodore Amiga CDTV / Amiga 600 / Amiga 600 HD Info Demos - 239
Commodore Amiga CDTV Hören & Sehen Demos - 238
Frankfurt 1992 Demos - 239
Psygnosis Demo CD (Planetside demo) Demos - 241
Read with Asterix Demos 4 239
VidDISC Demos - 238
1001 Girl Demos - 244
Beethoven - Symphony No. 9 Miscellaneous - 247
CD + MIDI Miscellaneous - 247
Fred Fish Collection Miscellaneous - 244
Interoffice Miscellaneous - 246
Jubiläumsdisc 20 Jahre Commodore Miscellaneous - 247
Mendelssohn - Symphony No. 2 - Hymn Of Praise Miscellaneous - 247
Sexual Fantasies Miscellaneous 8 244
TeleGames Miscellaneous - 246
Ten on Ten Miscellaneous - 245
Your Privacy Assured Miscellaneous - 244

328 • Games list - CDTV

List of unreleased CDTV titles
A list for looking up the page number of a specific title.

Title pg Title pg
‘Nam 1965-1975 272 Hutchinsons Encylopedia (Version 2) 266
18 Classical CD+G Titles 267 Independent Soccer Disc 265
A Night At The Races 268 Indoor Sports 271
A Study In Scarlett 266 Insight : Living Body 266
A.G.E. (Advanced Galactic Empire) 268 International Karate Plus 271
Air Traffic Controller 250 Jack Nicklaus Golf 262
Amiga CD Football 259 James Pond 2: Codename Robocod 271
Angel of the City 250 Jekyll And Hyde 253
Animated Colouring Book 262 Karaoke Christmas 267
Aquaventura Psygnosis 268 Karaoke Hits I & II 267
Athens & Sparta 267 Karaoke Hits vol. 1 - 20 267
B.A.T. 268 KIM 267
Bargon Attack 268 Learn English With Astérix 263
Battletoads 268 Listen 264
Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure 268 Litil Divil 271
Blockbusters 250 Living Book Series 264
Brides of Dracula 270 Lunar Rescue: The Colossus Incident 255
CDTV Disc Jockey 264 Mad TV 271
CDTV Karaoke: Successi Italiani Vol.1 267 Maelstrom 271
Challenge Golf 270 Many Roads to Murder 254
Composer Quest 265 McGee 275
Cult Of The Severed Head 250 Mickey’s 123’s: The Big Surprise Party 275
Dawnscape 250 Microcosm 261
Dominion 254 MIDI Music Machine 265
Dracula 254 MiG-29 Fulcrum 272
Drakkhen 270 Mind Run II 264
Dune 260 Monach Notes 266
Dungeon Master 260 Multimedia Birds Of America 266
Emergency Languages 266 Murder off Miami 259
Epic Space Flight Simulator 270 Murder, Anyone? 254
Fables & Fiends: The Legend of Kyrandia 271 Ninja High School Comix 265
Family Drug And Poison Information System 266 Our House 265
Fascination 260 Pac-Mania 272
FidoFax 264 Pinball Dreams 272
Fun School 4 263 Plan 9 From Outer Space 272
Future Wars: Adventures in Time 261 Pool / Archer Maclean’s Pool 272
Garfield Big Fat Hairy Deal 270 Private and Confidential: KGB 271
Garfield: Winter’s Tail The Edge Interactive 270 Pro Tennis Tour II 272
Gobliiins 260 Psycho Killer II 259
Grand Prix World Circuit 272 Quiztime! 263
Herewith the Clues 261 RAF Hendom Museum Series 266

CDTV - Games list • 329

Title pg article from CU Amiga Magazine 12 (feb. 1991)
Rainbow Collection Platform Arcade 262 COMMODORE’S HAPPY CHRISTMAS.
Reach for the Skies 273 With the A500 and A1500 already selling well
Read With Astérix: The Black Gold 263 and peripheral sales on the up, rumours have
started to appear regarding the possibility of an
Read With Astérix: The Secret Weapon 263 Amiga-based console. Commodore’s first entry
Road to the Final Four: NCAA Basketball 259 to the booming console market came in the form
Scientific Atlas: Astromony 266 of the C64 GS, and an Amiga console would be
Commodore’s equivalent to Sega’s Megadrive.
Scientific Atlas: Human Evolution 266
We already hear stories that a number of soft-
Scientific Atlas: Zoology 266 ware houses are producing console-based
Senny and Foo 259 games for the machine’s launch, although un-
Sensible Soccer 273 derstandably, the companies involved are reluc-
tant to pass comment. One of the first titles to
Shadow of the Beast 273 appear on the machine is rumoured to be Mind-
Shadow of the Beast II 273 scape’s Wing Commander, a conversion from
Shadow of the Beast III 273 the impressive PC version. If the game was to
be released on disk, it would span a hefty eight
Sign of Four 259 disks (even more than the Bluth games!), so
Silly Putty 273 the instant loading offered by a cartridge-based
SimEarth 273 Amiga is a tempting thought and would make
the game easier while avoiding annoying disk
Space Quest III 274 swapping.
Spy vs. Spy 262 News of other developers is scarce, although
The Baby File: Conception to Birth 263 Ocean are believed to be converting a number
The Cardinal of the Kremlin 270 of their titles over to cartridge. Ocean, inciden-
tally, were one of the first ‘outsider’ compa-
The Classic Collection 275 nies to produce games for the 64 console, and
The Games 270 were presumably one of the first to be shown
The Lawnmower Man 254 the plans for the system, and we expect them
to produce a compilation cartridge of some of
The Learning Company 275 their bigger titles. The advantages of such a
The Maths Collection 264 system are immense, with massive reduction
The Return Of Medusa 273 in loading time and the ability to cram mas-
sive games, such as the aforementioned Bluth
The Sea Beast and Barnacle Bill 258 games or a Magnetic Scrolls adventure, onto an
The Secret of Monkey Island 262 unobtrusive cartridge.
The Terminator 259
The Treehouse 264
Their Finest Hour 274
Thexder 274 article; CU Amiga Magazine 34 (dec. 1992)
Time Table of History: Arts & Entertainment 267
Treasure Quest 259 CDTV CONSOLE DUE SOON
Trump Castle 274 A cut-price, cut-down console-like ver-
sion of the CDTV is set for launch before
Ultima VI : The False Prophet 274
next Easter. Although plans for the new
Universal Monsters 257 machine, aimed at taking on the SNES
Unreal 274 and Megadrive in the burgeoning console
US History 267 market, have been kept underwraps, we
Video Creator 265 can exclusively reveal that the new ma-
Voice FX 265 chine will be competitively priced and
come in at below £200. No specs are cur-
Wayne Gretzky Hockey II 274
rently available although at least five UK
Wing Commander 274 software houses are currently developing
titles.

330 • Games list - CDTV

 The Amiga CD32 was Commodore’s attempt at a
gaming console and what turned out to be their swan
song. The majority of its library were upgraded
Amiga games.

For more on the CD32,

then you would want to visit
www.cd32-allianz.de

NoCopyright © 2022 by DaddaRuleKonge

All rights are NOT reserved. EVERY part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any
means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the
publisher. I do not own anything in this book. You use part of this publication on your OWN RISK though. As places in this book may
have a copyright by the original owner.
CONTENT
Amiga . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
Persons of Interest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338
Amiga Chip Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340
Amiga CD32 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342
Technical specifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344
Included Accessories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347
article; Amiga CD32 Special . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350
Letters from readers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
Letters from readers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566
CD32 CD-ROM titles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 568
CD-ROM Compilations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 574
Unreleased Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 599
Homebrew . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 661
article; David vs. Goliath . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 682
Hardware & Accessories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 685
Bundles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 708
Region Variants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 711
CD32 After-market Variations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 712
Games List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 724
 text from Wikipedia;
Amiga Corporation was a United States computer
company formed in the early 1980s as Hi-Toro. It
is most famous for having developed the Amiga
computer, code named Lorraine.
In the early 1980s Jay Miner, along with other
Atari staffers, had become fed up with manage-
ment and decamped. In September 1982, they
set up another chip-set project under a new com-
pany in Santa Clara, California, called Hi-Toro
(which meant “high bull” to them, later renamed
to Amiga), where they could have some crea-
tive freedom. There, they started to create a new
68000-based games console, codenamed Lor-
raine, that could be upgraded to a full-fledged
computer. The initial start-up financing of Amiga
Corporation was provided by three dentists in
Florida, who later regained their investment once
Commodore bought the company.
To raise money for the Lorraine project,
Amiga designed and sold joysticks and game
cartridges for popular game consoles such as the
Atari 2600 and ColecoVision, as well as an input
device called the Joyboard, essentially a joystick
the player stood on.
During development in 1983, Amiga had ex-
hausted venture capital and was desperate for
more financing. Jay Miner approached his former
employer, Atari, which then paid Amiga to con-
tinue development work. In return Atari was to
obtain one-year exclusive use of the design. Atari
had plans for a 68000-based machine, code-
named “Mickey”, that would have used custom-
ized chips, but details were sparse.
During this period a downturn started in
the video game business that turned into the Vid-
eo game crash of 1983. By the end of the year,
Atari was losing about $1 million a day, and its
owner, Warner Communications, sought to sell
the company. For some time, no one was inter-
ested.
Meanwhile, at Commodore International
a fight was brewing between Jack Tramiel and
Irving Gould, which ended with Tramiel leaving
336 • CD32
the company.
Tramiel formed
Tramel Technology
and visited various
US computer com-
panies with the in-
tention of purchas-
ing a company for
manufacturing and
possible technol-
ogy acquisitions.
Tramiel visited Jay Miner
Mindset (run by Roger Badersher, former head
of Atari’s Computer Division), and Amiga. Ami-
ga’s talks eventually fell through as Tramiel told
Amiga staff that he was very interested in the
chipset, but not the staff. In the meantime, he had
set his chief engineer (former Commodore engi-
neer Shiraz Shivji) the task of developing a new
low-cost, high-end computer system.
Tramiel’s design for his next generation
computer was 95% completed by June (which
only fueled speculation that Shivji and other en-
gineers had taken technology with them from
Commodore). Tramiel discovered that Warner
Communications wanted to sell Atari, which at
that point was losing about $10,000 a day. Tramiel
bought Atari’s Consumer Division (which in-
cluded the console and home computer depart-
ments) in July 1984 and Tramel Technology, Ltd.
became Atari Corporation. Commodore filed an
injunction against Tramiel and Atari, seeking to
bar them from releasing their new computer.
One of Tramiel’s first acts after forming
Atari Corp. was to fire most of Atari’s remain-
ing staff and cancel almost all ongoing projects
in order to review their continued viability. It
was during this time in late July that Tramiel’s
representatives discovered the original Atari Inc./
Amiga contract.
BYTE had reported in April 1984 that
Amiga “is developing a 68000-based home com-
puter with a custom graphics processor. With
128K bytes of RAM and a floppy-disk drive, the
computer will reportedly sell for less than $1,000
late this year”. It turned out that Amiga was sup-
posed to deliver the Amiga chipset to Atari Inc.
on June 30, 1984, or forfeit the company and its
technology. With the deadline fast approaching
and still not having enough funds to finish de-
velopment, the Amiga crew went on alert after
having heard rumors that Tramiel was in closed
negotiations to complete the purchase of Atari in
several days. Remembering Tramiel’s visit that
Spring during their investor campaign, they be-
gan scrambling for another large investor. So, at
around the same time that Tramiel was in negotia-
tions with Atari, Amiga wound up entering into
discussions with Commodore. The discussions
ultimately led to Commodore wanting to pur-
chase Amiga outright, which would (from Com-
modore’s viewpoint) cancel any outstanding con-
tracts—including the contract given to the now
defunct Atari Inc. So instead of Amiga deliver-
ing the chipset to Atari, Commodore delivered
a check of $500,000 to Atari Corp. on Amiga’s
behalf (right about the time they were discover-
ing the contract), in effect returning the funds in-
vested into Amiga for completion of the Lorraine
chipset.
Seeing a chance to gain some leverage
Tramiel immediately used the situation to coun-
tersue Commodore through its new (pending)
subsidiary, Amiga, which was done on August
13, 1984. He sought damages and an injunction
to bar Amiga (and effectively Commodore) from
producing anything with that technology. The
suit tried to render Commodore’s new acquisition
(and the source for its next generation of com-
puters) useless and do to Commodore what they
were trying to do to him.
Meanwhile, at Commodore, the Amiga
team was sitting in limbo for nearly the entire
summer because of the lawsuit. No word on the
status of the chipset, the Lorraine computer sys-
tem or the team’s fate was known. Finally in the
fall of 1984 Commodore informed the team that
the Lorraine project was active again, the chipset
to be improved, the OS developed and the hard-
ware design completed.
From this point on the former Amiga
Corporation was a division of Commodore. Over
the next few years many employees felt Commo-
dore’s management proved to be as annoying as
Atari’s, and most of the team members left, were
laid off, or were fired. Meanwhile, Atari used this
time to finish and release the Atari ST computer
just months ahead of the release of the Amiga.
Both lawsuits themselves were laid to
rest in March 1987, when Commodore and Atari
Corp. settled out of court in a closed decision.
In 1994, Commodore filed for bankruptcy and
its assets were purchased by Escom, who in turn
went bankrupt in 1996. The Commodore-Amiga
assets were then sold to Gateway 2000, which
had announced grand plans for the Amiga. How-
ever, in 1999, Gateway sold the assets (except for
the patents, which were only licensed) to Amino
Development for almost $5 million. Gateway still
retained ownership to the Commodore-Amiga
patents. The last of the Commodore-Amiga pat-
ents (EP0316325B1 for “Cursor controlled user
interface system”, based on US887053) expired
on July 14, 2007.
Amiga, Inc. licensed the rights to make hardware
using the AmigaOne brand to a computer vendor
based in the UK, Eyetech Group. However, due
to poor sales Eyetech suffered substantial losses
and ceased trading.
On 1 February 2019, Amiga Inc. transferred all
its IP (including Amiga trademarks and remain-
ing copyrights) to C-A Acquisition Corp., owned
by Mike Battilana (director of Cloanto, company
behind the Amiga Forever emulation package),
later renamed to Amiga Corporation.
Amiga Forever is an Amiga preservation,
emulation and support package published by
Cloanto, which allows Amiga software to run on
non-Amiga hardware legally and without com-
plex configuration.
CD32 • 337
 Eric W. Schwartz
Eric W. Schwarts (Eric Williams Schwartz; He was a guest of honor at ConFurence 7
born November 27, 1971, in Dayton, Ohio, (1996) and at Morphicon 2004.
USA) is a freelance animator, illustrator, Ami-
Eric is believed by some in the furry fandom
ga enthusiast, and artist of note, especially in
to be one and the same as the erotic toon art-
the Amiga fandom, then later the furry fan-
ist TDK, and the struggle to prove the truth or
dom.
otherwise of this assertion was for a while an
Eric is the creator of the webcomic Sabrina extensive back-and-forth, involving Fans and
Online, and the characters Amy the Squir- furries versus (mostly) anti-furries on forums
rel (Amiga’s unofficial mascot), Sabrina the such as Portal of Evil, CYD, and 4chan.
Skunkette, Tabitha, R.C. Raccoon, Sheila Vix-
en, Tammy Vixen, Clarisse Cat, Carli Chin-
chilla, Darke Katt and a few others. He is also
one of the most well-known and vocal activ-
ists for the Amiga operating system.
While his animation at times deals
with mature situations and humor it never
enters graphic territory, using the situations
for humor as opposed to arousal. These situ-
ations chiefly revolve around unwanted atten-
tion, oblivious to interest in a character, or two
characters trying to hook up or have a pleasing
date only to be interrupted or hindered for a
time. The animations are short and the comedy
is recieved even without previous experiences
with the webcomic. Eric voiced his own ani-
mations.
Eric’s art has been published in multiple publi-
cations (beginning with Sabrina at See-CAD),
and he also produces his own portfolios. He
has also produced a number of furry anima-
CU Amiga magazine (January 1994)
tions of varying lengths.

338 • VIP - CD32

Stuart Campbell
Stuart Campbell was a name
many PAL Amiga users from
the early to mid-90s’ knew
off. He was maybe the most
hated reviewer by both Amiga
owners and developers, but
also highly respected by other
Amiga owners and people in the
industry.
Stuart Campbell is a former video game jour-
nalist. Born in Stirling, Scotland. He moved to
Bath, England in 1991 to work for computer
magazine Amiga Power as a staff writer. He
has lived in Bath ever since, and made further
contributions to a number of publications both
within the video game industry and in the pop-
ular media.
In 1988, Campbell won the UK National Com-
puter Games Championship’s ZX Spectrum
category. In late 1989, US Gold and Computer
and Video Games magazine sponsored a team
of UK players, which included Campbell, to
take part in the European Video Games Cham-
pionship at the Salon de la Micro show in Par-
is. The UK team won, beating out the French
and Spanish competitors. Using the prize fund
from the first two competitions—£1,000 of
computer hardware and US Gold software—
Campbell was able to set up an independent
videogame fanzine, Between Planets. The
fanzine ran to four issues; Campbell had sent
issue three to Future Publishing, which hired
him as a full-time staff writer for the Amiga
games magazine Amiga Power.
Campbell contributed to Amiga Power
magazine from January 1991, before the mag-
azine launched in April of that year, to May
1994, being promoted to various positions
and culminating with deputising as its editor
for ten issues between June 1993 and April
1994. Despite regularly professing his love
for titles such as Rainbow Islands and Sensi-
ble Soccer, and compiling
“top 100” lists, he is perhaps
better known for his unre-
served and often highly dis-
paraging critiques. In 1993, he
awarded the game Internation-
al Rugby Challenge two marks
out of a possible hundred, declar-
ing that the Bosnian War was “Not
nearly as bad.”
Issues 27 to 36 of Amiga Power have
subsequently been cited as belonging to “The
Stuart Campbell Era”. Campbell remained at
the publication until issue 39, which is consid-
ered part of “The Jonathan Davies Era” in the
chronology of AP.
In 1993, the magazine had to issue
an apology during the Cannon Fodder Con-
troversy after Campbell remarked “Old sol-
diers? I wish them all dead.” A few months
later Campbell left Amiga Power to work at
Sensible Software, the producers of the game.
During 1994 and 1995 he oversaw the devel-
opment of Cannon Fodder 2—for which he
designed all but around 10 of its 72 levels—
and Sensible World of Soccer.
Campbell’s writing has influenced current
video games writers, including journalist and
Marvel Comics writer Kieron Gillen. John
Walker also cites Campbell as an influence,
calling him a “constant conscience and in-
spiration”. Gillen said Campbell was “the
world’s sharpest critic of arcade games”, the
long-running newsletter Need To Know said
he was “Britain’s Best Games Journalist”,
and Wired described Campbell as “the UK’s
foremost authority on computer and video
games”. Keith Stuart, gaming editor of The
Guardian, said in 2016 that “I would not be
doing this job if it weren’t for [Amiga Power]
- I wanted to write like Stuart.”
VIP - CD32 • 339
 Amiga Chip Architecture
OCS
The Original Chip
Set (OCS) is a chipset
used in the earliest
Commodore Amiga
computers and defined
the Amiga’s graph-
ics and sound capa-
bilities. It appeared in
Amiga models built between 1985 and 1990:
the A1000, A2000, CDTV, and A500.
The chipset which gave the Amiga its unique
graphics features consists of three main “cus-
tom” chips; Agnus, Denise, and Paula.
Agnus is the central chip in the design.
It includes sub-components known as the blit-
ter (fast transfer of data in memory without the
intervention of the processor) and the Copper
(video-synchronized co-processor). The origi-
nal Agnus can address 512 KB of chip RAM.
Later revisions, dubbed ‘Fat Agnus’, added
512 KB pseudo-fast RAM, which for ECS was
changed to 1 MB (sometimes called ‘Fatter Ag-
nus’) and subsequently to 2 MB chip RAM. The
name Agnus is derived from ‘Address GeNera-
tor UnitS’ since it houses all address registers and
controls memory access of the custom chips.
Denise is the main video processor.
Without using overscan, the Amiga’s graph-
ics display is 320 or 640 pixels wide by 200
(NTSC) or 256 (PAL) pixels tall. Denise also
supports interlacing, which doubles the verti-
cal resolution, at the cost of intrusive flickering
on typical monitors of that era. Denise is a con-
trived contraction of Display ENabler, intended
to continue the naming convention.
Paula is primarily the audio chip, with
four independent hardware-mixed 8-bit PCM
sound channels, each of which supports 65
volume levels and waveform output rates from
roughly 20 samples per second to almost 29,000
samples per second. Paula also handles inter-
rupts and various I/O functions including the
floppy disk drive, the serial port, and analog
joysticks. Paula is a contrived contraction of
Ports, Audio, UART and Logic, and coinciden-
tally the chip designer’s girlfriend.
340 • CD32
ECS
The Enhanced Chip Set (ECS) is the second
generation of the Amiga computer’s chipset,
offering minor improvements over the original
chipset (OCS) design. ECS was introduced in
1990 with the launch of the A3000. Amigas
produced from 1990 onwards featured a mix
of OCS and ECS chips, such as later versions
of the A500 and the CDTV. Other ECS models
were the A500+ in 1991 and lastly the A600 in
1992.
Notable improvements were the Super Agnus
and the HiRes Denise chips. The sound and flop-
py controller chip, Paula, remained unchanged
from the OCS design. Super Agnus supports 2
MB of Chip RAM, whereas the original Agnus/
Fat Agnus and subsequent Fatter Agnus can ad-
dress 512 KB and 1 MB, respectively.
The improvements largely favored application
software, which benefited from higher resolu-
tion and VGA-like display modes, rather than
games. As an incremental update, ECS was
intended to be backward compatible with soft-
ware designed for OCS machines, though some
pre-ECS games were found to be incompatible.
AGA
Amiga Advanced Graphics Architecture (AGA)
is the third-generation Amiga graphic chipset,
first used in the A4000 in 1992. AGA was origi-
nally called AA for Advanced Architecture in
the United States. The name was later changed
to AGA for the European market to reflect that it
largely improved the graphical subsystem, and
to avoid trademark issues.
AGA is able to display graphics modes with
a depth of up to 8 bits per pixel. This allows
for 256 colors in indexed display modes and
262,144 colors (18-bit) in Hold-And-Modi-
fy (HAM-8) modes. The palette for the AGA
chipset has 256 entries from 16,777,216 colors
(24-bit), whereas previous chipsets, the OCS
and ECS, only allow 32 colors out of 4096 or 64
colors in Amiga Extra Half-Brite (EHB mode).
AGA is present in the CD32, A1200, and A4000.
AAA
The AAA chipset (Advanced Amiga Archi-
tecture) was designed as a followup to the AA
chipset (AA was renamed AGA at a later date),
and to be the next-generation Amiga multime-
dia system designed by Commodore Interna-
tional. Initially begun as a secret project, the
first design discussions were started in 1988,
and after many revisions and redesigns the first
silicon versions were fabricated in 1992–1993.
The project was all but abandoned in 1993 af-
ter it was projected that PCs were to equal the
AAA shortly after release, so a further jump was
needed, leading to project Hombre.
AAA would share little with the AGA chipset.
The AGA was created as an evolution of the
OCS and ECS before it—most software de-
signed for OCS will run on the AGA. The AAA
would include all new architecture consisting of
four VLSI integrated circuits.
Three prototypes called ‘Nyx’, meaning “night”
in Classical Greek, were built as technology
demonstrators and debugger boards for the new
chips. However Nyx was never intended as the
final production machine, AAA systems would
have been based around the Acutiator architec-
ture designed by Dave Haynie.
The initial chipset run was largely functional,
but some important pieces such as the interrupt
controller didn’t work, and others were never
tested.
Fully functioning AAA chips were never
produced, though they were much talked about
in the trade press. Numerous plans for purchas-
ing Amiga and salvaging the technology came
and went after Commodore’s demise; all of
them including the realization that for the Ami-
ga to stay competitive, the development and re-
lease of AAA or Hombre would have to be one
of their overriding goals.
Hombre
In 1993, Commodore International ceased the
development of the AAA chipset and began to
design a new 64-bit 3D graphics chipset based
on Hewlett-Packard’s PA-RISC architecture to
serve as the new basis of the Amiga personal
computer series. It was codenamed Hombre
(“man” in Spanish) and was developed in con-
junction with Hewlett-Packard over an estimat-
ed eighteen-month period.
Hombre was intended as the basis of a range
of Amiga computers and multimedia products,
including a successor to the A1200, a next gen-
eration game machine called CD64 and a 3D ac-
celerator PCI card.
Hombre was designed as a clean break
from traditional Amiga chipset architecture
with no planar graphics mode support. Hombre
also doesn’t feature the original eight Amiga
sprites, early iterations of Hombre featured a
new, incompatible sprite engine but Commo-
dore decided to drop sprites because sprites had
become less attractive to developers compared
with fast blitters.
Hombre is based around two chips: the first was
a controller chip similar in principle to Agnus,
Alice, and Andrea. This chip featured an ad-
vance DMA engine and blitter as well as the PA-
RISC processor. The other was a display chip
like Denise, Lisa, and Monica found on early
Amiga models.
Since Hombre does not support any planar
mode, nor any emulation for the legacy Ami-
ga chipset or Motorola 680x0 CPU registers,
it was completely incompatible with former
Amiga models. According to Hombre designer
Dr. Ed Hepler, Commodore intended to produce
an AGA Amiga upon a single chip to solve the
backward compatibility issues, which would
be integrated in Hombre based computers for
backward compatibility with AGA software.
Hombre was cancelled along with the bankrupt-
cy of Commodore International.
CD32 • 341
 Amiga CD32
The Amiga CD32 (stylized as Amiga CD32) is a
32-bit video game console developed by Com-
modore and released in Europe, Australia, Can-
ada, and Brazil.
The CD32 is part of a family of Amiga comput-
ers and other hardware. It uses CD-ROM as its
storage medium. It was based on Commodore’s
Advanced Graphics Architecture (AGA) chipset,
and is of similar specification to the Amiga 1200
computer. Not wishing to repeat its earlier mis-
take of offering a way to turn a CD32 into an
enhanced A1200 as it did with the A500-based
CDTV, Commodore itself made no hardware
available for that purpose.
Although the CD32 was largely cross
compatible with the A1200, the new Akiko chip
was able to perform to “Chunky to Planar” con-
versions, which would ordinarily consume many
cycles of the 68020 processor. It was requested
by Amiga’s software group as most software was
currently being developed in chunky pixel mode,
suitable for PCs—this function converted these
“Chunky Pixels” to Amiga bitplanes, allowing
3D based games to run faster than a base stand-
ard 1200. The Amiga hardware may have been
incredibly optimised for 2D, but these same op-
timization proved somewhat of a hindrance for
the new 3D games emerging and although Akiko
was a helpful addition, it would still be unable to
keep up with the advancing technology. What the
system did have, was a wealth of existing Amiga
Amiga 1200
342 • CD32
titles that could be easily adapted to the console,
which was both a great selling point, and a down-
fall, as the technology didn’t seem to improve on
what was already had.
The CD32 had the possibility to add
mouse, keyboard, etc. It also had a covered ex-
pansion slot intended to accommodate a Vid-
eoCD playback module. This was eventually uti-
lized by third parties to create other expansion
modules that allowed the CD32 to act as a fully
capable Amiga computer, first by adding missing
ports and later providing for the ability to add a
hard drive, memory and upgrade the CPU.
In addition to its own special controllers,
the CD32 is also compatible with most 9-pin D-
sub controllers from the ‘80s and ‘90s, includ-
ing Sega controllers, Atari 2600 joysticks, and all
Amiga/C64 joysticks, as well as Amiga mice and
paddles.
The CD32 is capable of running most of
the titles developed for the CDTV, but differenc-
es in CPU speed and Kickstart version prevent
some of the earlier CDTV titles from running.
One of Commodore’s last hardware de-
signs was an external CD-ROM drive for the
A1200 that featured the Akiko chip, thus turning
any A1200 into a CD32-compatible system. The
only currently known surviving prototype of the
CD1200 drive resides at the Retro Computer Mu-
seum in Leicester.
Codenamed Spellbound, the CD32 was an-
nounced at the London Science Museum on July
16th 1993, where Commodore were promising
to sell the console in some cities by Christmas
with wider distribution in January 1994 for $399
(equivalent to $749 in 2021). Computer Gam-
ing World reported in November 1993 that “a their use of the XOR cursor technique (used for
significant amount of software will be available displaying the cursor over the background im-
immediately” for the console, based on the Ami- age), prevented the machines being imported
ga 1200. The magazine in January 1994 stated from their Philippines stock pile until a $10
that “in spite of Commodore’s earlier efforts to million settlement was paid. Despite the tenu-
disguise the fact—the Amiga is a great gaming ous technical grounds which logically made
platform”, but wondered if the company could no sense, the court favoured a tenuous verdict
successfully market the console in the US; “The against Commodore, which they simply couldn’t
CDTV fiasco certainly isn’t reassuring. Will there afford to pay. Some say this was the final blow
be enough U.S. developers to make the invest- for Commodore, but they were already on un-
ment worthwhile?” stable ground by this point. 1993 had seen the
company lose an astonishing $356 million dol-
CD32 were released in September of 1993 at the
lars, and even though the CD32 was selling well,
World of Commodore Amiga show, beating both
their Philippines stock was held until they could
the 3DO and Jaguar to release and claiming the
make payment. Despite this, almost 100,000
title of “The World’s First 32-bit CD Games Con-
machines were sold in Europe outselling its ri-
sole”.
vals, with demand still going strong into 1994,
Although it was the first such machine re-
but Commodore simply ran out of units and with
leased in Europe and North America, it was beat-
component supply problems and mounting debts,
en to market by seven months by the FM Towns
simply couldn’t make any more.
Marty, a console released exclusively in Japan.
Although the CD32 was never officially
However, the CD32’s 68EC020 processor has
sold in the United States, imported models did
a 32-bit data bus both internally and externally,
come over the border from Canada, and many
while the 386SX in the FM Towns Marty has a
stores in the United States (primarily mail-order
16-bit data bus externally. However, because the
stores) imported units for domestic sale. During
CD32 shipped with 2MB of RAM shared between
the long bankruptcy proceedings, Commodore
the chipset and the CPU, this meant the CPU was
UK also provided some hardware components
bottlenecked when accessing memory, similar to
and software for the American market, including
an A1200 operating without 32-bit “fast” (CPU
production of the MPEG Video Module, which
dedicated) RAM.
was not officially released by Commodore Inter-
Commodore also significantly undercut
national.
the competition in terms of pricing launching at
£299, the same price the A1200 was also lowered The console lasted only for approximately sev-
to. Compared to a Mega CD at £369, with the cost en months due to component supply issues and
therefore it didn’t have the sales impact to keep
of a Mega Drive on top, this was a significant sav-
the console alive.
ing, and it led to substantial sales for the console.
The machine’s similarity to the 1200 was one of However, the console was kept alive in
the reasons Commodore were able to get the ma- other forms: In the late 1990s to early 2000s,
chine out to market so quickly and Commodore slot machine manufacturer StarGames utilized
UK entered an aggressive marketing strategy a stripped down CD32 motherboard in many of
akin to Sega’s Nintendo slating approach from their slot machines and in the mid to late 1990s,
a few years prior, even erecting a huge billboardsome vehicle registries in Canada utilized CD32
outside Sega UK’s office playing on Sega’s own systems for interactive multimedia testing for
marketing slogan. drivers license applications. (More on these vari-
ations can be found on the “CD32 After-market
The CD32 was planned and advertised for a US
Variations” pages).
release, but a legal dispute with Cad Track over

some text from: nostalgianerd.com

CD32 • 343
 FRONT

BACK

SIDE-VIEW

344 • CD32
 Technical specifications
• CPU: Motorola MC68EC020
• Speed: 14.18758 MHz (PAL) / 14.31818 MHz (NTSC)
• Co-Processor: AGA based chipset:
8374 Alice (memory controller and blitter),
4203 Lisa (video control chip),
8364 Paula (sound & I/O),
391563-01 Akiko (I/O controller)
• RAM: 2 MB Chip RAM + 1 KB flash
• ROM: Kickstart 3.1: 512 KB + 512 KB extended ROM
• Sound: 4 channel 8 bit PCM, stereo output
• Graphic Modes: 320x200 to 1280x512 max
• Colors: Palette: 16.7 million
On screen: 256 in normal modes, 262144 in HAM-8

BACK

Edge Connector

Power On RF Modulator Right & Left Audio

Power Connector S Video Composite Video

OR

SIDE

The side of the console contains two standard

9-pin D-connector joystick ports and an auxiliary
connector (AUX) port. The AUX port can be used
with a keyboard or another device.

Controller/Joystick/ Auxiliary
Mouse Port

INTERNAL CD Drive CD Drive Cable

FRONT PANEL
The control pamel in the front of the
machine contains the reset button, power
and disk activity lights, headset jack and
headset volume control.

LED Cable LED Board

CD32 • 345
 Main System Screens
Users can start the splash screen by pow-
ering up the system without a CD. From
there the user can enter a language se-
lection menu and a menu where they can
view the contents of the internal Flash
ROM. Unlike most game consoles, this
menu does not allow the user to delete
files. Instead, the system will automati-
cally overwrite the oldest entries when the
memory runs out. The menu does, howev-
er, allow the user to “lock” files to prevent
overwriting.
Motherboard Revisions
During the development phase of the
CD32, Commodore provided regis-
tered Amiga developers with the devel-
opment versions of the CD32. These
versions usually contained a Rev 1 or
2 motherboard. The first public release
of the CD32 used a rev 3 motherboard.
Apparently the developer ver-
sions may also have been supplied
with a “debug” card which gave the
CD32 much of the standard ports that
the A1200 had. This was intended to
help the developers port software to
the CD32.
“bigbookofamigahardware.com”

Animated Boot Screen CD Player

Lock and unlock savegames System Language

(NVRAM)

Like all later Amiga computers, the CD32

has a hidden boot menu that can be ac- Rev.2 Rev.3
cessed by plugging an Amiga mouse into
port 2 and holding both buttons down while
turning the system on. Most of the options
in this menu are not useful on a CD32, but
from this menu the user can choose to
boot in either NTSC or PAL mode. This is
important, as there are some games that
will not work if the system is in the wrong
mode, and most games don’t advertise
what video mode they were developed for.
Despite the naming, the menu really only
allows a choice of 60 Hz or 50 Hz video
output; a PAL system booted in NTSC
mode will still output a video signal using
PAL colour encoding, which will usually
Rev.4 Rev.4-1
result in a black-and-white picture when
connected to an NTSC television.

346 • CD32
Included Accessories
Video Cables
The North American NTSC version in-
cluded an RF switch box to connect to a
television, or monitor.
The European PAL version included a
RF modulator cable.
S-video and composite video options is
also available, but these cables were not
included with the system.
PAL RF Modulator Cable
Switchbox
NTSC RF Modulator Cable
Audio Cables
Stereo audio cables were in-
cluded for connectin the con-
sole to an audio system.
Power Supply
External brick-type 22 watt power supply
unit.
Game Controller
The CD32 came with a gamepad con-
troller designed for the system. The con-
troller has four ‘play’ (action) buttons, a
pause/start ‘bar’ (start button), two ‘gen-
eral feature bars’ (shoulder buttons) and
an ‘omni-directional movement button’
(d-pad).
Each button is unique to the
game playing. Typically the red button is
the fire/action button and the most fre-
quently used. Most games don’t use ev-
ery button, and some only use two.
The controller is mostly criticized by
Amiga users, and the d-pad is often the
biggest complain. The d-pad is basi-
cally just a disc with four round bumps
in the cardinal directions. Commodore
included a rubber piece that
glued onto the d-pad to give
it a more traditional pad. The
d-pad cause pain for some
users after using it for a ex-
tended period. It is also the
most prone to breaking on the
controller.
The gamepad is compatible with an Ami-
ga computer. Some Amiga games were
also designed to takes advantage of the
gamepads extra buttons.
CD32 • 347
 magazine article excerpts from; “32-pages special CD32 edition” CU Amiga Magazine 43
(September 1993) written by: Jolyon Ralph

AMIGA CD32
SPECIAL
The launch of the Amiga CD32 console
threatens to redefine games playing as
we know it. With AGA graphics, an ‘020
processor and 2Mb RAM, the new ma-
chine looks set to revoulutionise home
entertainment with its ability to play com-
puter games, music CDs and blockbuster
movies.

Is the Amiga CD32 the future of home

entertainment or a poisoned chalice that
will be the downfall of Commodore?
Jolyon Ralph checks out the new 32-bit
The CD32 threatens to redefine gameplaying as we know
Amiga CD console. it. Stand by to be amazed.

Sega and Nintendo said it couldn’t be
done, but Commodore have proved
them wrong by bringing out the worlds
first 32-bit CD-ROM based console,
and at an affordable price, too. By
combining the 32-bit technology of
the A1200 with a fast double-speed
CD-ROM drive in a small Megadrive-
style box, they’ve effectively stolen a
march over their competitors — but is
the new machine any good?
It certainly looks unlike any other
Amiga, and at first glance you could
be forgiven for thinking it was a
Megadrive. Only the big ‘32 Bit’
and ‘Amiga CD32’ logos point to
the power contained in the dark grey
box. One thing the CD32 isn’t, is the
CDTV-2. CDTV was designed to do
something totally different — a home
multimedia system for entertainment,
education, reference and productiv-
ity, and was never really given long
enough to prove itself. The CD32, on
the other hand, is purely a games ma-
chine. It’s a ready-made market and
Commodore have come out with the
machine at exactly the right time.
The CD32 is simple to operate.
Open the flip-top lid to reveal the tray
for the CD. The CD32 does not re-
quire caddies that annoy most CDTV
and A570 users (although I must ad-
mit I prefer the caddy system - discs
are too easily scratched without cad-
dys), and doesn’t have a built-in lens
cleaner like CDTV, so be prepared to
regularly clean the lens on the CD32 if
you buy one, especially if you live in a
house with smokers. CD lens cleaning
solutions or special CD cleaning discs
are available from most HiFi stores.
Powering up the CD32 reveals a
rather pretty title screen using 256
colours and colour cycling, along
with an irritating and somewhat out of
place musical ditty. Both of these stop
as soon as you load a CD and lower
the lid. What happens next depends on
the type of CD you put in.

350 • magazine article

NOT SO NEW
The first batch of CD32 titles will be
enhanced versions of classic Amiga
games (Robocod, Pinball Fantasies).
These will use CD quality audio and
oodles of animation, sound and extra
graphics. Some will have extra levels,
and a few, such as Microcosm from
Psygnosis, have been developed ex-
clusively for CD. No finished CD32
titles were available in time of this
review, although several (including
Diggers, RoboCod and Pinball Fan-
tasies) should be finished by the time
you read this.
CD32 disks contain a data track
which contains program data in ex-
actly the same way that floppy disks
and hard disks do, and the CD32 will
‘boot’ from a CD in the same way any
Amiga will boot from a floppy disk.
Unlike floppy or hard disks the CD Most standard CDTV titles will in the graphics decoding, and the con-
can also contain up to 98 other audio work in the CD32, although many trol has been greatly simplified.
tracks. These are identical to audio require a mouse (luckily the CD32,
tracks on music CD, indeed you can unlike CDTV, has standard mouse/ GOING, GOING, GONE
play these tracks on CD32 and CDTV joystick ports so you can plug in any In producing a low-cost Amiga con-
discs in a standard CD Audio player standard Amiga mouse). Some titles, sole it is inevitable that things had to
(although be careful, some players especially PD collections, require go. The usual complement of expan-
will try and play track 1 which can be a floppy disk drive, and currently sion ports found on every Amiga since
extremely noisy!) If you remember no floppy drive can be connected to the Amiga 1000 has been cut down to
what it was like playing Spectrum or CD32, although one should be avail- the bare minimum, and some would
Commodore 64 tapes in your hifi at able by the end of the year. say below the minimum, required.
full volume you’ll know what I mean. CD32 will also play your Audio The RGB port has been removed, al-
CDs. Inserting an audio CD brings up though a S-VHS output is now sup-
a smart menu similar to the one on the plied which gives an extremely good
JARGON BUSTERS picture on S-VHS TVs and monitors.
CDTV, but it reacts faster and is sim-
• AGA: Advanced Graphics Architecture - The pler to use than its predecessor. Like With S-VHS, RF and Composite it is
chips in the A1200/A4000 and CD32 that allow up to
256 colours to be displayed on screen. CDTV you can control CDs from the now possible to connect the CD32 to
• CD-ROM: Compact Disc - Read Only Memory - joypad, but there aren’t any buttons almost any TV or video system and
A CD, identical in appearance to your Dire Straits
disc, but containing computer data. on the main unit to control CD play. obtain superb quality output. Many
• CDTV: Commodore Dynamic Total Vision - Com-
modore’s previous attempt at a CD-ROM based CDTV had problems with a few au- modern TVs have S-VHS inputs at
Amiga. Aimed at the home ‘edutainment’ market it dio CDs, especially extra-long CDs the front of the TV, so connecting the
was a slow seller and is no longer in production.
• CDXL: A format for simple partial screen motion with lots of tracks. All CDs I tried on CD32 doesn’t require all that tedious
video from CD on CDTV and Amiga CD32.
• FMV: Full Motion Video - Using MPEG to play back the CD32, including a couple known messing around with SCART sockets
better than VHS quality video from a CD. to cause problems on CDTV, worked and cables hanging out of the back
• Jurassic Park : A film with some dinosaurs in it.
• MPEG: Motion Picture Experts Group, they decide fine. The audio quality, when put of your TV that previous machines
on a format for highly compressed video that can
squeeze video to small enough files to play from through an amplifier or into a TV with needed. Even the RF output quality is
CD. reasonable speakers, is excellent. good, so whatever TV you have, your
• MULTISESSION: Writable CD discs can be writ-
ten to several times before they are full (data can CD+G discs, special audio CDs CD32 will work. The S-VHS output
be added, but previous data cannot be altered or
removed). A multisession drive is a drive capable with simple graphics (not to be con- can also be connected to any monitor
of reading this type of CD. fused with the obsolete CDVideo that has separate Chroma and Lumi-
• NTSC: National Television Standards Committee
(USA): American TV standard, incompatible with discs) can also be used. These come nance inputs, such as the 1084S and
PAL (UK).
• PAL: Phase Alternative Linescan, which is the up with simple graphic sequences. even the old 1701 C64 monitors, al-
video system used by your TV if you live in the UK Most CD+G discs are karaoke discs, though a special lead is required. The
and most of the more civilized parts of Europe.
• Photo CD: A Kodak system for storing up to 100 and both CD+G discs I tried in Amiga parallel and serial ports have been re-
photographs on a writable CD. You can take your
35mm film and get it transferred to CD. CD32 worked without problems, in moved, so you can’t connect external
• SECAM: The French TV system, similar to PAL. fact the CD+G code has been improved modems, printers, digitizers, and so
Used in France, Russia, and a few other equally
interesting places. since CDTV. There are no more errors on. Obviously most of these are rather

magazine article • 351

 pointless on a game console, but there
are two things that some people will
miss. No serial port means no ma-
chine-linked games, and no parallel
port means the CD32 can’t be linked
to another Amiga with the Parnet net-
work cable to transfer data from CD to
Amiga (many CDTV owners use this
to transform their CDTV into an ex-
ternal CD-ROM drive on their Amiga.
Most surprising is the lack of a
floppy disk drive port, especially con-
sidering the amount of games already
on Amiga disk format. It may be that
the cost of adding the floppy drive
interface circuitry was too much, or
possibly it was pressure from software
publishers, eager to convert over to
unprintable CD-ROM and unwilling
to see the machine able to run floppy
(and along with that pirate) software
too. Whatever the reason it makes the
CD32 a totally closed system. You
can’t put data into it, except on CD,
and you can’t take data out of it onto
disk or via in/out ports.
The CD32 also has standard mouse
and joystick ports, something sorely
missed from CDTV. The supplied
controller is rather Nintendo-esque
in design, down to the buttons on the
top left and right sides, plus four fire
buttons, a start/stop button and an 8
way directional pad, enough for the
most frantic beat-em-up games. The
controller links to a standard mouse
or joystick port, and apparently will
work with any Amiga when used with
the right driver software, so you will
no doubt see lots of software starting
to support the new joypad.
The controller comes with a nice
long lead, it’s encouraging to see
someone putting some though into
how the unit will be used, although
there’s definitely some left-handed
militant designer at Commodore, as
the joystick/mouse ports are on the
The numerous expansion
ports found on other Ami-
gas have been radically
cut back on the CD32
352 • magazine article
the joystick/mouse ports are on the
left-hand side (as on the A4000) to the
irritation of right-handed people like
myself.
Next to the Joystick ports is a mys-
teriously labelled ‘aux’ socket that
turns out to be nothing more than a
standard A4000 keyboard socket. An-
noyingly, the black CDTV keyboards
do not work, only the white A4000
keyboards which are not available
separately. Commodore say that other
expansions including virtual reality
‘gloves’ are being developed for this
port, but to be honest, I don’t believe
them.
BOX OF TRICKS
The CD32 does have one large mon-
ster-sized expansion connector, which
carries all the relevant lines to add all
the missing ports to with an external
board. At the CD32 launch some de-
velopers were running from machines
fitted with ‘debug’ boards connected
to the back containing all the miss-
ing interfaces. This will apparently
become the basis of a Commodore
‘base unit’, containing all the ports
and interfaces, along with floppy disk
and ram expansion, to make the CD32
into a true Amiga computer.
This expansion also contains the
space for the add-on FMV cartridge.
This will be out before Christmas, at
under £200, if you believe Commo-
dore’s PR machine. Commodore are
working hard to try to beat Philips to
the market with FMV (Philips are cur-
rently running over 9 months late).
Until then the CD32 is capable of
CDXL video, similar to the 1/4 screen
video seen on the CDTV, but because
of the faster processor, better chipset
and, most importantly, the double
speed CD ROM drive, it is capable
of 3/4 screen full motion video purely
in software, light years ahead of the
Unlike the CDTV, the CD32 comes
with mouse and joystick ports.
atrocious 8 colour dithered video that
the Sega CD inflicts on its users.
Unfortunately, CD32 does not sup-
port the Kodak PhotoCD format. The
hardware is ideal for PhotoCD sup-
port, all that is needed is software to
display PhotoCD images, and if it had
a floppy disk drive I’d write it tomor-
row. It appears that Commodore have
had problems licensing the PhotoCD
rights from Kodak, or again it may
have been a cost issue, PhotoCd cost-
ing too much to implement at this
stage. Whatever happened, it’s inevi-
table that PhotoCD will be supported
sooner or later as the hardware is ca-
pable of supporting the multisession
XA format discs that PhotoCD images
come on, in fact the multisession abil-
ity is little use for anything other than
PhotoCD.
On the top of the CD32 case there
is a 3.5mm headphone socket plus a
volume slider for the headphones. As
on the CDTV and A570 the volume
slider only affects the volume through
the headphones, and has nothing at all
to do with the volume levels through
the Audio out or the TV output.
Next to this are the power and disc
activity lights, and a reset button, al-
though you do not need to use this all
the time. Most discs reset automati-
cally when you open the flip top lid
and take out the CD, but this can be
prevented (when you have a product
on more than one CD, or a product
like Video Creator that allows you to
use your audio CDs).
The power on/off button is on the
back of the CD32 rather than on the
power supply, which means the power
supply needs to be turned off at the
wall when not in use to avoid over-
heating. Where does this new ma-
chine leave owners of other Amigas?
Well, if you own one of the older (so almost certainly won’t fit if you
pre-AGA (A1000, A500, A500+, have a 32-bit RAM card or accelera- NEW HARDWARE
A600, A1500, A2000, A3000) Ami- tor in your A1200) connected to an
gas you will not be surprised to hear external expansion. It will also require Chunky-To-Planar
that there’s no way to get CD32 discs replacement Kickstart 3.1 ROMS, but The new Amiga CD32 contains a
rather special new piece of hardware
running on your computer. CD32 re- thankfully the ROMS are socketed on called a chunky-to-planar gate array. If
quires the AGA chipset, and none of the A1200 so this isn’t a major prob- you program games you’ll instantly go
these machines come with, or can be lem. ‘wow!’, but if you don’t, here’s how it
upgraded to, the AGA chipset. The A4000 device may not be a works, and why it’s so good:
CDTV can’t be upgraded to run ‘true’ CD32 emulation at all, but will One of the problems with the Amiga
graphics design is that it works on
CD32 either. There is no way to up- probably be a SCSI device with soft-
bitplanes. Each pixel on a 256 colour
grade a CDTV to the minimum stand- ware CD32 emulation, although even screen is broken into 8 bits which are
ard required for CD32 as you would on the 4000/040 this may not be fast stored in 8 different areas of RAM.
need to replace almost everything. In- enough to emulate Chunky-to-Planar What this means is that to plot a pix-
cluding the CD-ROM, and the moth- hardware. Most 4000 owners will el on a 256 colour screen requires
erboard, that is of course if the re- probably want CD-ROM more for ac- 8 separate writes to memory, which
can be rather slow. The advantages
placement parts were available, which cess to multimedia, PD and PhotoCD of this system is that the bitplane sys-
they aren’t. discs, and third party CD-ROM drives tem makes it much easier for parallax-
allowing access to all of these are al- scrolling games and for many other
A1200 ADD-ON ready available for the A4000 (and all tricks that make Amiga games unique,
With the Amiga 1200 and 4000, Com- other Amigas except the A600). plus you can have as many bitplanes
modre have said they will support All things considered, the new as you require (up to 8).
The PC VGA standard uses a differ-
CD32 emulation on these machines CD32 console is a lot better than most ent system called byte-per-pixel. Each
with add-on devices. The A1200 de- people thought it would be. Corners pixel on the screen is directly repre-
vice will not connect to the PCMCIA have been cut, but we’re still left with sented by a single byte in the display
port as previously thought, but will be an incredible machine, and more im- memory. Writing a pixel to the screen
connected via a trapdoor expansion portantly, it’s far in advance of any- requires only one write to memory, so
it is much faster than bitplane mode
for most operations on 256 colour
CD COMPARISON CHART screens. The disadvantages are that
it’s inflexible (byte-per-pixel requires
enough RAM for a 256 colour screen
CD32 CDTV CDi Sega MegaCD however many colours you want to
Price (RRP) £299 £299 £499 £399 (inc Megadrive) use), and it’s no use at all for scroll-
Architecture 32bit 16bit 16bit 16bit ing games, especially those requiring
parallax-type effects.
Processor 68EC020 68000 68070*** 68000
But for 3D games like flight simu-
Processor Speed 14Mhz 7.14Mhz 16Mhz 12Mhz
lators, or other games requiring fast
RAM 2Mb 1Mb 1Mb 64kb(!) graphics scaling, like Wing Command-
CDROM Speed Double Single Single Single er the VGA system is better. Wing
CD Audio Support Yes Yes Yes Yes
Commander on the Amiga draws its
graphics to an imaginary byte-per-pixel
Colours Available 16Million 4096 16Million 512
screen then uses a complex algorithm
Max on screen(*) 256 32 256 64 to convert the finished VGA screen into
RF (TV) output Yes Yes Yes Yes an Amiga bitplane-based screen. This
Composite Video out Yes Yes Yes Yes is unfortunately a rather slow process
S-VHS output Yes NTSC only Yes No
and results in poorer performance than
the PC version.
Keyboard socket Yes Yes Yes No
What the Amiga CD32 gate array
Floppy drive port No** Yes No No does is perform this VGA-style to bit-
Standard Joystick connectors Yes No** No Yes plane conversion extremely fast in
Requires Caddies No Yes No No hardware, so your game can spend
more time doing other things, result-
Photo CD support No** No** Yes No
ing in faster and better games. When
Movie CD support No** No No** No
this hardware filters down the system
CDXL support Yes Yes No No to reach other Amiga models, it has
Arcade-quality games Yes Some Some Yes another immediate benefit. Current PC
Refrence/Serious titles available Yes Yes Yes No
emulators can’t emulate VGA screens
quickly because of exactly this prob-
Expandable to home computer No** Yes No No
lem. This hardware, combined with a
Average title price £30 £30 £50 £50 PC emulator, should allow you to emu-
* Max colours on screen in standard modes for games etc. late PC VGA software far faster than is
** With optional add-on. currently possible.
*** 68070 is custom 16-bit 68000 variant

magazine article • 353

 thing Sega or Nintendo have got to offer.
Hopefully, we’ll soon start to see the release
of original product for the machine, software
that’s been especially developed to take ad-
vantage of the consoles architecture — then
we’ll really be in for a treat.
CD32 TECH SPECS
Here are those technical specs for the new Amiga CD32
in full.
Processor: 68EC020 at 14Mhz (same as A1200)
RAM: 2Mb CHIP RAM (same as A1200) plus 1Kb of non-
volatile RAM for storing hi-scores.
ROM: Kickstart 3.1 (version 40.58) - Similar to the 3.0 ROM
in the Amiga 1200/4000, but with new libraries and other
suppport code for the CD-ROM mechanism.
Chipset: AGA Chipset (as on Amiga 1200) plus new chunky-
to-planar hardware.
Video Out: RF (PAL, NTSC, or SECAM units available) to
connect to aerial socket on your TV. Composite Video and
Super-VHS outputs are available. There is no RGB monitor
port on the standard CD32.
Aux Connector: Standard A4000-style keyboard connector.
Other possible add-ons include multi-joystick, adaptors, vir-
tual reality ‘gloves’.
Joystick Ports: 2 standard Amiga joystick/mouse ports
capable of supporting digital and analogue joysticks, mice,
trackballs and light pens as well as the new CD32 multi-
button controller.
Expansion bus: Full expansion bus allowing possible further
expansions including: Parallel/Serial/Floppy/RGB, Photo CD
support; Full Motion Video (FMV) MPEG decoder board;
Ram Expansion, Processor; Accelerators (68030/68040 etc);
Hard disk interfaces (IDE, SCSI, SCSI 2, etc); Networking
PCMCIA.
CD-ROM: Top-loading double speed (300Kb/sec data rate)
multisession CD drive. Unlike CDTV the drive does not re-
quire caddies and is not self-cleaning.
Compatible with: CD-Audio; CDTV titles (most seem to
work); CD+G audio discs with graphics (including Karaoke
discs); CD specific titles; Movie-CD discs (with optional
MPEG board).
Idiot-proof manual. Plug in, switch on and you’re up and
running.
Excellent. Competitively priced for the technology you’re
getting.
It’s true potential has yet to be explored, but the basis for a
complete home entertainment system is there.
Purely a game machine, but add-on extra will boost expan-
sion possibilities.
First of its kind. Says it all really.
354 • magazine article
Do Commodore have a winner in the
aggressive console market?
Commodore certainly think they do, and they have managed to
convince almost all the key software developers in the UK that
it’s worth developing for, something they were never able to do
with CDTV.
With a true 32-bit machine and a fast CD-ROM at under £300
(the Megadrive Mega CD bundle costs £399, and that is only a
16-bit machine with terrible graphics quality) all Commodore
have to do is get their marketing right, something they have had
terrible problems with in the past, and they are on to a certain
winner.
The big question is will The Kids switch to Amiga CD32 from
Sega and Nintendo? I asked Dorian, my 10 year old brother and
confirmed Super-Nintendo freak what he thought of it: “Mega
CD is a rip off, this is much cheaper and better. I like the control-
ler and the CD32 looks decent.” So there you have it. If games
like Jurassic Park and Mortal Kombat make it out on CD32
soon then it’s going to be a monster hit this Christmas.
Should you buy it? If you’re into Amiga games then yes.
Within a year floppy disk could be dead as a game distribution
format. Publishers are eager to utilise the huge potential that CD
gives them, and at the same time put an end to piracy that has
caused so much damage to the industry.
And at £299, it’s exactly the same price as the A1200, so
which is the better buy? Well, if you want CD games, then the
CD32 is currently the only choice. The CD drive for the A1200
is still not available, and I doubt it will be released this side of
Christmas. It is highly likely that the ‘computer’ expansion box
for the CD32 will be available long before the A1200 CD-ROM
drive (which itself is unlikely to cost much less than the CD32).
As more publishers take the plunge and like Millennium with
Diggers, release on CD first and a cut-down floppy disk version
later, it makes little sense to rely on floppy disk software.
The potential of the CD32 is massive. The hardware is excel-
lent, there are a lot of programmers who know how to develop
for the Amiga, and the development costs are relatively small. It
will take a few good quality titles to make a CD32 success, and
these are definitely on the way.
I am currently finishing my first title on the CD32, called
Video Creator and I’m confident that CD32 is going to sell well
enough that I’ll be able to develop more titles in the future.
If it had a floppy drive connector and PhotoCD support, then
it would be excellent, although I suspect it woudn’t have been
able to have these and still come out at under £300.
Would I buy one? My own CD32 is already on order, and I
can’t wait for it.
And is it going to be a success for Commodore? Well, put it
this way, I’ve bought shares in them!
by: Jolyon Ralph
 INSIDE THE CD32

The games ports are standard 9-pin D-type This card connector is the slot where the CD
connectors, but they will now support 11 but- mechanism’s data cable is connected to the
ton controllers. main board.

Audio Left and Right.

Standard RCA/Phono sockets supplying a bal-
anced 1 volt peak to peak signal for an ex-
ternal amplifier.

S-Video out.
A standard S-Video socket for supplying com-
ponent Y/C video to suitable equipment, such
as an S-VHS video or monitor.

UHF Modulator.
Supplies a standard modulated signal for con-
nection to a TV or Video. The channel can
be altered via the adjusting screw which is
accessible externally.

Power in.
This connects to the supplied PSU and accepts
the voltages required to drive the CD unit as
well as the main circuit board.

Power switch.
Cunningly allows you to connect or disconnect
the power supply at the flick of a switch.

The AGA custom chipset gives the CD32 the

graphics power of an A1200, all in four sur-
face mount packages.

This is the crystal which drives the CPU.

Rated at over 28MHz, this will supply a clock
frequency at about 25 MHz.

VLSI chip.
Handles data transfer through the expan-
sions and also incorporates the technology
to convert between chunky and bitmap graphics
types, which will provide very useful.

The 68EC020 processor chip.

This is the non-MMU version, but very few
packages on the Amiga require an MMU, and
certainly none of them are games. This is a
surface mount version of the chip, so there
is no way of replacing it.

Expansion bus.
This versatile interface port will allow the
connection of a variety of devices, includ-
ing the soon to be released MPEG board and
the Convertor which will turn the CD32 into a
CD-capable A1200.
2Mb RAM organised as 4 x 512k packages. Any
extra RAM will have to be added off the board.

magazine article • 355

 BEHIND THE
SCENES
Commodore’s Head of
Engineering, Lew Egg-
ebrecht, gives us a behind
the scenes account of
how the CD32 was first
conceived and then devel-
oped
A little over a year ago we had just
finished testing the new AA 32-bit
chipset. We now had a very cost
effective 32-bit Amiga compatible
chipset that met all our perform-
ance criteria. Our basic plan was to
convert the entire Amiga product
line to the new 32-bit architecture
as soon as possible. The AA chipset
had been debugged using a high end
system design which eventually be-
came the A4000 family of desktop
video workstations.
Those systems were introduced in
the early Autumn of 1992. Slightly
later, we began the development of
the A1200 to upgrade our home com-
puter line to a full 32-bit system. The
results of this activity was the intro-
duction of the A1200 slightly after the
launch of the A4000. Our next target
was CDTV. Although CDTV did as
well or even better than competitive
systems during its lifetime, it did not
live up to our expectations. After anal-
ysis of the product and the market we
concluded that a new CD-ROM based
interactive multimedia player needed
to address the following issues to be
successful:
1. The $600 (£400) to $800 (£550)
price point was too high for this type of
consumer product. A new price point
in the range of $300 (£200) to $400
(£270) was needed to ensure success.
2. Good multimedia applications need-
ed a higher performance spec and bet-
ter-quality graphics to be successful.
3. VHS-quality full motion video
would have to be at least an option on
any new system.
4. To many customers it was difficult
to explain what CDTV was. It was
356 • magazine article
many things but had no specific focus.
It did not play movies, it was not quite
a computer and it was too expensive to
be a game console.
5. The most popular titles on CDTV The CD32 was put together in record
were game or entertainment titles, not time. The project began in October
reference or educational titles. 1992 and was finished in May 1993.
The decision was made to focus any
added to improve performance?
new CDTV-like product towards
15. What features need to be added to
games and entertainment and, sec-
Amiga DOS to support better games?
ondly, to support a general interactive
16. What should the cost and price tar-
multimedia player capability. Amiga
gets be?
games software had been phenom-
17. Who will be our main competition:
enally successful in the UK and Eu-
Sega CD, Nintendo, 3DO, CD-i?
rope, so we decided to play to our
strengths in that market. This also Of course, as with most new prod-
would put us head to head with some ucts, the more controversial issues
pretty stiff competition. The decision concerned what the console should
to focus on games and entertainment be called, what the colour should be,
created a whole new set of questions and what type of packaging it should
and issues which needed to be ad- come in!
dressed: These were just some of the many
questions we needed to address before
1. Should a new ‘game console’ be car-
a system specification could be com-
tridge based, CD-ROM based or both?
pleted and development started. Since
2. Should compatibly with CDTV be
the Amiga has enjoyed very good sup-
maintained?
port from the UK and European de-
3. Should compatibly with the A1200
velopers, we decided to solicit their
be an issue?
input. In mid-summer of 1992 we set
4. Since most games bypassed Amiga
up meetings with several of the key
DOS, should it be used?
game developers who had strongly
5. What interface ports are needed —
supported the Amiga. The basic ques-
composite video, S-Video, RF, Stereo,
tion asked was, “if you had our 32-bit
etc?
AA chipset technology in a game con-
6. What type of game controllers
sole, what would your definition of a
should be provided, IR or wired?
‘dream machine games console’ be?”
7. How expandable should the system
As you might have guessed, we had
be?
a wide variety of input and opinions.
8. How much memory is standard?
However, a basic trend did emerge
9. Is non-volatile memory required?
from these meetings:
10. Should the CD-ROM drive be dou-
ble speed? 1. A new system must be CD-ROM
11. Should multi-session support be based. CDs were much easier to pro-
provided on the CD-ROM drive? duce, less costly and were percieved
12. Should the power supply be inte- as a better delivery system than car-
grated with the main console or be a tridges.
separate unit? 2. A 32-bit CPU with 2 megabytes of
13. What processor and clock speed memory was needed.
should be used? 3. The main competition would be
14. What hardware features could be Sega CD.
4. The AA chipset and 32-bit CPU
would provide 3 to 5 times the per-
formance of the Sega CD.
5. If we could produce a 32-bit AA
system for the same price as 16-bit
systems today, we would have a clear
winner.
6. Full motion video was needed as an
add-on feature.
7. Retaining compatibility with the
Amiga would enable quick software
development.
The man himself -
Lew Eggebrecht
Next, we went back to West Chester
PA., and began to write preliminary
product specification. This was led
by Jeff Porter, our Director of Ad-
vanced Technology. After many long
meetings with our development staff,
we finished the preliminary specifi-
cation in September 1992. We took
this product specification back to the
developers to solicit their input. The
general reaction was ‘You will have a
winner if you can produce this prod-
uct at the competition’s 16-bit price
point by next autumn’. A few minor
adjustments were made in the specifi-
cations and it was finalised.
The project was now given the
go-ahead and turned over to our de-
velopment staff: Jeff Frank, Director
of Systems Hardware, Don Kamin-
ski, Director of Mechanical Design
and Dr. Alan Havemose, Director of
Systems Software Development. By
mid-October the detailed specification
was complete, a development sched-
ule was in place and the project was
begun in earnest. In the past, projects
had been started without detailed
specifications resulting in significant
delays. We were determined not to re-
peat this error.
The major development challenges
were to meet the cost targets and stick
to the rigorous schedule. A large part
of engineering is the design of the
parts to meet cost targets. This is of-
ten more difficult than the technical
problems encountered. Also, evaluat-
ing components from outside suppliers
and negotiating schedules and costs are
a major part of the development effort.
The key technical challenges for
the development group were:
1. Development of a new low cost, high
performance, double speed, multi-ses-
sion CD-ROM drive and its electronic
and micro code. The drive mechanism
was from Sony, with electronics from
Sony and Chinon. The drive micro
code was developed jointly between
Chinon and Commodore. Chinon was
to do the final assembly and testing of
the new drive before shipping it to our
Philippines plant for assembly into the
CD32.
2. Development of a new VLSI [Very
Large Scale Integration] gate array to
support the interface of the new CD-
ROM drive, the two 8250 Amiga chips,
the CPU interface, the Glue Logic and
the chunky pixel to bit plane conver-
sion memory array. This new chip had
over 37,000 gates and had to be right
the first time. There was no second
pass in the schedule.
3. Development of a new enhanced
version of Amiga DOS. Support for
the CD-ROM file system needed to
be added with multi session capabil-
ity added. Support for the new game
controller interface also needed to be
included as was support for the CDTV
applications. Finally, special functions
were added to enable the application to
orderly close down portions of the OS
to gain memory and cycles for the ap-
plication.
4. A totally new mechanical design was
needed for the Amiga CD32. Tools for
over ten new plastic tools had to be de-
signed and fabricated. The top-loading
CD-ROM drive created a very critical
design problem between the top cover
and chucking mechanism and the top
of the case. A full 3D CAD simulation
of this area was needed to achieve first
time success. Again the schedule only
permitted one pass on the development
cycle for the injection moulded plastic
parts tooling.
5. Also, manufacturing test procedures,
programs and test fixtures needed to
be developed in parallel to meet our
schedules. Out target was to be able
to support production levels of 25,000
units per week within four weeks of
start up!
Off course, no matter how good the
hardware platform was, it would not
be successful without good applica-
tions that truly utilised the 32-bit AA
hardware and the CD-ROM drive.
Our CATS organisation, lead by John
Campbell, was given the task to so-
licit developer support and provide
ongoing technical support to the de-
velopers. Due to the large body of
Amiga game software already avail-
able on floppies and the developers’
familiarity with the Amiga and its
development tools, it was easy to get
commitment to do new or enhanced
titles for the CD32. To emphasise
the importance and commitment to
this project, Commodore’s UK MD,
David Pleasance, our president, Mr.
Mehdi Ali, and myself met several
times with each of the developers to
encourage support. As you can see,
the response was outstanding as is ev-
ident by the many titles now available
and under development for the Amiga
CD32. Dr. Alan Havemose and John
Campbell put together an early devel-
oper support package in mid-Decem-
ber to allow application development.
This package included documentation
on the system hardware and the new
Amiga DOS features, an early version
of the new Amiga DOS and a special
version of an A4000 system combined
with a number of tools. The A4000
development system included:
1. A special processor board with an
88EC020 processor to simulate the
performance and processor environ-
ment of the final product on the A4000.
2. An early version of the new Amiga
DOS with the CD-ROM drive simu-
lated on the hard drive.
3. Support for writing CD gold disks.
4. Support for optimising CD data track
layout for each application.
A decision was made to limit the
number of early developers to those
magazine article • 357
 that would commit actual resources
and were long time faithful Amiga de-
velopers. With our limited resources it
was impractical to attempt to support
a large developer group immediately.
As time went on we slowly added
developers. Chris Ludwig from our
CATS group spent many weeks in the
UK and Europe supporting the devel-
opers first hand. Also John Campbell,
Dr. Alan Havemose and myself made
several trips to support them.
We set an internal target of being
able to demonstrate a working system
at the winter CES in Las Vegas (2nd
week of January 1993). The develop-
ment group worked around the clock
and through the Christmas holidays
to meet this target. We rushed the
gate array through FAB and it worked
with only one minor problem. We got
a prototype CD-ROM drive work-
ing and had a hand-made version of
the case work fabricated. We met the
target with a working system and a
simple running demo. A management
decision was then made to show the
system.
The first version of the new gate ar-
ray in this first prototype was called
Arizona and was done in record time.
It was no longer the critical path in
the design. After many discussions
with our software group we made a
decision to further enhance Arizona.
Much of the 3D software and Full
Motion Video software generated
chunky pixel data as their output. In
the Amiga this data then had to be
converted to bit plane mode for ac-
tual display. This process took a lot
of CPU cycles. We decided to add
special hardware to the Arizona chip
to assist in the conversion of chunky
pixel data to bit plane format. There
were risks since Arizona worked and
any changes could result in a bad chip
impacting our schedule significantly.
The change was made and again we
had a first time success. The new chip
was named Akiko.
By mid-February 1993 we were
able to deliver 15 prototype systems
to our selected set of developers. They
were mounted on plywood sheets
with open wood frames but they al-
lowed developers to run real CD ap-
358 • magazine article
plications on the actual hardware.
These early systems had CD-ROM
drives that required manual CD place-
ment and chunking — which some-
times ran backwards, old Arizona
chips, reworked Nintendo game con-
trollers and early versions of Amiga
DOS supporting the enhancements.
Slowly we upgraded these systems
with new drives, Akiko chips, new
game controllers and the later version
of the new Amiga DOS EPROMS.
Our target was to begin a pilot pro-
duction run of 200 units in our Phil-
ippines plant in early May. To meet
The prototype, called the CD32 Spellbound,
which was mounted on plywood when given
to developers.
Images by Carl Sassenrath and bigbookofamigahardware.com
Early Developer version with Kickstart 40.16
Images by Jackhead@assemblergames.com
this schedule we had to lock down the
system software to five to six weeks
earlier to accommodate mask ROM
lead times. At this point we had very
little test time on the new Amiga
DOS and CD-ROM micro code. To
further complicate things we made
the decision to test and support the
top 30 CDTV titles on the new sys-
tem. These now all had to be tested
and any problems resolved by early
April. To accomplish the desired test-
ing and reduce the system’s technical
risks we decided to delay the start of
pilot production by approximately
three weeks. This turned out to be a
wise decision since we found a fatal
problem in the CD-ROM drive’s mi-
cro code which we were able to fix in
the system software. During this time
several other hardware problems were
also discovered and corrected.
In the first week of June we started
the first production run of 200 pilot
machines. These systems were im-
mediately distributed to our develop-
ers and our own Quality Assurance
department for rigorous accelerated
testing. We logged overt forty minor
problems which were analysed and
corrected. No major problems were
found!
Test software and fixturing was in
place thanks to our test engineering
group. Manufacturing and procure-
ment, lead by Steve Liang, our Vice
President of Worldwide Manufac-
turing, was now ready to produce
the system in volume. In the second
week of July, volume production of
the Amiga CD32 began. From the
project’s start in October 1992 to first
production in May 1993, the console
was completed in record time. This
extraordinary achievement is credit
to all of Commodore and especially
to the dedicated and talented people
of the development group. All con-
tributed above and beyond the call of
duty, but special praise is deserved by
George Robbins who lead the systems
engineering development team. I have
worked in this industry for over 25
years and have rarely seen the talent
and dedication that was exhibited by
this group.
WHAT THE INDUSTRY
THINKS
Reaction to the Amiga
CD32 has been mixed to
say the least. Here’s a se-
lection of comments from
around the industry.
Mindscape - Geoff Heath:
“I think it will do a lot for the industry.
It’s a great machine. Obviously it’s a
lot more expensive than a Megadrive
or a SNES, but you get a lot of tech-
nology for the money. It’s going to
be a though brawl for Commodore as
they’re taking on Nintendo and Sega,
but the technology is so good that
I think they’ll do well. I don’t think
the PC will be affected as it’s a dif-
ferent market, mainly simulation and
edutainment products.”
Bullfrog - Peter Molyneux:
“It’s a bit of a shame that the CD32 is
likely to be drowned out by machines
like the 3DO. It shouldn’t do as what
you have to remember is that although
those machines are great, they are
very expensive. The CD32 should do
well as long as the product comes out
in time.”
Team 17 - Martyn Brown:
“In our opinion the machine is a fan-
tastic addition to the Amiga family
and one which we will be actively sup-
porting. We will be exploiting the ex-
citing audio and visual capabilities of
the machine. We firmly believe, how-
ever, that it is the games itself which is
important rather than flashy animated
sequences and digitised sound, some-
thing we shall not forget when releas-
ing CD32 versions of our titles. There
are a few development pitfalls in that
people will be trying to use as much
digitised material as possible and this
doesn’t always result in good software
— check out Philips CDi for evidence.
If the machine is a large scale suc-
cess then I would imagine that the
majority of software houses will pull
out the 16bit Amiga floppy market,
mainly because of one thing — pira-
magazine article excerpts from; “32-pages special CD32 edition” CU Amiga Magazine 43
cy. With a machine that has virtually
non-copyable media, the users know
that a source of free/cheap software
will be non-exisitent. Software houses
know it too. People have to get it into
their heads that copying games will
kill off the old Amiga, the software
companies don’t need much of an ex-
cuse to drop an ailing market and the
CD32 provides a bloody good one.”
21st Century - A. Hewson:
“The key strength of the machine is
the RAM. Consoles (Sega and Ninten-
do) are so strapped for RAM, you can
see it all the time in console games.
They’re always talking about Full
Motion Video and everything but the
machines don’t have enough RAM for
it anyway. That, in the long run, is go-
ing to be the biggest strength. If Com-
modore market it well, then it ought to
wipe the floor with the consoles. They
should really be quite frightened of it.
There’s still a bit of development that
Commodore can put into it behind the
scenes. The blitter doesn’t move any
faster and they haven’t used any fast
memory in the right places, so there’s
still a generation of development they
can pur into the machine.”
Maelstrom - Mike Singleton:
“Well we’d love to develop on it but
we haven’t even seen it yet! Eventual-
ly one of the CD formats will latch on
as the main player, but whether that
will be CD32 or CD-ROM or CD-i re-
mains to be seen. CD as a whole is a
completely different ball game. What
was once a programmer’s industry
will soon become an artist’s industry.”
Thalion - Tony King:
“I think it’s the hope for the industry,
for various reasons. Piracy is obvi-
ously a major consideration. It’s also
a reply to the dominance of the con-
sole markets. It proves that European
manufacturers can still come out with
(September 1993) written by: Jolyon Ralph
No Commodore machines has en-
joyed such overwhelming support
from publshers as the Cd32.
innovative ideas and it’s very impor-
tant for the industry to support some-
one like Commodore, who has had a
fine pedigree as far as home comput-
ers are concerned and is probably re-
sponsible for most of the expansion of
this industry. Commodore is a brand
that parents recognise from when they
bought their kids A500s and A1200s
and they see it as a very good thing to
step on to. Plus the price is nice.
The games that have appeared on
the Mega CD so far all seem to be
very samey-samey, whereas with the
CD32 people are thinking about all
the new and wonderful things you can
do with it. I hope Commodore don’t
make the same mistake they did with
the CDTV, trying to produce some-
thing exclusive to electrical and hi-
fi shops. It should be a mass market
machine and Commodore should at-
tack the mass market. Not necessar-
ily like Sega but make it clear that a
logical progression from an Amiga is
a CD32. It’s also important to make
the younger age group aware of CDs
and this should do that.”
MicroProse - Martin Moth:
“We will develop where feasible, but
certain games of ours are difficult to
convert due to game saving consid-
erations. It is about time we had a new
piece of hardware to rejuvenate soft-
ware sales, although this is a brave step
for Commodore considering the bad
press received by the CDTV. However,
there seems to be enough power be-
hind it to make it a hit. It seems to be
aimed at people who want to get more
out of a machine than just games.”
magazine article • 359
 Letters from readers sent to
video game magazines.
CU Amiga Magazine 68 (oct. 1995)
BackChat
Where’s Daytona?
I own a CD32 and I was won-
dering why none of the games
look anywhere near as spectacu-
lar as those on the Sega Saturn.
The CD32 is 32 bit and has a
CD drive like the Saturn, so why
don’t we see games like Daytona
available for it?
I am unhappy with my CD32
because even though there are
some good games for it, you can
get games just as good on an
A1200 or even a A500. I think
that it will probably go the same
way as the CDTV, which would be
a real shame.
Colin Curly, Newcastle.
Answer from the editorial. -
The reason the Saturn and Playsta-
tion can handle games like Daytona
is that they have custom hardware
specifically designed for animat-
ing 3D graphics. Sega have the
advantage of their coin-up technol-
ogy, which can be filtered down to
a cost-effective consumer level and
squeezed into a console. Escom
seem to want to sweep the CD32
under the carpet, with no immedi-
ate plans to put it back into produc-
tion in its original form. However,
there’s a chance that it may resur-
face in 1996.
360 • magazine letters
CU Amiga Magazine 52 (jun. 1994)
BackChat
ANGRY OF AMERSHAM
I am very angry. Being a CDTV owner I
am getting extremely sick and tired over
all the CD32 hype. Yes it is a great ma-
chine, but what about its predecessor?
CDTV owners, like myself, have been left
high and dry by Commodore. What ever
happened to the rumoured trade-in offers
where existing CDTV owners could possibly
upgrade to an A1200 or CD32? Instead
all we are left with is a bloomin’ expensive
A500 with a CD drive, shoved in a black
box and rapidly diminishing software selec-
tion. I have written Commodore on several
occasions, regarding upgrades and trade-
ins, and I am still awaiting a reply.
So on behalf of all the CDTV owners, I
would like to ask you;
1) Are there going to be any trade-in of-
fers? If so, how much and when?
2) Are there any upgrades available to
bring a rapidly dating machine up to the
current specs?
3) Is it worth ditching my CDTV and
saving up to buy a PC which will not date
as fast as an Amiga appears to.
Finally, I would like to thank Commodore
for showing us CDTV owners the kind of
support we showed them when we bought
the machine... NOT!
G Pollard, Amersham.
Answer from the editorial. -
At time of writing, Commodore were unable to make any com-
ment on rumoured trade-in deals, although we would like to
stress that these were only ever rumours. As far as upgrading
the machine, you can add extra chip RAM, but that’s as far as
it goes. If you want to buy a new machine, why go for a PC?
What’s wrong with an A1200, or even an A4000? When you
say that a PC will not date ‘as fast’ as an Amiga don’t forget
that people who bought 286PC a few years ago have now
been left high and dry in terms of software support while the
386 is almost at the same stage. And a new 486 costs three or
four times as much as an A1200.
 Games
Most of the games released for the CD32 are
PIRACY AHOY! simply ports of games that were already avail-
able for Amiga computers. One benefit of this
article from; Amiga CD32 Gamer #3 (Aug. 1994) is that, when appropriate, many games retain
A series of raids have revealed CD-ROM the ability to use an Amiga mouse (in port 2) or
piracy is on the rise with over £10 mil- Amiga keyboard (plugged into the AUX port).
lion of allegedly counterfeit goods being
CDs created for the CD32 conform to ISO
recovered. ELSPA, the software produc-
ers organisation, masterminded the raids
9660 level2 mode1, although the Rock Ridge
and John Loader, of their Crime Unit, and Joliet extensions are not compatible.
commented: “We warned last month Some titles came in a ‘Big Box’, but most were
that low-cost CD-R copying equipment released in a jewel case, complete with a match-
could potentially lead to huge losses for
ing manual that doubles as the front cover.
UK software producers... The retrieval of
£10 million of software on just 500 CDs The CD32 is capable of running most of the ti-
perfectly illustrates the threat posed to tles developed for the CDTV, but differences in
the commercial software industry.” CPU speed and Kickstart version prevent some
CDs packed with hundreds of PC of the earlier CDTV titles from running.
games have long been rumoured to be in
A CDTV logo is present at the
circulation and could raise the prospect
of cumbersome protection systems re-
bottom of the description box on a
turning to CD32 as well. This would be CD32 title if it had already received an earlier
a pity as these mega-compilation disks, CDTV release.
without any kind of instructions, hardly Some games listed here were re-
seem a serious threat to mainstream
leased on discs compatible with
software sales. While techies suggest
encryption techniques and personalised
both the CD32 and an Amiga com-
software keys could provide a solution, puter with CD-ROM. Some of these games can
a better solution might be taking a leaf be argued if they can still be counted as an of-
out of the record industry’s book. Copy- ficial CD32 release.
ing a CD or a record couldn’t be easier,
but through attractive packaging, ease of
use and relatively competitive pricing
the music industry hardly seems finan-
cially troubled. Since games increasingly
require huge manuals, people who like
games and can afford them would seem
most likely to actually buy the proper
product. As for people who can’t afford
them, or simply prefer hacking protec-
tion systems to actually enjoying playing
a game, do their activities really mean
the rest of us must go back to suffering
the sort of cumbersome protection sys-
tems that would make anyone want to
hack a game open?

CD32 - Games • 361

362 • CD32

Akira

Akira is a side-scrolling action game based on the 1988

anime film of the same title.

The game follows the plot of the film. It starts with

the protagonist Kaneda as he’s riding his motorbike
through the city. After this the perspective switches to
Tetsuo, and then back to Kaneda again. The scenarios
are not lifted straight from the film but are based on ele-
ments from the movie.

In the first few levels, players guide the main character

Kaneda through an obstruction-filled road on his mo-
torcycle. Obstacles come in the form of roadblocks,
holes in the road, which must be jumped with the use
of a ramp, and a variety of characters on the road who
throw bombs at Kaneda. The roadblocks can only be
Developer Int. Computer Ent. cleared by grenades which players can pick up by
Publisher Int. Computer Ent. knocking over traffic cones. Players must also make it
Release date 1994 to the end of the level without running out of fuel. The
Genre Action gameplay is incredibly unforgiving. Rather than testing
the players reflexes the level instead requires memo-
rization.
After the motorcycle levels, there are five plat-
form levels. Players control Tetsuo whose objective is
to kill everyone he come in contact with. Each kill add-
ing to a meter which players have to fill to complete the
level.

Akira has the dubious hon-

or of being one of the worst
Amiga games ever, voted 29
worst release by LemonAmi-
ga users.
Most reviewers at the time
also gave it a negative score.

Other Releases
Amiga 1994

CD32 Amiga

some text from;

mobygames.com/infinityretro.com/ hardcoregaming101.net

362 • Games - CD32

 30 YEARS AFTER WORLD WAR 3,
KYOKO A MUTANT CHILD TELLS OF THE
APPROACHING CATACLYSM.

THE COLONEL STORED CAPSULE 7 WHICH

CONTAINS MUTATION 28, BETTER KNOWN AS
AKIRA, DEEP BELOW THE OLYMPIC STADIUM AT A
TEMPERATURE CLOSE TO ABSOLUTE ZERO.
WHEN TETSUO MAKES HIS WAY TO THE KENEDA IS THE LEADER OF THE CAPSULES.
STADIUM AND THE AKIRA PATTERN HIS BIKE IS THE ENVY OF ALL. KENEDA
BECOMES STRONGER. LEADS THE GANG AGAINST THEIR RIVALS
IT IS CONFIRMED THAT THE CLOWNS.
AKIRA’S BRAIN IS GIVING OFF
PSIONIC WAVES !

TETSUO IS TAKEN BY THE AUTHORITIES AND

EXPERIMENTED UPON BY THE TEAM THAT LEAD
THE AKIRA PROJECT. A MATCHING PATTERN IS
FOUND BETWEEN TETSUO AND AKIRA AND AS
KENEDA AND RESISTANCE MEMBER KEI, THE EXPERIMENT CONTINUES TETSUO
MAKE THEIR WAY THROUGH THE SEWERS MUTATES AND IS NOW
WHERE THEY ARE ATTACKED BY THE OUT OF ANYONE’S CONTROL.
MILITARY AND FLYING BIKES.
DURING A BATTLE BETWEEN THE
GANGS TETSUO, KENEDAS CHILDHOOD
FRIEND, LOSES CONTROL OF HIS BIKE AND
JUST MISSES HITTING
ONE OF THE ESCAPING
MUTANT CHILDREN.

TETSUO ESCAPES FROM THE HOSPITAL

BLASTING EVERYTHING IN HIS PATH WITH
PSIONIC ENERGY.
KENEDA MANAGES TO GRAB A BIKE AND
FLIES AWAY, TAKING KEI ON THE BACK. THEY TETSUO THINK HE CAN CONTROL HIS NEW
MAKE THEIR WAY THROUGH THE TUNNELS POWERS BUT HE IS WRONG.
GUIDED BY KYOKO, WHO HAS POSSESED
KEI, IN ORDER TO USE HER TO FIGHT TETSUO MUTATES INTO A HIDEOUS
AGAINST TETSUO. BLUBBERY MASS. TETSUO IS TOTALLY OUT
OF CONTROL. THE MUTANT CHILDREN BEG
AKIRA TO RETURN AND SAVE THEM THE
WORLD FROM WHAT TETSUO HAS BECOME.
KENEDA MUST BATTLE TETSUO IN THEIR
FINAL CONFRONTATION.
 Alfred Chicken

Alfred Chicken is a platformer originally released for

the Game Boy. The Amiga version is identical to the
Game Boy game except for its color graphics and in-
creased screen resolution.

The player takes the role of a chicken named Alfred

who must find his way across differently-themed lev-
els, which are finished by either climbing to the top of
the level or killing a boss. Bonus games and secret
rooms can be found, and progression sometimes re-
quires solving positional puzzles.
The music in Alfred Chicken is usually upbeat
and silly. Mixed with the gameplay and characters, the
overall feel of the game can be described as similar.

Karl Fitzhugh, the Product Manager of the Amiga ver-

sion of Alfred Chicken, ran as the Alfred Chicken Par-
Developer Twilight
Publisher Mindscape ty candidate in the 1993 Christchurch, Dorset by-elec-
Release date 1993 tion. The exercise was done to promote the game’s
Genre Platformer release. Fitzhugh finished second last with 18 votes,
Mode 1 Player two votes ahead of the Rainbow Party candidate.
The marketing attempt was partially success-
ful. The Alfred Chicken Party was cited, along with
other “frivolous or ‘commercial’ candidates”, as a rea-
son to increase the number of signatures required for
an individual to be nominated as a political candidate
at an election.

A remake was developed by

Monkey King—a division of
Möbius Entertainment—and
released for the PlayStation
in 2002.

Other Releases
Amiga CD32 1993
Amiga 1993
Game Boy 1993
NES 1993

CD32 Game Boy

364 • Games - CD32

Arabian Nights
Developer Krisalis Software
Publisher Krisalis Software, Buzz
Release date 1993
Genre Platformer
Mode 1 Player
Arabian Nights is a 1993 platform game
first released on the Amiga.
The player controls Sinbad Junior, a
lowly gardener who witnesses the kid-
nap of the princess by a dragon. After
Sinbad Junior tries to save her from the
flying dragon, he ends up falling back to
Earth and becoming unconscious before
awakening in a prison accused of sor-
cery and capturing the woman he tried
to save.
There are nine levels in the game. In
several levels there are various game-
play elements which include flying on a
magic carpet and racing against an op-
ponent in a mine cart. Sinbad will also
meet other characters that can trade
items with him. In one level, Sinbad need
to obtain a snake that will set a prisoner
free, or using a blow torch to open some
frozen doors.
“mobygames.com”
Arcade Pool
Developer Antitesi
Publisher Team 17
Release date 1994
Genre Sports
Mode 1-8 Players
Arcade Pool is an overhead viewed pool
game designed to be easy to control.
The game includes the most standard
games of pool (UK and US 8-ball and
the fast-paced 9-ball game), each with
customisable rules, computer players
of variable difficulties, and two-player
options. There’s also a Survivor mode,
which is similar to the early Pool arcade
game, in that players solo and have to
clear the table without missing more
than three times. Speed Pool involved
clearing the table as quickly as possible.
The CD32 version includes some en-
hancements.
“mobygames.com”

Other Releases
Amiga 1994
Other Releases BlackBerry 2013
MS-DOS 1994
Amiga 1993

CD32 - Games • 365

 A
magazine review; Amiga Power #48 (April 1995)
by: Jonathan Nash;

Runs on: A500, A600, A1200

Publisher: Team 17
Authors: Jamie Woodhouse
(code), Danny Burke (graphics),
Allister Brimble (sound), Wood-
house and Burke (design)
Price: £26
Release: Out now

Astonishingly, this blind
corner-riddled, trap-packet
course is easily the fairest of
the snow tracks on offer.
E
veryone had something to say
when it came to reviewing ATR.
“Play Micro Machines,” advised
Cam. “That’s the benchmark for over-
head-view racing games, and is clearly
what ATR is trying to be.” “Play Over-
drive,” offered Steve. “That’s Team 17’s
previous overhead-view racing game, and
it’d be interesting to see what they’ve
learnt from it.” “You only write seven
pages per month,” said Jonathan. “And
everyone hates you.” “Stop worrying
about whether the secret Valentine box
you sent got lost in the post,” whispered
a small inner voice. “Ask the girl, you
fool.”
And so it was I found myself playing
ATR and Micro Machines and Overdrive,
and looking frightened whenever my tel-
ephone rang (which it hardly ever does)
and yet being nervously excited in case
it was the girl expressing thanks for the
Valentine’s box having clearly deduced
the identity of the sender (which it nev-
er was), while a large pile of frantically
looked for reviews built up on my desk
and everybody went out with their friends
and had a really great time. How was your
month been, then? Eh? Eh? Eh?
But anyway. All-Terrain Racing. It’s
the dullest, clumsiest, sloppiest overhead
racer I’ve played. Overdrive included.
From the menus in which only player

366 • magazine article

TR
Are terrapins retarded? All typos
re-worded? Any tea, Reginald? No.
one’s joystick works (and that in-
cludes the bits where everyone has to
input their names) to the incredibly
Well, it’s a
darned good job
those trees are
there to impede
my progress.

types) are at all playable. The others

poor design of the courses, the game
reeks of shoddiness. It shouldn’t, of
course. After all, Team 17 took note
of AMIGA POWER’s criticisms of
Overdrive to the point of pulling it
from their budget release schedules,
and (more relevantly) ATR is go-
ing up directly against Codemasters’
fabulous Micro Machines. You might,
therefore, have thought fairly reasona-
bly that some attempt to, for example,
write a game better than the champion
of the field would be in order. But no.
All-Terrain Racing has three games
modes: ‘battle’, ‘league’ and ‘ar-
cade’. All, naturally, centre on driv-
ing around a variety of courses as
quickly as possible, and this is where
the game falls down. There’s a choice
of three types of courses, but only the
‘sport’ tracks (yer basic racing circuit
AND HE’S OFF!
THE ROAD, THAT IS
As the scrolling in ATR follows the
car in lead, much fun can be had
with the new game Driving The
Wrong Way Around The Track.
In this exciting new twist on
ATR, the leading driver annoys
the other players by turning and
zooming off the other way just as
his opponent reaches the edge of
the screen. Several times.
— bear with me here — don’t have
the courtesy — no, wait for it — to
mark out the track so you know where
you’re going. The excuse is that, driv-
ing in ‘snowy’ and ‘rocky’ conditions
as you are, the tracks will have been
obstructed by snow or rocks or some-
thing and therefore the designers can
get away with suddenly fading out the
road markings and have you careen-
ing across blank countryside to smash
into a wall centimetres beyond a small
arrow pointing you back in the right
direction. Incredible. You can’t even
argue that memorising the courses
solves the problem, because All-Ter-
rain Racing’s graphics are so bland
and repetitive you haven’t a chance of
picking out landmarks.
SMALL TUREEN
The other thing about All-Terrain
Racing’s courses is that they appear
to have been laid out for the twisted
amusement of the designers, rather
than, say, with a view to being fun to
race on. They’re ridiculously over-
complicated, riddled with obstacles
and surrounded by traps to fatally en-
snare anyone coming off a bend. This
is bad enough in ‘arcade’ mode (six-
lap races against four computer driv-
ers; finish in the top three to qualify;
win money to — sigh — upgrade
your car) but in the identical-but-for-
the-number-of-players ‘battle’ and
‘league’ modes it’s a joke.
The idea in a ‘battle’ or ‘league’
game is that you strive to get so far
ahead of the other player that he dis-
appears of the scrolling and you get
a point. (Yup, just like in Micro Ma-
chines.) Unlike that game’s stop-start
‘feel’ with the match halting as the
other player is put back on the track,
ATR’s races are continuous, with
the hapless loser replaced in ‘real
time’ just behind the speeding vic-
tor. (The overall winner is the player
who reaches his point quota and then
crosses the finish line first.)
This continuous racing is a clever
improvement, except it’s not, and it
took me barely half-an-hour to tum-
ble the reason why. The great thing
about Micro Machines was that its
big, friendly courses offered scope for
improvisation and crafty short cuts
while keeping enough of the track on
the screen so the trailing player had a
chance to catch up.
ATR’s courses delight in the con-
fusing, the misleading and the hairpin,

magazine article • 367

 so that if you’re second, you’ve had
it. Even though to your mind you’re
comfortably close to the leader, when
he goes round one of the many cor-
ners the screen scrolls through the
sharp angle with him and you’re
chucked off the screen feeling im-
mensely hard done by. Then, instantly,
you’ve flickeringly reappeared beside
the other player, your timing thrown
off as you’re momentarily made to
follow his line rather unfortunate if
he’s just skidded off the track. (In one
memorable game, I reappeared on the
top of my opponents car, causing us
both to crash.)
Power-ups abound on the tracks,
but they’re redundant. Not only do the
power-ups bounce so you can drive
straight through them (there’s no
chance of turning back to try again,
obviously) but they’re also entirely
useless. Apart from the missile (a sin-
gle-shot weapon which fires straight
ahead and, er, doesn’t really do any-
thing when it hits someone) they take
effect automatically as you pick them
up — great if there’s a turbo-boost
just before a corner.
Worst of all, even with all this go-
ing on, the game manages to feel
empty. For the most part you’re just
driving around at a sensible speed
(otherwise you crash with tiresome
regularity), zooming through stupidly
similar-looking power-ups without
any thought to using them strategi-
cally and still coming off at indefen-
sibly strict corners. Some cars go past
and off you go again. And when a
tussle does occur there’s no sense of
victory in shouldering your way past
your opponents because you know
that, thanks to the loathsome design,
you’re going to crash or lose your way
or suddenly drive into a wall because
(hhhhhkkk) your controls have been
reversed.
All-Terrain Racing is rubbish.
• JONATHAN NASH
THE BOTTOM LINE
It is exactly as dull and as
- dare I use the word once
more? - empty.
UPPERS The cars move
well and go “vroom.”
DOWNERS Appallingly
unworkable tracks that play
boringly and feel empty. Very
few shortcuts. Not nearly enough of
the track ahead visible. Hastly feel to
the whole thing. In two-player mode
it’s extremely difficult to tell who’s
who. In league mode, all players
have to use player one’s joystick.
Strangely, they’ve made the second-
least-poor tracks (the space ones) a
‘hidden feature’. You get infuriating
slowing cones all over the track even
when you turn them off.
THE BOTTOM LINE
ATR manages, astonishingly, to be
less exciting than Overdrive, and is
an embarrassment
alongside Micro Machines
and Roadkill. A stunningly
poor game.

The Team 17 and Amiga Power magazine feud

During the 1990s, Team17 had a feud
with gaming magazine Amiga Power.
Amiga Power had a fairness policy of
giving a 50% score to an average game,
instead of 73% to keep game producers
happy, a practice the company saw as in-
herently wrong. Team17 put several east-
er eggs in their games. For example, typ-
ing “AMIGAPOWER” into Alien Breed
2 would display a message criticising
Amiga Power’s review policy; computer
players at the easiest difficulty setting in
Arcade Pool, F17 Challenge and King-
pin: Arcade Sports Bowling were named
after Amiga Power staff members. Two
of Amiga Power former writers, Stuart
Campbell and Jonathan Nash, claim that
a Team17 staff member made allegations
of bribery and corruption in French mag-
azine Amiga Concept. Team17 refused
to supply review copies of games to
Amiga Power, even demanding review-
ers at its sister magazine Amiga Format
sign declarations stating that they would
not share their review copies with Amiga
Power. In response to Amiga Power re-
views of Kingpin and ATR: All Terrain
Racing, Team17 filed a libel action de-
manding the magazine stop “lying about
their games”.
“mitchell.fandom.com”

368 • magazine article

ATR: All Terrain Racing
Developer Team 17
Publisher Team 17
Release date 1995
Genre Racing
Mode 1-6 Players
ATR: All Terrain Racing is a racing game
published by Team17. Amiga Power-
awarded the game a rating of 38%,
prompting the developer to pursue a
lawsuit for defamation.
Like many Amiga racing games from the
era, ATR is a top down racer. Handling
is based on drifting around corners and
crashing into opponents.
Unlike many of the top down rac-
ers of the time, tracks have short cuts,
which add an element of strategy. There
are also environmental hazards the play-
er has to avoid, such as oil slicks and
small jumps. Tracks have turns that are
not just 90 degrees in nature, a feature
not present in ATR’s precursor, Over-
drive. Pickups such as turbos are littered
about the track.
“mobygames.com”
Amiga CD Football
Developer Plattsoft
Publisher Commodore
Release date 1993
Genre Sports
Mode 1-2 Players
Amiga CD Football, also known as Ami-
ga CD32 Sports Football and Amiga
CDTV Sports Football, is a reworked
version of Cinemaware’s CDTV title TV
Sports Football 2, which were initially
cancelled due to the company’s bank-
ruptcy.
Reportedly, the game is not com-
patible with the CDTV despite being origi-
nally developed for it and the game icon
being named ‘CDTV Sports Football’.
Amiga CD Football has three play
modes: arcade, coach and commission-
er. In arcade mode, the player has full
control over all players on the field. In
coach mode, only strategy decisions are
made and the computer plays the game.
In the third mode, the game plays entire-
ly by itself and the player only watches.
The player can select from 28
teams within a league. All players in the
team have individual stats and can be
substituted. During a match plays can
be selected to set the next move for the
player’s team. Some limited control dur-
ing the match in coach mode is possible.
An extensive practice mode al-
lows the player to practice all the avail-
able moves in the game. Other features
include different weather conditions and
live audio commentary.
“mobygames.com”

Other Releases
Amiga CD32 1995
Amiga 1995
BlackBerry 2013

CD32 - Games • 369

 magazine review; Australian Commodore Amiga Review
Vol 12 #1 (Jan. 1995);
magazine review; Amiga Power #46 (February 1995);
TOWER ASSAULT
Team 17/£30
AP45 46%
Tower Assault CD32’s intro is
everything an intro should be.
Okay, so the window is rather
small, but concentrate and af-
ter a few seconds you don’t
notice. And a few seconds out
of a SEVEN-AND-A-HALF
MINUTE intro isn’t too much,
is it? Yep, over seven minutes
of rendered ships, pitched bat-
tles, lasers, explosions and even
some lovely acting (I’m not a
film critic, you know), which
all rolls together to produce the
best intro I’ve even seen. It’s up have
with some of the best PC CD- release. By the way of compen-
ROM titles money can buy.
Which makes it all the more
embarrassing when the game
finally appears. Jonathan Nash charged an extra £10 for it, and
gave Tower Assault 46% last they haven’t even taken out the
month, infuriated by a host of
shortcomings, none of which • PAUL MELLERICK
In motion this
looks amazing.
370 • magazine article
• The Alien Breed games have become something of
a saga. Shamelessly based on the Ridley Scott movies
but not having much of a plot of their own, they’re top
down two player blast-ups in which you do your best
to endanger a species which, one can safely say, even
David Attenborough wouldn’t love.
There was the original Alien Breed, then the Spe-
cial Edition with levels that made the original one look
like a one-on-one with Barney the Dinosaur, and now
there’s Alien Breed: Tower Assault, which adds a lot
more.
It’s still the same game, essentially, but it’s much
more nicely done. On top of the old white knuckle
blasting (toast Big Important Thing, get to the exit lift
before the place blows up), there’s
also considerably more strategy, as the
game now encompasses many inter-
connected areas, whose difficulty var-
e b i g ies, as the promo says, from hard to
nic
t h at’s a un, very hard.
M y
red)
g
rende ot there.
(
eg You start in the hinderland out-
you’v
side the alien-infested complex of
towers, contending with berserk
security laser cannon, irritating liz-
ards and loads of land mines. You
can then make your way into vari-
ous civilian and military areas; the
The be
st explo aim is to blast your way into the
of any sions
Arguab
game e
ver. hardest part of the hardest tower,
ly.
settle the hash of the alien queen
and return to the adulation of your
peers. After that, they’d better adu-
late you. Or else.
The controls are slightly differ-
ent; there’s a new Retreat Mode
where you can face the opposite
been remedied on the CD direction to the way you’re walk-
ing and take down any creepy-crawl-
sation you do get the original ies that are coming up behind you.
Alien Breed 2 (AP32 81%) on This mode’s toggled by the second
the CD as well, but then you’re joystick button, or the keyboard, and
it also activates if you move the stick
appropriately while firing.
tedious, pointless first level. Tower Assault auto-detects AGA
machines and soups up the graphics to
match; they’re good on ECS but ex-
cellent on AGA. There’s also a CD32
Tower Assault: Urgh.
version, which has the usual nifty ren-
Alien Breed: Mmmm. dered animations all through it, but I
Rendered intro haven’t sen it yet.
sequence (and outro, ap-
parently): Lovely. All in If you like tense top-down blast-
all: Urghmmmmovely. ups, this is the game for you. Existing
Alien Breed fans will be rapt.
 Alien Breed: Tower Assault

Alien Breed: Tower Assault is a run and gun game

and the third in the Alien Breed franchise. Like the first
two games in the series, it is a science fiction-themed,
top-down shooter.

The game is set in 2191. A team of marines is dis-

patched to investigate the attack of a scientific out-
post on a far-off planet. Players take control of rookies
Nash and Jordan who crash-lands on the planet.

As with the previous Alien Breed, the Gauntlet-influ-

enced gameplay is viewed from above. The game en-
gine is a modified version of that used in Alien Breed
II: The Horror Continues. One significant change is the
inclusion of multiple exits for each level, making Alien
Breed: Tower Assault much less linear than its pred-
ecessors—the blurb on the back of the box boasts
Developer Team 17
more than 276 possible ways of completing the game.
Publisher Team 17 Other improvements include Retreat Mode,
Release date 1994 which allows the player to shoot one’s weapon and
Genre Action, Shooter walk backwards at the same time, although at a slight-
Mode 1-2 Players ly slower speed.

The CD32 version adds on a FMV intro and the AGA

version of the second Alien Breed game The Horror
Continues.
Alien Breed II: The Horror Continues was origi-
nally released for the Amiga in 1993. Players take
control of one of four Interplanetary Corps soldiers,
who must visit a remote alien-infested colony and de-
stroy the alien invaders. This was the only game in
the series that gives players the option of choosing
between four characters, each with their own specific
strengths and weaknesses.
There are significant differ-
ences between the versions
of the game released across
different formats.

Other Releases
Amiga CD32 1994
Amiga 1994
BlackBerry 2013
MS-DOS 1994
Tower Assault The Horror Continues

CD32 - Games • 371

 BASE Jumpers
Alien Breed 3D Developer Shadow Software
Publisher Rasputin Software
Developer Team 17 Release date 1995
Publisher Team 17, Ocean Genre Action platformer
Release date 1995 Mode 1-4 Players
Genre First-person shooter
Mode 1-2 Players Base Jumpers was the second release
by Aaron and Adam Fothergill’s Shadow
Alien Breed 3D is the fourth game in
Software outfit for publisher Rasputin
Team17’s Alien Breed franchise. It was
and was very simple in concept.
followed by a sequel, Alien Breed 3D II:
The Killing Grounds, in 1996. In this game, the player is a BASE jumper
who jumps from towers. Each tower is a
Unlike its predecessors, this game is set
level through which the player must work
into a 3D context. The game has maps of
himself up towards the top in a platform
varying depths with platforms and floors
gaming sequence. To collect bonuses,
above others, something the Doom en-
the player must find and pick up letters
gine was not capable of.
that form certain combinations.
The CD version includes extra atmos- When reaching the top, there is a
pheric sound, while fast processors and base jumping contest between the play-
extra FastRAM are also supported. ers which consists of trying to reach the
Alien Breed 3D was released to critical bottom first while avoiding obstacles and
acclaim among the Amiga gaming press. opening their parachute in time. Up to
Reviewers widely compared its game- four players may play simultaneously.
play to Doom, with some calling it the
best Doom-clone for Amiga.
The game was ranked the 12th
best game of all time by Amiga Power.
It reappeared as one of the 25 games
compiled for the A500 Mini console, re-
leased in 2022.

Other Releases
Amiga 1996
Other Releases
Amiga 1995

372 • Games - CD32

Banshee
Developer Core Design
Publisher Core Design
Release date 1994
Genre Shooter
Mode 1-2 Players

Banshee is a vertically scrolling shooter

released for the A1200 and CD32. The Battle Chess
game was ranked the 39th best Amiga
game of all time by Amiga Power in 1996. Developer Almathera
Publisher Interplay Productions
The game have similarities to games like Release date 1994
1942 and SWIV and includes enemies Genre Board
such as large vehicles and individual Mode 1-2 Players
soldiers.
The CD32 port is identical to the CDTV
There are four large levels, which also version. The only reason for a CD32 ver-
scroll a small amount horizontally, the sion is because the CDTV release is not
idea being that the player can evade a CD32 compatible title.
some opposition. There’s also a spe-
cial loop-the-loop type feature available,
which can double as an attack or an eva-
sive move.
“mobygames.com”

Other Releases
Amiga 1994

CD32 - Games • 373

 Bump ‘N’ Burn
Developer The Dome
Publisher Grandslam Video
Beavers Release date 1994
Genre Racing
Developer Arc Developments (?) Mode 1-2 Players
Publisher Unique (Grandslam Video)
Release date 1994 Bump ‘N’ Burn is a racing game with
Genre Platformer gameplay similar to the Mario Kart se-
Mode 1 Player ries.
Beavers is a 2D platformer where the The player can choose from several dif-
player take control of the beaver Jethro, ferent characters, each of which have
who is a famous music star. Jethro and individual looking cars and varied weap-
his children have to rescue his wife, who ons. The courses are large and laden
has been kidnapped at gunpoint by a with hazards and power-ups, such as oil
jealous rabbit. slicks and homing missiles.
The aim of the game is to guide Jethro The CD32 version includes a few up-
through each level of the game, over- dates to the A1200 version, such as a
coming the various Rabbits he will en- voice over before each race.
counter. Jethro must also collect Cha- The CD32 version received positive to
risma Stars to maintain his charisma, mixed reviews on release. Amiga Com-
which is needed to complete a level. puting gave the game 40% in their re-
“mobygames.com” view and wrote in their closing argument;
“This game is aimed at the younger end
of the market, but the difficulty level and
restrictive playing area make it quite
frustrating.”
“mobygames.com”

Other Releases
Amiga 1993

Other Releases
Amiga CD32 1994
Amiga 1994

374 • Games - CD32

Black Viper
Developer Light Shock
Publisher neo Software
Release date 1996
Genre Action, Racing
Mode 1 Player
Black Viper takes inspiration from games
such as Fire and Forget and Chase H.Q.,
replacing the fast car with an armed mo-
torcycle. The game takes place after a
nuclear war, with the player taking con-
trol of the son of a lost freedom fighter.
The freedom fighters try to recapture
the remaining cities from enemy mer-
cenaries. To do this, the player must
travel from city to city on the open roads,
shooting enemies along the way, and ar-
riving within a given time frame. As the
game progresses, enemy vehicles be-
come harder, requiring more shots to be
taken out. The bike may be upgraded in
the shop between levels.
The game is playable on a CD32 or AGA
Amiga with CD-ROM and 2Mb ram.
“mobygames.com”
Brian The Lion
Developer Reflections
Publisher Psygnosis
Release date 1994
Genre Platformer
Mode 1 Player
Brian the Lion Starring In: Rumble in the
Jungle is a 2D side-scrolling platform
game for the Amiga.
The player controls Brian, an anthro-
pomorphic lion, who must rescue his
friends which were kidnapped by Geeza
the Dragon.
Brian can defeat enemies by either
clawing them or jumping on their heads.
Along the way, players can collect crys-
tals which can be used in shops to buy
extra lives, credits, upgradable jump and
attack moves. Each levels includes dif-
ferent routes to the exit, along with se-
crets and bonuses. Players can also re-
visit a level after completing it.
“mobygames.com”

Hi.
Remember me?
I’m the lion
from earlier.

Other Releases
Other Releases Amiga 1996
Amiga 1996

CD32 - Games • 375

 Battletoads

Battletoads is a beat ‘em up/platform game developed

by Rare and published by Tradewest. It is the first in-
stallment of the Battletoads series and was originally
released for the NES. It was ported to the Amiga and
Amiga CD32 in 1994 (despite the former having been
developed in 1992), and released with some changes
for the Game Boy in 1993.

In the game, three space humanoid toad warriors form

a group known as the Battletoads. Two of the Battle-
toads, Rash and Zitz, embark on a mission to defeat
the evil Dark Queen on her planet and rescue their kid-
napped friends: Pimple, the third member of the Bat-
tletoads, and Princess Angelica.

While the first level is a typical 2D beat em up simi-

lar to Double Dragon, other levels have a variety of
Developer Mindscape
Publisher Mindscape gameplay styles, including rappelling down a pit, rid-
Release date 1994 ing speed bikes and surfboards, navigating a level on
Genre Beat ‘em up a unicycle-like vehicle that can ride up walls and on
Mode 1-2 Players the ceiling, etc. The main objective of each level is to
defeat as many enemies and overcome as many ob-
stacles as possible and reach the endpoint.

Though graphically better, the Amiga versions suffered

several sacrifices, mainly in the removal of nearly all
in-game music. This version features two exclusive
stages, Pot Holing and Backpackin’, which replace
Turbo Tunnel and Surf City respectively.

The game was developed in

response to the interest in the
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
franchise.

Other Releases
Amiga 1994
Game Boy 1993
Game Gear 1993
Genesis 1993
NES 1991
CD32 NES

376 • Games - CD32

magazine review; Amiga CD32 Gamer #3 (Aug 1994);

With a host of groundbreaking CD32 titles

in the works, Mindscape show another in-
novative ways with this surprise release.
Actually based on Battletoads In Ragno-
rak’s World, this appears to be pioneering
NES to CD32 porting. Only it’s not as good
as the 8bit original...
while manoeuvre whilst pressing fire, you trigger
the jump move — sending your toad bounding into

T
he Battletoads bunch may not mean much
to Amiga owners, but in the world of Nin-
tendo they’re huge stars with a series of
raved over NES and Gameboy games.
That’s no surprise when you consider the people
behind them are Rare, formerly known as Ultimate:
Play the Game when they utterly dominated the
Spectrum scene. In my opinion, even a straight NES
port would almost be welcome because the games
really are that good.
Ragnorak is the second in the Battletoads series
and features our mean green team once more com-
bating the evil plans of the curvaceous Dark Queen.
It’s a quest which will take them over no less than
twelve exceptionally varied levels, complete with a
neat simultaneous two-player option. Levels include
a Golden Axe beat-’em-up variant, a side-scolling
Penetrator-style blaster, a blisteringly fast race game
and much, much more.
The first level alone is packed with innovative
touches such as the way you can jump on a stunned
dragon, then ride it to blast your enemies. Or the end-
level guardian which you take on from its perspec-
tive as it aims lasers at you. One neat macabre touch
is how power-up weapons are made up of the bodies
of fallen foes — a walker’s legs and a bird’s over-
sized beak serving as a club and swords respectively.
Leaving aside the fact that state-of-the-art 8bit
NES graphics aren’t quite suitable for 32bit CD32,
Battletoads falls apart on the most fundamental
problem any game can suffer — its control system.
Nintendo variants of Battletoads invariably use two
buttons; one for jump and one for punch. Since the
CD32 has six buttons you wouldn’t have thought
this a problem. Amazingly, the programmers have
decided to go with one button and turn the game into
a nightmare. For instance, on the NES when you’re
battling the Psyko Pigs on the first beam-’em-up
level, you can manoeuvre into place whilst making
a flurry of punches. On the Amiga, if you press up
the air to be bashed on the head by your target.
Since Battletoads is a notoriously difficult game,
this painfully clumsy system is a disaster and most
people who gave this a casual go soon walked off
in disgust. If you persist you can progress, but the
zest of the original is diminished to a flicky per-
fectionism. The tunnel decent plays better, but still
lacks something in the feel while a shoot-’em-up
level is painfully sluggish. Drab to look at, awk-
ward to control and ridiculously difficult, Battle-
toads is an astonishingly comprehensive failure.
Even the music is badly sampled!
End of level one and
you’re in the infrared
targeting sights of one
mean robo-monster.
Dodge his laser fire then
nip in and grab a stone to
throw at his view-screen.
Keep your nerve and it’s
pretty easy. Such imagi-
native touches could’ve
made for a great game.
review; Amiga Format #65 (Nov 1994)
Battletoads is not a game you should con-
sider buying. Battletoads is not a game you
should consider stealing. If you receive Bat-
tletoads for your birthday, simply smile po-
litely and then decapitate the bearer. It’s 12
flawed levels of nonsense, a bit of beat-em-
up, shoot-em-up and platform — all poorly
executed. Go away.

magazine article • 377

 magazine article; CU Amiga #37 (March 1993),
by Dan Slingsby;
There’s gonna be a Revo-
lution, and Dan Slingsby
will be the first against
the wall when it comes. In
the meantime, here’s his
sneak preview of Revolu-
tion Software’s follow up
to Lure of the Temptress.
After the success of Lure of the
Temptress last year, Hull-based
Revolution Software are aiming
to top the charts once again with
their follow up game, Beneath The
Steel Sky. Taking on the likes of
Lucasfilm and Sierra in the graphic
adventure stakes ain’t going to be
easy, but Revolution are confident
that their revamped Virtual Thea-
tre system is more than up to the
task. What’s more, for added suss,
they’ve also signed up the artistic
talent of comic book veteran, Dave
Gibbons, artist and co-writer of
the Watchmen graphic novel and
GENESIS
OF A
PICTURE
Transforming a rough sketch into
a finished 16-colour screen is a
lengthy process.
Here’s how it was done.
378 • magazine article
countless other comics.
Set in the far future, Beneath
The Steel Sky has a distinct Blade
Runner feel to it, reflected in the
towering metropolis where most
of the action takes place. Imagine
the Judge Dredd towerblocks of
Mega City One and you’ll have a
good idea of what the place looks
like. The world is governed by five
huge multi-national corporations,
each of whom have their own pri-
vate armies and planet-wide min-
ing operations. Much of the world
has been reduced to a polluted
wasteland, with special ecology
After a lengthy briefing, Dave Gibbons pro-
vides an initial sketch which he then faxes to
Revolution’s office for approval.
support units needed to protect the
megacities from the ravages of the
heavily polluted atmosphere. Few
people survive in the wastelands,
but those that do have banded to-
gether, forming small pockets of
resistance to the new world order.
REBEL, REBEL
Our hapless hero, Foster, lives in
one of these rebel communities
until, one night, its citizens are an-
nihilated by a search-and-destroy
unit from the nearby city. Swearing
revenge, Foster is taken prisoner
and transported back to the me-
The sketch is then turned into a hand-painted
picture by Les Pace, but it’s felt that it’s not
good enough and is rejected.
tropolis for interrogation, but man-
ages to escape when the transport
plane crashes on one of the city’s
skyborne walkways. Foster quick-
ly discovers that the city is run by
a huge supercomputer known as
LINC which determines the status
of each citizen and what they can
and cannot do. The dregs of society
are forced to live at the top of the
city blocks where the air is most
polluted, while those who are go-
Another version of the picture is produced,
and this time it gets the thumbs up from the
Revolution bosses.
ing ‘up’ in the world can move
‘down’ to the more luxurious low-
er levels. It is here that the game
begins with Foster being pursued
by the city’s police.
The game’s background graph-
ics went through several stages of
production before they reached the
computer screen. Dave Gibbons
was drafted in to produce the ini-
tial sketches for the game’s 90-odd
locations and would fax over a set
Judge Dredd-style cityblocks
litter the landscape. Up here in
the polluted atmosphere, the
dregs of society try and carve
out a living. This is where the
game will begin and Foster, our
hapless hero, has to find some
way of gaining entry into the
lower levels and, eventually, the
mysterious underworld.
Your personal droid comes on
a portable memory chip. If you
want to spring him into action,
merely plug him in to one of the
‘droid bodies here, and he’ll be
free to roam about and carry
out a variety of different tasks.
Note the attention to detail here,
a characteristic of the entire
game, with lots of spot anima-
tions used to bring the whole
scene to life.
If this shot taken from the
game’s intro sequence doesn’t
remind you of Blade Runner
then I don’t know what will!
It’s all very impressive and at-
mospheric and this is reinforced
by the animated smoke billow-
ing from the chimneys and the
air ship cruising by.
The picture is then scanned in and converted
across to the Amiga. Here it is in all its 16-col-
our glory.
of roughs. These would then be
evaluated to see if they were tech-
nically feasible or not and, once
agreement had been reached, Dave
would provide the final sketch.
Once a design had been approved,
it was then passed on to Les Pace, a
professional animator who worked
on Roger Rabbit, who would hand-
paint each scene. These were then
scanned in on an Apple Macintosh
to produce a 24-bit image and sub-
sequently converted across to the
Amiga. Obviously, each image
suffered a severe loss of detail dur-
ing the conversion process because
of the Amiga’s limited palette
and resolution, so in-house artist,
Adam Tween, would then have to
spend several days ‘touching up’
a screen. It wasn’t merely a ques-
tion of tightening up the detail and
correcting any pixel distortion that
might have occurred, though, as a
large number of on-screen anima-
tions were also added at this stage
to bring the whole thing to life.
These could include smoke pouring
out of chimneys, light flickering
across a VDU screen, or a search-
light illuminating the sky. It’s these
touches that really help bring each
screen of life and bode well for the
completed game.
VIRTUALLY THERE
The Virtual Theatre engine used
to drive the first game has been
significantly improved for its sec-
ond outing. As Revolution’s MD,
The Revolution team pose for the camera in
their Hull home. All for one and one for all,
eh lads?
magazine article • 379
 Charles Cecil, explains: ‘The game
develops in a more subtle manner
to Lure of the Temptress. Charac-
ters not only react to global chang-
es but also develop on a personal
basis. For instance, if you were to
insult or offend a particular charac-
ter, they might relate the incident to
a friend who would den also take
dislike to your character, and so on.
We’ve tried to make the game as
non-linear as possible, so that vir-
tually anything is possible within
certain loose parameters. The story
develops depending on the way
the player interacts with the other
characters in the game.’
The puzzles of Steel Sky have
also been tightened up and made
much more of a challenge than the
first game. Elaborate ‘puzzle trees’
have been constructed which take
account of virtually any action
a player may make in the game.
Charting out these possible routes
and then reacting to them is one
way in which the Virtual Theatre
system proves its worth. It makes
it possible for the game’s design-
ers to include multiple storylines
which will eventually converge on
each other to produce a fixed con-
clusion. Another obvious change
to the first game is the improved
interface. A pull-down inventory
screen has been placed at the top
of the screen and the multiple Q&A
exchanges appear in a tinted box
and are far less intrusive than be-
fore. 
LARD ARSE
It’s good to see that despite the
game’s hard-nosed sci-fi appeal,
the Revolution team are still intent
of humour. In one scene, a futur-
istic Hilda Ogden-type character
attempts to seduce Foster. This
involves the fat lump of lard slip-
ping into an all-revealing negligée
and trying her best to bed our hero,
380 • magazine article
Here’s another example of a paint-
ed picture being converted into a
16-colour Amiga screen. It takes
at least two days to tidy up the dis-
torted screen once it’s been ported
over, but you’ve got to admit that
the results are most definitely worth
all that extra effort.
with comic results. Like the first
game, Foster can also rely on the
help of a friend. Instead of Rat-
pouch, Foster has his own ‘elec-
tronic friend who’s fun to be with’,
a reprogrammed scout droid which
can be sent to carry out particu-
lar missions within the game and
generally give assistance and vital
info. The ‘droid is also a special-
ist in flippant one-liners, and can
be a bit on the unpredictable side
at times.
Although the game has been
in production for almost a year,
there’s still a lot of work that needs
to be done. Most of the background
animations are nearing completion
and the majority of the game’s
sprites have been designed, but it’s
all got to be stitched together yet
by Tony Warren, the Amiga ver-
sion’s programmer, and he’s an-
ticipating many sleepless nights in
the months to come. There’s talk of
an A1200 version in the future, and
even a CDTV release, but for now
the team are concentrating on com-
pleting the game as it stands. It’s
envisaged that the game will come
on at least eight disks, understanda-
ble when you consider that the first
five screens contains no less than
150 separate animations. The team
are quietly confident that they’ve
got a Monkey Island 2 beater here,
and from what I’ve seen so far, I’d
tend to agree. We’ll have a further
report soon.
• Title: BENEATH THE STEEL SKY
• Publisher: Virgin
• Graphics: Adam Tween, Steve Oades
• Programming: Tony Warren
• Release Date: Late Summer
• Price: TBA
 Beneath The Steel Sky

Beneath a Steel Sky is a 1994 cyberpunk science

fiction point-and-click adventure game developed by
British developer Revolution Software and published
by Virgin Interactive Entertainment. It was a crea-
tive collaboration between Charles Cecil, a game
designer who would later create the concept for the
Broken Sword franchise, and Dave Gibbons, an ac-
claimed comic book artist best known for illustrating
the seminal superhero graphic novel Watchmen. The
game was made available as freeware—and with the
source code released—for PC platforms in 2003.

The game stars protagonist Robert Foster, a tribal

survivalist and technological prodigy who was or-
phaned and raised in a post-World-War-III Australian
Outback, and his sarcastic robotic companion Joey.
After many years, armed security officers arrive, kill-
ing the locals and taking Robert back to Union City.
Developer Revolution Software He escapes and soon uncovers the corruption which
Publisher Virgin Interactive
Release date 1994
lies at the heart of society.
Genre Adventure The setting and concepts of Beneath a Steel
Mode 1 Player Sky address concerns about heavily-urbanized so-
ciety and the threats posed by humanity’s over-reli-
ance on technology, consumer capitalism, and gov-
ernment surveillance.
Beneath a Steel Sky’s introductory sequence
was packed-in as a comic book with certain editions
of the game.

Other Releases
Amiga 1994
MS-DOS 1994
iPhone 2009
Linux 2015
Macintosh 2012
Windows 2008

CD32 Windows

382 • Games - CD32

As a traditional point-and-click adventure
game, Beneath a Steel Sky’s gameplay
is similar to LucasArts adventure games
of the era, primarily consisting of navigat-
ing dialogue trees and solving inventory-
based puzzles. However, there are cer-
tain sequences in which the protagonist
may be killed or receive a “bad” ending,
requiring players to load a saved game in
order to continue. Players choose Foster’s
responses during conversations and may
question NPCs about events related to the
story and its characters, as well as Fos-
ter’s own personal background. Foster’s
robotic pal Joey is also present throughout
most of the game, providing color com-
mentary and playing a key role in solving
certain puzzles.
The game’s world is largely non-
linear and players must explore their sur-
roundings thoroughly for key items and
clues about their next destination. At one
point in the game, the player gains access
to an abstract cyberspace world that must
be navigated to make progress.
The game uses the Virtual Theatre
engine from Lure of the Temptress, which
allows its characters to move freely inde-
pendent of the player’s input, making the
game world more dynamic than it is usu-
ally the case in comparable games.
The CD-ROM release of Beneath a
Steel Sky includes full voice acting for all
character dialogue.
In the remastered iOS version, the
point-and-click interface is replaced with a
touch user interface, a hint system is add-
ed, and hotspots are highlighted.
CD32 Jewels Case
and Cecil later contacted Gibbons to ask
him to work on Revolution’s second game.
Joining the team just before the release
Lure of the Temptress, Gibbons was sent
a rudimentary outline of what could hap-
pen in the hypothesised game, and wrote
a longer story with new characters and
scenarios, to which Revolution then further
added. Originally the game was named
Underworld, a title proposed by Gibbons,
but it was renamed due to the release of
Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss.
The production values became
much higher for Beneath a Steel Sky than
for Lure of the Temptress, resulting in a
game six times larger, and by the end of
1993, the team working on the game had
grown to eleven. The game was created
in sections, which allowed the team to en-
sure that each part was “perfected” before
moving on. Its 2-year development cost
£40,000, a large amount of money for the
company at the time.

While working at Activision, Revolution co-

founder and CEO Charles Cecil got the
idea of working with Dave Gibbons, artist
and co-creator of comic book Watchmen,
as Cecil was a fan of the comic book him-
self. He approached Gibbons, but shortly
thereafter, the old Activision broke down.
However, they maintained a friendship,

CD32 - Games • 383

 The designers’ goal was to create a visual
bridge between comic and video game
graphics. Gibbons drew the backgrounds
in pencil, starting with roughs, which were
sent to Revolution to see if they were tech-
nically feasible. Once agreed upon, Gib-
bons would then make the final sketch.
The pencil sketches were then colored.
The backgrounds were scanned on a
Macintosh and then transformed to 8-bit,
320x200 pixel images for the PC ver-
sion. The backgrounds were designed so
that the sprites would appear clear on the
screen and would not mix with the back-
grounds. Gibbons also designed the char-
acters, although he found it challenging to
get a character’s personality and expres-
sion in a face that was only around seven
pixels wide and nine pixels high with a lim-
ited palette. He would have liked to design
a character in a similar manner to Prince of
Persia or Flashback, but Revolution want-
ed something more detailed, so the result
became a compromise. According to Gib-
bons, about 75% of the backgrounds and
characters he designed were used in the
game.
Dave Cummins wrote the dialogue
for the game. The tone of Revolution’s ear-
ly games was born from a tension between
Cummins and Cecil. Cummins wanted to
be more flippant with dialogue, while Cecil
wanted to be more serious. Their goal was
to find the middle ground between Sierra’s
“ridiculously earnest” stories and the slap-
384 • Games - CD32
stick comedy of LucasArts games. For the
voice acting, Revolution used actors from
the Royal Shakespeare Company. Only
two days were spent recording over five
thousands lines of dialogue. Not pleased
with the results, however, Revolution de-
cided on a lengthy re-recording, and re-
alized that voice actors should be used,
rather than stage actors. As a result of this,
the speech does not always match the
on-screen text, with English terms being
Americanized. Cummins was also respon-
sible for the score of the game, writing a
specific tune for each of the main locations.
Beneath a Steel Sky became the
second game to use Revolution’s Virtual
Theatre engine, after Lure of the Tempt-
ress. According to Cecil, the original ver-
sion of the engine seemed less applicable
in Beneath a Steel Sky, as the ability to
issue commands conflicted with the game-
play they intended to create. Lure of the
Temptress had one story that was moved
forward by a key event, whereas Beneath a
Steel Sky had multiple threads. In one way
this presented them with “exciting game-
play opportunities, but in others it cordoned
off more ambitious ideas in terms of multi-
linearity.” As a consequence, some of the
engine’s features were scaled back. Tony
Warriner and David Sykes, both program-
mers, had to update the engine, which was
part of the new deal with Virgin Interactive.
As an example of change in the updated
engine, Virtual Theatre 2.0, Warriner ex-
plained that in Lure of the Temptress, the
system controlled everything, for instance
specific routines to a door. So if there was
a door on-screen, the door-routine was
called up to handle it. The consequence
was that every door looked the same and
acted the same, so if a door was some-
what different from the last one, it caused
a problem. This was changed in the new
system, as it was object oriented and no
distinction was made between a proper
object like a door or key.
Beneath a Steel Sky was published in
March 1994 by Virgin Interactive on floppy
disks and CD-ROM. It came on 15 floppy
disks, as opposed to Lure of The Tempt-
ress, which came on four. Because of the
Amiga restrictions, a few animations had
to be left out, as not all Amiga owners had
a hard drive. Each conversion of the im-
ages to the Amiga resulted in a loss of de-
tail. According to Revolution in-house artist
Adam Tween, it took a couple of days to
“touch up” the screens.
Beneath a Steel Sky was critically ac-
claimed. In 1995, PC Gamer awarded
it the “Best Dialogue” award, and it won
the “Best Adventure” award at the Golden
Joystick Awards. It was also a commercial
success, reaching the number one place
on the British Gallup charts. Eurogamer’s
Simon Parkin later summarized that it
“sold extremely well”, with lifetime sales
between 300,000 and 400,000 units by
July 2009. Parkin noted that the majority of
its sales derived from European countries.
CU Amiga’s Tony Dillon proclaimed
Beneath a Steel Sky as “one of the great-
est adventures ever.” Amiga Format’s Rob
Mead said that the game is an “Utterly bril-
liant”, “massive, intense and atmospheric
adventure which will keep you on tenter-
hooks right until its final startling conclu-
sion.” PC Gamer US’s Steve Poole called
it “slick, funny,” “absorbing” and “one of the
most playable adventures of all time” “that
will appeal to a wide variety of gamers”.
Amiga Power’s Cam Winstanley said that
it is “an example of what an adventure
game should be like — funny, enthral-
ling and convincing.” Adventure Gamers’
Claire Wood called it an “enjoyable”, “en-
gaging adventure classic, thoroughly en-
joyable playing experience” and “a 1984
for the computer game generation.”
Although retrospectively Broken Sword:
The Shadow of the Templars is gener-
ally looked upon as Revolution’s magnum
opus, Beneath a Steel Sky still holds the
status of a cult classic and has been fea-
tured on numerous “all-time top” lists.
In August 2003, the game was released
as freeware, with its assembly language
source code by Revolution Software. The
source code availability made it possible
for the ScummVM project to support the
game, which allows the game to be played
on Windows, OS X, Linux, Windows CE
and other compatible operating systems
and platforms.
The game is also available as a
zero-cost download on digital distribution
services, including Desura and GOG.com.
Released on 23 September 2009, Beneath
a Steel Sky: Remastered is an updated
port of the original game for the iPhone
and iPod Touch.
The remastered edition features
new animated movies by Gibbons, a con-
text-sensitive help system and improved
audio quality. The animated movies make
use of the original stills and use a sliding
paper-like style to animate them.
A sequel, Beyond a Steel Sky, was re-
leased in 2020. It was written by Charles
Cecil, and developed by Revolution Soft-
ware. The game is set ten years after the
events of Beneath a Steel Sky and players
again assume the role of Robert Foster.
some text from; giantbomb.com
CD32 - Games • 385
 Brutal Sports Series: Football

Brutal Sports Football, also known as Brutal Football,

is an arcade-style football game and the first entry in
the Brutal Sports Series franchise, which continued
with Wild Cup Soccer in 1994, also from the same de-
velopment team.

Brutal Sports Football is a seven-a-side football game,

similar to Mutant League Football, in which it deviates
from other american football titles released at the time
in several ways. While following the same basic game-
play featured in other football simulators, including the
ability of tackling players and lob the oval-shaped foot-
ball into the goalpost, there are no rules once a match
starts and characters not in possession can actually
hit opponents with or without the ball and even kill
them, resulting in a more bloodier and arcade-styled
gameplay approach of the sport. The game also fea-
tures item and weapon pick-ups randomly scattered
across the main playfield that players can use against
opponents or affecting them. Each match lasts seven
minutes and features two ways of finishing them, by
Developer Teque London either scoring higher than the other team or killing six
Publisher Millennium of seven teammates from the opposite side. If either
Release date 1994 requirement is not meet, players go immediately into
Genre Sports
Mode 1-8 Players
sudden death, where they have to kill six out of seven
opponents in order to win the game.

Brutal Sports Football received mostly positive recep-

tion since its release on the Amiga, with many review-
ers favourably comparing it to Speedball 2: Brutal De-
luxe from The Bitmap Brothers.

Other Releases
Amiga 1993
Browser 2021
MS-DOS 1993
Jaguar 1994
Windows 2019

CD32 Jaguar

386 • Games - CD32

 Benefactor

Benefactor is an Amiga game developed by the Swed-

ish team Digital Illusions CE (DICE). The game is a mix
between a puzzle game and a platform game. It has a
similar concept to Psygnosis’s earlier Lemmings.

The player plays Ben E. Factor, who has resigned from

the military to become an overall all-around good guy.
Factor’s mission is to save a group of “Merry Men”,
who have been kidnapped from their home planet and
imprisoned over 60 levels.

Ben E. Factor is controlled directly, like a platform game

character. Factor has to avoid all enemy creatures (hit-
ting them would reduce health), and pull switches to
extend the land, or many other things. Factor can find
keys on the level to open the locks in the Merry Men’s
cells.
These Merry Men each have their own poten-
tial skill once rescued, so releasing them in the right
order is often essential for completing a level. Some
Merry Men have grey suits—this marks them out as
Developer Digital Illusions joyless and awkward characters which must be guided
Publisher Psygnosis through a coloring machine.
Release date 1994 Once all Merry Men on a level have been freed,
Genre Platformer, Puzzle Factor has to go back to his starting point to complete
Mode 1 Player
the level.

Benefactor has support for data disks but no official

data disks for it have ever been published. (One unof-
ficial data disk with seven new levels is available for
download on Aminet).

Other Releases
Amiga 1994

CD32 Amiga

CD32 - Games • 387

 Brutal: Paws of Fury

Brutal: Paws of Fury is a light-hearted 2D fighting

game starring anthropomorphic animals as mar-
tial arts fighters of various disciplines. The game
was originally developed and published by Gam-
eTek as a Sega CD exclusive in October 1994.

The game follows various martial arts fighting

animals as they compete in a tournament in the
secluded Brutal Island by the mysterious Dali Lla-
ma.

Most versions of the game include eight playable

fighters and two unlockable bosses, while some
earlier consoles exclude two characters.
During a fight, players can punch and kick
their opponent, try to use special attacks, or use
a “taunt” that restores a bit of health. An ending
animation (different depending on the character
chosen) is played after winning the game.

The game is unique for its password system,

where special moves must be earned by winning
Developer Gametek (?)
Publisher Gametek
matches and each fighter’s repertoire can be
Release date 1995 stored as passwords.
Genre Fighting
Mode 1-2 Players An updated version, Brutal Unleashed: Above the
Claw, was released for the Sega 32X and MS-
DOS computers in 1995 with two new playable
characters, new arenas, a remixed intro, and new
music.

Other Releases
Amiga 1995
MS-DOS 1995
Genesis 1994
Sega CD 1994
SNES 1994

CD32 Sega CD

388 • Games - CD32

 Bubba ‘n’ Stix

Bubba ‘n’ Stix is a 2D side-scrolling puzzle platformer.

The Amiga and Sega versions were developed simul-
taneously.

The player controls the redneck Bubba, who is ac-

companied by a sentient stick named Stix. Stix can
be used in various ways to help Bubba defeat en-
emies and get past obstacles: for instance, Stix can
be thrust into a hole in the side of a platform so that
Bubba can climb higher.
The game consists of five levels that vary in
terms of graphics, music, and type of puzzles that
need to be solved.

According to designer Simon Phipps, originally Core

Design had wanted a “moody, dark and atmospheric”
game featuring an adventurer wielding a multipur-
pose stick. It became apparent to him that a realistic
Developer Core Design approach to the design was not feasible. As a result,
Publisher Core Design
Phipps, along with collaborator Billy Allison, sketched
Release date 1994
Genre Platformer out a large number of mostly outlandish uses for the
Mode 1 Player game’s central tool. After reviewing the drawings,
Core subsequently gave the go-ahead to develop the
game.

The Genesis version was released

by Tengen in the United States and
featured a promotional tie-in with
the Bubblicious bubble gum brand. During
gameplay, this is reflected by the bonus stages con-
taining Bubblicious pack collectibles.

Bubble and Squeak—a

game with similar premise
and concept that was re-
leased in the same year
and same consoles.

Other Releases
Amiga 1994
Genesis 1994

CD32 Genesis

390 • Games - CD32

 Bubble and Squeak

Bubble and Squeak is a wholesome sci-fi fantasy

platform game. It was developed by Fox Williams
under the name Barney & Clyde, and they ported it
to the Sega Genesis for which it was published by
Sunsoft under license from Audiogenic.

Players control a little human boy named Bubble

along with recent alien acquaintance Squeak, who
are on a rescue mission to save the planet Grool’s
sentient populace from alien invaders.

The game is a 2D platformer separated by brief un-

derwater scrolling shooter bonus segments.
Players control Bubble and at any time dur-
ing gameplay can command Squeak to either ‘fol-
low’ or ‘wait’ for him. Squeak, who is invulnerable
to enemies and enemy fire, has his own AI and will
help collect items or give Bubble a boost via piggy-
back, letting Squeak toss him up to tall heights or by
simply standing on top of Squeak’s head.
Collectable items includes gems, coins, and
a submersible icon which is necessary to play the
Developer Audiogenic
Publisher Audiogenic
shooter stages; some items can be picked up and
Release date 1994 carried to other locations. In both modes of game-
Genre Platformer play (collecting and shooting), Bubble is equipped
Mode 1 Player with unlimited ammunition, either stars or torpedoes.

Electronic Gaming Monthly gave the Genesis ver-

sion a 6.6 out of 10, praising the use of teamwork
and strategy and the impressive graphics.

Other Releases
Amiga 1994
Genesis 1994

CD32 Genesis

CD32 - Games • 391

 Cedric And The Lost Sceptre
Developer Alcatraz
Publisher Alive Mediasoft, neo
Clockwiser Release date 1996
Genre Beat-’em-up
Developer Team Hoi Mode 1 Player
Publisher Rasputin Software
Release date 1994 Cedric takes the basic adventure game
Genre Puzzle elements of object manipulation, puz-
Mode 1 Player
zle solving, and conversations involving
On each of Clockwiser’s 100 levels, the choosing from a range of pre-set sen-
player are presented with a level layout, tences. However, it sets them in an ar-
and a target layout, with the aim being to cade platform context. The options are
transform the former to match the target. hidden most of the time, and there’s a
The levels consist of a collec- fair supply of enemies to be dispatched,
tion of cogs, which can be rotated either either with a sword or by jumping on
clockwise or anti-clockwise to achieve their heads. Extra lives and improved
this goal. There are lots of special blocks weapons can be collected along the way
to help out, including bombs, diamond- through the 11 levels.
producers and anti-gravity blocks. While the CD32 joypad controls are re-
“mobyames.com” ferred to in the neo release game man-
ual, no CD32 loading instructions are
given nor is the CD32 mentioned in the
specs listed on the game box. The game
has proven CD32-compatible in testing,
however.
“mobyames.com”

Other Releases
Amiga 1994
Android 2011
MS-DOS 1994
Windows 3.x 1995

Other Releases
Amiga 1995

392 • Games - CD32

 Chambers of Shaolin

Chambers of Shaolin is a 1989 beat ‘em up first

released for the Amiga then ported to the Atari
ST and C64. The game was inspired by the
1978 movie The 36th Chamber of Shaolin.

The game offers two distinct styles of game-

play. Initially, the player must clear six tests
that showcase the player’s skill in combat disci-
plines, specifically Agility, Balance, Fire, Speed,
Stick, and Strength. Clearing the trials requires
reacting to (dodging) obstacles thrown at the
player, such as dodging projectiles in the Agil-
ity and Stick tests, and hitting buttons with the
correct timing as in the Balance and Fire tests.
After passing the tests, the player is of-
fered the chance to clear rounds of 1-on-1 fights
with other Shaolin fighters. Performance in the
previous trials impacts the player’s skillset and
Developer Thalion Software
strengths against other fighters.
Publisher Grandslam
Release date 1993
Genre Beat-’em-up
Overall, reception for the game was positive,
Mode 1-2 Player praising its gameplay and handling. The CD32
port, however, received mostly negative review
scores.
In a retrospective review, Retro Gamer
called it graphically unimpressive, but found the
gameplay and controls surprisingly sharp for
the time.

The CD32 port is very sim-

ilar to the original version
and is mostly seen as an
inferior version.

Other Releases
Amiga 1989
Amiga CD32 1993
Atari ST 1989
Commodore 64 1989
CD32 Commodore 64

CD32 - Games • 393

 Cannon Fodder

Cannon Fodder is a shoot ‘em up developed by

Sensible Software and initially published by Virgin
Interactive Entertainment for the Amiga in 1993.

Cannon Fodder is a top-down squad-based shoot-

er. The game make use of reflex-based puzzle solv-
ing with some later levels requiring a high level of
dexterity and good timing to complete.
The player controls a small squad of up to
five soldiers. These soldiers are armed with guns
and with a limited number of grenades and rockets
to destroy enemy buildings and vehicles. As well as
foot soldiers, the antagonists include vehicles such
as Jeeps, tanks and helicopters as well as missile-
armed turrets.
The player proceeds through 24 missions
divided into several levels each, making 72 levels
Developer Sensible Software in all. There are various settings including jungle,
Publisher Virgin Interactive snow and desert, some with unique terrain features
Release date 1994
Genre Shooter
and vehicles such as igloos and snowmobiles. The
Mode 1 Player player must also contend with rivers and quicksand
as well as mines and other booby traps.
In addition to shooting action, the game fea-
tures strategy elements and employs a point-and-
click control system more common to strategy than
action games. As the player’s troops are heavily
outnumbered and easily killed, they must use cau-
tion, as well as careful planning and positioning. To
this end, they can split the squad into smaller units
to take up separate positions or risk fewer soldiers
when moving into dangerous areas.

Other Releases
3DO 1994
Amiga 1993
Acorn 32-bit 1994
Antstream 2019
Atari ST 1994
MS-DOS 1994
Game Boy Color 2000
Genesis 1994
J2ME 2004
Jaguar 1995
Linux 2015
Macintosh 2013
SNES 1994
Symbian 2005
Windows 2009
CD32 Genesis

CD32 - Games • 395

 Cannon Fodder was developed by Sensi-
ble Software, a small independent devel-
oper then of several years’ standing, which
had become one of the most prominent
Amiga developers. Cannon Fodder was
created after such successes as Wizkid,
Mega Lo Mania and Sensible Soccer and
was developed by six people in a “small,
one room office”. It was rooted in Mega
Lo Mania, the “basic idea” being—accord-
ing to creator Jon Hare—a strategy game
in which the player “could send groups
on missions, but that was all really.” The
group nonetheless wanted to introduce
action elements into the strategy ideas of
Mega Lo Mania, giving the player “more
direct” control, though retaining the mouse
control and icons uncommon to shoot ‘em
ups.
In accordance with habit Sensible’s
personnel eschewed storyboards when
developing the starting point, instead
writing descriptions of the concept and
core gameplay functions. Earlier works-
in-progress employed larger numbers of
icons than would be featured in the final
version. The mechanics also had more
depth: individual soldiers had particular
attributes—such as being necessary to
use certain weapons or vehicles—and a
greater capacity to act independently, both
removed in favour of “instant” action rather
than “war game” play.
The designers named each of the
game’s several hundred otherwise identi-
cal protagonists, who were also awarded
gravestones (varying according to the sol-
dier’s attained in-game rank) displayed on
a screen between levels. Of this “personal-
isation”, Hare said: “The graves show that
people died, and their names mean they’re
not just faceless sacrifices”. The theme
was a departure from Sensible Software’s
usual non-violent games, and Hare stated
“I’m only happy with this one because it
makes you think ‘Yes, people really die’.
We’re not glamourising anything, I don’t
396 • Games - CD32
Images from the FMV intro video
think.” He said it was inspired by “all wars
ever” and was “meant to be an anti-war
thing.” He felt it would make gamers “real-
ise just how senseless war is” and for this
reason was “the game we’ve always want-
ed to write”. CU Amiga however perceived
“a fairly sick sense of humour” and predict-
ed “The mix of satire and violence is bound
to get some people pretty heated about the
way such a serious subject is treated”.
Production of the game began in
early 1991 but was then delayed as pro-
grammer Jools Jameson worked on Mega
Drive conversions of other games. The pro-
posed Cannon Fodder had been part of a
four-game deal with Robert Maxwell’s soft-
ware publisher, which was liquidated after
the businessman’s death. Unusually for an
independent developer, Sensible had lit-
tle difficulty in finding publishers and after
work resumed on the game, concluded a
deal with Virgin in May 1993. The creators
chose Virgin as it “seemed like a good bet”
(Hare) as well as because of the straight-
forwardness of UK head Tim Chaney. Sev-
eral months before its release, elements
of the game were combined with Sensible
Soccer, to create Sensible Soccer Meets
Bulldog Blighty. This modified Sensible
Soccer demo featured a mode of play that
replaced the ball with a timed hand gre-
nade.
The CD32 version is almost identical to the
floppy Amiga version, with the exception
of in-game music, a new FMV intro (only
available for CD32 with an FMV expansion
installed) and CD32 controller compatibility.
Reviewers highly praised the game when
it was released and it widely achieved
scores of over 90% in Amiga magazines.
Amiga Action awarded it an unprecedent-
ed score, calling it the best game of the
year. The magazine compared it favour-
ably to Sensible Soccer, saying the latter
was “arguably the most playable and en-
joyable game ever seen [...] At least, that
was probably the best, as at this moment
in time I believe this release [Cannon Fod-
der] to better it in terms of, well, every-
thing.” The reviewer also wrote: “Only last
month in my Frontier review, I stated that I
had only given that game 93% because no
game would ever be less than seven per
cent from perfection. Sensible Software
have forced me to eat those words almost
immediately.”
J2ME Game Boy Color
Cannon Fodder has a darkly humor-
ous tone which commentators variously
praised and condemned. Its creators in-
tended it to convey an anti-war message,
which some reviewers recognised, but the
Daily Star and a number of public figures
derided the game.
Daily Star quoted The Royal Brit-
ish Legion, Liberal Democrat MP Men-
zies Campbell and Viscount Montgomery
of Alamein, calling the game offensive to
“millions”, “monstrous” and “very unfortu-
nate” respectively. Virgin Interactive initial-
ly defended the game’s use of iconogra-
phy closely resembling the remembrance
poppy as an anti-war statement, which the
Daily Star in turn dismissed as a “publicity
writer’s hypocrisy”. Magazine Amiga Pow-
er became involved in the controversy be-
cause of its planned reuse of the poppy on
the cover of an issue also to be released
on Armistice Day. This had been changed
in response to criticism in the Daily Star’s
original article, but the newspaper pub-
lished another piece focussing on a per-
ceived inflammatory retort by Amiga Pow-
er’s editor Stuart Campbell: “Old soldiers?
I wish them all dead.” The article featured
further quotes from the British Legion. The
magazine apologised for including the
comment although Campbell himself felt
he was “entitled to an opinion” regardless
of its insensitivity. The game was ultimately
released with a soldier rather than a pop-
py on the box art, though the poppy was
still displayed on the game’s title screen.
Amiga Power also changed its cover after
“legal scrapes with the British Legion over
whether a poppy is just a flower or a rec-
ognisable symbol of a registered charity.”
Stuart Campbell elsewhere pointed out
that the game was ironically anti-war, while
contemporary Amiga Format reviewer Tim
Smith also praised the game as intelli-
gently anti-war. UK magazine Metro later
acknowledged “a relatively profound state-
ment on the futility of war” which had been
unrecognised by the Daily Star.
CD32 - Games • 397
 Castles II: Siege and Conquest

Castles II: Siege and Conquest, sequel to the

1991 game Castles, is a real-time strategy game
originally developed by Quicksilver Software for
the MS-DOS in 1992.

The game takes place in a semi-fictionalized ver-

sion of historical France. The game begins in the
year 1312 A.D., shortly before the beginning of
the Hundred Years’ War. France’s King Charles is
dead without an heir and it’s unclear who will take
the throne. The player takes the role of one of five
Dukes. Through politics, resource management,
military strength and castle construction, the play-
er must strategically out manoeuvre the AI com-
petitors and become the true king of Bretagne.

Gameplay includes scouting out unknown territo-

Developer Almathera
Publisher Interplay
ries, conquering them, building castles to prevent
Release date 1993 revolts and line defenses, raising an army, feeding
Genre Strategy and paying them, and eventually making a claim
Mode 1 Player for the title of King.
Depending on which noble is picked, the
player can start at any of five general areas of
the map. Initially he is provided with one territory
rich in one of four resources: gold, timber, iron,

The MS-DOS CD-ROM ver-

sion features an extensive
amount of FMVs about the
history and purpose of differ-
ent castles around Europe.

Other Releases
MS-DOS 1992
FM Towns 1993
Linux 2021
Macintosh 1994
PC-98 1993
Windows 2017
CD32 PC-98

398 • Games - CD32

or food. Having more of one kind of re-
source territory increases the total amount
that the player can harvest per turn.
At first the player can perform one
task each of three types at once: admin-
istrative (gathering resources and building
castles), military (recruiting an army, build-
ing optional weapons, and policing the
realm), and political (sending scouts, diplo-
mats, and spies). The more a type of task
is performed, the more points which may
be devoted to that kind of task are gained.
The most remarkable feature at the
time for Castles II was the ability to design
and save different castles. Depending on
the total number of walls and turrets, the
castles were assigned point values that
determined how long it takes to build. Larg-
er castles are harder to destroy or capture,
which serves to keep enemies out of the
controlled lands. Large castles are also
used to prevent revolts. Armies include in-
fantry, archers, and knights, each costing
a different resource to recruit. The size of
the army that can be raised is dependent
upon the number of territories and castles
the player possess.

Castles II, like many games of it’s era, has

in game copy protection to prevent its ille-
gal distribution. It takes the form of a pseu-
do plot point that always revolves around
the player answering a question with the
help of the Instruction Manual, to prove
that they are the rightful king. This was not
used in the CD-ROM edition.

Computer Gaming World in 1993 called

Castles II “a first-rate strategy game ... a joy
to play”, praising the user interface, variety
of play options, and strong computer AI. In
a 1993 survey of pre 20th-century strategy
games the magazine gave the game three-
plus stars out of five, calling it “Much more
of a wargame than the former, and worthy
of examination by anyone interested in the
period”.

some text from Giantbomb.com

CD32 - Games • 399

 The Chaos Engine

The Chaos Engine, released in the US as Soldiers

of Fortune for the Sega Genesis and SNES, is a
top-down run and gun video game developed by
The Bitmap Brothers for the Amiga. The game is
set in a steampunk Victorian age in which one or
two players must battle the hostile creations of
the eponymous Chaos Engine across four land-
scapes and ultimately defeat it and its deranged
inventor.

The setting is a steampunk Victorian era England.

A time traveller on a reconnaissance mission from
the distant future became stranded in the England
of the late 1800s, and his technology came into
the hands of the Royal Society, led by Baron For-
tesque, a grand inventor.
With the help of this knowledge, Fortesque
managed to construct an immensely complex ar-
Developer Bitmap Brothers tificial intelligence known as the Chaos Engine.
Publisher Renegade However, the creation rebelled against its creator,
Release date 1994
assimilated its mind, and turned Britain into a war
Genre Shooter
Mode 1-2 Players zone populated by mad machines. Mercenaries
are willing to enter this dangerous place and put
an end to the chaos, hoping for an appropriate re-
ward.

Other Releases
Acorn 32-bit 2000
Amiga 1993
Antstream 2019
Atari ST 1993
BlackBerry 2013
MS-DOS 1994
Genesis 1993
J2ME 2005
Linux 2013
Macintosh 2013
SNES 1993
Windows 2013 CD32 Amiga

400 • Games - CD32

 The introductory sequence is dis-
played in text on the screen on the floppy
disk Amiga versions, but a slightly modified
version is narrated with a voiceover on the
CD32 version, together with some scene-
setting animations.
Players choose two mercenar-
ies from a group of six to take
on the task of defeating the
mad Baron Fortesque and the
Chaos Engine itself. The play-
able characters have various
qualities that affect gameplay,
such as speed and combat
ability. The players are pro-
vided with a certain amount of
money to start the game and
must hire the chosen charac-
ters at their set prices.
In one-player mode,
the computer controls the sec-
ond player, so that one never
has to fight the chaos alone.
It is possible to play with only
one character, by starting a
two-player game and letting
the enemies kill the second
character.
The players must traverse
through each level, picking up
power-ups, gold and keys to
pass through the various puz-
zles and mazes. A number of
“nodes” must be activated via
weapon fire (or special pow-
er) to open the final doors at
the end of each level. At the
end of every second level
the player has a chance to
spend their collected riches
to upgrade their weapons,
increase the number of hit
points of their character, pur-
chase new items and improve
other character attributes. Character selection screen
Amiga screenshots
Developers included Steve Cargill, Simon
Knight, Dan Malone, Eric Mathews and
Mike Montgomery. Joi composed the title
theme and Richard Joseph composed all
other in-game music.
The game was inspired by
William Gibson and Bruce
Sterling’s novel, The Differ-
ence Engine, and its basic
plot and stylistics are both
based on the novel.
The game’s coder devel-
oped the partner AI by ob-
serving play-testing of the
game, then coding the AI ac-
cording to his observations of
the player’s behaviors.
The game was later ported
to consoles. In order to fit the
soundtrack into the SNES’s
audio memory, which is much
smaller than the Amiga’s,
Joseph both used standard
compression methods and
put all the note data and driv-
ers in the console’s main
memory, reserving the audio
memory for samples.
An early version of the game
was previewed on the British
TV show Gamesmaster. The
early version was reportedly
“running on an Amiga 3000”
and featured simultaneous
three player action.
The CD32 version, which is
a port of the A1200, were en-
hanced when it was ported
from floppies to the AGA ma-
chines. It have a joypad sys-
tem for the CD32 controller,
and makes use of several of
the buttons on the controller.
It has updated AGA 256 color
graphics, a new intro and
sampled CD speech.
CD32 - Games • 401
 The Amiga version received mostly positive
reviews on release, as did the AGA version,
often receiving over 90% in review scores.
The console versions received posi-
tive to mixed reviews. Electronic Gaming
Monthly gave the SNES version a 6.8 out of
10, summarizing it as “A decent overhead
shooting game in the spirit of Technoclash
and Gauntlet.” They gave the Genesis
version a 6.4. GamePro remarked of the
Genesis version that “Overhead-view gun-
fighting has never played better”, citing the
heavy challenge, solid controls, and use
of teamwork. They criticized the sprites as
overly small, but also noted that the sharp
artwork ensures that it is still easy to make
out what is happening on screen.
402 • Games - CD32
A remastered version of The Chaos En-
gine—essentially a widescreen port of the
Amiga AGA version (named AA version in
the title screen) with the original intro and
music intact—was developed by Abstrac-
tion Games and released for Windows,
Mac and Linux in 2013. The game retains
all gameplay features, the audio and the
graphics of the original.
The remastered version adds the
option to play a remote two-player game
through Steam. There is also a global high
score list, and two optional graphics ef-
fects: a softening filter to alleviate the low-
resolution pixelated graphics and a bloom
effect on selected parts of the game graph-
ics.
 Chuck Rock

Chuck Rock is a 1991 slapstick side-scrolling plat-

form game set in a prehistorical Stone Age-era
world. It is perhaps best remembered for its rock n’
roll theme tune.

Chuck Rock is starring the eponymous caveman

Chuck on a quest to rescue his wife from a jealous
rival.

The player take control of Chuck. His main form

of attack is a stomach bump with a limited range,
but he is also able to take advantage of rocks litter-
ing the stages to attack enemies from afar. He can
also use these rocks to create platforms to higher
areas he cannot reach by jumping normally.
While most dinosaurs are hostile some, like
the wading brachiosaurs and certain pteranodons,
will assist Chuck by taking him to new areas of the
Developer Core Design (?) stage.
Publisher Corkers (Core Design)
Release date 1994 Most of the initial 1991 releases of Chuck Rock were
Genre Platformer
released without an in-game soundtrack, the excep-
Mode 1 Player
tion being the Amiga which offered one as an option
(at the expense of sound effects).

The character of Chuck Rock was an early mascot

for Core Design before the introduction of Lara Croft
in the 1996 game Tomb Raider, and the character of
Chuck Rock himself and his family even featured in
some UK comic books of the 1990s.

Other Releases
Acorn 32-bit 1991
Amiga 1991
Atari ST 1991
Commodore 64 1992
Game Boy 1993
Game Gear 1992
Genesis 1991
Sega CD 1992
Sega Master System 1992
SNES 1992

CD32 Genesis

404 • Games - CD32

Chuck Rock II: Son of Chuck Der Clou!
Developer Core Design Developer ... and avoid panic by
Publisher Core Design Publisher Max Design, neo
Release date 1994 Release date 1994
Genre Platformer Genre Adventure
Mode 1 Player Mode 1 Player

Chuck Rock II: Son of Chuck is a side-
scrolling action game featuring the six
month old son of the protagonist Chuck
Rock as he fights off dinosaurs and tries
to help save his parents.
The gameplay is similar to the first game,
but with some minor differences since
the player controls Junior, rather than
Chuck. This is a side-scrolling platform
game with occasional rock-moving puz-
zles thrown in. Unlike Chuck, Junior car-
ries a club that gives his attacks further
reach.
Chuck Rock II uses an acid jazz sound-
track. The end credits thank various con-
temporary acid jazz bands, presumably
The player take control of Matt Stuvy-
sant, a man of Polish descent and crimi-
nal persuasion. He arrive in London with
nothing but the clothes on his back and
a desire to become the greatest criminal
mind this century. Once getting a room
and meeting some accomplices, he
must begin his career.
Starting with small shops and gradually
working his way up to the theft of the
Crown Jewels.
The game allows players to con-
trol almost every aspect of the crime,
from choosing the target building and
accomplices to actually planning the
burglary itself.
“mobygames.com”

listing them as influences.

Other Releases
Amiga 1993
Game Gear 1993
Genesis 1993 Other Releases
Sega CD 1993 Amiga 1994
Sega Master System 1993 MS-DOS 1994

CD32 - Games • 405

 D/Generation

D/Generation is an action-adventure game with puz-

zle elements developed for the 8-bit Apple II during
the late 1980s, but instead published and released
for MS-DOS, Amiga, and Atari ST by Mindscape in
1991.

Set in the year 2021, D/Generation takes place in

a futuristic setting with elements of cyberpunk and
dystopian fiction, and the story follows the actions
of a simple courier making an urgent delivery who
finds himself entangled in the illicit corporate world
of bioweapon research gone horribly awry.
With the courier as their player character,
players must climb ten floors of the Genoq Biolabs
research building in search of the scientist Jean-
Paul Derrida, the recipient of the package they carry.
Malfunctioning security systems and hostile organic
Developer Abersoft weapons will impede their progress, while trauma-
Publisher Mindscape
Release date 1993
tized Genoq employees may be able to help the
Genre Action-adventure courier piece together what happened at the build-
Mode 1 Player ing prior to the player’s arrival.

The main gameplay of D/Generation consists of tra-

versing interconnected rooms (called “scenes” within
the game), accomplishing various tasks within them
in order to ascend to the next level of the tower.

Other Releases
Amiga 1992
Atari ST 1992
MS-DOS 1991
Macintosh 2015
Nintendo Switch 2018
PlayStation 4 2016
Windows 2015
Windows 3.x 1994
Xbox One 2016

CD32 Atari ST

406 • Games - CD32


Each level is comprised of multiple
scenes, and each scene typically presents
a particular challenge which must be over-
come in order to progress. The game al-
ternates between action-based and puz-
zle-based gameplay, with many scenes
requiring some combination of both.
The player’s Laser sidearm is also
used for puzzles in the game. Its first and
most obvious purpose is to kill the various
hostile inhabitants of the Genoq building,
however it’s beams can activate switches,
and will also ricochet, so it is usefully in
many situations in which the player might
wish to activate a switch from a distance,
or cannot feasibly approach one due to a
particular hazard.
Surviving Genoq employees and
special items are also scattered around
the floors. Rescuing a survivor by clear-
ing a room of bioweapons and getting him/
her to its entry point in one piece earns an
extra life. Bombs can blast through doors
and destroy some hazards.
Windows 3.x MS-DOS
D/Generation was designed and creat-
ed by Robert Cook. It was originally de-
veloped for the 128K Apple IIe (utilizing
Double-Hi-Res mode) under the name D-
Generation. An early preliminary version
for that platform exists and is dated 1989.
According to the Prince of Persia journals
by Jordan Mechner, the game was com-
pleted in 1990 but the MS-DOS version
from 1991 appears to be the first public
release. While the original Apple II version
was fully playable and well polished, it was
never completed nor publicly released.
Electronic Gaming Monthly gave the CD32
version a 7.25 out of 10. They criticized
that the CD32 controller does not work
well with the game’s isometric perspective,
but praised the combination of action and
puzzles, describing the game as both ad-
dictive and challenging.
A remake of the game with improved
graphics called D/Generation HD was re-
leased for Windows by West Coast Soft-
ware in 2015 and for the Nintendo Switch
in 2018.
Windows
D/Generation HD
CD32 - Games • 407
 Dangerous Streets

Dangerous Streets developed by the Italian com-

pany Micromania and published by Flair Software
is a fighting game in the style of Street Fighter II.

Dangerous Streets offers two-player battles, single

matches against the computer, and a tournament
mode. The eight characters (Keo, Lola, Luisa, Ma-
calosh, Ombra, Pinen, Sgiosa Capeli, Tony) have
the ability to punch or kick in the range of weak,
medium, and strong.

The CD32 version is using AGA graphics which

are similar to the PC VGA graphics and slightly
enhanced compared to the ‘32 colors ECS/OCS
graphics of the Amiga floppy drive version.

The game received poor ratings in several Amiga

magazine reviews which critiziced the amateurish
Developer Micromania graphics, woeful sound, slightly childish-looking
Publisher Flair Software characters, feeble sound effects, bad animation
Release date 1994 and incomprehensible control. Only the lush and
Genre Beat-’em-up
colourful background graphics with paralax scroll-
Mode 1-2 Players
ing were commended in some reviews.

Dangerous Streets was the lead game in the bundle

(called “The Dangerous Streets Pack”) that the most
people got their Amiga CD32 machine in. This was
perhaps disadvantageous for the reputation of the
CD32 due the low quality of the game. Dangerous
Streets was also released in a bundle togheter with
Wing Commander for the CD32.

Other Releases
Amiga 1994
MS-DOS 1994

CD32 MS-DOS

some text from giantbomb.com

408 • Games - CD32

Deep Core
Developer Dynafield Systems
Publisher Int. Computer Entertainment
Release date 1993 Death Mask
Genre Platformer
Mode 1 Player Developer LogoApache Software
Publisher Alternative Software
Deep Core is a futuristic platform game Release date 1995
with similarities to Gods. Genre First-person shooter
Players take control of Captain Dawn- Mode 1-2 Players
razer who has been sent to save an un- Death Mask is an Amiga Doom clone.
derwater nuclear research base which It received mixed to positive reviews on
has been invaded by strange aliens. release, and reviewers felt it was an ac-
There are nine main levels, each of ceptable clone.
which is split into sub-levels and also In one-player mode there are 34 levels,
has bonus sections leading off from it. with different power-up weapons. If one
Each of the 6 weapons which are on of- player completes the level, both advance
fer can be boosted in power. to the next one. There’s also the stand-
“mobygames.com” ard Death Match mode. The multi-player
mode is played in split-screen.
“mobygames.com”

Other Releases
Amiga 1993
Amiga CD32 1993
Other Releases
Amiga 1995
Antstream 2019

CD32 - Games • 409


Dennis
Publisher Ocean
Release date 1993
Genre Platformer
Mode 1 Player
Dennis the Menace is a licensed plat-
former from Ocean Software based on
the 1993 movie of the same name. The
movie itself is based on the Hank Ket-
cham syndicated comic strip.
The object of the game is to defeat a bur-
glar who managed to find Dennis’ town
via the local railroad connection.
The game is a straightforward platform-
er. Controlling Dennis Mitchell, the play-
er has to go through four stages, col-
lecting five large coins in each one. The
end goal is to defeat Switchblade Sam,
the antagonist of the movie, and rescue
Dennis’ friends Joey and Margaret.
The in-level enemies follows
standard attack patterns and can usually
be avoided. The player are given up to
9 lives at the start, and more extra lives
can be found throughout the game
“mobygames.com”
Other Releases
Amiga 1993
SNES 1993
410 • Games - CD32
review; Amiga Format #58 (April 1994);
Bucktoothed Betty Sue
Dubrovski is a whizz
on a swing and causes
Dennis all kinds of
provlems at the end of
Level Two of Ocean’s
platform escapade.
DENNIS
F
rom Dennis the Menace to the Perishers,
the anarchic, scruffy kid has been the main-
stay of comic, books and movies for years.
Now a similar American incarnation has surfaced
in the shape of Ocean’s latest film license game.
The seven-year-old hero of Dennis is in big
trouble, as usual. Not only has he lost all of Mr.
Wilson’s precious coin collection, but his friend
Joey and Margaret have been kidnapped by the evil
Switchblade Sam. The aim of this platformer is to
explore each of four different worlds, and their as-
sociated sub-levels, collecting coins and battling
baddies as you go. Hu hum.
If the startlingly derivative plot fails to capture
your imagination, wait until you start playing the
game. Graphically it looks like a cross between
Sleepwalker (Dennis looks suspiciously like the
somnambulistic Lee) and Alternative Software’s
Sooty and Sweep. It’s hideous and certainly not
worth £25 of anyone’s money. The gameplay is lit-
tle better. The nasties keep coming back every time
you kill them and your so-called special weapon
(a pea-shooter, catapult and water pistol) are vir-
tually useless. There are plenty of power-ups and
courage-building sweets, but Dennis still dies re-
markably often anyway.
By far the worst bits are the appalling sound-
track and teeth-clenchingly bad sound effects. And
the CD32 version is little better. Ocean must have
paid a lot for this license, but since the movie was
a flop the game is likely to go the same way. Avoid.
Rob Mead (AF)
The last thing Mr Wilson
needs is an olkish little brat
spoiling his day, but that’s
just what Dennis is about
to do.
Review Score: 25%
 Disposable Hero

Disposable Hero is a horizontally scrolling R-Type-

influenced shoot ‘em up. The game feature 5 lev-
els with bosses at the end, as well as mini-bosses.
There are four difficulty levels, with the easiest act-
ing as a trainer, since one can’t reach the final level
or complete the game properly with it.
The game’s power-up system is different
than most shoot-’em-up’s. Rather than simply pick-
ing up new weapons, the player collect blueprints
for a total of 32 different weapons as well as up-
grades to the maximum amount of power the ship
can unleash at a time. Once the player reach a pow-
er-up bay, they can add or remove weapons so as
to maximize their attack capabilities.

The redbook audio soundtrack of the CD32 version,

written by Jeroen Kimmel, features a new score with
Developer Boys Without Brains a similar electronic vibe but with a richer and more
Publisher Gremlin produced sound.
Release date 1994
Genre Shooter
The Disposable Hero box art
Mode 1 Player
depicts a space ship hovering
over water against the back-
drop of a futuristic city. It was
painted by American artist
John Berkey, famous for paint-
ing book covers and movie
posters for films like Star Wars,
King Kong and Star Trek: The
Motion Picture.

When Disposable Hero was

released, it received favorable
reviews yet was considered by
many to be too difficult.

Other Releases
Amiga 1993
Antstream 2019

some text from mobygames.com, hardcoregaming101.net

CD32 - Games • 411

 Dark Seed

Dark Seed is a psychological horror point-and-click

adventure game. It exhibits a normal world and a
dark world counterpart, which is based on artwork
by H. R. Giger. It was one of the first point-and-click
adventure games to use high-resolution (640×350
pixels) graphics, to Giger’s demand. A sequel, Dark
Seed II, was released in 1995.

In the game, players control Mike Dawson (named

after the game’s lead designer), an ad company
manager who hates his job and pursues his goal in
life to become a writer. Upon reaching the house,
Mike suddenly feels tired and finds a bed, proceed-
ing to fall asleep, only to find himself in a nightmare,
unable to wake up.
The nightmare seems to create a version of
his life and has turned it into a world of terror. An
unknown source has implanted a seed of darkness
in Mike’s mind, and he only has three days to find a
Developer Cyberdreams
Publisher Cyberdreams way to stop it.
Release date 1994
Genre Adventure Unlike most point-and-click adventure games,
Mode 1 Player which give the player time to explore, many actions
in Dark Seed must occur within precise time limits,
or the game will end up in an unwinnable state. As a
result of this, one must start over repeatedly to win
without resorting to a walkthrough.
The player has three real time hours within
which they must complete the game, which is the
equivalent of three in-game days. At the end of each

Other Releases
Amiga 1992
MS-DOS (ISO CD Version) 1992
Macintosh 1993
PlayStation 1995
Sega Saturn 1995
Windows 3.x 1995

CD32 MS-DOS

412 • Games - CD32

day, Dawson goes to sleep and upon go-
ing to bed, each night he has a nightmare
of the Dark World. Every room, person
and object in the normal world has a Dark
World equivalent and this is often neces-
sary for puzzle solving.

When Cyberdreams approached H. R.

Giger about providing artwork for a video
game, the artist disliked the proposed use
of VGA Mode 13h’s 320 by 200 graphics
and demanded higher resolution, call-
ing lower resolution “square and jagged”.
The developers agreed to use 640 by
350 mode instead, although doing so re-
duced the palette from 256 to 16 colors.
Cyberdreams received access to almost
all of Giger’s artwork. Some of the work
selected for use in Dark Seed includes:
“N.Y. City III”, “Hommage a Bocklin”, and
“Li II”. “Li II” is featured on the cover, box
and manual art.

The Amiga CD32 version includes narra-
tion for Mike Dawson’s dialogue, voiced
by Mike Dawson, which is left unvoiced in
other versions.
Amiga Format gave the Amiga version of
Dark Seed an overall score of 72%, prais-
ing the use of Giger’s artwork and “stun-
ningly spooky” graphics, calling it “the
nearest thing you could have to a software
nightmare”, but criticizes its strict time-
frame, and refers to Dark Seed’s game-
play as “its weakest element”. The One
gave it an overall score of 80%, praising
its “well-designed” controls, and states
that “The premise isn’t a particularly origi-
nal one, but good sci-fi is all about ideas
and Darkseed has plenty of them, most of
which are used to good effect game-wise -
I particularly like the way the real and alien
worlds mirror each other”. The One also
praises the music and graphics, express-
ing that the game “creates a strong atmos-
phere, with some superb music ... Giger’s
artwork adds greatly to the claustophobic
tension”. They criticize the amount of time
it takes to get to different locations, calling
it “tedious”, as well as the “rigorous” time
limit, stating that “in Darkseed it sometimes
feels like you’re playing to a timetable and
if you’re not in the right place at the right
time, a vital clue or character may be lost
forever”.
An urban legend spread that the intense
pressure of designing the game gave lead
designer Mike Dawson a mental break-
down. However, he actually left the games
industry after completing Dark Seed and
moved into television writing (including
some episodes of Family Matters) until the
late 1990s, wrote four books on program-
ming (including Beginning C++ Game Pro-
gramming and Python Programming for
the Absolute Beginner) and is teaching
game design and programming classes at
Stanford University and UCLA.

some text from giantbomb.com

CD32 - Games • 413

 article; Amiga Power #29 - Things To Come (September 1993);
DIGGERS
Game: Diggers
Publisher: Millenium
Author: Toby Simpson
ETA: September
Briefly: So there it is then, the first
Amiga CD32 game that we’ve seen.
Gosh. Once the guys from Millennium
had managed to prise us away from
stroking and caressing the console
(yes, that’s right, the Amiga’s a console
now, you’ll have to get used to it), we
got down to the business of checking
out Millennium’s first outing on the
medium.
This game’s very hard to be brief
about. It’s an adventure/strategy affair
based on mining theme and it is, quite
frankly, huge. Yes, that part of the CD
system (ooh, it’s so exciting isn’t it?)
that enables you to store loads of mega-
bytes of ‘stuff’ is being exploited to the
full with Diggers. Perhaps I should let
Toby Simpson, the man responsible for
all this, do the talking, yes?
The creator speak: So exactly how
big is it then? “Well, to give you some
perspective, the graphics alone take up
ten megabytes of space (That’s about
12 floppy disks, you know, — Tim), be-
fore you even start to look at the sound,
game engine and so on. We’ve got an
interactive book on there too, which
gives you access to information at any
time during the game and basically
gives you a manual on a disk. We’re
going to have to make some sacrifices
on the 1200 version, simply because the
number of disks needed would be im-
mense. The game itself is huge. There
are 33 different maps, every one of them
massive, covering seven different ter-
rain types. We estimate that you could
The characters were great, but no-one liked
Mike, the boring one.
414 • magazine article
Young Ones joke. Bloke: “Do you dig
mines?” Hippy: “They’re alright, yeah.”
finish the game and still have only seen
about 20% if it.”
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
What is this game all about? “It’s set on
the planet Zarg, on the glorious 412th
day of the year. This is traditionally the
time when the planet’s authorities allow
the population to dig for a month for
treasure and diamonds, and this year it’s
your turn. Basically it’s about trying to
make yourself rich.
“You control a race of diggers. There
are four to choose from - the F’Targs,
the Habbish, the Grablins and the Quar-
risors. Each has different qualities, like
the F’Targs heal very quickly and the
Grablins dig faster. Each level involves
you and an opponent tackling a mining
area. You’re given a target income to
hit, and you can finish a level either by
defeating the opponent or by getting the
income.”
Toby took us through a very involv-
ing demonstration with evident glee at
the huge world he’s created, and became
so animated that it was impossible to jot
down what he was saying. In essence,
you use on-screen menus to control
your character, which includes making
them walk, jump, stop, pick things up
and down, search, go home, teleport
and, of course, dig. If you don’t give
a character an instruction, it soon gets
bored and starts wandering off doing
its own thing, so you’ve got to keep an
eye on your team. When you’ve mined
Now perhaps it’s time these captions became
a bit relevant. This is the shop screen, and
here you sell jewels for dosh.
Oh how we recycled
those jokes the next
day at school.
We could spend an entire lunch-time reliv-
ing Monty Python sketches.
There are no com-
edies now that have
the same resonance
as the Young Ones.
some valuables you can teleport back
to the shop to buy various tools to help
you with your progress, such as lifts and
automatic diggers.
“The great thing is that there’s more
than one way to play the game. You can
play it as a violent struggle against the
computer opponent, or as a strategic
strip-mining affair. It leaves more open
to the player, and there are a lot of ran-
dom elements too, because the levels
are never the same twice. Each time you
start a level again the treasure is scat-
tered somewhere else.”
Verdict so far: This looks like it’s go-
ing to be a stormer. I can’t really make
any useful comparisons, because it’s
got a feel all of its own, but it looks like
it’ll appeal to anyone who’s enjoyed the
Populous/Lemmings school of games.
We’re looking forward to getting our
mitts on this and the Amiga CD console
in the very near future.
• TIM TUCKER
Diggers is a mining game, and on this page
there are some pictures of it.
 Diggers

Diggers is a puzzle video game for the Amiga CD32

in which the player takes control of a mining team
excavating a planet for precious minerals.

The game is set on the planet Zarg, where four

races are vying for the gems and ores buried there.
The player chooses one of the four races, then
sends out five man teams to mine a region. Each
region has an amount of money the player must
amass in order to beat it and open up the adjacent
territories.
The gameplay is similar in some ways to
Lemmings, with the player issuing orders to the
five miners, not directly controlling them. The play-
er commands the units to dig and, when needed,
perform more specific actions such as picking up
Developer Millennium gems and fighting enemy diggers. As the miners
Publisher Millennium dig, rubies, gold, emeralds, and diamonds will ap-
Release date 1993 pear.
Genre Puzzle
At any time the player can teleport a min-
Mode 1 Player
er back to the starting point and send him to the
‘Zargon Stock Exchange’, in order to trade the
finds for money. Here the player may also visit a
shop and buy special mining tools, such as dyna-
mite, automated drillers and bridge components.

Diggers was bundled with the CD32 at launch, along

with the platform game Oscar on the same CD. A
sequel, Diggers 2: Extractors, was released for MS-
DOS in 1995.

Amiga Action gave the

game a score of 91% of
100 and stating that “A
totally addictive and stun-
ningly original master-
piece. A game to grow old
with.”

Other Releases
Amiga CD32 1993
Acorn 32-bit 1994
Amiga 1993
MS-DOS 1994

CD32 MS-DOS

CD32 - Games • 415


Emerald Mines
Developer The Almathera
Publisher Almathera
Release date 1994
Genre Maze
Mode 1-2 Players
Emerald Mine is part of a series of Boul-
der Dash-clones by Kingsoft. The series
is based around mines filled with various
gems, such as emeralds. The first Em-
erald Mine was released in 1987 for the
Amiga.
The player character is in a deep cave
collect emeralds and diamonds while
evading monsters.
The CD32 version has a collection of
177 level sets, each of them containing
80 levels. The player can also choose to
customize their playing experience by
selecting different graphics or sound ef-
fects sets before starting the game. Most
of the levels were created by Emerald
Mine fan club members.
Donk!: The Samurai Duck!
Developer The Hidden
Publisher Supervision
Release date 1994
Genre Platformer
Mode 1-2 Players
Donk!: Samurai Duck follow a duck
named Donk, who was raised by samu-
rai warriors. To prove himself he has set
off to collect crystals from 112 levels.
Once the target quota of gems has been
reached, Donk escape from each level
through one of its many exits, giving the
game a similar structure to Alien Breed:
Tower Assault. Magical powers can be
collected along the way, including the
ability to turn into an inflatable toy duck
which makes it possible to float across
water.
A simultaneous split-screen 2-play-
er mode is included as well.
The game was originally going to be re-
leased with the title Dong, but the British
developers did not want to cause offence
as the word can mean “penis” in English
speaking countries. Some demo ver-
sions distributed on Amiga cover disks
still bore the name Dong.

Other Releases
Amiga 1993

Other Releases
Amiga 1993

416 • Games - CD32

 Dragonstone

Dragonstone is a fantasy action role-playing game

with a look and feel influenced by Zelda games. It
was planned as a sequel to the Amiga game Dark-
mere (1994), but became a standalone game over
the course of development, possibly in part due to
Darkmere’s repeated delays.

Players take control of an unnamed hero who must

travel across different worlds to kill dragons, rescue
Princess Kirstie and restore the ultimate power to
the dragonstones to vanquish the dragon hordes.

The game is split across 7 multi-directional levels,

taking place in forests and caves in a fantasy set-
ting. The hero is armed with a sword and a special
energy-bolt attack, which can be charged up. Some
vanquished enemies discard food or gold; there are
shops in which to spend this.
Developer Core Design(?)
Publisher Core Design In an interview with the video game magazine The
Release date 1995 One, Bob Churchill, Dragonstone’s map designer,
Genre Role-playing explained that Dragonstone was inspired by Zelda
Mode 1 Player
games, and they “wanted to do a Zelda-type game
on the Amiga, because no-one has ever attempt-
ed one before.” Churchill also states that “the two
games are pretty close. There is plenty of wander-
ing around and interacting with people, which is very
Zelda-ish. The puzzles are similar as well—the in-
game characters will request a specific object so that
they can complete a task, so it’s your job to retrieve
it for them, thus opening up more areas to explore.”

The One gave Dragonstone

an overall score of 79%,
stating, “the difficulty level
seems to have been aimed
at the younger player.”

Other Releases
Amiga 1994

CD32 Amiga

CD32 - Games • 417

 Exile

Exile is a single-player action-adventure game origi-

nally published for the BBC Micro and Acorn Elec-
tron in 1988 by Superior Software. It is often cited
as one of the earliest examples of a Metroidvania
game and featured realistic gravity, inertia and ob-
ject mass.

When a terraforming team on an unexplored planet

sends some disturbing messages back to Earth and
then stops responding altogether, the space adven-
turer Mike Finn is sent to find out what happened.

The player is tasked with traversing a network of

tunnels, collecting and interacting with objects, en-
gaging hostile and friendly creatures, rescuing sur-
vivors and ultimately defeating Triax and escaping
from Phoebus. Finn has weapons and a jet pack
system which may be boosted by finding upgrades.
Energy cells must be collected throughout the game
to power the weapons and jet pack. Finn has a life-
preserving teleport system. When he reaches a
point near death he is automatically teleported to a
Developer Audiogenic (?)
Publisher Audiogenic
safe location previously designated by the player, or
Release date 1995 ultimately back to his orbiting spaceship.
Genre Action-adventure Exile permits a degree of nonlinear game-
Mode 1 Player play—challenges may be overcome in a number
of possible orders and not all events have to be
completed. The player is awarded points depend-
ing on goals achieved and time taken to complete
the game. However, in some scenarios it becomes
impossible to complete the game.

Other Releases
Amiga 1991
Atari ST 1991
BBC Micro 1988
Commodore 64 1991
Electron 1988

CD32 Electron

418 • Games - CD32

 A major feature of the game is the
single large and detailed world it offers for
exploration. The subterranean setting is
explained through the backstory in which
the crew of the Pericles have set up a base
in a natural cave system, with Triax having
his own base in caves deep below.
Exile contains a physics model with
gravity, inertia, mass, explosions, shock-
waves, water, earth, wind, and fire. The
game engine simulates all three of New-
ton’s laws of motion, with many puzzles
and gameplay elements emerging from a
few physical principles. For example, the
player may experience difficulty when at-
tempting to lift a heavy boulder across a
windy shaft with a jet pack, or of trying to
keep a glass of water from spilling while
being pushed around by a pestering bird.
Atari ST cover art
The large subterranean world is procedur-
ally generated. This is achieved using a
compact but highly tuned pseudorandom
The game was designed and programmed
process with a fixed seed number to gen-
by Peter Irvin (author of Starship Com-
erate the majority of the caverns and tun-
mand) and Jeremy Smith (author of
nels—augmented with a few custom-de-
Thrust). Jeremy Smith died in an accident
fined areas. The later Amiga and Atari ST
some years after Exile was published and
release use a more conventional tiled map
it is his last known game.
to allow greater customisation and varia-
tion in the landscape.

BBC Micro Commodore 64 Atari ST Amiga

CD32 - Games • 419

 Erben Der Erde: Die Grosse Suche

Erben Der Erde: Die Grosse Suche, released

as Inherit the Earth: Quest for the Orb outside
of Germany, is a point and click adventure game
developed by The Dreamers Guild and published
by New World Computing in 1994.

The game takes place in a world populated by ge-

netically engineered anthropomorphic animals cre-
ated by the Humans, who are now extinct. While
the game takes place after the era of Humanity, the
entire feel of the world is of medieval Europe.

The playable character is a young red fox named

Rif, who travels with his sweetheart Rhene to com-
pete in a puzzle contest. The trip becomes far more
complicated, however, after it is revealed that the
fabled Orb of Storms has been stolen, and Rif is ac-
cused of the theft by the Boar King. Rif is charged
to prove his innocence while being closely guarded
by Eeah, an elk and Okk, a boar. To further ensure
the completion of his task, Rhene is held hostage
Developer ReaLogic by the Boar King until Rif either confesses to the
Publisher Softgold crime or solves the case on his own. To solve the
Release date 1995 mystery, Rif, Eeah, and Okk will interact with other
Genre Adventure foxes, boars, and elks, as well as rats, cats, ferrets,
Mode 1 Player
and hares.

According to Joe Pearce of The Dreamers Guild,

Inherit the Earth was a commercial flop. However,
the game has some loyal following in the furry fan-
dom.

Other Releases
Amiga 1995
MS-DOS 1994
iPhone 2009
Linux 2004
Macintosh 1994
PC-98 1995
Windows 2003
Windows Mobile 2007
CD32 PC-98

some text from giantbomb.com

420 • Games - CD32

Fields Of Glory
Developer W. J. S.
Publisher MicroProse
Release date 1994
Genre Strategy
Mode 1 Player
Fields of Glory is a real-time strategy game
where players can re-enact the four major
historical battles in Napoleon’s Waterloo
campaign (The Battle of Ligny, Battle of
Quatre-Bras, Battle of Waterloo and the
Battle of Wavre), as well play two hypo-
thetical battles (at Nivelles and Wagnee)
which would have possibly taken place
had some of the pre-campaign maneuver-
ing been done differently. The battles in the
game are fought in real-time, and strive to
create a sense of realism. It is based on
a series of tabletop games of the same
name.
While the CD32 version has the game
database feature of the PC version, it is
crippled and can only be accessed on
the main menu screen rather than dur-
ing gameplay.
The Final Gate
Publisher Alternative Software
Release date 1996
Genre Shooter
Mode 1 Player
The Final Gate is an FMV rail shooter.
The player is seated in the front of a
speedboat that is moving down a river.
The boat is moving forward automati-
cally and the player’s input is limited to
moving a crosshair over the video foot-
age (which only takes up a quarter of the
screen) and shoot at the projectiles that
are launched towards the player’s posi-
tion. If they are not shot quickly enough
the player takes damage and loses en-
ergy. Sometimes enemies will appear at
the side of the riverbank and by shooting
these a special video sequence will be
shown. If not, the player is likely to take
a lot of damage. To regain some energy
it is possible to shoot power ups that at
times appear on the screen.
The game reportedly took two years to
produce and sold about 1,000 copies.
“mobygames.com”

Other Releases
Amiga 1994
MS-DOS 1994
Macintosh 2020
Windows 2020

CD32 - Games • 421

 Frontier: Elite II

Frontier Elite II is a space trading and combat simu-

lation game released in October 1993 as the long-
awaited follow-up to Elite. This sequel was written by
David Braben, who had co-authored the original Elite.
The game retains the same principal component of
Elite, namely open-ended gameplay, and adds realis-
tic physics and an accurately modelled galaxy.

There is no plot within Frontier, nor are there pre-

scripted missions (as there are in its sequel, First En-
counters). Instead, players explore space while trad-
ing legally or illegally, carrying out missions for the
military, ferrying passengers from system to system,
engaging in piracy or any combination of the above.
As a consequence, Frontier cannot be completed or
“won”, and players instead decide what to aspire to
Developer Frontier Dev. and set out to achieve it.
Publisher Gametek
Release date 1993 In Frontier, the player begins in the year 3200 and
Genre Strategy assumes the role of one of Commander James-
Mode 1 Player on’s—the original protagonists—grandchildren, hav-
ing inherited one hundred credits and an Eagle Long
Range Fighter from him. By the game’s standards,
these are very modest resources, and are intended
as a spur to encourage players to earn money by
whatever means they feel is appropriate.
Though the plot is minimal, some background
information about the universe of Frontier is provided.
There are two major factions in the galaxy: The “Fed-
eration”, based in the Sol system, and the “Empire”,
based in the Achenar system. These two factions are

Frontier Elite II was followed

by Frontier: First Encounters
in 1995 and another sequel,
Elite: Dangerous in 2014.

Other Releases
Amiga 1993
Atari ST 1993
MS-DOS 1993

CD32 MS-DOS

422 • Games - CD32

bitter enemies, but at the time of the game
they have established a tense cease-fire,
akin to the Cold War. Players are free to
side themselves with the Federation, the
Empire, both, or neither; the game does
not restrict one’s political career. Both
sides have military forces that a player
can run freelance missions for, with suc-
cesses leading to a military promotion.
The ranks of the Federation and Empire
are independent of each other. Playing for
both sides adds to the difficulty to acquire
a rank promotion for either.
CD32
As with Elite, much of Frontier is concerned
with trading: players can buy and sell a va- structures, meaning that some systems
riety of goods—from food and computer are safer than others. The Core worlds
parts to guns and slaves—with the aim of are usually the safest, with anarchic sys-
making the most profit possible from each tems being the most hazardous. Combat
trading run. Thus, learning to compare is handled completely realistically. In prac-
prices in various systems is essential for tice, this means both ships taking sling-
profitability, and calculating overheads for shot thrusts at each other, lasers being
each trip (such as fuel, missiles, and hull fired constantly at each other, until one
repair) are essential skills. of the ships is destroyed. All enemy ships
Frontier substitutes Elite’s arcade destroyed count towards the player’s com-
flying style for one based rigidly on New- bat rating, starting at “Harmless” and pro-
tonian physics: momentum must first be gressing towards “Elite”.
neutralised to bring the player’s craft to a
The game’s copy protection was worked
stop, and turning 180° has no effect on the
into the game in the form of police spot-
direction of travel until previous momen-
checks, making sure the player is the le-
tum has been counteracted. The craft’s
gitimate owner of his ship. At certain in-
control is largely left to the player, but
tervals in the game, the police would ask
often day-to-day tasks such as navigat-
the player to “please enter the first letter
ing from a hyperspace exit-point to a de-
of word X, row Y on page Z” of their ship’s
sired planet or space-station and docking
manual (which the game manual osten-
can be handed over to a ship’s autopilot.
sibly was). If the player entered a wrong
Travel within a star system occurs across
letter on three occasions, he would be ar-
realistic distances at realistic speeds, and
rested and his ship impounded, at which
therefore even with the fastest ships ca-
point the game ends.
pable of more than 10G of acceleration,
intrasystem travel can take many hours. Frontier operates on a very large scale
Therefore the game provides an “acceler- compared to previous games, and most
ate time” function that makes game time games since. It is, for example, possible to
pass at 10, 100, 1000, or 10,000 times the do realistic gravitational slingshots around
normal rate. supermassive stars and large planets, and
Enemies in the game are most of- in the same engine fly close enough to the
ten space pirates. The different star sys- ground to read the (accurate) time from
tems have differing government and social the face of a clock.

CD32 - Games • 423

 Frontier built on Elite differs in dif-
ferent aspects. It is possible to freeform
seamlessly land on planets, something not
possible in the first Elite. Most stars also
have a system of planets around them,
while in the previous game there would
only be a single planet and space station
in every system. In addition to this some
real stars had been placed in the Frontier
universe, mostly near Sol, such as Alpha
Centauri and Sirius. Other brighter stars
such as Altair, Antares, Betelgeuse and
Polaris, which are much further out, are
also included. All planets and most major
moons in the Sol system can also be vis-
ited. On zooming out, other galaxies are
visible, although these other galaxies are
simply duplicates of the first, and not ac-
cessible in any version of the game.
Similarly to the original Elite, Frontier
offers dozens of ships, from small but fast
fighters, multi-role traders to huge cruisers.
Braben originally programmed the game in
68000 assembly language. It had roughly
250,000 lines of code, which were ported
from 68000 assembler to the PC’s 80286
assembler by Chris Sawyer. Frontier also
had some features that had never been
seen before: it was the
only game at the time to
do a palette-fit every frame
to get best use of colours,
plus it also featured real
sized 1:1 scale planets and
star systems.
game world. Also included in the box were
loading/installation instructions and a form
to complete to purchase a Frontier t-shirt.
The contents of the box for the Ami-
ga version were identical to those found in
the PC version. However, the game was
not released on CD for the standard Ami-
ga machine, being shipped instead on two
3.5 inch floppy disks. The first disk was the
program itself, the second a collection of
various save games. The actual execut-
able file for the game was only around 400
KB (uncompressed), its small size partly
due to the entire game being written in as-
sembly language while its universe was
mostly procedurally generated. The Atari
ST version is identical to the Amiga version.
The CD32 port, which was the first
game made by Frontier Developments as
an official company, is virtually identical to
the original Amiga program. One drawback
of the CD32 version was that the player’s
Commander file could only be stored in
the 1Kb of memory which the console had.
This was such a small amount that the
game could only be saved when the player
was in space; there was no facility to save
progress when docked.

The MS-DOS version was

released in both 3.5 inch
floppy disk and CD ver-
sions but there was no
difference in the actual
programs. Three booklets
were included: the game
manual, a Gazetteer of in-
teresting star systems in
the game and a collection
of short stories set in the A Gazetteer of interesting star systems in the game were included with most
copies of the game

424 • Games - CD32

Frontier was generally well received by
the media. Most magazines were awe-
struck by its sheer scale and accurate de-
piction of real-world physics, and gave it
high ratings. Computer Gaming World in
April 1994 favorably discussed the game’s
“ENORMOUS universe” with “many,
many hours of exploratory game play ...
less of a game, and more a way of life”.
A longer review the next month reported
that the game compensated for the Amiga
version’s 16-color palette with “a surpris-
ing amount of graphic detail”. The maga-
zine concluded that “Frontier should offer
months, or even years, of galaxy-trekking
fun” as players explored the “incredibly im-
mense” universe. One notable exception
was Amiga Power, who viewed the game
not as a successor to Elite’s throne, but as
a space flying game on its own right, and
were disappointed by its lack of action; this
made them dismiss the game as boring,
rating it 65% (75% on the faster Amiga
1200).
Frontier was in development for
over 5 years and eagerly anticipated by
fans of the original game. When it finally
arrived, a flood of complaints flowed in to
Amiga Format. In the March 1994 issue,
David Braben was interviewed to discuss
the problems in an article called “Pay-back
time”. The interview dealt with questions
relating to the copy protection, autopilot,
assassinations, bug fixes, why the game
took so long and included a section of his
own playing tips.
Frontier was succeeded in April 1995 by
First Encounters, which was available for
DOS. No Amiga or Atari versions were
released as by the time of its publication
these platforms were no longer as profit-
able as they had once been, even though
Amiga 1200 and Amiga CD32 versions
were planned and previewed in many
magazines of that time, they were eventu-
ally cancelled.
CD32 - Games • 425
 article; Amiga Format #57 - Pay-back Time (March 1994);
BRABEN’S BUGS
F
ew games have generated as
much interest as Frontier, the
sequel the classic game Elite
which was a heady mix of interstellar
trading, ship-to-ship combat, and bold-
ly going places.
Frontier follows a similar formula,
but with the added attraction of assas-
sinations, passengers and doing
dirty work of the two Empires
which dominate the galaxy.
It took David Braben five years
to create Frontier and it went stra-
ight to the top of the games charts, mak-
ing it one of the biggest-selling games
of 1993.
But it’s bugged and many people have
become disenchanted with the game due
to the number of problems. We put these
complaints to David Braben.
Copy protection
Firstly, there is the matter of the copy
protection. It’s a distinctly confusing
system of picking a letter from a word
on a page which was not helped by the
omission of any instruction in the man-
ual.
The problem is that you have to type
in words from a specific point in the
manual at various stages of the game.
For example, you could be asked to type
in the first letter of the third word on
page 62. But the prompt doesn’t make
it clear if the third word includes the
headline at the top of the page (it does
include the headline, by the way).
If you type in the wrong letter, the
time you have until you have to type
in the next password is halved. Get it
lo, the second moon of Saturn is a bit of a dump. There aren’t any
good restaurants, let alone any illegal goods worth having. In fact it’s
not really worth visiting at all, unless you fancy putting your feet up
for a while and admiring the view.
426 • magazine article
You waited five years for the
sequel to the famous space
trading game Elite. But when
Frontier finally arrived it was
bugged. Richard Baguley met
up with programmer David
Braben and put some
of your complaints
to him.
wrong a few times and you are uncer-
Assassinations
emoniously dumped out of the game, Assassinations are one of the most im-
which seems a rather clumsy way of go-
portant parts of the game, and provide a
ing about things. good way of getting rich quick. Howev-
David agrees the system is flawed, but
er, sometimes an apparently successful
points out that the manual now includes assassination trip is greeted by a court
an insert with clearer instructions. message about shooting the ship but
“We got a lot of complaints about this, missing the target.
so we have revised the documentation.” “This isn’t a bug. It’s a feature. If
there is a ship on the Tarmac, the target
Autopilot will get on board only shortly before it
Several people have also made com- takes off. If you shoot the ship before
ments about the Autopilot, and the an- it takes off, the target will not be on
noying habit it sometimes has of driving board.”
like a drunken space cadet and crashing
into space stations and planets. Bug fixes
“The problem with Frontier, is that There are also a number of other bugs,
it’s trying to make Autopilot realistic by such as the screen display in the Bulle-
simulating inertia. The Autopilot isn’t tin Board becoming corrupted in some
cheating, it’s working out what thrusts systems and your ship being destroyed
to do and it’s very complicated. while paused.
“It does get its knickers in a twist oc- “We’re done three bug fix revisions
casionally, because it tries to avoid tar- of Frontier since it was released. None
gets, so if there is a planet in the way it of the bugs are serious enough not to
will try to go round, but it won’t neces- have work-arounds. You can a get a
sarily get it right.”
One of the bugs that some of you claimed to have found in Frontier
is that the program crashes if you try to analyse your own hyper-
space cloud. As you can see from this picture, I’ve had no problems
analysing this one.
 DAVE BRABEN’S PLAYING TIPS
As you would expect, the bloke
who wrote Frontier has a few tips
on how to get the best out of the
game. So here they are:
“An interesting challenge is to see
how much money you can make in If you fancy a cruise around a remarkably ac-
one trip. The obvious way to do this curate representation of the solar system, then
is to flog off all your ship’s equip- look no further than Frontier. It’s all there in
glorious technicolour.
ment to give yourself loads of cargo
space, and then to buy the most ex- “It was pretty well ready to go in
pensive goods you can afford.” very early 1993, but we had a lot of
problems with the sound. In the end
“Keep track of missing persons and then names of people who are we had to completely rewrite a lot of
looking for transport, because finding them is a very easy way of the code, and that took time.”
making several hundred credits.” Given that Frontier was several years
“If goods are in short supply on a system, there will often be some- in the making, how does David feel
about the criticism for it being heavily
body on the Bulletin Board who is prepared to pay massively over bugged?
the odds for them. If you are quick, you can often nip off to another
“Yes, there are bugs in it, but most
system and buy the required goods and go back to sell them. If of them appeared pretty late in the day.
it’s happened once, it’s also likely to happen again, so if there is a I’m not exactly over the moon about it
requirement for battle weapons, there is likely to be another advert myself.”
soon.”
What happens next?
“There are some off places where gemstones are considered to be David is now planning enhanced AGA
waste, and they pay you to take them away.” and CD32 versions of Frontier, although
he has yet to decide a release date and
“You can use cargo as a weapon, so if you buy a whole load of exactly how they will be enhanced. But
cheap cargo, hover over somebody and dump it, they will be seri- will there be an Elite 3?
ously damaged, although you are likely to incur the wrath of the “I have got no plans for an Elite 3 as
police.” such, but there will be probably a fol-
low on, which will still be Frontier.
“There are references to Thargoids (the unpleasant aliens who “I don’t want the Frontier worlds to
waylaid innocent travellers in the original Elite) in the game, and die, so the follow-up will probably be
there is a Thargoid ship in there somewhere. As far as I know, no- more of an add-on to the existing sys-
body has found it yet.” tems, perhaps with more of a sense of
a goal. One of the things that will be in
there is a major alien race, with lots of
revised version by sending the original “The total time was five years, but in missions associated with them.”
disk with an SAE to Gametek,” the meantime I did write Elite for the David is now busy with other projects,
But shouldn’t a game that has taken Nintendo with Ian Bell, and I have done including starting his own company, so
nearly five years to write be bug free? other bits and pieces. It’s amazing how the Frontier add-on is unlikely to appear
quickly that sort of time goes. I also for a few months. Hopefully, it won’t
“Most of these bugs require really spent a lot of that time looking into how
obscure circumstances. It’s very diffi- take five years.
things work and simulating the behav-
cult to test every possibility, even with iour of solar systems, because a lot of
a 10 full-time beta testers that Gametek work has gone into the astronomy side.
used. With most games, the code is pa- GOT A GRIPE?
“I was in touch with Cambridge
thetically small, with most of the space University astronomy department, This is the first in an occasional
being taken up by graphics. With Fron- because nobody had tried this sort of series which we put program-
tier, it’s all code.” simulation before. I also spent a lot of mers on the spot. If you want
So why did it take David Braben so time setting up all of the thousands something looked in to, write to
long to finish Frontier? of planets, space stations and other AF Pay-back Time.
ships in the game.

magazine article • 427


Kingpin:
Arcade Sports Bowling
Developer Team 17
Publisher Team 17
Release date 1995
Genre Sports
Mode 1-6 Players
Kingpin: Arcade Sports Bowling is a
bowling game with support for up to 6
players, who can be human or CPU-
controlled. Player statistics can be built
up as the player progress through the
game.
On the bottom right of the bowling alley
screen there is a power gauge that can
be altered pressing the [Up] or [Down]
buttons. Pressing the Left or Right keys
changes the position of the avatar, and
hitting [fire] makes a small moving arrow
appear in the bowling lane. It shows the
direction the player character will throw
the ball when [fire] are pushed again.
“mobygames.com”
Fightin’ Spirit
Developer
Publisher
Light Shock Software
neo Software Produktions
Release date 1995
Genre Fighting
Mode 1-2 Players
Fightin’ Spirit is a is a fighting game simi-
lar to Street Fighter II. Players have the
choice between 10 main plus 2 hidden
fighters with their special moves and
various attack styles. Every fighter has
four special moves which can be execut-
ed by a certain joystick combination.
Players can either fight in a VS battle
(single fight against another player), a
team match or a tournament (up to eight
players can join a tournament), or story
mode (where the player pick one of the
characters and join the Supreme War-
riors Tournament where they can de-
feat Jenshi Yamamoto, the boss of the
Hikawa secret organisation.
The game was re-released in the UK in
1999 for Amiga CD-only.
“giantbomb.com”

Other Releases
Amiga 1995
MS-DOS 1995

Other Releases
Amiga 1996

428 • Games - CD32

 Kid Chaos
preview article; Amiga Action #60 (August 1994);
Developer Magnetic Fields
Kid Vicious Publisher Ocean
Release date 1994
Bit tricky this one, at least for me. It’s the first of the Genre Platformer
new-style blue prints leading to a little uncertainty of Mode 1 Player
what is actually expected, and secondly there is no
official storyline available for the game yet. What is Kid Chaos, called Kid Vicious when it
being bandied around at the moment has something was in development, is a side-scrolling
to do with a caveman, but were he got his jeans and platform game. Gameplay and levels are
jacket from is not clear. I’m not convinced person- very similar to Sonic the Hedgehog.
ally. If you ask me it’s a case of program the game,
Players take control of Kid Chaos, who
worry about the setting later, but who’s to say that’s
a bad thing? In the case of Kid Vicious it doesn’t ap-
is transported from the stone age into
pear to have suffered much, if indeed at all. an unknown world by evil scientists from
the future. Now he must fight his way
There are a hundred thou- through artificial environments such as
sand platform games in the
pipeline at the moment and
the Secret Garden, Toxic Wasteland,
by the time this comes out Toy Factory, Techno Fortress, and the
there will no doubt be a hun- Ruined City to reach the time machine
dred thousand more. After a
while they all begin to merge
that can transport him back home.
together in a sort of blurry Levels are completed by running through
mess in your mind and you
end up with games like Brian
them, destroying all wildlife and several
Pond - Operation Lion. Kid destruction targets, then leave the level
Kid Vicious is looking highly
Vicious looks quite good by the exit door, which remain closed un-
though, and will hopefully do
promising at the moment. It enough to distinguish itself
til Kid has destroyed all targets.
is always tricky to release a
game into the highly com-
from the myriad of opposi- The protagonist of the game was origi-
tion games it will face on its
petitive platform market and release later this summer.
nally an anthropomorphic feline called
any successful product must Cosmic Kitten. It was to be the Amiga’s
stand head and shoulders
above the rest of the crowd.
answers to Sonic the Hedgehog. How-
I’m not sure Kid Vicious will ever, before publication, the character
scale these heights but it may was re-designed as a caveboy known
well come close, and if it does
will be well worth a look in
simply as ‘Kid’ to avoid any legal conflict
the very near future. with Sega, which have always been very
The main sprite is looking as
protective of their intellectual property.
though he is going to be billed “mobygames.com”
as a caveman. I don’t buy it
personally, and if there is any
attempt to say it was deliber-
ate, and even, heaven forbid,
pass it off as a disguise for the
Neanderthal to move freely
It has to be said, Kid Vi- among the masses I won’t be
cious owes a lot to Sonic the responsible for my actions. I
Hedgehog. In fact, the term can accept not having a prop-
law suit could become a well er storyline when a game is
uttered phrase around the conceived but not coming up
Ocean offices if they’re not with one at all?
careful. Only joking lads,
there’s absolutely no resem-
blance whatsoever, and Kid
Vicious contains nothing but
totally original ideas. Honest.

Other Releases
Amiga 1994

CD32 - Games • 429


Fire Force
Publisher I.C.E.
Release date 1994
Genre Action platformer
Mode 1 Player
Fire Force is a horizontally scrolling
shooter with gameplay on a number
of different levels, similarly to the 1985
game Green Beret.
The player takes command over an elite
soldier dropped behind enemy lines who
must take out the enemy forces. The
player can choose their weapons and
ammunition before starting, including a
wide range of guns as well as grenades
and a trusty pocket-knife. The player
have to avoid land mines and destroy
bridges along the way. Defeated ene-
mies release further weapons.
“mobygames.com”
Global Effect
Developer Millennium
Publisher Millennium, Kixx
Release date 1994
Genre Strategy
Mode 1 Player
Global Effect is similar to The Settlers
and involves building up a sound local
economy before going out to attack oth-
er nations and rule the world.
Cities must contain housing, food
sources, and power supplies, which is
where it gets complicated. Environmen-
tal factors play the biggest part in this
game, as players have to use efficient
power sources if possible. Only a certain
level of power are given at the start of the
game, and players have to build enough
‘green’ things to increase it further.
Once a fully functional city is ca-
pable of supporting military units quality,
players can direct them off into battle by
giving them pre-planned flight paths.
“mobygames.com”

Other Releases
Other Releases
Amiga 1992
Amiga CD32 1994
Atari ST 1992
Acorn 32-bit 1995
Amiga 1992
Atari ST 1992
MS-DOS 1992

430 • Games - CD32

 Fire & Ice:
The Daring Adventures Of Cool Coyote

Fire and Ice: The Daring Adventures of Cool Coyote

is a platformer about a Coyote running through icy
lands, hurling ice cubes at enemies which freezes
them.

The player takes control of “Cool Coyote”. The goal

of each level is to find the exit door and unlock it. To
do so, a key is required, which consists of several
pieces. Monsters will drop pieces of the key when
killed, which requires the player to find and kill the
monsters in the level. Attacking a monster works by
shooting projectiles at it—this causes no damage
though, but will only freeze it for a short time after
having received enough hits. The player then has to
touch the monster while it is frozen to kill it.

The CD32 version was enhanced to include detailed

background scenery, 256 on-screen colors and several
Developer Graftgold Creative layers of parallax scrolling.
Publisher Renegade Software
Release date 1994 Critics regarded the game as an exceptionally well-done
Genre Platformer platformer. For example, it was “game of the month”
Mode 1 Player in the August 1992 issue of Amiga Mania magazine
with a rating of 92%, received an “Amiga Action Super
League Accolade” in the June 1992 issue of Amiga Ac-
tion magazine with a rating of 91% and was awarded a
“CU Screen Star” in the May 1992 issue of CU Amiga
magazine with a rating of 90%.

Other Releases
Amiga CD32 1994
Acorn 32-bit 1995
Amiga 1992
Atari ST 1992
MS-DOS 1993
Sega Master System 1996

CD32 Sega Master System

CD32 - Games • 431

 The Misadventures of Flink

The Misadventures of Flink is a 2D scrolling platform-

er developed by former members of Thalion. It is the
lesser-known spiritual predecessor to The Adventures
of Lomax on PlayStation. A working title for this game
was Troll.

In the game, the evil wizard Wicked Wainwright has

captured the four elders and it is up to Flink, a wizard’s
apprentice, to set them free and defeat Wicked Wain-
wright.

The game is a side-scrolling platformer similar to the

likes of Super Mario Bros. 3. The player controls the wiz-
ard Flink. Stages are selected from a map screen. At the
end of each world is a boss, which Flink must defeat to
rescue one of the island leaders, who usually rewards
Flink with a spell.
Whenever the game is paused, Flink can com-
bine three ingredients to create a spell. Ingredients can
be collected throughout the game. They are usually car-
ried around by a certain type of enemy or hidden in treas-
ure chests. There are ten different spells, the “recipes”
Developer Psygnosis which are contained in scrolls that are given to Flink by
Publisher Psygnosis rescued elders or found within certain levels.
Release date 1995 Similar to the Sonic games, when Flink is hit, he
Genre Platformer
Mode 1 Player
looses all of his magic energy and has only limited time
to pick it up again. If he is hit while having no magic en-
ergy, he loses a life.

Flink is one of the few CD32 titles not to see a release for
the Amiga home computer.

Other Releases
Amiga CD32 1994
Genesis 1994
Sega CD 1994

CD32 Genesis

432 • Games - CD32

 Fly Harder

Fly Harder is a multidirectional shooter originally re-

leased for the Amiga in 1993 and was ported to the
CD32 in 1994.

The player must destroy the Thargoid Empire who are

stealing resources from the home planet. There are 8
bases to enter, with the aim of using energy pods to
cause the reactors to overload and thus malfunction.

The gameplay follows in the footsteps of gravity-based

shoot ‘em up games, like Gravitar and Thrust, where
the player pilots a spaceship that is constantly subject
to gravity and the craft’s inertia. The players have to ro-
tate the spaceship, thrust its engines and fire its weap-
ons in order to shoot down enemies and navigate their
way through the 8 stages of the game.
The ship is equipped with an energy shield and
will explode if it sustains too much enemy damage.
However, unlike most games at the time, the ship’s en-
Developer Starbyte ergy shield will automatically recharge if no damage
Publisher Buzz
is sustained for a brief period. Scattered throughout
Release date 1994
Genre Shooter the stages the players can find power ups (enhance
Mode 1 Player the ship’s firepower), fuel canisters and the energy
pods that they must use in order to cause the reactors
to overload. The players must use the ship’s tractor
beam to carefully guide the energy pods through the
landscape and place them inside the reactors. Once
enough pods have been placed inside, the reactor
gets destroyed and the level ends.

Fly Harder was met with po-

larizing reviews from game
critics.

Other Releases
Amiga CD32 1994
Amiga 1993
Commodore 64 1993

CD32 Commodore 64

CD32 - Games • 433

 Fury of the Furries

Fury of the Furries is a puzzle-platformer designed

by Kalisto Entertainment, a French video game
studio headed by business entrepreneur Nicolas
Gaume. It was later relicensed by Namco as Pac-
In-Time, replacing the characters to fit the Pac-Man
franchise.

In Fury of the Furries the player control a small

furry, bouncy creature called Tiny, who must defeat
“the wicked one” who has captured the King and
turned all the Tinies into mindless monsters.

The player guides Tiny across eight regions of the

land, Desert, Lagoon, Forest, Pyramids, Mountains,
Factory, Village, and finally the Castle where one
must defeat the Wicked One. The regions each have
unique music, color schemes and styles. Each has
10 separate levels and a collection of secret bonus
levels. Along the way the player must avoid various
Developer Atreid Concept
Publisher Mindscape perils, such as monsters, spikes and acid.
Release date 1994 The game’s primary unique feature is Tiny’s
Genre Puzzle-platformer ability to transform itself into four different forms: yel-
Mode 1 Player low, green, red and blue. Different skills are required
at different points, and not all forms are available in
all levels. Particularly in levels which are primarily
puzzlers, the player may encounter fields which ac-
tivate and deactivate certain powers.
In Tiny’s yellow form, it controls the element
of fire, allowing it to shoot fireballs. In its red form,
it controls the element of earth, allowing it to eat

The CD32 version seems

like it received no enhance-
ments over the floppy ver-
sions.

Other Releases
Amiga 1993
MS-DOS 1993
Macintosh 1993

CD32 Macintosh

434 • Games - CD32

through some elements of the scenery. In
its green form, it controls the element of air,
allowing it to produce ropes from its hands
to swing around the environment and it can
also pull different objects with its rope. In its
blue form, it controls the element of water,
allowing the ability to dive underwater and
shooting bubbles that damage hostiles.

Computer Gaming World in April 1994 said

that Fury of the Furries “sports an awful plot
and totally unoriginal gameplay, but it has
good graphics and is quite addictive ... un-
original, bland and safe”.
In 1994, PC Gamer UK named Fury
of the Furries the 40th best computer game
of all time. The editors called it “a must for Pac-in-Time
anyone with a huge arcade appetite.” Macintosh cover art

Fury of the Furries was later relicensed

by Namco as Pac-In-Time, replacing the
characters to fit the Pac-Man franchise.
Pac-In-Time was also designed by Kalisto
Entertainment. Assisting production was
Namco Hometek, the North American con-
sole game division of Japanese company
Namco. Namco Hometek also served as the
publisher for the game. It was also Namco
who decided to make the game a Pac-Man
Pac-in-Time
platformer due to the character’s worldwide SNES cover art
appeal.
Pac-In-Time was developed for the
SNES, Game Boy, Mac OS, and MS-DOS.
While the Game Boy and computer versions
are simply Fury of the Furries with a Pac-
Man skin, the SNES version is an entirely
new game with altered levels and themes,
while still keeping the same mechanics and
concepts intact.
Pac-In-Time was first released on
January 1995 for the SNES and Game Boy.
The Macintosh and MS-DOS versions were
published a month later.
Pac-In-Time was met with a general-
ly favorable reception from publications, and
was seen as a unique and innovative title in Game Boy SNES
the Pac-Man series.

CD32 - Games • 435

 article; The One #79 - Work in Progress (May 1995);

DOOM AND
GLOOM
The Amiga is Doom-ed!
The first of two Doomular
clones this month, Gloom
hails from Black Magic, part
of the tangy New Zealand-
based group responsible for
Skidmarks 2. Andy Nuttall
thinks that it’s the best thing
ever, but if it can get this good,
could the real thing be just
around the corner?

PROJECT: Gloom
PUBLISHER: Black Magic
DEVELOPER: Mark Sibly (Pro-
gramming); Kurt and Hans Buttler
(Graphics); Kev Stannard (Music)
INITIATED: May 1994
RELEASE: May 1995

436 • magazine article

T
he Amiga world’s going Doom-
crazy! Since the stonkingly vio-
lent 3D shoot-’em-ups Wolfen-
stein and Doom hit the PC, the race has
been on to produce something similar
on the good old A1200. Many said
it can’t be done — and even the most
stalwart Commodore hearts sank with
the release of the uncommonly smelly
Death Mask. But there are those that
stuck with it; and we’re at last reaping
the rewards.
After Alien Breed 3D, the first — and
most exciting — is the rather obvious
titled Gloom, from Black Magic. BM’s
top man, Mark Sibly, has been respon-
sible for some of the most innovative
Amiga games in the last couple of years;
most notably Guardian — not to men-
tion the amazing ground-breaking pro-
gramming language Blitz Basic.
“The name sort of started out as a
joke,” he admits, “just something to
call the project while we were working
on it. By the time we had to settle on
a ‘real’ name, we threw around some
pretty weird ones, like Gorefest ‘95, and
Bloodbath, but wound up sticking with
Gloom. Probably because we were all
used to it.”
Joining him for the interview are the
other Black Magicians, Hans and Kurt
Butler, who are responsible for Gloom’s
graphics, and Kev Stannard, who has
previously worked on the game Lunar
C, released alongside Mark’s Overkill
on the CD32. The quartet met while
working on a game in Oz, as Mark de-
scribes:
“The whole episode was a bit of a
drama, to be honest. We’d gone over
there to work for this rich guy who
wanted to get into the games publishing
biz, but things turned pretty ugly at the
end. We actually finished the game, but
nothing ever came of it.” Kurt and Hans
have also contributed graphics to some
of Acid software’s stuff Guardian and
SkidMarks 2, but apart from the Oz one,
this has been their first game.
MOUNT DOOM
Obviously inspired by Doom, the Black
Magic team got together again because
they believed a good Amiga conver-
sion was possible. It didn’t take them
long, though, to begin adding their own
Because Mark Sibly’s the author of the pro-
touches to the look of the game, which gramming language Blitz Basic, you might
would be easy just to copy directly. not be surprised to learn that Blitz was used
“We tried to give it a whole different in Gloom. “The map editor and heaps of little
look from Doom,” says Mark. “Kurt and utility programs were done in Blitz, but there’s
Hans have consciously tried no actual Blitz code in the game itself,” he says.
to avoid the look, which
all the other Amiga clones “Yeah. At the start of the project it
was very Doom-oriented, because all
seem intent on capturing.”
we had to go on was Doom’s look and
feel,” agrees Kurt. “But as we went
along we wanted to break away from
Doom’s grey monotony, so at that point
I think unconsciously while we forming
the game we were bringing in our origi-
nality, with the only similarity being the
first person perspective.”
“Also, the game is divided up into
distinct graphic styles,” Mark contin-
ues, “so instead of the ‘mix-and-match’
approach to graphics you see in Doom
clones (and even Doom itself, to some

WHEREVER I LAY MY, ER, PANCREAS

G loom comes complete with two player-modes, Messy and

Meaty, which you can toggle depending on the speed of
your machine. Messy is fairly horrific, throwing arms and limbs
A B
about Mr Creosote-style as you blow your enemies
to Kingdom Come. Meaty, by contrast, also throws
arms and limbs about willy-nilly, but - and get this
- they remain where they land on the floor for the
rest of the game! Here’s a typical ex-
ample. In a) there’s a soldier, gunning
for some action; but in b) after you’ve
led him around for a while, pumping
him full of a gun-toting action, he’ll ex-
plode, slopping his innards around the
room. They’ll remain (no pun intended)
there for the rest of the level - including
the blood splatters on your screen.

magazine article • 437

 extent), the graphics in Gloom actually
go through abrupt changes, which alters
the mood of the game entirely.”
As you would expect, the team have
kept an eye open for any other Doom
clones, both commercially and on the
PD Shareware scene. And as you would
also expect, they haven’t seen anything
to seriously worry them yet — but be-
cause they’re Amiga fans first and fore-
most they remain encouraged that so
many are appearing.
“We’re seen heaps of other games!”
enthuses Mark. “When we started on the
Gloom, there were already quite a few
demos around by people trying to ‘do
Doom’. The trouble was, none of them
seemed to involve shooting anything
which, when it comes down to it, is why
people play Doom.
“There was only one, called ‘Fears’
I think [you think correctly — it’s pre-
viewed on the next pages] where you
could actually shoot things. It’s weird;
like Amiga programmers think Doom
is all about walking around buildings,
twiddling your thumbs, going ‘ahhh,
that’s a nice wall’. In fact, in Gloom,
the monster drawing code was the first
bit done... if that’d proved too slow, we
probably would have abandoned the
whole thing.”
Apart from the Amiga PD game
Poom, other Doom clones on the PC and
Amiga have avoided any cheeky names,
presumably attempting to avoid copy-
right problems. Does this not worry the
Black Magic... er, box?
“Well... we just thought that people
would associate the name Gloom with
Doom,” Hans says, “thus tipping our
hats in Doom’s direction for the inspira-
tion it gave us.”
“Plus, I’m sure id Software [the
makers of Doom] are far too busy on
the 3DOSXstationTigercatreality con-
version to be reading The One!” Mark
laughs. Cheeky git. “I’d like to say a
big cuddly thanks’ to the authors of the
438 • magazine article
original Doom, for coming up with such Gloom’s, many problems popped up
an original, awesomely programmed during the early stages. As Mark re-
game, which has also returned shoot- veals, texture-mapping, the process of
em-ups to their deserved place under ‘painting’ the walls, ceiling and floors in
the spotlight!” he adds, demonstrating a the game with patterns, required three
rather clever technique known as ‘cov- different approaches before he got it
ering your arse’. right. “Well, the texture mapping was
a bit of a headache. As a matter
GLOOM WITH A VIEW of fact, the technique we use
Black Magic has been working on now is actually pretty slow
Gloom for about six months now, and for drawing an ‘empty’
the game is only around one month away scene, but it allows you
from completion. It took Mark a couple to draw lots of monsters
of months tinkering around under the in the scene, with
bonnet before coming up with the game
engine they’re using now. Since then, he
reckons, it’s been about three months of
solid work for all concerned — but even
before they started, they didn’t dream of
how well it would turn out.
“From the beginning we wanted it
to be an action game, but there was al-
ways this nagging though that it’d end
up a shoot-one-monster-at-a-time kind
of thing,” Marks admits. “I remember
sitting down with Kurt one day, when
everything was more or less up and run-
ning, and sticking 20-odd monsters in a
room... and WOW! You’d walk in there,
start firing, and the next thing you knew
there were arms and legs and torsos
and intestines and stuff flying EVERY-
WHERE! So, the result has pretty much
exceeded my expectations. And it’s got
nice walls.” very little slowdown. The depth-
“I think this project has given us a sorting stuff also provided, er, cha-
lot of fun and excitement,” says Kurt. llenging. This involves deciding
“Because it was something new. We which walls are in front and which
can’t wait for its release onto the Amiga are behind, which sounds pretty simple
market — we have contemplated that — well it did to me — but is actually a
the market will respond positively to major bugger!”
it, providing other clones don’t beat us. Finally, there were problems with
Even if there is another Doom out there “mathematical accuracy”. The maths
I think we’ll do quite well, because the routines behind any 3D game are pretty
Amiga market is really hungry for this horrific, but as soon as you begin throw-
style of game.” ing textures in there too you need a
“And it will blow the s**t out of
anything in it’s path, of course!” adds
Hans. With a game engine as complex
Right: Is Gloom trying to be Doom? “We knew
we could do a version which placed the empha-
sis on the actual game, not the scenery,” explains
Mark. “So, I guess Gloom’s trying the be a close
version in that it involves wiping out a s**tloads
of monsters, but not in term of walking around
complex scenery.”
Left: This is an example of the ‘chuncky’ graph-
ics available, which gives you the option of full-
screen windows, as long as you don’t mind huge
chunky characters, and stone-clad walls. If you
keep away
brain the size of a planet to cope with it
all. “Like, you’d try to draw a wall with
straight horizontal lines on it, stick it
in the game, and the lines would come
out all zig-zaggy,” explains Mark, con-
founding me with his technical know-
how. “I cleaned this up to a large extent,
but it’s still noticeable in some places.
That blows me away about Doom... the
whole thing is done so bloody cleanly!
There isn’t a pixel out of place.”
GLOOMSBURY SET
The other problem with complex games,
apparently, is testing. During develop-
ment the team played each version as
much as possible, to iron out any bugs
as they appeared. “In an early stage of
development on the demo,” Hans re-
calls, “something was happening on
the last level every time I was going
through a teleport. A bug had surfaced
at this point of the game — I noticed
that the speed of the game was slowing
down every time I entered the teleported
to the point that it was ridiculously slow.
Me and Mark where quite baffled by the
problem, until I teleported to a room
and was ambushed by an almost infinite
number of enemy sprites! The bug had
caused more enemies to be added each
time you went through the teleport.
You’d get killed, go through again,
get killed again and so
on. But I think it’s fixed now.”
Bugs aside, the boys are pleased at
how quickly the game is coming along
right now. The present problem is ex-
actly when to stop expanding the game,
and to begin concentrating on final
tweaks to the play. “Currently, I’m not
sure how big the game’s going to get,”
says Mark. “I’m knocking out mazes at
the rate of at least two a day right now,
so it depends on when I get bored and
the mazes begin to look the same. That’s
probably a good time to stop. At the mo-
ment, I’d say there should be about 20+
mazes.
“There’s also the problem of my ten-
dency to add stuff to the game at ran-
dom intervals,” he grins. “I’ve just spent
the last couple of days writing a routine
to rotate and move walls, which adds
a whole new aspect to the game. For
example, you can now get squashed!
So, we can have huge gear wheels and
things spinning around for you to run
through — but first I’ve got to draw the
maps.”
No Amiga owner worth his trousers
would ever expect a Doom game to
run as quickly as it does on a fast PC.
It just won’t happen. Given the fact, we
at The One have all been blown away
by what Black Magic has done using
Right: The two-player
game plays a mean shoot’-
em-up. There’s a choice
of three types: split-screen
head-to-head, with two
players in an arena blasting
hell out of each other; split-
screen team basically with
two US Marines against
the bad guys; and finally
a head-to-head — link
option! Yes, rather fantasti-
cally, it’s possible to link
up two Amigas, and play
against each other.
an unexpanded A1200. Sadly, it won’t
work at all on anything less; but if you
have something even more meaty, like
an A4000, then the game runs more
smootherer than you’d ever believe pos-
sible.
Mark attempts an explanation:
“Gloom is done in the infamous ‘copper
chunky’ mode,” he says. Nope, sorry.
You’ve got me there. Apparently, the
game offers two pixel sizes: 2x2 and
3x3, but to me that might as well be
Swahili. Again Mark tries to simplify
this: “2x2 mode allows for a window
as tall as the screen, but only half the
width. 3x3 mode lets you have a full
screen display.” Ah right. This explains
the different screen sizes available, ac-
cessed by hitting Escape in-game. This
brings up a menu, enabling you to tog-
gle the texture-mapping for the floor
and ceiling on and off, and do lots of
other clever things — including chang-
ing the resolution.
“I’ve heard a lot of debate about do-
ing stuff this way, but for me the deci-
sion came down to how to do it as fast
as possible on a standard A1200,” Mark
says. “A lot of it comes down to per-
sonal taste... what I consider to be too
slow, someone else might think is just
fine. Still, you have to go with your in-
stincts.”
Black Magic’s instinct has produced
the backbone of a fine game, and whet-
ted our collective appetite for more. A
slight problem is that the boys haven’t
found a publisher for Gloom yet —
but once the softies have played this
month’s stonking coverdisk, it won’t be
long before someone snaps it up. Good
luck to them, and long may Black Mag-
ic continue •
magazine article • 439
 article; The One #79 - Work in Progress (May 1995);

A year ago everyone was saying how Doom could never make it onto the Amiga. Now you
can’t move for clones and 3D engines! Matt Broughton tries to put Death Mask behind him
and promises not to copy Andy’s Gloom report.

PROJECT: Fears
PUBLISHER: Bomb Software
DEVELOPER: M.A.N.Y.K.:
Fredric Heintz (programmer),
Mathieu Berthaud (music and SFX),
Corentin Jaffre, Stephane Elbaz,
Laurent Sebire (graphics)
INITIATED: May 1994
RELEASE: May 1995
raffe strappped to my back. I won’t bore
you with the exact details behind this
trans-Chunnelular interview, but if I was
to tell you that the words “hmmm...”
“um...” and “er...” featured ‘quite a lot’,
I wouldn’t be lying. Non. Nein. Nyet.
So what’s Fears then? Well, it’s ba-
sically yet another of the Doom clones
that we’re seeing just now, and lines up
behind Alien Breed 3D, Death Mask,
and Gloom on the Commodore con-
deric explains (although je suis comple-
tement buggered if je can understand
half of it!)
“Well, in fact I’m a demo program-
mer, and after a meeting in December
it was decided to make a Doom routine
to go with a demo I’d been working on.
So, I went ahead and produced the rou-
tine, but then decided that I wanted to
take it one step further and turn it into a
full game. At about the same time I was

X
-’Je voudrais parle Fredric’.
That’s what my girlf said to
say (and she was in the top per-
cent ‘O’ level results in the world. Or
something.) so that’s what I bloody-well
did. And did the person who answered
the phone have the foggiest about what
I was saying? No. Non. Ne understande
pas.
See? The things I do for you read-
ers. I want to let you know about all
of these new games appearing on your
super-duper Amiga, and I have to travel
through Euro-hell with a large wild gi-
veyor belt of death. I’ve been giving
the number of one Fredric Heintz, the
programmer for Fears, and thought I
put off talking to him for best part of
a month, there’s no escaping the inevi-
table. (That, I think you’ll find, is why
they call it the inevitable. — Harry.)
Our homme dans la belle-France,
young Frederic, has never produced an
Amiga game (or any full game for that
matter) before, although he has been
computing and producing demos for
about four years. So how did he come to
be producing a full Amiga game? Fre-
making a shareware game which was
called Fears, but at the time it was more
like Wolfenstein [an old ‘pre-Doom’ PC
game. Much the same, only not so bon].
Then I was contacted by MANYK and
they made me an offer, so I decided to
drop the Wolfenstein thing and move
more towards the Doom routine.”
As it stands, the game is almost com-
plete, with only a few speed improve-
ments to be made, and some weapons
to be added.
“Originally we wanted to put in four
weapons,” explains Frederic, “but I

440 • magazine article

 Bonjour. Regarde un
map dans le screen.
Er... that’s about it as
far as French goes,
so I’ll just shuffle off
quietly if you don’t
mind. Why not pass
the time enjoying
this rather splendid
self-drawing map.
Sil-vous-plait.
thought that it wasn’t enough, so we’re
going to try to put some more in. I want
to have about six or seven in there. We
also have some work to do to speed up
the routine, and just add a few more
things.”
At the start of the project, Frederic
was sure that a Doom game was possi-
ble, but wasn’t sure if the speed would
keep the game playable. “Everything is
possible, but you have to see that it’s
going to be playable. I think I can do
better, but I’m satisfied for now. We are
running a little bit short of time, but I’m
sure I can improve the speed before we
finish.”
DANS LA MER?
Things can’t have gone too badly
though, and according to Frederic, noth-
ing has had to be left out or removed
from the original plans. So why do so
many companies seem to have such a
problem getting 3D engines to run well
on Amigas? Frederic ums...
“I think people have trouble with
3D mapping because of the video card.
Because we haven’t got chunky mode,
we are in planar mode. [Just to let you
know], ‘Chunky mode’ is what the PC
runs it’s 3D stuff with. It’s basically a
byte-per-pixel mode (so each pixel has a
single byte defining it) as opposed to the
Amiga’s eight bytes per pixel. As you
can probably imagine, this means that,
while the PC only has one calculation
to make for each pixel’s movement, the
Amiga has eight, and is thus eight times
slower. Yeah? Comprehende? — Matt.]
With the Amiga you can make good ar-
cade games; shoot-‘em-ups and things
like that, but it’s not very good for map-
ping. It’s very hard to make everything
clean on screen with my technique, but
you must choose between the feel and
the graphics quality.” That’s funny,
that’s what I always say.
Frederic is most proud of his Doom
routine, but is also pleased with the
amount of enemies he has been able to
include.
“There are 15 different types of mon-
ster, and though there will be a maxi-
mum of three per level, there will be
more than 30 levels, as well as end of
level bosses.”
And what sort of intelligence should
we expect from the aforementioned nas-
ties? Let’s just hum about it for a while,
eh?
“I know that it’s very important for
the gameplay, but I haven’t finished it
yet — they just come for where you are
and try to shoot you. I’m going to im-
prove that; I’ve not finished it,”
Though Fears is meant to be an ac-
tion game, there are Doom-like ele-
ments of strategy, although most of
these are based around finding correct
doors, and switching, er... switches.
“I wanted to make a game more ar-
cade-like, simply because there’s really
nothing like this on Amiga.”
And what of the serial link option
that has made Doom such a popular net-
worked game? Frederic: “Yes. You will
be able to play with two Amigas and a
null modem cable. In fact I made a rou-
tine a long time ago that made this pos-
sible, but just haven’t yet implemented
it. I think it’s very important to have two
players with a game like this. I think
networking is very important with a
game like Doom or Heretic.
LE SUB-HEAD TRES
TRES CLEVER?
Frederic has plans for a CD32 verison,
but as yet, doesn’t really know what
improvements will be made. “There
will be a CD32 version, but I don’t re-
ally know what improvements will
be made.” (Nice bit of reportage there
mate. Have you considered a career in
the Church? — Harry.).
“I think I will have all kinds of ani-
mations and things between levels. I’m
waiting for the reaction from people to
see what they think about this standard
version before planning the upgrades.”
Et apart from a Fears upgrade, how
would Frederic feel about another 3D
project for the Amiga? “I like 3D, even
on the Amiga. If it works, I think I will
go on with Fears 2.” Phew crickey,
Fears Deux! obviously un homme qui
trouve le pain tres enjoyable... •

As you plod around the many dungeons within Fears, vari-

ous health icons, extra ammo packs, and treasures litter the
floors. Trying to collect these goodies can lead to much run-
ning backwards and forwards, and all of this while desperate-
ly trying to avoid the attacking hordes. (Of course, if you’re
really clever, you’ll kill everything first and then retrace your
steps. — Andy.) Damn, never thought of that! Anyway, as
you can see, it’s all very loverly and in no way ‘no loverly’.
Oh no, we’ll be having none of that talk on these pages. (Stop
padding! — Harry.)

magazine article • 441

 Fears
Developer BOMB Software
Publisher attic Ent., Guildhall, Manyk
Release date 1995
Genre First-person shooter
Mode 1-2 Players

Fears is a Doom clone developed and

But Will It Run Doom? released exclusively for Amiga systems.
The game is a first-person shooter played
It was widely considered that it was in full-screen, though relatively low-res-
not possible to do a game like Doom olution, graphics. The level landscapes
on the Amiga platform due to techni- feature lots of stairways and lifts, giving
cal restrictions of the standard Amiga it a pseudo-3D feel. The game is played
graphic chipset, which was built to across 30 levels, with a level designer
do scrolling sprite based games, not also included. The one-player game has
pixel-based rendering. However, this 3 difficulty levels, while multi-player ac-
did not stop many eager developers tion is available via a null-modem cable.
from trying.
A 25th Anniversary of the game have
Quickly after the release of the Doom since been re-released, and is still avail-
source code, several people jumped able to buy as of 2022- It is compatible
on the bandwagon and ported Doom with the A1200, A4000, and the A500
to the Amiga. This resulted in several MINI console.
different ports which competed for the “mobygames.com”
Amiga userbase.
In recent years, several more
modern ports arrived on the system,
derived from the PC versions. These
new ports also include support for Re-
targetable Graphics (RTG), which al-
low standardized resolutions and true
colour screens to be available through
common SVGA adapters. The two
most common API’s used in RTG are
Picasso96 and CyberGraphX.
“doomwiki.org”

Other Releases
Amiga CD32 1995
Amiga 1995

442 • Games - CD32

 Gloom

Gloom is a 1995 computer game for the Amiga com-

puter. Gloom was the first commercially released
Amiga clone of first-person shooter Doom.

Gloom features ‘Messy’ or ‘Meaty’ graphics settings.

If ‘Messy’ graphics are enabled, gibs from enemies
explode more violently, and if ‘Meaty’ graphics are
enabled, all gibs from defeated enemies will remain
on the floor. Gloom also has a two-player mode, and
can be played over a network or by using split screen.
The Messy’ or ‘Meaty feature of Gloom was
promoted with a competition run in The One maga-
zine. Users would have to correctly match up pictured
in-game gibs with what body part/organ they are, with
the winner’s face being put into Gloom.

Gloom was developed as an Amiga Doom clone

by Mark Sibly (programmer) Kurt and Hans Butler
(graphics), Laki Schuster (additional artwork) and
Kev Stannard (music). It took a year to complete the
game.
Developer Black Magic
Publisher Guildhall The game was ranked the 18th best game of all time
Release date 1995 by Amiga Power. CU Amiga gave Gloom an overall
Genre First-person shooter score of 90%, praising Gloom’s rock soundtrack, and
Mode 1-2 Players
calling its graphics and enemies ‘impressive’.

Gloom was followed by Gloom 3. A Gloom 2 was an-

nounced but never released. An enhanced OCS/ECS
version called Gloom Deluxe was released in 1996
for the A1200.

The emphasis of Gloom is

placed on action, rather than
collecting keys and negotiat-
ing through maps.

Other Releases
Amiga 1995

CD32 Amiga

CD32 - Games • 443

 Gloom 3: Zombie Edition

Gloom 3: Zombie Edition (also known as Ultimate

Gloom) was the third proper, commercially released
clone of the first-person shooter Doom in the Gloom
series on the Amiga.
Despite the “3” in the title, this is actually the
second game in the Gloom series, as there is no such
game as Gloom 2. According to one of the people who
worked on this game, the reason for the game being
called “Gloom 3” was because he confused Gloom
Deluxe for Gloom 2, even though Gloom Deluxe was
actually an updated version of the first game, not a
sequel.

Gloom 3’s author, Gareth Murfin, was proprietor of

Alpha Software, with additional graphics made by
James Caygill and Jason Jordache.
The game utilises the same basic game en-
gine of its predecessor Gloom Deluxe, but uses en-
hanced chunky-to-planar (c2p) routines.
The game was one of two games produced
by Alpha Software for the Amiga, the other being
Developer Alpha Zombie Massacre, at a time when the machine was
Publisher Guildhall
Release date 1997
less popular. Although the game was critically well re-
Genre First-person shooter ceived by publications such as CU Amiga, at the time
Mode 1-2 Players of release games for the Amiga were on the decline
and not deemed commercially viable, and the game
received criticism for its appearance.

Despite developers giving players the option to play

The game is set on a zom-
bie infested planet which the
player must conquer in order
to succeed.
an optimised CD32 version of the game off CD, there
is no possibility of autobooting the Gloom 3 CD on the
CD32 (due to the absence of the ‘CD32.TM’ trade-
mark and startup-sequence files). However, it has
been verified on real hardware that the game can be
executed from a CLI/shell after making the appropri-
ate assigns if one attach a keyboard to the CD32 and
‘boot with no startup-sequence’ from the early startup
menu.

Other Releases
Amiga [iso] 1997

CD32

444 • Games - CD32

Guardian
Developer Acid Software
Publisher Acid Software
Release date 1995
Genre Shooter
Mode 1-2 Players
Resembling the SNES game Starfox in
many ways, Guardian is a fast and fu-
rious shoot-‘em up. Game design and
coding was by Mark Sibly. Graphics by
Hans Butler; 3D object design by Mark
Sibly. And music by Karl Stevens, Philip
Blake and Rik Jones. The pre-release
name was Sibwing (portmanteau of
Mark Sibly and Starwing).
The player skim over the surface of a
planet, shooting enemies down as quick-
ly as possible, with the hope of protect-
ing as many of the installations as pos-
sible—the more it’s saved, the quicker a
extra live is earned. Several power-ups
are offered during the game, including
enhanced weaponry and shields.
The game is viewed in full 3D, and the
camera angle can be adjusted. CD32
controllers are recommended, although
keyboard and mouse are also available.
“mobygames.com”
Other Releases
Amiga CD32 1994
Amiga 1994
Gulp!
Publisher I.C.E.
Release date 1994
Genre Puzzle
Mode 1 Player
In Gulp!, the player controls a number
of fish swimming in water filled tubes.
The game takes its inspiration from
Lemmings—like in the aforementioned
game, players have to pick specific
“jobs” for some of the fish to solve the
puzzles in each level. A lot of the game-
play revolves around flipping switches in
the correct order to alter the water flow
within the pipes. In some of the later lev-
els, the fish crew has to be split in multi-
ple groups to finish the stages.
The goal of each level is to get
the fish to the exit, and all this has to be
done within a time limit.
The game have CD32 controller support
and the controls are mapped to buttons
on the joypad, including the bumpers.
“mobygames.com”
Other Releases
Amiga 1994
CD32 - Games • 445
 Gunship 2000

Gunship 2000 is a helicopter combat flight simulation

game developed and published by MicroProse as a
follow-up to their earlier game Gunship.
Gunship 2000 significantly enhanced and ex-
panded the features and gameplay from the original
Gunship. Besides improved audio and graphics, key
areas of change were enhanced terrain, the ability to
fly multiple helicopter types, and the ability to com-
mand a team of helicopters and their crews.

Gunship 2000 puts players in the role of a helicopter

pilot for the US Army. Players can choose to fly single,
one-off missions or take part in an ongoing campaign
in a theater of their choice, either in Eastern Europe in
a hypothetical conflict between NATO and the Soviet
Union, or in the Persian Gulf to take part in the histori-
cal Operation Desert Storm.
Players start their career as a warrant officer,
flying a lone helicopter in missions against either fixed
targets or vehicles, usually tanks, on the move. Mis-
sions feature a primary objective, a secondary objec-
tive, a home base, and occasionally a FARP (forward
arming refuel point), where they can land and stock up
Developer MPS Labs on ammo and fuel. Most missions is of a search and
Publisher MicroProse destroy nature, but occasionally pick up and deliver
Release date 1994 missions is ordered.
Genre Simulation
Mode 1 Player On promotion to the rank of 2nd Lieutenant,
the player may gain control of several other helicopter
wingmen whose helicopters can also be configured to
the same extent as the player’s. Wingmen can remain
with the player or be sent off for separate tasks (such

Other Releases
Amiga 1993
MS-DOS (w/add-on) 1991
PC-98 1993

CD32 Amiga

446 • Games - CD32

as completing the secondary
objective), so a great deal of
flexibility is present for tacti-
cal planning.
Initially the player can
choose between AH-1 Co-
bra, AH-64 Apache, OH-58D
Kiowa Warrior, MD 530MG
and UH-60 Blackhawk. As
the player’s rank increased,
the RAH-66 Comanche and
the AH-64B Apache Long-
bow is unlocked.

The cockpit graphics were

based on photos of actual
army helicopters, though
switches and buttons with
no in-game function were left
out to avoid screen clutter.

MicroProse released the

Gunship 2000: Islands & Ice
expansion pack for MS-DOS
1992. It added two theatres
of war (Antarctica and The
Philippines), all previously
released patches, and a mis-
sion editor. It also added a
number of additional func-
tions and new player aids, including: in-flight
mission changes, air and artillery support, In 1991, Computer Gaming World’s re-
wind and weather (including whiteouts and viewer, United States Army AH-64 pilot
magnetic disturbances in Antarctica), main- Bryan Walker, criticized Gunship 2000 for
tenance and weapon system downtimes, presenting a helicopter that “flies like an
improved autopilot, targeting, navigation, overloaded Huey”, but nonetheless con-
and the addition of a HUD mission clock. cluded that “the designers have succeed-
ed in creating the best helicopter simulator
A port of Gunship 2000 for the Atari Jaguar game currently available, thorns included”.
was announced in 1993 after MicroProse Cited flaws included inaccurate flight mod-
was signed to be a third-party developer by els and avionics; awkward controls; and
Atari Corporation for the system, and de- mediocre graphics and lack of ground tex-
spite kept being advertised for a late 1994 ture. Strengths included a wide variety of
release, this version of the game went unre- accurately modeled weapons and the abil-
leased for unknown reasons. ity to control multiple types of helicopters
A PlayStation version was released in a squadron.
in 1996 (retitled as simply Gunship, but was
sometimes still referred to as Gunship 2000).
some text from giantbomb.com

CD32 - Games • 447

 Heimdall 2: Into the Hall of Worlds

Heimdall 2 is an isometric action-adventure game

set in a world based on Norse mythology and is
the sequel to Heimdall—released in 1991.

In the game’s predecessor, Heimdall retrieved the

three weapons stolen by Loki and stripped him
of some of his power for his treason to the other
gods. In the second part Loki’s warriors, Hakrats,
ravaged the lands of Midgard and Utgard in re-
venge against the Asgard gods who exiled him.
Odin and the other gods send Heimdall, son of
Odin, guardian of the Asgard gods, along with a
Valkyrie named Ursha, to stop Loki and his war-
riors again.
Heimdall and Ursha must travel through dif-
ferent nordic worlds in search of answers, weap-
ons, and pieces of an amulet that will stop Loki.
During the quest, the player may change the char-
Developer The 8th Day acters, but in some sections both characters are
Publisher Core Design needed in order to complete the game.
Release date 1994
Genre Action-adventure The player travels through the different Worlds,
Mode 1 Player fighting with enemies (with a sword, a bow and ar-
row, or magic) and solving puzzles that are mostly
about finding an object and bringing it to the per-
son who needs it, figuring out the proper combi-
nation of some items or goods or finding a way
through the maze.

Amiga Computing rated the

game 77% and The One
Amiga gave it 90%.

Other Releases
Amiga 1994
MS-DOS 1994 CD32 MS-DOS

some text from mobygames.com

448 • Games - CD32

 HeroQuest II: Legacy of Sorasil

HeroQuest II: Legacy of Sorasil is an role-playing

game. The engine of the original HeroQuest license
is reused in this sequel, set in the evil-infested land
of Rhia.

There are now 9 large missions to take on, with a

largely linear progression in the order these are
played. The player can choose a team of 4 from 8
character classes, adding rangers, mystics, elves
and clerics to the original game’s 4. The exact abili-
ties of these can be customized before starting a
game.
The game is controlled using action icons at
the bottom of a screen to set the basic instructions
to move, fight, open doors, search for keys and so
on. Characters can move individually, allowing for di-
verse strategies based on the specific strengths and
weaknesses of these characters.
Developer Gremlin
Publisher Gremlin The game received generally positive reviews.
Release date 1994 The One gave HeroQuest II an overall score of
Genre Role-playing 74%, calling it “the same old Hero Quest with slightly
Mode 1 Player flashier graphics and a different plot. ... [HeroQuest
II] comes across as being just a little half-hearted.”
Despite this, The One goes on to state that “there’s
a fair degree of enjoyment to be had. There’s a well-
crafted learning curve”, and praised the game’s “in-
tuitive” UI, but remarking that the game overall feels
dated.

Both HeroQuest and He-

roQuest II are inspired by
the adventure board game
Hero Quest from Milton
Bradley.

Other Releases
Amiga 1994
CD32 Amiga

some text from mobygames.com

CD32 - Games • 449


International Open Golf
Championship
Publisher Ocean
Release date 1993
Genre Puzzle
Mode 1 Player
A golf game originally developed by
RISC and published by Ocean in asso-
ciation with Pringle of Scotland.
The game features many and varied
forms of golf including skins, foursomes,
matchplay, strokeplay, practice and four-
ball with the action taking place over a
wide variety of terrain and locations.
All of the expected levels of dif-
ficulty are also available starting of as
an amateur, working through to profes-
sional standard and a master level.
The landscape is portrayed in re-
al-time 3D, with bird’s eye tracking shots
of the players strokes.
The CD32 version is extremely rare. It
is believed that it was never released of-
ficially as the Ryder Cup game replaced
it, and only a few review copies got
pressed, though no actual Amiga mag-
azines reviewed it. No outer cover box
were found online either.
“mobygames.com”
Humans 3: Evolution:
Lost In Time...
Developer Imagitec
Publisher Gametek
Release date 1996
Genre Puzzle
Mode 1 Player
Unlike Humans 2, this is a full sequel to
the first game with a new game engine,
rather than merely a data disk with new
levels.
In the game, zoo keepers from an alien
world have scoured human history to
steal 7 important figures from different
epochs, and it is the players job to res-
cue them. First they will have to explore
four worlds to find the 6 pieces of their
Time Machine, avoiding the chasing al-
iens.
As before the gameplay is influenced by
Lemmings. Each of the characters have
their own abilities, including fire-creation,
grabbing and smashing, which must be
used in conjunction to beat puzzles.
A compilation pack was also released
and included the CD32 version and the
AGA version on 4 disks, along with the
manual on an additional floppy.
“mobygames.com”

Other Releases Other Releases

Amiga 1993 Amiga 1996
MS-DOS 1993 Antstream 2019
MS-DOS 1995
Windows (bundle) 2018

450 • Games - CD32

 International Karate +

Created entirely (apart from the music) by British de-

veloper Archer Maclean, International Karate + (also
released by Activision in 1988 for the C64 under the
title Chop ‘N Drop) built on the formula established
by International Karate, its prequel. The numerous
improvements includes the adding of a third fighter
on screen. Only two of these three can be controlled
and each fighter only differe in the colour of their gi.
The game is fought over rounds, presented in a 2D
fighting arena with a Japanese feel.

Characters are controlled with a joystick, through a

combination of direction and a single button press
in a manner similar to modern day equivalents. The
original soundtrack was composed by Rob Hubbard.

Whilst a fondly remembered fighting game per se, it

is perhaps best known for the British humour laced
through-out. Examples included in the Amiga and
Developer Software Studios
Publisher System 3 Atari ST versions were pressing “T” to make all the
Release date 1994 trousers of the fighters fall down. The typing of other
Genre Fighting key words would cause a sunset or a bird to fly by.
Mode 1-2 Players Typing a swear word of common parlance would il-
licit an on screen warning to desist, persisting to type
curse words would cause the game to reset to its title
screen.

The CD32 version is a straight port from the Amiga

floppy release (even the keyboard controls screen is
still present in the game).

Other Releases
Amiga 1988
Amstrad CPC 1988
Atari ST 1988
Commodore 64 1988
Game Boy Advance 2003
PlayStation 2003
Wii 2008
ZX Spectrum 1987
CD32 Commodore 64

some text from giantbomb.com

CD32 - Games • 451

 Impossible Mission 2025

Impossible Mission 2025 is a side scrolling platform

and action game for Amiga systems. It’s a remake of
the 1984 game Impossible Mission. It was released
by MicroProse in 1994 as two different versions. One
for the A500 and A600 systems, and a version for the
AGA enhanced A1200, A4000 and CD32 systems. A
third version was developed for the SNES and Sega
Genesis, but never released.

The player can take control of either the female Ta-

sha, male Felix Fly, or robot RAM 2. Each have differ-
ent strengths and weaknesses.
Gameplay is puzzle-oriented as before, al-
though the levels are now scrolling, and as such,
much larger than before. Each level contains objects
to pick up to enable the player character to take on
the level’s final puzzle of putting them together in slid-
ing-block form. There are lots of bonus games, rang-
ing from a Simon title to standard shoot-‘em ups.

The source code for Impossible Mission had been

lost in an earthquake, so programmers Tim Cannell
and Paul Dunning had to hack the Commodore 64
version of the game and retrieve its assets so that the
Developer MicroProse UK game could be included in Impossible Mission 2025.
Publisher MicroProse
Release date 1994 The CD32 version received additional animations for
Genre Platformer, Puzzle
Mode 1 Player
the intro, ending and between levels, and CD audio
music. It also includes a near-perfect remake of the
C64 version of Impossible Mission, which can be ac-
cessed from the game’s title screen menu.

Other Releases
Amiga 1994

CD32 Amiga

some text from giantbomb.com

452 • Games - CD32

Jetstrike
Developer Shadow
Publisher Rasputin
Release date 1994
Genre Shooter
Mode 1 Player
Jetstrike is a horizontally scrolling shoot-
er originally released for the Amiga, and
also for the A1200 as an AGA version,
then released again on the CD32.
In Jetstrike players must stop the evil
SPUDD forces by attacking them with
an aircraft. The Commanding Officer
will the player a mission objective which
they have to try to achieve without be-
ing shot down, blown up or crashing into
mountains.
Jetstrike is an 2D side-scrolling action
game like Brøderbund’s Wings of Fury.
The difference between these games is,
in Jetstrike it’s possible to use 32 aircraft
and 6 helicopters in several combat-mis-
sions or to be a part of the Aerolympics.
The CD32 version was ranked the 28th
best game of all time by Amiga Power in
1996.
“mobygames.com”
John Barnes
European Football
Publisher Buzz
Release date 1994
Genre Sports
Mode 1-2 Players
John Barnes European Football is a soc-
cer game originally developed by Krisa-
lis and released in 1992. The game was
endorsed by Jamaican-born Liverpool
footballer John Barnes.
The game resembles Krisalis’ previous
video game Manchester United Europe.
However, the camera is closer to the
ball, producing faster action.
The only teams included are the eight
qualifiers for the 1992 European Cham-
pionships—the only tournament in the
game. Players can choose to control ei-
ther as the nearest player to the ball, or
always be Barnes.
“mobygames.com”

Other Releases
Amiga CD32 1994
Amiga 1992
Other Releases
Atari ST 1992
Amiga 1994
MS-DOS 1994

CD32 - Games • 453

 James Pond 2: Codename RoboCod

James Pond 2: Codename: RoboCod, also known as

Super James Pond on SNES, is the second instal-
ment in the James Pond series. It was developed by
the same British teams as the original.

In his second adventure, James Pond must retrieve

the toys Dr. Maybe has stolen. Pond has been armed
with an Inspector Gadget-style stretch device, which
he can use to view higher areas or claw onto ceilings
so as to slide across them.

Unlike its free-form predecessor, James Pond 2 is a

far more traditional side-scrolling platformer. It is very
similar in feel and gameplay to the early Super Mario
Developer Millennium Bros. games.
Publisher Kixx The gameplay takes place across worlds
Release date 1993 themed around particular types of toys, such as sport-
Genre Platformer ing goods, candy, and aircraft. The levels scroll side-
Mode 1 Player
ways, although a small amount of vertical movement
is included. On each level Pond must collect 2 pen-
guins and reach the exit, although there are usually
multiple exits and lots of secret areas to explore. After
completing each pair of two worlds (each of which has
three sub-levels), a boss must be faced.
The UK version of the game contains one of
the earliest known forms of in-game product place-
ments with the Penguins in the game advertising the
“Penguin” chocolate bar by McVities.

The initial versions of the game mostly gained positive

reviews on release.

Other Releases
Acorn 32-bit 1993
Amiga 1991
Atari ST 1991
Commodore 64 1992
MS-DOS 1993
Game Boy 1993
Game Boy Advance 2005
Game Gear 1993
Genesis 1991
Nintendo DS 2005
Nintendo Switch 2019
PlayStation 2003
PlayStation 2 2006
PlayStation 3 2011
PSP 2011
Sega Master System 1993
SNES 1993
CD32 Genesis

454 • Games - CD32

 James Pond 3: Operation Starfi5h

James Pond 3: Operation Starfish (sometimes styl-

ized as “James Pond 3: Operation Starfi5h”) is the
third game in the James Pond series featuring the
piscine super agent.

Unlike the first game of the series, which was a mis-

sion-based game, and the second one, where Pond
had unique abilities such as observing the whole
level and growing to unlimited height, James Pond 3
is a standard jump and run platform game.
A unique twist to the standard “Super Mario”-
style gameplay is that Pond’s magno-boots allow
him to run up walls. Once on a ceiling, James Pond
will only fall down if he jumps off, and some levels
have sections which the player must navigate in this
upside-down fashion.
The goal of each level is to find one of its
communication beacons and break it. Some levels
have beacons that will not activate until four colored
teacups are found and collected by the player.

James Pond 3 would be the last James Pond game

Developer Millennium
Publisher Kixx to be developed until 2011 with the iOS game James
Release date 1994 Pond in the Deathly Shallows.
Genre Platformer In September 2013, Gameware Europe, who
Mode 1 Player acquired the James Pond license in 2003, launched
a Kickstarter for a new game in the series, James
Pond: Pond is Back!, featuring the game’s original
designer, Chris Sorrell. The Kickstarter was can-
celed on October 7 as the funding target looked un-
likely to be achieved.

Other Releases
Amiga 1994
Game Gear 1994
Genesis 1993
SNES 1994

CD32 Genesis

CD32 - Games • 455

 Jungle Strike

Jungle Strike (subtitled The Sequel to Desert

Strike, or Desert Strike part II in Japan) was origi-
nally developed and published by Electronic Arts
in 1993 for the Sega Genesis. The game was
later released on several other consoles by differ-
ent publishers. It is the second installment in the
Strike series.

Jungle Strike continues the story started in Desert

Strike. Players command a variety of aircraft and
ground units in order to stop Ibn Kilbaba, the son
of General Kilbaba from Desert Strike, and Car-
los Ortega, the drug lord, who threaten the United
States with nuclear weapons.

This is a helicopter-based shoot-‘em up, mixing

action and strategy. The player’s main weapon is
a fictionalised Comanche attack helicopter. Addi-
tional vehicles can be commandeered: a motor-
bike, hovercraft and F-117. The game features
an “overhead” perspective “with a slight 3D twist”.
Developer Hyperial The graphics uses a 2.5D perspective which simu-
Publisher Ocean lates the appearance of being 3D.
Release date 1994 Levels consist of several missions, which
Genre Shooter are based around the destruction of enemy weap-
Mode 1 Player
ons and installations, as well as rescuing hostages
or prisoners of war, or capturing enemy personnel.
Should any of the objectives result in a failure, the
player must restart the level from the beginning.

Other Releases
Amiga 1994
BlackBerry 2013
MS-DOS (CD-ISO) 1995
Game Boy 1995
Game Gear 1995
Genesis 1993
SNES 1993
CD32 MS-DOS

456 • Games - CD32

 Before each level, players choose a
co-pilot to help them, which gives the play-
ers semi-automatic to automatic fire on the
machine guns. During the missions, fuel,
ammunition, and armor all factor into the
gameplay and can be recovered by finding
related objects in the level.
The helicopter is armed with ma-
chine guns, more powerful Hydra rockets
and yet more deadly Hellfire missiles. The
more powerful the weapon, the fewer can
be carried: the player must choose an ap-
propriate weapon for each situation. En-
emy weapons range from armoured cars
to artillery and tanks.
Desert Strike was a similar game which
parodied the Gulf War and which was re-
leased in 1992. Desert Strike arose from
a failed attempt at a flight simulator and
was inspired by Matchbox toys and Chop-
lifter. Central to the game’s concept were
nonlinear gameplay and the eschewing of
power-ups and bosses. With the success
of the original title, producer Scott Berfield,
game director John Manley and associate
producer Tony Barnes were tasked with
creating the sequel. Jungle Strike retained
the core mechanics of its predecessor,
with the addition of various vehicles and
settings.
Game Boy Game Gear
CD32 Jewel case
Desert Strike was at the time Elec-
tronic Arts’ highest selling video game and
maintained a high sales chart position as
Jungle Strike was released in 1993.
The Amiga conversion of Desert Strike
featured upgraded graphics and sound
over the Mega Drive original. With regards
to the Jungle Strike Amiga conversion,
senior programmer Stuart Johnson stated
he “tried to keep this conversion a lot more
faithful to the Mega Drive version than
Desert Strike was”. He attempted to make
the Amiga conversion run more smoothly
than the Mega Drive original. Graphi-
cal improvements were attempted: these
were less successful on the A500 than the
A1200 because of technical restrictions.
The developers also struggled with tech-
nical challenges because of dif-
ferences in hardware between
the Mega Drive and Amiga.
Amendments were also made
to the workings of in-mission
plot screens.
There were three versions
available for the Amiga; ECS,
AGA and CD32. They were all
very similar. The AGA version
even works on ECS chipset but
requires (2 MB of Chip Ram).
The MS-DOS CD-ROM ver-
sion includes FMV cut scenes
at introduction, between stag-
es, and ending.
Genesis
CD32 - Games • 457
 The game was well received on most plat-
forms by critics upon release. Amiga Com-
puting said: “With its impressive graphics
and superbly designed game system, it
could well be the best chopper title yet” al-
though the reviewer felt the difficulty curve
was too steep. Amiga Format said of the
game: “with a little more foresight and plan-
ning, it could have been a lot more fun”,
as the reviewer was irritated by the fact
that fuel, armour and ammunition levels
were displayed on map screen. However
the magazine also wrote: “The bottom line
though, is that Jungle Strike is an incred-
ibly good game”. Amiga Power called the
game “an appreciable shoot ‘em up” but
said it was “clearly tailored for the shorter
attention span” of a console gamer.
458 • Games - CD32
Jungle Strike was followed by three fur-
ther sequels: Urban Strike, Soviet Strike,
and Nuclear Strike. As the series moved
to more advanced consoles, series crea-
tor Mike Posehn became less involved in
the programming side of development. Ur-
ban Strike, released for the Mega Drive,
featured new vehicles and locations, as
well as on-foot sections. Soviet Strike,
released for PlayStation and the Sega
Saturn in 1996, featured 3D graphics, as
did Nuclear Strike, released on PC and
PlayStation in 1997 and the Nintendo 64
in 1999. Another sequel provisionally titled
Future Strike was planned, but the game
was eventually released as Future Cop:
LAPD, a mech-based shooter game.
 Kang Fu

Kang Fu is a side-scrolling platform game developed

by GREED (short for GREat Effects Development). It
was released for the CD32, A1200 and A4000.
The game itself is a meta example—it’s de-
signed to show off the higher resolutions and color
depths that can be displayed via AGA chipset. The
graphics style is a mix between drawn graphics and
digitized images.

Players take control of Klont the Kangaroo, who

have to find his lost baby kangaroos who are spread
all over the levels. Klont can use several weapons
spread throughout the levels, such as guns, bombs,
boomerangs, to destroy enemies. Klont himself can
also kick or jump on enemies to squash them.

When starting the game on the CD32, the user (report-

edly) need to insert the game disc and start the con-
Developer GREED sole, then shut its disk door after the start-up music
Publisher GREED has played. If the user miss any of these passages, the
Release date 1996
Genre Platform
game refuses to start because of a glitch that does not
Mode 1 Player free the memory of the console as it should.

The game feature an infa-

mous game-over screen,
depicting a kangaroo skel-
eton in a desert. The image
was reportedly taken from a
frame of footage of the Bos-
nian War from the shock film
New Death File III.

Although the game was

planned to have a sequel, ti-
tled Kang Two, according to
the developers after the end-
ing of the game, it was never
released. As a result, Kang
Fu is the only game produced
by GREED.

Other Releases
Amiga 1996

CD32
some text from mobygames.com, crappygames.miraheze.org

CD32 - Games • 459

 The Labyrinth of Time

The Labyrinth of Time is a graphic adventure created

by Terra Nova Development, a two-man team com-
posed of Bradley W. Schenck and Michal Todorovic.
Intended to be the first in a series of games, The
Labyrinth of Time was less successful than similar
graphic adventures released around the same time,
such as The 7th Guest and Myst. It is the sole game
produced by Terra Nova Development.

The story of The Labyrinth of Time is loosely based

on Greek mythology. King Minos has commissioned
a labyrinth bridging time and space which will allow
him to rule the earth. The player takes control of a
person who is pulled into the Labyrinth of Time. The
player must navigate the maze and save the en-
slaved Daedalus—the creator of the labyrinth.
The game ends with a teaser for a sequel,
Developer Terra Nova The Labyrinth II: Lost in the Land of Dreams. The
Publisher Electronic Arts sequel was never produced.
Release date 1994
Genre Adventure The game CD are compatible with both the CDTV
Mode 1 Player and CD32 (with HAM8 raytraced images on CD32
and HAM6 on CDTV), but it needs 2Mb RAM for it to
play on the CDTV.

In the years after its release, The Labyrinth of Time

was published on more recent platforms by The
Wyrmkeep Entertainment Co. in collaboration with
the original developers.

Other Releases
Amiga 2005
CDTV 1994
MS-DOS 1993
iPhone 2009
Linux 2004
Macintosh 1994
Windows 2004

Amiga CD32 MS-DOS

COMPATIBLE

460 • Games - CD32

 Lamborghini: American Challenge

Lamborghini: American Challenge is a racing game

developed and published by Titus France. Lam-
borghini is essentially an upgrade from Titus’s pre-
vious entry in the Crazy Cars franchise, Crazy Cars
III. It adds a two player mode, a few more options,
and a jazz fusion soundtrack.

The objective of the game is to end up the undisput-

ed champion of highly illegal street racing through-
out the entire United States. To do so, the player
must race against different opponents in a variety
of illegal races across the country. The races are
divided into three leagues, each one with increas-
ingly harder opponents, and the player needs to
regularly upgrade their Lamborghini Diablo in order
to keep them above the other racers, by using the
currency from bets as well as the bonuses earned
by succeeding in the races in first place.
Developer Titus (?)
When police are in the area, speeding be-
Publisher Titus, Paragon yond 110 km/h could see the player branded as an
Release date 1994 offender, at which point the police will try to ram
Genre Racing them off the road, similar to Chase H.Q. The player
Mode 1-2 Players can attempt to reach the end of the race despite
this damage (which eventually hampers the speed)
or simply pull over and accept a fine and the loss of
race points.
Different power-ups can be bought along
the way, including tires, radar jammers, engine im-
provements and nitro boosts.

Other Releases
Amiga 1992
Amstrad CPC 1992
Atari ST 1992
Commodore 64 1992
MS-DOS 1992
Game Boy 1994
SNES 1993

CD32 MS-DOS

some text from mobygames.com

CD32 - Games • 461

 Last Ninja 3

Last Ninja 3, developed and published by System

3, is the sequel to the 1988 game Last Ninja 2.

This was the final game in the Last Ninja series.

The final combat between Armakuni—the Last
Ninja—and his arch rival—the evil shogun Kuni-
toki—is drawing near. The battle will take place
among the temples of Tibet, the source of the Last
Ninja’s mystical strength. The Shogun intends to
corrupt these Buddhist temples, to destroy the
source of power for Armakuni and his emerging
Ninja brotherhood. Armakuni must stop the Sho-
gun’s evil scheme.

The game retains the mix of martial arts combat

(hand-to-hand and with various weapons), puz-
zles involving various objects players find on their
way, and navigating their way around obstacles.
Developer System 3 (?) However, it also introduces Bushido, necessary to
Publisher System 3
complete each level. Bushido is earned by fight-
Release date 1994
Genre Action-adventure ing honorably, by fighting enemies with the same
Mode 1 Player weapon as them or in hand-to-hand combat, and
not fleeing from a battle.
The levels are relatively simple layouts of
about 20 screens viewed in a 3D isometric per-
spective, some levels aredeliberately complex
mazes however. They correspond to the elements
that combine to make up a Ninja’s power—Earth,
Water, Wind, Fire and Void.

The game was initially very

well received by the press,
but has since been met with
more negative criticism.

Other Releases
Amiga 1991
Antstream 2019
Atari ST 1991
Commodore 64 1991
Wii 2008
CD32 Commodore 64

462 • Games - CD32

The Amiga and Atari ST versions of Last
Ninja 3 began development in September
1990, and were released in March 1991; a
DOS version was in development and an-
nounced for the same month, but was nev-
er released. Adrian Cale, the co-director
of Last Ninja 3, stated that the game was
conceived because “the Ninja games have
almost become a genre in their own right.
People buy them because they specifi-
cally want that type of game. ... years ago
Last Ninja was state of the art on 8-bit ma-
chines, we’re now trying to make it state of
the art on 16-bit”. Unlike its predecessors,
Last Ninja 3 may have more than one en-
emy on-screen at once. Alongside this, the
enemy AI was improved: Stan Schembri, a
designer for Last Ninja 3, said that they are
“a lot more intelligent”, further stating that
“they attempt to react to the way you move.
In Ninja 2 if you were fighting that was it. In
this one if you make a slight move, an en-
emy will try to come round to fight you from
the back”. Last Ninja 3 was designed with
arcade-style game play in mind: this mani-
fests in the form of changes to Ninja 3’s
combat, and the addition of bosses. Due
to these gameplay changes, the game’s
joystick controls are also altered: while
previous Last Ninja games have controls
Atari ST Amiga
for turning and moving separately, the pro-
tagonist now faces and moves in the same
direction the stick is pushed.
Last Ninja 3’s graphics were inten-
tionally made aesthetically different from
previous games in the series. Cale said
that some of the game’s enemies are
“more fantasy oriented”, as opposed to “a
load of guys in karate gear”. Cale further
expressed that the Last Ninja 3 team “tried
to create character animation that hasn’t
been seen in other games”, with making
the animations ‘realistic’ being a prior-
ity. Video game magazine The One ex-
pressed that the development team also
prioritized walkcycle animations, with the
graphic artists seeking to avoid characters
‘looking like they’re skating’. Last Ninja 3
has larger sprites than its predecessors:
the protagonist’s sprite is double the size
of that of previous games.
The 16-bit versions of Last Ninja 3
were programmed by Mark Dawson and
Dave Collins from the game studio Eldritch
the Cat. Despite the size of Last Ninja 3’s
sprites, they don’t use much processor
time: the game’s 3D masking uses more
processing power, with about 200 layers
of masking per screen. The Amiga version
was the first version of the game made,
and was used as the basis for the Atari
ST and cancelled DOS conversions.
Dawson primarily programmed the Atari
ST version, while Collins worked on the
DOS version. Rather than using a PC
running PDS for development like pre-
vious System 3 games, Last Ninja 3
was programmed on Intel 80386 PCs
with SNASM boards. Collins & Dawson
expressed that the 386 PCs & SNASM
boards eased Last Ninja 3’s develop-
ment, and stated that they “mak[e] life far
easier. You can look through memory on
your PC and all sorts of things easily”.
CD32 - Games • 463
 In a retrospective interview in 2005,
System 3’s Mark Cale felt that the game
was “by no means the best entry in the se-
ries”, blaming the breakup of the original
Last Ninja series team, stating that “when
working with such talented people as John
Twiddy and Hugh Riley, there was always
a certain amount of magic and things just
flowed. With some other developers, they
were always trying to escape the nemesis
of the past. I think the programmers on
Ninja 3 were always trying to outdo John
Twiddy, rather than make a great game. It
wasn’t as good as it should have been”.
According to Mark Cale, about 3 million
copies of the game were sold. The game
was well received by the press. The Amiga
version reviews included the review scores
of 81% from Amiga Format, 80% Amiga
Power, and 90% from CU Amiga. The C64
version was further acclaimed, including
the scores of 94% from Computer + Video
Games and 93% from Zzap!.
464 • Games - CD32
The One gave the Amiga version an
overall score of 90%, and noted the game
as incorporating console and arcade-style
gameplay elements. They praised the new
weapons & moves, and favourably ex-
pressed that they don’t ‘dilute the game’s
challenge’, further remarking that these
elements “bring it to another level of play-
ability”.
The CD32 version received more
mixed review scores. The game has since
been seen by some players as the weak-
est title in the series, mostly criticising the
controls and it’s difficulty.
Last Ninja 3 was re-released on the Virtual
Console in 2008. It was later pulled from
the European Virtual Console storefront in
due to a bug in the game which resulted
in the game freezing after the first level,
which was present since its release in
2008.
Lemmings
Developer DMA Legends
Publisher Psygnosis
Release date 1994 Developer Krisalis
Genre Puzzle Publisher Guildhall, Manyk
Mode 1 Player Release date 1996
Genre Action-adventure
Exactly the same as the CDTV release, Mode 1 Player
just with different packaging.
Legends is an action-adventure with Zel-
da-inspired gameplay. In the game, two
alien scientists who watches the Earth
as a television show, travel back in time
to various continents and leaves modern
weaponry behind. A boy called Billy is
sent to the past in order to fix his chaotic
present caused by the aliens.
The player controls a character pertinent
to the time period (an American Indian
from 1400 A.D.—America, a knight from
medieval England, a Chinese warrior
from Imperial China, an Egyptian acolyte
from ancient Egypt, and Billy in the alien
spaceship).
The goal of the game is to go
through the different epochs and defeat
the enemy bosses. The player charac-
ter can collect objects and coins to buy
items and weapons. NPCs’ provide clues
and level objectives.
“mobygames.com”
review; Amiga Action #58 (Jul. 1994) by: Neil Jackson;

LEMMINGS
I’d be the last person to blame anyone for thinking
“Oh God, not again” at this point. After all, they’ve
been around for so long that I can’t imagine that
there is a single person out there who isn’t fed up
with the seemingly endless procession of games
involving the eponymous heroes. Even Psygno-
sis seem to have stretched the point a bit with the
release of their sequel being entitled Oh no more
Lemmings!
That may seem a little unfair, because there can
be no doubting the fact that in terms of originality,
Lemmings is more or less unbeatable. However, I
suspect that just about every computer gamesplay-
er in the world has played this game on some for-
Other Releases
mat or other, and will be reluctant to purchase this
gem again if they have just sold their old machine Amiga 1996
MS-DOS 1996
and bought a CD32.
Windows 2019
The term ‘flogging’ and ‘dead horse’ spring eas-
ily to mind.
Original Score: 95% / Updated Score: 85%

CD32 - Games • 465

 Litil Divil

Litil Divil stars Mutt, a dog-like devil in the Under-

world whose goal is to obtain the “Mystical Pizza
of Plenty” from the Labyrinth of Chaos.

Litil Divil has puzzle-solving and action elements,

including platforming and combat. Mutt is being
transported to various puzzle rooms, where he
has to avoid obstacles, fight enemies, and ma-
nipulate the environment in order to succeed. It is
also possible to buy items such as weapons and
shields at specific locations.

Litil Divil first began development in July 1990,

with the CD32 version releasing after four years
in development in August 1994; Litil Divil’s release
was delayed several times. Litil Divil’s demo was
initially created by Emerald Software, and was
being developed concurrently with Plan 9 From
Outer Space in 1992 by Gremlin Sheffield, and
was named Little Divil at the time. Litil Divil was
first released for PC on CD, and a later floppy
release on PC required frames to be removed
Developer Gremlin Ireland
Publisher Gremlin Graphics from animation and the quality of the music to
Release date 1994 be lowered due to compression. One of the origi-
Genre Action role-playing nal designers for the game was Heimdall 2 artist
Mode 1 Player Jerr O’Carroll, prior to his departure from Gremlin
and subsequent employment with Core Design in
1991. O’Carroll’s artstyle is present in Mutt’s de-
sign.

Other Releases
CD-i 1994
MS-DOS 1993
Linux 2014
Macintosh 2014
Windows 2011
CD32 MS-DOS

466 • Games - CD32


The One interviewed Tommy Rolfe,
one of Litil Divil’s programmers, in a pre-
release interview. Originally there were
five different Mutts who were “competing
with each other to get through five levels of
Hell”; the development team decided that
it would be better to concentrate on one
character, and Hell was later changed to
Underworld. Steve McKevitt from Gremlin
Graphics named the game, Litil Divil was
chosen as opposed to ‘Little Devil’ because
McKevitt’s wife has an Irish accent, and
“she and her family always say “Ooh, you
litil divil” to the kids, when they’re naughty.”
Litil Divil was originally intended
for release for the Super Famicom CD
drive “in 1990 or 1991”, but due to the CD
drive’s cancelled release, Rolfe states that
“while we were waiting around, we thought
it might be a good idea to start convert-
ing it to the PC CD-ROM. After a year or
so we realized that we’d probably never
see the Super Famicom CD, so we just
went full steam ahead with the PC ver-
sion.” The CD32 port was impeded by the
Amiga’s lower RAM, Rolfe states that “we
developed Litil Divil originally for a PC with
a minimum of 4Mb RAM. So you can see
2Mb isn’t really that much when you’re cre-
ating a graphics-intensive program like Litil
Divil ... We recently converted Litil Divil for
the [CD-i], which has 2.5Mb RAM, so we
had already compacted the data down to
that level—and for the CD32 we just had
to go a little bit further.”
The game received mostly positive reviews
by video game magazines at the time.
Computer Gaming World in March 1994
called it “a delightful graphic adventure”,
predicting that the game “should cause
quite a stir ... stuffed full of game play and
long term enjoyment”. The magazine pre-
dicted that a sequel and imitations would
appear. The four reviewers of Electronic
Gaming Monthly had a moderately posi-
tive reaction to the CD-i version, praising
the multifaceted gameplay, the graphics,
the sound, and the cute, humorous per-
sonality of the player character, but criti-
cizing the lagging controls. They awarded
it a score of 6.5 out of 10.
The One gave the Amiga version of
Litil Divil an overall score of 74%, criticiz-
ing the fact that the player cannot save the
game at will, instead requiring finishing a
level or discovering a save room, as well
as the tunnel sections of the game, calling
them “tedious”, and furthermore a source
of “over-riding boredom ... there is too
much bloody wandering around.” The One
praised the art style and comical sound ef-
fects, and enjoyed the puzzle-solving and
arcade sections of the game, but found the
lengthy tunnel sections to be filler, remark-
ing that without them the game would be
more fun, calling Litil Divil a “missed op-
portunity”.
Funbox Media re-released the game for
steam and GOG.com. OS X and Linux
versions were added by Blue Moon Red
Owl, the current distributor of the game on
GOG.com. Kiss, Ltd. re-released the game
on Steam in 2014 for PC only and Desura
for PC, Mac and Linux.
CD32 - Games • 467
 The Lost Vikings

The Lost Vikings is a puzzle-platform game developed

by Silicon & Synapse (now Blizzard Entertainment).
It was originally released for the SNES in 1993, then
subsequently released for several other systems.

The game starts with three Vikings getting kidnapped

by the alien Tomator who is collecting unique life
forms to display in his gallery. The three Vikings will
have to combine their unique skills to defeat Tomator,
as well as a vast array of aliens, robots, giant snails,
big lizards, among others.

The main characters are three Vikings, Erik the Swift,

Baleog the Fierce, and Olaf the Stout. The goal is
to guide all Vikings safely through each level. The
game’s originality is due to the fact that the player
controls three different characters (although only one
at any given time), and must make use of their indi-
Developer Silicon & Synapse vidual abilities and their combination to solve puzzles
Publisher Interplay and progress.
Release date 1994 Erik can run faster than the other two, jump, and bash
Genre Platformer through some walls (and enemies) with his helmet.
Mode 1 Player
Baleog can kill enemies with his sword, or from a dis-
tance with his bow. The bow can also be used to hit
switches from a distance.
Olaf can block enemies and their projectiles with his
shield, and use his shield as a hang glider. Olaf’s
shield can also be used as a platform for Baleog to
walk over and to allow Erik to reach higher areas.

Other Releases
Amiga 1993
MS-DOS 1993
Game Boy Advance 2003
Genesis 1993
SNES 1993
Windows 2014

CD32 MS-DOS

468 • Games - CD32

 The game feature infinite oppor-
tunities of retries in case the player were
to lose one of the Vikings. Much of the
game’s appeal came from the humorous
inter-level dialogues of the characters.
The game consists of 36 stages (the
Genesis version contains five stages not
present in any other version of the game,
and can also be played by three players
simultaneously), divided into several chap-
ters, each with a different theme.
When released, Electronic Gaming
Monthly issued the scores of 6,8,8,8, add-
ing, “Another excellent job from Interplay!
Once you play, you’re greeted with excel-
lent soundtracks and plenty of bass! The
puzzles get very difficult but are not frus-
trating. The Viking characters have their
own personalities complete with comical
antics. This game is a definite must-get”.
Computer Gaming World in 1993
called The Lost Vikings “a clever blend of
comedy and role playing”. The magazine
concluded that “the game is a unique puz-
zle solving adventure, great for people who
enjoy using their cerebral cortex along with
their eye to hand coordination”.
SNES Genesis
In 2014, the game was added to Blizzard’s
Battle.net as a free download emulated
through DOSBox. It was later re-released
in celebration of the company’s 30th an-
niversary for Windows, Nintendo Switch,
PlayStation 4 and Xbox One as part of the
Blizzard Arcade Collection in 2021. A se-
quel, The Lost Vikings 2, was released in
1997.
The Lost Vikings have made appearances
in several other games over the time, such
as Interplay’s ClayFighter games, the 32X
version of Blackthorne and in the 1993
game Rock n’ Roll Racing—where Olaf
can be unlocked as a hidden character.
StarCraft II and Warcraft III: The Frozen
Throne also includes references to them.
They have also appeared as NPCs
in the MMORPG World of Warcraft. In the
Cataclysm expansion, they feature promi-
nently in a quest line for the Alliance fac-
tion in the Badlands area of Eastern King-
doms.
The Lost Vikings reprised their role
as playable characters in the crossover
multiplayer online battle arena video game
Heroes of the Storm.
Game Boy Advance Amiga
some text from giantbomb.com
CD32 - Games • 469
 Liberation: Captive II

Liberation: Captive 2, written by Byte Engineers

and published by Mindscape, is the sequel to Cap-
tive. Released on the A1200 and CD32, it attemped
to introduce “sandbox” gameplay years ahead of its
time, set in a futuristic city of tall buildings and hover
cars.

The protagonist of the game is free thanks to his

troop of four robots (events played out in Captive).
Now, he have tasked himself to bring down the evil
corporation that had kept him captive.

The game world is a very large city containing hun-

dreds of fully explorable households, offices and
public buildings. This vast setting precludes a brute
force approach to finding the captive, and gives rise
to the core gameplay element of detective work.
Developer Byte Engineers The main view show a first person view of
Publisher Mindscape the robots’ environment, surrounded by icons rep-
Release date 1994 resenting each robot. The player had to guide the
Genre Role-playing robots around the city searching for clues as to the
Mode 1 Player
whereabouts of enemies of the corporation.
Liberation features typical role-playing
tropes such as inventories, character upgrades,
shops, money, and banks. Almost all world features
are interactive: the libraries contain large volumes
of real information the player must use, the police
enforce the law and have working police stations
and cells, the taxis are functional, and the player
can deal drugs with drug dealers.

Liberation: Captive 2 re-

ceived mostly positive re-
views on release—the re-
viewer of The One magazine
said in his closing comment;
“possibly the best game I’ve
ever played.”

Other Releases
Amiga 1994
CD32 Amiga

some text from giantbomb.com

470 • Games - CD32

Magic Island: Manchester United
The Secret Of Stones Premier League Champions
Developer ARDA Team Developer Krisalis Software
Publisher APC&TCP, Signum Publisher Krisalis Software
Release date 1995 Release date 1994
Genre Role-playing Genre Sports
Mode 1 Player Mode 1-2 Players

Magic Island, developed by the Czech
Arda Team, is a classic dungeon RPG
with step-by-step movement.
The player takes control of the son of an
old warrior who is asked to deliver a let-
ter for a friend.
Magic Island is similar to the Ishar se-
ries–outdoor locations and realtime com-
bat. The game includes several unique
features for it’s time, such as alchemist
receipts (with more than twenty ingredi-
ents, such as mushrooms, fern, witches
hair or dry dog turd, which can be mixed
for various effects).
The player has a party of four
people and each of them has few statis-
tics and skills. If enough experiences are
earned, the characters will level up, and
new skills or attributes can be learned.
“mobygames.com”
When Krisalis re-used their existing li-
cense for a third licensed Manchester
United soccer game, the club was en-
tering an unprecedented run of success
that continued well into the 2010s.
The basic control system is similar to the
Kick Off games, as it involves holding a
button to trap the ball under the player’s
foot, and releasing to pass. Other game-
play features include diving headers,
variable pitch conditions, penalty shoot-
outs and accurate deflections. 2500
players featured in the game all have a
range of varied ability statistics, includ-
ing different skin tones.
As well as individual matches and cus-
tom-created tournaments, players can
take part in a full season of matches for
any club in England’s top 5 divisions—all
domestic league and cup matches are
included, with promotions and relega-
tions taking place after each season.
An updated version, Manchester United
Premier League Champions: Season 94-
95, were released in 1994 for the Amiga.
“mobygames.com”

Other Releases Other Releases

Amiga CD32 1995 Amiga 1994
Amiga 1995 MS-DOS 1994

CD32 - Games • 471

 Myth
Developer System 3
Publisher System 3
Marvin’s Marvellous Adventure Release date 1994
Genre Platformer
Developer Infernal Byte Systems
Mode 1 Player
Publisher 21st Century
Release date 1995 Almost identical to the floppy and cart
Genre Platformer
C64 and Amiga versions. It received
Mode 1 Player
mixed to low critic score, mostly be-
Marvin’s Marvellous Adventure is a cause of the difficult and sluggish control
console-style platformer using the AGA scheme.
chip-set.
The player control Marvin through 60
levels with slides, tubes, ladders, cater-
pillars to move across, and bonus fruit to
collect.
The levels are inhabited by typi-
cal enemies, some of which are killed
by jumping on their heads, while others
must be kicked or shot.
“mobygames.com”

excerpts from review by Amiga Power #42 (Oct. 1994)

by Jonathan Nash;

MYTH
Disastrously, the CD32 version uses — no! But
yes! — ‘up’ to jump, which, coupled with the un-
fathomable sluggish response, means you’ll spend
more time leaping screaming into monsters than
poking at them with swords.
Unfathomably sluggish, in fact, sums up the
game as a whole.
THE BOTTOM LINE
It’s the same grand old Myth — except with the
sense of excitement and discovery all but ground
away by the toffee-like speed and unrelentingly
nasty monsters. It’s the sort of game that you stick
Other Releases at grimly rather than play. The Speccy version gen-
Amiga 1994 uinely was more fun than this. Dammit, I really am
that shallow and predictable.
Original Score: 67% / Updated Score: 48%

472 • Games - CD32

Mean Arenas
Developer Nite Time
Publisher I.C.E.
Release date 1994
Genre Action, Puzzle
Mode 1-2 Players
Mean Arenas takes place on a game
show arena where the goal is to collect
all the gold coins scattered throughout
the 22 arenas in order to enter the next
one. There are four types of arenas:
Robo Zones, Dungeon Zones, Rainbow
Zones and Starship Zones. Besides the
gold coins, each arena is filled with mon-
sters, hazards, and weapons which the
player must look out for.
New challenges are introduced
as the player progress through the are-
nas, such as multi-level arenas, locked
doors and passages, and slippery sur-
faces.
Besides the standard arenas,
there are also speed arenas, where the
objective is to get past more obstacles
and gather as many coins as possible
before the time expires.
“mobygames.com”
MAG!!!
Developer Independent Arts Software
Publisher Greenwood (Funsoft)
Release date 1996
Genre Strategy, Simulation
Mode 1-4 Players
MAG!!! puts the player in the place of
the lead editor and publisher of a com-
puter games review magazine in the late
1980s/early 1990s. There are three ways
to win the game, one of which has to be
chosen at the start of the game: being
the publisher with the greatest market
share, net worth or score.
Players can choose to publish maga-
zines for IBM-PC, Amiga, Atari ST, C64
or CPC computers. Other vital decisions
include choosing publishing in black and
white or colour, selecting the right kind
of editors to work for the player’s maga-
zine and what columns to include in the
magazine. It is also important to stay in
contact with game publishers since they
might provide the player with exclusive
games to review. Depending on the dif-
ficulty selected at the beginning of the
game, players have between 13 and 5
minutes to complete each month’s issue.
“mobygames.com”

Other Releases
Amiga 1996
Other Releases MS-DOS 1996
Amiga CD32 1994
Amiga 1993

CD32 - Games • 473

 Microcosm

Microcosm is a 3D rail shooter developed and

published by Psygnosis, originally for the FM
Towns comouter. The game is either in first-per-
son or third-person view depending on the sys-
tem the game was released on.

Set in the year of 2051 AD, the game takes place

in a dystopian futuristic setting on an alien plan-
et where two gigantic global corporations are
fighting for control. The player takes control of
a microscopic pilot who have been injected into
the body of the President of one of these global
corporation. The pilot will need to destroy droids
who are sent by the rival corporation which aims
to take control of the Presidents mind.

The game takes place entirely within the hu-

man body, where the player must pilot their way
through various parts of the anatomy, blasting
enemy ships while collecting power-ups and a
faster, stronger craft. The goal of the game is to
eventually reach the brain to stop Grey M, the
Developer Psygnosis (?) entity that controls President Korsby’s body.
Publisher Psygnosis
Release date 1994
Genre Shooter
Microcosm makes use of the larger storage abil-
Mode 1 Player itiy of the CD format. Using it to include several
FMV video clips and with high-resolution fractal
graphics, which are used to simulate the walls
of veins/arteries. Also digital music can be heard
throughout the game as well as a selection of

Other Releases
3DO 1994
MS-DOS 1994
FM Towns 1993
Sega CD 1993

CD32 Sega CD

474 • Games - CD32

digital sound effects, simulating internal
bodily sounds.
The game used the latest Silicon
Graphics computers at the time to render
the graphics as realistically as possible.
In 1991, the game was first seen in
a demo for the CDTV. A port for the CD-i
was planned and then canceled, but a pro-
totype exists. The lead platform was the
FM Towns, and development was funded
in part by Fujitsu with the aim of making it
a launch title for the console-styled version
of the platform, the FM Towns Marty.
The game engine was later pur-
chased by Fujitsu for £250,000. The DOS
and FM Towns versions feature an exclu-
sive soundtrack by Rick Wakeman, which
was replaced in other versions with a
soundtrack by Tim Wright for licensing rea-
sons. A promotional version of the game
was later developed for Pfizer.
The limited edition copy of the PC and
CD32 versions of the game contains the
game, the manual, a soundtrack CD and
a T-shirt.
Critics generally rated Microcosm as hav-
ing excellent graphics but very limited and
poorly designed gameplay. Amiga Format,
FM Towns 3DO
CD32
Limited Edition Versions
for instance, greatly praised the CD32 ver-
sion’s graphics and soundtrack, but de-
scribed the gameplay as “a merely slightly
better than average” rail shooter. In a 1995
second review, they lowered their score
from 87% to 40%, mocking their earlier
review’s emphasis of graphics over game-
play and describing the game as “a de-
cidedly average Space Harrier clone that
certainly looks great, but plays horribly”.
Amiga Power similarly described Micro-
cosm as a Space Harrier clone with ex-
tremely limited interactivity and little varia-
tions in the visuals, giving the game a 44%.
CU Amiga gave the CD32 version an 86%,
saying that the graphics are not nearly as
good as the FM Towns version, with en-
emy sprites that look “pasted on”, but that
the gameplay is considerably improved.
Reviewing the Sega CD version,
GamePro opined that Microcosm repre-
sents a good concept for FMV games,
but that the poor level design reduces
the gameplay to trial-and-error and takes
away the fun.
Electronic Gaming Monthly’s four
reviewers gave the 3DO version a unan-
imous score of 4 out of 10, commenting
that the graphics are a huge improvement
over the Sega CD version, but that the
gameplay is still shallow and “just not fun”.
CD32 - Games • 475
 Morph

Morph is a puzzle game developed by a team of

three people. It has an unique cartoon inspired
graphical style.

The player takes control of Morris Rolph, a boy

who has been trapped in limbo due to a mal-
function on a teleport machine. He’s been split
into 4 component parts, represented by liquid,
gas, a hard ball and a bouncy ball. The player
must guide Morris through 24 levels to retrieve
the parts of the broken machine so he can be
turned back to normal.

The gameplay is vaguely influenced by Lem-

mings, as the levels are populated by different
points which can’t be crossed in all forms—
walls, fires, gaps, thornbushes and suchlike.
The player get a set number of transformations
on each level, although extra ones can be picked
Developer MicroValue up at times, and there are heaters and freezers
Publisher Millennium
dotted around which cause transformations in
Release date 1993
Genre Action, Puzzle some states. All this is done against a time limit.
Mode 1 Player Like Lemmings 2, the player can take on
the next level in each of the worlds at any time.
The special A1200 version of Morph fea-
ture 36 levels—mirroring the game’s plot-line of
improved technology causing more problems
for Morris.

The Amiga versions were

released to positive reviews
by video game magazines
at the time—even receiving
a score of 78% from Stuart
Campbell.

Other Releases
Amiga 1993
SNES 1993 CD32 SNES

some text from mobygames.com

476 • Games - CD32

Nick Faldo’s Championship Golf
Developer Arc Developments
Publisher Grandslam Video
Release date 1994
Genre Sports
Mode 1-4 Players
Nick Faldo’s Championship Golf is a
third-person golf game licensed around
British golf champion Nick Faldo.
Arc Developments created a 3D game
world called Reality3 for this simulation.
The control system is quite unusual, as
the strength of the shot is chosen be-
fore the start of the swing, but the player
have to click within a range to activate
the shot, and this range is narrower if
the shot is intended to be more powerful.
An extra click can be made to add wrist
snap, which increases the shot’s power.
The wind calculation is more
complicated than most games of the era,
and the rough is harder to play out of
than usual, as players can’t make slight
stance adjustments easily.
“mobygames.com”
Other Releases
Amiga CD32 1994
Amiga 1993
Commodore 64 1992
MS-DOS 1993
Naughty Ones
Developer Melon Dezign
Publisher Interactivision
Release date 1994
Genre Platformer
Mode 1-2 Players
Naughty Ones is an old-fashioned plat-
form game created by two members of
the demo group Melon Dezign. It has
similarities to games like Rick Danger-
ous, Bubble Bobble and Qwak.
Each screen is separate from the others,
and involves trying to collect a key and
then progress through the exit. Enemies
can be killed with longer-range weap-
ons. Improved weapons can be collect-
ed, each of which functions for a limited
number of shots. Bonus items are often
located in the more precarious parts
of the level, leading players to choose
whether to risk losing a life, and going
back to the start of the screen.
“mobygames.com”
Other Releases
Amiga 1994
CD32 - Games • 477
 Nigel Mansell’s World Championship Racing

Nigel Mansell’s World Championship is a racing

game developed and published by Gremlin Graph-
ics Software for multiple platforms. It is licensed
by and features British Formula One champion
Nigel Mansell.
In Japan, the SNES version is called Nigel
Mansell F-1 Challenge and was published by In-
focom.

Being licensed by Nigel Mansell, the game fol-

lowed the 1992 Formula One season, which he
won. The player takes on Mansell’s role to try to
win the title against eleven other real-life drivers
that were still active in their careers by the time
the game was launched. Like Sega’s own Super
Monaco GP, each of them belongs to their own
team (instead of the common F1 format of two
drivers per constructor).
Developer Gremlin (?)
Publisher Gremlin
The player can race a single race, participate in
Release date 1993 a season of Formula One, or practice their skills
Genre Racing on a particular race track. The changing of the
Mode 1 Player tires is mandatory on pit road during the middle
of each race, and weather can determine whether
the player should use hard tires, soft tires, or rain
tires. Before the beginning of the race, it is pos-
sible to change some aspects of the car, such as
spoilers, tires and gearbox.

Other Releases
Amiga 1992
Amstrad CPC 1993
Atari ST 1992
MS-DOS 1993
Game Boy 1993
Genesis 1993
NES 1993
SNES 1993
ZX Spectrum 1993
CD32 MS-DOS

some text from mobygames.com

478 • Games - CD32

 Oscar

Oscar is an Amiga platformer that was later ported

to DOS and SNES. The CD32 version was also bun-
dled with the CD32 console on the same disc as the
puzzle game Diggers. A Genesis version planned but
never released.

Oscar is a mascot platformer starring the eponymous

rapscallion cat, Oscar, who is invading the sets of
various Hollywood style productions to take Acad-
emy Awards (i.e. Oscars) from various spots across
the open levels. The game has seven settings for its
movies: Animated, Prehistoric, Western, Crime Noir,
Game Show, Science-Fiction and Harrah.

The game plays very similar to an earlier release,

Trolls, also developed by Flair Software. The player
can explore levels in any order they wants. The stag-
es includes different enemies that can be avoided by
Developer Flair Software (?) jumping over or killed by jumping on them. The latter,
Publisher Flair Software as well as some collectibles, reward the player with
Release date 1993
Genre Platformer
power-ups, such as invulnerability, superjump or Yo-
Mode 1 Player yo gadget that can break down walls.

Computer Gaming World in April 1994 said that the

DOS version of Oscar was “another very average
platformy, arcadey, bounce-’em-around” with “con-
fusing” graphics. The magazine predicted that it “will
only appeal to total platform addicts who will likely find
something better to waggle their joysticks at anyway”.

The Oscar series would later

be rebooted with Oscar in Toy-
land—released in 2009. This
was followed by three other se-
quels. These games were only
released as Nintendo DS titles
and released on the DSiWare.

Other Releases
Amiga CD32 1993
Amiga 1993
MS-DOS 1994 CD32 MS-DOS
SNES 1996

some text from giantbomb.com, mobygaames.com

CD32 - Games • 479

 Pierre Le Chef Is ... Out To Lunch

Pierre le Chef is... Out to Lunch is a side-scrolling

platform game about a French chef trying to collect
ingredients for his dishes by going to different coun-
tries to catch them as they have escaped.

There is a single-player mode and a two-player al-

ternating mode. In either mode, Pierre le Chef is the
playable character. The objective is to capture a set
number of ingredients before time runs out. Ingredi-
ents must be caught in a net and emptied into the
level’s cage. However, in every level, the player must
first find the net before they can catch anything. Once
the ingredients are placed in the cage, a door to the
next level will appear somewhere in the stage.
Along the way, the player will encounter germs
and bacteria which, if the player gets touched by, los-
es a life. The bacteria can also turn the ingredients
Developer Mindscape (?) into hostile enemies against Pierre when they touch
Publisher Mindscape them. The player must also be wary of Chef le Noir,
Release date 1995 who will appear in certain levels to hinder the player’s
Genre Action platformer progress. Additionally, the player can pick up weap-
Mode 1-2 Players
ons like flour bags or hot sauce which can be used to
stun ingredients and the bacteria.
The player must guide Pierre le Chef through
Switzerland, Greece, Jamaica, Mexico, China and
then France. Each country has 8 levels that the player
has to navigate through. At the end of every country,
the player plays a bonus game where they can collect
bonus points for extra lives.

Unusually, the game was

converted from the SNES
to the Amiga, not the oth-
er way around.

Other Releases
Amiga 1994
Game Boy 1993
SNES 1993
CD32 SNES

480 • Games - CD32

PGA European Tour Pinball Prelude
Developer The Dome Developer Effigy Software
Publisher Ocean Publisher Effigy Software
Release date 1995 Release date 1996
Genre Sports Genre Pinball
Mode 1-4 Players Mode 1 Player

PGA European Tour is an European-
focused spin-off of PGA Tour Golf II,
featuring five courses and tournaments
from the PGA European Tour.
PGA European Tour builds on the game
engine used in PGA Tour Golf II and of-
fers a new assortment of courses, tour-
naments, and professional golfers from
the PGA European Tour organization. It
also features dynamic weather condi-
tions and two new game modes: Match
Play and Shoot-Out.
The courses included are Went-
worth Club, Forest of Arden, Crans-sur-
Sierre, Le Golf National, and Valderra-
ma.
“giantbomb.com”
The central theme of the pinball game
Pinball Prelude is time. The first table is
set in the past and features a dinosaur
setting. The second table is set in the
present and at the same time the most
conventional of the three design-wise.
The third table plays in the future and
contains five flippers in total.
Some of the features include a
hi-res mode for multi-ball, vertical and
horizontal scrolling of the playfield and a
rubber ball, which behaves much differ-
ently than the standard steel sphere.
Due to the dwindling Amiga market and
lack of retail support, Effigy released the
game on a dual format CD containing
both AmigaCD/CD32 and PC versions.
“mobygames.com”

Other Releases
Amiga 1994
Genesis 1994 Other Releases
SNES 1996 Amiga 1995
MS-DOS 1996

CD32 - Games • 481

 Pinball Fantasies

Pinball Fantasies is a 1992 pinball game originally

developed by Digital Illusions and published by 21st
Century Entertainment in Europe for the Amiga. It is
the sequel to Pinball Dreams, which was released
earlier in the same year on multiple platforms. In the
game, players can choose between any of the four
available playfields, both of which have their own the-
matic and main objectives in order to obtain the high-
est score possible.

Like Pinball Dreams, Pinball Fantasies is an arcade-

style pinball game featuring four types of pinball
tables and each one has their own main objective,
gameplay mechanics and thematic. The game has
various levels of difficulty and the player can set the
number of balls for play, among other gameplay op-
tions.

Developer Digital Illusions The four featured tables include:

Publisher 21st Century Billion Dollar Gameshow: A board that is based around
Release date 1993 showy gameshows where the player must earn priz-
Genre Pinball es by taking the ramps in specific orders.
Mode 1-8 Players
Party Land: An amusement park themed board. Fill-
ing up the words CRAZY or PARTY allows the player
to enter a high score event.
Speed Devils: This board is based on high-speed car
racing. The player is in a race and must overtake oth-
er cars with the pinball.
Stones ‘N Bones: A haunted house-themed board fea-
turing various modes to progress through.

Other Releases
Amiga 1992
MS-DOS 1994
Game Boy 1995
iPhone 2009
Jaguar 1995
MeeGo 2011
PlayStation 1996
PlayStation 3 2009
PSP 2009
PS Vita 2012
SNES 1995
Windows (Pinball Gold Pack)
CD32 Jaguar

482 • Games - CD32

 Pinball Illusions

Pinball Illusions is the successor to the Pinball Fan-

tasies, using an upgraded game engine.

The original Amiga release featured three tables;

Babewatch, Law & Justice and Extreme Sports. The
DOS CD version added a fourth, “The Vikings” (this
was written for the Amiga version but not consid-
ered good enough for inclusion). The tables contain
ramps, bonus areas, and combo sequences to set
up. All the artwork was produced in true 256 colors
from the ground up for AGA Amigas and DOS, rath-
er than originating in 32 colors on older Amigas.

New to this version is multiball: Pinball Illusions sup-

ports up to six balls simultaneously, in which case it
switches to high-resolution mode. CD versions use
CD audio for music.

The game was ranked the 23rd best game of all time
by Amiga Power in 1996. Maximum scored the PC
version three out of five stars. They said the four ta-
bles are “all excellent in their own way” but that the
Developer Digital Illusions game lacks the imagination and innovation of other
Publisher 21st Century
Release date 1995 pinball video games. They concluded it to be “solid,
Genre Pinball if uninspiring, entertainment.”
Mode 1-8 Players
Pinball Illusions used the four tables from this game
to produce True Pinball on the Sega Saturn and
PlayStation, which presented the tables in a more
realistic perspective.

Other Releases
Amiga 1995
MS-DOS 1995
Windows (Pinball Gold Pack)

CD32 MS-DOS

CD32 - Games • 483

 Prey: An Alien Encounter
Power Drive Developer KirkMoreno
Publisher Almathera Systems
Developer The Dome
Release date 1994
Publisher Ocean
Genre Adventure
Release date 1995
Mode 1 Player
Genre Racing
Mode 1-4 Players The CD32 port is almost identical to the
Power Drive is an arcade racing game CDTV version, but with a different pack-
by Rage Software featuring rally driving aging and a fractal intro.
in various countries around the world.
Handbrake turns and lurid powerslides
are both possible, and the steering is
suitably loose.
There are 3 types of stages—in-
dividual time-trials, head-to-head races
against the computer, and some skill
tests. There are 8 rounds of gameplay,
set across countries ranging from Swe-
den to Kenya. The player gets prize
money for winning races, and it costs
money to repair damage.
The Sega Game Gear version of the
game is considered one of the rarest on
that format, with a copy selling for over
€4,000 in an online auction in 2020.
“giantbomb.com”

excerpts from review by Amiga Power #36 (Apr. 1994)

by Stuart Campbell;

PREY
This, apparently, was a CDTV game which has
been enhanced for the CD32, but since that means
about seven of you (max) might have seen it be-
fore, we’ll assume no prior knowledge. It’s a 3D
maze job which is very obviously trying to be Al-
ien - The Video Game, and with a moderate degree
of success (atmosphere-wise, at least).
THE BOTTOM LINE
Other Releases Atmospheric but dull 3D maze effort that’s more
Amiga 1994 use as a foreign language instruction course than
MS-DOS 1995 a game. Prepare yourself for endless hours of on-
Game Gear 1994 the-beach Norwegian fun saying “Oh no, I think
Genesis 1994 it’s an alien!”, but don’t expect too much in the
SNES 1994 way of gaming fun.
Score: 37%

484 • Games - CD32

 Pirates! Gold

Pirates! Gold is a remake to Sid Meier’s 1987 re-

lease, Sid Meier’s Pirates!. MicroProse developed
this 256-color version for several different platforms
featuring a MIDI score and mouse support (in MS-
DOS and Windows versions).

Pirates! Gold features Super VGA graphics including

hand-painted screens, and a more-detailed playing
environment than the original. The update also in-
cludes 3-D modeled ship and flag animations, and
graphic depictions of items that were menu choices
in the original game.

The player can play as a pirate, privateer, or a pi-

rate hunter. It features sword fighting, ocean-faring
battles, and land battles as its three main arenas of
action, connected by role-playing which allows the
Developer MicroProse
player to court the favor of local politicos, romance
Publisher MicroProse women, and recruit pirates in the local pub. Play-
Release date 1994 ers have the opportunity to go on quests, but must
Genre Action-adventure also strategically plan raiding excursions and trading
Mode 1 Player routes.
Players can choose which historical time pe-
riod they want to start their career in. The time peri-
ods differ from each other in how favarable pirating
is, which nation is strongest, and the nations navel
fleet sizes.

The CD32 version received mostly favourable re-

views on release.

Another remake of the

1987 game, also named
Sid Meier’s Pirates!, was
released in 2004.

Other Releases
MS-DOS 1993
Genesis 1993
Macintosh 1994
Windows 3.x 1994
Windows (Sid Meier’s Pirates! Gold Plus)
CD32 Genesis

CD32 - Games • 485

 Premiere Quik the Thunder Rabbit
Developer Stywox
Developer The 8th Day
Publisher Titus France
Publisher Core Design
Release date 1994
Release date 1994
Genre Platformer
Genre Platformer
Mode 1 Player
Mode 1 Player
Quik the Thunder Rabbit is a side-scroll-
Premiere is a platform game where the
ing platform game, which Stywox devel-
player takes the role of Clutch, a young
oped for Titus France to publish on the
film editor, who had the reels for his film
Amiga and CD32 in 1994. A SNES port
stolen from him on the night before the
was also planned at some point.
film’s premiere. The goal is to get to six
different levels, represented as movie The game feature 4 worlds including
sets, and return the film. ice, desert and fields, and have multi-
ple routes through. Enemies can be de-
The sets are themed around six different
stroyed by spinning at them, although
genres of film (sci-fi, Wild West, cartoon,
jumping over them is often sufficient.
etc.), and the backdrops, weapons and
Power-ups include speed ups, energy,
enemies fit these sections. After each
food and water (Quik’s thirst and hunger
platform level Clutch will have to pass
are measured separately). The bonus
through a film scene—piloting a runa-
levels involve jumping through time, by
way mine-cart, navigating a scrolling
finding the right doors.
shoot ‘em up level, or similar.
“mobygames.com”
“mobygames.com”

Other Releases
Other Releases
Amiga 1994
Amiga 1992
MS-DOS 1994

486 • Games - CD32

 preview article; Amiga CD32 Gamer #4 (September 1995)

488 • magazine article

 Machismo Machines
W
hat’s become one of the year’s biggest, mega-cor-
porate releases actually started out as quite a mod-
est project. In 1982 Sean Griffiths left the Bitmap
Bros to set up a seven man inhouse team for Mi-
rage, a small Cheshire-based software firm. Although their brief
was to develop games which would stretch the new CD-ROM
machines, the focus with Rise of the Robots was initially game-
play not jawdropping graphics.
Griffith had come up with the idea of two robots fighting and
was eager to implement some sophisticated AI (Artificial Intel-
ligence) routines. For example, every move a player can make
opens up a vast array of counter moves which the computer can
call up. These moves are arranged in large tables, with the move
selected depending not only on the robot’s various stats and the
difficulty level, but also its analysis of your own fighting style.
While the AI routines were being developed, instinct happened
to stumble across rendered technology. For Rise, the computer
artists draw a character only once — using Autodesk’s ubiqui-
tous PC 3D Studio — and then all the animation come from ma-
nipulating this model. When instructed to move the model’s arm,
the computer renders the new image according to highly precise
3D calculations. The 3D illusion is thus far more believable than
anything a human could produce by hand.
So far there are no home machines powerful enough to render
graphics on the fly — even the superfast PCs used to develop
the game take hours over a single image, let alone an entire ani-
mation sequence. Instead, the images are stored as pre-rendered
images which are used just like conventional frames of anima-
tion in a game like Street Fighter II. Unlike SFII, the impression
is not of a 2D cartoon - however beautifully drawn — but of a
totally realistic 3D environment.
AI AMIGA
While the graphics were developed on PC, the AI routines were
all produced on an Amiga. Andy Clark was one of the first people
hired for Instinct and while his previous job — a council office
clerk — was outside the industry Mirage were impressed with
his demos. Initially working on a humble A500 Andy has spent
over ten months refining the AI routines: “The thing I’m proud-
complete control
Ex-Bitmap Sean Harris, the con-
cept man, Sean Haden, artist and
the Mirage Offices in Congleton.
Such excitement from Congleton?
Surely it can’t be true.
est of how though it is to beat. On the maximum intelligence
setting it’ll give anyone a hard fight.” Andy soon graduated to
an Amiga 4000 on which he also set about coding the complete
range of Amiga conversions from A500 to CD32. The CD32
version has 128 colours, as opposed to the A500’s 32, and is a
very close match for the standard PC version. Each character has
about 400K of data, including 80-130 frames of animation, and
Andy is determined to keep the speed up. Although there are no
plans as yet to support all the CD32’s joypad buttons — like the
PC version all the special moves will work off a single firebut-
ton and timing — the CD32 version will have extra presentation
animation cut from the A1200 version — itself coming on a huge
14 fourteen disks!
Unsurprisingly it was the game’s graphics not the AI routines
which caused such a sensation at the show. Mirage’s MD, Peter
Jones, has been quick to capitalise with some exceptionally lu-
crative licensing deals. While originally only a PC and Amiga
product, a whole host of companies have picked up additional
versions. Absolute Entertainment in America licensed SNES
and 3DO versions, Phillips commissioned a CDi version, JVC
grabbed the Sega rights and, most impressive of all, Bell-Fruit
Manufacturing signed up for a full-blown coin-up version. But
probably the biggest deal came on the eve of the April ECTS
trade show, at 2am on the morning of the show’s start a deal
was signed with Time-Warner. One of the biggest entertainment
organisations, Time-Warner is, like most of its clued up competi-
tors, eager to enter the world of videogames. It has substantial
holdings in both Atari and 3DO, besides owning Tengen which
it recently re-named Time-Warner Interactive. Its Rise deal rep-
resented a substantial investment including no less than a mil-
lion dollars worth of advertising for Mirage. All the conversions
meant what was once a January release slipped back to autumn,
but Rise’s transformation from an ambitious, but small-scale re-
lease to a global, mega-corporate project was complete.
DESIGNER
VIOLENCE
While the rendering process does away with hand-drawing individual
frames of animation, creating the model for the computer to manipulate
in the first place is amazingly complex. Each part of a robot character
is first created as a 3D vector wireframe mesh, then linked using realis-
tically calculated joints to produce a fully poseable 3D model. Accord-
ing to Mirage some of the meshes are more complex than those used in
the movie Jurassic Park. Once the meshes are fixed they are painted not
simply with flat colours, but precisely calculated texture maps which are
further modified by the positioning of computer generated light sources
to illuminate them. The ambition of the project is summed up by the fact
that Mirage hired an interior designer, Kwan Lee, simply to provide the
game environment — one room per character, plus an exterior view of
the city Metropolis 4.
magazine article • 489
 Rise of the Robots

Rise of the Robots is a fighting game originally

developed for the Amiga and DOS by Mirage’s In-
stinct Design.

Set in the futuristic 2043, players control a top-

secret ECO35-2 combat cyborg as IT dispatches
insurgent robots infected from a potent computer
virus (the EGO virus) at Electrocorp’s Metropolis 4
plant before the robot army (led by a sentient na-
nomorph known as the Supervisor Droid) infects
the world.

The game is divided into a single player mode

and a two player versus mode. In single player
mode the player controls the ECO35-2 Cyborg as
he confronts the Supervisor’s minions across the
vast facilities of Electrocorp. The order in which
Developer Instinct Design each droid is fought is fixed, with each next adver-
Publisher Time Warner sary more difficult than the last. The sixth and final
Release date 1994 level is a confrontation with the Supervisor droid
Genre Fighting itself. Each character is introduced by a short pre-
Mode 1-2 Players
rendered 3D sequence, followed by an analysis of
potential weaknesses.
In two player versus mode, one player con-
trols the ECO35-2 droid by default, while the other
chooses between one of the five droids seen in
single player mode. Players then battle out against
each other in two to seven rounds. In the arcade
version, the players select eighteen characters but
each six characters has a different colour palette.

Jim Murdoch penned a

novelization of Rise of the
Robots, which was pub-
lished in 1995.

Other Releases
3DO 1995
Amiga 1994
CD-i 1995
MS-DOS (.ISO) 1994
Game Gear 1994
Genesis 1994
SNES 1994

CD32 Genesis

490 • Games - CD32

The game plays like a traditional one-on-
one round-based fighting game, with two
combatants fighting to deplete their oppo-
nents’ vitality.
While it is technically a six-button
fighting game, as each combatant has both
Punch and Kick attacks of three strengths
each, some versions of the game (namely
the original DOS and Amiga-based ver-
sions and the CDi version) only use a sin-
gle button for attacking, which is held down
and released in conjunction with key/joy-
stick input to determine the strength and
attack type.
Rise of the Robots was developed for the
Amiga and DOS platforms by Mirage’s
Instinct Design—a team of five program-
mers led by former Bitmap Brothers mem-
ber Sean Griffiths. Calling it superior to
Street Fighter II, Griffiths claimed Rise of
the Robots was not a conventional fight-
ing game, with “robots that fight and act
unusually, with a very high level of artificial
intelligence that has never been seen be-
fore”.
The graphics in Rise of the Robots
were created using Autodesk’s 3D Studio
software. The droids were designed by
Sean Naden with conjunction with Grif-
SNES MS-DOS
Jewel case
fiths. The backgrounds were created by
Kwan Lee, a freelance interior designer
who responded to an advertisement for a
graphic artist. Naden was tasked by Grif-
fiths to create “some kickass robots”. The
models for the droids were first created as
mesh frames so they can be stretched and
rescaled to create a desired look. Feeling
that the rendered models were “too clean”,
Naden created a 2D texture map and add-
ed colour and detail; the texture map is
then wrapped around the finished model
to “give it that extra level of detail”. The
Cyborg was the most complex character
to create because of his muscular appear-
ance; Naden studied muscle magazines to
create an anatomy for the Cyborg. Each
droid took two months to render, and was
expected to have 100 frames of animation.
Griffiths said that the team opted to use an
“unusual angle” for all droids “so the play-
er gets to see the whole robot”. The team
employed a chroma key technique to gen-
erate synthetic actors and place them on
the background.
Andy Clark, the programmer for the
Amiga version, was responsible for coding
the game’s artificial intelligence using a se-
ries of data tables. The AI is based around
various attributes—such as strength, in-
telligence, speed and motivation—which
alter the droid’s behaviour. Clark created
a table of responses to the opponent’s
CD32 - Games • 491
 moves, allowing the player to select the
best responses by using their droid’s in-
telligence and motivation. Other table
generators were also created to examine
which move the player is used frequently;
Clark said, unlike other fighting games, “if
you get good at a footsweep, then your op-
ponent will act more aggressively towards
that move”. The fighting moves were pro-
grammed by Gary Leach, who had experi-
ence in martial arts. Leach also ported the
AI tables to the PC version.
The game was hyped to feature
a dedicated soundtrack by rock guitarist
Brian May of Queen fame, though it was
instead done in-house, with parts of some
tracks from Brian May’s previous album
Back to the Light included. While May did
in fact record a full soundtrack to the game,
it was postponed by his record company,
causing Mirage to proceed without May’s
musical contribution, with the exception of
short guitar sounds.
Rise of the Robots was unveiled at the
Summer Consumer Electronics Show in
1993. The game was driven by a multimil-
lion-pound marketing campaign, which led
to a novel from Penguin Books, and talks
were carried out regarding toys, comics,
an animated series and a feature film.
The Mega Drive, Game Gear and
SNES versions were developed and pro-
grammed by Data Design Interactive. Ab-
solute Entertainment initially owned the
rights to the 3DO, Mega Drive, Game Gear,
and SNES versions of the game, but later
sold all Rise of the Robots rights back to
developer Mirage, save the 3DO version
rights. Mirage then sold the SNES rights
on to Acclaim Entertainment. In a reverse
of the usual pattern for video games, the
home versions were all developed and re-
leased first, with the enhanced arcade ver-
sion coming later. Coombs stated that Rise
of the Robots was originally developed for
the Amiga in mind, while the PC version
492 • Games - CD32
was a “conversion ‘upwards’, meaning ad-
ditions could be made”. She added that
problems were emerged with the console
versions, and porting the game from one
platform to another was not straightfor-
ward.
Rise of the Robots was originally
planned to be released in February 1994,
but got delayed because the developers
wanted to “continue to perfect the graph-
ics and enhance the gameplay as much
as possible”. Rise of the Robots was
eventually released in November 1994 for
Amiga platforms. The arcade version was
released in May 1995 in the United King-
dom; it was the main attempt by the slot
machine manufacturer Bell-Fruit to create
an arcade machine using a PC architec-
ture.
A “Director’s Cut” edition was re-
leased on PC. It contains a second disc
containing work in progress footage, in-
teractive pre-production animations and
rushes, still image galleries, and other be-
hind the scenes material.
A version for the Atari Jaguar CD
was in development by Art Data Interac-
tive and planned to be published by Time
Warner Interactive in 1995, but was never
released for unknown reasons.
Game Gear Amiga
Reviewing the Amiga version for Amiga combo system, and difficulty spikes. Kevin
Power, Jonathan Davies described how Green of Nintendo Life listed Rise of the
review copies had only been released Robots as one of the “games we hope to
to the press a few days before the game never see on the Virtual Console service”.
went on sale, and concluded by stating Green criticised the game for its monoto-
that “it’s probably because the graphics nous gameplay, non-existent game bal-
are [so] good that the game plays so poor- ance and limited controls, saying it “was
ly—every move the robots make takes so a horrible mess from start to finish, clearly
many frames of animation, and so much rushed out to make money from the beat-
memory, and so many months of render- em-up craze”.
ing with 3D Studio, that it simply wouldn’t
have been possible to make the gameplay Despite its critical and commercial fail-
any more complicated than it is”. Davies ure, Mirage released Rise 2: Resurrection
highlighted a number of flaws, including in 1996 as a more conventional fighting
the fact that the players could not turn game with extended features. The story
around, the limited sound effects and mu- expanded further upon that of the original
sic, the fact that the vast majority of com- game.
puter opponents could be
defeated by repeated use
of a simple flying kick,
and the static background
graphics. Andy Nuttall
of The One Amiga have
made similar comments;
he writes that “[e]xcept
on ‘Hard’ level all but the
Supervisor and one other
opponent can be slaugh-
tered by trapping them
in the corner and inflict-
ing repeated jump kicks”.
Nuttall criticised the game
for its short length, and
added that “there aren’t
enough characters”.

In 2014, GamesRadar
staff named Rise of the
Robots the 100th worst
video game ever made.
They discussed the pro-
pensity of bad 2D fighting
games in the 1990s, and
criticised its “aged” ren-
dered 3D graphics, poor
character balance, poor

some text from giantbomb.com

CD32 - Games • 493

 magazine review; Amiga Power #45 (January 1995)
by: Jonathan Davies;
RISE OF THE
Runs on: A500/A600 (1Mb),
A1200, CD32
Publisher: Mirage/Time
Warner
Authors: Instinct Design
Price: £40 (500/600), £43
(1200), £35 (CD32)
Release: Out now
W
e previewed Rise of the Ro-
bots in AP32, over a year
ago. Edge magazine put it
on their cover in the same month (an ac-
colade usually reserved for new consoles
from Sony or Sega), and ran an eight-
page feature on all the effort that was go-
ing into creating the graphics using 3D
Studio rendering software. Since then,
work on the Amiga version has been de-
layed by a proliferation of versions for
other formats — in total, Rise of the Ro-
bots is being produced for 22 different
machines, including CD-i and 3DO, and
there’s even a coin-up version. The mu-
sic has been written by Brian May, who
used to play guitar for pop group Queen.
A multi-million-pound marketing cam-
paign has led to a Rise of the Robots
novel from Penguin, and discussions are
underway regarding Rise of the Robots
toys, Rise of the Robots comic and a Rise
of the Robots cartoon series.
Meanwhile, here’s the Rise of the Ro-
bots game.
The flying kick’s done for him.
494 • magazine article
The flying kick swiftly
deals with this fellow.
THE GOOD POINTS
• The graphics are great. The robots
look suitably fearsome and move about
smoothly. The backgrounds look good
too.
THE REST
• This scene is set before each round by
animated sequences showing your op-
ponent walking into view, while text is
written on the screen a letter at time ac-
companied by a beep-beep-beep noise.
It is therefore necessary to switch these
off.
• As the two characters then face each
other, the battle is begun not by a voice
crying “Fight!”, but by some more text
being written a letter at a time accompa-
nied by beep-beep-beep noise.
• There are 7 different characters in Rise
of the Robots. In Street Fighter 2 there
are 12; Mortal Kombat 2, 17.
Tip: Use the flying kick to
defeat the boss at the end.
You’ll be wanting
the flying kick for
this one.
• In a one-player game you can only be
one of the characters — the blue one.
• In a two-player game, one of the play-
ers has to be the blue one.
• Each character performs the same set of
basic moves, plus as many as two ‘spe-
cial’ moves, performed, for example, by
moving the joystick Down and Up and
then pressing Fire.
• Only one fire button is used, even on
the four-button CD32 joypad.
• All the moves involve hitting your op-
ponent in some way — you can’t throw
him or crush him or launch a fireball at
him, and you certainly can’t pull off his
head or tear out his heart.
• Oh, except there are ‘secret’ moves as
well. These involve becoming invisible
(so the other player can’t see you), be-
coming invincible (if you manage to do
this before the other player, you can then
kill him without him being able to do
anything to prevent it), and — watch out
for this one in a future Kangaroo Court
— reversing the other player’s controls.
• Because of technical limitations, the
characters can’t turn around and face in
the opposite direction. This means that
ROBOTS
in two-player mode you can’t jump over
your opponents head to, for example,
avoid being trapped at the side of the
screen and helplessly killed.
• The backgrounds are static, rather than
scrolling, so the playing area is only as
large as the screen.
• The impact of these huge metal war-
riors striking each other is indicated by a
couple of small triangles floating to the
ground, and a crunch noise.
• The shadow beneath your robot over-
laps your opponent when you approach
him. There is an option to switch the
shadows off.
• Brian May’s music consists of a
guitar going “kerrannnnnnnng, ker-
rannnnnnnng, kerrannnnnnnng”, and is
confined to the option screen. During
the game there is no music at all.
• For some reason you have to ‘fight’ the
first group of baddies twice before you
can take on the sixth and final one.
• In Beginner mode, you can complete
the game by pushing the joystick up and
to the right, and then holding the fire
button down for about ten minutes.
• In Easy mode, you can compete the
game in the same way, although to beat
the last character you have to repeatedly
press Left, Right and Fire.
• In Medium mode, you can defeat the
first five characters in the same way, but
you then have to fight them all again in
Hard mode.
• In Hard mode, none of your moves
have any effect on the other characters
unless your power bar is charged up
to maximum when you make contact.
You charge it by pressing and holding
the fire button for a couple of seconds.
Unfortunately, as soon as you hit your
opponent (which is what tends to hap-
pen when you press the fire button), the
bar stops charging, so it is difficult to
see how the game could be completed
in Hard mode.
• As you hold Up, Right and Fire, the
robots initially try to fight back, but then
simply cower in the corner of the screen
until they die. This is presumably ow-
In this instance we’d advise
use of the flying kick.
ing to the “unique combat in-
telligence system that adapts
to and learns your style of
play”.
• In a two-player game, if
Player 1 holds Up/Right and
Fire, Player 2 loses the match
every time.
• The Amiga 1200 version
comes on 13 disks. 7 of these
are required to play the game,
5 contains the introductory se-
quence, and the other installs Hello. He’s off again.
the game to a hard drive.
• The CD32 version of Rise of
the Robots costs £35; the ordi-
nary Amiga version, £40; and the AGA What an astonishing waste of time.
version, £43. • JONATHAN DAVIES
We fear for the immortal souls of those
quoted on the packaging who would UPPERS
have you belived that Rise of the Ro- Nice graphics.
bots is worth 93%. (“You’ll wish all
your games were this good.” For pity’s DOWNERS
sake...) Farcically tedious.
We can only hope you haven’t already
been swayed by them, by any ‘exclu-
sive’ Rise of the Robots ‘reviews’ you THE BOTTOM LINE
may already read in rival Amiga maga-
Even if you don’t believe in
zines, by the Rise of the Robots TV and Father Christmas, it might be
cinema ads, by the national Rise of the worth writing to him to make
Robots ad in Viz, by the six-foot-high sure he doesn’t bring you a
cardboard Rise of the Robots cut-outs in copy of this.
computer game shops across the nation,
or by the big, exciting-looking Rise of
the Robots box it comes in.
Copies of Rise of the Robots were
Looks and plays the
only released to the press a couple of same as the CD32
days before the game went on sale, so version, and, although
it’ll have been in the shops for a month it comes on 13 disks,
before you’ve had a chance to read this. the swapping’s not that bad. Recog-
Rise of the Robots is terrible. I’m not nises a second drive, too.
exaggerating. Ironically, it’s probably
because the graphics are so good that
it plays so poorly — every move the
robots makes takes so many frames of
animation, and so much memory, and We haven’t seen a
son many months of rendering with 3D copy of the 500 ver-
Studio, that it simply wouldn’t have sion yet, but it inevita-
been possible to make the gameplay any bly won’t look quite so good. We’re
told the gameplay remains intact,
more complicated than it is. though. Phew.
magazine article • 495
 Ryder Cup: Johnnie Walker
Roadkill Developer RISC
Publisher Ocean
Developer Vision Software
Release date 1994
Publisher Acid Software
Genre Sports
Release date 1994
Mode 1-4 Players
Genre Action, Racing
Mode 1 Player Ryder Cup: Johnnie Walker is a golf
Roadkill is an top down combat racing game based on the Ryder Cup tourna-
game set in the future. There are 9 com- ment of 1993 which was played on the
puter opponents in each race, and play- Belfry course.
ers must finish in the top 3 every time. When on the field, the player has various
Rockets and homing missiles can be icons available which are used to display
collected so as to shoot the rival cars information, e.g. about the current hole
out. The game feature 12 tracks spread and wind. The game offers two different
over four different scenarios. The tracks control methods for the shot: two-click
feature inbuilt hazards and treacherous (clicking twice with the correct timing to
shortcuts. select the power and drift) and the stroke
The player can choose from 3 method (after selecting the power, a min-
difficulty levels, along with automatic or iature ball appears and the player has to
manual gears. click on it. The position of the click sets
The game was met with positive reviews where the club hits the ball and therefore
on release, many citing the gameplay the drift). The latter is also available in a
and controls as it’s best features. variant in which the ball randomly moves
to make it harder
“mobygames.com”
The tournament itself is a match between
a European and US team with twelve
athletes each. There is also the possi-
bility to train the single holes instead of
participating in the tournament.
“mobygames.com”

Other Releases Other Releases

Amiga 1994 Amiga CD32 1994
Amiga 1994
MS-DOS 1994

496 • Games - CD32

 Sabre Team

Sabre Team is an isometric squad-level turn-based

infiltration simulation game that let players assemble
and take command of a Sabre Team unit of four hand-
picked (from 8 available) elite S.A.S. agents as they
confront delicate and dangerous scenarios involving
terrorist threats and hostage situations.

Planning ahead is necessary and the player must take

several things into account, such as choosing weap-
onry, as they make different amounts of noise when
used (reducing the stealth potential) and their ammu-
nition is of varying weight.
In each turn the player have limited action points
per soldier, which must be used for all movement, firing
and reloading moves. The maps are viewed isometri-
cally, with a compass used to indicate the directions
of movement, and where the incoming fire emanated
from.
Developer Krisalis (?)
Publisher Krisalis Software Krisalis Software was planning two extra missions
Release date 1994
Genre Strategy
when updating Sabre Team for the CD32 and AGA
Mode 1 Player computers, but the only difference was the order the
missions are played. Other changes includes updat-
ed graphics, CD audio and new speech samples and
sound effects.

The game saw mostly positive reviews on release.

Amiga CD32 Gamer gave it 78% and wrote: “A grip-
ping mixture of tactical depth and shoot-‘em-up style
intensity.

Most reviews of the CD32

version of Sabre Team
was critical to the joypad
control system, and rec-
ommended players to use
a mouse instead.

Other Releases
Amiga 1992
Atari ST 1992
MS-DOS 1994 CD32 MS-DOS
Windows 2021

some text from mobygaames.com

CD32 - Games • 497

 Seek and Destroy

Seek and Destroy is a top-down shooter originally re-

leased for the Amiga systems. The developers of the
game, Vision Software, also created a DOS version
two years later. The game bears resemblance to the
1992 game Desert Strike.

Before each phase, players can enter a shop where

they can upgrade the weaponry, paying with golden
medals gathered during previous phases. The starting
weapons are the chain gun and rockets/tank shells.
Every weapon has three upgrade levels. The player
can also decide how much ammunition for each weap-
on to load, switching between the tank and the chop-
per, choose one of the three special weapons and
adjust the fuel/armor/speed characteristics. All these
preparations are surprisingly complex for a shooter of
this type, and a bad configuration can make the dif-
ficulty much greater.
Developer Vision Software
Missions are set in the desert and jungle as well
Publisher Mindscape
Release date 1994 as over the sea and in snowy regions. Most often the
Genre Shooter objectives are to seek and destroy, while performing
Mode 1 Player rescue operations and gathering powerups. The pow-
erups consist of ammunition, fuel, medals, among oth-
ers. A scanner is installed into the vehicle as a guide,
as is a mapping system and a limited shield.

The CD32 release was given several improvements

from the floppy release, including joypad support with
multiple usable buttons.

The Amiga version of Seek

and Destroy was well re-
ceived with positive re-
views from Amiga Format,
Amiga Power, CU Amiga
and The One.

Other Releases
Amiga 1992
MS-DOS 1994 CD32 MS-DOS

some text from mobygaames.com

498 • Games - CD32


The Seven Gates Of Jambala
Developer Thalion Software
Publisher Unique
Release date 1994
Genre Platformer
Mode 1 Player
The Seven Gates of Jambala is a plat-
form game with some similarities to
Ghosts ‘n Goblins.
The player takes control of an elf called
Dravion who must reach the seven cities
of Jambala, each which contains a piece
of a magic wand. The cities take the form
of horizontally scrolling levels. Dravion
can learn spells from NPCs which can
be used to destroy enemies.
The game was panned by critics when it
was released. Amiga Game Zone issue
2 (May 1992) gave the CD32 version an
‘F’ and wrote in their closing argument;
“Severely dated platform game with
bland visuals and no real appeal.”
The Games Machine, however,
gave it a score of 71% in issue 28 and
wrote; “It’s not bad but not good, and
certainly not magic.”
Sixth Sense Investigations
Developer CineTech
Publisher Epic Marketing
Release date 1998
Genre Adventure
Mode 1 Player
Sixth Sense Investigations is a point-
and-click game in the same style as Lu-
casArts’ Day of the Tentacle. It was origi-
nally released in United Kingdom and
Germany in 1998.
The game follow a young man, Frank,
who runs a detective agency with his
sidekick Ben and the spirit of a man
named Arthur.
Like most graphics adventure games,
the game is controlled via a collection of
verbs at the bottom of the screen.
The game was developed by CineTech,
with 8 people working from different
places all over the globe. This was many
on the teams first official game project.
The game reportedly never sold many
copies.

Other Releases
Amiga 1990
Other Releases
Atari ST 1989
Amiga 1998

CD32 - Games • 499

 review; CU Amiga Magazine #104 - Game Review (October 1998);
Sixth Sense
Investigations
▀ Price: £29.99 ▀ Available from: Epic Marketinge
It’s too early to start proclaiming a renaissance, but it is at least fair to say
that graphical adventure games are starting to enjoy a bit more respect again
these days.
W
ith Big Red Adventure and
now Sixth Sense Investiga-
tions, those who have com-
pleted Monkey Island for the 30th time
at least have a few more options. Sixth
Sense was actually released some time
ago on floppy (many of them), and is
finally seeing a proper CD release com-
plete with full speech, not to mention
extensive hard drive savings.
In case you forgot
The full graphical adventure evolved
from the impulse to get away from all-
text adventures (which could be exqui-
sitely crafted prose or quick and dirty
diversions) or mixed text/still graph-
ics games. Sierra King’s Quest is typi-
cally identified as the mould-breaker,
but even it relied on a good deal of text
input. LucasArt’s SCUMM system is
considered by many to be the perfection
of the form — a GUI where characters
can be moved simply by clicking on a
destination, where inventory manage-
ment is easily done by scrolling around
a list, and there is a small on-screen list
of commands — usually very simple,
“talk to”, “use”, “give”, “examine” and
so forth. Coincidence or not, SCUMM
games also tended to be quite whimsical
in tone.
500 • magazine article
Sixth Sense follows
very closely in those foot-
steps. Further, it adopts
the “no-kill” philosophy
of some of the LucasArts
games, most notably Day
of the Tentacle. It is im-
possible to be “killed” or
to hit a dead-end in the
game. This can be a bless-
ing and a curse — more on
that later.
The idea of the game
is innocent enough. Your character,
Frank, is the proprietor of a small de-
tective agency. Your staff consists of
a pesky mouse that lives in the floor-
boards, Ben, a somewhat wild-looking
individual with the ability to tap into
the spirit world to help you solve cases,
and Arthur, an inhabitant of said spirit
world. But you’ve got the big pipe
crammed in your face, so that makes
you the ringleader of the ragtag group.
(Later in the game you become Ben for
certain scenes).
Although the packaging is rather
straightforward, the instructions manual
is bound in the shape of a detective’s
notebook — a very nice touch. The
typeface is rather small, unfortunately.
Further, it’s a very good idea to both
read the manual and watch
the game’s intro closely. They
provide very different sets of
information about the game
world, but understanding both
is necessary, because very ear-
ly on the game presumes you
understand who is who and
◂ That appears to be a
‘Queen’ poster on his bed-
room wall. I don’t think I
want to know...
what history you have with them.
The CD edition of Sixth Sense adds
high-quality digitized speech to virtu-
ally every bit of text encountered within
the game. This replaces the normal
text display of the floppy version. The
talents unleashed on the world in this
game won’t be giving your favourite
radio performers a run for their money
any time soon — in general, the job they
do is adequate, although there are a few
places where the actor didn’t grasp the
context of his line and so spoke it with
the wrong emphasis, and other places
where the speech gets a bit mumbly
and you wish you’d turned the text dis-
play on. You can disable voices at any
point during the game, but if you’re in
the middle of a long exposition there’s
nothing you can do but listen care-
fully. A “voice and text” option would
have been nice. And then there’s the
inexplicable transformation that was
done on Frank’s voice — on the CD it
is stored both in its original form, and
in a slowed-down version to give him a
deeper voice, but it’s very obvious to the
ear that is exactly what has been done,
and it’s very irritating. And Frank says a
lot of irritating things, so it’s only made
worse.

Is that a radiator knob on his head... or is he
just pleased to see you?
A Difficult Assignment
By the developer’s own admissions,
Sixth Sense is quite difficult. They
didn’t want anyone to feel they hadn’t
gotten their money’s worth — in fact,
the authors claim that even with a walk-
through in hand, completing the game
takes between 8-10 hours! The curve is
fairly steep too, though — most games,
regardless of difficulty, present a few
“warm-up” scenes to build comfort and
confidence with the game world and
the story, but Sixth Sense affords no
such luxuries. (There’s a locked door
that can’t immediately be opened in
your own bedroom, for goodness sake!)
There is certainly an epic adventure
feel, however, especially when you are
able to step beyond the bounds of con-
ventional world and head into the two
more unusual realms — that of the ro-
bot or that of the cartoons. It’s not very
likely that if you’re the type who picks
up a new game and plays through a
weekend that you’ll be done by Monday
morning. It’s still unfortunate that the
“pre-game” wasn’t a bit more forgiving,
because it’s nice to feel an early sense
of accomplishment before being thrown
into the story proper. For example — in
Zak McCracken, LucasArts’s second
SCUMM game, the title character had
to face such challenges as retrieving a
cash card from under his desk and find-
ing his remote control (under the sofa
cushions, where else?) before tackling
the larger issue of saving the world from
alien mindbenders. I didn’t feel I was
treated to such a warmup, however... you
walk out of your office with a few items
in hand and are suddenly on the main
game map where a half-dozen puzzles
await you and it’s not clear in which or-
der you should try to solve them.
Sixth Sense’s interface is about as
straightforward as they come — nine
commands, plus an implicit “walk to.”
By default, the pointer on-screen acts as
a “walk to” indicator, but when placed
over an object or person, it switches
to the “most likely” action (push for a
button, talk for a person, take for many
other objects, etc.) In some way, the
interface is something of a synthesis
between the SCUMM and Sierra inter-
faces. Most of the time the game, writ-
ten in the new “Vega” system, works
quite well, but there were a surprising
number of locations that the main char-
acter doesn’t walk to properly — taking
a detour only to turn around again. This
happens most noticeably on the main
map screen, a nice addition to a game
like this one, where each location you
can visit (in the early going, such places
as a laboratory, a used car dealer and
a garage, a toy manufacturer, a cheese
shop) are shown roughly to scale on a
scrolling map that you can take Frank
down.
I was pleasantly surprised with the
quality of the graphics in Sixth Sense.
While it’s obviously derivative of the
LucasArts style, Sixth Sense’s artists
had the good sense not to simply clone it
wholesale. The art is pleasantly steeped
in fantasy without being overly gaudy
or distracting. (The comic proportions
of Ben’s slouch and Frank’s pipe were
a bit annoying, though,) If only the ani-
mation met the quality of the still im-
ages. Characters don’t walk so much as
glide through the game, and even then
not always smoothly — such as when
Ben sets off on his first assignment of
the game in the early going.
Ja, Funny!
What would happen if a group of Ger-
mans and Italians got together, wrote an
adventure game, and then had it trans-
lated into English? Why, Sixth Sense
Investigations, of course! The now-
famous Amiga Translator Organization
(ATO) lent a Herculean hand to the
conversion of
Sixth Sense, but
there are quite a Sixth Sense Investigation
few reminders
that what you’re ▀ Processor..........020, AGA
hearing (or read- ▀ Disks............................CD Sound............................86%
ing, if you can’t ▀ RAM....2Mb (4 for speech)
▀ HD......................Required
take the voiceo-
vers) probably OVERALL
didn’t come from Uneven at times but still a worthy
the pen of a na- submission to the world of adventure
tive speaker. gaming.
Even the game’s promotional materi-
als have the “straight from the transla-
tion dictionary” feel — “The base sto-
ryboard tells of a crazy young guy who
has the ability to communicate with
the spirit of a sarcastic man.” But hey,
sometimes a hit is a hit no matter who
wrote it first: “Heroic quests are wait-
ing for the detectives, for example the
investigation in a cheese storage.”
The verdict on Sixth Sense is that,
overall, it is a solid effort. The “no-kill”
policy creates a serious problem that I
don’t think the game designers fully ap-
preciated, however. In a game where
one can make a fatal or “no-win sce-
nario” mistakes, it’s possible to learn
from those mistakes. (“Oops! The house
blew up when I turned the lights on. I
guess I’d better make sure the gas isn’t
stuck on before I do that next time”). In
a game like the Sixth Sense, however,
that can’t happen. One way to solve the
problem would be, for example, to have
the character say “I don’t think I should
turn the lights on — it smells like gas
in here!” Unfortunately, in Sixth Sense
there aren’t many “I can’t do that, but
here’s a clue” clues. Typically, the
game just feeds you a stock “I can’t/
don’t want to do that thing” line which
is fantastically unhelpful. And despite
the manual’s fair warning that the game
uses “a totally sick logic”, it doesn’t
explain that said logic may not be very
clear to you even after you stumble on
the right solution.
An unlimited load/save capability
rounds off the package. The flaws in
Sixth Sense are there, but they don’t stop
it from being a pleasant, even rewarding
game once you get into a rhythm. The
CD version represents superior value if
for no other reason than convenience —
my guess is that you won’t want to leave
the speech on full-time. ▀
Jason Compton
Graphics........................84%
Lastability......................89%
Playability......................75%
83 %
magazine article • 501
 Shadow Fighter

Shadow Fighter is a 2D fighting game developed

and published by Gremlin (in conjunction with
NA.P.S. Team) for the Amiga exclusively in Eu-
rope in late 1994. ����������������������������
The enhanced version was re-
leased in early 1995 (also exclusively in Europe)
both for Amiga systems running AGA chipsets
(namely the A1200 and A4000) and for the CD32
(adding an arranged soundtrack).

Shadow Fighter plays like a traditional fighting

game, similar to the Street Fighter II series. Play-
ers have only one attack button to work with (the
“Fire” button, used for both punches and kicks),
although each character has numerous special
moves that utilize both the joystick/joypad/key-
board movement and the Fire button.
Along with the traditional one-player and
two-player Versus modes, the game includes a
one-player campaign mode (known as Cham-
Developer N.A.P.S.
Publisher Gremlin
pionship Fight) and a training mode (known as
Release date 1995 Training Battle). Training Battle is unique as play-
Genre Fighting ers fight a dedicated opponent (Pupazz the train-
Mode 1-2 Players ing dummy).
In Championship Fight, players have a
limited amount of continues and must defeat
each opponent to progress. Access to the game’s
character roster, as well as the game’s length, is
tied to the difficulty selected.

To rival the bloody vio-

lence of Mortal Kombat, a
“blood mode” is included
in the game, which can be
toggled on or off.

Other Releases
Amiga 1994
Antstream 2019 CD32 Amiga (ECS/OCS)

502 • Games - CD32

The game includes 16 playable charac-
ters from the start, with an additional two
characters playable with cheat codes: the
‘Training Mode’ dummy Pupazz and the fi-
nal boss Shadow.
In the game’s single-player cam-
paign, access to most characters are diffi-
culty-locked.
Developed as a collaboration between a
team of Italian developers and the British
software house Gremlin, Shadow Fighter
is known for being one of the few fighting
games for the Amiga that has smooth ani-
mation (for both character sprites and par-
allax-scrolling backgrounds) and gameplay
mechanics accurate to other popular fight-
ing games of the time. The game runs at a
constant 25 frames per second, however
with the use of a cheat the game could be
made to run at 50fps on AGA Amigas
The game was acclaimed by critics, and in
1996 it was ranked the 20th best game of
all time by Amiga Power.
some text from giantbomb.com
CD32 - Games • 503
 article; The One Amiga #58 (July 1993);
PROJECT: Simon The Sorceror
PUBLISHER: AdventureSoft
DEVELOPER: In-house
Simon Woodroffe (Design)
Michael Woodroffe, Alan Bridgman
(Production, Programming)
Paul Drummond, Kevin Preston,
Maria Drummond, Jeff Wall,
Karen Pinchin (Graphics)
Adam Gilmore (Music)
INITIATED: Late 1992
RELEASE: September 1993
L ook, forget the limited illustrated
text-based adventures such as
The Incredible Hulk and Gremlins.
Ignore, if you can, the unremarkable
pseudo RPG adventure with Elvira.
After a decade in ‘the biz’, the Adven-
tureSoft team are about to come of age
with an adventure in the style of Mon-
key Island et al. It’s called Simon The
Sorcerer.
“Simon The Sorcerer is a comedy
fantasy,” explains industry veteran
Mike Woodroffe, one of Simon The
Sorcerer’s programmers. “I’ve always
wanted to write a game that made peo-
ple laugh - there have only been two so
far: Hitchhiker’s and Monkey Island.
They were so entertaining. The best
504 • Games - CD32
WORK IN PROGRESS
thing about doing a fantasy adventure
is that you can do anything you want
and it doesn’t matter. You don’t have
to have reasons for things.”
Like Simon’s hat? “Exactly.” You
see, Simon stores everything he col-
lects, regardless of its size, in his mag-
ic hat. It’s a neat way to explaining
how he manages to carry all that stuff
around without a bloody big knapsack
and severe back problems.
“Simon The Sorcerer has been fun
to do - it’s certainly the most entertain-
ing project I’ve been involved with so
far,” continues Mike. “I haven’t got
sick of it yet and it’s nearly finished.”
Simon isn’t actually a magician.
He’s yer average 14-year-old school-
boy who just happens to have inad-
vertently transported himself into a
bizarre fantasy land full of magic,
mystery, monsters, marvels and other
alliterative words including mould as
in the one used by LucasArts to cre-
ate their distinctive adventures. And if
you don’t know what that entails that
makes you a loser.
Adventure Soft took a look at the
LucasArts’ interface and decided they
could go not one, not ten but a squil-
lion times better. Even at this stage it’s
fair to say that the result is the most ac-
complished adventures of its type. Of
course, whether the situations, humour
and puzzles will be to your liking re-
mains to be seen.
“We’ve developed our own lan-
guage called AGOS,” Mike reveals.
“It took two years to write and this is
our fifth games with it. When we find
something it can’t do, we add to it.
It’s capable of running any adventure
product. We could even do arcade-style
games but we don’t want to. The great
thing about it is you don’t need to be
a programmer to use it. Programmers
can be a problem. AGOS also makes
things easier to tune. We don’t really
gets bugs as such. Any problems that
arise can be sorted out in minutes be-
cause you can tell immediately where
it’s happened and why.”
The most immediate thing about Si-
mon The Sorcerer is it looks so pretty.
And unlike the latest LucasArts stuff,
it’s clear-cut, fluid and doesn’t slow
down. It also doesn’t feel as disjointed,
and there seem to be very few situa-
 tions where the player is left
feeling distanced from what’s
going on. But enough of those
reviewy-type observations.
That’s for the Autumn.
“We’ve used five real artists,”
Mike reveals. “They sketched
out the pictures first as line art
then we scanned them and then
(Above) The original line- touched them up and colored
art for a scene at the troll’s them in. The results are far
bridge. This picture is
scanned, touched up and
clearer than digitised full-colour
colored. The result is clean- paintings and colour can be used
er and lighter on memory more efficiently.”
than digitising a full-colour There are over one hundred
painting.
screens to explore in Simon The
A few of the troll’s anima-
Sorcerer. You can expect to see
tion frames, along with the an inn, a shop, a blacksmith’s,
artist’s original sketch. As a wizard’s cottage and garden,
you can see there’s very lit- a good witch’s house, a court-
tle difference.
yard, a forest, a dragon’s cave,
a dwarf mine, a gollem’s cave, a
swampling’s house, a goblin vil-
lage... and more besides. To give
the screens more depth, multiple
masks are used to allow charac-
ters to walk behind and in front
of objects and scenery.
And here you have it: The scene as seen in the adventure There are dozens of distin-
proper. Well, with the exception of Simon’s absence. guished characters to meet too:
members of the wizard’s magic
circle, Repulser the pig, deranged
dwarves, a wherefrog... and so on.
And what about the interface?
It’s not a million miles away
from the LucasArts one... If it
ain’t broke, don’t fix it is the rea-
soning here. “The interface has
to be as simple as possible. You
have to think of the most basic,
flexible commands. The player
has to get around and be able to
see what’s what so WALK and
LOOK are obvious. OPEN and
CLOSE can be used in differ-
ent ways so those are essential.
MOVE and USE cater for other
functions. Items of clothing are
covered by WEAR and RE-
MOVE. Eating and drinking are
covered by CONSUME. TALK
and GIVE are useful too. With
those commands you can do al-
most anything.”
Simon The Sorcerer will
probably come on six disks -
compared to Monkey Island 2’s
eleven, “And it’s a bigger game,”
says Mike. An 1200 version is
a certainty, with more colours
and possibly a few extra treats
thrown in for good measure.
CD32 - Games • 505
 Simon the Sorcerer

Simon the Sorcerer is a 1993 point-and-click ad-

venture game, developed and published by Ad-
venture Soft for Amiga and MS-DOS.

The game’s story focuses on a boy named Simon

who is transported into a parallel universe of magic
and monsters, where he embarks on a mission to
become a wizard and rescue another from an evil
sorcerer. The game’s setting was inspired by the
novels of the Discworld series, and incorporates
parodies on fantasy novels and fairy tales, such as
The Lord of the Rings and Jack and the Beanstalk.

Simon the Sorcerer is a point-and-click adventure

game very similar to contemporary LucasArts ti-
tles (in particular Monkey Island) in concept and
gameplay. It features twelve verbs displayed on
the screen at all times for interaction with the en-
Developer Adventure Soft
vironment. Objects that can be interacted with are
Publisher Adventure Soft
Release date 1994 highlighted when the player hovers the mouse
Genre Adventure cursor over them. The puzzles are inventory-
Mode 1 Player based: Simon will have to collect and carry a large
number of items in order to advance in the game.
Almost every character comes with an extended
dialogue tree to explore. Most of the conversation
choices are used for a humorous effect and are
not required to pursue.

Simon the Sorcerer was re-

released by GOG.com with
compatibility and support for
Windows XP, Vista, and 7 for
both 32 and 64-bit.

Other Releases
Acorn 32-bit 1994
Amiga 1994
Android 2013
MS-DOS 1993
iPad/iPhone 2009, 2010
Macintosh 2012
Windows 2002
CD32 Windows

506 • Games - CD32

 Like in LucasArts’ adventures, it is Simon Woodroffe explained that the
impossible to get irrevocably stuck or die in character of Simon was a mixture of Black-
Simon the Sorcerer. The game world con- adder, Rincewind, and Guybrush, and that
sists of dozens of interconnected screens, he was originally intended to be a trainee
most of which are accessible from the very wizard, similar to Harry Potter. He also ex-
beginning. Although there is usually only plained that he was invented because they
one way to solve the puzzles, the player needed a character to compete with char-
can work on multiple tasks at once, and acters such as Rincewind, and that the
exploration occupies a large portion of the game was inspired by the Discworld books
game. Whenever an important location is and Monkey Island. Mike Woodroffe said
discovered, it is marked on the map for that the game was inspired by Dungeons &
instant access, so that the player is not Dragons’ magic stories. Other influences,
required to retrace their steps in order to according to Simon Woodroffe, included
revisit it. The game frequently parodies Red Dwarf, Fawlty Towers, and Monty Py-
popular fairy tales and fantasy works and thon. The character was invented during a
sometimes breaks the fourth wall as Simon journey on the M5 motorway, and was not
directly talks to the player, acknowledging named after Woodroffe. The name “Simon
he is a character in a computer game. the Sorcerer” had that format because of
the magical nature of the character, and
Mike Woodroffe, Simon the Sorcerer’s di-
rector and producer, wanted to
create the game to exploit a mar-
ket for comic adventure games,
which he realised existed due to
the success of Monkey Island 2:
LeChuck’s Revenge. His son,
Simon, penned the script. He
was inspired by Terry Pratch-
ett (Adventure Soft originally
intended to make a Discworld
game, but were unable to obtain
a licence), and he and his father
hoped that he would become in-
volved with the game. Although
he chose not to become in-
volved, the script still contained
much original humour. Many
scenes are based on fairy tales,
and the Wise Owl was modelled
on Patrick Moore. Woodroffe
said that Adventure Soft (then
known as HorrorSoft) had done
enough horror games and want-
ed to try a comedy game. The
change in genre prompted the
name change.

CD32 - Games • 507

 because other names, such as “Willy The
Wizard”, were rejected because they were
disliked. Simon the Sorcerer was devel-
oped by a team of 15 people. There was
an effort to be British so as to distinguish
themselves from the humour of Monkey
Island. Simon Woodroffe stated that his
greatest challenges were the script crea-
tion and puzzle design, and he tuned
the scripts (which were written in an in-
house scripting language) continuously.
The world was created for the characters
rather than the puzzles, and the story was
wrapped around characters the team liked.
Woodroffe believed that Adventure Soft
were able to rival more experienced studi-
os due to their small team, all of whom had
the same goals and passion for the game.
Alan Brigman was the technical
director and co-producer. He and Mike
Woodroffe developed a game creation
system, Adventure Graphic Operating
System (AGOS) II, which facilitated the
development of Simon the Sorcerer and
enabled the team to focus on the game-
play and story without worrying about the
technical aspects. The system allowed the
developers to input text commands on a
separate monitor, and the engine could be
ported to other platforms. Other features
of the engine included translating actions
performed by the mouse into text com-
mands (a sentence parser carries them
MS-DOS iPhone
508 • Games - CD32
out), the loading of data as needed, and
functions could be implemented by the
simple addition of commands. The game
was built as a database, which contained
tables for rooms and objects. These tables
contained animation code and information
about what is supposed to happen. Alan
Cox was also involved in the development
of the AGOS engine, which is based on
AberMUD.
The art was developed by Paul
Drummond (lead artist), Kevin Preston
(who hand-drew the character art and ani-
mation), Maria Drummond, Jeff Wall, and
Karen Pinchin. Their work included char-
acter animations, developed in Autodesk
Animator using its language POCO, which
the graphics tools were built in. The art-
work (including the sprites) was made as
a selection of clips, and a final image was
formed by pasting them together. The abil-
ity to use clips in multiple locations, and
the colour information being stored sepa-
rately and used on an as-needed basis
meant that the art took much less space
than was usual. The background artwork
was sketched in black-and-white, and then
scanned into a computer and colourised.
The music is credited to Media Sorcery
(Adam Gilmore and Mark McLeod).
Simon the Sorcerer was released on flop-
py disk in 1993 for the Amiga and IBM PC
compatibles. It was re-released in 1994
for the Amiga CD32 and PC
CD-ROM, with an enhanced
soundtrack featuring Chris
Barrie as the voice of Simon.
Simon Woodroffe stated that
he had Barrie in mind when
writing the scripts (Woodroffe
said he is a fan of Red Dwarf
and Arnold Rimmer), and that
it was easier for him to do so
when thinking of an actor he
knew speaking the lines. It
cost around £3000 per day to
hire Barrie. Woodroffe said that there was “no hesita-
tion” in doing a talkie version, and that it was “the next
big thing”. He also said that Barrie was “very patient and
professional”. Simon the Sorcerer used the visual and in-
terface designs from LucasArts’ games, and Woodroffe
stated that this was because they had set a standard, and
that Adventure Soft’s focus was humour and story-telling.
The CD32 version also feature joypad/mouse
(plugged into joypad port 2) and savegame support (due
to memory restrictions only one savegame position at a
time is possible to the CD32’s internal NVRAM memory).

Simon the Sorcerer received critical acclaim: across all

platforms, the humour and visuals in particular
were commended, although criticisms included the
controls and the game’s linear nature. The game’s
global sales surpassed 600,000 units by Septem-
ber 1999.
The Amiga version received generally high
ratings. CU Amiga praised the high quality graphics
and how much fun the game was to play.
The CD32 version was noted for its
speech. CU Amiga’s Dean Evans was im-
pressed with “sumptuous” backgrounds
and the animation, and believed the
main selling point was the digitised
speech, especially Chris Barrie as
Simon. The reviewer of Amiga CD32
Gamer was impressed with the sound-
track, describing it as “top notch”,
and thought the story had plenty of wit.
The main criticism was the scenes
downplaying interaction, making
the comedy linear.

A ‘20th Anniversary Edition was de-

veloped by MojoTouch and released
for Android in 2013. This version
featured new animations and icons,
remastered music, high-definition
graphics, and new game menus. A
25th Anniversary Edition was released on the iOS App
Store, Steam and GOG.com in 2018.
A sequel, Simon the Sorcerer II: The Lion, the Wiz-
ard and the Wardrobe, was released in 1995. Nine titles in
the series has since been released, the last being Simon
the Sorcerer: Origins, which is due for release in March,
2023.

CD32 - Games • 509

 Sensible Soccer: European Champions
(92/93 Edition)

Sensible Soccer, often called Sensi, is a associa-

tion soccer game series which was highly popular
in the early 1990s and which still retains a cult
following. It was developed by Sensible Software
and first released for Amiga and Atari ST comput-
ers in 1992.

Sensible Soccer: European Champions is an

slightly improved version of Sensible Soccer. The
console and Acorn versions are based on Sensi-
ble Soccer 92/93, but are simply named Sensible
Soccer.

The game feature a zoomed-out bird’s-eye view

(the majority of games until then such as Kick Off
and Match Day used a closer top-down or side
view), editable national, club and custom teams
and gameplay utilising a simple and user-friendly
Developer Apache control scheme.
Publisher Renegade The basic control system involves loose
Release date 1994
control, dribbling with the ball and putting the em-
Genre Sport
Mode 1-64 Players phasis on one-touch passing, which can be per-
formed by tapping the fire button.
One of the defining gameplay elements is
the “aftertouch” feature, which enable effective
but unrealistic swerves.

Other Releases
Amiga CD32 1994
Amiga 1992
Antstream 2019
Atari ST 1992

CD32 Atari ST

510 • Games - CD32


The game features customisable
league and cup competitions as well
as pre-set cups including the 1992 Eu-
ropean Championships. There are 168
teams in total, 40 European nations, the
64 top club sides, and 64 custom teams.
At club and country level, each team has
three star players who are more gifted
that the others.
The basis for Sensible Soccer was Mi-
croProse Soccer, released for home
computers in 1988. It was designed by
Jon Hare and programmed by Chris
Yates, who adapted the gameplay for-
mat of arcade game Tehkan World Cup
(1985) while adding their own elements
to create MicroProse Soccer. Hare and
Yates went on to use MicroProse Soc-
cer as the basis for Sensible Soccer in
1992, making further improvements to
the gameplay.
The series would make a return in the
summer of 2006, with a full 3D title re-
leased on PC, PlayStation 2 and Xbox.
Codemasters, the holders of the licence,
released Sensible Soccer 2006 across
all PAL territories, with the design capa-
bilities overseen by Jon Hare, the origi-
nal designer of the game.
Sensible Soccer:
International Edition
Developer Apache
Publisher Renegade
Release date 1994
Genre Sport
Mode 1-64 Players
International Sensible Soccer, otherwise
known as Sensible Soccer: International
Edition, is the third iteration of Sensible
Software’s highly acclaimed top-down
soccer series Sensible Soccer. Like the
previous game, Sensible Soccer 92/93,
it includes several incremental game-
play improvements as well as a few new
features.
The most significant change is
the addition of red and yellow cards for
discipline (2 yellow card offenses or one
‘professional foul’ results in that player
being sent off). The goalkeepers have
been improved in skill, a new interna-
tional content mode—the World Cup—
and referee sprites that can be seen on
the pitch.
“mobygames.com”

Other Releases

MS-DOS Amiga Acorn 32-bit 1993

Amiga 1992
Atari ST 1992
MS-DOS 1992

CD32 - Games • 511

 Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe

Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxeis, sequel to the 1988

game Speedball, is an action sports game based
on a violent futuristic cyberpunk sport that draws
on elements of handball and ice hockey, and re-
wards violent play as well as goals. The concept
of the game is very reminiscent of the 1975 film
Rollerball.

The game is set in 2105, 10 years after the original

game, and the player take control of a new team,
Brutal Deluxe.

The objective of Speedball is to win matches by

scoring more points than the opposing team, mov-
ing up through the Speedball leagues earning
credits to enhance the team’s armour and to hire
new star players.
Developer Bitmap Brothers The players team, Brutal Deluxe, is a low
Publisher Renegade level league team with 12 homogenous players
Release date 1995
Genre Action, Sports
with names like Nigel, Graham and Barry. Over the
Mode 1-2 Players course of a season the player can hire star players
like Gaza, Roscopp and Jams to bolster the roster
and/or boost the starting players stats by buying
upgrades to make them more specialised for given
positions around the field.
Speedballers throw the steel ball around
the pitch, shoulder charging their opponents in the
process to jostle them out of the way of the scor-
ing areas. There are four ways to score in a game
of Speedball: Throwing the ball in the opposing

Other Releases
Amiga CD32 1995
Amiga 1990
Acorn 32-bit 1994
Antstream 2019
Atari ST 1990
BlackBerry 2013
Commodore 64 1991
MS-DOS 1991
Game Boy 1992
Game Boy Advance 2001
Genesis 1991
J2ME 2005
Sega Master System 1992
Windows Mobile 2002
Xbox 360 2007
CD32 MS-DOS

512 • Games - CD32

team’s Goal = 10 points, throwing the ball
against a Bounce Dome = 2 points, light-
ing one of the five Stars = 2 points plus a
10 point bonus for lighting all five stars and
injuring an opposing player = 10 points.
Speedball 2 makes several chang-
es over the original Speedball. Teams
have nine players on court rather than five,
and targets on the floor and walls can be
hit to receive bonus points. When a player
is injured, he is replaced by one of three
substitutes. If all three substitutes are in-
jured, the injured player will be forced to
return to the game and play on in spite of
his injuries.
There are five game modes: knock-
out, cup, league, practice and multiplayer.
Each game lasts for 180 seconds.

Speedball 2 is one of Bitmap Brothers’

most successful titles. Zzap, CU Amiga
and Computer and Video Games scored
the game highly. The music, written by Si-
mon Rogers and remixed and coded by
Richard Joseph, won the 1991 Golden
Joystick Award for Best Soundtrack. The
voices, including the ‘Ice Cream’ sales-
man, were voiced by ‘sometime Richard
Joseph collaborator’ Michael Burdett work-
ing under the pseudonym Jams O’Donnell.
The game was voted the 3rd best
game of all time in Amiga Power. And in
1994, PC Gamer US named Speedball 2
the 24th best computer game ever. The
editors wrote, “You just can’t beat this
game for pure action.” That same year, PC
Gamer UK named it the 30th best comput-
er game of all time, calling it “totally con-
vincing and very stylish”.

Various remakes of Speedball 2 have

been released. Speedball 2100, released
only for the PlayStation, is a 3D version of
Speedball 2 with more options.
Empire Interactive released Speed-
ball 2: Brutal Deluxe onto Xbox Live Arcade
in 2007. The game features a 3D graphics
mode in addition to the “classic” visuals.
Frogster Interactive Pictures re-
leased a remake, Speedball 2 Tournament
onto Steam in 2007.
In 2011, Tower Studios released
another updated version called Speedball
2: Evolution, for iOS, MacOS, PlayStation
Portable and PlayStation 3.
A remake for PC titled Speedball 2
Genesis Xbox 360 HD was released in 2013 on Steam.

CD32 - Games • 513

 Soccer Kid

Soccer Kid is a side-scrolling platform game origi-

nally developed and published by Krisalis Soft-
ware in Europe for the Amiga. The title was later
ported to other home computers and consoles,
each one featuring several changes and additions
compared to the original version.

In the game, players assume the role of the titular

main protagonist who travels across several coun-
tries around the world to repair the World Cup by
retrieving pieces that were scattered by the alien
pirate Scab, the main antagonist who failed to
steal and add it to his trophy collection in a rob-
bery attempt.

The players guides Soccer Kid across different

countries, including Britain, Italy, Russia, Japan,
Developer Krisalis Software (?)
and the United States. Each country has three lev-
Publisher Krisalis Software els that the player must navigate through.
Release date 1994 The player character can perform various
Genre Platformer types of soccer moves such as runs, shots, bicycle
Mode 1 Player kicks, headers and other sorts of moves to either
advance in the level, get to hard-to-reach areas or
eliminate enemies by using his soccer ball as the
main tool. At the end of each third level, the player
must fight a boss, based on stereotypical people
associated with their respective country. However,
the player must always explore each level to find
soccer cards, which are crucial to getting the cup
at the end of the game.

Other Releases
3DO 1994
Amiga 1994
Browser 2021
MS-DOS 1995
Game Boy Advance 2002
Jaguar 2000
PlayStation 2003
SNES 1994
Windows 2019
Windows Mobile 2002

CD32 Jaguar

514 • Games - CD32

 Once a country is completed and
all the cards in that country are collected,
Soccer Kid is transported to a bonus level
where he must collect all the food against
limited time for a piece of the cup to be
obtainable.
The title screen for most versions of Soc-
cer Kid would allow the player to change
the colors on the uniform Soccer Kid wears
in-game to closely match their supported
team.
Conceived by Dean Lester, Soccer Kid
was created by most of the same team
who previously worked on the popular
Manchester United franchise at Krisalis
Software and uses the same game engine
as with Arabian Nights, another title made
by the developer.
Development of the project began
in February 1992, when Krisalis co-found-
er Tony Kavanagh announced their plans
for it early in the year and the team wanted
to experiment in making a title that mixed
football and platforming elements after de-
veloping several association football titles.
Nigel stated that to assure such project
would be playable, the team wrote a primi-
tive physics engine early in its develop-
SNES MS-DOS
Jewel case
ment and implemented real-life rules for
the ball to react realistically, which would
eventually prove to be feasible after multi-
ple testing phases.
Soccer Kid was previewed across
several video game magazines early in
development under the title Football Kid,
featuring different visuals compared with
the final release, which were improved
from its original incarnation, while some
publications compared it with Sonic the
Hedgehog due to its gameplay structure
and console-style presentation. It was orig-
inally intended to be released in November
1992 but due to the interest in porting the
title to home consoles, the title was moved
to next year and faced constant delays
prior to its eventual launch. The name of
the project was also changed to appeal to
consumers when porting across other plat-
forms.
Since its original release on the Amiga,
Soccer Kid garnered positive reception
from critics who praised multiple aspects
such as the presentation, visuals, original
gameplay concept and replay value, while
some felt divided in regards to the difficulty
and sound design, with others criticized
some of the repetitive set pieces later in
the game. Stuart Campbell gave the Ami-
ga version a score of 88%. The CD32 port
was very well received by critics.
CD32 - Games • 515
 Sleepwalker

Sleepwalker centers on a dog called Ralph who

must stop his sleepwalking master Lee from wak-
ing up. Throughout the game Lee will relentlessly
walk in the direction he is facing, the problem is
there are objects and pitfalls in his path that can
ultimately wake him up or even kill him. The player
can monitor Lee’s sleep level with a bar at the top
of the screen. If the bar reaches zero, Lee wakes
up and the player loses a life.
The player controls Ralph the dog in order
to manipulate either Lee, or the objects he is likely
to walk into, to see him safely to the end of a level.
The frequency of these pitfalls increases as each
level progresses and, as it does, the player has to
spend more time strategically neutralising threats,
far in advance of Lee’s actual position in the level.
Although it is possible for Lee to die, re-
sulting in a life lost and restarts the level, Ralph is
invincible, surviving otherwise fatal incidents with
comedic effect.

The game was made to promote the charity Comic

Developer CTA Developments
Publisher Ocean Software Relief. All profits from sales of the game went to
Release date 1993 the charity. Lenny Henry, who is heavily connected
Genre Platformer with the charity, was also cast as Ralph’s voice in
Mode 1 Player the games animated introductions.

The game was later re-released in 1994, using the

Eek! The Cat license for the SNES.

Other Releases
Amiga 1993
Atari ST 1993
Commodore 64 1993
MS-DOS 1993
Windows 2018
CD32 Commodore 64

516 • Games - CD32

 The Speris Legacy

The Speris Legacy is an action role-playing game

released for the CD32 and AGA Amiga machines.

Players take control of Cho, a young farmer who

travels the world in search of adventure, fame, and
fortune. He is asked by the king to bring the evil
prince Gallus back.

Cho begins in Sharma City, where the palace re-

sides. He can talk to people to get some hints on
what to do and where to go. Along the way, weap-
ons can be found hidden in treasure chests or giv-
en to him. Some of these weapons include swords
for killing enemies, and bombs for blowing up ob-
stacles that get in his way.

The game was heavily inspired by the Legend of

Zelda series, with other influences including Se-
cret of Mana and The Secret of Monkey Island.
According to CU Amiga, The Speris Legacy nearly
wasn’t released, and Team17 reconsidered after
the success of Worms and Alien Breed 3D.
Developer Binary Emotions
Publisher Ocean, Team 17 The Speris Legacy met with mediocre critical re-
Release date 1996 ception, and many reviews compared it to The
Genre Action role-playing Legend of Zelda. Edge magazine called it “shame-
Mode 1 Player
lessly derivative” of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to
the Past.

Other Releases
Amiga 1996

CD32 Amiga

CD32 - Games • 517


Soccer Superstars
Developer Creative Edge
Publisher Flair Software
Release date 1995
Genre Sports
Mode 1-2 Players
Soccer Superstars, also known as Mitre
Soccer Superstars, is �����������������
a 2D side-scroll-
ing soccer game endorsed by Mitre—the
world’s oldest football manufacturer.
The player can chose from 32 interna-
tional teams to take part in either friendly
games or cup tournaments. These can
be played against the computer or both
computer and another player, however
there is also a demo mode in which an
entire tournament—or a friendly match—
are played where the player will only take
the role of a mere spectator. Players can
also modify team line-ups (all composed
of real national player names), select
basic formation systems, and alter the
game length.
“mobygames.com”
Striker
Developer Rage Software
Publisher Rage Software
Release date 1994
Genre Sports
Mode 1-2 Players
Striker is part of a soccer video game
series first released by Rage Software
in 1992. It was one of the first soccer
games to feature a 3D viewpoint, after
Simulmondo’s I Play 3D Soccer.
The game use a forced-perspective 3D
view. The player characters are drawn
large and there is a large scanner to
assist with long passing. The standard
mode has the ball sticking closely to the
feet. There are 64 international teams on
offer, with a European-style knock-out
cup competition included. Many different
formations and strategies are offered.
The game received a mixed reaction
from the gaming press, with some con-
demning and others praising its extreme
speed.
“mobygames.com”

Other Releases
Amiga CD32 1994
Amiga 1992
Atari ST 1992
Other Releases MS-DOS 1993
Amiga 1995 Genesis 1995
MS-DOS 1996 SNES 1993

518 • Games - CD32

Skeleton Krew
Developer Core Design (?)
Publisher Core Design
Release date 1995
Genre Shooter
Mode 1-2 Players Summer Olympix
Skeleton Krew takes place in 2062. Mor- Developer Stywox
ibund Kadaver has assumed control of Publisher Titus France
a cryogenics plant and started unleash- Release date 1994
Genre Platformer
ing mutants called Psykogenix on the
Mode 1 Player
population of Monstro City. The Military
Ascertainment Department (MAD) has Summer Olympix, released as Reach
decided to call upon the world’s most vi- out for Gold for MS-DOS, has a more
cious mercenaries: the Skeleton Krew. humorous approach then most other
The Skeleton Krew consists of three games of this type.
members from which the player can There are 8 different events to com-
chooses to play as: Spine, Joint, and pete in. Some are controlled with button
Rib. The object of the game is to make it mashing, like Swimming and 100 meter
through four planets on the way to stop sprint. But others like Long jump, Javelin
Kadaver. and Archery needs more technique with
The areas include Earth, Mars, timed button presses. Other events in-
Venus and finally the Psykogenesis cludes Skeet shooting, Boxing and Kay-
Planet, where the Skeleton Krew will in- ak events.
filtrate Kadaver’s HQ. “mobygames.com”
The game also includes a simultaneous
two-player mode and three difficulty lev-
els.
“mobygames.com”

Other Releases
MS-DOS 1993

Other Releases
Amiga 1995
Genesis 1995

CD32 - Games • 519

 Star Crusader

Star Crusader is a space combat simulation game

released in 1994 by Take-Two Interactive.

The player assumes the role of Roman Alexandria,

a pilot who is in the middle of a galaxy-wide war
between the authoritarian Gorenes and the rebels.
Roman are confronted with an ethical dilemma in
deciding which side to fight for.

As wing leader, the player assigns pilots to primary

and secondary missions. Secondary missions con-
sist of gathering equipment, conquering/protecting
territory, or rescuing pilots. Additionally, pilots can
be assigned to flight school to receive new recruits.
Wingmen have their own skill sets indicating how
good they are at flying, shooting, and following or-
ders. The player gives orders to wingmen to attack,
disable a target, or escape from battle.
Missions consist of destroying particular ob-
jectives, capturing ships, or performing reconnais-
sance. Fighters come in two varieties: quick and
maneuverable attack fighters and slow, but heav-
Developer Human Soft ily armed strike fighters. During combat, pilots fight
Publisher Gametek against these two types of fighters as well as capi-
Release date 1996 tal ships and bases. All craft are armed with laser
Genre Action, Simulation cannons, but each race developed its own special
Mode 1 Player
secondary weapons such as plasma torpedoes
and vector cannons on Tancred fighters.

Other Releases
Amiga 1994
MS-DOS 1994

CD32 MS-DOS

520 • Games - CD32

 Subwar 2050

Subwar 2050 is a futuristic 3D submarine sim-

ulator first released for DOS. An expansion
pack—Subwar 2050: The Plot Deepens—were
released for DOS some time later. Subwar 2050
was sold to Interplay Entertainment in 2009, and
in 2013 the game was released on GoG.com
and Steam.

Set in 2050, the player assumes the role of a

mercenary submarine commander, doing the
dirty work for the corporations fighting over the
resources of the sea. With 5 different theaters
of operations (of varying difficulty) and a mix of
aerial and submarine tactics, this game can be
seen as an submarine version of ORIGIN Sys-
tems’ flight simulator Strike Commander.

Computer Gaming World in April 1994 said that

“SubWar 2050 is a product with an identity cri-
sis. It wants to incorporate sophisticated physi-
cal models of the type you’d expect from a true
Developer Particle Systems
Publisher MicroProse
simulation, and yet it wants to have an action
Release date 1994 game’s visuals and pace”, citing its including
Genre Action, Simulation thermal layers, making them “largely irrelevant”
Mode 1 Player with visual-oriented combat, then only provid-
ing unsophisticated short-range torpedoes. In
1994, PC Gamer UK named SubWar 2050 the
18th best computer game of all time. The edi-
tors called it “a game that will appeal to almost
everyone.”.

Other Releases
Amiga 1994
MS-DOS 1994
Windows 2013

CD32 MS-DOS

CD32 - Games • 521

 Super Skidmarks

Super Skidmarks is a top-down racing game. It is the

sequel to Skidmarks and as such was also termed
Skidmarks 2 and Super Skidmarks 2. The game fea-
tures “minimally realistic” action viewed from an iso-
metric perspective. The Genesis version were pub-
lished by Codemasters.

Super Skidmarks includes twice the number of tracks

as in Skidmarks as well as an increased number of
vehicles and competitions and a more difficult single-
player mode.
Several different cars are available to choose
from, ranging from F1 cars and Sportscars to Min-
is and VWs. 24 circuits are provided. They can be
raced forwards or backward. The customizable na-
ture of the game let players choose the number of
laps, the colour and power of the cars.
Super Skidmarks feature caravan towing as
Developer Acid Software an option while racing. Although this was just a nov-
Publisher Acid Software elty feature, a lot of multiplayer users managed to
Release date 1995
master the use of the caravan to push other players
Genre Racing
Mode 1-4 Players wide on turns.

The AGA version could link two A1200’s (or faster)

and use them to display the track across two sepa-
rate screens.

The game was critically acclaimed and a best-seller

in the UK.

The CD32 version also

contains a demo of Guard-
ian, the Roadkill CD32 intro
movie and the Blitz Basic
version of Defender.

Other Releases
Amiga 1995
Genesis 1995
CD32 Genesis

some text from mobygaames.com

522 • Games - CD32

Super Methane Bros.
Developer Apache Software Limited
Publisher Apache Software Limited
Release date 1994
Genre Action-platformer
Mode 1-2 Players
Super Methane Brothers is similar to
Taito’s Bubble Bobble arcade game. De-
spite its striking similarities, the game
was originally inspired by Namco’s Tum-
blepop.
The game includes 100 single-screen
levels, featuring variously shaped ledg-
es, for the two characters to face before
escaping from the Tower of Time.
These levels are laden with bugs,
but the protagonists, Puff and Blow,
have a methane gun to shoot at them.
This absorbs the bugs, and allows them
to be fired out against a wall; if they don’t
reach the wall, they will continue attack-
ing. All enemies must be defeated within
a specific time limit to progress.
Super League Manager
Developer Anglosoft Visual Systems
Publisher Audiogenic Software
Release date 1995
Genre Sports, Strategy
Mode 1 Player
Super League Manager is a soccer
management simulation game. The
game was noticed for avoiding the sta-
tistics heavy approach common in foot-
ball management simulation games and
instead focused on the human side.
The game is set in a fictitious game-
world, with fantasy teams and players.
The training feature was more complex
than many other similar games at the
time, requiring the player to select 3 ac-
tivities (from a selection such as pass-
ing, gym work and lap running) for each
player each week.
The A1200 version could be combined
with Wembley International Soccer to
allow the player to directly control the
team for every fifth game.
“mobygames.com”

Other Releases
Amiga CD32 1994
Acorn 32-bit 2001
Amiga 1994
GP2X 2007
iPhone 2009
Linux 2001 Other Releases
Windows 2001 Amiga 1995
Atari ST 1995

CD32 - Games • 523

 Super Putty

Super Putty (also known as Silly Putty, Look Out

It’s...Putty, Putty Moon or Putty) is an action plat-
former featuring the eponymous shape-shifting blob
who is attempting to rescue various hopping droids
from platforming stages filled with bizarre enemies
and obstacles.

The player controls Putty, a blue blob with eyes. Putty

has many moves that he can use to attack enemies
or to navigate around the level. These abilities in-
clude being able to stretch himself to traverse larger
gaps between (or move up/down) platforms, unleash
a long-range punch, explode (clearing the screen of
enemies), melt into the floor, making him invulner-
able and also allowing him to absorb enemies, or in-
flate himself. A final ability of Putty’s is being able to
create a mug of coffee from part of himself, which will
distract bots and make them stand still.
Developer System 3 (?) The aim of each level is to rescue a set num-
Publisher System 3
Release date 1994
ber of bots (friendly robots) within the time limit. In
Genre Platformer the early sections of the game, the bots simply stand
Mode 1 Player around the level. Putty has to absorb them, and carry
them to the level’s goal. Later on in the game, the
bots will jump around platforms, often falling to their
death.

The sequel, Putty Squad, was originally developed

for the A1200, but that version was not released until
the end of 2013; prior to that date the SNES version
was the only one to be released.

The main theme music

used in this game is a
reworked version of the
theme tune from the 1960s
Gerry Anderson television
series, Joe 90.

Other Releases
Amiga 1992
Antstream 2019
SNES 1993

CD32 SNES

524 • Games - CD32

 Super Stardust

Super Stardust is an Asteroids clone in which the

player control a Panther PX-2 ship through succes-
sive waves of asteroids and other enemies, which
are drawn using ray-tracing techniques. The game
is a polished version of its predecessor—Stardust.
Its general gameplay and general ideas remained
basically the same but there are some further modi-
fications that made the game a little bit more difficult.

As before there are 30 standard levels split into 5

worlds. Levels can be completed in any order how-
ever, a end-of-level guardian must be fought once
the sixth level of a world is finished. At each level,
there are standard disintegrating rocks to destroy
and often enemy ships.

The CD32 version feature special in-game cut-

scenes between worlds and CD-DA soundtracks
composed by Nicklas Renqvist and Niko Nyman
(Slusnik Luna).

A Next Generation reviewer gave it one out of five

Developer Bloodhouse stars, chiefly criticizing its nature as an Asteroids
Publisher Team 17 clone, though he acknowledged that “the graphics
Release date 1995 are much more complex, the music is an added bo-
Genre Shooter nus, and the power-ups add a lot of spice ...”
Mode 1 Player
Amiga Format rated the game 90%, saying:
“As polished Asteroids clones go, Super Stardust
is untouchable. The graphics are extraordinary and
the gameplay matches them.”

Other Releases
Amiga 1992
Antstream 2019
SNES 1993

CD32 MS-DOS

CD32 - Games • 525

 Super Street Fighter II Turbo

The fifth iteration of Street Fighter II makes further

changes to each characters’ movelist while rebal-
ancing the game and adding a new Super Meter
(with a Super Combo attack for each fighter), ad-
justable game speed settings, and a hidden final
boss.

Super Street Fighter II Turbo (known in Japan as

Super Street Fighter II X: Grand Master Challenge)
is a 2D fighting game developed by Capcom and
released for arcades (running CPS-2 hardware) in
1994.

SSF II Turbo builds upon Super Street Fighter II:

The New Challengers (a CD32 version was com-
pleted and sent to reviewers, but never appeared)
by adding new moves (such as the Super Combo,
a special technique for all characters that can only
be activated after building up the new Super Meter)
and an adjustable speed setting, allowing players
to ramp up the speed up to a level similar to Street
Fighter II’: Hyper Fighting. This also marks the first
Developer Human Soft in the series to remove the bonus mini-games that
Publisher Gametek occurs between every few consecutive matches.
Release date 1996 Each fighter, along with new moves, also
Genre Fighting have a variety of changes to their gameplay me-
Mode 1-2 Players
chanics (for example, Ken has a wide variety of new
kicks) and a new primary color palette in similar vein
to Hyper Fighting. The game also includes a new
hidden boss, Akuma, who is shown in promotion-
al artwork and the game’s introduction sequence.
This fighter has a variety of powerful moves and

Other Releases
3DO 1994
Amiga 1995
Arcade 1994
MS-DOS 1995
Dreamcast 2000
Windows (Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection)

CD32 MS-DOS

526 • Games - CD32


Akuma has a variety of powerful moves
and can only be fought by progressing
through the difficult single-player game
without continuing under a certain condi-
tion.
SSF II Turbo allows players to play as ver-
sions of characters from the original Super
Street Fighter II in addition to their regu-
lar counterparts in the game by inputting a
code for each character.
The Amiga version differs heavily from the
Amiga ports of World Warrior and New
Challengers and uses the same quality
sprites as the arcade version. It reportedly
suffers from jerky anima-
tion and other shortcom-
ings.
The CD32 port, re-
leased in Europe, included
a new soundtrack arrange-
ment (the Amiga computer
version includes no mu-
sic).
SSF II Turbo went on to
become Japan’s highest-
grossing arcade game of
1994, and sixth highest
of 1995. It was also one of
America’s top twelve best-
selling arcade games of
1994.
While not as much of a com-
mercial success as previ-
ous iterations of the game,
the original arcade version
was well received by crit-
ics and had a huge impact
on the competitive fight-
ing game “e-sport” circuit.
SSF II Turbo is still played
competitively over 30 years
after its original release, and is the oldest
fighting game that still has an active com-
petitive tournament scene throughout the
world.
A remake of the game, Super Street Fight-
er II Turbo HD Remix, was released on
PlayStation Network and on Xbox Live
Arcade in 2008. Including all characters
from SSF II Turbo, the game also features
high definition graphics drawn by UDON
Entertainment, arranged music by Over-
Clocked ReMix, and rebalanced gameplay
based Super Street Fighter II X for Match-
ing Service.
some text from giantbomb.com
CD32 - Games • 527
 Superfrog

Superfrog is a side scrolling platformer with elements

taken from many other games from the same genre
including Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog.

The objective of Superfrog is to find and defeat a witch,

thus rescuing a princess, whilst achieving smaller ob-
jectives throughout the game, such as finding a golden
key or escaping from captivity in a circus.

There are 24 regular levels, divided into six differently-

themed worlds. The goal of each level is to collect a
set number of coins, and then reach the exit, which will
only open if Superfrog has collected enough coins. Ex-
tra factors of gameplay include a timer countdown and
a number of health points, both of which can be re-
stored by finding bottles of Lucozade among the levels.
SuperFrog can find ‘Destructo-Spuds’ - a short-
range weapon that can be thrown at some enemies or
objects to destroy them. Some enemies can also be
killed by jumping on them. ‘Frog Wings’ can also be
picked up, and allow higher jumps, limited flight, and
can be used to slow falls (although the game does not
Developer Team 17
Publisher Team 17 include fall damage, spikes and other dangers are of-
Release date 1994 ten hidden in pits).
Genre Platformer At the end of each level the player is awarded
Mode 1 Player credits based on the time remaining, amount of fruit
collected and the number of coins collected. These
can be convertered directly to points to increase the
player’s score, or used in a slot machine for potentially
bigger or better rewards. Prizes range from 10,000-

Other Releases
Amiga 1993
BlackBerry 2013
MS-DOS 1994
Windows 2012

CD32 MS-DOS

528 • Games - CD32

-75,000 point bonuses, extra lives, or a
code to skip to the just-completed level
(the only way to acquire them in-game).
The slot machine is fairly complex, with
several ways to win—gambling winnings
for higher rewards, a simpler “Hi-Lo” fea-
ture, or getting three Lucozade cans which
awards the Jackpot prize of points, credits
and the level code.
The Amiga versions include a bo-
nus level between worlds 5 and 6, based
upon the previous Team17 game Project
X, named ‘Project F’. The game plays like
a basic side-scrolling shoot-’em-up, with
the original spaceship replaced with Su-
perFrog in a space helmet. After complet-
ing all six worlds, the game ends with a
small boss fight against the witch in a cas-
tle setting.
The drink Lucozade is what gives Super-
Frog his powers, and a detailed bottle is
shown during the intro sequence. Cans
are also available as pickups throughout
levels (providing substantial point bonuses
among other effects), and the jackpot on
the gambling machine requires three Lu-
cozade cans.
The game was one of the
earliest to feature product place-
ment, particularly a brand with lit-
tle impact on the game (instead
of games about brands, or sports
games with real teams), but not
the first.
In a reversed scenario, ad-
verts for SuperFrog are also
present in the earlier Team17
game Alien Breed.
Popular Amiga animator, Eric W. Schwartz,
provided the animation for the introduction.
Islona Software re-released the game in
1999 on a multi-compatible CD for the
CD32 and an Amiga equipped with CD-
ROM drive. The released featured slightly
different box art.
Islona re-release
Team17’s earlier games became relative-
ly obscure after the release of the huge-
ly popular Worms series, though many
remember Superfrog fondly for its solid
gameplay, smooth scrolling, cartoon-qual-
ity graphics, and upbeat music by com-
poser Allister Brimble. Although a relatively
small release by the standards of block-
buster platformers like Sonic, it was very
well received and has retained a fan base
which considers it an excellent example of
the genre.
In 2012, Superfrog was released on GoG.
com, this version being the first compatible
with Windows.
In 2013, the 20th anniversary of the game,
Team17 released Superfrog HD, a re-
mastered version co-developed by both
Team17 and TickTockGames, formerly
Bubball Systems, the company initially re-
sponsible for the MS-DOS port of Super-
frog in 1994. It was released for the Play-
Station 3 and PlayStation Vita, then later
Windows via Steam, OS X, Linux, Android,
and iOS.
In May 2016, Superfrog HD was
discontinued by Team17; supposedly due
to low sales and negative reception, the
game was removed from PSN, Steam,
App Store and Google Play. At the same
time, the original Superfrog game was re-
moved from GOG.com.
some text from giantbomb.com
CD32 - Games • 529
 Surf Ninjas

Surf Ninjas is based on the 1993 New Line Cinema

movie of the same name. The original Game Gear
version, created by NuFX and published by Sega,
was created as a tie-on for the movie. The video
game was released in August, before the film’s re-
lease, and it was considered the first movie-based
video game to precede the film itself.

The player controls Johnny McQuinn, a teenage surf-

er with martial arts skills. His ultimate goal is defeat-
ing the evil Colonel Chi who threatens his island.

The player character can move left or right through

the level. One button is used to fight the randomly
spawning ninjas in beat ‘em up fashion, while anoth-
er one can be used to enter buildings. The player has
an inventory that can hold only one item at a time.
These items are used to solve some small puzzles
Developer Creative Edge within each stage. The CD32 version reportedly only
Publisher MicroValue featyre one type of enemy in the entire game.
Release date 1994
Genre Beat ‘em up Surf Ninjas is an early example of a video game/
Mode 1 Player
movie tie in. New Line Cinema and Sega of America
established a financial relationship in which a Sega
Game Gear video game would be developed for the
film. Sega of America wanted to have the Game Gear
featured prominently in the film, and would in turn,
partially finance the film. Screenwriter Dan Gordon
said that he wrote action sequences that would both
suit the film and serve as a springboard for the video
game.

Sega began development

of the Game Gear version
of Surf Ninjas when the
writing and story boarding
process for the film had
barely begun.

Other Releases
Amiga 1994
MS-DOS 1994

CD32 MS-DOS

some text from mobygaames.com

530 • Games - CD32

review; The One Amiga #70 (July 1994)
written by Simon Byrin;
SURF NINJAS
Is that a cloud we can see hiding the
sun and spoiling our fun? No - it’s
Flair’s appalling beat-’em-up and Simon
Byrin kicking sand at each other.
N
ope, never heard of it. Surf Ninjas, that
is. Presumably it’s one of those straight-
to-video films which wasn’t deemed good
enough to warrant cinematic release, or if it was at
the flicks then it must have been completely crap.
Oh hang on a minute. I’ve just flicked through
the manual and apparently it’s an “hilarious New
Line Cinema film.” Right. The plot, as I’ve discov-
ered, goes something like this: Sixteen-year old
Johnny McQuinn has discovered that his roots lie
not in Los Angeles with all this surf-loving mates,
swapping amusing lines from Bill and Ted films at
every opportunity, but instead in a tiny oriental is-
land called Patu-San. It turns out that Johnny is heir
to the throne and if he journeys back to this island
and sorts out the evil Colonel Chi and his gang of
Ninjas then he’ll be installed as king. Sounds like a
load of old nonsense for me, but we’ll preserver for
the time being.
Comparisons to Last Action Hero are inevitable
— bot are film licenses and both a beat-‘em-ups.
But perhaps the most obvious similarity between
these ‘games’ is the fact that they’re both lacking
in the, er, gameplay department. Coupling surfers
with Ninjas may seem like a bizarre concept but
this is our ‘Summer Special’ after all so anything
vaguely Sea-sidey is welcome. However, we’re not
prepared to accept this kind of disgraceful rubbish,
even if we are wearing our trunks.
So here it is in all its glory.
Seeing as though the CD32
is capable of impressive
graphical trickery, what
with its dedicated sprite
scaling hardware and other
stuff like that, it’s nice to
see the technology being pushed with such badly-drawn
sprites and their four or five frames of animation. Yes!
And here’s one for all you
concerned parents. Some-
times, and I’m not quite sure
when, Johnny will rip out a
Ninja’s heart and hold it out
for all to see. Hmmm... one
for the MPs, dontcha think?
Another quite destructive move is the headbutt which is
effective and quite funny to watch.
Hmmm... it’s games like this
which brings home the restrictions
of working on a ‘family’ maga-
zine, and to be honest with you it’s
getting me down. Ever since The
Publisher: Microvalue
One was launched (way back in Developer:
1987, fact fans), the editorial team In-house
has managed (often under extreme
provocation) to offer opinions on £19.99 Out Now
games without resorting to the
Not Hard Disk instalable
kind of profanity you kids use in
the playground, Whenever games
Joypad
like Surf Ninjas are featured, the
accompanying text has been ar- Memory Disks
2Mb 1(CD)
tificially tarted up with flowery
adjectives interspersed with the
occasional ‘crap’. We’d probably
say something like: “This is aw-
ful. Like Last Action Hero, it’s
often possible to last for hours
just holding the fire-button down
whilst waiting for the moronic
Ninjas to wander into your blows.
‘The adventure’ side of things
is nothing short of pathetic —
someone will request an object
and you’ll miraculously discover
it a few screens away. Brilliant.
But whereas games like Dizzy
are quite sophisticated (at times),
Surf Ninjas is just embarrassing.
Give an object to someone and
they’ll respond with a single sen-
tence. Approach them again and
they’ll say the same thing. Which
is inexcusable. I know very little
about programming but I do un-
derstand it’s easy to assign flags
to characters to avoid this kind of
repetition. The graphics are laughable and some of the moves
even more rib-tickling, but for all the wrong reasons. And the
gameplay is monotonous at best. Basically, this isn’t very good
at all.” But this time I’m going to go out on a limb because
there is one word which sums Surf Ninjas, and I’m going to
say it. Even if it costs me my job. I feel that strongly. This game
is utter, utter bol.
Let’s hope not because I don’t want to see this game
in The One ever again. Ever.
magazine article • 531
 Syndicate

Syndicate is a cyberpunk isometric real-time tacti-

cal game developed by Bullfrog Productions and re-
leased in 1993 to critical acclaim. It is the first title in
the Syndicate series.

The backstory of Syndicate is contained in the man-

ual, instead of the game itself. Set in a dystopian
future in which corporations have replaced govern-
ments, Syndicate puts the player in the role of a
young executive in a small European Syndicate. The
objective of the game is to spread the Syndicate’s
control globally.

Gameplay of Syndicate involves ordering a one to

four-person team of cyborg agents (who according
to the game’s intro cutscene, are ordinary civilians
who have been captured, cybernetically enhanced
and reprogrammed) around cities displayed in a
fixed-view isometric style, in pursuit of mission goals
such as assassinating executives of a rival syndi-
cate, rescuing captured allies, “persuading” civilians
Developer Bullfrog and scientists to join the player’s company or killing
Publisher Mindscape
Release date 1995
all enemy agents.
Genre Action, Strategy As the player progresses through the game,
Mode 1 Player they must manage the research and development of
new weaponry and cyborg upgrades. The player has
limited funds, requiring taxation of the conquered ter-
ritories. Over-taxed territories may revolt, resulting in
the loss of that territory and requiring the replay of

Other Releases
3DO 1995
Amiga 1993
MS-DOS 1993
FM Towns 1994
Jaguar 1995
Macintosh 1994
PC-98 1994
Windows 2012

CD32 MS-DOS

532 • Games - CD32

that mission. The player begins
the game with pistols, progress-
ing through increasingly de-
structive weaponry that includes
Uzis, miniguns, flamethrowers,
sniper rifles, time bombs, lasers
and the destructive Gauss gun.
In addition, the player can use
items such as medikits to heal
their agents, scanners to locate
pedestrians/vehicles and the
“Persuadertron” to brainwash
the player’s targets into blind
obedience.
During the course of the game, the
player establishes worldwide dominance
with their established syndicate, one ter-
ritory at a time, while engaging and elimi-
nating rival syndicates and putting down
internal mutinies.
The game appeared in 1993 on the Amiga
and DOS computers and was subsequent-
ly ported across to a wide variety of other
formats. The DOS version used the stand-
ard 320x200 256-color resolution just for
the planning and main menus, with the tac-
tical simulation part rendered at 640x480
with only 16 colors. The higher resolution
permitted finer detail in the graphics and
allowed for the illusion that more than 16
colors were used by means of dithering.
Similar graphics and same levels design
were used in the Macintosh, 3DO, Atari
Jaguar and RiscPC ports.
The game was critically acclaimed upon
release, with particular praise for the real-
istic presentation, writing and violence of
the gameplay. It cemented Bullfrog’s rep-
utation following its early successes with
the Populous series and Powermonger.
Syndicate was included in the 2011 list of
the best violent video games of all time by
The Daily Telegraph for the reason that
“few games have ever been so keen to
have their protagonists murder civilians,
burning them with flamethrowers, blowing
them up with rocket launchers and simply
mowing them down.”
In January 2012, the DOS version of Syn-
dicate was re-released, packaged with
pre-configured versions of the DOSBox
emulator for both OS X and modern ver-
sions of Windows. In 2015, Syndicate was
available for free on Electronic Arts’ Origin
platform.
The game also received an expansion
pack Syndicate: American Revoltis (re-
released as Syndicate Plus along with the
original game), and a direct sequel, Syn-
dicate Wars, in 1996 for the the PC and
PlayStation. Several attempts by Bullfrog
to produce another Syndicate game were
all ultimately abandoned. These cancelled
games included at least one for the PC
and another for the PlayStation 2.
The game was re-imagined by
Starbreeze Studios as Syndicate, a first-
person shooter released for the PC, Play-
Station 3 and Xbox 360 in 2012. A spiritual
successor, Satellite Reign, was developed
by some of the original staff.
CD32 - Games • 533
 Thomas The Tank
Engine’s Pinball Strip Pot
Developer Spidersoft Developer Pixel Blue
Publisher Alternative Software Publisher Fin Soft
Release date 1995 Release date 1994
Genre Pinball Genre Casino
Mode 1-8 Players Mode 1 Player

Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends Strip Pot is an erotic variant of the classic
Pinball is a pinball-based game based on Fruit Machine game. Instead of playing
the Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends for money, winners are treated to FMV
television series. clips of “five of Europe’s most beauti-
ful girls” (as stated on the back of the
Four different tables are included, based
game’s box) disrobing for the camera.
loosely around Thomas, James, Percy
The player’s goal is to successfully strip
and Toby. Up to 8 players can take it in
all five of the models without running out
turns, and there are 3 skill levels and a
of credits.
high score table.
“mobygames.com”
Full screen and scrolling view modes are
available, and the game’s feel is compa-
rable to the Pinball Dreams series, which
is unsurprising as Spidersoft did Pinball
Mania themselves.
“mobygames.com”

Other Releases
Other Releases
Amiga 1994
Amiga 1995
MS-DOS 1996

534 • Games - CD32

magazine review; Amiga Power #51 (July 1995)
by: Mark Winstanley;
STRIP POT
Even Pol Pot was
more fun.
Runs on: A1200, CD32
Publisher: Guildhall
Authors: Pixel Blue
Price: £15 A1200, £30 CD32
Release: Out now
H
mm. The dull fruit machine
elements of the game first me-
thinks, I’ll leave the ‘other’ bit
until later. Don’t fruit machines belong
out in the real world, sitting in some
dark corner of a local arcade or friendly
hosterly? I’ve always thought so, for
without the prospect of winning and los-
ing money, what’s left of the fruit ma-
chine experience?
Not much, not much at all. With a
bottomless ‘virtual’ pocket full of dig-
ital money, where’s the drama of los-
ing a game when you can start another
one straight away? Without the lure of
cash prizes, video fruit machines need
to be zappy and amusing, with loads of
features and plenty of sub-games. I still
think the world could turn without any
of them at all, but if they’re punchy and
suitably different from real ones, you’ll
at least have the excuse of playing them
to get to the sub-games instead of feed-
ing your reel-obsessed gambling addic-
tion.
Sadly, I’ve never seen a memorable
video version, and I’ve seen a lot better
than this one. Instead of flashing lights
and games withing games, you’re merely
presented with a gamble/collect option, a
nudge option and a ‘special’ feature. In
this case, some of the symbols on each
reel have little numbers, and every time
you get some, you advance that many
squares along the feature board. Get a
skull and you’re back to the bottom, get
a gamble and you could win credits or
extra nudges, and if you get a camera,
you get a photograph.
Plenty of nudge, nudge, but little in the
field of wink, wink. Look, just don’t
bother with this, okay?
BIKINI
Hmm, the photos. Let it be said right now
that no marks have been docked because
the game’s main feature is photos of na-
ked and semi-naked females. If anyone
buys this and is shocked, then they’re
stupid, as girls in lingerie lounge across
a box marked prominently with an 18
logo. And anyone who buys the game
to gaze at nudity won’t feel ripped off,
for many of the models featured (in high
resolution) are stark buff naked, with a
few touching themselves provocatively
enough to warrant that age restriction.
So if you really feel the need to see pic-
tures of defrocked females, but are the
sort of wart-covered hairy-palmed so-
cial inadequate that can’t face visiting a
news vendor to purchase a magazine full
of high quality photographs of this sort
of thing, maybe this is the one for you.
So no points docked for the content,
however profoundly sad the premise of
this game may be. But points a-plenty go
whoosing down the drain for the game
that surrounds them, since the picture
sets only change when you get three
Spin the Wheels, and then only when
you get a Go Up or Go Down on the
wheel - a three in eight chance. So in-
stead of revelling in a bevy of beautiful
(and frequently not) girlies, you’re more
likely to be treated to the same dozen for
hour after hour.
CD32 owning saddos can at least
watch stripping thanks to sequenced
pictures of the same girl undressing, but
A1200 owning saddos have to make do
with shots of nameless models draped
What? She’s thirsty? She’s
licking her armpit? What?
I don’t understand.
over fur-covered floors or sitting in curi-
ously ‘70s wicker chairs. So even at the
girlie-picture level, this game’s flawed,
making it a dull fruit machine bolted
onto a truly insipidly unerotic experi-
ence. And take no notice of the pack-
aging which claims Full Motion Video
sequences, I didn’t see any and when the
Amiga Shopper tech-heads looked at the
CD, they found no MPEG files on it. The
box lies. We don’t. This game is terrible.
• CAM WINSTANLEY
UPPERS Some of the
girls are quite pretty the
first time you see them,
and the CD32 version uses most of
the controller’s buttons.
DOWNERS The CD32’s
£30, even though the
changes are minimal. As a
sensual experience it fails dismally
and as a fruit machine game it’s
mildly entertaining for maybe the
first five minutes.
THE BOTTOM LINE
It takes Europeans to come up with
such a dumb idea as an ultra-soft-
porn fruit machine. Anyone enjoying
it as a game is clearly stupid, anyone
finding it sexually arousing is pat-
ently sick. Here’s the score as a
game. Religious zealots and moral
crusaders should deduct 20% to ex-
22
press their self-righteous
PERCENT
indignation at the porno-
graphic content.
magazine article • 535
 Top Gear 2

Top Gear 2 (known as Top Racer 2 in Japan) is

the sequel to the 1992 racer Top Gear. The game
was first released for the SNES, before receiving
a Genesis and Amiga release. While more realis-
tic than its predecessor, Top Gear 2 maintained
the arcade-style gameplay the series is known for.

For the sequel, like the original, Gremlin used re-

hashed graphics and gameplay from the Lotus
racing trilogy. However, this game becomes more
realistic, with a damage diagram on the left side
of the screen, slower cars, and the possibility to
upgrade the machine. The cars become more dif-
ficult to handle and the opponents are faster and
tougher than in the previous game. The addition of
weather plays a role, forcing the player to change
from dry to wet tires.

The game takes place in 64 tracks spanning 16

Developer Gremlin (?)
Publisher Gremlin countries, each of which contains four races,
Release date 1994 starting with Australasia and ending at the United
Genre Racing States. Some tracks feature weather effects like
Mode 1-2 Players rain, snow or fog. Each event features 20 racers
for the player to drive against.
After each race, players are given points
that go towards that country’s ladder ranking. The
player must be at the top of the ladder at the end
of the 4 races in order to qualify to move on to the
next territory.

The CD32 received mostly

mixed to positive reviews
from magazines at the
time of release.

Other Releases
Amiga 1994
Genesis 1994
SNES 1993

CD32 Genesis

some text from giantbomb.com

536 • Games - CD32

 Trolls

Trolls is a platform game based on the Troll doll

(also known as a Dam doll after their creator Dan-
ish woodcutter Thomas Dam) franchise.

The player takes control of a ‘Troll’ with the goal of

rescuing as many baby trolls as possible—each
level gives the player a set minimum to retrieve
before being able to complete the level.
Initially, the troll have no weapons, and
contact with the enemies costs it energy, but a Yo-
Yo can be collected, which can be used to kill en-
emies. The Yo-Yo can also smash blocks to open
up paths, and tied to a ledge to allow the troll to
swing across a gap.

The CD32 received mostly positive reviews at the

time, where reviewers complimented the graph-
ics and parallax scrolling. Amiga Power gave it a
score of 86% and said in their closing comment;
Developer Flair (?)
Publisher Flair “One of the best CD32 games around”.
Release date 1993
Genre Platformer In 2009 the game was released for Nintendo’s
Mode 1 Player DSiWare platform as Oscar in Toyland; since the
Trolls license had lapsed, all Troll imagery was re-
moved from the game and replaced with Flair’s
original creation Oscar.
Oscar in Toyland received two sequels:
Oscar in Movieland is a port of the original Oscar
(1993) while Oscar in Toyland 2 is a new game.

The Troll Doll were first

created in 1959 and
became one of the
United States’ biggest
toy fads starting in
the early 1960s.

Other Releases
Amiga 1992
Commodore 64 1993
MS-DOS 1992

CD32 MS-DOS

some text from mobygames.com

CD32 - Games • 537

 Theme Park

Theme Park is a construction and management

simulation game by Bullfrog Productions. The
player designs and operates an amusement park,
with the goal of making money and creating theme
parks worldwide. The game is the first instalment
in Bullfrog’s Theme series and their Designer Se-
ries.

Starting with a free plot of land in the United

Kingdom and few hundred thousand pounds, the
player must build a profitable amusement park.
Money is spent on building rides, shops, and staff,
and earned through sale of entry tickets, mer-
chandise, and refreshments. Shops available in-
clude those selling foodstuff (such as ice creams)
or soft drinks, and games such as coconut shies
and arcades. Facilities such as toilets, and items
that enhance the park’s scenery (such as trees
and fountains) can be purchased. Over thirty at-
tractions, ranging in complexity from the bouncy
castle to the roller coaster. Certain rides, such
Developer Bullfrog as roller coasters, require a track to be laid out.
Publisher Mindscape
Rides require regular maintenance: if neglected
Release date 1995
Genre Strategy for too long they will explode.
Mode 1 Player The player starts with a limited number of
shops, rides, and facilities available. Research
must be carried out to purchase others. The topic
of research and how much funding goes into it is
determined by the player.
Staff avail-
able for employ-
ment include en-
tertainers, security
guards, mechan-

Other Releases
3DO 1994 PC-98 1995
Amiga 1994 PlayStation 1995
MS-DOS 1994 PlayStation 3 2008
FM Towns 1995 PSP 2008
Genesis 1995 PS Vita 2012
Jaguar 1995 Sega CD 1995
Macintosh 1994 Sega Saturn 1995
Nintendo DS 2007 SNES 1995
Windows 2013
CD32

538 • Games - CD32

ics, and handymen. Lack of staff can cause
problems, including messy footpaths, rides
breaking down, crime, and unhappy visi-
tors.
The goal of the game is to increase
the park’s value and available money so
that it can be sold and a new lot purchased
from another part of the world to start a
new theme park. Once enough money
has been made, the player can auction the
park and move on to newer plots, located
worldwide and having different factors af-
fecting gameplay, including the economy,
weather, terrain and land value.
Peter Molyneux stated that he came up
with the idea of creating Theme Park be-
cause he felt the business genre was
worth pursuing. He said that Theme Park
is a game he had always wanted to cre-
ate, and wanted to avoid the mistakes of
his earlier business simulation game, The
Entrepreneur: he wanted to create a busi-
ness simulation game and make it fun so
that people would want to play it. In an in-
terview, he explained that the primary rea-
son he created Theme Park was because
Sega CD PlayStation
he wanted players to create their dream
Theme Park. Another reason is he wanted
players to understand the kind of work run-
ning one entails. Molyneux stated that the
most difficult part to program was the visi-
tors’ behaviour.
The story was originally to have the
player play the role of a nephew who had in-
herited a fortune from his aunt, to be spent
only on the world’s largest and most profit-
able theme park. The graphics were drawn
and modelled using 3D Studio. Molyneux
stated that each person takes about 200
bytes of memory, enough for them to have
their own personality. The team travelled
the world visiting theme parks and taking
notes, and sound effects were sampled
from real parks. Molyneux explained that
they were going for as much realism as
possible. There was to be a feature where
a microphone is placed on a visitor and so
the player could hear what they were say-
ing, and multiplayer support was dropped
two weeks prior to release because of a
deadline. Multiplayer mode would have let
players send thugs to other parks.
FM Towns MS-DOS
CD32 - Games • 539
 Theme Park received critical acclaim.
Reviewers praised the gameplay and hu-
mour, but criticised console ports for rea-
sons such as lack of save or mouse sup-
port. A reviewer of Edge commented that
the game is complex, but praised the detail
and addictiveness. PC Gamer’s Gary Whit-
ta was highly impressed with the game: he
eulogised the fun factor and compared it
to that of SimCity 2000. He also praised
the “gloriously cartoony” graphics and
“exceptional” soundtrack. Theme Park
was named as the PC Gamer June 1994
Game of The Month. Computer and Vid-
eo Games’s reviewer complimented the
“cute” graphics, and described the game
as “fun” and “feature-packed”. The visitors’
and ride animations were complimented
by French magazine Joystick.
The Jaguar version was noted by
critics as having problems such as slow-
down and lack of a save option, although
some liked the graphics and gameplay.
The Saturn version was noted as
being mostly faithful to the PC original.
540 • Games - CD32
Critics had similar opinions of other
versions. Mean Machines Sega described
the game as “the most complex Megadrive
game ever created”, and eulogised play-
ability and longevity, but criticised the
behaviour of the handymen. CU Amiga
praised the addictiveness of the Amiga
version, and called the game “colourful”.
The visuals were likewise commended by
Jeuxvideo.com on the PC and Macintosh
versions, and the British humour was com-
plimented as well.
A Japanese remake of Theme Park, titled
Shin Theme Park (新テーマパーク) was re-
leased in 1997 by Electronic Arts Victor
for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn. This
version is different from other releases in
Japan; the game’s style and visuals are
changed. Theme Park was remade for
iOS in 2011. Items can only be placed on
designated places, and the game relies on
premium items. Rides can cost up to $60
(£46) in real money, and for this reason the
game was not well received.
 Ultimate Body Blows

Ultimate Body Blows is a 1994 CD32 and DOS

fighting game. It is largely an amalgamation of
Body Blows and Body Blows Galactic released in
1993 by Team17, featuring all the characters and
most of the stages from both games, but using
the HUD and menu interface of the first game. In
this respect, the game is comparable to Midway’s
Mortal Kombat Trilogy, although the gameplay
(and several of the characters) perhaps owe more
to Capcom’s Street Fighter series.

All 22 characters and 12 fighting locations from

the predecessors are now featured in one game.
The control of the characters has been improved
and a few special moves have been added for
each player.
Another improvement is the CD32 control-
ler with its many extra buttons which makes it eas-
Developer Team 17 ier to carry out the individual and special moves of
Publisher Team 17 the characters. Previously Body Blows and Body
Release date 1994 Blows Galactic were played with the limitations of
Genre Fighting an Amiga joystick or even with a PC keyboard.
Mode 1-42 Players
The game offers four distinct game modes: One-
player game, Two-player game, Tournament; 4
or 8 human players can compete in an knock-out
tournament. And Tag Team; a new option where
two players can pick up between 2 and 21 tag-
members per team and fight in the “Tag-Team”
mode against one another.

The CD32 version re-

cieved positive reviews at
time of it’s release.

Other Releases
MS-DOS 1994
Windows 2013

CD32 MS-DOS

some text from giantbomb.com

CD32 - Games • 541

 Total Carnage

Total Carnage is a top-down shooter initially

developed and published by Midway in 1992
for arcades. The game is often seen as a spir-
itual successor to Midway’s earlier Smash TV.

Set in the fictional country of Kookistan during

1999, players assume the role of Captain Car-
nage and Major Mayhem from the Doomsday
Squad in a last-ditch effort to overthrow dicta-
tor General Akhboob and his army of mutants
from conquering the world, while also rescuing
POWs held by his military force.

Total Carnage is a multidirectional shooter

where players assume the role of Captain Car-
nage and Major Mayhem across three stages,
each with a boss at the end. Each boss is a
large mutant monster that has a specific weak
point to defeat them.
Developer I.C.E. (?)
Publisher I.C.E. The object of the game is to shoot all
Release date 1994 enemies on screen. Different weapons can be
Genre Shooter collected that will give the players extra power.
Mode 1-2 Players The game shares many gameplay ele-
ments with Williams’ previous title, while also
adding new ones as well including stage scroll-
ing, large enemy vehicles, the ability to collect
and place bombs, and a much wider range of
gameplay scenarios.

Versions for both the Sega

CD and Genesis were in
development, but neither
port were released.

Other Releases
Amiga 1994
Arcade 1991
MS-DOS 1994
Game Boy 1994
Jaguar 2005
SNES 1993

CD32 Arcade

542 • Games - CD32

Total Carnage was created by most of the
same team behind Smash TV. Mark Tur-
mell served as lead developer and pro-
grammer of the project alongside Shawn
Liptak and Robotron: 2084 co-creator Eu-
gene Jarvis. Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed
Boon was the voice of General Akhboob.
Originally the game was pro-
grammed to display one of two endings
upon completion of the Pleasure Dome
bonus stage. One ending would feature
the women and playable characters from
Smash TV and was to be displayed if the
player collected all the treasures in the
dome. A second “bad” ending showed the
same screen without the women along
with a message challenging the player to
collect all the dome’s treasure. However, a
bug in the game caused the “good” ending
to be displayed with the “bad” ending text
no matter how many treasures were col-
lected. The bug was uncovered during the
testing for 2012’s Midway Arcade Origins
compilation. In response, Turmell stated
that he remembers writing working code
for both endings, but was not sure why the
code was changed. He suggested that he
might have kept the bug as a joke on play-
ers and went unfixed in Origins.
Amiga MS-DOS
The Amiga and CD32 versions were cre-
ated by UK-based developer Internation-
al Computer Entertainment, with Keith
Weatherly and Simon Fox acting as pro-
grammers of the conversion, while Ellen
Hopkins and Mike Jary were responsible
for adapting the artwork as well. Weatherly
and Fox stated that the conversion took
over a year to develop with Midway super-
vising its production and the team originally
had plans to integrate elements that were
scrapped from the original arcade release
but were ultimately discarded in the end.
Midway provided both artwork and source
code of the arcade original to the team
at ICE, although adapting the former into
the Amiga proved to be difficult, as both
Weatherly and Fox stated that the number
of colors and animations were reduced to
fit the hardware.
The arcade version of Total Carnage re-
ceived positive reception from critics, but
it was not successful financially. The ports
were met with mixed critical response,
such as the CD32 version, which received
mostly negative reviews on release.
SNES Game Boy
CD32 - Games • 543
 UFO: Enemy Unknown

UFO: Enemy Unknown, also known as X-COM:

UFO Defense, is a genre-defining strategy game
developed by Mythos Games for DOS and Amiga
computers. An official remake of the game, XCOM:
Enemy Unknown, was created by Firaxis Games
and published by 2K Games in 2012.

The story of X-COM, set in the near-future at the

time of the game’s release, begins in the year 1998.
The initial plot centers on increased reports of UFO
sightings as tales of abductions and rumors of at-
tacks by mysterious aliens become widespread.
Representatives from some of the most powerful
nations in the world secretly meet in Geneva to dis-
cuss the issue. From this meeting is born the clan-
destine defense and research organization Extra-
terrestrial Combat (X-COM), over which the player
assumes control at the start of the game.

The game takes place within two distinct views,

called the Geoscape and the Battlescape.
Developer MicroProse UK
Publisher MicroProse
The game begins with the player choos-
Release date 1994 ing a location for their first base on the Geoscape
Genre Turn-based tactics screen: a global view representation of Earth as
Mode 1 Player seen from space (displaying X-COM bases and
aircraft, detected UFOs, alien bases, and sites of
alien activity). The player can view the X-COM
bases and make changes to them, equip fighter
aircraft, order supplies and personnel (soldiers,
scientists and engineers), direct research efforts,

Other Releases
Amiga 1995
MS-DOS 1994
PlayStation 1995
Windows 2007

CD32 MS-DOS

CD32 - Games • 545

 schedule manufacturing of advanced soldiers who have been killed on a mission
equipment, sell alien artifacts on black will remain dead, but can be replaced with
market to raise money, and deploy X- raw recruits back at base.
COM aircraft to either patrol designated
locations, intercept UFOs, or send X-COM One reason for the game’s success is the
ground troops on missions using transport strong sense of atmosphere it evokes. Sol-
aircraft. diers are vulnerable to alien attacks even
Funding is provided by the found- when armored (a single shot from an alien
ing nations of X-COM. At the end of each has a good chance of bringing a soldier
month, a funding report is provided, where in perfect condition to death), and the use
nations can choose to increase or de- of features such as night-time combat, a
crease their level of funding based on their line of sight, and opportunity fire allows for
perceived progress of the X-COM project. alien sniper attacks and ambushes. The
Any of these nations may quit if the na- course of skirmishes is dictated by the in-
tion’s government has been infiltrated by dividual morale levels of their participants
the invaders. Through reverse engineering on both sides; a low morale can result in
of recovered alien artifacts, X-COM is able them either dropping their weapons and
to develop better technology to combat the fleeing in panic or going berserk and open-
alien menace and eventually uncover how ing fire indiscriminately.
to defeat it.
The game was originally conceived by
Gameplay switches to the tactical
a small British video game developer
combat phase (Battlescape) whenever X-
company, Mythos Games—led by Julian
COM ground forces come in contact with
Gollop—as a sequel to their 1988 science
aliens.
fiction tactical game Laser Squad, “but with
In the Battlescape view, X-COM
much neater graphics using an isometric
combatants are pitted against the alien en-
style very similar to Populous.” The initial
emies. In addition to personnel, the player
1991 demo presented a relatively simple,
may have unmanned ground vehicles that
two-player tactical game then known as
are outfitted with heavy weapons. The
Laser Squad 2, which ran on the Atari ST.
Batttlescape mode is turn-based and each
combatant has a number of “time units”
which can be expended each turn. When
all alien forces have been neutralized, the
mission is scored based on number of X-
COM units killed, civilians saved, aliens
killed or captured and the number of alien
artefacts obtained. Captured live aliens
may produce information, possibly leading
to new technologies and even an access
to psionic warfare.
Instead of gaining experience
points, surviving human combatants might
get an automatic rise (a semi-random
amount depending on how much of the
action in which they participated) to their
attributes, such as Psi or Accuracy. The
Amiga

546 • Games - CD32


The Gollop brothers (Julian and Nick) ap-
proached three video game publishers,
Krisalis, Domark and MicroProse, eventu-
ally brokering a deal with MicroProse. Ju-
lian Gollop was especially happy about it
because he greatly respected MicroProse
and believed it was probably the best vid-
eo game company in the world at the time.
Although supportive of the project,
the publisher expressed concerns that the
demo lacked a grand scale in keeping with
MicroProse’s hit strategy game Civiliza-
tion. The Civilopedia feature of Civilization
also inspired an addition of the in-game
encyclopedia, called the UFOpaedia. All
that and the UFO theme was suggested by
MicroProse UK head of development Pete
Moreland. Julian Gollop’s personal inspi-
rations included several traditional games,
in particular, the board wargame Sniper!
and the tabletop role-playing game Travel-
ler.
Under MicroProse’s direction, Ju-
lian Gollop changed the setting to mod-
ern-day Earth and expanded the strategy
elements, among them the ability to cap-
ture and reproduce alien technology. He
has cited the 1970s British television se-
ries UFO as one of the influences for the
game’s storyline. A book by Bob Lazar,
where he describes his supposed work
with recovered UFOs at Area 51, inspired
the concept to reverse-engineer captured
alien technology.
A public demo of the game was re-
leased under the North American version’s
working title X-COM: Terran Defense
Force. Despite numerous changes from
the first demo, the tactical part of the game
remains true to the turn-based layout of
Laser Squad and the Gollop brothers’
earlier Rebelstar series. The AI system of
those games formed the basis for enemy
tactics, with Julian Gollop programming
his own unique algorithms for pathfinding
and behavior; in particular, the aliens were
purposely given an element of unpredict-
ability in their actions.
The original contract was for the
game be completed within 18 months. In
the course of its development, the game
was nearly canceled twice: in the first in-
stance due to the company’s financial dif-
ficulties, and the second time under the
pressure from Spectrum HoloByte after it
had acquired Bill Stealey’s shares in Mi-
croProse in 1993. The game was officially
ordered to be canceled by Spectrum Holo-
Byte, but the managers at MicroProse UK
held a meeting and decided to ignore it and
simply not inform Gollop about any of that.
Thus, the development team continued
their work without any knowledge of the
parent company’s executives, until it was
eventually completed in March 1994, after
30 months in development since the initial
contract. During the final three months,
after Spectrum HoloByte was eventually
informed of the game still being in produc-
tion, the Gollop brothers were forced to
work 7–12 in order to finish it before the
end of the fiscal year. The overall develop-
ment of the PC version cost £115,000.
CD32 - Games • 547
 The Amiga conversion was done by Ju-
lian Gollop’s brother Nick and “it was quite
tough because the Amiga wasn’t quite as
fast as PCs were becoming at that time.”
The Amiga ECS/OCS version displays
lower quality graphics than the PC version
and is missing light source shading during
combat missions, but the sound quality is
improved; the graphics are better in the
AGA Amiga version.
A Limited Edition for
the Amiga CD32 came
with a MicroProse travel
alarm clock. The alarm
clock on this page was
released alongside Mi-
croprose’s Starlord. But
the same sticker are
used on both boxes, so
the clocks were most
likely identical.
The game was released to great acclaim
and commercial success, selling more
than 600,000 units on the PC DOS plat-
form, not counting the later ports—for the
Amiga platforms and the PlayStation—and
re-releases. Half of the game’s net sales
were in the United States, a rarity for a Eu-
ropean title at the time. Gollop has attrib-
uted the game’s North American success
to its title (X-COM), as the television series
The X-Files had premiered a year earlier.
More than 400,000 units were sold at full
price, with little marketing from its publish-
er. Together with its sequel, X-COM: Ter-
ror from the Deep, its sales had passed 1
million copies by March 1997. The game
earned the Gollop brothers just over £1
million in royalties. The game became very
popular in Russia, even as there were no
royalties from that market as it was only
distributed there via software piracy.
Computer Gaming World rated X-
COM five stars out of five. Describing it as
“one of those rare and dangerous games
capable of drilling into your brain, putting
548 • Games - CD32
a vice-grip on your imagination, and only
releasing you when it has had enough”,
the magazine praised its detailed and var-
ied combat system and lengthy gameplay,
concluding “Resistance is futile”.
Amiga ports received lower ratings
than the PC original (which holds an av-
erage score of 93% at GameRankings),
according to Amiga HOL database having
averaged scores of 79% on the ECS/OCS
Amigas, 82% on the AGA Amigas and 73%
for the CD32 version. A common point of
criticism for the floppy disk version was the
need to frequently swap the disks in the
Amiga systems not equipped with a hard
disk drive, while the CD-ROM based CD32
version does not allow the users to save
the progress of any other game without
wiping out the save game of UFO. Nev-
ertheless, a review in Amiga Action called
it “easily the most original and innovative
game in the history of the Amiga”, and a
review in Amiga World called in “the short-
est path to heaven” for a strategy gamer,
and a review in CU Amiga of the 1997 bud-
get range re-release called it the “game
everyone loves”.
Computer Gaming World gave X-
COM its Game of the Year award.
Windows PlayStation
 In 2009, Edge called X-COM “the
title that first brought turn-based wargam-
ing to the masses.” It has often appeared
in top video game lists by various publica-
tions. Computer Gaming World ranked it
as the 22nd (1996) and third (2001) best
computer game of all time; the magazine’s
readers also voted it for tenth place in
2001. Polish web portal Wirtualna Polska
ranked it as the 13th best Amiga game,
as well as the third most addictive game
“that stole our childhood”; it was also retro-
spectively ranked as the eighth best Amiga
game by the Polish edition of CHIP.
The game also had a big influence
on the development team of the role-play-
ing video game Fallout. Project director
Tim Cain said they “all loved
X-COM” and that the original
version of Fallout (known as
Vault 13, before the game was
redesigned after they lost the
GURPS license) had a very
similar combat system.
An official remake, titled XCOM: En-
emy Unknown, was developed by Firaxis
Games, led by MicroProse’s co-founder
Sid Meier. The game’s prototype was ac-
tually a modernization of the original, with
all the classic gameplay features, but
then gradually evolved into a completely
“reimagined” version. The game was re-
leased by 2K Games for Windows, Play-
Station 3 and Xbox 360 in 2012, winning
multiple Game of the Year awards. Julian
Gollop commented on the game and said
that “Firaxis did a terrific job with the new
XCOM,” although he “would have done
things differently for sure. (...) I tried many
times for many years to get a remake un-
derway, but Firaxis finally did it.”

The success of the game re-

sulted in several sequels and
spin-off games, as well as
many unofficial remake and
spiritual successor titles, both
fan-made and commercial. X-
COM: Terror from the Deep
was released in 1995 on DOS,
and for PlayStation a year
later. Julian Gollop himself de-
signed the third game in the X-
COM series, 1997’s X-COM:
Apocalypse, which was also
developed together by Mythos
Games and MicroProse. The
game also received an unof-
ficial sequel in the 1997 ex-
pansion set Civ II: Fantastic
Worlds for MicroProse’s Civili-
zation II, in a scenario set on
the Phobos moon of Mars.

CD32 - Games • 549

 Vital Light
Trivial Pursuit: Developer
Publisher
Efecto Caos
Millennium Interactive
The CD32 Edition Release date 1995
Genre Puzzle, Shooter
Developer The Kremlin Mode 1-3 Players
Publisher Domark
Release date 1994 Vital Light is an action game developed
Genre Trivia by Spanish studio Efecto Cao SL.
Mode 1-6 Players
The player character is sent to the planet
Reportedly exactly the same as the RAMROM to complete an arcade game
CDTV release without any upgrades. that no one has beaten before.
While incorporating other play styles, at
its core the game is a shoot-’em-up. Play-
ers control a small paint gun at the bot-
tom of the screen, which can be moved
left or right. Rows of blocks (‘aliens’) fall
from the top of the screen, similar to Tet-
ris, that the player must shoot before they
fall to the bottom. The aliens comes in dif-
ferent colors, and the player must choose
the matching color when shooting them,
similar to Zuma. As the blocks fall at vary-
ing speeds, there are times when an ava-
lanche is set off by a slow block being hit
by a fast moving block above it.
“mobygames.com”

excerpts from review by Computer + Video Games

#150 (May 1994) by Rik Skews;

TRIVIAL PURSUIT
This CD32 version is essentially a repackaged
version of the old CDTV game from about three
years ago. Now we’ve got CD quality music and
sound FX to listen to and photorealistic images to
gawp at. But is this packages any better than the
boardgame?
It succeeds more than most boardgame conver-
sions because of its quality graphics and sound, but
Triv’ fans are hardly going to want to sit around a
monitor, and games fans won’t rate this above the
latest platformer or beat-‘em-up. Nice try though.
This and the CDTV version are the best small-
screen trivia games to date.
Score: 59%
Other Releases
Amiga 1994

550 • Games - CD32

Wild Cup Soccer
Developer Teque London
Publisher Millennium Interactive
Release date 1994
Genre Sports
Mode 1-2 Players
Wild Cup Soccer is an arcade-style soc-
cer game, released alongside the 1994
World Cup�������������������������������
. It is the second and last en-
try in the Brutal Sports Series franchise.
In one player mode players can choose
the Wild Cup or a League system; two
player games are restricted to single
‘Unfriendly’ matches.
Unlike its predecessor the game uses an
isometric viewpoint, similar to the origi-
nal FIFA. A number of vicious moves
are on offer, such as lethal head-butts
and shoulder barges. If a game finishes
drawn, it goes into a ‘Penalty Shoot Out’,
which involves going round shooting the
opposition. The pre-match screens in-
clude attacking at defensive play styles,
transfers and the chance to buy items
such as rocket launchers and shields.
“mobygames.com”
Other Releases
Amiga CD32 1994
Amiga 1994
Ultimate Super Skidmarks
Developer Acid Software (?)
Publisher Acid Software
Release date 1998
Genre Racing
Mode 1-4 Players
Ultimate Super Skidmarks, or Super
Skidmarks+, is a re-release and en-
hanced version of Super Skidmarks. It
was released for Amiga computers with
a CD-ROM, which is also compatible
with the CD32.
The game contains several new features,
including dozens of different vehicles, 24
tracks, a new 8 car mode for AGA ma-
chines, shared screen mode for up to 4
player team racing and user-defined cars.
It also improved local and remote game-
play linking, along with several other en-
hancments.
It also includes two bonus games: Super
Skidmarks: Farmyard Edition and Super
Silly Skidmarks. Both are variations of
Skidmarks and comes with different ve-
hicles and sound effects.
“mobygames.com”
CD32 - Games • 551
Take Boris Verne, a uniquely ordinary guy...
One minute he’s sitting quietly at his 35-bit Excel-
lence Engine home computer. The next he’s being
transported to another dimension by his eccentric
uncle’s Virtual Dimension Inducer!
Imagine how he feels when he emerges from a rip
in the space-time-time continuum until an unknown
dimension...
Encounter weird alien worlds and their even
weirder inhabitants! Guide Boris on an action-
packed chase across the gulfs of space to find a
fabled lost star. Help him find the key to defeating
the evil Golden King who rules his
UNIVERSE!
preview article; Amiga CD32 Gamer #4 (September 1994);

universe

Core’s latest epic adventure actually began life as a

movie script. Sci-fi artist Rolf Mohr unsuccessfully
hawked his idea around the movie studios, before
eventually deciding to make it a game. Over one
and a half years in development, it could well be
Core’s most spectacular adventure yet.
and he’s fully scalable too, wandering across fantastic
landscapes with his size varying realistically. As you
progress the game introduces arcade elements includ-
ing a docking sequence, first-perspective car chase and
a Flashback-style run and shoot section. Mohr had

L
hoped for more of these to keep closer to his original
ike Giger, Mohr originally trained out as an
storyline, but the production deadline forced them to
architect but later specialised in architectural
be cut although other elements, such as barren worlds,
‘artist’s impressions’ while doing sci-fi book
became enhanced with other members of the team in-
covers in his spare time. The latter connection got him
troducing puzzles and creatures.
involved with the Games Workshop where he did the
The hero of this hugely promising adventure suf-
cover for Space Fleet, while also working on his movie
fers the unlikely moniker Boris Verne. Aside from the
synopsis. Then several years ago Core advertised for
name, Boris is supposed to be your average everyday
an illustrator to work on their Curse of Enchantia ad-
joe - even his uncle is an eccentric who’s invented a
venture. Mohr applied and was promptly brought in
Virtual Dimension Inducer. Our Boris inevitably trips
house. After Enchantia zoomed up the sales charts,
over the thing and is sent tumbling into a parallel uni-
Mohr dusted off his old Universe script and proposed
verse. Here Boris finds himself caught up in the war
that as a game. It would take a year he said. Core gave
between the evil emperor Neiamises and the peace-
him eight months and of course it ran massively over.
loving Mekallen Empire. Boris is to provide the lat-
The main reason for the overrun was a new graph-
ter’s unlikely saviour, but it’s not be going to be easy...
ics system called Super Pre-Adjusted Color (SPAC),
Aside from the arcade sequences, the game is con-
which enabled the A500 to display 256 colours instead
trolled via a slick point and click system which allows
of 32. While this meant the game could be designed
plenty of flexibility over approaching the numerous
for CD32 quality graphics, rather than have an A500
puzzles. The sophisticated feel of game betrays the de-
version touched up for CD32, it imposed heavy techni-
velopers’ experience with Core’s previous hit, Curse of
cal demands. On Universe Mohr was painting the vari-
Enchantia, and seems set to be a huge hit. In the realm
ous scenes (over sixty in all), then scanning them in as
of graphic adventures at least, the CD32 seems to en-
24bit hi-res images before using D-Paint to cut them
joying almost a glut of great games!
down. SPAC forced further retouching to meet its tech-
• Universe is to be released in September by Core.
nical demands.
Mohr is proud of the result with some truly gorgeous
scenes reminiscent of matte paintings from a 1950s SF
movie. There’s also plenty of animation in the back-
drops, on one deso-
lated planetoid an
asteroid goes tum-
bling overhead pos-
ing some intriguing
problems. Rotoscope
animation is used for
the main character

magazine article • 553

 Universe

Universe is a a graphic adventure game devel-

oped and published by Core Design. It was Core
Design’s second and last effort in the adventure
game genre after Curse of Enchantia, of which it
was originally planned to be a sequel.

Universe is a space opera that tells the story of

16-year-old Boris, who has been summoned from
modern Earth to another universe, where he is
destined to become its long forecast savior from
evil.
During his journey, Boris will meet various
people and other living beings, some helpful and
some hostile. He will have to solve numerous puz-
zles in order to proceed with the game’s story.

Universe uses a point-and-click user interface. The

Developer Core Design (?) player character is controlled via an icon based
Publisher Core Design control bar that is accessible by pressing the right
Release date 1994 mouse button, which also pauses the game.
Genre Adventure
Mode 1 Player
Universe was notable for its then-unique ability to
display 256 colors at once on a standard Amiga
500, instead of just 32, due to its innovative sys-
tem SPAC (Super Pre-Adjusted Colour). Another
feature never seen before on the Amiga was its dy-
namic music system similar to LucasArts’ iMUSE.
The animations of the sprite of Boris was roto-
scoped; the character is actually a digitized version
of Rolf Mohr—designer and writer of the game.

The Amiga version received

several highly positive re-
views, though, some re-
viewers were more critical,
such as 7/10 from Amiga
Magazine or only 38% from
Amiga Format.

Other Releases
Amiga 1994
MS-DOS 1994

CD32 MS-DOS

554 • Games - CD32

Wembley International Soccer
Developer Audiogenic Software (?)
Publisher Audiogenic Software
Release date
Genre
1994
Sports
Wendetta 2175
Mode 1-2 Players Developer Vortex Design
Officially licensed by the old Wembley Publisher Skills
Release date 1996
stadium, this soccer game is essentially Genre Action
an advanced version of Ocean’s Euro- Mode 1-2 Players
pean Champions.
Wendetta 2175 is a shoot ‘em up game
Gameplay emphasizes one-touch pass-
for one or two players. The game is set
ing, with a picture-in-picture window dis-
in the year 2175 and earth is under at-
played when the player prepare to play a
tack by an alien race.
long pass, which increases the chances
of finding the target player. The game consists of horizontally scroll-
64 international teams are includ- ing levels and levels where the player
ed, with the chance to play a full league controls the ship from behind in a pseu-
competition or a World Cup. Full control do-3D perspective.
over formation and tactics is offered be- CU Amiga Magazine wrote in their re-
fore the match. view that the game “was smooth, profes-
The AGA version was the first floppy- sional, but unengaging”. They still gave
based game to supports a CD32 control- it a score of 73% though.
ler, making it easier to execute moves. “mobygames.com”

“mobygames.com”

Other Releases
Amiga 1994

Other Releases
Amiga 1994

CD32 - Games • 555

 Whale’s Voyage

Whale’s Voyage is a sci-fi role-playing game with

trading elements. The story involves a space trav-
eler who has made a bad deal buying a space
ship known as Whale, which turned out to be half-
wrecked. Stranded on the orbit of a remote plan-
et, the traveler and his crew have to find a way to
gain money and outfit the ship so that it will stand a
chance in that dangerous area.

The game’s character creation involves shaping four

crew members. Each is generated at first by select-
ing his or her father and mother, choosing among
humans or an alien species that does not appear
elsewhere in the game. Educational background
chosen for characters determines their class. There
are six classes in total: Soldier, Bounty Hunter, Ara-
nia, Biochemist, Psionian, and Doctor. Depending
on the class, characters gain access to skills such as
Developer neo healing, setting traps, identifying, using computers,
Publisher Flair etc. Each character also has six main attributes that
Release date 1993
can be manually improved in the beginning of the
Genre Role-playing
Mode 1 Player game, increasing the character’s “mutation level”.
In the beginning of the game the player can
only explore one planet, but acquiring money makes
it possible to buy fuel and travel to other planets of
the local solar system. There are six planets in to-
tal, differing in their visual design but all represented
as pseudo-3D mazes set in populated areas, which
are explored from first-person perspective. Combat
takes place in the same area as exploration and is

Other Releases
Amiga 1993
MS-DOS 1995
CD32 MS-DOS

556 • Games - CD32

fairly sporadic, usually involving selecting congratulated the Austrian video gam-
attack options for each player-controlled ing industry. CU Amiga thought the game
character and exchanging blows in a turn- did not inspire confidence in the Austrian
based fashion. The player advances by games market. Amiga Dream gave it a
talking to various characters and complet- score of 85%.
ing their quests. In 1994, the game was voted by
Space travel is menu-based. The readers as #2 Best RPG in 1993 in the
Whale can be ambushed on the way to Amiga Joker magazine.
another planet, which leads to a turn-
based space battle shown on a separate A sequel was released in 1995 entitled
top-down screen. The number of turns is Whale’s Voyage II: Die Übermacht. While
determined by action points of the partici- never originally released in English, the
pants. The player can also outfit the Whale sequel was unofficially translated into the
with better engines and weapons. Trading language in 2018.
plays an important part, since many objec-
tives are based around
amassing money. Buy-
ing items on one planet
and selling them on an-
other for profit becomes
the main source of in-
come.

The game was devel-

oped by the Austrian
company Neo Software
and programmed by
Hannes Seifert and Niki
Laber.

Amiga Format praised

the game, despite de-
scribing it as huge, com-
plicated, and daunting,
and thought it lacked
the depth and immer-
sion of space adven-
tures like BAT 2. Amiga
Power thought the game
offered CD32 owners
something to play other
than pinballers and plat-
formers. Amiga Joker
thought the game was
a successful debut, and

some text from mobygames.com

CD32 - Games • 557

 Worms

Worms is the first iteration of the long-running

Worms series of turn-based strategic artillery
games.

Gameplay in Worms consists of actions taken by

between two and four teams of human- or A.I.-
controlled worms on a two-dimensional playing
field. The game is turn-based, with each player
being able to move a single worm per turn. They
then use whatever tools and weapons are avail-
able to attack and kill the opponents’ worms,
thereby winning the game.
Over fifty weapons and tools may be avail-
able each time a game is played, and differing se-
lections of weapons and tools can be saved into
a “scheme” for easy selection in future games.
Other scheme settings allow options such as de-
Developer Team 17
ployment of reinforcement crates, from which ad-
Publisher Ocean ditional weapons can be obtained, and sudden
Release date 1995 death where the game is rushed to a conclusion
Genre Strategy after a time limit expires.
Mode 1-4 Players Environments in Worms are completely
destructible, and almost all weapons cause some
amount of deformation to the terrain. Over time,
this reduces the size of the overall play area,
making defensive positioning increasingly difficult
while simultaneously increasing the danger that
players will fall or be forced off of the map.

Other Releases
Amiga 1995
MS-DOS 1995
Game Boy 1995
Genesis 1996
Jaguar 1998
Macintosh 1996
PlayStation 1996
Sega Saturn 1996
SNES 1996
Windows (Worms United)

CD32 MS-DOS

558 • Games - CD32

Worms was originally conceived not as a
commercial product, but as a distraction for
creator Andy Davidson, a fan of local multi-
player games like Bomberman and Super
Mario Kart, and his high school friends. It
was initially built using borrowed assets
from Psygnosis’ Lemmings, and the earli-
est version of Worms was known as Le-
martillery as a result. The game eventually
became so popular among the students of
Davidson’s school that it was banned en-
tirely, prompting Davidson to consider the
possibility of having his game published. In
order to make the game more attractive to
would-be publishers, however, the game’s
graphics had to be reworked, and thus
Davidson scrapped the original lemmings
on favor of worms, giving this new iteration
the name Total Wormage. Davidson was
so intent on getting his game published
that after high school he decided to forgo
the pursuit of higher education in order to
do so. While he continued to work on the
game, Davidson used the customers of an
Amiga store where he worked as a form of
playtesting for Total Wormage.
In one of his efforts to get his game
noticed, Davidson submitted Total Wor-
mage into a competition held by British
Amiga magazine, Amiga Format. By Dav-
idson’s own admission, though, his entry
into the contest did not accomplish what
he had hoped, as he neither won nor re-
ceived any mention in the magazine. Al-
though discouraged by this and a number
of failed attempts at garnering attention for
Total Wormage by mailing copies to pub-
lishers and developers, Davidson had one
final idea: to take the game to the Euro-
pean Computer Trade Show in London.
This would prove to be the turning point in
Davidson’s fortunes, as while there he de-
moed the game to Team17, who showed
an immediate interest in it. Team17 offered
to help Davidson develop and publish the
Jewel Case
game; much of their work went into port-
ing Worms to other game systems, as the
original Amiga version that Davidson had
been working on was by this time fairly
well-developed. In total, Davidson esti-
mates that he spent about four years of his
life in the development of Worms.
Worms was a commercial success. By
March 1996, its sales had reached almost
250,000 copies, following its release in
November 1995. Across all its ports, the
game ultimately sold above 5 million units
by 2006.
Worms was fairly well-received
upon its release in 1995, and many critics
commending it for having easy-to-grasp
yet strategic gameplay, a humorous, light-
hearted presentation, and a great deal of
customization options and replayability.
The original version received a great deal
of positive attention from the Amiga gam-
ing press, with a large number of review
scores falling within the ninetieth percen-
tile. Ironically, Amiga Format, the very
same British publication that had failed to
acknowledge Davidson’s game when he
submitted it into their yearly Amiga game
competition, issued a glowing post-release
review of Worms in their 1995 Christmas
issue, saying that it “thoroughly deserves
to be a real smash.”
some text from giantbomb.com
CD32 - Games • 559
 Will Bridge: Initiation Junior
Developer Will-Bridge (?)
Publisher Will-Bridge
Whizz Release date 1994
Genre Cards, Edutainment
Developer Flair Software (?) Mode 1 Player
Publisher Flair Software
Release date 1995 A continuastion of the Will Bridge series
Genre Platformer that started on the CDTV. As before, it’s a
Mode 1 Player
game that teaches users to play Bridge.
Whizz is a 1994 isometric platform game.
Within the game, “Whizz” refers to the
player character’s magical talents, be-
ing short for “wizard”. Marketing for the
game used it in reference to the slang
term for urination, such as in the adver-
tising slogan “Ever feel the need for a
Whizz real bad? You will.”
Each level is played out against a time
limit, and the paths through the level
aren’t always clear-cut. There are four
different types of doors, each of which
needs a particular icon to pass.
The game was released for Amiga com-
puters with CD-ROM, but it is also com-
patible with the CD32.
“mobygames.com”
Word Construction Set
Developer Lascelles
Publisher Lascelles
Release date 1994
Genre Edutainment
Mode 1 Player

Word Construction Set is an education-

al game from New Zealand intended to
teach children reading skills, spelling
and vocabulary. The object is to con-
struct words from blocks of sound and
patterns.

Other Releases
Amiga 1995
MS-DOS 1994
PlayStation 1997
Sega Saturn 1997
SNES 1996

560 • Games - CD32

 Zool: Ninja Of The ‘’Nth’’ Dimension

Zool is a platformer originally developed by Grem-

lin Graphics for the Amiga, and was later ported to
multiple other platforms. Like Superfrog, Zool was
destined to rival Mario and Sonic as the Amiga’s own
icon. The game features extensive product place-
ment from Chupa Chups.

Zool is a platform game, relying on smooth, fast-

moving gameplay. Its protagonist is Zool, a gremlin
“Ninja of the Nth Dimension” who is forced to land on
Earth; in order to gain ninja ranking, he has to pass
seven lands, beating a boss at the end of each of
them.

Obstacles and enemies litter the 2D worlds, and the

game is known for being very difficult. Zool has the
ability to perform jumps, punches, kicks, sliding tack-
les, fire a “magic cannon” weapon and perform 4 dif-
Developer Gremlin
Publisher Gremlin ferent magic spells. The magic spells vary greatly,
Release date 1993 and include an invincibility spell, a fire blast spell
Genre Platformer which kills all enemies on screen, a duplication spell
Mode 1 Player which creates a second Zool, doubling the players
fire power and one that increases his jumping ability.
Zool can also climb walls by clinging onto the wall,
and jumping upwards before clinging to it again.
The game contains a number of embed-
ded minigames, including several arcade games, a
scrolling space shooter and a game accessible only
by making Zool play a certain tune on an in-game
piano or finding certain invisible warp points.

Other Releases
Acorn 32-bit 1993
Amiga 1992
Antstream 2019
Atari ST 1993
BlackBerry 2013
MS-DOS 1993
Game Boy 1993
Game Gear 1994
Genesis 1993
Sega Master System 1993
SNES 1993
Windows (Zool Redimensioned)
CD32 Genesis

562 • Games - CD32

Zool was marketed as a rival to Sega’s
Sonic the Hedgehog. George Allan came
with the idea of Zool as he was criticized on
his previous game Switchblade II for hav-
ing a lack of enemies. The very early name
for the project was Pootz. The soundtrack
by Patrick Phelan overlaps with the Lotus
3 soundtrack and inspired several modern
electro/techno remixes.
The game was heavily hyped upon its ini-
tial release, including being bundled with
the then-newly launched Amiga 1200, al-
though not the AGA version with enhanced
graphics which followed later.
In 2000, the Amiga version of Zool
was re-released as part of The Best of
Gremlin compilation.
The CD32 version has original red
book audio tracks by Neil Biggin and has
the option to have both sound effects and
music. This and the Acorn Archimedes port
are the only two incarnations of the original
Amiga version to have this. Most computer
ports are close to the Amiga original but
the Genesis and SNES ports both feature
different levels which are structured differ-
ently, different background graphics, and
unique bosses. With the exception of the
CD32 version, all console versions fea-
ture the soundtrack of the Amiga original,
remixed appropriately for each console’s
unique sound systems.
Two young adult novels based on
the games, entitled Cool Zool and Zool
Rules, were released in 1995. They were
written by Stan Nicholls and Ian Edgin-
ton and published by Boxtree. The Game
Maker’s Companion (APress, 2010), a
book on hobbyist game development, con-
tains step-by-step instructions on how to
remake the original Zool game using Gam-
eMaker Studio.
Jewel Case
Zool Redimensioned, a remaster of the
game, was released in 2021. It was devel-
oped by Sumo Digital Academy and pub-
lished by publisher Secret Mode on the
Steam platform. The game was based on
the Mega Drive version, which was includ-
ed as a bonus. Due to legal reasons, the
Chupa Chups brand and logo that have
been heavily featured in the Zool series
as part of their sponsorship, featured in
the opening title and the first level “Sweet
World” have been removed due to the
brand no longer being associated with the
series.
The original Amiga game was released to
critical acclaim, receiving scores of 97%,
96%, 95% from Amiga Computing, Amiga
Action and Amiga Format respectively.
Electronic Gaming Monthly claimed, “Zool
sports great graphics, but ends up with
a case of Super Trolland’s disease: your
character moves much too fast and with
little control!” GamePro gave a positive re-
view of the Game Gear version, praising
its “great graphics and sound abound”, as
well as its “crisp” gameplay.
some text from giantbomb.com
CD32 - Games • 563
 Zool 2

Zool 2 is the second game in the Zool series, and

features similar platforming gameplay and copious
amounts of Chupa Chups lollipop product placement
as the original Zool.

When the forces of Krool are wreaking havoc upon

the Nth Dimension with the help from his hench-
man Mental Block, the intergalactic gremlin ninja
Zool alongside his female companion Zooz and their
two-headed dog Zoon, are entrusted with the task
of stopping Mental Block and restore order to the di-
mension.

Zool 2 plays very similarly to its predecessor, Zool.

Both Zool and his female counterpart, Zooz, almost
share the same move set between each other but,
there are some subtle differences with the two char-
acters in terms of their abilities and means of defense.
Developer The Warp Factory
Publisher Gremlin Whereas Zool attacks with projectiles, Zooz is armed
Release date 1994 with an energy whip for close quarters combat, along
Genre Platformer with the ability of shooting projectiles as well. In ad-
Mode 1-2 Players dition, each character is capable of destroying cer-
tain parts of the scenery that the other one could not,
and vice versa, resulting in a slightly different route
through the levels.
As with the original game, the sequel features
several minigames, such as a version of Breakout
which involves using Zoon as a paddle in order to
keep the ball in play by bouncing it upwards.

Other Releases
Amiga 1993
Antstream 2019
BlackBerry 2013
MS-DOS 1994
Jaguar 1994

CD32 Jaguar

564 • Games - CD32

 The progression system acts simi-
larly to the original game, which involves
the player in collecting a set number of
items in order to advance into the next
level. The game also features a two-player
mode.
Zool 2 was created by a new develop-
ment team at The Warp Factory, whose
programming staff involved personnel that
previously worked on Harlequin for Grem-
lin Graphics, with only composer Patrick
Phelan returning from the original Zool
crew as George Allan, Adrian Carless and
Tony Dawson did not return to work on
the sequel. Gremlin marketing manager
Nick Clarkson stated that they wanted to
expand upon Zool’s character and game-
play for the sequel, while producer Peter
J. Cook claimed that the team at The Warp
Factory wanted to stay with a basic theme
following the same gameplay style but
move towards a new direction via new ide-
as with larger levels to explore. The team
also reworked Zool’s look for the sequel,
while his female companion Zooz went
through various changes before release.
The Amiga remained the lead format for
the second Zool game, but unlike the first
it was not widely ported to the other plat-
forms, only the Atari Jaguar and DOS. The
game had originally been planned to be
bundled with the CD32 at the request of
Commodore, but when Gremlin Graphics
failed to reach the deadline, Zool 2 was
bundled with the Amiga 1200’s Computer
Combat pack in 1994. The DOS version of
the game was also re-released as part of
the Windows-based compilation CD Best
of Gremlin in 2000.
When it was originally released for the Ami-
ga, Zool 2 received positive reception from
critics who praised the graphics, sound
department and gameplay, with some con-
Jewel Case
sidering it as an improvement over the first
game. It received scores of 93% in Amiga
Format, 90% in Amiga Computing, 86% in
Amiga Power and 76% in CU Amiga.
Other ports of the game received
similarly positive reception from reviewers,
while the Jaguar version received mixed
reviews from critics since its release and
has sold nearly 11,000 copies as of April
1, 1995, though it is unknown how many
were sold in total during its lifetime.
GamePro gave the Jaguar version
a positive review, saying that the varied
abilities of the playable characters “push
this game to the top of the Jaguar hop-
n-bop ranks”. GamePro also praised the
graphics, stating that “Zool’s Nth Dimen-
sion is a shiny, inventive world that’s equal
parts candy shop and toy store”, and that
the Jaguar version is sharper and brighter
than previous versions of the game. Next
Generation called it “still a basic platform
game, but one of the best we’ve seen a
while”. Like GamePro, they praised the
quality of the graphics, and additionally the
large number of interesting power-ups and
stages. Mike Weigand of Electronic Gam-
ing Monthly assessed it as “a pretty good
version of the pint-sized ninja character”,
particularly noting the large levels, though
he felt the graphics were sometimes “visu-
al overkill”.
some text from giantbomb.com
CD32 - Games • 565
 Letters from readers sent to
video game magazines.

CU Amiga Magazine 40 (Jun. 1993)

BackChat

ROLL YOUR OWN

Amiga CD32 Gamer #17 (Dec. 1994)
mail Section
I own an A500+ with a GVP A530
I’,m 14 years old and have never owned Turbo HD incorporating 2Mb Chip RAM,
a computer. Sad isn’t it? My mum says 8Mb 32-Bit Fast RAM, a 68030 ac-
I can have one for Christmas but I celerator with a 68882 Maths co-proc-
don’t know which one to get. There’s so essor plus two floppy drives, and Action
many around I’m baffled! My mates told Replay MKIII and a ROM switcher
me to get a Megadrive but that’s just with version 1.3 and 2.04 ROMS. Hav-
so he can nick my games because he’s ing paid close to £2,500 for the above
got one too. I know the Super Nintendo set-up, Commodore, in their infinite wis-
has better graphics. I’ve heard good dom, bring out the A1200. If I cannot
things about the CD32 but everyone adapt my A500+, which I adore using,
I know says there’s no games for it. I it will mean starting all over with a
bought your magazine and it had some new machines or miss out on all the new
good reviews so I know this isn’t true. software (this reminds me of the STE,
I know you’ll say the CD32 is best but STFM argument).
I’m getting really desperate. Until I bought my A500+, I wasn’t
What should I do? much of an artist. I couldn’t draw for
Chris Cooke, Co. Durham the life of me, but DPaint, MovieSet-
ter and Eric Schwartz changed all that.
Then just as I got used to it all, Com-
Answer from the editorial. - modore stab me in the back. Their con-
Such panic! Such consternation! The answer’s stant redevelopment idea has me com-
easy, lad. Get a CD32, save your pennies and pletely confused and annoyed. I’m all for
then, one day, you’ll be able to convert it to a progress, but releasing three Amigas
regular Amiga too, giving you the best of both
worlds. A MegaDrive can’t run CD games with- in the same price range - the crappy
out an expensive MegaCD add on, and we all A600, the unsupported CDTV and the
know just how poor the games are on that. new A1200 - is going to lose a lot of cus-
tomers. I think I understand why more
people are buying PCs. They may be slow,
bulky and have prehistoric architecture,
but at least they are easily upgradable.
J. V. Lane, Kent

CU Amiga Magazine 99 (May 1998)

CDTV coverage?
Do you have or intend to have a Answer from the editorial. -
special section for Amiga CDTV? No we don’t, and no we won’t!
At the risk of offending those
Jaydee with the not so little black boxes,
CDTV is obsolete technology.
Get with the program Jaydee!

566 • Magazine letters - CD32

 Amiga CD 32 #2 (Winter 1994)
Letters

‘Still a dream’
Answer from the editorial. -
I have just purchased a CD32 and I would
Hardware buyers are always paranoid: as soon as
like to say that it is no way underrated. I
you buy your machine someone promises to bring out
have been a keen Amiga user for four years,
something new. Obsolescence is the bane of any gam-
and this is just reward for perseverance and
er’s life! So, as you say, you have to make the most of
support.
what you’ve got, now. Enjoy it while you can and then
I know you get hundreds of letters every
upgrade when you get bored of it.
month saying why one console is better than
If you really want 32-bit CD computing, your best
another but I am sick of hearing that the
bet might be to flog all your existing kit and use the
only advantage the CD32 has over com-
cash to buy an A1200 and CD-ROM drive. Which will
petitors is that is is here now and plenty of
still be able to run your CD32 software.
cheap software is available.
I have seen the 3DO on import. The
games are crap, the video fuzzy, and the
disk accessing considerably slower than an
Amiga floppy drive. Amiga CD32 Gamer #18 (Nov. 1995)
mail Section
The Atari Jaguar has been around for
months and there is only one decent game I’ve heard a rumour and I’d just like
available and the CD toilet add-on still you to shed some light on it if you can.
isn’t available. Like the Falcon, the Jaguar Is it true that when the CD32 is re-
was tipped to be a real Amiga beater and launched it’s going to be completely re-
flopped. Who says the hype surrounding oth- designed? I heard this would not only in-
er consoles is any different? clude the exterior but also the hardware
The Sony PS-X is still a dream, the Sega and workings inside. I was a bit worried
and Nintendo offerings are even further as this might lead to incompatibility of
away from competition, so no one knows how
existing software. One of the big sell-
good they’ll be.
ing points of the machine must be the
Also, I would like to tell everybody to stop
asking for proper CD games. The CD-only fact there’s so much software already
games are in development, and rushing the out there including loads at very cheap
developers will just reduce their overall qual- prices. However if people are afraid of
ity. games not working they’re less likely to
I have seen the various CD32 connection go out and buy the new machine until
kits and they’re all crap. And the price of there’s enough specific software out
the SX-1 is a joke. I have an A600. It has a there for it.
keyboard, disk drive, hard drive and numer- If on the other hand this isn’t going
ous ports. Why can’t just one company make to affect compability then why bother
a CD32 connection kit that uses the CD32
changing things for the sake of it. Or
as the master, instead of the other way
am I just being stupid? Please help.
around. If I had wanted a 16-bit CD-ROM
I could have bought a CDTV. Carl Logan, Macclesfield
Finally, it may seem odd that I bought a
CD32 in Commodore’s time of strife, but I
have complete faith in the Amiga hardware Answer from the editorial. -
if nothing else and Commodore were doing a Humm. Timing is of the essence today! ...the
good job, why Commodore even existed in the rumour you’ve heard is completely true. As
US where there isn’t even an Amiga market far as the extent of the redesigning, we can’t
I will never know. be positive about its impact on comp ability,
Jonathon Herbert, St. Heller, Jersey but I’m sure Amiga Tech and Escom won’t
want to put the new machine’s life at risk like
Commodore did with the Amiga 500+.

CD32 - Magazine letters • 567


Rest of the CD32 Titles
These pages includes CD32 titles that
does not fit in the previous ‘games’
pages. Titles listed here includes
software tools, reference titles, com-
pilations discs, cover-discs, demos,
and other miscellaneous titles.
Folioworx Player
Publisher COME
Release date 1994
Genre Graphics
Folioworx Player from COME (Corpo-
rate Media) in Hanover is a program
for displaying photo CDs on the CD32
or AGA Amiga computers. The program
has an official KODAK license and can
read both plain Photo CDs (such as the
golden Photo CD Master discs) and in-
teractive Photo CD portfolio discs.

Mathematik Leicht Gemacht

Developer Amigacenter Dusseldorf
Publisher Amigacenter Dusseldorf
Release date 1994
Genre Edutainment

A German math learning tool.

PhotoLite
Publisher Eureka
Release date 1994
Genre Graphics

PhotoLite is a image viewer for the

CD32. The program supports multi-ses-
sion Photo CD’s and feature different
viewing options, such as landscape and
portrait mode.

COMPATIBLE

568 • CD-ROM titles - CD32

Maximum MODS
Publisher Legendary Design Teclnnologies
Release date 1995
Genre Music

Maximum MODS is a CD-ROM with Video Creator

over 4,200 music modules (241 hours of Developer Almathera (?)
music if played continuously). The disc Publisher Almathera
is intended for use with both the Amiga Release date 1994
and an PC so programs have been sup- Genre Graphics
plied for both machines. Video Creator let users create their own
Maximum MODS comes with a front end music videos. Users can combine im-
program that allows the user to search ages, animations, and 3D graphics with
for names of modules, or specific lengths a music CD and record with a video re-
of time. Also included are several appro- corder.
priate module player programs. Video Creator includes an editor, 3D vec-
“Maximum MODS tor graphics, over 1,000 Images and is
is included here compatible with the FMV cartridge. It can
because of it’s also auto generate videos and has the
inclusion in the ability to add text overlaid on a video.
“cd32.amiga.live” Video Creator, which took over 2 years
list of CD32 titles, to develop, was created primarily for the
so I assume it will
CD32.
boot on a CD32
machine.” “elisoftware.org”

CDBoot 1.0
Publisher Schatzruhe
Genre Tool

CDBoot 1.0 is an A1200 program that

enables users to use around 90% of the
CD32 titles released for the console on
an AGA machine, such as the A1200
and A4000 computer (with AT- or SCSI-
CDROM drive).
Users can create
a configuration file
for each CD, con-
taining information
on the Joypad em-
ulation. It is also
possible to save
the highscore of
each CD32 game.

CD32 - CD-ROM titles • 569

 Amiga Workbench 3.0
Publisher Vesalia (?)
Release date 1993
Genre Tool

Amiga Workbench 3.0 is a bootable CD-

CD Gold
Publisher Goldtech Computer Systems
Release date 1994
Genre Miscellaneous
CD Gold was a CD-ROM based maga-
zine for CD32, CDTV, A570, and any CD
Amiga. There was only one issue pub-
lished—the pilot issue.
Users can click on different questions
and a sound or video clip will play (some
with mistakes included).
The CD includes interviews, re-
views, PD games and demos, images
and animations, among other things.
ROM where users can use Amiga OS
3.0 Workbench on a CD32.
A standard CD32 joypad can also
be used in Workbench; the red button
works like the left mouse button and the
blue button like the right mouse button,
respectively. The direction controls move
the mouse pointer.
The CD contains files from the origi-
nal Workbench 3.0 disk and some ad-
ditional files for the CD32. In total, the
CD contains 1MB of data, and does not
appear to have been officially released
by Commodore or Amiga Inc., but by an
unknown German company.

Sheer Delight
Publisher Better Concepts
Genre Multi-media

Adult multi-
media disc that
includes over
COMPATIBLE 3,800 images of
women in differ-
ent poses, in-
cluding women
in bathing suits,
lingerie, semi
nude, etc.

570 • CD-ROM titles - CD32

 Catus Karaoke Series

Catus released a series of Swedish karaoke titles

for the CD32. In each title, users can choose from a
number of popular Swedish karaoke songs and sing
along with the accompanying text and midi-music. At
least four are known to exist, though the Karaoke Jul
CD has id number CD32-S009 (indicating 9 titles).

Catus, a publisher which were situated in Karlskro-

na—an urban area or tätort, Sweden—had previously
released Karaoke titles on the CDTV. They also sold
hardware, such as a small mixer and a microphone at
around £150. The CDs was priced at £50 each.

Publisher Catus AB
Release date 1994
Genre Party, Music

Krog- Karaoke 1
(“Pub Karaoke”)
CD32-S001
Songs aimed at barflies.

Dansbands- Karaoke 1
(“Dans Band Karaoke”)
CD32-S004
Songs which were popu-
lar with old Swedish cruise
ships passengers.

Fest- och SnapsKaraoke

(“Party and Snaps Karaoke”)
CD32-S008
Songs aimed at parties
where snaps (word for a shot
of a strong alcoholic bever-
age) are served.

Jul- Karaoke
(“Christmas Karaoke”)
CD32-S009
Swedish Christmas songs.

CD32 - CD-ROM titles • 571

 Enciclopedia Electronica
Multimediale Grolier
The Guinness Disc of Records:
Publisher Grolier Hachette International
Second Edition Release date 1994
Genre Reference
Developer New Media
Publisher Guinness Publishing A CD32 verson of Grolier’s digital Italian
Release date 1993 encyclopedias which were also released
Genre Reference
on the CDTV.
An updated version from the 1991 CDTV The disc contains all 21 volumes of the
release Guinness CDTV Disc of Re- Italian Grolier encyclopaedia in the inter-
cords. active edition. It includes information on
Like its previous release, it is a digital science and technology, arts, history, ge-
version of the long running book series of ography, contemporary life, sport, with
world records. It includes images, video the possibility of navigating between the
files, sounds, etc. of over 6,000 records. various topics.

572 • CD-ROM titles - CD32

The Grolier
Electronic Encyclopedia
World Atlas
Publisher Grolier Hachette International
Release date 1992 Developer Wisedome
Genre Reference Publisher Wisedome
Release date 1995
The Grolier Electronic Encyclopedia is a Genre Reference
digital version of Groliers print encyclo-
pedia series. It is an updated version of World Atlas is a interactive atlas compat-
the CDTV 1991 release The New Grolier ible with the CD32 and Amiga AGA ma-
Electronic Encyclopedia. This version is chines.
also confusingly called The New Gro- World Atlas is based on Digital Wisdom’s
lier Electronic Encyclopedia on the back Mountain High Maps collection and in-
cover (ed.- but I guess every new version could be cludes information for each country,
called the “New” encyclopedia). such as economics, historical and cultur-
This contains their 21-volume book se- al facts, flags, as well as separate maps
ries and contains images and sound. It depicting major cities, rivers, mountains
also includes a search mode and print- and geographical position.
ing options.

COMPATIBLE

CD32 - CD-ROM titles • 573


Compilations
These pages includes ‘compilation’
discs released for the CD32, such as
CD-ROMs with PC/Shareware soft-
ware, games only released on com-
pilation discs and compilations of re-
released CD32 titles.
CD Exchange Vol 1
Publisher CD Exchange
Release date 1994
PD and utility disc also compatible with
an A1200 CD-ROM. The utilities include
music modules, shareware games and
utilities (including the Twin Express
‘CD32 to PC or Amiga’ program), dem-
os, animations (including some by To-
bias Richter and Eric Schwartz), clipart,
fonts and AGA pictures.
None of the data has been archived,
which means that CD32 users can run
programs without the need to transfer
files.

Acid Attack
Publisher Acid (Guildhall)
Genre Games (compilation)

A compilation with 3 previously released

CD32 games; Roadkill, Super Skid-
marks and Guardian.
Each game came on their own CD.

574 • CD-ROM titles - CD32

 Alien Breed Special Edition / Qwak

Alien Breed Special Edition 92

Alien Breed Special Edition 92 is a horror action game
released by Team17 in 1992 for the Amiga (and Black-
Berry in 2013). It is an interim between Alien Breed
and its sequel. Gameplay is the same as its predeces-
sor—each level is a maze to be navigated through
while fighting off hordes of aliens.
The Special Edition 92 includes 12 new levels and
several new features: “dark mission” in which only the
glowing blue eyes of the aliens are visible, a level with
no aliens but the destruction sequence already initi-
ated, ability to access levels by means of a code.

Publisher Team 17
Release date 1994

Qwak
Qwak is a 2D puzzle-platform game developed by
Jamie Woodhouse. It was initially released for the
BBC Micro and Acorn Electron in 1989. An updated
and enhanced Amiga version was given a budget re-
lease by Team17 in 1993. This update added several
new features, including a two player mode and ad-
ditional levels.
The object of the game is to guide a green duck
through eighty levels. Fruit and gems can be collected
Review by; for points, and enemies are eliminated with projectile
Amiga User International Vol 8 #6 (Jul. 1994)
egg weapons. There are a variety of power-ups also
Some bright spark at Team 17 re- available.
alised that calling this game Alien
Breed ‘92 would make it seem out
of date in ‘93 and beyond. So they
re-wrote it, adding extra levels
and wotnot, then renamed it. Then,
of course, they converted it to CD.
And added some more new stuff,
apparently.

CD32 - CD-ROM titles • 575

 The Big 6

The Big 6 is a collection of six games from the Dizzy

series; Fantastic Dizzy (AGA version), Dizzy: Prince
of the Yolkfolk, Treasure Island Dizzy, Spellbound
Dizzy, Magicland Dizzy and Crystal Kingdom Dizzy.

The Dizzy series were created by the Oliver Twins

(Andrew and Philip Oliver) and published by Code-
masters. It was one of the most successful British
video game franchises of the late 1980s and early
1990s. Originally created for the ZX Spectrum and
Amstrad CPC, the series appeared on multiple home
computer and video game console formats, with over
a dozen games being published between 1987 and
1992.

The series is named for its main character, an an-

thropomorphic egg, called Dizzy for the way he som-
ersaults and rolls around the landscape. The games
Publisher CodeMasters
Release date 1994
are set in various fairytale-like locations and typically
involve Dizzy trying to save his friends and family, the
Yolkfolk, often from the schemes of his nemesis, the
evil wizard Zaks.

Most of the games in the series were platform-ad-

venture games, with an emphasis on puzzle solving,
collecting objects and interacting with other charac-
ters. In addition to these core adventure games, the
Dizzy branding and character also appeared in sev-
eral arcade-style games with unrelated gameplay.

The Oliver Twins eventually fell out with Codemas-

ters because of strained relations, and stopped work-
ing with or for the company. Since intellectual prop-
erty rights for the series were split between the two
parties, with the Olivers owning the copyright and
Codemasters the trademark, this effectively put an
end to the series.

Since the demise of the series in the early 1990s,

there have been numerous attempts to revive the se-
ries. These have included a remake for smartphone
platforms, a Kickstarter campaign, and the publish-
ing of several old games that were thought lost. The
series has also served as the inspiration for other
games, including many fan-games.

576 • CD-ROM titles - CD32

Fantastic Dizzy
Originally released in 1991. Gameplay
involves walking Dizzy through the lev-
els, picking up objects and using them to
solve simple puzzles. This enhanced AGA
version was only released as part of The
Big 6 CD32 compilation.
Dizzy: Prince of the Yolkfolk
Adventure game originally released in
1991. Remade for consoles as Dizzy
The Adventurer, later remade for mobile
phones. Also known as Dizzy VI. It was
the sixth game in the Dizzy adventure se-
ries.
Magicland Dizzy
Adventure game originally released in
1990 as the sixth game in the Dizzy se-
ries, and the fourth adventure-based Diz-
zy title. Gameplay involves walking Dizzy
through the levels, picking up objects and
talking to other characters.
Treasure Island Dizzy
Adventure game originally released in
1989 as the second game in the Dizzy ad-
venture series. The aim of the game is to
solve various puzzles in order to obtain a
boat so that Dizzy can return to his friends
and family, the Yolkfolk.
Spellbound Dizzy
Adventure game originally released in
1991 as the fifth game in the Dizzy adven-
ture series. Gameplay is mostly similar to
the previous games, combining puzzle-
solving and object manipulation with ar-
cade-style jumps and hazard-dodging.
Crystal Kingdom Dizzy
Originally released in 1992. It was the last
title to in the core Dizzy series until the re-
lease of Wonderful Dizzy in 2020. Object
of the game is to find the magical crystal
treasure which have been scattered all
over the islands.
CD32 - CD-ROM titles • 577
 The Classic Lotus Trilogy

The Classic Lotus Trilogy includes three games based

around the Lotus brand. Published between 1990 and
1992 by Gremlin Graphics, the games gained very
favourable reviews upon release. Original Amiga ver-
sions of the games were created by Shaun South-
ern and Andrew Morris of Magnetic Fields, and then
ported by other individuals to several other computers
and game consoles.

Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge

The first game in the series
was released in 1990 for 8-bit
and 16-bit computer systems,
the Amiga and Atari ST ver-
sions. The game granted the
player to race a Lotus Esprit
Turbo SE car through 32 cir-
Developer Magnetic Fields cuit race tracks of varying
Publisher Gremlin Graphics scenery.
Release date 1994
Lotus Turbo Challenge 2
The second Lotus game
shifted focus to arcade-ori-
ented gameplay. Being the
first of the series released
for a game console, the fuel
limit and difficulty levels were
dropped, and the lap-based
levels were replaced with
course-based time trials.

“Slightly overpriced in this Lotus III: The Ultimate Challenge

format, but easily the best
driving action you can get for
your CD32, even if only for
the sake of Lotus 1.
Review score: 80%”
Amiga Power review (April 1994)
The third game in the series
combined the gameplay as-
pects of its predecessors,
allowing players to choose
between racing opponents of
Lotus Turbo Challenge or the
arcade-like time trials of Lo-
tus 2.

578 • CD-ROM titles - CD32

 Dangerous Streets / Wing Commander

This is a multi-game disc which includes the previ-

ously released Dangerous Streets, and Wing Com-
mander—in an AGA-enhanced version only available
in this compilation. It also includes some demos, such
as a CD32 commercial, a tech demo, Rise of the Ro-
bots trailer, among other things.

Wing Commander
Wing Commander is the first game in Chris Roberts’
space flight simulation Wing Commander franchise by
Origin Systems. The game was first released for MS-
DOS on in 1990 were it was considered a major step
forward for space dogfight games, featuring graphics,
audio, and a story campaign that invited comparison
to the Star Wars films. It has been said that it “raised
the bar for the whole industry”, as the game was five
times more expensive to create than most of its con-
Publisher Commodore temporaries.
Release date 1994
Set in the year 2654 and characterized by Chris Rob-
erts as “World War II in space”, it features a multina-
tional cast of pilots from the “Terran Confederation”
flying missions against the predatory, aggressive
Kilrathi, a feline warrior race.
Wing Commander is a space flight simulation game.
The player pilots a ship which engages enemy ships
of various capabilities. As the title suggests, there will
generally be an AI-controlled wingman which the play-
er can give orders to.
The CD32 version was updated to 256-colors and
CD32 controller support.

Review by;
The One Amiga #65 (February 1994)
£00.00p? Yes, it’s true - anyone
buying a CD32 from now on gets
an extra CD bundeled with it,
bearing Wing Commander and
Dangerous Streets plus a few
show-‘em-off-to-your-mates dem-
os of what the CD32 can do. The
less said about Dangerous Streets
the better.

CD32 - CD-ROM titles • 579

 Amiga Game-Power
Publisher Florida Soft
Release date 1994

Diggers / Oscar Includes around 40

PD games, some of
Publisher Commodore International which are needed
Release date 1993
to be loaded from
A compilation of two previously released Workbench.
CD32 titles.

COMPATIBLE

Express PD Galore
Publisher Express Pd.
Release date 1994

Express Pd Galore is a shareware collec-

tion for Amiga/CDTV/CD32. It includes a
menu interface for accessing 190 AGA
and 210 PD software titles (an external
floppy drive and keyboard is needed for
Diamonds & Pearls running these).
Publisher WOD’s Multimedia
Release date 1994

A collection of public domain utilities re-

leased in Germany.

COMPATIBLE

580 • CD-ROM titles - CD32

 Overkill & Lunar-C

Overkill
Overkill, originally released for the A1200 in 1993, is a
2D side-scrolling shooter, similar to Defender or Strike
Force. The game takes place in 2690 A.D, where the
player is the leader of an elite fighter corps that tries
to end conflict between two big factions.
The player’s ship can be freely moved on the screen
(and screen can be moved in the left and right—simi-
lar to Defender). The goal of the game is to shoot en-
emies, collect power-ups and rescues civilians.

Publisher Mindscape
Release date 1993

Lunar-C
Lunar-C is unique in that it was only released in this
compilation. The back story revolves around a giant
dreadnought attacking an unnamed planet. The play-
er takes the role of the chosen hero and boards their
flying saucer to eliminate the aliens called Sirians.
The game is a horizontal scrolling shooter. After a
wave of enemies is destroyed, they release a power-
up token. Collecting it will advance the weapon select
Review by; gauge by one step, similar to Gradius. In this way, the
Amiga User International Vol 8 No 3 (Mar 1994)
weapon systems of the player’s ship can be upgrad-
I’ll keep this brief. Overkill is a ed. If the player hits an enemy or a bullet, their energy
very colorful, smooth Defender
clone, which is a pretty chunky
bar is reduced. At the end of each level, a guardian
challenge, featuring three planets awaits that needs to be destroyed in order to advance
on each of six levels before the further in the game.
final encounter. Overkill is worth
£13. Lunar-C is a third-rate imita-
tion of Project X. Team 17 is due
to release Project X on CD for
£14.99. My advice would be to buy
Overkill but forget Lunar-C. But
you can’t. The two are as whole
worthwhile? Just about.

some text from mobygames.com

CD32 - CD-ROM titles • 581

 Gamers’ Delight

Text from the packaging;

This CD contains 40 games for the Commodore

Amiga from differing categories. Action, Jump &
Run, Card Games, Puzzles, Strategy Games - a
whole range of computer entertainment awaits!
Gamers’ Delight hold you captivated for hours and
guarantees long-lasting pleasure.
All games are commercial versions - no public do-
main & no demos!
This CD can be run on any Amiga with CD-ROM
drive, CDTV or Amiga CD32 Console with 1 MB
free memory and Joystick/Joypad.

Publisher GTI / Schatztruhe

Release date 1994 Gamers’ Delight is a compilation of 40
games for Amiga machines with CD-ROM,
CD32 and CDTV. All games were developed
by Harald Müller.

Alien Hunter AmiMind

Bomber 2000 Filou Fireball

Flotte Galaga 94 Go Kevin Go

COMPATIBLE

582 • CD-ROM titles - CD32

Happy Monster JumpMan Labyrinth Logik Marble

Mau Mau Missile Mover Moving Multi Zocker

Paint It Patience Patience II Patience III Piece in Space

Pipe Master 2 Rescue Rescue 2 Reverse Rollerball

Rolling Stones Roundabout Senso Skat Snake

Soko Space Bomber 2 Space Dunk Spacer Speed Worms

Stones Walls

some text from mobygames.com

CD32 - CD-ROM titles • 583

 The Humans 1 & 2

Humans 1 & 2 includes: The Humans and it’s sequel,

The Humans: Insult to Injury, on the same CD.

The Humans
The Humans is a puzzle-platform game developed
by Imagitec Design in Dewsbury, England and origi-
nally published by Mirage Technologies for the Ami-
ga on May 1992.
The Humans is similar to Lemmings whose objec-
tive is to manipulate the given number of humans,
taking advantage of abilities and tools to achieve the
level’s goal, usually consisting of finding a certain
tool, killing a certain number of dinosaurs or bringing
at least one human to the end point, marked by a
conspicuous colored tile. Each level is independent
of the next, each with its own tools, goal, and set
number of humans allowed per level. The only things
that carry from level to level are the total number of
humans in the player’s tribe and the player’s total
score.
Developer Imagitec Unlike Lemmings, the player can actually
Publisher Gametek control one “Human” at a time, making for precise
Release date 1994 actions easier than in other similar games. As the
Genre Puzzle
player progresses through the game, they get more
Mode 1 Player
“Humans” to join their tribe, usually obtained by
rescuing them throughtout the levels. The players
keeps progressing until they either beat the game
or they no longer have the minimum amount of tribe
members required to pass the level.

The Humans were ported to

several different home com-
puters and consoles, but the
sequel was only released
on MS-DOS and Amiga.

Other Releases
MS-DOS 1993
CD32 MS-DOS

584 • CD-ROM titles - CD32

The Humans was the creation
of former Imagitec Design de-
signer Rodney Humble during
his time working at the compa-
ny in Dewsbury who, inspired
by Psygnosis’ Lemmings and
its puzzle elements, created
and drew his ideas on story-
boards before transferring his
work to the Imagitec program-
mers, developing them further
into a trilogy based upon the
human evolution. Coding on
The Humans The Humans: Insult to Injury
the project started on Decem- Amiga cover art Amiga cover art
ber 1991, with Suspicious
Cargo programmer David Lincoln being respon- The Humans: Insult to Injury
sible for the Amiga version, although design
Following the success of The Humans, a
work originally started on the Atari Lynx under
sequel titled The Humans: Insult to Injury
the working titles Dino Dudes and Dino World.
(also knwon as The Humans 2: Jurassic
Atari Corporation reportedly liked the game and
Levels) was launched in 1992 as both a
commissioned Imagitec with two additional con-
stand-alone release or as an expansion
versions for their Atari Falcon and Atari Jaguar
pack. The Jurassic Levels is presumably
platforms respectively.
named to cash in on the then-current
The Humans’ creation process was over-
Jurassic Park hype.
seen by co-producers Martin Hooley and Simon
It contains 80 additional levels.
Golding, the latter of which oversaw all versions
The objects collected during the first
of the game. Golding stated that the production
game are available from the start, so puz-
was inspired by Lemmings instead of being “a
zles are immediately more complex.
rip-off” but focusing towards “bigger graphics”,
a cartoon-esque feeling reminiscent of short In 1995, a third entry in the series titled
films like Tom and Jerry, more varied levels, Humans 3: Evolution - Lost in Time was
among other features. Lincoln employed Cross released, keeping to the original game
Products’ SNASM programming tool to write the idea but differs from the original entry
code on an editor using a PC before porting it in storyline, gameplay style, and level
to Amiga for testing. Artists Andrew Gilmour and continuity.
Michael Hanrahan drew the pixel art, while com- About a decade after GameTek
posers Barry Leitch and Ian Howe were respon- declared bankruptcy, Deep Silver re-
sible for the soundtrack. Other members at Im- leased a fourth entry for Windows and
agitec were also involved in the title’s production Nintendo DS under the name The Hu-
across every subsequent version released. mans: Meet the Ancestors!, retaining
the same general gameplay style but
The Humans was very well-received by video
improved the graphics and added more
game magazines and garnered praise for the
interactive objects and enemies.
originality, presentation and audio upon its initial
Amiga launch. Other versions of the game have
been met with a more mixed reception from crit-

some text from giantbomb.com

CD32 - CD-ROM titles • 585

 Mutation Gold Compilation: Limited Collectors Edition
Publisher Mutation
Release date 1998
Adrian Cummings and his studio
Mutation Software has started
re-releasing their games on dif-
ferent platforms. Some are also
released as stand-alones for iOS
devices and can be bought on the
app-store. Many of the games
was also re-released for old sys-
tems, including Amiga floppy and
CD32. These can be bought from
their web-shop in physical forms.
The Mutation Gold Compilation
was also released on itch.io as a
paid downloadable .ISO file. The
.ISO was developed and intend-
ed for stock Amiga CD32.
Other Releases
Mutation Gold Compilation (itch.io )
Physical copies (softwareamusements )
586 • CD-ROM titles - CD32
The Mutation Gold Compilation is a compilation of
5 games by Mutation Software previously released
as stand-alone titles for the A1200; Doodlebug: Bug
Bash 2, Tin Toy In The House Of Fun Adventure,
Tommy Gun, Castle Kingdoms and Cyberpunks. The
original release of this compilation has become ex-
tremely rare.
The Mutation Gold Compilation CD will autoboot on
CD32 systems, but a possible mastering error causes
a problem which results in only the first two games on
the main menu—Doodlebug and Cyberpunks—load-
ing properly. The loading problems have been largely
circumvented and thus resolved under emulation.
Unlike the original floppy releases, the ver-
sions of Doodlebug and Cyberpunks included in this
CD compilation both require a joypad for gameplay.
Doodlebug: Bug Bash II
A side-scrolling platformer.
The goal of the game is to
guide a Doodlebug through
five different levels (with
three sub-levels each), killing
enemies by jumping on their
heads until they eventually
make it to the final boss.
Tin Toy In The House Of Fun Adventure
The player takes control of
a tin-man who has to travel
through side-scrolling levels
in order to fight an evil clown.
The tin-man has four spells
to his disposal: creating a
temporary platform under his
feet, floating, invulnerability
and a smart bomb.
Tommy Gun
A rail shooter with a third person
perspective, where the the tomato,
Tommy Gun, take out enemies one
after the other scrolling from side to
side. Each of the five levels have
their unique setting and enemies.
There is also a two player mode
where the second player takes con-
trol of his sidekick Big Cheese.

Castle Kingdoms
An isometric action game where
the player control a party of five ad-
ventures (knight, princess, warrior,
elf and wizard) who must fight their
way through five castles of evil. One
character are controlled at a time
and the other will follow. Helpful
items such as health and shield po-
tions can be found around the levels.

Cyberpunks
A top down shooter. The player con-
trols three characters—Lead Raa,
Gee, and Bee—simultaneously.
Game play consists of shooting
enemy aliens and locating several
door passes before being able to
move onto the next level.

Amiga stand-alone release cover-art

CD32 - CD-ROM titles • 587

 Now That’s What I Call Games 2
Developer Applied Optical Media
Publisher Multi Media Machine
Release date 1993
Now That’s What I Call Games The second compilation disk contains
Developer Applied Optical Media another 100 games, including demos for
Publisher Multi Media Machine other Multi Media Machine titles.
Release date 1993

The first of three compilation disks that

includes different PD games. This title
includes 100 games (50 compatible
with the CD32 controller and another 50
which uses mouse or keyboard).
Many of the games found on the Now
That’s What I Call Games discs were
created with the popular homebrew de-
velopment tools AMOS and the Shoot
‘Em Up Construction Kit.
COMPATIBLE

Now That’s What I Call Games 3:

Games & Goodies
Developer Applied Optical Media
Publisher Multi Media Machine
Release date 1994

The third release contains over 100

shareware games and demos. The CD
also includes short animations and car-
toon clips from Eric Schwartz.

COMPATIBLE

COMPATIBLE

588 • CD-ROM titles - CD32

 Project-X Special Edition & F17 Challenge

This compilation contains the updated edition of shoot

‘em up Project-X, which is an easier and debugged
version of the original, and the racing game F17 Chal-
lenge, neither of which had previously been released
for the CD32.

Project-X (Revised Edition)

Project-X is an R-Type style horizontally-scrolling
shooter. The game includes different power-ups the
player can pick up from destroyed enemies. Each lev-
el has a different setting and an end-of-level boss to
defeat.

Publisher Team 17
Release date 1994

F17 Challenge
F17 Challenge is a third-person racing game featuring
real Formula 1 cars and circuits, which represented
Team 17’s first attempt at the genre.
There are two gameplay modes, Arcade and
Normal with 3 difficulty levels. The number of laps is
variable.

Review by; Amiga Power #37 (May 1994)

written by; Stuart Campbell
Annoying shoot-‘em-up and tedi-
ous racer combine to form a thor-
oughly missable double bill. With
a decent version of D-Hero avail-
able on CD32 now, there’s very lit-
tle point in bothering with Project-
X, and there was never very much
point in bothering with F17 Chal-
lenge in the first place.

some text from mobygames.com

CD32 - CD-ROM titles • 589

 Top 100 Games CD32
Publisher US Dreams
World of Sound Release date 1994

Publisher US Dreams
Top 100 Games consists of 100 PD
Release date 1994 games, though some of the included
games are incompatible with the CD32,
World of Sound consists of different mu- and won’t start on the machine.
sic tools and editors, samples, music
tracks, among other shareware files.

Text from the cover;

The ultimate sound collection consisting
of the best sound players, editors, utils,
thousands of original scores, samples,
sound fx and midi-data. Push your Amiga
to the limit with the best sounds available
on cd. Create your own “World of Sound” Text from the cover;
with the millions of possibilities and com-
Top 100 games Amiga CD32 is the best
binations.
collection of games available for the Ami-
ga CD32. Great sound and graphics, you
will have hours of fun with the top 100
collection.

590 • CD-ROM titles - CD32

Ultimate Body Blows &
Project-X Special Edition Grandslam Gamer
Publisher Team 17 Gold Collection
Release date 1994
Publisher Commodore International
A Compilation of two games. Ultimate Release date 1995
Body Blows—also released as a stand- A compilation of three previously re-
alone CD32 title. Project-X (Revised leased CD32 titles; Bump ‘n’ Burn, Jet-
Edition)—ECS/OCS Amiga game also strike and Nick Faldo’s Championship
released on a CD32 compilation with Golf.
F17 Challenge.
4 demos of other
CD32 titles is also
included on the
disk are

Lock-N-Load
Publisher NorthWest PD
Release date 1994

A Workbench based CD-ROM with near-

ly 1,000 PD games. It comes with Work-
bench 1.3, 2.0, and 3.0 on the CD. It
Sleepwalker & Pinball Fantasies also includes a Spectrum emulator with
Publisher Commodore International around 30 games and a large collection
Release date 1993 of the Assassin PD disks.
A compilation of two previously released
CD32 titles. This dual-game CD was
bundled with the console in the US and
Brazil.

COMPATIBLE

CD32 - CD-ROM titles • 591

 Power-Games
Publisher Media Team GbR
Network CD 2 Release date 1994

Publisher Weird Science

Power-Games is a compilation of over
Release date 1995 500 games for the Amiga, CD32 and
CDTV. The games are stored both un-
The first Network CD disc from Weird packed and as compressed LHA ar-
Sciense were released on a disc com- chives on the CD-ROM.
patible with both the CDTV and CD32.
When booting the CD on a CD32, a
The second disc is not compatible with
graphical menu is displayed where
the CDTV. The Network CDs are mostly
compatible games can be selected and
aimed at networking and enables the ac-
launched by genre. However, some of
cess of CD-ROM on the Amiga by using
the games require either a mouse, a
the CD32 as a slave drive.
keyboard or both.
Network CD 2 is an improved version
The games are mostly freeware and
and have a faster and easier apporach
shareware, with a couple of commercial
to setting up a network than the first title.
demos available as well.
The Sernet program now runs at a “mobygames.com”
far higher speed and includes keyboard
and mouse emulation from the Amiga.
The CD also includes different
images, PD software, etc.

COMPATIBLE

592 • CD-ROM titles - CD32

Amiga CD32 Gamer Issue 1
Spring Special
Publisher Paragon Publishing
Region United Kingdom
First release mid-1994
Final release April 1996
No. issues 22

Over the course of 1994, three CD32 mag-

azines were launched; Amiga CD!, Amiga
CD32, and Amiga CD32 Gamer. The latter
was the most successful, surviving for just
under two years.
Contents:
• Pinball Fantasies
CD32 Gamer was a monthly publication • D/Generation
launched during May 1994 that covered • Trolls
• Donk! Special Edition
the CD32. It was the first Amiga magazine • Alfred Chicken
to include a CD with every issue. As was • Nick Faldo’s Championship Golf
common at the time, the making of the
cover CD was harvested out to Multi Me-
dia Machine who gathered software and
produced a custom front-end for it. This The magazine can be seen as a trend-set-
usually included a few game demos, ani- ter that helped to improve the Amiga mar-
mation’s, shareware, and the best from the ket by showing that CD drives would be a
demo scene. Apart from the game demos necessity.
this was mostly shovelware. Most of the
shovelware was of high quality, featuring
Contents:
work by Eric Schwartz amongst others. • Cannon Fodder
The discs would also include a full ver- • Banshee
• The Chaos Engine
sion of Workbench, including many librar- • Fire & Ice
ies from the 1.3 release to allow certain • Ultimate Body Blows
• Heimdall 2
games to work.
Even with this added padding the
CD hardly took advantage of the storage
capacity, barely reaching 100Mb of soft-
ware on most issues. Issue 2
June - July 1994

Contents: Contents:
• Legacy of Soracil • Legacy of Soracil
• Zool • Zool
• D/Hero • D/Hero
• Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge • Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge
• Nigel Mansell’s World Championship • Nigel Mansell’s World Championship
• World Cup Quiz • World Cup Quiz

Issue 3 Issue 3
August 1994 August 1994

some text from bambi-amiga.co.uk

CD32 - CD-ROM titles • 593

 Contents: Contents:
• Arcade Pool • Tower Assault
• Jetstrike
• Litil Divil
• Superfrog
• Super Stardust (slideshow)

Issue 4 Issue 5
September 1994 October 1994

Contents: Contents:
• Bubble and Squeak • Beneath A Steel Sky
• Rise of the Robots • Bump ‘n’ Burn
• Wembley International Soccer • Kid Chaos
• Pinball Illusions
• Super Stardust

Issue 6 Issue 7
November 1994 December 1994

Contents: Contents:
• Banshee • Akira
• Clockwiser • Big Red Adventure
• Nick Faldo’s Championship Golf • Disposable Hero
• The Chaos Engine • Emerald Mines
• Trolls • Legacy of Sorasil
• Ultimate Body Blows

Issue 8 Issue 9
January 1995 February 1995

Contents: Contents:
• Kingpin • Super League Manager (slideshow)
• Rally Championships • Base Jumpers
• Whizz • Whizz
• Alien Breed 3-D (slideshow)

Issue 10 Issue 11
March 1995 April 1995

594 • CD-ROM titles - CD32

 Contents: Contents:
• Limbo of the Lost • Dragonstone (slideshow)
• Marvin’s Marvelous Adventure • Fears (slideshow)
• Insight Dinosaurs
• PGA European Tour (slideshow)
• Speedball 2 (slideshow)

Issue 12 Issue 13
May 1995 June 1995

Contents: Contents:
• Gloom • Nick Faldo’s Championship Golf
• PGA Tour Golf (film) • Bump ‘n’ Burn
• Jungle Strike (film) • Jetstrike
• Football Glory (film) • Dragon Duel
• R3

Issue 14 Issue 15
July 1995 August 1995

Contents: Contents:
• Base Jumpers • Tower Assault
• Clockwiser
• Kingpin

Issue 16 Issue 17
September 1995 October 1995

Contents: Contents: Playable demos:

• Virtual Karting • Alien Breed 3D
• Alien Breed 3D (slideshow) • Coala
• Worms (slideshow)
• Super Street Fighter II (slideshow)

Issue 18 Issue 19
November 1995 December 1995

CD32 - CD-ROM titles • 595

 Contents: Contents:
• The A to Z of CD32 Games • The A to Z of CD32 Games
• Pinball Prelude • Inside the CD32
• ModPlayer 2

Issue 20 Issue 21
January 1996 February 1996

Contents:
• The A to Z of CD32 Games
• CD-ROM Special
• Capital Punishment

Issue 22 unreleased
April 1996

Amiga CD32 Special

Alongside CD32 Gamer, Paragon Publishing launched Publisher Paragon Publishing
a spin-off title called Amiga CD32 Special. The first Region United Kingdom
First release December 1994
edition hardly differed from issue seven of CD32
Final release 1995
Gamer, with the exception that the full version of Lam- No. issues 3
borghini American Challenge appeared on the cover
CD. Rather than being a reprint of CD32 Gamer, issue
2 was a tips special dedicated to the Quik the Thunder
Rabbit.

Amiga CD32 Special 1 Amiga CD32 Special 2 Amiga CD32 Special 3

December 1995 Spring Special Spring Special

text from bambi-amiga.co.uk

596 • CD-ROM titles - CD32

 Contents:
Amiga CD32 demos;
• Pinball Fantasies
• Microcosm
Publisher Future Publishing • D/Generation
Region United Kingdom • Whale’s Voyage
First release Spring 1994 Games;
• Fighting Warriors
Final release Autumn 1994 • Fruit Panic
No. issues 2 • Croak
• Velcro Crab
Amiga CD32 magazine was the fourth and • Insectoids
final title to spin-off from Amiga Format.
Amiga CD! Magazine
The previous three (Amiga Shopper, Amiga Issue 1
Power, and Amiga Format Special) had all
been a success. However, the Commodore
Contents:
liquidation would kill the magazine before • Bubba ‘n Sticks
issue 3. • Trolls
• Nick Faldo’s Golf
The first issue, with 92 pages, featured the • Inferno (slideshow)
• PD Games
usual game reviews and tips, but also in-
cluded more in-depth information, such
as an industry commentary on the new
machine and David Pleasance interview.
Reaction to the magazine was positive,
leading to the production of a second issue Amiga CD! Magazine
during Autumn 1994. This expanded upon Issue 2
the coverage of the first issue to provide a
glimpse of the possibilities that CD tech- Contents:
nology provided. There was also the news • Fire & Ice
• Banshee
that the magazine would move to a month- • Heimdall 2
ly publication, beginning with the release • Body Blows
• Microcosm
of issue 3 on December 1st. However, the • The Labyrinth of Time
Commodore liquidation and the relative dif- • PD Games
ficulty in finding new hardware forced the
cancellation of these plans—issue 3 never
saw the light of day.
Amiga CD! Magazine
Issue 3
Contents:
• Guardians
• Skidmarks Contents:
• Nick Faldo’s Championship Golf • Marvin’s Marvellous Adventure
• Lotus Turbo Challenge • Wembley International Soccer
• Pirates! Gold • Bubble ‘n’ Squeak
• Alfred Chicken • Top Gear 2
• D/Generation • Arcade Pool
• Microcosm • Superfrog
• The Chaos Engine • Banshee
• Donk! • Cannon Fodder
• Fire & Ice • Kid Chaos
• Nigel Mansell • PD Games
• Zool 2
• Disposable Hero
Amiga CD32 Magazine • Ultimate Blows Amiga CD32 Magazine
• Pinball Fantasies
Issue 1 Issue 2
• PD Games

some text from bambi-amiga.co.uk

CD32 - CD-ROM titles • 597

 The Demo Disc
Publisher Commodore
Game Massive
Release date 1993, 1994 Publisher Amiga Power
Genre Demo Release date 1995
The Demo Disc seems to have been This was released as the coverdisc for
aimed at video game kiosks in a demo the May 1995 edition of Amiga Power
unit where consumers could try games magazine.
or watch advertisements of the console.
Two versions were released; Demon-
stration Disc 1.1 (1993) and Demonstra-
tion Disc 2.0 (1994).
The disc included four games; Robocod,
Pinball, D/Generation and Sleepwalker.
CDXL Action!; 30 second video of differ-
ent video-clips.
DEMO Graphics; series of images.
DEMO Flight; A simple 3D demo.
DEMO About Amiga CD; Plays differ-
ent 3D animated video clips with a voice
over explaining the CD32’s graphics ca-
pabilities.

Text from the introductory screen;

Greeting readers. You’re currently in possession of an
AMIGA POWER CD32 game disk, a valuable piece of limited-
edition plastic that, if stored in mint condition, will
almost certainly attain antique status within the next
decade. Anyhow, you’re probably fed up with CDs promising
you “all new” and “exclusive” demos and featuring that
much-used Chaos Engine demo, so we’ve trying something
different with this one, having held it to our beating
hearts and made it as intensely personal as we could.
Rather than plucking a load of old tat off bulletin boards
or any old demo that softies throw at us, we’ve packed
out the disk with demos or full PD games that we actually
play in the office. Also...
As well as all that “Plenty of demos, loads of top PD”
stuff, which let’s face it, is what every CD promises,
we’ve also got the AMIGA POWER (Sort Of) Interactive All
Time Top 100. Without going into much technobabble, the
Microcosm Demo APSOIATTOH lists what we reckon are the best 100 Amiga
(not just CD32) games OF ALL TIME, pretty much like the
Publisher Psygnosis magazine really. However, thanks to the near-miracle of
Release date 1994 (Sort Of) Interactive CD technology, you can click on
each entry and get either some blurb, or possibly even
Genre Demo
a demo to play. Remember though, that most games in the
APSOIATTOH are Amiga-only, so just because you can play a
Playable demo demo, it doesn’t automatically mean that the full games’s
of the game available on the CD32. We’ve tried to list the ones that
are, but could well have got bored half-way through.
Microcosm. Sorry ‘bout that.
Enjoy.

598 • CD-ROM titles - CD32

Cancelled
 Adrenaline Factor
Cancelled Titles Developer Mirage Technologies
Genre Shooter
These pages includes CD32 titles that
were never released commercially. Adrenaline Factor is a fast paced isomet-
Because of the low number of copies ric action game where the player control a
released on many of the CD32 titles, machine-gun wielding robot destroying de-
it may be possible for some of these structible environments and enemies. The
to have been released in very small game was released as Bedlam in 1996
numbers. for MS-DOS, Macintosh, PlayStation and
Windows.
Some of these entries may be incor-
rectly included, such as a game like The game was originally called Adrenaline
NHL Hockey, which had numerous Factor and was a planned CD32 title. The
different versions by different devel- game was previewed in 1995 via Genera-
opers. tion 4, Amiga Action
and Amiga Power
magazines, but its
believed that the
game was cancelled
Aggression due to Commodore’s
Developer Bloodhouse bankruptcy in 1994
Genre Shooter and the rising popu-
larity of other plat-
Shoot ‘em-up game which was in develop-
forms of the time,
ment for the A1200 and CD32.
such as the PlaySta-
tion. It is unknown
article; Amiga Pro Magazine 32 #1 (June 1994) how far the game
had got by the point
AGGRESSION: The of cancellation.
meanest horizontal
scrolling shoot-em- “gamesthatwerent.com”
up ever. It features
95% ray-traced graph-
ics with 512 colours
on screen. Full screen Benjamin And The Alien Incident
multiplayer scrolling and huge sprites Developer Bloodhouse
make use of every available clock cycle Genre Adventure
in a 1200. The CD32 version and 1200
Developed by Housemarque and released
are almost identical since the 1200 ver-
sion is harddisk installable.
as Alien Incident in 1996 for the MS-DOS.
The CD32 version features more The game is a humorous 2D point-and-
animation and music since the internal click adventure game which consists of
sound capabilities or RAM are needed traditional inventory based puzzles and
for the music, the sound effects are better multiple-choice conversations.
than those of the 1200. The unreleased Amiga version was refer-
enced in CU Amiga in April 1994.

600 • Unreleased Games - CD32

Baldies
Developer Creative Edge Software
Genre Strategy
Baldies is a real-time strategy game devel-
oped by Creative Edge Software and origi-
nally published by Atari Corporation for the
Atari Jaguar in 1995. Later ports were re-
leased for Macintosh, Windows, MS-DOS,
PlayStation and Sega Saturn.
Conceived and written by Creative Edge
Software founder David Wightman, Baldies
originally started as a project intended for
the Amiga platforms in early 1993 and was
set to be released by Mindscape before
publishing duties were transferred to Gam-
eTek instead, however this early version
of the game was never officially released
for unknown reasons until it was convert-
ed and completed on the Jaguar CD. The
Amiga incarnation of the game featured
different visuals from the final version.
In various online interviews, Wight-
man stated that his development company
obtained development kits for the Jaguar
from Atari Corporation and that program-
ming of the unreleased Amiga version was
directly converted to the Jaguar CD, as
90% of its code was written in the Assem-
bly programming language, and rewritten
in order to work with the Jaguar’s multi-
chip architecture.
Ports for the 3DO Interactive Multi-
player and Amiga CD32 were also in de-
velopment but never published.
The Big End / The Big Engine
Developer The Hidden
Publisher Supervision
Genre Racing
Mode 1-4 Players
Designed as a top-down/isometric racing
game featuring formula one cars and real
tracks, The Big End was scheduled for re-
lease at Easter 1995. Initially, the game
was due to appear on AGA and CD32 ma-
chines, with a cut-down A500 version to
possibly follow later.
The game was being developed by the
three man team The Hidden; Craig How-
ard, Will Bell and Simon Leggett.
The Big End would feature weather
variations, where the player would be en-
couraged to visit a pit-stop and change
tires if rain begins when in a race.
It would be possible to choose from
20 different racing teams—each with a
unique racing car that responded differ-
ently to each other.
The Hidden was also in contact with Com-
modore where they proposed a four-way
multi-player adapter for the CD32, which
would give them four player simultaneous
mode for their game.
images from Amiga CD32 Gamer #5
CD32 - Unreleased Games • 601
 article; Amiga Format #77 (November 1995);

The
Amiga has
Atrophied Underpinning Interect’s commit-
ment to the Amiaga is their plan for
three more games.

N
ew Amiga software de-
veloper, Intersect Devel-
opments, have pledged
themselves to the cause of innova-
tive, AGA-specific programming
techniques in games.
Their first game, a horizontally
scrolling shoot-’em-up going by
the name of Atrophy will feature,
they claim, “AGA techniques and
hardware tricks never seen before”.
Rather than be concerned with
the millstone of programming for
OCS/ECS machines, Intersect have
opted to squeeze every last ounce
of power out of the, up till now,
sadly under-utilised AGA chipset.
Format received a video of sev-
eral levels of the game in play. The
scrolling was impressive, as was
the size of the main player-control-
led sprites, the parallax scrolling
and the use of colour.
COMPLETE DEDICATION
Even more impressive is Inter-
sect’s commitment to the Amiga
scene: “We are completely dedi-
cated to the Amiga and everything
it stands for...”
Despite being relatively unheard
of, Intersect have been around for
over nine years in one hardware
programming form or another.
In their correspondence with us
they mentioned that talks were in
progress with a publisher.
Format can exclusively reveal
that the publisher, barring any mis-
haps at the last hurdle, will be none
other than Guildhall.
Guildhall, the people responsible
for bringing top grade, innovative
games to the UK Amigas, such as
Skidmarks, Super Skidmarks, Road-
kill, Guardian, Fears, and Gloom,
reflects the spirit of Intersect.
“Amiga programmers are the
most talented around,” enthused
Giles Hunter, MD of Guildhall.
“They care passionately about the
machine they program. That’s why
they come to us. They know that
we treat them as people and not as
numbers the way the big boys do.”
Atrophy should be finished by
mid-October, in time for a Christ-
mas release. Three other projects
are currently “under construction”.
We’ll bring you the details as and
when we get them.

602 • magazine article

Atrophy
Developer Intersect
Publisher OTM
Genre Shooter
Mode 1-2 Players

The game began life as Atrophy in 1995

and was originally scheduled for release
on A1200/4000 (floppy/CD) and CD32 by
Guildhall in late 1995. Game design and
coding was done by Trevor Mensah and
Frank Tout. Graphics were also by Tout
and music was by Lee Smith.
Bitter internal fighting within the de-
velopment team regarding game design
Mensah claimed he had found some un-
(predominantly graphics and music) and
documented features of the A1200 and
up-front royalty payments resulted in the
had exploited them to make the game a
game’s release being continually delayed.
ground-breaking technical tour de force.
Reportedly, central to the internal fighting
There was just one small hitch, however—
was team coder Frank Tout, via message
apparently not all A1200s sold had AGA
posted on EAB (English Amiga Board).
chipsets with these undocumented fea-
Amidst all this, the game’s publisher
tures.
changed—OTM replaced Guildhall as the
Reportedly, Atrophy made use of a
publisher, although Guildhall maintained
unique game engine that was developed
the distribution rights—and a new release
over about 5 years by Intersect, and was
date of March ‘96 was set.
quite conducive to a game being written
Around mid-1996, the internal fight-
around it in a short period of time. While
ing came to a head after the team missed
Atrophy was being coded, Intersect appar-
yet another release date, which triggered
ently had utilized the same game engine
a mass exodus of team members from In-
and were in the early stages of develop-
tersect Development (Mensah and Smith).
ment of 4 other games (Neyok, Phasic
The breakaway team members wasted no
Distortion, Alternate Futures and Domin-
time and almost immediately joined forces
ions).
with Dan Hammonds to work on a new
game, Enigma, under the guise of Centil- Atrophy would be a shoot-‘em-up that
lion Software. This left Frank Tout as the would take place inside the head of a per-
sole remaining coder of Atrophy, which re- son. The player would have to save his
sulted in OTM cancelling the game. Other sanity by completing six large levels, with
than the name changing to Atrocity, noth- each being based on a madness, such as
ing more was heard of the game and it phobias like hydrophobia and agoraphobia.
never saw the light of day.
The game would include 10 HAM-8 pic-
tures (16.7 million colours) with 100MB+
worth of graphics in total for the game.
Over 3Mb of sound tracks. 12 mid- and
end-level bosses. Over 5,000 frames of
animations, simultaneously two-player
mode and random enemy patterns.

CD32 - Unreleased Games • 603

 article; Amiga Power #57 (January 1996);
ATROPHY
The big metal thing you
get for winning at bowls,
we’d say.
Runs on: A1200
Publisher: OTM
Authors: Intersect
ETA: February
“W
ell, the poor old
A500 can’t do 16
million colours, can
it? There’s no HAM mode.”
We haven’t a clue. Please stop
talking about the technical specifica-
tions of your game. Please.
“Sorry. We tend to do that.”
Frank Tout, the co-programmer
of the game, is telling us why Atro-
phy, a new shoot-‘em-up. He seems
enormously pleased with getting it to
run incredibly quickly and smoothly,
as well he might, for the graphics
are larger than a loaf of bread, but
he KEEPS TRYING TO TELL US
WHY.
“It’s in hi-res, you see, and runs in
50 frames.”
Tee-hoo.
“But you don’t want to know that.
We based it on Nemesis. You can see
it in the weapons selection, and the
intense fury thing.”
English. Thanks the saints.
“You get guns, diagonal guns,
plasma cannon, bombs, rockets, mul-
tiplies...”
604 • magazine article
(The little flying shield thing from
R-Type. You see, we are immensely
knowledgeable in the right areas.)
“...and when you pick up a new
weapon, you don’t loose the old one.
That was the trouble with Project-X;
pick up, say, the plasma cannon, and
you lost most of the others. Point-
less.”
Indeed. We are reminded by your
description of the appallingly fever-
ish converging-bullets mania of, for
example, R-Type 2.
“Yes. That’s it.”
Joy. Tell us more, but remember
that we have a Roger Whittaker re-
cording here and will play Mexican
Whistler at full volume if you try to
mention ‘t-states.’
DURHAM TOWN
“There are six huge levels, each
themed on a different phobia — that
of being underwater, for example, or
of falling.”
But not of onomatophobia or
triskaidekaphobia.
“What?”
It would, we assume, be difficult
to base a level around certain words
or the number 13. Although giant
flapping numerals might give pause
for...
Quite.
“There are mid-level bosses and
end-of-level ones like the Gig-
eresque monster — based on the
works of HR Giger — and the giant
space vampire.”
Scissors.
“It starts easy, obviously, but later
on we throw things like random al-
iens — they stick to their basic pat-
tern, but they might turn left at the
end instead of right, or something.
You can trade in your weapons to-
kens to buy an extra life, but we ex-
pect you to succeed by skill alone.”
Not a problem, my friend, we
can assure you. Unleash your best
— we shall beat it without pausing
for a hurried lunch. Anyway, you’ve
clearly been working on this for a
dozen years. Why haven’t we heard
of you before? Where you biding
your time? Waiting for exactly the
right moment TO STRIKE?
“No, actually we’ve written the
game in about four months. We in-
vested five or so years in writing the
engine to be the most powerful avail-
able for the A1200. The standard
A1200, of course. We don’t believe
in having to buy accelerators just to
get a game working. The finished en-
gine’s so powerful we’re now work-
ing on five games at once using it.
They’re all in different genres, obvi-
ously.”
What attractive news. Although
we fear you used the word “engine”
with malice aforethought. EAT
WHISTLE.
• JONATHAN NASH
Bazooka Sue
Developer Starbyte Software Boo!
Genre Adventure
Developer The Conversion Company
Bazooka Sue is a point-and-click adven- Publisher MicroProse
ture game with gameplay similar to the Genre Platformer
LucasArts SCUMM games. The game was Boo! is an unreleased platform game set to
released for the German market in 1997 for be published by MicroProse for the SNES.
MS-DOS, but was due an Amiga release An Amiga and Genesis versions were to be
much earlier. released after the SNES version was com-
The game was first mentioned in 1992 as plete.
being a new SCUMM-style game with a The game would be about a teenager who
protagonist described as a cross between dies and becomes a ghost. Stages in the
Kim Basinger and Miss Piggy. game would take place in various parts of
It seems that without access to Lu- a house, with the final two stages taking
casarts’ SCUMM engine, development was place in Limbo and the planet Pasturyz.
drawn out and would go on for many years. For the most part, the gameplay
Even once the CD32 had come about, would be standard side-scrolling platform-
there was talk of the game being released ing, though the player would periodically
on the platform. However, the Amiga was be allowed to take control of other charac-
starting to fade and Starbyte would move ters, such as Frankenstein monster and a
onto other platforms, with 1995 seemingly vampire.
seeing their final Amiga release. Krisalis
Software was also listed During the waning stages of the 16-bit era,
as having some kind of Micropose had financial problems, which
involvement in the game led to the cancellation of several titles, in-
at various points in the cluding Boo!.
press around 1994 time. VHS footage of the SNES version
Overall, it seems surfaced in 2016 and the game was far
plausible that the enough along that it was previewed and
DOS title was much was the cover feature of the February 1995
of what the Amiga issue of One Amiga. According to Stuart
game would have Whyte, who was the producer of the game,
been like—even it was 80% complete.
“snescentral.com”
likely featuring the
same graphics port-
ed over.
“gamesthatwerent.com”

CD32 - Unreleased Games • 605

 Biosphere
Developer Bullfrog Productions Dino Worlds
Publisher Electronic Arts
Developer Millenium
Genre Strategy
Genre Puzzle, Strategy
Biosphere was released in 1996 for MS- Dino Worlds was in development for the
DOS as Genewars. The game is a real- Amiga, due for release in September 1993,
time strategy game similar to Command & with later releases planned for SNES, Sega
Conquer. Mega Drive and Mega CD. No version of
The game seems to have started in mid- the game was ever completed.
1991 as an Amiga title, and later planned According to Kevin Mullard, a programmer
for the CD32. of the game, the gameplay would include
puzzle, strategy and adventure game ele-
ments.
The player would assume the role of
Cyberwar a lone Tyrannosaurus Rex trying to escape
Developer SCi Games the slowly approaching ice age. This would
Genre Action, Mini-games involve a trek through varying terrains pop-
Cyberwar is based on the movie The ulated by different dinosaurs, each with
Lawnmower Man and is set after its end- their own aims and attitudes. Some of the
ing. Gameplay consists of different mini dinosaurs would also be able to join the
games. player.
Progress through the game would
The game was released for MS-DOS, PC-
be achieved via a combination of puzzle
98 and PlayStation.
solving, like laying trees across chasms to
make a bridge, and strategy, such as bat-
tling rival groups of dinosaurs.
The interface would be a simple
Daughter of Serpents point-and-click system, with a range of
Developer Eldritch Games different commands the player could give
Genre Adventure each dinosaur, from choosing what to eat,
A graphic adventure game with a point- fight and build structures. Each dinosaur
and-click interface released in 1992 for would also have their own personality and
MS-DOS. The game was planned to be if neglected, or mistreated, it would wander
ported to Amiga by December, but was ul- off and do it’s own things.
timately never released. When the game was previewed in
issue 55 (April, 1993) of The One maga-
zine, the game had eight species of dino-
saurs to encounter, including humans.
Frontier: First Encounters
Developer Frontier Developments
Genre Action, Simulation

The third part of Elite series. Released for

MS-DOS in 1995.

606 • Unreleased Games - CD32

Dracula
Publisher Psygnosis
Genre Adventure
prieview; Amiga World
Vol 10 #11 (November 1994)
Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Bram Stoker’s Dracula has been in the works
forever. Contracts at Psygnosis suggested that
the Amiga version might finally emerge as a
hybrid of two earlier, artistically less-than-suc-
cessful Dracula games: the sideview Sega beat-
’em-up and the IBM Wolfenstein-3D-like, free
scrolling action adventure.
Unfortunately, the Sega game won out. (The
IBM would at least have been a relative novelty
on the Amiga.) There’s not much to it. The ap-
peal of the quasi-realistic character and the se-
pia-tone backdrops will last about five minutes.
Then the monotony of the laughter, the disem-
bodied sounds, the oddly mincing movements,
the rival opponents, and the unlikely challenges
begin to set in. Score: D.
Evasive Action
Developer Particle Systems
Genre Action, Simulation
A flight sim that allows players to pilot his-
torically accurate planes from WW1 and
WW2, modern day fighters from present
day for WW3, and space ships for WW4.
Released for MS-DOS in 1994.
Mighty Max
Developer Cryo
Publisher Mindscape
Genre Racing
Mighty Max is a 16-bit platformer with
shooter elements released as The Adven-
tures of Mighty Max in late 1994 for the
SNES and Sega Genesis. An Amiga ver-
sion was planned but fell through.
Final Over: Arcade Sports Cricket
Developer Team17
Genre Sports
Final Over is an unpublished Amiga game
written by Alan Carter that was supposed
to be published by Team17 in May 1995.
The game was to be part of Team17’s mini-
franchise Arcade Sports series, which they
started after the success of Arcade Pool.
Regarding the game, Martyn Brown—co-
founder of Team 17—said, “We had a
cricket game in development that looked
like Sensible Soccer, only Cricket. Basi-
cally the developer went AWOL (it was in
the days of freelance) and never had the
bottle to finish it. It was pretty good too, just
not finished enough to publish! Alan Cart-
er was his name. I called his home once
to ask his whereabouts and his Dad said,
‘Ooh, sorry mate, I think he’s ****ing you
around, he’s a waste of time’. A shame re-
ally, it would have sold well in the UK”.
“exotica.org.uk”
prieview; Amiga Format #70 (April 1995)
FINAL OVER —
ARCADE SPORTS CRICKET
Team 17
01924 291867
Willow, leather, floppy disk, CD. It’s all
here as Team 17 take on the might of
Graham Gooch’s Cricket in Final Over.
It includes all the usual jiminy crickety
options — county and national teams,
shots galore and Team 17 claim there will
be ‘dashes of subtle humour’. Due in the
next few weeks, AGA and CD32 only.
CD32 - Unreleased Games • 607
 Creation
Developer Bullfrog Productions
Genre Strategy
Mode 1-? Players
Creation was a real-time strategy game
in development by Bullfrog Productions. It
would be a spin-off of their Syndicate se-
ries of real-time tactics games. It was in
development for DOS, PlayStation, Sega
Saturn and CD32, before being cancelled.
Creation takes place in the Syndicate
Wars’ time frame. Earth’s oceans have
been destroyed by centuries of war, fish-
ing, and pollution. The remaining marine
life has been transported to planet Cre-
ation, terraformed by Earth probes. It turns
out that the planet is not lifeless; there
are fungi that are deadly to the marine life
transported from Earth. Fungi samples
are returned to Earth to be analyzed, but
the Syndicate realizes that it can use the
fungi as a weapon, and send ships to ex-
ploit them. The Syndicate purchases the
planet, and decides to destroy the player.
In an attempt to stop their drug-harvesting
programme, an appeal for help is sent, but
this attracts mercenaries and pirates who
were previously unaware of the planet.
Ships are sent to Creation to collect the
fungus drug and resell it on Earth.
Players control a submarine in first-person
perspective. Gameplay involves exploring
the ocean, where players encounter ma-
rine life such as dolphins and whales. Play-
ers could also encounter Syndicate instal-
lations, such as genetic laboratories and
research bases, as well as their cyberneti-
cally-enhanced creatures called G-Sharks.
The world’s fungi causes Earth’s marine life
608 • Unreleased Games - CD32
to enter a psychotic frenzy, as well as at-
tracting Cetacea to consume their tendrils.
The submarine is equipped with lasers
and explosives, and the player can be
aided by dolphins, who have the ability to
control unmanned machinery telepathi-
cally. In early versions, fish can be taken
back to base, bred, and a device can be
attached to them, enabling the player to
control them. Dolphins can be deployed
via an overview screen. Multiplayer sup-
port with up to eight players competing
against each other was also planned.
Creation had been the title of previous
Bullfrog titles Populous, Power Monger,
and Magic Carpet. Bullfrog co-founder
and managing director Peter Molyneux ex-
plained that there was a tradition to name
each special game Creation. The one that
became Magic Carpet came to be be-
cause Bullfrog designer Glenn Corpes had
an engine which resembled Magic Carpet,
but it was slow. Molyneux suggested that
he set the game underwater so that the
speed did not matter, and also came up
with the idea of having cities and intelligent
fungi competing for the world’s resources.
Development was progressing slowly, and
speed became a non-issue, so the project
became Magic Carpet.
Development of the second un-
derwater game named Creation began in
late 1993, and the development team was
led by Phil Jones. It was set for a sum-

mer 1994 release. Development was
aided by a group of researchers from the
University of Surrey, who studied animal
life’s reactions in relation to the environ-
ments they evolved in. To get the under-
water scenery correct, Jones worked from
library pictures. By January 1994, Creation
was a base defence game, in which the
goal was to defend against other bases,
and there were around ten species of fish
which took around 80 to 120 kilobytes of
memory. The game used the same graph-
ics system as Magic Carpet, and as Magic
Carpet evolved, Creation’s graphics were
backwards-engineered. An idea being ex-
plored was the possibility of linking Cre-
ation and Magic Carpet together: Magic
Carpet would have had the player be able
to jump into the water, and it would detect
whether Creation was installed and load
it if so, with the world being based on the
Magic Carpet one the player had just left.
Coming out of the water would send the
player back.
By 1995, the project was led by Guy
Simmons. Alex Cullum joined as the level
designer later that year, and the game was
using a modified Magic Carpet 2 engine.
He stated that the limited draw distance of
the engine worked well for an underwater
game. At some point after Simmons took
over, he, Corpes, and Bullfrog co-founder
Les Edgar travelled to Loch Ness to go
into a submarine for research. They re-
turned with ideas including a growth algo-
rithm to simulate fungi development, and
a simulator to reproduce fish movements.
By June 1996, the game was anticipated
by Génération 4 for a fall release.
By late 1996, Creation was near
completion. Bullfrog believed the game
was “shaping up to be an epic”. According
to Bullfrog, those who had seen the en-
gines of Magic Carpet and Magic Carpet 2
noticed their resemblance to film taken un-
derwater, and as the idea of a game with
existence’s eco-systems had already been
discussed, it was “fate” that the elements
be merged. The amphibious vehicles were
designed using 3Ds Max. The game was
also going to feature a map editor.
In 1997, it was decided that “Sub games
don’t sell,” and Creation was cancelled.
Molyneux commented: “I think it’s a real
shame that it was killed, because it could
have been something very impressive.”
He also stated that he believed the cancel-
lation was because many people thought
that Bullfrog should focus on games that
they knew would be successful, and want-
ed them to concentrate on Populous 3
instead of “the unknown quantity of Cre-
ation.” Creation had been in development
for MS-DOS, the CD32, the PlayStation,
and the Sega Saturn. According to Cor-
pes, the project had been in jeopardy be-
cause nobody was able to explain what
the game was about, and there was little to
distinguish Creation from other submarine
games. The project leader left, and the
team did not insist the project continued.
Electronic Arts at some point suggested
making the game into a screen saver. Cre-
ation’s level scripting language was devel-
oped and used in The Indestructibles.
This was not the last time a game
called Creation was attempted: a project
by Lionhead Studios (a successor to Bull-
frog and co-founded by Molyneux) as of
June 2002 was codenamed Creation.
CD32 - Unreleased Games • 609
 article; Amiga Power #33 - ‘Things to Come’ (January 1994) by Stuart Campbell;
Looks kinda sweet,
doesn’t it? Fingers
crossed, everyone.
DENNIS &
GNASHER
Game: Dennis And Gnasher
Publisher: Alternative
ETA: Christmas
Briefly: Ooh, lord. Looks like things
are going to get pretty rough on the
Christmas charts front this year.
We’re going to have Mortal Kombat
battling it out with Body Blows Ga-
lactic and the budget-released Street
Fighter 2, Cannon Fodder will be
locked in a ‘who’s the bloodiest?’
contest with T2 The Arcade Game,
and now there are going to be TWO
cartoon Dennis The Menace games
hitting the streets at the same time.
In the red-and-black striped cor-
ner, there’s Britain’s own master of
mischief Dennis from the pages of
the Beano, backed up by his trusty
dog Gnasher in a Knight Lore-style
arcade adventure from Alternative,
while in the, er, other red-and-black
striped corner stands that sickly little
cutesy blond kid who stars in the out-
now movie version of the popular
American TV cartoon series of the
same name, in a licensed game com-
ing very soon from Ocean. Phew.
While Ocean’s effort looks like
being a pretty traditional platformer,
Alternative have gone for the in-
frequently seen isometric 3D look,
and promises something a bit dif-
610 • magazine article
Populous, Schmopolous,
that’s what we say. This
is really our sort of thing.
ferent from the norm.
They certainly started off “Why aren’t there more games set in a cake shops, Gnasher?”
on the right foot with the “Gnash gnash gnashee gnash.”
press release accompany- “Of course. Stupid of me. Sorry.”
ing the demo screenshots. Did you The Creators Speak: What? Den-
know, for example, that 6.94% of nis The Menace has been on the go
Beano readers aged 11-14 (there for over 55 years. Surely the creators
are 14-year-olds who still read the must be dead by now? Oh God, I feel
Beano?) regularly buy CDs and a lawsuit coming on...
computer games? Nope, neither did
we, and quite frankly we’re at some- Verdict so far: You’ve seen as
thing of a loss as to what to do with much of this as we have (except
our newly acquired knowledge. Er, you haven’t read the press release,
anyway, back to the game. Oh no, I suppose), so we’re going to have
hang on, we don’t know anything to reserve judgment on it for a little
about the game. Better do some while yet. After the non-appearance
more Beano-related facts, then. of Universal Monsters, though, it’s
Did you know that the Beano and definitely nice to see the old isomet-
the Dandy sell over 318,000 copies ric arcade adventure making a bit of
EVERY WEEK? That’s 1,272,000 a comeback. We’ll see if Dennis And
per lunar month, or 16,536,000 — Gnasher is a fitting tribute.
over 16 MILLION — • STUART CAMPBELL
copies a year!
If you were to “You’ve seen
lay all the co- as much of
pies of the Be- this as we
ano sold in a have”
year end to end,
you’d probably have
enough spare time to
think of a rather better gag
than the old ‘laying lots of
things out end to end’ one,
that’s for sure. Look, we’ve only got the four screenshots, all right?
Dennis and Gnasher
Developer Alternative Software
Genre Action-adventure
Dennis and Gnasher was a game planned
for release on Amiga and PC systems. The
game would be based around the Dennis
the Menace and Gnasher characters from
a long-running comic strip in the British
children’s comic The Beano. The comic
stars a boy named Dennis the Menace
and his Abyssinian wire-haired tripe hound
Gnasher.
The game would be set within Beanotown,
a large environment with characters from
the comic having their own house for the
player to explore. The aim of the game
would be to locate four of Dennis’ friends
who have mysteriously disappeared, and
to find them before his Dad catches up
with him.
Enemies would consist of Wimpy
Walter and his gang of Softies. Dennis
were to have Minnie the Minx, Roger the
Dodger and Rasher (his pet pig) to help
him out and solve various puzzles within
the game. Finding Gnasher, the player
would be able to control him with a dog
whistle and get him to bite through areas
of the landscape to access other routes
in and out of the town. Within the game
would also be an array of weaponry such
as catapults and stink bombs to defeat en-
emies with.
MS-DOS prototype screenshots
According to the game’s project director,
Richard Naylor, the game would include
1,500 screens of graphics.
It seems most of the details came from
a press release given to the magazines
at the time, where Amiga Power’s Stuart
Campbell seemed to bemoan the lack of
details about the actual game, and that
the screens were in fact just static screen-
shots they were provided. That became
clear when the same screens came across
other magazines.
The One suggests that the game
was started in July 1993, and was due for
release in December 1993–which coin-
cides with the January 1994 coverage.
Although some magazines said the
game was now available, no reviews of the
game would surface.
A prototype of the DOS version resurfaced
in 2021 and was released online. The pro-
totype can be played on DOSBox, but is
reportedly quite bugged and clearly unfin-
ished, so it may crash occasionally. If the
title screen is run long enough, a demo will
play and show some of the gameplay. The
prototype can be downloaded from the
gamesthatwerent.com website.
some text from “gamesthatwerent.com”
CD32 - Unreleased Games • 611
 preview article; CU Amiga #57 (May 1994);
Toby Simpson is
currently beavering
away on a follow up to
Diggers. CD AMIGAgets
the first look.
DIGGING
DEEPER
T
oby Simpson has spent the
last six months developing a
game that can only really be
described as a bigger and better than
the word’s first true CD32 game.
“It’s difficult to describe it as a
sequel because I wouldn’t,” begins
Toby from his Millennium office. “I
would describe it as another game
that happens to operate in the same
world as Diggers. A sequel would
imply a logical progression from the
original game, which this isn’t. It’s a
completely new storyline.”
WAY OUT MAN
Diggers had a fairly ‘way out there’
plot. For this game, Toby’s gone
even further, creating a complete his-
tory for the game environment and
then selecting this chapter for the ac-
tual game.
“If you look at this game as be-
ing the present day, then the original
Diggers game happened about a 120
years ago, and the business leading
up to this game started about 2,000
years ago when the rather peaceful,
scientific, friendly good guys were
getting attacked quite violently by
the Quarian Empire, the big ugly
green guys in Diggers.
“The Finards weren’t aggressive
at all, only defending themselves,
and so started losing a lot of their
land. So they sat down in their labs
and decided to try and work out a
system. They finally invented this
thing called the Flingarian Machine,
which, much to the astonishment
612 • magazine article
of the warriors laying siege to their
capital city, ripped the whole city
up into twenty four large chunks of
land, and floated them several thou-
sand feet into the sky, nicely out of
harm’s way since the planet Zarg
had not invented much in the way
of flying machines at the this point.
And that’s were the Flinards stayed.
“Only recently, the Zarg Mineral
Trading Authority, who effectively
run the planet are beginning to get
a bit upset about the rising cost of
mining the planet, purely because all
the jewels near the surface have been
mined. Thus they have to mine fur-
ther and further down. What they re-
ally want is one of these flinard ma-
chines, because then all they have to
do is bring the ground up to them.”
HARD LIFE
There lies the story. The upshot of all
this is that you have to travel from
planetoid to planetoid in a small
prototype flying machine. Toby has,
of course, built in some problems.
“Life is made a little more difficult
by the fact that fuel efficiency wasn’t
top of the priority list on this trad-
ing authority ship, and in fact one of
the biggest problems you’ve got is
that you can only really do one jour-
ney at a time, so you need to mine
enough fuel to get you from land to
land. On top of that you’ve got the
added problem of people like the pri-
vateers, an alien race who just appear
— they know you’re there, it’s public
knowledge — and they know you’re
going to be mining jewels- They
can’t be bothered to do it themselves,
so they appear, steal everything in
sight, and then run off again.”
WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE?
You have to agree that it certainly
looks a lot better than Diggers. Some
would say that Diggers looked a lit-
tle flat and uninteresting, something
Toby has taken to heart. “From a
display point of view, this is much,
much more colourful. We have in
excess of 300 colours on the main
game screen at any given time. This
game uses 256 colours for all its base
graphics, and all the panels and stuff
like that have their own palettes, plus
the background sprites and the sky
also have their own colours. Which
looks quite pretty. All of the real
graphics are being put in now, all of
the animations and graphics for the
shop are present, and it really looks
nice. There’s this two headed crea-
ture that works in the shop who looks
really weird, twitching and swinging
his head round — it’s really good!”
BIG IS BEST
If you still aren’t drooling with excitement, Extractors:
this will help.
“Let me tell you something about the The Hanging Worlds Of Zarg
size”, enthuses Toby. “There are 24 levels, Developer Millennium
and each level has at least 70 full screens Publisher Millennium
in the game, apart from the 25th level, the Genre Puzzle
Flanargian Capital which is something re- Mode 1 Player
ally special. That is quite unique, as any
player who get that far will discover. Diggers 2: Extractors was developed by
“There are four different terrain types, Millennium Interactive and published by
which are very, very different. In the origi- Psygnosis in 1995 for MS-DOS. The game,
nal Diggers game, there was a little differ- initially called Extractors: The Hanging
ence in style between the terrain types, but Worlds Of Zarg, was originally in develop-
perhaps not that much really. It just looked
ment for the CD32, but ended up not being
a bit different. In this game, they are dra-
matically different.”
feasible due to not having enough memory
As far as I was concerned, the problem to run the game effectively. It was problem-
with Diggers was that it was aimless, some- atic to load levels and run them, with ev-
thing Toby is keen to rectify. “You have erything happening on screen.
much more interaction with the map itself, The MS-DOS is said to be almost
because the primary aim of the game is no identical to what the CD32 version would
longer just to dig. Digging is a side thing,
be like.
something you will have to engage in order
to complete your actual mission which is The game is similar to the first game, but
to de-activate the machine and find enough includes more levels, more tools, and more
fuel to carry on. challenges. The game objective is to unite
“With this in mind, the maps have been the 25 Hanging Worlds of Zarg. There are
designed by placing the fuel and the ma-
3 types of extractors, each with their own
chine at opposite ends, effectively forc-
ing the player to go through certain areas,
abilities: the digger, the strongest, and the
which means that we can spend a lot more teleporter.
“mobygames.com”
time designing really beautiful maps that
we know the player will see.
“One of the things we had in Diggers
was that we designed some really stunning
maps which players never saw because they
learnt they could walk onto the screen, do a
bit of digging, and then move
onto the next level, which
potentially got a bit repetitive.
The player wasn’t seeing all the
things we’d laid out, because they
didn’t maybe need to.”
It’s sounding good so far but
is still a few months off
completion. You’ll just have
to shoulder your spade and
wait. (CU)
CD32 screenshots from different
video game magazines

CD32 - Unreleased Games • 613

 article; Amiga Action #73 - ‘Blue Print’ (August 1995);

Hyboria
Conan the Conqueror
The latest in a long line of 3D iso-
metric games is about to reach these
shores. All they way from Finland,
and is based on a book by Robert
E Howard written in 1936, Conan
The Conqueror doesn’t have a pub-
lisher yet, but Monoceros Develop-
ments hope to get Conan out on the
A1200 and CD32 by December. ANDY
SHARP looks like something out of
the Dark Ages, and his pathetically
slurred speech is more or less remi-
niscent of Arnold Schwarzenegger at
his most lucid, so we decided he was
the best equipped AA team member As you can see from the art-
to give this muscle-filled treat the work here, plenty of time and
once over. effort has gone into creating a qual-
ity product. These numerous shots are
Billed as an action/adventure game, you first task is from different parts of the first level, and it looks pretty im-
to escape the dungeon into which Conan has been pressive at this early stage. The full game will include several
thrown. Throughout these dark catacombs you will other levels which will take you through the entire weird and
battle the inevitable enemies and meet allies who wonderful world of Conan.
will help you out if you speak to them. They will
give you as much information as you require or as Other stages will take
many useful items as you can handle. you through the cata-
combs, into a castle and
back outside to freedom.
It’s by no means a brisk
stroll in the park as
Conan has to overcome
many mind-bending
puzzles and obstacles in
his quest to regain his
crown which was stolen
in a great battle against
Tarascus’s army.

Between each of the successfully completed levels, an illustration will

appear on screen accompanied by some rather atmospheric music.
Incidentally, the music and sound effects are only part of this opera-
tion which have been worked on over here in Blighty. The graphics,
programming and animations were handled by the 10-strong team
at Monoceros Developments in Finland. What’s with these Scan-
dinavian types and the Amiga? Digital Illusions, Unique Develop-
ments, Monoceros. Where will it end?

614 • magazine article

As you can see from this rather unsubtle screen-
shot, the programmers are not particularly on
the ball when it comes to good old political cor-
rectness. Mind you, neither are we. Er, so here
goes then... Go on Conan my son, get stuck in
and give her one from us.
As well as Conan The Conquer,
Monoceros are beginning work on
another project, an all action shoot’em-
up going under the title of Xenocide. Again they hope to
produce a fast, addictive and playable game and hope to
find somebody to publish it. If any is interested in publish-
ing Conan The Conquer, phone Anthony Putson.

The beauty of Conan is that it can be hard drive

installed on any A1200 with 2Mb of Ram, so
frustrating disk swapping is avoided. For the CD
versions the fun-loving Scandinavian program-
mers are hoping to use real speech to enhance
the game’s appeal. They are also interested in
finding someone to assist in their games develop-
ments of the future. If you are seriously inter-
ested, then contact Monoceros Developments.

The Conan sprite will look every inch the part as

he wanderers heroically through the many graphi-
cal scenes which have been lovingly created by
the programming team. As you can see, even in its
Project Hyboria: Conan the Conqueror
unfinished state, the catacomb section of the game Publisher No-one as yet
looks as though it will provide an impressive back- Team Monoceros Developments
drop. We’ll endeavour to bring you a full review
Release TBA Inspected by Andy
of Conan just as soon as it’s ready for release, so
you’ll have to hold your horses for a while yet.

magazine article • 615

 Hyboria: Conan The Conqueror
Developer Monoceros Developments
Genre Action-adventure
Hyboria would be an 3D isometric licensed
game based on the 1936 short story
Conan the Conqueror by Robert E. How-
ard, which would featured the cult swords
& sorcery character Conan the Cimmerian
(aka Conan the Barbarian).
Previewed in Amiga Action, Hyboria was
planned for a Christmas ‘95 release de-
spite having no publisher at the time of
print. Ultimately, the game was never com-
pleted/released for the A1200/CD32 or PC.
Graphics artist Jussi Löf released a beta
version of the game online. However, this
version has a problem with collision detec-
tion and so it doesn’t seem to be possible
to exit the first room.
It’s likely that another version exists
with further rooms.
Download links
Amiga (.HDF file)
Amiga (.LHA / HD file)
Micro Machines II
Developer Cryo Interactive Entertainment
Genre Racing, Shooter
A racing game released as Micro Machines
2: Turbo Tournament in 1994 for Genesis
and later for MS-DOS, SNES Game Boy
and Game Gear. A CD32 version was due
in 1995.
616 • Unreleased Games - CD32
Inferno
Developer Digital Image Design
Publisher Ocean
Genre Shooter
Inferno (or Inferno: The Odyssey Contin-
ues) is a space combat simulator developed
by Digital Image Design and published by
Ocean Software in 1994 for MS-DOS. It is
a sequel to the 1992 game Epic.
Inferno continues the story-line of the
Raxxon—Terran conflict that began at the
time of Epic. The premise offers more plot
developments than the original game: the
player takes the role of a Terran pilot who
is ambushed by the Raxxons, and trans-
formed surgically into one of their own. The
protagonist escapes and vow to eliminate
the Raxxons once and for all.
A version for the Amiga and CD32 was
trailed in early 1994, however this version
was not released. Similarly, a port for the
Atari Jaguar was also reported to be under
development but never came to fruition.
images from MS-DOS
MegaMorph
Developer Psygnosis Limited
Genre Shooter
A first-person perspective arcade-style
shooter, similar in concept and gameplay
to Microcosm and Novastorm.
MegaMorph was announced for the CD32
and FM-Towns; but after the demise of
Commodore in 1994, the CD32 version was
shelved and the game was only released
in 1994 for the Japanese FM-Towns.
MegaRace
Developer Cryo Interactive Entertainment
Genre Racing, Shooter

A racing game with pre-rendered 3-D Enigma

graphics and over twenty minutes of FMV. Developer Centillion Software
Released in 1993 on the MS-DOS, and Genre Shooter
in 1994 on the 3DO and Sega CD. Soft- Enigma was created by developers who
ware Toolworks were working on an Amiga quit Intersect Development and the game
CD32 version of the game, intended for re- Atrophy after infighting between the em-
lease in November 1994, but it was never ployees. The game was in development
released. by Trevor Mensah, Lee Smith and Danny
Hammond. It would be a similar shooter to
Atrophy, but completely rewritten.
Mutant League Football The game, just like with Atrophy, were
Developer Mutant Productions never released. Some reasons were (re-
Genre Sports portedly by Mensah) threats of injunctions
A sports game designed using the Madden and countless letters received from Frank
‘93 engine, and feature a different take on Tout’s (the sole employer of Intersect De-
football, where the games resemble a war velopment after everyone left the compa-
as much as a sporting competition. ny) solicitors made the developers scepti-
cal that a publisher would want to release
Released in 1993 exclusively on the Sega
the game for fear of action (despite it being
Genesis.
unfounded, the game was re-written which
could be proven by access to the sources).
But the main reason was Mensah, who
Mutant League Hockey was in the midst of his degree course and
Developer Mutant Productions was losing interest and time to complete
Genre Sports the game.
Only 4 levels out of the 8 promised
A spin-off of Mutant League Football. Re-
were developed. A scripting language for
leased in 1994 exclusively for the Sega
the game were created, which allowed
Genesis.
the musician, Smith, to create all the alien
waves and essentially script the logic of
the themed game levels.
Nova Storm
The game would be an AGA title, but it’s not
Developer Cryo
Publisher Mindscape
known if an CD32 port was ever discussed
Genre Racing by the developers. It would be played with
50FPS, 300 on-screen colors and feature
Novastorm, sequel to Microcosm, is a a rail multi-layered parallax effects.
shooter developed by Psygnosis in 1994.
Released for PlayStation, DOS, FM-Towns
(as Scavenger 4), 3DO and Sega CD. A
CD32 version of the game was intended
for release in November 1994.

CD32 - Unreleased Games • 617

 preview article; The One #72 - ‘Work In Progress’ (September 1994);
by: Simon Byron;

W
hen I was, oooh 14 or so,
I used to make regular
trips round to my ‘mate’s’
house in order to play on his com-
puter. I didn’t like him very much,
but feigning friendship for a cou-
ple of hours a day seemed a small
price to pay for unrestricted access
to his computer. A little mercenary,
I know, but I was young, wide-eyed
and reckless. Or was it spotty, ugly
and friendless? I always get the two
confused. Anyway...
A particular favourite of ours was
a Cinemaware game called Defender
of the Crown. You could only get it
on disk (which my mum would nev-
er buy me because we were too poor.
Indeed, we had to have our baths in
the outside toilet, often while other
members of my extended family
emptied their bowels — if we were
lucky) and it was billed as an inter-
active movie. Which of course it
wasn’t.
Having conquered the
arcade genre, the team
behind the Alien Breed
games has decided to
have a go at writing a
strategy game - an entirely
different beast, and one
which has always proved
unpredictable. Simon
Byron asks some pretty
difficult questions...
“If you’ve seen Gauntlet,
Chaos Engine, Jurassic
Park or, dare I say it, Al-
ien Breed, then you’ll have
a pretty good idea of how
the arcade sections will
work,” states Rico. “We
reckon that these arcade
sections will make up
50 percent of the overall
game — although you will
be able to skip them if you
want to concentrate on
strategy.”
However, it was a bloody good
game. It was basically a strategy affair
with a few arcade sections chucked
in for good measure, set during the
days of Robin Hood (Circa 1200 —
history fans — Harry). Your ultimate
aim, I think, was to become the King
of England and your successes and
failures were depicted by occasional
animated scenes — hence the inter-
active movie monicker. The best of
these animations, though, was the
one which popped up whenever you
came across a sultry young lady who
you fancied marrying. It was taste-
ful stuff: you’d view her from be-
hind as her dress slipped off and the
two of you start indulging in a little
but of horizontal jousting in front of
the fire. Of course you saw nothing
naughty at all (in fact, I’m sure I’ve
embellished the events somewhat)
but for your hot blooded males like
us it was the equivalent of flicker-
ing through, ahem, ‘men’s interest’
magazines.
The reason for this embarrassing
reminiscing is Team 17’s recently
announced epic entitled King of
Thieves, which is being developed
by Andreas Tadvic and Rico Hol-
mes, the duo behind the excellent
Alien Breed games. And it’s got
much in common with Defender
of the Crown, see? But will it have
any luurve scenes? It’s an important
question, and one which causes those
charged with making a good impres-
sion with King of Thieves to pause
for a while.
“I hope so,” says Marcus Dyson,
Team 17’s Development Coordina-
tor, eventually. “Will it, Rico?”
“You’re a dirty old man,” laughs
Rico, KOT’s graphic artist. “We’ll
just have to see what we can do with
MPEGging. Would Mick [Team 17’s
MD] pay for an, erm, model?”
Unfortunately, the numerous sug-
gestions for what kind of love scenes
the game could include become too
lewd and puerile to print in a fam-

PROJECT: King Of Thieves

PUBLISHER: Team 17
DEVELOPER: Rick Holmes (Graphics); Andreas Tadvic (programming)
INITIATED: May 1994
RELEASE: Easter 1995

A WHOLE NEW
BREED
618 • magazine article
These very early sprites were created so Rico and Andreas could decide how the
main character will look. “We were hoping to have a guy carrying a longbow,”
explains Rico, “but it would have been too unrealistic. At the moment the hero
throws knives during combat, but, like most things to do with the game at the mo-
ment, this could easily change.

ily magazine. So it’s on to more pro- ally be better than any salvia-swap-
fessional matters. Like what on earth ping anyone’s ever likely to have
is the game about? participated in — and this, as a re-
sult, reduces the chances of spread-
MAGNA CARTA ing horrible diseases. Y’see, it’s all
“It’s set in mediaeval England,” been carefully thought out to make
begins Alan Bunker, Team 17’s PR the world a better place.”
geezer and driving-force behind “It’s something we want to pass the progression of the game from ini-
some of the racier suggestions dur- on to couples so they can sit in front
tial design to finished product.
ing our earlier conversations, “and of a monitor and share each other’s
So who came up with the original
has strategy elements similar to the company while having fun... and in
idea? “It was me, me I tell you —
‘Risk’ boardgame, where players the end, it’s all safe and goo-free,”
just like the concept for Alien Breed
strive to conquer as much of the map suggests Marcus.
and the design of every other game
as possible.” According to Rico, the arcade sec- myself and Andreas have done!”
“There’ll be the option of arcade tions will work “really well,” and at
blurts Rico. “Sid Meier gets ‘A game
quests when they become available this stage, these segments are chang-
design by Sid Meier’ all over his
in the time-line,” adds Rico. “So you ing all the time.
games — I get nothing!”
can expect some great sub-games “We were considering a sword- “But he does get paid a lot,” sug-
when you go a-killing.” slashing kind of affair within the gests Marcus.
“Yes, we’re planning to incorpo- castles, but then we realised that
rate Operation Wolf-style sections this could prove duller than the
where the player has to storm ships Bournemouth Conservative Confer-
and the like to pillage them for mon- ence (just a bit of politics to show
ey,” Marcus chips in. “The important that we’re socially aware). So we’re
thing in King of Thieves is not to to- reconsidering this bit — but trust
tally destroy the ship as this will ob- me when I say we’ll come up with
viously cause it to sink and loot will something totally zappy and action-
be lost.” packed!”
“These gameplay elements — “I hate to mention our pedigree...”
and there will be more, including interjects Alan, PR-ishly.
storming castle scenes which will “...Well, there is a very good
have a perspective similar to Laser chance that Rico and Andreas will
Squad — demonstrates the amount provide something to keep arcade
of flexibility and the level of effort fans occupied for many an hour, con-
that is going into the creation of the sidering their past record.”
game,” explains Alan. “We’re hop- It’s worth pointing out that King The Team 17 boys in all their, ahem,
ing to make King of Thieves the most of Thieves is still very much in its ‘glory’. That’s Marcus Dyson on the
complete, competent and fun game infancy. It’s due for release around left, and Alan Bunker on the right. The
to play out of bed. We want to be en- Easter next year, and this is the first reason why we haven’t got any picture
vironmentally friendly, so we’re en- of several Work in Progresses you of Rico is because he was taking the pic-
couraging people to become celibate can expect to find in The One. Over ture, obviously. But don’t worry girls
and play King of Thieves instead of the coming months you’ll witness — we’ll endeavour to get a piccy of the
graphic artist for the next WiP.
snogging. This game alone will actu-

magazine article • 619

 “Yes, he does,” agrees Alan.
JIMMY CARTER
King of Thieves is a bit of a depar-
ture from Team 17’s slick arcade
offerings. Considering the fact that
Rico and Andreas are best known for
their action-packed blasteramas, it’s
surprising to discover that they’re
confident about maintaining their
impressive track records — even
though designing a ‘strategy’ game
is fairly new to them.
“We’ve never done a really in-
depth game like this before,” says
Rico. “I’ve always had a thing for
mediaeval/fantasy games, but noth-
ing like Dungeon Master or Eye Of
The Beholder. I prefer it to be sim-
ple, fun and balanced — which,
hopefully, is how King of Thieves
will turn out in the end.”
“For a strategy game, it will have
a surprisingly large variety of arcade
sections,” adds Marcus. “I mean,
we’re not talking SSI stuff here.”
“We have found it a little difficult
adjusting to this kind of game,” ad-
mits Rico, “but mainly because the
idea for King of Thieves is really
great in my head and I have a lot of
difficulty communicating my ideas.
This game also requires the input
of more than one person for the de-
sign. I guess I’ll get more help when
there’s more game on the table.”
“We’ve never said that we’d only
write arcade games — it’s something
that we’ve been branded with rath-
er than choosing as an identify. So
we’ve done arcade games that have
put the opposition to shame — who’s
to say that we’re not equally as good
at producing other genres?” Who in-
deed?
The amalgamation of three genres
— strategy, shoot-‘em-up and beat-
‘em-up — could potentially be dis-
astrous, but Rico is sure that a liberal
sprinkling of that ‘Team 17 magic’
will see them through.
“We incorporated Ping-Pong into
Alien Breed and that worked!” he
laughs. “Hopefully, it will be suc-
620 • magazine article
cessful. You should feel at home with
it whatever type of game you play.”
I think all really successful games
are a combination of two or more
genres,” muses Marcus. “When I
worked on Amiga Format we were
always taking the rap for being a
strategy game fan’s mag, but it was
never really the case. There have
always been many Amiga owners
who are fans of management/RPG
games, but equally there have also
been lots of arcade/platform enthusi-
asts. Amiga owners are not generally
so short sighted as to adhere to one has been done deliberately in order
type of game only. I believe good ar- to give Rico and Andreas plenty of
cade games still have a market, just time. King Of Thieves will be a huge
as good strategy games do, and King release for us and we have no inten-
Of Thieves will provide that by of- tion of screwing things up by rushing
fering the best of both worlds...” it along. And a game with so much in
“...And because we have so much it has to be tackled head-on with eve-
time with King Of Thieves, it means ryone behind it 100 percent. It’s been
we can really focus on the gameplay a while since our dynamic Swedish
and ensure it gets well,” adds Alan. duo have done anything new, but
“The game was originally sched- the wait will be worthwhile. Aaagh,
uled for a late ‘94 release, but it will don’t you just hate clichés?”
now spill over into next year — this With the strategy element appeal-
Rather than leaving you staring at a blank screen while the next
section of the game loads, Rico has created a number of inter-
mediate screens which will pop up whenever the
game accesses additional data. These screens
are drawn directly into the computer, and
take three or four days each to finish.
“I used to draw on to paper and then scan the artwork in,” explains Rico, “but
now I find it much easier just to work directly on the computer.” The results,
as you can see here, are truly amazing, and when Marcus describes some of the
graphics as “works of art,” he isn’t exaggerating.
ing to more mature gamers, will the
game include more ‘adult’ elements,
like explicit violence and stuff?
“Personally, I reckon there should
be loads of gore and genuinely
shocking material,” admits Rico,
displaying a disturbing side to his
usually placid personality, “but then
it might get censored...”
“That’s the problem — there ac-
tually is censorship in computer
games,” elucidates Marcus. “Games
now have a little logo on the box
advising people what age group it is
‘suitable’ for. And that can limit your
potential market.”
“That said, nobody’s ever said
‘No’ to anything I’ve done so far,”
continued Rico. “Except when Alien
Breed II got censored and the man-
gled bodies were removed. That was
a real bummer.” Er, quite.
WHORESON CARTA
With Rico and Andreas both based
in Sweden, Team 17 gets to see any
progression only once in a while —
but that suits both parties.
“I try to show as little as I can get
away with...” smiles Rico.
“...But that suits us,” counters
Marcus. “Particularly in the early
“The knights are only in there for test reasons,” says Rico, “to give an idea
of how the game will end up looking. We haven’t got the arcade part up
and running just yet — realistically, I think we’re about four weeks away
from a working version.”
Like most games, the
background graphics are
constructed from a series
of blocks. “These blocks
will form the forest,” offers
Rico. “The hardest part is
linking them together, but
when everything is running
smoothly, adding additional
animations and tweak-
ing things is no problem.
This will form one of 15 or
so arcade levels when it’s
complete.”
stages, our programmers are given
pretty much a free rein as they’re
the ones who are the most creative,
know exactly what can be achieved
and exactly what they’re aiming
for.”
“Yeah, then we come along a little
later and ask them to start all over
again, completely revamp their stuff
and cause headaches all round,”
jokes Alan. “After all, games devel-
opment was never meant to be easy!
“But seriously, Team 17 is unique
in that games receive inspiration and
input from many parties: marketing
and PR people, game testers, MDs,
project management people and, of
course, programmers. It’s because
so many people’s ideas are incorpo-
rated that Team 17 games very rarely
disappoint. King Of Thieves is very
much a Rico and Andreas inspired
game, but other members of the
company will no doubt begin to get
more deeply involved later on. One
other key difference at Team 17 than
at other software publishers is that
ideas are actually listened to, and
quality of product is genuinely the
most important thing!”
“This is our most ambitious
project yet,” Marcus confides.
“Too bloody right it is,” adds Rico.
“You may be surprised from the lit-
tle that’s been seen so far that there’s
already a damn sight more backstage
stuff gone into the graphics than any
of the Breed games.”
“They are awesome, though,”
concludes Marcus. “You’ve seen
some, we’ve seen more, and some
of the things Rico has come up with
for King Of Thieves are truly works
of art.”
And that’s about it for this month.
In our next behind the scenes look at
King of Thieves, we’ll be focussing
more on development problems, and
how the in-game features are coming
along. As I mentioned earlier, this
is the first of, ooh... literally many
looks at this ground-breaking game,
the next of which will be in a couple
of months. See you then.
magazine article • 621
 preview article; The One #74 - ‘Work In Progress’ (November 1994);
by: Andy Nuttall;
A WHOLE
NEW BREED
R
eaders of the September is-
sue of The One will remem-
ber the first part of our Work
In Progress on King of Thieves. Al-
ready well-known for their superb
blast-’em-up Alien Breed. Andreas
Tadic and Rico Holmes are plunder-
ing and looting more distant shores
for their next project.
Of course, we know most of you
who did read it were probably stand-
ing in Smith’s at the time, so here’s
Rico Holmes, the artists behind
KoT’s graphics, to, ah, fill you in.
“The actual game, right from the
start, was meant to be based along
the lines of Risk,” he says. “Or, as
loth as I am to say it — and please
don’t put it into print — some-
thing like Defender of the Crown.”
Hmmm, too late.
Defender of the Crown, for the
latecomers, was an early case of
AMANT (All Mouth And No Trou-
sers) which appeared around 1987;
a strategy game with hardly any
gameplay but a decent line in graph-
ics. Rico and Andreas intend to have
their cake and eat them, because
they’re planning on varied gameplay
to complement the fab graphics.
“In King of Thieves during your
strategic conquest of England vari-
ous quests will come up,” explains
Rico. “The quests mean that you can
go on one of many arcade sequenc-
es: attacking the castle with catapult,
dropping rocks from balconies, or
going on a midnight raid on the vil-
lages.”
Although the underfying story of
the game is similar to Defender of
622 • magazine article
Yes, those crazy, wacky Swedes have been at it again!
King of Thives is shaping up to be... well, a game, and
Andy Nuttall was there at Rico’s house to check it out.
(Actually, Andy phoned Rico from North London. You’ll
just have to use your imagination.)
PROJECT: King of Thieves
PUBLISHER: Team 17
DEVELOPER: Rick Holmes
(graphics); Andreas Tadic
(programming).
INITIATED: May 1994
RELEASE: Easter 1995
In the main text, Rico wails about his
problems with drawing sprites — al-
though as you can see, he has no such
worries with backgrounds. “Look-
ing down from the side he looks flat
against the screen. It looks like you’re you with newer and more fabulous
viewing him from the side, rather graphics as Rico churn them out, and
than from the side and above.” Surely there’ll be a few tales of woe and
you’re just being picky, Rico?
excitement from the boys along the
the Crown, Rico didn’t consider that way. Hurrah.
game to be an inspiration. “Funnily Rather unfortunately, (for me at
enough, my inspiration for the game any rate) Rico hasn’t read the first in-
came from playing Pirates Gold; stalment yet. “I haven’t had a chance
which is such a diabolical game!” he to,” he explains. “Of course, being
laughs. And ‘scoop’ Nuttal pounces. out in Sweden we don’t get too many
Er, can we print that then? “Ah, British magazines, but I did see it in
I’d probably get hung, drawn and Copenhagen airport for £9.50. So
quartered if you did! Oh s**t, it does I thought ‘forget it!’ I had a quick
have a really weird atmosphere, read, for as long as they would let me
through, so it was quite inspiring. in the store there.” (Why, Andy, you
Despite being diabolical.” complete arse, didn’t you send them
I’m determined that the King of a complimentary copy? — Simon.).
Thieves WiP will be more interesting ROY CASTLE
than the long-running (and increas- Since we left him two months ago,
ingly boring) Sensi World of Soc- Rico has been working on the castle
cer diary that finished recently. For level, a sort of Chaos Engine-y part
a start, it’s bi-monthly, so hopefully of the game in which your charac-
until its release we’ll be providing ter, the King of Thieves, runs around
slaying early medieval baddies. “It’s
not completed,” he admits, “but
the whole engine is working there.
Once that’s ready we can just pump
in other modules to it. To date I’ve
been doing various things on the
arcade-style levels, graphics-wise,
and we’ve got quite a few varieties
on the single castle setting.”
There are two types of arcade
game here: offensive and defensive
— the offensive being the perspec-
tive arcade section of the game, like
the castle. When you win a battle in
the strategy section, you can then
actually wade in and take the castle
using tried and trusted arcade shoot-
’em-up techniques.
“Basically, a castle’s a castle.”
Best quit with the technicalities now,
eh Rico? “Most of the castle graph-
ics are generic,” he continues, “but
each will have something which is
distinctive. I’ve worked on a vil-
lage level as well; a medieval-cum-
Tudor hamlet which you can wander
around. I had been working on a For-
est level, but that didn’t quite work
out.”
From the previous WiP you may
remember a screenshot containing a
number of blocks making up some
forest-type graphics. Some grass, and
a few tree trunks, that sort of thing.
“Yeah, tree trunks — you’ve got it
exactly,” enthuses Rico. “If you look
at the castle level, everything has
been sheared off at one set level. It’s
a method which works in the castles,
and it works in the villages were you
just shear off the houses. But in the
forest it just looks like you’ve got a
load of tree stumps, instead of trees!
So it looks like we’re going to have
to kill that one altogether, unfortu-
nately. It took a hell of a lot of work
as well.
“I had thought about doing some-
thing with poplar trees, or little fir
trees, so their tops wouldn’t be cut
off. “But it would all start to look a
little Scandinavian...”
How about Bonsais?
“...or — yes Andy, how amusing
— Japanese. Hardly old English,
though!” he laughs.
The pair are unlikely to create
another level to replace the Forest,
simply because they don’t want too
many levels of a similar type in the
game. “Otherwise people are bound
to label it a Chaos Engine copy, or
even Alien Breed. Rumours which
we’re still hearing, for some rea-
son,” Rico moans.
In Chaos Engine and Alien Breed,
the main characters are firing lasers
and other weapons — but in middle
England they couldn’t be doing that,
obv. So what exactly are they using,
then? “We were originally going
to have him running around with a
sword, and hacking ‘n’ slashing, but
you don’t really get an arcade feel to
the game that way. For the King of
Thieves character, he’s got a bando-
lier of throwing knives. Basically,
he’s chucking daggers at people, so
you get a feeling of shooting a bit.”
The KoT character is your guy,
your hero, and you follow him
throughout the game. But, curiously
for such an integral part of the game,
neither Rico nor Andreas has though
of a name for him so far. “Well, we
could call him Rico,” he jokes. “I
quite like that. I really hadn’t thought
about it — you’ve just given me a re-
ally good idea!”
He even shows up in the Risk-
style strategy scenarios. “Getting
back to... oh, I’m reluctant to say it,
because people are bound to label
it a Defender of the Crown clone.
But you know how you played Ce-
dric of Ivanhoe in, er, that game, or
whatever you choose your character
to be? In King of Thieves you have a
set hero. He starts off as a pirate. And
then he bandies together with all his
lads, and suddenly you’ve got a con-
quest of England.”
BARBARA CASTLE
Because it’s set during feudal times,
the ultimate goal of KoT is to re-
gain the crown, which is held in a
dragon’s cave right at the end of
the game. The only person who can
get through the portals of the cave,
which are magically held, is the cur-

“The Chaos Engine-style thing covers both the village [pictured here]
and the castle,” explains Rico, “and we’ll have a Prince of Persia-style
type level as well. Then there will be other arcade-style sequences for
when you’re attacking. For example; the catapult section has you’re
knocking the crap out of a castle. It’s based on a Tanks-style game,
where you’re shooting across a landscape that’s four of five screens
wide, and you’ve got the wind and angle to take into account...”
“...And then there’s also an Ork Attack-type of
game,” he continues, “where you’ve got a load of
blokes climbing up your castle wall, and you have
to defend it by dropping oil and rocks on them
before they reach the top.

magazine article • 623

 rent er, King of England — so you
have to slay him too. Once every-
one else is defeated, then you get a
chance to go into the cave, and that
section will be like, say, Prince of
Persia, or Flashback; that kind of
thing.
“Such a level will involve get-
ting past the traps, solving the puz-
zles and then getting right down to
the actual dragon,” Rico explains.
“You’ll have a scrap with him, and
then you’ll get the crown if you win.
Jim Sachs was responsible for the graphics for Defender of the Crown. Was he any
And, er, that’s the game, basically.”
kind of inspiration for Rico years ago? “No, he never was, actually, I loved Defender
There’s a kind of inherent prob- of the Crown, because it was good for the time, but graphics-wise, not really. They’re
lem with games which have tried just done Defender of the Crown 2, for the CD32, and do you know what they’ve
to do something along the lines changed? Instead of having to beat everybody, you’ve got to beat everybody within
of Prince of Persia of Flashback. a time limit and collect some ransom money. It’s exactly the same game.”
Simply put, they’re not always very
grounds, scenes, pictures and large “Take the face, for instance. To get
good. And since we’ve been spoiled
animations yes, but tiny sprites no. someone with a heroic-looking face
by the quite brilliant rotoscoped ani-
We’ve got a couple of other lads at in about six pixels is a bummer.
mation featured in Flashback, it’s
the office doing graphics; I’m go- There’s also the human-like move-
very difficult to readjust to the likes
ing to have a words around and see ment within a few frames, so you’ve
of Impossible Mission 2025 (to name
if there’s anybody who can do the got maybe four or five frames to play
a game at random) which in compar-
sprites for the game. around with in any direction. We’re
ison looks remarkably unrealistic.
“At the moment they’re look- definitely going to have to increase
How will the final section of King of
ing very flat, and we’ve got to don that, though, because it just isn’t
Thieves shape up?
something so they actually fit in with enough.
“I’ve experimented with rotoscop-
the backgrounds rather than standing “And then there’s the angle that
ing a long time ago,” Rico reveals.
out from it. That’s one of the things I he’s standing at. You’re looking at
“It’s nice, but it’s very hard to tie
want to do this week.” him from a 45 degree angle from
all the frames together. You get one
Surely, though, if Rico can pro- above, so he’s going to be foreshort-
sequence of frames when he’s walk-
duce artwork like this around the ened. And I really do want to avoid
ing, and then one when he’s jump-
page, it can’t be too hard to knock those really horrible short fat lit-
ing; but tying those two together so
up a few sprites. Can it? “There are tle blokes you end up with in many
the character moves fluidly is very
so many things in sprites
difficult. I was very impressed with
which have to be spot
what Delphine did with Flashback.
on,” he says.
They spent an awful long time doing
that, and I’m aiming to do something
as good for King of Thieves.
“But I’ll admit to you — and I’ll
admit to everybody now — that do-
ing sprites is just not my forte. Back-

“We’ve got a ship-to-ship attack, when

you’ve got to smash their ship with
a huge ballista. It will be a bit like
Operation Wolf, that sort of thing.
Without blowing my own trumpet, that
one looks pretty good.” And this is the
background. Apparently, although this
pic used 256 colours, loads of action is
overlayed in the game, as well as layers
of parallax. Blimey.

624 • magazine article

video games. I want him in realistic proportions,
but still looking right.
WINDSOR DAVIES
It was about this point that I remembered I was
having a fine chat with somebody in Sweden.
Obviously, you may be forgiven for thinking,
but normally when you speak with somebody in
Scandinavia or wherever, their English is slightly
damaged, if not entirely broken. Rico’s English
however, struck me as particularly bloody good.
Better than mine, some might say.
“I am English, you fool!” laughs Rico. Oh, how
embarrassing. “I’ve been living out here for, oh,
god knows how many years. I had been working
with Andreas for a couple of years before we’d
even met, and one day we thought it was about This rather, ah, solid-looking Strangely, Rico has never stud-
time we got together — so I came out here. man is Andreas Tadic, who ied art formally. In fact, he used
“We had a terrible party that night; or a big we’ll be speaking to quite a lot to be a builder. “I did go to study
for the next instalment of King art, but I dropped out of the
party, anyway. I met my girlfriend there, and I of Thieves. Rico would like to course after two weeks because it
thought; ‘Wow. I’m staying,’” mention that his state of the art was crap. It wasn’t teaching me
From next week onwards, Rico and Andreas are birthday present, which An- anything. Just about everything
to be working on the real core of the game; the dreas bought him a week ago, I’ve done I’ve taught myself.”
strategy section. In a couple of months’ time, we’ll was a VIC-20. With Frogger Including, it seems, the curious
bring you part three of the Work in Progress, by and everything. ability to grow small plants out
the top of one’s head.
which time the whole game should be shaping up
pretty damn nicely.
See you then, er, then! •

AND HERE’S ONE I

PREPARED
EARLIER...
B
efore crating his stun-
ning 24-bit colour images,
Rico begins by sketching
their outlines. When we spoke
to him, he had a whole load of
sketches which were waiting to
be coloured and painted, and here
are three for you too look at. “I
always sketch directly to compu-
ter now,” he says, “but they look
like pencil sketches anyway be-
cause I work on a 24-bit colour
board with a drawing tablet.”
“The object of one of “These gates are the “Well, Macbeth had
the many quests is to re- entrance to one of the witches to advise him,”
trieve Excalibur,” Rico final levels,” says Rico, says Rico, cryptically.
explains. That will be “only accessible when You can see the resem-
one of the arcade sec- you’ve conquered all of blance between the
tions, with the sword Britain.” Basically, you sketched witch and the
at the end of the level. have to be the last man coloured faces we print-
“It will be needed later standing to get in, and ed two months ago.
in the game, but to say some pretty nifty work These sketches are all to
why would be to give far with the old throwing be completed and paint-
too much away.” knives is necessary be- ed up in 256 colours —
forehand. so we’ll try to bring you
them next time.

magazine article • 625

 Mental Mayhem
Publisher Gremlin

article; Mean Machines Sega #22 (August 1994)

King of Thieves
FLIPPIN’ MENTAL
Developer Team 17 • New Game
Publisher Team 17 • By Gremlin
• Megadrive
Genre Role-playing, Action
Gremlin’s sequel to Zool is
King of Thieves would be an action adven- now masquerading under
the name of Mental Mayhem and
ture with strategy elements. It was planned should be hitting our screens some
to included several different gameplay time in October. Details regarding
styles, including a top-down perspective the Ninja From The Nth Dimen-
sion’s return are opting for a more
similar to that seen in Chaos Engine. arcade/ adventure slant than before,
The game was referenced to in the manual with the player getting to grips with
a series of object-related puzzles as
for Alien Breed 3D II - The Killing Grounds, they scour the scrolling play area.
and was previewed in video game maga-
zines, such as The One and The Games
Machine.
Martyn Brown posted some information re-
garding cancelled and unfinished titles on Super Kick Off 3
his blog on March 30th, 2007, and had this Developer Anco Software
to say about this unfinished title: Genre Sports
“An Amiga game by Andreas & Rico
Part of the Kick Off soccer series. Kick Off
(Alien Breed, Project X, Superfrog, etc.)
3 and the updated Kick Off 3: European
featuring Alien Breed style play with a Pi-
Challenge, both released in 1994 for the
rate theme. Ultimately this wasn’t really
Amiga, was planned to be ported over to
going anyway despite fine incidental art by
the CD32. The ‘Super’ in it’s title may be
Rico. Again, I think this title came at a bad
indicative of it being an enhanced version,
time when we found ourselves having to
and not just a simple port.
raise the bar a little more and it was go-
ing to be so-so; something I was desperate
to avoid given our history over the previ-
ous 5-6yrs. I can remember falling out with
Rico about it pretty badly at the time, but
fortunately it was very short-lived and we
moved on to bigger and better things after
that (actually I think it was X2).”

626 • Unreleased Games - CD32

Lost Eden
Developer Cryo
Publisher Virgin
Genre Adventure

Lost Eden is an adventure game devel-

oped by Cryo and published by Virgin In-
teractive in 1995 for MS-DOS, Macintosh,
3DO, and CD-i. It is set in a world where
humans and dinosaurs coexist.
A CD32 version was also due for release
in 1995 and several different Amiga maga-
zines released preview articles about the
CD32 version before it’s cancellation.
In an April 1995 article in The One
magazine, Andy Nuttall interviewed Rimmi
(the designer and Project Manager of the
game), who commented on the CD32 ver-
sion; “The biggest limitation with the CD32
conversion was with the speed of the pro-
cessor. It’s very slow, in comparison with
the PC. Especially we have worked a lot on
image compression, and to decompress
immediately we frankly need something a
bit faster. But, we rewrote the compression
routine many times to optimize it.”
Rimmi further explained that “The
Amiga version will be very close to the PC
version. Of course, the story will be the
same, the characters’ speech will be the
same, and the graphics are the same. I
find, actually, that the graphics on the CD32
looks better than the PC, mainly because
you look at them on a video monitor or a
TV; but on a PC you have VGA monitors,
and you can see the pixels. On a video
monitor the pixels tend to be more blurred;
more blended, and so look smoother.”

CD32 - Unreleased Games • 627

 preview article; Amiga CD32 Gamer #57 (April 1995)
by Tina Hackett;
system
analysis
Tina Hackett, your devil in
disguise, casts her soul into
Limbo forever to take a look
at what certainly promises to
be one helluva game from new
developers Tri-Logik Studios
T
he recent ECTS was a plat-
form for quite a few new
Amiga releases. One such
title could be found on the
Rasputin stand and at first glance it
looked to be your rather average ar-
cade adventure fare.
Called Limbo of the Lost, it’s a
first project for Kent-based develop-
ers, Tri-Logik Studios. When I first
saw the game, I must admit I wasn’t
particularly gobsmacked. But having
seen the previewable version dem-
onstrated fully, I am rather optimistic
for the future of this up-and-coming
team.
It’s an adventure game that has
a passing resemblance to Another
World in its graphical style and ap-
proach. And what does look particu-
larly appealing about the title is its
historical storyline. Based on the
factual events of the Mary Celeste,
it uses this historical background and
the mystery surrounding it to create a
highly atmospheric game.
As no-one knows what happened
to the crew of the ship, they’ve creat-
ed one particular fantasy-based end-
ing that makes an excellent storyline
for the game.
An unusual and original touch will
be the addition of a video which will
accompany the game and provide
628 • magazine article
Limbo
You’ll meet some very strange characters
during the course of the game
Animations will enhance the game, like
this imaginative drowning scene
the following plot: The Mary Celeste
is en-route to Italy when a strange
mist engulfs the ship, sending the
navigation into turmoil. Eventually,
the ship runs aground on an island
that doesn’t appear on any sea chart.
Briggs, the Captain, sends a party
ashore, but when they don’t return
he sends another group to look for
them. Again, they don’t return. A
storm brews up and he gives orders
to abandon ship. He then sets off
himself to see what’s happened to
his crew, and stumbles across one
of the shipmates lying in the under-
growth, barely alive but able to re-
count the previous days events. He
tells of how they came across an an-
cient temple, and finding a beautiful
book written in a strange language
they agree to take it back to the ship.
But as they lift the book, from a
dark opening in the temple four fig-
ures emerge mounted on horseback,
and they attack with a force that
Hallucinogenic worms in tequila. Hmmm,
a very weird pastime
The inventory screens are tucked neatly
away at the bottom
seems to melt the flesh off their
bones. They tussle for the book one
of them is holding and the crew flee
in terror, managing to only grasp on
to one page from the book.
After telling the tale he dies and
Briggs continues his search. He
comes across the temple and cau-
tiously goes inside. Hidden from
their view, he hears the horsemen tell
his shipmate, Johnson, that the book
is God’s book of creation and having
been moved from the sacred altar by
a mortal, they are now able to use it
to reverse the creation of earth.
They then kill Johnson and ride
away. Briggs ventures further and
sees a ghostly apparition of John-
son who tells him the horsemen do
not know the page is missing and
without it they cannot perform their
evil deed. He begs Briggs to find the
book and free their souls from Lim-
bo, where they are condemned to
spend eternity as slaves. Biggs steps
of the Lost
into the portal and the game beings.
You play the unseen guardian to Captain Briggs, direct-
ing all the action via a point ‘n’ click mouse system. The
inventory and all the information you will need will be
kept at the bottom of the screen so as not to interfere with
the main play area, and the mouse icon can be changed
according to the action you want to carry out.
There are many weird and wonderful characters you’ll
come across in Limbo of the Lost. Some may be good,
others bad, and you’ll have to find out about those that
will help you on your quest and those that will just hinder
— or even kill you. The main character, Briggs, will also
talk to you, explaining an object you may want to know
about. He may not agree with you though, and could nag The game is littered with rather gory tongue-in-cheek
touches that will add humour
you if you take too long over a decision.
A range of animations will be added to the game. There
are quite a few nasty ways to die and these are accompa-
nied with some rather grisly scenes such as a drowning!
Characters will also be animated and fully-interactive en-
vironments will ensure some thorough gameplay.
Sound effects are rather promising at this stage too.
Speech will be used throughout and all the characters will
have different voices such as deep sinister speech for the
four horsemen or a slow, demented drawl for one of the
monsters. So far, all of these have been well implemented
and a good range of realistic sound effects will provide
atmosphere.
The final version won’t be ready until October but
we’ll be bringing you updates on what looks like being an
original and atmospheric adventure.

Steven Bôvis, responsible for the graphics, has created

some very imaginative characters for the game, including
Cranny the Cook and Grunger the Gate Keeper

Watch out for hidden traps that will lure you to your doom

magazine article • 629

 Limbo Of The Lost

Limbo of the Lost is a point-and-click adventure game

developed by the British three-person development
team Majestic Studios and published by G2 Games
in Europe, 1C Company in Russia, and Tri Synergy in
North America. This was Majestic Studio’s only game
released before they closed down. The game is infa-
mous due to its poor quality and excessive plagiarism
of in-game backgrounds and other content.

Limbo of the Lost follows Benjamin Briggs—the real

life captain of the Mary Celeste—as he explores Lim-
bo. Players act as an omnipresent guide for Briggs
during his adventure.
Captain Briggs is portrayed as entomophobic,
having a fear of insects. Throughout the game, he
must confront his fear in order to complete puzzles
and progress further. The existence of the player is
acknowledged by the game’s characters (described
Windows 2007 version
as a “spirit guide”), and during the final sequence the
player, rather than Briggs, becomes the puzzle-solv-
ing protagonist. Briggs complains to the player from
Developer Majestic Studios
Publisher G2 Games, time to time regarding his feelings of the surroundings
Tri Synergy and what he has been asked to do. If the player does
Release date 2007 not move the mouse for a period of time, Briggs will let
Genre Adventure the player know about it.
Mode 1 Player
In the early 1990s, Steve Bovis and Tim Croucher
developed the initial idea for the game, Limbo of the
Lost. Bovis and Croucher created a demo of graphical
text adventure game for the Atari ST. The duo showed

CD32

Other Releases
Windows [.ISO] 2007
CD32

630 • Unreleased Games - CD32

the demo to publishers, who were inter-
ested only if the game was finished. After
unsuccessfully trying to expand the devel-
opment team, the pair shelved the project
because publishers were no longer inter-
ested in making games for the Atari ST.
In 1995, Bovis, Croucher and new
team member Laurence Francis began
working on the game again, this time as
a point-and-click adventure for the A500.
Grandslam Entertainment-owned publish-
er Rasputin Software agreed to publish the
game, and Limbo of the Lost was ported
to the A1200 and CD32. Limbo of the Lost
was never published, since demand had
fallen for games for the A1200 and CD32.
The developers released a few im-
ages of their Amiga prototype that were in-
cluded in a preview in Amiga Computing
88 (July 1995). A demo was released on
one of the two cover CDs that came with
Amiga CD32 Gamer issue 11 (Apr 1995).
The scenario of the final version is
similar to the planned Amiga version and
also shares some of the same characters
as the prototype. While the characters in
Comparisons between the concept art, Amiga and
final release.
the Amiga version bear a close resem-
blance to their associated concept art,
the characters in the final product bear
nearly none. The reason for the change in
the characters appearance is believed by
some to be because the team did not have
any strong 3D modelling ability, so they
were forced to use whatever existing mod-
els they could find that were close enough
to their original designs.
In 2003, after learning PC and 3D devel-
opment tools, Bovis returned to Limbo of
the Lost. With Croucher and Francis he ar-
ranged publication of the game in Europe
in late 2007 by G2 Games. In 2008, Tri
Synergy announced it would give Limbo
of the Lost widespread release in North
America. By June 2008, copies of the re-
lease could be found only on eBay and at
a small Asian retailer.
A bonus DVD that came included
with the Windows release elaborates more
on the plot than the game itself. The DVD
also includes images, sound records and
concept art.
The game was released to overwhelm-
ingly negative reviews. Polish video game
magazine CD-Action gave the game a -1
out of 10 for the first time in the magazine’s
history.
In 2010, UGO included the game
in the article “The 11 Weirdest Game End-
ings”, commenting: “One thing that sure
as hell wasn’t stolen was the game’s cra-
zy ending, which must be seen to be be-
lieved.”
One of the developers pretended to
be a fan of the game with the username
FABLE and discouraged people from us-
ing guides due to how “disrespectful” it
would be to the developers for their hard
work for creating the puzzles. Things es-
calated so much that the same developer
using the username MSTUDIOS on the fo-
rum backed himself up. The site owner no-
CD32 - Unreleased Games • 631
 Limbo of the Lost The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
ticed that both accounts have the
same IP address, but MSTUDIOS
said that FABLE is a play tester and
Majestic Studios only has one com-
puter for “safety reasons.” The site
owner didn’t believe this reasoning
and locked the thread.

On 11 June 2008, GamePlasma

posted an article showing certain
places in Limbo of the Lost were
identical to the game The Elder
Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
After this revelation, other
investigations into the game dis-
covered environments and assets
taken from numerous other games,
including Sea Dogs and World of
Warcraft, while the cursor was taken
from the game Black & White 2.
Certain places in Limbo of
the Lost also resembled portions of
Thief: Deadly Shadows. The game
depicts its lead character walk-
Enclave
ing near the gates of “Famine”,
“Drought” and “Disease”, which is
identical to Thief’s “Keeper Library”.
The Bonus DVD included
with the Windows release also in-
cludes plagiarism in the form of
videos taken from the CryEngine 2
demo and the Pirates of the Carib-
bean game released in 2003.
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
When the plagiarism was first
discovered, many were incredulous
that the developers could actually
get away with such blatant copy-
right violation. Some posited that it
may be an ARG (Alternate Reality
Game).
On 12 June 2008, publisher
Tri Synergy announced they had
stopped distribution of Limbo of the
Lost while investigating allegations
of plagiarism. Tri Synergy said they
had no knowledge Majestic Studios
used other games’ work without per-

632 • Unreleased Games - CD32

mission and said they had contacted Ma-
jestic Studios for a response.
On 24 June 2008, Majestic Studios were
quoted as saying:
“In response to the shocking notifica-
tion that some alleged unauthorized cop-
yrighted materials submitted by sources
external to the development team have
been found within the PC game Limbo of
the Lost, we [the development team] have
given our consent and full cooperation to
both publishers who are recalling all units
from all territories immediately. [...] To the
best of our knowledge, no one at Majestic,
[European publisher] G2Games or [North
American publisher] Tri Synergy, Inc. knew
about this infringement and knowingly
played any part in it.”
On 30 July 2008, Tim Croucher and Lau-
rence Francis announced their departure
from Majestic Studios with the following
statement:
“Due to the behaviour of certain mem-
bers of the Majestic Studios team, Mr. T.
Croucher and Mr. L. Francis would like to
announce their departure from Majestic
Studios; and would like it known that they
have severed all connections, ties and
links with the remaining members of the
Majestic team.
“Mr. Croucher would like it known that
his input responsibility for Limbo of the
Lost was: research, some vocal acting and
puzzle design.
“Mr. Francis would like it known that his
input responsibility for Limbo of the Lost
was: original opening theme and intro mu-
sic, character scriptwriting for Darkmere,
puzzle design and voice acting, particu-
larly that of B. S. Briggs.
“Neither Mr. Croucher nor Mr. Francis
had any say or control over: graphics, ren-
dering, coding or game screen design.
“As far as both Mr. Croucher and Mr.
Francis were aware, all submitted mate-
rial was to be original; both Mr. Croucher
and Mr. Francis adhered to this contractual
clause.
Several sources believe that Steve
Bovis deliberately stole copyrighted con-
tent from other videogames. Bovis was
also quoted before the release saying:
“My job is to put the game together and
create all the visuals, coding, sounds,
models, marketing and basically make the
game flow and work. As well as manage
and try to motivate the team. A job that is
hard enough at the best of times!”
All of the background in Limbo of
the Lost are static images. Thus, all that
the artist needed to do to create them from
another game’s assets was to play the
game and take a screenshot, then manip-
ulate that screenshot in a graphics editor,
such as Photoshop, as necessary.
One element of Limbo of the Lost’s
game design that is particularly surprising
to note is that some puzzles are plagiarized
directly from other games. For instance, in
the screenshots comparison of Limbo of
the Lost versus Enclave. The screenshots
clearly show a plagiarized environment,
but beyond that, the puzzle associated
with the environment itself is stolen. The
screenshot used for this puzzle is the only
screenshot in the entire game, as far as
has been discovered, that is flipped hori-
zontally (the reference image from Enclave
was also flipped to show the correlation).
All other screenshots throughout Limbo of
the Lost are used verbatim in their original
in-game orientation.
The ending hinted at a sequel with the ti-
tle Limbo of the Lost II: Flight to Freedom,
but obviously this wasn’t going to be made
because of its reception and the closure of
Majestic Studios.
In 2008, shortly after its release, fans cre-
ated Macarena of the Missing which they
described as a “A bootleg demake of Lim-
bo of the Lost”.
some text plagiarized from;
lotl.fandom.com, crappygames.miraheze.org
CD32 - Unreleased Games • 633

Magic Carpet
Developer Wookiesoft
Publisher MarkSoft
Genre Puzzle
Magic Carpet is a 3D flying Peter Moly-
neux game developed by Bullfrog Produc-
tions and published by Electronic Arts for
MS- DOS in 1994. A DOS expansion pack
and a version for PlayStation and Sega
Saturn was released the following years.
The CD32 version, which were in develop-
ment at some point, never materialized.
Run Ball
Developer Light Shock Software
Genre Sports
Run Ball was a basketball game in devel-
opment by Italian software house Light
Shock Software. The game was worked
on, almost entirely, by co-founder Massi-
miliano Calamai.
The game had gameplay similar to that of
SNK’s Windjammers. The title was only
partially completed, with only one charac-
ter fully animated and designed, an Amiga-
based tool for managing player animations
and backgrounds, and a small demo run-
ning on PC.

Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure

Developer Activision
Genre Action-platformer

A side-scrolling multi-platform action-plat-

former first released in 1994. It is the fourth
installment in the Pitfall! franchise. The
players assume the role of Pitfall Harry Ju-
nior—the son of the protagonist of previ-
ous entries in the series.
Versions for the 3DO, CD32, Atari Lynx,
screenshot from
PlayStation and Sega Saturn were an- Amiga CD32 Gamer #13 (June 1995)
nounced but never released.

Psycho Pinball Skitchin’

Developer Ocean Software
Developer Activision
Genre Sports, Racing
Genre Action-platformer
A inline skating racing game developed
Pinball game with gameplay in the style
and published by Electronic Arts for Sega
of Pinball Dreams and Pinball Fantasies.
Genesis in 1994. The game is derived both
Features three main tables and an addi-
in technology and in design from the Road
tional fourth bonus table.
Rash series.
Versions released in 1995 for MS-DOS
Although Ocean signed a deal to release
and Genesis.
an Amiga conversion of the game, it never
appeared.

634 • Unreleased Games - CD32

Surf System Tong Dynasty
Developer System 3
The Surf Systems hardware is a pro- Genre Action-adventure
totype controller developed for the
CD32 by Surf Systems. The system Tong Dynasty was reportedly an ambi-
includes a board (snowboard or surf- tious project developed specifically for the
board) that connects to the joyport. CD32. Gameplay would combine a Ninja-
style arcade adventure with close-in com-
Two mini-games were developed for bat sequences similar to Street Fighter.
the controller; Biff Boardin’ and Sur- The game was planned for a Winter 1994
fin’ With Biff. They came on a single release.
disc. Players would control the char-
acter by balancing on the board or
via the controller.
J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings,
Vol. II: The Two Towers
Developer Interplay Productions
Genre Role-playing

A role-playing game following the second

book in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.
It is a direct sequel to J.R.R. Tolkien’s The
Lord of the Rings, Vol. I, released in 1991
for the Amiga. An Amiga version of Vol.II,
and a second sequel, were canceled.
The game was released in 1992 for MS-
DOS, PC-98, and FM Towns. A CD32 ver-
sion was planned for a 1995 release.

X-COM: Terror from the Deep

Developer MicroProse
Genre Strategy

Terror from the Deep, with the working title

UFO 2: Terror from the Deep, is a sequel
to X-COM: UFO Defense and the second
game in the X-COM series, this time taking
the war against a renewed alien invasion
into the Earth’s oceans.
The game was released in 1995 for MS-
DOS, then later for PlayStation and Win-
dows

CD32 - Unreleased Games • 635

 article; The One #78 - ‘Work in Progress’ (March 1995);

WHAT’S NEW,
...and I always though that
‘amusing’ game titles were
reserved for The Hidden.

PUSSYCAT?
Team 17 bring you the game
which causes small boys to
titter, and Andy Nuttall to, er,
titter. Damn.

PROJECT: Pussies Galore

PUBLISHER: Team 17
DEVELOPER: Amber Developments:
Andy Coates (Programming); Matt Bell
(Graphics); Allister Brimble (Music);
Wanton (Disk system, apparently)
INITIATED: May 1994
RELEASE: April 1995

I
’m putting forward my disclaim-
er for the name now,” says Kenny
Grant of Team 17, very firmly. “I
am not responsible for the name Pus-
sies Gallore.” Fair enough, but it is,
I have to admit, a name which has
raised more than a few giggles in the
rather puerile-at-times offices of The
One. So where did it come from?
“Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it,” he
mocks. “It’s got cats in there, and... er,
they’re galore. I have asked Martyn
what inspired the name, but he was in
a drunken stupor at the time, and he
just said something that sounded like
‘thpbbbpthth.’ So I’ll give you the
same answer.”
Although the two guts collectively
known as Amber Developments, re-
sponsible for, ah, Pussies, have never
planned anything for Team 17 before,
they have programmed other games
separately, “But I don’t think they
want to say what it is, to be honest,”
laughs Kenny. Well, at least we know
it’s not the gamular travesties Last Ac-
tion Hero or Total Carnage. So what-
ever it is, it can’t be that bad.
Amber became involved with Team
17 because they got talking with Mar-
tyn Brown down at an Amiga show.
“They took him some diagrams,
showing how they expected the game
to be, and basically he liked the idea
and took it from there,” Kenny de-
scribes.
So, Kenny. If you were the Direc-
tor of a popular games publisher, and
somebody came up to you with the
I reckon a better name for this game would be
“Natural Born Kittens”...
idea of a platform game with cats in it,
would you seriously go for it?
“God, that’s putting me on the spot.
Er, looking at the artwork devised
by the Amber guys, I would have
gone with it, yes.” Kenny counters.
“The drawings were really nice, even
though Matt, the artist, hadn’t really
done anything computer-based be-
fore.”
By all accounts, or at least, Kenny’s,
the game’s changed quite a lot since
the early design anyway, although he’s
quite reticent to tell me how. Not ex-
actly forthcoming with the old info is
he, our Kenneth? “It’s to do with the
way Boris manipulated the kittens,”
he explains carefully, after a lot of
coaxing. “Let’s say it was different.”
Ah. Boris? “Boris is the name of the
main character. He’s a bit of a street-
wise alley cat, and his girlfriend’s
called Doris. The game’s about a
chap called Evil Eric, who was once
the great ruler of the universe. He’s Boris the cat, in-between ‘manipulating’ the
kittens. Sinister...

636 • magazine article


steadily growing old, and he becomes jealous of the
youthfulness of all the kittens throughout his land.
So, as his last, and most diabolical scheme, he de-
cides to abduct every last kitten in the land.”
He does this, apparently, by using the one thing
that most of the kittens care about: rock music. He
records an album, the kittens eagerly buy it; it shoots
to number one, but little do the kittens know that the
music contains evil incantations played backwards
behind the music. “When they hear it, they’re sucked
through the hole in the CD into an alternate dimen-
sion,” he laughs.
“The player’s role is, of course, Boris. In a way
he’s quite averse to kittens, he doesn’t like them very
much, but he has to rescue them otherwise Doris is
going to nag him to death.” Good to see Team 17
producing ‘PC’ software nowadays, if you see what
I mean.
“The game starts as Boris buys the album, sits in
his comfy chair to listen to it, and then...” Kenny
makes a disgusting slurping noise at this point, in-
dicating that young Boris has been ‘sucked’ through
the hole in his CD. I hope it wasn’t in the CD player
at the time.
So where, pray, does Doris come into it? “We
don’t really know. Where do women come in, some-
times? Us blokes can’t do without them, probably,”
he bluffs, scrabbling for ideas. As you might tell,
Kenny was recently married. “Anyway, we’ve yet to
finalise where Doris comes in.”
So the final game, then. If it’s a platformer, is it the
standard type, where you have to bounce on heads?
“No, you’re shooting,” he says. It’s interesting to
note that the boys decided to use the shooting method
of dispensing with enemies, because lots of people
thought Pussies would be Superfrog 2. Why? Search
me; and, indeed, Kenny.
“It’s not intended to be,”
he says, “It’s just some
people decided to
think that.”
...but perhaps
that’s me just
being ‘catty’.
sorry.
Pussies Galore
Developer Amber Developments
Publisher Team 17
Genre Platformer
Pussies Galore would be a platform game
in which the player takes the role of the al-
ley cat Boris, who must rescue kidnapped
kittens from the magician Evil Eric.
The game would consist of four
worlds, each of which would be divided into
smaller missions. Missions would require
Boris to rescue trapped kittens, locating
certain special objects, or simply finding
the exit. Boris would also be able to com-
mand the rescued kittens to perform differ-
ent actions, such as crawling through small
gaps, or completing electrical circuits, for
example.
The game was being developed by Matt
Bell and Andy Coates from Amber Devel-
opments. This would be Amber Develop-
ments’ first game
The game was advertised in the ATR man-
ual, and was planned for release in March/
April 1995. It was also heavily advertised,
receiving several preview articles in com-
puter magazines at the time.
Martyn Brown, Team 17’s Development
Director, posted some information in mid-
1995 regarding the games cancellation:
“We dropped this. Unfortunately the
game just wasn’t going anywhere and we
felt that it was not worth releasing for the
sake of it. We had spent 12 months on it,
but c’est la vie.”
CD32 - Unreleased Games • 637
 Space Junk
Developer Imagitec
Genre Adventure
Space Junk was to be an ambitious title
by Imagitec, who were asked by Atari to
produce a space adventure game for their
new Falcon platform. Due originally for re-
lease back in June 1993, the game was
to feature over 200 locations with digitised
backdrops, between 60-100 fully animated
characters and each complete with speech
samples. Imagitec was also using puppets/
masks to create the characters and anima-
tions of the game characters.
Lead designer on the project was Nigel
Kershaw, with Shelagh Pickford and Dawn
Whitehead-Binns creating the plaster
heads and sculptures for the game. Ma-
rie Fox and Sharon Dunsford were tasked
with producing background work and char-
acters using airbrush and gouache paint,
which were later scanned to PC.
Nigel came up with the idea of Space
Junk specifically to make use of puppets in
a game. He also didn’t like the idea of us-
ing clay models for animating, and wanted
to avoid that route completely. The team
of artists would create characters in latex
rubber, animate and then digitise—a pro-
cess they named “Imagimation”.
The process would start off with
everything initially storyboarded, before
being constructed. When Dawn had man-
aged to get a plaster representation of a
head from their process, it would be sent
off to Soft Options, who would create latex
and foam based masks for the actors to
wear when animated and digitised into the
game.
The Imagitec team would them-
selves act out the particular sequences
and roles to be digitised into the game.
Over time, Imagitec had an entire room full
of latex masks and other creatures intend-
ed for use within the game.
638 • Unreleased Games - CD32
Most of the design was created by
the team, with inspiration from books, films
and comics of the time. One of the biggest
inspirations it seems would be the UK com-
edy Red Dwarf, with Space Junk aiming to
feature similar humour and style through-
out. The game itself would also aim to
have the feel of classic Lucasarts SCUMM
adventures, but with realistic graphics and
other styles of game play blended in at dif-
ferent points of the story.
The rough plot detailed in magazines indi-
cated that the player would take control of
a space pilot, a spaced-out dog called Ran-
dolf, who travels around the galaxy hauling
other people’s “junk” with his partner—The
Righteous Dub. A collision strands him on
a planet, where he must try and escape,
rescue his partner and complete a series
of jobs, trades and tasks. Everything is set
in the world of the Federation galaxy, pop-
ulated with strange creatures where cor-
ruption is rife.
One Atari magazine had also the
following blurb to describe more of the
back story: “The Federation is on its knees,
crippled by social upheaval and financial
recession. It is a chaotic time, a time when
men of low moral fibre, little integrity and
nauseating skin complaints can make
a fortune. In other times, they may have
been called smugglers, pirates, thugs,
mobsters, bandits, hoodlums or traffic war-
dens, but now they all go by the moniker of
… Space Junk.”
The main protagonist Randolf would be
moved around the landscape by clicking
onto different areas, interacting with dif-
ferent objects and characters. The player

could choose actions and interact with the
game by using a SCUMM-like menu sys-
tem, but with more of an icon-based ap-
proach. When the player would interact
with a particular character, the game would
switch to an animated sequence featuring
the digitised latex puppets and various op-
tions to speak to them.
There were also planned to have
a 3D polygon space sim sections as Ran-
dolf travelled to different planets, as well
as a number of sub games, where the
player could play cards against creatures,
play arcade machines in a bar or gamble
in a casino. According to Sega Force, the
game was going to be huge, with many
character confrontations and path choices.
Although it seemed to be lined up initially
as an exclusive for the Falcon, Imagitec
decided to add the new Sega Mega CD to
the line up early on when discussing the
game with Sega Force magazine in 1993.
Over the space of a year, the game
would be featured in several magazines,
with preview screenshots, photos of the
masks/process and features that talked to
Imagitec about the game.
The amount of work involved with the pro-
duction of masks and digitisation had been
heavily underestimated by the team, re-
sulting in delays. The mask and costume
process was very time consuming and
costly overall, and there still was a lot of
work left to do. Many character sequences
still needed to be filmed, and many back-
grounds and part of the game story had to
be completed and digitized up.
Space Junk went past its planned June
1993 release date—by which point the At-
ari Falcon had sold in relatively small num-
bers and the general support of the sys-
tem was weak. It was reported by French
magazine Joystick in November 1993 that
Imagitec decided to move the game onto
other platforms. Work continued on the
Mega CD version, with a lot of compro-
mises due to the limited palette and other
platform limitations.
One of the platforms to be moved
onto was the Atari Jaguar, Atari’s next plat-
form after Falcon. By this time, it was also
reported that Space Junk was going to be
released on the CD32 platform, as well as
PC (due for release in February 1994). But
in the end, the game never appeared on
any platform.
Martin Hooley, CEO of Imagitec, in later
years would suggest that the game was
completely cancelled after it became clear
that the Atari Jaguar was going to flop and
that they wouldn’t get their investment
back.
The Mega CD and CD32 versions
were likely cancelled for similar reasons
of platform failure, though this hasn’t been
completely confirmed.
The Atari Falcon version has been re-
leased online and is available for down-
load. No build of the CD32, PC, Atari
Jaguar or Sega Mega CD versions have
surfaced. It isn’t fully known if the CD32
and Jaguar versions were ever actually
started, though it is believed that the PC
and Mega CD versions were.
Atari Falcon Preview Demo Version
for more information on the game, visit;
“gamesthatwerent.com”
CD32 - Unreleased Games • 639
 article; Sega Force (June 1993);
North of the Watford
Gap the sun shines,
the bids sing, the ice
cream vans play The Lambeth
Walk and thirtysomething
game developers strut their
funky stuff in latex animal
masks! Bemused, bewildered
and bewitched, ADRIAN PITT
and MAT YEO toddled off to
Dewsbury to meet Imagitec,
guys and girls with big ideas,
big bank balances and a fetish
for all things rubber.
Ade takes up the story...
Feature!
‘E
xcuse me. Any idea which
of these corridors leads to
Imagitec? The girl from
Sunshine Supertan Centre peered
around the door. She seemed a little
flustered. ‘Sorry, love, no idea. Have
you tried the next floor up?’
We had. And the floor above that
and the floor above that. Chartered
accountants, chiropodists, solicitors,
broom cupboards — we’d banged
on and into many doors. We were
stumped.
This couldn’t be the wrong adress.
It may have been a hot and humid Fri-
day afternoon when i jotted the details
down but I was still in charge of my
faculties. There was no way I’d mis-
take a ‘2’ for a ‘5’. If David Bowie
could blaze a trail through a dusty lab-
yrinth, I was adamant two ‘intelligent’
journos from No Man’s Land could
dig their way out of this rabbit warren.
Mat had the defeatist look, A kind
of ‘let’s sit in the lift and flick nut brit-
tle at each other’ expression.
‘We can’t go back yet,’ I wailed,
‘I’ve a four-page feature to trash out
when we get home. Plus, I don’t reck-
on I can stomach another British Rail
cheeseburger so soon!’
THE NORTHE
640 • magazine article
What dreams are made of...
The plaque on the door said ‘Dream
Weavers’. Nice name. Kind of exotic.
Fairy tale-like. Hans Christian An-
derson would’ve been proud.
‘Well,’ I thought I, ‘if it’s true, and
they are indeed weaving what they
claim, maybe they’d put that loom
of theirs into full tilt and dream up a
route to Imagitec!
I tentatively knocked on the door.
I could see Matt was embarrassed for
me. What if I made a fool of myself?
What if I interrupted a meeting of
the Meat Purveyors and Fish Wives’
Hidden away in a room just a bit bigger than a
broom cupboard lie a plethora of latex masks for
Imagitec’s new Mega-CD game, Space Junk.
Latex is a bril-
liant medium as
it picks out facial
movement. Many
of the Imagitec
staff posed for the
masks and took
part in the filming
of Space Junk. It’s
all done in-house.
Shots from the Mega Drive version of Humans.
There’s a CD version nearing completion and
two further Humans games are planned.
Debating Society? What if... oh for
Christ’s sake, man! You are a Deputy
Editor. You are supposed to have an
ounce of confidence. It is assumed
you’re able to cope with difficult situ-
ations at the drop of a hat. I opened the
door and stuck my head around...
Okay, I’d had enough! This was
definitely not Imagitec. This was a
model agency. The girl on reception
was immaculately dressed. Not a hair
out of place. Lipstick perfect.
‘Sorry,’ I mumbled, ‘Any ideas
where Imagitec is?
‘Yer ‘ere,’ she smiled, ‘It’s
Adrian and Mat from SEGA
FORCE isn’t it? Our saviour!
They’re here
So, why Dream Weavers? That’s
the functional side of the com-
pany, the big boys who deal in
dishing out the green crinkly stuff.
Bit of a fancy name, ‘cos the real
dream weaving lies with Imagitec
itself, the creative guys who work
flat out to turn their dreams into
reality.
While I reflect on just how
corny that last statement was, let’s
embark on a guided tour of the
building with President of Imag-
itec, Martin Hooley and Product
Manager, Rick Scott.
What a strange place! To proclaim
it a ‘maze’ is an understatement. I
half expected Richard O’Brien
to pop out from behind a pot plant
and screech, ‘This is a skill game.
You’ve got three minutes from the
moment i close the door’.

Hidden away in a room just a bit bigger than a
broom cupboard lie a plethora of latex masks for
Imagitec’s new Mega-CD game, Space Junk.
As you move from room to room,
you become aware there’s more talent
in this building than Albert Einstein,
William Shakespeare and Andrew
Lloyd-thingy put together. Managers,
designers, programmers and musi-
cians all have a nook or cranny to call
their own.
Well developed!
Imagitec believes all software should
be produced in-house. Then, if there’s
a cock-up, they’ve only themselves to
blame. Sound’s good in theory, and
in practise, it’s working well. After a
shaky start (ie, Wheels of Fortune),
they bounced back with the glorious
Gadget Twins (80%, issue 15) and
Mega Drive Humans (83%, issue 16).
They’ve a finger in almost every
computerised pie, have Imagitec.
Their software development studios
cater for all three Sega machines, as
well as SNES, Game Boy, Amiga,
Atari et al. There are computer tools
and PCs as far as the eye can see. Over
This mean and moody
guy is Rick Scott, Imag-
itec’s Product Manager
Whereas this mean and
moody git is an animatr-
onic Space Junk puppet!
ERN LIGHTS
This handsome chappie is Nigel ‘Pig’ Kershaw.
He’s the designer of Space Junk. The pose
doesn’t fool us. We reckon he’s pretending to
This luverly lady is Marie Fox. She’s the senior design. Great looking game, though, Nigel!
storyboard artist at Imagitec. She busily draws
the characters and backgrounds for many of
their games with the help of her talented team.
the past five years, their development
system’s grown as their workload
grown.
Their schedule for ‘93 includes
further products on Sega and Nin-
tendo formats, as well as work on
the PC CD-ROM and the new Atari
machines, the Falcon and Jaguar.
They’ve recently been approved as a
Mega-CD developer. Sega were im- Imagitec employ a group of computer artists
who all have a room to call their own. Here’s
pressed by their work, to say the least. one working on a Sega game. Tidy desk, huh?!
‘No!’ to shovelware
And so they should be. Imagitec don’t
belive in the concept of ‘shovelware
products’. The belief that ‘if it worked
on the Mega Drive, stuff it, let’s keep
it the same for the Mega-CD’. That’s
the lazy gits’ approach. If a game can
be enhanced and embellished on oth-
er formats, Imagitec’ll do it, no two
ways about it. Consider it done!
Imagitec aren’t ‘just another soft-
ware house’, they’re a design and
development company who want to
make, and I quote, ‘Excellent, origi-
nal product’. That’s why Imagitec de-
signers are involved with their crea-
tions from conception to completion,
to tweak and correct any flaws and
ensure the game progresses in line
with the original specification. How
does specification come about in the
A selection of pics from that cute and incredibly
first place? colourful game, Gadget Twins. Another game
Martin explained. ‘We all tend to Imagitec drew-up on storyboard first.
magazine article • 641
 come up with ideas for games, so we light, the full-blown design document all about and the artists have a huge
have brainstorming sessions to see and storyboards are committed to.’ range of equipment at their disposal.
if any of those ideas are viable. We A lot of effort’s taken to ensure prod-
Art works
strive to create a base design which ucts are graphically outstanding.
is then tailored to suit the varying Rick showed us the storyboards for a Imagitec currently employ 11 full-
specifications and capabilities of the game they’re planning, with a work- time computer artists and they’re all,
system the product’s being developed ing title of Drack Pack. He said, ‘De- well... normal! I’d imagined 50-year-
for.’ signing and storyboarding a product old chainsmokers in Arran sweaters,
is a costly and time consuming proc- with high foreheads and round spec-
I’ll tell ya a story ess, but the effort’s worth it. There are tacles. Wrong! These guys wear jeans,
Those ideas that get through make fewer mistakes at the end of the day.’ T-shirts, listen to Depeche Mode and
their way to the storyboard and design The 20 storyboard pics for Drack Nirvana, crack jokes, drink gallons of
department. At Imagitec, they don’t Pack, a mock-up of the first level, coffee... all the things we get up to.
race into a project willy-nilly. Game took around two months to produce.
levels, characters, backgrounds... in Imagitec’s computer artists closely Puppet on a strin?
fact, all visuals start life on story- follow the style and design of story- Swigging the final dregs of tea out of
boards. boards. Care and attention’s what it’s Imagitec’s ‘special occasion’ mugs,
Martin told us, ‘Putting our work
on storyboards first is very important.
It means we have complete control of
everything at source.
‘Our designers get together for
a design brief. They come up with
ideas of how all the characters are to
be drawn and painted. This gives the
whole concept a visual representation.
The characters take form, they’re giv-
en personalities.
‘This brief is then reviewed. If
The Space Junk backgrounds are air-brushed then
the potential for a game is still there, digitised.
a storyboard artist sketches up the
visuals and further design points are
discussed. This rough presentation is
evaluated for its potential, possible
target terms and viability.
If at this stage it’s given the green

The main character in Space Junk. He’s a spaced-out

Rastafarian dog called Randolph. Shaggy, eh? The
masks were made by the same guys who produce the
characters for the TV programme, Splitting Image.

The Gadget Twins started life in a brain-

storming session, then as storyboards,
then found their way into the hands of
Now you see the masks and costumes in full computer artists!
effect. Here are two characters from the CD
game, Space Junk. It’s up to you to choose the
most fitting way of communicating with them!

One of the storyboard artists hard at work on a secret

project. Remember when you play an Imagitec game,
it’s been on a board!

642 • magazine article

Mat and I were led into a room jam- Ring of confidence
packed to bursting with latex masks Again, Space Junk’s visuals were first
of various weird and wonderful crea- drawn on storyboards and backgrounds
tures. Our eyes lit up and we could air-brushed. Character design were
tell from Martin’s expression that the transformed into latex by Soft Options.
story behind this little lot was some- Posing for the masks is a painful
thing special. process! Plasticine sculptures first
In early 1992, Imagitec were looking cover the sitter’s face, then a clay
for a new angle to CD gamesplaying.
jacket’s placed over that. The cavity
They’d thought about animating clay between the Plasticine and the clay is
models, a process used in many popular
injected with latex. That’s left to dry
children’s TV programmes, but decided then pulled off.
that was a little messy. They plumped
Rick told us, ‘That’s the really pain-
for different route — puppets! ful part. You find bits of eyelash and
Yep, it may sound strange, but for
moustache stuck inside the masks!’
their first Mega-CD game, Space The masks are returned to Imagitec
Junk, Imagitec are incorporating pup- where Shelagh Pickford paints them
petry, creating characters in latex rub- and designs the Space Junk costumes.
ber, animating them and digitising the As with their other products, Imag-
action. They call it Imagimation. itec have complete control of how the
Martin admits, ‘We knew noth- masks are painted and what the cos-
ing about making latex puppets.’ But tumes looks like.
he knows a man who does! In fact, a As Martin says, ‘This again cuts out
whole team of ‘em at Soft Options, all the fiddly bits. We don’t have to go
the company responsible for the Split- on to improve how Space Junk looks.
ting Image puppets. We know how we want it to look from
the start!’
Many of the guys and girls
at Imagitec played the char-
acters for Space Junk during
filming, which takes place at
a studio just down the road.
Martin and Rick have yet to
star!
Spaced-out, man!
Space Junk is huge game. It’s
an interactive roleplaying af-
We’ve mentioned ‘em enough, now, here’s one in the flesh, fair, with numerous character
as it were! A storyboard for one of the Humans games.
This one is Humans in Space, available on Sega machines
confrontations. You decide
by the end of the year. which path to take when faced
with dilemma after dilemma.
Ladies and gentlefolk, boys and ghouls, make way for the You play a spaced-out dog
President of Imagitec, Mr. Martin Hooley. He set up the
company over five
called Randolph and meet
years ago. They such delightful creatures as
make ‘em young Droogs, Snaggers, Slurges
these days! and Squinks. Again, all these
characters have been drawn,
coloured and given their indi-
vidual personalities.
Martin describes Space Junk
as ‘a black, off-the-wall com-
edy in the style of Red Dwarf.
A live RPG, Lucasfilm™ esque,
Coming soon to the Mega Drive, Ragnarok. The clever scrolling adventure’. It will
bods at Imagitec have even had boards and pieces made
appear on several formats; we
for the game. We’ll have some to give away in a mega-
competition soon. Look out for Human figures, too! saw the Mega-CD version. If
you think the likes of Sewer Shark and
Night Trap are impressive, wait till
you clock a load of this! No wonder
Sega signed on the dotted line!
Imagitec’s other CD baby is a new
version of Humans. There are more
levels and longer animated sequences
throughout.
Total control
Fret not, the Dewsbury dudes haven’t
forgotten t’other machines. There are
two more Humans games to complete
the triology. Humans in Space and Hu-
mans in the Holy Grail receive their
debut on the Mega Drive, with other
formats to follow. There’s an alterna-
tive to chess with MD Ragnarok and a
16-bit game based on the hugely popu-
lar TV show, American Gladiators.
Martin and Rick are adamant they’re
going to push the Mega-CD to the lim-
it. Martin said, ‘Gameplayers’ expecta-
tions will be high. They’ll expect more
filmesque products. We can’t deal in
shovelwhare.’
So, if Space Junk’s successful —
what next? Martin smiled, ‘Space Junk
will be the first in a whole new genera-
tion of products from Imagitec. It’s my
dream to buy our own film studio, then
we can have TOTAL control!’
Imagitec certainly know where it’s
at. Their first step into the CD market’s
massive for such as small company
but the concept’s really come together.
Mat and I can vouch for that! They’ve
proved you don’t have to be big to be
beautiful. Their working methods are
impressive... yet there’s just one thing
they’ve overlooked - a few arrows in
the corridor and a bigger sign on the
door next time, lads!
As Mat and I bade our farewells,
the girls from the Sunshine Supertan
Centre tipped us a wink. ‘There’s more
going on in that place than meets the
eye,’ mused Mat. Sadly, we couldn’t
stop to find out, ‘cos as we all know,
time and British Rail wait for no man!
magazine article • 643
 preview article; Amiga Action #48 - ‘Blue Print’ (September 1993) by Steve McNally;
THE SEVENTH SWORD
OF MENDOR
T
here is a somewhat worrying
small number of games ap-
pearing at the moment that
take advantage of the more pow-
erful Amiga 1200. Owners of this
machine will no doubt be pleased
to hear that the forthcoming The
Seventh Sword of Mendor will ap-
pear in both standard 64 colour and
enhanced 256 colour Amiga 1200
versions.
The storyline behind the game is
your usual swords and sorcery tale,
in this case set in a land known
as Arcurann. The inhabitants of
this land have been given Seven
Swords by the Gods to protect their
kingdom from external attack. The
land is divided into Seven Realms,
each with its own sword contain-
ing magical power. In this protect-
ed environment, each of the Seven
Realms flourished, coexisting with
each other in perfect harmony.
On the absurdly named conti-
nent of Wonghar, though, all was
644 • magazine article
Explore the Dark Side of
your soul in an eternal
Is that a sword in
your scabbard or quest for power.
are you just really
pleased to see me?
Not everyone in the land of Ar-
curann will be happy to see you.
This refugee from Star Wars
wants to know the password.
not well. An evil
force was emerg-
ing — the force of
a man who had sold
his soul to the Dark
Side to satisfy his
fanatical search for
power. His name was Medric and stroyed. It is your job to return the
this became a name that meant magical Seventh Sword before it’s
death to anyone who resisted his too late.
will. The game is at a very early stage
Terrified by this news, an emer- in its development at the moment
gency meeting of the Great Council but the finished version should
of the Seven Sword — the Sword contain such delights as a full
of unity — was stolen. Without medieval musical score, digitised
this, Arcurran is wide open to at- sound effects and character speech
tack from Wonghar and, as a result, and atmospheric scene graphics.
the peaceful existence they have Of course, all of this is just embel-
become accustomed to will be de- lishment and of no real importance
but the actual
Each character in your
game itself
party has his or her
sounds just as
own inventory screen
through which you can appealing.
see what’s in their, er,
inventory.
Traveling to new planets at the
speed of light, there’s no time to
stop at the Little Chef for pancakes.

Some of the features that will be in-
corporated are the ability to interact with
more than 100 creatures, a complete 3D
world for you to explore (not just caves
and dungeons), as well as around 100 dif-
ferent spells to cast, several unique paths
through the game and a user-friendly
point and click control interface.
The game will be out around October.
PROJECT: The Seventh Sword of Mendor
HOUSE: Grandslam RELEASE: Oct ‘93
TEAM: In House PRICE: £TBA
COMMENTS: It is difficult to say at this stage
whether or not The Seventh Sword of Mendor
will be any good or not so let’s just say that it
would appear to have massive potential. It has
enough features to keep the interest level high
while you discover them all and a good enough
storyline to draw you in during the initial learning
period. All too often, big colourful affairs like this
are let down by dire playability. If Grandslam give
this aspect the attention it requires and deserves
then be prepared for a swashbuckling, sword-
slashing extravaganza. Everyone is attempting
to get in on the RPG act at the moment. Let’s
hope Grandslam get it right.
INSPECTED BY: Steve
The Seventh Sword of Mendor
Developer Grandslam
Publisher Grandslam
Genre Role-playing
The Seventh Sword of Mendor would be
a party-based fantasy role-playing game
with many similarities to Might and Magic
III: Isles of Terra. The player would control
a party of adventurers tasked by the Prince
of Mendor to find the stole Seventh Sword
of Unity—an artifact of great importance.
The game was to make heavy use
of digitised speech and graphics with real-
time combat sequences.
The game stared development in Hungary,
1992, for Amiga computers, with Thala-
mus as publisher. It received several pre-
view articles in Amiga magazines, includ-
ing Amiga Format (Nov. 95) and The One
(Nov. 93). The game was planned for both
AGA machines and the older Amiga ma-
chines, with a CD32 version also rumored
to appear.
The game was moved to PC com-
puters after Commodore went bankrupt,
and a playable demo was released for MS-
DOS in 1995. The game was discontinued
after Grandslam went out of business and
no full version was ever released for any
platform.
“MrFlibble@dosgamesarchive.com”
MS-DOS screenshots
CD32 - Unreleased Games • 645
 article; Amiga Format #73 (July 1995)
by Stephen Bradley;

X-Fighter isn’t as good as Shad-

ow Fighter. Or Mortal Kombat
II. That’s fighting talk that is.
Steve Bradley goes 10 rounds
with a new beat-em-up.

X-Fighter CD32
X-FIGHTER CD32 A Minion Of Death
strikes a crushing
Publisher blow on to the
hapless chap
Thalion with a chain.

Price
TBA
Versions
CD32
Release date
June

Graphics 5 out of 10
Very average, but then
this is the CD32 and we
For a CD32 beat-em-up, X-Fighter is far from graphically slick, and the
expect a lot better. scrolling is hardly smooth, yet it’s easy to get the hang of the moves.
There are eight groups of four fighters and each member of each team
Sound 6 out of 10 has the same basic moves. Got it?

N
No music - give thanks.
Howls, grunts and thwacks ow here’s an odd fellow. My The recent resurgence of the Amiga
are fine. pugnacious foe is somewhat beat-em-up genre has seen the cart
stand-offish. I move forward, conversion of Mortal Kombat II and
Addiction 7 out of 10 ready to kick the blighter in the mid- Gremlin’s quirky Shadow Fighter
certainly a game which riff. Still he refuses to move. ‘I’m in take centre stage while Rise Of The
will occupy the battler here,’ I bravely suggest to myself, Robots fell dismally at the first hurdle.
for the odd hour. inching forward, ready for the kill
Playability 7 out of 10 until, blow me, if I’m not one the Scantily clad
Easy-to-use one-button end of a one-hit combination, losing X-Fighter positions itself between the
fighting action. the match in the process. ‘Oh fiddle- caps, a Street Fighter clone without
sticks,’ I cry in anguish as my ribs the slick graphics, a flickery-screened
Overall verdict cave into my chest. yet reasonably playable number. The
Gameplay beats presenta- Eight groups of fighters here, split backdrops are extremely dull and very
tion by three falls and a into teams of four — 32 battlers in poorly animated. You’re scrapping on
submission. all. Each member of the team has the a pavement by the docks, barrels lit-
same set of manoeuvres, the idea pre- tering the background, though as you
sumably being that you get to learn a would expect, a scantily-clad woman

70%
team’s characteristics and then take
on other teams. Or something. Thais,
Jets, Bouncers, Greasers, Ninjas
Mercs, Hunters, Minions of Death —
thems are your gangs a-la Guys and
Dolls, only I don’t remember Marlon
Brando having a machete. So basi-
cally you get eight different fighters.
sits atop the bonnet of a red Ferrari. At
least I think it was a Ferrari.
Or perhaps you’re in goods yard
with an HGV perched calmy behind.
Whatever, they’re well below the
standard of say, Elfmania, as is the
jerky scrolling, which for a CD32
game is unforgiveable. Don’t show

646 • magazine article


this game to your mates with SSFII on a SNES.
They’ll rip you to shreds.
And the plainsome visuals lead the pad basher to
feel less empathy with the characters than with the
more rounded MKII and colourful Shadow Fighter.
Each team has super combo moves which can in-
volve up to six directional taps before boshing the
fire button — not particularly easy to pull off in the
heat of battle, but then complaint can be levelled
at most beat-em-ups. The standard manoeuvres are
easy to learn with practice — a tap, tap and a tap.
Swords, cables, chains, enormous fists, flashing
bolts. All the usual gadgets are included and in some
bouts you can simply bash a long chain into your
hapless opponent from a safe distance, winning the
bout at a canter.
But despite X-Fighter’s shoddy appearance, the
gameplay is just about good enough to overcome
presentation. If only it wasn’t up against the far slick-
er Shadow Fighter, if only it was smoother and had
parallax scrolling.
But the guy on
the left has got
a sword. That
can’t be fair.
Why haven’t I
got one?
X-Fighter
Publisher Thalion
Genre Fighting
Mode 1-2 Players
X-Fighter was in development by Kwok
Man. The game, originally called Mad
Fighters II, was originally created as a
sequel to Mad Fighters I. It was a Street
Fighter II inspired beat-’em-up released as
shareware.
In 1995 Mad Fighters II would be-
came a commercial game in the form of
X-Fighter CD32. The game was complete
and was due to be published by the Ger-
man company Thalion and review copies
were sent out to magazines. The reviews
were positive with 70% in Amiga Format,
60% in Amiga Power, 85% in CU Amiga
and 85% in The One.
In the end, the publication of X-Fighter nev-
er went ahead. Kwok has reportedly lost
the original game, so the only way to re-
cover the game now seems to be through
the review copies, if any still exist.
However, a demo from The One is
still available and can be downloaded from
the link. Kwok has also released the A1200
version Mad Fighters II as public domain.
Download links
Mad Fighters II (A1200 version)
X-Fighter (The One demo version)
CD32 - Unreleased Games • 647
 Urban Strike
Developer Ocean
Genre Shooter

Urban Strike is the third game in the Strike

X2: No Relief series, after Desert Strike: Return to the
Developer Team17 Gulf and Jungle Strike. It is a helicopter
Genre Shooter based shoot-‘em up, mixing action and
A sequel to Project-X. Like its predecessor, strategy, retaining its predecessor’s core
it’s a horizontal (and sometimes vertical) mechanics, and expanding on the model
scrolling shoot-‘em up. with additional vehicles and settings.
The game was released in 1996 exclusive- The game was initially released for the
ly for the PlayStation. Sega Genesis in 1994, with following ports
for the Game Boy, Game Gear, and SNES.

X-It Virtual Chess

Developer Data Design Interactive
Genre Puzzle
X-It, working name of Zonked, is a puzzle
game viewed from above, where the ob-
ject is to create a path to walk through to
the exit, by moving blocks around a walled
arena.
Published by Psygnosis and released in
1994 for the Amiga and MS-DOS.
Developer Titus
Genre Board
Virtual Chess is a feature-rich computer
chess simulation game with features such
as rotating chess board and pieces, FMV
cut-scenes and limited lighting techniques.
The game was released in 1995 for MS-
DOS and Windows.

XTreme Racing World Cup Golf

Developer Silltunna Software Developer Arc Developments
Genre Racing Genre Sports

Amiga exclusive racing game released in
1995. The game utilizes real 3D environ-
ments, as opposed to the sprite-based Lo-
tus and the unshaded polygons of World
Circuit.
A golf game taking place on Puerto Rico’s
Hyatt Dorado Beach Golf Course with 15
types of tournaments to choose from.
The game was released in 1994 for 3DO,
CD-i, MS-DOS, PlayStation and Sega Sat-
urn. The game is also known as World
Cup Golf: Hyatt Dorado Beach on some
platforms. U.S. Gold planned to release a
CD32 version in 1995.

648 • Unreleased Games - CD32

Ultimate Dizzy
Developer Codemasters

A title in Codemasters’ Dizzy video game Other titles mentioned on different

sereies called Ultimate Dizzy was report- sources, but with limited information;
edly due for a 1995 release on the CD32.
Not much information on this version
was found, but a compilation pack called 5 Bubble Trouble
Game by Audiogenic.
Pack Dizzy, or the Ultimate Dizzy Collec-
tion cartridge, was scheduled for release Cecil and his Chopper
in Q4 1993 for the NES. The compilation Some sort of puzzle game by 21st Century.
would contain Wonderland Dizzy, Panic
Dizzy, Mystery World Dizzy, Go! Dizzy Go! England World Cup ‘94
and Dizzy the Adventurer. Game by Grandslam.

AmigaJay created an unofficial compilation

Fist
for the CD32 called The Ultimate Amiga Role-playing game by Supervision.
Dizzy Collection CD32, which includes 11
Dizzy games; Treasure Island Dizzy, Fast Genesis
Food Dizzy, Fantasy World Dizzy, Magi- Game by Flairsoft.
cland Dizzy, Kwik Snax, Spellbound Dizzy,
Bubble Dizzy, Dizzy Panic, Dizzy Prince of Harry the Hairy Hermit
Game by Rasputin.
the Yolkfolk, Fantastic Dizzy and Crystal
Kingdom Dizzy.
NHL Hockey
AmigaJay CD32 rar. file (indieretronews.com) Game by Ocean.

Return to the Lost World

Zool 3
While there have been quite a few attempts
to bring Zool another game, to date there
have been no Zool project beyond Zool 2.
The 2005 game, Ninjabread Man, original-
ly began development as a planned third
entry in the Amiga Zool series; not much
is actually known about the pitch, though
it is believed that Zoo Digital Publishing
weren’t impressed by the tech demo and
pulled the license.
“zool-the-alien-ninja-from-the-nth-dimension.fandom.com”
A game where the player would take part in a dino-
saur adventure with stop-motion animated figures.
The game was in development by Mirage.
1886
No information found other than the title.
First Contact: An Alien Adventure
No information found other than the title.
John Doe
No information found other than the title.
The Legacy
No information found other than the title.

Monopoly
No information found other than the title.

CD32 - Unreleased Games • 649

 Biing!:
Other Amiga Versions Sex, Intrigue and Scalpels
reLINE Software
These are games that received an 1995 (Amiga)
Amiga computer release. The CD32 Simulation
versions was most often planned to An erotic hospital-man-
be straight ports, with little to no dif- agement simulation
ferences from the original. where the player must
build a hospital.

1869
Max Design GesMBH
The Big Red Adventure
1992 (Amiga)
Simulation, Strategy Dynabyte
1997 (Amiga)
A strategy and econom- Adventure
ics trading game where
Point-and-click adven-
the player is managing a
ture game and the se-
trading company during
quel to Nippon Safes.
the golden age of clipper
ships.

Ambermoon BloodNet
Thalion Software GmbH MicroProse
1993 (Amiga) 1994 (Amiga)
Role-playing Role-playing
The second part of the A cyberpunk-themed
unfinished Amber tril- role-playing game with
ogy. Officially, only the standard point and click
German edition of Am- interface.
bermoon was released.

B-17 Flying Fortress Burning Rubber

MicroProse Software Harlequin
1993 (Amiga) 1993 (Amiga)
Simulation Racing
A simulation of the Burning Rubber sees the
heavy bomber of World player racing through
War II. 25 historically Europe and America in
accurate missions must a variety of cars.
be flown and survived to
complete a tour of duty.

650 • Unreleased Games - CD32

Body Blows Galactic Club Football:
Team17 The Manager
1993 (Amiga) Teque London
Fighting 1994 (Amiga)
Amiga exclusive follow- Simulation
up to Body Blows. Play- A managerial game
ers can choose between where the player be-
twelve fighters to play comes the manager of
as. a third division English
football team.

Cannon Fodder 2 COALA

Sensible Software BitFusion Virtual Realities
1994 (Amiga) 1995 (Amiga)
Action, Strategy Action, Simulation
The basic gameplay of Amiga exclusive heli-
the sequel remained the copter action game. The
same as the first title, player can choose be-
where the player guide a tween an AH-64 Apache,
team of soldiers through MI-35 Hind or the Mi-28
a succession of levels. Havoc to pilot.

Darkmere
Captain Dynamo Zero Hour Software
Codemasters 1994 (Amiga)
1992 (Amiga) Action-adventure
Platformer
A fantasy action-adven-
A vertically scrolling ture game which was
platform game where released to very positive
the goal is to collect as reviews among critics
many diamonds as pos- and gamers alike, unlike
sible in each stage. it’s sequel, Dragonstone.

Civilization Desert Strike

MPS Labs Electronic Arts
1992 (Amiga) 1993 (Amiga)
Strategy Action, Shooter
Sid Meier’s Civilization The first game in the
is a turn-based strategy Strike series. The player
4X video game originally controls a helicopter from
developed and pub- an overhead, isomet-
lished by MicroProse in ric perspective through
1991. several missions.

CD32 - Unreleased Games • 651

 DreamWeb Empire Soccer
Creative Reality Graftgold
1995 (Amiga) 1994 (Amiga)
Adventure Sports
A point-and-click cyber- A humorous soccer
punk top-down adven- game originally devel-
ture game featuring ma- oped for SNES and re-
ture themes and a dark leased on the Amiga as
plot. Empire Soccer 94.

Dune Fantasy Manager

Cryo Interactive Playtime Software
1992 (Amiga) 1994 (Amiga)
Adventure, Strategy Simulation
A CD32 version was due in Amiga exclusive soccer
1994 and was reportedly manager game based
almost completed before on a british TV show that
being eventually shelved. was broadcasted at the
A CDTV version was also time of its release.
planned at some point.

Elfmania Flashback
Terramarque Delphine Software
1994 (Amiga) 1992 (Amiga)
Fighting Action-platformer
A 2D fighting game A cinematic platformer
where the player have that incorporates ele-
to buy and use different ments of platforming,
characters in order to shooting, and problem-
win the game. solving.

Embryo Flimbo’s Quest

Beyond Arts
1994 (Amiga)
Shooter
A 3D first-person shoot
‘em up that bears sem-
blance to flight simulation
games, but is described
as pure mayhem without
any emphasis on realism.
Euphoria
1990 (Amiga), 1991 (C64)
Platformer
A 2D platform game
where the player con-
trols Flimbo through
seven distinct levels,
collecting scrolls to open
the next level.

652 • Unreleased Games - CD32

 Flight of the
Amazon Queen
Interactive Binary Illusions
1995 (Amiga)
Adventure
A graphical point-and-
click adventure game
inspired by Monkey Is-
land and the Raiders of
the Lost Ark movie.
Formula One Grand Prix
MicroProse
1991 (Amiga)
Racing
The first installment
of Geoff Crammond’s
Grand Prix series. The
game includes all 16 in-
ternational GP circuits of
1991.
Graham Gooch Cricket
Audiogenic Software
1993 (Amiga, C64)
Sports
Graham Gooch Cricket,
or Graham Gooch World
Class Cricket, was en-
dorsed by former Eng-
land cricketer Graham
Gooch.
Herewith the Clues
Domark
1990 (Amiga)
Adventure
A detective game re-
leased for the Amiga,
Acorn 32-bit and Atari
ST. A CDTV version was
also planned at some
point.
654 • Unreleased Games - CD32
Hired Guns
DMA Design Limited
1993 (Amiga)
Action role-playing
A game set in the year
2712, in which the play-
er controls four merce-
naries selected from a
pool of twelve.
Jurassic Park
Ocean Software
1993 (Amiga)
Action, Shooter
Based on the film. Game-
play features a bird’s-eye
view in exterior levels,
but switches to a first-per-
son shooter perspective
when entering buildings.
Last Ninja 2
System 3 Software
1990 (Amiga), 1989 (C64)
Action-adventure
Sequel to the 1987
game The Last Ninja.
The plot of the game
continues from the after-
math of the events of the
prequel.
Last Ninja Remix
System 3 Software
1990 (Amiga)
Action-adventure
An updated version of
Last Ninja 2. The dif-
ferences includes a
short intro, some minor
graphic changes and a
remixed soundtrack.
Lost in Mine Master Axe
Wookiesoft Axe To Grind
1995 (Amiga) 1997 (Amiga)
Sports Fighting
A side-scrolling puzzle Master Axe: The Gen-
board game developed esis of MysterX is a
by Polish developer fighting game where the
Wookiesoft. A CD32 player pick a character
version was apparently and fight 1-on-1 with an-
planned. other character.

The Lemmings Chronicles Mortal Kombat

DMA Design Limited Midway Manufacturing
1995 (Amiga) 1993 (Amiga)
Puzzle Fighting
A version for the CD32 Mortal Kombat were
was planned, titled All only ported to and re-
New World of Lem- leased for OCS Amigas.
mings. The game is sim- There were rumours of a
ilar to the predecessor. CD32 version but no ev-
idence of it ever existing.

Lionheart Mr. Nutz: Hoppin’ Mad

Thalion Software Neon Studios
1992 (Amiga) 1994 (Amiga)
Platformer Platformer
Platform hack’n’slash An Amiga exclusive title
gameplay similar to in the Mr. Nutz series.
Rastan. The player pro- A Mega Drive port was
ceed through the scroll- also planned at some
ing world cutting down point.
enemies with a sword.

Liverpool FC No Second Prize

Arc Developments Thalion Software
1992 (Amiga) 1992 (Amiga)
Sports Racing
Soccer game released A polygon based motor-
as Liverpool: The Com- cycle racing game. One
puter Game by Grand- of the first games to fea-
slam Video for the Ami- ture video-style replays.
ga.

CD32 - Unreleased Games • 655

 North Polar Expedition Psycho Killer
Virgin Games Delta 4 Interactive
1992 (CDTV) 1992 (CDTV)
Adventure, Edutainment Adventure
Edutainment title re- Adventure game re-
leased exclusively on leased for the CDTV
the CDTV. and MS-DOS.

Overdrive Reunion
Psionic Systems Amnesty Design
1993 (Amiga) 1994 (Amiga)
Racing Strategy
A topdown racing game A strategy game where
similar to Micro Ma- players must manage
chines. Includes 20 the resources and de-
courses across five dif- velopment of a space
ferent terrains. colony.

Pinkie Robinson’s Requiem

Data Design Silmarils
1994 (Amiga) 1994 (Amiga)
Platformer Role-playing, Simulation
Amiga exclusice plat- Gameplay consists of
former. A CD32 version first-person roleplay-
of Pinkie was completed ing with the emphasis
and reviewed, but was placed on character
never released. modeling and survival.

Primal Rage Ruff ‘n’ Tumble

Atari Games
1995 (Amiga)
Fighting
A versus fighting game
taking place on a post-
apocalyptic version of
Earth where players
control one of seven
large beasts in battle.
Wunderkind
1990 (Amiga)
Platformer, Shooter
A platform run and gun
game. It was the only
game made by Wun-
derkind, a group within
Renegade Software.

656 • Unreleased Games - CD32

Second Samurai Space School Simulator:
Vivid Image The Academy
1993 (Amiga) CRL Group
Action, Strategy 1988 (Amiga), 1988 (C64)
Sequel to the 1993 Ami- Action, simulation
ga game First Samurai. Sequel to Tau Ceti.
Gameplay combines Mindscape planned a
hack and slash with puz- CD32 version due for
zle-solving. release in 1995.

Shaq Fu Spherical Worlds

Delphine Software 4-Matted
1994 (Amiga) 1993 (Amiga)
Fighting Shooter
2D fighting game where A multi-directional shoot
the player control former ‘em up in the vein of
professional basketball Alien Breed where play-
player Shaquille O’Neal. ers control a small spher-
ical droid which needs to
destroy enemy robots.

SimLife Star Trek:

Maxis Software 25th Anniversary
1993 (Amiga) Interplay Productions
Simulation 1994 (Amiga)
A complex game in Adventure, Simulation
which players can cre- A combination of a point-
ate their own ecosys- and-click, side-scrolling
tems, animals or vege- adventure game and a
tables, then watch them first person starship sim-
eat, evolve, mate, or die. ulator.

Simon the Sorcerer II Super Loopz

Adventuresoft Audiogenic Software
2001 (Amiga) 1995 (Amiga)
Adventure Puzzle
The Amiga version was A revamped version
planned for release in of Loopz. A CD32 ver-
1995. Epic Interactive sion was completed and
Entertainment secured scheduled for release
the rights and released in 1995, but was never
it on CD in 2000. sent for mastering.

CD32 - Unreleased Games • 657

 Super Street Fighter II: Tower of Souls
The New Challengers Black Legend
Freestyle 1992 (Amiga)
1995 (Amiga) Role-playing
Fighting An isometric role-playing
A CD32 version was ap- game where the player,
parently finished and as Treeac, has to con-
reviewed, but were can- quer the seven floors of
celled in favour for Super Baalhathrok’s tower.
Street Fighter II Turbo.

TFX
Town With No Name
Digital Image Design
1997 (Amiga) Delta 4 Interactive
Simulation 1992 (CDTV)
Adventure, Shooter
A flight simulation game
where the player can fly An interactive cartoon
with F-117A, Eurofighter arcade game released
2000 or F-22 Superstar for the CDTV and MS-
in various scenarios as DOS.
a UN fighter pilot.

Tiny Troops Tracksuit Manager 2

Phoenix Interactive Alternative Software
1997 (Amiga) 1996 (Amiga)
Strategy Sports, Simulation
Real-time strategy game, Soccer management
with gameplay similar to game where players
Command and Conquer can take part in the main
and Cannon Fodder. European Cup competi-
tions.

Tornado Turbo Trax

Digital Integration
1993 (Amiga)
Simulation
A combat flight simula-
tor game. It was one of
the first flight simula-
tions to offer head-to-
head online dogfights.
Arcane Entertainment
1995 (Amiga)
Racing
A top-down racing
game. The player com-
peting against five other
competitors across a
variety of different sur-
faced tracks.

658 • Unreleased Games - CD32

 Uridium 2
Turning Points
Graftgold Creative Software
On-Line Entertainment 1993 (Amiga)
1994 (Amiga) Shooter
Compilation, Strategy
A sci-fi side-scrolling
A compilation of Dr. Tur- shoot ‘em up and the
can’s wargame strat- sequel to the 1986 C64
egy games: Waterloo game Uridium. It retains
(1989), Armada (1989) the same setting and
and Gettysburg (1990). gameplay of the pre-
quel.

Turrican III K240

Factor 5 Celestial Software
1993 (Amiga) 1994 (Amiga)
Action-platformer Strategy
Originally designed for Working title was Utopia
the Genesis as Mega 2 and it was the sequel to
Turrican, but were com- the 1991 game Utopia:
pleted and released a The Creation of a Nation.
year earlier for the Ami- Only released for Amiga
ga. computers.

TV Sports Baseball Virtual Karting

Acme Interactive OTM
1992 (Amiga) 1995 (Amiga)
Sports Racing
An arcade oriented A go-karting simulation
baseball game part of game with 3 different
the TV Sports series. It circuits and several dif-
was also released as Bo ferent viewpoints—both
Jackson Baseball. 2D overhead and 3D.
Amiga exclusive.

TV Sports Boxing
Watchtower
Acme Interactive
1991 (Amiga) CyberArts
Sports 1996 (Amiga)
Shooter
A comprehensive simu-
lation boxing game. It A topdown arcade ac-
was also released as tion game. A CD32 ver-
ABC Wide World of sion was scheduled for
Sports Boxing . release in 1996, along
with the AGA version,
but it never materialized.

CD32 - Unreleased Games • 659

Homebrew

Aftermarket and
Hombrew CD32 Releases
The Amiga have always had a large,
active and loyal userbase. Some of
which are developers who still designs
new games for the platform. And some
of these games have been printed and
released on physical CDs.
These pages includes noteworthy titles
that were released after market for the
console. Most of these titles were re-
leased in limited numbers, but some
are still available outside of the used
game market.
But this is just a very small rep-
resentation on what’s being developed,
modded and released for the CD32.
There are numerous other homebrew
games, hacks, remakes and updated
version of older games readily avail-
able online.
Links included on the pages goes to
websites, web-shops selling the game
file or physical copies, or download
links if a developer have made a file
free for download.
note; some of these links, as
with every link found in this PDF, will
get broken and removed over time. I do
not own these links.
662 • Homebrew - CD32
Catacomb 3-D: The Descent
Developer id Software, Ares
Publisher Ares
Release date 2016
Genre First-person shooter
Mode 1 Player
In 2016 Ares created a port of Catacomb
3-D—a first-person shooter first released
in November 1991 for MS-DOS. The
game was originally created by id Soft-
ware as a prototype of the Wolfenstein
3D engine.
An unofficial port of Catacomb 3-D was
first mentioned on the EAB forums in
2015 with talk about the open version
of the game going open source the year
previous, was set a challenge to port it
over to the Amiga as it only used 16 co-
lour graphics.
The port by Ares was released
as an “officially licensed relese” for the
AGA Amigas, CD32 and their Kickstarter
project, the indieGO! retro ‘console’. The
game was released on CD and came in
a DVD-Case with a 12 page booklet with
histroy and info about the game.
Download links;
Physical version (aeros-os.org)
Land of Genesis
Developer Maurizio Gemelli
Publisher ClearWater Interactive
Release date 2001
Genre Action platformer
Mode 1 Player

Land of Genesis is a platformer/shooter

AlarCity
created by Maurizio Gemelli and pub- Developer Pixelglass
lished in 2001 by ClearWater Interactive Genre Action role-playing
for AGA and Amiga CD machines. Mode 1 Player

Land of Genesis, clearly inspired by Tur- AlarCity is a multi-directional shooter

rican, feature 5 large levels, 3D rendered
intro video, 512 colors on screen, 180
different enemies, parallax scrolling and
transparent backgrounds
Gemelli, a former demoscene developer
for the Amiga, spent three years pro-
gramming Land of Genesis. The game
was distributed on CD only and required
a high-end Amiga (at least 68020 with
4MB, but most optimal with a 68040 with
8MB Fast RAM).
The game received positive reviews by
Amiga users, but was criticized by some
for the extreme difficulty (though, an
‘easy’ difficulty option is available).
“gamesnostalgia.com”
which has been in development for sev-
eral years. A demo was released in 2017
which were later made into a standalone
version available for download on the
Pixelglass website.
A physical edition was planned until the
publisher Bitronic (ex. Amiga.net.pl) dis-
appeared.
The objective of the game is to survive
as long as possible against an increas-
ingly large mob of enemy blobs! Players
can kill enemies to level up, recieve XP
orbs and upgrade their character, collect
coins and gems to purchase Weapon
and Element Upgrades as well as other
useful items.

Download links;
HDD version (LHA)
CD version (ISO)

CD32 - Homebrew • 663

 Inviyya
Developer Tigerskunk
Publisher poly.play
Release date 2021
Genre Shooter
Mode 1 Player

A horizontal shoot-‘em-up developed es-

ArtPazz pecially for the line of Amiga computers.
Developer itch.io Inviyya features 6 unique organic levels
Publisher Retream each with its own enemies and bosses,
Genre Puzzle different weapon upgrades, 3 layer par-
Mode 1-8 Players allax scrolling and music and sfx.
ArtPazz is a puzzle game where the A CD32 version is available as both a
player has to piece together the tiles of physical (polyplay.xyz) and a download-
an image. The size and the shape of the able version (itch.io).
tiles can be adjusted, which allows to set The game should work on every exist-
the difficulty to anything from to tremen- ing classic Amiga (including the Amiga
dously easy to hard. Mini), with at least 512k Chip and any
The player can also add images other form of 512kb extra RAM (chip,
and tunes by putting them into the ap- slow or fast), PAL or NTSC).
propriate drawers.
The game was programmed using
AMOS Professional and the ALS (AMOS
Layers System).

Download links;
website

Download links;
Physical version (polyplay.xyz)
Downloadable version (itch.io)

664 • Homebrew - CD32

Legend Of Falconia:
25 Years Anniversary Collectors Edition

The original 1995 Ger-

man release came on
4 disks and included a
manual.

Legend of Falconia is a fantasy adventure game for the

Developer F. Röchter Amiga and MS-DOS, available in German and English.
Publisher a1k.org The interface is a hybrid of both text adventures and graph-
Release date 2021 ic adventures: players can type in commands and see a
Genre Adventure text description of where they are and what they’re doing,
Mode 1 Player
but there is also mouse control with a LucasArts-style ac-
tion bar, and graphics showing the players location.

Frank Röchter, the pro- The player take on the role of an estate agent working for a
grammer, coded this firm that plans to buy up plot with an old, run-down house.
game when he was only The firm want to knock the house down and build a super-
17 years old. market on the land. The firm already sent out one agent for
this deal, but they disappeared without a trace.

When released, the game received a 2 sided review in a big

German Amiga Magazine in 1995 with very good critics, but
since they published it in their Public Domain Corner, nearly
no one (only about 10 people) bought the game. The English
version was never released because it was believed that no
one wanted it at the time. The game was nearly unknown,
the only traces being a demo video on Youtube and an entry
in MobyGames related to the DOS Version.
The developer of the game, Frank Röchter, were
tracked down and asked if he wanted the game re-released,
which he was very surprised by. The game was translated to
English and sold as a nonprofit a1k Fan-Project with all the
earnings going to a charity. It was released in a box with 4
disks, a copy of the original handbook and a CD-ROM ver-
sion compatible with the CD32. Around 80 copies of the 25
Years Anniversary Collectors Edition were created.
some text from mobygames.com, blog.amigaguru.com

CD32 - Homebrew • 665


The Kiwi’s Tale
Developer Denton Designs
Release date 2014
Genre Action-adventure
Mode 1 Player
The Kiwi’s Tale is a platform game in-
spired by the The New Zealand Story.
Developed for the The Retro Remakes
2008 competition, it tells the story of Nik,
a kiwi whose friends were abducted by
an alien sheep, envious of the kiwi being
the icon of New Zealand. So Nik must
travel through New Zealand to rescue
them.
The game has many similarities with The
New Zealand Story, but has also new
features. There are fifteen stages in total.
At each stage, Nik has to search for his
abducted friends who are caged, while
using a crossbow and arrows to defeat
enemies. Some creatures ride flying ve-
hicles, and as in The New Zealand Sto-
ry, Nik can fly them if killing the enemies
without destroying the vehicle.
“mobygames.com”
Download links;
Download version (mega.nz)
666 • Homebrew - CD32
Defender of the Crown:
Extended Collector´s Edition
Developer Cinemaware Retro
Publisher Cinemaware Retro
Release date 2018
Genre Action-adventure
Mode 1 Player
The CDTV release of Defender of the
Crown is also compatible with the CD32
console. In 2018 Cinemaware Retro re-
re-reased the game in an ‘Collectors
Edition’ version. Cinemaware Retro also
released similar ‘Collector’s Editions’ of
Rocket Ranger and Wings.
The Collector’s Editions includes the
game CD—compatible with the CD32—
along with two other CD’s, three post-
cards, a poster, a sticker, manual, among
other things.
The games could initially be bought
from Cinemaware Retro website retro.
cinemaware.com, but after several cus-
tomer never received their items, even
after years of waiting, the delivering and
sales of the games were handed over to
dragonbox.de.
Sven Vößing, who seems to have
been the man responsible for several
of the Cinemaware Retro re-releases,
had problems following through with the
orders. Giving little information and re-
sorting to excuses for delayed packages
made many customers and people in the
Amiga community distrust Cinemaware.
Cinemaware Retro was apparently not
Vößings full-time job, but something he
did in his free time, which may have been
a reason for all the mismanagement in
the beginning. It was most likely not a
scam, just Vößing taking more work on
than he could handle.
 Rocket Ranger: Extended Collector´s Edition

Rocket Ranger is an action-adventure game devel-

oped and published by Cinemaware and first re-
leased in 1988.

Extended Collector’s Edition of Rocket Ranger is lim-

ited to 500 units, comes in classic big box and has the
following items included:
• Different versions of the game on CD-ROM;
• 7″ Vinyl with the theme music;
• 3 postcards with images from the game;
• Rocket Ranger Poster;
• Blueprint Poster;
• Rocket Ranger Sticker;
• Printed Manual.
The versions included on the CD ROM are:
• Amiga version with a new Intro—compatible with
CD32, Amiga with CD-Rom and PC and Mac (built-in
emulator).
Developer Cinemaware Retro • C64 Version—Running on PC and Mac (built-in Em-
Publisher Cinemaware Retro
Release date 2018
ulator).
Genre Action-adventure • DOS Version—Running on PC and Mac (built-in
Mode 1 Player Emulator).
• Rocket Ranger—NES, Apple IIgs, Atari ST and FM-
Towns for use on an emulator or .iso to burn (only for
FM-Towns).

Rocket Ranger was voted

Best 16-bit Graphics of the
Year at the Golden Joystick
Awards. In 1996, Computer
Gaming World declared Rock-
et Ranger the 45th-best com-
puter game ever released.

Download links;
Physical version (dragonbox.de)

Amiga

some text from mobygames.com

CD32 - Homebrew • 667

 Powerglove Reloaded

Powerglove Reloaded is an Amiga remake of the 2014

C64 title Powerglove. Later PC versions were made
available as well. The remake features improved
graphics, a larger game map, deeper game mechan-
ics and boss fights.

The game is set in an age where fossil fuels have been

exhausted, and the Earth’s power needs are supplied
by thermal reactors under both the north and south
poles. Unfortunately, an explosion has knocked out
the north pole reactor, and without the power supplied
from the reactor, billions are at risk of dying. The player
character are sent in to engage the reactor’s backup
systems and restore the power supply.

Powerglove Reloaded is a run ‘n’ gun game where

players must guide their character through a complex
network of transport tubes, locate the six control dia-
monds and destroy rogue robots in their path.

The Windows, Linux, and Mac OSX versions of Pow-

Developer Lazycow, Cyborgjeff
erglove Reloaded are available for free, whereas the
Publisher RGCD.DEV, itch.io Amiga version of the game is priced at $2.99.
Release date 2018 The physical copy of the Amiga CD version
Genre Platformer, Shooter includes ADF/DMS versions, Windows/Mac/Linux
Mode 1 Player builds, the OST and it’s bootable on CD32 and CDTV.
Also included with the physical copy is the manual,
vinyl RGCD and Lazycow stick-
ers, pin buttons, postcards and
an A3 poster.

Powerglove Reloaded also

includes a Classic Mode,
which turns it into the old ver-
sion graphically with the origi-
nal levels.

Download links;
Website (lazycow.de)
Downloadable version (itch.io)
Amiga

some text from mobygames.com

668 • Homebrew - CD32

 Tiger Claw

Tiger Claw is a modern update of the 1984 C64 game

Bruce Lee. Throughout its 24 screens, four stolen
magic scrolls must be retrieved to finish the game.
Each screen is littered with platforms and lad-
ders. Enemies randomly appear on screen which
can be avoided or kicked out with karate chops. Not
all screens are immediately accessible; Entrances
to some screens open if the player have disposed a
certain number of enemies or killed a mid-level boss.
Also, some platforms initially seem out of reach. By
collecting special masks the hero gains extra abilities
like double-jump or wall-jump to traverse further into
the game.
Tiger Claw is also highly customizable, and in-
cludes a multi-player versus’ mode, difficulty options, a
training mode, among other options.

Originally released exclusively on C64 cartridge by

RGCD for backers of the C64 in Pixels Kickstarter (Fu-
sion Retro Books, 2016), then ported to Windows, Ma-
cOS, Linux and the Amiga in 2018.
Developer Lazycow, Saul Cross The physical copy of the Amiga CD version
Publisher RGCD.DEV, itch.io includes ADF/DMS versions, Windows/Mac/Linux
Release date 2014, (Amiga) 2015
Genre Platformer
builds, the OST and it’s bootable on CD32 and CDTV.
Mode 1-4 Players Also included with the physical copy is the manual,
poster, map, little vinyl stickers and badges. The boxed
version was available for a limited
time at the RGCD shop.

The Amiga, Linux and Win-

dows version includes a
Classic Mode, which lets us-
ers play the game with C64
graphics and sound.

Download links;
Website (lazycow.de)
Downloadable version (itch.io)
Amiga

some text from mobygames.com

CD32 - Homebrew • 669


Projekt: Lila
Developer AMIworx
Publisher Ares
Release date 2016
Genre Action-platformer
Mode 1 Player
Projekt: Lila (“Projekt: Purple”) is an ac-
tion-platformer developed by AMIworx,
creators of the Tales of Gorluth series.
It were released, along with a few other
titles, to promote Ares’ IndieGO! console.
Players take control of Lila, a cyborg
warrior, who must face a corrupt govern-
ment. Lila was damaged during her es-
cape from the government and cannot
run and shoot at the same time (shoot-
ing while jumping or falling is possible,
though). In order to repair herself and
gather information, Lila must collect the
logic units (so-called “eBrains”) of her
adversaries.
The gameplay and the graphics was in-
tentionally made in the style of the 8-bit
Mega Man series, but adds parallax
scrolling in pursuit levels.
Download links;
Physical version (kryptobay.eu)
670 • Homebrew - CD32
Tanks Furry
Developer Project R3D
Publisher CDLabel
Release date 2016
Genre Shooter
Mode 1-4 Players
Tanks Furry is a multi-directional shooter
with gameplay similar to the 1985 Fami-
com/NES game Battle City.
The player takes control of either Cap-
tain Hound or Lieutenant Greywolf, and
must fight off the invading mole tanks.
The player can go through the campaign
single player or co-op.
The player takes control of one of two
tanks in a top down battle. The level is
won by destroying every enemy tank.
The player can also pick up power-ups
and rescue civilians.
The game includes over 40 mis-
sions, several themed zones such as
woodlands and deserts, five types of en-
emy tanks and different game endings.
The game was initially created for the
RetroKomp 2015 Game Competition
were it was awarded second place in the
GameDev category.
A physical version is available to buy
through a Polish web shop. Included with
the game CD is a floppy disk, a DVD box,
color printed instruction, and three stick-
ers.
Download links;
Physical version (aeros-os.org)
Downloadable version (aminet.net)
Reshoot
Developer Richard Löwenstein
Publisher AMIworx Software
Release date 2016
Genre Shooter
Mode 1 Player
Reshoot is a 2D horizontal bullethell
shooter developed for AGA Amigas. The
game also feature joypad support. The
game was coded in pure assembler lan-
guage for faster 50fps gameplay.
The object of the game is to beat the
high-score by surviving as long as pos-
sible with only one life.
The game was released as download-
able and on physical media. The “Deluxe
Edition” came with a CD in a DVD case
along with a 16 page manual booklet.
Reviews of Reshoot from players have
been mostly mixed to negative. The one-
life play mechanic, the graphics and mu-
sic are what is most often met with most
criticism.
Download links;
Physical version (amigastore.eu)
web-shop (amigashop.org)
Reshoot R
Developer Richard Löwenstein
Release date 2019
Genre Shooter
Mode 1 Player
Reshoot R is an updated version of Re-
shoot and is billed as “more louder, col-
orful, playable and spectacular” than the
original. Reshoot R includes power-ups,
new music and soud-effects, different
levels and end-of-level bosses.
The physical release of Reshoot R was
available as three separate releases:
Pure Edition (two floppy disks and a
manual), Signature Edition (CD-ROM
and a manual), and Classic Floppy DISC
Edition (CD-ROM, manual and a bonus
disc with the making-of Special and the
soundtrack).
Reshoot R have received more positive
reviews from players than it’s previous
incarnation.
Download links;
Physical version (amigastore.eu)
web-shop (amigashop.org)
CD32 - Homebrew • 671
 Tales Of Gorluth: Dungeon Of Reminiscence

Tales of Gorluth III: Dungeon of Reminescenc is the

third and final chapter in Patrick Nevian’s Tales Of
Gorluth series. The game was released on both Ger-
man and English along with a “very emotional and
thrilling story about YOU and your way back to your-
self”.

The player control a character in an overhead-view

with gameplay similarities to The Legend of Zelda.

The first game in the series, The Tear Stone Saga,

was released in 2014 to mixed reviews from Amiga
users at the time. The game was created in Back-
bone—a game creation kit for AmigaOS 3.x—which it
received criticism for by some. Backbone is infamous
in some Amiga circles for being an outdated and sys-
tem resource heavy program that can cripples some
games made with it, giving them jerky scrolling and
low frame rates.
Developer AMIworx The third game seems to have received more
Publisher AMIworx
positive reviews than the two previous entries. The
Release date 2021
Genre Action role-playing game was still created with Backbone, but most found
Mode 1 Player it running at mostly acceptable speed.

Dungeon of Reminiscence was released on a CD com-

patible with both the CD32 and an Amiga CD-ROM
computer. The CD also includes updated versions of
the first two instilments in the series, Tales Of Gor-
luth: The Tear Stone Saga (2014) and Tales Of Gor-
luth: The Legacy Of The Travelling Magician (2016).

Dungeon Of Reminiscence is
planned to be remade in the
Scorpion Engine, which will
improve the frame-rate expo-
nentially.

Download links;
Physical version (Phénix Noir Recordings)
website (amiworx.de) CD32

672 • Homebrew - CD32

 Tiny Little Slug
Developer Makigai Studios
Publisher APC&TCP
Release date 2020
Heroes Of Gorluth Genre Platformer
Mode 1 Player
Developer AMIworx
Publisher AMIworx Tiny little Slug is a platformer where the
Release date 2018 player take control of a slug. The game
Genre Role-playing is based on the Metroidvania genre—
Mode 1-2 Players
where the goal it to find artifacts in four
Heroes Of Gorluth is a spinoff of the thematically diverse worlds and gain
Tales of Gorluth series. It was also the new skills to overcome obstacles.
first Gorluth game developed for the The slug can climb on walls and
CD32. ceilings. The slug can not harm enemies
Heroes Of Gorluth is a side-scrolling 2D in the game, but have to work out how
action platformer with RPG elements. It to get around them. The game feature
includes boss fights and 5 worlds with three big end bosses, where the slug will
over 15 levels. need to redirect their own power against
them to win.
The game, along with the main games,
were created using Backbone. As such, The game is available either on CD, flop-
it has received some backlash from Ami- py disks or as a download file. A basic
ga users regarding gameplay speed and Amiga 500 is sufficient to play it, though
unreliable collisions detection. more expanded 68k Amiga systems or a
CD32 are also supported.
“amigashop.org”

Download links;
Physical version (Phénix Noir Recordings)
website (amiworx.de)

Download links;
Physical version (amigashop.org)

CD32 - Homebrew • 673


Sharks!
Developer CD32 Allianz
Publisher Amiga Future
Release date 2000
Genre Action
Mode 1 Player
Sharks!, developed by Christian Steiner,
was initially developed for ECS Amigas.
The AGA version was completed a short
time later.
The shareware demo was released for
the CD32 and sold independently on
self-burned CDs. The game was made
available in 2000 and could be bought
for DM30. A year later the full version
was released on a multi-disc.
The aim of the game is use a diver to
collect treasures from the seabed and
bring them to the boat. The player must
also avoid sharks that swim around. In
later levels other marine animals appear,
such as an electric eels and jelly fish.
After 3 or 4 successfully complet-
ed levels, the player will enter a bonus
round where the goal is to catch falling
treasure.
674 • Homebrew - CD32
SkillGrid
Developer Retream
Publisher RGCD.DEV
Release date 2019
Genre Shooter
Mode 1 Player
SkillGrid is an endless score-attack verti-
cal shoot-‘em up developed by Retream
for AGA Amigas, featuring frenetic, tacti-
cal gameplay and comprising of a vari-
ety of different sub-games, boss battles
and in-depth scoring mechanics.
SkillGrid feature three-layer parallax
variable-speed scrolling, 8-bit alpha
channel transparencies and real-time
palette changes, highscore saving and a
prog-rock music score.
The physical versions of SkillGrid were
available in two versions; a basic CD-on-
ly version that came with an auto-boot-
ing jewel-cased CD, including a 16-page
manual, a vinyl RGCD sticker, postcards
and two disk labels (for use on user cre-
ated floppie disks).
The deluxe version also includ-
ed a packet of four button badges, an
A3 poster and the game on two floppy
disks—all presented in a plastic clam
shell box complete with custom made
foam insert.
The game is also available to buy
as a downloadable .ADF/.ISO image to
use via emulation or on real hardware.
Download links;
Webshop (rgcd.bigcartel.com)
Downloadable version (itch.io)
Worthy
Developer PixelGlass
Publisher Amiga.net.pl
Release date 2018
Genre Puzzle, Action
Mode 1 Player Wiz: Quest for the Magic Lantern
Worthy is an Amiga action puzzle game Developer Mutation Software
compatible with most Amiga systems, in- Publisher Mutation Software
cluding A500, A600, A1200, CD32, etc. Release date 2020
Genre Platformer
The player takes the role of Aldo—a Mode 1 Player
young prince whose goal is to impress
beautiful princess Ruby—who throws Wiz: Quest for the Magic Lantern is a
himself into the middle of the castle in 2D side-scrolling platform game. Wiz,
order to retrieve the stolen trinkets sto- the last elder wizard, is set on a quest to
len by the evil battle-mage Malek. find the Magic Lantern. Using his book
Aldo must go through 40 mazes where of magic and spell potions, he must tra-
assigned number of diamonds have to verse hazardous paths to finally restore
be collected. The dungeons are full of light to where dark magic has prevailed.
levers, hidden traps and three types of Heroes Of Gorluth is a side-scrolling 2D
guardians that have to be avoided in or- action platformer with RPG elements. It
der to reach the goal. includes boss fights, 5 worlds and over
Worthy was released on CD, floppy disk 15 levels.
and as a digital version. The game was written on an A1200 in
“mobygames.com”
68k assembler.
The physical copy come as a boxed 3.5”
floppy, or USB stick with 3.5” disk label
for user created disks.
“mobygames.com”

Download links;
Physical version (softwareamusements)
Downloadable version (itch.io)

Download links;
website (pixelglass.org)
Downloadable version (pixelglass.org)

CD32 - Homebrew • 675

 Putty Squad

Putty Squad, the sequel to Putty, was developed by

System 3 and published by Maximum Games and
Ocean Software. It was originally developed for the
Amiga 1200, but that version was not released until
the end of 2013; prior to that date the SNES version
was the only one to be released.

Putty Squad is a platform game in which the player

controls the amorphous blue blob, tasked with rescu-
ing imprisoned putties. The player’s putty can stretch
in a variety of ways: sideways to cover ground faster,
squash flat to absorb pick-up items, stretch upwards
to climb, morph a fist to attack, or inflate to float up-
wards.
Amiga AGA release Putty can collect stars that increase his attack
power: at first increasing the potency of his punch,
but later allowing him to blow darts, electrocute en-
Release date 2013 emies or throw bombs. This star power is reduced
Genre Platformer
every time Putty is hit by an enemy.
Mode 1 Player
The Amiga version of Putty Squad, although left un-
published until December 2013, was completely de-
veloped in 1994 to the point of demo versions being
issued to magazines for release on cover disks, and
Amiga magazines were also sent full review copies
of Putty Squad, for which it received critical success.
Amiga Format awarded a “Format Gold”. Amiga Pow-
er awarded 91%, highlighting the varied level shapes,
masterful animation, influence from the Mario games
(using a stunned enemy as a projectile weapon, secret

The Amiga version of Putty

Squad was finally released
19 years after the first reviews
appeared, following a recon-
struction effort by the English
Amiga Board’s Galahad. The
game may be downloaded
from the System 3 website.

Download links;
MS-DOS Demo
Amiga AGA Remake
Amiga AGA Remake (System3.com)
CD32 Version (whdload.de)
Amiga AGA remake SNES

676 • Homebrew - CD32

doors, items hidden in blocks) and con-
sistent game logic. Several instant-death
situations were criticised: the bottom of
the level is often difficult to distinguish, and
falling through it kills Putty. Several ene-
mies can also instantly kill Putty. CU Amiga
awarded 94%, highlighting the fluid control
and movement of Putty, balanced learning
curve, presentation, and good use of the
Amiga’s AGA palette. This critical success,
but lack of a published version, has made
Putty Squad one of the most sought-after
Amiga titles before its release in Decem-
ber 2013.
A Sega Mega Drive version was re-
portedly completed in 1995 and reviewed
in several European magazines which
were sent full review copies, like Span-
ish Hobby Consolas (#45, June 1995) and
German GAMERS (August 1995 issue),
but the game remained unpublished due
to Ocean’s diminishing support of the con-
sole and lack of interest from retailers. Pro-
totypes of the game was known to exist,
although none of them had been leaked
into the public domain, making it a sought-
after title in the scene of Mega Drive unre-
leased games. It was finally released by a
CD32 version
Sega-16 user who got a hold of a working
prototype and dumped the ROM in Octo-
ber 2015.
The PC MS-DOS version was pro-
jected by System 3 in late 1995 and demo
versions were issued to magazines for re-
lease on cover disks, much like the Amiga
version. The PC version was improved in
several ways, including CG introductory
cutscenes prior to the levels. But due to
lack of interest from publishers, the PC
version never went beyond demo state
and was not even finished by the devel-
oper unlike the other unreleased versions.
A source port/remake version of the game
was released for PlayStation and Nintendo
systems in 2013 and 2014. An HD port of
the game was released for the Nintendo
Switch in 2017 under the new title Super
Putty Squad.
The remake received very critical
reviews, scoring a 38/100 on Metacritic,
with reviews stating that the game has not
been improved for the more modern con-
soles. However, the 3DS version had a
more favourable response, with a 54 out
of 100.
In 2015, homebrew developers
Psygore, Galahad, Earok & Co-
detapper released a CD32 ver-
sion compatible on a stock Ami-
ga CD32, with a CD32 specific
control scheme, trainers and a
high score saving to NVRAM.
The CD32 version though,
is reportedly not completely fin-
ished and includes some glitch-
es in later levels and missing an
ending.
CD32 - Homebrew • 677
 Other noteworthy
aftermarket CD32 releases;
This is a small selection of noteworthy unof-
ficial CD32 ports and collections. These were
not released on physical mediums available for
purchase, but made available for download.
Users can download the games for free, then
burn the game files on an CD for playing on
their own CD32 console, or on an emulator.
Many of the links for these titles can be hard to
find, as they have been removed by the origi-
nal posters, often due to infringement claims.
Please visit unofficial-cd32-ports.blogspot.com
and www.indieretronews.com for more infor-
mation about CD32 hacks and ports.
Jaguar XJ220
Type Port
Created by Earok
A port of a pseudo-3D racing
game released by Core De-
sign for the Amiga in 1992 and
Mega-CD in 1993.
The CD32 port includes sev-
eral updates from the original
game, including shorter load
times, live action intro upgrad-
ed to HAM 8, menu music and
easter eggs.
download link (unofficial-cd32-ports.blogspot.com)
Turrican Anthology
Type Port
Created by Earok
A compilation of the Turrican
triology—a series of run and
gun platform games created
by Manfred Trenz. Also in-
cluded are bonuses such as
music through Hippo Player,
demo versions, PD Turrican/
Pang mash up and an intro
from a cancelled Turrican 3D
project.
Hunter CD32 - 25th Anniversary Edition
Type Port
Created by AmigaJay
A port of an Amiga disk game
published by Activision in
1991. The port also feature
CD32 joypad support.
Hunter is an early 3D action-
adventure game in which the
player navigates around a se-
ries of islands. The combina-
tion of the game’s 3D graphics
and sandbox-type gameplay
has been subsequently com-
pared to Grand Theft Auto III
and similar sandbox games,
such as Far Cry 2.
Eric Schwartz Collection
Type Collection
Created by Earok
A collection of more than 80
animations created in the late
1980s through to the early 2010s
by Eric Schwartz—a distin-
guished Amiga artist. Video clips
included are of Amy the Squirrel,
Flip the Frog, Sabrina and the
Red Shetland characters.
All animations can be watched
individually, playlists of select
animations are also available
Many of the video clips have
been converted to Anim5 in
order to run within the RAM
limitations of the CD32.
download link (unofficial-cd32-ports.blogspot.com)

678 • Homebrew - CD32

Rally Championships
Type Port
Created by Earok
A port of Rally Championships
—a rally game developed by
InSide Team and published by
Flair Software in 1994 for MS-
DOS and Amiga. A CD32 ver-
sion was planned and a demo
of the game was released be-
fore it was cancelled.
In the game, players can buy
different rally cars, such as the
Lancia Delta of Toyota Celica,
and drive it on different loca-
tions in time races. Players can
collect credit on the race tracks
which can be used for repair-
ing their car, improve it, or buy
new cars. The main goal is to
win every championship.
Time Gal
Type Port
Created by ReImagine Games
A port of Time Gal—an inter-
active movie game developed
and published by Taito and
Toei Company, and originally
released as a laserdisc game
in Japan for the arcades in
1985. It was later ported to
the Sega CD for a worldwide
release.
The port includes all sixteen
levels from the original game,
different difficulty levels, a
special ‘Anime Mode’ for a
more cinematic experience
and five different static ending
screens.
download link (pixelglass.org)
download link (unofficial-cd32-ports.blogspot.com)
Where Time Stood Still
Type Port
Created by Galahad/Scoopex
Release date 2014
Genre Action-adventure
Mode 1 Player
This is an unofficial reverse-
engineered version of the At-
ari ST version of Where Time
Stood Still. It is for the most
part a 1:1 conversion, but with
a new comic book style intro
sequence and improved mu-
sic.
Where Time Stood Still is an
isometric action-adventure
game originally released by
Ocean in 1988 for the Sinclair
Spectrum 128K, MS-DOS and
Atari ST. The game was pro-
duced by Denton Designs as
a follow-up to The Great Es-
cape from 1986.
The player must guide a par-
ty of four plane crash survi-
vors—the pilot, Jarret, and
his three passengers—to safety, avoiding di-
nosaurs, cannibals and natural dangers, while
also ensuring they are sufficiently rested and
fed during the long and difficult journey.
Objects including weapons and first aid
kits can be collected. Each character has their
own distinct behaviour—one becomes hungry
easily, while another is only really competent
while his fiancé survives. Although the ultimate
aim is to save all four characters, the player
can continue while at least one is alive.
Download version (whdownload.com)
CD32 - Homebrew • 679
 The Great Giana Sisters

The most popular story behind this game is that after

Download links;
Amiga 1988
Atari ST 1988
Commodore 64 1987
iPhone 2012
the success of the NES platformer Super Mario Bros.,
a small development team called Time Warp Produc-
tions offered to create a version of the game for popu-
lar home computer systems, such as the Commodore
64, but Nintendo was not interested in releasing Mario
on anything other than the NES. Because they had
already mostly finished creating the game to demon-
strate their concept to Nintendo, Time Warp finished
the project and replaced all the graphics with original
ones, renaming the game The Great Giana Sisters.
The game was released in 1987 for multiple plat-
forms, and was very quickly withdrawn from shelves
due to threats of legal action from Nintendo, due to the
obvious similarities to their flagship title. These threats
of legal action also lead the ZX Spectrum version of
the game to be scrapped, despite nearing completion.
Due to the short time the game was on shelves, legiti-
mate copies of the game are extremely rare, and are
prized by video game collectors.
Unofficially, the game has been cloned on Win-
dows, DOS, Linux, Mac OS X, AmigaOS 4, NetBSD,
AROS, MorphOS, and Symbian OS. An unofficial
clone of the C64 version was also made
for the Nintendo DS.

Upon its release, The Great Giana Sis-

ters received strong critical praise and ac-
claim from the gaming magazines across
Europe. Zzap!64 described the game as
Commodore 64
“amazing” and concluded with the overall
opinion that Great Giana Sisters was “a
fabulous, compelling and constantly re-
warding arcade adventure”.

The scroll screen melody of the game was

composed by Chris Huelsbeck, which has
become one of the most popular video
Amiga game soundtracks of all time. It has re-
ceived over 50 remixes on the popular
music arrangement resource Remix64.
The music of Great Giana Sisters was
featured in the live orchestra concert Sym-
phonic Shades held in Cologne, Germany
on August 23, 2008.
Atari ST
some text from giantbomb.com

680 • Homebrew - CD32

Giana Sisters: Special Edition
Type Hack
Created by Reimagine Games The Legend of Kyrandia
Release date 2016
Genre Platformer Type Port
Mode 1-2 Players Created by Earok

Giana Sisters: Special Edi- The Legend of Kyrandia: Book

tion is an unofficial hack of One is a 2D point-and-click
the original Amiga version. adventure game, and the first
It includes mostly cosmetic game in the Fables & Fiends
changes, such as 200 new series. It was developed by
tiles and frames of animation, Westwood Studios and pub-
updated sound effects, the lished by Virgin Games in Au-
intro from the 2009 Nintendo gust 1992.
DS version, among several The game was released on
other additions. several systems, including the
The CD32 version should run on any stock con- Amiga, MS-DOS, FM Towns,
sole. In addition, the game should run on ex- Mac and PC-98. A CDTV
panded consoles, such as those containing an version was also planned at
SX32 or SX-1 board. some point.
The CD32 port by Earok support saving to
NVRAM and includes the audio track and the
animated intro converted from the PC DOS
version, joypad support and game maps—
viewable from the selection menu, among sev-
eral other inclusions.

Not an official package.

Created by Retrophase.co.uk who makes re-imagined handmade boxes
Flashback
for public domain games. Type Port
Website (pixelglass.org) Created by Earok
Downloadable version (pixelglass) A port of the 1992 science fic-
tion cinematic platform game
Flashback: The Quest for Iden-
tity.
Stunt Car Racer The port includes joypad
Type Port support, speed corrected
Created by Codetapper cutscenes, level selection and
A port of Stunt Car Racer—a the CDXL intro from the 2013
racing video game developed remake.
by Geoff Crammond. download link
(unofficial-cd32-ports.blogspot.com)
The port includes joypad sup-
port, new tracks and a “Turbo”
patch.
download link (unofficial-cd32-ports.blogspot.com)

CD32 - Homebrew • 681

 article; Amiga CD32 Gamer #20 (January 1996)
by: Lesley Jordan;
David vs Goliath
It’s my party.......and I’ll cry if I want to. Yes, this may be a very
lame opening to a feature, but it just about sums up how most CD32
owners are feeling right now. Their machine has been pushed into
obscurity following the barrage of new machines on the scene and
the question on everybody’s lips is “Can my CD32 still give ‘em a
good run for their money?”. New contributor Lesley Jordan finds out.
S
o, they’re here at last. Each one professes power
that will make your toes curl, graphics to make
your eyes bulge and sound tracks to make you
grow more ears. Yes, the super-consoles are upon us and
don’t we know it.
Several companies have released their machine over the
past few months, including Sony with their PlayStation
and Sega with its Saturn. Both machines are very impres-
sive, incorporating the very latest arcade technology and
backed by a barrage of games, including Daytona USA for
the Sega Saturn and the amazing Destruction Derby on the
PlayStation. If you have somehow managed to miss all the
hype for these games you must have been living on the
moon for the past few months.
All this seems to be leaving the CD32 somewhat in the
sidelines. How can the CD32 stand up to this onslaught of
mega machines! There’s one simple answer; the CD32, if
pushed, CAN and WILL produce games of super-console
standard- But to make this possible, software houses will
have to start to develop for the CD32 again - something
which isn’t too likely at the moment.
682 • magazine article
If you study the specifications of the super-consoles,
you are likely to come across a few surprises. This is be-
cause the PlayStation and Saturn seem to have taken a few
leaves out of Commodore’s book, using technology that
the CD32 has used for years.
Since the birth of Amiga family, all of their machines
have utilised a multi-chip design. This means that a set
of custom chips take some weight off the main processor,
taking control of key areas such as graphics and sound.
This is what makes the consoles so amazingly fast; their
array of custom chips. So far, it has taken until now for
the other major hardware developers to catch up with the
CD32. Even though many of the older consoles use cus-
tom chips in their design, Commodore have been using
this technology since day one. Why, then, has the Amiga
family of machines fallen from grace?
The similarities do not end there. Both the PlayStation
and the Sega Saturn are only 32 bit, just like our own dear
CD32. Double speed CD access seems to the norm with
most of the super-consoles and guess what, we’ve got that
too! We can play audio CDs, GCD (audio CDs with graph-
ics) and photo CDs just like the big consoles. MPEG (or
the ability to play video CDs) isn’t standard on any of the
present machines, but is optional, just like our FMV cart.
The only downfall the CD32 has is the inability to con-
trol the audio coming from the CD player. Okay, it can mix
audio and sound effects in a limited way, but cannot fade
music tracks in or out or produce echo like the PlaySta-
tion can. This adds realism and atmosphere to its games,
such as echoing the CD sound track as you pass through
the tunnels in Wipeout. The lack of stereo channels on the
CD32 is not such a loss. The PlayStation has 24 and the
Sega Saturn has 32 were as our machine only has four.
If these four are used cleverly, however, the difference is
almost indiscernible within games. Who needs massive of
Despite its undoubt-
edly superior power
as a games console the
CD32 has largely had to
make do with tradition-
al ‘computer’ games.
Had Commodore not
had these problems it’s
likely more CD-specific
titles like Microcosm
would have been forth-
coming. Unfortunately
the likes of Mega Race
and Novastorm never
happened.
 Phillips’ entry
into the interactive
arena has largely
ignored the arcade
side of things and
concentrated more
on classic puzzlers
(7th Guest) and cin-
ematic adventures
(Burn Cycle). High
cost and the low
mainstream appeal
audio channels? Not us! of many of its titles
Games often make or brake a new platform, as can the have proven to be
size of the user base. Luckily, both these are well estab- its Achilles heel.
lished in the UK and a wide range of games are readily
available. Admittedly, these are mainly made up of ports
from the 1200. New games are hard to come by on the tion and Escom have pulled a few surprises in the past,
CD32; a lot of the developers have trouble programming haven’t they?
for the machines as Commodore were reluctant to release In the mean time, I would like to see developers pre-
many guide lines or reveal what their new machine was serving on the CD32. It still has some life in it yet and
capable of. could still give the consoles a run for their money. In the
Both the Sega Saturn and the Sony PlayStation use not to distant future we would all like to see games akin to
third-party development systems (usually based around a Ridge Racer and Virtua Cop on the CD32, or maybe ports
powerful Pentium PC and some clever electronics) that of similar games off the PC, but this is all down to the
developers use to programme new games. On the CD32, publishers and developers getting together an seeing that
things are much harder. The CD32, although much un- there still is a market for CD32 games. This could be the
used, does have texture mapping facility. When used this easiest and quickest way for software houses to show the
can created graphics like the tunnelling effect seen on potential of the CD32.
Gloom, the recently released Doom clone. This technique
is used frequently on the PlayStation and the Saturn and

Stunning games
like Destruction
Derby have fired
the public’s imagi-
nation and helped
make the Playsta-
tion’s launch the
biggest event the
industry has seen
in recent times.
Years of research
and shrewd mar-
keting make it a
formidable player
in the field.

used a little more on the CD32, it could enhance games to

the point of giving the new giants a run for their money.
So the CD32 isn’t here forever; no machine is, come
Every console fanatic loves machine statistic, so the ta-
to think of it (How many people do you know who still
ble on these pages will give you some idea of what each
use a Vic-20 or Spectrum?). Just bear in mind where the
machine is capable of. From the head to head table it is
consoles of today is in two or three years time. There has
obvious that a few of the new consoles have an advantage,
got to be losers for there to be winners so it’s up to Escom
but the older ones like the CD I, are lagging behind the
to realise what they’ve got and get things right for once.
CD32. Lets face it, the CD32 is getting on a bit now and
has been around since 1993 and is still just managing to
hold it’s own with even the newest machines. If Escom
wants it to stay that way then I’m afraid that the CD32 is
not the long term answer. Maybe CD64 would be the next
step? There have been rumours that Escom are thinking
about releasing an updated CD32, but that is only specula-

magazine article • 683

 3DO was the first of
the next generation of
games machines to go
on sale. Its unprecedent-
ed franchising strategy
made it an interesting
prospect but Sega and
Sony have eaten up
much of its potential de-
velopment support. The
new M2 could give it a
new lease of life but it’s
going to be tough.

Sega have been strung

by Sony in the first bat-
tle of the Titans follow-
ing the demise of 16-bit
gaming. Their insistence
of pushing other hard-
ware platforms (Mega-
CD, 32X etc...) has meant
too little time being spent
on the Saturn in terms of
both hardware develop-
ment and marketing push.
Could flop big style!

Neo-Geo has never been

a widely used system sim-
ply because of the price.
Carts will set you back up to
300 notes for games which,
in these enlightened times,
look dated to say the least.
The hardware is identical
to that contained within the
countless SNK arcade ma-
chines you see but would
never consider playing.

HEAD TO HEAD
Specifications: CD32 Saturn PlayStation 3DO CD-I NEO-GEO
32 Bit Yes Yes Yes Yes Unknwon No (16 bit)
64 Bit No No No Add On No No
Processor type: 68020 RISC RISC RISC 68070 Custom
CD Drive Speed: 150-350k 150-350k 150-350k 170k (I) 170k (I)
Sound: 4 Channel 32 24 Unknown 8 Channel 13 Channel
FMV: Optional Optional Unknown Optional Optional No
Max Colours: 16.7 16.7 16.7 16.7 16.7 4096
Memory: 2meg 2.5meg 3.5meg 3meg 1.5meg 2meg
Resolution: 1024x512 1024x512 1680x860 640x480 768x560 Unknown
CPU Speed (MHz) 14 14 33 12 15.5mhz 12mhz

TABLE
684 • magazine article
Hardware & Accessories
 Hardware & Accessories
These pages consists of different types of hardware released for the CD32.
Hardware includes official Commodore releases, third-party, after market and
cancelled devices.
Since the CD32 is almost an Amiga computer, a lot of third-party accessories
are compatible with the system, but only hardware that is specifically aimed for
the system is listed here.
The CD32 also received hardware which could transform it into a home com-
puter, adding several vital connectors, such as parallel ports, VGA and RGB
ports, floppy disk drives and HDD connectors.
A lot of hardware were not ‘plug-and-play’ and would need modifications
by the user in order to install the device on a stock CD32. This could mean
soldering, moving wires, or “destroying” the case to make room for a board or
a new wire connection.

CD32 Keyboard TOMS CD32 Keyboard

Publisher Commodore (?)
Type Keyboard
Release date 1991 (?)
An official CD32 branded keyboard. It
looks similar to the A3000/A4000/CDTV
keyboard, but with a grey colour scheme
to match the console. The keyboard con-
nects to the CD32’s AUX port.
The keyboard was released in very lim-
ited numbers, though some speculate
that it was never officially released. The
few that appear on auction sites are of-
ten very costly.
Publisher TOMS
Type Keyboard
The TOMS CD32 Keyboard is designed
for use with the CD32. It appears to be
a customized PC keyboard adapted for
use with the console. It has the layout of
a standard PC keyboard rather than an
Amiga keyboard (ie, it has F11 and F12,
but no “Help” key).
The keyboard plugs into the CD32 AUX
port.
“bboah-hardware.com”

686 • Hardware - CD32

CD32 AUX Extension
Publisher TOMS
Type Keyboard accessory
Release date 1994 Dust cover
A splitter for the AUX serial port on Type Miscellanious
the CD32. This splitter allows both
In the 80’s and early 90’s, people often
a keyboard and a sernet cable to
had—and even used—dust covers for
be plugged in simultaneously.
their electronics
“bboah-hardware.com” systems. The dust
cover would most
often be made of
hard transparent
plastic.

CD32 Keyboard Interface An after market

dust cover were
Publisher TOMS
Type Keyboard accessory released by Ret-
Release date 1994 ronics and can be
bought from the
A keyboard inter- amiga-shop.net.
face designed for
use with the CD32.
It allows it to use
PC 101/102 AT
keyboards and still
allows use of the
AUX socket. CD32 Carry Case
“bboah-hardware.de” Type Miscellaneous

A soft black carry case with a shoulder

strap, and a flip-top with two straps to
keep it shut. Has a white badge on the
bottom right that reads “Amiga CD32”.
Not known if this was an official product.
Bigfoot CD32 “cd32.amiga.live”
Publisher Micro R&D
Type Power supply unit

The Bigfoot CD32 is a replacement 250

watt power supply. It is fan cooled and
includes overload and short circuit pro-
tection as well as accessory connectors
for powering
things such as
hard drives.
“bboah.de”

Bigfoot 2000
the A2000 version

CD32 - Hardware • 687

 Competition Pro
Publisher Honey Bee, Competition Pro
Type Controller
Release date 1994

review; Amiga CD32 Gamer #2 (Jun. 1994) Competition Pro produced joypads for
several systems, all of which improved
on the stock joypads in various ways.
This joypad is very similar to a Genesis
pad, except with 4 buttons and two shoul-
der buttons, as well as turbo switches for
all of them, and a slow motion button.
PROPLAY JOY The controller was popular with CD32
At last! Competition Pro an- owners due to the improved quality of
swer the prayers of every CD32 owner with a the directional pad compared to the stan-
slick new joypad. Up until now, CD32 owners dard CD32 joypad. It is also compatible
have faced the dilemma of either struggling with with Commodore and Amiga computers,
their ugly, awkwardly shaped CD32 controller, Atari XL/ST, Amstrad CPC, MSX, among
or losing its six button capability to use a nor- several other platforms.
mal Amiga joystick. Now Competition Pro have
There are two versions of the controller,
provided the perfect solution. Based on their
popular Mega Drive/SNES peripheral, the new
one with “Competition Pro” labelled on it,
joypad has been comprehensively reworked for and the other has the Honey Bee’s logo.
the CD32. Not only does the pad support all six Otherwise, they seem identical.
fire buttons, these are properly annotated with the “computinghistory.org.uk”
icons for playing music CDs (fastforward, etc)
which are also properly colour co-ordinated to
the original CD32 pad design. Each of the but-
tons have their own, individual autofire setting
and a pause-based slow-mo facility is included
as well. The pad is solidly constructed, its col-
our perfectly complements the CD32 itself and,
miracle of miracles, it’s very comfortable to hold.
Stylish, robust, packed with features and a de-
light to use this could very well revolutionise the
way you play CD32 games! Price: £19.99.

688 • Hardware - CD32

Communicator
Developer Eureka
Publisher Eureka
Release date 1994
Genre Expander

The Communicator is an external unit that links the

CD32 to the serial port of an Amiga or PC computer
and allows the computer to see the CD32 as a stand-
ard CD-ROM (though it provides very slow data trans-
fers compared to a locally installed CD drive).

The Communicator connects to the CD32 AUX port

and gives the console MIDI-In, MIDI-Out, MIDI-Thru
connectors. Three status LEDs indicates ‘MIDI Re-
ceive’, ‘CD32 Send’ and ‘Host Send’.
Three version of Communicator was re-
leased, including a ‘Lite Version’ which lacks the
MIDI and keyboard connectors and the status
LEDs.

The Communicator can read PhotoCD’s (with

supplied software, such as Photolite), make FMV
or audio presentations and view various image
file formats, such as GIF and PCX, straight from
CD. It can also view AGA images on a non-AGA
machine. The Communicator also has support
from Scala and MediaPoint, allowing users to use
audio or MPEG tracks in multimedia creations.

The first version of Communicator have data

rates up to 115200 bps and an A2000 keyboard
connector.
The Communicator II CD improved user
interface and included programs such as a ‘vir-
tual CD’ concept that enables users to config-
ure the Communicator to automatically boot the
most used program. The hardware have an de-
tachable RJ11 (telephone type) connector serial
cable, more reliable transfers with data rates up
to 210000 bps, better compatibility with ISO-
9660 CDs and A1200, A2000, A3000 and A4000
keyboard connectors.
Communicator III seems to be similar to
its previous version.

some text from cd32.amiga32.com

CD32 - Hardware • 689

 magazine article; Amiga CD32 #1 (1994 Spring), written by Jason Holborn;
M
ovies on your CD32?
Is this Holborn chappie
mad? Or is he simply
referring to the good old
tie-in lark, some software house
paying a movie studio obscene
amounts of cash to turn a block-
buster flick into a second-rate plat-
former that sells millions regardless
of the fact that it’s as exciting as a
package holiday to Scunthorpe?
(quick pause to catch breathe). No,
far from it — after years of specu-
lation and rumour, the boffins have
finally worked out how to squeeze
a movie onto a compact disc.
What’s more, your CD32 is at the
forefront of this technological leap.
Before you get all excited and
try to cram that old VHS tape
of Carry On Camping into your
CD32’s drive (a word of advice
— the tape won’t fit!), it must be
stressed that a standard CD32 isn’t
capable of playing this new breed
of ‘VideoCD’ films. The key to the
CD32’s role in this up-and-coming
market is a £200 add-on recently
launched by Commodore.
690 • magazine article
We all know that the CD32 can play
some great games, but did you know
that it can play movies as well? Ja-
son Holborn gets all square-eyed
with Commodore’s new FMV mod-
ule.
The FMV module may look like SEEDY MOVIES
the dictionary definition of a boring
Playing a VideoCD disk is just as
little box, but the electronics inside
easy as playing an audio disk. All
are formidable. To produce those
you have to do is to place the Vid-
Full Motion Video movies there’s
eoCD disk into the CD32’s drive
a 40MHz video decompression
and switch on. After a couple of
engine, backed up with a 28MHz
seconds a menu screen appears
Digital Signal Processor (DSP)
listing all the MPEG tracks. Most
solely responsible for decoding
movies have only two tracks — an
the audio. It’s worth pointing out
introduction sequence (the movie
that although a VideoCD disk does
company’s own trailer) and the
contain a CD quality soundtrack,
film itself.
it’s encoded along with the video
Surprisingly, although only two
signal. You cannot, therefore, play
tracks are available from this menu
the sound track on a standard (non-
screen, most VideoCD films are ac-
FMV equipped) CD32.
tually split up into a whole series
Installing the FMV module is
of tracks, each of which marks the
straightforward enough — after
beginning of a major sequence in
removing the plastic backing plate
the film. Although you can’t make
from the rear of your CD32, all
use of this feature from the menu
you have to do is to slide the FMV
screen, you can instantly access
module into the space beneath the
any available tracks whilst the film
CD32’s own electronics until the
is running by pressing the two se-
FMV unit clicks into place. With
lection buttons on the two far cor-
the module now in place, your
ners of the CD32’s hand controller.
CD32 is ready to enter the new age
This is one aspect of VideoCD that
of VideoCD.
really leaves the standard VHS vid-
eo deck for dead. Instead of having
to haphazardly wind a video tape SOUND IN MOTION When such a device does arrive
forward until you reach the section (at an affordable price, of course!),
If VideoCD sounds like a dream
of the film that you want to watch, you can kiss goodbye to VHS —
come true, be warned it’s not with-
VideoCD gives you almost instant until then, however, I very much
out a few flaws. It’s certainly not
access. doubt that most people will ditch
going to spell the death of both
The advantages of VideoCD their VHS deck quite yet. Most
conventional VHS video and au-
don’t just stop here, either. Vid- people will probably prefer to use
dio CD disks for quite a while yet.
eoCD films are far superior to the a VideoCD player in conjunction
For starters, VideoCD is held back
VHS counterparts for a number of with a VHS recorder, allowing
by the same limitations as normal
very good reasons. For starters, the them to play prerecorded VideoCD
audio CDs — you can’t write to
picture quality of a VideoCD title films but still going back to VHS
a VideoCD. Okay, so we’ve got
is miles better than any standard if the need arises (having to miss
used to this where audio CDs are
VHS video player I’ve had the dis- Home & Away to go to a party, for
concerned, but the big consumer
pleasure of using. Even a decent example). This is certainly what
electronics companies are fooling
SuperVHS video deck would be I’ve done!
themselves if they think that we’re
pushed to come close to VideoCD VideoCD’s also seem to be
suddenly going to dump our faith-
and then of course you’ve got the rather suspectable to dust and fin-
ful old VHS videos now that Vid-
advantage of a CD quality sound gerprints, certainly more so than
eoCD has arrived. After all, what
track. The other great advantage a standard audio CD. I guess it
would we record that episode of
of a VideoCD is the quality of its has something to do with the vast
Home & Away on? Missing just a
freeze frame — because VideoCD amount of information that is
single episode of this fine example
is digital, pausing a film produces a packed onto a VideoCD. It’s there-
of Australian drama would drive
rock-solid image with none of the fore very important that you keep
me crazy!
loss in picture quality you’d expect VideoCDs clean — if you perma-
I’m sure that it’s only a matter
from a VHS video recorder. nently scratch a VideoCD disk then
of time before the same boffins
you might as well throw it away as
that have brought us VideoCD will
you’ll never get it to play again!
come up with a recordable version.

THE FUTURE OF HOME ENTERTAINMENT?

A
lthough Commodore are helping lead the way
with their FMV unit, they certainly didn’t invent
the VideoCD standard. The electronics required
to transform the CD32 into a VideoCD player is based
around a chip set called ‘MPEG-1’ (MPEG is short for
Motion Picture Experts Group) which has been accepted
as an industry standard by virtually every consumer elec-
tronics company in the world. Technics has announced
plans to develop VideoCD players, while both 3DO
and Phillip’s CDi are to have add-on modules similar to
Commodore’s FMV unit. VideoCDs should play equally
well on any of these units and this seems likely to ensure
a reasonable level of support. Record companies in par-
ticular are quite excited about producing videoCDs featuring their top groups. Techies are also quite excited
about the prospect of games using FMV, although to be honest until software houses increase their support
for CD32 specific games, the prospect of games developed for FMV module CD32s is remote.
All in all, the FMV is a remarkable piece of technology and should do CD32 sales no end of good — after
all it’s by far the cheapest way to play VideoCDs. If you’ve got the cash to spare and are interested in high
quality movies then it’s a bargain.

magazine article • 691

 AT THE MOVIES

A
ll the talk of how wonderful VideoCD and the CD-32’s own
FMV module is all well and good, but the success of Vid-
eoCD lies in the availability of VideoCD disks. Although it
seem certain that most of the industry will put its money (or should
that be products?) where its mouth is, VideoCD is going to have
to gain acceptance from the consumer (that’s us) if support is to
remain in the long term.
The quality of VideoCD titles certainly doesn’t seem to be a
problem with most of the top movie studios and the music indus-
try jumping onto the VideoCD band wagon wholeheartedly. Al-
ready big names such as Paramount, Disney and Columbia have
expressed a commitment to VideoCD and it seems only a matter of
time before the rest follow suit. If all goes well, we should see even
blockbuster movies such as Jurassic Park eventually finding their
way onto VideoCD — just think, you’ll be able to hear the Tyran-
nosaur’s blood-curdling roar in CD quality!
The price of individual VideoCD titles could fluctuate between
the various manufacturers but it sees that the industry may well
eventually settle on a ceiling price of £19.95 with £15.95 being
the norm. With most VHS movies costing £12.95, that extra £3 is
definitely good value for money. • JH

VIDEOCD FILM GUIDE Wayne’s World

S
o you’ve got your FMV cartridge but nothing to show
it off, other than a free demo disk showing Commo-
dore’s dreadful Xmas ad. Jason Holburn provides a
run-down on (some of) the movies available now.
Party on dude! Wayne and Garth may not be everyone’s
idea of the average American teenagers but they certainly
know how to have fun. This film is absolutely dire.....
NOT! Highly recommended.
Rating ★★★★★

TOP GUN Beverly Hills Cop

Tom Cruise stars along side Kelly McGillis in this rip-
roaring adventure that sees Cruise set in the role of Mav-
erick Mitchell, a daring young US Navy fighter pilot out
to become the best.
Rating ★★★★★
Naked Gun 2 1/2
Leslie Neilson stars in this sequel to the original Naked
Gun that is packed with the same fatal combination of
quick-witted one liners and the sort of visual gags that
will make you cringe. (I though this was tops! Priscilla’s
beaver has never looked better! — Art Ed.)
Rating ★★★
The storyline may be rather weak, but Eddy Murphy is as
sharp as ever in this cops and robbers epic set in the glam-
our of Beverly Hills. As always, Murphy makes this film
with his usual mixture of quick-witted one liners.
Rating ★★★
( ★★★★★
— Art Ed & Ed.)
Raiders of the Lost Ark
The man with the hat is back and this time he hasn’t
brought his dad! Harrison Ford stars in this VideoCD ver-
sion of the original Indiana Jones movie which sees Ford
up against the might of the Nazi SS as they race to find the
Ark of the Covenant.
Rating ★★★★

Indecent Proposal Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Would you pay one million dollars to sleep with Demi Not exactly the best of the Indiana Jones movies, but
Moore? And we do mean sleep, this dreary over long tale Doom is rip roaring stuff nonetheless. A definitive must
serving as a perfect cure for insomnia. for all Harrison Ford fans.
Rating ★★
Rating ★★★

692 • magazine article

Full Motion Video Module
Publisher Commodore
Type Video
Release date 1994
The Full Motion Video (FMV) module
is an MPEG decoder card that installs
into the expansion port in the back of
the CD32. It allows the CD32 to play
full screen animations and sounds,
such as MPEG video, VCD movies and
CD-i Digital Video. Final Gate and Can-
non Fodder (which gives an FMV intro
sequence) is one of few games on the
CD32 that take advantage of the FMV
module, though it is not required.
The FMV module limits the maximum
possible amount of Fast RAM to 4 MB.
It can be used with the SX-1 but not with
the DCE SX32 / SX32 Pro.
Two versions of the module exists: ‘Sil-
ver case’—the generally available mod-
ule that was sold through retail—and a
‘black case version. The black version is
rare, as it was intended for game devel-
opers.
The module, released in 1994, was sold
for £199 (nearly the price of the console
itself).
“bboah-hardware.com”
Analogic Disk Drive
Publisher Analogic
Type Expander
Release date 1996
The CD32fWSI Expansion Module was
designed for the Wall Street Institute Lan-
guage School and released in 1995. In
1996 Analogic started selling re-branded
versions of the expansion module.
The floppy drive unit is a Sony FDD,
housed in a cream coloured plastic,
which connects to the expansion port,
and sits on top of the right side of the
CD32. It also has a second connector
that points into the expansion bay, which
is used for a real-time clock (contained
on a separate PCB), a printer port, and
an RGB video port (though as a 15-pin
connector).
According to cd32.amiga.live, it
seems that the expansion module inter-
fere with the CD32 controller somehow,
making any game that requires more
than one button unplayable.
“cd32.amiga.live”
CD32 - Hardware • 693
 magazine article; Amiga CD 32 #2 (1994 Winter);
Paravision SX-1
T heROM-based
benefits of having a CD-
games consoles
must be obvious to you. Games
can have two-channel 16-bit au-
dio, and feature almost unlimited
amounts of graphics and anima-
tions. There’s no doubt that CD-
ROM-based software is the wave
of the future.
But if you are just using CD
technology to play games, you are
only realising a small percentage
of its potential. There is so much
more you can do with CD-ROM
applications.
Also, being a console that sup-
ports only CD-ROM, the CD32 is
cut off from the great wealth of
floppy disk-based software that
has been the real impetus behind
millions of Amiga sales across the
globe.
While the Amiga market is still
predominantly floppy-based (only
2% of Amiga Format’s readers
have a CD-ROM drive) it is more
reasonable for software companies
to keep on pushing disks as op-
posed to discs.
694 • magazine article
The way out of this Catch-22
situation for the CD32 owner is to
turn their machine into an Amiga.
At the heart the CD32 is really
just another Amiga. With CD-
ROM support and the amazing
Akiko chip, it is actually a sort of
Amiga+. But at the same time it
lacks some of the things that home
computer owners take for grant-
ed — such as space to put a hard
drive, a floppy disk drive and a se-
rial port.
This is where the Paravision
SX-1 comes in. First impressions
are not that good. This expansion
module of the future looks like it
was styled by the bozo that put
together the CD32. It is, to say the
least; inelegant. The case is rectan-
gular and flat, apart from the odd
screw or connector sticking out.
Still, luckily for the editor, you
shouldn’t always judge something
by it’s looks.
One side of the case is open,
where the SX-1 connects to the
CD32. There are actually two edge
connectors here — one to connect
You may be quite hap-
py with your games
console, but how
would you like to have
a real computer? Nick
Veitch assesses your
options...
up the SX-1 and a through-port for
any current (ie FMV) CD32 expan-
sions, or any future ones. This is de-
finetly a good thing. Now you don’t
have to get MPEG on CD, you can
source MPEG files yourself. There
are plenty of MPEG shorts floating
around on the internet.
On the outside of the case, the
most immediately important port
is the floppy connector. This ena-
bles you to use a standard Amiga
external floppy drive (which is rec-
ognised by the system as DF0:),
which means that you can now
boot from floppy. Not only does
this enable you to load up Work-
bench, but you can also run stand-
ard Amiga disks (even games) just
like an A1200.
The floppy drive is not included
with the SX-1, so I advise you to
buy one at the same time. You don’t
need anything fancy, and most
drives cost around £40-50. If you
want a mouse, this can be plugged
into the normal controller port.
The next essential item is a key-
board. The SX-1 has a connector
for a PC-AT style keyboard. The
logic behind this is that such key-
boards are cheaper and easier to
obtain. Unfortunately, they also
lack the special Amiga keys. While
you can still reset the CD32 with the
reset button, you cannot use many
of the hotkey shortcuts that every
other Amiga user can. You can still
use a standard A4000 keyboard in
the side connector, but these are
about £40 more expensive than an
AT keyboard (£80! Can you be-
lieve it!). Having said that though,
the quality of the Amiga keyboards
have improved quite a bit — if you
intend spending long hours typ-
ing, the Amiga keyboard certainly
seems more responsive than a
cheap AT one.
For those of you wishing to link
up to a printer, or use ParNet to link
up to another Amiga, or use a sound
sampler, or any number of other
things, there is a fully functioning
Amiga standard parallel port situ-
ated at the rear. This is all you need
to connect up to a whole range of
peripherals, and something which
the CD32 has sadly lacked.
There is also a serial port for mo-
dems (or other serial devices) but,
bizarrely, this uses an IBM stand-
ard 9-pin D-type connector, instead
of the usual Amiga 25-pin one. Of
course, very few serial devices
need the extra pins, but it does
mean you’ll have to go hunting for
IBM serial cables instead of Amiga
ones. It also makes connecting up
the SX-1 to another Amiga for se-
rial data transfer slightly harder, as
you’ll probably have to make your
own null-modem cable.
A useful addition is the RGB
socket. This gives you a much
cleaner image when used with a
standard Amiga monitor. The CD32
does have quite a few output sock-
ets already, but the RF and com-
posite ones don’t give a very clear
picture (and neither does any other
console using these outputs) and
very few people can take advan-
tage of the S-Video socket, because
it is not a common feature on Brit-
ish TV sets. The RGB output gives
you the clearest possible picture,
providing you also get a monitor. The RGB connector gives you the best pic-
ture, if used with an Amiga monitor.
Of course, these days, no com-
puter is really complete without a
hard drive. There was no way of
adding such a drive to the CD32
— until the SX-1 came along. The
SX-1 is equipped with not one, but
two hard drive interfaces. There
are two sockets, one for an internal
drive (a subminiature IDE connec- The hard drive connector can be used to
tor) and one external IDE drive. add an external IDE mechanism. These are
a lot cheaper than SCSI mechanisms.
The internal drive can be mounted
inside the surface of the SX-1 it-
self, and draws its power from the
expansion, so you won’t need an-
other power supply.
In order to remain completely
compatible, the SX-1 has two
socket-mounted ROMs contain-
ing a copy of the A1200 Kickstart.
These could be updated at a later
stage to keep abreast of the latest
in Workbench technology. There is
also a SIMM socket in the unit, al-
lowing more memory to be added.
Finally, but still important, is the
clock module. The CD32 (like the
A1200) has no clock module. This
module means that your CD32 al-
ways knows the time — useful for The insides of the SX-1 are very densely
packed: there is a lot to fit in. As well as all
date-stamping files. the ports, there’s a keyboard translator, the
If you have a CD32 and you clock, the ROMs, a SIMM connector and
would like to use it for more than the hard drive interface.
just playing games, this is the only
way to go. It is not the most attrac-
tive-looking device in the known
Amiga universe, but it
does its job well. Paravi- PARAVISION SX-1
sion are already working
on a new version with DISTRIBUTOR : CALCULUS (0543) 418666
even more options, so PRICE : PLUS £199.95
£49.95 (KEYBOARD),
this is a product with a £48.99 (DISK DRIVE)
future. RATING : 88%
magazine article • 695
 CD32 ProModule
SX-1 Publisher Elsat
Type Expander
Publisher Paravision, Microbotics, Hi-Tech Release date 1995
Type Accelerator
Release date 1994

The SX-1 is an an expander that con-

nects to the expansion port of the CD32
and provides it with much of the capability
of an A1200. The SX-1 provides the fol-
lowing expansion ports;
• 25pin Parallel Port
• 9pin Serial Port
• 23pin RGB Video Port
• External Floppy Drive Port
(for up to 3 drives)
• 2.5” IDE Connector
• 37pin External IDE Connector
• Keyboard connector (compatible with
both Amiga and PC keyboards)
• 72pin SIMM slot.
• Karaoke / Audio Input.
• Pass Thru for FMV module.
The SX-1 has been made by three com-
panies. Microbotics inititally made them,
but were bought out by Paravision, who
themselves were in turn bought out by
Hi-Tech.
“bboah-hardware.com”
The CD32 ProModule from Elsat is an
expansion unit which gives the CD32
much of the capability of an A1200. The
ProModule sits under the base of the
CD32 unit and is joined at the rear of
the case with an included block connec-
tor. The FMV cartridge can also be used
with the ProModule installed.
Up to 8MB of additional RAM can be
added and the unit has support for an
optional 68882 (PLCC) FPU at up to
50Mhz. The unit includes an internal
3.5” floppy drive configured as DF0: and
a battery backed up clock. The unit also
provides the following expansion ports;
• 25pin Parallel Port
• 25pin Serial Port
• 23pin RGB Video Port
• External Floppy Drive Port
• 3.5” IDE Connector
A standard PC type AT keyboard can be at-
tached to the left of the module and it has
the option to use an external power source
such as an A500/A1200 power supply.

FRONT

BACK

“bboah-hardware.com”

696 • Hardware - CD32

SX-32
Publisher DCE
SX-32 Mk II
Type Accelerator Publisher DCE
Release date 1995 Type Accelerator
Release date 1996
The SX-32 is an ac-
celerator which ba- The SX-32 Mk-II was an updated ver-
sically converts a sion of the SX-32 and includes an im-
CD32 to have similar proved memory controller (still limited to
specs to an A1200. 8MB) which is more
It includes a battery tolerant with SIMM
backed up clock and specifications, and
the following expan- a socket for a 68882
sion connectors; FPU. The PCB is a
• 25pin Parallel Port little over half the
• 25pin Serial Port size of SX 32 Mk1.
• 23pin RGB Video Port
• 15pin VGA Monitor Port
• External Floppy Drive Port
• 37pin External IDE Connector
• 2.5” Buffered IDE Connector (with
enough space to mount a 2.5” Hard Drive)
• Keyboard Connector (both Amiga and
PC keyboards can be used) SX-32 Mk II Pro
The unit supports DMA transfers at up to Publisher DCE
4MB/sec by using the Akiko chip. Type Accelerator
Release date unreleased
The device comes as two pieces: A U-
connector that has all the ports on it, and A Pro model of the SX-32 Mk II was
sticks out the back of the system a little, planned for release. It would be similar
and the expansion board itself, which as the MK II, but with a built-in MPEG
connects to the U-connector, and fits in- decoder.
side the CD32 (this removes the ability
to use the FMV module).
The card is very large, and the
console case must be removed to install
the device. It may also be needed
to re-route some cables
to provide clearance.
“bboah-hardware.com”

CD32 - Hardware • 697

 magazine advert;

Single chip microprocessor - Battery-backed real time clock - 50 MHz 68030 MMU
makes a PC keyboard emulate for system time keeping and processor chip - the top-of-
an AMIGA keyboard automatic file time and date the-range 030 processor
stamping

Configuration
jumpers - for
keyboard type,
FPU speed and
512 KB Auto- memory speed
config™ ROM - selection
for Power-on
Confidence test-
ing and system
initiation PGA socket -
for optional 25
or 50 MHz 68882
floating point
Buffered IDE co-processor
interface - for
an internal
2.5” hard drive VLSI (very
and an external large scale
IDE/ATAPI de- integration)
vice (with op- logic ar-
tional adapter ray chip #1
cable) - implements a
fully asynchro-
nous accel-
erator design

Hard drive fit-

VLSI logic ar-
ting area -
ray chip #2
accommodates
- provides the
a standard or
CD32/SX32 with
superslim 2.5”
the full range
IDE hard drive
of system func-
tions of an A
1200

Instrumentation quality, multiplayer Amiga custom chips - to control the 72 pin simm socket -
PCB - with gold plated edge connectors parallel, serial and floppy drive parts for industry stand-
for the highest reliability and for system timing functions ard 32-bit memory
simms of 1 to 64 MB,
80ns or better
15 pin SVGA monitor connector - for mult-
isync monitors (all screen modes) or SVGA
monitors (VGA-compatible screen modes)

25 pin paral-
23 pin diskette
lel port - for
connector - for
printers,
up to three DD
digitisers and
or HD diskette
samplers
drives

23 pin video
25 pin serial
connector - for
port - for mo-
RGB monitors,
dems, printers
SCART TV’s and
and digitising
genlocks
tablets

All SX 32 external ports and connectors

are fully A 1200 compatible

698 • magazine article

 CD32 Connection Kit
Publisher Brian Fowler Compute
Type Expander
SX-32 Pro Release date 1994

A kit which allows the user to connect

Publisher DCE
Type Accelerator other Amigas to the CD32, with the in-
Release date 1996 tention of sharing its CD-ROM where the
user can send and receive files to and
The SX-32 Pro turns from the CD32. It is also possible to con-
the CD32 into an ac- nect a modem to it.
celerated A1200. The
Pro model includes The kit consists of a black serial cable
all the abilities of which connects to the CD32 and a grey
the regular SX-32, cable which connects between it and the
though since it’s no sending/receiving machine.
longer limited by the The black cable has a male 6-pin
68EC020 in the CD32, it supports up to connector at the CD32 end and a female
64MB memory. 6-pin connector and 25-pin male con-
nector at the other end.
The SX-32 Pro includes a 68030 running The kit came with a floppy disk
at either 25 or 50 MHz as well as a sock- containing Terminus and other software
et for a 68882 FPU, and supports DMA required for it to operate.
transfers using the CD32’s Akiko chip.
“bboah-hardware.com”
It is similar to the previous SX-32 models
and connects to the rear expansion con-
nector into the place of the FMV module.

CD32 - Hardware • 699

 Power 32
Publisher HDP Electronics
Type Extender
Release date 1995

The Power 32 is an external box that

plugs into the rear expansion connec-
tor and provides additional interfaces to
the CD32, including the ability to install
a HDD.
The HDD is intended to be placed ex-
ternally and a small cutout at back
side exists to feed through a IDE rib-
bon cable. An external power supply is
needed to power the HDD. The Power
32 is also genlock compatible but it has
no passthrough connector for the FMV
module.
interfaces includes;
• parallel DB25 female, Centronics
• video DB23 male, analog RGB
• external floppy DB23 female
• internal 40 pin IDE header
(for a 3.5” hard disk)
• 5 pin DIN connector
(for an IBM-AT keyboard)
“amiga.resource.cx”

Cabletronic Accelerator
CD32 Interface Expander Publisher Cabletronic
Publisher TOMS Type Accelerator
Type Expander
An accelerator re-
Release date 1996
leased by the Italian
The TOMS CD32 Interface Expander is publisher, Cabletron-
a simple expansion unit that provides ic. The accelera-
two connectors; a video DB23 male ana- tor are believed by
log RGB and an external floppy DB23 some to have been
female connector. The unit is a slim ex- designed for use in
ternal box that plugs into the rear expan- information kiosks.
sion connector. The accelerator board connects to the
No passthrough connector are present, back of the console and includes a VGA
making it incompatible with the FMV video output and 4MB Fast RAM.
module. Only a handful of these boards are
“amiga.resource.cx”
known to exist (but rare doesn’t always
mean valuable).

700 • Hardware - CD32

 Indivision AGA 4000 MK2/MK2cr
Publisher Individual Computers
Type Video
Indivision AGA 1200/4000 Release date 2012

Publisher Individual Computers The Indivision AGA

Type Video Mk2 A4000/CD32
Release date 2008 is the successor
to the Indivision
Indivision AGA
AGA A4000. It
4000 is a flicker-
can be used with
fixer and scan-
the A4000 (desktop version, there’s the
doubler compat-
Indivision AGA Mk2 A1200/4000T for use
ible with both
Indivision AGA 4000 with the A4000T) and the CD32, other
the CD32 and
Prototype board Amiga models are not supported.
A4000 (the pro-
totype board is white, the final version The Indivision AGA Mk2 feature a DVI-
has a blue PCB). The Indivision AGA I connector instead of the usual VGA
1200 is not compatible with the CD32. It socket. DVI-I provides digital as well as
provides VGA output, and clips onto the analog signals, making it compatible with
‘Lisa’ video chip (no soldering required). modern TFT displays, older TFT displays
with analog input and CRT monitors (the
It provides a few
latter two with a VGA adapter).
additional features, Indivision
like optional scan- AGA 1200 Upgrades from the previous model in-
lines, support for cludes output pixel clock up to 135MHz
super hi-res modes, (previous model; 71MHz), the data rate
highgfx support up reaches more than 480 MBytes/s peak
to 1024x768 pixels performance (previous model; 330
and 60 Hz for all MBytes/s peak); 16 MBytes framebuffer,
screen modes. entirely addressable (previous model;
“bboah-hardware.com” 12 MBytes).
The MK2cr model is a cost reduced ver-
sion designed for the A1200 and A4000T.
“bboah-hardware.com”

CD32 - Hardware • 701

 Terrible Fire
Accelerator Cards
Developer Stephen Leary TerribleFire 330
Type Accelerator
Release date 2018
Stephen Leary, also known as TerribleFire, is a
The TF330 is an accelerator and expan-
software engineer from Glasgow who created
sion card for the CD32 console. The
a series of open source accelerator boards for
card converts the CD32 into essentially
different Amiga and Atari systems. The boards
an overpowered A1200.
were reportedly sold nearly at cost.
The controller provides a full Motoro-
TerribleFire’s first accelerator board was the
la 68030 (including MMU) clocked at
TF520—a proof of concept board for the Amiga
50Mhz, 64MB or 128MB of Fast RAM,
mostly designed to see if it could be used with
and a fast 2,5” IDE interface for HDD or
Xilinx CPLDs (complex programmable logic de-
CF/SD cards.
vice) (a PLD is an electronic component used
to build reconfigurable digital circuits). The card connects into the CD32 expan-
From there TerribleFire created the more sion bay and is attached by means of a
advanced TF530 board with the main goal to ‘Riser’ card, such as the Kipper 2k.
have it as cost efficient as possible.
Late 2020, some elitist pissant went irate after
TerribleFire excluded Poland from countries he
sold his boards to—because of mail trouble and
missing packages, among other problems. The
pissant started cloning TerribleFire’s popular
TF536 boards and started selling them himself,
all while threatening to do the same with every
new board TerribleFire introduced.
The pissant managed to get his wish of
getting TerribleFire enraged, which led Terrible-
Fire to purge everything; his youtube tutorial
channel, his github project page and discontin-
ued developing new boards for sale—he would
only create boards for friends and people in
his local amiga user group (he re-uploaded his TerribleFire 328
github page after some time though).
Publisher AmigaStore.eu

The CD32-compatible TF328 provides 8

MB of Fast RAM and a 2.5” IDE interface
for hard disk drives or
TerribleFire 360 CF/SD cards.

Type Accelerator
Release date Prototype

The TF360 is a prototype board by Ter-

ribleFire. It is powered by a Motoroloa
68060 running @70MHz and 128MB
Fast RAM.

702 • Hardware - CD32

Wicher CD32
Publisher 7-bit
Type Accelerator

Wicher CD32 is an Amiga CD32-com-

patible memory card providing up to 11.5
MB Fast RAM (via 16-128 MB SIMM72
modules) and IDE 2,5” hard drive sup-
port. It includes ClockPort connector al-
lowing further expansion with additional
peripheral devices.

KTRL CD32+ Gamepad

Publisher daemonbite.com
Type Controller
Release date 2019

The KTRL CD32+ is an after-market

CD32 controller, developed and re-
leased in 2019 by a Finish software and
hardware developer.
The controller is designed for the CD32,
but will also work on an Amiga computer.
The buttons can be freely mapped be-
tween each other (the d-pad, left, right,
down and start buttons are not configu-
rable), they can also be set up for turbo
fire. This means that the user can map
the jump function from [up] to an action
button, or rearrange the action buttons
as one see fit.

CD32 - Hardware • 703

 CD32 Game System 030
Publisher Commodore
Master ISO Type Accelerator
Release date unreleased, 1993 (prototype)
Publisher AsimWare Innovations
Type Software A 68030 accelerator card for the CD32
Release date 1995 which was never released.
AsimWare’s Master ISO was one of the
few CD-R and CD-RW writing software
tools commercially released for Amiga
computers. Original price for the soft-
ware was $550.
Master ISO can create standard ISO
9660 CD-ROMs and Red Book Audio
CDs; CD-DA, MAUD, and AIFF files. It
can also be used to clone a HDD or CD,
and create CDTV and CD32 bootable
CDs (a developer licence from Com-
modore/Escom was initially needed—a
CD Error Rate Counter
special trademark file). Publisher Commodore
The Amiga needs to be equipped with Type Miscellaneous
Workbench 3, a SCSI controller, 1.3GB The CD Error Rate
HD space, 16MB RAM, and a CD re- Counter board was
corder. part of a larger test
Known CD-ROM drives it supports in- station at Commo-
cludes the Yamaha CDR100, Pinnacle dore West Chester.
RCD-202, Philips CDD-521, and CDD- This particular board
522. is specifically for
AsimWare’s AsimCDFS 3.0 software testing the CD32’s
(comparable to DAEMON Tools) could CD drive, but other
be used to mount a disk or CD image parts of the station
to a virtual drive to confirm that the ISO might also be for
works before burning it to a CD-R. other models. The
Other software tools released by station comprised of a big box Amiga,
Asimware Innovations includes Texture a parallel port card that expanded the
Heaven 1 and 2 and PhotoCD Manager. Amiga to have several parallel ports,
and then each of these special purpose
cards plugged into one of those extra
parallel ports.
This card connects to the monitor port
on the CD drive. It’s a 4 bit interface that
sends CD error information from a Sony
drive controller chip in the CD drive.
“bboah-hardware.com”

704 • Hardware - CD32

 CD1200
Developer Commodore
Type Storage medium
Release date Prototype

The CD1200 was originally planned to allow the

A1200 to use CD-ROMs as well as having CD32
compatibility. This included the additional chunky
to planar chip known as the Akiko which the CD32
used. The CD1200 however used a slightly differ-
ent locking mechanism compared to the CD32,
as it uses magnetic disc locking.

Following the launch of the CD32, Commodore

had made it clear that there was always the inten-
tion to release an official CD drive for the A1200
and A4000. The demonstration of the CD1200
model at the CeBIT ‘94 show was a fulfillment of
this promise. Unfortunately for Commodore it also
became the last project to be demonstrated be-
fore the company filed for liquidation. Numerous
writers picked upon the fact that its appearance at
the show was a last minute decision, highlighted
by its omission from the press information. The
story on these events has never fully come to
light, it is known that many Commodore execu-
tives were critical of the absence of FMV support
for the CD1200. In particular, Commodore UK
managing director, David Pleasance commented
in several magazines that he disliked the idea of
selling a CD drive that would never support FMV.
This could have delayed its announcement until
the last minute.

Two variants of the CD1200 are known to exist—

a grey and a off-white model. It is likely that the
grey model was an early prototype while the white
model is a later version. Only 9 prototypes are
said to have been made.
some text from bambi-amiga.co.uk,
bigbookofamigahardware.com

CD32 - Hardware • 705

 magazine review; Amiga User International (July, 1994);
CD1200
I
t’s white, well built and extremely
good looking. Am I talking about
me? No, not this time, but the new
CD1200 from Commodore is every-
thing to shout about. I remember get-
ting excited about the A570 CD drive
for the A500 and look what happened
to that. (Oh really? ED)
According to sales figures and Gal-
lup charts, CD32 is a success compared
to the old CDTV system. Anyway,
CD technology is BIG, and the many
thousands of 1200 owners should soon
have the chance to join in the fun.
It’s been a difficult decision over
the last year to choose between buying
a CD32 and an A1200. After all, it’s
technically possible to upgrade either
machine to perform like the other. The
trouble was knowing which machine
would be able to be converted into the
other first. As it happens the A1200 is
first (officially) and the CD1200 turns
the 1200 into a fully fledged CD32 -
well, very almost.
Interface Board
You can place the CD1200 anywhere
you like, it doesn’t have to be placed
next to the 1200, as long as the 2 foot
cable will reach(!). This cable connects
the 1200 and the CD drive but before
706 • magazine article
you can do that a new interface board
must be installed inside the 1200.
The interface board looks like any
other expansion board for the 1200
and even includes a SIMM socket for
adding extra RAM. One of the chips
on the interface is AKIKO which is
the very same one you’ll find inside a
CD32.
AKIKO is the latest version of the
Gary/Gail custom chip which addi-
tionally provides hardware chunky to
planar conversion. And so what? Well,
this chip allows the CD32, and now
any 1200 with the CD1200 drive, to
produce texture mapped graphics like
those seen on many PC games. It’s no
way as fast as a 486 PC doing chunky
graphics, but it’ll do it faster than an
040 processor!
When it comes to expanding further
and adding an FMV video module
then, I’m afraid, the similarities with
the CD32 stop here. It doesn’t appear
possible to add such an FMV module
onto the CD1200 or the internal inter-
face board. This means that CD mov-
ies like Star Trek VI and The Naked
Gun won’t be seen running on any
CD1200’s this year. Maybe a 3rd party
developer has plans to produce a new
interface which allows the FMV mod-
A1200 owners are
in for a big treat this
summer! AUI has got
hold of the official
add-on for the A1200,
and Gary Fenton
used this as an ex-
cuse to play CD32
games all day!
ule to be used - if it’s really technically
possible that is.
Wiring Up
The back of the CD1200 has 6 sock-
ets which seems a lot for a glorified
CD player. The audio output from the
1200 must be diverted to the CD1200
where it’s mixed with CD music and
sound and then output using a pair of
stereo phono sockets at the back. This
is where you plug your TV or hi-fi into
for sound. I very much recommend
that anyone with a CD32 or CD1200
output link the sound to a hi-fi because
the quality is fantastic, especially
when these days a lot of games give
you stereo sound effects and CD music
at the same time!
As I said earlier, the CD drive is con-
nected to the 1200 via a short cable,
called the data cable. Don’t ask why,
that’s quite obvious! The last cable to
protrude from the C1200 is the power
supply. Oh no, not another stupid brick
to lay slumbering by your feet. Yes,
I’m afraid so, folks. The 1200 simply
doesn’t have enough juice to power the
The interface which fits underneath the trap
door inside a 1200. Note the SIMM slot for ex-
tra RAM.
CD drive - and I’m not surprised with
a pathetic 25 Watts PSU!
If the thought of keeping everyone
awake in your house at night with the
sounds of Microcosm and Oscar is too
much for you, then you can plug your
headphones into the minijack socket
provided. A volume control allows you
to vary the volume according to your
ear drum’s tolerance.
Playing Games
So, does the CD1200 play all the
games that are out there for the CD32?
No. Just kidding - it sure does play
‘em all, all those we tried worked fine.
The only problem is that some games
require the multi-buttoned CD32 con-
troller for special game functions. You
can get by with just a regular joy-
stick and I tried it and totally enjoyed
playing Fire And Ice from Graftgold
(highly recommended!) However,
there are now joypads like the Gravis
on the market that can be bought quite
cheaply.
Microcosm also worked a treat and
I played that for oooh, ten minutes! Its
graphics are totally stunning and show
what can really be done with 650 meg-
abytes of CD storage space. Animation
spooled off the CD drive as smoothly
as eating a Galaxy chocolate bar, both
being sexy if your girlfriend does it!
Ahem!
tracks, fast forward, pause, do an intro
scan, repeat, random play, program a
play list, see how much of the track
has been played and how much more
to go in minutes and seconds, and the
graphics are cool too!
We were given a Workbench pro-
gram which does the same thing and
lets you play CDs while you multitask
and get on with other things that you
do on your 1200. I’m not absolutely
sure if this Workbench program comes
with the CD1200 but I’ll be surprised
if it doesn’t.
Yes, that’s definitely an Akiko chip I see there!
Conclusion
This is the add-on that 1200 owners
have been waiting what seems ages
for and thankfully we know for sure
that this item really exists! The audio
quality is as good as any regular CD
player, and arguably better than some
of the cheaper ones on the market. The
CD games out at the moment are fan-
tastic and outshine the games on other
platforms like CD-i and MegaCD.
The CD1200 looks good too which I
think is important and you’ll impress
all your friends when you put the drive
through its paces.
Commodore can’t give a definitive
price or even a launch date for the
CD1200 at the time of writing. We can
guess that it’ll be well under £200, per-
haps as low as £149, because the full
blown CD32 is only £250. And if the
price is much higher then, of course,
it would be more economic to buy the
CD32 itself! The CD1200 could, we
are told, even be on sale before the
summer is out... Keep an eye out for
this little baby, it’s a real gem and cer-
tainly one of Commodore’s best ever
add-ons! Which is a bit ironic with the
situation as it is. But by the time that
it’s available we hope that the crisis
will have gone away and all the 1200
owners will be rushing out to buy this
great CD drive. AUI

CD-ROM
Because the 1200 has a keyboard and
possibly a hard drive, you can use the
RATINGS
CD1200 as a CD-ROM which gives
CD A1200
you access to thousands of programs FEATURES 90%
and tonnes of data, like the Fred Fish PERFORMANCE 95%
collection and all those PD compila- VALUE FOR MONEY ???
tions out there. It’ll also read PhotoCD Let’s see what’s inside the CD1200. Oh, it’s a, LOOKS 95%
pictures providing you have the right erm, thing! I think I’ll play Zool now. Where
software. I have an EX module for does this bit go? Overall Rating 94%
Scala and a PD program which reads
and displays PhotoCD pictures, and
they are stunning to say the least!

I Hear Music
Chuck your favourite music CD into
the CD1200 and party all night! Using
the CD player program built into the
CD1200’s ROM you have total con-
trol of the music tracks. Better than The data cable to the CD drive projects from Stuff the cables into the back and you’ll be
any normal CD player, you can skip the back of the A1200. Where else? ready for business in no time!

magazine article • 707

 Bundles
In addition to the initial standard retail release, Com-
modore released three bundle versions of the Amiga
CD32. These special releases were limited to the UK
market and basically differed in the games that ac-
companied the system. The bundles came in an outer
box with different artwork, but the inner cardboard box
were of standard Commodore box design.
Some of the games included with
the bundles were unique to it’s bun-
dle and came with a ‘not for resale
separately’ text on the CD, such as
The Chaos Engine that came with
the Spectacular Voyage bundle.

For more content on Amiga bundles, please visit bambi-amiga.co.uk.

Launch bundle
• CD32
• Controller
• Operating System Software

The Amiga CD32 was launched in Europe dur-

ing 1993 and was shipped to the United States
and Canada a year later. The CD32 launch pack
shipped with the basic unit and one joypad. No
games were included.

Unnamed bundles

The CD32 was also sold bundled with other

games, such as an NTSC bundle that came with
the double disc Sleepwalker/Pinball Fantasies (a
sticker on the box pointing out the bundle).
Another bundle which were regularly sold
came with the double disc Diggers/Oscar (includ-
ed with most other bundles).

708 • Bundles - CD32

article; TheOne Magazine #67 (May 1994) Spectacular Voyage
• CD32
BUNDLE OF FUN
• Controller
T here’s a wise old adage in the games busi-
ness which says “one good bundle deserves
another”. Okay, there isn’t. But what a fine way to
• Operating System Software
• 6 games;
introduce a story about the new CD32 Spectacu- The Chaos Engine
lar Voyage pack, announced just after the Amiga Microcosm
1200 pack which we featured in last month’s Double disc: Dangerous Streets / Wing Commander
news. Okay it’s not. But we were desperate. Double disc: Diggers / Oscar
Spectacular Voyage is a showcase for two of
the best CD32 titles so far. Psygnosis’ Microcosm
is already a legendary CD game and although it
has its critics, its technical quality does mark
it out as something of a landmark. Renegade’s
Chaos Engine has already wowed Amiga users in
its 1200 incarnation. Now it has its chance to do
the same for CD32 twiddlers.
While stocks last, Commodore will include the
four games from the existing bundles in the Spec-
tacular Voyage. That’s six titles and one state-of-
the-art 32-bit CD console for £299.99, Find us a
better bargain than that and we’ll be impressed.
This is the third CD32 pack, following the un-
named Diggers/Oscar bundle which launched the The Spectacular Voyages pack (1993)
machine last September, and the Christmas bun- was an early CD32 bundle. It included six
dle Dangerous Streets (with Dangerous Streets games and was priced at £259. The FMV
and Wing Commander). Spectacular Voyage is in module could be included in the bundle
the shops now.
for an extra £199.

Dangerous Streets
• CD32
• Controller
• Operating System Software
• 6 games;
Double disc: Dangerous Streets / Wing Commander
Double disc: Diggers / Oscar

One of the first CD32 bundles, it takes its name

from the beat-em-up game Dangerous Streets.
The inclusion of Dangerous Streets was met
with derision by the press. Many reviewers had
given Dangerous Streets terrible scores (Amiga Power rating it just 3%) and
were surprised that with a slew of powerful rival consoles about to hit the mar-
ket, Commodore would choose to show off the abilities of its machine with a
poor game. The other three games were basic A500 conversions.

CD32 - Bundles • 709

 Critical Zone
• CD32
• Controller
• Operating System Software
• 7 games;
Double disc: Diggers / Oscar
Liberation: Captive II
Project-X (Revised Edition)
Ultimate Body Blows
Microcosm
Cannon Fodder

Critical Zone was the final CD32 bundle to be released (late 1994). Commo-
dore US had entered liquidation, and Commodore UK (with the aid of Amitek)
was left to market the machine.
The bundle itself retailed for £230, a considerable saving in consider-
ation of the fact that the console and games would have cost a total of £463 if
they had been sold separately (sale prices are based upon the Silica Systems
catalogue).

Special Reserve bundles

In 1996 Special Reserve created two CD32 bundles to sup-
port the Amiga CD games market. By selling an upgraded
CD32 unit fitted with the SX-1 expansion unit, the company
were hoping to attract Amiga users who were encountering
difficulties locating the Amiga 1200.
“bambi-amiga.co.uk”
Super Amiga CD SX-1 Bundle 2/0
£480
• CD32
• SX-1 Expansion Module
• Standard PC keyboard
advert (dec. 1994);
• Amiga mouse
• CD32 joypad
SUPER AMIGA CD SX-1 BUN-
• External 880k disk drive DLE
• Critical Zone bundle Games ALL THE POWER AND FLEXIBILITY
OF AN AMIGA A1200 COMBINED
Super Amiga CD SX-1 Bundle 2/60 WITH THE CAPABILITIES OF A CD32,
£598 RUNS AMIGA OR A1200 DISKS AND
• CD32 AMIGA CD32 CD’s. INPUT IS FROM
• SX-1 Expansion Module
KEYBOARD, JOYPAD OR MOUSE
INCLUDED, OR ANY AMIGA JOYSTICK,
• Standard PC keyboard
PLAYS AUDIO CD’S VIA ON SCREEN
• Amiga mouse
DISPLAY, CAN BE UPGRADED WITH
• CD32 joypad EXTRA MEMORY, INTERNAL HARD
• External 880k disk drive DRIVE AND FULL MOTION VIDEO
• 64MB 2.5-inch HDD CARTRIDGE
• Critical Zone bundle Games

710 • Bundles - CD32

 Region Variants
The standard CD32 has
three video outputs; the RF
coaxial port, S-Video port
and composite video. The
RF port carries audio, but the
two others need audio from
the red/white RCA output.
Amiga CD32 (NTSC)
The CD32 was released in Canada in limited quanti-
ties after it debuted in the UK, but was never sold
publicly in the USA.
The NTSC CD32 feature the same video ports as the
standard PAL version.
The user can choose to boot in either NTSC
or PAL mode in the boot menu (accessed by plug-
ging an Amiga mouse into port 2 and holding both
buttons down while turning the system on).

Amiga CD32 (SECAM)

A SECAM version of the CD32 was released in France. Instead of the regular 4-pin Mini-
DIN S-Video port, it has an 8-pin Mini-DIN port. The four extra pins carry R,G,B, and
CSync (and according to some sources, S-Video and audio signals as well). This probably
came with an appropriate (and proprietary) Peritel (SCART) cable. The RF modulator on
the French model was also removed.
SECAM (“Sequential Color and Memory”) was one of the
three major analog color television standards, the others
being PAL and NTSC. Like PAL, a SECAM picture is also
made up of 625 interlaced lines and is displayed at a rate
of 25 frames per second. However, the way SECAM proc-
esses the color information, it is not compatible with the
PAL video format standard.
“cd32.amiga.live”
S-VIDEO SECAM

Amiga CD32 (PAL-M)

A company called PCI were the official distributor of
Amiga products in Brazil. The CD32 released by PCI
were modified to output PAL-M video (presumed to be
a NTSC motherboard with a PAL video modulator).
PAL-M is the analogue TV system used in Brazil. It is
unique among analogue TV systems in that it combines
the 525-line 30fps System M with the PAL colour encod-
ing system (using very nearly the NTSC colour subcar-
This cropped picture was the only image I found of
rier frequency), unlike all other countries which pair PAL this CD32 release. The box itself (if it’s genuine)
with 625-line systems and NTSC with 525-line systems. is interesting as it has a different design than the
original CD32 box.
“cd32.amiga.live”

CD32 - Console Variants • 711

 CD32 After-market
Variations
The CD32 was officially only on
market a little over seven months,
but the hardware were later used
in other forms.
StarGames Slot-machines
In the late 1990s to early 2000s, slot machine
manufacturer StarGames utilized a stripped
down CD32 motherboard in many of their
slot machines. Machines confirmed to be op-
erating on CD32 hardware includes Hawaiian
Delight, Leprechaun Luck, and Mister Magic.

article; Amiga CD32 Gamer #19 (Dec. 1995)

Drivers license application
Commodore is Back! In the mid to late 1990s, some vehicle reg-

T
istries in Canada utilised CD32 systems for
he company may be dead, but Com-
interactive multimedia testing for drivers li-
modore lives on this month thanks
to the launching of a new range of cense applications.
Multimedia PC’s from Escom.
Before its unfortunate demise, Commo-
dore built up a strong reputation within the
industry due largely to its machines two out- CD32 Tower
standing attributes - high-powered perform-
ance and unbeatable prices. Escom have con-
Eagle was one of the companies allowed to
tinued this trend and the Commodore range sell Amigas under their own brandname. They
of Premium PCs are extremely competitively made several revisions of different Ami-
priced and feature all the latest PC wizardry ga models that they sold, such as the Eagle
and gadgetry. As a result the new range is 4000T—a towerkit designed to rehouse an
certain to sell - pushing Commodore back A4000 motherboard.
to the fore of the computer industry where
it rightly belongs. Freddie Mercury may not The CD32 Tower was developed as a tow-
have wanted to live forever, but the Commo- er solution for the CD32 console. Drives,
dore faithful will be pleased to know that the power supplies and
future of the worlds most famous computer other peripherals
brand name looks likely to live on and on and were housed in a
on!
case, which turned
the CD32 into a mini
tower. The CD32 was
placed on top of the
case and connected
with a ribbon cable.
The CD32 Tower
never went into pro-
ductions.
“www-cd32--allianz-de”

712 • After-market Variations - CD32

magazine article; Australian Commodore and Amiga Review
Volume 11 #8 (August 1994);

CD32 Offers Home Banking in USA

•Canadian
VanCity Saving Credit Union, a major Taurus Ventures is a registered commer-
financial institution, made it’s cial hardware and software developer for
The TVi Modem/InfraRed Receiver was
developed by TVi’s hardware engineering
first public announcement of it’s revolu- Commodore Business Machines, and uses team, and to the best of their knowledge is
tionary new home-based banking system. AMIGA computers in virtually all aspects unique in the AMIGA CD32 community.
Named “TeleView”, this system is aimed at of company operations. The TVi Modem/IR device has been grant-
the average VanCity member, and requires Our close relationship with Commodore ed “Commodore Approved Product” status
no special computer knowledge to operate. has grown even stronger due to Commo- by Commodore International. The Modem
Taurus Ventures Incorporated (“TVi”) is dore Canada’s Western Regional Manage- is an external 2400 baud Hayes compatible
developing the easy-to-use TeleView bank- ment sharing the same address. This en- device, which attaches to the CD32’s aux-
ing system for VanCity. sures that TVi stays abreast of all the latest iliary/keyboard port. It is small, light, and
Taurus Ventures brings to it’s projects a AMIGA technology and developer news. compact and is styled to complement the
combined experience of 30 man-years in Commodore Canada has expressed the ut- CD32’s case design.
the areas of software engineering and de- most confidence in the success of both the The InfraRed Receiver will accept sig-
sign, authoring system design, embedded TeleView software and the TVi Modem. nals from the original CDTV Remote Con-
systems, database management systems The TeleView software was developed troller or can be adjusted to accept signals
development, games coding and porting, using the “C” language and TVi’s pro- from a variety of third party remoter con-
graphics and animation production, and prietary software libraries, “HKLib” and trol units. The TVi Modem/IR unit has a
project management. “MediaLib” which allows their develop- keyboard pass-trough to accept text input
TVi is based in Burnaby, B.C. Canada, ment team to rapidly create any variety of from a standard AMIGA keyboard while
often referred to as “Silicon Valley North” new applications for the CD32 or AMIGA the modem is in use.
due to the large number of computer hard- computer platforms. TVi plans in the fu-
ware and software firms that the area has ture to port their libraries for use on PC,
attracted. TVi intends to be the preeminent Mac, CD-i, or 3DO platforms, giving Tau-
producer of interactive GUI-based applica- rus Ventures a much stronger market ad-
tions. TVi offers a full-service approach to vantage.
development, working closely with the cli-
ent from proof-of-concept demonstration
system and initial design specification to
final production, manufacturing, support
and distribution. TVi Modem / Remote
TeleView uses the Amiga CD32
CDROM console as it’s host, as well as In 1995, Taurus Ventures Inc in Burnaby, BC devel-
custom GUI application software and a
custom external modem developed by TVi.
oped the VanCity Direct TV system based on the
The system is operated by a wireless infra- CD32 for the VanCity Credit Union.
red remote control unit (or the included The software allowed users to do a variety
CD32 game controller) and allows users to
do a variety of common financial transac-
of common financial transactions, including bill pay-
tions, including bill payment, transfer of ment, transfer of funds between accounts, online
funds between accounts, up-to-the minute account statements and balances, interest and in-
online account statements and balances,
and interest and investment rate queries.
vestment rate queries.
The TeleView software resides on a It features a custom modem,
CDROM, and uses the TVi Modem to call
the financial institution.
also designed by TVi, and a
The AMIGA CD32 is an excellent deliv- hand-held remote controller
ery system for applications like TeleView for entering alphanumeric
due to its amazing versatility. The CD32
achieves its versatility due to mainly to its
characters (and operating
custom chipset and the AmigaDOS true the banking software).
multitasking operating system. The CD32
can play Audio CDs, CD32 or CDTV en-
tertainment software, and with an optional
Full-Motion Video cartridge, it can play
MPEG movies. When connected to the TVi
Modem and a standard phone line, the AMI-
GA CD32 becomes a versatile computer
appliance capable of doing telecommunica-
tions, homeshopping, multi-player gaming
or any other use that requires information
to be sent or received from a remote site.

CD32 - After-market Variations • 713

 Kwizoke Plus Karaoke & Entertainment System
The Kwizoke System is essentially a
CDTV equipped with a Roland SC7
soundcard, secured in a beer and lout
proof box. It was aimed for use at bars—
or similar places where people are under
the influence.
The basic system, which retailed
for £1000, was programmed to play MIDI
files from CDs made by Music Machine
themselves, and display the song lyrics
on screen in the Karaoke fashion.
Kwizoke Plus is an updated version of the
Kwizoke System and seems to be a modi-
fied CD32.
The original Kwizoke System was created
by John Blackburn after he was asked to
create a karaoke system. He bought up a
large stock of CDTVs and modified them
to create the system.

Camel Racer Gangster Pursuit

Publisher MMMgroup Publisher MMMgroup
Release date 1998 Release date 1998
Genre Casino Genre Casino
Mode 1-6 Players Mode 1-6 Players

Camel Racer is part of the CD32/Kwiz-
oke Plus Karaoke & Entertainment Sys-
tem.
The title is a lottery game where players
can bet on camels. It is random on what
camel wins the race.
Gangster Pursuit is the second of two
games created for the Kwizoke System.
The game plays exactly like Camel Rac-
er, but with different graphics.
Players race gangsters carrying a bomb
who must walk as far as possible without
tripping over and detonating the bomb.

714 • After-market Variations - CD32

article; Amiga User International - Volume 09 No 06
AUI Field Report (June 1995);

Carry on Mark Blackham sings,

off-key but with gusto,

Karaoke
in praise of an Amiga
pub entertainment
system.

A
miga-based karaoke? It’s
not a talent which gives your
computer prestige, but it does
give you street cred. John Blackburn, of
Bolton-based company Music Machine,
probably doesn’t give a damn about
computer snobs, although his back-
room programmers are prone to argue
about the merits of one platform over
another. His company makes pub enter-
tainment systems based on Amigas. The
machines work well, entertain the punt-
ers, and have attracted the business of
firms like Thomas Cook travel - and that
means serious profits.
When AUI called on the family-run
business at its new premises in a con-
verted mill, John was sealing another
deal to supply one of his £3000 Amiga
karaoke system to Cyprus.
He claims to sell the systems in over
15 countries around the world - mainly
to British pubs, especially those setting
up in resorts catering for British tourists.
CDTV SINGS
Music Machine’s ‘Kwizoke’ system
is essentially a CDTV equipped with
a Roland SC7 soundcard, secured in a
beer and lout proof box.
The basic system, which retails for
£1000, is programmed to play MIDI
files from CDs made by Music Machine
themselves, and place the song lyrics on
screen in the infamous karaoke fashion.
Kwizoke Plus is an advanced version
that includes pub games like “Katchy-
phrazes” - where people have to guess
the well-known phrase portrayed by
some cutesy computer graphics - and
games like Bingo, HiLo cards, horse
racing and pub darts.
Put this humble system in a pub or
club, mix liberally with alcohol - and
you have incredibly successful enter-
tainment!
HISTORIC AMIGA
John Blackburn has an undeniable pedi-
gree in the Amiga world. He got his
start selling the classic Commodore Pet
- “long before IBM compatible and all
that crap”. He even remembers flying to
Hannover in the Commodore “Pet Jet”
for the launch of the Vic20.
John was running a pub when the
eighties karaoke boom hit the UK. He
bought a system and saw profits double
instantly. With his wife and long-time
music making partner, Chris, he decided
to take the karaoke machine on the road.
Someone asked him to make a system
like his. He did, and based it on a CDTV
- which holds the clever guts of an A500
inside its stereo component-like case.
Just when things were going sweetly,
Commodore began to hit rocky ground.
Never one to miss an opportunity,
John says he bought Commodore’s
mothballed stock of CDTVs and com-
ponents - lock, stock and barrel.
Despite the thriving sales of Kwiz-
oke, John is always looking for new
uses for the CDTV and Amiga products.
He showed AUI a prototype coin oper-
ated stand-up version of the “Kwizoke”,
combined with a CD32-based arcade
game player. While the arcade games
are being played, the system can simul-
taneously run a karaoke or pub game
session in the new room.
Living proof that an Amiga and a good
idea can go a long way.
AMIGA HEADCOUNT
The back room of Music Machine’s three
floor building is stuffed to the gills with
Amigas. All the key staff working on
MIDI files, quiz questions, CD construc-
tions and programming, use A4000 040s.
CDTV’s lie about the surprisingly
tidy shelves in various proud states of
use, while CD32’s yawn open, awaiting
the gold CDs which are recorded on site.
Yet another A4000, backed by an
array of multi-gigabyte hard drives is
linked up to a CD recording unit. The
system is there to record the MIDI and
song lyrics files onto a ‘gold’ CD. Thou-
sands of the files can fit on a single CD.
It appears that the tenacity of the Amiga
has rubbed off on the company. John
Blackburn describes Music Machines
as “the street-fighters of the karaoke
business.”
With Blackburn’s tough attitude to
success, and a willingness to get its
hands dirty, the Amiga can still take on
the computer heavyweights. AUI

THOMAS COOK IMPRESSED

The CDTV menu screen for a publican or host
to choose which game the punters are to play.
An executive at Thomas Cook saw the
system working in a pub and reckoned
it would go down a treat at staff training
nights - quizzing staff on travel related
questions. The resulting quiz produced
by Music Machines led to a gigantic
leap in sales by staff, so Blackburn is The quiz system was adapted for use in Tho-
devising another for them this year. mas Cook staff training nights.

magazine article • 715

 Scala WS500
Publisher Scala
Release date 1996
The Scala WS500, also known as Scala
Workstation 500, is basically a stock PAL
CD32 and SX-1 inside a rackmount en-
closure. The rack mounted case also in-
cludes a power supply which is different
from the standard CD32 power supply
and is autosensing between European
and US style power sources.
The unit was designed for use as
a kiosk, presumably to run presentation
software.
A dongle that
was needed to allow
the Scala presentation
software to run was
also included.
Scala Inc. is a digital signage business
founded as Digital Visjon in 1987 by Jon
Bohmer, a Norwegian teenager. Their
first product, which was named Info-
Channel 0.97L, had hotels and cable TV
companies as their first customers.
Scala was one of the most suc-
cessful Amiga based businesses and
was recognised as the brand leader
among companies providing digital sig-
nage software solutions. Their first prod-
716 • After-market Variations - CD32
uct for the Amiga computer were a video
titler and slide show authoring system.
Succeeding versions of the program
added features such as animation play-
back, more effects and the ability to in-
teract with multimedia devices through a
programming language called “Lingua”.
It is claimed that Scala almost
single-handedly rescued the Amiga busi-
ness market in Europe, and Commodore
even agreed to let Scala re-box some
Amiga models, starting with the A1200,
to sell as a Scala branded machine.
There were even rumours that Scala de-
velopers in Scandinavia were working to
create a Workbench 4 operating system
from scratch.
Scala released re-branded
A4000’s and Amiga CD32s as
Scala workstations and built
A1200 tower systems to use as
Scala InfoChannel Players (a mul-
timedia point of information broad-
casting suite).
In 1996, due to the bankruptcy
of Commodore, Scala left the Ami-
ga platform and started delivering
the same applications under MS-
DOS.
some text from;
blog.a-eon.biz, bigbookofamigahardware.com
fWSI
(WallStreet Institute Expansion)
“A learner paced, interactive multimedia,
communicative course.”

From 1994 to 1997, Sylvan Learning Sys-

tems used CD32 systems in their Wall
Street Institute learning centres. Main fea-
tures included software with voice tone
recognition and interactive activities fo-
cused on listening. The CD32 consoles
had a floppy disk drive unit attached, with
a clock unit for saving students’ progress
and sharing them with teachers. Data was
stored in a central database and the sys-
tem offered an advanced multimedia en-
vironment with statistics. It was replaced
with Siemens Scenic PCs running Win-
dows after some years of intensive use
and a very strong stock of spare consoles
and pieces.
Analogic started selling the fWSI disk
drives, but with their Analogic branding
At least 4 courses, split between 12 discs,
(most were sold with the ‘CD32fWSI’ stick-
were used for this type of education;
er still glued inside the unit). It’s not clear if
‘Threshold’, ‘Survival’, ‘Waystage’ and
these were made specifically for Analogic,
‘Upper Waystage’. Accompanied with the
or if they are returns from the Wall Street
discs were course books.
Institute that have been rebranded.

some text and images from;

cd32-allianz.de

CD32 - After-market Variations • 717

 Cubo CD32
In 1995—the year following Commo-
dores’ official demise—CD Express, a
Milanese company, struck a licensing
deal prior to Commodore’s liquidation.
CD Express used the CD32 as a basis for
an arcade machine called CUBO CD32.
Inside these machines, stock CD32s were
hooked up to an external circuit board
which essentially acted as a converter to
route all the input and output into a stand-
ard JAMMA connector for use in an arcade
cabinet.
Two versions of the console were cre-
ated. The first versions included only the
console and the external circuit board con-
nected to a plastic base. The console lay
in a shelf enclosed in a standard 2-player
arcade cabinet.
Laser Gate 2
FRONT
SIDE
718 • After-market Variations - CD32
A second iteration of the Cubo was re-
leased as ‘Laser Gate 2’. The CD32 con-
sole was connected to an interface con-
tained in a metallic shell. The front of the
case included a volume knob, ‘reset’ but-
ton, head-phone socket and status LED.
The Cubo circuit board was fitted inside
the console, compared to the first version
which had the board outside. The case of
the CD32 console was modified some for
making rooms for the new cables and cir-
cuit boards.
The side of the case includes sev-
eral connectors; ‘Hopper’ (controls ticket
prizes, among other things), ‘Alimen-
tazione’ (power supply), ‘Generali A, B’
(general connectors), ‘Joystick’ (standard
connectors) and ‘Touch Screen’ (for con-
necting the main game screen).
The system also feature sensors
that will check if the arcade door is closed.
The hardware of the second iteration was
professionally assembled, with reportedly
hi-quality components.
The software was provided on CD-
ROM.
Cubo games will work on a
regular CD32 system, using the trig-
ger joypad buttons for “insert coin” and
“start”
Only a small number of games were devel-
oped for the Cubo CD32, all of which are
original games created by CD Express and
mostly with italian localization. These games
were reportedly priced between 1,000 and
2,5000 French francs ($144 - $360);

Laser Quiz Harem Challenge

Laser Quiz is a trivia/ A clone of Taito’s 1981
‘pub quiz’ game. Sev- Puzzle Bobbly (Bust-
eral different versions A-Move) puzzle game
of this game were Qix. The objective
released, including is to draw lines that
Laser Quiz Greece, close off parts of the
and Laser Quiz Italy. rectangle to fill in a set
Laser Quiz 2 was an amount of the play-
Italian release. field.
Lucky Strixx feature
the same gameplay.

Odeon Twister
Odeon Twister 1 and 2
are mini-game compi-
lations.

Laser Quiz 2 El Dorado

Candy Puzzle
A clone of Taito’s
Puzzle Bobbly (Bust-
A-Move). The game is
a tile-matching bub-
ble shooter with 500
levels. Odeon Twister 2 Magic Number

Laser Strixx Laser Strixx 2 Lucky Five Magic Premium

CD32 - After-market Variations • 719

 Socrates
The Socrates (Socrates Interactive Pa-
tient Education System) console was es-
sentially a rebranded Amiga CD32 sold
by Dental Medical Technologies in the
US to dental offices. The Amiga logo was
replaced with a badge that reads “Inter-
active Patient Education”.
The CD32 variant is NTSC and was pro-
duced in January 1994. It has the flap re-
inforced with a hinge and under it a warn-
ing text reads (DO NOT STARE INTO BEAM
DO NOT TOUCH THE LENS).
Dental Medical Technologies continued
making Socrates systems, although they
were no longer based on the CD32.
Socrates:
Interactive Patient Education, Program 1
Publisher Network One
Release date 1994
Genre Multi-media
The Interactive Patient Education, Pro-
gram 1 is a multimedia CD-ROM re-
leased for the Socrates console. It was
used as an interactive kiosk in dentists’
waiting rooms.
720 • After-market Variations - CD32
CD32x
The Odiham, Hampshire-based compa-
ny Index Information, led by Mick Tinker,
wished to use the Amiga’s multimedia ca-
pabilities for point of sale devices. They
required a cheap Amiga-based system
for their displays at the London Museum
of Transport. These devices would be
available for the public to use at specific
locations. In an attempt to work around
the licensing problem, Index Information
developed the CD32x (“CD32Expan-
sion”)—an expansion sold to the profes-
sional multimedia market that provided
the CD32 console with the interfaces
found in ‘real’ Amigas.
The CD32x is a modular unit that contains
a remote control fault detection (using a
watchdog timer that monitors hardware
and software failures) and volume con-
trol. This allows any system or software
failure to be detected over a network. The
CD32x expansion board features the fol-
lowing interfaces:
• 2 x Serial ports
(one 25-pin and one 9-pin)
• Parallel port
• Stereo I/O jacks
• twin RJ45 network junctions
• Video compatible RGB port
• Composite output
• Amiga floppy disk port
• SCART connector
(mounted at the front of the unit)
• Memory expansion bus for use of
standard SIMMs (4MB maximum)
The system can also have a number of
optional extras, such as an internal gen-
lock to mix TV and computer signals and
an MPEG card.
“bambi-amiga.co.uk”
magazine article; Amiga Shopper #37 (May 1994);
Amiga Multimedia in Action
Graeme Sandiford reports on the revolutionary
use of Amigas in multimedia presentations at the
London Transport Museum.
The London Transport Museum has just
reopened its doors, after a nine-month
£4 million redevelopment. This re-devel-
opment is intended to be the next step
in the evolution of museums, and what’s
more, the Amiga has played a starring
role in this step forward.
Museums have long been associated with
dark and musty corridors, a place for only
the most scholarly of individuals to visit.
The London Transport Museum and the
people involved, Mick Tinker, Technical
Director of Index Information, and Rob
Lansdown, Head of Communications and
Display, hope to change this, making a
visit to the museum a fun and informative
experience for everyone. The vast amount
of information contained in the museum
should be made accessible, and learning
about the past should truly be an ‘experi-
ence’, both visual and audible. The result
is a brand new concept come true with a
bit of help from computers — the Hyper-
Museum.
WHY THE AMIGA?
But why choose the Amiga as a platform
for launching this new concept for a bright-
er future for many museums to come? One
major reason is the price. The Amiga, and
in particular CD32, can offer a great deal
of multimedia power for a lot less than a
similar equipped single PC or Mac. The
price of a similarly specified single PC unit
is about £2200, compared with the custom-
ised CD32 unit’s price of £600. That’s a
substantial amount of money being saved,
especially as the current network compris-
es 61 units, with even more to be added lat-
er. The network itself is pretty impressive.
At the moment there are two types of ex-
pansion units of the CD32x and CD32xg.
The CD32x unit provides the standard
Amiga ports (RS232 Serial, Parallel,
RGB, floppy disk and stereo audio out).
In addition it also adds the following
ports - RS232 AuxSerial, Stereo audio in,
2 networks ports, 4Mb SIMM memory
expansion socket, control for triple stereo
mixers, Watchdog timer, SCART connec-
tor and a connection for MPEG (FMV). In
addition to these features CD32xg also has
a high-quality internal RGB genlock
and a BNC connector for composite
video input.
The exhibits have their own AVIDS
(Audio Visual Interactive Displays).
These includes a touch-screen moni-
tor, which is connected via hidden
cabling to its own console in another room. This is an example of a typical screen you’ll
find at most of the Hyper-Museum’s exhibits.
A console, linked in this manner, provide
information about the exhibit it’s placed
in front of. This information can be in the THE EXPERIENCE
form of text, audio or digitised images and There are a number of advantages visit-
diagrams. If the screen is left unmolested it ing a Hyper-Museum over your common
will follow a set programme. However, if or garden museum. One of the best ones
you touch the screen you are given control is that your explorations are non-linear —
of the display. You can jump between dif- you can skip the parts you find boring and
ferent areas by pressing the buttons next, gain immediate access to further informa-
previous and so on, which are hyper- tion of topics. The tube system map, for
linked to the next or previous page. You example, contains the different layouts of
can also switch languages at any time by the London Underground since its con-
pressing the flag icon. The languages cur- struction. You can travel along the routes
rently are French, German and Spanish, and through time. At any point you can
with Italian and Japanese to follow. call up information or photographs that
relate to the construction of the lines or
The CD32 consoles are also used to play
the different stations. While you are in this
different sound effects. They work particu-
area you can move forward or backwards
larly well when simulating the sounds of a
though the station’s history, and when you
moving train. It has been taken beyond the
return the map is automatically updated so
simple playback of sounds, there are ran-
that all the new lines appear.
dom elements that can be programmed and
occasional breaks. The samples are crystal The combination of graphics, sounds, vid-
clear. At one point I was quite embarrassed eo footage and simulations really brings
when I was told that the chirping birds I the past to life. The museum has a wonder-
was looking for were actually produced by ful hands-on feel to it, and is definitively
a console. Some of the sounds actually use worth a visit even if you are not interested
two consoles to produce quadraphonic ef- in public transportation. It’s the future of
fects. Two of the most popular exhibits are museums — a more interactive future!
the simulators — these give visitors the op-
portunity to find out what it’s
like to drive a variety of un-
derground trains. Behind these
simulators are 4000/040s, each
equipped with 18Mb of mem-
ory and 1Gigabyte hard drive.
The animated scenes were cre-
ated from actual underground
maps, so the routes you travel
are real. They were created as
3D objects and rendered in
Real 3D 2. The images took
over 2 months to render, but
the results are very realistic.
An animation frame from one of the museum’s
Underground Train Simulators.
magazine article • 721
 magazine article; Amiga Pro #1 (June 1994);

CD32x
Larry Hickmott comes out of
the closet with a finger raised
in defiance at the supposed
superiority of the PC, to tell
you about an expansion unit
for the CD32 that is just per-
fect for all AV professionals

W
ith the size of the
blinkers that some
AV professionals
are wearing, is it any
surprise they keep on
insisting on plumping for the more expen-
sive and less suitable PC platform for their
multimedia presentation? Maybe someone
should tell them about CD32x from Index
Information. For those wondering what the
x stands for, let me enlighten you with a
tale about an expansion unit that is already
proving to be a great success. Yes, the ‘x’
stands for expansion, and the CD32x is the
first expansion unit for CD32 to see the
light of day.
THE STORY BEGINS
The story of CD32x began when Commo-
dore ditched CDTV. At the time develop-
ment was well underway at the London
Museum Transport on an Amiga-based
platform to control its audio visual dis-
plays. The reasons for choosing the Ami-
ga are many but a significant one is cost.
The Amiga is made for multimedia and
AV, while the PC is not. For the latter to
become compatible it requires a lot of ex-
tra hardware that costs money, lots of it.
When CD32 happened along, because all
the ports from CDTV had disappeared,
an expansion unit was needed so the Mu-
seum could attach the displays to CD32. So
CD32x was born.
The reason for choosing CD32 for the
expansion unit is simple. I’ll let Mick
Tinker, the person responsible for the de-
sign of the CD32x, explain, “Many of the
qualities that make CD32 such a successful
home entertainment system, also make it
the ideal commercial multi-media player”.
There is ow more than 60 CD32xs in-
stalled in the London Transport Museum.
Because there is nothing else available
like CD32x for professional AV, the deci-
sion was made to release CD32x into the
market place. However, before we get too
far down the track, let me dispel a few
thoughts you might be having. CD32x is
an expansion unit built by a professional
AV company, for AV professionals and en-
thusiasts. It is not an expansion unit that
is going to turn your CD32 into a 1200
beater.
CD32x integrates compact disc sound
and vision, in a 19 inch rack mounted unit
that is filled with expansion possibilities.
Within a few minutes of playing with this
expansion unit, I could see that CD32x
is not a compromise like the PC when it
comes to AV. It is a system that has been
built from the ground up with AV in mind.
The casing for the unit is steel, a strong
base for the rigorous pounding that units
tend to suffer in the world of AV. It is prob-
ably the only off-the-shelf, custom designed
delivery platform, that embraces much of
the technology required for multimedia.
MULTIMEDIA - WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT
AS THE term suggests, multimedia is
a mixture of different forms of media,
combined together in a single presenta-
tion. The types of media include - ani-
mation, sound, graphics, live video and
much more. With the advent of CD, a
delivery format that can hold hundreds
of megabytes of data, multimedia has
become much more veritable. CD has
also helped make interactive multimedia
presentations cheaper with a CD costing
less than a 600Mb hard disk!
Some examples of the type of appli-
cation that are suited to multimedia, and
this is just the tip of the iceberg, are site
CD32x is a modular unit that houses a
micro-processor providing remote moni-
toring, fault detection and volume control.
These were essential qualities that Mick
Tinker felt were needed in an AV system.
During an informal meeting of AV profes-
sionals recently, Mick spoke of how essen-
tial it is for units in a network to be able
to be monitored and controlled so that they
can be managed and maintained efficiently
and promptly. Utilising CD32x’s network-
ing ability, if a failure is detected by the
network, the failure will be reported within
seconds to the central monitoring machine.
An example of where this would be useful
is during an emergency within a building,
where all the machines or just individual
machines, can be silenced. Software up-
dates and usage logging can also be carried
out with ease.
To integrate CD32x with other units in a
network and other types of AV equipment,
CD32x boasts two serial ports, one 25-pin
and a one 9-pin, a parallel port for both in-
directories. story boards, product an-
nouncements, learning aids, point of sale
and much more. The main wow factor
with multimedia is the interactive con-
tact between man and machine.
No longer is the audience a passive
participant and although many in the
business sector quite bluntly refuse to
acknowledge the fact, there is no doubt
among professionals who know their
MPEG from their RGB, that the Amiga
is leading the way with software like Me-
dia-Point and Scala taking advantage of
cost effective hardware like CD32x that
is perfect for AV.

722 • magazine article

- A New Generation
“The professionals whose job it is to jug-
gle million pound budgets around are well
happy with CD32x. It does the job they
want and it doesn’t break their budgets.”

One of the main uses for a system like CD32x

is multimedia. This includes being attached to
touch-screens like this one from the London
Transport Museum

put and output to and from displays, stereo
input and output and twin RJ45 network-
ing junctions. These expansion ports en-
able you to network two or more CD32x
units, interface with Laser Disc, touch
screens, printers and more. Other ports in-
clude a video compatible RGB port, com-
posite output (CD32) and a front mounted
SCART connector, so whether the unit is
on site or part of a battery of units in a con-
trol room, the output from it can be easily
accessed.
CD32x also comes with a standard Ami-
ga floppy disk drive port. This enables you
to patch software on CD or custom boot the
“...CD32x is not a compromise like the pc when
it comes to AV. It is a system that has been built
from the ground up with AV in mind.”
unit for a specific task using software from
floppy disk. In case you are wondering, yes
you can connect a keyboard to the CD32 so
it could be used as a computer, but there is
no hard drive interface.
FULL MOTION
As well as the standard features, CD32x
also has a number of optional extras avail-
able. One is an internal genlock which
enables you to mix a vide source from
the unit with either a live video signal or
This is a serious piece of hardware simply bris-
tling with features for the professional user
perhaps digital video from a Laser Disc.
Another optional extra is the much vaunted
MPEG full-motion video card. This slots
into the other main component of CD32x,
CD32 from Commodore. The by-product
of MPEG, full motion video, opens up
many opportunities because it conforms to
a universal white book standard that many
publishing companies are conforming to.
With the MPEG card, you can even play
CD-i movies!
CD32 mounts on top of the expansion
unit into two buses, one for CD32 itself
and another for the optional MPEG card.
The mounting point is flexible, so that the
unit can be slotted in at an angle and then
seated in the slot provided for it on top of
the unit. A change of players can be ac-
complished in seconds. Sometimes it’s the
small additions to a product that make a
difference, CD32x has a few of these too.
One is auto-switching power supply. This
means that anyone taking it to the United
States or any other country that doesn’t
use 240 volts, can be sure of still having
a compatible power supply. The voltage
range of the internally mounted ‘brick’ is
between 90 to 264 volts with a frequency
range of 47Hz to 440Hz.
Other items of interest inside CD32x in-
clude a memory expansion bus, so that up
to 4Mb of memory using industry standard
SIMMS and watchdog time which moni-
tors unit activity for software or hardware
failures. Should a failure occur, it is re-
ported immediately to a control unit which
enables you to reset a unit or in the case of
mechanical failure, ensure a replacement
is taken care of quickly.
Overall, CD32x is one hell of a unit.
The testing I put it through is nothing com-
pared to the torture testing it is currently
undergoing at the Transport Museum. Al-
though meant for professional use, it could
easily be used in a network at home by the
multimedia enthusiast. I found it useful for
dragging PhotoCD files off CD and on to
my hard drive. The other uses are infinite.
What more can I say? The profes-
sionals whose job it is to juggle million
pound budgets around are well happy with
CD32x. It does the job they want and it
doesn’t break their budgets. More than
that, it’s a compact unit that takes up less
rack space than if a computer unit was
used. It just makes me wonder why some-
one hasn’t come up with it earlier. Yet
someone did didn’t they? Their name was
Commodore, the product CDTV, the result
- it was killed off. What was that about PC
users wearing blinkers?

CD32x
MANUFACTURER COMMENTS
Index Information The only CD32 console on the mar-
ket. It’s tough and packed with fea-
tures for industry use - not really for
DISTRIBUTOR the home user, though.
Index Information With Genlock - £725 + VAT
With MPEG - £615 + VAT
PRICE Both - £890 + VAT
£450 + VAT CD32 for it is £250

magazine article • 723

 CD32 Games List
This is a list of the different games released on CD-ROM for the console.
The list includes a checklist for collectors (C (cart) I (info/manual) B (Box)).
R = Rarity. The score is taken from the Project CD32 website (https://cd32.amiga.live/index.php)

Title R C I B pg
Akira 4 362
Alfred Chicken 2 364
Alien Breed - Tower Assault 6 371
Alien Breed 3D 5 372
All Terrain Racing 6 369
Arabian Nights 3 365
Arcade Pool 4 365
Banshee 3 373
Basejumpers 9 372
Battle Chess 6 373
Battletoads 8 376
Beavers 9 374
Beneath a Steel Sky 6 382
Benefactor 8 387
Brian the Lion 8 375
Will Bridge: Initiation Junior - 560
Brutal Football 5 386
Bubba'n'Stix 5 390
Bubble and Squeak 8 391

Bump'n'Burn 2 374
Cannon Fodder 4 395
Castles 2 2 398
Cedric and the Lost Ceptre 8 392
Chambers of Shaolin 8 393
The Chaos Engine 1 400
Chuck Rock 4 404
Chuck Rock 2 5 405
Clockwiser 9 392
The Clue! 7 405
D-Generation 2 406
Dangerous Streets 6 408
Darkseed 6 412
Death Mask 5 409
Deep Core 4 409
Defender Of The Crown II 9 152
724 • Games list - CD32
Title R C I B pg
Dennis 7 410
Der Clou 7 405
Diggers 5 415
Disposable Hero 7 411
Donk 9 416
Dragonstone 6 417
Emerald Mines 6 416
Exile 5 418
Fears 8 442
Fields of Glory 7 421
Fire & Ice 4 431
Fire Force 3 430
Flink 8 432
Fly Harder 9 433
Frontier - Elite 2 3 422
Fury of the Furries 6 434
Global Effect 4 430
Gloom 4 443
Guardian 3 445

Gulp! 7 445
Gunship 2000 7 446
Heimdall 2 6 448
Hero Quest II - Legacy of Sorasil 8 449
Humans III - Evolution Lost In Time 9 450
The Humans 8 584
Impossible Mission 2025 4 452
International Karate+ 8 451
International Open Golf Championship 9 450
Sensible Soccer: International Edition 3 511
James Pond 2 3 454
James Pond 3 5 455
Jetstrike 5 453
John Barnes European Football 4 453
Jungle Strike 5 456
Kid Chaos 7 429
Kingpin 8 428
The Labyrinth of Time 5 460
Lamborghini - American Challenge 5 461
Last Ninja 3 7 462
Legends 8 465
Lemmings 5 465
Liberation - Captive II 3 470
Litil Divil 6 466

CD32 - Games list • 725

 Title R C I B pg
The Lost Vikings 7 468
Mag !!! 4 473
Manchester United 7 471
Marvin's Marvellous Adventure 3 472
Mean Arenas 3 473
Microcosm 2 474
Morph 4 476
Myth 8 472
Naughty Ones 6 477
Nick Faldos Golf Championship 2 477
Nigel Mansell's World Championship 2 478
Oscar 3 479
PGA European Tour 4 481
Pierre le Chef is... Out to Lunch 6 480
Pinball Fantasies 4 482
Pinball Illusions 5 483
Pirates! Gold 6 485
Power Drive 9 484
Premiere 7 486

Prey - An Alien Encounter 7 484

Quik 4 486
Rise of the Robots 3 490
Roadkill 5 496
Sabre Team 5 497
Seek & Destroy 5 498
Sensible Soccer 2 510
The Seven Gates of Jambala 7 499
Shadow Fighter 6 502
Simon the Sorcerer 5 506
Skeleton Krew 5 519
Sleepwalker 6 516
Sleepwalker & Pinball Fantasies 5 591
Soccer Kid 6 514
Soccer Superstars 7 518
Speedball 2 7 512
The Speris Legacy 6 517
Sports Football 2 369
Star Crusader 8 520
Striker 4 518
Strip Pot 6 534
Subwar 2050 3 521
Summer Olympix 7 519
Super League Manager 9 523

726 • Games list - CD32

Title R C I B pg
Super League Manager 9 523
Super Methane Bros 7 523
Super Putty 7 524
Super Skidmarks 7 522
Super Stardust 8 525
Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo 9 526
Superfrog 5 528
Superfrog (Islona) - 528
Surf Ninjas 9 530
Syndicate 5 532
Theme Park 6 538
Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends Pinball 9 534
Top Gear 2 7 536
Total Carnage 2 542
Trivial Pursuit - The CD32 Edition 6 550
Trolls 6 537
UFO - Enemy Unknown 5 545
Ultimate Body Blows 4 541
Universe 7 554

Vital Light 4 550

Wembley International Soccer 4 555
Whale's Voyage 3 556
Wild Cup Soccer 6 551
Word Construction Set 9 560
Worms 4 558
Zool 3 562
Zool 2 1 564
Gloom 3: Zombie Edition 6 444
Ryder Cup: Johnnie Walker 5 496

CD32 - Games list • 727

 CD32 CD-ROM List
This is a list of CD32 non-games, compilation discs, etc.

Title Category R C I B pg
Black Viper AmigaCD-ROM Games 7 375
Erben der Erde AmigaCD-ROM Games 8 420
Fightin' Spirit AmigaCD-ROM Games 6 428
Kang Fu AmigaCD-ROM Games 9 459
Pinball Prelude AmigaCD-ROM Games 8 481
Ultimate Super Skidmarks AmigaCD-ROM Games 7 551
Wendetta 2175 AmigaCD-ROM Games 5 555
Whizz AmigaCD-ROM Games 8 560
Magic Island: The Secret of Stones AmigaCD-ROM Games - 471
Sixth Sense Investigations AmigaCD-ROM Games 9 499
Acid Attack Compilation Compilation - 574
Alien Breed SE & Qwak Compilation 5 575
Assassins Compilation 3 232
Assassins 2 Compilation 3 232
Assassins 3 Compilation 3 232
Assassins 4 Compilation 3 233
CD Exchange Vol 1 Compilation 5 574
The Classic Lotus Trilogy Compilation 5 578
Dangerous Streets & Wing Commander Compilation 3 579

Diamonds & Pearls Compilation - 580

Diggers & Oscar Compilation 1 580
Express PD Galore Compilation - 580
Game Massive Compilation 5 598
Gamers' Delight Compilation 5 582
Games & Goodies 3 Compilation - 588
Grandslam Gamer Gold Collection Compilation 7 591
Lock -N- Load Compilation 4 591
Now That's What I Call Games Compilation 4 588
Now That's What I Call Games 2 Compilation 7 588
Overkill & Lunar-C Compilation 5 581
Power Games Compilation 5 592
Project X & F17 Challenge Compilation 4 589
Project-X & Ultimate Body Blows Compilation 9 591
Amiga Game-Power Compilation - 580
Mutation Gold Compilation: Limited Collectors Edition Compilation - 586
The Big 6 Compilation 8 576
Top 100 Games Compilation 7 590
Demonstration Disc 1.1 CD32 Demos 5 598

728 • Games list - CD32

Title Category R C I B pg
Demonstration Disc 2.0 CD32 Demos 7 598
Microcosm Demo CD32 Demos 5 598
Camel Racer CD32 misc. 7 714
Gangster Pursuit CD32 misc. - 714
The Grolier Electronic Encyclopedia CD32 Reference 9 573
1001 Girl CD32 Tools 9 244
Amiga Workbench 3.0 CD32 Tools 3 570
CDBoot 1.0 CD32 Tools - 569
Communicator CD32 Tools 10 689
Communicator II CD32 Tools - 689
Communicator III CD32 Tools - 689
Dansbands Karaoke 1 CD32 Tools 5 571
Enciclopedia Electronica Multimediale Grolier CD32 Tools - 572
Guinness Disc Of Records - Second Edition CD32 Tools - 572
Insight Dinosaurs CD32 Tools - 211
Insight Technology CD32 Tools 3 211
Mathematik CD32 Tools 3 568

Multimedia Toolkit CD32 Tools 3 227

Network CD CD32 Tools 7 235
Network CD 2 CD32 Tools 4 592
PhotoLite CD32 Tools 4 568
Sexual Fantasies CD32 Tools 4 244
Sheer Delight CD32 Tools 7 570
Socrates CD32 Tools 8 720
The Grolier Electronic Encyclopedia CD32 Tools 7 573
VanCity Direct TV CD32 Tools - 713
Video Creator CD32 Tools - 569
World Atlas CD32 Tools 7 573
World of Sound CD32 Tools 6 590
Your Privacy Assured CD32 Tools - 244
Folioworx Player CD32 Tools 8 568

CD32 - Games list • 729

 UAE (Ultimate Amiga Emulator)

UAE was the first Amiga emulator to appear and re-

mains the most popular. Bernd Schmidt conceived of
an emulator that could run Amiga software when he
found that such a task was widely believed to be im-
possible. Schmidt had written previous programs for
Amiga, and was further motivated by the desire to not
lose games, demos, and sound modules to switching
operating systems. UAE was released in 1995 and
was originally called the Unusable Amiga Emulator,
due to its inability to boot. In its early stages, it was
known as Unix Amiga Emulator and later with other
names as well. Since none of the popular expansions
E-UAE 0.8.27
configuration and control fit any more, the abbreviation no longer stands for
anything, and the software is simply known as UAE
— this occasionally gets backronymed as Universal
Emulator Amiga Emulator, Ultimate Amiga Emulator or Ubiqui-
Developer Multiple individuals tous Amiga Emulator.
Platform DOS
Windows Thanks to the original authors’ desire to promote
Macintosh Amiga emulation, the source code was released un-
Amiga, etc.
First version 1995 der the General Public License. This allows anyone
to develop the code and port it to different platforms.
This has resulted in versions being ported to Win-
dows, MacOS, MacOS X, Amiga DE, and even the
AmigaOS itself.

UAE was almost entirely unusable in its
first releases, but slowly and step by step, it
fleshed out its support of the Amiga chipset
and by the end of 1997 was able to emulate
an Amiga 500 at a quality and speed that
were sufficient for productivity use and for
many games.
A major improvement was made in
2000 by Bernd Meyer with the use of a JiT
(Just-in-time) compiler, which significantly
improved the emulation speed, to the extent
that average PCs could now emulate some
Amiga software faster than any real Amiga
could run it. UAE can use as much of the
host’s power in native mode as possible,
or balance it with other requirements of the
host OS, or to accurately reflect the origi-
nal speed, depending on a user’s choice.
UAE also provides an RTG-compatible “vid-
eo card” for the Amiga side of the emula-
tion which is tailored for display on the host
hardware, so as not to be limited to the emu-
lation of the original Amiga video hardware.
The most active fork is the Windows port
WinUAE; current versions of this still con-
tain bugs and compatibility issues.
A copy of UAE can be downloaded from
hundreds of emulation sites (such as Ret-
roGames). However, the downloading of an
Amiga ROM image is illegal. If one do not
have access to a real Amiga, but want to
remain on the right side of the law, a legal
ROM image can be found on Cloanto’s Ami-
ga Forever CD.
winuae link

text from; wikiwand.com, bambi-amiga.co.uk

730 • Emulation
 Amiga Forever

For many years it was considered impossible to emu-

late the Amiga—the hardware was considered too ex-
otic and alternative platforms (Windows PCs, Apple
Macs) were too slow to recreate the experience. The
release of UAE in 1996 was a milestone in Amiga his-
tory. However, it was greeted with hostility by Amiga
users and businesses. It was feared that the emula-
tor would encourage mass piracy and kill the Amiga
market. Amiga Technologies, the ESCOM funded
subsidiary, reacted with some wariness to its launch.
However, one company saw an opportunity to sell the
Amiga to former owners who had migrated to other
platforms, and even people who had never previously
used an Amiga. In 1997, Cloanto Italia, better known
for their Personal Paint art package, licensed the
Amiga software code, patents and trademarks and
Emulator
launched an official Amiga emulation environment.
Developer Cloanto Although there was a fear that an emulator could
Platform DOS hasten the decline of the Amiga market, Cloanto and
Windows Amiga International (the Gateway subsidiary) could
Macintosh profit from the market that it had created and provide
Amiga
First version 1997
a legal way for users to run an Amiga emulator, with-
out resorting to warez sites.

The first version of Amiga Forever was released in 1997. The

compact disc case contained a CD-ROM, an Amiga floppy disk Amiga Forever 2006
and an Amiga boing ball sticker for the user’s machine. The CD-
ROM contained an early version of UAE (Ultimate Amiga Emu-
lator) for DOS and Mac platforms, Fellow for DOS and a selec-
tion of Amiga Kickstart ROM files and Workbench disks. These
covered the most common versions of the operating system,
Kickstart 1.1 to 3.0. The current version of the operating sys-
tem (at the time), Kickstart/Workbench 3.1, as well as the CDTV
and CD32 ROM images were also notable by their absence. The
Amiga floppy disk contained the Amiga Explorer software that
would allow the user to transfer their own software to the PC
through a serial cable connected to a PC or Mac.
The Amiga Forever emulation CD was updated at regular
intervals over the years that incorporated new and updated con-
tent. The company currently sell three variations of the Amiga
Forever package:
• Premium edition: physical package containing the Plus Edition CD and two DVDs.
• Online edition: a downloadable installer for Windows systems.
• Plus edition: a downloadable ISO image containing Windows and platform-neutral con-
tent, for CD writers.
text from; bambi-amiga.co.uk

Emulation • 731
 C64DTV
Publisher QVC
Release date 2004

The C64 Direct-to-TV, called C64DTV for

short, is a single-chip implementation of the
Commodore 64 computer, contained in a
joystick (modelled after the mid-1980s Com-
petition Pro joystick), with 30 built-in games.
The design is similar to the Atari Classics 10-
in-1 TV Game. The circuitry of the C64DTV
was designed by Jeri Ellsworth, a computer
chip designer who had previously designed
the C-One—a single-board computer cre-
ated in 2002 as an enhanced version of the The official games for the unit are mostly a mix
C64. of Epyx and Hewson C64 games.
Tulip Computers (which had acquired the Built-in games;
Commodore brand name in 1997) licensed • Championship Wrestling
• Cyberdyne Warrior
the rights to Ironstone Partners, which coop- • Cybernoid
erated with DC Studios and Mammoth Toys • Cybernoid II: The Revenge
in the development and marketing of the • Eliminator
• Exolon
unit. Released in late 2004, QVC purchased • Firelord
the entire first production run of 250,000 • Gateway to Apshai
units and sold 70,000 of them on the first • Impossible Mission
• Impossible Mission II
day that they were offered. • Jumpman Junior
• Maze Mania
There exist multiple versions of the C64DTV. • Nebulus
DTV1 (NTSC) comes with 2MB ROM. DTV2 • Paradroid
• Pitstop
is a revised version for the European and • Pitstop II
world markets (PAL) and appeared in late • Ranarama
2005. The ROM has been replaced by flash • Speedball
• Summer Games
memory in these devices. However, the • Super Cycle
DTV2/PAL version suffers from a manufac- • Sword of Fargoal
turing fault, which results in poor colour ren- • Uridium
• Winter Games
dering. In the DTV3, a problem with the blit- • Zynaps
ter was fixed. PAL exclusive;
• Alleykat
Since the internal circuit board has exposed • California Games
solder points for floppy-drive and key- • Head the Ball
board ports, hardware modifications of the • Marauder
• Mission Impossibubble
C64DTV are relatively simple. • Netherworld
The DTV also contains software-
NTSC exclusive;
flashable memory and a number of tools • Bull Riding stage (World Games)
have been released to compile programs • Flying Disk stage (California Games)
into DTV-compatible flash images and load • International Karate
• Silicon Warrior
it onto the DTV. • Sumo stage (World Games)
• Surfing stage (California Games)

732 • After Market Consoles

THEC64 Mini
Developer Retro Games
Publisher Koch Media
Release date 2018

THEC64 Mini is an unofficial Linux-based

console that emulates the Commodore
64, released in 2018 by UK-based Retro
Games. Retro Games was founded in 2015
by Darren Melbourne—co-developer of the
C64DTV, Paul Andrews and Chris Smith.

THEC64 Mini takes the form of a half-scale
C64 computer. The console’s decorative
keyboard is non-functional.
The console is plug-and-play and in-
cludes HDMI output at 720p 50 or 60Hz, two
USB ports that support the connection of
joysticks, gamepads, mice, USB sticks and
keyboards. And a save feature that includes
four save game slots for users to save their
progress.
THEC64Mini can, with a USB keyboard, be
used as a normal C64 for programming BA-
SIC and assembler-programs. After that it
can be saved or loaded to an internal D64
image.
Included with the console is a USB Compe-
tition Pro-style joystick, HDMI cable, a USB
power lead (power adapter is not included)
and a ‘Quick start’ manual.

Players can choose between 64 included Neither THEC64 Mini nor the following
C64 games (from Epyx, Gremlin Graphics, Commodore consoles by Retro Games fea-
Hewson, Thalamus and The Bitmap Broth- tures any of Commodore’s trademarks—the
ers), selected from a carousel. Commodore key on the original keyboard
It is also possible to load new software is replaced with a THEC64 key, and Retro
ROMs into the console, which uses emula- Games can call neither product a “C64”—al-
tor x64 (as part of VICE) to run software, and though the system ROMs are licensed from
has a built-in graphical operating system. Cloanto Corporation.
Games included;
• Alleykat • Jumpman • Trailblazer
• Anarchy • Mega Apocalypse • Uridium
• Avenger • Mission AD • Who Dares Wins II
• Battle Valley • Monty Mole • Winter Games
• Boulder Dash • Monty on the Run • World Games
• Bounder • Nebulus • Zynaps
• California Games • Netherworld
• Chip’s Challenge • Nodes of Yesod
THEC64 Mini exclusive;
• Confuzion • Paradroid • Armalyte: Competition Edition
• Cosmic Causeway • Pitstop II • Creatures
• Cyberdyne Warrior • Ranarama • Cybernoid: The Fighting Machine
• Cybernoid II: The Revenge • Robin of the Wood • Farming Simulator: C64 Edition
• Deflektor • Skate Crazy • Hawkeye
• Everyone’s a Wally • Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe • Hunter’s Moon
• Firelord • Spindizzy • Hysteria
• Galencia • Steel • Nobby the Aardvark
• Gribbly’s Day Out • Street Sports Baseball • Rubicon
• Heartland • Summer Games II • Skool Daze
• Herobotix • Super Cycle • Snare
• Highway Encounter • Temple of Asphai Trilogy • Speedball
• IO • The Arc of Yesod • Star Paws
• Impossible Mission • Thing on a Spring • Uchi Mata
• Impossible Mission II • Thing Bounces Back

After Market Consoles • 733

 THEC64 THEVIC20
Publisher Retro Games Publisher Retro Games
Release date 2019 Release date 2020

The full-size THEC64 (also known as THEVIC20 is a “Limited Edition” version of

THEC64 Maxi) are built to scale with the THEC64 and are modelled after the VIC-20
original C64 and includes a functional key- computer. It includes a functional keyboard
board. Enhancements include VIC-20 emu- and comes with a matching joystick.
lation, four USB ports, and an upgraded
micro-switch joystick. THEVIC20 has three switchable modes—
boot straight into original VIC-20 BASIC,
Both THEC64 and the mini console can be C64 BASIC, or switch to the Games Car-
switched between “carousel mode” for ac- ousel and play one of the built-in games
cessing the built-in game library, and “clas- in 50Hz or 60Hz, with optional CRT filters/
sic mode” in which the machine operates screen modes.
similarly to a traditional C64. USB storage
can be used to hold disk, cartridge and tape THEVIC20 includes is a mix of 64 VIC-20
images for use with the machine. and C64 titles, most of which were previous-
ly released for THEC64.
Players can choose between 64 included
C64 games, most of which are the same as
THEVIC20 exclusive;
the mini model. • Abductor • Headbanger’s Heaven
• Andes Attack • Laser Zone
THEC64 exclusive; • Arcadia • Martians
• Attack of the Mutant Camels • Bewitched • Matrix
• Bear Bovver • Blitzkrieg • Mega Vault
• Destroyer • Brainstorm • Metagalactic
• Gateway to Apshai • Catcha Snatcha • Psychedelia
• Gridrunner • Connect 4 • Snake
• Hover Bovver • Encounter • Starquest
• Iridis Alpha • Frantic • Subspace Striker
• Planet of Death • Frog Chase • Tank Battle
• Psychedelica • Gridrunner • Traxx
• Silicon Warrior • Harvester • Wacky Waiters
• Street Sports Basketball • Hell Gate • Zor.
• Sword of Fargoal • Llamas Battle at the Edge of Time

734 • After Market Consoles

THEA500 Mini
Developer Retro Games
Release date 2021

THEA500 Mini is the fourth console from

Retro Games emulating Commodore com-
puters. This is similar to THEC64 Mini—
a compact reimagining of the Amiga 500
home computer, featuring emulation of not
only the original A500 but also the AGA of
the A1200.
Players can choose between 25 in-
cluded Amiga games, selected from a car-
ousel, or load game files from a USB stick.
The console emulator is not power- Games included;
ful enough to run many Amiga games, es- • Alien Breed 3D
pecially CD32 and AGA games, which may • Alien Breed: Special Edition 92
• Another World
cause graphical glitches, game speed is- • Arcade Pool
sues, and input lag. • ATR: All Terrain Racing
• Battle Chess
The console is plug-and-play and includes • Cadaver
• California Games
HDMI output at 720p 50 or 60Hz, three USB • Dragon’s Breath
ports and a save feature that includes four • F-16 Combat Pilot
save game slots. • Kick Off 2
• Paradroid 90
The keys and floppy disk drive are • Pinball Dreams
non-functional and purely aesthetic. The • Project-X: Special Edition 93
‘Power’ LED lights up when the machine is • Qwak • Simon the Sorcerer
• Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe
turned on. • Stunt Car Racer
• Super Cars II
Included with the console is an optical USB • The Chaos Engine
“Tank-style” Mouse, USB CD32-style game- • The Lost Patrol
• The Sentinel
pad, HDMI cable, a USB power lead and a • Titus the Fox
‘Quick start’ manual. • Worms: The Director’s Cut
• Zool: Ninja Of The ”Nth” Dimension
Reviewers of the The A500 Mini emulator
have noticed input lag in some of the includ- The console uses the open-source Amiberry
ed games when using the gamepad. But 3.3 emulator to run games. Users found that
most were positive to the presentation and Amiberry was not mentioned on the console
build/look of the console and it’s interface/ credit scene, nor by Retro Games. Amiberry
game menu. Negatives were on the quality is on a GPL3 license, which means that soft-
of the gamepad, games incompatibility, not ware using Amiberry are under the same li-
enough USB ports (for mouse, keyboard, cense requirements as it’s source, meaning
joystick and USB stick) and the underpow- that Retro Games are required to open it’s
ered hardware when compared to the initial source code for the public (which would give
price of $140. Several reviewers found the users the ability to run their own versions
console not worth it’s price and urged the of Amiberry on the console). Retro Games
audience to seek alternative options for run- eventually released the source code, but
ning emulated Amiga games. many users found this to be underhanded
on their part.

After Market Consoles • 735

 Commodore Computers
Commodore started as a typewriter
manufacturing company before becom-
ing successful selling pocket calculators.
In 1976, Chuck Peddle at MOS Tech-
nology created the KIM-1—a small
6502-based single-board computer.
After Commodore purchased
MOS Technology, Peddle convinced
Jack Tramiel—Commodore founder—to
enter the home computer business.
At the West Coast Computer Faire Com-
modore unveiled the Commodore PET
microcomputer. That year the Apple II
and TRS-80 was also unveiled. Unlike
many of the companies, Commodore
was able to start world wide distribution
in months instead of years.
The VIC-20 debuted in June of 1980 at
the Computer Electronics Show as an
inexpensive home computer with colour.
Between 1981 and 1985 it had sold more
than 2.5 million units.
By 1982 PET sales were declining with
increased competition and Commodore
decided to refresh the line with what
Commodore called the CBM-II line.
These machines came in many different
configurations including ones that did not
have integrated monitors.
In 1982, Commodore introduced the
Commodore 64 as the successor to the
VIC-20. Commodore shipped some-
where around 22 million C64’s, making it
the best selling computer of all time.
The Commodore Plus/4 was released in
1984. Although Commodore considered
the Plus/4 its flagship model, it never
sold well and was finally phased out in
1988.
The Commodore 128—the natural suc-
cessor to the C64—would be Commo-
dores last 8-Bit computer; after this they
would produce only 16/32 Bit Amiga’s
and IBM PC clones.
736 • Commodore Computers
Commodore PET Series
Release December 1977
Discontinued 1982
Graphics Monochrome character graphics
CPU type MOS Technology 6502
RAM (base) 4–96 KB
OS Commodore BASIC 1.0 ~ 4.0
Price US$795 (“$3,555” 2021)
The Commodore PET is a line of comput-
ers produced starting in 1977 by Com-
modore International. A single all-in-one
case combines a MOS Technology 6502
microprocessor, Commodore BASIC in
read-only memory, keyboard, computer
monitor, and, in early models, a cassette
deck.
The name was suggested by Andre Sou-
son after he saw the Pet Rock in Los
Gatos, and stated they were going to
make the “pet computer”. It was backro-
nymed to Personal Electronic Transac-
tor.
Following the initial PET 2001, the de-
sign was updated through a series of
models (PET 2001, 2001-N and 2001-B
series, CBM 3000 series, PET 4000 se-
ries, CBM 8000 series and SuperPET
SP9000) with more memory, better key-
board, larger screen, and other modifica-
tions. The systems were a top seller in
the Canadian and United States educa-
tion markets, as well as for business use
in Europe.
Although the machine was moderately
successful, there were frequent com-
plaints about the tiny calculator-like key-
board, often referred to as a “chiclet key-
board”.
Commodore SuperPET SP9000
Release 1981
Graphics MOS 6545 (80×25 monochrome)
CPU type MOS Technology 6502 and Motorola 6809
RAM (base) 96 KB
OS CBM BASIC 4.0

The SuperPET SP9000, also known as Micro-Mainframe or

MMF9000, was primarily designed with universities and scientists
in mind. It was the last in the PET series and was virtually un-
known outside the academic/development sector in those days.
The SuperPet was basically a CBM 8000 computer with ROMs
for programming languages, it also had three character sets,
and an RS-232 for use as a terminal.

Commodore Educator 64
Release 1983
Discontinued 1994
Graphics VIC II (320 x 200)
CPU type MOS Technology 6510
RAM (base) 64 KB
OS Microsoft BASIC 2.0

The Educator 64, also known as the PET 64 and Model 4064,
was sold to schools as a replacement for aging Commodore
PET systems. Schools were reluctant to adopt the C64
“breadbox” design due to theft or vandalism of the smaller,
more exposed components. The 4064 designation fol-
lowed in line with the PET’s 4008, 4016 and 4032 models
as a 64 KB 40-column model.

Commodore CBM-II
Release 1982
Discontinued 1984
Graphics VIC-II (320 × 200, 16 colors) or 6545 CRTC
CPU type MOS Technology 6509
RAM (base) 128 or 256 KB
OS Microsoft BASIC 4.0

The Commodore CBM-II series was a short-lived range

of 8-bit personal computers and was intended as a fol-
low-on to the Commodore PET series.
The CBM-II has two incarnations, the P series (P = per-
sonal, or, home use) and the B series (B = business
use).

Commodore Computers • 737

 Commodore VIC 20
The VIC-20 was the first computer of any de- Release 1980 (VIC-1001) Japan / 1981
Discontinued January 1985
scription to sell one million units. It was de- Graphics VIC (176 x 184 3-bpp)
scribed as “one of the first anti-spectatorial, CPU type MOS Technology 6502
non-esoteric computers by design...no longer RAM (base) 20 KB ROM
OS Commodore KERNAL/BASIC 2.0
relegated to hobbyist/enthusiasts or those with Price $299.95 (“$890” 2021)
money, the computer Commodore developed
was the computer of the future.”
The VIC-20 was intended to be more economi-
cal than the PET computer. It was equipped
with 5 KB of static RAM and used the same
MOS 6502 CPU as the PET.

Commodore 64
Release August 1982
Discontinued April 1994
Graphics VIC-II
CPU type MOS Technology 6510/8500
RAM (base) 64 KB
OS Commodore KERNAL/BASIC 2.0
Price $595 (“$1,670” 2021)

The C64, listed in the Guinness World Records as the

highest-selling single computer model of all time, was
an up-market version of the VIC-20 (same casing, in-
terfaces and sockets), but with a MOS 6510 proces-
sor and 64 KB of RAM which was unusually large at
the time for a model of this price range.

Commodore SX-64
The Commodore SX-64, also known as the Ex- Release 1984
Discontinued 1986
ecutive 64, or VIP-64 in Europe, is the name of Graphics VIC-II (320 x 200, 16 colors)
a family of portable computers based around CPU type MOS Technology 6510
the C64 architecture. Although not all models RAM (base) 64 KB RAM + 20 KB ROM
OS Commodore KERNAL/BASIC 2.0
made it to distribution, the SX-64 did; and is
considered the first full colour portable compu-
ter. It priced at $995 (equivalent to $2,595 in
2021) when it was first released.
The SX-64 features a built-in 5” composite
monitor and a built-in 1541 floppy drive. The
machine is carried by its sturdy handle, which
doubles as an adjustable stand.

738 • Commodore Computers

Commodore 16
Release 1984 The C16 was intended to be an entry-level compu-
Discontinued 1985
Graphics TED (320 × 200, 121 colors)
ter to replace the VIC-20. A cost-reduced version,
CPU type MOS Technology 7501 or 8501 the Commodore 116, was mostly sold in Europe.
RAM (base) 16 KB RAM
OS Commodore KERNAL/BASIC 3.5
The C16 and C116 belong to the same family as the
Price $99 (“$260” 2021) higher-end Commodore Plus/4 and are internally
very similar: 24 to it (albeit with less RAM – 16 KB
rather than 64 KB – and lacking the Plus/4’s user
port and Three plus one software).
The C16 was a major failure in the U.S. and was
discontinued within a year, but it sold reasonably
well in Europe and Mexico as a low-end game
machine.

Commodore Plus/4
The Commodore Plus/4 was aimed at the busi- Release 1984
Discontinued 1985
ness oriented part of the personal computer Graphics TED (320 × 200, 121 colors)
market. The “Plus/4” name refers to the four- CPU type MOS Technology 6502
application ROM resident office suite (word RAM (base) 64 KB RAM + 32 KB ROM
OS Commodore BASIC 3.5
processor, spreadsheet, database, and graph-
ing); it was billed as “the productivity computer
with software built-in.”
Internally, the Plus/4 share the same basic ar-
chitecture as the lower-end C16 and 116 mod-
els, and is able to use software and peripherals
designed for them. It is incompatible with the
C64’s software and some of its hardware.

Commodore 116
Release 1984 The Commodore 116 (C116) was part of Commo-
Discontinued 1985
Graphics TED (320 × 200, 121 colors)
dore’s low-cost 264 series (which also included
CPU type MOS Technology 7501 or 8501 the C16 and Plus/4). Commodore intended it as a
RAM (base) 16 KB, upgradeable cheap Sinclair ZX Spectrum competitor, hence the
OS Commodore BASIC 3.5
Price £99, (“£163” 2022)
small case and rubber keyboard. It sold 51,000 units
in Europe between 1984–1985, with roughly 44,000
sold in Germany.
The C116 uses an advanced version of Commo-
dore BASIC (v3.5), meaning the three 264-series
models were not software or hardware compatible
with the earlier C64.

Commodore Computers • 739

 Commodore 128
Release 1985
Discontinued 1989
Graphics VIC-II E (320×200, 16 colors),
MOS 8563 (RGBI 640×200 16 colors)
CPU type MOS Technology 8502
RAM (base) 128 KB
OS Commodore BASIC 7.0
Price 6495 SEK

The C128 was the last 8-bit home computer that

was commercially released by CBM.
The C128 is a significantly expanded successor
to the C64, with 128 KB of RAM in two 64 KB
banks, and an 80-column color video output.

Commodore 900
Release Unreleased
Graphics 16-bit (1024×800 pixels graphics / text-only display)
CPU type Zilog Z8001
RAM (base) 512 KiB
OS Coherent

The Commodore 900 (also known as the C900, Z-8000, and Z-

Machine) was a prototype microcomputer originally intended for
business computing and, later, as an affordable UNIX worksta-
tion. It was to replace the aging PET/CBM series. The C900’s
case is similar to the Amiga 2000’s but slightly larger.
Only fifty prototypes were made and sold as develop-
ment systems before the project was cancelled.

Commodore PC Series
Release 1984
Discontinued 1993
Graphics GCA (640 x 200), SVGA (800 x 600), Hercules monochrome
CPU type 8088, 80286, 80386-SX, 80386
RAM (base) 640 KB to 2 MB according to models
OS All the available PC operating systems

The Commodore PC compatible systems is a range of

IBM PC compatible personal computers introduced in
1984 by CBM.
Incompatible with C64 and Amiga architectures, they
were generally regarded as good, serviceable work-
horse PCs with nothing spectacular about them.

740 • Commodore Computers

 INTRODUCING THE COMMODORE 128.™
It’s here. And it’s going to make a lot of
Commodore 64™ owners very happy. A
personal computer with a 128K memory
and 80-column capability that’s still
compatible with all the peripherals and
over 3,000 programs designed for the
Commodore 64.
   In fact, the new 128 is almost like
getting three computers in one. That’s
because it can run as a 64, a 128 and
in a CP/M™ mode. Or it can even be
expanded to a full 512K memory. And
that’s about as “personalized” as a per-
sonal computer can get. It’s intelligence
that can match your own versatility. And
then, even take it to a higher level.
There’s more than a bigger memory.
   There are a lot of extra features
we didn’t forget. Like a handy numeric
keypad for data-entry efficiency and
accuracy.
   An expanded keyboard that puts
more commands at your fingertips for
easier programming. So you can be
a whiz at using more varied graphics
and text. Or a musical genius playing
full three-part melody in any tempo you
set. And there’s even a “help” key that
comes to your rescue, listing program-
ming errors on-screen with the error in
reverse field.
   There’s also a new faster disc drive.
With a separate “Burst” mode that can
transfer up to 3,000 characters per
second. Just in case you’re a speed
demon.
   “Thanks for the memory!” You’re
welcome. And the expandability. And the
compability. And versatility. And for mak-
ing it all very affordable. After all, one
of the other things that should go into a
more intelligent computer is a price that
makes sense.
 ONLY COMMODORE AMIGA
MAKES ALL THIS POSSIBLE
   When you first see a Commodore
Amiga you’ll be amazed at how much it can
do. After you’ve seen its capabilities you
won’t be surprised that over a million Com-
modore Amigas have been sold worldwide.
   That’s because Commodore Amiga is
the world’s most advanced home and small
business computer. It is also the leader in
specialised applications such as Desktop.
   It talks, animates, educates. Whether
you’re nine or ninety, student or teacher,
Commodore Amigas has the software to
aid learning. As well as these applications,
it offers a wealth of entertainment with the
latest hi-tech video games.
   The potential of the Commodore
Amiga doesn’t stop there. Commodore
Amigas has thousands of software pack-
ages available as well as a huge range of
supporting magazines.
   The Commodore Amiga 500 and 2000
make so much possible you’re limited only
by your imagination.
   For further information and your near-
est Commodore dealer phone (008) 023
JSA COM 0406
 Amiga Computers
Amiga is a family of home comput-
ers introduced by Commodore in 1985.
The original model is one of a number
of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-
bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM,
mouse-based GUIs, and significantly
improved graphics and audio compared
to previous 8-bit systems. This includes
the Atari ST—released earlier the same
year—as well as the Macintosh and
Acorn Archimedes. Based on the Mo-
torola 68000 microprocessor, the Amiga
differs from its contemporaries through
the inclusion of custom hardware to ac-
celerate graphics and sound, including
sprites and a blitter, and a pre-emptive
multitasking operating system called
AmigaOS.
The Commodore Amiga series is sepa-
rated into three generations that dem-
onstrate an improvement in processing
power and graphic capabilities. At each
stage, the custom chipset were upgrad-
ed from the Original ChipSet (OCS), to
the Enhanced ChipSet (ECS), and finally
Advanced Graphic Architecture (AGA).
After their demise, Amiga Technologies/
Amiga International continued to distrib-
ute the A1200 and A4000T machines.
When the Amiga moved from America to
Europe the Amiga name was unknown.
To create a recognizable market pres-
ence Commodore chose to place great-
er emphasis upon their own name as a
means of marketing the machine. This
is immediately recognizable with the
greater emphasis placed upon the Com-
modore name as a recognizable brand.
In Europe the Amiga was seen as a de-
scendent of the C64 rather than a clean
break from the past. This had its advan-
tages and disadvantages—it created an
immediate market presence based upon
the Commodore 8-bit market. However,
it downplayed its role as a business ma-
chine.
“bambi-amiga.co.uk”
AMIGA 1000
Release July 1985
Discontinued January 1987
Chipset OCS
CPU type Motorola 68000
RAM (base) 256 KB
OS AmigaOS
Price $1,495 (“$3,600” 2022)
The A1000, originally marketed as the Ami-
ga, is a computer released by Commodore
in the Amiga line. It combines the 16/32-bit
Motorola 68000 CPU which was powerful
by 1985 standards with one of the most
advanced graphics and sound systems in
its class, and runs a preemptive multitask-
ing operating system that fits into 256 KB
of read-only memory and shipped with 256
KB of RAM.
The A1000 has a number of character-
istics that distinguish it from later Amiga
models: It is the only model to feature the
short-lived Amiga check-mark logo on its
case, the majority of the case is elevated
slightly to give a storage area for the key-
board when not in use, and the inside of
the case is engraved with the signatures
of the Amiga designers (similar to the Mac-
intosh); including Jay Miner and the paw
print of his dog Mitchy. The A1000’s case
was designed by Howard Stolz.
The A1000 was sold exclusively in compu-
ter stores in the US rather than the vari-
ous non computer-dedicated department
and toy stores through which the VIC-20
and C64 were retailed. These measures
were an effort to avoid Commodore’s “toy-
store” computer image created during the
Tramiel era.
Amiga Computers • 743
 AMIGA 2000
Release March 1987
Discontinued 1991
Chipset OCS
CPU type Motorola 68000
RAM (base) 1 MB
OS AmigaOS 1.0
Price $1,495 (“$3,600” 2022)

The A2000 was introduced as a “big box” expandable variant

of the Amiga 1000 but quickly redesigned to share most of its
electronic components with the A500 for cost reduction.
The A2000 was the first Amiga model that allowed ex-
pansion cards to be added internally and feature five
Zorro II card slots and four PC ISA slots.

AMIGA 500
Release 1987
Discontinued 1991
Chipset OCS
CPU type Motorola 68000
RAM (base) 512 KB
OS AmigaOS 1.2

The A500 is the first low-end version of the Amiga computer. It

contains the same Motorola 68000 as the Amiga 1000, as well
as the same graphics and sound coprocessors, but is in a
smaller case similar to that of the Commodore 128.
The A500 proved to be Commodore’s best-selling
model, particularly in Europe.

AMIGA 2500
Release 1987
Discontinued 1992
Chipset OCS
CPU type Motorola 68000
RAM (base) 3 MB (up to 9 MB)
OS AmigaOS
Price €3,300 (“$6,700” 2022)

The A2500, similar to the A1500 is not a distinct model,

but simply a marketing name for an A2000 with a different
base configuration. The configuration of an A2500 includ-
ed a 14.3 MHz Motorola 68020 or 25 MHz 68030-based
accelerator card. 68020 versions were referred to as
A2500/20, and 68030 versions as A2500/30.

744 • Amiga Computers

AMIGA 1500
Release 1990
Discontinued 1991
Chipset OCS
CPU type Motorola 68000
CPU type 1 MB
OS AmigaOS 1.3
Price £999

The A1500 is a variant of the A2000 and was sold in the

UK. The model designation was not officially sanctioned by
Commodore International.
As the only significant difference A1500s could be
upgraded into A2000/HDs by addition of a hard disk
controller (and associated drive).

AMIGA 3000
Release 1990
Discontinued 1992
Chipset ECS
CPU type Motorola 68030
RAM (base) 1 MB Chip, 1-4 MB Fast
OS AmigaOS 1.3 – 2.04

The A300 is the successor of the Amiga 2500 and features

improved processing speed, improved graphics rendering,
and a new revision of the operating system.
To emphasis the A3000s capabilities as a high-end work-
station, two operating systems were included:
The newly released Kickstart/Workbench 2 and the
the Unix System (SVR4) V operating system.

AMIGA 3000UX
Release 1990
Discontinued 1992
Chipset ECS
CPU type Motorola 68030
RAM (base) 2 MB Chip. 4 MB Fast
OS AmigaOS 1.3 – 2.04
Price $4,998 (“$9,900” 2022)

The 3000UX was released with Amiga Unix, a full port of

AT&T Unix SVR4, installed along with AmigaOS. The sys-
tem is otherwise equivalent to the standard A3000, once a
right-click initiates a boot to Kickstart.
It failed to find a niche in the competitive Unix
workstation market of the early 1990s.

Amiga Computers • 745

 AMIGA 3000T
Release 1991
Discontinued 1992
Chipset ECS
CPU type Motorola 68000, 68040
RAM (base) 1-2 MB Chip, 1-4 MB Fast
OS AmigaOS 2.04
Price $4498 (“$9,373” 2022)

The A3000T is closely related to the Amiga 3000, al-

though it came in a tower case which offered greater
expandability.
The specifications closely resemble the horizontal-
cased A3000, but the motherboard had been heavily
redesigned.

AMIGA Amiga 500+

Release 1991
Discontinued 1992
Chipset ECS
CPU type Motorola 68000
RAM (base) 1 MB
OS AmigaOS 2.04
Price 799 DM (Germany, end of 1991)

The A500+ is a revised version of the original A500. The A500+

featured minor changes to the motherboard to make it cheaper to
produce than the original A500. It was notable for in-
troducing new versions of Kickstart and Workbench,
and for some minor improvements in the custom
ECS chips.

AMIGA 600
Release 1992
Discontinued 1992
Chipset ECS
CPU type Motorola 68000
RAM (base) 1 MB
OS AmigaOS 2.05

A redesign of the A500+, it adds the option of an internal hard disk

drive and a PCMCIA port. Like the A500, the A600 was aimed at
the lower end of the market. Lacking a numeric keypad, the A600
is only slightly larger than an IBM PC keyboard, weighing approx-
imately 6 pounds. It shipped with AmigaOS 2.0, which was
considered more user-friendly than earlier versions of
the operating system.

746 • Amiga Computers

 AMIGA 1200
Release 1992
Discontinued 1996
Chipset AGA
CPU type Motorola 68EC020
RAM (base) 2 MB
OS AmigaOS 3.0 – 3.1
Price $599 (“$1,157” 2022)

The A1200 was launched a few months after the A600, us-
ing a similar slimline design that replaced the earlier A500+
and A500. Whereas the A600 used the 16-bit Motorola
68000 of earlier Amigas, the A1200 was built around
the 32-bit Motorola 68EC020. It has a similar hard-
ware architecture to the CD32.

AMIGA 4000
Release October 1992
Discontinued 1994
Chipset AGA
CPU type Motorola 68EC030, 68040
RAM (base) 2 MB Chip. 2–4 MB Fast
OS AmigaOS 3.0

The A4000 is the successor of the A2000 and A3000. The

system design was generally similar to that of the A3000,
but introduced the AGA chipset with enhanced graphics.
The SCSI system from previous Amigas was replaced
by the lower-cost Parallel ATA.
Two models were released: A4000/040 and
A4000/030.

AMIGA 4000T
Release 1994
Discontinued 1996
Chipset AGA
CPU type Motorola 68040, 68060
RAM (base) 2 MB Chip, 4 MB Fast
OS AmigaOS 3.1

A4000T is a tower version of the A4000 targeted as a

high-end video workstation. Using the AGA chipset, it was
originally released in small quantities with a 25MHz Mo-
torola 68040 CPU, and re-released in greater numbers
by Escom in 1995, after Commodore’s demise, along
with a new variant which featured a 50MHz Motorola
68060 CPU.

Amiga Computers • 747

 Specifications Memory
A4000/40 - 2Mb 32bit Chip/Display ram 4Mb Fast ram expandable 16Mb
Microprocessor
A4000/30 - 2Mb 32bit Chip/Display ram 2Mb Fast ram expandable 16Mb
A4000/40 - Motorola 68040 at 25MHz
Workbench v3 featuring
A4000/30 - Motorola 68EC030 at 25MHz
Multitasking v3 Operating System, Compugraphic outline fonts, PostScript Output
Interfaces
Support, MSDos 720K/1.44Mb Disk reader, up to 256 colour Workbench Screens
One serial & one parallel port
Graphics & Video
External floppy drive port
Advanced Graphics Architecture (AGA) Chips
Stereo audio output for hi-fi or monitor
New 256 colour screens, new 262,144 Ham8 colour screens from 24 bit
RGB monitor / video port
palette of 16.8 million colours, resolutions from 300x200 up to 1280x512
Mouse & joystick game ports
15-31KHz scan rates with mode promotion for de-interlacing screens
Internal AT IDE Hard Disk interface
Supports 15KHz 1084 Monitors & MultiSync monitors
Storage
x4 performance increase over ECS chips
120Mb IDE Hard Drive
New sprite features: 16, 32 or 64 bit wide screen independent pixel resolution
1.76Mb/880K High Density Floppy drive
Backward compatible with ECS and original chip sets
2x3.5” Slimline drives (1 used)
Expansion
1x5.25” mounting bay
4 autoconfig Zorro III expansion slots, 3 PC/AT slots in line with Zorro III for use
Audio
with audio & video digitisers
4 voice, 8 bit digital audio with stereo output

For a supplier near you call

(008) 805 067 (outside Sydney metro area)
or (02) 428 7666
 A4000T
magazine review; Amiga User International (“AUI Test Drive”) (July, 1994);

The Amiga world has showing through the back of the

machine is the AudioVideo mod-
been waiting a year for
ule. This provides a regular 15Khz
this machine to arrive, RGB video output socket, a pair of
packed with similar phono sockets for audio, plus an
hardware found in the additional headphone socket in the
shape of a minijack. Being modu-
desktop 4000s, plus lar, we are led to believe that this
extra bits, and some board can be replaced with other
surprising modifica- boards providing different outputs
tions. Gary Fenton depending on the users needs.
The Disk module gives the
gets out his screw- 4000T a dedicated SCSI 2 inter-
driver ready to reveal face and connections to floppy disk
the secrets of this new drives. An external SCSI 2 con-
nector pokes out the back of the
Amiga.
machine while a long ribbon cable
wraps itself around the inside ready
Isn’t she a beauty? to be connected to various internal

S
SCSI devices.
tanding half a metre tall We just happened to have a fast
with its high profile looks SCSI 2 drive lying around which I
and the god-like Amiga wired in to the tower. Using Disk-
badge, the A4000T is a mighty Speed 4.1, the machine only ob-
sight to behold. The mysterious ly- tained a maximum of 1.7 mega-
ing beneath its steel exterior have bytes a second transfer. Something
long been anticipated and finally, was wrong with my setup and it’s
with its arrival on UK shores, AUI probably down to the dip switches
have seized this opportunity to found on the underneath my hard
bring you the review many have drive. Sadly we didn’t have enough
been waiting for. time to spend getting it to work at
Sparing no time I whipped the full speed, but Commodore told us
casing off to find out what exact- The front door swings open to reveal the
that they’ve obtained 3.5Mb a sec-
ly is inside this beast. Unlike any power, reset and audio buttons, and the front
ond using a Micropolis hard drive
drive bays.
other Amiga I found the 4000T to
be modular in design. There was an4000/040. The CPU module can be
Audio Video module, a Disk mod- removed and replaced with other
ule, an Input Output module, and amodules when available, such
CPU module. At this stage I was soas GVP’s 40mhz 040 or UUL’s
curious that I took these modules promised 060 board. The standard
out for a closer inspection. CPU inside the 4000T is a 25Mhz
68040. One would have expected
Modular at least a 33Mhz one for the mon-
The CPU module is called the ey. (I’m told that a 33Mhz 040 is
A3640 which, I believe, is the not much more than £10 extra!)
very same one used in the current Sprouting off the motherboard and The internal speaker near the base, just under
the front fan.

magazine article • 749


The back: Keyboard, external SCSI 2, Audio
Video module output, and lots of blanking plates.
and 4.5Mb a second using a Max-
tor drive. It makes a big difference
when compared to normal SCSI
drives which gives about 1Mb a
second.
One unusual thing we noted was
that the very end of the SCSI cable
was attached to the Input Output
module, presumably allowing even
more SCSI devices (scanners?) to
be plugged into the 4000T using an
external port.
The Input Output module is
firmly fixed to the rear of the
4000T (more like welded!) which
connects to the motherboard via
two ribbon cables and to the Disk
module with another cable. It pro-
vides the usual serial, parallel,
mouse and joystick ports which is
common with all Amigas.
Judging by the blanking plates
covering holes at the back of the
machine, and bearing in mind that
this is a modular beast, I imag-
ine that other boards will become
available allowing more than one
parallel and serial port. Consider-
ing most PCs have had two serial
ports for many years, I’m a little
vexed that the 4000T hasn’t two as
standard. Oh well, I look forward
to a new I/O module then!
750 • magazine article
The back: Power supply and Input Output
module connectors.
Spacious
There’s so much room inside the
4000T that you could almost hang
chandeliers inside which automati-
cally go on when you remove the
casing. Hmmm, perhaps not, but
you can certainly fit five internal
5 1/4 inch drives. Three fit hori-
zontally right at the top at the front
while another two fit vertically in
the middle. There is heaps more
room (enough for a football team?)
right inside the centre of the ma-
chine but no mountings are pro-
vided.
Even more room appears vacant
above the internal power supply
for a miniature nuclear reactor,
but it shouldn’t be necessary. The
PSU provides a meaty 250 watts
of steam which is 100 watts more
than the PSU of desktop 4000s. It
has its own fan which blows air
out while another fan mounted at
the front sucks air in providing an
essential and refreshing stream of
cool air running through the tower.
Deck-chairs are a brass band are
extra if want to climb inside on hot
days.
RAM It Up!
Four SIMM slots can be found be-
low the Zorro slots near the top of
the machine. SIMMs are industry
The Disk module: Floppy drive and
SCSI connections.
standard memory modules which
can easily be installed and removed
when needed. Desktop 4000s
can only hold 4Mb SIMMs (up
to 16Mb of fast RAM), while ac-
cording to a jumper on the 4000T’s
motherboard, the tower can utilise
8Mb SIMMs. If this is true then it
can be expanded to 32Mb using
the provided slots. (The jumper ac-
tually says “SIMM Size” followed
by a 1 and 2Mb setting and a 4 and
8Mb setting).
Fresh Chip
The custom chips which populate
the tower are called Super Buster,
Lisa, Alice, Paula, Ramsey, Gary,
and Bridgette. I don’t know why
Gary has been used because that
chip died with the original chip
set. It must be a typing error on the
motherboard! Bridgette is a new
chip exclusive to the 4000T and
does something very clever, I’m
sure, but I don’t know what! Com-
modore couldn’t provide me with
The Audio Video module: RGB video, audio,
and headphones.

The video, Zorro and PC slots. Top right;
SIMM slots.
that information before this issue
went to press. Maybe it’s a Video
Toaster chip? Not.
Double Vision
One, two video slots? No, let me
count that again. One, two. Yes,
this baby has actually got two
video slots! You know the 4000T
means business now, what with
virually all 4000s sold in America
being used in the video industry,
these two slots will come as a ma-
jor benefit to those who live, work,
and breathe video.
Other slots include five Zorro III
slots and four PC slots including a
dedicated PC slot. There are eight
guides and rear blanking playes for
internal boards. Two of these are
taken up by the Audio Video and
Disk modules leaving space for six
full size boards.
Inside the tower with the casing removed.
What else? This machine is the flagship of
Amiga computers and it actually
The IDE controller built into the
looks very much the part! Power-
motherboard of 4000 desktops is
ful from the inside out, it’s not hard
also built into the 4000T’s mother-
to realise the potential oozing from
board. You can plug up to two IDE
every crevice. I’ll end by echo-
drives into this interface, and don’t
ing the cries I hear from around
forget the seven drives that can be
the Amiga community - I WANT
plugged into the SCSI interface!
ONE! AUI
Powerhouse or what?
Yet another interesting feature is
the internal speaker. No, it doesn’t
make “beep” sounds like a PC’s RATINGS
internal speaker, but instead deliv- A4000T
ers a whopping 0.25 watts of mono FEATURES 95%
Amiga sound! It’s a good idea if PERFORMANCE 95%
you don’t have any external speak- VALUE FOR MONEY 89%
ers of your own wired up to the Overall Rating 94%
tower. And if you don’t want any
Price: Starts from around £1899
sound at all, press the audio disa-
ble button at the front of the 4000T
and a little light will go off and so
too will the sound.
Does this Amiga have AAA
graphics, some people may ask.
No, but it does have Workbench
3.1 instead, not much of a consola-
tion but it’s a another step nearer.
There are no obvious differences
to Workbench 3.0, but because no
manuals were supplied with our re-
view model I am unable to find any
moderate changes.
Conclusion
So is the 4000T is disappointment
or monument of Amiga technolo-
gy? Put it this way; it was no more
than what I was expecting apart
from the extra video slot and mod-
ular bits. A 33Mhz 040 woudn’t
have gone amiss, but the tower
looks a lot better when compared
to Macs and PCs than the desktops
4000 did. It’s still a lot of money
for a computer but you can’t com-
plain when the only alternative is a
Mac or PC!
Behind the front panel.
magazine article • 751
 Title System Category pg

Title System Category pg

A.M.C.: Astro Marine Corps C64GS Game 80

index After the War C64GS Game 78

Air Warrior CDTV Game 138

Akira CD32 Game 362

These pages lists games mentioned in this PDF Alfred Chicken CD32 Game 364
alphabetically for easy searching. Alien Breed 3D CD32 Game 372

Alien Breed: Tower Assault CD32 Game 370

Games; Alistair in Outer Space CDTV Game 140

The first list includes every game released All Dogs Go To Heaven (Talking Electric Crayon) CDTV Game 140

commercially for one the four Commodore Amiga CD Football CD32 Game 369

consoles. Arabian Nights CD32 Game 365

Arcade Pool CD32 Game 365

Compilations; Aspar GP Master (aka: Grand Prix Master) C64GS Game 80

CD-ROMs or packages that came with two or ATR: All Terrain Racing CD32 Game 366

more full release games on one or more CDs.

Avenger MAX Game 48

BadLands C64GS Game 81

Educational Titles; Banshee CD32 Game 373

Multi-media CD-ROMs which contained little BASE Jumpers CD32 Game 372

Batman C64GS Game 82

to no video game play. These titles were often Battle Chess CDTV Game 141
digitised versions of books, encyclopedia, etc. Battle Chess CD32 Game 373

Multi-Media; Battle Command C64GS Game 84

Battlestorm CDTV Game 142

Different titles with interactive presentations Battletoads CD32 Game 376
and similar formats. Beavers CD32 Game 374

Shareware, disk-magz, etc.;

Beneath The Steel Sky CD32 Game 378

Benefactor CD32 Game 387

CD-ROMs that contained libraries of PD/ Billiards MAX Game 48
Shareware games, discs that came with maga- Black Viper AmigaCD Game 375
zines and demos. Bowling MAX Game 48

Brian The Lion CD32 Game 375

Unreleased Titles; Brutal Sports Series: Football CD32 Game 386
Games and CD-ROM titles which were at one Brutal: Paws of Fury CD32 Game 388

point in time in development of some capacity, Bubba ‘n’ Stix CD32 Game 390

or only a rumour. Bubble and Squeak CD32 Game 391

Bump ‘N’ Burn CD32 Game 374

Homebrew After-Market Games; Cannon Fodder CD32 Game 394

Games which are sold, or shared freely, by cur- The Case of the Cautious Condor CDTV Game 142

rent developers and publishers. Casino Games CDTV Game 144

Castles II: Siege and Conquest CD32 Game 398

Hardware; Cedric And The Lost Sceptre AmigaCD Game 392

Hardware from different first- and third-party Chambers of Shaolin CD32 Game 393

developers—some of which are still being de- Chaos Engine, The CD32 Game 400

veloped and sold today. Chaos in Andromeda: Eyes of the Eagle CDTV Game 144

Chase HQ 2 C64GS Game 85

Other Systems Chuck Rock CD32 Game 403

The CD32 or CDTV console repackaged and Chuck Rock II: Son of Chuck CD32 Game 405

sold as a different product. Most of these were Classic Board Games CDTV Game 143

Clockwiser CD32 Game 392

produced after Commodore’s bankruptcy. Clowns MAX Game 49
Also includes the different Commodore Cover Girl Strip Poker CDTV Game 146
and Amiga computer series released, and after- Curse of RA, The CDTV Game 143

market clone products. Cyberball C64GS Game 84

D/Generation CD32 Game 406

Dangerous Streets CD32 Game 408

Dark Seed CD32 Game 412

Death Mask CD32 Game 409

Deep Core CD32 Game 409

Defender of the Crown CDTV/32 Game 149

752 • index
Title System Category pg Title System Category pg

Defender of the Crown II CDTV/32 Game 152 Liberation: Captive II CD32 Game 470

Dennis CD32 Game 410 Litil Divil CD32 Game 466

Der Clou! CD32 Game 405 Log!cal CDTV Game 158

Die Stadt Der Löwen CDTV Game 172 Loom CDTV Game 162

Diggers CD32 Game 414 Lost Vikings, The CD32 Game 468

Disposable Hero CD32 Game 411 MAG!!! CD32 Game 473

Donk!: The Samurai Duck! CD32 Game 416 Magic Island: The Secret Of Stones AmigaCD Game 471

Double Dragon C64GS Game 86 Manchester United Premier League Champions CD32 Game 471

Dragonstone CD32 Game 417 Marvin’s Marvellous Adventure CD32 Game 472

E.S.S Mega CDTV Game 145 Mean Arenas CD32 Game 473

Emerald Mines CD32 Game 416 Microcosm CD32 Game 474

Erben Der Erde: Die Grosse Suche AmigaCD Game 420 Misadventures of Flink, The CD32 Game 432

Exile CD32 Game 418 Mole Attack MAX Game 52

Falcon CDTV Game 153 Money Wars MAX Game 52

Fantastic Voyage CDTV Game 154 Morph CD32 Game 476

Fears CD32 Game 440 Murder Makes Strange Deadfellows CDTV Game 159

Fields Of Glory CD32 Game 421 Myth C64GS Game 90

Fightin’ Spirit AmigaCD Game 428 Myth CD32 Game 472

Final Gate, The CD32 Game 421 Narco Police C64GS Game 88

Fire & Ice CD32 Game 431 Naughty Ones CD32 Game 477

Fire Force CD32 Game 430 Navy SEALs C64GS Game 91

Fly Harder CD32 Game 433 Nick Faldo’s Championship Golf CD32 Game 477

Frontier: Elite II CD32 Game 422 Nigel Mansell’s World Championship Racing CD32 Game 478

Fury of the Furries CD32 Game 434 Omega Race MAX Game 53

Global Effect CD32 Game 430 Oscar CD32 Game 479

Gloom CD32 Game 443 Pang C64GS Game 94

Gloom 3: Zombie Edition AmigaCD Game 444 PGA European Tour CD32 Game 481

Gorf MAX Game 50 Pierre Le Chef Is ... Out To Lunch CD32 Game 480

Guardian CD32 Game 445 Pinball Fantasies CD32 Game 482

Guldkorn Expressen C64GS Game 88 Pinball Illusions CD32 Game 483

Gulp! CD32 Game 445 Pinball Prelude AmigaCD Game 481

Gunship 2000 CD32 Game 446 Pinball Spectacular MAX Game 54

Guy Spy and the Crystals of Armageddon CDTV Game 145 Pirates! Gold CD32 Game 485

Heimdall 2: Into the Hall of Worlds CD32 Game 448 Power Drive CD32 Game 484

HeroQuest II: Legacy of Sorasil CD32 Game 449 Power Pinball CDTV Game 159

Holiday Maker CDTV Game 154 Prehistorik CDTV Game 164

Hound of the Baskervilles, The CDTV Game 158 Premiere CD32 Game 486

Humans 3: Evolution: Lost In Time... CD32 Game 450 Prey: An Alien Encounter CDTV Game 164

Impossible Mission 2025 CD32 Game 452 Prey: An Alien Encounter CD32 Game 484

Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade CDTV Game 156 Psycho Killer CDTV Game 165

International Karate + CD32 Game 451 Quik the Thunder Rabbit CD32 Game 486

International Open Golf Championship CD32 Game 450 Radar Rat Race MAX Game 54

James Pond 2: Codename RoboCod CD32 Game 454 Raffles CDTV Game 166

James Pond 3: Operation Starfi5h CD32 Game 455 Read With Astérix: Astérix And Son CDTV Game 170

Jetstrike CD32 Game 453 Rise of the Robots CD32 Game 487

John Barnes European Football CD32 Game 453 Road Race MAX Game 55

Jungle Strike CD32 Game 456 Roadkill CD32 Game 496

Jupiter Lander MAX Game 49 RoboCop 2 C64GS Game 92

Kang Fu AmigaCD Game 459 RoboCop 3 C64GS Game 93

Kickman MAX Game 51 Ryder Cup: Johnnie Walker CD32 Game 496

Kid Chaos CD32 Game 429 Sabre Team CD32 Game 497

Kingpin: Arcade Sports Bowling CD32 Game 428 Satan C64GS Game 95

The Labyrinth of Time CDTV/32 Game 460 Sea Wolf MAX Game 56

Lamborghini: American Challenge CD32 Game 461 Seek and Destroy CD32 Game 498

Last Ninja 3 CD32 Game 462 Sensible Soccer: European Champions (92/93 ed.) CD32 Game 510

Last Ninja Remix C64GS Game 89 Sensible Soccer: International Edition CD32 Game 511

Le Mans MAX Game 51 The Seven Gates Of Jambala CD32 Game 499

Legends CD32 Game 465 Shadow Fighter CD32 Game 502

Lemmings CDTV Game 160 Shadow of the Beast C64GS Game 96

Lemmings CD32 Game 465 Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective CDTV Game 167

index • 753
Title System Category pg Title System Category pg

SimCity CDTV Game 168 Will Bridge - Advanced Competition / Haute CDTV Game 178
Competition
Simon the Sorcerer CD32 Game 504
Will Bridge - Competition / Competittion CDTV Game 178
Sixth Sense Investigations AmigaCD Game 499
Will Bridge - Intermediate / Perfectionnement CDTV Game 178
Skærmtrolden Hugo C64GS Game 95
Will Bridge - Bidding / Encheres CDTV Game 178
Skeleton Krew CD32 Game 519
Will Bridge: Initiation Junior CD32 Game 560
Slalom MAX Game 56
Winzer CDTV Game 179
Sleepwalker CD32 Game 516
Wizard of Wor MAX Game 58
Snoopy in The Case Of The Missing Blanket CDTV Game 170
Worms CD32 Game 558
Soccer Kid CD32 Game 514
Wrath of the Demon CDTV Game 182
Soccer Superstars CD32 Game 518
Xenon 2: Megablast CDTV Game 180
Space Gun C64GS Game 98
Zool 2 CD32 Game 564
Space Wars CDTV Game 174
Zool: Ninja Of The ‘’Nth’’ Dimension CD32 Game 562
Speed / Bingo Math MAX Game 57
Zool: Ninja Of The ‘’Nth’’ Dimension CD32 Game 562
Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe CD32 Game 512

The Speris Legacy CD32 Game 517

Spirit of Excalibur CDTV Game 171

Compilations
Star Crusader CD32 Game 520 Title System pg
Striker CD32 Game 518 Acid Attack CD32 574
Strip Poker Live CDTV Game 172 Alien Breed Special Edition / Qwak CD32 575
Strip Pot CD32 Game 534 Big 6, The CD32 576
Subwar 2050 CD32 Game 521 C64GS Cartridge C64GS 103
Summer Olympix CD32 Game 519 Classic Lotus Trilogy, The CD32 578
Super Alien MAX Game 57 Cubulus & Magic Serpent CDTV 224
Super League Manager CD32 Game 523 Dangerous Streets / Wing Commander CD32 579
Super Methane Bros. CD32 Game 523 Diggers / Oscar CD32 580
Super Putty CD32 Game 524 Funplay C64GS 104
Super Skidmarks CD32 Game 522 Funplay & Powerplay C64GS 104
Super Stardust CD32 Game 525 Global Chaos CDTV 225
Super Street Fighter II Turbo CD32 Game 526 Grandslam Gamer Gold Collection CD32 591
Superfrog CD32 Game 528 Humans 1 & 2, The CD32 584
Surf Ninjas CD32 Game 530 Mutation Gold Compilation: Limited Collectors Edition CD32 586
Syndicate CD32 Game 532 Overkill & Lunar-C CD32 581
Team Yankee CDTV Game 173 Power-Games CD32 592
TeleGames CDTV Game 246 Powerplay C64GS 105
Terminator 2: Judgment Day C64GS Game 100 Project-X Special Edition & F17 Challenge CD32 589
Theme Park CD32 Game 538 Shiftrix & Lettrix CDTV 226
Thomas The Tank Engine’s Pinball CD32 Game 534 Sleepwalker & Pinball Fantasies CD32 591
Tie-Break CDTV Game 179 Super Games Pak CDTV 233
Toki C64GS Game 99 Ultimate Body Blows & Project-X Special Edition CD32 591
Top Gear 2 CD32 Game 536

Total Carnage CD32 Game 542

Educational Titles
Town With No Name CDTV Game 175
Title System Category pg
Trivial Pursuit CDTV Game 174
12 Centuries of Art - Palermo CDTV Reference 215
Trivial Pursuit: The CD32 Edition CD32 Game 550
A Bun for Barney CDTV Education 184
Trolls CD32 Game 537
A Long Hard Day On The Ranch (Discis) CDTV Education 195
Turrican CDTV Game 176
American Heritage CDTV Reference 214
Turrican II: The Final Fight CDTV Game 177
American Vista Atlas CDTV Reference 213
UFO: Enemy Unknown CD32 Game 545
Barney Bear Goes Camping CDTV Education 185
Ultimate Basketball CDTV Game 182
Barney Bear Goes to School CDTV Education 185
Ultimate Body Blows CD32 Game 541
Caplex CDTV Reference 208
Ultimate Super Skidmarks AmigaCD Game 551
Cinderella: The Original Fairy Tale (Discis) CDTV Education 194
Universe CD32 Game 552
Cinemabilia CDTV Reference 217
Vindicators C64GS Game 102
Cinque Anni Di Ansa Sport dal 1988 al 1992 CDTV Reference 217
Vital Light CD32 Game 550
Deutschland Kompakt CDTV Reference 215
Wembley International Soccer CD32 Game 555
Deutschland Kompakt 2 CDTV Reference 215
Wendetta 2175 AmigaCD Game 555
Dodici Anni Di Gazzetta Ufficiale CDTV Reference 217
Whale’s Voyage CD32 Game 556
Dr. Wellman CDTV Reference 218
Whizz AmigaCD Game 560
Enciclopedia Electronica Multimediale Grolier CD32 Reference 572
Wild Cup Soccer CD32 Game 551
Enciclopedia Italiana Grolier CDTV Reference 208
Will Bridge - Advanced / Standard CDTV Game 178

754 • index
Title System Category pg Title System Category pg

Enciclopedia Italiana Grolier Edizione 1994 CDTV Reference 209 Camel Racer CD32 Misc. 714

Fakta Leksikon CDTV Reference 208 Catus Karaoke - Dansbands- Karaoke 1 CD32 Music 571

Fremdsprachenrätsel Spanisch 1 CDTV Education 192 Catus Karaoke - Fest- och SnapsKaraoke CD32 Music 571

Fun School 3: for 5 to 7 Year Olds CDTV Education 187 Catus Karaoke - Jul- Karaoke CD32 Music 571

Fun School 3: for the over 7s CDTV Education 187 Catus Karaoke – Krog- Karaoke 1 CD32 Music 571

Fun School 3: for the Under 5s CDTV Education 186 CD Gold CD32 Multi-Media 570

Great Cities of Our World Florence CDTV Reference 214 CD Remix: The D.J. in a Box CDTV Music 221

The Grolier Electronic Encyclopedia CD32 Reference 573 CD Remix: Version II CDTV Music 221

The Guinness CDTV Disc Of Records CDTV Reference 216 CDTV Burn-In #2 CDTV Misc. 246

The Guinness Disc of Records: Second Edition CD32 Reference 572 Dinosaurs for Hire CDTV Arts/Leisure 200

Heather Hits her First Home Run (Discis) CDTV Education 197 Fractal Universe CDTV Arts/Leisure 203

Heroic Age of Spaceflight CDTV Education 190 Frankfurt 1992 CDTV Music 239

Homèo-CD CDTV Reference 218 Gangster Pursuit CD32 Misc. 714

The Human Body CDTV Reference 218 GardenFax - Fruits, Vegetables & Herbs CDTV Arts/Leisure 202

The Hutchinson Encyclopedia CDTV Reference 209 GardenFax - Garden Plants CDTV Arts/Leisure 202

Il Dizionario – Multilingue CDTV Reference 210 GardenFax - Indoor Plants CDTV Arts/Leisure 202

Il Dizionario – Say it in English CDTV Reference 210 GardenFax - Trees, Shrubs, Roses & Conifers CDTV Arts/Leisure 202

Il Guinness Dei Primati 1994 CDTV Reference 216 Jubiläumsdisc 20 Jahre Commodore CDTV Misc. 247

Illustrated Holy Bible, The CDTV Reference 212 Mendelssohn - Symphony No. 2 - Hymn Of Praise CDTV CD+G 247

The Illustrated Works of Shakespeare CDTV Reference 212 Music Maker CDTV Music 221

Insight: Dinosaurs CDTV Reference 211 Musicolor CDTV Music 222

Insight: Technology CDTV Reference 211 Sexual Fantasies CDTV Multi-Media 244

Japan World CDTV Education 188 The Connoisseur: Fine Art Collection CDTV Arts/Leisure 203

Language TV: English CDTV Education 190 Women in Motion CDTV Arts/Leisure 201

Le Monde – Les Chronologies Du Monde 1944-1991 CDTV Reference 218 Your Privacy Assured CDTV Multi-Media 244

Learn French With Astérix CDTV Education 189

Mathematik Leicht Gemacht CD32 Education 568 Tools

Mind Run CDTV Education 184
Title System pg
Moving Gives Me A Stomach Ache (Discis) CDTV Education 195
CD + MIDI CDTV 247
Mud Puddle (Discis) CDTV Education 196
CDBoot 1.0 CD32 569
My Paint CDTV CDTV Education 191
Communicator CD32 689
The New Basics Electronic Cookbook CDTV Reference 217
Communicator II CD32 689
The New Grolier Electronic Encyclopedia CDTV Reference 210
Communicator III CD32 689
The Night Before Christmas (Discis) CDTV Education 196
Folioworx Player CD32 568
North Polar Expedition CDTV Education 191
Interoffice CDTV 246
Ordicode CDTV Education 188
MAX BASIC MAX 60
Paper Bag Princess, The (Discis) CDTV Education 194
Maximum MODS CD32 569
Pinocchio CDTV Education 190
Mini BASIC I MAX 60
Scary Poems For Rotten Kids (Discis) CDTV Education 197
Multimedia Toolkit CDTV 227
Sherlock Holmes On A Disc CDTV Reference 212
Music Composer MAX 61
Sprachrätsel Englisch 1 CDTV Education 192
Music Machine MAX 61
Sprachrätsel Englisch 2 CDTV Education 192
Network CD 2 CD32 592
Sprachrätsel Englisch 3 CDTV Education 192
Pandora’s CD CDTV 227
Sprachrätsel Französisch 1 CDTV Education 192
PhotoLite CD32 568
Tale of Benjamin Bunny, The (Discis) CDTV Education 198
Sheer Delight CD32 570
Tale Of Peter Rabbit, The (Discis) CDTV Education 198
Ten on Ten CDTV 245
Thomas’ Snowsuit (Discis) CDTV Education 198
Video Creator CD32 569
Timbres de France & Monaco CDTV Reference 216
Visible Solar System MAX 58
Time Table of History - Business, Politics & Media CDTV Reference 214

Time Table of History - Science and Innovation CDTV Reference 214

World Atlas CD32 Reference 573 Shareware, disk-magz, etc.

World Vista Atlas CDTV Reference 213
Title System Category pg

17 BIT - Phase Four CDTV PD Coll. 231

Multi-Media
17 BIT - The Continuation Disk CDTV PD Coll. 231
Title System Category pg 17 BIT Collection CDTV PD Coll. 230
1001 Girl CDTV Multi-Media 244 Amiga CD32 CD32 Disk-Mag 597
Advanced Military Systems CDTV Arts/Leisure 200 Amiga CD32 Gamer CD32 Disk-Mag 593
Amiga Workbench 3.0 CD32 Multi-Media 570 Amiga CD32 Special CD32 Disk-Mag 596
Animals in Motion CDTV Arts/Leisure 201 Amiga Game-Power CD32 PD Coll. 580
Beethoven - Symphony No. 9 CDTV CD+G 247 AMOS PD CD CDTV PD Coll. 235

index • 755
Title System Category pg Title System pg

Assassins CDTV PD Coll. 232 Amiga CD Football CDTV 259

Assassins 2 CDTV PD Coll. 232 Angel of the City CDTV 250

Assassins 3 CDTV PD Coll. 232 Animated Colouring Book CDTV 262

Assassins 4 CDTV PD Coll. 233 Aquaventura CDTV 268

CD Exchange Vol 1 CD32 PD Coll. 574 Armalyte 2 C64GS 108

CDPD CDTV PD Coll. 234 Athens & Sparta CDTV 267

CDPD II CDTV PD Coll. 234 Atrophy CD32 602

CDPD III CDTV PD Coll. 234 B-17 Flying Fortress CD32 650

CDPD IV CDTV PD Coll. 235 B.A.T. C64GS 108

Come - Corporate Media CDTV Demo 239 B.A.T. CDTV 268

Commodore Amiga CDTV - Hören & Sehen CDTV Demo 238 Baldies CD32 601

Commodore CDTV / Amiga 600 / Amiga 600 HD - Info CDTV Demo 239 Barbarian 3 C64GS 109

Demo Collection, The CDTV PD Coll. 236 Bargon Attack CDTV 268

Demo Disc, The CD32 Demo 598 Battlestorm C64GS 108

Demo II CDTV PD Coll. 236 Battletoads CDTV 268

Diamonds & Pearls CD32 PD Coll. 580 Bazooka Sue CD32 605

Express PD Galore CD32 PD Coll. 580 Benjamin And The Alien Incident CD32 600

Fred Fish Collection CDTV PD Coll. 244 Big End, The / The Big Engine CD32 601

The Fred Fish Collection On-Line Version 1.4 CDTV PD Coll. 229 Big Red Adventure, The CD32 650

The Fred Fish Collection On-Line Version 1.5 CDTV PD Coll. 229 Biing!: Sex, Intrigue and Scalpels CD32 650

The Fred Fish Collection On-Line Version 1.6 CDTV PD Coll. 230 Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure CDTV 268

The Fred Fish Collection On-Line Version 1.7 CDTV PD Coll. 230 Biosphere CD32 606

The Fred Fish Collection Version 1.0 CDTV PD Coll. 228 Blockbusters CDTV 250

The Fred Fish Collection Version 1.1 CDTV PD Coll. 228 BloodNet CD32 650

The Fred Fish Collection Version 1.2 CDTV PD Coll. 228 Bloodwych C64GS 108

The Fred Fish Collection Version 1.3 CDTV PD Coll. 229 Body Blows Galactic CD32 651

The Fred Fish Collection Version 1.4 CDTV PD Coll. 229 Boo! CD32 605

The Fred Fish Collection Version 1.5 CDTV PD Coll. 229 Brides of Dracula CDTV 270

The Fred Fish Collection Version 1.6 CDTV PD Coll. 229 Bubble Ghost C64GS 108

The Fred Fish Collection Version 1.7 CDTV PD Coll. 229 Bubble Trouble CD32 649

Fred Fish Vol.1 CDTV PD Coll. 230 Buggy Ranger C64GS 108

Fred Fish Vol.2 CDTV PD Coll. 230 Burning Rubber CD32 650

Game Massive CD32 PD Coll. 598 California Games C64GS 109

Gamers’ Delight CD32 PD Coll. 582 Cannon Fodder 2 CD32 651

Kickstart Public Domain Nr. 1-550 CDTV PD Coll. 230 Captain Dynamo CD32 651

Lock-N-Load CD32 PD Coll. 591 Cardinal of the Kremlin, The CDTV 270

Microcosm Demo CD32 Demo 598 CDTV Disc Jockey CDTV 264

Network CD CDTV PD Coll. 235 CDTV Karaoke: Successi Italiani Vol.1 CDTV 267

Now That’s What I Call Games CD32 PD Coll. 588 Cecil and his Chopper CD32 649

Now That’s What I Call Games 2 CD32 PD Coll. 588 Challenge Golf CDTV 270

Now That’s What I Call Games 3: Games & Goodies CD32 PD Coll. 588 Civilization CD32 651

Psygnosis Demo CD (Planetside demo) CDTV Demo 241 Classic Collection, The CDTV 275

Read with Asterix CDTV Demo 239 Club Football: The Manager CD32 651

Saar AMOK CDTV PD Coll. 236 COALA CD32 651

Top 100 Games CD32 CD32 PD Coll. 590 Composer Quest CDTV 265

VidDISC CDTV Demo 238 Crazy Bikes C64GS 109

Welcome Disk CDTV Demo 238 Crazy Cars 2 C64GS 109

World of Sound CD32 PD Coll. 590 Creation CD32 608

Crime Does Not Pay C64GS 110

Unreleased Titles Cult Of The Severed Head CDTV 250

Cyberwar CD32 606

Title System pg
Darkmere CD32 651
1869 CD32 650
Daughter of Serpents CD32 606
1886 CD32 649
Dawnscape CDTV 250
18 Classical CD+G Titles CDTV 267
Dennis and Gnasher CD32 610
A.G.E. (Advanced Galactic Empire) CDTV 268
Desert Strike CD32 651
Addams Family, The C64GS 108
Dick Tracy C64GS 110
Adrenaline Factor CD32 600
Dino Worlds CD32 606
Aggression CD32 600
Dominion CDTV 254
Air Traffic Controller CDTV 250
Dracula CDTV 254
Ambermoon CD32 650

756 • index
Title System pg Title System pg

Dracula CD32 607 Jekyll And Hyde CDTV 252

Drakkhen CDTV 270 John Doe CD32 649

DreamWeb CD32 652 Jurassic Park CD32 654

Dune CDTV 260 K240 CD32 659

Dune CD32 652 Karaoke Christmas CDTV 267

Dungeon Master CDTV 260 Karaoke Hits I & II CDTV 267

Elfmania CD32 652 Karaoke Hits vol. 1 - 20 CDTV 267

Embryo CD32 652 Kick Off 2 C64GS 111

Emergency Languages CDTV 266 KIM CDTV 267

Empire Soccer CD32 652 King of Thieves CD32 618

England World Cup ‘94 CD32 649 Last Ninja 2 CD32 654

Enigma CD32 617 Last Ninja 3 C64GS 112

Epic Space Flight Simulator – Epic CDTV 270 Last Ninja Remix CD32 654

Evasive Action CD32 607 Lawnmower Man, The CDTV 254

Extractors: The Hanging Worlds Of Zarg CD32 612 Learn English With Astérix CDTV 263

Fables & Fiends: The Legend of Kyrandia CDTV 271 The Learning Company CDTV 275

Falcon C64GS 110 The Legacy CD32 649

Family Drug And Poison Information System CDTV 266 The Lemmings Chronicles CD32 655

Fantasy Manager CD32 652 Limbo Of The Lost CD32 628

Fascination CDTV 260 Lionheart CD32 655

FidoFax CDTV 264 Listen CDTV 264

Final Over: Arcade Sports Cricket CD32 607 Litil Divil CDTV 271

Fire & Forget II C64GS 110 Liverpool FC CD32 655

First Contact: An Alien Adventure CD32 649 Living Book Series CDTV 264

Fist CD32 649 Lost Eden CD32 627

Flashback CD32 652 Lost in Mine CD32 655

Flight of the Amazon Queen CD32 654 Lunar Rescue: The Colossus Incident CDTV 255

Flimbo’s Quest CD32 652 Mad TV CDTV 271

Formula One Grand Prix CD32 654 Maelstrom CDTV 271

Frontier: First Encounters CD32 606 Magic Carpet CD32 634

Fun School 4 CDTV 263 Many Roads to Murder CDTV 254

Future Wars: Adventures in Time CDTV 261 Master Axe CD32 655

The Games CDTV 270 The Maths Collection CDTV 264

The Games: Summer Edition C64GS 110 McGee CDTV 275

The Games: Winter Edition C64GS 110 MegaMorph CD32 616

Garfield: Big Fat Hairy Deal CDTV 270 MegaRace CD32 617

Garfield: Winter’s Tail CDTV 270 Mental Mayhem CD32 626

Gazza II C64GS 111 Mickey’s 123’s: The Big Surprise Party CDTV 275

Genesis CD32 649 Micro Machines II CD32 616

Gobliiins CDTV 260 Microcosm CDTV 261

Golden Axe C64GS 111 MIDI Music Machine CDTV 265

Graham Gooch Cricket CD32 654 MiG-29 Fulcrum CDTV 272

Grand Prix – World Circuit CDTV 272 Mighty Max CD32 607

Hard Drivin' C64GS 111 Mind Run II CDTV 264

Harry the Hairy Hermit CD32 649 Monach Notes CDTV 266

Herewith the Clues CDTV 261 Monopoly CD32 649

Herewith the Clues CD32 654 Moonwalker C64GS 112

Hired Guns CD32 654 Mortal Kombat CD32 655

Hook C64GS 111 Mr. Nutz: Hoppin’ Mad CD32 655

Hutchinsons Encylopedia (Version 2) CDTV 266 Multimedia Birds Of America CDTV 266

Hyboria: Conan The Conqueror CD32 614 Murder off Miami CDTV 259

IK Deluxe (aka: International Karate Deluxe / IK++) C64GS 111 Murder, Anyone? CDTV 254

Independent Soccer Disc CDTV 265 Mutant League Football CD32 617

Indoor Sports CDTV 271 Mutant League Hockey CD32 617

Inferno CD32 616 Nam 1965-1975, ' CDTV 272

Insight : Living Body CDTV 266 NHL Hockey CD32 649

International Karate Plus CDTV 271 Night At The Races, A CDTV 268

J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Vol. II: The Two Towers CD32 635 Ninja High School Comix CDTV 264

Jack Nicklaus Golf CDTV 262 Ninja High School Comix CDTV 265

James Pond 2: Codename Robocod CDTV 271 No Second Prize CD32 655

index • 757
 Title System pg Title System pg

North Polar Expedition CD32 656 Space Rogue C64GS 113

Nova Storm CD32 617 Space School Simulator: The Academy CD32 657

Orcus C64GS 112 Spherical Worlds CD32 657

Our House CDTV 265 Spy vs. Spy CDTV 262

Overdrive CD32 656 Spy Who Loved Me, The C64GS 113

Pac-Mania CDTV 272 Star Trek: 25th Anniversary CD32 657

Pinball Dreams CDTV 272 Starglider 2 C64GS 113

Pinkie CD32 656 Study In Scarlett, A CDTV 266

Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure CD32 634 Subbuteo C64GS 113

Plan 9 From Outer Space CDTV 272 Super Kick Off 3 CD32 626

Plotting C64GS 112 Super Loopz CD32 657

Pool – Archer Maclean’s Pool CDTV 272 Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers CD32 658

Primal Rage CD32 656 Surf System CD32 635

KGB CDTV 271 Terminator, The CDTV 259

Pro Tennis Tour 2 C64GS 112 TFX CD32 658

Pro Tennis Tour II CDTV 272 The Baby File: Conception to Birth CDTV 263

Prohibition C64GS 112 Their Finest Hour CDTV 274

Psycho Killer CD32 656 Thexder CDTV 274

Psycho Killer II CDTV 259 Time Table of History: Arts & Entertainment CDTV 267

Psycho Pinball CD32 634 Tiny Troops CD32 658

Pussies Galore CD32 636 Tong Dynasty CD32 635

Putty C64GS 112 Tornado CD32 658

Puzznic C64GS 113 Tower of Souls CD32 658

Quiztime! CDTV 263 Town With No Name CD32 658

RAF Hendom Museum Series CDTV 266 Tracksuit Manager 2 CD32 658

Rainbow Collection Platform Arcade CDTV 262 Treasure Quest CDTV 259

Rampart C64GS 113 Treehouse, The CDTV 264

Reach for the Skies CDTV 273 Trump Castle CDTV 274

Read With Astérix: The Black Gold CDTV 263 Turbo Charge C64GS 114

Read With Astérix: The Secret Weapon CDTV 263 Turbo Trax CD32 658

Return Of Medusa, The CDTV 273 Turning Points CD32 659

Return to the Lost World CD32 649 Turrican II C64GS 114

Reunion CD32 656 Turrican III CD32 659

Rick Dangerous II C64GS 113 TV Sports Baseball CD32 659

Road to the Final Four: NCAA Basketball CDTV 259 TV Sports Boxing CD32 659

Robinson’s Requiem CD32 656 Ultima VI C64GS 114

Ruff ‘n’ Tumble CD32 656 Ultima VI: The False Prophet CDTV 274

Run Ball CD32 634 Ultimate Dizzy CD32 649

Scientific Atlas: Astromony CDTV 266 Universal Monsters CDTV 256

Scientific Atlas: Human Evolution CDTV 266 Unreal CDTV 274

Scientific Atlas: Psychics CDTV 266 Urban Strike CD32 648

Scientific Atlas: Zoology CDTV 266 Uridium 2 CD32 659

The Sea Beast and Barnacle Bill CDTV 259 US History CDTV 267

Second Samurai CD32 657 Vendetta C64GS 114

The Secret of Monkey Island CDTV 262 Venus The Flytrap C64GS 114

Senny and Foo CDTV 259 Video Creator CDTV 265

Sensible Soccer CDTV 273 Virtual Chess CD32 648

The Seventh Sword of Mendor CD32 644 Virtual Karting CD32 659

Shadow of the Beast CDTV 273 Voice FX CDTV 265

Shadow of the Beast II CDTV 273 Watchtower CD32 659

Shadow of the Beast III CDTV 273 Wayne Gretzky Hockey II CDTV 274

Shaq Fu CD32 657 Wild Streets 114

Sign of Four CDTV 259 Wing Commander 274

Silly Putty CDTV 273 World Cup Golf 648
SimEarth CDTV 273 Wrath of the Demon 114
SimLife CD32 657 X-COM: Terror from the Deep 635
Simon the Sorcerer II CD32 657 X-Fighter 646
Skitchin’ CD32 634 X-It 648
Space Junk CD32 638 X-Out 114
Space Quest III CDTV 274 X2: No Relief 648

758 • index
Title System pg Title System Category pg

XTreme Racing CD32 648 CD32 Connection Kit CD32 Accessory 699

Zool 3 CD32 649 CD32 Game System 030 CD32 Accel. 704

CD32 Interface Expander CD32 Expander 700

Homebrew After-Market Games CD32 Keyboard CD32 Keyboard 686

CD32 Keyboard Interface CD32 Accessory 687

Title System pg
CD32 ProModule CD32 Expander 696
AlarCity CD32 663
CDTV A577/CD577 CDTV Storage 311
ArtPazz CD32 664
CDTV Flash Memory CDTV Expander 300
Catacomb 3-D: The Descent CD32 662
CDTV RAM CDTV RAM 297
Defender of the Crown: Extended Collector´s Edition CD32 666
CDTV Remote Control CDTV Controller 129
Eric Schwartz Collection CD32 678
CDTV RGBtoHDMI Expansion CDTV Expander 312
Flashback CD32 681
CDTV SCSI CDTV Storage 311
Giana Sisters: Special Edition CD32 680
CDTV SCSI CDTV Storage 311
Heroes Of Gorluth CD32 673
CDTV to SCSI Interface CDTV Storage 311
Hunter CD32 - 25th Anniversary Edition CD32 678
CDTV-Kick CDTV Accessory 301
Inviyya CD32 664
CDTV-Kick CDTV Accessory 301
Jaguar XJ220 CD32 678
CDTV-Kick CDTV Accessory 301
Kiwi’s Tale, The CD32 666
CDTV-SCSI CDTV Storage 310
Land of Genesis CD32 663
Cheetah Annihilator C64GS Controller 72
Legend Of Falconia: 25 Years Anniversary Collectors Edition CD32 665
Communicator CD32 Expander 689
The Legend of Kyrandia: Book One CD32 681
Competition Pro CD32 Controller 688
MultiMAX Cartridge MAX 61
DCTV CDTV Video 292
Powerglove Reloaded CD32 668
DCTV RGB Converter CDTV Video 294
Projekt: Lila CD32 670
Disk Drive CDTV Storage 288
Putty Squad CD32 676
Dust cover CD32 Accessory 687
Rally Championships CD32 678
Elbox CDTV/2 CDTV RAM 296
Reshoot CD32 671
External Hard Disk Drive CDTV Storage 310
Reshoot R CD32 671
FMV (Full Motion Video) Module CD32 Accessory 690
Rocket Ranger: Extended Collector´s Edition CD32 667
Game Controller CD32 Controller 347
Sharks! CD32 674
Genlock Module CDTV Video 291
SkillGrid CD32 674
HD CDTV CDTV Storage 310
Stunt Car Racer CD32 681
Honey Bee CD32 Controller 688
Tales Of Gorluth: Dungeon Of Reminiscence CD32 672
Indivision AGA 1200/4000 CD32 Accessory 701
Tanks Furry CD32 670
Indivision AGA 4000 MK2/MK2cr CD32 Accessory 701
Tiger Claw CD32 669
JoPort CDTV Accessory 298
Time Gal CD32 679
Keyboard CDTV Controller 287
Tiny Little Slug CD32 673
KTRL CD32+ Gamepad CD32 Controller 703
Turrican Anthology CD32 678
Master ISO CD32 Software 704
Where Time Stood Still CD32 679
Megachip CDTV RAM 297
Wiz: Quest for the Magic Lantern CD32 675
Melody CDTV CDTV Audio 299
Worthy CD32 675
Memory Card CDTV Expander 291

NTSC Video Module CDTV Video 290

Hardware PAL Video Module CDTV Video 290

Power 32 CD32 Expander 700

Title System Category pg
Remote Control Adapter CDTV Accessory 298
1084S-D2 CDTV Monitor 289
RocGen+ CDTV Video 294
AdIDE 40 (Prima) CDTV Storage 310
SCART Module CDTV Video 290
AdIDE 44 (Novia) CDTV Storage 310
SCSI-TV / SCSI-TV/570 CDTV Storage 301
Analogic Disk Drive CD32 Accessory 693
SX-1 CD32 Accel. 694
Bigfoot CD32 CD32 Accessory 687
SX-32 CD32 Accel. 697
BigRAM CD CDTV RAM 296
SX-32 Mk II CD32 Accel. 697
BigRAM CD8 CDTV RAM 296
SX-32 Mk II Pro CD32 Accel. 697
Blizzard CDTV CDTV Accel. 300
SX-32 Pro CD32 Accel. 698
Brick-Ette CDTV Accessory 298
TerribleFire 328 CD32 Accel. 702
Brick, the CDTV Accessory 298
TerribleFire 330 CD32 Accel. 702
Cabletronic Accelerator CD32 Accessory 700
TerribleFire 360 CD32 Accel. 702
CD Caddy 2-Pack CDTV Accessory 288
TOMS CD32 Keyboard CD32 Keyboard 686
CD Error Rate Counter CD32 Misc. 704
Trackball Controller CDTV Controller 287
CD1200 CD32 Accessory 705
Turbo CD CDTV Accel. 300
CD32 AUX Extension CD32 Accessory 687
VD-4 Amiga CDTV Video 294
CD32 Carry Case CD32 Accessory 687

index • 759
 Hardware
Title System Category pg

VDAmiga II CDTV Video 294

Voice Master CDTV Audio 299

Wicher CD32 CD32 Accel. 703

Wired Mouse CDTV Mouse 286

Wireless Mouse CDTV Mouse 286

Other Systems
Title System Category pg

AMIGA 1000 Amiga Computer 743

AMIGA 1200 Amiga Computer 747

AMIGA 1500 Amiga Computer 745

AMIGA 2000 Amiga Computer 744

AMIGA 2500 Amiga Computer 744

AMIGA 3000 Amiga Computer 745

AMIGA 3000T Amiga Computer 746

AMIGA 3000UX Amiga Computer 745

AMIGA 4000 Amiga Computer 747

AMIGA 4000T Amiga Computer 747

AMIGA 500 Amiga Computer 744

AMIGA 600 Amiga Computer 746

AMIGA Amiga 500+ Amiga Computer 746

C64CGS C64GS System 118

C64DTV Emu. System 732

CD32 Tower CD32 System 712

CD32x CD32 System 720

CDTV CDA-1 CDTV System 314

CDTV CDA-2 CDTV System 314

CDTV-II (CDTV-CR / CDTV-500) CDTV System 316

Commodore 116 CBM Computer 739

Commodore 128 CBM Computer 740

Commodore 16 CBM Computer 739

Commodore 64 CBM Computer 738

Commodore 900 CBM Computer 740

Commodore CBM-II CBM Computer 737

Commodore Educator 64 CBM Computer 737

Commodore PC Series CBM Computer 740

Commodore PET Series CBM Computer 736

Commodore Plus/4 CBM Computer 739

Commodore SuperPET SP9000 CBM Computer 737

Commodore SX-64 CBM Computer 738

Commodore VIC 20 CBM Computer 738

Cubo CD32 CD32 System 718

Drivers license application CD32 System 712

FWSI (WallStreet Institute Expansion) CD32 System 717

Kwizoke Plus Karaoke & Ent. System CDTV/32 System 714

Laser Gate 2 CD32 System 718

Scala WS500 CD32 System 716

Socrates CD32 System 720

StarGames - Hawaiian Delight CD32 System 712

StarGames - Leprechaun Luck CD32 System 712

StarGames - Mister Magic CD32 System 712

THEA500 Mini Emu. System 735

THEC64 Emu. System 734

THEC64 Mini Emu. System 733

THEVIC20 Emu. System 734

TVi Modem CD32 System 713

Wonder TV A6000 / A6060 CD32 System 319

760 • index
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DaddaRuleKonge