Games That Weren't^®

1989 Electronic Arts

Platform: Commodore Amiga 500

You may think you’re looking at a PC Engine title, but instead – here’s an Amiga game you likely have never heard of. An early and impressive PC Engine style beat-em-up called Path of the Little Dragon (a working title). The game was being developed at Imagitec from between 1988 and 1989 that was coded and designed by Che Guevara John.

This was an original title that Che developed to try and take full advantage of the Amiga hardware (dual playfield, parallax scrolling, copper/blitter and hardware sprites). The idea was to deliberately replicate the look and feel of the PC Engine import titles that were becoming popular in Europe at the time.

One level was overall developed as a technical demo with an in-house artist (unfortunately their name cannot be recalled), with a view to then refine and expand the gameplay/design elements back in 1988. The game was a sort of souped up version of Kung Fu Master, where you would scroll from right to left and carry out various kung fu moves on different enemies that block your path. It isn’t clear if there were plans for additional gameplay elements. Continue reading →

1994 Titus

Platform: Commodore Amiga

As we crept into 1994, there were still very decent Amiga titles seeing release – and yet another promising looking title was the sequel to Blues Brothers – The Blues Brothers: Jukebox Adventure. This time though, it was just Amiga users who would get delights of the famous duo – well actually, only SNES, PC and Game Boy users would ever get to play the game. The Amiga title would disappear into the ether and become one of the big Amiga mysteries.

However – that wasn’t before getting fans excited via a series of previews, but even reviews too. In 1994, Joystick magazine published a full review for both the Amiga and PC. The article described it as a lively and colourful platformer, distinct from the earlier Blues Brothers game but still firmly in the arcade-action mold. Continue reading →