1995 Acclaim Entertainment
Platform: SEGA Master System
A very short entry for now on a Master System conversion of Rise of the Robots that never was – or was it? The game itself is famous for looking amazing, but not playing particularly great.
When you boiled down the graphics onto 8-bit platforms, then you were really in trouble. However, developer Clive Townsend would give it his best shot, but he was really up against it with a poor design to implement.
Not only was Clive working on the Game Gear edition, but simultaneously he would be developing the game for the Master System too. The only real differences were with the palettes and the screen layouts to adjust for the different size screens.
For reasons unknown, the game never saw a release on the Master System and only on the Game Gear. Perhaps the market at that point had dried up too much, and it was only felt the Game Gear edition would sell.
Clive suggests that apart from the palette and screen size differences, both versions were identical and were based off the same codebase. He suggested that maybe plugging in the Game Gear cartridge into a Master System could even trigger the lost version.
Sadly, that wouldn’t be the case – though interestingly some parts of the game screen do extend – showing elements that would have been visible only on the Master System edition (see gallery).
It would be amazing if there was some kind of flag in the code to switch between a Game Gear and Master System mode – but we doubt it very much. However, if anyone manages to hack around and find anything interesting – please let us know.
Clive no longer has anything of the code or a Master System cartridge, so finding a proper version of the game for the platform would be reliant on a prototype being found from perhaps the artist or someone else who was involved with the game. If you know anything more about the development, then please do get in touch.
With thanks to Glenn Stubberfield for flagging up and Clive Townsend for discussing and for the palette fixed images to show how they would have looked.
Gallery
