Yet another Hewson title to add to GTW64, thanks to Richard Bayliss for highlighting. This game has actually been around in the C64 archives for some time now, since it was cracked pretty much back in the day.
The good news is that there isn’t anything to find as such, as the full game was released by the cracking scene. But what of the Hewson release itself?
Firstly, a bit about the game… Alliance is a very simple Warhawk/Lightforce clone with a very slow scrolling background for each level and very simplistic alien attack waves (which seem to just repeat non-stop). Graphically it looks ok, nothing spectacular – but presentation is pretty nice – including a cool title screen and set of music tracks.
It is our guess that Matt Mitchell developed the game at home and submitted it to Hewson in the hope of them using it on their label (possibly on the Rack-It label). For whatever reason, the game must have been rejected, and the Hewson wiki page seems to confirm this. Somehow it later leaked out via a crack label – either via someone at Hewson or Matt himself after deciding he couldn’t get anyone to buy the game.
Although the game is safe and complete – we would love to complete the story about the game and find out exactly what happened to close the door on it and preserve a bit of gaming history. So Matt, if you are out there … please get in touch about your game!
Contributions: Richard Bayliss, Gamebase 64 (Game and a few screenshots borrowed with thanks)
FWIW there is a video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwBsVXoKEfw
Thanks Fabrizio!