Another strange entry into the GTW64 vaults, where Activision had planned to release a tape version of Gee Bee Air Rally. Magazines of the time even reviewed the game and mentioned a tape version in the price list. Of course, the disk version was released.
However, for reasons as yet unknown – it didn’t happen. Unless you owned the Big Box 30 collection from Beau Jolly. Infamously, the compilation included earlier builds of games, and the infamy continued with Gee Bee Air Rally, which is found to just be a frozen copy of the Disk version with one segment (which is why the game starts with the player in the mud field).
To be honest, I never really twigged that it was frozen back in the day – but it makes perfect sense now that Martin/Stadium64 has highlighted it.
So what happened – both Martin and I feel that its likely that they just had problems trying to convert it into a tape version (like they did with Pyramid of Time) and just ran out of time before deciding to can it (especially after the poor reviews).
When it came to adding to the compilation, they probably assumed it was available and had probably already done all the packaging, so just froze out a level in a panic to say that something of it was on the compilation. Bit sneaky, but nothing unusual it seems – just look at Further Adventures of Alice in Videoland.
So was anything started? Is there anything to preserve or just a case closed very early on?
Contributions: Martin/Stadium64, Zzap64.co.uk, Archive.org
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