Games That Weren't^®

1988 Firebird and then Electronic Arts

Platform: Atari ST (and likely Commodore Amiga)

An impressive looking title which featured a massive dragon main character, which took up most of the screen. This was to be a second title signed up by Firebird from ICOM Simulations, along with Blazing Barrels (which also never saw release).

The game was shown briefly in a few magazines, and TelecomSoft’s Richard Hewison recalls seeing the game on the ST and how simple it was:

“Dragon was never advertised, and the development version on the ST was extremely simple. Basically, on the left you saw a castle with a drawbridge. The drawbridge was open, and a large dragon sprite could walk along the drawbridge and back. That was about it! The whole thing looked and felt a little bit like ‘Black Lamp’ which Firebird had only published earlier the same year (1988).

I have no recollection as to what happened to the deal with ICOM (UK) Ltd. It might have still been active when BT sold the labels to MicroProse, or the deal might have already been dead.”

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1990 ARC

Platforms: Atari ST and Commodore Amiga

Cyber Assault was a vector-based obstacle course game announced by ARC. In the game you must control a character called TRAX (an exo-skeletal humanoid), who can run, jump and walk through a 3D universe. Impressively he would have displayed over 70 faces animated accurately at 15 frames per second.

The story would go that years ago, you murdered a civi-cop and were then imprisoned for life. Once a year, the worst prisoner is given the chance of freedom by entering the Cyber Assault. A deadly obstacle course race. Win and you are free. Fail and you are a dead man. Continue reading →