Games That Weren't^®

A highlighted review from the http://www.gtw64.co.uk archives

1987 Games Designers Workshop

Rommel: Battles for Torbruk by Games Designers Workshop (GDW) was planned to be a war strategy game, based around four battles fought between the WWII German commander Rommel and the British in North Africa.

Our evidence for the game comes from a full-page advert by the games designers, who give a detailed description of the game and the combat system used, detailing features such as hidden movement, tactical and strategic maps and details of your armies morale. An in-game screenshot is also present, suggesting the game at least reached a playable level.

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A highlighted review from the http://www.gtw64.co.uk archives

1989 Microstyle

Due to come out on the C64 in 1989, International Soccer Challenge was one of several games due for release by Microstyle in the 1989/90. ISC was also released on the Amiga, Atari ST and PC platforms, but the C64 version never came out why?

The game itself seems rather odd in presentation; the viewing screen of the game is a giant stadium screen, with information dotted around it on smaller screens. While an innovative attempt to stand out from the rest of the genre, it does seem to unnecessarily limit the screen space dedicated to actual game play. Continue reading →

A highlighted review from the http://www.gtw64.co.uk archives

1985 Artic Computing

Rugby sims have always been underrepresented in the computer gaming market. Football sims have dominated Europe, while in the USA its American Football that has dominated. It doesnt help that the rules of rugby are awkward to translate fluently to a computer whilst retaining the fast pace of the game. Continue reading →

A highlighted review from the http://www.gtw64.co.uk archives

19xx Personal Software Services

Quark was due to be released by PSS (Personal Software Services) but for some reason it doesnt seem to have ever been released. Usually in these incidences you can look at the release list for a company and see that perhaps they were quite small and disappeared as quickly as they appeared, or that the game fell outside the boundaries of their usual released, but PSS released nearly two dozen games between 1983 and 1988 and although their main area of expertise seems to have been war strategy games, they released several arcade games, such as the famous Macadam Bumper, Hyper Biker and the brilliantly titled Bath Time. Continue reading →

A highlighted review from the http://www.gtw64.co.uk archives

1985 Activision

Initially released on the Spectrum by Activision, before being re-released by Mastertronic, Xcel is described by Sinclair User as Star Trek, Space Invaders and Centipede rolled into one. Sadly the game is denied so not available for download on World of Spectrum, so I have no idea how it plays but it did garner average to good reviews upon its release and seems to have fallen into the worth a look on the budget release category. Continue reading →

A highlighted review from the http://www.gtw64.co.uk archives

198? OIC Ltd

Life on Planet Srexis is threatened! so starts the blurb describing the OIC Ltd game Sixers. The game is a grid based puzzle game but little more is known, simply because it is not known if the game was ever released, on any platform.

OIC Ltd seemed to have primarily released games on the BBC Electron and Micro, but today the games are ridiculously hard to track down and BBC collectors are still finding OIC games for their collection even now. On the BBC site https://www.stairwaytohell.com/ there isnt even an entry for Sixers. As such any hope of finding games on the 8-bit platforms seems even more remote, despite Sixers being planned for release on the C64 and the Spectrum. Continue reading →

A highlighted review from the http://www.gtw64.co.uk archives

1988 CDS Software

Made by the same company who made Tank Attack, Marine Attack was to be released by CDS Software sometime around the late eighties. There is no real information on this game, merely a reference to its existence in a statement by CDS about Tank Attack and in the Zzap! magazine review of Tank Attack. Continue reading →

A highlighted review from the http://www.gtw64.co.uk archives

1986 Probe Software

Mantronix was due to appear on the C64, along with a release on the CPC, in 1986, sometime after it was first released by Probe Software on the ZX Spectrum. Like so many Spectrum games it failed to ever get released and today our only evidence of its existence is from an advert stating it was forthcoming on the other 8-bit systems. Continue reading →

A highlighted review from the http://www.gtw64.co.uk archives

1987 Games Designers Workshop

Chickamauga was going to be a stragetic war game, of which there are many on the C64. Its scheduled release was for 1987, by Games Designers Workshop (GDW), an American company who already had a fine pedigree in board games and RPGs by the 1980s, having formed in 1973. Continue reading →

Black Shadow C64 Games That Werent

CRL 1988

Addition by Alex Ross: Sadly it seems there was no conversion whatsoever for the C64 on Black Shadow. CRL head honcho, Clem Chambers wrote to us to explain that although the magazine did indeed say a C64 port was being made, this was often said to magazines in the gap between production of the original and it’s release, giving the company time to find someone to actually do a port.

So not only does it look like Black Shadow was never made in any form on the C64, but it seems many other games we have down as GTW’s, will have only existed as a potential game and no work would ever have been done on them. However, we’ll keep looking until we have a definitive answer, believe it or not we actually find this sort of thing fun.

Creator Speaks: Clem Chambers –

There was no C64 version. Often versions were said to be in production when they werent and you would be looking for a coder to do the port and you would never find them or they failed in the attempt. The lead time between interview and press publication is sufficiently long to port a game so often statements were speculative.

I dont remember ever seeing anything on the C64 for Black Shadow, Id even forgotten the title on the Amiga.