ChinnyVision: Tapper

[chinnyhill10]

Another week and the 77th time the CPC has featured out of 139 episodes of ChinnyVision. This time it's Tapper, a rather sub standard conversion to the CPC that appears to have had the US Gold logo removed from the title screen by Amsoft. Didn't Amsoft and US Gold fall out which meant Spy Hunter and Congo Bongo never got released on the Amsoft label? In fact did Congo Bongo even come out? Anyway......


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKsoC9HeXt8[/youtube]


Just too slow and jerky on the CPC. Shame they didn't do as good a job as the BBC version. Hard on the eye but fun and responsive.

[Shaun M. Neary]

Didn't Amsoft and US Gold fall out which meant Spy Hunter and Congo Bongo never got released on the Amsoft label?

Not too sure about this. I remember the AA review for Tapper in 87, and it said it was Amsoft/Sega, so unless they went on the information from some sort of press release, or an early release version of it.


Regarding Spy Hunter and Amsoft & US Golds relationship. Spy Hunter was bundled in as part of the History In The Making compilation, and it still had the Amsoft text on the side of the screen. I knew I read something on this on our very own wiki, indicating that Amsoft bowed out and gave whatever finished titles back to US Gold to distribute. I'm guessing Congo Bongo either never got finished, or even started for that matter.


Their final game, a conversion of Sega's Spy Hunter was never released in Amsoft packagaing and was later brought out by US Gold as a launch title for their Kixxbudget label, the title screen of which still bore the Amsoft name – a final reminder of this once powerful unit’s presence on the CPC scene.

[chinnyhill10]

Not too sure about this. I remember the AA review for Tapper in 87, and it said it was Amsoft/Sega, so unless they went on the information from some sort of press release, or an early release version of it.


Regarding Spy Hunter and Amsoft & US Golds relationship. Spy Hunter was bundled in as part of the History In The Making compilation, and it still had the Amsoft text on the side of the screen. I knew I read something on this on our very own wiki, indicating that Amsoft bowed out and gave whatever finished titles back to US Gold to distribute. I'm guessing Congo Bongo either never got finished, or even started for that matter.

As far as I understand, Amsoft only had distribution rights and when they expired the original company could do what they liked. Hence why Super Pipeline 2 came out on budget fairly quickly. Beach Head came out on Ricochet as did some other games US Gold owned the rights to until they launched their own budget label.

[Puresox]

I had not heard about this dodgy relationship till you mentioned it. Was it discussed in the magazines at the time or?

[Shaun M. Neary]

As far as I understand, Amsoft only had distribution rights and when they expired the original company could do what they liked. Hence why Super Pipeline 2 came out on budget fairly quickly. Beach Head came out on Ricochet as did some other games US Gold owned the rights to until they launched their own budget label.

Yeah because a lot of the major software labels were *very* late in setting up their own labels. Kixx and Hit Squad didn't get set up until around late 1988. Prior to that, they milked their back catalogues in compilation form. I think they were waiting until 16 bit budget was in demand, which started happening around the same time.


But yeah, I don't think it was the relationship that went sour, and more a case of Amsoft knew it was time to give up the ghost and as a result, US Gold had their product back, and as you said, did what they liked.