Amstrad CPC unreleased games!

[yorgos]

The missing games...

...Yes, Street Fighter 2 will finally be given the thorough AA treatment next month, in our celebratory 100th issue...

Rings a bell? Well, this would be the case if it was not for the unfortunate last minute U.S. Gold announcement that there were no plans to release the game on CPC ever...

Furthermore, in the 101th issue of Amstrad Action Rob Buckley of London based Radical Software,  inspired every Amstrad owner that Lethal Moves will arrive...sadly we never seen it on our Amstrad CTM Color monitor and if not anything else, the preview of Lethal Moves was a color feast for the eyes!

The unreleased CPC games is a topic that concerns every devoted Amstrad CPC gamer of back then. It is often discussed in CPC forums and Facebook Groups related to Amstrad CPC Gaming.

Publishers from 3 countries dominated the Amstrad gaming market, UK, Spain and France!

Most of the missing games are from UK based publishers who were the 1st and most dominant game producers of Amstrad games.
The 2nd largest Amstrad games producers were the Spanish between 1984 and 1992, they eventually disappeared with the replacement of 8bit micro computers by 16bit machines that marked the end of their memorable era!
Somewhat the case was for the French publishers who affected by endemic and endless software piracy abandoned CPC game projects by 1993.
French publisher Loriciels, and its remarkable devotion led to the releases of 5 major hit titles for CPC in 1992!

The list is rich with unreleased games from 1984 until and the 1993 (I must have personally counted about 170+ games). 1994 was the last ever commercial games released on the CPC.

The question still remains today, why "One on One: Julius Erving and Larry Bird" released in 1984 for several platforms including ZX Spectrum, C64 and Amiga, never ported to Amstard CPC?

Similar questions trouble Amstrad fans even nowadays, such as the advertisement in Amstrad Action issue 16 of Imagine's 1986 conversion from the arcades Terra Cresta, which became a shoot 'em up hit both in Spectrum and C64, it is even clear in the advertisement that the price for Amstrad at £8.95, the same stands for Bombuzal from Image Works, advertised in issue 086 of CVG Magazine where in the printed advertisement Amstrad CPC is at £8.99 (Cass). and £12.99 (Disc).

There is an interesting story for the Spanish release of ARANCHA SUPER TENNIS that never advanced to a deal. According to an interview with one of the programmers, despite that the game was completed, when the programmer went to receive compensation, they company did not honor the initial agreement, thus provoking the anger of both the programmers!
There are no available images of the game anywhere which is sad knowing it was coded and finished.
We only hope that perhaps one day it will appear on our CPC screens...or emulators!

Oh! As well that French unrelease of Phase One from Maubeuge Business Computer (MBC) Informatique looks pretty impressive from the photo...
It is unknown why the company stopped the development of two games in 1989 and vanished from the CPC games scene...

Also, Battlestorm from Titus planned to be released for CPC and Plus/GX4000 machines! It was advertised in French magazines for various platforms, but never released for Spectrum or C64 either. It was finally released on Amiga and PC (DOS) and the Amiga version was a rather very good multi-scrolling shoot-em-up, better and more playable than Awesome, Amnios and Blastar! A floppy disk was saved in 2015 containing Battlestorm CPC beta-demo!

Another great story is that of the game Mega Twins (a long-lost conversion from U.S. Gold) was never released and found by YouTube user P5ychoFox at a car boot sale in Sheffield! After several months of hard work repairing the disks a playable demo of the game was made available which points out that the game was almost completed!

In March 1986, Amtix previewed Robin of the Wood from Odin Computer Graphics and open our apetites for action adventure. However, the game never hit the shops along with 2 other titles Lusitania and Spartacus that (from the screenshots taken) looked more than promising considering the outstanding graphics and excellent gameplay of Heartland from the same company.

There are more than 20 titles in the 90's that never became a reality for our humble machine or even the advanced PLUS machine or GX4000, some say the 90's were the end of the CPC era. Not fair! as they were released for C64. Well with an amazing number of 17 million units sold for C64 worldwide against the 3 million of CPC is not strange that titles like Alien³, Blood Money, Dyna Blaster, Lethal Weapon, Menace, Ninja Spirit, Robocop 3 and Toki that defined Amiga gaming, all and many more famous titles were converted to C64 and received Top ratings in magazines and highly accepted by C64 users.

Adding to the already missing years of games since 1982 that ZX Spectrum and C64 arrived with Amstrad coming in the scene in 1984 the percentages in rivals sales influenced the games scene significantly. Apart from more releases on C64 and Spectrum and sadly abandoned CPC game projects even the general 8bit game magazines were focused more on C64 and ZX Spectrum. However this post will not cover unreleased games before 1984.

Last the most known missing game of Amstrad's commercial failure machine GX4000, Special Criminal Investigations : Chase HQ II, THE GAME DOES EXIST and if you are curious to find more there is an excellent piece of information in issue 46 of Retro Gamer Magazine that sheds some light into what really applies!

Good news are that Street Fighter 2 and Toki are under development for the CPC and from what we've seen so far in previews the programmers are doing such an excellent job that metaphorically make us say they walk on water!

If we, the nostalgic Amstrad CPC fans as well as newcomers to the CPC scene that have discovered the beauty of CPC gaming want more to come, we have to consider the heartful efforts of Amstrad Action and its readers that by hundreds in 1992 overwhelmed Gremlin Graphics. The company realized Amstrad games' market was still much alive and released their last title on CPC in 1993: Nigel Mansell's World Championship!

There are several developers who after 1994 have given such beautiful new titles with amazing graphics, sounds and addictive gameplay.  Of course many old CPC programmers and graphic artists can be contacted in Social Media such as Facebook, or professional networks like LinkedIn and they might be willing to develop for CPC again. Therefore, we have to strongly consider through the crowdfunding way to collect, offer and receive some if not all of the missing games and even more... Oh, and please Facehugger you mentioned in your Ultimate Megademo (1992) you will maybe code a Gryzor sequel, please DO so and if yes, why not Super C from Konami, I'm sure you will make it better than the Amiga version!

And please Mega Twins was nearly finished, I urge the developers to add the final touches...

Whatever it was, certainly we Amstrad lovers miss some good games that never made it to our beloved screen!

I will close this article with the hope that unreleased games will find their way in our CPC screen and having always in mind that in our days,
for this purpose there are no deadlines and not tight budgets but the passion of the developers to bring a game that never been to reality and as Iron Maiden say in their song "Caught Somewhere in Time", "Time is always on my side...".

Below is a list of unreleased games...

Your views and comments as well as other unreleased games you know are most welcomed!


Alien³ (1992 Virgin Games)
Apprentice (1990 Rainbow Arts)
Athena (1986 Imagine)
Baal (1989 Psyclapse)
Balthazar (1987 Titus)
Bangkok Knights (1988 System 3)
Battlestorm (1991 Titus)
Bio Challenge (1989 Delphine Software International)
Black Lamp (1988 Firebird)
Blood Money (1990 Psygnosis)
Bombuzal (1988 Image Works)
Bop'n Rumble (1987 Melbourne House)
Dyna Blaster (1991 Ubi Soft)
Cosmic Pirate (1989 Palace Software)
Cyberun (1986 Ultimate Play the Game)
Dante's Inferno (1986 Beyond Software)
Double Dribble (1990 Konami)
Duck Tales: The Quest for Gold (1990 Titus)
Espejos   (1988 Dinamic)
Extase (1990 Virgin Games)
Fallen Angel (1989 Screen 7)
Fast Break (1988 Accolade)
Final Blow (1991 Storm)`
Fist II: The Legend Continues (1986 Melbourne House)
Frak (1985 Statesoft)
Frankenstein 2000 (1985 Icon Software)
Hades (1989 Ubi Soft)
Hellhole (1990 CRL)
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: The Ilearth Stone (1987 US Gold)
Highway To Heaven (19?? Topo Soft)
Hysteria (1987 Software Projects)
International Basket (1985 Elite Systems)
Judge Death (1988 Piranha)
Judge Dredd (1987 Melbourne House)
Judge Dredd (1991 Virgin Mastertronic)
Kane 2 (1988 Mastertronic)
Katakis (1988 Rainbow Arts)
Killing Fist (1992 Silmarils)
La Quete De L'Oiseau Du Temps (1989 Infogrames)
Lethal Moves (1993 Radical Software)
Lethal Weapon (1992 Ocean)
Lusitania (1986 Odin Computer Graphics)
Mega Twins (1991 U.S. Gold)
Menace (1989 Psyclapse)
Ninja Spirit (1990 Activision)
One on One: Julius Erving and Larry Bird (1984 Electronic Arts / Ariolasoft)
Orion (1988 Rack It / Hewson)
Paradroid (1985 Hewson)
Phaser One (1989 MBC Informatique)
Pitstop II (1984 Epyx)
Pole Position (1984 Atarisoft)
Pole Position II (1988 Mindscape)
Rimrunner (1988 Palace Software)
Robocop 3 (1992 Ocean)
Shuni Line Rax L'Ultime Combat (1989 MBC Informatique)
Soldier of Fortune (1988 Firebird)
Spartacus (1986 Odin Computer Graphics)
Speedball (1989 Image Works)
Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe (1991 Image Works)
Star Paws (1987 Software Projects)
Steigar (1989 Screen 7)
Street Fighter II (1992 U.S. Gold)
Super C   (1990 Konami)
Terra Cresta (1986 Imagine)
The Never Ending Story II (1991 Linel Software)
Tiger Mission (1986 Kele Line)
Time Race (1990 Loriciel)
Toki (1991 Ocean)
Where Time Stood Still (1988 Ocean)

[scruss]

Frak (1985 Statesoft)

I'm pretty sure this one never made it. There were listings and possibly even ads, but I remember asking Nick Pelling about it a couple of years after it was supposed to have come out and he said it had vanished without trace.Shame - it's a good (if odd) game. It might not have been active enough for the mid-late 80s: the baddies didn't move at all.

[mahlemiut]

I remember seeing an advert for a 1985 Thunderbirds games, published by Firebird, was advertised for the Amstrad, but never seems to have appeared as it did for the Spectrum and C64.

https://cpcrulez.fr/GamesTest/thunderbirds-firebird.htm

(Not to be confused with the 1989 Grandslam game)

[6128]

Ninja Spirit (Activision) was released for CPC in 1990:

https://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=114

Espejos (Dinamic) was released for CPC in 2011 by ESP Soft:

https://www.amstrad.es/doku.php?id=juegos:espejos

[yorgos]

Ninja Spirit (Activision) was released for CPC in 1990:

https://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=114

Espejos (Dinamic) was released for CPC in 2011 by ESP Soft:

https://www.amstrad.es/doku.php?id=juegos:espejos

Seems that I missed the release of those two games, a lot of thanks for the update and the links  !

[yorgos]

I remember seeing an advert for a 1985 Thunderbirds games, published by Firebird, was advertised for the Amstrad, but never seems to have appeared as it did for the Spectrum and C64.

https://cpcrulez.fr/GamesTest/thunderbirds-firebird.htm

(Not to be confused with the 1989 Grandslam game)

Another one title to add to the list  !

[strykr]

Looking at the Terra Cresta box art/advert im totally sucked in! just like i was bitd 

[skylas]

The missing games...

...Yes, Street Fighter 2 will finally be given the thorough AA treatment next month, in our celebratory 100th issue...

Rings a bell? Well, this would be the case if it was not for the unfortunate last minute U.S. Gold announcement that there were no plans to release the game on CPC ever...

Furthermore, in the 101th issue of Amstrad Action Rob Buckley of London based Radical Software,  inspired every Amstrad owner that Lethal Moves will arrive...sadly we never seen it on our Amstrad CTM Color monitor and if not anything else, the preview of Lethal Moves was a color feast for the eyes!

The unreleased CPC games is a topic that concerns every devoted Amstrad CPC gamer of back then. It is often discussed in CPC forums and Facebook Groups related to Amstrad CPC Gaming.

Publishers from 3 countries dominated the Amstrad gaming market, UK, Spain and France!

Most of the missing games are from UK based publishers who were the 1st and most dominant game producers of Amstrad games.
The 2nd largest Amstrad games producers were the Spanish between 1984 and 1992, they eventually disappeared with the replacement of 8bit micro computers by 16bit machines that marked the end of their memorable era!
Somewhat the case was for the French publishers who affected by endemic and endless software piracy abandoned CPC game projects by 1993.
French publisher Loriciels, and its remarkable devotion led to the releases of 5 major hit titles for CPC in 1992!

The list is rich with unreleased games from 1984 until and the 1993 (I must have personally counted about 170+ games). 1994 was the last ever commercial games released on the CPC.

The question still remains today, why "One on One: Julius Erving and Larry Bird" released in 1984 for several platforms including ZX Spectrum, C64 and Amiga, never ported to Amstard CPC?

Similar questions trouble Amstrad fans even nowadays, such as the advertisement in Amstrad Action issue 16 of Imagine's 1986 conversion from the arcades Terra Cresta, which became a shoot 'em up hit both in Spectrum and C64, it is even clear in the advertisement that the price for Amstrad at £8.95, the same stands for Bombuzal from Image Works, advertised in issue 086 of CVG Magazine where in the printed advertisement Amstrad CPC is at £8.99 (Cass). and £12.99 (Disc).

There is an interesting story for the Spanish release of ARANCHA SUPER TENNIS that never advanced to a deal. According to an interview with one of the programmers, despite that the game was completed, when the programmer went to receive compensation, they company did not honor the initial agreement, thus provoking the anger of both the programmers!
There are no available images of the game anywhere which is sad knowing it was coded and finished.
We only hope that perhaps one day it will appear on our CPC screens...or emulators!

Oh! As well that French unrelease of Phase One from Maubeuge Business Computer (MBC) Informatique looks pretty impressive from the photo...
It is unknown why the company stopped the development of two games in 1989 and vanished from the CPC games scene...

Also, Battlestorm from Titus planned to be released for CPC and Plus/GX4000 machines! It was advertised in French magazines for various platforms, but never released for Spectrum or C64 either. It was finally released on Amiga and PC (DOS) and the Amiga version was a rather very good multi-scrolling shoot-em-up, better and more playable than Awesome, Amnios and Blastar! A floppy disk was saved in 2015 containing Battlestorm CPC beta-demo!

Another great story is that of the game Mega Twins (a long-lost conversion from U.S. Gold) was never released and found by YouTube user P5ychoFox at a car boot sale in Sheffield! After several months of hard work repairing the disks a playable demo of the game was made available which points out that the game was almost completed!

In March 1986, Amtix previewed Robin of the Wood from Odin Computer Graphics and open our apetites for action adventure. However, the game never hit the shops along with 2 other titles Lusitania and Spartacus that (from the screenshots taken) looked more than promising considering the outstanding graphics and excellent gameplay of Heartland from the same company.

There are more than 20 titles in the 90's that never became a reality for our humble machine or even the advanced PLUS machine or GX4000, some say the 90's were the end of the CPC era. Not fair! as they were released for C64. Well with an amazing number of 17 million units sold for C64 worldwide against the 3 million of CPC is not strange that titles like Alien³, Blood Money, Dyna Blaster, Lethal Weapon, Menace, Ninja Spirit, Robocop 3 and Toki that defined Amiga gaming, all and many more famous titles were converted to C64 and received Top ratings in magazines and highly accepted by C64 users.

Adding to the already missing years of games since 1982 that ZX Spectrum and C64 arrived with Amstrad coming in the scene in 1984 the percentages in rivals sales influenced the games scene significantly. Apart from more releases on C64 and Spectrum and sadly abandoned CPC game projects even the general 8bit game magazines were focused more on C64 and ZX Spectrum. However this post will not cover unreleased games before 1984.

Last the most known missing game of Amstrad's commercial failure machine GX4000, Special Criminal Investigations : Chase HQ II, THE GAME DOES EXIST and if you are curious to find more there is an excellent piece of information in issue 46 of Retro Gamer Magazine that sheds some light into what really applies!

Good news are that Street Fighter 2 and Toki are under development for the CPC and from what we've seen so far in previews the programmers are doing such an excellent job that metaphorically make us say they walk on water!

If we, the nostalgic Amstrad CPC fans as well as newcomers to the CPC scene that have discovered the beauty of CPC gaming want more to come, we have to consider the heartful efforts of Amstrad Action and its readers that by hundreds in 1992 overwhelmed Gremlin Graphics. The company realized Amstrad games' market was still much alive and released their last title on CPC in 1993: Nigel Mansell's World Championship!

There are several developers who after 1994 have given such beautiful new titles with amazing graphics, sounds and addictive gameplay.  Of course many old CPC programmers and graphic artists can be contacted in Social Media such as Facebook, or professional networks like LinkedIn and they might be willing to develop for CPC again. Therefore, we have to strongly consider through the crowdfunding way to collect, offer and receive some if not all of the missing games and even more... Oh, and please Facehugger you mentioned in your Ultimate Megademo (1992) you will maybe code a Gryzor sequel, please DO so and if yes, why not Super C from Konami, I'm sure you will make it better than the Amiga version!

And please Mega Twins was nearly finished, I urge the developers to add the final touches...

Whatever it was, certainly we Amstrad lovers miss some good games that never made it to our beloved screen!

I will close this article with the hope that unreleased games will find their way in our CPC screen and having always in mind that in our days,
for this purpose there are no deadlines and not tight budgets but the passion of the developers to bring a game that never been to reality and as Iron Maiden say in their song "Caught Somewhere in Time", "Time is always on my side...".

Below is a list of unreleased games...

Your views and comments as well as other unreleased games you know are most welcomed!


Alien³ (1992 Virgin Games)
Apprentice (1990 Rainbow Arts)
Athena (1986 Imagine)
Baal (1989 Psyclapse)
Balthazar (1987 Titus)
Bangkok Knights (1988 System 3)
Battlestorm (1991 Titus)
Bio Challenge (1989 Delphine Software International)
Black Lamp (1988 Firebird)
Blood Money (1990 Psygnosis)
Bombuzal (1988 Image Works)
Bop'n Rumble (1987 Melbourne House)
Dyna Blaster (1991 Ubi Soft)
Cosmic Pirate (1989 Palace Software)
Cyberun (1986 Ultimate Play the Game)
Dante's Inferno (1986 Beyond Software)
Double Dribble (1990 Konami)
Duck Tales: The Quest for Gold (1990 Titus)
Espejos   (1988 Dinamic)
Extase (1990 Virgin Games)
Fallen Angel (1989 Screen 7)
Fast Break (1988 Accolade)
Final Blow (1991 Storm)`
Fist II: The Legend Continues (1986 Melbourne House)
Frak (1985 Statesoft)
Frankenstein 2000 (1985 Icon Software)
Hades (1989 Ubi Soft)
Hellhole (1990 CRL)
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: The Ilearth Stone (1987 US Gold)
Highway To Heaven (19?? Topo Soft)
Hysteria (1987 Software Projects)
International Basket (1985 Elite Systems)
Judge Death (1988 Piranha)
Judge Dredd (1987 Melbourne House)
Judge Dredd (1991 Virgin Mastertronic)
Kane 2 (1988 Mastertronic)
Katakis (1988 Rainbow Arts)
Killing Fist (1992 Silmarils)
La Quete De L'Oiseau Du Temps (1989 Infogrames)
Lethal Moves (1993 Radical Software)
Lethal Weapon (1992 Ocean)
Lusitania (1986 Odin Computer Graphics)
Mega Twins (1991 U.S. Gold)
Menace (1989 Psyclapse)
Ninja Spirit (1990 Activision)
One on One: Julius Erving and Larry Bird (1984 Electronic Arts / Ariolasoft)
Orion (1988 Rack It / Hewson)
Paradroid (1985 Hewson)
Phaser One (1989 MBC Informatique)
Pitstop II (1984 Epyx)
Pole Position (1984 Atarisoft)
Pole Position II (1988 Mindscape)
Rimrunner (1988 Palace Software)
Robocop 3 (1992 Ocean)
Shuni Line Rax L'Ultime Combat (1989 MBC Informatique)
Soldier of Fortune (1988 Firebird)
Spartacus (1986 Odin Computer Graphics)
Speedball (1989 Image Works)
Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe (1991 Image Works)
Star Paws (1987 Software Projects)
Steigar (1989 Screen 7)
Street Fighter II (1992 U.S. Gold)
Super C   (1990 Konami)
Terra Cresta (1986 Imagine)
The Never Ending Story II (1991 Linel Software)
Tiger Mission (1986 Kele Line)
Time Race (1990 Loriciel)
Toki (1991 Ocean)
Where Time Stood Still (1988 Ocean)

Thx for this really nice stories and catalogue!

[zeropolis79]

Bugs Bunny and daffy Duck were planned for the CPC by Hi-TEc but never released. a screenshot from the latter exists.