Some GX4000 cart reviews from "Mean Machines" multi console magazine (1990/91)

[ComSoft6128]

Looking for info on Pang I come across this UK mag:

https://archive.org/details/meanmachines?sort=-date


Issue 2 (Nov 90) - Epyx Games and Fire & Forget 2

Issue 3 (Dec 90) - Robocop 2, Pang and Navy Seals

Issue 4 (Jan 91) - Gazza 2 and Switchblade

[dthrone]

I think the scores are probably fair enough!

Another Gazza 2 cart out there somewhere (probably landfill) 

[dodogildo]

Good catch, thank you. 

On Switchblade:

[andycadley]

Interesting to read these old magazine reviews. Can't really argue with any of them.

The Fire and Forget II one is absolutely brutal though, especially right up against the Master System equivalent version. It's a terrible game and deserves to be slated, but it's no wonder the GX failed when it's so starkly contrasting with the Master System version which seems to review well.

[Shaun M. Neary]

Interesting to read these old magazine reviews. Can't really argue with any of them.

The Fire and Forget II one is absolutely brutal though, especially right up against the Master System equivalent version. It's a terrible game and deserves to be slated, but it's no wonder the GX failed when it's so starkly contrasting with the Master System version which seems to review well.

To be fair, the GX failed for coming out far too late. Pushing out an 8bit console mere months before the debut of the 16bit Megadrive was never going to end well.

12-18 months earlier, it probably would have stood a better chance and more software houses would have backed it.

But I'm not telling you anything you don't already know.  

[Anthony Flack]

Maybe it could have never successfully competed with the Master System II for the budget market, but it sounds like the release itself was an absolute debacle. There were a few good GX games as we know, but people couldn't buy them; the shops had consoles but no games.

And the plug was pulled so quickly; it's sad to see the GX appear on the magazine cover here or a few short months and then vanish forever.

The box on my GX shows that it was reduced to £15 and then finally to £5 which is so sad. I mean Burnin' Rubber alone is worth that much surely. But Burnin' Rubber IS alone; it didn't come with any other games. If they'd manufactured enough carts for a smooth launch perhaps it wouldn't have flopped quite so very hard.

[Shaun M. Neary]

Maybe it could have never successfully competed with the Master System II for the budget market, but it sounds like the release itself was an absolute debacle. There were a few good GX games as we know, but people couldn't buy them; the shops had consoles but no games.

And the plug was pulled so quickly; it's sad to see the GX appear on the magazine cover here or a few short months and then vanish forever.

The box on my GX shows that it was reduced to £15 and then finally to £5 which is so sad. I mean Burnin' Rubber alone is worth that much surely. But Burnin' Rubber IS alone; it didn't come with any other games. If they'd manufactured enough carts for a smooth launch perhaps it wouldn't have flopped quite so very hard.

I remember seeing them for a fiver in my local newsagent in early 1992 as well.
I still stand by my comment of coming out too late. Had this come out in early 1989, it would have had a fighting chance. But not in 1990, the horse was already out of the barn. Software houses took one look at the system, the time it had come out, had seen greener pastures with the 16bit computers out and a console on the way, and also took the duplication times into consideration (tapes are easier and faster to mass produce than carts) and said "You must be joking!" and that was the end of that.

So your final statement is definitely up there with a valid reason, but timing is everything, and mass producing a bunch of carts for a machine that had no chance of success given where the landscape was was a bad investment for anyone, especially at a time when the 8bit was on it's way out.

[Anthony Flack]

No doubt a year earlier would have made a big difference; well I guess the same is probably true for anything. But a smoother launch might have seen it come to a more dignified end. Maybe a year or two of modest support, and people wouldn't still be looking for Gazza II today.  

8 bit wasn't quite on the way out by 1990, the Master System II launched the same year and sold millions. That's when we got one, in fact. Of course that's not a whole new console and it has a proper back catalogue of cartridge games, but they did push into a lot of new parts of the world around that time. Lots of kids were happy to get a Master System II around 1990-1992.

Alan Sugar, ever the pragmatist, went oh well I'll just stick a Mega Drive slot in a PC.

[Shaun M. Neary]

No doubt a year earlier would have made a big difference; well I guess the same is probably true for anything. But a smoother launch might have seen it come to a more dignified end. Maybe a year or two of modest support, and people wouldn't still be looking for Gazza II today. 

8 bit wasn't quite on the way out by 1990, the Master System II launched the same year and sold millions. That's when we got one, in fact. Of course that's not a whole new console and it has a proper back catalogue of cartridge games, but they did push into a lot of new parts of the world around that time. Lots of kids were happy to get a Master System II around 1990-1992.

Alan Sugar, ever the pragmatist, went oh well I'll just stick a Mega Drive slot in a PC.

Not sure I fully agree here. This was pretty much Sega milking a nearly four year old machine by this point knowing full well the Megadrive will diminish it's interest. It should also be noted that the NES was quite late to the UK/IE market at that time so there was still some competition, so I will give you that. 8bit consoles still filled a gap, but as far as 8bit Micros were concerned, they were dead, and the software sections in shops rapidly dried up.  But by 1991, both of those machines were passe, especially when the news broke that Nintendo would have the SNES coming out in 1992.

And thanks, I've just had to clean my work laptop screen of coffee regarding the megadrive slot in a PC comment lol

[andycadley]

It was definitely too late, the Master System II had a well established software base by that point although it's success shows there was some market for a cheap console even when the MegaDrive launched (it was better but it definitely wasn't cheap).

But I think it was also too little. That F&F2 review pretty starkly demonstrates that it just couldn't stand up the the Master System let alone the juggernaut that was the NES (even if the NES was mostly propped up by masses of extra hardware in every cart). It's a shame as it's not bad hardware, it just isn't quite good enough for the time it came out (and, being honest, it's the CPC compatibility parts that really held it back).

At least it has had something of a renaissance in recent years with great new titles coming out.

[norecess464]

It's a controversial platform for so many different reasons and that's an excellent reason to focus on it. (my opinion)

[Anthony Flack]

Nobody wants to deal with a console with a bitmapped display. The system had some unique features (hey, 8x more RAM than a Mega Drive right? That could have made a difference for some things - great for RPGs) but there was no incentive to develop for a weird niche system. Cliff Lawson thought the hardware was capable of competing with the SNES, and I think that's QUITE optimistic, but with the proper effort and thirty years of extra time you could create a set of games for the GX that would have got people excited enough to want to own one in 1990.

It's all about the software in the end and there's no way that a handful of French and British game developers could have come up with a catalogue of games on short notice and small budget with the same appeal as the latest from Nintendo and Sega. Ocean Software wasn't ever going to produce something of the quality of Super Mario World or A Link To The Past on any hardware, even if the GX might have handled it ok.

In the end I guess the Master System ended up being the niche European console with lots of shoddy European exclusives.

[eto]

Cliff Lawson thought the hardware was capable of competing with the SNES,

I know that in the interview he compared it with the SNES and everyone thinks that this is crazy - but also in the same interview he made absolutely clear that the Plus was far behind the Amiga and even the Atari ST. And an Atari ST is definitely less capable for games than a SNES. With that in mind, it's illogical to think that he really believed  the GX4000 would play in the same league as the SNES, if the GX4000 is definitely worse than an Atari ST.

My personal hypothesis is, that he somehow mixed up the SNES and the NES. The things would make sense again:

I'm not sure where I read it, but somewhere it was stated that the rational behind the GX4000 was, that (although 16bit consoles appeared) 8bit gaming will continue for a few years as (cheap) entry level machines where Amstrad can get a bit of the market share with the GX4000. The rational could have been: GX4000 is at least on par with the NES => Amstrad can get a bit of 8bit gaming market share in Europe - until finally 16bit systems become so cheap that the 8bit market is finally dead. 


 

[Anthony Flack]

To be fair, nobody had any idea exactly how the game market would evolve back in the 1980s. The game industry hadn't been around long enough. Mean Machines were still calling the Master System and NES "the Sega" and "the Nintendo".

This was also the awkward time when smaller regional markets started to collapse into more of a big fat global market. 

[Shaun M. Neary]

One of the things that need to be noted about Mean Machines mag, is that it was spearheaded by C+VG staff, a lot of which would crap on the Amstrad the rare times it would give our beloved machine some coverage.

At least Julian Rignall was fair when it came to the CPC. He called it like he saw it.

So the fact that they acknowledged the GX was somewhat of a minor miracle!

[Anthony Flack]

The British attitude to the GX seemed like people were eager for it to fail. To teach Alan Sugar that the UK can't compete with Japan and the US. Japanese people would sooner starve than eat imported rice, and the same goes for their consoles. There's an optimism and sense of pride in those Union flags waving at the Burnin' Rubber finish line that was absent in the press, the pubic, and the people making the games. 

It all failed so badly it's fun I guess to consider counterfactual scenarios. Maybe it would for a good stategy/adventure game... save the GX. "Screw Titus, find me somebody who will port Ys to the Amstrad".

Speaking of, interesting that RMC posted a video yesterday about why the NEC SuperGrafx failed just as badly, and slightly earlier, with an over-powered console. The reason why is made pretty clear near the start of the video - the games cost £80 each, or £250 in today's money. The games were fantastically good, and way too expensive.

Actually we must have got our Master System for Christmas in 1992 because it had Sonic 2 as the pack-in. I only knew one person with a Mega Drive; it was the same kid who had a 6128 with a colour monitor when I had a 464 with a green screen. He sold me his 6128 when he upgraded to an Amiga, and then he got a Mega Drive. For most other kids, the first and only console we had in the home was the Master System (if we were lucky), and the Mega Drive was something you might rent for a weekend. 

[lmimmfn]

The British attitude to the GX seemed like people were eager for it to fail. To teach Alan Sugar that the UK can't compete with Japan and the US. Japanese people would sooner starve than eat imported rice, and the same goes for their consoles. There's an optimism and sense of pride in those Union flags waving at the Burnin' Rubber finish line that was absent in the press, the pubic, and the people making the games.

It all failed so badly it's fun I guess to consider counterfactual scenarios. Maybe it would for a good stategy/adventure game... save the GX. "Screw Titus, find me somebody who will port Ys to the Amstrad".

Speaking of, interesting that RMC posted a video yesterday about why the NEC SuperGrafx failed just as badly, and slightly earlier, with an over-powered console. The reason why is made pretty clear near the start of the video - the games cost £80 each, or £250 in today's money. The games were fantastically good, and way too expensive.

Actually we must have got our Master System for Christmas in 1992 because it had Sonic 2 as the pack-in. I only knew one person with a Mega Drive; it was the same kid who had a 6128 with a colour monitor when I had a 464 with a green screen. He sold me his 6128 when he upgraded to an Amiga, and then he got a Mega Drive. For most other kids, the first and only console we had in the home was the Master System (if we were lucky), and the Mega Drive was something you might rent for a weekend.

Nah, honestly, I had my Amiga when I first tried burning rubber on a 464 or 6128 plus, I can't remember but the price of those machines were so close to the Amiga I remember it clearly and laughed going who the **** is this aimed at.
I had the same opinion of the GX4000, yes it's cheaper but it's not a computer, the market in Europe wad Pro computer and against consoles(consoles were popular in the US because of the favourable exchange rate but were expensive in Europe and games were prohibitively expensive).
The GX4000 was a stupid idea by Sugar and is up there with the failed C64 console.

Sugar knew that even before it launched, for the 464 he knew it needed a software base to be successful, hence Amsoft.
For the plus range he relied on backwards compatibility but for the GX4000 he did absolutely nothing.

I was listening to amazing music on my Amiga in Shadow Of The Beast 2, Turrican 2 at the time and here I was listening to beeps and bops on a new CPC. The gfx were half resolution vs the 16 bits, the plus range and GX4000 were a complete failure before it even left the drawing board.

Don't get me wrong, I love the plus range, and really want one lol, but it was far too late historically.

[andycadley]

The problem with porting a game like Ys to the GX is the lack of any kind of save functionality. And it's not an easy thing to graft onto cartridge (like the NES) because there aren't any write signals on the cartridge port - which is a consequence of using the base CPC design, where ROM writes inherently go to RAM anyway so they'd have had to change a lot to put RAM in cartridge (or implemented saving is some other hacky way).

[Anthony Flack]

Yeah that's a good point. Even though SMS carts almost never used it, it at least had the capacity to add a battery save for Phantasy Star and Golden Axe Warrior. (And Penguin Land and Monopoly). Consoles in general would have issues dealing with game saves for years to come, but that is a shame. 

Who was the GX for?  I would say potentially families like mine who bought a Master System in 1992. The GX is arguably more powerful than the Master System, and I think more interesting, probably in a disadvantageous way... but if you don't have fun games, it's not fun. I remember all the ads showing Choplifter and Outrun and Sonic and Castle of Illusion and we were ABSOLUTELY keen to get some Master System. 

Burnin' Rubber is probably my favourite GX game and it probably is more sophisticated than any racing game on the Master System, but the tragedy of that game is how it is also the perfect game to make the system look weak. I play Burnin' Rubber a lot more than Pang, but Pang plays nicely on the GX, while Burnin' Rubber plays like a game that's begging for a 16 bit system to run on. And that's the first thing you notice about it. 

[Shaun M. Neary]

Burnin' Rubber is probably my favourite GX game and it probably is more sophisticated than any racing game on the Master System, but the tragedy of that game is how it is also the perfect game to make the system look weak. I play Burnin' Rubber a lot more than Pang, but Pang plays nicely on the GX, while Burnin' Rubber plays like a game that's begging for a 16 bit system to run on. And that's the first thing you notice about it.

I was never overly crazy on Burnin Rubber - @CraigsBar and I have argued at length over this The sluggish steering put me off it while he claims it had a more realistic feel to it. Problem is, if I'm driving an arcade driving game, I don't want realism! 

Robocop 2 and Navy Seals had a lot of potential but the difficulty level was so off the chart that it was next to near impossible to ever want to return to those games after 5 minutes of play. Combine that with the likes of Batman and Barbarian 2 which were touched up versions of games that had hit the budget market for 3-4 quid at around the same time the machine came out can only add to the machines flop.

[andycadley]

I like Burnin' Rubber and I get that it does show of some of the capabilities of the machine (the day night cycle for example). If you were just trying to sell Plus machines to existing CPC owners (and the 16-bit machines hadn't been falling in price) then it might have turned a few heads.

But it's a very odd choice of game given that it doesn't really take advantage of what the machine should be good at: 2D scrolling games. A revamped version of Batman, with enhanced graphics and hardware scrolling could have been a killer title. Tweaking the palette slightly and slapping it on a cart at more than full price probably turned off as many people as Burnin' Rubber might have persuaded.

[cwpab]

Unexpectedly interesting topic! The GX4000 was a weird decision from Alan Michael Sugar considering his natural instinct and how he previously said his machines were not for games.

But I guess all video game CEOs have a moment of madness. Another example would be Trip Hawkins thinking he could win Sega, Nintendo and Sony with the 3DO. Even the people at EA were predicting Sony to dominate before they even launch their console.

About the magazines, they were nice. I especially enjoyed their hype for EA's Madden for the Sega Mega Drive and the NES game "PinBot". I'm not into American Football, pinball, Sega or Nintendo, but I need to try those 2 one of these days.

I just wish EA would have used the same approach with FIFA instead of creating an ice hockey sim on grass.

[cwpab]

Also, I don't think British magazines were being anti-british when it comes to gaming hardware? It's more likely than they simply found the GX4000 underwhelming. And make no mistake, if the machine was made by Nintendo, it would have a catalog of more than 1,000 games and everyone would remember it fondly.

The console name and design are interesting. The name, I don't know if I should hate it or love it. It's kind of 2600-ish, but even more futuristic. But at the same time, it's stupid and complicated. And the outside design is really cool, especially considering the similar-looking SNES was released 2 years later.

So what failed? Not the lack of save states, I guess, as people didn't play it enough to save games on it. Basically the lack of a killer app, the inability to bring something new to the table. Only motion controls could have saved the GX4000.

PS: Even without the ability to save information into cardriges, you can create a password system for most games... But I wonder, is there a way to create a password system for games with multiple variables, like an RPG?

[andycadley]

PS: Even without the ability to save information into cardriges, you can create a password system for most games... But I wonder, is there a way to create a password system for games with multiple variables, like an RPG?

Oh it's certainly possible, it's just really clunky and not likely to endear people to the game. Especially because you couldn't just snap a quick picture of it on your smartphone back then - you had to painstakingly write it down and hope and pray you hadn't messed it up and lost your game.

But honestly, making consoles out of computers was just a bad idea. The things that are good for a general purpose computer aren't necessarily the same as for a console. I mean, the GX can display 640*200 monochrome images and that's utterly useless as a hardware capability when you're really pushing 16 colour 160*200 games. Likewise the display being bitmapped, the relatively limited controllers and numerous other design decisions which come from the way the CPC was built.

[dthrone]

PS: Even without the ability to save information into cardriges, you can create a password system for most games... But I wonder, is there a way to create a password system for games with multiple variables, like an RPG?

There is also the possibility for disc/tape saves on the plus computers. 

I think an upper limit on password characters which users will tolerate is around 16.  Games like Doom, Quake, Lemmings etc. used pretty long passwords back in the day but those were for level access and a few extra parameters.  A full 16 bit style RPG save state wouldn't fit in that limit unless you have a really extended character set