CodeMasters - their best efforts

[PeteProdge]

I remember a letter sent into Your Sinclair where a reader stated their computer had problems loading CodeMasters games. The editor's sardonic response was that their Spectrum had no problems loading them, and requested a swap.

Towards the fag end of the ZX Spectrum's commercial life, there were far too many Dizzy and Dizzy-alike games emanating from the Codies. As we know, there's a blanket 'distribution denied' status on their 8-bit library. I was going to ask if there could be one CodeMasters game you'd like to be allowed distribution, what would it be? But that's simply asking you for your favourite CodeMasters game. I have several...

ATV Simulator

A thoroughly decent race-against-the-clock game, although later trounced by Mastertronic's Kikstart II. Really challenging, a bit too cartoony in places, but certainly worth a play.



Ninja Massacre

Thoroughly stunning Gauntlet clone that arrived rather too late. Graphically astonishing (not that you can tell from the screenshot I've used here), and with a superb AY music tracking the action for 128K users. I'm willing to forget the very tenuous ninja theme.



Super Robin Hood

I'm probably in a minority of one for liking this platformer, an enjoyable pre-Dizzy effort from the Oliver Twins. Again, another tenuous theme, but I guess with the arrow-flinging green-tights-wearing East-Midlands-based socialist being well out of copyright, it was a tap-in. A lot better than the Olivers' similar title Ghost Hunters (very cumbersome with that gunsight thing) around the same time.



Grand Prix Simulator

It's Super Sprint for the cash-strapped! A pretty good effort at imitating a full price coin-op conversion although both games would be eclipsed by Ivan 'Ironman' Stewart's Super Off Road a few years later.

It would be this type of game - tiny cars racing on screen - that would fuel the bulk of CodeMaster's revenue across the next two decades.



Die-hard fans of the Leamington-Spa pocket-money-grabbing publisher may well cite the cutesy arcade adventures and retina-scarring New Zealand Story clones, all of which featured numerous characters such as CJ The Elephant, Slightly Magic, Big Nose, Puff, Seymour, etc. Personally, I've no time for that, but do state your cases for these if you dare...

[Juan F. Ramirez]

Codemasters was never my fave company but if I had to say some titles, I agree with you as to the ones you said and I'd add Blade Warrior



and Super Hero, an isometric game that you may find interesting if you love this king of games.

[PeteProdge]

Codemasters was never my fave company but if I had to say some titles, I agree with you as to the ones you said and I'd add Blade Warrior

Wow, this is the first time I've even thought of this game since I owned it for real. I played the hell out of this. I've been racking my brains trying to think why that came to a sudden halt and I think it's because I lent it out and never got it back. It's a nice old-skool platformer. The jump action looks a bit silly, but it's a very commendable game indeed. Thanks for putting this back in my mind.

and Super Hero, an isometric game that you may find interesting if you love this king of games.

And this! I bought it on a shopping trip with an Amstrad-CPC-owning friend, who had it. We compared versions. Practically identical.

[blucey]

ATV Simulator

A thoroughly decent race-against-the-clock game, although later trounced by Mastertronic's Kikstart II. Really challenging, a bit too cartoony in places, but certainly worth a play.

Wait a minute there, Pete.

ATV Sim was great where as Kikstart II was the second most bugged game after Ninja.

[PeteProdge]

ATV Sim was great where as Kikstart II was the second most bugged game after Ninja.

Never came across a bug in Kikstart II, but that could be my memory cheating me. I liked how tolerant it was of my clearly batsh*t level creations.

[Mike Davies]

Grand Prix Simulator

It's Super Sprint for the cash-strapped! A pretty good effort at imitating a full price coin-op conversion although both games would be eclipsed by Ivan 'Ironman' Stewart's Super Off Road a few years later.

It would be this type of game - tiny cars racing on screen - that would fuel the bulk of CodeMaster's revenue across the next two decades.

I've struggled with the raft of top-down single screen racing games. Hated SuperSprint because of that awful collision detection on the first corner, and the colour clash offered you a 50% chance of guessing which car was actually yours. Grand Prix Simulator, although nice inertia effects, going under bridges is a bit of a lottery. I really like Badlands, though. And Grand Prix Simulator 2 was graphically really good.

After selling off both SuperSprint, and that Electric Dreams 3-game racing compilation, I recently re-bought SuperSprint and Championship Sprint again. Now I just need to figure out how to play BMX Simulator!

[Dark]

Codemasters are definitely the software house I associate most with my spectrum days, the +2 being my first computer means I obviously wasn’t there at the beginning when the classic early games had their greatest impact.

I enjoyed the top down simulators, whether they were on a BMX, a Jet-Ski or in a Formula One car.

For Dizzy, the peak for me was Treasure Island & Fantasy World, and I also really enjoyed Fast Food, though I tried that recently on an emulator and it seemed so slow.

ATV Simulator I thought was great, and both gameplay & graphically superior to Kickstart 2, though I did love designing my own courses on that.

My memory tells me that I loved Operation Gunship and Little Puff, but I couldn’t tell you how either go.

I had the Jessie Owens cover version of Race Against Time, which I thought was a good game.

If bringing one game back though, I think, mainly for sentimental reasons, that I’d plump for Super Robin Hood, as it was my first Codemasters game and I didn’t really get that close to completing it, so would be nice to have another go, or two.