The best Speccy game by C.C.S.: discussion

[PeteProdge]

CCS, C.C.S. or Cases Computer Simulations? Whatever you want to call them, they put out a mass of games on the Speccy.

Edwyn Starr may well have sung against it, but for C.C.S, war was their core business. Turn-based strategy games were the biggest specialisation for this label, which they pretty much solely concentrated on in later years. In their earlier days, they also put out a fair few management games and the odd puzzler. Action wasn't really their thing.

Anyway, these are the 81 ZX Spectrum games I've found on the label, let me know if I've got anything wrong or missed one:

180
1942 Mission
Air Defence
Arnhem
Desert Rats
Golden Cobra, The
Maverick
Shift Shaft
Gallipoli
Napoleon At War
Swords Of Bane
Chickamauga
Gettysburg
Vulcan
Yankee
Zulu Wars
Blitzkrieg
Overlord
Stalingrad
Austerlitz 1805
Encyclopedia Of War: Ancient Battles
General, The
Wellington At Waterloo
Battle Of The Bulge, The
Invasion Force
Avalanche
Crete 1941
Cromwell At War 1642-1645
War Of The Roses
Airline
Abyss
Auto Chef
Ace Low
Air Raid
Ashes, The
Barrowquest
Battle 1917
Blaze
Blocked In
Blue Riband
Brewery
British Lowland
Broodslayer
Byte
Card Sharp
Camelot
Changeling, The
Corn Cropper
Cube
Dallas
Diamond Quest
Dix Mille
Dominoes
East Front
Gangsters!
Hicksted
Insurgency
Jungle Adventure
Keycode
Magic Joker
Matching Pairs
Mathsted
NATO Alert
Nuke Lear
Oligopoly
Open, The
Pacific War
Plunder
Polaris
Print Shop
Prince, The
Rainy Day
Smuggler
Staff Of Zaranol
Solitaire
Stockmarket
Superpower
Tomb Of Akhenaten
United
War 70
Whodunnit?

[Nick]

Fair play to CCS, for a company that largely specialised in a fairly niche genre they were certainly prolific and durable. Especially when you consider all the companies that went bust or got swallowed up by bigger fish in the mid to late Eighties. I think they were still releasing games for the Spectrum in 1991 - a time when budget companies like Codemasters, re-release labels like The Hit Squad and arcade/film and TV licensed games were dominating.

[bluespikey]

Far and away Vulcan, the pinnacle of Spectrum wargaming. Its just a shame that the author Bob Smith went on to other stuff. CCS continued to release games by other authors that were a clear riff on Vulcan (Crete 1941, Invasion Force), but they never managed to attain the same quality. If they'd just kept the engine but with different scenarios then I would have been incredibly happy.

[hitm4n]

Wow, hell of a list. Be cool (and a lot of work for you) when the voting post arrives to see all the pics

[mrcook]

I don't really now any of these games so I was searching for reviews and found a chap on youtube (SmartWargames) with 33 CSS game play-throughs, and all but the first few with commentary. Here's the playlist:

[Matt_B]

Far and away Vulcan, the pinnacle of Spectrum wargaming. Its just a shame that the author Bob Smith went on to other stuff. CCS continued to release games by other authors that were a clear riff on Vulcan (Crete 1941, Invasion Force), but they never managed to attain the same quality. If they'd just kept the engine but with different scenarios then I would have been incredibly happy.

Yeah, for me it'll be some combination of the four R.T. Smith games, the other three being Arnhem, Desert Rats and Encyclopedia Of War: Ancient Battles.

There's plenty of other good stuff in there too though. Ken Wright and Astros Productions also made many excellent war games and there are some really oddball games like The Prince and Battle 1917, both of which were Cambridge Award winners.

The Golden Cobra will be a bit hit with the Limp Bizkit fans too, no doubt.

[Mpk]

CCS, C.C.S. or Cases Computer Simulations? Whatever you want to call them

Well, clearly, from the cover of Nuke Lear


I guess this was a non-warmongering sub label.

[chrisjt]

I think Charlie Charlie Sugar was actually their very short-lived budget label which (from memory) only released a handful of the games mentioned above.

[R-Tape]

I think Charlie Charlie Sugar was actually their very short-lived budget label which (from memory) only released a handful of the games mentioned above.

Ta for the explanation. I actually stumbled upon the 'Charlie Charlie Sugar' group recently, and wondered if someone was half-cut when doing the DB!

[Daveysloan]

Sadly I was only able to play some of their games. Thankfully my sister was able to play the rest.

[mrcook]

There's plenty of other good stuff in there too though. Ken Wright and Astros Productions also made many excellent war games and there are some really oddball games like The Prince and Battle 1917, both of which were Cambridge Award winners.

While searching around the net I did see a comment about The Prince winning the award, so I had a quick play: it has really nice graphics and sound, and looks a well polished game, it's just a shame it requires 4 players. I didn't play for too long.