I can't believe they attempted that.

[PeteProdge]

A thread for odd games that were shocking by the fact they were planned and actually commercially released.

Death Wish 3

Gremlin blagged the rights to the most violent of the Death Wish series, probably at a time when Cannon Group were up to their eyeballs in debt. The film itself is a load of kill-the-bad-guys action from beginning to end, with ludicrous explosions put there purely for entertainment's sake, sod the plot. Given the franchise's notoriety for blood-and-guts brutality, along with, well, er, violence of a sexual nature towards women... it's quite surprising this sat on shop shelves for anyone to buy. A simpler pre-PEGI time, I guess...



I acquired this title thanks to its inclusion on the 10 Great Games II compilation. It's a bit of a mess. No shortage of killing, but not much of a game in there.

Starring Charlie Chaplin

I've not played this game yet, but by all accounts, it's a bizarre area for US Gold to tackle, given they were usually more concerned with hard-hitting coin-op conversions.



Crash magazine concluded: "The game requires no directing or financial skill at all - all you do is hit people! The more times you hit people, the more money you get. The game has so much potential it's a pity the idea hasn't been exploited to its full."

It's A Knockout

The ChinnyVision video documenting this game with television historian Louis Barfe is quite the eye opener.

You're Ocean Software, king of the pack, a de facto pioneer of cutting-edge coin-op and movie licensing chart-dominating titles, you're cruising to the top using your commercial muscle. You decide to go for a cheesy anachronistic BBC One game show that hadn't been regularly screened since 1982.



This looks and plays more like educational software than a full price Ocean title. The 'action' is very sparse indeed, sadly. The TV show itself resembled a platform game at times, so this is a case of a huge opportunity missed.

Super Trolley

A computer game based on shelf-stacking. No, really.



And yes, it plays just as good as the actual duty it simulates. It's yawn-inducing, the digital equivalent of Horlicks.

This sold very well for Mastertronic, and the reason why, is in its inception. The game idea was dreamt up by a young boy, who had written into a 'make your dreams come true' program on prime time Saturday evening television. This TV show got in contact with Mastertronic to develop the concept into a game, and I recall Richard Branson getting some airtime, due to Virgin being interconnected with Mastertronic. Plus the kid being asked by a programmer as to how many sprites should be on screen at one time - something like "not three, but two, three is too many".

The show was Jim'll Fix It, a mainstay of BBC One Saturdays and fronted by that crazy avuncular celebrity, Jimmy Savile, who, we later learned, had a very very dark side.

Behind Closed Doors

You're trapped in an outside toilet. Surprisingly, this text adventure is very good and packed with humour. A definite highlight from Zenobi...

[Mike Davies]

Deathwish 3 did have a game somewhere in there. Tracking down and knocking off the leaders of the riots in each area, but there's a whack-a-mole element in that if you took too long to take out everyone, new riot leaders would appear. (Your screenshot shows one of the gang-leaders sitting behind the desk).

Though, it was more fun just poking it with infinite ammo, and perpetually blast the same old lady over and over and over with a bazooka.

The Tir Na Nog type compass direction might be okay out on the street, but inside buildings it's just a mess. You can be in the same room as the gang leader, but not see him because of your compass direction.

[Ralf]

Deathwish is a step closer than other Spectrum games to something we call today "open world" or "sandbox" :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_world

It's basically a riot city living it's own life. Policemen are fighting with punks, hookers are hmmm... working, dustmen are cleaning streets from bodies and they are living their own life and don't care about player. You can search for leaders or just walk the streets killing everybody. Your choice.

[Alessandro]

I actually liked Death Wish III despite the movie being a complete waste of celluloid. Here is my review from Spectrum 2.0:

Paul Kersey - a name which is synonymous with bad luck, judging by what happens to anyone who is closely associated to him - in the third instalment of its saga, has agreed to help New York City police to quench a riot.

The film is rather useless and so over the top in being reactionary to become laughable in the end. The game, however, goes even further and lands right in the territory of parody - how could you explain in any other way the fierce fights between the aged women and the villains, or the long-nosed girls waving their mini-skirts, who do not appear to serve any purpose whatsoever other than bring a smile to the player?

There is nothing but "kill or get killed" and "do not hit too many cops, or they will get really pissed" here. While it lasts, however, it's a nihilistically satisfying experience. Try shooting people from the windows or keeping your finger on the machine gun trigger to see what I mean! Of course you'll love it if you are a fan of the great, late Charles Bronson.

[Wall_Axe]

yeah death wish 3 was fun as a child
the magazines hated it, probably would have been better as a budget release

[balford]

I absolutely loved Behind Closed Doors. Hadn't done any major adventuring before finding this on a SU cover tape.

[PeteProdge]

I actually liked Death Wish III despite the movie being a complete waste of celluloid. Here is my review from Spectrum 2.0:

Paul Kersey - a name which is synonymous with bad luck, judging by what happens to anyone who is closely associated to him - in the third instalment of its saga, has agreed to help New York City police to quench a riot.

The film is rather useless and so over the top in being reactionary to become laughable in the end. The game, however, goes even further and lands right in the territory of parody - how could you explain in any other way the fierce fights between the aged women and the villains, or the long-nosed girls waving their mini-skirts, who do not appear to serve any purpose whatsoever other than bring a smile to the player?

There is nothing but "kill or get killed" and "do not hit too many cops, or they will get really pissed" here. While it lasts, however, it's a nihilistically satisfying experience. Try shooting people from the windows or keeping your finger on the machine gun trigger to see what I mean! Of course you'll love it if you are a fan of the great, late Charles Bronson.

Ah yes, my plan is to eventually cover Death Wish 3 in my (forthcoming) retrogaming channel, Reheated Pixels.. I've started doing the research by watching the movie series. They are all pretty over-the-top blood-and-guts action to please a popcorn-munching audience. It's dumb, it's stupid, but strangely compelling. These are the movies Ed Wood would have put together in the VHS era.

The sexual scenes are the disturbing bits, I don't think Michael Winner really put them there for empathy.

The old phrase "a conservative is a liberal who has just been mugged" is the plotline for every Death Wish movie. Even though I was only meant to get to the third one for the purposes of understanding this game, I ended up watching the fourth one this week, and it's off the scales for sheer credibility-stretching violence. I was laughing my head off, in the same way Plan 9 From Outer Space is unintentionally amusing.

As to the game though, I do remember POKEing it so I could blast away at anyone repeatedly, watching them in the death throes, er, death throws, for an eternity.

Having seen the movie, I'm baffled as to why there are so many prostitutes in the game, when it's probably the only Death Wish movie not to feature them. Likewise those morgue workers who drag the dead bodies away. But that's artistic license on the part of the game designers really.