Spaghetti football?!?

[zx4ever]

There's a game listed on WOS and on here; Spaghetti Football, supposedly released by US Gold in 1990. It was supposedly reviewed in Popular Computing Weekly 21/6/1990 but, of course, that issue is also missing.

Does anyone know anything about it, or have they got the aforementioned issue of PCW?

[equinox]

Bizarre. Could it be a hoax or some kind of input or upload error?

The only thing that comes to mind is that Zeppelin did a Spaghetti Western Simulator (a cowboy shooter) in the same year, 1990!

[Lee P]

This sounds like a hoax. I found one site which references Popular Computing Weekly magazine on this date, but it's missing. Also, several other sources state the final issue was 415, the week before (my guess is the owner of this site just carried on adding the data for each issue without knowing the exact closure date)

https://www.abandonware-france.org/bibl ... 416-10048/

[PeterJ]

The data for this originated from the Jim Grimwood data on magazine reviews:

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~jg27p ... efault.htm

This information appears in both WoS and here as we both use the same database.

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/1 ... i_Football

[equinox]

Another thought: maybe it was a working title for US Gold's Italia 90.

[StooB]

This sounds like a hoax. I found one site which references Popular Computing Weekly magazine on this date, but it's missing. Also, several other sources state the final issue was 415, the week before (my guess is the owner of this site just carried on adding the data for each issue without knowing the exact closure date)

https://www.abandonware-france.org/bibl ... 416-10048/

No.

[adam]

Another thought: maybe it was a working title for US Gold's Italia 90.

That's plausible although that title was released by then or very shortly afterwards as it is reviewed in July 1990 mags.

Speaking of which, none of the Speccy mags around then mention it, so it's more likely than not to be a hoax.

[Lee P]

No.

Ok, sort of helpful-ish, so do you have the edition in question?

[zx4ever]

That's plausible although that title was released by then or very shortly afterwards as it is reviewed in July 1990 mags.

Speaking of which, none of the Speccy mags around then mention it, so it's more likely than not to be a hoax.

It does make sense that it was an in-house working title for Italia 90, but it's the wrong time of year for a hoax.

[druellan]

Ok, sort of helpful-ish, so do you have the edition in question?

In fact, could be nice to have the full scan of those magazines. Years 1989 and 1990 are missing from the site or Archive.org (at least, by that name), and the Museum of Computing History only have the covers scanned.

[equinox]

It does make sense that it was an in-house working title for Italia 90, but it's the wrong time of year for a hoax.

Yeah I'm personally convinced of this now. Italia 90 was a registered trademark (you can see the ® sign on the game packaging) and there might have been reasons why they couldn't use it before formally acquiring the licence. And of course spaghetti is Italian, and "spaghetti football" isn't otherwise a thing (though one imagines an even twistier version of the infamous "banana kick"). Also: would US Gold really have released two football games in the same year?

Relatedly I seem to remember that the language localisation files for Skype (prior to Microsoft's acquisition) referred to third-party products by made-up names, like FLAMINGO for Facebook.

[PeteProdge]

Was that ever considered? Tsk, it's really immature and quite offensive to see a country get reduced to a cultural culinary stereotype.

Anyway, does anyone have 1982's Tapas Soccer? I will swap for the follow-up, World Cup Enchilada.

[ParadigmShifter]

Well the frogs call us les Rosbifs so it's not just the English that do it

On the other hand we used to call Syphilis "the French disease" whereas the French used to call it "the English disease".

[equinox]

On the other hand we used to call Syphilis "the French disease" whereas the French used to call it "the English disease".

Everything is the English disease. We are sick, sick people.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/English_disease

On the other hand we used to call Syphilis "the French disease" whereas the French used to call it "the English disease".

Our "French windows" are the French "portes anglaises" (English doors) if I remember right. And over in California, they call windows "OS/2 Warps".

[Mpk]

If there isn't a Spaghetti Football in this year's Crap Game Competition, I'll be sorely disappointed.

[EdToo]

If there isn't a Spaghetti Football in this year's Crap Game Competition, I'll be sorely disappointed.

For the ZX80?

[equinox]

For the ZX80?

spag EIGHTY football

[StooB]

Yeah I'm personally convinced of this now. Italia 90 was a registered trademark (you can see the ® sign on the game packaging) and there might have been reasons why they couldn't use it before formally acquiring the licence. And of course spaghetti is Italian, and "spaghetti football" isn't otherwise a thing (though one imagines an even twistier version of the infamous "banana kick"). Also: would US Gold really have released two football games in the same year?

Italy 90 was already out by this time - it comes with a spot-the-ball competition which closed on June 8th. The most likely explanation is an input error on Spaghetti Western Simulator, which was released around July 1990.. The index is obviously incomplete - with only one review and no adverts for any games at all.

Unfortunately, later copies of PCW are extremely rare, probably due to competition from New Computer Express which launched in 1988.

[equinox]

Italy 90 was already out by this time - it comes with a spot-the-ball competition which closed on June 8th. The most likely explanation is an input error on Spaghetti Western Simulator, which was released around July 1990.. The index is obviously incomplete - with only one review and no adverts for any games at all.

Unfortunately, later copies of PCW are extremely rare, probably due to competition from New Computer Express which launched in 1988.

I haven't checked the figures here but, if we postulate that StooB is right (and I will assume he is), that murders my lovely theory. What we really want is a two-page scan showing that "spaghetti" is accidentally placed alongside "football".

I can still say "nobody has RZXed it yet" re Spaghetti Western Simulator -- good luck, it's stupidly hard.