In this the fourth part of the First and Last series, we will look at Mastertronic’s dedicated re-release label, Ricochet, which meant that games that had been released previously at full price did have a home to be issued at a budget price. This did mean too that there were a considerable number of publishers to do deals with including Martech, Activision (although they had previously used Firebird’s 199 Silver Range for some re-releases), Bubble Bus and Ultimate. Notably, this did include Virgin Games and Melbourne House games around or prior to the mergers with Mastertronic.
Incidentally, this did also mean that there were some games which were re-released here rather than later dedicated re-release labels set up by full-price publishers, such as Kixx by US Gold and The Hit Squad by Ocean. Nonetheless, the operating model Mastertronic had set up for Ricochet meant that they had a formula which both of those companies could effectively copy and make into their own, with extensive full price catalogues that they themselves had, but could also licence from other companies too.
For this article, we’re covering the cassette releases only. If two of the games released first or last have the same date, the lowest catalogue number for the first and the highest for the last is the winner, which follows the same rule we established originally for the main 310 range.
Ricochet – The First
Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and BBC Micro / Acorn Electron
Geoff Capes Strongman (July 1987)
Commodore 64 (RC 001)
ZX Spectrum (RS 001)
Amstrad CPC (RA 001)
BBC Micro / Acorn Electron (RB 001)
The late Geoff Capes had shown his prowess in the shot-put event in athletics, performed well as part of a team of athletes in Superteams (the teams version of the popular sports series The Superstars) and had already competed at World’s Strongest Man after his athletics career, eventually winning the title twice, in 1983 and 1985. His epic battles with Jón Páll Sigmarsson were legendary, not least Geoff’s 1985 win, when responding to Jón Páll’s “The King has lost his crown” taunt from the 1984 final, proclaimed “The King is not dead!” when he clinched the win in Cascais. Naturally, a computer game based on his exploits had been released by Martech, and the initial batch of Ricochet re-releases were those licenced from the Pevensey Bay based software company. There were six events including car rolling, barrel loading, tug of war, log chopping and so on. Reviews at the time were varied and the Commodore 64 version did have a Rob Hubbard soundtrack too. Notably, the game originally was mooted for an MSX release by Martech, but that ever happened.
Also released in July 1987 for the Commodore 64:
Eddie Kidd Jump Challenge (RC 005)
Also released in July 1987 for the ZX Spectrum:
Eddie Kidd Jump Challenge (RS 005)
Also released in July 1987 for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron
Gisburne’s Castle (RB 002)
Eddie Kidd Jump Challenge (RB 005)
MSX
Eddie Kidd Jump Challenge (RX 005, July 1987)
Eddie Kidd was at the time a well-known stunt motorcyclist, who clearly was inspired by the likes of Evel Knievel, and wanting to push the boundaries of what could be ridden over by a motorbike. This included feats later on after this game such as performing a jump over the Great Wall of China. In the game itself you started on a BMX bike and had to learn to jump small gaps, graduating eventually to riding your motorbike over cars and buses. The side on view that most versions had, including the MSX, did mean that the gameplay may have been fairly limited, but did at least mean you could attempt some mad jumps without the risk of breaking any real bones.
Commodore 16 and Plus/4
The Way of the Exploding Fist (RC2 018, April 1988)
This was in fact the only Ricochet re-release for the Commodore 16 and Plus/4, and was a conversion of the classic Commodore 64 beat-em-up game. Although this version does suffer from much smaller sprites, the fact that they managed to get some good frames of animation in, as well as a cut down version of the title theme, Dance of the Yao People, shows that a reasonable effort was made with the conversion – and they managed to keep in the two-player mode too, which was much appreciated. Notably, if you check the memory of the game during loading, you will see the text FIST C16 BY RDA 11/4/88 – maybe this was a re-master to Novaload by Richard Aplin. It would be worth finding out.
Interestingly, Trailblazer had been re-released the month before for the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC, but despite the Commodore 16 and Plus/4 version being the original, that did not get a Ricochet re-release. If anyone happens to know why this was, we would be very interested to hear – we do have some ideas, but would be good to officially know.
Atari XL/XE
Ghostbusters (RT 021, March 1989)
This was the only Ricochet re-release for the Atari 8-bit systems, but at least it happened to be an excellent version of the film licenced game, originally released by Activision. Looking and sounding the most like the Commodore 64 version, complete with the speech on the title screen, you get your equipment, head around the city, search for and exterminate ghosts before getting slimed, and keep an eye on that PK energy until the city is overwhelmed with ghosts with a final battle with the Marshmallow Man. This conversion is excellent in every aspect and shows just why it sold so many copies on re-release, with the gameplay holding very well here.
Notably, some other games had original releases for the Atari XL/XE, but did not get a Ricochet re-release for some reason. This included Ballblazer, where this version is in my view the best one of them all, and also Hacker.
Ricochet – The Last
As two of the system formats only had one game released in this generation (Commodore 16 and Plus/4, and Atari XL/XE) there are less entries for the last. As some of the later titles also were Spectrum and Amstrad “flippy” releases which contained game for both formats, standalone final releases for those formats may have been earlier than planned – but as it transpired, one of them was later anyway. Here goes:
MSX
Brian Jacks Superstar Challenge (RX 004, August 1987)
Brian Jacks had been a well-known expert in the sport of judo, before turning his hand to the BBC sporting series The Superstars, where he would win UK and European Championship events. He would also go on to set numerous records in the gym tests events, including the arm dips and squat thrusts. Martech released a game based on the Brian Jacks licence, and this included many of the events well known on the TV series, including canoeing, football penalties, archery and of course the arm dips and squat thrusts. The MSX version suffered badly in that you loaded two lots of four events separately with no score carried over, and seemed a lazy port from the ZX Spectrum version. There were only two Ricochet re-releases for the MSX, incidentally.
BBC Micro
Alien 8 (RB 011, June 1988)
Alien 8 was originally released by Ultimate, and was seen by many to be a spiritual sequel to Knight Lore. In this game, you take control of the robot, called Alien 8, and you need to ensure that all the frozen passengers that are on board your starship remain in a viable state during the voyage. The large number of screens and the isometric graphics proved to be a good challenge with the addition of remote-controlled robot drones hunting Alien 8 down too. The single colour graphics, originally designed to avoid colour clash, came across well on the BBC. But good luck finding a copy of this re-release. Due to the late release date and the somewhat reducing BBC Micro game market, the game only sold 721 copies on re-release.
Amstrad CPC
Ballblazer (RA 023, June 1988)
The iconic futuristic split screen game with you attempting to score goals in the opponent droid’s net proved to be a fast-paced and addictive future sports game. The Amstrad CPC received a very favourable conversion, using the colours and speed well to give you the fast frenetic feel, especially when challenging later droids and a battle to the end of the clock to score the goals you needed to. It certainly holds its own here, with the one more go factor prevalent and two player mode really giving you the great chance to battle a friend as well. Well worth the money.
All the remaining Amstrad CPC releases on Ricochet after this date were the “flippy” releases. We’ll come to those shortly.
ZX Spectrum
Toy Bizarre (RS 047, April 1989)
This platform puzzle game had been a hit on the Commodore 64 originally before getting a conversion to the ZX Spectrum in 1985. As such, these were the only two formats the game was originally released on (and therefore re-released) which meant this was released on the Spectrum after all the “flippy” ones. In the game you are Merton, the maintenance man at a toy factory. The toys come to life and rebel and you need to utilise the factory in order to capture all the toys, but avoid the life-sized doll called Hefty Hilda. It does become fast and frenetic the more you get into the game, and the Spectrum conversion received a mixed set of reviews, with Crash’s own reviewers either liking it or loathing it in equal measure.
Commodore 64
Little Computer People (RC 031, May 1989)
Nowhere near the last number in terms of catalogue number, this Activision original game had you basically trying to keep your character both occupied, fed, watered and you could interact. The game had some randomisation in so no two copies of the game would have a character that behaved the same way. It is perhaps notable that the cassette version was cut down a fair bit from the disk original, so it does mean that you are able to interact a little less (for example in playing some of the card games) but nonetheless meant that you could still have plenty of fun. The delay may have been waiting for the Atari ST disk version to get a re-release, but notable nonetheless.
Flippy Releases
A quick note on these, as it is worth mentioning. Mastertronic had gone with the idea of bundling together both the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC versions of a game on one cassette, known as the “flippy” releases. Of course, if you happened to own both computers, this did mean you only had to buy one copy of the game. However, that may in some cases have given you less chances to load the game correctly, and even though cassette duplication and quality standards had increased, it was notable that the flippy idea was later dropped – which is why the latter releases in the main 310 range became single format only once again.
For the Ricochet label, there were ten flippy releases, so we have listed them all here from first to last in terms of release date. For those with the same date, the lowest catalogue number is listed first:
- Impossible Mission (RAS 030, May 1988)
- FA Cup Football (RAS 034, May 1988)
- Tau Ceti (RAS 035, July 1988)
- The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole (RAS 036, October 1988)
- Jet Set Willy: The Final Frontier (RAS 037, November 1988)
- Knightmare (RAS 039, November 1988)
- How to Be a Complete Bastard (RAS 043, November 1988)
- Hacker (RAS 033, February 1989)
- Tempest (RAS 046, February 1989)
- Dan Dare II: Mekon’s Revenge (RAS 045, March 1989)
Final Thoughts
The Ricochet label for re-releases certainly had an interesting time span in its close to two years of existence. Mastertronic had re-released games before, but were part of the main range (see our Micro Natters series for more on those) and after Ricochet ceased, a number of games were re-released as part of the main 310 range but also some on the PAL Developments range too, just to add to the confusion and fun and games for us collectors many years later. Nonetheless, the distinct packaging with its bullet hole on the front label, and the fact that the games were varied from different publishers certainly made it a label of note and one that has some very notable high-profile games re-released for not much money, making gaming more affordable once again. Hopefully, there were some surprises along the way for you.
Next time around, it’s on the PAL Developments range, which has its own unique set of breaking standards, with re-released games, using both Mastertronic and Mastertronic Plus on its front covers, and as part of that, some of the latest released budget games too from Mastertronic. Stay tuned!
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