Although many of you may associate Ricochet as Mastertronic’s primary re-release label, followed later by the likes of Mastertronic+ and Tronix, what may not be apparent is that in the early years of Mastertronic, prior to Ricochet, they did re-release games that had been released before, and sometimes these were under a different name.
Following on from Part One, where we looked at the Commodore 64, here we will look at the ZX Spectrum and how many of the games were given a new lease of life by Mastertronic with a re-release, and what happened with any other format conversions during that time.
To summarise: this guide will cover any re-releases by Mastertronic up to the date of the launch of the Ricochet label in mid-1987. Any subsequent re-releases also used the MAD and Mastertronic+ labels as part of the standard range as well as Ricochet. Credit must also go to the maintainers of Spectrum Computing, whose resource proved invaluable in validating the original game releases prior to the Mastertronic re-releases.
Darts (Mr Chip)
Back in 1983, Mr Chip released Darts, programmed by Allison Kerr. In effect, it was an attempt to try and create a game of darts with various modes of play including cricket and killer as well as the standard 501, so at least that was an interesting idea, along with the control methods varying – you could let the computer decide randomly after choosing what to aim for, or aim the cursor yourself. This eventually was re-released as Bullseye (1S 0005) and had an odd cover of space ships heading towards a central target. No other format conversions were undertaken.
Tank Trax (Amoeba Software)
Tank Trax was released in 1983 and was a two-player strategy game with each player in control of a tank. You entered the angle and velocity and would see if you could destroy the enemy tank or not. You did also have day or night modes as well as different styles of terrain, which gave the game some variety. Naturally it was quite a success and so was re-released by Mastertronic (1S 0008) although no other format conversions were undertaken – a shame, as I could imagine this working very well on the Vic-20 for example.
Did You Know?
Amoeba Software also went on to produce Voyage into the Unknown for Mastertronic (IS 0024) – however, this game was not very well received, with Crash magazine no less awarding it second place in the Bummer of the Year section of the 1984 Readers’ Awards. Third place was also awarded to another game we are covering here – read on to find out…
Gnasher (R & R Software)
Pac Man clones were all a plenty for all the home micros, and this effort from R & R Software, first released in 1983, was another to add to that list. It generally plays okay, although the size of the characters is very large and makes the maze small as a result. It also could run on a 16K Spectrum meaning that at least those with smaller memory could play this game. It was re-released with new cover art (IS 0009) and had Any Spectrum emblazoned in the top right-hand corner to aid 16K users.
Did You Know?
Gnasher was issued by Yes! Software in 1985 for the Commodore 16 and Plus/4, which uses exactly the same cover art, even down to the 16K being in the bottom right-hand corner of the front. It is not 100% certain if Yes! Software were a continuation of R & R, but nonetheless an interesting curio to note.
continues…
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