★ AMSTRAD CPC ★ SOFTOGRAPHIE ★ COMPANY ★ GO! ★ |
| Games - Company | Capcom | GO! |
David Baxter instituted a policy'change when he joined GO! as Product Manager, enforcing their option to develop British conversions in parallel with Capcom's American games. The first to go this route was Bionic Commando, UK version written by Software Creations, who converted Bubble Bobble.' I wanted it developed in the UK so I could keep track of programming progress,' explains David. ‘I didn't want the risk of having the American version delivered only to find it of poor quality, I was much happier overseeing the production of Bionic Commando here.' And as it turned out, the American version wasn't up to much, certainly not of a standard David was happy to release; Software Creations proved it could be done better and across all formats. Baxter: taking no chances on quality >> But, as David points out, there's an intriguing twist to the tale: The Street Fighter project was an interesting one. Over here we commissioned Tiertex (authors of 720°) to convert it for the CPC. Their brief was to make it as near as possible to the arcade machine - large sprites and scrolling backdrops - and they did. The outcome of this experiment is that GO! now develops all UK conversions and then releases their CPC, Atari ST and Amiga. And this wraps in the three brand-new Capcom coin-ops to be released Christmas/Next Year, which should hit your home computer screens at the same time.
Now with over 200 game development staff and projected sales last year of $71.4 million, Capcom had a shakier start. The company was founded in June 1983 by Kenzo Tsujimoto at a time when the arcade game industry was feeling the pinch of an acute downturn. From Capcom's headquarters in Osaka, Japan, Tsujimoto expanded to an American base in Sunnyvale, California. Like other coin-op producers, Capcom has had its critical ups and downs; here's the list of five year s of hard effort. .. COMMANDO : The famous vertically scrolling game which has been cloned time after time. Elite Systems produced competent conversions in 1985/6 SECTION Z : A shoot-'em-up which had little impact in the UK GHOSTS AND GOBLINS : One of the all-time classic platform games with many levels -converted excellently - again by Elite Systems - and soon to be released on the Encore label 1942 : An only-average vertically scrolling shoot-'em-up with doddering planes ... the same applied to Elite Systems's conversions SIDE ARMS : That two-player horizontally scrolling megablast. It's snaz in the arcades but not so hot on home computers. The Atari ST version is reviewed in this issue BIONIC COMMANDO : Called Bionic Commandos in coin-op form, the recently converted action/platform game is probably Capcom's most original title Tsujimoto: shaky start >> GUN SMOKE : Great fun in its coin-op format, but the GO! conversions were poor and the Commodore 64/128 wasn't even released STREET FIGHTER : Should be in the shops now on home computers. Street Fighter is a playable beat-'em-up which packs a real punch 1943 : The sequel, which improves greatly over Its predecessor, will be released through GO! later this summer (now we await 1944, 45 etc... BLACK TIGER : A hack-'em-down through a multidirectional scrolling backdrop of fantasy worlds -currently undergoing conversion TIGER ROAD : One of the biggest martial arts games ever. Playing Lee Wong you bash your way through many screens and defeat Ryu Ken Oh, a child kidnapper. The conversion will include five multiloads And of course LED Storm, Last Duel and Forgotten World, featured here.
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