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A rather interesting title now from an obscure company called Gamesware. Gamma Strike is a kind of a light phaser/target pack, with the target board plugged into the computer.
ACE magazine (issue 9) reported on the game and said the following:
"Another creative use for home computers has been found by a Liverpool based company called Gamesware. They are currently marketing a game called Gamma Strike which retails at about the “23 mark for C64, Spectrum and Amstrad and comes in a large box complete with two air-powered plastic pistols , some small soft plastic lellets and a target mounted on a touch sensitive board that plugs directly into your compluter – plus, of course the necessary software.
The idea is for one to four players to take turns shooting at the target. Your scores are then displayed on your monitor. With three types of game including Alien Shoot-out where you try to outdraw a bunch of alients. Gamma Strike is a novel product aimed at the younger player who’ll probably get quite a lot of satisfaction from it, as long as an adult supervises and ensures the pistols are used safely."
Hmmm, sounds like a potentially dangerous pack, with maybe the ability to fire pellets at others in the room. To be honest, the game probably never got past the standards phase, and was ruled to be too dangerous. And it seems that it didn't... well, at least in a mainstream way!
Gamesware struggled to get the product onto mainstream shelves due to the health and safety hazards of the package. They resorted to shifting just a few copies over mail order and through petrol stations in the Manchester and Liverpool area!
Recently the game's lead programmer Simon Phillips got in touch with GTW whom shared the above information. Simon was only 15/16 at the time and assembled a team of himself, another programmer, a graphic artist and a musician to construct 3 games to go with the gun technology. They only had a month, but they produced 3 reasonable games to go with the gun..
1. Competition Shoot-out - A simple game where two players compete against each other shooting the target and getting scores. Written in BASIC.
2. Voyager 19 - A better title with two space rockets where each player takes turns to fire and score depending on where the target was hit. Each shot would send that player's space rocket up towards the top of the screen. First one into space would be the winner.
3. The Alien Team - Probably the most intruiging title of the pack, where the game hardly uses the target until the very end boss. The game is predominantly a side scrolling SEU.
The package had its limited release, and the developers got a small bit of money without royalties (Which may not have been a bad thing in the end!). However, it is only now that the games have finally been preserved.
Simon kindly posted one of the last packages of Gamma Strike known (Possibly the only one left in existance), where GTW has taken high quality photos of the packaging, internals and also fully preserved the 3 games which came with it!
The only problem is that at present the games are completely unplayable without the target, and Alien Team needs someone to shoot the target to start the game! Well, shortly after release on GTW, Triad sorted Alien Team and Voyager 19 out (The two key games) and released versions which allow you to use keys to replace the target, as well as the original hardware if you ever discover it! :) .
A great discovery for GTW, and finally preserved after all these years!
Frank.
(Additional
source credits - Peter Weighill, Simon Phillips, Iopop/Triad) |
