KickStarter The Mastertronic Archives - The history of Mastertronic!

[neilsouth]

And it is in fact, why we are mentioning Mastertronic today, because just recently a new Book Kickstarter was started by Player One Books, which aims to produce both a standard volume and an enhanced collector's volume detailing the history of these games. With the standard edition, covering 256 pages of all of the Mastertronic £1.99 releases including game reviews, game credits, screen shots, cover images and more. And the Collector's Edition including everything in the Standard Edition, PLUS an additional 256 pages featuring game reviews, game credits, screen shots, cover images and more of the other Mastertronic labels such as M.A.D., Americana, Rebound, Rack-It, etc PLUS the unique disk releases.

http://www.indieretronews.com/2016/05/the-mastertronic-archives-history-of.html

 

[octavius]

I had a Speccy for many years, but I must admit I never played a Mastertonic game. They just felt so cheap.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I've played...a fair share of Mastertronic games.

Most of them are trash, yes, but a few are memorable. The Last V8 had aweome music by Rob Hubbard, and the "Magic Knight" series of adventure games are fun enough.

 

[Severian Silk]

These games were recorded onto cassettes?

 

[Unkillable Cat]

 

[octavius]

Hmm...coincidence?

 

[Naraya]

I had 4 games shipped with my ZX Spectrum + and there was Formula 1 in there. Because of this game, to this day I remember how different Formula 1 tracks look like

The other one was Locomotion, which was awesome.

Overall - I remember Mastertronic games being very polished and enjoyable.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Hmm...coincidence?

If you glance over the Mastertronic catalogue you'll find several names that have been used for other games. While most of them are recently, the Barbarian/Barbarian The Ultimate Warrior debacle happened then and there.

 

[muds_animal_friend]

FUCKING KENTILLA!!! TRIGGERED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The hours my ten year-old incarnation put into trying to solve Kentilla. I even had recurring quasi-nightmares about it as my subconscious endlessly - and fruitlessly - tried to complete the game. How's a ten year-old supposed to know what a tungsten crucible is anyway? There was no Internet then. Fuck you Kentilla. Fuck you and your fucking tungsten crucible you fucking fuck.

They did publish the first quasi-RPG I ever played though: Master of Magic (not the 4x). But then I discovered The Bards Tale, entered the manly man's world of real CRPGs, and put childish things behind me.

 

[octavius]

Hmm...coincidence?

If you glance over the Mastertronic catalogue you'll find several names that have been used for other games. While most of them are recently, the Barbarian/Barbarian The Ultimate Warrior debacle happened then and there.

I was thinking more along that the first time Mastertonic is mentioned on my two favourite CRPG sites, it happens at the same time.

FUCKING KENTILLA!!! TRIGGERED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The hours my ten year-old incarnation put into trying to solve Kentilla.

I remember that name. Never played the game, though, even though it was one of the more tempting Mastertonic games (I still has the patience for Adventure games back then).

 

[Endemic]

Played Italia'90 and Shinobi, but that was about it since I never owned a ZX or Commodore.

There's a "Mastertronic Group" which is a renamed Sold Out Software (created by a merger in 2006).

 

[ghostdog]

I had an Amstrad CPC and a ZX Spectrum (admittedly when they were way past their prime) and I've never heard of these guys. Probably because they were the shovelware of the times. Now that I've looked at their catalog, it seems I've only played "Ninja" on Amiga, which from what I remember was a Karateka clone

 

[octavius]

Damned, all these years I've read the name as Mastertonic instead of Mastertronic...

 

[Gragt]

And I thought Mastertronic were the leaders of the video game industry because I had so many tapes with their name on them.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

If you want a real shovelware label, try Firebird.

They had the occasional conversion of a good game (Bubble Bobble) but generally their emphasis was to sign up a title, release it and collect money.

 

[octavius]

Firebird also published Runestone, Elite and the possibly most difficult games I've ever played: Gyron.
Back in those days I felt Firebird was quality, while I despised Ocean for their formulaic move tie-ins.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

True, Ocean had a good plan with the tie-ins and stuck with it until it dragged them down to their deaths. They made a killing with Robocop, which was enough to justify most of their not-so successful movie tie-ins up to that point...and a little bit beyond. Another successful tie-in was the first Burton Batman film.

As for Firebird, keep in mind that they had the publishing rights for a few good titles on certain systems, just like Mastertronic did. The original developer made a game on one or two platforms for example, then it would hire/outsource other houses to release versions of the game for other platforms. Sometimes a big-name software house only handled the conversion for one platform. It muddles the waters a bit, but there you go.

This practice continued into the mid-1990s, but died down about the time Microsoft entered into the console market with the X-Box Harbinger of Decline.

 

[oddech_wymarlych_swiatow]

I have soft spot for Ninja vel Ninja mission, it's unplayable now but back in the day it was my fav. geam on Atari XL.

 

[Tribal Sarah]

My brother used to claim the white character in Way Of The Exploding Fist was Steven Seagal