Nero 2000 (Bio-Syntax Method Oy, 1987)

Designed by Taisto Orre and David Cumberworth
Programming by David Cumberworth and Timo Kokkonen
Graphics by Timo Kokkonen
Questions and music selection by Taisto Orre
Published originally for the Commodore 64 in 1987.

IBM-PC version written by Timo Kokkonen
MSX version written by David Cumberworth
Both published in 1988.

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INTRODUCTION & DESCRIPTION

Some pieces of Finnish gaming history have been rather harshly scattered around with little hope of ever having the chance to get known to people, but lately, great amounts of archaeological findings have come up in the Finnish MSX scene. One of perhaps the most important findings has been the long-lost MSX version of the most famous computerized Finnish quiz game of all time, Nero 2000. Also, not much more than two years ago, Skrolli magazine found out the people behind the game and the company Bio-Syntax Method, on which they wrote an article for their first issue in 2018. So, before I continue into the actual article, I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has made this comparison possible: Kasettilamerit, MP83, Tokamoka and NYYRIKKI , and whoever uploaded the DOS and MSX versions on the internet. It has been a long time in coming.

2,000,000 visits! / UPDATES strikes back!

That's right, you read it right - the not quite as magical line as the previous one of 1,000,000 visits line, has been broken at last, although I never anticipated it coming to this after my year's near-constant absence. Having crossed that line in the year 2020 (less than a week before June, apparently) seems even more of an odd coincidence, because last month's comparison entries pushed the number of actual content articles over 200 (not including updates, achievements and other news), so I guess that's cause for more celebration! Anyway, I didn't post this blog entry just for these celebrations - that was merely coincidental to a dust-gathered post of UPDATES to old comparisons and perhaps even some other entries on the blog, with new surfacings of information and new versions of games having been released, etcetera.

Agent X II: The Mad Prof's Back! (Mastertronic, 1987)

Developed by Software Creations.

Sinclair ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC versions:
Programming by Steven Tatlock
Graphics by John Tatlock
Music by Tim Follin
Additional programming and graphics for the Amstrad CPC version by Mark Wilson.

Commodore 64 version:
Programming by Jonathan French
Graphics by Andrew Threlfall
Music by Tim Follin

Published by Mastertronic in 1987.

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INTRODUCTION & GAME STATUS

The unexpectedly formed Mastertronic trilogy for May ends with a game I used to love as a young gamer, and made me not only acknowledge the existence of a game music composer by the name of Timothy Follin, but also made me into a big fan of his work. But I grew up with the C64 version, and I have never actually even as much as tried out the other two versions of the game, so this shall be yet another learning experience. What I have learned already, is that the makers of the Spectrum-exclusive original Agent X game, the Tatlock brothers, are also largely responsible for the other two versions, so I'm expecting great differences here.

SPECIAL VIDEO: a n00b's look at Philips Videopac G7000 / Magnavox Odyssey²

Here's a little special presentation for you that I managed to build during the last three days. Before this week, I had never actually tried out an Odyssey² or its European version for real - only on emulators, and very limitedly so. Thanks to a friend of mine, who borrowed his composite-modified G7000 to me, and who is credited in the video, I finally got to experience this machine for real.

Apart from that, I would also like to remind you, to keep yourselves updated on my other videos, click on the Videos link at the top menu. New videos get dropped there about two or three times a month, but you can also subscribe to the FRGCB YouTube channel to keep yourselves up to date. Thanks for watching.

Pinball Power (Mastertronic, 1989)

Written by Stephen Walters for the Commodore 64.

Converted for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum by Magdic Davor for Active Magic.

Converted for the Amstrad CPC by Bernardin Katic for Active Magic.

Published by Mastertronic through their Mastertronic Plus label in 1989.

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INTRODUCTION & GAME STATUS

This month seems to have leaned towards Mastertronic games rather unexpectedly, even though the idea was just to write about two or three genres that haven't had much exposure at FRGCB. This time, I managed to dig up a suitable pinball game I hadn't really had much of experience with: Pinball Power, also known as 3-D Pinball, due to its title in the cover art.

180! (Mastertronic, 1986)

Developed by Binary Design (1001 Ltd.)
Atari XE/XL programming by David Forward
Commodore 64 programming by Andrew Routledge
ZX Spectrum and MSX programming by Garry Hughes
Graphics by Steve Pickford and Jeremy Nelson
Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum sounds by David Whittaker
Amstrad CPC and Atari XE/XL sounds by Jason C. Brooke

Amstrad CPC programmer hasn't been documented.
Neither has the sound programmer for the MSX version.

Published by Mastertronic Added Dimension in 1986, except the MSX version published in 1987.

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GAME STATUS

To my recent shocking discovery and horror, I noticed an utter lack of comparisons of games in the numeric part of the alphabet, so I decided to pick one that I knew well at least on one machine. To my surprise and delight, I found that this game, One Hundred and Eighty from Mastertronic, was released on all the 8-bit platforms that ever really mattered in these 8-bit wars. Not that I recall this particular game ever being a huge part of that battle, but it's interesting to find 180! is one of the few that was released on C64, Spectrum, MSX, Amstrad and the Atari computers.

Jungle Hunt (Taito, 1982)

Originally developed and released for the arcades as "Jungle King" by Taito Corporation in 1982, but later re-released as "Jungle Hunt" and re-worked as "Pirate Pete".

Converted for the Atari 2600 by John Allred and Michael Feinstein. Converted for the Atari 5200 and 400/800 by Allen Merrell with graphics by Jerome Domurat. Converted for the Commodore 64 by Bill Bogenreif.
All the above published by Atarisoft in 1983.

Converted for the ColecoVision by David Cartt. Converted for the Texas Instruments TI-99/4A by Jim Dramis, Garth Dollahite and Paul Urbanus.

Both versions published by Atarisoft in 1984.

Also converted for the Apple II, Commodore VIC-20 and IBM-PC compatibles by Atarisoft in 1984. Further details unknown.

Unofficial conversion "Jungle Queen" for the Tandy TRS-80 CoCo written by David Shipka, and published by ZoSo Software in 1984.

Unofficial conversion "Jungle King" for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum written by Luca Bordoni, and published through Load 'n' Run magazine in 1985.

Unofficial port of Jungle Hunt from ColecoVision to MSX written by Muffie, and published by ICON Games in 2008; re-released by Repro Factory in 2014 as part of "Muffie's Tutankham & Conversions" compilation cartridge.

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INTRODUCTION & GAME STATUS

Once again, we're heading into classic arcade territory, which means plenty of different versions, but due to the relative simplicity, I'm expecting this to be relatively easy to get through. Mind you, digging up through all the different platform-specific archives online, I didn't expect to find quite as many unofficial conversions for all the machines as I ended up finding. I guess it only goes to show,
just how big of a classic we're talking about here.