Accolade was a fairly significant computer game company in the late '80s when it released games like Hardball! and Test Drive. This catalog highlights those games among many others, including one of my favorite miniature golf games. There are also a couple t-shirt offers here though I wonder about those designs, a simple company logo or Test Drive shirt likely would have been much more popular.
Rocket Science Games was founded in 1993 with a goal of making cinematic video games. It hired people from the movie, comic book, and computer industries but its games tended to review in the average range and they did not sell well. Only five of its games were released before it closed in 1997.
Rockstar Games in this case refers to the publishing label Take -Two Interactive created in 1998. Founded by Sam Houser, Dan Houser, Terry Donovan, Gary Foreman, and Jamie King, Rockstar Games has become one of the most popular companies in video games and its name is often associated with high quality games, most notably the Grand Theft Auto (GTA) titles. Today many of its games are developed by Rockstar North, formerly known as DMA Design, the Scotland-based company Rockstar Games acquired in 2002. However, it has published games from many other developers in the past such as Max Payne (Remedy Entertainment), L.A. Noire (Team Bondi), Smuggler's Run (Angel Studios), and State of Emergency (VIS).
I only have two ads each for Rocket Science and Rockstar so I'm backfilling a few more this week; two for Acclaim and one for Accolade.
Epyx released its first Winter Olympics game, Winter Games, in 1985 and I'd say it's still a great game just as the first two Summer Games are. Maybe it's the simplicity of them, in both the graphics and gameplay, that many future games based on the Olympics from other publishers couldn't match. Those early games were not officially endorsed by the Olympics but Epyx was able to acquire the license for both of its follow-ups, the Summer and Winter Editions of "The Games." The Games: Winter Edition's release hit in 1988 to coincide with the Calgary '88 Winter Olympics. I've always enjoyed the "Games" series from Epyx and as I mentioned a few times previously, I had hoped to do a "Let's Play" video for this one during the 2018 Winter Olympics. Unfortunately, my Commodore 64 broke at an inopportune time so instead, I've got some magazine scans. One review is for the Epyx game and the others are for Accolade's very similar release for the '92 Olympics called Winter Challenge that was published in 1992 for the Sega Genesis under its Ballistic label.
The review for The Games: Winter Edition is from Commodore Magazine. They provide quite an in-depth review as they detail each one of the seven events included in the game. One thing I never quite figured out in this game is how the judges score the figure skating. It's a rather intricate event as you choreograph your routine before performing it and while I always felt like I performed well, my scores were always dismal.
Commodore Magazine - December 1988
Before I get to the Winter Challenge reviews I've got a preview of Accolade's DOS version called The Games: Winter Challenge from the January 1992 issue of Video Games & Computer Entertainment. I decided to scan this one because I couldn't find a review of it and quite a few Internet sites seem to believe it released in 1991, which is what the title screen displays as the copyright (title screens being off by a year is not uncommon). However, that seems unlikely as this preview is based on an incomplete beta that didn't even have the sound in it yet. Magazines did have to write articles in advance and sometimes issues hit newsstands a month or so ahead of what the cover says but it still makes more sense that 1992 is the release year. In any case, I find it to be a fun, if brief, read due to the PC hardware that is mentioned: "...it gets pretty hot on a 33 MHz PC." Also, you can see bits of Elvira II and SimAnt previews on the parts of the two pages that are included.
Video Games & Computer Entertainment - January 1992
For the Sega Genesis' Winter Challenge I've got reviews from Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM), GamePro, and Game Informer. There is quite a range of opinions here with EGM disliking it, GamePro giving its "FunFactor" category the highest possible rating, and three Game Informer staff scoring it 6, 7, and 8.5 overall.
EGM #35
GamePro - March 1992
Game Informer - January/February 1992
UPDATE February 4, 2022: My Commodore did eventually get fixed and four years later another Winter Olympics is happening so I finally made a video of The Games: Winter Edition.
In June Activision released Crash Bandicoot: N. Sane Trilogy and then in August Sonic the Hedgehog returned to his roots in Sega's Sonic Mania. Now another video game mascot that got its start in the '90s is back: Bubsy! I was going to be sarcastic about the return of Bubsy but I don't know much about the games outside of what I've read, and my memory had me thinking the Bubsy games were considered terrible. However, while putting together this post I found that the first Bubsy game was very well-received and its sequel, as well as the Atari Jaguar game, were decent too. Apparently it was Bubsy 3D that made everyone want to forget about the anthropomorphic bobcat. Bubsy did get a compilation in 2015 of the first two Super Nintendo Entertainment System games for the PC called Two-Fur. Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back is a brand new game that releases today and returns the title character to 2D, much like the aforementioned Sonic Mania did for Sonic the Hedgehog.
In light of Bubsy's return here are reviews of the first game from Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) and Game Informer, and a GamePro review of Bubsy II. For the EGM review I included a couple bonus reviews allowing you to see the competition that Bubsy faced that month and one of them (Cool Spot) is a good comparison as it's another side-scrolling platform game.
Before I put a cap on the "A" publishers I'm revisiting Acclaim. Acclaim had a few subsidiaries and brands, and some ads feature two or more of them. While I could have copied them to every publisher in each ad, I decided to place them in one grouped album. The publishers involved are Acclaim, Arena Entertainment, Flying Edge, and LJN. Arena was another we've already taken a look at and we'll see the other two in their own albums later.
Next are two very similarly named companies, one being a brand of another big publisher we've already seen. First is Balistic Software, a publisher I know nothing about beyond the single ad I've got that's of a role-playing game for the Commodore 64.
The other Ballistic was a publishing brand used by Accolade from 1991-1994 primarily to get around the licensing contract it had with Nintendo. Nintendo blocked most publishers that wanted to release games for the Nintendo Entertainment System from releasing games on competing platforms so some publishers simply created another publishing brand to do so (like the aforementioned Acclaim and Flying Edge). None of the Sega Genesis games from Ballistic carried Sega's official seal of approval which led to a legal battle between the two. Ballistic was dissolved shortly after that was resolved with future releases carrying only the Accolade name.
After leaving Flickr I opted to group publishers with a single ad in the same album so Balistic Software no longer has its own album but its one ad does appear on this page.
Bob Whitehead and Alan Miller, two former Atari employees who also helped found Activision, founded Accolade in 1984. Accolade both developed and published games and today are probably best known for the Test Drive games as Infogrames kept that series going after acquiring Accolade in 1999. Other high profile games include Star Control, Hardball!, and Bubsy. The Bubsy games aren't considered to be very good, in fact the two sequels were reviewed quite harshly by critics. Despite that the character Bubsy managed to make a mark in a decade flooded with platform game mascots and Retroism even revived the series in 2015, releasing updated versions of the first two SNES Bubsy games for PC.
I spent a fair amount of time playing Accolade's Commodore 64 games, most notably Test Drive, Hardball!, and Mini-Putt. The first Test Drive is a bit unique as it wasn't about racing against other vehicles around tracks. Instead players had to drive up a mountain at a quick pace while avoiding accidents and the police. Accolade games typically had very good computer graphics in the '80s and Test Drive was no exception. The original Hardball! isn't deep in comparison to today's baseball games, having only two teams, one ballpark, and no season play. For the time though, it could be considered to be fairly realistic and if you were a fan of baseball it was definitely worth playing. Mini-Putt was likely the best mini-golf game on the market in 1987 and possibly one of the best mini-golf games of all time but then there really aren't too many games to compare it to...and maybe it's nostalgia talking but I did have many good times with that game.
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Epyx released its first Winter Olympics game, Winter Games, in 1985 and I'd say it's still a great game just as the first two Summer Games are. Maybe it's the simplicity of them, in both the graphics and gameplay, that many future games based on the Olympics from other publishers couldn't match. Those early games were not officially endorsed by the Olympics but Epyx was able to acquire the license for both of its follow-ups, the Summer and Winter Editions of "The Games." The Games: Winter Edition's release hit in 1988 to coincide with the Calgary '88 Winter Olympics. I've always enjoyed the "Games" series from Epyx and as I mentioned a few times previously, I had hoped to do a "Let's Play" video for this one during the 2018 Winter Olympics. Unfortunately, my Commodore 64 broke at an inopportune time so instead, I've got some magazine scans. One review is for the Epyx game and the others are for Accolade's very similar release for the '92 Olympics called Winter Challenge that was published in 1992 for the Sega Genesis under its Ballistic label.
In June Activision released Crash Bandicoot: N. Sane Trilogy and then in August Sonic the Hedgehog returned to his roots in Sega's Sonic Mania. Now another video game mascot that got its start in the '90s is back: Bubsy! I was going to be sarcastic about the return of Bubsy but I don't know much about the games outside of what I've read, and my memory had me thinking the Bubsy games were considered terrible. However, while putting together this post I found that the first Bubsy game was very well-received and its sequel, as well as the Atari Jaguar game, were decent too. Apparently it was Bubsy 3D that made everyone want to forget about the anthropomorphic bobcat. Bubsy did get a compilation in 2015 of the first two Super Nintendo Entertainment System games for the PC called Two-Fur. Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back is a brand new game that releases today and returns the title character to 2D, much like the aforementioned Sonic Mania did for Sonic the Hedgehog.
