Lost Games Vol#1

Lost Games Vol#1

I've been avoiding retro gaming stuff for a while here , so I think were overdue some.
Presenting the first in an occasional series of "lost games" , here’s
"Great Giana Sisters"

Growing up as a kid in the 80's and early nineties there were certain truths we all knew

Batman would only appear in a DC comic
(ok later on there have been umpteen crossover/amalgam comics but it was gospel at the time)
The starship Enterprise would only ever appear in Star Trek , never anywhere else.
(although a sneaky voyager was added via cgi to a spaceport in star wars EpI)
and Super Mario brothers was only on Nintendo

Although we wouldn’t have known the terminology we'd already had the concept of intellectual franchises browbeaten into us. Now the Big N, (aka Nintendo) were quick enough to lock down their boarder, once the market had stabilised after the big games crash of 83/84 they put a stop to their games featuring on other platforms, there had for example, been a port of the original Mario bros game to the c64, (not to be confused with super Mario .Bros mentioned later). , MArio bros consisted of a single screen of Mario defeating turtles via a system of platforms.. So when the groundbreaking SMB came out on the Nintendo entertainment system, the only way to play it was to shell out for one of the grey boxes.
Now a year or so later, Reviews started appearing in games mags for a game called "great giana sisters" notice the ..er similar name.
Here’s a pic of "Super Mario brothers":

now a pic of "Great giana sisters"(or as I shall now refer to it GGG)

..er slightly similar eh?

both played pretty much the same , jump on bad guys to kill them , collect powerups , secret levels etc. As with SMB , playing as player 2 lets you play as a character called Maria , Giana's sister , (SMB has Luigi, Mario's beanpole brother)
After the first set of levels the two differ , GGG is actually trickier to finish ,t the graphics , while not no great shakes today, at the time were outstanding, and amazingly , considering the c64 is a less "powerful"(heh) machine than the NES , actually look better than the "original"

I'm kind of guessing though that no-one at Rainbow Arts , (publishers of GGG)actually talked to a lawyer at any point .The phrases "intellectual property", copyright" or "sweet farkin jebus ,Nintendo'll sue the pants off us",where probably not heard within the companies walls. It was a simpler time I guess
The game made it to video game stores and remained on shelves for , all of 15 seconds , before Nintendo lawyers turned up in a big black van , swept them off the shelves and drove off.
Somehow they must have missed a few , as tiny amount of gamers got their hands on copies of GGG, thanks to the magic of ,at first doubletapedeck copying , then BBS's , finally the net , GGG spread via the underground picking up fans on the way....
If you want to see what all the fuss was about (and 15 years on its probably safe to..)
GGG can be downloaded here

and you play it via a c64 emu

next time on lost games (provided I can be arsed)

the lost Tetris
Nasty media baron of the 80's Robert Maxwell’s software company designed and wrote probably the best port of Tetris ever , then discovered the guy who sold the rights to it didn’t actually own them himself ...