|  2003 - The Year in Review | | Posted by Csabo on 2003-12-31 |
Face it, 2003 is gone. I'm not sure if this counts as a yearly tradition yet, but for the second time I will look back at the past year and offer my thoughts on a few topics.
The news in the real world was full of hard times (to put it nicely), but to our pleasure the World of the Commodore Plus/4 was much more peaceful and productive.
Let's start with emulators. Unfortunately few of us have the pleasure of being able to actually fire up the old black box nowadays, but most of us are in daily contact with PCs. Emulators help us keep in touch with the plussy. Minus4 is unfortunately no longer developed, but we saw its source code released. Flamingo and CP4 have their source code available as well. The Forever emulator had a few updates this year. VICE became a very viable emulator for the Plus/4. The need for Plus/4 support in VICE was first requested by MagerValp in 1996, and the issue popped up again in 1998. It came after such a long wait, but better late than never. We'll be keeping an eye on it for sure. However, there is no denying that this year was the year of YAPE. It went from version 0.42 to version 0.53, and there's a huge jump in the quality of emulation. We know from many people that YAPE played a big part in them getting interested in the Plus/4 once again. Which brings us to the next topic.
The Scene. This year was the year of scene revival! Our scene members attended many parties (SceneCon, Function03, etc). We even had a Plus/4 party: 4ever03; which had to be the peak of this year. At the party, Lavina's C16 democompo became reality, with many quality productions. Lots of programmers and groups from all over the world came together and once again coded on the Plussy. Old scene members found their way back to our community including Udo Gertz for a brief moment, old friends are in touch. Several new cross-platform utilities were written. That old "buzz" is back, the scene is alive, such as it is.
Our little home, Plus/4 World keeps growing. Another 1200 programs got added to our ever-growing software database. The number of messages posted on our forum this year increased by a thousand. The number of cover scans went from 150 to a whopping 800. That's five times as much! We really got into collecting scans this year, didn't we? Our menu bar gained 6 more entries, most notably the Publications and Hardware sections. But probably most important of all, we count at least 60 new releases this year, versus 42 for last year.
It has been a good year for us. What more can we ask for? For all the people who helped us in so many ways: Thank you. We sincerely wish all of you a successful and happy 2004! |
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| | New Scans and TAPs from Ulysses | | Posted by Csabo on 2003-12-30 |
  Two days to go till 2004! We will finish this year's long line of updates with a pack from Ulysses777. First up is Volume 3 of Four Great Games. This (previously unknown) compilation has Ack Ack Attack, Battle Star, Future Shock and Lunar Docking on it. Besides the cover scan we now have the TAP files for each of these games. (Note that we are still looking for the individual release covers of Battle Star and Ack Ack Attack, if anyone has these, please send it to us!) We have another compilation added today: it's Voidrunner + Hellgate, two Jeff Minter games on one tape. Next up is the original U S Gold release cover scans for Beach Head. The Death River cover scan has been replaced with a full size one, plus the TAP file is there as well. Finally there are two more new TAPs available for your downloading pleasure: Golden Baton and Cuthbert in Space. Many thanks for these to Ulysses! |
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| | New Coverscans Added! | | Posted by Csabo on 2003-12-29 |
   This Monday starts the last week of the year. Hopefully some of us are on holidays, while others are still at work... Crown didn't rest though, as he sent us another pack of goodies. We now have the cover scan for Bounder and Planet Search, and also the TAP files for each game. It seems that Gremlin only ever released these games on this compilation, so we marked the individual games "As Compilation". (This means that they will not be counted in the statistics as missing covers.) For our Gremlin collection, this leaves only the Jetbrix cover missing...
Also new is a full scan of 3 Konami Coin-op Hits. Just like the counterpart with 4 games, the full name of this release is on the side cover. Finally we have received the cassette cover of King Size from Robtek. Many thanks for these scans to Crown. Enjoy! |
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| | New Rare Oldie Added! | | Posted by Csabo on 2003-12-22 |
  Plus/4 World takes pride in being the home of all Plus/4 related stuff: we're building THE definitive software database, for example. So it's always a rare moment when we find something that was never even mentioned on our site (nor anywhere else on the net, at least not in this context) - and yet, it's a commercial release. All right, without further ado here it is: Junior Maths from Tynesoft. It's (of course) a maths educational title, indended for 5-11 year olds. While it's not like most of us will spend much time playing with it, it's still good to have it in the collection. So there, enjoy! |
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| | 4 New Covers! | | Posted by Csabo on 2003-12-20 |
    What, news update on a Saturday? Well, it's the season for giving, so we took the time... Plus Crown did it once again, adding four more beautiful cover scans to our collection. Let's see them: Chopper War from Illusion Software, Steve Davis Snooker full-size replacement, a Saboteur! release from Durell which has the C16 and Plus/4 version on it, and finally another alternative cover for Tower of Evil. Check 'em out and enjoy! |
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| | 3 Classic Commodore 16 Game Covers! | | Posted by Csabo on 2003-12-19 |
   Crown shares his recently acquired treasures with us. We start off with a rare cover scan from Solar Software. Wait, didn't we have all of those already? It seems that we did not, as this rare Galaxions cover shows. We have established before that this company had released two different packaging styles. Some of the covers have "Rounded Corners", with the logo at the bottom; while others have a distinct style with "Dithered Graphics" - the first release version, with logo on the top (and many of those have the "100% Machine Code" text on them too). To sort all of this out, we added a little table to the Solar Software page - maybe in time we will find more alternative covers. Crown also scanned a full sized replacement cover for Twin Kingdom Valley. Last but not least he sent in the Vox cover.
On top of all this, the three games now have their TAP files as well. For VOX, there are actually two different ones: one has a yellow loading screen and one is purple. They came from two tapes, and while the game is essentially the same, it's interesting to see this difference. |
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| | More Covers And TAPs! | | Posted by Csabo on 2003-12-18 |
    Ulysses777 sent in another nice pack of cover scans and TAP files. First off we finally cleared up the mystery about that 'alternative berks cover': It's infact a cover of Baby Berks, even though the cover artwork simply says "Berks". This confusion is even noted in Zzap C16 on page 3. Next up we have some long awaited covers: Hyperforce and Diagon. Both games now have their TAP files as well. The fourth new cover added today is for Steve Davis Snooker, it's the Blue Ribbon release cover. Finally there are two more original TAPs: Shoot It and Golf 16K. Many thanks to Ulysses for these! |
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| | 3 New Covers! | | Posted by Csabo on 2003-12-17 |
   Only two weeks left from this year, but we're still going strong. Today's addition brings cover scans and photos for three more games. Plus4Vampyre has sent in the German release cover for Pogo Pete. This cover is yellow (versus the English release, which was white). Sidius sent in two things: one is the Italian version cover for An Introduction To Basic Part 1 (titled Introduzione Al Basic). The other is for the classic text adventure Zork I: we have box front and back photos, plus a scan of the map that was distributed with the game. Many thanks for these guys! Enjoy! |
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| | Ghost Town DX release 1 | | Posted by MIK on 2003-12-16 |
 BB Software has just released a preview version of his forthcoming remake of another outstanding game from Udo Gertz! It's called Ghost Town DX (GTDX), and it's the remake of the classic Ghost Town!
At the moment the game is around 40% complete, but this gives you a unique chance to see whats going on. As of yet sound and gamepad support have yet to be added so play takes place with arrow keys and space for action with ALT+X for Quit. Hit the link below and grab yours now! |
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| | More Rare Covers! | | Posted by Csabo on 2003-12-15 |
Have you ever played Waffenslinger on your commodore? Well, maybe you have, you just didn't know it! Waffenslinger is infact the German release name for Gunslinger.
Plus4Vampyre has sent in a very cool cover scan pack which includes such rarities as that one. Let's see them in alphabetical order: first we have Die Seefahrt (Seafaring) disk cover and instructions. Next is 5 Computer Hits, which is the first, not the fifth in this series from Beau Jolly. We have the Americana release of The Incredible Hulk, it's the C16 text only version. Olympische Winterspiele - that's actually the German release name for Winter Olympics from Tynesoft. We also have the disk cover scans for Quiwi. And last but not least is Waffenslinger. So start slinging your waffen (or linging your waffens), and enjoy these cool covers! Respects to Plus4Vampyre!
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| | New THRUST Remake! | | Posted by Noro on 2003-12-12 |
 Fans of one of the greatest multi-platform classics THRUST should head over to Thrust 2K3, a brand new remake of the game. It has cool graphics and many new levels, but it requires a fast PC and it's a 27MB download. Be warned: This one is damn hard to play! |
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| | 4 Hungarian Covers! | | Posted by Csabo on 2003-12-11 |
    Crown is back with not less than four cover scans and TAP files for a few rare Hungarian release programs. Three of these are from the "other" Hungarian software distributor, Apisz. Soliter is a logical board game. Torpedó is yet another battleships game implementation, and Vipera is an arcade game. The last addition today is for Tányértorony, an interesting brainteaser type game. Many thanks for these. Enjoy! |
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| Three Terrific T Tovers Covers! | | Posted by Csabo on 2003-12-10 |
   Maybe it's just a coincidence, that all three covers scans added today are for games that begin with the letter T. Or is it?... Anyhow, Stephen Mansell sent in the alternative cover for the great C16 classic Timeslip. Very nice cover artwork, definitely 'louder' than the English Software release cover, worth checking out. Next we have a somewhat weatherbeaten cover for Ten Little Indians, but we all know about the quality of Paxman Promitions covers. Finally we see the cover scan for Tablets of Hippocrates, a rare - and strangely tape only - adventure game. These last two covers are from Lando's collection. That's all the news for today, thanks for these covers guys! |
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| | 3 New Cover Scans! | | Posted by Csabo on 2003-12-09 |
   Today we bring you a little mix of covers from different people. First up is Pancho, and older (but fun to play) CBM game. This nice cover was sent in by Sidius. Pancho is a Q-bert style 3D jumping game, and its probably the best one in this genre. Colorful graphics, cute tune, but most importantly good playability.
Next we have the Superman game cover scans from Lando. From looking at this game it's hard to believe it's actually a commercial release. It definitely does not bring justice to such a cool cartoon character. Still it's good to have the cover in our collection.
Finally we have the Audiogenic release of Paintbox added to our site from Ulysses777. The software is the same as the Kingsoft German release, but the TAP file is recorded with a faster turbo. Plus it's good to have the instructions in English.
Many thanks for these contributions! Enjoy! |
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| | New Stuff Arrives! | | Posted by Csabo on 2003-12-08 |
 Ulysses777 sent in yet another pack of cool goodies... The first addition is the second issue of C16 Plus4 Computing Issue. The editorial is definitely an interesting read. Next we have the original TAP and cover scans for a not-so-well-known CRL game called Sun Star. Up until now all we had was the TTL crack of this game, which contains the title picture, the game and an intro all wrapped into one (making his version C16 incompatible). This is the first time we see the original. We also have the cover scan for Games Designer and the full Instructions Manual that came with it. Finally we have the TAP files for Panik! and World Series Baseball. The first one is a C16 only version. Many thanks to Ulysses for these! |
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| | SCART cables for C16 and Plus/4! | | Posted by MIK on 2003-12-07 |
 This could be a god send for those of you screaming for a better picture on your new age TV sets! Jonathan Hayward based in the UK creates and sell scart cables for all your classic Commodore machines from Plus/4 to C64 and a host of other machines from his website.
Jonathan has been supplying them all over Europe, they are popular with gamers who are fed up of spending ages fiddling with tuning modern TVs into getting a picture from 15-20 year old hardware. Check out his homepage and take a look for your selfs!
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| | 3 New Cover Scans! | | Posted by Csabo on 2003-12-05 |
   You don't have to wait any longer, straight from Lando's collection to Plus/4 World: the new covers are here. Even though these are old classic C16 titles, their coverscans have yet to appear anywhere on the net. First up is Ian Botham's Test Match from Tynesoft. The other two games are CBM releases: Locomotion (with HUGE instruction sheets) and Purple Turtles. Our cover count is now up to 417. Enjoy! |
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| | Club Info 78 is Here! | | Posted by Csabo on 2003-12-03 |
 The mother of all diskmags continues it's unparalelled run: the 78th issue of the German Club Info is here. The usual articles talk about all the latest stuff (like the all-important release of Questionmark). There is also a complete description of Hyper Sports Plus. The B side has some new(ish) games like Orthopede. Download it now! |
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| | Rare New Stuff | | Posted by Csabo on 2003-12-02 |
   Okay, show of hands... Who's interested in a never-before seen commercial release on our platform? How about three? Those of you who actually raised their hands get some extra points for the spirit, but here they are anyway.
We cannot stress it enough how rare it is to get our hands on a commercially released program on for this machine that was not even listed or mention anywhere before. And now, thanks to Ulysses777 we get three... We start with System-8, a football pools forecaster for UK football pools, released by Blue Ribbon. The other two releases come from Macsen software: Blockbusters Goldrun is a stand alone game similar to the original, and we also have the Blockbusters Extra Questions Database (now there's a long name). This latter one is sort of an expansion pack for Blockbusters. All three releases are complete with nice coverscans and TAP files. Check it out, and respects to Ulysses! |
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| | Treasure Island Single Release Cover! | | Posted by Csabo on 2003-12-01 |
 Treasure Island... Now there's another MAJOR classic Commodore Plus/4 game. Regardless of what one may think about today's gaming standards, this title is very well made, and has every ingredient to make a memorable classic. Nice colorful graphics, memorable music (in fact, the poor two channel square-wave sound is expertly used to create the sound of a harmonica/accordion, which fits the mood perfectly), but most of all, fun gameplay. With practice, you can find the path all the way to the treasure, and then get chased back to your ship by Long John Silver... Well, thanks to Gaia we now have the single release cover scan for this game. Check it out! This makes our CBM cover collection 8 out of 10. |
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