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![]() It may sound simplistic now but the variety of levels and obstacles was quite large in 1984.īruce Lee might the most iconic and well liked of Datasoft's games. Collecting keys would unlock doors so you could advance. You could throw swords at enemies and they would boomerang back. As far as I know, no one had made an official game based on a soap opera before Dallas Quest!Ĭonan: Hall of Volta (probably best known by the original Apple II version) was a great little flip-screen platformer. They were often innovative takes on existing genres. Their renditions of movie and TV properties weren't just cash-ins. It had official arcade ports of Namco's Pac-Man, Pole Position, and Dig Dug, Konami's Juno First and Pooyan, Sega's Zaxxon, Universal's Mr. Smart licensing became a major part of Datasoft's business. And Datasoft brought over European games to North America from companies like Personal Software Services and Ocean. ![]() Comptiq converted some Datasoft games to Japanese computers like the NEC PC-88 and Sharp X1 giving them exposure in Asia. Gold, Ocean Software, and Mastertronic for release in PAL TV territories, and ports were made for formats like the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC. Its text input was pretty intuitive and there was a built-in help function.ĭatasoft's games were licensed to other companies such as U.S. As many families were buying their first personal computers, The Sands of Egypt was an ideal title to introduce all ages to interactive fiction as it wasn't as complex as Infocom text adventures and had some animated background graphics. ![]() Their adventure games in 1982-1983 had more originality. And Genesis was certainly inspired by Atari's shooter Tempest (not a bad thing considering there wasn't an official home Tempest when it came out). Clowns and Balloons was a clone of Bally Midway's Clowns. Pacific Coast Highway was basically Konami's dodging sim Frogger except with other animals. Shooting Arcade resembled Sega's target blasting game Carnival. Popcorn! was a rip-off of Atari's arcade game Avalanche where you moved side to side catching objects before they hit the ground. ![]() Its debut game was Popcorn! in 1981 and was published by Tandy/Radio Shack as a first-party game for its TRS-80 computer.Įarly Datasoft action games were often well made but derivative. It created games for several 8-bit and 16-bit formats throughout the '80s, initially on TRS-80 and Atari 800 before expanding to Apple and Commodore machines. The company was founded in California in June 1980 by Pat Ketchum and had several in-house game designers and programmers. ![]()
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