Collection Update – 180!

Yes, it’s 180 in more ways than one with my latest update…

Firstly, and most significantly, my latest batch of games brings my total to 180 Mastertronic titles, meaning there are less than 40 left to complete my collection.

Secondly, one of the games in this batch is the darts simulation 180 in the M.A.D. packaging, donated by my good friend and Retro Gamer forum stalwart SirClive. This is an extra special version of the game as the packaging has been signed by one of the developers, Ste Pickford!

The remainder of this batch consists of more Ebay purchases. First up are three of the rarer offerings – Rugby Manager (Mastertronic Plus), Geoff Capes Strongman (Ricochet) and Pulsoids (Mastertronic) – I’ve only seen these once or twice on Ebay so they are certainly welcome additions!

The rest of this batch are far more common and all cost less than a quid each. From the M.A.D. range comes Strike, and in second-wave Mastertronic packaging I have Master Chess, S.O.S. and Rasterscan.

That’s it for this update but more games have been purchased so expect another one very soon...

Total games: 180

Average cost: £1.03

Collection Update – So much for slowing down!

Despite my best intentions to ease off on the purchases, the collecting bug has bitten hard and I continue to find deals too good to pass up...

First up this time is another trade with Retro Gamer forum member simes. I sent him half a dozen unwanted games from some of my earlier C64 bundles, and in return I got no less than 14 Mastertronic titles, including a few of the harder to find ones. The net cost to me worked out at a very generous 30p per game!

The bulk of the bundle was games in standard Mastertronic packaging, including The Captive, Munch Mania, Prowler, Rollaround, Starlifter, Super Nudge 2000, Super Trolley and Vegas Jackpot.

Also in the lot were four M.A.D. titles - Angle Ball, Superstar Ping-Pong, The Wizards Pet and Zub – and rounding things off came FA Cup Football (Ricochet) and Yes, Prime Minister (Mastertronic Plus).

I also picked up some more games from Ebay, mostly from the same seller thus saving money on postage costs. Again this was a mixed bag, covering most of the different brands. In Mastertronic packaging came Beat It, Street Beat and Treasure Island, and there was also Fighting Warrior (Mastertronic Plus).

Finishing things off for this update were Ball Crazy and On Cue (M.A.D.) and Las Vegas Video Poker (Entertainment USA). None of these games cost more than £2 so my average price paid has actually dropped below a pound again!

Even more games are on their way, so this won’t be the last of the collection updates this month!

Total games: 155

Average cost: £0.98

Collection Update - Various Bits and Bobs

Over the past week I’ve received a number of small bundles through the post, including some of the harder-to-find Mastertronic titles.

First up was a copy of the M.A.D. re-release of the classic Manic Miner. This was an Ebay purchase costing £1.99 including postage. Also on the same day came a donation from Retro Gamer forum member Bub&Bob. There were three games in the package, all from the Mastertronic range – two new additions in the form of Motorbike Madness and Wing Commander, plus another copy of Kikstart that had a better quality inlay than the one I already owned. These cost me absolutely nothing!

A few days later came three packages. Two were Ebay purchases, containing two games in each. First were titles that I’ve thus far only seen on Ebay once (and these were them!) – Street Hassle from Mastertronic Plus and Brian Jacks Superstar Challenge from Ricochet. They cost £1.99 each with free postage. The second pair were more common but the Ebay seller had a 20% off sale so I picked them up while they were a bit cheaper than usual – Rebel (Ricochet, £1.59) and Pulse Warrior (Mastertronic, £1.43)

The third package contained five games courtesy of tachi from Retro Gamer forum. These cost £7.00 for the lot and included several uncommon titles. From the Mastertronic brand came Kobayashi Naru and Venom, the Ricochet range was represented by Dragonskulle and Little Computer People, and finally there was Bump Set Spike! from Entertainment USA.

And finally, yesterday came another couple of games via Ebay – Silkworm (Mastertronic Plus) and Scout (Mastertronic) which cost £3.28 for the pair.

So the collection grows once again and the average cost has increased a little, but with under 100 games remaining I’m well on course to keep below that £1.99 per game target.

Total games: 120

Average cost: £0.91

Collection Update – A Century Reached!

Four more packages of games have arrived over the last week or so, taking the collection to well over 100 games...

From fellow collector and blogger Alex Aris came a bundle of five new additions plus a couple of bonuses. The new games are Amaurote, Magic Carpet, Squirm, Starace and Werewolves of London. Alex only charged me for postage on these so the cost for these games was just 60 pence each!

Next came a completely free donation of five games from Retro Gamer forumite Antiriad2097, although only one of these games was a new one. The other four were generally in better shape than my existing copies however, so have made their way into the collection, with the surplus to be passed on to other C64 gamers. The one new addition was Knuckle Busters, a re-release on the Ricochet brand and a relatively rare one too.

Also popping through my letterbox were two Ebay purchases. The first was Ninja, which cost £1.25, and the second was a pair of uncommon titles in the form of Bazooka Bill (another Ricochet offering) and Knight Games (Mastertronic Plus packaging). These cost £1.79 each including postage.

So that’s another nine games in the collection and yet the average cost hasn’t changed at all!

Total games: 106

Average cost: £0.85

First Collection Update

Well I’ve got my first batch of new games for the collection courtesy of a couple of deals done on the Retro Gamer forum, so I marked this event by recording my first ever ‘package opening’ YouTube video…

The first bundle consists of ten games from RG forum member Shinobi, and cost me £10 including postage. This is a mixed bag that includes five of the early grid-style packaging releases - Bionic Granny, Hektik, Hollywood or Bust, Space Walk and Spooks!

Also in this batch are a couple of M.A.D. releases from the ‘Magic Knight’ series of games, Spellbound and Stormbringer, plus Legend of the Amazon Women and two re-released games in the form of Camelot Warriors and Double Dragon.

The other package came from RG forum member simes and consists of two games based on classic 80’s toy franchises – Action Force and Transformers. The latter is a re-release of the Activision game. This bundle was a straight trade for two unwanted items from my collection which originally cost me a total of £3.50, so I’m valuing these two games at £1.75 each.

One thing I’ve already noticed is the inconsistency of the packaging for re-released Activision games. For example Ghostbusters comes in the Ricochet packaging, Pastfinder comes on the M.A.D. label and Transformers has the Mastertronic Plus branding. As yet I see no obvious reason for this!

Adding these to the games I already had brings the collection summary up to:

Total Games: 29
Average Cost: £0.96

Welcome to Mastertronic Chronicles!

Welcome to my new blog, documenting my attempts to collect a set of Mastertronic budget games for the Commodore 64 home computer.

This blog came about because I was looking to build an interesting collection of games at a relatively low price, one that wouldn’t take up too much room and would look cool on a shelf (or two) in my games room. A collection of budget 8-bit computer games fitted the bill perfectly as the tape boxes are small, the artwork has a nice consistent theme to it and these games can usually be picked up for no more than a couple of pounds each from Ebay and other retro game suppliers.

So why Mastertronic? Well, it was actually due to a coincidence of seemingly unrelated events that all occurred during the last month or so...

In February I hosted a Q&A with Codemasters founder David Darling at the GEEK 2012 Expo, and while researching David’s history in the industry I happened upon Anthony Guter’s History of Mastertronic. This mentioned the early success of the games David and his brother Richard produced for Mastertronic that ultimately led to them forming Codemasters.

A couple of weeks later I received my copy of Retro Gamer magazine’s landmark 100^th edition through the post, and bundled with it was a reprint of the very first issue of the magazine. In that issue was an overview of Mastertronic (pulled primarily from Anthony’s aforementioned site) which again proved to be interesting reading.

More recently still, I was browsing Ebay listings and happened upon a large bundle of 60 of the earlier Mastertronic games (which I ultimately decided not to bid on due to all the duplicates) that appealed to me because of their iconic grid-style packaging.

Ebay Bundle Inspiration

On top of all the above is the nostalgia factor – like most people that grew up during the 80’s home computer boom, I have fond memories of walking into a local newsagents or supermarket and browsing the racks of budget games trying to decide which title to spend my pocket money on with only the cover art and a couple of grainy screenshots to guide me...

So the seeds were sown. A little more investigation revealed that while many Mastertronic games were rightly written off as a load of rubbish (the company was nicknamed ‘Masterchronic’ amongst my school friends back in the day) there were some genuine classics amongst them and the company gave early opportunities to many great game programmers and musicians. I wondered to myself how many of these games were actually worth their nominal asking price of £1.99, so my aim became not just to collect all these games, but play each one and give some short critique in the form of YouTube videos.

Going for a full set of games covering all systems would be very hard work, so I’m focussed on the Commodore 64 releases because that was my 8-bit computer of choice back in the 80’s, and is a system I own today too. I’ve decided to only collect the games that specifically mention the name Mastertronic on the cover, as the company had a number of ‘imprint’ labels to re-release games from the likes of U.S. Gold and Hewson. Excluding these, there are still over 200 games for the C64 according to the list I’ve compiled, and of course there may be omissions so the final collection may be bigger than that.

Finally there is the issue of cost. In order to stop myself just buying as many games as possible straight away and to make things a bit more interesting, I’ve decided that as I accumulate the games I will try to maintain an average game price of no more than £1.99, which was what the majority of the titles originally sold for. This average price will include postage costs, which means I will need to try and pick up bulk lots off Ebay, trade on gaming forums and scour charity shops and car boot sales to try and keep below the threshold.

All in all it should be a fun, inexpensive and educational journey and I hope you’ll enjoy following my progress!