Chuck Rock 2 - what happened to it?

[kodak80]

Just reading an article from issue 4 of Atari ST Review on an upcoming game called Chuck Rock 2. Looks like it was being developed but never got released on the Atari ST. Game certainly exists for Amiga, so anyone know why it wasn't released on the Atari ST? Here is the article:

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[Stefan jL]

What date is "issue 4" from?

The article does not say much about any ST version, it is mostly about the graphician that uses the ST for graphics.
It is no surprise at all there is no ST version of Chuck Rock 2, it looks too advanced Maybe an playable STE version could have been done but it was a too small market though.

[kodak80]

Issue 4 was from August 1992. Seems strange to show it in an ST magazine if they were not developing it for the ST.

[dlfrsilver]

i think they pulled the plug. The graphics from CRII SOC on amiga and megadrive were made under deluxe paint. I guess this preview was an only abandoned version.

This game has surely been fully reworked from scratch, and the other thing is that the ST graphic tools only allows for 16 colors, which were unsuited for very colored graphics (you can't make 32 colors sprites or background blocks under Art Studio, Degas Elite, and even Neochrome, not counting the problem when converting the palettes from ST to other machines, a problem well known on many games, like Midnight Resistance, Sorcery, After the war, wings of death, where they failed to convert the ST 9 bits palette to the 12 bits palette of the amiga, which leads to darker graphics).

CRII was released for megadrive first, and the amiga version came just after (with less colors and parallax, but fully using the copper and blitter).

[lostdragon]

I'm with Stefan jL here, i think the confusion that has crept in is because they were using an ST Art Package to do the graphics, it's been assumed an ST version was to follow.

Personally did'nt read it as such and never been aware of any planned ST version (though i could ask my contacts who are Ex-Core Design, but think i could already guess the answer/s i'd get..ST Market in rapid decline, Core busy supporting formats where money was to be made...Amiga+MegaDrive in particular).

UK Press alone made a lot of false claims about who was producing what for who (witness TGM claiming John Croudy was busy converting Druid 2 to A8 for example).

Having spoken to a good few UK developers about what happened too...? it seems very common practice that UK Mags at the time simply assumed an ST version of an Amiga game would follow a few months after with less colours, worse scrolling, soundchip sound etc etc and never even bothered to check with publishers if this was indeed the case.

[lostdragon]

Ahhh the plot thickens

I'm trying to contact someone who appears to have worked on the ST version.

IF i get anything back, i will of course share it on here.

Fingers crossed then....

[exxos]

Ahhh the plot thickens

I'm trying to contact someone who appears to have worked on the ST version.

IF i get anything back, i will of course share it on here.

Fingers crossed then....

That should be interesting.....

[kodak80]

Ahhh the plot thickens

I'm trying to contact someone who appears to have worked on the ST version.

IF i get anything back, i will of course share it on here.

Fingers crossed then....

Sounds like you have found out something interesting. Look forward to hearing more...

[lostdragon]

It's very early days so far.I know who claims to have worked on it, where they are now (and email sent) but wether they ever recieve said email is 1 thing, let along IF they want to talk about it (had this with Bobby Earle, Jaguar Toki Goes Apeshit, finding and contacting him was easy...enough, but he never replied to myself, nor friends requests on Facebook)...but it's a start.

If nothing else it is listed/credited so something must have been started.

As for why would they use ST graphic program for Amiga/MD game....


Don't forget, Swagman (PS1/Saturn) started life as a Mega Drive editor on the Amiga, before being converted into a PC editor for the PS1/Saturn games....


I have this very evening put Q's too/been chatting to..another Ex-Core Design coder.No ST, let alone Chuck Rock 2, but he turned down some very interesting work, plus he's Ex-Uk, now living in L.A, but used to Holiday/Surf at my local Beach, BUDE..which was cool, so we ended up 'chatting' about that.

[lostdragon]

Oh and just to be clear, whilst i'm more than happy to look into any Lost game on any format for any site, as/where i can...

Just looking into Heart Of Darkness for a site, Fighting Force 3 (PS2), Tomb Raider (N64) for another and Chuck Rock 2 (ST) for here...

Anymore nonsense like who may or may not be a troll on here or anywhere else, has got to be taken outside threads that are designed to pass on information....

I don't know, nor really care for anyones posting history or personal preferences, hardware wise, nor am i really that concerned to be quite honest.

Chatting about games that were and those that sadly were not and trying to get information direct from source, rather than copying from magazines A-Z and going no further, is why i spend time doing this.

I was not impressed by the continuation of 'events' in the George Allen interview thread......

[lostdragon]

Ok, tried a sideways approach, in terms of asking around with the coders from Core Design if they knew anything on the fact game had been listed online, as being done on the ST beside all the other formats.

Whilst they knew the coder i was after and who he ended up going out with, from Core itself , contact with him directly, had sadly been lost.

However they the thinking is that if he's listing it as a project he worked on, which he is...then it most likely was started on, just never released.

We might be looking at another ST Myth (System 3), worked on to a decent point, ST market in rapid decline so never finished and when asked about, confusion sets in as i know the Freelancer who contacted System 3 and asked about it (who'd never had an ST himself) was told by System 3 ST version was finished/released and that was what apperared in the article in RG magazine.


Everyone from Core i've spoken to so far has warned me there's a lot of things that over time have been lost, forgotten etc so we might get something solid from this, we might not.


If i hear vnothing back within a few weeks, i'll post up what i know and let folks decide for themselves.

[lostdragon]

Bugger

OK, i'm calling it....

Looks like confusion on part of coder, nothing to see here, false alarm, faint hope...dashed, call it what you like but:

Published Titles:* Chuck Rock 2 [Amiga, CD32, Atari ST, Sega Genesis, Sega CD, Master System, Game Gear]

As we all know ST version was never published so sadly i think coder, Chris Long has gotten a little confused on his C.V and like System 3 telling Retro Gamer Myth was published on ST, people just assume now that in mists of memory Amiga version was published so ST version must have been...


IF Chris himself ever gets back to me, we might know more, but i'm doubtful he will and i expect a 'It's been so long ago..' type answer, but at present it sadly looks like an error on his C.V...

Sorry it's not better news

[exxos]

SNIP!

Sigh .. After a number of complaints from forum users the scissors had to come out. Hopefully my second hint that myself and others are peeved off with the personal slanging matches and derailing of lostdragons topics for example, that it should be more than enough of a hint that temporary bans will be the next weapon I'll be reaching for. I'm not blaming anyone in particular but my warnings went ignored last time.

This thread is to express the reasons why the game makers made the choices they did and why, this isn't a excuse to open up peoples own views on why it happened and derail the topics into ST vs Amiga colour wars.

People who want to continue to flame each other can do so over in the time out area. http://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?f=85&t=28858 If you want to "DISCUSS" stuff then carry on .. if you're intent on slagging off *anyone* or want to compare this vs that , then take it elsewhere.

[lostdragon]

Things have just got utterly absurd in my 'quest' to try and see if anyone from Core Design knew anything on ST Chuck Rock 2...

Approached yet another 2 people from there, not a damn thing in reply


Now friend of mine was like ohhh i have contacts who worked at Core, but he cannot say who, can only hint at what years they were there and can only name 1 game (canned at that) they worked on and that was long after the ST.


Still got him to forward question of ST Chuck Rock 2 to Mr X and Mr Y....


Cat in hell's chance there will be anything that comes of it, but i had to take 1 last roll of the dice here.

[exxos]

Thanks for trying Always hope that they will reply eventually, sometimes they do ChuckRock was one of my fav games, I remember reading CR2 in ST format, but never saw it appear. Though at that time a lot of games sellers were dropping like flies so just assumed nobody ever stocked it. But years later, kinda know otherwise now that it was never done.

[lostdragon]

Ok...

I'm hoping to get something in way of a reply from Unseen 64's contacts this weekend.

Good or bad i'll share the answers.

Also, Retro Gamer Magazine are planning a feature on Chuck Rock, they've 'The Amiga Coder' apparently, so maybe someone should contact them and get them to ask the question about ST Chuck Rock 2?

BC Racers possibily might be covered at same time, but having spoken to Jon H myself recently....

[lostdragon]

Well, the Unseen64 'contacts' were, as i feared, utter dead end, none of them at Core during the ST/Amiga era...

So folks, if you want to know what happened to ST Chuck Rock II, i strongly suggest you contact Retro Gamer Magazine and get them to ask the question when they interview the Amiga coder for the planned Chuck Rock feature.

All my efforts hit brick walls.

[DarkLord]

Thanks for trying though - it was a good effort.

[kodak80]

Yes, your efforts are appreciated. Thank you.

[lostdragon]

Appreciated.All any of us can do is reach out and put Q's to folks and see what comes back in, if anything and then share the info.

Good or bad.

[lostdragon]

To be blunt, my hopes have been dashed a little, that RetroGamer Magazine will be able to shed any light on ST Chuck Rock II.I recently picked up Issue 149 as i'm a huge Star wars Fan.They ran a great article on the games, but where as the 2 C64 versions were covered, the 2 A8 versions sadly were not and A8 lumped in with the 5200 version.

Later, in the look at Epyx's series of Sports games, nothing was even mentioned of A8 annouced Summer games II, nor Winter Games II, let alone IF work had ever started on them.Nor was what was known on canned C64 Cal Games 2 mentioned:

http://www.gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/ca ... a-games-2/

And the dissapointing Master System versions of Summer Games/World Games etc not even mentioned, nor was Amstrad GX4000 Epyx World Of Games.

It seems magazine only plans to focus on the fondly remembered aspects and the readership just is not there/interested in the Atari formats and it's Lost Games.

Too niche a readership i guess, which, to be fair is understandable.

[lostdragon]

As a side note:

I know Atarimania does some fantastic coverage regarding Lost A8 titles and various folks have done fantastic recovery work on once lost ST/A8/Lynx/Jaguar/7800 etc titles, but there still seems a lot of road to be travelled in dicovering just what happened with regards...titles like ST Chuck Rock II.

Unseen64 hardly touches the ST/Amiga games, let alone earlier Atari hardware, GTW would like to devote more to Atari, but there simply isn't the time, so i would like the mainstream press (Edge, RG, Gamestm etc) to ask what happened to various annouced, but never heard of again..type titles, if and where possible.

That way, at least we'd get a degree of closure.

It is very time consuming looking into these matters and i'm sure the dedicated sites would be grateful for any/all information that was forthcoming.

[lostdragon]

Not much help, but Jeremy Heath-Smith quote from an interview in Edge March 1996:

'If i'd had my way, for instance, we'd of never done Chuck Rock.Personally i thought the character sucked.So what do i know?'

[exxos]

Not much help, but Jeremy Heath-Smith quote from an interview in Edge March 1996:

'If i'd had my way, for instance, we'd of never done Chuck Rock.Personally i thought the character sucked.So what do i know?'

Well that guy wants shooting then.

[lostdragon]

Would you offer him a blindfold?

I used to love soo much of Core Design's output:Thunderhawk on ST, later MCD, T.The warrior (great Rastan clone) Corporation (simply superb), Warzone (Core do Mercs...)...

Wolfchild wanted to be Core's Strider....

Never really took to the Chuck Rock series myself, nor Jaguar XJ220 MCD, or Rick Dangerous (ST), but Battlecorps MCD was again, wonderous.

I've so much to be thankful to them for, as a gamer.