Section 6 - The Ultimate Questions
Apparently the picture in Crash of this game which had a trailer
in it was a fake. There is no trailer in Lunar Jetman, virtually
completely proved beyond all reasonable doubt when someone
disassembled the game and went through it byte-by-byte. Someone
has also played the game through to some of the very high levels
(using a cheat, of course) still with no sign of a trailer.
Apparently a reader of Crash sent in a picture of the Lunar
Rover pulling a caravan, about two months after this.
(Needless to say a fake).
Yes there was. It was called Solar Jetman (Rare) and it only
came out on the NES. The Sales Curve were going to convert this
to the Spectrum, but it never came to light. Incidently, Jetpac
crashes when your score becomes too high. Not a common problem
for me, I'm afraid.
Ultimate started out as Ashby Computers and Graphics (A.C.G.),
before changing it to Ultimate Play the Game. They then changed it to
Rare, and worked with Nintendo who owned a 25% stake in the
company, producing excellent coin-ops like Killer Instinct. Then they were bought
out by Micro$oft, to produce games for the XBox.
The Ultimate games (namely Sabre Man) are linked in the following
way. If anybody can add more to this, or if it is wrong, then
please tell me.
Sabre Man fell into the land of Sabre Wulf. When he found the
exit, he entered the Underwurlde. Unfortunately he was bitten
by the junglewulf at sometime during this, turning him into a
lycanthrope (werewolf). The only way he could cure this was to
go to Knightlore Castle and employ the talents of the wizard
Melkhior to free him from the curse. Once he succeeded here, he then became a Wizard
himself for the tasks set in Pentagram.
According to one of the few interviews they gave (to The Games Machine in 1988),
they were basically too busy to talk to journalists. Since they believed
(and may have been correct) that there was too much bias given by computer magazines to games
produced by companies that advertised the most, and spent their time producing the best Spectrum games
at the time, it was for the best that they kept themselves to themselves.
Ultimate were made up mainly of two brothers, Chris and Tim Stamper, although they did hire other programmers
for various programming duties.
Previous Section
Written in Great Britain by Stephen Smith.
Stephen Smith (stevo@REMOVE-THIScarlylesmith.karoo.co.uk)