CODEMASTERS

'Codemasters' (earlier known as 'Code Masters' and often nicknamed 'Codies' in magazines) is one of the oldest British video game developers. The CEO is Rod Cousens, formerly of Acclaim. In 2005, Codemasters was named as the top independent games developer by "Develop magazine", an international monthly journal for video game developers ^[1].

Contents

History

Console Mods

Recent History

Games Published

Behind-the-scenes documentary

References

External links

History

Founded in 1985 by Richard and David Darling (who worked previously for Mastertronic), Codemasters quickly established themselves in the growing ZX Spectrum market, mostly with action games that required the player to solve simple puzzles by combining different objects. One of the best examples of these games are the Dizzy series (created by the Oliver Twins), which turned ''Dizzy'' into the un-official Spectrum mascot. While Codemasters found their roots in the ZX Spectrum, they did not exclusively write for this one computer - they also released software (including the Dizzy series) for the Enterprise 128, Vic 20, Commodore 64, Commodore 16, Amstrad CPC, Atari 8-bit, Commodore Amiga and Atari ST.
They were famous for releasing a long series of games called "Advanced ''Something'' Simulator" or "Professional ''Something'' Simulator". This led to the parody "Advanced Lawnmower Simulator" being developed, praised to the skies and then published by Your Sinclair magazine as an April Fool's Day stunt.
Codemasters were unique in the 1980s for the fact that they only released low-retail-price titles. Hence when, in 1992, they began to cut down on the budget releases in favour of full-price titles, they attracted the ire of many fans and the gaming press, the latter questioning the commercial logic behind it as Codemasters had known a great deal of success from their budget titles.

As the 8-bit computer market diminished, Codemasters turned to developing for the 8-bit and 16-bit console markets, as well as moving away from their budget title legacy to more full-price games on the 16-bit computers - 1993 saw the last title in the budget Dizzy series, ''Crystal Kingdom Dizzy'', although they released a full-price Dizzy game, ''Fantastic Dizzy'' later. They had major success with the ''Micro Machines'' series and ''Pete Sampras Tennis'' on the Sega Mega Drive. Both franchises featured the J-Cart, allowing two extra controllers to be attached to the game cart without requiring EA's ''4 way play'' or SEGA's four player adaptor.

The company also attracted both smirks and scorn from the gaming press and the gaming public in the 1980s with gleaming quotes that appeared to come from the gaming press on the packaging of their games (e.g. "This game is absolutely brilliant!" on Fruit Machine Simulator) - a standard feature of game packaging. However, on closer inspection, the quote could be seen to be attributed to none other than David or Richard Darling, the founders of Codemasters.

Console Mods

Codemasters is notable for making the large majority of games published by the controversial Camerica company, which bypassed Nintendo's lock-out chip by breaking the 10NES "code" and produced unlicensed NES games. These NES games were known for being shiny gold and silver cartridges that were slightly different from normal NES cartridges in shape, though they still fit into the cartridge slot. Many Codemasters titles were also featured on Camerica's Aladdin Deck Enhancer.
In 1990 Codemasters developed a device called the Power Pak, later renamed the Game Genie. It was a cheat cartridge for the NES, released in the US by Galoob and in Canada and the UK by Camerica.

Recent History

Codemasters have since continued to release titles for later generation systems, such as the ''TOCA Touring Car series'', ''Colin McRae Rally'' series, ''Brian Lara International Cricket'' series and ''. They currently own the rights to use the title '', but have parted with the original developer Bohemia Interactive Studio. In spite of this, Codemasters released '', developed by Bohemia, for Xbox in October 2005. June 2006 saw the long awaited release of ''Sensible Soccer 2006''. On 1 June 2007 Codemasters changed their logo. Later that month they released the latest in the Colin McRae Rally series, DiRT. They have recently published Overlord

Games Published

===Atari 8-bit family===

★ ''Advanced Pinball Simulator''

★ ''BMX Simulator''

★ ''Fruit Machine Simulator''

★ ''Grand Prix Simulator''

★ ''Red Max''

★ ''Transmuter''
===Nintendo Entertainment System===

★ ''Micro Machines''
===Sega Genesis===

★ ''Micro Machines''
''See also: ''

Behind-the-scenes documentary

In the early 1990s, the studio was the focus of an entire edition of "It's a Living", a regional ITV programme that examined unusual careers and companies. The show was able to examine the inner workings of the offices and was primarily concentrated on the development of Cosmic Spacehead, plus the marketing efforts surrounding it.

References

1. Codemasters ‘on top of the world’ as top 100 games developers league is revealed, Games Industry Biz, 06/05/2005

External links

★ Official site

★ Codemasters' Youtube Channel

★ http://www.planetnintendo.com/thewarpzone/camerica.html The Warp Zone - Camerica,

★ Advertising material and information from World of Sinclair

★ Codemasters category at ODP

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