It’s time for another installment of crap Commodore 64 skateboarding games, and this time I’m showing Skatin’ USA, a 1990 release by Atlantis Software, a UK company that would go out of business in 1992 after an 8 year stint. It looks like the premise of the game is an American kid on a skateboard battling English Punks. Seems like those two parties ought be be natural allies and not enemies!
As usual for this time, these games were stored and distributed on cassette tapes. I’m not sure if the red one was a one-off that someone replaced or not. The game originally cost £2.99, but these days you can get one for £2!
These next two are special versions. On the left is a 4 pack of games from Atlantis. My guess is this must have been right before they went out of business, although they did manage to release it for Sinclair Spectrums as well. On the right is the EDOS version. Not to be confused with the OS, this EDOS acronym stands for Electronic Distribution of Software. This was a European-based operation. A store with an EDOS system had a specialized machine that would copy software from a CD-ROM onto a floppy disk or cassette tape, and a printer for the j-card, and instructions. The software companies were supposed to get full royalties from the purchase. It sounds kind of sketchy, so it’s no wonder that system only lasted a few years. Like me, you may be thinking CD-ROMs for software weren’t a thing until the 90’s, but you’d be wrong like me. They didn’t gain popularity until the 90’s but there were early forms in the late 80’s that had different storage capacities.
Most of the resources on this post have come from Lemon 64, who are truly doing Glob’s work, maintaining and updating an archive of all things Commodore 64. You should consider donating to them if you appreciate this sort of thing. Donation buttons are on pretty much every page. It looks like another not very interesting Mario Brothers clone, but the gameplay videos show that you can go back and forth between screens. This is another prime example of the box art and splash screen being the best part of the game, although reviews often say that it’s deceptively fun for a while.
The screencaps above make it look like the half pipe is just a thing that scrolls by when you play, but it is actually a recurring bonus round option. You go back and forth and roll over numbers that appear in different locations on the ramp to score that number of points. If that doesn’t sound very exciting, it’s because it isn’t. The following screencaps are from RetroGameManDan79.
There’s even a forest section, which is great because in the eternal struggle between street and vert, leaf style is often overlooked.
I couldn’t find a picture of the instructions anywhere online, but fortunately it looks like RetroGameManDan79 transcribed them in the description of his gameplay video. So it’s not an American kid battling UK punks after all. He’s battling New York street gangs.
STORY:
When Tom Essex awoke this morning, he discovered that his superpowers were gone. No longer could he fly. No longer did he have the super-human strength that helped him to protect the citizens of New York from the street gangs that were terrorising the city. No longer was he SUPERKID. But there was still a battle to be fought. The streets of New York were still no-go areas for the ordinary citizens. The street gangs were still in control. Taking his multi-fire, fast load catapult from under the bed and recovering his trusty skateboard from the back of the garage, Tom once again takes to the streets in his constant battle to make the city a safer place to live.GAME:
As you skate through each of the 6 stages, use your multi-fire, fast-load catapult to shoot the rampaging bikers and gang members. Skating into them also kills but this depletes your energy. For extra energy, collect the hamburgers and various types of fruit that are scattered throughout the screens. Skating over a banana skin will increase your speed until the end of the current stage.
Each of the dollar bills must be collected as these light up the SKATIN’USA sign. When the sign is fully lit you can head for the exit at the right hand side of each stage. If your bonus timer reaches zero, then it’s game over. If you complete a stage within the time limit, you enter a bonus stage where you can use your remaining time to skate for extra points. Good Luck!
Sounds fun right? You can be the judge in RetroGameManDan79‘s gameplay video, which is broken down into the six sections of the game.
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