Codemasters

Codemasters (earlier known as Code Masters) is one of the oldest United Kingdom software houses. 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, 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 Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, 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 games in the 1980s were also highly acclaimed not only for their quality, but also surprisingly for the fact that they only released budget titles very cheaply. 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 (videogame) 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 Electronic Arts 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.

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 cartridge (electronics)s that were slightly different than 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 cheat cartridge for the Nintendo Entertainment System, released in the US by Galoob and in Canada and the United Kingdom by Camerica. Codemasters would later develop a successful game based on Galoob s Micro Machines toy range.

Always taking the most from technology as it evolved, Codemasters never stopped releasing best-selling titles, such as the ground breaking TOCA Touring Car , Colin McRae Rally series and Operation Flashpoint . They currently own the rights to use the title Operation Flashpoint 2, but there have been legal wrangles with Bohemia Interactive Studio, the developers of the orginal game. It has been speculated that Bohemia may break with them and release a game independently called Armed Assault - Operation Flashpoint 2 will be developed by a different team. In disregard of these rumours Codemasters released Operation Flashpoint: Elite for XBOX in October 2005.

=External links=

*[http://www.codemasters.co.uk/ Official site] *[http://www.planetnintendo.com/thewarpzone/camerica.html The Warp Zone - Camerica, Codemasters, and Acemore]