How to recognise the defective release of Golden Axe for the Commodore 64
Golden Axe is a very popular video game produced by SEGA in 1989 for the arcade market, which was very successful. The game was converted for more than 15 different platforms between consoles and home computers, with SEGA selling the rights to various third party companies for the realisation of the various versions. The version for the SEGA Mega Drive is considered among the best not only because of the superior graphic, but also because it has more levels than the arcade version, which includes only five levels.
The Commodore 64 version, developed in 1990 by Probe Software and distributed by Virgin Games, was highly waited due to the popularity of the game and got good reviews from the magazines of the time. The game in its cardboard box packaging, both cassette and floppy, included a poster that featured the cover.
The Commodore 64 conversion, although characterised by good graphics, animations, sound and playability (for an 8-bit machine), saw a game-longevity undermined by the absence of the multiplayer mode, the inability to fight with more than one enemy at a time and from one scarce variety in the opponent's patterns. Furthermore the variety of enemies to fight with in each level was reduced to a single sprite for all the ordinary warriors and to an additional sprite for the final boss.
But the Commodore 64 version will be probably remembered for something else: by mistake a defective version of the game was released on the market. In this version it was not possible to play the last level (level 5), as it was missing on the disc. After reaching the end of the level 4, after facing the boss of that level, instead of loading level 5 the final sequence is loaded. The bug was fixed in later releases, but the incomplete version widespread, even in the pirate market. Hackers cracked and distributed the initial-buggy release of the game.
The game was very famous and therefore any person who knew the other versions of Golden Axe would immediately realised the lack of level 5. Even to persons that did not know the game, would have seem absurd the lack of the fight with the most important boss of the game.
Do you think the reviews of the time highlighted this problem? Obviously no. The explanations could be many, but we point out that in the preview of the game by Zzap!64 you see an image that portrays level 5. This was probably an image passed by the producers to the magazine.
But we know for sure that Zzap!64 knew that the game had 5 levels, as it writes it right at the end of the review.
This means that people at the time bought the defective version of the game because they were not informed of the bug and only some of them, knowing that the game had 5 levels, realised that their copy was defective.
For example, the italian version of Zzap! does not warn its readers, who begin to buy the game which, however, is defective, and inevitably the readers ask the magazine for an explanation of why they had not warned them, and the requests are so numerous that the magazine is forced to publish at least one letter that talks about it, while proving that it is not strangely aware of the problem and that it does not know what to answer.
Months go by and no explanations come from the magazine, until Zzap! published another letter, with a reply that confirms an important number of complaints received by the editorial staff
and then another letter that confirms how the editorial staff of Zzap! knew nothing about the bug. The Zzap! staff discovers the problem from the letters of the readers. The magazine reviewed the game without even testing it, but using the review made by Zzap! 64.
But is not yet over: in that answer the editorial staff of Zzap! makes it clear that they were upset about the charges (despite people having bought the game following their review). They didn't want to be held responsible because the original source of what they had written was the English magazine, concluding by saying that whoever had the problems had to contact the distributor or the manufacturer of the game, without adding any useful details.
Despite the release of a famous defective game, only a few magazines reported (very late) the bug. Many persons didn't even know how to get it replaced with a game with all levels.
Zzap,! after months of protests from readers looking for explanations, he can't help more than that
How to recognise defective copies of Golden Axe
To immediately recognise the non-defective copies of the game released in the cardboard box, just check the presence on the cassette or on the floppy of this car symbol with the cross on it
It is a Zzap reader to reveal it
This for example is a defective copy of Golden Axe (the cassette could also be black)
This is for example a non-defective cassette (the cassette could also be white)
This is a defective floppy
while this is a good disc containing all levels of the game
The bug is not present on the economic edition published by Tronix, but only on the editions with cardboard boxes
