Code Like It's 198x

Americana

U.S. Gold's £2.99 label for old American games

Companies & StudiosSource-checked

U.S. Gold launched Americana in spring 1986 to sell older American Commodore 64 and Atari games, and some new ones, at £2.99. Its first Commodore 64 batch won three budget Sizzlers in one issue of ZZAP!64, while its Spectrum games mostly disappointed CRASH. By autumn 1987 the label had passed to Mastertronic, which kept it going with reissues such as Bruce Lee.

In the spring of 1986 U.S. Gold, the Birmingham publisher that had made its name selling American games to British players at £9.95, started selling some of them for £2.99. The new label was called Americana. Its Commodore 64 games were mostly two or three years old in America, and ZZAP!64 liked three of the first batch so much that it made each of them a budget Sizzler in the same issue. On the Spectrum the label fared worse, and within eighteen months it was being run by Mastertronic, the company whose cheap games U.S. Gold had complained about.

Fast facts

  • Launched: spring 1986, by U.S. Gold, at £2.99.
  • Sources: older games from American publishers such as Synapse, Datasoft, Epyx and HES, plus new budget titles, some written in Britain.
  • Formats: Commodore 64 and Atari 8-bit first, then Spectrum and Amstrad.
  • Best reviewed: HES Games, Sentinel and Slamball, all ZZAP!64 Sizzlers in July 1986.
  • Slogan: “Licensed to thrill”.
  • Later owner: Mastertronic, from about autumn 1987, when the price came down to £1.99.

Launch

Computer Gamer broke the news in June 1986. Americana games would cost £2.99 and “include titles written by US giants Synapse, Datasoft and Epyx”. The first five were Slamball for the Commodore 64 and New York City, Shamus, Scooter and Ollie’s Follies for the Commodore 64 and the Atari. U.S. Gold planned to add Spectrum, Amstrad and MSX versions, and a “Golden Oldies” series that would re-release games such as Epyx’s Breakdance. The advertisements promised “all American action at a superb value for money price of only £2.99”.

The timing was awkward. Commodore User reported that U.S. Gold had recently objected to Mastertronic’s cheap games appearing in the charts, and asked its managing director, Tim Chaney, whether he would mind if Americana’s games were left out of the charts too. “We made our stand and we’re sticking by it,” Chaney said. “These kind of games don’t deserve chart recognition.”

A year later they were getting it anyway. In Commodore User’s chart for June 1987, Americana’s Karate Champ stood at number 19, down from number 7 the month before.

Three Sizzlers in one issue

ZZAP!64’s July 1986 issue gave most of its budget section to “the first batch of Americana cheapies from US Gold”. Three of them won Sizzlers, the magazine’s award for an outstanding game:

  • HES Games, a six-event athletics game from the American publisher HES, was “an older sports action compilation from AMERICANA given a cheap new lease of life”. One reviewer called it “among the best ever” of its kind. Americana sold it as Go for the Gold.
  • Sentinel, a space combat game in the mould of Atari’s Star Raiders, was “somewhat old (about two years)”, one reviewer admitted, but it had “some wonderful effects which have only started to appear in games today” and was “a steal for three quid”.
  • Slamball, a pinball game set in a monster’s stomach, was “more than worth every penny”.

ZZAP!’s own index of reviews later listed those three at 95%, 93% and 96%. Not everything in the batch was as good. The same issue’s reviewers were unimpressed by Breakdance, New York City and Conan, and gave Moon Shuttle 13%. Commodore User disagreed about Slamball: “I can’t really see the point of such a game at any price.”

Two years later, looking back over its budget awards, ZZAP! called the three games “Americana’s hat-trick of sizzling re-releases” and thought Sentinel was “still probably the best game of its type on the 64”.

On the Spectrum

The Spectrum games were a different story. By September 1986 ZX Computing counted five Spectrum titles on the label: The Incredible Hulk, a former full-price adventure from Adventure International, and Tremor, The Secret of Levitation, Pud Pud and Subterranean Nightmare. Not all of them were American. Pud Pud was a re-release of an Ocean game reviewed in 1985, and ZX Computing joked in its Americana competition that anyone “who spoils things by telling us that these games aren’t all from America is automatically disqualified!”

CRASH was rarely impressed. It gave The Secret of Levitation, by Michael Beresford and “Americana’s first Spectrum budget game”, 45%; one reviewer said it “reminds me of the first games that you typed in from magazines”. Subterranean Nightmare got 56%, Olé, Toro, a bullfighting game, 57%, and Thingy and the Doodahs 39%: “definitely the worst game that AMERICANA have brought out so far”. When CRASH wrote its own history at the end of 1987, it summed the label up: “Americana worked well enough for them on the Commodore 64, where golden oldies imported direct from the States offered good value for money, but of course in converting most lost their original qualities on the Spectrum and proved to be no more than low-value games.”

Under Mastertronic

By the autumn of 1987 Americana had become one of Mastertronic’s labels. CRASH listed it among Mastertronic’s “many labels” in October 1987, and Sinclair User’s guide to that year’s PCW Show expected “new things on the Americana label” on Mastertronic’s stand. In March 1988 Your Commodore described “the new look, Mastertronic owned, Americana range”, reviewing Accolade’s boxing game Fight Night at £1.99, from the Paul Street address in London that Mastertronic’s other labels used.

The reissues kept coming at the lower price. U.S. Gold’s own Kung Fu Master turned up on Americana about 18 months after its first release, and Sinclair User found the label’s Xevious a “poorly programmed unplayable conversion” in December 1987. Datasoft’s Bruce Lee did better: ZZAP!64 gave the Americana reissue 92% in August 1988, one reviewer calling it “a classic game with massive playability”, and it reached the budget charts in Your Sinclair and Commodore Computing International that autumn. By then U.S. Gold had started a new budget label of its own, Kixx.

Sources

  • Computer Gamer issue 15, June 1986: news, “US Gold’s Americana” (the price, Synapse, Datasoft and Epyx, the first five titles, the planned formats and Golden Oldies series), and an Americana advertisement.
  • Commodore User, June 1986: “Cheapos” column (the launch at £2.99; Tim Chaney on the charts; the Slamball review) and an Americana advertisement (“all American action at a superb value for money price of only £2.99”).
  • Atari User, July 1986, p. 30, and Commodore Computing International, August 1986: Americana advertisements (“Licensed to thrill”).
  • ZZAP!64 issue 15, July 1986: editorial and contents (the “first batch of Americana cheapies”, the three Sizzlers), and reviews of HES Games (pp. 100–101), Moon Shuttle (p. 108), Sentinel (pp. 114–115) and Slamball (pp. 116–117).
  • ZZAP!64 issues 72 and 73, April and May 1991: index of reviews (Go For Gold 95%, Sentinel 93%, Slamball 96%, Moon Shuttle 13%, Bruce Lee 92%).
  • ZZAP!64 issue 40, August 1988: Bruce Lee review (p. 85) and the retrospective of budget Sizzlers (“Americana’s hat-trick”, HES Games released as Go for the Gold).
  • ZX Computing, September 1986: Americana competition (the five Spectrum titles).
  • CRASH issue 29, June 1986, p. 128: The Secret of Levitation review, 45%.
  • CRASH issue 31, August 1986: Subterranean Nightmare review.
  • CRASH issue 34, November 1986, pp. 20 and 23: Thingy and the Doodahs and Olé, Toro reviews.
  • CRASH issue 45, October 1987: budget feature (Americana among Mastertronic’s labels).
  • CRASH issue 48, Christmas Special 1987: “The CRASH History” supplement, p. 62 (Subterranean Nightmare 56%; the verdict on Americana); review index (Olé, Toro 57%, The Secret of Levitation 45%, Thingy and the Doodahs 39%); news (Kung Fu Master “now out on Americana”).
  • Sinclair User issue 67, October 1987: PCW Show guide (Mastertronic’s stand). Issue 69, December 1987: Xevious review.
  • Commodore User, June 1987: chart (Karate Champ). ZZAP!64 issue 27, July 1987: Karate Champ “available on the Americana label for three quid”.
  • CRASH issue 15, April 1985: Pud Pud (Ocean) reviewed.
  • Your Commodore, November 1987: Bulldog at 8-10 Paul Street, London.
  • Your Commodore, March 1988: Fight Night review (Americana, Mastertronic, £1.99).
  • Your Sinclair issue 33, September 1988, budget chart, and Commodore Computing International, October 1988, chart: Bruce Lee (Americana).

See also

Checked. Verified against primary sources and signed off by a person.