36 replies to this topic

[Tempest]

Recently I received an e-mail from Billy Pitt (the Neo-Geo prototype king) who had somehow come across a Porky's prototype (actually he sent me the e-mail back in 2005, but that's another story). The interesting this about this prototype is that it was on the exact same type of board as the Unknown Universal prototype. If the Universal Proto is really by Twentieth Century Fox, then that narrows down the list of possible games it could be. Going on this theory I scanned the lists of unreleased TCF games and came across only one that had to do with racing: Six Pack

If you're scratching your head like me right now wondering what the heck a Six Pack is, you're not alone. Wikipedia says it was a 1982 racing comedy by, you guessed it, Twentieth Century Fox. Six Pack Movie

So the company is right, the timing is right, and the subject matter is pretty close. I'm still not ready to say I'm 100% certain that this is indeed Six Pack, but it is a pretty good possibility. The movie was about a washed up Stock Car driver who finds some orphans stealing from him whom he takes on and of course hi-jinx ensue. The proto looks like a 3-D racing game with Stock Cars and Dragsters, so I'm not sure it's an exact match. What does everyone else think?

Tempest

[revolutionika]

can you get a screen shot up of the game or something?

[Tempest]

Here you go:



Tempest

[Greg2600]

Yes, Kenny Rogers played Brewster Baker, a washed up NASCAR driver, who has a family of orphans tagging along with him. Also starred Erin Gray (Buck Rodgers), Terry Kiser (Weekend at Bernie's), Anthony Michael Hall, and a super hot young Diane Lane. I loved that movie, watching it all the time on vhs recorded on in the 90's. I love racing and racing movies. However, there was NO drag racing in Six Pack, it was almost entirely dirt track oval racing with late model stock cars, with the final scenes taking place in a NASCAR Cup race at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Now, there was a movie, released by 20th century fox, that was entirely about drag racing. 1983's Heart Like a Wheel starring Bonnie Bedelia and Beau Bridges, based on the life of NHRA's Shirley Muldowney. Tempest, all of your screenshots are of drag racing. The car designs, the two lane road, the christmas tree starting lights, and even a parachute. Your description of the gameplay even matches the movie plot somewhat. Neither movie was more than mildly popular.

If this is truly a 20th Century Fox production, it has to be Heart Like A Wheel. The board even has a sticker with H on it! LOL

Edited by Greg2600, Mon Sep 6, 2010 12:01 PM.

[Tempest]

Greg2600, on Mon Sep 6, 2010 11:50 AM, said:

If this is truly a 20th Century Fox production, it has to be Heart Like A Wheel. The board even has a sticker with H on it! LOL

Only problem with that is that they never announced a game based off that movie. It's possible though I suppose.

Tempest

[Greg2600]

Haven't there been proto's found for games nobody knew existed? This one says Universal 1983 on it, but is that a Flash Gordon (Universal Pictures movie) board? Like I said, drag racing has absolutely nothing to do with Six Pack. So maybe the game designers screwed up and that's why they canceled it? Ha ha.

[Tempest]

Greg2600, on Mon Sep 6, 2010 1:53 PM, said:

Haven't there been proto's found for games nobody knew existed? This one says Universal 1983 on it, but is that a Flash Gordon (Universal Pictures movie) board? Like I said, drag racing has absolutely nothing to do with Six Pack. So maybe the game designers screwed up and that's why they canceled it? Ha ha.

Universal was just the board manufacturer. It's probably not even related to the arcade game company.

Tempest

[dr. kwack]

Y'know this game being Six Pack (even though it's drag racing and not stock car) kinda makes sense. 20th Century Fox wasn't known for tie-in accuracy. Just look at Alien, Flash Gordon, and Entity. Those are pretty much name-only tie ins that barely have anything to do with their source material.

Interesting.

[A.J. Franzman]

I remember Six Pack and I'm gonna have to go along with Greg2600 on this one, that game isn't Six Pack. If it were Heart Like a Wheel (which I've also seen) though, I'd expect one of the cars to be pink.

[Greg2600]

One of the cars is a red. Did the 2600 do Pink? Also gold cars, which is what Shirley ran in Funny Cars back in the early 70's.

To further expound on the plot, Tempest describes the level on a city street, with a man holding a white flag to start the race. That's basically straight from the scene where Shirley first races on a desolate upstate NY highway in the woods at night, albeit in a lead sled and not a dragster of any sort. In terms of the "desert" dragster, well, that could just have been unfinished graphics. But a big part of the movie was her moving west to run out there.

As I said, this is a movie I'd be surprised they would have made a game for, but Shirley was a popular racer and had a fair degree of name recognition at the time. I'd just expect a clone of Enduro or Pole Position for Six Pack.

Edited by Greg2600, Mon Sep 6, 2010 8:24 PM.

[accousticguitar]

Tempest, on Mon Sep 6, 2010 8:29 AM, said:

If you're scratching your head like me right now wondering what the heck a Six Pack is, you're not alone.

A six pack is three two-barrel carburetors set up in a row on an intake manifold made for that purpose.

[Rom Hunter]

dr. kwack, on Mon Sep 6, 2010 5:26 PM, said:

Y'know this game being Six Pack (even though it's drag racing and not stock car) kinda makes sense. 20th Century Fox wasn't known for tie-in accuracy. Just look at Alien, Flash Gordon, and Entity. Those are pretty much name-only tie ins that barely have anything to do with their source material.

My thoughts as well.

Interesting discovery, Tempest.

[nofrills100]

accousticguitar, on Mon Sep 6, 2010 9:04 PM, said:

Tempest, on Mon Sep 6, 2010 8:29 AM, said:

If you're scratching your head like me right now wondering what the heck a Six Pack is, you're not alone.

A six pack is three two-barrel carburetors set up in a row on an intake manifold made for that purpose.

or a....

Attached Thumbnails

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[Greg2600]

I emailed and actually got a reply from Shirley Muldowney herself. She didn't recall specifics only that a game was definitely released, and that she had sent remaining copies down to Big Daddy Don Garlits' Museum in Florida for their gift shop. However, I believe she was thinking about this Commodore 64 simulation from 1987, Shirley Muldowney's Top Fuel Challenge. So the only real way to know for sure would be to find something in the code or another proto, or speak to someone at Fox games from back then.

Edited by Greg2600, Tue Sep 7, 2010 4:59 PM.

[moycon]

Awesome post Tempest. Love seeing these old games come to the surface. More-so when it's possibly a movie related game.
I'd have to agree with Greg2600 in that the game screen shots don't seem to reflect anything about the movie Six Pack, I guess that's not to say they weren't going to slap the title on it and call it a day.

[Tempest]

moycon, on Wed Sep 8, 2010 9:53 AM, said:

I guess that's not to say they weren't going to slap the title on it and call it a day.

That's the thing, so many TCF games are only loosely based on the movie title they're named for. Look at The Earth Dies Screaming or Flash Gordon for example. They're not even close to the movies.

Tempest

[Retro Rogue]

Tempest, on Mon Sep 6, 2010 8:29 AM, said:

If you're scratching your head like me right now wondering what the heck a Six Pack is, you're not alone. Wikipedia says it was a 1982 racing comedy by, you guessed it, Twentieth Century Fox. Six Pack Movie

You never heard of that movie? Was pretty standard in local sunday movie rotations for a time in the late 80's and early 90's. And actually it in rotation on HBO again just this past month.

The lure was probably going to be some reproductions of Kenny Rogers music bits.

[Tempest]

wgungfu, on Wed Sep 8, 2010 1:59 PM, said:

You never heard of that movie?

Nope. But then again I'm not a racing movie or Kenny Rogers fan.

I really wish I had some TCF contacts whom I could ask about this.

Tempest

[Supergun]

Tempest, on Wed Sep 8, 2010 2:10 PM, said:

wgungfu, on Wed Sep 8, 2010 1:59 PM, said:

You never heard of that movie?

Nope. But then again I'm not a racing movie or Kenny Rogers fan.

I really wish I had some TCF contacts whom I could ask about this.

Tempest

As a starting point, why not contact whichever TCF programmers we have managed to locate and connect with over the years? Surely at least one of these guys has made his way to a CGE EXPO or other such show over the past few years? They may have worked on the project, or they may have kept in contact over the years with some other fellow programmer who worked on the project. Heck, even if neither they, nor anyone they know worked on it, they may have at least seen the name of the project on paperwork, or perhaps even a poster in the office of the movie, etc.

Lastly, in regards to the previous topic, I still think the game is indeed "Six Pack", despite game play not necessarily matching the movie. How is this anything special? That floating ball that spins in Star Wars while Luke practices his jedi skills is what....2 minutes of the entire movie? Yet they made an entire 2600 game out of it.

How about Crash Dive, wasn't that supposed to be Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, but then they lost the license or whatever, but they had already made the game and so they changed the name and released it anyhow.

Or maybe the Shirley movie was the original licence, then they lost it as well, but the graphics were done, all the time & money invested in the project, and they figured they had a cool game, so they just used another car movie license to go with it.

Look at Konami with the NES...they made two games based on sequels to movies that never even had sequels!
(The Goonies 2 & Top Gun 2)

Alright, these are all just desperate guesses but hey, at least I am presenting ideas which may eventually bring forth an answer, even if indirectly. The point is, companies do crazy things, we are trying to apply reason and structure to something that happened 28 or so years ago.

[Greg2600]

Six Pack was supposed to be programmed by Lion Share Productions, who were they? Did they do anything else? The Jedi Arena example is them taking a part of the movie and trying to adapt it and coming out with crap. Other cases, like say A-Team, or anything LJN made on the NES, were often bad/rushed programming, or being cheap and trying to slap sprites onto another game to make it look like the movie. In this case, this is an entirely different form of motorsports than the Six Pack movie. Given the detail of the game, there's no way on Earth they would have gotten it so wrong intentionally. One movie they drive in circles, the other in straight lines. It's a pretty obvious distinction.

[Retro Rogue]

Most of the 20th Century ones were farmed out to different developers. Tom Sloper acted as a liason for a few, you might try starting with him.

[PingvinBlueJeans]

wgungfu, on Wed Sep 8, 2010 7:25 PM, said:

Most of the 20th Century ones were farmed out to different developers. Tom Sloper acted as a liason for a few, you might try starting with him.

Sloper didn't work for any of TCF's developers that I know of, and even if he had I doubt he'd be of much help.

[Supergun]

PingvinBlueJeans, on Wed Sep 8, 2010 7:39 PM, said:

wgungfu, on Wed Sep 8, 2010 7:25 PM, said:

Most of the 20th Century ones were farmed out to different developers. Tom Sloper acted as a liason for a few, you might try starting with him.

Sloper didn't work for any of TCF's developers that I know of, and even if he had I doubt he'd be of much help.

It's so sad really if you think about it.
I just feel so bad for these guys from back then. As in this case, heres some guy that busted his ass working who knows how many late nights for who knows how many months creating a game and not only does his game never see the light of day, but he never even got credit for it, and we can't even find him to show our appreciation and thank him for it.

And PBJ...from your sig...this is just golden btw:

"I remember bringing Dave Rosen a paper grocery bag once that was stamped "Proudly made by Don J." on the bottom next to the bag company's name. I asked him how come people who make grocery bags get their name in the credits and we don't. He didn't like that one bit."

--former Sega/Gremlin programmer Gary Shannon

Edited by Supergun, Wed Sep 8, 2010 8:50 PM.

[PingvinBlueJeans]

Supergun, on Wed Sep 8, 2010 8:49 PM, said:

And PBJ...from your sig...this is just golden btw:

"I remember bringing Dave Rosen a paper grocery bag once that was stamped "Proudly made by Don J." on the bottom next to the bag company's name. I asked him how come people who make grocery bags get their name in the credits and we don't. He didn't like that one bit."

--former Sega/Gremlin programmer Gary Shannon

Yep, that anecdote was Gary's response to a comment I made about Sega being overly secretive with the identities of their designers/programmers. Due to their policy of never crediting any of them, we still don't know who did alot of these games 25-30 years later, as you know.

[Retro Rogue]

PingvinBlueJeans, on Wed Sep 8, 2010 7:39 PM, said:

wgungfu, on Wed Sep 8, 2010 7:25 PM, said:

Most of the 20th Century ones were farmed out to different developers. Tom Sloper acted as a liason for a few, you might try starting with him.

Sloper didn't work for any of TCF's developers that I know of, and even if he had I doubt he'd be of much help.

He worked as a liason for Activision with 20th Century :

http://webcache.goog...n&ct=clnk&gl=us

He may remember names to contact and track down further leads, etc. In my experience, every lead - no matter how small or unlikely it may seem - is worth checking. I've turned up some big info caches with thinner leads than that.