ULTIMATE GUIDE
TARGET RENEGADE
THE CITY STREETS ARE NEVER SAFE FOR LONG, ESPECIALLY IN THE DELIGHTFUL-SOUNDING SCUMVILLE, WHERE IT’S KILL OR BE KILLED. JOIN US AS WE REVEAL HOW WITH TARGET: RENEGADE, OCEAN SOFTWARE RETOLD THE STORY OF A VENGEFUL VIGILANTE AND CREATED ONE OF THE BEST EVER 8-BIT BRAWLERS
WORD BY MARTYN CARROLL
Flashback to 1987. The year’s software sales charts are dominated by coin-op conversions – Out Run from US Gold, Combat School from Ocean, Enduro Racer from Activision and Paperboy from Elite, to name just four. The outlook for 1988 looks to be no different, with publishers vying to sign up the hottest coin-ops, attracted by the ready-made audiences that are happy to see the games on their systems in some form or other. Expectations are now simmering for the home versions of Technos’ Double Dragon, one of the highest-grossing coin-ops of 1987.
Which publisher will bag the rights? The smart money’s on Ocean, as it has =already scored a hit with its conversion of Renegade, the arcade forerunner to Double Dragon. But maybe US Gold or Firebird will muscle in?
The eventual winner turned out to be… Mastertronic. That’s right – the budget kings bamboozled the competition by doing a deal directly with Technos, leveraging its existing relationship with Tradewest, one of Technos’ distributors. Mastertronic announced plans to publish the game as a full-price title on its recently acquired Melbourne House label. As you might imagine, Ocean was disappointed. In fact, according to former Ocean artist Mark R Jones, as memorably related in RG 213, Ocean was “pissed”. There was a silver lining however. When licensing Renegade, Ocean had the foresight to have it written into the contract that it could produce its own sequels for the home market. And so with Double Dragon missed but not out of mind, the firm began planning Renegade II for release on Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and Commodore 64.
The original Renegade conversions had been handled by various teams at Ocean. Mike Lamb had programmed the hit Spectrum version and he spearheaded development of the sequel. Working with the game’s graphics artists – Dawn Drake (Spectrum and CPC) and Martin McDonald (C64) – the trio threw around ideas involving people getting thrown around. As you might have guessed, the additions to the Renegade formula were clearly inspired by the Double Dragon coin-op, which was playable inside Ocean’s Manchester HQ. The most obvious new feature was co-op play. This time around, our hero was joined by his brother, with the pair taking to the streets of Scumville to avenge the death of their other sibling Matt at the hands of gangland boss Mr Big. This is where the eventual title Target: Renegade came from, as the brothers’ planned vengeance had made them marked men.