Free 8-Bit Game Cassettes from Graeme Mason

Back in 2014 Graeme Mason posted that he had some 8-bit cassettes to give away, and a padded envelope of them landed with me: Amstrad CPC games, a couple of Atari tapes for a system I had no software for at all, and an MSX title. He didn’t even charge me postage. This was meant to be a very quick envelope opening, and for once it actually was.

Amstrad CPC tapes

First out was One Man and His Droid for the Amstrad CPC (and Schneider). Plenty of people were put off by the pun on One Man and His Dog, but it’s a really good game. I’m always after things to play on the CPC, and at the time I had three of them (I used to have four).

One Man and His Droid cassette for the Amstrad CPC from Graeme Mason's donation — One Man and His Droid for the Amstrad CPC

Also for the Amstrad: Kickstart 2 with the course designer. I had it on the Commodore 64 back in the day and loved the tactile feel of getting the wheelie at just the right angle and speed. Oddly, the inlay screenshots are from the Spectrum version, when publishers usually did the opposite because the Amstrad screenshots looked better. Then a sealed copy of Codemasters’ Super Robin Hood, which boasts voice synthesis. I’m tempted to leave that one sealed and load it from a WAV file instead.

Atari tapes for a machine with no software

I’ve had an Atari with a tape deck in the loft for ages but nothing to load on it, so I don’t even know if it works. Graeme’s packet fixed half of that problem with two Mastertronic tapes. Ninja (an Added Dimension release) claims to blast the black belt off other martial arts games; back then, putting “ninja” in the title was half the marketing. Speed Zone (Mastertronic, 1989) looks like a proper shoot ’em up, despite cover art of a chap holding a zapper and wearing a helmet that clearly won’t fit his head. It looks like it’s never been out of the case.

Mastertronic Ninja cassette for the Atari 8-bit held up to the camera — Ninja, a Mastertronic Added Dimension release

An MSX tape for the Toshiba HX-10

Space Walk for the MSX was a nice surprise. I’m a big MSX fan and have a Toshiba HX-10, which at the time was poorly with keyboard scanner issues and in the middle of a recap. I came to MSX late, after getting one from my friend Hayley Mackey along with some great cartridges.