Rock Star Ate My Hamster (Codemasters, 1989)

Written by Colin Jones, and produced by Colin Jones with Richard and David Darling.

Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum graphics by Chris Graham. Commodore Amiga and Atari ST graphics by Chris Graham and Brian Hartley.

Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum sounds by Paul Hiley. Commodore 64 sounds by Gavin Raeburn. Commodore Amiga and Atari ST sounds by Allister Brimble and Colin Jones.

Unofficially converted for the Commodore Plus/4 by András Szigand, and released as "Rockstar Manager".

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INTRODUCTION & GAME STATUS

A while ago, I thought I had made my shortest comparison I am likely to ever make. Then I came up with this strange gem. So, unless I really go nuts and try to compare a text adventure, I believe this will remain the shortest entry for quite a while.

Before all the karaoke games and Guitar Hero games and Rock Band games and whatnot, there were not all that many games based in the world of music, mostly because the hardware abilities of old were not up to scratch, when it came to performing music. The first game I remember that had anything akin to having a musical instrument as your controller was a game called Quest For Fame, where you had to rock out to the tunes of Aerosmith with an electronic guitar pick of sorts. Before any of this happened, though, there were a small group of music management games - this one being most likely the most fondly remembered of them all. I might do a feature later on, listing some of the other music-based retrogames, but this one is dedicated to comparing this Codemasters classic.
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