SSS

One of the adverts between the songs on the Sigue Sigue Sputnik album Flaunt It is for the SSS computer game, allegedly available “In stores now”. The album was released in August 1986.

The game was apparently never made, and apparently never was any more than a couple of mock up screen shots. Those shots appear, as far as I can remember, in an article in Commodore User magazine, which I had back in the day. I recall they described the (nonexistent, remember) game as a fighting game of sorts, perhaps a rip-off of Karate Champ but in a SSS mode. I can recall one screenshot showing possible combat, and another of a possible ‘character select screen’.

Billy Idol and Andrew Eldritch may have been in the game. Neither are too unlikely given the pedigree of certain members of SSS (ex Generation-X, for instance). Things get weird here, because it’s slightly possible that in a box in our attic is an old Sisters Of Mercy fanzine containing mention of this very game, possibly even reprinting the screenshots. And possibly not.

It’s enticing they may be there. So much so I don’t even want to look.

The wonderful zzap64.co.uk has scans of every issue of that fab magazine. But only scans of 4 issues of Commodore User, and for some reason I am positive the SSS game was only featured in CU. Even so, I pored through many issues of Zzap just now. I found no Sputnik game coverage.

I found these however:

zzapjune1986.jpg zzapaugust1986.jpg zzapnov1986.jpg zzapdec1986.jpg

2 Responses to “SSS”

  1. mycroft says:

    The problem with the “Fighting Fantasy” computer games, as I recall, was that – apart from coloured pics and computerised dice rolls – they were *identical* to the books. Of course, this didn’t stop me being ridiculously excited the day I got the tape version of “The Citadel Of Chaos” for the Commodore 64 🙂

  2. Robert says:

    Strangely enough, the only one I ever recall playing was Rebel Planet (reviewed above). I’m pretty sure it was one game on a cassette tape of zillions, and I recall not being able to save at all. Since I had the book, I doubt I was very interested in it.