Christian Cawley is a writer and editor who covers consumer electronics, IT, and entertainment media. He has written for publications such as Computer Weekly, Linux Format, MakeUseOf.com, and Tech Radar.
He also produces podcasts, has a cigar box guitar, and of course, loves retro gaming.
After 33 years, the Commodore 64 version of Nigel Mansell World Championship has been found, and you can play it now.
I was scrolling through YouTube in bed last night (looking for episodes of Time Team) when I happened across a new video from Games That Weren’t, concerning the strangely missing Commodore 64 version of Nigel Mansell World Championship.
Who the heck is Nigel Mansell?
So we’re all on the same page, Nigel Mansell was Britain’s biggest Formula 1 driver after (chronologially) Jackie Stewart and James Hunt. His career straddled the period where only certain races qualified for the drivers’ championship, and the professional era where every race counted. While not as prolific a champion as Lewis Hamilton, Mansell nevertheless enjoyed rivalries with the late Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost, and after winning the championship with Williams in 1992, swapped to Indy Car the following season, racing with Newman/Haas and winning the competition.
Nigel Mansell was a well-known figure in the British sporting scene of the late 1980s and early 1990s, so a licensed game sporting his name should come as no surprise…
Yet while the Gremlin-produced game appeared on 16-bit systems like the Amiga, Mega Drive, and SNES, and on 8-bits including the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC 464, and NES, it never materialised on the Commodore 64.
Until now.
Nigel Mansell World Championship
Here is the video from Games That Weren’t, which features Nigel Mansell World Championship in action.
The game has reappeared via some archive disks handed to Games That Weren’t, who expected to “find a series of NES titles that never saw the light of day.” Yet within the collection was a close-to-complete version of Nigel Mansell World Championship, apparently owing more to the NES version than the ZX Spectrum release.
Why was the game held back? It seems to be something to do with a lack of confidence in the C64 market and a long development time. I can state with some certainty that I had certainly moved to the Amiga by then, so probably wouldn’t have picked this up.
Find out more about the game’s recovery and restoration, grab a copy, and learn more about why it wasn’t released — on Games That Weren’t.
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Christian Cawley is a writer and editor who covers consumer electronics, IT, and entertainment media. He has written for publications such as Computer Weekly, Linux Format, MakeUseOf.com, and Tech Radar.
He also produces podcasts, has a cigar box guitar, and of course, loves retro gaming.
