CLUB
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Welcome to U.S. GOLD CLUB a site dedicated to the one of best software house there was in the UK..
".......LOOK OUT FOR ... BEACH HEAD ... SPY HUNTER ... RAID OVER MOSCOW ... UP 'N' DOWN ... THE DAMBUSTERS ....... GREAT SOFTWARE TITLES FOR YOU AND YOUR 64 ....................................................................................................................."
The game that were on cassette for the C64 has one distinctive feature....
While the games loaded a loading screen was shown, 3 tunes were playing over and over until the game had finished loading....
They were the well-known music pieces: The Star-Spangled Banner (USA's National Anthem), Yankee Doodle, and Dixie. With this U.S. Gold underlined that it sells software published from the USA. While the music played, a countdown was displayed, which showed how many 256-byte blocks still need to be loaded before the game was finally loaded.(some games like Pitstop II carried on loading after that) Additionally, there was a scrolling text, which informed the player about further U.S. Gold titles,and the U.S Gold Club which this site is named after.
U.S. Gold loading screen.
Synsoft,the US Gold Collectors
Synsoft is often mistaken for the american company Synapse Software.
Besides the fact the US Gold published a couple of the Synapse Software titles under their Synsoft label, there is no other real link between both names.
The Synsoft titles were part of the very early deals struck by UK based publishers at a time when disk drives were just as rare as the shops selling the games. As a result, most of the Synsoft titles are painfully rare, making them collectors favorites.
One title has not been accounted for to date: Quasimodo, which does exist on tape for the C64. An Atari 8 bit wallet version also exists. So it could be assumed that a C64 wallet disk release will pop-up one day.
Until then, here is the complete list.
BlueMax2001
Doughboy
Drelbs
FortApocalypse
Sentinel
Zaxxon
Probably the best selling of all Synsoft titles was Zaxxon, an arcade hit at the time.
And in second place is..... Blue Max.
Note that Zaxxon sticks out like a sore thumb with its red design. Why the black Synsoft design was not respected for this title remains a mystery. Perhaps it had to do with the licensing deal of the arcade game.