ed forces with another older software house called
Silversoft. Clem said, "You can describe us as affiliated companies and we wish we were half owned by US Gold..."

CRL did however release some very successful titles including Sirius 7, Sorcerer's Apprentice, Dracula, Jack the Ripper, and Frankenstein. Clem cleverly ensured that Dracula and Frankenstein were awarded "15?
certificates from the British Board of Film Censors. These games featured digitized graphics with people looking like they were covered in blood and
in gory poses; programmer Jeff Lee claims this was "just tomato ketchup and that no actors or programmers actually died or were injured in these gory
game productions". Clem, in this issue of Commodore Free, says the BBFC
titles were obtained because "This would encourage more sales" - others
have suggested it was a conscious effort on the part of the programmer to "protect the youth of the day from such scenes." (Designer Rod Pike has
been quoted in interviews as saying as a parent he was worried about the
impact of the graphics, on vulnerable children). Either way, these were
among CRL's most successful titles! Jack the Ripper and Wolfman even
gained "18? certificates because of the high graphical content (as
animated images rather than just static pictures). This again drove up
sales of these items from under-age people wishing to play the games and wanting to see what all the fuss was about. You could say the games gained
a "cult following", mainly from the people they were not aimed at!

Amongst the major scoops CRL had was to release Commodore's international cartridge Football game on tape and disk. They updated the graphics to
have CRL logos in-game and of course on the boxes, but basically it was
just the same version, although CRL gained the rights to the tape/disk versions. Clem said he just phoned them and they agreed! From today's
point of view you would say this was just unimaginable, although Clem was
quite matter-of-fact when he said that Commodore wanted to be a hardware company and were not interested in releasing the game on disk or tape.

Some of CRL's published games even achieved critical press success,
including Tau Ceti and Academy. CRL were also the first company (in 1984)
to release a game based on a TV series with the title Terrahawks. One
thing that CRL can't be accused of is having a "same style formula". The
games were so different, and in some cases such as "the light synthesiser" Tubular Bells based on the Mike Oldfield album - were so weird that no one
knew what would come next from the company! CRL also released a number of simulations, strategy, and management games. They even tried a musical
tie-in working on the game "War of the Worlds", although the game had to be pulled from production. They even worked on titles like the driving tie-in "Highway Code". Sadly, only a few games were released for the Amiga and ST
and the company closed, mainly due to funding being pulled (Clem explains
why in this issue of Commodore Free).

CRL also had other budget labels. They were Alpha-Omega, The Power House
and Scorpion (for US re-releases). The label called NU-Wave released the already mentioned "Tubular Bells". The Power House label was later bought
by Ashley Hildebrandt from CRL in 1988; he used to run it for Clem.
Although its not clear what the arrangement meant (and I didn't ask that question during the interview). Sadly though, the label didn't last very
long.

CRL closed its doors at the start of the 1990s. For some time Clement
Chambers remained an important figure in the world of technology and
industry. He appeared as an "expert" on television and in the news. He
also wrote for magazines, most notably "Wired". Clem went on to write his first novel, The Armageddon Trade, which was published in 2009.

My final comment is this ...

In my opinion CRL broke the mold and produced some truly original and imaginative games. They released some programming testosterone into a
world filled with suits and formula software. Yes, you could easily say
the games lacked the polish of some of the larger software houses of the
times, but then - I have said, and keep saying, that "great graphics and
sound doesn't make a great game." Without smaller companies such as the
likes of CRL we could have been stuck with the same recycled formats, and
be playing the same unimaginative games over and over again, albeit with updated sound and graphics. While we can all list CRL games that were, or
were not truly original, I have reviewed a few games I used to play and remember quite fondly. Time may not have been kind to them, but heck! I
don't look as good as I used to ...

CRL also left behind a number of unfinished creations some for the
Commodore 64 can be seen here

www.gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/results/gy/0/gh/0/gc/CRL/gco/0/ga/0/gs/0/go/0/

CRL GAME PICTURES

www.mocagh.org/loadpage.php?getcompany=miscgame&npp=25&whatsnew=0&start=0& series=CRL

retro.lonningdal.net/home.php?page=Publishers&publisher=CRL

A LIST OF GAMES PRODUCED BY CRL IS AVAILABLE AT:

gamesdbase.com/all_publisher_games-crl_group.aspx

www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekpub.cgi?regexp=^CRL+Group+PLC$&loadpics=on

WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRL_Group

CRL BUDGET LABELS:

Alpha Omega www.gamebase64.com/search .php?a=5&f=1&id=443&d=45&h=0 The
Power House www.gamebase64.com/se arch.php?a=5&f=1&id=3043&d=45&h=0

=====================================

*************************************
INTERVIEW WITH CLEM CHAMBERS
CRL founder
By Commodore Free
*************************************

Q. Please introduce yourself to our readers.

Hi, I'm Clem Chambers. I started CRL in 1982 when I was 19. I invented a
few things a long the way even I have trouble believing, like putting the "massively" in MMORPG, getting the first film certificate for a computer
game, and a few more like producing some of the first (the first)
multimedia CDROM (for the CDTV), and lots of other stuff that didn't make
me a billionaire. I currently run ADVFN.com, the biggest stocks and share website in Europe etc. I have a series of thrillers which you can buy on Amazon. As a gamer you will get them.

- - - - - - - - - -

Q. I found some information that said you started the company CRL, with a
bank loan of 30K. What persuaded the bank to loan such a young man a relatively large amount of money?

No, it was £10K from the Bank of Dad, but I blew £7.5K of it, so basically
had £2.5K to bootstrap the games idea on. The bank stuff came later when
the orders exploded. How did you know that even? :) The overdraft was
Hell.

- - - - - - - - - -

Q. Was creating a "games" company after the trial of a hardware rental
store an easy move? What was the first game released? Was there ever a
period where you thought this isn't working, and thought about closing down CRL, or did sales steadily grow?

The games idea was just an idea waiting to happen. I placed an ad in Pop
Com weekly and Your Computer - and boom! In came the games. The "clever
bit" was ringing up Smith, Boots and Menzies and getting orders. Big fat,
how am I going to deliver that, orders? (BTW, there was no shop; just the cheapest office in London - down the road from where the Krays were born.)

- - - - - - - - - -

Q. Having some of your games rated 15 was not only the right thing to do,
but must have boosted sales from people buying them because they were 15?

I wasn't trying to save kids from obscenity, I was trying to sell tons of games. It was a clear no-brainer troll. They added a clause in the video nasty bill saying games could be submitted to the BBFC if the publishers
were worried. I got worried in a hurry. I could smell the headlines.

- - - - - - - - - -

Q. Can you tell our readers about some of the proposed film ties-ins like
the magic roundabout, or what prompted them, and what percentage of sales
would

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