Accolade (>1999 Infogrames)


Accolade was founded by Alan Miller and Bob Whitehead. The first titles of the young company were Law of the West, Test Drive, Psi 5 Trading Company, Mean 18 Golf, The Dam Busters and Hardball. Test Drive and Hardball turned out the be the most persistent franchise. The first games by Accolade were developed in their own company. Later more and more games by other producers were added until Accolade published almost exclusively games by other companies in the middle of the 90s.

They developed for the common system of the homecomputer scene at that time: C64, Atari 400, Apple II, Amiga and PC. When the homecomputer slowly came to an end, Accolade concentrated on consoles and PC games. They developed for the NES, SNES, Mega Drive and the Playstation.

In 1992 Accolade caused a stir with a spectacular lawsuit against Sega. The high licence fees by Nintendo and Sega were a thorn in Accolade's side. They bypassed this by being able to create games for both systems through re-engineering without having to pay the licence fees. Sega then sued Accolade and won the first lawsuit, whereby Accolade was forced to have all console games for the Sega Mega Drive taken out of the shelve. Accolade appealed on points of law and won the lawsuit. In an out of court agreement "Accolade" kept the right to be allowed to go on producing own Mega Drive cartridges.


The downfall


At the beginning of the 90s, Accolade was immensely successful. Many games from this time still today count as the big ones of the corresponding genre. In the middle of the 90s Accolade published a great number of games - in all possible genres - which were only average though and did not really stand out. At a manager conference the decision was made to conentrate on the genres Action and Sport. This decision was made for a reason, as Accolade had placed successful franchises in these genres in the past.

Alan Miller left Accolade in 1995 and Bob Whitehead followed him only little time later. Before Alan Miller left the company, the position of company boss was filled by Peter Harris. This had been decided by Prudential Investments, which already had invested 10 Mio. US Dollars into Accolade. After leaving the company for a baseball team, Harris left the fortunes of Accolade to Jim Barnett, who was new to the sector. Under the lead of Barnetts the Test Drive series was introduced again and expanded by offroad games. In 1999, Accolade was bought by Infogrames after having published their last game Redline. In the same year the company was silently merged with Infogrames. The office in San Jose moved to Los Angeles.

Trivia

According to the legend, Miller and Whitehead chose Accolade as a name, because it was found before Atari and Apple in the phone book. Acclaim and Absolute Entertainment were named after the same principle. Whereby these companies were founded by ex Activision employees.

Former employees of Accolade enriched many other companies. Below the companies, which then profited this way from the experience of Accolade are Electronic Arts, Maxis, LucasArts, Activision and many more.



Text from Commodore User no.27, December, 1985.

"US GOLD's latest American acquisition is Accolade Inc. a breakaway group of programmers from Activision.

The company's first release is Hardball, a baseball simulation due in January (1986), to be followed shortly afterwards by a spaceship strategy game entitled "The PSI5 Trading Company", and a gunslinging game called Law of the West. The graphics are large and detailed, whith quality animation.

The latter two games feature language in the shape of adventure style screen printing which require you to interact with other characters. The Wild West game, for example, features a nice line in dry humour which requires you to combine with various townspeople to ward off the scourge of roving bandidos and desperados. Your job as the sheriff is to be diplomatic as well as fast on the draw.

We'll be reviewing these titles just as fast as we can slap leather, pardners"


Known releases:

4th & Inches 1987
4th & Inches Team Construction Disk 1988
Accolade Comics 1987
Accolade In Action 1990
Ace of Aces 1986
Altered Destiny 1990
Anatomic Man 1988
Apollo 18: Mission to the Moon 1987
Ballz 1994
Bar Games 1989
Barkley Shut Up and Jam! 1994
Battle Isle 2 (PC) 1993
Big Air (PlayStation) 1998
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure 1991
Blue Angels: Formation Flight Simulation 1989
Brett Hull Hockey 95 1994
Bubble Ghost 1987
Bubsy 3D: Furbitten Planet 1996
Bubsy II 1994
Bubsy in: Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind 1993
Bubsy in: Fractured Furry Tales 1994
Card Sharks 1987
The Cardinal of the Kremlin 1990
Combat Cars (Sega Mega Drive/Genesis) 1994
Cyclemania (PC) 1994
The Cycles: International Grand Prix Racing 1989
The Dam Busters 1984
Day of the Viper 1989
Deadlock: Planetary Conquest (PC) 1996
Deadlock II: Shrine Wars (PC) 1998
Don't Go Alone 1989
Double Dragon (Sega Mega Drive/Genesis) 1992
The Duel: Test Drive II 1989
Elvira: Mistress of the Dark 1990
Elvira II: The Jaws of Cerberus 1991
Eradicator (PC) 1996
Fast Break 1988
Fight Night 1985
Fireteam Rogue unreleased
The Game of Harmony 1990
The Games: Summer Challenge 1991
The Games: Winter Challenge 1992
Grand Prix Circuit 1988
Grand Prix Unlimited 1992
Gunboat 1990
Hardball! 1985
Hardball II 1989
Hardball III 1992
HardBall 4 1994
HardBall 5 1995
HardBall 6 1998
HardBall 6 - 2000 Edition 1999
Heat Wave 1989
Hoverforce 1990
Ishido: The Way of Stones 1990
Jack Nicklaus 4 1997
Jack Nicklaus 5 1998
Jack Nicklaus Golf & Course Design: Signature Edition 1992
Jack Nicklaus' Greatest 18 Holes of Major Championship Golf 1988
Jack Nicklaus' Unlimited Golf & Course Design 1990
Killed Until Dead 1986
Law of the West 1985
Les Manley in: Lost in L.A. 1992
Les Manley in: Search for the King 1990
Mean 18 1986
Mike Ditka Power Football 1991
Mini-Putt 1987
Pelé II: World Tournament Soccer 1994
Pinball Wizard 1987
PO'ed 1995
Power at Sea 1987
Powerboat 1990
Pro Sport Challenge 1991
Project: Space Station 1985
Psi-5 Trading Company 1986
Rack 'Em 1988
Redline 1999
Road & Car 1991
Serve & Volley 1988
Slave Zero (PC, Dreamcast) 1999
Snoopy's Game Club 1992
Speed Racer
Speed Racer in The Challenge of Racer X
Star Control 1990
Star Control II 1992
Star Control 1 & 2 CD Compendium
Star Control 3 1996
Star Control Collection
Steel Thunder 1988
Stratego 1991
Strike Aces 1990
SunDog: Frozen Legacy
Super Bubsy
Test Drive 1987
Test Drive II: The Duel 1989
Test Drive II Car Disk: Musclecars 1989
Test Drive II Car Disk: The Supercars 1989
Test Drive II Scenery Disk: California Challenge 1990
Test Drive II Scenery Disk: European Challenge 1990
Test Drive II: The Collection 1991
Test Drive III: The Passion 1992
Test Drive 4 (PlayStation, PC)
Test Drive 5 (PlayStation, PC)
Test Drive 6 (PlayStation, PC)
Test Drive: Off-Road
Test Drive: Off-Road 2
Test Drive: Off-Road 3
The Third Courier 1990
TKO 1988
The Train: Escape to Normandy 1987
Turrican (Mega Drive/Genesis, TG-16, Game Boy) 1991
Universal Soldier (Mega Drive/Genesis, Game Boy) 1992
Unnecessary Roughness
Unnecessary Roughness '95 (PC, Mega Drive/Genesis)
Unnecessary Roughness '96 (PC)
Waxworks (Amiga, DOS) 1993
Warp Speed (Mega Drive/Genesis)
Winter Challenge
Zero Tolerance (Mega Drive/Genesis)
Zyconix 1992