Rainbow Islands

1001 Video Games

Rainbow Islands appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Amiga Power controversy

Amiga Power magazine declared this to be the greatest Amiga game of all time in 1991, and controversially repeated this in their list compiled in early 1992, suggesting that titles like Formula 1 Grand Prix, Jimmy White's Whirlwind Snooker and Populous 2 were too specialised in their appeal, whereas Rainbow Islands was an across-the-board title. Ironically, Formula 1 Grand Prix was at #1 in the charts that month, and Jimmy White's Whirlwind Snooker had spent over 6 months in the top 5. The magazine claimed to be surprised when Rainbow Islands was as high as #7 in the readers' Top 100 later that year (two of the games above it, Sensible Soccer and Monkey Island 2 were released in between the two lists). It also made the top 10 in the magazine's 1993 and 1994 lists, and #18 in the next Readers' top 100 vote in late 1994.

Publishing of finished Atari ST and Amiga conversions delayed for months

Although the press got review versions of Rainbow Islands for the Amiga and Atari ST in mid-1989, the game wasn't released until 1990. The reason was with the game, the conversions were finished, but confusions about the publishing rights, were suddenly three companies claimed to have the rights to publish the game. First, Telecomsoft acquired the rights from Taito and assigned Graftgold for the conversion. But as the production deadline passed, these rights were automatically reverted back to Taito. Now Taito claimed all rights, not only for publishing, but on all work done with the game, especially the conversion by Graftgold, which they refused. With Microprose buy of Telecomsoft in 1989 things got complicated, as the finished conversions were included in the acquisition, but they also had no permissions to publish them. Finally, after all these troubles, the versions were released by Ocean months later.

Awards

• Amiga Joker
  • Issue 01/1991 – Best Dexterity Game in 1990
• Amiga Power
  • 1991 - Greatest Amiga Game of All Time
  • 1992 - Greatest Amiga Game of All Time
  • 1992 - #7 Greatest Amiga Game of All Time (Readers' vote)
• Commodore Format
  • May 1991 (Issue 8) - listed in the A to Z of Classic Games article (Great)
  • January 1992 (Issue 16) - Cf's all time Top Ten Essential Mega Games
  • July 1993 (Issue 34) - Modern Classics: Platformers
  • March 1994 (Issue 42) Heaven – The Path to Righteousness: 20 Essential Games
  • November 1994 (Issue 50) – #13 The All-Time Top 50 C64 Games
  • October 1995 (Issue 61) – The Top Ten C64 Games of all Time
• EMAP Image's Golden Joystick 1991
  • April 1991: Best coin-op conversion - 8 Bit
• Power Play
  • Issue 01/1991 - Best Dexterity Game in 1990 (Amiga, Atari ST and C64 versions)
  • Issue 01/1991 - Best Arcade Port in 1990
• Retro Gamer
  • October 2004 (Issue #9) – #30 Best Game Of All Time (Readers' Vote)
  • Issue 37 - #10 in the "Top 25 Platformers of All Time" poll
• ST Format
  • Issue 01/1991 - Best Platform Game in 1990 (Atari ST)
  • Issue 08/1991 – #7 Top Atari ST Classic Games (Editorial staff vote)

Information also contributed by PCGamer77.