text: Codemasters is notorious for making some interesting—and possibly made up (or at the very least, hyperbolic—boasts on their game packaging, but these bits from Thor do seem to be genuine.
  Another way that Camerica’s marketing stood out? The company sold its products, including Micro Machines, on the Home Shopping Network. No other company of its era did anything like that.
  Ultimately, though the Game Genie was a success for the company, Camerica itself folded around 1993, following the failure of the Aladdin Deck Enhancer peripheral. Codemasters went on to release many of their NES titles in the UK, with subtle alterations and different colored carts.
  “I am a completionist at heart—and when I saw collections like AVGN I just loved the idea of having a working copy of everything NES related. It’s a bottomless pit though once you get into unlicensed and bootleg companies—like Codemasters. Thankfully their collection isn’t too large but they were such a unique group with their odd cartridges and styles. But they were fun to hunt down!”
  — Christopher Clarke, a Codemasters and NES collector known as TorridZone17 on Nintendoage. Clarke has an extensive NES collection, but didn’t know much about the company until he began collecting, as much of their stuff never came out in his native Canada—other than the Game Genie, of course.
  For ZX spectrum, Amiga and Commodore 64 fans, collecting Codemasters titles seems to be a popular subject. The July 2017 issue of Retro Gamer Magazine featured a Codemasters collector’s guide, covering rarity, top picks and a few fan interviews.
  Folks seem to love Codemasters games, but perhaps, it’s not for the reasons we think. I love them because they have a certain charm and exceptional music. Others love them for purely nostalgic reasons and some enjoy the novelty factor.
  Per Clarke: “Favorites is the wrong word when you are collecting unlicensed titles. So bad they are good is more like it. I just enjoy finding people who want to pick a cart off the shelf and try something out. Who wouldn’t want to play a game called Bee52 that looks like a Zelda cart?”