News

Commodore announced they were closing their Corby factory and ceasing the manufacture of the 64 in Britain. Was this a sign of bigger troubles? The price of the C64 remained higher than that of competitors, and rather than address this, Commodore had introduced the C16 - but what did this actually solve?

English Software were finally about to release "Elektra Glide" on the C64 - some months after the original Atari version.

Ocean had several games hitting the shelves: "Superbowl", "V", "Knight Rider", "Comic Bakery" and " Daley’s Supertest".

The 1985 Newsfield awards were presented at the InDin event:

• Best arcade game: "Paradroid" Hewson
• Best adventure: "Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy" Infocom
• Best strategy game: "Theatre Europe" PSS
• Best sports simulation: "Winter Games" Epyx/US Gold
• Best music: "Monty on the Run" Rob Hubbard/Gremlin
• Best alternative software: "Little Computer People" Activision
• Most underrated game: "Pastfinder" Activision
• Best advertisement: "Nodes of Yesod" and "Robin of the Wood" Odin

US Gold struck a deal with Ultimate to distribute their games and port them to other computers.

Realtime were working on a game based on Greek myth called "Argonautica".

Zzapback this month featured the top games in issue 1:

• "Airwolf" Elite
• "Bounty Bob Strikes Back" US Gold
• "Cauldron" Palace
• "Elite" Firebird
• "Lords of Midnight" Beyond
• "Pastfinder" Activision
• "Shadowfire" Beyond
• "Spy Hunter" US Gold
• "Super Huey" US Gold
• "Tir Na Nog" Gargoyle Games

Features

Part two of the Lucasfilm interviews. This month featured Noah Falstein (project leader on "Koronis Rift" ) and Dave Levine (project leader for "Ballblazer" ).

An interview with Andrew Braybrook.

A visit to Greve Graphics in Sweden who were working on "Soldier One".

Notable Reviews

• "Mercenary" Novagen - 98% Gold Medal "Seldom has a game kept everyone at ZZAP! glued to a monitor for so long, but Mercenary deserves every second devoted to it. The game has incredible depth, and even if it is solved it is always possible to return to Targ and escape with even more credits and better equipment (remember the saved data disk tape)."
• "Arc of Yesod" Thor - 91% Sizzler "An improved version of Nodes can only be an example of an excellent arcade adventure."
• "Hardball" Accolade - 93% Sizzler "A truly realistic sports simulation which sets new standards."
• "One Man and his Droid" Mastertronic - 81% "Generally very good, but probably has highest appeal for those who enjoy making maps."
• "Borrowed Time" Activision - 90% Sizzler "All I can say is that from the moment you start the game, and are flung headlong into a gun battle with two of the local heavies, you're hooked."
• "Phantasie" SSI - 87% "Otherwise excellent game marred somewhat by careless combat implementation."
• "Germany 1985" SSI - 97% Sizzler "Amongst the best ever SSI releases."
• "Uridium" Andrew Braybrook/Hewson - 94% Sizzler "Visually awesome, sonically sound, technically stunning and a brilliant shoot em up to boot."

• Charts

  Games

• "Paradroid" Andrew Braybrook/Hewson
• "Winter Games" Epyx/US Gold
• "Summer Games II" Epyx/US Gold