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This month in... Zzap!64

Mike Keith

News

More staffing changes at the magazine this month. Roger Kean was moving over to a new Newsfield mag called L.M., with Gary Penn stepping in to the Editor role. There were three new faces with Richard "Dick" Eddy, Jonathan Rignall (Julian's younger brother) and Massimo Valducci starting.

Beyond announced the upcoming release of not one but two Denton Design games: "Dante’s Inferno" and "Infodroid".

Meanwhile, Beyond had managed to secure the first ever Star Trek license. Mike Singleton would be heading up the project, with two of Denton Designs's founders (Kenny Everett and Steve Cain) helping out with the programming.

Robtek were to release their first game - well, 50 games - in a 50 game compilation on cartridge called "King Size 50 Games in One Pack".

Compunet's Tim & Stoat, who had created the famous Thrust Concert demo, were working on "WAR", a "Uridium"-esque game with Rob Hubbard music.

"Druid" from Firebird would be a "Gauntlet" style game.

Ariolasot's "Swag" would see the player take the role of a robber planning and executing heists. They also announced "Deactivators".

Mikro-Gen's well received Amstrad game "Equinox" was making its way to the C64. The software house was also working on "Frostbite".

The first screen shot of Stavros Fasoulas' "Sanxion" appeared and was the eagerly awaited debut title for Newsfield spin off Thalamus.

Andrew Braybrook revealed that his next game would be a super fast vertically scrolling racing game: "Alleykat".

Domark snapped up the home computer rights to "Trivial Pursuit".

Features

Gary Penn looked at a whopping fourteen new games by American software houses that were making their way to the UK via US Gold. The list included five titles from Epyx, and four arcade conversions.

The conclusion of Jeff Minter's developer diary saw him putting the final touches on "Iridis Alpha". These included "Phase II" (a vertical scrolling section), high score table (the names being other Compunet folk), title screen and final debugging. Once it was all wrapped up he was off to Corfu for a break.

A rather odd interview with Chris Butler, who had programmed a number of big games for Elite. He was really quite arrogant and talked down other programmers, while openly saying he was just in it for the money.

ZzapBack this month covered:

Notable Previews

Notable Reviews

  • "Arac" Addictive Games - 93% Sizzler "A neat arcade adventure with many unusual touches."
  • "Ghosts ’n’ Goblins" Elite - 97% Gold Medal "After playing the arcade game at the local fair I've been waiting for this with baited nostrils. When it finally arrived I was amazed, it's absolute perfection! In fact, if it was a female I'd ask it back to my place!"
  • "Trap" Alligata - 82% "A good shoot em up with many attractive features."
  • "Mission Elevator" Micropool - 84% "A great Elevator Action orientated arcade adventure."
  • "Knight Games" English Software - 90% Sizzler "Plenty of variety, clanking and bashing - don't miss it!"
  • "Mercenary: The Second City" Novagen - 95% Sizzler "Magnificent! Using all the original aspects of Mercenary Paul Woakes has come up with one of the most devious and addictive programs I've played in a long time."
  • "Warhawk" Firebird - 80% "One of the better shoot em ups on the 64 - one of the cheapest, too."
  • "Graphic Adventure Creator" Incentive - Gold Medal (no score) "GAC sells at a price that can hardly be called cheap [£23.95]. However, all things are relative. When you compare this to the competition both in terms of price and performance, it comes out way top."
  • "The Boggit" Delta4/CRL - 80% "It's a great game and even if Delta 4's development system had cost them a thousand times less than Ocean's, their game ends up being better value at only a couple of pounds cheaper." (The first review in the adventure section was Ocean's "Hunchback" which got 60%)
  • "Jewels of Darkness" Level 9/Rainbird - 92% Sizzler "This is the best bargain currently available for adventurers, and unless you can't bear the thought of going underground you just have to get out into the shops and spend your £14.95. Nuff said."
  • "Split Personalities" Domark - 93% Sizzler "Quite simply one of the best arcade puzzles on the Commodore."
  • "Mission AD" Firebird - 80% "Overpriced [£9.95] for what it offers... but if the thought of terminating criminals appeals then you may well find it compelling."
  • "Hercules" Alpha/Omega - 92% "Believe it or not Hercules is a great game. The action is fast and furious - in fact I don't think there's a more frenetic and addictive platform game available. It looks abysmal and the sound is even worse. But the game itself is brilliant."

Charts

Games

  1. "Uridium" Andrew Braybrook/Hewson
  2. "Mercenary" Novagen
  3. "International Karate" Archer Maclean/System 3