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This month in... The One '92

Mike Keith

News

Psygnosis announced "Lemmings 2: The Tribes". This took a slightly different twist on the original, with the goal being to re-unite twelve tribes of Lemmings, each tribe having a different theme complete with their own abilities.

An update to Sensi Software's smash hit "Sensible Soccer" had arrived and boasted a bevy of new and improved features, including red & yellow cards, the back pass rule and more competent goalies.

Interplay opened up an office in London and had plans to handle the publishing of their games in the US themselves, rather than going through EA.

The One heard a rumour that Team 17 had signed another - possibly well known - Swedish developer, though they decided to keep shtum for the time being. Another source leaked that a sequel to "Project X" was in the works.

With Lennox Lewis getting closer to the World Heavyweight crown, could we expect to see a boxing game with his name attached?

Doubts were cast over whether EA was going to have "Desert Strike" on shelves in time for Christmas.

Relief for adventure fans with both Sierra and Lucasfilm announcing continued support for the Amiga. The former was opening a UK office to handle the ports.

Ocean snapped up two new licenses: Spielberg's upcoming dinosaur flick, "Jurassic Park" and comics character "Lobo" (I'm unsure what, if anything, the latter emerged as).

Word on the street was that The Shamen might be providing the music for Andrew Braybrook's "Uridium 2" (I'm pretty sure there was no such involvement).

The Sales Curve decided to scrap their game based on shoddy movie "The Lawnmower Man" in order to... focus on "The Lawnmower Man II" (unreleased?).

Virgin was to donate 25p from every sale of "Archer Maclean's Pool" to charity.

Hornby Hobbies were getting into the gaming peripheral business with the Turbo Touch 360 controller. It looked somewhat like a Megadrive controller with three buttons, the big difference being a fixed, flat touch sensitive dpad to supposedly enable faster response times.

The latest Silica software pack included with any new Amiga featured "Zool", "Pinball Dreams", "Striker" and "Transwrite".

Features

On this month's two cover disks were five big demos:

A detailed rundown of what people could expect from the upcoming Gamesmaster Live show.

Team 17 had turned their sights on cutesy platformers and The One chatted to Martyn Brown about "Superfrog".

"Star Trek: The 25th Anniversary" had gone down a treat on the PC and Gary Whitta popped over to Interplay's California HQ to get the lowdown on the Amiga port.

Arc Developments discussed "WWF European Rampage" and their high hopes that they'd be able to deliver a decent wrestling game.

An interview with the late, great Amiga musician, Richard Joseph.

After months of speculation, the Amiga 1200 was revealed and The One took a deep dive on the tech specs. There were some positive reactions from industry folk and Commodore were promising 15-20 titles by Christmas. Would it be enough the save the Amiga?

This month's PD Zone featured:

The fifth instalment of the "Uridium 2" dev diary saw Andrew Braybrook wrestling with the memory layout, adding new attack waves and trying to decide whether to switch to a dual playfield display. There was also some drama at the office when main artist Phillip resigned.

Notable Previews

Notable Reviews

  • "Legends of Valour" DCD/US Gold - 92% "Visually Legends is nothing short of breathtaking - the player has total freedom to go where ever he or she pleases. Until you've seen the 3D in action it's hard for words to explain just how exhilarating the experience can be."
  • "No Second Prize" Thalion - 91% "The more I play it, the more difficult it is for me to find any real faults with No Second Prize - it is, quite simply, a brilliant racing game, and one which can holds [sic] its head up high alongside classics like Lotus, Formula One Grand Prix and Indianapolis 500."
  • "McDonalds Land" Arc Dev/Virgin - 90% "Platforms, platforms, platforms! That's all we're getting these days but - hey! - who cares when they're as good as this?"
  • "Campaign" Jonathan Griffiths/Empire - 81% "At the end of the day Campaign deserves praise simply for getting the tricky action/strategy recipe just right, with neither side suffering at the expense of the other."
  • "B.C. Kid" Factor 5/Hudson/Ubisoft - 83% "It seems as if every stage of every level has a new challenge to face, or a secret bonus room to find, or a bizarre new fight."
  • "Bill's Tomato Game" Psygnosis - 82% "I wasn't expecting much from Bill's Tomato Game so it is with some surprise and a great deal of pleasure I can report that, although it doesn't rank as one of the best puzzle games ever, it is still a fine, fine game."
  • "Reach for the Skies" Rowan Software/Virgin - 81% "If you're interested in flight simulations, and as long as you remember that this is a WW2 sim and there's no modern weapons or aids, then you should find plenty to be pleased with (but try Knights first, though)."

Charts

  1. "Zool" Gremlin
  2. "Lotus III" Gremlin
  3. "Assassin" Team 17