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This month in... The One for Amiga '92

Mike Keith

News

It seemed this would be the final issue for the whole editorial crew as they were being replaced by the folk from "ex-sister magazine ACE". Such a drastic move must've been a bitter pill to swallow, but it did mean the return of Gary Whitta.

TV companies had begun to take an interest in video games, with Channel 4's "Gamesmaster" clocking in at around 3 million viewers during its first season. While there had been no official confirmation, it looked likely to return. Yorkshire Television were producing a show with Andy Crane that was "more Tomorrow's World than Gamesmaster", and the BBC's "100 Per Cent" and ITV's "Video View" were apparently adding gaming content.

New software house Mirage had the bold ambition to be "like Sierra and Microprose put together... only 10 times better." The man at the helm was Peter Jones, who had been "the force behind" the "Midwinter" series and "the more recent Sierra hits". Hard not to raise an eyebrow over those claims.

In a somewhat out of character move, Thalamus - publisher of many solid shoot 'em ups - had struck a deal with Arsenal to develop "Arsenal F.C. The Computer Game". The game was never released. They also announced the formation of their fan club, offering members new product info and a newsletter.

Empire released "Winners", a compilation featuring "Space Ace", "Populous", "Kick Off 2"and "Pipemania".

"Deliverance" from 21st Century Entertainment - sequel to the well received "Stormlord" - was to hit the shelves next month.

The European Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA) had declared April 13th National Play a Game Day. Details were scant, but proceeds would go to an as yet unnamed charity.

In what seemed like quite a coup, Mindscape had managed to get the home computer rights to Mario from Nintendo... except the titles would be edutainment, the first of which being "Mario Is Missing" (not released on the Amiga).

The "long running" series of 16-bit Computer Shows would return on July 10th through to the 12th. The previous one boasted 32,000 visitors.

One of the magazine's own, Jools Watsham, was behind a new platformer called "Impossible World" that promised to be "the home computer's answer to Sonic and Mario... only much, much better!". While they were aiming for a Christmas release, it doesn't seem like it was ever finished.

Following last month's rather scathing review of "Tip Off", The One published an apology for stating it was as bug ridden as Anco's previous game"Kick Off" (which wasn't buggy). Furthermore, Dino Dini wanted it made clear that he had nothing to do with the basketball game.

Flight sim fans could look forward to two more from Microprose: "B17 Flying Fortress" and "A.T.A.C." (the latter was not released).

Renegade were packaging up all of the Bitmap Brothers's games into two compilations. Volume one would feature "Xenon", "Cadaver" and "Speedball 2", followed by volume two with "Speedball", "Xenon 2" and "Gods".

The Kidz Mouse from Logitech was scaled down to better fit the hands of children.

After Robert Maxwell took a fall off his yacht, Graftgold's slick platformer "Fire & Ice" had been without a publisher, but Renegade stepped in and signed it for a May release.

Developer Nirvana were working on two new titles: "Disaster Strikes" and "The Edge". Doesn't look like either were completed.

Features

On this month's cover disk:

The developer's profile this month were legend Mike Singleton ("Lords of Midnight", "Midwinter" etc), and System 3 director Adrian Cale.

The One paid a visit to Angel Studios who had just finished up work on the CG FX for "The Lawnmower Man". They weren't too happy with the amount of time and effort they sunk into it and were hoping that an experimental internal project called the Solopod would prove successful. The Solopod seems to have been a hydraulic chair for use with VR headsets.

Not a whole lot of interest in this month's demos section, aside from Razor 1911's "Voyage". Addware were hoping to take Europe by storm with their range of free games offering prizes for gamers who completed them - the first of which was the bizarre "Airmania", which looked like a Pi-Man tribute

Notable Previews

Notable Reviews

  • "Parasol Stars" Graftgold/Ocean - 82% "Parasol Stars is a good game, there's no doubt about that, but it's nothing new, nothing fancy - in short, there are not enough differences between the original game and this one to start making a fuss about."
  • "Space Crusade" Gremlin - 89% "The big advantage that Space Crusade has over Hero Quest is the use of teams instead of individuals for each player. This gives you a lot more to do and helps you feel a lot more involved with the action."
  • "Titus the Fox" Titus - 87% "The fact that almost every object can be used is [sic] so many different ways, the sheer variety of transportation available to the cunning little fox and just the intelligent layout of each level makes the whole thing a joy to play."
  • "Myth" System 3 - 93% "Even though it's been a long time in development, it's been worth the wait. Myth looks like a standard platform game at first glance, but as you play through the levels you realise there's a lot more to it."
  • "Vroom" Lankhor - 89% "The first thing that will strike you about Vroom is the speed - it feels great when you zoom away from a crash and go through the gears at high speed."
  • "Pinball Dreams" 21st Century Entertainment - 89% "It's classy, professional and beautifully presented. From the superb musical scores that play throughout the game to the sheer speed with which everything moves, it's just such a slick piece of programming."