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This month in... The One '92

Mike Keith

News

The upcoming Christmas battle for number one looked to be between Konami’s “Batman Returns”, Acclaim’s “Alien 3” and Ocean’s latest movie license signing: “Lethal Weapon 3”.

Commodore continued their run of stupid business decision with the announcement that they were to stop selling the A500 Plus in favour of the new A600.

The ‘92 Barcelona Olympics would soon be starting and Ocean was preparing “Espagna 92” [sic] to take on US Gold’s “Megasports”.

Electronic Arts had found great success with its “Desert Strike” on the Megadrive, and now it was headed to the Amiga.

The home computer rights for “Street Fighter 2” had be snapped up by US Gold, with Creative Materials handling the Amiga port. Would it be up to snuff? (No).

Delphine Software had been working on an adventure based on The Godfather, but it looked like that had been canned in favour of a game called “Moebius” (unclear if that ever saw the light of day).

Could the rumors be true that Lucasfilm were working on a sequel to “Monkey Island 2? The One cautioned readers that even if that were the case it wouldn’t be arriving on the Amiga until late next year... Also news arrived that Lucasfilm had been rebranded as LucasArts. A “wing commander”-esque Star Wars game was in development and would “probably” make its way to the Amiga (it didn’t).

Palace Software were revisiting a couple of classics from their back catalogue with “Super Barbarian" (unreleased?) and “Super Cauldron”.

While not quite on par with the license grabbing efforts of Ocean, Alternative had gotten the rights to Hulk Hogan movie “Suburban Commando”.

The Amiga was getting a conversion of Rare's mega successful "Battletoads".

Evangelsoft was a new software house specialising in what appeared to be Bible related games. First up were "King Solomon's Mines" and an educational title based on the holy land.

Two movie tie ins were heading to the Amiga courtesy of Disney: "The Rocketeer" and "Dick Tracy" (I assume The One were being sarcastic about both of them when they referred to the latter as "equally 'amazing'").

A jam packed release schedule meant Ocean were having to delay the superb "Wizkid" another month.

Features

On the cover disks this month:

An in-depth look at the A570 CD-ROM drive. Were Amiga owners ready for "the bizarre world of Multimedia and Hypergames"?

An interview with Gary Roberts - the first member of Electronic Arts' internal UK dev studio.

The first instalment of a new series called "The Ultimate Challenge" where a reader would take on three of The One's finest in a series of games.

This month's PD Zone covered:

Notable Previews

Notable Reviews

  • "The Lure of the Temptress" Revolution/Virgin - 90% "I feel slightly guilty, but I have to admit that I didn't expect much of this so-called home-grown giant-killer - I foresaw something that, like this month's Hook, had fine intentions but didn't quite cut the mustard. Fortunately, Lure of the Temptress is every bit as professional and polished as anything the Americans and French have been able to offer us recently - if not more so."
  • "TV Sports Baseball" Cinemaware/Mindscape - 88% "Less technical and tortuous than the management-led simulations, more playable and immediate than Domark's RBI 2, TV Sports Baseball is probably the soundest rendition of the sport so far."
  • "The Secret of Monkey Island 2" Lucasfilm/US Gold - 94% "Once again Lucasfilm has come up trumps. Monkey Island 2 is a game that is surely destined for The Computer Games Hall Of Fame, a dazzling triumph of game design laced with humour and drenched in atmosphere."
  • "Ishar: Legend of the Fortress" Silmarils - 87% "Silmarils is to be congratulated on trying something a little different and personally I thought this much better than Eye of the Beholder 2 and those games typical of this genre."
  • "Risky Woods" Electronic Arts - 84% "If you've got a high endurance threshold and reckon yourself as a bit of a master gamer, I'd recommend Risky Woods unreservedly as a long-lasting blast."
  • "Striker" Rage - 80% "Ultimately, Striker's good points just about outweigh the bad, and such [sic] I'd recommend I'd recommend it heartily to everyone fro the Kick Off school of computer football. Its no-nonsense action makes it more accessible than Sensible Soccer, but ultimately less rewarding."
  • "D/Generation" Minscape - 89% "Because it's not too heavy, it's very easy to have fun with, and allows for five-minute throwaway sessions that you simply can't have with other games in the genre, because of their long-winded nature."
  • "Graham Taylor's Soccer Challenge" Krisalis - 89% "Nevertheless, Graham Taylor's authenticity is remarkable, boasting accurate real-life information on all the clubs and players in the league, and the ability to change names so as to keep the game constantly updated."
  • "Championship Manager" Domark - 89% "If there's one thing that strikes you after a few lengthy playing sessions with Championship Manager, it's that it really does FEEL as if seven year's work at the the hands of two avid football fans."
  • "Hook" Ocean - 82% "Hook is a pretty impressive game. Certainly, when you bear in mind that this is the first every [sic] graphic adventure to come out of the Ocean stable, it's an achievement worth applauding."

Charts

  1. "Epic" Ocean
  2. "The Manager" US Gold
  3. "John Madden American Football" Electronic Arts