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This month in... The One '92

Mike Keith

News

Sad news this month as one of the oldest software houses closed up shop. Palace Software had been going for almost a decade and had been behind some cracking games, including "Barbarian", "Sacred Armour of Antiriad" and "Shoot'em Up Construction Kit". The move came after months of legal wrangling, and the London office became Titus's UK HQ. It was unclear what would happen with titles like "Hostile Breed" (unreleased, but was actually finished and reviewed two issues earlier), and "Super Barbarian" (also unreleased).

Channel 4's hit show Gamesmaster was teaming up with EMAP (publishers of The One) for a new expo at the end of the year. Gamesmaster Live would take place from the 4th to the 6th of December at the Birmingham NEC.

Commodore were hoping to boost poor sales of the CDTV by releasing a series of add ons which would effectively turn the home entertainment multimedia device into a full Amiga computer. The CDTV bundled with the Multimedia Home Computer Pack would be priced at £599.99, which seems expensive, but actually worked out cheaper than buying an Amiga and a CD drive.

There were a handful of games making their way to CD, such as "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade", "CDTV Sports Football" and "Battle Chess".

A fresh faced Vinny Jones awkwardly clasped a joystick in a photo op after Commodore (sponsors of Chelsea) gifted him an Amiga.

Electronic Arts may have shifted their focus to the Megadrive, but they were still supporting the Amiga. The port of "Road Rash" was due to arrive in time for Christmas.

Rumour was Ocean had snapped up the rights to "Jurassic Park". The movie was still a year away, but it was looking like a big 'un.

Features

On this month's cover disks:

Over the past year, relative newcomer Renegade had sealed a reputation as a publisher of quality titles and The One sat down for a chat with head honcho Tom Watson.

Part one of a behind the scenes look at the development of arguably the most anticipated game ever: "Frontier".

This month saw the first instalment of Andrew Braybrook's dev diary for "Uridium 2". First up was the scrolling routine, adapted from the one used in"Fire & Ice".

PD Zone looked at:

Notable Previews

Notable Reviews

  • "Civilisation" Microprose - 81% "Disk swapping has been kept to a minimum but it is still frequent enough to become annoying, which is frustrating when all that is loading is a non-essential animated sequence. The graphics are good in some places, but pretty humdrum in general, the game's font is the ugliest you've ever seen and the soundtrack is not the most inspiring in the world. Given that the actual gameplay is so good, these faults can't really be elevated above the level of minor quibbles and are all easily forgiven."
  • "Hoi" Hollyware - 90% "Inevitably, Hoi will be dismissed by many as simply another arcade romp and there's no doubt that elements seen here have been done better in the likes of Robocod and Harlequin, but for all that, it seems so offer [sic] something just a bit more rounded than either of the other two in my book."
  • "International Sports Challenge" Empire - 88% "On the whole, Sports Challenge is a thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining sports sim. If you're feeling heroic enough to attempt every single event, thus embarking on the Marathon too, then I suspect you'll find it most rewarding."
  • "Crazy Cars III" Titus - 90% "Let's make no bones about it - Crazy Cars and Crazy Cars II were both pitiful. Slow, unresponsive, ugly and generally just godawful all round. Which is why it's all the more surprising to see that the third game, coming from the same producers as the previous two, is so good."
  • "Super Tetris" Microprose - 82% "Nevertheless, Super Tetris is the best official version of the game - although I'm not sure if many people will be prepared to fork out £30 for it when so many comparable PD versions are available at a fraction of the price."
  • "Red Zone" Psygnosis - 87% "Although seriously lacking depth, Red Zone is quite simply the most exciting bike-racing game yet."
  • "Bug Bomber" DMI/Kingsoft - 81% "Like Dynablaster, Bug Bomber is a competent but ultimately repetitive one-player game, with the real fun coming from the participation of your friends for simultaneous action."

Charts

  1. "Sensible Soccer" Sensible Software/Renegade
  2. "Monkey Island 2" Lucasfilm/US Gold
  3. "EPIC" Ocean