This month in... The One '93

News

I'm guessing this was an April Fools joke, but the lead news story concerned PC game "X-Wing" appearing "on" the Amiga... as in, it was a photo of an "X-Wing" box sitting on an Amiga...

Mindscape revealed that their upcoming Gameboy platformer "Alfred Chicken" would be getting an Amiga release.

Ocean reckoned that the somewhat crowded car racer genre was in need of something with a bit more realism. "Hot Hatches" (working title) promised cars that would match the performance characteristics of their real life counterparts. (unreleased?)

"Firehawk" from Codemasters looked to be a top down "Desert Strike"-esque helicopter shooter.

Psygnosis had signed a couple new big film licenses, but weren't quite ready to say what they were.

"Lionheart 2" was to be "the biggest arcade game on the Amiga ever".. well, at least according to Thalion. They said it was "definitely" happening and would be for the A1200 only. It was never released.

The team behind "Sabre Team" were working on a time travelling themed action game which would include their familiar strategy elements.

Mindscape were getting into the budget business with Mindscape Classics. First titles to get a re-release included "Moonstone", "Knightmare" and "Legend".

Computer retailer Silica Shop obviously had trouble shifting A570 CD-ROM drives: they slashed the price to £249 and were chucking in a £50 voucher for CD software.

Interplay were finishing up "Star Trek: The 25th Anniversary" and were apparently planning eight followup games...!

The One regretfully informed readers that their previously announced previews of the "Jurassic Park" movie and tie-in game would have to wait another month.

Konami managed to snag the game rights for the "Batman Returns" movie and the animated TV series (unreleased?).

Features

On this month's two cover disks:

• "F.A. Premier League Football" Ocean (demo, unreleased)
• "Pacman Deluxe" (PD)
• "Transplant" (PD)
• "Abandoned Places 2" ICE (demo)
• "Beavers" Grandslam

It had been a relatively quiet month for The Blitter, but he did mention the toilet queue jumping antics of Ocean's sales director, the discovered childhood poem of PC Review's editor sent in to Bunty, more rumours about a Commodore CD based console, and the failed attempt at a house warming party by the deputy editor of C&VG.

An interview with Codemasters co-founder, David Darling.

PD Zone included:

• "Ack-Ack" 53%
• "Pop Quiz" 70%
• "Numerix" 88%
• "Nirvana" 48%
• "Extreme Violence" 58%

This month saw the ninth and final instalment of Andrew Braybrook's "Uridium 2" dev diary. Andrew continued to wrestle with peculiarities of the new A4000's compatibility, implemented the whole "victory points" system, finally got the mapper working and put together more video captures for a potential big name music person/band. The entry drew to an end with Graftgold moving into a new office (they had previously had to deal with being 12 people in 3 small rooms), and a plea for people to buy the game rather than pirate it.

Notable Previews

One of my favourite features of The One was their Work In Progress section. Rather than just the usual superficial glancing game previews you'd get in other mags, you'd get indepth multi-page interviews with the developers. Well, that seems to have (largely) ended with this issue...

• "Batman Returns" Konami
• "Cyberspace" ODE/Empire (unreleased)
• "James Pond 3" Millennium
• "Diggers" Millennium
• "Flag" Millennium (unreleased)
• "Beastball" Millennium (unreleased)
• "Dino-Worlds" Millennium (unreleased?)
• "Dong" The Hidden/Global Software (unreleased)
• "The Lost Vikings" Interplay
• "Monopoly" Supervision
• "The Ancient Art of War in the Skies" Microprose
• "Beavers" Microids
• "Supersports Challenge" Microids (unreleased?)

Notable Reviews

• "Superfrog" Team 17 - 93% "Glumph! That's my reaction to Superfrog. I'm completely and utterly gobsmacked! With Team 17's impeccable track record I was expecting Superfrog to be well above par but it's far more than that - it's breathtakingly good."
• "Arabian Nights" Krisalis - 90% "Can someone please release a bad game so I can have a go at it instead of using my superlative vocabulary up in on go? Still, if I have to give praise then I'm not afraid to do so and there's no doubt that Arabian Nights deserves it by the bucketload."
• "Chuck Rock 2: Son of Chuck" Core Design - 86% "I found myself progressing fairly far into the game after only a few goes and a few more levels definitely wouldn't have gone amiss. That said, though, Chuck Rock 2 is very playable and a welcome addition to the platform genre."
• "Combat Air Patrol" Psygnosis - 89% "If the plane was any more pleasurable to fly the Government would no doubt tax it. This accessibility is mainly due to the speed of the game and the responsiveness of the controls, which puts most recent sims to shame."
• "Desert Strike" Electronic Arts - 93% "Unlike Road Rash, Desert Strike is actually better than the console version it's derived from, proving that the Amiga can successfully handle anything the platform-machines throw at it."

Charts

No charts in this issue.

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

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:

• "Parasol Stars" Graftgold/Ocean
• This month's winning entries for the "Microprose Golf" and "Jimmy White's Snooker"shots competitions.

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

• "Fire & Ice" Graftgold/Renegade
• "Sensible Soccer" Sensible Software/Renegade
• "Monkey Island 2: Le Chuck's Revenge" Lucasfilm
• "Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis" Lucasfilm

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."

Confidential Magazine #4 April/May 1989

This issue came hot on the heels of British Telecom's decision to bail out of the games industry. They were looking to sell off the Rainbird, Firebird and Silverbird labels as one lot, while winding Telecomsoft down. The official reason given was that games were no longer in line with the goals of BT, and the asking price was rumoured to be around £5 million. The editorial questioned the motives, highlighting a series of recent misteps resulting in significant financial losses, which included the purchase of Beyond Software (closed down soon after due to poor performance), and the US based Firebird Licensees Inc which lasted less than a year.

Contents:

• A look at the state of computer chess games and whether they were worthy opponents.
• Mini (tongue in cheek) profiles of the Confidential team.
• A visit to French game studio Lankhor.
• A space trading game face off: Elite vs Federation of Free Traders. Conclusion? FOFT had a long way to go...
• Keith Campbell delved into the adventure game development process.
• An introduction to Play By Mail gaming.
• Diverging somewhat from the adventure theme, Jeff Minter was interviewed.
• The results of the Golden Chalice Awards for 1989, which was held by the Adventurer's Club.
• A look at free BBS MUD game "MirrorWorld".
• A guide to mapping adventure games.
• A visit to "The Spirit of Adventure" LARP group.
• Michael Bywater lamented on the prospect that adventure games had now entered an evolutionary period with no revolutions anywhere on the horizon.

This month in... Zzap!64 '87

News

A couple of new arrivals at Zzap! this month, with Steve Jarratt swapping industrial chemistry for games journalism and Philipa Irving who, er, swapped Crash for its Newsfield sibling.

Ariolasoft’s Starlight label had three games on the way. "Dogfight 2187" promised 3D wireframe shoot ‘em up action with a vertically split screen giving two views of the action. The other two games were "Deathscape" and "Greyfell”. Meanwhile Tony Crowther had teamed up with Keith Blake and Ross Goodley to develop ”Challenge of the Gobots” based on the popular kids cartoon, which would be published by Ariolasoft.

There was to be more martial arts action from Gremlin in the form of "The Samurai Trilogy”.

Mastertronic had set their sights on the arcade industry and launched a subsidiary company called Arcadia Systems Inc. From the sound of it they intended to create new titles rather than try to “up port” Mastertronic games, which was probably a wise decision.

There were no less than seven titles being developed by Pirahna: "Trapdoor II”, "Rogue Trooper”, "Judge Death” (unreleased),”Roy of the Rovers” (looks like Gremlin ended up getting the license), "Yogi Bear”, "PI”(working title of a detective adventure from Delta4) and "Battle" (which, yes, was a game about a battle - I have no idea if it was ever released).

The “bizarre” publication "OINK!" was getting its own game from CRL. The software house also insisted the much delayed "Cyborg" was imminent… for reals this time.

Steve Turner’s Gauntlet-esque (but starring a frog) "Ranarama" was making its way to the C64.

Fans of Monty Mole could look forward to a new instalment in the series: "Auf Wiedersehen Monty”.

Jon Ritman’s highly acclaimed isometric adventure "Head Over Heels" was getting a C64 port. Ocean had also snapped up the license for "Top Gun”.

Features

Part two of Andrew Braybrook’s game dev diary saw him and Steve Turner setting up their new Opus (MSDOS) machines for cross development. He also detailed the software hack he had found which would make the C64 CPU run at 2Mhz (double speed). Oh, and he stumbled across the title for his new game in a dictionary: ("Morpehus”).

Notable Reviews

• "Gunship" Microprose - 94% (Disc) Sizzler/72% Cassette “Gunship represents the state of the art in flight and combat simulators. It is highly impressive in both documentation and programming.“ The conclusion for the Cassette version was: “A superlative flight/combat simulation ruined by a painful multi-load system.”
• "Zone Ranger" Firebird - 80% “For something that’s nothing more than an old variation on the Asteroids theme, Zone Ranger has stood the test of time.“
• "Firetrack" Electric Dreams - 88% “Fast, frenetic and extremely playable - easily the best vertically scrolling shoot ‘em up to date.”
• "Void Runner" Jeff Minter/Mastertronic - 85% “The most notable thing about Void Runner, is that its intrinsic simplicity is reminiscent of Jeff Minter of old - good solid, fast and furious blasting.”
• "Arkanoid" Imagine - 80% “A well above average conversion of an addictive and challenging arcade game.“
• "Murder Off Miami" Fergus McNeil/CRL - 81% “As a Quillustrated program it also has some really attractive pictures as well and just goes to show (as Fergus McNeil has shown several times already) how much good you can do with that worthy utility.“
• "Aliens" Electric Dreams - 81% “The best film tie-in to date, and a good game to boot.“

Charts

Games

• "World Games" Epyx/US Gold
• "Leader Board" Access/US Gold
• "Green Beret" Ocean

Music

• "Sanxion" Thalamus - Rob Hubbard - Loading Music
• "Miami Vice" Ocea - Martin Galway - Title Screen Music
• "Lightforce" FTL - Rob Hubbard - Main Theme