This month in... The One '93

News

A year after announcing they were leaving the Amiga behind, news arrived that Sierra On-Line were bringing "King's Quest VI" to our beloved machine. The conversion was being handled by Charles Cecil's Revolution which had created a hybrid of its "Virtual Theatre" system for the job to ensure the game felt at home on the system, rather than some shoddy PC port.

Krisalis spawned a new sub-label, Buzz, as home for its back catalogue.

Footie club Chelsea slightly tweaked their shirts this season with an Amiga logo replacing the Commodore. The One phoned their marketing department for more info and apparently confused the person on the other end of the line who hadn't heard of Amiga.

Kiwi developer Acid Software house were working on top down off road racer"Skidmarks". Meanwhile, fellow NZ devs Vision Software (who shared the same business address as Acid...) announced "Seek & Destroy".

Alternative Software had signed some new licenses, the first two being the rather odd choices of "Hulk Hogan's Suburban Commando" and "'Allo 'Allo Cartoon Fun". They also had a few more budget titles on the way.

Music and film merch company Outer Limits were expanding to games with a new line of 13 tshirts featuring the likes of "Street Fighter II", "Lemmings" and "Zool".

In a somewhat surprising move, Spectrum Holobyte swallowed up Microprose in a $10 million deal. Despite the latter's large catalogue, it appeared they didn't have a whole lot of cash in the bank. While the UK office was to be unaffected, long standing Microprose chairman "Wild Bill" Stealey stood down.

Computer retailer Silica had an offer for an A600 pack which included a 20mb hard drive, three games and a software bundle for £299.

The One were unsure what to think following them taking the award for "Most Improved Publication" at EMAP's own awards ceremony.

"Flight of the Amazon Queen" was to be the first title from Renegade's new signing, aussies Binary Design. Renegade were also throwing their hat into what seemed to be an increasingly crowded ring of software houses creating phone in/interactive TV versions of games by doing a deal with Triton.

Unsurprisingly Domark weren't impressed with Team 17's use of "F1" in their upcoming racer's title ("F1 Challenge"), which was now being renamed.

In a move that caused a little concern in the Amiga community, UK retailer John Menzies had decided to drop Amiga hardware.

Psygnosis had a summer special on with a slew of their games dropping to 15 quid.

In a sign that games were gaining greater acceptance, ITV's "Movies, Movies, Movies" show was changing to be "Movies, Games, and Videos".

"Blues Brothers Juke Box Adventure" was to be the sequel to last year's hit game. Titus promised something "similar to the original, but a lot better". Alrighty then. Unreleased.

It didn't come as much of a surprise that US Gold's home computer port of "Street Fighter II" had sold like gang busters, racking up an impressive 125,000 sales throughout Europe (unclear whether that figure was just for the Amiga version).

Features

On this month's two cover disks:

• "Trex Warrior" Thalion
• "Ishar 2" Silmarils (demo)
• "Wibble World Giddy" Public Domain
• "Snakes" Shareware

The long rumoured CD32 was finally revealed! The One took a look at the specs and talked to a few industry folk for their reactions. The overall sentiment was very positive: a more powerful bit of kit than the MegaCD and at a lower price (£299)... but of course the big question was: would software houses be jumping in to support it?

A review roundup of games based on Arnie films, with "Red Heat" narrowly winning with a passable 7/10.

The games getting the Work In Progress treatment this month were:

• "Beneath a Steel Sky" Revolution Software/Virgin
• "TFX" Digital Image Design/Ocean
• "Total Carnage" Ice
• "Utopia 2" Gremlin Graphics (unreleased?)
• "Brutal Sports Football" Teque/Millennium

A "Where are you?" article where The One hunted down two games that were meant to have been finished ages ago: "Uridium 2" and "Darkmere". In the case of the former, the constantly changing background graphics were to blame, while with "Darkmere" it seemed the original team had been a tad over optimistic about what they could do with the Amiga and had been taken off the project.

The third instalment of the "Alien Breed 2" dev diary saw Rico working on the 32-colour graphics, Andreas wrap up the budget release of "Project-X", Allister visit the zoo with a DAT recorder to sample some animals and Martyn try to lower peoples expectations of the A1200 version.

Games reviewed in the PD Zone:

• "Paradox" 81%
• "Amos Loadsamoney" 81%
• "Dithell's Wonderland" 79%
• "Catacombs" 67%
• "Fruit Panic" 70%
• "Dragon Cave" 70%
• "Escape 2" 80%
• "Relayer" 81%
• "Take 'Em Out" 79%
• "Serious Solitaire 1+2" 80%

Notable Previews

• "Diggers" Millenium
• "Tensai" Grandslam (unreleased)
• "Mean Arenas" Ice
• "Hired Guns" DMA Design/Psygnosis

Notable Reviews

• "Deep Core" Dynafield Systems/ICE - 81% "But for a game which isn't mind-blowingly original it just seems to hang together admirably and provides a pretty tough experience which most arcade fans will lap up."
• "Universal Warrior" Zeppelin Platinum - 80% "This is lovely and simple and the perfect sort of thing to put on the budget market. It's perfect for a quick five minute romp but stands up well if you want to spend time building yourself a wonder-droid."
• "Galactic Warrior Rats" Mikev Designs/Alternative - 80% "Although Universal Warrior and Galactic Warrior Rats obviously look and sound different, in terms of gameplay there's not a lot to choose between them. If I had to pick one as the superior game then I'd have to say that Rats has the slight advantage, simply because it looks and sounds a lot nicer."
• "Beastlord" WJS Design/Grandslam - 80% "Don't expect anything original to appear on your screen when you load this up, but I suppose that we haven't had a decent game of this type for a while so you may find it fills a gap."
• "Campaign: From North Africa to Northern Europe" Jonathan Griffiths/Empire - 80% "Overall I think that this is an excellent add-on if you already love the game and will keep you amused for quite some time - and in all honesty I can't think what else you could do to enhance this type of game other than give more variety to the player."
• "Battle Isle '93" Blue Byte - 89% "However, don't play this if you have no patience, because each game is going to need your full attention for a fair amount of time and there is no facility to save the game halfway through - a major grumble with a game that can take so long to complete at higher levels."

Charts

1. "Gunship 2000" Microprose
2. "Championship Manager '93" Domark
3. "Flashback" US Gold

This month in... The One '92

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:

• "Troddlers" demo
• "California Games 2" demo
• Two new missions for Ocean's "EPIC"
• "Wizzy's Quest"
• "Duel"
• "Match Patch"

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:

• "War"
• "Super Pacman 92"
• "Fatal Mission" and "That Tennis Thing"
• "Battlecars 2"
• "Legend of Lothian"
• "Magnatron"
• "PlaySID"

Notable Previews

• "Nigel Mansell's World Championship" Gremlin
• "Curse of Enchantia" Core
• "Walker" DMA Design/Psygnosis
• "Campaign" Empire
• "M" SSI/US Gold
• "Dark Sun: Shattered Lands" SSI/US Gold (unreleased)
• "Arsenal FC - The Computer Game" Thalamus (unreleased)
• "Beastmaster" Thalamus (unreleased)
• "Battletoads" Rare/Mindscape

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

Confidential Magazine #6 August/September 1989

This month's mag included:

• A rather depressing Editorial which opened with "Boom-time for the computer games world is over, at least for the next few years." The Japanese consoles were wiping the floor with computers - the 8bits were barely hanging on, the ST not far behind them. There looked to be some life left in the Amiga, but it was the IBM PC that stood the best chance of lasting. Perhaps the grimmest thing about this was the high entry bar for console development - what would happen to all the small UK devs?
• In other not so happy news, the once great Infocom had been assimilated into Mediagenic (prev Activision). The office was moved to the West Coast, but it seemed no designers or developers relocated with it. Steve Meretzky and Dave Lebling were among the most recent to quit.
• An interview Level 9's Pete Austin about their upcoming Scapeghost. He was rather coy about their plans beyond this one, but now that we have the benefit of hindsight and know that it in fact would be their last, it did seem like they saw the writing on the wall.
• A look at "Ranch Wars" which was a Play By Mail game except it wasn't - it was an "on-going graphic adventure that comes through the post" and was a "strange amalgam of interactive fiction, graphical war-gaming and strategy all mixed together".
• The Encyclopedia Frobbozzica - an indepth reference of all things Zork.
• An interview with Joe Dever, author of the Lone Wolf books.
• A look at Role Playing Play By Mail game "Calvana".
• Was the icon driven Infogrames "Kult" the future of adventure games?
• Sandra Sharkey presented some general musings on writing adventures.
• Confidential went on a bit of LARPing with "Mythlore".
• A short story by Ian Urquhart.

This month in... Zzap!64

News

Gary Penn bid farewell as he strode off "on a secret mission". Ciaran Brennan was to take the reins, with Julian Rignall as his assistant. Phillipa Irving's war game section took a break as she was busy with exams. There was also a small change to the review format, with the "Value" rating being dropped.

Arnie's latest film "Predator" had grossed $12 million at the box office in its first 3 days and Activision had signed the license.

Richard Branson's Atlantic balloon race had been all over the news, and Virgin were releasing a game to mark the occasion.

There hadn't been a whole lot of goodies for C128 owners, but CRL were to release a special 128 version of their upcoming"Stratton" which would feature more locations and an animated intro.

Zzap's sister mag Crash featured a 16 page pull out "Oink!" special.

The Commodore Show took place last month at the Novotel in London, and it was a little disappointing for C64 fans. The only C64s on display were by dealers selling them off cheap. The star of the show was of course the Amiga, though software was still lacking.

Graeme Kidd was busy beavering away on a new publication from Newsfield: The Games Machine. Everything from 8bit to 16bit to consoles, arcades and more would be covered.

"Quedex" would see programmer Stavros Fasoulas taking a break from shoot 'em ups, with more of a puzzler - though quick reactions would still be required.

The next release from Software Projects was to be "Star Paws". I remember back in the day I got it into my head that Matthew Smith was involved with this, but I have no idea what gave me that idea.

Fans of "Bounder" from Gremlin Graphics could look forward to a whole lot more bouncing action in "Rebounder".

Spanish developers Dynamic were following up their rather flawed "Army Moves" with a "Game Over". Zzap! wryly stated that it was looking even more frustrating, which was a fair comment given it was only really notable for the scandalous cover/ad art (and a pretty good Galway tune).

James Clavell's novel "Tai-Pan" was being turned into a game by Ocean.

John Cumming was working on Hewson's latest shooter: "Zynaps".

Features

This month's "Morpheus" dev diary saw Andrew wrestling with drones, remotes, and intermittent bugs. He was also rather peeved that an unnamed person on Compunet had used "Uridium" sprites in the C64 conversion of a (also unnamed) Spectrum game.

Episode 8 of Mel Croucher's "Tamara Knight".

Zzap paid a visit to Pinewood Studios to have a chat with John Richardson, the special effects wiz behind the upcoming Bond movie, "The Living Daylights".

The results of the Zzap! questionnaire were in... 99.5% of responders were male, the average age of whom was 16 (30 for females), 73% went to school, 69% spent £2-5 a week on games, and only 15% were planning to buy a new computer in the run up to Christmas.

Notable Reviews

• "Head Over Heels" Ocean - 98% Gold Medal "From the very first go this had me hooked... and a fortnight later I'm still itching to get back to it. Head Over Heels is quite simply the finest 64 program so far this year." (this was the first Gold Medal of the year!)
• "Thing Bounces Back" Gremlin Graphics - 86% "An unusual and challenging arcade adventure which is a worth sequel to Thing on a Spring."
• "Oink!" CRL - 84% "Possibly disappointing for fans of the comic, but still a piggin' good game."
• "Treasure Island" Mastertronic - 84% "It's very heartening to see a budget game using an original programming idea for an adventure rather another GAC or Quill release - well done to the programmers Phase Two Software, whoever they may be."
• "Lurking Horror" Infocom/Activision - 90% Sizzler "All of this is carried out in Infocom's usual meticulous style - and there's no doubt that Dave Lebling has a wonderful talent for bringing both locations and those that inhabit them to life."
• "Revs Plus" Geoff Crammond/Firebird - 83% "An excellent racing simulation which provides a realistic challenge."
• "Slap Fight" Imagine - 80% "A superb arcade conversion and a great shoot 'em up in its own right."
• "Defender of the Crown" Cinemaware/Mirrorsoft - 94% Sizzler "An experience which should not be missed by any disk drive owner." (98% for graphics!)
• "Twin Tornado" Doctor Soft Simulations - 85% "An innovative piece of software which is the only true one-on-one combat game presently available for the 64."
• "The Last Ninja" System 3 - 94% Sizzler "Enough depth and action to satisfy both adventurers and martial artists."

Charts

Games

1. "World Games" Epyx/US Gold
2. "Leaderboard" Access/US Gold
3. "Gauntlet" US Gold

Music

1. "Sanxion" Thalamus - Rob Hubbard - Loading Music
2. "Delta" Thalamus - Rob Hubbard - Main Theme
3. "Green Beret" Imagine - Martin Galway - Loading Music