'Back
in Time' is a monthly feature where we look back at the classic video
gaming magazines twenty years ago this month. This month proved that
the Amstrad CPC was still a major player… in the French market,
Turbo the Tortoise arrived on the Sonic-less 8-bit computers, Pilot
Wings landed on the Super Nintendo while Crazy Cars skidded onto the
Amiga for
a third time...
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If you had bought Zero
the previous month, you would have instantly
noticed the new look. Gone was the clean and stylish design and layout
and in was the colourful, brash, in your face look. What was once voted
‘Magazine of the Year’ seemed to be heading down
the magazine gutter. The 16-bit multi format magazine was considered as
a humourus informative read for the slightly older gamer, but the
re-design seemed to be aimed at the younger gamer. What prompted this
change of direction was not obviously noticeable, as the magazine had
not
changed publisher and most of the original staff remained on board. But
re-designs may have been the least of the magazine’s worries
as to what was ahead. However, that’s another story for
another time.
Brash design or not, Indiana Jones
and the Fate of Atlantis impressed
Duncan MacDonald who gave the PC adventure game a final rating of 95.
“Lucasfilm have improved on themselves yet again,”
stated asked Duncan, “What more can I say, other than the
script is perfect and the whole things has been directed like a real
movie. In fact it is a proper interactive movie.”
In what must class as David McCandless’ most minimalist
review yet, despite stretching over two pages, Super Probotector on the
SNES managed an overall rating of 92. “It’s the
first game I’ve played that actually tells the Super NES to
sit down, shut up and be an arcade machine,” wrote David.
“Everything about this game speaks coin-op quality. The
graphics… The sound… The scrolling…
The gameplay…. Pure heaven!”
Just in case our latest Indy Jones’
latest adventure wasn’t
enough for PC gamers, the 94 rated Eternam
arrived. Amaya Lopez picked
up review duties for the Infogrames adventure and gave a brief summary
of the game… “It’s a French game,
it’s a bit of a joker, it looks really attractive and it
tells a fab story.”
Striker and Goal and With the hype surrounding
the (then) recent European Championships of 1992, Zero decided to look back at the
best football games on offer. Top of the League was Sensible Soccer
with Kick Off 2 in second and
third respectively. Hovering
at the bottom of the league were Footballer
of the Year 2.
Other games of note this month were Sports
Talk Baseball (Mega Drive,
90), Chuck Rock (Mega Drive,
87), Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
(NES,
85), Terminator (Master
System, 80), Civilization
(Amiga, 89), Joe and
Mac (SNES, 86), Monkey Island
2: Le Chuck’s Revenge (Amiga,
92), The Addams Family (Game
Boy, 84), Tiny Toon Adventures
Babs’ Big Break (Game Boy, 86), Olympic Gold (Game Gear, 87), Steel Talons
(Lynx, 90), Battletoads (Game
Boy, 86), Shadow of the
Beast (Lynx, 89) and Prince
of Persia (Game Boy, 93; Game Gear, 91).
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Having mentioned several times
over the years that the French CPC scene
is great, Amstrad
Action editor, Rod Lawton, and staff writer, Adam
Peters, decided to pop over the English Channel to prove it. The
Amstrad CPC was one of the best selling machines in France with CPC
disk games on sale in supermarket stores across the country.
Back on British soil, new games releases seemed to be drying up for the
aging CPC, although Hi-Tec provided an ‘AA Rave’ with Turbo the Tortoise.
Could this be Amstrad’s equivalent to
Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog?
“Turbo is one of the
best platform games we’ve seen in ages,” wrote Adam
Peters on the 88% rated game. “There’s no complex
controls, no convoluted plot, no over-taxing mission and no mapping
necessary. It’s a straightforward sideways scroller.
Fearsomely addictive and suitably varied.”
The CPC charts lacked any real interest with the full price charts
being topped by the likes of WWF
Wrestlemania, Dizzy’s
Excellent Adventures and Cartoon
Collection. The only other new games reviewed
this issue included Grell and Falla
(51%) and Captain Dynamo
(68%),
With the decrease of new games coverage in the magazine, the staff
began a new feature called ‘Hit For Six’, where
they would look back at the best six games in a category. This month
featured Football (or Soccer to some) management games. Way out at the
top of the league was Football
Manager 2 with 81%, followed by Soccer
Boss with 66% and 1st
Division Manager with 54%. There were others
– lots, in fact – but the ratings were so poor that
it would be unfair to name and shame them all.
Another common section for aging games magazines was for the budget and
re-released games and Amstrad Action
was no exception. Here in ‘action replay’, AA dished out
‘AA Mastergame’
accolades to Castle Master
(91%), Italy
1990 (90%) and an ‘AA
Rave’ to Crack Down
(83%), Midnight Resistance
(86%).
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There
were changes aplenty with the arrival of Amiga
Power issue 16.
First up, Matt Bielby, the magazine’s editor since its
glorious launch had since moved on to “a top-secret new
project” – what ever it is, no doubt it will be
‘Super’. So Mark Ramshaw gallantly stepped up to
the big ed chair to steer the AP ship ever onward. Other changes
included Jacquie Spanton in to replace Amanda Cook as Art Editor (Miss
Cook also heading off to a secret project of her own –
obviously something ‘Mega’ tastic), Tim Norris came
on board as production editor and Stuart Campbell moved up the ranks to
become the Reviews Editor.
In the ‘Amiga Power
Recommends’ page, the crew
indulged in some Sensible Soccer
hyperbole. “It’s
beginning to look like a heinous under-rating,” the writer
mentioned at the 93% the game received the previous month.
“Kick Off 2! KICK OFF 2! If we get a single
letter this month
from some sad, deluded, complete and utter dweeb still trying to cling
pathetically to the belief that there’s a football game
that’s even fit to lace the boots of this
one…” continued the recommendations.
“It’s so utterly brilliant in every single way, we
think the police should be sent out to randomly burst into
people’s houses in the middle of the night and arrest anyone
who hasn’t bought a copy,” stated the write up in
the final recommendation to Sensible
Soccer, that month.
A new Gallup Amiga chart and a new number one with… dum,
dum, dum… Sensible Soccer.
“It’s the
world’s best computer soccer game” after all.
Non-Sensible Soccer related
chart newbies included Monkey Island
2 in
at number two, Striker in at
four and Jaguar XJ220 in at
five.
Crazy Cars III,
the wild and wacky car racing game from Titus, grabbed
an 88% rating from Mark Ramshaw. “If you liked the Cannonball
Run, if you ever admitted to enjoying an episode of Knight Rider, or if
you love movies based in San Francisco then Crazy Cars III is going to
do things to you that you thought only Winona Ryder was capable sot
(for
girl readers, please substitute Dolph Lundgren or some other swoonsome
hunk),
88% also went to D/Generation,
Mindscape’s arcade adventure
horror mystery. “Apart from little grumbles though,
we’re looking at a pretty special game,” commented
Jonathan Davies. “I don’t see D/Generation
rocketing to the top of the charts, being voted Game of the Decade or
anything like that, but its certainly a game that’ll keep you
up for night after night…”
Taking on the Dungeons & Dragons formula again, Might and Magic
III received an 87% rating. “So all in all, what have we
got?” asked Rich Pelley. “The biggest, the deepest,
and the best looking D&D clone to date,” replied
Rich. “Whether you agree and whether you like RPGs in the
first place will determine how high Might
and Magic III will be on your
shopping list.”
Other games of note this issue included Ashes of Empire (80%),
Civilization
(80%), Megafortress (82%), Vikings (81%) and Graham
Taylor’s Soccer Challenge (82%).
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It
seemed to be a bit of a summer lull for the Sega scene, as Sega
Power
displayed with its meagre games coverage in issue 33. Topping the Game
Gear chart was Super Kick Off,
with the Mega Drive list dominated by
Desert Strike and
the Master System list topped by Asterix.
Despite the game lull and amount of shoot-‘em-ups already around,
Zero Wing still
managed to rack up a score of 88%. “How many
horizontally-scrolling shoot-‘em-ups are there out on the
Mega Drive now?” asked Desiree Cousteau. “Can
anyone possibly do anything new? Well, maybe not, but in Zero Wing the
same old features are done so well it just doesn’t
matter.”
Next up for the Game Gear was the highest rated game of the issue with
the strategy war game, Crystal
Warriors, which managed an impressive
93%. “A tactical bash with a tense bite, Crystal Warriors
does the biz,” stated Trenton Webb. “It puts the
addiction hooks in early and then drags you right into the heart of the
action.”
Despite the rather lukewarm review, Taz
Mania on the Mega Drive still
managed to get an 89% out of Andy Lowe. “The comic graphics
and the entertaining animation help gloss over any deficiencies in the
gameplay,” commented Andy, “but they
don’t succeed in prolonging this game’s limited
lifespan. Sega have done a highly professional job on polishing up Taz
Mania, and there’s enough here to keep you interested
until
you finish it.”
Within the readers’ ‘Scribblings’ pages,
there was a section called ‘Outta Yer Tree’ that
printed some of the more bizarre letters that month... “in
Sega Power 31, I
saw three codes for Ninja Gaiden
on the Game Gear. The
problem is, I don’t have a Game Gear, so how do I enter the
codes?” wrote one confused reader. “Oh dear, oh
dear, oh dear…” replied Andy.
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Into their second issue and N-Force
were showing no signs of slowing
down with an action packed issue full of games coverage. Riding high on
top of the NES
charts was Rescue Rangers,
followed by Super Mario Bros 3
and
Terminator 2. Top
of the Game Boy list was Terminator 2,
with WWF
Superstars and Super Mario
Land trailing behind.
Following last issue’s preview turned review of the SNES
arcade conversion of Street Fighter
II, it was now time for the real
review from Ace (aka Chris Rice) and an actual rating of 96%.
“With
stunning graphics previously thought to be impossible on home
entertainment consoles and amazing digitized speech and FX this cart
lives up to its reputation as the most advanced game ever
created.”
Smart Ball on the
SNES was another high rated game, receiving 91% and
an ‘N-Force
Knockout’ accolade. “Smart
Ball may be a little easy,” commented Shades (aka Nick
Roberts), “but
if you’re looking for a platform adventure that offers a new
angle to make a change from the endless Mario clones then take a shifty
at this.”
Pilot Wings was
one of the SNES launch titles in North America and with
an ‘N-Force
Knockout’ rating of 96% it’s
easy to see why. “Pilot Wings
is a game no SNES owner should
be without,” stated Shades. “Our pics give you some
idea of its quality, but wait ‘til you see it in action! For
the joy of flying without the pain of broken legs and stench of
aviation fuel get Pilot Wings.”
And to prove that this was a ratings blitz issue, here is the pick of
the rest: Batman: Return of the Joker
(Game Boy, 82%), The Addams
Family (SNES, 90%), Tiny Toon
Adventures (NES, 89%), World
Circuit
Series (Game Boy, 83%), Extra
Innings (SNES, 89%), Monsters
in my
Pocket (NES, 81%), The
Ultimate Stuntman (NES, 83%), Pac-Man
(Game Boy,
80%), Quattro Adventure (NES,
80%), Joe and Mac: Caveman Ninja
(SNES,
89%), Micro Machines (NES,
86%) and Top Gear (SNES,
91%).
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