Be Excellent To Each Other

That was a good feature. I'd forgotten you'd written it. Far superior than the 3 issue spanning EA feature RG ran recently. Truth be told I'm starting to get a little bored of the mag. I want more stuff like the Palace feature and less stuff like this months Zelda feature.

It's stuff like the photoshoot story that's interesting to read because that cover/advert is part of 8 bit folklore now. When stuff is closer to home (so to speak) you get the more interesting in-depth stories.

I think the guys have to ensure each issues sells, and the big-hitters do that. However, I liked #51—Choplifter! (OK, so I wrote that one), Stellar 7, Indy in Atlantis and Crystal Castles were all good, solid retro making-ofs.

As for Brit stuff in general, that often leads to decent articles, although it's really bloody hard tracking people down. (I'm still no nearer getting hold of Mervyn Estcourt for a Deathchase piece, despite thinking I'd cracked it a few months back, for example), and some games probably won't get covered, due to not being well known. The chap who wrote Terrormolinos is up for a chat, but convincing Retro Gamer to cover that game (and Hampsted), despite them being minor (very) British classics, is going to be hard work.

As I hadn't thought about the amount of research and stuff that has to go into each piece in RG, let me just take a moment to warmly congratulate Craig on a job well done. *heartily pats on back n stuff*

I've shouted and shouted for a Sorcery and Sorcery + feature. The Gang Of Four (or was it five) who wrote it also did some other great games as well. Dan Dare for one (I think) and Strangeloop.

But Sorcery + on the CPC was a super super game and largely forgotten. Disc only. Loaded seperate screens direct from disc, the extra part of the game and the fact it was head and shoulders above the Speccy and C64 versions which were actually quite poor. One of the first games to show what the CPC could do in the right hands. It even used two screen modes on the same screen (low res play area, medium res info panel) which was almost considered witchcraft at the time.

And has RG done anything on the poor mans Oliver Twins, the Shaw Brothers?

How might one perhaps go about providing encouragement to Retro Gamer on covering a particular title?

Go to their forum and ask for something interesting.

Then they'll take that into account and instead do a 3 issue feature on watching paint dry, sorry, EA.

Mm. That's really fair... Darran is in an utterly impossible position with the mag. When he goes for more niche stuff, he gets blamed for covering too much stuff people haven't heard about. When he goes for more popular stuff, he's accused of selling out. In the past four months, he's been accused of bias towards and against the C64, Amiga, Spectrum, CPC, and about another half-dozen platforms, along with a raft of companies.

Regarding certain titles being covered, the vast majority are done so via making-ofs, and those require 1) someone knowledgeable about the game to write it, and 2) the person who wrote the game to be available. For that reason, we're almost certain to never see River Raid and Hunter's Moon in that slot—and those are just two of the games written by people who won't be interviewed by me. (And there are a lot more—and when you spent hours tracking someone down, only for them to say no, it's not like you get paid for that effort.) I'm sure there are plenty of others who've turned other RG writers down. And then there are people who, for whatever reason, can't be contacted. I'd love to do a proper piece on H.E.R.O. or Deathchase, but who knows where John Van Ryzin and Mervyn Estcourt are these days? (Well, I thought I knew, but I never got replies to my communications, but then perhaps hearing from some journo out of the blue scares the shit out of people. Who knows?)

If you want to see a feature in the mag on something particular, go to the Retro Gamer forum and ask for it. Better, if you have the contact details of the relevant people, ask if they're willing for them to be passed on, so one of the writers can get in touch. But please don't dismiss the work that goes into the mag and perhaps imply that's there's laziness going on, because I can fully assure you that there isn't.

Oh, and Dimrill—thanks for the kind words!

I think the last few issues are the first time I've had anything properly bad to say about RG. Some of the top 20 gaming lists *are* a lazy way to fill space. The EA article was twice as long as it needed to be and really suffered. Previously RG had been hitting the mark each and every month and I'd always read the mag from cover to cover.

Even Stu's article this month seemed like the kind of filler article he used to knock out for Commodore Format except in greater detail.

Perhaps all the obvious and easier to get articles have been done. Perhaps now it's harder to get people and the magazine is indeed going to head downhill. I really dunno, but I'm now glad I didn't sub as the Zelda issue was the first issue *ever* I had to seriously think about purchasing. And I've been a reader since, what, issue 4?

I don't blame the team, running a mag on a limited budget is hard. However any long running product is bound to take a dip from time to time and I think RG is taking it's first dip.

Am I the only one that really liked the EA feature?

Anyway, as I said to Darran at the time, if everyone is complaining of bias, that's probably the best indication you've got the balance right. As soon as one group stops, you're probably over serving them.



That hideous "Doom is a driving game" or whatever it was article? Yeah that's a bit of an ill-conceived mess. Back to definitive guides methinks.

Although, in all honesty, I find that I still prefer the issues from the Live days. However, I think this is mostly down to subject matter / freshness.

I can well imagine that there are those demanding lesser-known Atari ST space sims, whilst there are those wanting to know 'What ARE all the different Super Mario Brothers games, and in what order?', and that those are two very different groups, within what is still a very niche subject matter.

I imagine Retro Gamer is massively more frustrating to work on (for all involved) than to read, but only the readers are 'allowed' to moan and whine about it... AND I somehow completely missed the previous issue, so I still don't know if the Dreamcast was covered!

I think it's horses for courses with Retro Gamer. Literally every month we get people in the feedback thread saying "This is the first issue that I think has been rubbish, and I'm considering not buying it anymore—GRR!", and then just as many will say it's the best issue to date. To be fair, at least you're qualifying your argument, chinny.

In all honestly, I'm not at all a fan of the top-20 things (although, as experience tells me, that kind of thing typically sells well), but I think in terms of bang-per-buck, Retro Gamer still offers a number of original editorial pages matched by very few other publications. I also thing that on average it probably has more meat and things I'm interested in reading than it did back when Imagine took over.

In a more general sense, about finding people to interview, I can only speak about my own experiences, and I currently have 12 de-facto classics lined up for making ofs (with one major and one minor one already in the can), and maybe another half-dozen titles that are less well-known; it's probably getting harder to find new people to cover, but I'm personally at least a year away from having to worry about that (on the basis that I typically get one article per issue). One problem we do have is that any one person can't be covered too regularly, and so if one person talks to us four great games they worked on, the publisher would want those interviews spread over a year.

Dudley—your comments didn't go unnoticed by the team. In fact, I think Darran was happy to see a little splash of considered reality opposing the "you're a sell-out" nonsense that arrived after the GTA piece.


It got a retroinspection—eight pages, IIRC.

It's certainly a fuller magazine now, I don't read it in about 15 minutes,as I did with the Live issues. I really think it's down to the subject matter of articles - right or wrong, I seem to remember there originally being more 8-bit stuff, and I'm biased that way.


I see. Completely unfairly then, and regarding a different magazine - whatever happened to that Howard Scott Warshaw, eh? Y'know, he worked on ET, widely considered one of the worst games ever.


Knackers. To the eBayinator!

I had to really hold back commenting on that, those people got me genuinely quite cross, I think I limited myself to a couple of posts on it for everyone's sanity.

While you're here, if you have access to such things my work ip - 87.194.3.251 appears to be banned on said forum and has been for some time, any chance of removing?

There was more 8-bit stuff when Imagine took over, but fewer in-depth articles. There were quite a lot of 'classic game' spreads. I think the magazine had to shift a little, because 16-bit (etc.) fans were getting pissed off. One way around that has been to start looking at more arcade games (Crystal Castles in the current issue, for example, or my Berzerk piece a few issues back), which largely stops idiots complaining that 'their' platform is never covered (like that guy who moaned that Retro Gamer's totally biased against the C64, by far the most-covered platform in the publication's history, closely followed by the Amiga).


I can't speak for other publications, but Yars' Revenge was in Retro Gamer recently, and Raiders of the Lost Ark got a making-of not too long ago.


Or Imagine's back-issue shop.


I was furious with that. It's not like Retro Gamer ran 20 pages on GTA IV (which would have been selling out). Instead, it ran a GTA piece that had the potential to draw in new readers and perhaps keep them. That's just good business sense, and I suspect Retro Gamer will be doing more of that thing when relevant. Annoyingly, some people then complained this issue that the Zelda piece didn't correspond with a current release. ARGH!


I don't have THE POWER—sorry.

Personally, I *loved* the fact there was a GTA piece, nice timely nostalgic fun. And I can certainly use it as a hook to get friends interesting in the magazine. Same with the Indiana Jones thing. I've said before that I own every single issue of RG, subbed up from issue 2 after reading issue 1 on a chance finding, my catalogue stands on it's shelf and is quite reguarly thumbed through by various people to find out about older versions of current games when I "drop hints" about something not being the "first" (Metal Gear Solid being the obvious example...gaming didn't begin with PlayStation!).

I do tend to pick out the interesting articles first and then skim through the rest, but I certainly don't expect to be pleased all the time. Luckily I have fairly mainstream tastes in retro, although that Konix thing a while back was fudging awesome.

I think the problem we're finding is that a certain number of readers want a magazine specifically written for them. They flick through the mag, see if there's anything they used to play, and put it back if not. For a niche title like Retro Gamer, that's kind of a shame, because if it goes, that's it—I can't imagine Future, Dennis or whoever taking it over. And while I'm someone who's usually against 'buy for the sake of it' loyalty, I can make an exception for Retro Gamer, on the basis that it's usually chocked full of interesting stuff. It's a pity more people don't see a game they've never heard of, delve into its history and then nip off and play it. (Case in point: Stellar 7 in the most recent issue, which should make Battlezone fans extremely happy. And yet quite a few people will go "never heard of it" and skip the excellent article entirely.)

That sounds familiar

I really enjoy reading Retro Gamer, but can't afford it and it's not in any newsagents round here, anyway.

Then subscribe for near half price and solve both problems.

This totally needs to be split into an RG thread.

The website still wants me to pay £21 up front, though. Next time I'm somewhere that stocks it I'll pick it up and see if there are any good subs offers. I do miss it.

Last issue I read had an awesome section about the ZX81 in it.

RG is the longest mag I've ever subbed to. I'd feel really quite sad about letting it lapse if I had to, but on the other hand when PC Format went shitty I took great delight in putting that puppy down.

Well worth the money, don't think there's been an issue where I haven't found *something* of interest!

Hmm, they may have changed to gouging then, the offer last I checked was £18 every 6 issues.

There were also pieces on companies like Graftgold, Gremlin, Level 9, and I think New World Computing. I suppose in a way, the magazine 'shot its load' for me, quite early on, to be crude about it. I think the current magazine is very readable. My gripes come from a fan wanting to see 'his team' do well, not dissent


There's a game called Warhea-oof!

Me, I'm just biased towards coverage of stuff released in the UK. But anyway, I do think there's a massive amount of ground to cover not just in terms of the Atari ST and Amiga, but in how the progression was made from the supposed '8-bit era' and the 16-bit one. I loved the article, early on, about the Konix Multisystem. That was heavily hyped in Sinclair User and The Games Machine (first games mags I ever bought) as being the Next Big Thing. I was very confused to never hear of it again. I really wanted a Sam Coupe.

But I freely admit that I have no idea how international the mag's readership is, and what 'generations' are mostly keenly called for now. The forums are a bit much.


I enjoyed both of those - and Crystal Castles on the Speccy was a superb conversion, DS emulator fans. Good screenshots, I also thought.


Indeed! I had quite forgot that it would have one.


Particularly amusing, that. I was in college then, and I can vividly recall Mark nasally droning about GTA being wicked, whilst Tim stopped telling racist jokes long enough to talk about gerrin yer orse in OOT. In fact, there are all sorts of parallels that can be made between the games beyond that, interestingly.

I just checked my latest copies Subs page, and it's certainly £18 for 6 issues. But that's Direct Debit - I assume it could be more if you pay lumpsum? I use DD, myself.

The magazine subs page (as of issue 51) still offers direct debit payment of £18/6 issues.


Yeah, yeah! Thing is, it needs someone to write about it and get the creators to talk...


I remember reading the TGM article and thinking "I bet that never gets released". It's just sheer practicality—it's one thing for a kid to have a C64 or Spectrum in their room, but an arcade-like chair? Also, the games advertised at the time looked no better than what you'd find on the Amiga anyway.


Readership is definitely worldwide, but I've no figures for what the split is. I suspect, largely due to price and distribution issues, most readers are British.


Hopefully, you'll enjoy the arcade-game write-ups I've done for 52 and 53, the one for 53 being on one of my favourite games to date. (It has to be said, that's one of the real perks of writing for Retro Gamer—chatting to people who created games you love and seeing how everything was done. Speaking to the likes of Alexey Pajitnov, Jon Hare and Alan McNeil has been a lot of fun.)

Pfftt, why does it only happen when you suggest it too?

You run a magazine as well??!?

Retro Grimmer.

What Jeeves.

sorry

Dimrill wins the internet.

Hahahahaha!
HAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHA!

Dimrill wins *two* Internets.

979 Bananas.

Shouldn't it be "headphone cables around your knackers" or is this even more painful than I can imagine?

Don't go there, Joans. Seriously. It's not a pretty thought.

Want.

i did like the EA article too. Well balanced, and like EA or not, they have had enough influence over the industry and enough different faces (Artists! Slavemasters! Cashmachines! some of the best 16 bit titles!) etc. to warrant the space..

It was enormously long, dull and with little appeal to the average 8 bit owner that grew up in the UK during the 80's/90's. It needed to lose at least a third of it's length.

Arguably if EA could get so many pages, the Ocean feature a year or so ago should have got more than it did.

Dimrill, I you!

Who can read all the other articles? What about all the people who grew up with 16-bits?

I was already to ask Craig the excellence champion to write a Terra Nova retrospective on the PC, as it is a criminally forgotten game. But now I figure I should just write one for this site instead.

I still don't understand wuite how you managed to do that. Unless you were following in Mighty Grim...s footsteps and playing in the nude.

Er, it was me. And I was.
I dropped something on the floor (I can't remember what), bent down to pick it up, and sat up again quickly. Whilst I was bent down, the cable on my headset hooked itself under my knackers, and pulled tight when I said up.
Ouch.

It responds to voice control? That's amazing.

Ahh, right. Dimrill claimed to have a similar incident yesterday, and blamed his slow speed on it. (I personally would've blamed the fact his engine was knacked and spewing huge clouds of smoke out behind him.)

I don't think EA were even that significant to the 16 bitters either. For alot of the significant games they were no more than the publishers. In most cases it would be better to hear from the developers/coders. In fact did EA directly release that many Amiga/STgames in the UK? Most of their stuff seemed to be licenced and then converted by other publishers in much the same way US Gold operated in the mid eighties.

What I'm saying is that for the UK market there are a hell of alot of publishers who had a larger impact. Gremlin, Ocean, US Gold, Codemasters etc all deserved the kind of coverage that EA got. To my mind the EA article was a cynical attempt to curry favour with the foriegn market. If it had been a 1/3rd shorter I wouldn't have even noticed but it was so drawn out and long, not to mention quite dull.

Whereas we've had far more interesting articles about companies like Ocean that probably deserved to be longer.

Perhaps I'm making too much of this, but the EA article bothered me. GTA didn't bother me by the way, although a page or so less might have been nice. I'd also like to have seen the Turbo Esprit link investigated which I don't think they did so that could be put to rest.

Ooh! The images have loaded in, had to change work computers. Dimrill, that is extra-laffs toppo work!