Gaming in August, 1988

In August 1988, CGW reached its 50th issue. CGW was late to adopt adopt a monthly fromat, it had only 2/3rds of the issues compared to CVG at this point.

Due to reaching this milestone, Russel Sipe wrote a few words on the origins of the magazine, but otherwise there weren’t many pages wasted on the topic.

After this look back, there was the review of Questron II, one of the better made Ultima clones. Then the star of the month, F/A-18 Interceptor. Other magazines covered the game in the previous month. CGW gave the game big ovation, though there was no direct comparison to Falcon, which was less colorful but way more serious about its simulation.

This is folloed by games, one is a mediocre action game, Obliterator, the other is a very complicated 3D space strategy game from SSI. Following this 2 more titles on the average side. The Three Stooges continued the trend of colorful animated Cinemaware adventures with mild game play, the other one Seven Spirits of Ra was trying to expand the IBM PC adventure market. This is followed by an 8-bit war game, Tobruk CLash of Armour, and Scorpria’s tips and tricks.

The Video Gaming World section first looked at the then current state of the industry home consoles turned into a $1.25 billion market by 1988, with Nintendo taking a 65% of market share, Atari taking 24% and Sega lagging with 8% behind. The console game reviews were Super Pitfall for the NES and Global Defense for the Master System. The section is longer than usual, and it covers shortly some of the more outstanding titles of the day such as Ghosts’n’Goblins, Afterburner, Robocop, Rambo III or Wrestlemania…

In CVG, Barbarian II conquered the cover of the magazine with its muscular advertisement. In the opening section, Julian Ragnall was introduced, who freshly joined from Zapp, with another person, Steve Jarret from Crash. Two very important gains for the magazine, annd a hint of the end of the 8-bit era.

16-bit titles, or versions of 16-bit titles continued to dominate. Empire Strikes Back was available on the old 8-bit computers, but the 16-bit conversions were far ahead of the older machines, almost bordering the arcade experience.

The next game is an interesting adventure game called The President is Missing. The player’s job is to do investigations to find the missing president, all done in front of a virtual computer. A menu system is available, which shows the available documents, and the player has to use these to follow the trail of the kidnappers.

Another interesting game from this issue is Virus, a game from the Acorn Archimedes, that was converted to all other 16-bit machines. The selling point of this game was its colorful and fast 3D graphics. The game play itself was reminiscent of a top down shooter, but the player’s plane was able to maneuver in a 3D space. Just like with the Star Wars arcade game these 16-bit ports were a lot more convincig than those ported to the old 8-bit computers, showing what a gap existed between the two generations at this point.

To continue this kind of trend, the third review I would highlight is for Night Raider, that continues to demonstrate the power of the 16-bit computers. This game had an interesting topic night fight operations during WWII, with defending from intruders and running offensive maneuvers with those humble radar equipped planes. The concept, that is being a night flight game, helped to achieve smoother frame rates and it give a slightly similar look to the Star Wars arcade game of this month.

And let’s not stop here, the game of the month Barbarian II follows this trend. The C64 version is the only one that can hold a candle to its 16-bit cousins, but the definite versions are by a considerable margin on the next generation machines. The sequel to Barbarian is extended greatly since its first appearance. In addition to sword fights there is a whole world to explore with ogres and wolves and traps and the undead.

In other news, The Sentinel was converted to the 16-bit machines, a small but important update with improved frame rate on the more powerful computers. Bionic Commando was also reviewed in this issue.

The movies had some interesting things going on. Hairspray, Couch Trip, The Monster Squad, September.

From the Mean Machines column I would highlight 2 Master System games Aleste and Rescue Mission. The first one is probably the top shootemup for 1988, the other one was a fun, good looking arcade game.

In ACE the first news was about the enraging 16-bit war. The excellent game bundle of Atari was under attack by the price drop of Commodore.

The first game that was reviewed was Vindicator, a top down arcade shooter. After that there is a preview of a vaporware home computer the Flare One, that promised to overtake the Atari ST and the Amiga. Though it never saw the light, the same folks later created the Flare II that became the Atari Jaguar.

After that there is an interesting article, where the magazine interviews game. developers Many then famous programmer were interviewed, and they found interest in games like Carrier Command, Contra, R-Type or Mercenary. It is also funny to read when a couple of years old games are referred to as old. But there are many answers who say that they do not play computer games at all.

The glorious 8-bit versions of Dark Side were released. With their speed of 1 frame per every other second this game was a descendant of Driller, another famous 8-bit 3D adventure. And just like with that game I cannot fathom how people wer able to find this entertaining at any tie. Nonetheless, huge open 3D worlds on 8-bit systems were always clear achievements.

Alien Syndrome was converted from the arcades to the Atari ST and the C64. The ST conversion was close to the arcade original, though the spires were simplified and the sideways scrolling was jerky. I find it an interesting question which is more entertaining game in such cases the ST or the C64 version. In this case I would opt for the ST, even if the C64 scrolling is butter smooth, the extra detail in the ST version is more pleasing to me.

One thing I could have never imagined that the 16-bit computers can get some Disney games, but here it is, Mickey Mouse, a surprisingly solid game for the ST and the Amiga, and for the 8-bit computers. The 16-bit computers were able to display cartoon like graphics, but the gameplay in this game is still far from the excellence of the Megadrive Mickey Mouse games.

3D gaming was important. It is instantly clear from the fact that there is one game that can top Dark Side in ACE scores, and that is a 16-bit 3D game Virus. The Archimades game is ported to the ST and the Amiga. To me, the gameplay is still too alien. At list, compared to Dark Side, it can produce enjoyable frame rates and the graphics also look entertaining.

The next game is a hardcore one Star Fleet 1. The game is a big old, it was released years before for the PC. And the review scores are abysmal. The review even mentions that the game uses a “very old style”. Computer gaming was barely 10 year old at the time, what counted as old style then? Grid based star map, text interface, for me it is a yummy. I must try this game, but I am afraid I will be disappointed by the obscure mechanics.

After this, there is The Great Giana Sisters, which was available in UK stores before Nintendo sued the company was a clear copy paste of Mario, so much so that Giana’s sister was called Maria. The review scores are average, which is surprising due to the game considered to be a classic. The Atari ST version is screwed up by the lack of scrolling, but the C64 and Amiga versions are highly enjoyable games. Though enjoyable does not necessarily mean great, because in the gameplay department it is really a poor man’s Mario only.

Sargon III is the next game, the 3rd in the venerable chess programs, then there is Peter Beardsley’s International Soccer receiving terrible scores. Improving soccer games was year’s from reality still.

The adventure section mentions Corruption, Legend of the Sword and Mindfighter. More importantly there is a short mention of the upcoming Pool Of Radiance game. After this there is a synth review, then the mails.

AmigaWorld was promising workstation Amigas this month. Let’s see what is inside. One thing to mention, something that is regularly apparent was Guy Wright’s negativity about the Amiga. He mentions some of the upcoming products, the A2500, the new workbench (1.3), the new transputer, but he was skeptic about the releases. He was right mostly, that’s true, but for an enthusiast magazine this was not the right kind of message.

The important piece was the new software though, new midi sequencer, source level devbugger, Photon Paint.

The aforementioned workstation Amiga’s existed in the constarints of accelerators, flicker fixers and networking tools. The accelerators were expensive, especially with a fast 68020 and a 68881 and some 32 bit RAM. These were powerful and crazy expensive, and chip ram operations slowed down the config. The flicker fixer were good to make a high res Amiga screen usable, but they were not really feasible for animation due to the deinterlace artifacts. The networking part of the Amiga was cursed by lack of products.

There were 2 other articles, one about the AmigaDOS API and some update on AmigaOS1.3 features.

In Atari ST User the usual gossip about new generation of Atari machines was spread. There was some whishful thinking about how advertising was getting stornoger and how some games reached the top of charts in the UK. There were news about the upcoming Atari ST notebook, the Stacey. In other news the VGA compatible Atari PC4 was about to release.

This month’s feature was an interview with Ashley Ingram a rather famous musician-producer who actively used the ST for music production at the time.

One interesting piece of technology was introduced this month, a zipdrive like device holding 10 MB of data, and unfortunately costing more than an HDD.

A new entry level spreadsheet was introduced Datacalc, but the real interesting stuff was the Spectrum 512 which allowed make images with 512 color on screen, pushing the ST to its absolute limits.

Of the game reviews, there was Legend of the Sword, a mouse driven, colourful RPG, and Thundercats, a mediocre arcade game based on the famous series. The other 3 games I would mention are Obliterator, Knightmare and Time and Magik.

After the game reviews there was another interesting program Data Manager ST, a database application for reporting. Then there was the battle of 3 word processors Word Writer ST, WordUp ad Protext. More software follows, a financial analysis tool is next,Share Master, which comes with some handy past data to show the capabilities of the tool and new data can be entered to chart the performance of shares in the future.

The next article is about development tools Assembler Workbench and Devpac 2 are reviewed for assembly development.

This month the PC took a backseat, there were no important games released on the platform. The ST and the Amiga, on the other side, were on the loose. Both platforms received excellent games, the Amiga demonstrated that it was a powerhouse, while the ST had its fair share of productivity software. The two platforms continued to grow in the UK, and some Amiga games even scratched something the US audience. The NES was the other big winner of the month, better and better titles and conversions were released as it quickly gained market share. The 8-bit computers continued to receive great support, but their fate was clear by then to users.

Gaming in July, 1988

The cover of CGW this month presents Red Storm Rising and Pool of Radiance, two great games of the late 1980s. It is not that this games were released during the summer though: CGW started to focus more on upcoming releases instead of the latest games on the market.

The Taking-A-Peek section is not that interesting this time, only the growth in the number of the EGA games that is worth mentioning.

The next article is an interesting one, it is about the summer CES of 1988. One of the most important new product group was the sound cards for PC games. Ad-Lib and MT-32 were the two choices, the former for the low-end, the later for the high-end consumer. The real good news were that Sierra was pushing out new games with support for the hardware, and with this finally the PC-speaker era started to end. The first games from Sierra to provide support were Space Quest III and King’s Quest IV.

The first game reviewed in this month’s magazine is Jinxter, a game from Britain’s Rainbow Arts. The genre was slowly fading away, but CGW was fond of the style and covered the game in detail.

After this, there is Space Quest II, one of the most prominent games of the PC platform in 1988. A big step up from the previous game: more detailed graphics, better parser and controls, and good story, an excellent choice for any PC gamer. As it was custom for Sierra, they ported the game later to all 16-bit platforms.

The next artice is the preview of Pool of Radiance and Red Storm Rising, probably Pool of Radiance was the most waited title from SSI ever. After that, there is a lenghty interview with Richard Garriot.

Back to the reviews: CGW takes a look at Rampage for the PC. This game was already available both in CGA and EGA versions, and the EGA version was on par with the C64. It was only the sound that was still unable to catch up with the then 5 year old platform.

SSG continued delivering excellent wargames, this month Decisive Battles of the American Civil War Vol.1 was released. The EGA version had a clean modernish look and forshadowed the wargames of the early 1990s.

A Mac only title, Beyond Dark Castle was also reviewed,and dispite the lack of colours, the Mac’s high resolution display made it an acceptable challenger in the stream of late 80s platform games.

Again, another preview is present in the magazine: the first game of the Romance of the 3 Kingdoms series was being translated to English. This title was already 2 years old in Japan, but it was an interesting addition to the western PC market.

After another preview another interesting review follows: one of the first modern looking wargames was released to the Mac, the ST and the Amgia, Fire Brigade. Full mouse controllable, icon driven interface with NATO symbols. It depicts the battle for Kien in the WWII. The Mac II version even supports 256 colours that made it look like some game from the early 90s.

The console news section continued, Video Game World is present again in the magazine. There were 2 big games coming in the second half of the year: Super Mario Brothers II and Zelda II, which didn’t turn out as well as people expected them. The console game reviews include Wizards and Warriors from the legendary Rare developers, one of the classics for the NES, though I think it is a bit overrated nowadays.

Lastly, there is an article covering the Phillips CD-i, which was planned to be the first CD based game console, but was hurt with several delays and it was not available until 1991. Not a success story, but at least it by mid 88 people saw the CD-ROM on the horizon.

Across the ocean, in CVG , the most important game was The Last Ninja II. Both for 8-bit and 16-bit computers, this was one of the most awaited game of the year.

In the preview section there were some upcoming racing games, Crazy Cars, and Fire and Forget. Peter Beardsley’s International Football tried to improve on the sorry state of football adoptioatns. On the Amiga Starray promised the next generation shootemup feeling.

The big announcement came from Atari in the form of an advertisment: 22 games came attached to the Atari ST for the same price. These covered all possible types of games even if their quality varied greatly. This was good for gamers, but bad for publishers, because people delayed new game purchases because out the large variety of bundled games.

The first review was The Last Ninja II. The reviews are raving, the 16-bit versions look polished, however I am still not a fan of the gameplay.

The next game was Football Manager II, the continuation of the successful ZX Spectrum game. This one was avaibable on Atari ST and Amiga. Unfortunatly the game is still not mouse driven, the gameplay had some depth, but alas this game was not Championship Manager yet.

After this another football game: Peter Beardsley’s Football, bashed heavily for its control, which is too bad, because this was the first game that really captured the spirit of football on the screen.

The next 2 games are Gauntlet II and Leatherneck. Both games were a tiny bit outdated by 1988 standards, at least Gauntlet II was a rather good conversion for the Atari ST. On the other hand Leatherneck was just a one in a dozen arcade shooter.

Pandora is next, kind of like Dead Space 1988 edition, another game that shines on 16-bit platform. This is followed by Aaargh, the Amiga edition is reviewed. Very similar to Rampage. The next interesting piece is Patton Vs Rommel, one of the rare Mac games that were reviewed in CGW. Similarly to Firebrigade its mouse control and window driven gameplay were clear hints for the years to come.

Beyond the Ice Palace was the next game, and it showed that by reducing the screen area a perfectly capable scrolling platformer was viable on the Atari ST.

The next game is Darkside, one of the 3D games that were released on 8-bit computers first. It was very difficult to grasp what was happening back than, and nowadays these titles are even more difficult to comprehend, especially compared to the flight simulators of the day.

The next interesting piece is The Great Giana Sisters, the most obvious Super Mario clone ever. It was great on the C64, it was not as good as Super Mario Bro’s , that was clear even at the time, but when my NES clone was broke this game was one of our time passers on the C64. The Amiga version is equally good, but the Atari ST is butchered badly with the lack of scrolling.

The next game is he game of the month, the Amiga only Interceptor. It was very close to beat Falcon out of its game. Very nice graphics, very good gameplay, but it was less of a simulator compared to Falcon.

From the Adventure game section I would highlight Shadowgate, a computer game which became really a classic on Mac and the NES. The arcades did not have anything interesting. But the home console section had some nice games. Rad Racer for the NES for one was a rather average racer, however the other game was Metroid itself, the star game of the NES arrived to the UK.

In Zzap this month the arcades got into focus. The editor’s opinion is that it was a new age of clones in the arcades, though these clones provided better entertainment than those of yesteryears. The beat’em up and shootemup genres were living their golden age around this time.

Infiltrator II was the first game that was reviewed, and the reviewers with disappointed with the lack of changes since the first version, and gave negative review scores.

The next game is Bionic Commando, with some interesting changes from the arcade and NES versions, it was a good game, with good loks, but it was not comparable to the versions on other platforms.

After this, there is The Great Giana Sisters, probably game of the month. It was no Super Mario but a very enjoyable game on the C64. I played it much after hour disk drive broke, but was mostly due to the lack of alternative. The reviews agree that it was not Super Mario, and they throughly enjozyed the game.

In the arcades there was Vigilante, Haunted Castle, Super Ranger, Ninja Warriors, Shinobi.

ACE magazine opens with the claim that everyone who plays computer games are weirdos. Of course this is not their opinion, they just try to recite the opinion of the geeral population.

The first big article in the magazine is about the PC market. Finally EGA started to dominate the UK PC market. Especially the Amstrad PC1640 marked the new standard for the PCs of 1988: 640K RAM, EGA graphics, an 8MHz 8086, but sadly, the sound was still PC Speaker. A config like this was almost on parity with the ST. And the games started to appear more and more: wargames, adventure games and simulators were popular on the platform.

Another article, Over The Rainbow writes about how new software maxed out the capabilities of the ST and the Amiga: Spectrum 512 and Photon Paint made more onscreen colours available with smart interrupt based palette swapping. This was not that useful for games, because these methods were CPU intensive, but for art this was a big win at the time.

The new arcade game is from Sega, Hot Rod – a rather forgottable racing game. After this, there is an article about how video games license other material.

The first game that is worth to mention from this month is The Three Stooges, a minigame collection featuring the famous comedy trio. The game is rather bland, though, the colours are nice on the Amiga. Of all the Cinemaware games probably the worst.

The next game is F/A-18 Interceptor, the most amazing looking game of 1988 if you ask me. It is not until Falcon was released for the ST and Amiga that this game was beaten. The sense of flight is not as good as with Falcon or Flight Simulator II though, but the San Fransisco scenery was the most jawdropping until the new wave of EGA simulators (F-15 II, Flight Simulator III) arrived.

Leathernec is the next game, an average Ikari Warriors clone, but a good addition to the Atari ST ad Amiga libraries. Infiltrator II is reviewed here too and gets average reviews.

Finally Sundog is reviewed, one of the early games for the ST took some time to get its review in other magazines. The reviews are slightly above average, in 1988 this kind of game was not as marvellous anymore.

Bionic Commando is reviewed, the C64 version gets good reviews. The poor port of Outrun to the Atari St hovewever was overrated by the magazine.

After the reviews there is an article about hacking and cracking and how the games got to users in the late 80s.

AmigaWorld started out with its 3 year anniversary. Since 1985 fortunately a lot of things changed on the Amiga marketplace, and for the first time it looked like the Amiga has a future.

The new software review section was rather bland: a mediore image digitizer and a mediocre dtp package was reviewed. At least there was a good comparison of matrix and laser printers. After this there is a review of the recent Modula-2 compilers for the Amiga. An interesting article is the Reader’s Choice section where readers can vote for their favorite software. DeluxePaint II and Aztec C that tower out of th ecompetition.

This is the July of 1988. Finally the NES became a factor in the UK, even if the UK home computer market was much stronger than in the US. The 16-bit computers made the big win by the middle of the year. The PC broke out of the CGA era, and soundcards became a reality. The Amiga was by this time a well rounded machine: it had the hardware and the software to support both home users and businesses. The Atari launched its final big push to gain market share, and in 1988 it was able to increase its sales to the maximum. As it gets closer to the year-end the time of the 8-bit computers started to fade away.

Gaming in June, 1988

On the cover of CGW there were two excellent games this month: Project Stealth Fighter and Bard’s Tale III.

This month it was announced that Ocean was working on the adaptations of Robocop and Platoon on the C64, two games which were among the last great C64 hits. The other interesting piece from the news section is that the second half of 1988 was full of RPG releases: in addition to the already released Wasteland, Ultima V or Bard’s Tale; the workshops of New World Computing, Origin System, Sir-Tech and SSI were on the brink of releasing another onslaught before the end of the year.

The first review that is worth a mention is for The Hunt for the Red October, which was already reviewed in some of the UK magazines. Unlike other submarine simulators, the goal here was to avoid conflict and to escape from the Soviet fleet. Interestingly at the time, only the book existed yet, so the game predated the famous movie version of the same. It was one game that ultimate worked better on 16-bit systems than on 8-bit ones.

The next game was The Bard’s Tale III, the closing part of the 8-bit epos was critized mildy by Scorpia over relying too much on overtly difficult combat encounters. Enemies grew in numbers and difficulty, graphics and sounds improved slightly, and characters had a chance to venture to even more places and to gain even higher levels than ever before.

After this, there is a short revisit of the Wasteland: Scorpia details some of her tips and tricks on how to survive in its cruel world. So far probably this was the RPG of the year for 1988.

In CGW sometimes there are games which were hardly available. There is for example Long Lance, a strategic wargame of the Pacific theatre, that cannot be found even on Mobygames. This is followed by another lesser known title: Retur to Atlantis, a graphic tex adventure for the Amiga.

A game that was reviewed in UK game magazines finally appeared here: the superb Microprose game was one of their last C64 hit, only Microprose Soccer and Red Storm Rising made it to the C64 after this.This game, as all Microprose titles, were great, though it was not comparable to the 16-bit flight simulators of the day.

Another hard to figh game follows this: Wooden Ships and Iron Men, which is based on the Avalon HIll game of the same name. This game is followed by a text adventure, Twillight Ransom, and this is the only text adventure that is reviewed in this month.

The magazine continued with Video Gaming World: the Nintendo thread was real, and the magazine reviewed some of the trending games of the month: Contra, Karnov and Raid on Bungling Bay. Of these 3, it is Contra that was star of the month: increadible smooth gameplay, with incredible variety. Scrolling right, up, and featuring isometric levels, it was probably the most complete shooter of the days, featuring very different bosses with Giegeric images. All three games were converted to home computers, Raid on Bungling Bay originated on home computers, but the definitive version was the console.

There were some recurring games, like this issues Mech Brigade: it was just so popular with the editoral guard of CGW, that it was not possible to see another round of tips and tricks about this classic wargame.

Onto CVG, the first thing that I would mention are two then upcoming games: The Last Ninja 2 for the C64 and R-Type for the PC Engine, both very notable releases of the time, the later was a real challenger to the graphics presented only by the Amiga so far.

The first game reviewed is also one of the weirdest ones: Micro League Wrestling which is a kind of a turn based wrestling game with digitized images that take up most of the gameplay. I wonder if anyone truly had the idea that this game can be popular. It looked horrible on 8-bit machines, and the 16-bit versions were only marginally better. The review reflect that with an abysmal score.

The next review was lighthearted, probably still shocked by the previous game, and it gave surprisingly good review for Outrun on the Atari ST, even if the port was way-way weaker than the earlier conversion of Hang-On. Next there was Firepower for the Amiga and the home conversion of Renegade, which was quiete popular, though it was far from the quality of the console ports.

The game of the month was Carrier Command, the crown of the ST so far. It was being ported to Amiga, but it was released on the ST first. It provided clearer, easier and more varied gameplay than Gunship, and even it’s 3D graphics were more detailed. The game had multiple vehicles, fast 3D graphics and a huge open world, one of the first open world games.

Finally the first good 16-bit arrived: International Soccer for the ST provied smooth scrolling, full 22 players, and more detailed sprites and animation than any any soccer game before. The gameplay was still poor compared to the standard that was created a few months later by Kickoff or Sensible Soccer, but it was a good start for the next generation of football simulations.

Next was a weird but somewhat esthetic adventure-RPG mix, Legend of the Sword, and after that something more notable: STAC, the ST Adventure Creator. 8-bit computers had some game maker tools, like Shmup Construction Set, but again, the 16-bit generation was where all of these had a new form. CPUs become fast enough to get acceptable speed out of Basic, storage became more plentiful (both memory and floppy), and tooling, like draw programs improved a lot between 1982 and 1988.

The arcades had some great games: Street Fighter and 1983 were released this month, both amazing games for that time: large and numerous sprites, moving pieces, great sound, still 2-3 years ahead of the capabilities of the best computers (the Amiga) of the time.

Onto the movies, this month’s movie selection was not that good: The Prince of Darkness was the one that was watchable and there was an interesting piece on horror movie effects.

The next section was about the PnP RPGs, which also lacked interesting content: Samurai Blade and Mega were the two games mentioned this month, where the later tried to be a generic RPG.

Another article about the articles, and just like I mentioned, the arcade scene had it’s 2-3 years advantage over the home market with titles like Continental Circus, Dead Angle or Super Ranger.

Ad lastly, console games. This section was focusing on Sega: Wonderboy in Monsterland, Space Harrier 3D and Alex Kidd: The Lost Stars were all must have pieces of any Master System collection.

ACE continued to stay ahead of the times: they were among the first to write abou the cmoing of interactive video at homes. In 1988 it was still the laser disc technology that looked favorable, but the CD-ROM revolution was coming and it was on the radar of the magazine.

They visited the FTL office, made interviews with the makers of Dungeon Master.

This issue also had a cassette on the cover, with Impossible Mission as the game gift. A very good choice for C64 and ZX Spectrum owners.

Next is the American Special, where they looked at the bleeding edge of computer technology: touch screens, motion capture, computers in school and the latest graphics software. The NES and the PC-Engine were reviewed, according to the magazine, there were 4.5 million NES sold in the US, which probably overtook the C64 with this number. But it was not just console markets there were blooming, the upgraeded version of Falcon, Falcon AT was on the way, and it utilized the extended capabilities of 286 and EGA machines. The most futuristic piece of technology was probabl the CD-I, that promised cheap multimedia for the next few years. Then, Air Warrior showed that real time games over the network are possible and that the Macintosh is not dead for gaming. Lastly, and this was the biggest thing: Deluxe Paint was released for the DOS with VGA support, the most important thing that was needed for the rise of the VGA games.

The first game that I would mention from the magazine is Carrier Command, one of the stars of 1988. Fast, gorgeous graphics and a wast open world to explore with a number of different vehicles. The presentation was top of the open world games yet, and it had a unique gameplay compared to Elite or Mercenary.

Some 8-bit games next, a lesser known, called Venom Strikes Back a good looking albeit average run and gun game for 8-bit computers, and Usagi Yojimbo, one that I played a lot on the C64. This one is about an interpretation of a samurai rabit comic book with some surprising pacifist gameplay.

An Uridium like shooter was releeased for the ST this month: Return to Genesis. It did not cover the full screen, but thanks to this it was the fastest shooter on the ST yet.

The Acorn Archimedes proved its superiority with Conqueror: amazing 3D performance, but the game was somewhat simplistic.

ACE also reviews International Soccer on the ST, and ACE had a more negative review score compared to CVG, the main critism being that there is no indicator to detect the player and that there are awful collision detection issues.

Falcon for the IBM PC is reviewed. Probably the first time there is an IBM specific review in the magazine. As always reviewers were breathless: Falcon was something special compared to all computer games even when it was showing only CGA graphics.

The Atari ST also got Deflector, a very cool logic game that got rave reviews in the magazine. Then another ST specific title, ST Adventure creator was reviewed with very great detail. Probably one of the best programs the ST offered until this point. STAC and STOS made the platform very interactive in the late 80s.

1988 June was strong for the C64, Zzap had lots of games for review. First is Gryzor, the EUropean version of Contra. The C64 version was nowhere near the NES quality but it was an enjoyble release. The next game was Echelon, the futuristic flight sim, another enjoyable game, though the PC version’s faster framerates were certainly made that more desirable. Impossible Mission II got rave reviews and Target Renegade also passed the mark. Aside from this the home version of Alien Syndrome that I think to be worth a mention.

AmigaWorld’s cover put music in the focus.

However, Zeitgeist started with some harsh but realistic criticism of the Amiga:it argued that Amiga hardware was more expensive compared to PC one: a 20 MB HDD for the PC cost only 300$, but something similar for the Miggy, could have easly went for $1000. Another criticism was that some great features, like ray tracing was possible, but to make it usable a 68020 and 32-bit chiprams were needed, and that was not small money. Same for printing, if somebody wanted a proper printer, it cost an arm and a leg. But if this was not enough, the author bashed the distribution network in Europe and Australia.

On the positibe side, there was the Hannover Fair in Germany,where Commodore introduced a number of new products: the highres A2024 monitor, the A25000 computer which was an A2000 with HDD and built in accelerator, news that Unix was coming to Amiga, a new genlock for nonprofessional use, a new extended chipset with the fat Agnus,and there was also the announcement of the A3000.

Onto technical topics, there was a short BASIC programming article and a longer one on how to setup a studio with an Amiga. Then there was a long list of music softwarre for the Amiga. Among those were Delux Music Construction Set, one of the entry points for amateur musicians. Aside from this, there were many other softwares, sample editors, midi editors, samplers, midi sequencers, the Amiga music scene was very much alive.

Database programs were also a thing. Superbase Personal was reviewed in this issue, a software that was also avaialbe on Atari ST and on PCs. Comparison was made to the PC software market, where the best DB software was available. Around this time Superbase Personal was still a database which used its own database structure and query language, fairly standard of the time.

There were a few other DB software reviewed, then there was an article about creating batch files. This was followed by a article explaining how to use the half brite mode on the Amiga.

In Atari ST User one of the news was that US sales of the computer droped again. The platform still did not hit 1 million in sales, and according to a salesman, it moved about 100000 units in a year in the UK. Rather bleak numbers.

There was a sales chart, with Excellent games in the top spots: Dungeon Master, Carrier Command, Gunship, Xenon, Test Drive were the primary system sellers of this 16-bit computer.

The first review is Highsoft PowerBasic, one of the primary Basic distributions for the platform. A fairly good IDE with good manual and its standalone runtime which made programs runnable directly from GEM made it a very useful program for the beginner software developer and it was only 40GBP.

Another great software was reviewed in this issue: Campus CAD, one of the primary Atari ST CAD software at 400GBP was a costly investment. The article has some images that were made by the software, and it clearly demonstrates the advancement in these home systems in just 5 years. The ST version was not as powerful as the PC versions of the time though.

Another professional program GFA Draft was used for circuit design. It was supposedly a drafting program, but the drawings were similarly impressive as for Campus CAD. With its on screen drawing capabilities the reviewer was very satisfied. On the other hand the big deal was printing and the software lacked in this regard: as part of GEMDOS, it was Atari’s laser printer that was not supported, but the 3rd party HP LaserJet, and this irritated the reviewer. The software cost 140 GBP.

The next article was about scanners. It is still 1988 and we can say that fairly modern topics were covered. The introduced package, IMG Scan was a real hack: the software pacakage contained a hardware addon for printers that made home scanning available for 100GBP. The images were of poor quality, but not totally rubbish.

The next article was trashing Fleet Street Publisher as an amatourish DTP package for the Atari. Then there was a small piece on Music Construction Set, a similar package to the Amiga’s music creator software, but with the obvious midi support instead of samples. The greatest hing was the review of Steinberg products, and the review of Ez-Score, a music sheet writing application.

Next were the game reviews: Carrier Command and Ikari warriors, two great games. This was followed by Football Manager, continuation of the ZX Spectrum game, good but not great. Beyond Zork, Scrablle and Return to Genesis, Predator, all fine games, and the weird Captain Blood was reviewed in the end.

Back to modern topics, how are Atari ST modems made and computer drawing. Then 2 programming languages are reviewed: Modula-2 and Pascal for the ST.

Then some other game reviews: Ultima IV, ST Adventure Creater; then the magazine finished with mails and advertisements.

This is fore June 88. What can be said? The Apple II and the C64 still had a very lively application selection, with some real epics closing this month (The Bard’s Tale III), and the swansong of some developers for these platforms (F-19 Stealth Fighter). The IBM PCs were coming, they did not outpace 8-bit computers yet, but graphics finally reached the level of the C64 with EGA becoming commonplace (Wasteland being one prime example of this) while some unique games like Falcon were showing up in UK shelves too. Nintendo was a growing threat: it caught up with the 8-bit platforms. The 16-bit computers were carving out their niche, the Amiga became the top end gaming machine, while the ST dead in the US, dominated the UK in 1988. Both showed the roots of the PC gaming boom that was about to come.

Gaming in May, 1988

Finally, Ultima V was released, at least this was indicated on the cover of this month CGW. And after opening the magazine, there was another good thing to see: the 3rd episode of Bard’s Tale was advertised by EA.

Scorpia had an editoral on the status of the CRPG genre. She raised many of the tropes that were solidified by this time: the endless grind, the uneven difficulty curves and the meaningless progression. But her views were not completely dark, as it is proved by her review of Ultima V, which came as the logical extension to Ultima IV and the swansong for the Apple II machines.

The next game reviewed is Legacy of Syboot, the game where Chris Crawford parted away from mainstream gaming. This unconventional game design tried to elevated storytelling to the next level, but in 30 years his plans did not came to fruition.

The next game, Panzer Strike was a continuation of traditional Apple II wargaming.

But it was the next game that showed the next step in computer RPG evolution. Wasteland was released and became a benchmark for future CRPGs. It had large world just like Ultima, but it had more complex morals, more complex interactions combined with the tradition combat of Bard’s Tale. This was another swansong for the Apple II, part of the last releases that graced the system.

There was Echelon that tried to add its own twist on the 3D jet figher formula and it was impressive for the C64, if a not too memorable title.

Then another big hit, that showed that detaild point and click adventures were possible on the C64: Maniac Mansion. Up until this point Sierra was the king of adventure games, but here came the unexpected adversary, LucasArts, and with its excellent humour it quickly made a counterpoint to the Sierra classics.

If it is not enough for this month, here are a few more: Tetris and Sokoban were both available on all platforms in the USA, and they proved that gaming is for everyone.

Last, the Amiga had to put out some next generation title again, and it was Port of Call, which was one of the earliest 16-bit managerial games on the market.

C+VGs started the month strong with another 16-bit shootem’up: Sidewinder for the Amiga and the ST. Along with Xenon, Aargh and Roadwars, the 4th arcade inspired game for 16-bit computers that marketed these new machines. These games next to the excellent simulations made a strong case to buy these.

Some other 16-bit extended games arrived this month: Ikari Warriors, Alien Syndrome, Barbarian managed to look betterthen there 8-bit counterparts.

In the usual movie review section there were some great and not so great movies: Wall Street, Broadcast News, Three Men and a Baby, Death Wish 4. In the arcades there weren’t many exciting new titles, maybe Galaga 88 is the only one worth a mention. It was the consoles that finaly came out with a new model: in Japan the PC Engine made its debut. And finally Tony Takoushi had an article about the best Super Mario clone for home computers: The Great Giana Sisters.

ACE continued to be the 16-bit flagholder magazine: even their cover asked for a 16-bit breakthrough this time.

In the news section there were rumours about a 16-bit Amstrad computer, though Amstrad was chasing the IBM-compatible market by then. The other exciting thing was F/A-18 Interceptor for the Amiga, the true next gen game of 1988.

This month animation was the main topic, another concept that got big with the 16-bit computers. And to be honest this feature of those old machines were really cool. Both the ST and the Amiga had wider palettes than the computers before and they had the tricks to display many colours on the screen at time with fast speeds. This was the time that people with little money and no coding experience could start creating at home.

Another non-gaming article is about the classic Game of Life, how to program it and some thoughs about game AI.

The first game review is Oids for the Atari ST. Certainly one of the classics on the system, but not something that would make C64 owners to switch. Around this time of the year, it was Ferrari Formula One and Dungeon Master that got everyone’s attention. One great game for the Amiga, one great game for the ST. After these there is a brief article on strategy games for various platforms, one of the genres that were still kicking stronger on 8-bit machines. The RPG section had Might and Magic and Questron II, two important games for 1987/1988. Even if Might and Magic was an older title, finally it was released to the IBM PC too.

In Zzapp64 the first interesting thing was Julian Rignall’s commentary, that there was still plenty of life in the C64. His main argument was that graphics alone don’t make a game, and 16-bit ones did not have the breakthrough in gameplay yet. And he is right with some examples: Echelon, Driller and so on. But many games were wastly superior on the 16-bit machines, and some just did not exist on the 8-bit computers by this point in time: Falcon, Dungeon Master and Defender of the Crown just to say a few examples.

Even in this issue, the first few games were supporting his claim though: Stealth Mission was a great flight simulator, and Samurai Warrior: The Battles of Usagi Yojimbo was an excellent action game and Cybernoid was an excellent shooter. But later in the magazine, in the 16-bit section the screenshots showed the contrary: the arcade quality games on the Amiga made the C64 look obsolete.

In AmigaWorld the news were about the upcoming 1.3 AmigaOS. According to the words of the magazine, it was an evolutionary, rather then a revolutionary improvement.

The mails are about copy protection, A500 ownership, music creating and monitors.n the software reviews there is an entry level CAD software reviewed, IntroCAD and a VideoTitler called TV*Text.

Then there is the 1.3 OS review. The biggest new things are probably the hard drive boot of the OS and the new Fast File System. Aside from this, there was a new version of the math library and new printer drivers became available. There wer esome new devices and some new commands too to enhance the CLI experience.

Next is a review of Professional Page which was one of the leading DTP software on the Amiga at the time. Another program, one of the classic 3D editors was improved with animation capabilities, Sculp3D was one of the softwares that made excellent use of accelerator boards.

In ST User, one of the main topics was the upcoming generation of transputers, one of the big bets of Atari that did not turn out well. The other thing is mentioned too: the Federated chainstore deal was really bad for Atari and they decided to sell the recently purchased assets.

The more interesting article was on relaxation methods on the ST, it is good to see

that the ST was put into good use. The next interesting article was on the Forth language for the Atari ST. Then an article on accounting software and one on the recent WordPerfect patch. Then there is an article on how todraw on the Atari ST.

Some excellent games are reviewed for the ST: Xenon, Gunship and Dungeon Master. Then there is a certificate maker and a mouse cursor maker program introduced. Then there is some further writing on assembly programming and how to use MasterPlan. Then some more programming and an interview with Rob Hubbard.

Altogether, by May 1988, the Apple II was at its last legs. The only memorable games were its RPGs and strategy games, and those were migrating to the IBM PC. The C64 was still strong, arcade games were still lackluster on PCs, and the other 16-bit computers just did not have the market share. However it was the Amiga and the Atari ST that made big wins in 1988 with more and more games using their hardware to their fullest. Consoles were gaining ground, especially in the US, but they were just about to take over.

Gaming in April, 1988

April’s issue of CGW had Ferrari Formula One from EA and SSI’s Sons of Liberty on the cover. There is an interesting contrast between the two games one is the showcase of new technology, the other is a continuation of the past.

The magazine opens with a full page advert for Wastland, and after a few pages I just realize from the old amaturish look CGW turned to a real professonal one. Sharp columns, good typesetting, great use of bold and italics letters and well placed images are showing the new found quality.

The magazine was still targeting game makers the creator of Ancient Art of War at Sea wrote a letter, in which he highlights some missing details in the review of the game.

The news was about computer viruses and the German court’s decesion of letting Microprose games to be sold in Germany, and about some fighting between Activision and Infocom.

Sports games were in the limelight, with ghames like Mean 18, World Games, Grand Slam Tennis, Superycle, Suberbike Challenge and Earl Weaver Baseball surveyed. The real deal of the month was Dungeon Master for the Atari ST. One of the most important RPG titles of the 80s it introduced high quality dungeon graphics, mouse driven interface and graphic inventory management. It was one great game for the ST, and later on the Amiga.

World Games is next, Epyx was still trying to sell the same formula, but with less and less success.

The next game is another 16-bit system seller first released on the IBM PC, Police Quest I was a success for Sierra and adventure gaming. It was clunky and it had a very strict gameplay, but simulating police life in such detail was a novel idea in 1988.

There is an interview with Chris Crawford in the magazine. His new project, Sibot was his great departure from wargames. More or less he is still working on it, because he was never manage to complete his abstract agenda.

The interview is followed by some other 16-bit games. Ferrari Formula 1 is for the Amiga, and this could have been the first great Formula 1 simulators, if not for the mouse controls that were abysmal. The game itself has nice, but slow graphics and tuning optipns and real courses, and it is really a shame that the developers were unable to improve on the playability.

Just like Epyx, Infocom was continuing with its traditional games, this month with a Sherlock Holms themed one.

Next are some 8-bit greats Skate or Die and Strike Fleet were excellent games on 8-bit platforms, which showed that there is still strenght in the C64. The rest of the magazine listed some other runner up games too Demon Lord, Sons of Liberty and Deathlord.

The CVG had Rocket Ranger on display which was the upcoming 16-bit wonder of Cinemaware.

The news section did not have anything interesting, but the “Street Scene” article had some screenshots of F-18 Interceptor for the Amiga which was the best looking 16-bit game yet, an instant hit for Commodore’s computer.

The first review is still for an 8-bit game though ATF, one of the late 3rd person jet fighting action game for the fading generation of computers. But it was not the only 8-bit game Cybernoid proved that there is still plenty of life in the C64 it had good colours, lots of sprites and the game was full of attention to detail.

The 16-bit market was growing Gee Bee Air Rally was a nice game, but Dungeon Master was the real beast in the UK too. It’s huge sprites, its great colour palette and mouse driven interface was the definitive statement of the next generation.

There are some more 8-bit quality titles IO, Infiltrator and 4th and Inchies the best American footbal game for 1988.

Next to this, there was Rocket Ranger with some jawdropping screenshots, but the game itself was not released yet. The real star was rather Ferrari Formula One, another great looking 16-bit game.

Police Quest was reviewed in this magazine too, but the reactions were a bit tamer compared to CGW. In the RPG section Warhammer 40K ROuge Trader was reviewed, and then Dungeon Master which was showcased with low quality black and white screenshots only

Arcades are not that interesting in this issue, nor the NES. However the Sega Master System had Zillion which was one attractive game for the neglected platform.

In ACE the news were talking about the rising 16-bit market. According to the magazine less then 100.000 Atari ST-s were sold only in the UK, and about 25.000 Amiga in total.

There is an article about isometric graphics, then some arcade reviews, some betting games and 3D games on transputers.

The first game I would mention is Captain Blood then Xenon, both strong 16-bit sellers. ATF is reviewed here too for 8-bit systems. Otherwise it is not the most shining issue of ACE.

Zzap64 does not let us down, Firefly is the first game in the magazine, an above average shooter for the C64. Then there is Train, that was mentioned in other magazines, even a remake was made about this one a decade ago. The idea is that a train is used for escape behind the German lines some tie after Normandy, and the payer must complete several minigames to get across the frontline.

Eternal Dagger from SSI is another interesting game for the month. It is definitely not Pool of Radiance but it is an interesting look on SSI’s history.

A big part of the magazine is the 16-bit section, and there are plenty of games reviewed. Xenon of course, and F-18 Interceptor. The former had near arcade quality gameplay, the later was the first challenger of the Flight Sim market after Falcon shooked it up a little bit.

Dan Dare II, 4th and Inches and Strike Fleet ensures that the C64 gamers were not bored even in April, 1988. Dan Dare II was a pretty fun platformer, if not much bore, but the other two games were heavy hitters. 4th and Inches was arguable the best American Football game before Madden, and Strike Fleet though not a well remembered success of Lucasarts, was a great achievement for naval simulations on the C64.

In AmigaWorld, Zeitgeist was writing about a few interesting points. Accounting software is one such thing, getting online is the other BBSs, SIGs, RS-232, modems ad terminal packages were expected to be the topic this month.

Part of the mails this month continued writing about the migration from the A1000 to the A2000, some other complained about the difficulty to obtain a machine or the immediate servicing it required.

Some printer review, some text editor review, and after that the big thing connecting online. There are some service providers mentioned, the software, the hardware and the possibilities of being online in the late 1980s.

There is some Intuition programming after this, then some PC emulator usage, followed by ramdisk magic.

All together, April saw the 16-bit platforms strengthening their base, the only strong reason to buy an 8-bit computer was the price. 8-bit computers would produce some great games for the rest of the year, but the writing was on the wall by this time clearly.

Gaming in March, 1988

Computer Gaming World’s issue for this month started with a relatively boring cover: neither Lame Mastodon nor Delta Patrol are well remembered nowadays. The Taking a Peek section on the other hand, made sure that this magazine was an interesting read too. The list of upcoming games was high quality, games like Buggy Boy, Wooden Ships and Iron Men, Ports of Call and Dungeon Master were expected in the coming months.

The first review was Scorpia’s Space Quest review. This one was skipped by the magazine at its original time of release: PC games were not yet in the focuts at the time. The shift away from C64 games was gradual, only a handful of them were reviewed this month, but some of those were great, take Uridium as an example.

The next article is about the Winter CES where EA celebrated its 5th birthday. Both Activision and EA were highly profitable companies by this time. The star of the Winter CES was CD-ROM and VGA technology, though both needed a few more years to catch-on. Also, the IBM-PC games were presented an even greater number.

Wasteland was previewed. 1988 was a very good year for role playing gamers and it was in big part thanks to Wasteland. For action gamers there was Skyfox II which I would go so far to say as one of the forefathers of the Wing Commander series. The next game is Breach, another revolutionary title, one of the first mouse driven turn based tactics games. Then an overview of SSI, the old boy of the computer game business closed the
magazine.

CVG opened with an important editoral: according to the author the arrival of Xenon for the Atari ST and Amiga made arcade level gameplay reality at homes. I don’t like that game too much, but truth to be told, in presentation it is truly close the coinops of the mid-80s.

In the news section it was mentioned that Ocean was decreasing the number of yearly releases. According to the magazine in 1987 Ocean released more than 30 games, and this decreased to 24 in 1988. There is an article about the WinterCES in CVG too, but it is mostly the 8-bit titles that they found captivating there.

After this, there is the Xenon review. One interesting point of the review, aside from the praise, is the comparison between the Amiga and Atari ST versions. With the A500 released, this was the time, that Commodore started to overtake Atari again. Right next to the review there was an interview with the developers, Bitmap Brothers.

The move from 8-bit computers to the next generation continued. Finally, Spy vs Spy was converted to the Atari ST, and the top-down racing game, Super Spring was also the best on 16-bit computers. Regarding sports games, Winter Olympiad was a new one available for the next generation platforms though it was not a well received title. Mach 3, Captain Blood were other next generation titles which delivered the high fidelity screens that were expected from these powerful computers. Captain Blood was especially interesting if not entertaining with its quirky gameplay.

There was still software out for the 8-bit platforms though: Platoon, Sub-Battle Simulator, Dan Dare II or IK+ were all good incentives to purchase 8-bit systems.

In the arcades Thunderblade was avaible, it continued with the superscalar techonogy used by Sega and put up jaw dropping fidely for the aracade crowds. However even home console owners were happy to pu out some good games this month, Commando for the NES was a traditional release, but HangOn, World Grand Prix and Afterburner made the Master System’s lineup considerably stronger than before.

Zzap64 opened with a Gauntlet II review, it is not a bad game, but compared to Druid and Druid II it definitely was a game of the past. Next is Ikari Warrior which was another OK game, one which I played plentyful times in my childhood, but like I mentioned it a few times it was more of a necessaty than matter of quality. Just like with Gaunlet, there is no real problem with the game, but in 1988, it was a bit light in content. The next game I would mention is definitely something that is heavy on content: Project Stealth Fighter, where Microprose really tried to make the ultimate 8-bit combat flight sim, and in many way they succeeded. However, it was very clear that by 1988 it was time to move to the 16-bit platforms, where the deep gameplay could be combined with adequate frame rates and filled polygons. We have the obligatory shootemup, which is called IO this month, and there is also a space sim, Apollo 18, which is not bad at all. But it is not the end: the old 64 saw such releases this month as Hunt for Red October, Test Drive and Predator. As a conclusion it was still a good month for the C64 too.

The cover of AmigaWorld was suggesting a video focused month. In the mail section one of the key topic was still whether the A2000 was a good answer to the MacII and the PS/2 hardware, this month mails are rather supportive. The video themed articles start with a list of video related hardware available for the Amiga, then the next article is about image composing and animation.

After this, there is the hardware buyers guide. A 20MB HDD with controller was 900 USD, an OK price if you ask me. Half meg of RAM started at 150USD, which was again a very nice price, compared to a few years back, and for 600 USD it was possible to extend the machine to 2MB. A 4MHy 68020 board was available fro 1500 USD, and for 1900 even an 68881 was added.

There is another look at Amiga CLI and the reviews look at memory expansions, samplers and programing languages. There us a review of Test Drive, which is satisfied with the game but still wishes for better framerates which were certainly possible on the Amiga.

This month Atari ST user was looking at the transputer chips, and it had high hopes regarding those. Then there is arather interesting programming article about tensile structires, with the final code presented in basic with relaxation algorithms. The next article is about GEM Forth, another programming environment for the Atari ST. There is a look at some desk accessories and a review of WordPerfect, which is followed by an article about how to draw on the computer. There are plenty of game reviews, with
the best being Xenon, Gunship, Test Drive, Tetris, Dungeon Master and Wargame Construction Set.

After this there is another drawing instruction, this time about drawing new mouse pointers on the ST. After this there is a look at Timeworks DTP and an article about coding effects in assembly. Then a review of Masterplan for the ST. Alltogether, this was a very good month for Atari.

ACE magazine mentions that Nintendo dropped Mattel as the marketing company for the NES. Then there were the future predictions, that was the usual topic: 8-bits were on the way out, 16-bits were rising. Then there is an article about digitizing images and hand tracing. After this Quantum Paint a draw program is reviewed for the Atari ST which was able to do more than 200 colours on screen, with the 16 colour per line limit. Another article mentions how the magazine was made, Macintosh was used for DTP.

The next article was about the state of the arcade market and a brief history on the evolution of arcade machines. The game reviews are the usual, Winter Olympiad 88, Crazy Cars, Hunter’s Moon, Apollo18 and some chess and logic games.Then some midi music, and the mails. There were many people worried about the 8-bit days being behind.

Gaming in February, 1988

The second month of 1988 brought some bad news for the readers of CGW. CGW had to announce that their sister magazine, Computer Game Forum was shutting down. The lack of interest was given the reason

for the end. However not everything was bad about this, because now CGW being a monthly publication, it increased in size and it had place for the more unique articles from its sister magazine.

Another good thing for the month was a staff photo with the core team of the magazine, although Scorpia sadly missing from the pictures.

Sneak-Peak had some promising games, like Skyfox 2 or Echelon, then, the first review was about the second Alternate Reality game, The Dungeon. The reviewer is not fully satisfied with the game, and with the series ends on a low note.

After this, there is a longer article about the then-current helicopter simulations. Gunship is the king, evidently, closely followed by games like Super Huey, Infiltrater II and Tomahawk. Then another flight game is reviewed, Apollo 18 for the C64.

The true game of the month is Falcon, that took simulation to the next level. Falcon was a huge jump in the quality of combat flight simulators. F-15 Strike Eagle was still very arcadish in 1985, it had very little grounding in reality. This was fixed by Gunship somewhat, it provided a fairly detailed cockpit, and beatiful 3D graphics on the 16-bit computers. There were some other contenders, like Jet or Harrier, but it was Falcon that pushed realism to the next level. First, it had the best physics in any combat simulator so far, second, it had the most realistic weapon handling, third, the cockpit was very faithful to the real one. The review is interesting for a reason: this is the first time that a 386 PC or a Mac II is mentioned like something that can really improve on the gameplay. The framerate was rather good, 4-5 FPS was constant, and the later released Amiga version could achive some very nice speeds with an accelerator equipped.

The next 2 games are less important. Star Trek: The Promethean Prophecy continued the dying art of interactive text adventures, while 2400 AD was an interesting side venture for Origin.

After these, another impactful game: Test Drive. Interestingly it was still introduced for the C64 and the IBM PC first, but it was the Amiga and Atari ST versions that demonstrated the power of the title. The most realistic driving game on any home platform yet, even if it was still very far from an actual driving experience. The good selection of cars, and the unique cockpits made it a very high fidelity experience.

Across the ocean, CVG reviewed Rastan Saga for the home computers, another lazy arcade port for the 8-bit micros. On the opposite side, the ST port of Star Wars was a grace for the paltform, and another showcase for the fast 3D of the 16-bit computers. This was not the end of ports however, Gryzor and Outrun were both mediocre ports for the 8-bit micros, and there was also Tetris which was difficult to screw up on any platform.

The 16-bit era was rolling forward: Midimaze introduced local multiplayer on the ST, and it was one of the first FPS games at the same time. The hunt for Red October, King of Chicago, Garrison, Test Drive and Rampage were all proud 16-bit adaptations.

The next interesting read in CVG is in the regular movies section: Robocop was released into the theaters. The adventure of the month was Jinxter, and the tabletop roleplaying game version of Star Wars was reviewed. A very good month indeed. There was also Pacmania for the arcades and the NES got a pretty good tennis game.

The mail section had some interesting things: one guy was complaing about Tony Takoushi, arguing that the 8-bit market was far from dead, but in this case Takoushi was definitely right: in 1988 the 8-bit market started to feel old.

This is the same thing that was stated by Zapp this month: they had to apologise for the new Amiga section, and reassure everyone about their commitment to the C64, but confirming that the future was there.

At the same time, it also had an advertisment for the Sega MasterSytem which is more than strange from a dedicated C64 magazine.

The reviews were good, first there was Matchday II, which was the first real competition to International Soccer. I would say it was definitely more beautiful, but it did not play better than the venerable game. Then, there are some other good games, like 720 and platoon, an Amiga section with the image of a Ferrari Testarossa from Test Drive showcasing the next computer generation.

In Ace magazine, there were rumours about a new Amstrad machine reaching the capabilities of the Amiga. There was also a look back at 1987, with the Atari ST and the Amiga in the limelight. The topic of the month was video games and agression. With games like Deathwish and higher fidelity military simutors available, there was a new question on the horizon: it is OK to teach our kids to kill? People from EA, activision, US Gold and Microprose were asked about this.

The home version of Outrun got negative reviews here too. Dan Dare 2 had acceptable reviews, while Rampage got complaints about its expensive price. Tetris had its review here too and like I mentioned above its reception was excellent everywhere.

Star Trek was an older ST title, but it got another round of average review this month. The rest of the month was mostly the same as in other magazines: Tetris, Hunt for the Red October and Gryzor. The real cool stuff was Diplomacy for the IBM PC, it was a good tabletop conversion which still used CGA graphics, and it was a very good addition to the PCs library.

The flight simulator article is the most interesting for the month. Flight Simulator II is the first contender. The ST and Amiga versions specs were closer to the soon to be released Flight Simulator III on the IBM PC. It was the best and most detailed flight simulator of the time, and it run fairly smoothly on the 16-bit computers. Falcon was already released on the Mac and the PC, but it was the soon to be released Atari ST and Amiga versions that were truly exceptional. It was definitely the top combat flight sim until F-16 Fighting Falcon was released, and even at the time it was the best looking on any machine. Chuch Yeager’s Advanced Flight Trainer on the PC was pretty fast, especially on a 286, it was it’s only advantage compared to the ST and Amiga sims. Gunship was one of the older games, by this time, but the 16-bit versions were still part of the top of the technology in 1988. They looked good, they were fast enough and there was enough depth to enjoy them for long hours.

Next there is a look at Shootemup Construction Kit and 3D Game Maker. Jinxter, Deja Vu, Borderzone and Shadowgate are the adventure games reviewed this month and noone can complain seeing these names. At the end of the magazine, in the pink pages, there are not many changes since last month that is worth mentioning.

In AmigaWorld one of the important questions were about upgrading from old machines, being it either the C64 or Amiga 1000 to the new A500 and A2000 machines. There were complaints that the C64 emulation was poor and that the A2000 was overpriced while it afforded little over the A1000. It is importing to see this why it was difficult for Commodore to gain more acceptance on the market.

At least PC emulation finally succeeded with the new A2088 card. And for 700$ the buyer could get a more or less IBM compatible Amiga. Small problem that by 1988 a TurboXT could be bought for the price. Nonetheless it was there and it was certainly provided much needed compatibility with the giant platfrom.

Another cool tech was the accelerator reviewed. A new 68020 CPU board running at 14.32MHz was a really cool thing in 1988, with the additional floating point unit and memory chips, the A2000 turned into a real beast. The probem was its high price only, which was about the same price as an A2000 itself: 1500$, and 32-bit static RAM was expensive too: 1300$ for 512k, it was definitely not a product for common folks.

The next article was testing out some C64 emulators for the Amiga with modest success. Aisde from this, the Audiomaster and MultiForth that are worthwhile to mention, and a short look at spreadsheet applications and their memory hunger.

Japan was crazy about Dragon Quest III this month. This game, together with Phantasy Star, were the the most amazing console RPGs available in 1988. In the US kids were enjoying Contra, easily one of the top 10 games for the NES.

Gaming in January, 1988

The cover of CGW opened the year with war. 6 years in the making and it was still a very much grognard magazine. The depicted games this time are The Battle of Shiloh and Airborne Ranger. The former is still the old school SSI wargame, the later is a member of a new generation of action games.

The improvement of technology was quite visible in the magazine. There were some new type faces introduced, the pictures were arranged in a cleaner way and they showed better quality and they appeared in bigger numbers.

All these attributes were clearly visible in the Taking-A-Peek section, which introduced Space Quest II, Police Quest, Apollo 18 and Falcon this month.

The first review is of Into the Eagle’s Nest. This Gauntlet clone was already reviewed overseas, and it gets an acceptable review in CGW too. One thing is sure, this game is not Druid, the quality of the gameplay and the graphics were both behind of that remarkable title, and compared to that game, this was below the standards of 1988.

Shiloh Grant’s Trial in the West is the next review. The game continues the old SSI formula. By 1988 at least it was possible to use joystick on the C64, or a keypad on the PC. But the graphic engine was outdated, it did not support EGA, and the gameplay was getting stale compared to the newcommer startegy games of the era.

Regarding this, UMS and Empire were the future. Empire was making war big, a whole world was the playfield and the units were comfortable controllable by the mouse. In presentation it got a lot closer to modern games than anything SSI or SGG produced. The game featured land-air-sea units and a simple production system and it was complex enough for the regular grognard. In addition, the game was mouse driven and it worked on the 16-bit computers and the PC.

UMS looked mindblowing, but there were concerns about the playability. It had a 3D playfield, with 2D units, and it worked really well on the 16-bit machines. The battles were from several timeframes, from Classic Greek warfare to Vicotorian-era. But there were quite a number of concerns about the depth of the game, if it can really live up to the standards of the SSG and SSI giants.

Another month, another Infocom game. I wonder if part of the Infocom strategy was that continous game releases can provide continous revenue. This months game is Borderzone. Then there are some tips for Mech Brigade, followed by a review of a ship combat game High Seas. This is followed by the review of the aformentioned Empire, a very important addition to the 16-bit computers library.

C+VG has Outrun on the cover, at last the home conversions of the legendary arcade game have arrived.

The first review I would mention is the homeconversion of Rampage. I loved it playing on the C64, I was cool seeing the buildings to collapse. It did not have too much depth, and by 1988 the standards were high. This reflected on the review as well, which game relatively low scores and complained about the price. The ST version was closest to the arcade and an Amiga version was not released yet. It is a nice addition for the 16-bit machines even if it was not a specially demanding title.

Driller was aimed at the 16-bit market, but the 8-bit versions arrived first. It had filled polygon graphics and as expected very slow on the old 8-bit computers. It was I think quite a memorable game at the time, but its appeal was limited because of the abstract gameplay.

2 big skateboarding releases became available. Skate or Die and 720 are both legendary. 720 more for its arcade roots, and Skate or Die for the great C64 version. Actually I cannot remember any skate boarding game up until Tony Hawks that reached the level of Skate or Die in terms of fun.

There is a walkthrough of then current wargames. Annals of Rome, Battles in Normandy, Gunship, Russia and Road to Moscow are covered. Gunship and Flight Simulator II were the top flight sims of 1987, especially with their 16-bit versions. Annals of Rome was a big step for grand strategy games, after Balance of Power this is the first game that tried to create the rules of grand strategy. With all these titles already available, 1988 was a very good year for the wargamer.

The next article is about the home conversions of Outrun. The reviewer is rather kind to these terrible home conversions. The Master System version is the only one that has some redeeming qualities.

There is an article on the 16-bit machines after this. next article is the 16-bit suplement. There is a list of oncoming titles like Captain Blood, Test Drive or The Hunt for the Red October.

The most exciting new title was probably Carrier Command. It promised a fully realised 3D world with filled poligons and fast graphics, which was not attainable on the still popular 8-bit computers. The screenshots were amazingly looking, and I am sure some jaws dropped after seeing the huge carrier and airplane in colour on the screen. 4 years after Elite, the next generation of 3D games arrived to homes.

In the movies, He-Man, Spaceballs and Predator were the new big titles, making January a very good month for the movie goers.

In the movies He-Man and Spaceballs and Predator were the big things,

The NES received some excellent new titles Kung-Fu the old arcade game, Excitebike, which was probably the best bike racing game for 1988. There was also Duck Hunt, which is a classic, yet ultimately boring lightgun shooter for the NES. At least I had this opinion 20 years ago, and I have this now.

The arcades had Street Fighter I, which was an important release, though not as groundbreaking as its successor.

Last, in the hot gossip section there is a look at Test Drive, another title that was revolutionary for gaming. It created the 3D racer genre, that was led by Need for Speed in the 90s. Even the C64 version was pretty good, but the 16-bit versions were the real next generation titles. The Amiga had digitized sounds, and both the ST and the Amiga had higher resolution and more colourful screens than the C64.

In the next part of the article, Tony Takoushi was predicting the death of the 8-bit computers, rightfully. The time of the Amstad and ZX Spectrum was gone, only the C64 was capable of holding out for a little longer. Probably the big luck for the C64 was that the Amiga was still more than twice as expensive, and the Atari did not have custom chips, and least it could still show some crazy scolling against the ST.

Zzap64 has a review of Driller too. The same very warm reception as in C+VG. The classic Konami sports game, TrackNField however got lackluster review, it was a bit outdated game by 1988, the reviewer suggests to play Decathlon instead.

Superstar Ice Hockey was a huge improvement in sports games, probably this was the first one that started to resemble like the sport games of the 1990s. An earlier excellent hockey game existed for the C64, International Hockey. This game improved all the dynamics, it had great speed, more detail and good controls. As always, the 16-bit versions were the best somewhat superior.

Western Games was an ill-made ripoff of the classic Games series that made into the shops this month. Another game, PHM Pegasus from Lucasfilm got average reviews. The reviewers were awed by Chuck Yeager’s Advanved Flight Trainer, even with the snailpaced C64 version.

The arcade reviews were similar to C+VG this month, Afterburner was jawdropping, Street Fighter was attractive. There was also a joystick review, with the Competition Pro still leading above another products.

In the adventure section there was Knight Orc and Plundered Hears. The strategy section had Battles in Normandy, Ogre and Annals of Rome, all important great games on their own. After this, there is a look back at 1987, the last year when the C64 was the king of gaming.

Further into the magazine, there is a Skate or Die review. The reviewers are amazed, it was a very strong openinig for 1988. Airborne Ranger did not get the same opinion, and I can understand that, it was not the best made Microprose game. Rampage got even worse reviews, see the opinion above.

ACE magazine had a number of new things this month. First, there was the PINK PAGES, which was a hardware specific column to help consumers in their computer of choice. The other one is a look forward to 1988.

There are news about a new tape format, that could have overcome CDs. The Digital Audio Tape however never became a serious home storage solution.

Infocom was dropping prices and it promised some new revolutionary titles. That was very much needed as they were one of the last game makers to stick to text only adventure games in 1988. Another interesting development for the company was that they left the Amstrad platform in 1988.

Virgin bought Mastertronic, and with that move they cemented themselves in the game development business for a bit more than a decade. Another interesting piece of article is about the lack of women among game players and the introduction for age certificate on video games.

The previews show lots of good games Apollo 18, Outrun, The Hunt for Red October. There is a special about the future of computing.

One of the main things mentioned is the transputer. This technology did not become successful, but at the time Atari was betting big on it. A forerunner of small scale multiprocessing, the technology did not meet the expectations and it disappeared eventually. After this, there is an article about 1987 graphics trends. An 8000GBP Amiga system was one of the more affordable systems for computer generated graphics, with Sculpt-3D, an extra HDD, RAM, FPU and plotting tablet. Of course this was stil nothing compared to the custom made CAD machines that costed over 50000 GBP.

There is a number of midi keyboards tested, and then we reach to the game reviews. The first two are Plundered Hearts. and Zork Zero. This was reviewed in other magazines earlier. Good games, but they were already niche by 1988s standards. Project Stealth FIghter is reviewed and it is an excellent example of what a game could look like for 1988. Skate or Die and Driller are the 2 big releases for the month. Skate or Die is simply fun, but Drillers tame gameplay is counterbalanced with its increadibly visuals on 8-bit machines.

Probably the big review of the month is Universal Military Simulator. The big 16-bit wargame was released at once. The graphics were gorgeous for a wargame, even better than the graphics in Empire. The gameplay in my opinion was pretty good. It simulated time, morale and terrain among others. I played only pre-industrial scenarios, and those were pretty interesting to play out. It is a bit slow game, it takes some time to give the orders, but it was not surprising for wargamers at the time. All-in-all, this game was a very good 16-bit release for early 1988.

Last, there are the pink pages, with the hardware info for January, 1988. The ZX Spectrum was cheap, really cheap, but it was just simply behind all the other technology. The C64 was about the price of the ST, but by 1988. the ST was a way more promising and way more serious machine. The Amiga found the sweet spot with the A500, tremendous features with affordable prices. The Mac II was there, with 4400GBP of a price, insanely expensive and insanly powerful. The much more modest MacSE was available 2300GBP, out of most people’s reach still, and the hardware was againg in that machine. At last, the IBM was there. The most typical configuration was an 8MHz 8086 still, but at least EGA started to become commonplace. It was only the sound where there was not much progress for the IBM. Also, on processor front, the 10MHz 286 started to be more common, adding the horse power that overcome first the ST, later the Amiga.

The main topic in AmigaWorld this time was desktop publishing. The Zeitgeist this month is about moving from Amiga 1000 to the next generation Amigas. The answer is not definite though, as the A1000 still had more expansions than for the A2000. In the mail section there is something similar mentioned what if another generation would come another architecture change. That is something that kind of happened with the A3000, not all cards were compatible with the new model. Some other reader criticises the specs for the A2000, writing that a 68020 and a floting point processor s soon the must have, something that was available for Apple users for a time.

The review of desktop publishing software ends in a disappointment. None of the software is on the level of DOS and Mac desktop publishing software yet. Some critical features, like hyphenation, master pages or full PostScript support was not available in the reviewed software yet CityDesk, Publisher and PageSetter.

The big star of the month was Sculpt 3D, one of the first big modeller programs for home computers, though it was not a real CAD application like CAD3D, it targetted more of the artists. Next to this review, another interesting area for the Amiga mentioned coloured 3D imaging used for brain scans.

Gaming in Decemer, 1987

The last issue of CGW for 1987 set 2 things into the center: american
football and Zork.

Getting into the magazine, there is an advertiement from EA for Chuch
Yeager’s Advanced Flight Trainer. It had a remarkably good advertisement
campaign for a game which featured fighter jets, yet lacked air combat.

The editoral was very important this month. It gave insight into how the
magazine was made. Firs they started to use an IBM AT to put together the
pages, this was pared with a full-page monitor and Ventura Publisher. The
choice is important in my opinion. Mainly, because it was not a Mac, not an
Amiga nor an Atari ST, but a standard IBM PC. I wonder what made them to go
with this decision, but I suppose the price was better than with a Mac and
it had more features than anything on the Amiga or the ST.

According to the magazine, they managed to cut the time and cost
significantly, with 15% and 25% respectively. The articles were mostly
written on MS Word, and I suppose that many writers used Macs. Another
interesting factor, that the articles were sent to the magazine not only on
by mail on floppies, but over the early net. This setup was becoming the
standard at the time, and I think it interestingly highlights the dominance
of the PC in every possible market.

The first review of the month was from Scorpia. She reviewed the usual
Infocom offering. This time it was Plundered Hearts, and even this was
still the good old text adventure genre, they tried to improve the
contents over the years, and put some twists here and there. Surely by 1987
this worked less and less. Sierra’s attack on multiple fronts (Leissure
Suite Larry, Police Quest, Space Quest) was heavily leaning into the
traditional Infocom territory, and UK titles like those from Level9 and Magnetic Scrolls were adding beautiful images to the traditional text adventure formula.

After the first review, there is a survey of football games. These were
still pretty primiteve compared to the upcoming Megadrive-era, their roots
were closer to the clunky gameplay of the mid-80s. GFL Football and
Gridirion are two titeles that are worth mentioning, Gridirion especially,
because it was one of the first Bethesda game.

There is also a report about Dragon Con 87. The famous RPG con was attended
by game designers and by CGW too. The designers were asked about their
development advice and future ideas. And this is the place where the game
award of CGW took place.

For adventure games, Starflight received the crowning achievment.  I would
argue that it is even better than Mass Effect. The action category had an
interesting choice, Gunship, for the simple reason that CGW did not
consider it as a simulation. And even if I agree that it was not Flight
Simulator, this was the top combat flight sim for 1987 that is for sure.A
special award was given to Cinemaware for Defender of the Crown, for its
careful game design. Even if it lacked some depth, it filled it with
imagingation, and it was probably the most captivating game of the year.
The strategy title went to SSG for Gettysburg, and finally the game of the
year was Ultima, a very fine choice indeed. I am said a bit that Pirates
nor Maniac Mansion was not mentioned, probably they did not have the impact
at the time.

Another review, Project Stealth Fighter, which was probably the top 8-bit
combat flight simulator. This was the genre which moved first to the 16-bit
computers, and Project Stealth Fighter was kind of a swansong for that. The
game was the usual very slow 3D game on the limited architecture, but the
mission details were the finest yet to be seen on the C64.

This is followed by the Beyond Zork review, which added RPG elements to
text adventuring. The next article was another guide for Warship, someone
surely liked this game, and the new SSG strategy game, Battles in Normandz
was reviewed. Then a 16-bit title, Firepower was reviewed for the Amiga.
Unfortunately the game was still unable to merry the arcade genre with the
new power of the next generation machines.

Going on to C+VG, the news section was loud with the announcement of
Universal Military Simulator, which was the most promising 16-bit wargame
up until then. There was a racing game for the Atari ST too, 500 Grand Prix
that wanted to be the first next generation racing game. A third game was
showing off for the 16-bit systems, The Hunt for Red October, based on the
book, was another colorful 16-bit title.

The first real good game reviewed in this issue was BuggyBoy, a very good
conversion from the arcades. The C64 version was fluid and sounded good,
the ST version looked good and the Amiga version unified the advantages of
these two versions. The game itself is not as good as Pit Stop II with its
crazy speed and fast levels and the actual pitstops, but it was still
entertaining.

There is a Captain America game, it is available both on 8 and 16 bit
platforms. Unfortunately its only redeeming quality is that it is a movie
tie-in, aside from that it is a truely subpar game. The next is Terrorpods,
an early Psygnosis game for the 16-bit platforms. It is a strange game,
which tries to innovate in gameplay but it fails horribly. The testers
thought otherwise, and gave it 10s and 9s though.

Shoot’em up Constructur Kit for the C64 is an important release, I am sure
there were tens of thousands kids trying to create their own game with it.

The big release of the month is Chuck Yeager’s Advanced Flight Trainer, the
top flight sim for 1987 Christmas. The IBM version was fast on 8MHz PCs of
the time, the only disadvantage was that it did not support EGA graphics.

Star Trek – The New Generation started around this time in the UK, what a
big year, though I have to admit there are things which I loath in this
series. Also, there is a preview of Nigel Mansel’s F1 World Championship,
and by the looks it was not necessary something that could overcome Revs or
Pit Stop II for C64 racing.

There is a huge Comodore advertisement in the issue. This is the first hit
Christmas for the Amiga. The price was right, the software was right and
the marketing was right, everything for good sales to the next year.
In the arcades Operation Wolf was released, we had one in the local pub in
my small village. Having a machinegun shaped controller was awesome, and I
remember that it had a kickback which added greatly to the immersion as a
kid. In this issue not just the then-current, but the upcoming arcade games
were surveyed, things like Street Fighter or Afterburner.
The adventure section is some French stuff and some Infocom stuff, nothing
that was not mentioned before. The console section is only slightly more
interesting. Golf and Soccer for the NES are the games for the month, and I
am sure these sold a few NESs. Especially Soccer, the first game that was
better than International Football for the C64. Faster, more colourful and
with more players. The gameplay was still pretty far away from actual
soccer which was not helped by the rudamentary AI.

In the mail section there are a few words about games and racism and
sexims, similarly to CGW, adult gamers were quite sensitive for these
topics around the time. There is a mail that asks for what are the ten best
ST games. The reply is horrible: The Pawn, Addictaball, Arkanoid, Road
Runner, Indiana Jones, Mercenary, Super Spring. Some of these are aweful,
some are mediocre or a bit too complex or a bit too simple for the time
especially compared to the C64 games. It is suprising that neither Flight
Simulator II or Defender of the Crown or Gauntlet are not mentioned.

Zzap had a good Christmas. Maniac Mansion, Buggy Boy, Shoot’em Up
Construction Kit, C64 couldn’t really wish for more. Russia and Lords of
Conquest were reaching the shores of UK, two more American style wargames.

Zzap 16-bit section compares the ST and the Amiga and they asks some
programmers about the hardware. Developers prefer the Amiga, but the price
of the ST was marvellous. One developer even mentions how overpriced the
Spectrum +3 is, and that the days of the 8-bit hardware are over. Another
developer was saying that Atari was heading in the right direction and that
their customer service was wonderful. Most developers were complaining
about the OS on both platforms.

There is the Commodore Christmas advertisment. A C64 + a disk drive was
almost the price of an A500, another reason to go 16-bit. The titles of the
16-bit machines were also getting more and more impressive, Defender of the
Crown, Gauntlet, Bard’s Tale were all more impressive on the not-so-new
machines.

ACE reached its 3rd issue. The arcade section had Afterburner, the most
attractive arcade game until that time. There was an article about music
sapling, and the legendary Roland MT-32 was also introduced. There was also
a comparision made between the ST, the A500 and the Archimedes, with very
high hopes regarding the later.There is also an article about raytracing
and another one comparig paint programs for the Amiga.

One of the new games was Ogre, the computer implementation of the famous
wargame. Druid 2 got good reviews in this magazine too. There is one early
game from Codemasters, Professional Ski Simulator. There is a 3D game for
the Archimedes reviewed, Zarch, probably one of the fastest 3D games on a
home computer yet. Grand Slam was released for the Amiga and the ST became
the first succesful 16-bit tennis game.

The strategy section contained a good selection of awesome games. Annals of
Rome, Balance of Power, Battle of Britain, Desert Rats, Doomdark’s Revenge.
Some very good games for 16-bit computers, some very good games for 8-bit
computers. It was Universial Military Simulator that was expected to bring
strategy games to the next generation with its 3D combat theatre. The
adventure game of the month was Gnome Ranger, another great game from
Level9.

This was the first time that AmigaWorld could be optimistic about the
future. One of the few things that is mentioend in the Zeitgeist column
that the office of the maagazine was using Amiga computetrs to write the
articles. The number of software packages available grew rapidly in 87, the
new Amigas were out, and they were good. So there was a good reason to be
optimistic this time.

There is a review of WordPerfect, the big release for the end of 87 for the
Amiga. One of the big names of word processing became finally with this and
it greatly added to the viewability of the system.
The holiday software buyers guide was a very long list of available
software for the Amiga. By this time, there were tons of software available
and some of these were real professional grade software.

The main topic of the month was Amiga in performing arts, it is basically
makink presentations with the Amiga. In the review section, a new
DTP software CityDesk is reviewed, with some games like Starglider or
Uninvited.

There is a very big hardware advertisement section. Unfortunatelly the
price of the A2000 is not listed, but the A500 was available with 1MB RAM
and a monitor from 999USD. That was a very good price for this powerful
machine. A similar set of C64, costed 530USD, but obviously the difference
between these two systems was more than twice as much. A basic A500 was
available for 600USD, which was also a fine price.

The Christmas issue of Atari ST User was also in a happy mood. The
ST finally had good software availabily for all platforms.

The ST also saw WordPerfect released. Atari was also in a good financial
shape, though they made their largest commercial mistake by purchasing a
chainstore called Federated. Unfortunatelly new hardware was not available,
aside from the MegaSTs which prouved very little improvement over the
original machines.

Gnome Ranger was reviewed in the magazine and there was also a new Pascal
IDE available. There was an advertisement about multitasking replacements
for the ST, I wonder how well those worked in practice. After these there
is a gallery, which shows images that use the limited palette of the ST in
an excellent way.

Back to the game reviews, Terrorpod is reviewed, which was highly praised,
but I don’t know why… Then there is Addictaball, which I mentioned above
for another magazine. After this, there is some assembly language
programming, then a Forth compiler and a sound sampling article.

The DTP reviewed this month is Timework’s Desktop Publisher, which is as
far as I understand was targetting the entry level market.All in all there
were plenty of professional news for the ST by the end of 1987.

On the Famicom, the Zelda clones were pretty much unstoppable. This month
had Outlanders. There were a few not too bad movie tie-ins, Star Wars,
Superman, Top Gun and Rambo. Exciting Baseball was an important sport title
for the system.

The first Final Fantasy was introduced, and honestly it immediately put up
some tough competition to the Dragon Warrior series. So much so that I
prefer the first FF to the Dragon Warrior series on the NES, though
probably partly because I played this game first.

Megaman was also released this holiday, with some other lesser titles like
Karnov or Empire City or the bad port of Metal Gear. Megaman, in Japan
Rockman was amazine, it was a very good crowning achivement for the end of
1987, even if the difficulty level was way too hard with this game. The
control was tight, the stages were memorably and the enemy design was a
very good one for a limited system such as the Famicom.

Lastly, Wizardry was launched on the console, which made the definite debut
of the series in Japan.

The US also had MegaMan by this time and Wizards and Warriors, so it was
clear what to buy for the children for Christmas.
So this is the end of 1987, which was an explosive year for the game
business. The C64 was still the king in the west, but the first time, that
the alternatives were quite good. The C64 was not particularly good in
anything asides from games. It had limited memory, a very small screen, a
very slow disk drive, so it was natural that business interest faded in the
system.
There were still some titles released on this platform first though. Maniac
Mansion was probably the most famous, and it demonstrated that a complex
modern adventure was definitely possible on the platform. Also, there were
new hights in terms of graphics as The Last Ninja demonstrated.

On the low-end however, the NES was widely available by the end of 1987,
and some very hot games were only available on this platform. Mario,
Metroid, Zelda and Megaman was good enough reason for kids to wish for an
NES. Also there was no disk loading and it was easier to operate the syste
for kids.

On the top-end, 16-bit computers were faster and they had more RAM and
colour, and they could be used for some real work as well. The Mac was
still very expensive, but the others were available for the common people
too.

The PC finally had EGA graphics as common as CGA. This give the platform
colour, and the latest Sierra games all used this capability. The sound was
still horrifing though, with the Roland MT-32 being the only alternative.
For about 1000USD/GBP, one could by a 8MHz 8088 with 2 disc drives and
EGA graphics, and this was a good start for a PC gamer.

The Atari was going strong, they cut the price under the Amiga, it costed
almost as much as the C64, but it had some major issues. Choppy scrolling
and weak sound. However strategy and adventure games did not have issues
with that, and some fairly major releases were available for the platform,
like the King Quest series or Flight Simulator II. Also, the black and
white display was bloody amazing for word processing at the time.

The new contender, the A500 was the ultimate game machine, getting almost
arcade perfect ports. However the original price was still a bit too much.
For the price of the A500 one could by a 1MB ST and an additional disc
drive. The worst thing was though, that software was unable to use the
capabilities of the A500 yet, some were more colourful than the ST, some
had better music, but the big scrolling layers were not as common yet.

If I were to choose something, I would go with a black and white MegaST.
Not a game platform, but 2MB of RAM and a HDD was a very good workplatform
to choose, though as faster PCs started to spread, the speed of this
platform would be inadequate in 2 years.

If gaming considered, the ST was the king of simulators because it had
Flight Simulator II and one of the best versions of Gunship and Silent
Service. For adventure games, it was also the ST, because of the cheaper
price and the high availability of software. The action adventures, like
Cinemaware games were best on the Amiga, the music was important element of
these games. The C64 was still the king of the RPGs with the huge number of
titles available. However the PC was coming up, and I think it was an
equally viewable wargaming platform. The C64 was also king of the
shootem’ups, but the NES was improving on that front and the best
platforming action was definitely on the NES. 1988 started in a way that
all available platform had its own advantage.

Gaming in November, 1987

Another year end was close, and CGW announced its annual shopping guide. This was one of the big premise of the magazine. The other was that some heavy hitters were present in this magazine Wizardy IV, Stationfall and Leisure Suit Larry.

Just few pages into the issue, and there is an advertisement of Chuck Yeager’s Advanced Flight Trainer, one of the new titles for the PC. After the advertisement, in the Taking A Peek section, some new gems, like Maniac Mansion and Knight Orc is presented.

The first review is for Wizardry IV. The long awaited game is reviewed by Scorpia. Though the game is considered to be good, it was overtly challenging. The graphics were slightly updated from the previous title, and the perspecitve changed this time the player was the bad guy.

In this issse the game company in focus is Microprose. Just at the right time, because there were a lot of going on at this company. F-15, Gunship and Silent Service were in conversion to all the active platforms and there were some very promising game in the making Pirates, Steal Fighter, Airborne Ranger and Redstorm Rising were the upcoming games. The most profitable platform for the company was the C64, all of there titles were mainly targetting this one. Luckily though, Microprose was famous for its good quality ports. There Amiga and ST releases were outstanding.

After some reviews, there is the Christmas shopping guide list. It is not too detailed, but it gives a short description of the available games on the market. And looking through this list it is clear, that 1987 was a very good year.

Back to the reviews, Scorpia goes through Stationfall, then there is a review of a new PC game, The Ancient Art of War at Sea. Stationfall is the usual Infocom game, not too much to mention here. AAWS, on the other hand, is the continuation of the simple Ancient Art of War game, which was a pioneering PC game. I don’t feel this title as strong as the first one however.

There is also a hardware review section in this magazine. There are mice for the PC and some joystick. I consider this another small sign of the emergence of the PC.

Another couple of reviews come after this. There is Borodino, another traditional 8-bit wargame. Also Shadowgate, a huge adventure game, this time reviewed on the Mac. Also Sir-Tech was moving out of its comfort zone with Deep Space, a simple space combat sim. There is also Leisure Suit Larry. This game definitely brodened the horizon for Sierra, it was a good reason to own an EGA card for this game, it put the platform near parallel to the Amiga and the ST. Fortunatelly Sierra also converted the games to the Amiga and the ST, so those owners had something to be proud of too.

Onto CVG, in the news section F-15 Strike Eagle is mentioned to be released on the Atari ST. I thought this was an earlier release for the platform. Also the ZX Spectrum was still in the race among the home computing platform, the +3 version had a built in disk drive, which in my opinion was a significant improvement over the old cassette games. It was too little of an upgrade and as usual the large available of cassette driven Spectrums made the disk drive an afterthought for developers.

International Katare II was the game of the month. I prefer IK for the Atari ST, but this new game in the series became ultimately more successful. The previous game had graphics close to arcade and I prefer the 2 player gamestyle over the 3-player one of IK2.

The next game is Super Sprint, for the C64 and the Atari ST. The C64 version is a bit average, but the ST version shines. It has good colour, good detail, varied levels, all-in-all an enjoyable experience, and probably the best racing game for the ST in 1987.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and Galax3D are reviewed. Both games are disappointing, they are slow and difficult to control. Then there is Renegade, another horrible conversion to the home systems. But this time interestingly the Amstrad version is the best from them all. I have the suspicion that the sprite conversion for the 16-bit computers was done by software, because the quality is terrible.

After a few move below average games, there are some excellent Maniac Mansion showed that an interactive adventure game works on the C64 and it introduced a whole new control concept to the genre; similarly Pirates showed that realtime openworld games worked very well on 8-bit systems.

After the reviews, the usual popculture seciton. The music scene saw a new Suicidal Tendencies and a Bathory album, in the music there were The Witches of Eastwick, A Nightmare on Elmstreat 3, Beverly Hills Cop II and Dirty Dancing, so it was a pretty excellent month.

The NES saw the release of Nemesis, in the arcade After Burner was the star. I wanted to write that After Burner was not too good, but no. The game looks good, maybe a bit zany, and the gameplay was not that polished, but it was still a quite playable game, and in the wake of Top Gun movie, a very action-packed jet fighting release.

Last, the mails. It was the usual topic there were mails about dropping the C64 and buying an ST or an A500. The other type of email criticizes the prices of the games for the new machines. 25GBP was a bit too much for a game in that era.

In Zzap64 there were plastic 3d glasses included with the magazine. The usecase for it were the 32 pages printed with red-blue colours. A bit stupid idea if you ask me.

Renegade and Internatinak Katare+ are the first game reviewed. I wonder why the name change here? Both games get rave reviews, even if Renegade was not that good of a port. Solomon’s Key is next, it was reviewed previously in C+VG, and it gets similar excellent reviews here.

Morpheus is a strange turn in the shootemup formula, the player is control of a big platform this time. Starfox could be a precursor to Wing Commander, it does not look to have a deep gameplay though, but the sprite based space shooting is something similar to the star of the 90s.

Alternate Reality The Dungeon and Legacy of the Ancients were released in the UK, which provided the much necessary influx of US RPGs to the island’s market.

There is a sneak peak with Microprose about the upcoming Airborne Ranger and Project Stealth Fighter. The strategy and adventure sections are not that interesting this month. For action adventure lovers Druid II was released and it was as good as a game as the first one.

ACE’s second issue offers on article on solid 3D games, the expected next big thing in games. Another magazine suggesting that F-15 Strike Eagle was just about to be releasd for the Atari ST in the UK, though I am quite convinced that it was available in the US since 1986. The other similar title is King of Chicago, one of the not so good Cinemaware games, I think that was released in 1986 in the US. The firs mails to the magazine were interested in the Atari ST, the A500 was still pretty fresh and more expensive on the market, some were happy that there is a 16-bit focused magazine at last. Also this month a demo of Bubble Bobble was included with the magazine, a really neat idea.

There is a joystick test in the magazine, then the article on solid 3D. The Amiga and the Atari ST were expected to deliver the most, the now affordable 8MHz PCs came in second, and the old 8-bit computers were lagging behind. The PC version of Elite was mentioned, and even Zarch for the Archimedes and some other games like Starstrike 2 or Blacklash were included.

After this there is a review of midi keyboards, then the arcade games, with Time Scanner being a good looking pinball game.

There are many boring games this month. The first which is truly great is Chuck Yeager’s Advanced Flight Trainer. PC and C64 versions were available, the C64 had the colour advantage, though not much, but at least the PC was able to produce smoother frame rates, the only bad part that there was no combat mode, a very big disappointment after F-15 and Gunship from Microprose. Supersprint is reviewed here too, good ratings as in other magazines.

3D Galax gets good reviews, but I cannot agree. The ST version was too slow to be an enjoyable experience. And I think an enjoyable framerate was not an unbelievable requirement, in the end the arcades had good framerates with outstanding graphics and a good homeport could be kept at least solid framerates and simplified graphics. A good example is Outrun for the Master System, which did not have a good framerate, nor much detail, but the experience was fluid enough to be enjoyable.

The adventure section has Maniac Mansion. The reception is good but not overwhelming, and there are some other reviews in the magazine but nothing exceptional.

In AmigaWorld the emails were talking about failing Silent Service disks, about concerns around the A1000, about the changed bus of the A2000 and about the software available on the Amiga.

There is an article about how some small firms use the Amiga at work. One TV company was using an A1000 with 2.5MB RAM and with all the image manipulating software available; a communication services company was using a 20MB HDD and a printer with the Amiga to produce visual aids and demonstrations, another company was using an Amiga for business administration. DeluxePaint is mentioned repeatedly, with DigiView and some Aeigis software.

The important topic of this month are business applications. There is a long list of software in the magazine. Almost 400$ for WordPerfect or 200$ for MaxiPlan Plus was no small money.

There is a review on Earl Weaver Baseball, and an article on moving sprites in C, and about basic programming. There is also one about how astronomers used the Amiga for research, to analyze data. Those people needed something big. An Amiga with 8MB RAM and HDD.

In Japan the Famicom had a Lupin, the 3rd game. Unfortunately it is a rather average action game. Punchout was also released, which game needs no introduction. For the US, it was the month of the tie-ins Goonies II, The Karate Kid, Jaws, Top Gun. I am sure these titles moved a few NESs, even if the quality was rather lackluster with these titles. In the United Kingdom, this was the month of Zelda which was a great addition to this market.