Poor computer buyers of the early eighties… It is sad to read the mails sent to CVG, and to see how many of them made bad decisions by buying into dead platforms or by seeing their not-so-old machine become deprecated. There is less battle of the platforms this time though, there is only one mail about preferring the BBC Micro over the ZX Spectrum, which in a hindsight was not the best choice, or a desperate Lynx buyer, who just cannot find a game in the magazine for his machine… The Seventh Empire play-by-mail game was also trending this month, there are several mails talking about that.
Too bad, this game is only a type in…
On the hardware front, the price of the 16k Atari 400 fell again. Now it is only 160£. The 1k ZX81 model got cheaper too, with a comically low 50£, it was almost a bargain, however the 1k RAM was a serious limiting factor. So a 30£ 16k RAM module was a must, but even with that it was half a price of an Atari, and half of the capabilities for sure.
Like it was covered in CGW in previous month, Zork III reached the European shores. The video gaming scene can experience the Vectrex this month. For the old style of arcade games, Q*BERT is released this month. But who cares about all of these when there is Pole Position? Pole Position, just like Turbo not so long ago were introducing the future. The arcade cabinet itself had a big wheel, and the game, ohhh the game, scaling sprites, blazing speed and the excitement of the race… I assume the people who saw this, probably though it can never get better. Just like I felt when I saw the first Voodoo games years later.
Aside from Pole Position and the arcades, the home computers get a few rehashes of Galaxian or Choplifter or Donkey Kong on several platform, and the C64 gets its first reviewed games with Mangrove which is a cell simulator, maybe that’s the correct phrase in the post-goat simulator era, and the other is a Monopoly clone, I wouldn’t say that either of those move to get out and buy a C64… So yet again, the game list is not too impressive.
oldegames 