'Back
in Time' is a monthly feature where we look back at the classic video
gaming magazines twenty years ago this month. This month it's January
1991 when Amiga gamers were held 'Captive' with Tony Crowther's latest
Amiga release, Navy Seals infiltrated the C64 in catridge form, the Teenage
Mutant Hero Turtles impressed with its colourful Speccy version and John
Madden began his domination of Football games on the Mega Drive...
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In C&VG issue
110, Robert Swan took a look at the Super Famicom, Nintendo’s
super 16-bit console that had just been released in Japan. Games
available with the launch were Super
Mario World and F-Zero,
with the likes of Super Ghouls
‘n Ghosts, R-Type II,
Final Fight, Gradius III and Populous on the way. With the super
console yet to be released in the USA and Europe, importers have been
charging between £350-400, over three times the £100 price
tag in Japan. There was also news of the Turbo Express this month,
NEC’s new handheld console that could use PC Engine cards, giving
it a vital head start in the gaming catalogue stakes. However, an
awkward screen and extremely short battery life would surely hamper the
machine’s success.
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Paperboy
(88%, Master System), Cover game ESWAT
was first up for scrutiny in the reviews section as
Richard Leadbetter looked at the C64, Amstrad and Amiga versions of the
arcade smash. All versions received 88%, with the Amiga version getting
the main comment box. “The graphics are fine,” wrote
Richard, “the
sound is fabulous… ESWAT is a great game that is very satisfying
to
play – make no delay, go for it!” Scoring top ratings of
95% was
Speedball 2 on the
Atari ST and John Madden Football
on the Mega Drive.
Among the glut of other hit games were Toyota Celica GT4 (87%, Amiga
& ST), Extreme (85%,
Spectrum), NARC (92%, C64;
91%, Amiga), Sky
Shark (90%, Mega Drive), Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtles (88%, Amstrad;
85%, Spectrum), Masterblaster
(89%, Amiga), Knights of the Sky
(88%,
PC), Prince of Persia (90%,
Amiga), Golden Axe (91%, ST),
Gauntlet (92%,
Master System), Indiana Jones and
the Last Crusade (85%, Master System), Covert Action (90%, PC), Line of
Fire (85% Amiga & Spectrum).
In Arcade Action, Julian Rignall took to the wacky roads in Race
Drivin’: a 93% rated game with a “winning formula of the
original
applied to an even more challenging and varied set of courses, this is
an incredibly addictive game which keeps you piling in the cash until
you’re skint.” With 90%, Pit
Fighter also gobbled up the spare change.
The Gremlin Challenge saw staff writer Rob Swan, along with C&VG
reader Johnny Lee Adkin, take on Gremlin’s PR Supremo Ian
Richardson
and Tony the Top Games Tester. Disappointingly, both Ian and Tony
topped the scoreboard after two rounds of both Lotus Esprit Turbo
Challenge and Toyota Celica
GT4. However, top Gremlin man Ian Stewart
declared that Ian (Richardson), Tony and Rob were disqualified, meaning
that Johnny was declared the winner. |
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With issue 40, ACE checked out
the latest happenings in the virtual reality world with a look at a VR
arcade machine and ATOL, the
first game written for the Virtuality 1000 SD unit. Never heard of
this? At £20,000, I’m not surprised. In ‘Gold
Digging’ ACE readers
visited US Gold for the latest ACE
Conference and a whole heap of monkey business… Part one of the
Intertainment ’90 report from New York featured the latest gaming
news and technology, including the Terra PC (a PC/Mega Drive hybrid)
and Mattel’s Powerglove.
The ‘On Computers’ section yielded a handful of ‘ACE
rated’ games.
Coming on top of the best was Prince
of Persia with 915. “When static,
Prince of Persia
looks a bit on the dull side,” explained Jim Douglas.
“Don’t be deceived,” Jim added. “When
it’s moving, it’s a dream. You’ve
certainly had games |
| described as ‘like a movie’ and
‘cartoon-like
animation’, but for once it’s as true as it’s ever
likely to be with
the current level of technology. And the playability, difficulty and
puzzle solving elements are balanced to perfection.” Coming close
behind were 4D Sports Boxing
on PC and B.A.T. on Atari ST
with 900 and
908 respectively. The PC version of Midwinter
was given an update
review and came away with 950. ‘On Console’ delights this
month
included Strider (919, Mega
drive), Boulderdash (908,
Gameboy) and Pipe
Dream (910, Gameboy). |
With The One issue
28, Amiga users were in for a treat as Rick Dangerous 2½ was given
away on the coverdisk, which meant an exclusive new level. Atari ST
users were given a demo of the forthcoming Midwinter 2 on the Atari ST. There
was just eight games covered in the reviews pages, although there was a
Rollerbabes
calendar bundled inside to make up for that. In ‘The One on
One’, David Braben talked to The
One about his life, his loves, his loathes, his laughs and, most
importantly, Elite II. Among
those eight games reviewed, Lemmings
on the Amiga undoubtedly topped the others, coming away with a stunning
96%. Not a million miles away were Prince
of Persia (93%, Amiga) and Blue
Max (90%, PC).
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It was Viz madness with issue 15 of Zero, including
a front cover, preview and a playable Amiga/Atari ST demo on the
coverdisk. In ‘DIY DTP’, Jonathan Davies took the readers
through the process of producing your own fanzine. The first
‘Zero Hero’ game of the month went to RoboCop 2 on the Amiga, which was
given 90%. Kights of the Sky
impressed Duncan MacDonald who gave the PC game 91%. “An
atmospheric and rather wizard World War One ‘kite’
simulator,” commented Duncan “Unmissable if you’re a
‘seat of your pants’ man.” Lemmings on the Amiga received
similar praise as Duncan awarded it 90%. “Lemmings deserves a ZERO Hero for the originality
alone,” explained Dunc, “but besides that, five minutes and
it’s got you by the short and curly addictiveness organs. Either
that or you’ll just go ‘what’s the
point”’, in which case get back to Beadle’s About immediately.
This is way above your head.” Elsewhere, Speedball 2 and Klax rated highly with 93% each on
the Atari ST and Atari Lynx respectively. |
For issue 3 of Raze, Les Ellis
traveled almost 400 miles when he heard what Vektor Grafix were
offering. What this meant in gaming terms was a sneak peak at
forthcoming games such as The
Killing Cloud and Space
Shuttle. In ‘Hands Up’, Andrew Banner looked at
Nintendo Game & Watch, Sega Game Gear, Nintendo Game Boy, Atari
Lynx and NEC PC Engine GT. Once again, Speedball 2 was receiving plaudits:
“What the Bitmaps have here is a remarkably playable and even
more violent future sports game,” enthused Julian Boardman in his
94% rated write up of the Atari ST game. “With extra points on
the pitch and the very useable manager section that give it a variety
and an element of strategy that Speedball
lacked.”
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Wing Commander on PC was rated 93%.
Paul Rigby wrote: “Frankly, I was
overwhelmed at the professional manner in which Wing Commander has been
produced. Cinematic effects, thrills, spills, depth of gameplay,
beautiful animated sequences – Wing
Commander is, without doubt, a
strong contender for game of the year.”Also rated 93% was the
Mega Drive version of Ghouls
‘n Ghosts. Julian
said that it was “essentially a hack ‘n’ slash, but
very atmospheric
and with enough little surprises and situations that require brain
instead of brawn to lift it above your average ‘axe slayers of
the
world unite’ type game.”
Other ‘Raze Rave’ action was to be found with M1 Tank Platoon (90%, Atari
ST; Amiga 91%), Klax (92%,
Atari ST), Gazza's Eurosoccer Live
(91%,
Atari ST), The Revenge of Shinobi
(92%, Mega Drive), Golden Axe
(92%,
Mega Drive) and Super Sprint
(92%, NES). The Neuro Venture section also
yielded some highly rated adventure games, including The Secret of
Monkey Island (93%, PC), Legend
of Faerghail (90%, Amiga), Silent
Service II (92%, PC) and Buck
Rogers Vol. 1: Countdown to Doomsday
(92%, PC) |
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In issue 4 of Mean Machines,
the 'Consoles We Once Loved #4' column looked at the Intellivision.
“The Intellivision proved to be quite a rival for the Atari VCS.
It sported better graphics, better sound and bigger memory...”
Top coin-op conversions such as Defender,
Donkey Kong, PacMan, Pole Position, Dig Dug and Commando and original games such as
Dungeons and Dragons,
HERO and Pitfall. Julian Rignall checked out
the Super Famicom, its launch games
Super Mario Bros. IV (aka Super
Mario World) and F-Zero.
With an official release date of 1992, Europe would have to wait a
while longer to see the machine invade their local stores.
Top of the Megagames this month was Mega
Man II on the NES, which was given 95%. “Every time I
play Mega Man 2,” wrote Matt
Regan, “I just seem to like the game more |
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and more! Everything required to make a platform game
incredibly entertaining has been crammed in.” Julian Rignall
added:
“Mega Man 2 is one of
the finest platform games ever seen – invest your
Christmas money in it now!” Other Megagames included Switchblade (91%,
GX4000), Pin Bot (90%, NES), Snake Rattle 'n' Roll (94%, NES)
and
Castle of Illusion
(93%, Master System). |
| Issue 107 of Sinclair User
included a Six of the Best covertape, including Robocop 2 in the form of an
exclusive demo, full games with Draconus,
Trantor, Stardust and Piggy Punks. Not much in the way of
high rated games this month with only RoboCop
2 achieving the ‘Sinclair User Classic’ accolade
with 92%. Garth Sumpter mentioned that “a large chunk of memory
has been used up with the digitised images that greet the start of each
level but gives the game an overall BIG feel. I like it, and I’m
sure that most people will find the directive BUY THIS GAME, an easy
one to follow.”
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There was two cover tapes
adorning the front cover of Crash issue 84.
Amongst the action was Lightforce,
Hypa Raid, Dizzy 3½, Talisman, Specimen, Omega Zone, as well as demos of Top Cat, SWIV and NARC. ‘Crash Smash’ing
onto the reviews pages this month was Navy
Seals with an impressive 94%. Richard commented that “Navy SEALS is one of Ocean’s
128k only products and it shows. It’s incredibly well presented
and really makes use of the 128k’s power.” Oli added with
the game “Oozing quality, Navy
SEALS is one of the most well designed, programmed and produced
products of the year… a bit of a landmark in Speccy
gaming!” Also crashing onto the virtual streets of Detroit was RoboCop 2, which returned to police
HQ with 93%. “Wotta game,” exclaimed Richard, “the
programmers have packed so much into the varied styles of gameplay
it’s one of the few games |
| actually worth the asking price!” Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge also
fared well with 90%. Mark said that
“all credit goes to the programmers for producing such a good
looking
and very playable racing game. The intro sequence is a masterpiece,
whilst the game itself is so playable — especially against a
friend.” |
Issue 61 of Your Sinclair
and the Corking Christmas Collection Cassette featured such festive
delights as Quazatron, Chubby and demos of Gazza II and The Hunt For Red October. Keith
Pomfret went to Russia to check out the new Hobbit console, complete
with cartridge port and backward compatible with existing Spectrum
software via a tape deck port.
Matt Bielby test drove Lotus Esprit
Turbo Challenge, coming back with 90°. “I
dunno,” commented Matt, “this is such a borderline Megagame
case I'm not quite sure what to do. The two-player bit is seriously
slow, but then so much else is good about it... I reckon it gets one,
but only just. Off you go then, Lotus
- you're a Megagame.” The arcade hit Golden Axe made its way onto the
Spectrum with a 91°. Linda Barker |
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wrote: “…you can now sit back, breathe freely
and think –
wow, what a good game. I have no massive niggles with one at all...
there are loads of dragons and elves in it. What more could a girl
possibly ask for?” Teenage
Mutant Hero Turtles was next to receive the
Megagame treatment with 90°. “Well, for me Turtles has been a
very
pleasant surprise,” admitted Matt. “Rumours had been
circulating around
the industry for ages that the game was really bad - apparently the
American Nintendo and Amiga versions are absolutely terrible or
something - but no, Probe have modified it rather a lot, and the
finished Speccy thing only bears them a slight resemblance. In fact,
it's really rather nifty.” |
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With issue 75, YC announced a
‘new look’ issue, but in reality, the magazine was just as
whacky, offbeat and monochrome in places as before. The covertape,
however, featured a jolly festive platform romp with Frosty the Snowman, as well as Dartz, Post Apocalypse – The Board Game
and Super Tact. Elsewhere,
Dave Hughes checked out Darkman,
a film that Ocean had secured the rights to produce a game on. Not much
in the way of high scoring in the reviews section, but Last Ninja III certainly made up
for any low scoring. The third game in the popular action adventure
gained top marks in every category with an overall rating of 100%.
“The highest ever score for the best game ever,” enthused
Rick Henderson. “If anybody betters this I’ll eat my commie
(and we’ll need a new scoring system).”
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Issue 69 of Zzap!64 and
Megatape 13 featured two full games (Subterranea
and Velnor's Lair) and two
playable demos (NARC and Wrath of the Demon). Amongst the
features, Stuart Wynne caught up with Manfred Trenz to speak about his
career and the impending release of Turrican
II and Robin Hogg spoke to programmer Grant Harrison about the
forthcoming Super Monaco GP
racing game for the C64.
RoboCop 2 was
Zzap! tested on C64 and Amiga, coming away with ratings of 90% and 92%
respectively. Stuart Wynne commented that it was “an immensely
playable C64 game but sporting console graphics (something I can
certainly live with, given the sheer size of the game). Great!” RoboCop 2 “plays and looks
like an arcade game and is unmissable
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for this
reason, added Stuart on the Amiga version. “The
puzzle sections are only okay, and the shooting gallery is too flat,
but those three shoot-‘em-up sections are the best I’ve
seen on the
Amiga.”
Also ‘Sizzling’ with 92% was the C64 cartridge game Navy Seals from
Ocean. “For anyone tired of the silliness of most
shoot-‘em-ups,” wrote
Stuart, “this brilliantly realistic and atmospheric game is the
one to
get.” Robin Hogg added “The cartridge is put to full use
with
presentation screens galore, while instantaneous loading makes for
superb momentum. It gives a real coin-op feel and shows what cartridges
really can do.”
The Think Tank adventure section was jam packed with
‘Sizzler’ hits with Buck
Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday leading the way
on both Amiga and C64 with 92% each. The anonymous writer summed up
their review by stating that “there is no doubt that Buck Rogers sits
firmly as the king of the ‘Tactical’ RPG castle.” The
other hits were
Captive (91%,
Amiga) and Supremacy (91%,
Amiga). |
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Commodore Format
issue 4 had a pretty decent line up on their Powerpack 4: Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge
(Demo), Beyond the Forbidden Forest
(full game), RoboCop 2 (demo)
and Bounder (full game). In
‘Now Showing At a 64 Near You’, CF looked at the movie-tie ins that
have graced the home screen of the C64. The Gauntlet, CF’s monthly gaming challenge
between readers continued as Chris Jordan (reigning champion) took on
Andrew Steele (challenger) in Rick
Dangerous II. Chris retained his title with 7,810 points over
Andrew’s 6,990. The ‘Commodore
Format A to Z of Classic Games part 1’ looked back at some
of the C64’s finest games. The solo ‘Corker’ this
month was the all conquering part man, part machine as RoboCop 2 was given 90%. Steve
Jarratt prophesised that “with 12 different levels, sub-games
and shoot-outs, Robocop
2 looks all set to carry on the phenomenal success of the
original!”
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It was the 74th issue of Amstrad Computer User and John Cook
hit the arcades once again, taking a gander at the likes of Race Drivin’, Cisco Heat, Pit Fighter, GP Racer and Ghost Hunters. Andrew Banner headed
up North to see what Ocean had up its sleeves on the console
front… Pang, Special Criminal Investigation, Toki, RoboCop 2, Plotting and Navy SEALS, so there were some
decent games on the horizon.
‘Amstrad Computer User Gold award’ and centre page spread
review went to Teenage Mutant Hero
Turtles. “The gameplay looks superb and with the
interchangeable Turtles option, the variety of action is
dramatic,” wrote Dave Peach, “making this game a sure
winner for the Festive Season and one that’s going to be well
‘ard to knock off the top of the charts.” Also rated
highly was Flimbo's Quest,
which was given a
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‘Pot of Gold’
verdict from Chris Knight. “As with many of the offerings from
System
3,” stated Chris, “Flimbo is going to be a guaranteed
classic. Its
originality, graphics, varied sound effects and ease of controllability
make it totally addictive…” |
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Issue 64 and it was time for the
annual Amstrad
Action Christmas Covertape. Featured this time around were Puzznic (playable level), Lost Caves and the Tomb of Doom
(complete game) and Space Froggy
(complete game). 50 Best Games of the Year concluded with part 2 as Rod
Lawton looked at the best games of 1990, from 'Console Classic' Burnin' Rubber, Bloodwych, Stunt Car Racer, Iron Lord, to the 'Platform
Perfection' of Rick Dangerous II.
The Switchblade cartridge
version gained the only ‘Mastergame’ award this month with
94%. “If Burnin’ Rubber
on the console set new standards for driving games, then Switchblade
does the same for platform adventures,” assured Rod
Lawton. “It may not grab you by the short
‘n’ curlies straight away, but it
slowly inevitably sucks you in |
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alone.”
Accompanying the review was a mini-interview with Gremlin’s
technical
guru James North-Hearn discussing the game. Elsewhere in the
‘Action
Test’ section, Magic Land Dizzy
was given 85% and an ‘AA Rave’. |
| Another coverdisk for Amiga Action
with playable demos of Horror
Zombies from the Crypt Game and James Pond 2. Once again, the Amiga Action crew were spreading
their seemingly negative vibes on the reviews pages with only Gettysburg getting anything near a
top rating with 89%. Captive
and The Killing Game Show
lagged behind with 86% each. It’s almost as if the team are
trying to use an old Jedi mind trick: “These aren’t the
games you’re looking for. Move along.”
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Amiga Format
issue 18 featured two coverdisks. Gaming wise the disk included Lemmings (demo), Total Recall (demo), Bip (full PD game) and Interphase (full game). A four page
pull out spread on Interphase featured instructions, tips, and the full
lowdown on the game. In the ‘Screenplay’ section, Powermonger came away with the
first of two ‘Amiga Format Gold’ awards with 94%. Trenton
Webb praised Powermonger as
being a “stunning marriage of innovative graphics and original
game,” and “with 195 lands to conquer and a datalink option
this one will run and run!” Also achieving similar status and
ratings was Spindizzy Worlds.
The game has an “absolutely-enormous galaxy of different puzzle
planets,” commented Trenton. Meaning “vast scope for
skill development... Intensive gameplay is alive and well and
living on the Spindizzy Worlds.”
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| The full game of Super Huey graced the CU Amiga
coverdisk this month. Meanwhile, the reviews pages featured a handful
of ‘CU Screen Star’ games. First up was Prince of Persia with 87%. “Prince of Persia is immensely
playable,” stated Mark Patterson, “The game owes a lot to
the animation and ease of control of the main character. All the
elements come together extremely well to form a game which is both
playable and enduring.” Also gaining a final rating of 87% was MUDS. Just nipping in there for the
'CU Screen Star' accolade were Wrath
of the Demon (86%), Ninja
Remix (85%) and Line of Fire
(85%). |
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ST Format issue
18 featured another fine coverdisk for playable demos, with Golden Axe and Puzznic getting the playable
preview treatment. Supremacy
was given the solitary ‘ST Format Gold’ accolade this month
with 90%. Others that came just shy included Brain Blasters, (88%), Corporation (87%), Defender 2 (88%), Lost Patrol (88%), Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge (86%),
Pang (88%), Puzznic (86%) and Speedball 2 (88%).
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