Retro Gamer - Issue 124

[markopoloman]

MSR is superb. Didn't have a Dreamcast for long as it died (still in the loft so must have a look at it one day!) but MSR was will up there in my fave games for the system.

[Fawltykog]

Ego slightly dented because my wonderful nobel prize winning homage to Activison's Pastfinder game didn't make it into the hallowed pages of the mighty Retro Gamer.

Aside from that, another cracking issue! 'nuff said.

[Sputryk]

I subscribe. Delivery is earmarked for the Saturday prior to newstand appearance on the following Thursday. It's now Friday and I'm still waiting for delivery. Can we not sack the delivery firm and send the 'zine by carrier pigeon? <shakes head and mutters>

[sirclive1]

The cover instantly put me in a good mood - superb issue .

Stand out article for me is Graeme's Masons Mined out interview/making of.

[joefish]

Bit of a fudge-up in the Altered Beast article. The Amstrad paragraph mentions the Speccy version - there's no text for the Speccy version, but a Speccy version screenshot apears under the Atari ST paragraph.
And the 'Did you know?' bit just repeats factoids from the article. I'd expect it to be extra information, not revision notes!

[Darran@Retro Gamer]

Bit of a fudge-up in the Altered Beast article. The Amstrad paragraph mentions the Speccy version - there's no text for the Speccy version, but a Speccy version screenshot apears under the Atari ST paragraph.
And the 'Did you know?' bit just repeats factoids from the article. I'd expect it to be extra information, not revision notes!

Hmm not sure how gremlins got into the altered beast article.
The did you knows are usually done in that style.

[mikeb]

Good spot, looks like the wrong text got put in unfortunately. I thought the Speccy version was excellent btw.

[PlatformJunkie]

Hi all.

Looks like a good issue. I have been sneaking peaks at it at work when nobody is watching me.

I love seeing the old school arcade racers as I have been playing a lot of Sega Rally on Saturn lately (every morning before heading to work actually)

Goin back to the really old racers is a bit deflating though, as I have been playing the original Outrun, Super Hang-On, and Power Drift and they seem quite annoying to play these days, with corners simply appearing out of nowhere, rather than in modern games (and real life infact) when you can see the curves in advance. I do love the look of them though! Playing Chase HQ / S.C.I. on my Saturn is a good laugh.

The rest of the mag looks like good read. though the new drawings of the team are truly hideous.. Darren looks very 'special' (cough) in his new drawing.

[craigy132]

Got this issue yesterday and its a great read. The activision feature is a great story and the bomb jack article is interesting, it was one of my favourite arcade games and I eagerly awaited elites home conversions! However I was a c16 owner at the time so I was utterly dissapointed when I bought the naff c16 conversion. Luckily my mate had an amstrad which in my opinion was the best of the 8 bit versions so I spent many an hour round he's house. One other slight consolation was when I saw the poor c64 conversion - it was nearly as bad as the c16 version and had none of the playability which made bomb jack such a great game

[kiwimike]

Looks a great issue, no pun intended with that superb cover

[NickThorpe]

the new drawings of the team are truly hideous.. Darren looks very 'special' (cough) in his new drawing.

Can't speak for anyone else, but that's just how my face looks - it was captured rather well!

[RodimusPrime]

Reading through now and really enjoying it, however, how does an article about arcade racing games make little to no reference of sega rally.

When we got to the PS1/Saturn discussion it was all about Daytona and PS1. Now I have only read it quickly and may have missed something but Sega rally was a huge release and a truly iconic game and as I remember it, the 32 bit era was all about whether you prefer Sega rally or ridge racer and that dictated which console you bought and those were the main contenders in fanboy arguments.

[NickThorpe]

Reading through now and really enjoying it, however, how does an article about arcade racing games make little to no reference of sega rally.

When we got to the PS1/Saturn discussion it was all about Daytona and PS1. Now I have only read it quickly and may have missed something but Sega rally was a huge release and a truly iconic game and as I remember it, the 32 bit era was all about whether you prefer Sega rally or ridge racer and that dictated which console you bought and those were the main contenders in fanboy arguments.

Cheers for the feedback. Unfortunately, wordcounts rule the day and when you're trying to fit 40 years of history into just 8 pages, you can't cover every single base in the detail you'd like- especially with a genre that has been consistently popular throughout those four decades. Many games referenced only got a namecheck or timeline entry, because that was all we had room for (F-Zero stands out for me, in that regard).

In the case of that specific comparison, it was one often made by the press at the time. Daytona was big news as the first major racing release on the Saturn and the quality of the conversion became a huge talking point - so much so that Maximum, CVG and Sega Saturn Magazine all mentioned it in the very first paragraph of their Sega Rally reviews. As it was also the bigger arcade release, Daytona took the lion's share of the coverage this time out. It's no slight against Sega Rally - I love the game (as you'll see from the Retrobates profile in the issue) and made sure to get it into the timeline because it deserves recognition. I just didn't have room to fit it into the body. Blame Sega for making too many good racers!

[The Laird]

Read JD's Mined Out piece earlier, very interesting read. I actually wish it had got a couple more pages and gone into a bit more detail about the other versions and stuff like that. Still it was a nice addition to the mag, I love reading about the obscure stuff like this that I haven't played before. Just shows there is still so much interesting stuff out there that hasn't been covered yet. Actually this was something I was trying to do with my XEGS article, as that machine had never been covered in RG before and deserved a bit of love.

[jdanddiet]

Thanks Kieren, I did consider making it into a "history of minesweeper games" type article but I couldn't get the contacts in time. Glad you still liked it mate.