Retro Gamer - Issue 165

[dave3622]

Have briefly thumbed through the magazine and can't find any coverage of the game named on the cover, 'Uridum 2'...

You must have thumbed through VERY briefly! It starts on page 48.

Yes, coverage for Uridium starts on page 48.

However, my cover promises 'Uridum'...

Lol, sorry I missed that! The smiley wink should have been enough, guess I was off-form that day!

[andy vaisey]

@dave3622

[Negative Creep]

A made-up cover award would be a great story, but the truth is far more horrifying.

PSExtreme did actually exist and ran a Bubsy 3D cover story, and later awarded the game 93%, making it apparently just as good as acknowledged classics Tekken and Doom.

Fair enough, I learn something every day

[NorthWay]

Sour grapes: Is the paper worse than ever? It looks like it has been wet and then been dried. Is it some ultra-cheap re-circulated quality?
I get EDGE every month so I know Future can do proper paper if they want to. This is just stupid for the sake of it.

[Bub&Bob]

Sour grapes: Is the paper worse than ever? It looks like it has been wet and then been dried

I've said this a few times but nothing seems to change. The paper is often wavy-looking, especially if the page is predominantly a photo and not text.

The terrible paper quality plus some bizarre printing of tiny text and strange colours (mentioned by others often)
means it's often very difficult to read.

It must be really frustrating for the team to spend so much time researching and writing articles and the art dept trying to make it all look cool, for it then to be printed so poorly.

[Antiriad2097]

Perhaps an attempt to push us towards digital subs?

[Bub&Bob]

Perhaps an attempt to push us towards digital subs?

Dunno, possible I guess - I seem to have been moaning about this for quite a long time though ........

(Issue 138)

Is it me or is the quality of the paper terrible?

(Issue 147)

I think we are only one or maybe two steps away from toilet paper Honestly, mine looks like the paper got wet and then dried

(Issue 160)

I know I bang on about this but what's the point of well written articles, with great art and design utterly ruined by beIng printed on sh*te paper - it really spoils it for me

[markopoloman]

You've got me going through the last few issues to look at paper quality now!

I'm sitting here rubbing pages between my fingers, the wife keeps asking if I'm ok But to me, they just feel like magazine paper?! I can read everything clearly and they turn from one to the next... Am I missing something?

[psj3809]

^Same here. Mag seems fine to me, i've had the odd strange column of text i cant read but i think thats just part of my slight colour blindness if theres a certain colour on top of a certain coloured background.

But the papers totally fine for me. No smudged photos or that (had that happen in one issue ages ago)

[knight_beat]

I have a suspicion that RG is being printed on different paper types at different stages of its print run. I found a copy of the December issue printed on (reasonably) glossy paper in Edinburgh airport, but decided not to buy it as I had a lot of luggage & didn't want to crease it. When I visited my local WH Smith the next day (in London), I found every copy was printed on rough paper that made it difficult to read certain articles.

[antsbull]

Agreed - I've never noticed anything wrong in terms of paper quality or even the colour choices, that seem to be another popular complaint - have never struggled to read an article, started buying the mag around RG40.

[Tabe]

The time has come for me to stop reading the magazine.
Not because of the content - it looks like a great issue, but because I physically find it difficult to read, even with my reading glasses on. Its actually frustrating, and a stop start experience.

I also read Private Eye, Viz, BBC History and Practical Classics, and with my glasses on they are all easy to read, in fact most of them I can read without glasses. Retro Gamer however really is a struggle even with my glasses on, and near impossible to read with them off. The photo captions particularly are ridiculously small. I have just given up trying to read them.

Text/background colour combinations are often bizarre, and coupled with poor quality printing do not make for a pleasant reading experience. This months worst (but not only) offenders were Action Max - white text on grey was a struggle, as well as poor printing. Also the Apple II article was difficult even with white on black, as the print quality was poor, and in the middle too pages blurry anyway. I recently found an old RG my loft from a few years back - Final Fantasy - and the difference in paper and print quality between it and the current Zelda issue is staggering.

I'm not the only one to have problems, and I always thought I'd stop reading when i wasn't enjoying the content. However the last few issues have been great content wise. I just find it physicallu an unpleasurable reading experience - so I'll just read the magazines that have sensible sized fonts in sensible/readable colours. Sorry.

I can certainly agree with your complaints.

[Tabe]

I haven't yet picked up my copy (we in America just got it) but I've seen the list of Apple games and am truly baffled by some of the selections. Mystery House over all the other Sierra games? Choosing Ultima 1? Over its four other, vastly superior sequels? I can't imagine you could find more than 1 person in 1000 that's played them that would pick U1 as the best of the first 5 in the Ultima series. Also, Raster Blaster over Night Mission? Hard Hat Mack? Where are the SSI games? Summer Games, Winter Games?

Having said that, love having more Apple coverage in the mag!

[merman]

I haven't yet picked up my copy (we in America just got it) but I've seen the list of Apple games and am truly baffled by some of the selections. Mystery House over all the other Sierra games? Choosing Ultima 1? Over its four other, vastly superior sequels? I can't imagine you could find more than 1 person in 1000 that's played them that would pick U1 as the best of the first 5 in the Ultima series. Also, Raster Blaster over Night Mission? Hard Hat Mack? Where are the SSI games? Summer Games, Winter Games?

Having said that, love having more Apple coverage in the mag!

I think it's because people chose the games they most closely associate with the Apple-II. I played the Ultima games on C64, so wouldn't necessarily call them an "Apple" game. The same with Hard Hat Mack.

[ianpmarks]

Also the Apple II article picked Flight Simulator over Flight Simulator II. FS II is in a completely different league to the first one. No-one would play the original over its sequel.

With this and Ultima it's whether the article author wanted to show the best games on the system or the most original/system exclusives. Surely though a Top 25 games article would be the best ones though? Maybe not. Did enjoy the article though... love the Apple II. More about it in the magazine please.