* OFFICIAL FEEDBACK: ISSUE 41

[paranoid marvin]

So how were screen images produced back in the days of Crash and Zzap64?

I don't recall them looking like they'd just been captured off a TV screen, with the distortions involved (some of the cheaper looking mags did have obvious distortions).

I'm pretty sure they were just photographs of the game playing on a tv ,judging by the quality - maybe someone can enlighten us?

[repeatafterme]

I thought it was a great month, especially as the game gear was first foray into the world of sega due to not being able to take the amiga on the bus with me

Bitmap brothers section was really interesting too, but it did scramble my memory a bit. Wasn't Magic Pockets used on ITV's 'Motormouth' (i think it was called that) basically their answer to Going Live?

Can't wait for the cps2 board stuff next issue

[Tellah]

Check the images at this link to see how a pixelated game is softened beutifully by different TVs / monitors:
http://mirrors.arcadecontrols.com/Oscar ... tors.shtml
It might not be practical to take shots from TVs / arcade monitors, but the results can be a world apart from emu shots.
Rev. Stuart Campbell - which image would you say best shows off Spy Hunter? I'd argue that the images in #2/3 are much better (especially the greenery) than #1, despite the first image being the highest res. It also has the added advantage of being more like the Spy Hunter we remember.

I find it odd that the 'retro rated' section no longer gives ratings... which i thought was the purpose (given the title).

Phone gaming? Are you serious?

[MC1]

Can anyone remember which ITV kids show used to have Xenon on?

[Weblaus]

I don't think there's anything wrong with using emulator screenshots. I'd have thought that at least 90% of readers who hadn't already played the game, but were prompted to by the article, would do so via emulator anyway. And anyone who owns the original already knows what it looks like on their telly, so why fill the mag with ugly pics instead of nice ones that show off the game at its best? Who benefits?

Like I wrote, I don't mind having screenshots taken by emulators. But I believe they should show a game the way it really looks, or at least try to as much as possible (obviously things like scanlines can't really be replicated correctly).

Using higher resolutions and advanced texture filters simply doesn't do that, the same way anti-aliasing on bitmap-based game just feels wrong.

[Rev. Stuart Campbell]

Rev. Stuart Campbell - which image would you say best shows off Spy Hunter? I'd argue that the images in #2/3 are much better (especially the greenery) than #1, despite the first image being the highest res.

1 and 5 for me every time.

[CraigGrannell]

I'm pretty sure they were just photographs of the game playing on a tv ,judging by the quality - maybe someone can enlighten us?

As far as Newsfield goes, early screens were photographs. Later on (as in, when the mag was at Impact), digital grabs were used.

[paranoid marvin]

I'm pretty sure they were just photographs of the game playing on a tv ,judging by the quality - maybe someone can enlighten us?

As far as Newsfield goes, early screens were photographs. Later on (as in, when the mag was at Impact), digital grabs were used.

I'm sure I remember seeing the odd screen reflection in Crash- I guess things back then were probably more fun and less professional , a bit like in the games industry

[S3M]

One of the better issue's in a while, as the last couple have had too much 8bit and very little 16 or 32 bit features.

However as a Shining Force nut I will have to crack out my heretic hammer for the mistakes in the Game Gear feature.

I noticed those mistakes too and was going to say something but I think everyone in the Imagine office is sick of me banging on about ShF now.

Don't worry though S3M, if all goes to plan then the record will be set straight in a few issues time.

Glad to here it, any chance of a Shining Force cover art for the mag?

[CraigGrannell]

I'm sure I remember seeing the odd screen reflection in Crash- I guess things back then were probably more fun and less professional , a bit like in the games industry

In terms of making the magazines, perhaps, but in terms of making the screen captures, I doubt it. Having to play through a game, get to a certain point and then getting one go to capture than using a standard film camera—urk. Challenging, perhaps, but not fun!

[RB]

20 odd years ago when we were trying to tout our fanzine/magazine to software houses, asking for freebies, review copies and the like, several of the software houses I contacted supplied a range of single frame negatives of screenshots of their games. They were a bit bigger in size, not your standard 35mm size, approximately 2" x 3".

I guess the commercial magazines probably had access to the same sort of thing, although I'd imagine they largely used screenshots they produced rather than company created ones.

[Mayhem]

- someone please explain the joke of #7 of the Desert Islands Disk selection. I'm undecided if that indeed is a picture of H. Kohl, but either way it's not particularly funny.

It's a picture of Sinbad, a character who used to be in the UK soap opera Brookside.

- I don't understand the review section anymore. Why are you rating homebrew games, but have stopped it for commercial products? And what happened to reviews of new retro-themed releases? You're listing upcoming games in the news section, both both this and last issue none were reviewed after hitting the stores - most notable Impossible Mission.

Impossible Mission technically still hasn't been released yet, System 3 keep putting it back. It's finished, ready, been like that for a couple of months at least, but just not out there selling. Allegedly. A mate of mine up north picked up a copy in June that his local had (for whatever reason) and hence why Way of the Rodent published a review last month...

[merman]

So how were screen images produced back in the days of Crash and Zzap64?

I don't recall them looking like they'd just been captured off a TV screen, with the distortions involved (some of the cheaper looking mags did have obvious distortions).

From 1984 till about 1989, all the Newsfield screenshots WERE DONE BY A PHOTOGRAPHER - Cameron Pound, who used to have to cover himself over with a blanket to take a picture of the screen.

In the later years of Newsfield (and at Future Publishing), a piece of hardware called a screen grabber was used, complicated gubbins involving cables to take the screenshot and save it to the Apple Macs used for actually laying out the magazines.

Xenon was on Get Fresh

[Tellah]

Rev. Stuart Campbell - which image would you say best shows off Spy Hunter? I'd argue that the images in #2/3 are much better (especially the greenery) than #1, despite the first image being the highest res.

1 and 5 for me every time.

Obviously it's down to personal taste, but the best example I've seen is Pacman (can't find the screenshots now - i know they're out there). On an arcade monitor, Pacman himself is perfectly round (as he's supposed to be), not a collection of yellow squares. It obviously depends on the game, but high contrast pixelated images just don't do the originals justice for me.

[frank grimes]

Can anyone remember which ITV kids show used to have Xenon on?

Wasn't it "Get Fresh" with Gaz Top?