Retro Gamer - Issue 170

[DPrinny]

I demand 16 PAGES OF N-GAGE!!

Be careful what you wish for…

Next month - 16 pages of Amsoft Games with a Bridge-It front cover!

16 page monologue on how great retro games are

[Ryan GH]

I for one would love to see much more playstation 2 , xbox and gamecube games in the magazine. But please, no more censored Dizzy!
I feel the playstation one needs more love too and lets have a Halo special one of these days!!!
Screw the crappy and smelly 2600 games that were crappy even when they were modern. Gaming really started with the 128 bit generation!

[slacey1070]

I just want pages I can read!

[merman]

With the Xbox backwards compatibility expanding to the original machine, there will be a lot of interest in that era.

And the main point is to tell interesting stories.

[Nikolai]

Reading the article on the obscure publisher/dev now. Must say I love to read the histories of these small and obscure parts of history!

[DPrinny]

With the Xbox backwards compatibility expanding to the original machine, there will be a lot of interest in that era.

And the main point is to tell interesting stories.

[walrus]

Heard back from subscriptions. An odd email claiming I'd said I'd not received the issue but it had been sent out.

There are no replacements to be had, so extending subscription by one issue.

Grateful for that but it did look like my email wasn't read.

Yeah, I have just had exactly the same response to my email about unreadable pages in my copy. I've emailed back pointing out that wasn't my problem, wonder if I will just get the same reply again.

[merman]

My replacement copy is on its way, hope other people get theirs sorted.

[RetroMartin]

Not a great issue for me but liked the final fantasy article/s.

One slight irritation though, it mentions that FFXII was the first to drop turn based for real time...er sorry but FFXI did it first. And none of this 'but that was online' crap, it's still a numbered main game and deserves to be treated as such.

[Muddyfunster]

I've emailed the support email address noted earlier in this thread twice with no reply, including examples each time.

Send me an email at darran.jones@futurenet.com and I'll look into this. There's absolutely no reason why your emails aren't being answered, unless they're been posted after Friday's working hours.

Thanks Darran.

They responded on the 18th but only to say the issue is out of stock and i'll be credited with 1 extra issue on my subscription.

Not ideal as I still have a duff copy that i'd have liked to have been replaced but ok, not the end of the world.

Cheers.

[walrus]

Heard back from subscriptions. An odd email claiming I'd said I'd not received the issue but it had been sent out.

There are no replacements to be had, so extending subscription by one issue.

Grateful for that but it did look like my email wasn't read.

Yeah, I have just had exactly the same response to my email about unreadable pages in my copy. I've emailed back pointing out that wasn't my problem, wonder if I will just get the same reply again.

I did get a slightly different reply this time but it doesn't make much more sense as a reply to my previous email. It mentions the issue having arrived in a damaged or poor condition but doesn't acknowledge any printing problems. It still feels like it is a reply which has been chosen from a list as it closest to what I have said and it is this which has been the most annoying part of the communication.

I was also told that there are no copies to be sourced and my subscription will be extended by one issue. This is fine and I may well go and pick this issue up from a store as I would like to read those unreadable pages, but I think this might be the point at which I end my subscription.

[NorthWay]

David Kelly: Oi! That was my quote and not Merman.

[Ryan GH]

This reached me today which must be a world record as the air freight copies only hit the newsstands on Thursday. I am so happy I decided not to grab them then as the magazine is 19 dollars.
Well worth the small 2 week wait too as the Final Fantasy articles are a corker!!

[DRS]

David Kelly: Oi! That was my quote and not Merman.

Yeah, I think they left the names from last time so you weren't the only one to be accidentally slighted. Here is what I sent - and a few got snipped for lack of space.

Thanks for taking the time and trouble to post questions - I just PMed you before I saw this btw!

Apologies.
Paul

[Title]
You Ask The Questions

[Standfirst] 10 words

David taps out the answers on his trusty typewriter

[Body] 400 words total

Eric: What was the most exciting time of your career in computer and games magazines?

Popular Computing Weekly. Everything was to play for and new machines were coming out all over the place. We didn’t know how it was going to turn out and everyone was sticking their toes into games development. Every week there was something different and it was amazing these little machines could do so much.

The Laird: What magazine would have liked to have been a part of and why?

That’s tricky because I was a part of quite a lot! Okay, I’ll say being on C&VG in the very early days. That would’ve been a lot of fun. It had a real energy and personality. It was a mature publication by the time I got involved.

Merman: Which writers and editors impressed you back then?

It was the ones that wrote copy which made me laugh. There were a lot of those. Graham Taylor on Popular Computing Weekly, and at EMAP, we had some very funny people, like Matt Bettinson on CU Amiga, and John Bennett on the PC magazines. Unfortunately, there’s a correlation between being funny and being difficult…

Ianpmarks: What was your favourite early Eighties computer?

It would have to be the 48K Spectrum.

Northway: Did the weekly schedule of Popular Computing Weekly give them a leg-up on some of the monthly publications?

All the time! We were uniquely positioned to show the new stuff first. We made life very hard for some of the monthly magazines.

Northway: Please tell David thank you for PCW. It was different, gave a lot of space to Interactive Fiction and caught on to the importance of Rob Hubbard tunes.

That’s very kind! Unwittingly, PCW played quite a big part in the lives of many people who got into the industry and are still in it today. The people who got fascinated in home computing, the types that built their own ZX81 from a kit, a lot still play games now and are still part of the games business.

[Lettuce]

Not sure how some can say the PS2 isnt retro, for people who had the PS2 as their first console at the earliest possible age (lets say 5 years old) they are now actual adults!!.

I think if an adult (18 years old) can turn around and say console 'X' was their first console then that console automatically becomes retro, Xbox 360 isnt there yet as there are no adults (18 years plus) that can say the 360 was their first console BUT guess what next year their will be adults that their first console was the 360 (crap how is that possible!?) if were going by the 5 year old rule (as i dont think a 4 year old could actually coherently 'play' a game).

Im guessing how long a generation runs for has a strange effect on this, the 360 and PS3 generation is a bit of an outlier as it went on for soo long which throws everything after it out of sync when you compare it to the 4 year cycle of the 8 and 16 bit console generations