~The Good Old Days

By Martin Keen


Logically, computing has no place for dewy eyed nostalgia looking back
at the good old days but people seem to do it anyway. This column 
looks at what was happening in August for the past three years. In 
1992 the Amiga was still the most popular games computer, then in 1993
the PC was beginning to establish itself. Finally in August 1994 the 
PC ruled the roost. Heres what was happening:


~August 1992

Commodore were beginning to realise their CDTV wasn't catching on. The
machine was claimed to put an end to books, and be THE black box to be
found in every living room. Nobody bought it so this month Commodore
renamed it as an Amiga and packed it with a mouse, keyboard, and disk
drive instead of a fiddly remote control. Unfortunately for Commodore
it didn't persuade too many more people to buy one.

Commodore also announced this month their UK MD Steve Franklin was 
leaving to work solely on the CDTV and Kelly Sumner was to take
over. A year later Sumner was to quit his job to work on PC software.

Urban Shakedown released a techno single produced entirely on two
Amiga 500s. The song was Single Of The Week in Melody Maker and made
the top 30. But Rough Justice was to be their only hit.

Gameswise August was a good month because it saw the release of two
biggies: Jaguar XJ220 and Wizkid. Jaguar aimied to be a Lotus Turbo
Challenge beater and came close. You could fly all around the world
to take part in races which added a sense of purpose to the game but
a dodgy Jaguar car sprite and the weaknesses of the opponents let it
down. But a game with 36 very different tracks can't be bad.

Wizkid on the other hand was one of the games of the year. Arguably
Sensible Software's only decent game (the sprites are more than 2 
pixels high in this one) it can only be described as weird. Wizkid
is a little green face who has to knock objects into the path of 
butterflies to kill them. If he collects enough money then its off
to the brilliantly wacky adventure sections where Wiz gains a body
and has to rescue a kitten. Then its off to the next level to do
it all again. Despite the game's brilliance it never sold well in
the charts which remains a mystery to this day (although it could 
have something to do with the HUGE number of software pirates
around at the time).

Flop of the week was Ocean's long awaited Epic. Digital Image Design
were responsible for this disappointment. The game had been in 
production for two years but was completed by everyone who played
it in just 2 hours. And to add insult to injury a cheat mode was 
listed in the instructions just in case the game was getting a bit
too longwinded!


~August 1993

The following year Amigas were on their way out and PCs with more 
involved and better produced games were all the rage. August of this
year saw leading a computer magazine launch an investigation into the
high price of PC games. The 7th Guest sparked off the row when it was
released for 70 quid, and led to fears about future pricing. 
Fortunately some software publishers have seen sense and many game 
prices are still the same as they were in 1993. But thats still too
expensive.

Microprose announced debts of 3 million pounds for the last financial
year. Founder Bill Stealey resigned as president as the company 
merged with Spectrum Holobyte. Its thanks to this merger than Star
Trek: A Final Unity is available today.

This month saw LucasArts release the floppy disk version of Day Of The
Tentacle - a groundbreaking graphic adventure. The computer press
raved about it and the gamesbuying public bought it in their droves
despite the plot based on American history. The only gripe was the
game was way to easy to complete, although not as easy as Full 
Throttle turned out to be.

Flashback was finally converted from the Amiga, as was Sensible 
Soccer. Both were to do well.


~August 1994

There was something of a news shortage this month, with only the CES
in Chicago providing a bit of information on forthcoming games. How
ironic all those estimated release dates seem now. Full Throttle was
due to be released in the autumn and The Dig was to finally be 
available in the first half of 1995. Well at least they got the year
right (hopefully). 

Heres an interesting quote from PC Format: "We combine the definitive
review and exclusive demo of The 11th Hour next month on the PC Format
CD Collection Number 5". The PC Format CD Collection is currently 
on number 16 and there's still no sign of the demo or review. Hmm...

On the games front the classics Theme Park and FIFA International
Soccer made their11 debuts. Also that month an advertisement was 
launched with a list of games coming soon from Gametek. These game
names were covered in a pile of drawn on spit with the slogan: "We
make this lovely advertisment and you droll all over it. Why do we
bother?". Maybe Gametek have slightly overexaggerated the excitement
computer games can produce. Especially ones as bad as Hell, Bureau 13,
and Frontier: First Encounters.


And as for August 1995 - well you can work that one out for yourself!


