Be Excellent To Each Other

I didn't know PC Zone was Britains first dedicated computer games magazine:

http://www.newstatesman.com/magazines/2010/07/zone-magazine-gaming-close

Even if we discount the multiformats, you still have Crash, Zzap 64 and Amtix as single format hugely popular magazines. Well apart from Amtix which sold about 3 copies and had to close.

While on the subject I never understand why RG always have a raging hard on about Amtix when it really wasn't on the radar for most CPC users. Indeed the man who should have been running Amtix jumped ship and setup Amstrad Action. If AA had failed, there would be no Future Publishing. It was only Chris Anderson, quite by chance, deciding to stick a tape on issue 3 (a publishing first) that propelled it into profit from some really heavy losses on the first two issues.

It might be the wine I've drunk but think about this for a second. This place was formed because of you know who and his work for Future. If AA had failed not only would there have been no AP but this forum might not exist either.

[raises wine glass to Amstrad Action, the root of everything]

Acorn User pwns AA every time. Then I was on to ST Format. Happy days.

Just noticed that they've given Mario Galaxy 2... wait for it... 100%. For fuck's sake.

Lucky it wasn't Bananas, eh Chinny?

Chinny? Hello?

*taps forum*

Amstrad Action?

That’s it then! There’s no point making any more games ever again as Nintendo have made the perfect game which will never be bettered.

Industry over.

Can someone shut the door on the way out?

I would like to point out that without AA there would have been no ST Format either. Or Cross Stitch Monthly.

Exactly! Who'd've thought that to make the perfect game all you had to do was almost exactly copy the last one you made?

IIRC SV Hemdator gave Populous 100%

This morning I very much enjoyed reading the letters page in AP21.

For some reason.

I'm not saying that I'm agreeing with the choice of game, but how is this any different from an Edge 10/10 or a Famitsu 40/40? We've already had a few of those...

Well, using a percentage is surely a way of being more accurate with the scores. All review 'numbers' are pretty much meaningless anyway.

I think part of the problem is that I (along with others) would only give SMG something more akin to an 8/10.

I'd give it about a 7. It was okay.

7/10, I'd also go with.

It was a classic case of a game which would've been considerably better with a standard controller, as then you wouldn't have the issues of rank camera (lack of) control.

Fun enough to play when I'm round my brothers, and it's the one of the only full length games he has. But it didn't even remotely make me want to go and buy it.

SMG was good. Played it non stop until completion (not all the stars though). 8.5/10 from me.

Then I sold/traded all my Wii games to buy 360 games.

I'd suggest that 10/10 means "somewhere between 91% and 100%" - which gives you a bit of leeway. 100% suggests utterly flawless in every way.

I'd say it would mean 95% and above, otherwise it would be a 9/10, Shirley.

No. Dickface.

Er, yeah.

The percentage system is inaccurate. What you need is a system based on 1000. This reflects more accurate scoring.

Most film and music magazines rate things out of 5 stars. I don't see why we don't do that with games as, at the end of the day, all you ever really need to know is whether a game is essential, good, alright, not worth bothering with or total toilet. Five possible ratings. Simple.

And given the corruption inherent in the gaming woyld all games would thusly be starred 3/5 or over.

I don't see how this is vastly different to games presently being scored 8/10 and over. Or 73%. Or whatever.

Besides, there's corruption in every aspect of the media, it's hardly something unique to games.

Indeed. In the end, why bother? Why bother doing anything?

My sentiments precisely. Sadly, my employer is struggling to see my point of view. They'll learn.

At the most recent meet I introduced an awed public to the one-star film rating system. It works like this:

Does the pretty girl get her boobies out? If yes, one star. If no, no stars.

I think you'll find it's flawless.

I'm positive there was another way for the film to earn the star.

Exploding helicopters. One star, easy.

What about exploding helicopters with tits?

I think you've just broken the one star rating scale.

I agree. It really needs the addition of an option of playing with the trusty GameCube controller. Even if you'd be totally reliant on a second, Wii-mote equipped, player to pick up the Star bits. As time progresses I'm getting much less tolerant of the flaky Wii motion controller. It's just not as reliable as it needs to be.

Still, I'd happily give SMG2 10/10 in the Edge sense. But I'd do a bit of historical revisionism and retcon SMG2 as merely being the second disc of SMG.

I'm struggling to remember any need to collect the star bits beyond getting pretty redundant extra lives. (Plus it felt horribly tacked on, just to give some function to the pointing capability)

The pointing/collecting capability seemed tacked-on, yeah.* But the Star Bits are useful. You can use them to unlock further galaxies, and the more galaxies unlocked, the more Stars you can get, the further you can progress in the game. Particularly after completing the main story.

* Although... I've been playing SMG2 with the two-player 'assist' mode, which I didn't with SMG1, and it's quite good fun. It also reduces the difficulty level a fair bit; the assistant Luma is almost too powerful.

If I have 5 exploding helicopters, is this 5 star, 1 star or possibly 2?

Did I ever tell you chaps about the time I was doing work experience at a magazine in That London (a rather shite GQ clone) and had a newly released book chucked at me with the instruction to write a full review of it in 30 mins?

They weren't best pleased when I refused. I wasn't asked back there.

Man, I may be poor and I may have a shit job that I hate because the journalism thing totally failed to happen, but at least I have my principles!

Just reading gamesTM's article on the new Medal of Honour.

2 pages devoted to telling us that it'll have unlockable beards...

Worst post ever!

Anyone with common sense knows games need to be scored out of 1000.

Retro Gamer has a feature on Julian Gollop this month. This means that I will actually read some of it for the first time in half a year!

Gasp! Does the article include "news about what he's up to these days" or is it just "some random old tat we found on the internet?"

I do like the cover



And it has 10 pages (including 1 and a half pages just of pictures) for the interview which has notes on each of his games - feels more like an email exchange which has been written up , but that's not entirely a bad thing

Cheers for the heads-up - I'll have to pick up a copy of that.

That looks very nice indeed - I was worried that it would just be a "potted history of" rather than them actually getting in touch with him. I'll have to grab a copy when it finally crawls over here next month (still got the Rainbow Islands one on the shelf of the local bookstore right now).

It wasn't an email exchange, it was a long verbal interview (nearly an hour and three-quarters, believe it or not) with the man himself. We covered each of his games chronologically, and I transcribed pretty much everything he said for the feature. And I did ask him what he was up to nowadays

I see the latest issue has an advent calendar cover of sorts, which each 'door' representing a year when a major Mario game was released. Nice idea, but shame that the related Super Mario feature inside the magazine is such amateurishly-written pap.

My subscriptiong to VERGE has recently expired. I've given in to peer pressure and not renewed it. I'm missing it already.

I don't understand why. It's not really all that good and I don't really have much interest in games anymore but I just enjoyed having something to look at whilst I have breakfast. I really hate that anonymous sterile thing .

I may give in and re-subscribe.

I CAN'T HELP IT. I'M WEAK. AND THE PICTURES ARE QUITE PRETTY.

Bit harsh...

I FEEL THE SAME WAY

Hey, wasn't intending to attack the writer personally. What I mean is that the article come across as a half-remembered oral history told by your grandfather rather than a consistently-reliable factual piece, and was too flat to be a decent piece of entertainment writing either. I like RG, and want it to be better, and for that to happen you shouldn't shy from criticising inadequate writing.

More thread resurrection...

has a new post (with nws url), but this isn't really about that, it's about what that's about, which is the Eurogamer review of the 25th Anniversary edition of SMB.

Games magazines, seem to fit into two different categories; entertaining, and PR-fest, and I don't remember the last time I read a review of anything because there doesn't seem to be anything entertaining to read anymore, and I prefer to get my opinions from playing demos, or the opinions of you guys. So, without wanting to go on a Stu-style rant, is this what passes for a professional review these days? It is (as Stu surmises) a two page review of the packaging of the game. Basically, the conclusion that the review comes to, is that you should buy this, because even though it's exactly the same game you could have bought 17 years ago, it comes in a box, that you can put on your shelf. Oh, and it's got a cd.

Sorry, I know I should be trudging about in the snow and stuff, but instead I'm on the internet, in the warm.

There was probably a point to this post, but I've forgotten what it was now.