Be Excellent To Each Other

Yeah, according to AP2 he was there from issue 12 until its demise at issue 17.

Around a year after this place was founded he tried his hand at the flattop model of web publishing with subscriptions. I don't think it took off for him unfortunately. I'd hate to think such an entertaining and talented writer being forced to work stacking shelves or something. http://orsomething.co.uk/

Retro Gamer readers will be aware there's a regular column called Back to the Eighties covering a single month from that decade. Werl considering there are only 120 months and we're at issue 114 already I thought I'd flick through and compile which month was in which issue. I forgot it didn't start until issue 13, so he's where we stand right now:



Just to spot if they classily call the curtain on it or start to reprint it.

And after that brief Game zone diversion, back to PCGamer issue 22, you Nash hungry whores.

With all this Nash love, what did the other YS/AP greats do after the Viking Funeral? What about Linda Barker? Not ('Linda Barker" - Ed), but Linda Barker?

Finest badge ever given away with a magazine, EVAH!

Wasn't someone in an unfortunate aeroplane crash?

Jonathan Davies edited PC Gamer for the first 30-40 issues, I think. He loved to dress up and have his photo taken multiple times in each issue. I bell-hive he started the games industry news website GamesIndustry.biz. Matt Beliebleley and Rich Pelley were in Arcade, the dreadful lads-mag-games crossover abomination. I remember Uncle Stalin mentioning that Linda Barker took a long time to recover from her brain haemorrhage and settled down to raise an fambly.

Matthew Squires. He was awesomely bad in the AP Tips Video.

Somebody else ex-AP also died. I want to say Tim Tucker, but can't be certain.

I don't imagine most people hurtling towards the ground at 500mph would be considering themselves fortunate. So I'd say that all plane crashes are "unfortunate".

He "died", but I think Mr Mellerick actually died.

Ah, yes.

Linda B looks very poorly in the final YS. I dunno what she was moved to when she stopped being AP editor (as although she only edited a couple of issues, AP2 still lists her as Ed until Jan 94).

Have spoken to Rich Pelley on Twitter. He pops up in The Guardian from time to time.

"What did the aeroplane hit?" said the man behind me at work as I was reading that story.
"The ground, Dan, the ground".

Jesus.

Rod Lawton, longest serving editor of Amstrad Action and occasional contributor to earlier AP's in the games review section is now a top photography journalist and writer.

http://rodlawton.wordpress.com

Nice to see one someone from the golden age of Future mags still making a living writing.

Don't forget Cam Winstanly published his first book not long ago.

Ah, yes.

It wasn't great, though.

It was alright. Had some interesting ideas but failed to sustain my interest for the entire length.

Something something something your mum blah blah etc.

He then edited N64 Magazine during its goldenest era - great magazine during its prime, almost Amiga Power meets Super Play, and to be honest they did a great job of even managing to fill a magazine with content during the early days (mostly by reviewing many games twice or even three times).


She became a Staff Writer on Total, Future's Nintendo magazine that wasn't the other ones.

Not sure if I've mentioned it earlier in the thread, but Massimo Valducci, who was a writer for Zzap 64 and Amtix is now a trichologist (hair loss consultant) and we recently did a new website for him at the place wot I work.

Was quite surreal talking to him about his website, then at the end of meetings reminiscing about The Good Old Days.

//edit: Yes, I did - in September 2012, fact fans.

I managed to get my hands on a couple of issues of "PC Action Emulate!" yesterday. Issues 6 and 7, specifically. Took them to bed last night to read, and by crikey they're an utter bag of shit. Published by Live around the time of Retro Gamer issue 9, so 2004 ish. Issue 6 (SIX!) was like being wrut at like a child. This is a game, old game from long long ago, some are still good and here's how you play them step by step. Issue six! SIX! What the hell the previous ones talked about I've no idea.

Issue seven had some stuff on abandonware, but failed to understand the legal dubiousness of it. Both gave up towards the end and printed modern game reviews to pad out the page count. Awful.

What do you mad people expect for a retro games mag if not Zelda and Mario articles? "Here's some shit old game that was panned at the time"? "Remember this?!". "No? What about THIS?1". Perhaps you expect articles talking about how games were better back then, or something?

Yeah, I like the history of ITV magazine I read to be just about X-Factor and Dancing on Ice.

PCNash30Gamer

Gosh, I remember reading that Virtual Snooker review at the time.
When was it written? Oh, May 96 I guess!

June 1996 issue date.

Heh, like that 30 years of Childrens ITV "documentary" at Christmas that was 90% PJ and fucking Duncan.

36JGamerPCNash

*sniff sniff* Smells like JNash, but no credit so can't be certain. Certainly carries stuff over from AP though.

Going to make sure I cancel my Retro Gamer sub on Monday. Tried re-reading the last 3 issues, it's all just dire. Taking a look back at issues from last year of the excellent Nintendo Gamer (R.I.P.) and comparing it to RG just brought home what a declining mess Imagine's mag is in.

I'm going to stick with it and pray for change. Just because I don't want to be trawling ebay for the last few issues of its death throes.

Sounds like me and Amstrad Action.

"Oh I'll stick with it until the end. Just how long can it hold out anyway?"

Nearly 2 years as it turned out! When it did close I had no idea because they never said it was happening.

To their credit, Future usually have been good in making sure their magazines get a proper final issue. Only one I can remember vanishing unannounced apart from AA was Total, and that wasn't great anyway. (Only read the last issue because Future substituted Total for my Super Play sub. It lasted for just one issue longer than SP, I think.)

Bloody fuck. I managed to source another Nash-era Game Zone and the sodding Royal Mail have lost the fucker in transit.

Aaaand my scanner's bost. Fucking brilliant day.

The best theory is that a publisher looked at the projected sales for the next issue and decided not to send it to the printers. Everyone else including Chris Anderson are baffled as to why it didn't get some kind of send off.

If Retro Gamer had some fucking balls they'd do a last issue for it like they did Your Sinclair and Zzap.

I'll ask MrsA what the general procedure for killing a publication is later on today.

I assume it still makes money. All mags go through changes. Crash became a poor imitation of Your Sinclair for example but soldiered on.

RG, like AA, has a high proportion of subscribers. Didn't someone once say that an issue purchased via a subscription was twice as profitable as one sold in a shop?

The reason YS couldn't soldier on like Amstrad Action and Commodore Format was because they had terrible subscription figures. So terrible that Future actually withdrew subscriptions about 9 months before the mag closed.

By all accounts AA118 was half written and the only actual staff member on the team was an art editor shared with Commodore Format. Everyone else was freelance. They didn't even have to worry about re-assigning people to other magazines!

Whereas when YS closed the remaining 2 members of staff were sent to work on other magazines.

Ah. I did not think about freelance staff.

I meant they'd do a last issue of AA. Issue.. um.. 9(?) and erm.. something else <18 got the writers of Zzap and YS back together to make another issue of each magazine. Back before the wilting flowers Imagine bought it and now no magazine is allowed to be mentioned in case Future go "But meeeerrrrr!".

Ah sorry, misunderstood.

Won't happen. I believe there are "personality" issues between the two companies.

It's rather confounded by the fact that AA is so instrumental in the success of a rival company. You could do a YS feature and probably get away with not mentioning Future that much. You can't do that for AA. The two entities are so intertwined that neither would exist without the other.

Anyone know where you can get a complete set of scans of Amiga Power?

Underground Gamer has scans of issues 1-19.

Oh man. For some reason, I stuck with Playstation Power til the bitter end. It started out really fun. Then it got all laddy and 'whoa, beer and birds!'. Then it got weirdly kiddy (I guess because all the adults were then on PS2 hype). SO my sub ended with some utter tripe after Power finally went under.

Dave! According to PCGamer's 100 bestest Pc Games of all time, STALKER is better than Doom.