MikeB wrote:
Maybe the designer was going for a bit of visual variety
Nuts to that. I sent more than
20 shots from the arcade game, from a selection of dozens. I carefully whittled them down, ensuring the mag had available exciting shots with multiple opponents (not that easy to grab in Battlezone, frankly), and what was used? A shot of the title screen, which was actually flipped horizontally (I'm not kidding—look at p53), and two practically identical shots of the basic tank. The lead-in shots weren't of the arcade game, despite that being what the entire article was about, bar the conversions box. Add to that the fact that the Bradley Trainer shot was shoved into 'conversion capers', while the Bradley box had a shot of the original arcade cab under it. This was a serious random-o-plonk, and really a bit rubbish for a cover feature.
I kind of wish they'd just send over PDF proofs or something—at least then I could have said "er, guys, you might want to rethink the grabs on this one", rather than ending up getting all annoyed about it later. (And poor Darran subsequently got inundated with production notes for my feature in #61, to ensure all the images for that piece end up in the right place.) Still, at least the cover for #59 was fucking ace—very nicely put together.
Quote:
Sheepeh wrote:
That isometric article wasn't the cleverest thing, either.
Heh... well its
looks good, layout-wise, but I'll admit that I still haven't gotten round to making myself read much of the text properly...
I recall that the isometric text was used in the Marble Madness piece, but only for the standfirst, where it worked OK. I understand what they were trying to do with the feature in #59, but the end result is ghastly—probably the worst piece of design I've ever seen in Retro Gamer mk II, and certainly at odds with the general trend of the mag's design over the past six months (compare things like the letters pages, bargain hunt, and the two-page spreads on games, such as Why You Must Play, with the mag a couple of years back—most pages look a lot nicer now). Having a nice graphical idea is fine, but not if the end result is all but unreadable.
EDIT: And speaking of Battlezone, iPhone owners really need to watch out for
Vector Tanks, coming to the App Store soon.