Getting this off my chest: unbalanced content

[quantum]

More Amiga and DOS please!

Not just commercial devs, as Epic & Apogee's shareware was a huge breath of fresh air to early 90s DOS gaming.

[Darran@Retro Gamer]

An apogee feature is on the way and can be expected in the next 5 issues.

[paranoid marvin]

Re PC gaming , just dg out my ST Academy on the off-cjhance it might work on XP , and it does! Boy what a fab game , with a great turn from some of the original series members. Theres nothing like this on any of the systems that were around at the time , and goes to show just how varied , innovative and fun PC gaming used to be. And what a nice surprise to find 15-odd year old PC game working straight out of the box. Which also makes me think that we should surely have a Star Trek special in the RG given the consistently high quality of games for the tv series (far moreso than Star wars). Anyone else remember the ace arcade machine from the early 80s?

As for balance ; as a reader of RG right from the very first issue first time around , I can hand on heart say that - out of the main systems - I cannot say which machine has received the most coverage. There have been several major systems that have been noticeably overlooked - namely Atari computers (including the highly popular in the UK ST) - but the PC situation seems to be being redressed these days , although its got a lot of ground to make up. The very fact that many people seem to think that 'their' system is the one being unfairly overlooked makes it seem to me like the balance cant be far away from right.

[TwoHeadedBoy]

An apogee feature is on the way and can be expected in the next 5 issues.

Wacky Wheels on the cover?

[paranoid marvin]

An apogee feature is on the way and can be expected in the next 5 issues.

Wacky Wheels on the cover?

Much more liklely to be the Duke...

[Darran@Retro Gamer]

With regards to the Atari ST. The main reason we tend to overlook it is that it had such a similar library of games to the Amiga. We'll certainly look at getting more exclusive ST games into the mag though as it's a definite area we lack in.

[paranoid marvin]

With regards to the Atari ST. The main reason we tend to overlook it is that it had such a similar library of games to the Amiga. We'll certainly look at getting more exclusive ST games into the mag though as it's a definite area we lack in.

I agree , it was to a large extent the weaker twin of the Amiga , although for many back in the day the ST was the stepping stone for 8 bit owners to 16 bit computing due to the (then) prohibitive cost of the Amiga - plus at the time there was little noticeable difference in quality between the 2 machines. However the ST did have some pretty neat games that either never made it to the Amiga , or were in fact actually better on the Atari so it will be nice to see them make it into the mag.

The A8 is another story entirely and the early eighties had lots of fabulous games which were either exclusive to the machine or were far superior to other versions. Whilst they suffered when poorly ported from the C64 in the later years , it shouldnt be forgotten that there was a period in which the 800 totally dominated the computer scene (although admittedly hardly scratching the surface of the UK market).

[CraigGrannell]

To expand a little on what Darran said, the issue with the ST isn't only its broadly similar library to the Amiga, but the fact the majority of games were Amiga-developed and then ported to the ST, or cross-platform and better on the Amiga. There have been some ST-specific making-ofs, though, such as Skweek. I suspect if readers make suggestions regarding ST-specific making-ofs they'd like to see, some will eventually make it into the mag.

On he A8, I think things are a little different, because there have been quite a few making-ofs on that machine: Boulder Dash, Fractalus!, Fort Apocalypse, Pastfinder, Stellar 7 and Dandy, according to the spreadsheet I've got knocking around. Dropzone's also 'on the slate', although it's been delayed for ages (as in about two years and counting), due to a lack of Archer time.

[paranoid marvin]

To expand a little on what Darran said, the issue with the ST isn't only its broadly similar library to the Amiga, but the fact the majority of games were Amiga-developed and then ported to the ST, or cross-platform and better on the Amiga. There have been some ST-specific making-ofs, though, such as Skweek. I suspect if readers make suggestions regarding ST-specific making-ofs they'd like to see, some will eventually make it into the mag.

On he A8, I think things are a little different, because there have been quite a few making-ofs on that machine: Boulder Dash, Fractalus!, Fort Apocalypse, Pastfinder, Stellar 7 and Dandy, according to the spreadsheet I've got knocking around. Dropzone's also 'on the slate', although it's been delayed for ages (as in about two years and counting), due to a lack of Archer time.

Cant remember if they've been featured or not but Star Raiders , Drelbs , Montezumas Revenge and Elektraglide are all A8 classics that should appear in RG along with English Software who wrote some great games mainly for the A8. But from the list you've mentioned it does sound like the machine has been relatively well supported , especially for a machine that didnt fare too well sales-wise this side of the pond.

[Antiriad2097]

Doesn't the ST/Amiga issue depend somewhat on time period? Initially, the Amiga had lazy ST ports, then later that was reversed, so some of the early titles work better on the original Atari platform.

[CraigGrannell]

Cant remember if they've been featured or not but Star Raiders , Drelbs , Montezumas Revenge and Elektraglide are all A8 classics that should appear in RG

Star Raiders: issue 79. Drelbs: requires finding Kelly Jones, which I spent some time on but didn't get anywhere. Montezuma's Revenge: maybe I'm having a senior moment, but I'm pretty sure someone was on the case for this recently (MIke Bevan, perhaps?). Elektraglide: no idea.

But from the list you've mentioned it does sound like the machine has been relatively well supported , especially for a machine that didnt fare too well sales-wise this side of the pond.

I think, from Darran's standpoint, he's been happy to include games of interest (i.e. good games) and/or games hugely popular, even if people didn't realise that the original system wasn't big in the UK. For example, we covered Boulder Dash, best known as a C64 game, but created on the Atari. If and when we cover Dropzone, it'll be about the Atari version (along with some of the other ports Archer worked on).

Doesn't the ST/Amiga issue depend somewhat on time period? Initially, the Amiga had lazy ST ports, then later that was reversed, so some of the early titles work better on the original Atari platform.

I guess so, but then that's always down to whoever's writing the article to find out. I don't really see the point in writing a making-of about a port, unless it's wildly different from the original game (C64 Wanted: Monty Mole, for example—although one might argue that was actually developed in parallel with the Speccy version), and so if a game was built on the ST, that's where the making-of should centre. Of course, it's not like this hasn't happened with the ST anyway—issue 34's Dungeon Master making of is another example. The issue with the early ST games, though, is many were crummy 8-bit ports which then became crummy Amiga ports of crummy ST ports of 8-bit originals.

[thevulture]

Doesn't the ST/Amiga issue depend somewhat on time period? Initially, the Amiga had lazy ST ports, then later that was reversed, so some of the early titles work better on the original Atari platform.

Very true-Letters pages would be (rightfully so) full of angry Amiga owners saying they were forced to endure yet another weak ST port (Limited colours, poor sound) and if memory serves..often game cost £5 more on Amiga.

With case of ST/Amiga versions with so many games, differences purely cosmetic-3D might be fractionally faster on ST ver, due to faster CPU, but Amiga versions had more colours, far better sound.Also things like Midnight Resistance:ST version lacked 2-player option and had the push-scroll method.

[Fred83]

With case of ST/Amiga versions with so many games, differences purely cosmetic-3D might be fractionally faster on ST ver, due to faster CPU, but Amiga versions had more colours, far better sound.Also things like Midnight Resistance:ST version lacked 2-player option and had the push-scroll method.

Irony of it all,all the amigas had the same soundchip set going back to the A1000,and i dont think amigas where really designed for heavy upgrading,heat and timing issues arrive thanks to commodores revisions to save money ,thus i think winuae does be better for uses like that.

[thevulture]

ST B.A.T came with a dongle which also beefed up the St sound for the game.You also had The Monster Sound Cartridge which gave Stero sound did'nt it?.

ST exclusives? Gauntlet 1 never made it too the Amiga did it, how about:Oids, Sundog, Frontline and Breach 2?

[Antiriad2097]

If you go down that route, then you want to look at the revisions in the Atari STE. With stereo DMA sound and a blitter chip added, it was a much closer comparison to the Amiga hardware. DMA greatly increased the audio quality possible while the blitter allowed fast movement of graphic elements and smooth scrolling.