Favourite Amiga magazine

Tim Janssen · 13 April 2001, 08:26

Throughout the years I have bought many magazines covering Amiga games like Amiga Computing, Zzap and Amiga Format. Although they all were very nice to read I have a soft spot for one magazine: CU Amiga. This mag always had great coverdiscs mounted and in-depth (game) reviews.

What I would like to know is if you bought (Amiga) gamesmagazines and which are your favourite. Somehow I guess Amiga Power will rank very high in your favourite mag lists.

Tim Janssen · 13 April 2001, 08:36

Quote:

Damn. I really have to learn how to create a poll. Anyway, one can choose CU Amiga by selecting 'Other Magazines'

Tim -I'm so stupid- Janssen

Fixed by your friendly Administrator.

CodyJarrett · 13 April 2001, 10:32

I enjoyed Amiga Format and CU Amiga alot, but I felt that Amiga Power was the only magazine that I could truly rely on when buying original games.

If you only had cracked copies of games, then it probably didn't matter much if magazines like CU Amiga gave rubbish games like Rise Of The Robots and Epic very high marks or that magazines like Amiga Action reviewed the PC version of Colonization.

Amiga Power didn't use up half a review with the plot for a game ("Once again, the evil King Buttface has seized control of the crystal shards of blah blah blah"), like Games X. It actually used the full percentage scoring system, from 0-100%, instead of giving most games scores between 60 and 100%, like Amiga Computing.

And it definitely didn't have an unwritten agreement with publishers to make their games out to be better than they were - US Gold and Team 17 stopped speaking to Amiga Power because they gave SOME of their games very low marks (Pools Of Darkness got 22%, but then something like Cybercon 3 got 88%. For Team 17, Overdrive got 46%, but Alien Breed 3D got 91%).

Amiga Power had a strict scoring system, great articles, a superb top 100 games every year and was well written and funny. What more could you ask for?

Malc · 13 April 2001, 23:13

That poll look ALMOST like the one at:

www.commodore-ale.com

Nice one.

15 April 2001, 03:30

It has to be Amiga Power.

Okay so they didn't do much about applications or hardware but I was 11 when I first got my Amiga and I was about 16 or 17 when it finally broke, I wasn't very interested in anything other than playing the games. For that reason Amiga Power was THE best.

I used to be able to say I had every copy of the magazine. I subscribed for 4 of the 5 years it was available - I got some good games for free out of those subscriptions: Mega-lo-Mania and Wizkid to name a couple.

There was humour in their magazine, it was enjoyable to read. Their reviews were spot on and it was spooky cos I nearly always agreed with the reviews. If I was really looking forward to a game coming out and Amiga Power gave it a poor mark then I didn't buy it. They were the reason I bought Formula One Grand Prix and the reason I didn't buy Rise of the Robots.

Amiga Power provided the first Sensi Soccer demo that I got me hands on, I was hooked from then on. They also provided the first Cannon Fodder demo I played. Plus their first two issues had full games on the cover. Bombuzal and Kid Gloves, which were half decent games.

They even did a Top 100 every year and after the first year they also asked the readers for their Top 100 which was nice to see.

All in all it was the perfect magazine for Gamers. It didn't bore you with stuff that you didn't want (or need) to know, it simply told you what was good and what wasn't.

It was a sad day when Amiga Power died. I remember that as the time I knew the Amiga was dead............

thank god for emulators.

RCK · 16 April 2001, 18:42

Moderator are there to correct this kind of mistake on the board.
I've just add CU Amiga in the list.

LOL that Malc have the same poll on ALE

(Don't be angry for that, I don't think Tim did it against ALE)

Tim Janssen · 17 April 2001, 08:55

Malc,

Sorry for posting a poll which is very familiar to yours at ALE. It wasn't my intention to virtually copy 'n' paste your poll to this discussion board. It seems we just had the same idea at the same time.

This has happened to me before with a homepage of mine. I have a Zzap! Bible, covering a description of all 4500+ C64 games reviewed by gamesmagazine Zzap! between 1985 and 1994. Pity an other person, Mr I. Black, had the same idea on his site. We almost started a flame-war but kept the peace.

CodyJarrett · 17 April 2001, 13:05

I've done a similar index for every issue of Amiga Power, so it'll hopefully be on a website soon.

Malc · 18 April 2001, 19:08

Quote:

Originally posted by Tim Janssen
Malc,

Sorry for posting a poll which is very familiar to yours at ALE. It wasn't my intention to virtually copy 'n' paste your poll to this discussion board. It seems we just had the same idea at the same time.

Absolutely no problem mate!!

You are free to make any poll you wish I just couldn't believe that it was so similar, must have been having a bad day when I posted that

Tim Janssen · 19 April 2001, 16:08

Looking at the responses most people seem to like Amiga Power. I have never bought this magazine but often took a sneak peek into it when I was at the Newsagent. They really slagged of games. I remember that they awarded a game called 'Time Gate' with a score of 0% This cannot be serious, can it?

Somehow I never switched to other magazines.
I used to buy Zzap! (THE most legendary gamesmagazine -ever) until they made the unwise decision to go C64 only.
I bought CU Amiga now and then mainly for the awesome coverdisks and for the fact I was buying this magazine since late 1986.
I also bought German magazine Amiga Joker mainly for the reviews. If any game was published, it got a review here. This mag was also notorious for slagging off games.
Last and certainly least there was a Dutch magazine called Amiga Magazine which covered the whole Amiga scene in The Netherlands. It had really bad reviews, extremely stupid screenshots (loading screen, highscore screen, credits screen) but it only cost 2 Euro.

CodyJarrett · 19 April 2001, 16:41

Amiga Power NEVER gave any game 0%. You are probably thinking of their review of Final Gate CD32, which got 20% in May 1996.

Okay, forgive me for being anal here, but:

Of the 1463 percentage scores awarded by Amiga Power, the number of games from:

01-09% = 39
10-19% = 55
20-29% = 67
30-39% = 85
40-49% = 89
50-59% = 181
60-69% = 229
70-79% = 263
80-89% = 354
90-96% = 101

The average score was 63.53%. No game was awarded 0, 97, 98, 99 or 100%.

I hardly think that the above results show Amiga Power to be excessively harsh.

Of course, one can prove anything with statistics, and this is just a numerical analysis. Reviews are supposed to be read and by reading old issues, you will usually find that there were good reasons for giving low marks to games.

"They really slagged of games." could also be seen as constructive criticism and not misusing the percentage system by giving everything above 60%!

Twistin'Ghost · 19 April 2001, 18:19

I am gonna have to echo Cody's sentiments on this issue. If you were buying software, Amiga Power took stringent steps to insure they were pretty much the only magazine you could trust when it came to parting with your hard-earned dosh. And at the same time they also managed to do their thing with humour, camp and smug irreverence. To use their description, "attitude".

I doubt I will ever part with my AP collection...

Tim Janssen · 20 April 2001, 11:02

Final Gate CD32 scoring 20%? Ooops. I really seem to have a fuzzy memory. My apologies.

By the way, I just discovered a site that hasn't been updated for a while. It is called Amiga Power 2. I guess most of you have visited it already. The site has such a cynical atmosphere -Very funny.

28 April 2001, 04:30

If you can get me some ..then please email me at godflesh@dds.nl.

You would help me out a lot...

Tim Janssen · 04 May 2001, 09:48

For those people on EAB who ever had the fortunate experience to read Zzap!, the best gamesmagazine ever (IMHO), here is a little link to Iian Black's Magazine Scans. These are full scans of complete Zzap! issues. Issues 45, 46, 48, 49 and 50 cover also reviews of ancient Amiga games like Speedball, Joan of Arc, Bio Challenge, Dungeon Master and many more.
For me things cannot get anymore nostalgic than this.

Tim Janssen · 09 May 2001, 14:25

This is a bit off-topic: For almost a year now I am working on my 'soon-to-be-announced' Amiga homepage. It will not be the ultimate ADF source nor an Amiga schrine but it will cover reviews of games that originally appeared on paper many moons ago.

From 1989 to 1994 I have bought many Amiga magazines like
CU Amiga, Amiga Format, Amiga Joker and Amiga Computing. So you can expect to get multiple reviews of the same game. This can give interesting results.
When converting the original reviews to HTML I will not copy the original page-layout but pictures, scoreboxes and other details will be included. Currently I have 140 'paper'-reviews OCR'ed and converted to HTML.
It is going to look very impressive by now but I can not show you the results because:
a My pc does not have a connection to the Internet and
b My discdrive is broken. -Honest!

Anyway, my question is whether someone would be interested in reading old reviews of Amiga games or that I am just wasting my time.

CodyJarrett · 09 May 2001, 14:34

I'd definitely be interested!

Any Amiga Power reviews?

LaundroMat · 09 May 2001, 14:37

Well, I for one admire the patience and perseverance you show in trying to accomplish this feat of truly heroic proportions. And I'm not being sarcastic.
Anyways, would I be interested in reading these reviews? You bet I would.
If you want, I could have a look at old Amiga mags that are lying around at home, and tell you what issues I still have. Maybe I could then send them to you? (As you're living in Holland, it shouldn't cost a lot). You won't get my stack of Amiga Power's though

.

This board is truly inspirational, as I am just thinking of something now. Maybe it would be interesting - dare I say very interesting? - to compare games journalism of then with what is happening now. I bet there could be some fascinating conclusions to be drawn there. Especially now that gaming journalism is becoming a more and more accepted profession.(Anyone still looking for a final paper subject?).

I urge you to include Amiga Power in your reviews. In fact, I urge you to put all of the content of that mag online

Side note: I don't think anyone cares, but could there be copyright problems?

Edit:
:eek Oops, I didn't see the AP2 site had all of the paper counterpart content online. Forget about my AP remark then.

:eek :eek Double oops: it's the site itself that can be downloaded. So please re-read my AP remark

Tim Janssen · 09 May 2001, 14:52

Hi Cody,

A couple of posts ago I wrote in this thread:

Quote:

(...) most people seem to like Amiga Power. I have never bought this magazine (...)

I must confess I have not any single magazine of
Amiga Power in my posession (shock! Horror!).
The Amiga magazines I own are Zzap! (1989-1991), CU Amiga (1989-1994), Amiga Joker (1991-1993), Dutch Amiga Magazine (1992-1994, and a 2 issues in 1996), Amiga Format (4 copies), Amiga Computing (3 copies) and Zero (2 copies).
From these magazines I have scanned the reviews and scores.

I think an Amiga Power review could be a welcome addition. They viewed and reviewed a game in a different manner. -Comparing different reviews for the same game could be really interesting then. For example CU Amiga awarding a game with 95% when Amiga Power slags it off giving it a score of 45%.

CodyJarrett · 09 May 2001, 14:52

And no-one is getting my complete collection of Amiga Powers!

I had always wanted to scan in all the issues of AP and maybe turn the text into HTML, but I never got round to it.

What do you mean about AP2 having all of the paper counterpart content online Laundromat?

View Poll Results: What is your favourite Amiga magazine?
Amiga Action	5	2.37%
Amiga Computing	3	1.42%
Amiga Format	54	25.59%
CU Amiga	39	18.48%
Amiga Power	29	13.74%
Amiga Shopper	7	3.32%
The One	19	9.00%
Zzap!	3	1.42%
Zero (covered also Atari ST & pc)	3	1.42%
Amiga Joker (German)	23	10.90%
Other Amiga magazine	26	12.32%
Voters: 211. You may not vote on this poll

13 April 2001, 10:32	#3
CodyJarrett Global Moderator Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: UK Age: 46 Posts: 6,160	Magazines I enjoyed Amiga Format and CU Amiga alot, but I felt that Amiga Power was the only magazine that I could truly rely on when buying original games. If you only had cracked copies of games, then it probably didn't matter much if magazines like CU Amiga gave rubbish games like Rise Of The Robots and Epic very high marks or that magazines like Amiga Action reviewed the PC version of Colonization. Amiga Power didn't use up half a review with the plot for a game ("Once again, the evil King Buttface has seized control of the crystal shards of blah blah blah"), like Games X. It actually used the full percentage scoring system, from 0-100%, instead of giving most games scores between 60 and 100%, like Amiga Computing. And it definitely didn't have an unwritten agreement with publishers to make their games out to be better than they were - US Gold and Team 17 stopped speaking to Amiga Power because they gave SOME of their games very low marks (Pools Of Darkness got 22%, but then something like Cybercon 3 got 88%. For Team 17, Overdrive got 46%, but Alien Breed 3D got 91%). Amiga Power had a strict scoring system, great articles, a superb top 100 games every year and was well written and funny. What more could you ask for?

13 April 2001, 23:13	#4
Malc Zone Friend Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: UK Age: 45 Posts: 117	Oi! That poll look ALMOST like the one at: www.commodore-ale.com Nice one.

15 April 2001, 03:30	#5
Gibby Posts: n/a	Amiga Power All The Way It has to be Amiga Power. Okay so they didn't do much about applications or hardware but I was 11 when I first got my Amiga and I was about 16 or 17 when it finally broke, I wasn't very interested in anything other than playing the games. For that reason Amiga Power was THE best. I used to be able to say I had every copy of the magazine. I subscribed for 4 of the 5 years it was available - I got some good games for free out of those subscriptions: Mega-lo-Mania and Wizkid to name a couple. There was humour in their magazine, it was enjoyable to read. Their reviews were spot on and it was spooky cos I nearly always agreed with the reviews. If I was really looking forward to a game coming out and Amiga Power gave it a poor mark then I didn't buy it. They were the reason I bought Formula One Grand Prix and the reason I didn't buy Rise of the Robots. Amiga Power provided the first Sensi Soccer demo that I got me hands on, I was hooked from then on. They also provided the first Cannon Fodder demo I played. Plus their first two issues had full games on the cover. Bombuzal and Kid Gloves, which were half decent games. They even did a Top 100 every year and after the first year they also asked the readers for their Top 100 which was nice to see. All in all it was the perfect magazine for Gamers. It didn't bore you with stuff that you didn't want (or need) to know, it simply told you what was good and what wasn't. It was a sad day when Amiga Power died. I remember that as the time I knew the Amiga was dead............ thank god for emulators.

16 April 2001, 18:42	#6
RCK Administrator Join Date: Feb 2001 Location: Paris / France Age: 45 Posts: 3,084	Don't cry tim Moderator are there to correct this kind of mistake on the board. I've just add CU Amiga in the list. LOL that Malc have the same poll on ALE (Don't be angry for that, I don't think Tim did it against ALE)

13 April 2001, 08:26	#1
Tim Janssen Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: Den Bosch / The Netherlands Age: 47 Posts: 1,271	Throughout the years I have bought many magazines covering Amiga games like Amiga Computing, Zzap and Amiga Format. Although they all were very nice to read I have a soft spot for one magazine: CU Amiga. This mag always had great coverdiscs mounted and in-depth (game) reviews. What I would like to know is if you bought (Amiga) gamesmagazines and which are your favourite. Somehow I guess Amiga Power will rank very high in your favourite mag lists.

17 April 2001, 08:55	#7
Tim Janssen Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: Den Bosch / The Netherlands Age: 47 Posts: 1,271	Sorry for having the same Poll in different places Malc, Sorry for posting a poll which is very familiar to yours at ALE. It wasn't my intention to virtually copy 'n' paste your poll to this discussion board. It seems we just had the same idea at the same time. This has happened to me before with a homepage of mine. I have a Zzap! Bible, covering a description of all 4500+ C64 games reviewed by gamesmagazine Zzap! between 1985 and 1994. Pity an other person, Mr I. Black, had the same idea on his site. We almost started a flame-war but kept the peace.

17 April 2001, 13:05	#8
CodyJarrett Global Moderator Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: UK Age: 46 Posts: 6,160	Amiga Power Index I've done a similar index for every issue of Amiga Power, so it'll hopefully be on a website soon.

19 April 2001, 16:08	#10
Tim Janssen Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: Den Bosch / The Netherlands Age: 47 Posts: 1,271	Lots of Amiga Power -fans here.. Looking at the responses most people seem to like Amiga Power. I have never bought this magazine but often took a sneak peek into it when I was at the Newsagent. They really slagged of games. I remember that they awarded a game called 'Time Gate' with a score of 0% This cannot be serious, can it? Somehow I never switched to other magazines. I used to buy Zzap! (THE most legendary gamesmagazine -ever) until they made the unwise decision to go C64 only. I bought CU Amiga now and then mainly for the awesome coverdisks and for the fact I was buying this magazine since late 1986. I also bought German magazine Amiga Joker mainly for the reviews. If any game was published, it got a review here. This mag was also notorious for slagging off games. Last and certainly least there was a Dutch magazine called Amiga Magazine which covered the whole Amiga scene in The Netherlands. It had really bad reviews, extremely stupid screenshots (loading screen, highscore screen, credits screen) but it only cost 2 Euro.

19 April 2001, 16:41	#11
CodyJarrett Global Moderator Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: UK Age: 46 Posts: 6,160	Amiga Power Amiga Power NEVER gave any game 0%. You are probably thinking of their review of Final Gate CD32, which got 20% in May 1996. Okay, forgive me for being anal here, but: Of the 1463 percentage scores awarded by Amiga Power, the number of games from: 01-09% = 39 10-19% = 55 20-29% = 67 30-39% = 85 40-49% = 89 50-59% = 181 60-69% = 229 70-79% = 263 80-89% = 354 90-96% = 101 The average score was 63.53%. No game was awarded 0, 97, 98, 99 or 100%. I hardly think that the above results show Amiga Power to be excessively harsh. Of course, one can prove anything with statistics, and this is just a numerical analysis. Reviews are supposed to be read and by reading old issues, you will usually find that there were good reasons for giving low marks to games. "They really slagged of games." could also be seen as constructive criticism and not misusing the percentage system by giving everything above 60%!

19 April 2001, 18:19	#12
Twistin'Ghost Give up the ghost Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: U$A Age: 33 Posts: 4,662	Cody's right I am gonna have to echo Cody's sentiments on this issue. If you were buying software, Amiga Power took stringent steps to insure they were pretty much the only magazine you could trust when it came to parting with your hard-earned dosh. And at the same time they also managed to do their thing with humour, camp and smug irreverence. To use their description, "attitude". I doubt I will ever part with my AP collection...

20 April 2001, 11:02	#13
Tim Janssen Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: Den Bosch / The Netherlands Age: 47 Posts: 1,271	Amiga Power 2 Final Gate CD32 scoring 20%? Ooops. I really seem to have a fuzzy memory. My apologies. By the way, I just discovered a site that hasn't been updated for a while. It is called Amiga Power 2. I guess most of you have visited it already. The site has such a cynical atmosphere -Very funny.

28 April 2001, 04:30	#14
GODFLESH Posts: n/a	Coverscans of THE ONE AMIGA wanted....who wants to help me get them? If you can get me some ..then please email me at godflesh@dds.nl. You would help me out a lot...

04 May 2001, 09:48	#15
Tim Janssen Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: Den Bosch / The Netherlands Age: 47 Posts: 1,271	Here is something for Zzap! fans For those people on EAB who ever had the fortunate experience to read Zzap!, the best gamesmagazine ever (IMHO), here is a little link to Iian Black's Magazine Scans. These are full scans of complete Zzap! issues. Issues 45, 46, 48, 49 and 50 cover also reviews of ancient Amiga games like Speedball, Joan of Arc, Bio Challenge, Dungeon Master and many more. For me things cannot get anymore nostalgic than this.

09 May 2001, 14:25	#16
Tim Janssen Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: Den Bosch / The Netherlands Age: 47 Posts: 1,271	Ideas about site for game reviews This is a bit off-topic: For almost a year now I am working on my 'soon-to-be-announced' Amiga homepage. It will not be the ultimate ADF source nor an Amiga schrine but it will cover reviews of games that originally appeared on paper many moons ago. From 1989 to 1994 I have bought many Amiga magazines like CU Amiga, Amiga Format, Amiga Joker and Amiga Computing. So you can expect to get multiple reviews of the same game. This can give interesting results. When converting the original reviews to HTML I will not copy the original page-layout but pictures, scoreboxes and other details will be included. Currently I have 140 'paper'-reviews OCR'ed and converted to HTML. It is going to look very impressive by now but I can not show you the results because: a My pc does not have a connection to the Internet and b My discdrive is broken. -Honest! Anyway, my question is whether someone would be interested in reading old reviews of Amiga games or that I am just wasting my time.

09 May 2001, 14:34	#17
CodyJarrett Global Moderator Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: UK Age: 46 Posts: 6,160	Reviews I'd definitely be interested! Any Amiga Power reviews?

09 May 2001, 14:37	#18
LaundroMat Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: In the cellar. With your mum. Age: 49 Posts: 404	Online mag reviews Well, I for one admire the patience and perseverance you show in trying to accomplish this feat of truly heroic proportions. And I'm not being sarcastic. Anyways, would I be interested in reading these reviews? You bet I would. If you want, I could have a look at old Amiga mags that are lying around at home, and tell you what issues I still have. Maybe I could then send them to you? (As you're living in Holland, it shouldn't cost a lot). You won't get my stack of Amiga Power's though . This board is truly inspirational, as I am just thinking of something now. Maybe it would be interesting - dare I say very interesting? - to compare games journalism of then with what is happening now. I bet there could be some fascinating conclusions to be drawn there. Especially now that gaming journalism is becoming a more and more accepted profession.(Anyone still looking for a final paper subject?). I urge you to include Amiga Power in your reviews. In fact, I urge you to put all of the content of that mag online Side note: I don't think anyone cares, but could there be copyright problems? Edit: :eek Oops, I didn't see the AP2 site had all of the paper counterpart content online. Forget about my AP remark then. :eek :eek Double oops: it's the site itself that can be downloaded. So please re-read my AP remark Last edited by LaundroMat; 09 May 2001 at 14:46.

09 May 2001, 14:52	#20
CodyJarrett Global Moderator Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: UK Age: 46 Posts: 6,160	AP And no-one is getting my complete collection of Amiga Powers! I had always wanted to scan in all the issues of AP and maybe turn the text into HTML, but I never got round to it. What do you mean about AP2 having all of the paper counterpart content online Laundromat?

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