Favourite Amiga magazine

[CodyJarrett]

I've got all the Amiga Powers, loads of Amiga Formats, loads of CU Amigas, some Amiga User International, Amiga Action, Amiga Computing etc.

I did create an index of all Amiga Power scores and I was going to try one for Amiga Format, but they included one on their CDs. However, this was full of errors and spelling mistakes!

AND I HATE ERRORS!

[Tim Janssen]

Hi LaundroMat,

The time it takes for scanning the game picture & logo and scanning & converting the review to HTML is approx. three hours. I know it sounds a long time but hey, I am working for a year now on my homepage
For some days now I am trying to convert the 6-page CU Amiga- review of Elite 2 to HTML. Because the black text is written on a dark background OCR is impossible so I am afraid I have to type over the text. *Gulp*

Any Amiga magazine covering games is welcome (as long as I don't have it in posession). If you could send me a list of Amiga issues you currently own I would be eternally grateful.

Gaming journalism has certainly changed. Reviews are nowadays more in-depth, covering almost every single detail of a game. The humour is also lost.

About copyright problems: I am aware of that. I think I will use the same system as the guy of the Crash magazine-site. He mentions the names of the authors and has tried to contact them. If an author has problems with it I will remove his review from the site.

[LaundroMat]

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

Well, read my edit. In all my enthusiasm I misread what the caption said and downloaded but a copy of the AP2 site. Imagine my disappointment (which was even clear to my co-workers here, to my horror ).

3 HOURS per game review?! :eek You are one crazy mofo! But, hey, someone's gotta do it. I'm glad you're sacrificing your life to such a worthy cause. My recommendation for making you a saint has been filed to the Pope already.

[Tim Janssen]

When I said I spent 3 hours to convert a gamereview to HTML it was an average estimation.
Some reviews only take up half a page with plain text and no special graphics -these are easily scanned and converted to HTML. On the other hand, some magazines (mainly CU Amiga) spend many pages to a review including many trivia boxes, gamemaps, Characterphotos & descriptions. To convert these extra details to HTML it takes up lots of time.

Here are the details of my holy work:
- Finding & scanning original game_logo, resizing logo and adding transparant backgrounds to it (0,5 hours)
- Scanning ingame_picture & resizing (0,5 hours)
- OCR original game review (0,5 hours)
- Importing scanned game review in Word97 (spellcheck on) (1 hour)
- Exporting Word 97 document to HTML (few seconds)
- HTML fiddling (creating tables, importing pictures, META TAGS) (0,5 hours)
TOTAL: Plus minus 3 hours

Hey!
The best one was the Amiga Joker. CU Amiga was very fond of giving high ratings to games that didn't merit it, e.g. Captive or Liberation. OK there were some games that were hyped by the Joker as well, like Rise of the Robots - I found that somehow funny that they rated it 91%. This also goes for Capital Punishment which was rated 91%, too. But I loved these Comics and the cool staff, who really got a cult-status in the German Amiga-scene.

Greetz

[Djay]

Amiga power

the humour was great!

"kick nick faldos face off"

classic stuff!

[Tim Janssen]

Ah, finally someone here who mentions Amiga Joker. As Random_H mentioned, this magazine was very special indeed.

Amiga Joker reviewed every single game that was released on Amiga in Germany. Virtually forgotten titles like Fireteam 2200, No Buddies Land, Digital Dungeon and Zozoom got a review in this mag.
The game-scores in reviews were fair. In the magazines I own they never awarded a game higher than 93%.
What makes this magazine special is the artwork. Every cover of the magazine had beautyful paintings. (Check out Kultpower). Every review also had a scorepanel featuring the Amiga Joker (the magazine's Mascot) in a certain mood depending on the game score E.g. ecstatic, happy, dizzy, vomitting.
I am not convinced about the quality of reviews, though. I often had the idea the reviews had not enough 'depth'. I often thought the reviewers played the game for a few minutes, wrote a review and then threw the game away. But then again, they had to write many reviews every month.

Amiga Joker was only sold from August 1991 until August 1993 at my Newsagents in the Netherlands. It seems I was the only buyer of the mag for these two years. It was a huge loss when I later found out it was not sold in The Netherlands anymore..

[Muzkat]

I remember that one of the reasons why I loved reading Amiga mags was simply for the sarcasm-laden, over the top humour. It just made me laugh so much. Occassionally I pull out an old mag (like CU) that I have stored somewhere and the jokes still crack me up!

I agree that today's mags have lost this vital element- or perhaps the humour has changed.

I'm just wondering- do people read today's Amiga mags?

[CodyJarrett]

I read Amiga Active...

[Tim Janssen]

Todays' gamesmags are much too serious. They cover multiple pages to a single game which happens to be the zillionth Quake or Dune 2 clone. I think the reviews look more professional but are written by games-journalists, not games-enthusiasts. Finally, the mags are geared towards a more 'general' audience nowadays. -There is no room for sarcasm and extreme humour anymore.

By the way: the last Amiga mag I have bought was the final issue of Amiga Format in May 2000. It cost me a bloody fortune but it is a real collectors item.

[RCK]

I think the reviews look more professional but are written by games-journalists, not games-enthusiasts. Finally, the mags are geared towards a more 'general' audience nowadays. -There is no room for sarcasm and extreme humour anymore.

In France, there is always one mag written by games-enthusiasts, full of joke and completly delirious !
his name is: " Joystick ".


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[Tim Janssen]

Hi RCK,
I have just visited the Joystick-site. Pity my French isn't what it used to be so it was a hard read. But looking at the pictures (with those strange drawn penguins/creatures) it seems to be a funny gamesmag indeed! Never thought this would be possible nowadays.

Do you know for how many years Joystick exists? This because I remember a German magazine also called Joystick way back in the Eighties. Maybe they are in some way related?

[Amiga1992]

The only mag I Really know, that it's still done BY and FOR game enthusiasts, is the new GameGo!, who is being done by the people who used toform Gamefan (best mag tehre was IMO)

You can reach their website at www.gamegomagazine.com

[RCK]

I don't really think there is a relation between all the "joystick" magazines all over the world
It is a pretty common name for a game magazine.

Every month, we have cool comics with our crazy penguins
(computer related stories of course)


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I've got Amiga Format from issue 49 through to near the end. I never got the habit of subscirption & now regretting missing the odd issue. Including the last

I've aslo got a few years of Amiga Computing and Amiga Action.; but the AF & Ac library stashed in boxes I have now was all the reference I'll probably ever need

And it was funny to spot amiga enthusiast editor Nick Vietch popping up in Linux Format.

[Puzzle]

There were two quite good Scandinavian Amiga-magazines that I used to enjoy. The first one was called DatorMagazin. It was a Swedish Amiga and C64-mag. It was well-written and quite interesting to read. And the writers and editors had a few in-house jokes going [really? -Ed] in the text as well.

The other one was AmigaForum. It was Amiga-only, as the name implies.
The mag had the usual reviews, the usual letters-section and other things. It wasn't too games-oriented, which was good.
There were some articles about what Amiga's were used for in Norway, and other things.
And, there were coverdisks with the mag.

I also liked Amiga Format and CU Amiga. Bought both of them a lot back in 1993.

I have a few plastic bags with Amiga-magazines here. Most of it is in good condition, and some of it is in a terrible condition.
I rarely read any of it, except when I get a nostalgi-kick.

[Tim Janssen]

There is one common thing that becomes more and more obvious with current (PC)-magazines: The amount of previewed games outnumbers the amount of normal reviews. In the end most previewed games will not get a review or get cancelled.

Here is an example of the last edition of a Dutch PC-magazine I regularly buy:
- Regulars, Contents, adverts: 10 pages
- Game reviews: 32 pages
- Game previews: 58 pages!
Are people really willing to pay for a magazine which has games they cannot buy (at least for the next couple of months)?

Apparently so, since everyone still buys these magazines

Towards the end of Amiga Format/CU Amiga, they too had more previews than reviews

[7-Zark-7]

Hi guys,
Just adding my two cents worth. For all round Commodore coverage,(of both C64/Amiga), I definitely had to say Zzap was the best magazine out there, but as Tim said it was a shame they went back to 64 only.

I'm surprised noone has really mentioned "The One". I started buying it regulary around the time they "relaunched" themselves. The reviews & playguides etc. were all pretty well layed out. I do add though that when David Upchurch left as editor The One fell inot a hole,(much like Commodore at the same time!)

[Amiga1992]

Hah, I thought I posted on this thread, seems like not!

My favorite IS The One. Excellent layout, content and very hilarious, spcially in the Upchurch days!

It has always been my fave, and I've got a lot of numbers of it.