The latest issue of Amiga Addict landed through the letter box at the beginning of the week and it was something I'd really been looking forward to. When it was announced this issue was for sale, I took the opportunity to subscribe for 12 issues, which not only gets me a physical copy in the post but also a pdf copy on the day of publication. Although I downloaded that copy, I resisted the temptation to read it as the whole point of subscribing to enjoy the physical mag itself. Still, it's nice to have an electronic copy I can transfer to a tablet for future reference. So was issue 2 worth waiting for? Oh, yes!
But before we get into that, a quick note. This will be the last "review" of Amiga Addict from me. By that, I mean I won't be putting up identikit posts every month as that will just get a tad monotonous. However, when there is something to talk about, maybe an article that has caught my attention, or something I have followed up on after reading about it in the magazine, then I'll put out a post that references the mag. As it stands, my final comments at the bottom of page should be taken as writ until such time as I tell you otherwise. You'll also note, by the way, that I've only put one picture in this post, and that's of the cover. If you want to see more, go visit the Amiga Addict website and buy a copy.
For the magazine itself, it begins with the usual regular sections (News, Keyboard Warriors, Back in the Day and Demoscene), which are entertaining and informative as before. However, the bulk of the magazine is made up of articles that definitely made me think subscribing was a good idea and these are divided into four sections: Amiga Focus, Amiga Insight, On Screen and Testbench.
The Amiga Focus section is comprised of five pieces: a photo montage of Amiga Addict in the hands of the public, the Amiga on the high street, UK user groups and meets, memoirs of an Amiga gamer and Amiga magazines. I particularly liked the one on UK user groups, though sadly there isn't one in the north-east of England.
Amiga Insight contains the meat of the magazine, the four pages making up the first part of Memories of Dave Needle being both funny and poignant, with part two following next month. The six pages on DMA Design brought new insights of the famous software developer, whilst A day in the life of Amiga Action was a lovely little nostalgia trip to the 1990's. Finally, we have a two page article on Demoparties containing an interview with organiser Ruairi Fullam. Each of the articles is well written, no fluff, no filler, and all very interesting.
On Screen gives us games, from opinion piece Six of the Best, to a game guide for Moonstone and reviews of The Addams Family, Jim Power in 'Mutant Planet' (never heard of it but I do want to play it now after reading the review), No Second Prize and Super Sprint DRS. I quite like the retro reviews, especially as it brings titles that I knew nothing about to my notice. That's part of the reasoning behind my slowly growing collection of 3DO reviews for Retrovideogamer.co.uk, to bring attention to a format and its games that might have passed gamers by at the time and may be unknown to younger folk today. Just don't keep track of the average review score for these though, this was not a system blessed with classics...
Back to the magazine and we have a piece on the CD32, a machine I really wanted to get hold of back in the day but one that I never found the money for. Maybe one day, if the price is right... I hope this series continues for many issues to come and I thoroughly enjoyed the reviews of CD32 titles Bubba and Stix, and Cannon Fodder.
Testbench gives us news on the latest OS4.1 update, a review of Amiga Power, a soundtrack album that I think may be making it's way onto a wish list soon and a brilliant two-pager on the CDTV, another seemingly forgotten and vastly underappreciated Commodore product, and one that, if my student loan hadn't been hammered by an N64, I should have picked up from a second-hand shop in Kingston-upon-Thames way back in 1997, but didn't. What can I say, I was young and foolish... How to adapt a light gun for your Amiga and the piece on DJ-ing with the PT-1210 software both get two pages a piece and add a bit of variety - not my cup of tea but well worth reading out of interest anyway. The best article, for me, was the Amiga Tech tree, an easy to understand single page guide to what hardware/software options you have if you want to enjoy the Amiga. Hopefully, there will be some more in-depth pieces in future focusing on this topic. The editorial notes there was a planned review of the UnAmiga board but the hardware remained stuck in postal hell at the time of publication so maybe next month...
It's nice to see a couple more advertisers this month as well, both from a consumer point of view and a revenue one for the magazine, and the announcement on Discord that over 1000 copies of the first issue were sold bodes well for the future.
There we have it then, the second issue of Amiga Addict and one that continues the quality, in both writing and production, of the first. A brilliant issue and I'm more than happy with the decision to have subscribed. You can check out the magazine website here, and purchase either a single issue to give it a try or start a subscription from the currently available issue.
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