NZ Retro - Magazine Review

The small scale retro gaming and computing magazine market has exploded over the last few years. As readers of this blog will know, I have covered a fair few of them here, as well as actually writing for one. However, most of these publications are either UK or US based, so it was lovely to see another new magazine try it's hand on Kickstarter, this time from New Zealand. NZ Retro had a good funding campaign, reaching 425% of its original target. After a few hiccups here and there (always well explained by the creator, Karl Burnett, in regular backer updates), the first issue arrived last week. Was it worth the NZ $30, including shipping? Read on.

Signed too. A nice touch.

First impressions and I have to say that the physical quality is really good. At 88 pages, the magazine feels weighty and the quality of the stock used gives it a wonderful feel. This is a point I have remarked upon in previous magazine posts, but with these niche publications, the physical quality goes a long way to justify the higher prices you pay. 

The magazine begins with an introduction by Julian 'Jaz' Rignall, a name familiar to those of you around in the 1980's and 90's. There's a short editorial from Karl before we reach the contents page, divided between Features and the regular departments. 

For the features, we have a look at the most important space-based videogames as well as Auckland Coin Machines. The regular departments include a news section, a Vs section, pitting two retro titles against each other, games reviews, hardware (focusing on the A500 Mini for this issue), a nice piece on a New Zealand based retro collector, and then finally, an interview with YouTuber Wrestling with Gaming.

The Vs section was quite neat, pitting Transbot against Astro Warrior. Whilst I have never played the latter, I do recall the former being more than a tad disappointing, so can agree with many of the comments made here. Gaming reviews covers a smorgasbord of formats, from the Spectrum to the Amiga, the NES to the Atari Lynx. All are graded out of ten, with individual scores for graphics, sounds, playability and lastability. Having played some of the titles featured, I'd say the reviews were mostly fair.

It must be noted that Karl has done the majority of the writing here, with some additional writing by Alan Bell and the excellent cover (and poster art - remember the days of unfolding the staples to take a poster out - that's what you can do here) by Trevor Storey. Each writer lets their voice shine through, and this really was an entertaining and fun read. This was also helped by the layout, which as you can see is clean spaced out and really does help with my tired old eyes. Some might suggest that the layout is to cover the lack of content (certainly some mainstream magazines are guilty of that approach), but that is certainly not the case here. This is a good read!

Of adverts, there are a few, but they are not overly intrusive and hey, ads help get the mag made, and as a UK-based reader, it's interesting to see what other countries have with regards to retro-themed companies. Similarly, this magazine was my introduction to the Fountain Console, until a quick Google led me to this page where I vaguely recalled seeing magazine adverts for the UK variations back in the dim and distant past. You learn something new every day!

So that is NZ Retro, another fine entry into the retro gaming magazine market. It is, as it proudly proclaims, New Zealand's only retro gaming magazine, and it's always good to see how video gaming developed in countries other than the usual suspects. You can check out their website here, where you can visit their shop and purchase a digital copy of issue 1 (physical copies are sold out), as well as pre-order a copy of issue 2. The cover price of NZ $14.95 for the standard edition isn't bad, coming in at about £7.80. In my humble opinion, that's not stupid for the format and quality you receive. After all, it's a small run, niche publication. The digital copy of issue one is only NZ $5.95 (or £3.10-ish). What about shipping, I hear you ask? Well, for issue 2, that's listed as NZ $8, so about £4.20. Yes, the total is pricey but it's cheaper than the KS campaign and it's travelling half way across the planet.

I have ordered issue 2, as I'm intrigued to see how this title will develop. Given an option, I might start hankering for a digital only version, but that's a decision for Karl. After all, the economics of creating and publishing a magazine is a tricky business, and the aim of the original Kickstarter was to get the golden age of Kiwi gaming in print. We shall see. In the meantime, check out issue 1 if you can, issue 2 will start shipping in May. Oh, and you can follow the magazine on Twitter here. 

Attack of the Flickering Skeletons by Stuart Ashen - Book Review

The follow up to Terrible Old Games You've Probably Never Heard Of, The Attack of the Flickering Skeletons once again takes the reader of a rollercoaster ride of videogame nostalgia as yet more titles find themselves under the ever piercing gaze of Mr Ashen and friends. And yes, those of you who are old enough to remember those dark years may have many an unpleasant memory or two resurrected...

As with the first book, this is an Unbound published title, so there are no issues with the physical quality. It's a colourful tome and you really do want to show it to your friends, especially if they're of a younger generation who never had to suffer the trauma of buying random pocket money titles from the local newsagents. 

Games covered include Butterfly, Castle Top, Deathkick (I remember that one well, and yes it was complete poop), The Flinstones, and Roland on the Run (another classic so to speak). There's more, of course, so below is the contents page. As with the first book, there are plenty of screenshots so you know exactly what you're looking at as you read about the features (ahem) of each title and why they are included. The sense of humour is still here as well, and let's face it, you had to have a sense of humour back then, because if you didn't, you'd cry. Some of these games really are that bad.

Alongside the author's selections, there are contributions from the likes of Jim Sterling, Daniel Ibbertson, Laura Kate Dale and others. There are also sections on Commodore C64 arcade conversions, the worst joystick ever and the weird tale of Hellraiser: Prelude and Finale. That was a piece of videogame history I did not know about and it was great to learn about such a grandiose folly. 

As with the previous volume, there is a list of the Unbound supporters at the back of the book, as well as an index that is as funny as anything else you'll read in the book. It's that good.

In fact, this second volume more than matches the quality of the first, and it's a shame that there hasn't been a third one, or at least, not one I can find. Still, you have this and Terrible Old Games... to keep you occupied and I really do recommend you pick both of them up. You can buy copies from Amazon here and you can follow the author on Twitter here, where you'll also find a link to his YouTube channel. 

The Story of the Commodore Amiga in Pixels by Chris Wilkins and Roger M Kean - Book Review

After enjoying Florin's Haul and being on Fusion Retro Book's mailing list, it was quite a nice surprise to find out that there was a one day sale on the this book. Why not, I thought, and an order was quickly placed. A few short days later, a well packaged and rather tasty looking hardback arrived in the post. Was it worth the £12.50? Read on!

At roughly 19x20x2cm, this is not a small book by any means, and as soon as you pick it up, you know you've got a decent quality tome in your hands. It's in full colour and the dusk jacket displays the famous King Tut image that defined the Amiga to prospective users (or at least those that remember Deluxe Paint II). There are about 290 pages and very nicely laid out, with plenty of screenshots, photographs and the like. 

It begins with a forward by David Pleasance, whose name may be familiar to those who've been reading this blog for a while - I've reviewed two of his books here and here). The proper start of the book is a history of the Amiga stretching to 54 pages and interspaced with two page spreads of specific machines. This is a bit of a potted history, but respectable, and if this were your only book on the Amiga, you'd be pretty well served. I do have two minor niggles though. The C64GS was never high-tech. NEVER! And I question Windows 95's affect in the Amiga market. Anyhoo...

The next section is all about creativity and graphics, being divided into four main areas: PD (Public Domain) and Shareware, Anarchy and the Demoscene, Scoopex and the Demoscene, and AGA - too little too late. Each of these was, for me, extremely enlightening, as I never knew much about either the PD or demo scene apart from what I read in magazines at the time. The 28 pages dedicated to these subjects are an eye opener and give you a real feel as to how wild and passionate coders were, and where it could go wrong. Some of the demo's created were breathtaking at the time and still, to this day, are bloody impressive. The last ten pages, on the subject of the AGA chipset, is another useful section. I was surprised as to how few genuine AGA titles actually existed - I had always presumed there were more. 

The following 90 pages are dedicated to games from throughout the Amiga's history. Each gets two pages, pictures of their artwork and some screenshots. You get a brief write up and sometimes a piece of trivia. What is particularly nice is that it's not just the usual suspects, though they do make up the majority of the titles covered. Sure, you get Lemmings, Populous, Xenon 2 and the like, but you also get the likes of Wings of Death, Airball and Lionheart. 

The last section is the largest, at just under one hundred pages, and this covers the memories. I'll put a picture below of the contents page, but as you can see, there are some familiar and maybe not-so familiar names here. What it does mean is that you get a lovely range of stories about the Amiga from a period of home computer development that is long gone. Truly, every single entry has its worth and I would say that this section makes the book worth the cover price alone. 

The Story of the Amiga in Pixels is a lovingly produced look at, what was for many people, the pinnacle of home computers. Alongside the Atari ST and, to a degree, the Acorn range, this was the golden era of relatively powerful and productive machines before the PC and Mac took over Yes, I have said this book has niggles (still not letting go of that C64GS description...) but these are teensy compared to the stories and wealth of knowledge contained within. The physical quality shows off the artwork and screenshots brilliantly and, to be honest, I would have happily paid full price. 

You can buy your own copy of The Story of the Commodore Amiga in Pixels directly from Fusion Retro Books here, and I would recommend signing up for their email service in case they do have flash sales on their other titles. It is also worth noting that there is a Kickstarter ongoing for their latest title: The Commodore 64 Collector's Guide to Mastertronic. This is another title by Chris Wilkins and I have already pledged for my copy. There's only a week or so left and it looks to be another corker. 

How To Build An Aircraft Carrier by Chris Terrill - Book Review

Sometimes, I just shouldn't be left in charge of a gift card when perusing the shelves of Waterstones. That's how I ended up buying this tome from Chris Terrill. How to Build an Aircraft Carrier is not an actual how to guide (though you could do worse than pick up Airfix's re-release of HMS Victorious in 1/600 scale) but the tale of how HMS Queen Elizabeth went from shipyard to first operational cruise from the viewpoint of her first captain and crew. 

Let me say that I really, really wanted to like this book. However, whilst there are some strong points in its favour, there are several that detract from what could have been an excellent look at both the Royal Navy's new flagship and the people who choose to serve within its ranks.

The good stuff first, and Terrill captures the experience of serving in the Royal Navy tremendously well, from both a professional perspective and the more relaxed occasions. There are some good stories told here about individual crew members, highlighting the changes in the service over the last couple of decades and how inclusive it tries to be. Call me cynical, but there is a recruiting pitch in here somewhere. 

In all seriousness though, the core story is one that is worth telling and Terrill goes good work here. You get to know the individuals he focuses on well and they are at the heart of the story. That leads to the first problem I have with this book: the dialogue.

I get that this is aimed at the casual reader, and I completely understand that some dramatic licence is required when portraying events, but at times (though certainly not always), the dialogue the author relates sounds completely implausible coming from various speakers. It's not exactly condescending but there is a lot of explanation left to the dialogue that, for example, you know two pilots would never say to each other. Don't get me wrong, it's not that bad most of time time but on occasion, the false tone hits you like a hammer and really detracts from the flow and believability. 

The same can be said for the comparisons the author makes. When describing something and saying it is the equivalent of powering Swindon, that's great if you know roughly how big Swindon is. I don't, although I was on better ground with Aberdeen. However, those comparisons become meaningless when the author doesn't get the technical details right, and this is where my main complaint lies.

There's not much in the way of huge clangers, but the multiple smaller errors add up. It begins with calling HMS Dragon a frigate, and then quoting tech specs twice about the F35, one figure being 200mph higher than the other. The statement that Jutland was a British victory lacks even a scintilla of nuance, and when the author states the carrier's radar can detect a tennis ball-sized object travelling at supersonic speeds at 2 miles, eyebrows are raised. BAe System's website states that ability at 25km. My favourite is the GPMG that fires "7.92x57 Mauser ammunition." This from an author who was embedded with Royal Marines in Afghanistan. 

There is also the political angle, which has dated slightly/been taken over by events, but crucially is delivered with all of the subtlety of a Tom Clancy novel, i.e. none at all.

You might be thinking I am being a little harsh here. You might be thinking that, as this book is aimed at the general public rather than naval aficionados, the author should be cut some slack when it comes to the technical stuff. In my humble opinion, no. If you want to write a book about how the crew of the Royal Navy's largest surface warship managed to get from the dock to completing trials, you need to get the technical stuff right, because if that side is lacking, what does that say about the personal dimension?

It's sad because Terrill puts across the human story very well and that's what kept me going. However, the cack-handed dialogue and the factual inaccuracies spoil it to the point where I can't recommend it whole-heartedly. You will learn some stuff here, there is no denying that, but it's one of those books where it's also best to have your phone/tablet to hand in order to verify what the author is saying is actually true. A shame then, but such was the risk when being let loose with a gift card. It may have been better as a cheaper paperback purchase.

You can buy How to Build an Aircraft Carrier from the usual high street and online stores.

Adventure by Jamie Lendino - Book Review

As promised some months ago, I bought myself another of Jamie Lendino's books. Adventure focuses on the Atari VCS/2600 and the halcyon early days of the home console story. And whilst that story invariably contains the details of the US-centric Great Videogames Crash, Lendino writes, as he did with Faster Than Light and Breakout, from his personal point of view as an owner of the hardware and many of the games. 

An aside for UK readers: If you're a person of a certain vintage (i.e. my age), the Atari VCS/2600 was a machine that you knew people had but you never really wanted one yourself. And before you light the torches and sharpen the pitchforks, let me explain. By the mid to late 1980's, the UK videogames market was pretty much sown up by the 8-bit home micros. Consoles were a thing, but that was because they were the cheapest options in your Mam's Freeman's catalogue. Sure, you could get an Amstrad CPC 464 or a ZX Spectrum but they were triple figure sums (albeit available for a low weekly payment), but something like a 2600 seemed to hover around the £40-50 mark and that meant it had the twin negatives of being cheap and the games looked worse than the most basic of Spectrum fayre. This did you no favours when the subject came up with your school friends.

The thing is, this was a disservice to the 2600. The base hardware was closing in to being a decade old and, for a lot of cash strapped families at the time, even the low weekly payments from a catalogue couldn't disguise the fact that the "low cost" micros were out of many people's reach. But if you had a 2600, the lack of playground boasting aside, you still got to play some cracking games, even if you were using a machine that dare not speak its name. With that, back to the review.

Structurally, the book is divided in to nine chronological sections: Beginnings, Open Worlds, Invasion, ICBM's, Pitfall, Empire, Assault, Gravity and Endgame. For each section, you get an overview of what was happening with Atari and the games market in general, then a curated selection of games from that time where Mr Lendino focuses on the most noteworthy titles. And by that, I mean good and bad, though he does refrain from having too many stinkers, a good call considering the shovelware that hit the 2600 in its middle years. 

Each game is given space to breathe and even if the 2600 was not your favourite system (or if you've never owned one at all), you will find Lendino's passion and enthusiasm contagious. Once I had finished the book, I fired up the Evercade to get a better idea on some of the titles mentioned in this book. And yes, whilst time has in no way been kind to them, either graphically or sonically, the gameplay shone through in titles such as the titular Adventure, Asteroids and Missile Command. I was left with a sense of wonder as to how developers managed to get such nuanced control schemes out of what was effectively a one button joystick, and a wry smile was raised when the author related the lottery of getting a good or bad title from the bargain bins in the years after the Crash, something that chimes in very well with buying budget titles for the CPC or Spectrum, and a point very nicely noted in Stuart Ashen's book. No matter what the system, or the country, that experience of the lucky dip of budget gaming seems to have been very similar.

There are screenshots, one per featured title, but no colour. Unlike his previous books, there isn't a companion piece from another publisher on my shelves at the moment, although the Atari 2600/7800 Compendium from Bitmap Books could be a very good contender. No doubt at some point, I'll have to get my hands on a copy. Where other images are used, these are clearly reproduced with no issues present. 

The bibliography takes up nearly five pages and quite a few are contemporaneous to the period of the 2600's time of the market. There are many of these I wouldn't mind reading, so there are more titles for the ever growing wish list.

This is yet another enjoyable title from the author and one that should be in anyone's Atari or videogame history library. Is this book just for fans of the 2600? No, of course not. It's an important look at the state of gaming on one of gaming's great machines. No, it wasn't powerful, or at least seen as powerful once the 1980's came along and, like some many computer/games companies throughout the history of the genre, the upper management were clueless (a judgement made with the benefit of hindsight, but they totally mis-understood the creative nature of videogames), but without the 2600, the world of gaming would be a very different place. 

At this point, I would like to say that Mr Lendino only has one other book out that is on my list, but that would be a lie. As of mid-March 2022, he has a new tome, Starflight, which looks at the heady days of DOS gaming from 1987 to 1994. That will be my next purchase, as I loved reading about the type of games that you could only get on the PC back in the day. I mean, I didn't have a PC. When a colour Amstrad 1512 cost two to three times what a CPC cost, there was no chance of that at all. But that's for another time. 

You can buy Adventure from Amazon here, and follow the author on Twitter here.