KiwiArcader

CD-Rom User issue 09 is now available at OGM . I know marktrade likes multimedia oriented magazines so thought I'd knock it out for him. Unfortunately it's the only issue I possess of this particular title

Why wouldn't you want to warn people away from a game that is intrinsically broken to the point where it is unplayable?

Computer Games: Strategy Plus issue 98 is now available at OGM. One issue left to scan until the next shipment arrives, hopefully in the next two or three weeks.

What about broken in the literal sense. Dogs of War (Amiga) .... you play your guts out in single or two player with a mate over and usually 3/4's of the way through the game ..... boom!!! .... the picture disappears into a sea of machine code garbage. Even occurs on WinUAE emulation so it wasn't just my copy of the game Captive ... ahh the Amiga had a few irritating goodies, this being another one. Evidently due to poor programming if you ended up on a specific planet around level 9 you could not progress any further as the programmers forgot to add in the necessary area exit code or something. I fell victim to this where I spent forever trying to work out the exit. If I'd known the programmers screwed it up I would have asked for my money back. As far as I am aware it was not fixed on the Amiga release. Not sure about the Atari ST version Both of the above drove me crazy!!!!

marktrade's raw scans of Play issue 45 have been edited and compiled into the obligatory OGM PDF file for everyone to download and enjoy.

The latest news on those little controllers is interesting indeed. Sounds like yet another unique take on controllers by Nintendo......

This whole subject was born out of one person's disappointment in the yet to be released hardware and it's potential specs or lack of them. Somehow it got derailed into some sort of critique of past and present consoles, all of which someone somewhere probably had some beef with their specs at the time of their release too. I guess people thought Nintendo would one-up Sony and Microsoft in the hardware stakes yet when you look at it they actually haven't done that since, well, I'd hazard a guess and say the SNES. The reality is that Nintendo don't have the funds to fight the big fight anymore. Sony have a gaming and appliance division to draw on. Microsoft has the world of PC operating systems and application suites to derive additional funds from, and Surface is finally making them money as well with the Surface 4 releases. Nintendo have their gaming and that's pretty much it. Add to that the increasing costs of development of consoles and games which increases the price of products to the end-user and you can see that they have to sell LOTS of everything to make money. If you sell a console at cost and everyone pirates the games you are in a world of hurt. If you drop the price of games but increase the console cost the buying public start to do the sums to see if they can afford it when if it were lower it might be more of an impulsive purchase. Someone here said previously that Nintendo probably got offered a cheap price from Nvidia to use their chipsets in the Switch. I'd put money on it that is exactly what happened. AMD is in every lounge console at present and it's generated not only income for AMD to be able to invest in the R&D for new video and CPU designs but I believe it's also had a big impact of their design thinking to the point where they are once again knocking on Intel/ Nvidia's doors in performance terms. That's got to hurt Nvidia even if only from a marketing perspective so offering the same chipsets used in their own Android based console at bargain prices to Nintendo makes sense. As with everything, it's how Nintendo's and 3rd party programmers get to grips with Nintendo's underlying operating system that will determine it's viability over the next couple of years. Interesting times ahead!!!

Home computers didn't exist when I started school in 1967. The Atari 8-bit series were released in 1979, the Commodore Vic-20 in 1980 so I was 18 and at work when the home computing revolution arrived. God I'm feeling old about now .... I acquired a Nintendo N64 before the New Zealand release date as the computer company I worked for did business with the distributors, Monarco as I recall, and we received two consoles and Super Mario 64 games from them a couple of weeks before they appeared in shops. The family were glued to the TV I can tell you. Fun times back then.

You do know that you are coming across as totally arrogant and somewhat obnoxious when you make comments like that right? Just because YOUR expectations haven't been met in Switch, you are pushing your elitist views on everyone while stating that anyone who doesn't share those views is somehow stricken with Nintendo fever or something to that effect. And just because I didn't buy a Wii-U after owning a SNES, several N64's, an NDS and a Wii means I have no interest in acquiring a Switch thus "no skin in the game"? You need to take a chill-pill. Honestly, you're heading for a stroke if you're not careful at keeping your blood pressure down. Plenty more important things in life to think about than a console chipset right?

marktrade's raw scans of Play issue 32 have been edited and compiled into the obligatory OGM PDF file for everyone to download and enjoy.

Battlefield 1942 can indeed be run on Windows 10 as I am happily doing so. The BF1942F2P (free to play) version as it is a single installer with no DRM and it works fine apart from being designed for 4:3 screens rather than 16:9. There is even a internet server upgrade to find active servers. Grab it here Battlefield 2 received the same upgrade. No securerom and no CD keys required. Get it here. In the next couple of months I will be getting fiber into my street and all going I will be running a ranked BF2 server permanently which will make it the only server in New Zealand. Battlefield 2142 has recently gotten the same treatment and can be obtained from the link for Battlefield 2 If a game uses securerom and you want to play it I'd suggest searching for it. Many have likely been converted to run and are available on GOG one of the other sites anyway. Really old stuff that doesn't need high end graphics will likely run on an Intel NUC so rather than running a VMware session why not build up a mini-PC and run Windows 7 directly?

I don't think anyone's attacking you Jake. Everyone's entitled to an opinion no matter how much one may disagree with that opinion. I think yours just comes across as overly strong and when you are prepared to voice opinions you have to be prepared to have counter opinions thrown your way in reply. How I look at all this is that it's actually terrific that Nintendo are once again prepared to go out on a limb in the hardware stakes. If no-one did such a thing there would be no progress in moving gaming forward and we'd still be stuck in 480p or VGA resolution. It's through taking risks such as they did with the Wii controller that Sony got in the Move groove and Xbox got Kinecting. Okay, they got it wrong with Wii-U but it was still interesting from a technical perspective. It will be interesting a couple of years down the line seeing if the Switch is prospering or not. If it is and we see Sony and Microsoft bringing something out to compete we will know that once again Nintendo have forced changes in the gaming market and that can only be a good thing. What is interesting in all of this is how collectible Nintendo products remain long after they have been discontinued. Where I live N64 and SNES cartridge prices remain high while PlayStation and Xbox games are a dime a dozen. Even on less popular systems their own games like Mario Kart, Mario and Zelda games etc continue to sell for high prices. That's the thing about Nintendo. If you really, really like their games people buy the consoles to play them. I can't think of any other system from another manufacturer with such devotion with the possible exception of Sega's Dreamcast. I'll happily lay it on the line and say the Dreamcast and the N64 are the two best game systems released as far as I am concerned because in Super Mario 64 and Soul Calibur they were both worth purchasing for a single game. They'd be the two console systems and games I would take if I were stuck on a deserted island. However, if I were limited to one system only but with unlimited games it would obviously be a PC as you can run all those console games on that anyway

Well, if Atari could sell a crap load of E.T games, or using No Mans Sky as another example, thanks primarily to good advertising I see no reason why Shenmue can't be sold in bucket loads purely on the same basis. Unfortunately nothing appears to be good enough for our Jake. Why don't you just wait and stay away from gaming until the day when you can run them at 400FPS on that Dell 8K Monitor? It'll save you a lot of anguish not having to think about all those measly CPU's and GPU's for the next few years. Ryzen and Vegas running Doom at 4K resolution at 60+ FPS in ultra high settings probably isn't good enough for him. I like the fact that Nintendo row their own race. They don't follow anyone. They've led the handheld race from the start and Switch is just another intersection for them. Will it work for them? Do you want to see how far the rabbit hole goes? If you take the blue pill .....

Nostradums states "And lo unto the world Nintendo's Switchable will sweep all before it, rendering every previous gaming device irrelevant, casting thine Xcrement Boxes and Playtoys into the gutter from which they will never to return"

Nintendo won't fold. Their IP is too good for that. If they need to pull a Sega and stop making consoles in favor of licensing games onto 3rd party hardware they will and like Sega they will likely make a good living out of it. However, their target market has always been providing hardware that makes best use of their IP and because of that 3rd party support has been up and down depending on the platform. If you were to break support down by platform, IMO it looks like this: NES - good SNES - great Gameboy - great (all iterations) N64 - poor - medium Gamecube - poor - medium Gameboy Advance - great Wii - great 3DS - great Wii-U - poor All of Nintendo's handheld consoles have attracted widespread support while only 50% of its sofa based consoles have done well, of which only one, the Wii, has been successful in the last four generations from a 3rd party support perspective. When you look at it like that I can see why they might have chosen to go down the path of trying to merge handheld and sofa based gaming the way they have. If they can write a game that not only plays well on the go but scales well when viewed on the big screen yet only costs them a small additional cost in development as opposed to having to pay for two teams for separate versions they potentially stand to save a LOT in costs. I reckon that will sit well with 3rd party developers too and they understand that hence some 3rd party developers already stating publicly that they like the Switch. The whole idea of write on game for both lounge and handheld is sort of a utopia for developers and this represents the first really serious play in that space. Forget 1080i or 1080p. If they can make 720p games run well people will be quite happy. If Mum and Dad are plonking it on a spare 32 or 40" inch TV the difference between 720p and 1080 is not especially discernible. Given it's also coming off a handheld tends to make people more accepting of limitations. I actually think the Switch will sell very well indeed if their advertising really pushes the "one console for both on the go and lounge gaming" factor and they get good game publishing support from developers. Interesting times ahead. The one thing that bothers me most is the gamepad aspect. Those little handles look too small for adults when docked to the TV connector. Hopefully they will have the ability to link/use proper gamepads.

Yeah, but he was funny because he was such a primadonna (dunno if I spelt that right). Given the rest of the movie was just A New Hope with new characters you tend to look for something, anything different, to justify the ticket purchase

I'm not sure why this topic was even created other than to disparage a company for making choices it feels are necessary for it to compete in the current marketplace. Nintendo are known for their quirky games and they never fail to bring out hardware that caters to their games, even if 3rd party support wavers from amazing (SNES) to non-existent (Wii-U). I think most people who buy into Nintendo do so primarily for their Mario, Metroid, Zelda branded games knowing they can likely play everything else on better hardware elsewhere anyway. All this blah, blah this over video processing power, blah blah that over CPU speed etc on a product that hasn't even been seen properly yet let alone having finished games demonstrated in public is speculative at best. How Nintendo's programmers go at hammering the hardware will determine how the console performs more than anything. While I personally don't have any inclination to buy a Switch, I look forward to seeing how it goes for Nintendo and I wish them well.

So I am guessing one of the filler movies in the couple of years will be "Steal the plans for the second Death Star" and call it "Rogue Two" or "Rogue Redux"? Personally though, I quite liked this latest movie. Far more interesting than The Force Awakens. The ONLY thing that was redeeming about that movie was Kyle Ren's tantrum's and the Blu-ray 3D version is pretty darned nice.

Yeah ... it was meant to say "PC Gamer (USA) being discontinued isn't a major loss anyway" They purchased Imagine back in Oct/Nov last year which now leaves them pretty much as sole publisher of gaming and PC content. They shut down PC Format after acquiring Maximum PC, knocked off their Nintendo Official Magazine along with the US PlayStation magazine all in pretty short order before their acquisition of Imagine so I'd put money on Play tm getting discontinued in favor if their official UK PlayStation magazine fairly quickly. Rationalisation is inevitable when you have multiple products covering the same market. The way I see it panning out for current Future products is: Edge ..... flagship product .... safe GamesMaster .... been going for decades .... safe Games tm ..... ex-Imagine competitor to the two previous products .... will be discontinued Maximum PC .... safe Official PlayStation Magazine (UK) ..... safe PC Gamer (UK) ... safe PC Gamer (USA) ..... safe ONLY if sales remain at acceptable levels Play tm .... ex-Imagine product changed to digital only due to low sales .... will be discontinued Retro Gamer ... ex-Imagine product. Caters to market not covered that well by other products .... safe Official X-Box Magazine (UK) ..... safe Official X-Box Magazine (USA) ..... safe ONLY if sales remain at acceptable levels

All sixteen issues of Games International are now online along over at OGM with all six issues of Strategy Plus. Once again, hats off to marktrade for the excellent scans. Man, I'm looking forward to getting the next shipment of Computer Games: Strategy Plus issues from Cameron. Once my visitors leave on the 4th I'll be able to hook the scanner back up again and get to work on the two issues still sitting on my desk.

Hopefully they won't as the PC gaming environment in the UK appears to differ to that in the USA however, technically, the magazines are very similar in monthly content which certainly makes it a target for discontinuation at some point. You only have to look at Future's shuttering of PlayStation (USA) a while ago so see that if insufficient sales occur they have no hesitation in discontinuing magazines. Their recent purchase of imagine Publishing in the UK compounds the problem over there too in all fairness. I personally think we will see the likes of Games tm, Play tm go the way of the Dodo as well sometime this year. Which mag gets the chop first will be interesting to see. I think Play tm will be the first to go as they went digital only a few months ago and it's competing directly with the official PlayStation title. PC Gamer (USA) being discontinued is a major loss anyway. I think it lost its identity with the sale of Imagine Media in the USA way back around issue 100 or so. The format, size and format of the magazine in the early days is much, much nicer than when it was taken over by Future.

These cover board games from what I can tell. The subsequent issues which were named Strategy Plus onward saw computer games added to the mix. Strategy Plus included Amiga/St games as well as PC hence the name change I believe. UPDATE ... I might be wrong on the above as issue 09 has Millenium 2.2, a strategy game for Amiga and ST on the cover along with reviews of it and Populous so it looks like even before the name change they were progressing into computer gaming reviews.

Until a database entry is made for this title you can grab PDF copies of Games International from OGM. Issues 1 - 6 have been converted to 300 DPI with a vertical height of 3500 pixels making for a nice file size of 150MB's approx. No other adjustments have been made in regards to brightness/color etc. Huge thanks go out to marktrade for managing to acquire and scan these. Flippin' awesome is all I can say

Just an update really. I have plonked down a big wad of PAYPAL cash for another shipment of Computer Games: Strategy Plus issues along with hopefully some really interesting and until now unseen PC magazines on the scanning front. I'm talking about Total PC Gaming by Imagine Publishing (only 31 issues were published) and for flight sim fanatics I am hoping to get a few issues of an Australian sim magazine called Computer Pilot. This magazine ceased publication in 2011 and was taken up by a German outfit in 2013 and who took subscriptions from a great number of people and have never released a single issue or refunded those people so I have absolutely no qualms about scanning and making older issues available at OGM. With the holidays upon us and family flying in and staying with us tomorrow scanning is now on the back burner for a couple of weeks. Hopefully by the time I am back into it again this lot of magazines will have arrived and we'll have some really nice magazines to start the new year off with a bang Everyone have a safe and festive break regardless of your religious faith, or not, as the case may be. Stay safe everyone .... Kiwi

I have two further issues of CG:SP yet to scan. Those are issues 98 & 99. Cameron is getting a postage cost to ship another big bundle of issues to me so if you haven't purchased any issues as yet it might pay to hold off a bit. I can always get issues numbers off him if you want to keep an eye out for M.I.A issues ( I believe he has most but not all issues of this title)