NEW - Retro Gamer Mag!!!

[MIK]

Anyone else picked up a copy of this new Quaterly magazine yet?

Publisher is 'Live Publishing International' cover price is ?5.99 and comes with a covermounted CD with 200 PC retro games and 75 system Emulators on.
Just saw it at my local newsagent and nearly fell over.

Not had a chance to read it yet, so heres hopeing its good........


Just found this link
http://www.livepublishing.co.uk/content/retro.shtml

[Sketcz]

damn, trust my luck, I live on the continent.
Do they ship to europe?
can you subscribe?
Does anyone want to buy and sell me an issue?

It looks very good.

EDIT:
thanks for the link dude.
Im phoning them tomorow about purchasing, so in case I have no luck, and there are any generous people out there, give me a PM and we can cut a deal.

[chevkoch]

I love how the cover page screams OLD! at you from the upper left corner.

[memories]

Going to look out for this tomorrow.

Its about time something like this was on the shelf.

[KMxRetro]

I'm all about this....my day will be taken up by looking for this tomorrow...sounds like a great read!

I agree that it is about time, as well. Here's hoping it keeps running until we have a Retro Retro Gamer magazine...

[Papercut]

I had a flick through it yesterday, and put it back on the shelf.

It didn't seem too impressive, a lazy feature on the C64 (top 10 bestest games evar!) with little text and ott layout, a street fighter article that didn't seem to say anything in particular with similarly poor layout.

It was a very slim magazine too, contained few pages. The only thing that impressed me was the 'aging' to the front cover, that had me fooled for a moment.

Not anywhere near as good as the regular gamestm retro section, the retro fanzines that are out there, or the Edge retro specials.

I thought the cover disk only included retro remakes - if it had emus, did it have disk images and roms on there too? If so, was there any arcade stuff?

[memories]

Well just picked this up in my lunch and first impressions are (drumroll please).....its not bad.

Can't comment on the writing style or how imformative it is because ive only just had a quick look through. Not 100% sure on the layout of the articles as some look a bit all over the place.

One section that brought a smile to my face was the advertising gallery. It a small section giving full page adverts from 1983. Has advertising improved that much ? i sometimes wonder .

Big spread on Mastertronics which could be interesting. Cover some of there biggest seller and brought back good memories of my speccy playing days.

It is a bit on the thin side at 100 pages for ?6, could do with bit more content for that price, although there is the cover disc.

As for the disc i will have to wait till after work to see what its like. Seems to be a collection of freeware games at first glance.

I will have to have a proper read through to get a true idea of the quality of the writing.

Would i recommend it ? I would say yes on first impressions. Its a bit pricey but there looks to be some good articles and if the cover disc cuts the mustard then it could be good value.

Of course this could all change after ive read it and it turns out to be badly written and uninformative.

What does everyone else think ?

BTW, They really but the Retro effort in for the case for the cover disc. Every case on the shelf was cracked to buggery and had bits falling off it. It looked like some of my old cases that have been sitting under piles of other games for years and years.

Although this might be more to do with packing and delivery to Smiths.

[Reef]

Just picked this up for only ?5.50 at HMV in Liverpool

Don't know if that is the same for all HMVs?

Not read much yet - not expecting too much to be honest - the disk isn't much cop (all freeware and nothing has grabbed me yet) but am loving all of the game cover pics inside - a nice nostalgia trip but not much more - ideal for those new to the emulation scene I guess.

[Wil]

Finally had a look at this today. I soooo wanted to love it but in the end it came out at merely average.

The worst offender is, I think, the layout. It's just all over the place with the most criminal offence being the top tens which is just the same spread over and over again. This wouldn't be so bad but the bit you actually want to look at - the game covers - are mostly lost in the centre gutter!
There are some nice touches (like the scuffing up of the cover to make it look old - although it would have worked better if the design of the cover also reflected the age idea) but the designer needs to realise that the text and images need to work TOGETHER!

It's obviously put together by folks who care about all this stuff but it does seem a case of 'I've got some old mags and cassette covers to scan and screenshots are a piece of p*** with emulators. The editor does admit to a bit of a scattergun approach for the first issue but it just needs a lot more imagination in both its articles and design to make it worthwhile. Just explaining what the game does isn't a good read on its own.

The disc is basically a waste of freeware time.

Make it ?2.50, ditch the disc, don't let the designer near photoshop, do some better research and think of something more creative than the history of Sinclair or top ten games for X system.

Wil

[sininc]

I picked this up yesterday morning.

When I got to the till and was told ?5.99 it was a bit of a shock for a small magazine.

All the stuff on the disk is free on the web, mind you i`ve actually used a few emu`s i wouldnt have thought of using before.

It is very thin as magazines go and there is not much content wise, thing is it`s never going to be like a traditional magazine due to all it being is a look back at older games and systems.

The features were interesting, albeit a bit short, but I feel the top 10 games was a waste of space and in a magazine so short on page length it would have been better to lose the retro adverts and add another article.

I bought this on a whim and for ?5.99 it`s not really worth it unless you really want the disk, hopefully the next issue will be a bit bigger and have longer\better features.

If only this were 10 years ago when magazines liek Amiga Format had 250 or so pages

[beakbeak]

I would love to da a retro magazine. Each week I would focus on a particular game for example the fan translated version of tales of phantasia for the super nintendo. I would include a disk on the front (one of the really small cdr's) the disk would include the game, the emulator and the jpegs of the original instruction manual and box art. The disk would have the the original box art printed on it too to make it look super amazing. Inside I would include a review of the game, a walk through for the the first few hours. as wll as all the other amazing retro stuff you could include.

It's a shame my idea is completely illegal because I reckon it would be awsome. It would be like getting a new game every month. Look! Ive got the first few issues lined up:

bahamut lagoon, secret of mana 2, wonder project J, front mission, earthbound zero,

Man, there are so many games> i wouldnt want to put more than 1 game on the disk though (except maybe at xmas).

[Shez]

Picked it up, saw how slim it was, and put it back on the shelf.

?6 is too much for 100 pages, and not a great 100 pages by the looks of it.

[Chaser]

Are the games the original titles, I doubt it???

Theres no way Nintendo or Sega would allow their old titles given away on a mag.

Its a shame that the mag sounds severely lacking, but it might inspire others to make something better, I hope so.

[Wil]

Being inspired to do a better retro mag and having the resources and funds to start a mainstream national magazine are two different things entirely.

I think Future are quite happy with the odd Edge Retro special and Paragon with their bit in GamesTM. Good on Live Publishing having a go at a proper regular mag but if it doesn't get a lot better very quickly I can't see it lasting more than a few issues.

I'd love to do something on games and stuff that aren't current (if someone else puts 'retro' in the title I'll scream).

Oh and the games on the disc aren't original titles. It's not illegal to own an emulator, just the roms to play on it.

Wil

[beakbeak]

My mag would be so illegal (due to the free disk being, quite literally a pirated game) that the only place you could buy it from would be space. I would publish and print the mag from a space station located 1 mile above the sun.
Every month I would send a rocket down to earth with just 400 copies attached to it and they would sell for 4.99 each.