Osmeroid Posted January 22, 2005 Share Posted January 22, 2005 This magazine has been my staple reading for the past 12 months, being the only retro gaming publication (that I'm aware of) available in the UK. Finally, this month has a big spot dedicated to the 2600 system along with Albert talking about the AA website and Kirk describing his first steps into programming for the system. Interesting reading and good to see some familiar faces in there http://www.livepublishing.co.uk/retro/retro12.shtml Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveW Posted January 22, 2005 Share Posted January 22, 2005 Here in the States, issue 10 is still on the shelves. Now i'll be passing through the book stores a lot more, waiting for issue 12 to arrive. I love Retro Gamer. And it seems like a lot of other Americans do too, because more and more stores seem to be importing it. And it also seems to sell out on a regular basis. Which is strange, considering it's extremely British-centric viewpoint. But after reading every issue of Retro Gamer magazine, I find myself really, really wanting a Spectrum! Or at least an NTSC version, say, a Timex-Sinclair 2068 with the proper Spectrum compatibility cartridge. But unfortunately, they sold miserably, and so they're pretty scarce. Why Timex would create a computer based on the Spectrum, but not make it Spectrum compatible, is a question that'll have technology experts for decades wonder..... "WTF?" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Osmeroid Posted January 23, 2005 Author Share Posted January 23, 2005 Wow! Speaking as an ex-Spectrum owner, that's good to hear! I had a Spectrum +3, 128K with 3" (not 3.5") floppy drive and a thing called a Multiface 3, load a game, hit the button and it would be saved to disk. A lot of Activision titles and even a few Atarisoft games were released on for that computer. Last time I was State-side, Cassidy has a boxed Timex Spectrum 48K, I think it went quite cheap as I remember. Check out the Spectrum emulators on eBay, about £6/$10 will get you a good emu + around 3000 games on one CD and no compatability probs. Speaking of Retro Gamer in other countries (outside the UK) they do subscription to the US and Canada. Issue 12 also has reports from Japan, one store stocks RG magazine! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveW Posted January 23, 2005 Share Posted January 23, 2005 I love the magazine, but it's far too expensive for me to subscribe. Besides, I like scouring book stores and electronics stores for the latest issue. I don't do the eBay thing, mainly because i'm a crusty old man who remembers the glory days of ordering from little advertisements in the back of computer magazines, and having to wait one or two months for your package to arrive. Nowadays, people on eBay will give you negative feedback if their package doesn't arrive in under a week. Young whippersnappers. I need to get around to pursuing a Timex Sinclair 2068, but I never get around to it. I think i'd much rather have an all-in-one joystick, like the new Commodore 64 DTV, that's the entire computer compacted down inside a stick. Who owns the rights to the Sinclair computer line nowadays? Maybe i'll e-mail them the suggestion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Osmeroid Posted January 23, 2005 Author Share Posted January 23, 2005 Ha-Ha! Glory days, my friend! I remember 'the days' when I waited weeks for my item to arrive. It almost seemed magical back then.... As for who owns the rights, Amstrad bought a lot of games for it's now-defunct cordless phone/games instrument. Apart from certain titles, I think that most Spectrum releases are considered to be freeware. So far no-one involved with old Speccy games has done an 'Infrogames'. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Posted January 23, 2005 Share Posted January 23, 2005 Awesome, glad to hear this issue is now on the newstands. Haven't gotten my copy yet, but I did see a proof of my interview. I look forward to reading the entire issue! ..Al Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NE146 Posted January 23, 2005 Share Posted January 23, 2005 How 'bout a scan from someone Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Osmeroid Posted January 23, 2005 Author Share Posted January 23, 2005 Actually, I liked the pic of you Al, you look about 16 in the magazine Also the AA logo is plastered throughout the magazine and should be productive, hopefully this will bring more interest in the AA website. I could hardly believe those sales figures for Joust-Pong! This is easily one of the best games I've played. A bigger fan-base will hopefully encourage more games sales and an expansion in homebrew catalogue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Osmeroid Posted January 23, 2005 Author Share Posted January 23, 2005 How 'bout a scan from someone I'll see what I can do, but tomorrow for me - it's 2am GMT here! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atarinvader Posted January 23, 2005 Share Posted January 23, 2005 Just read it in Tesco. I absolutely hate that bandwagon-jumping-eBay-price-pumping-crap-rag but it was an interesting article. The only retro gaming publication (that I'm aware of) available in the UK Spend your money on GamesTM: They dedicate a good 20-30 pages monthly to retro gaming and it's much more informed - needless to say the writing style is much more enjoyable also. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayhem Posted January 23, 2005 Share Posted January 23, 2005 "Much more informed"? I know the guy who now does the GamesTM retro section, but even he admits he gets things wrong. It used to be a lot worse than it is now though since he took over fulltime. But that's your opinion and I won't argue with it. Even though I write for RG Btw what exactly do you mean by "bandwagon jumping eBay price pumping"? Seeing as there hadn't been a dedicated retro mag in this country... or do you mean because "retro" is now seen as "hip" and "popular"? Well you could say the same about almost ANY interest! As for "eBay price pumping" I guess you won't like my rare games guide that's due to be published in the next issue then Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atarinvader Posted January 24, 2005 Share Posted January 24, 2005 Everyone seems to have written for Retro Gamer these days; with all respect, they'll take any writing they don't have to pay for. What's missing from RG is the understanding of importance of games, how they influence and lead the industry. Anyone can stick a value on a game by searching eBay and then popping it in a magazine, but that's not entertainment, or in fact, informative. There have been plenty of dedicated fanzines in this country, although they have been very underground affairs. Not to mention Edge’s run of specials in 2002. It's rather disheartening to see some idiot trailing around a car boot with a copy of RG hanging out of his pocket thinking he's going to make his fortune by spotting Pepsi Wins! and Crazy Climber under a pile of Haynes Manuals. A little bit of knowledge... Videogame trading has gone from passionate tight-knit groups sharing for the love of gaming and community to some stock-trading shenanigans that your average inbred eBayer would be ashamed off. Oh and retro gaming will never be "hip" nor "cool", or for that matter "groovy", simply because it's full of passionate outspoken geeks like myself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liveinabin Posted January 30, 2005 Share Posted January 30, 2005 I'd like to buy it regularly but I just can't justify the cover price. £6 per issue and a disc that seems custom designed not to work on Macs. They had a disc a few issues back with Beneath a Steel Sky on it (which works on VSCUMM for Mac), the damn disc, when inserted, didn't even show folders or files! Worked fine on a Windows laptop. Heck, even PS2 discs will at least read on Mac. I wish they'd do an issue without the disc, I'd like to buy it (if only to see my label art featured as it often is, silly I know, but I still get a kick out of that). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayhem Posted January 31, 2005 Share Posted January 31, 2005 Everyone seems to have written for Retro Gamer these days; with all respect, they'll take any writing they don't have to pay for. Missed coming back to this thread... Strange that you would say this. RG does pay for the freelancers (such as myself) writing articles for the magazine. The rates aren't brilliant, but that's a world of difference between that and not receiving any money at all. So what's the prompting for this accusation? At least I haven't spotted any blatent copying unlike say the Edge Retro article on the Saturn that directly ripped from a website... As for the pricing of games, I don't think you can really blame RG for that. Edge retro issues came out before it and caused a much worse effect when they severely overpriced just about anything in there. There are hardly ANY pricing of stuff in the articles of RG; the rare games article I've submitted will be one of the exceptions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DEBRO Posted April 6, 2005 Share Posted April 6, 2005 I finally got to buy one from the newstand and it was a nice read. Now I look forward to them doing a spot on the Colecovision and interviewing Eduardo. I see they already did a spot on the 7800. It would've been nice if they got a hold of Ken (kenfused) Siders...or did they. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayhem Posted April 9, 2005 Share Posted April 9, 2005 Sadly not, but they did speak to Adam Pratt and Steve Golsen... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad2600 Posted April 11, 2005 Share Posted April 11, 2005 I picked up issue 12 last week. Great reading. I loved the feature on AtariAge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kisrael Posted April 12, 2005 Share Posted April 12, 2005 Huh, missed this thread as well... Thought I'd jsut chip in with a scan of my page, http://kisrael.com/journal.aux/2005.02.22.retrogamer.jpg which is the unmercifully condensed version of our full email exchange at http://kisrael.com/journal.aux/2005.02.22.retrogamer.html I tried to give very thoughtful responses to the questions, which were themselves pretty well conceived. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveW Posted April 12, 2005 Share Posted April 12, 2005 I picked up issue 12 last night. Very nice. I've only had time to skim the pages, though. And you guys were right, Albert really looks like a teenager in that photo! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Tomlin Posted April 13, 2005 Share Posted April 13, 2005 It looks like Fry's here got their supply last week. RG is still full of retro goodness. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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