~The Good Old Days By Martin Keen Logically, computing has no place for dewy eyed nostalgia looking back at the good old days but people seem to do it anyway. This column looks at what was happening in August for the past three years. In 1992 the Amiga was still the most popular games computer, then in 1993 the PC was beginning to establish itself. Finally in August 1994 the PC ruled the roost. Heres what was happening: ~August 1992 Commodore were beginning to realise their CDTV wasn't catching on. The machine was claimed to put an end to books, and be THE black box to be found in every living room. Nobody bought it so this month Commodore renamed it as an Amiga and packed it with a mouse, keyboard, and disk drive instead of a fiddly remote control. Unfortunately for Commodore it didn't persuade too many more people to buy one. Commodore also announced this month their UK MD Steve Franklin was leaving to work solely on the CDTV and Kelly Sumner was to take over. A year later Sumner was to quit his job to work on PC software. Urban Shakedown released a techno single produced entirely on two Amiga 500s. The song was Single Of The Week in Melody Maker and made the top 30. But Rough Justice was to be their only hit. Gameswise August was a good month because it saw the release of two biggies: Jaguar XJ220 and Wizkid. Jaguar aimied to be a Lotus Turbo Challenge beater and came close. You could fly all around the world to take part in races which added a sense of purpose to the game but a dodgy Jaguar car sprite and the weaknesses of the opponents let it down. But a game with 36 very different tracks can't be bad. Wizkid on the other hand was one of the games of the year. Arguably Sensible Software's only decent game (the sprites are more than 2 pixels high in this one) it can only be described as weird. Wizkid is a little green face who has to knock objects into the path of butterflies to kill them. If he collects enough money then its off to the brilliantly wacky adventure sections where Wiz gains a body and has to rescue a kitten. Then its off to the next level to do it all again. Despite the game's brilliance it never sold well in the charts which remains a mystery to this day (although it could have something to do with the HUGE number of software pirates around at the time). Flop of the week was Ocean's long awaited Epic. Digital Image Design were responsible for this disappointment. The game had been in production for two years but was completed by everyone who played it in just 2 hours. And to add insult to injury a cheat mode was listed in the instructions just in case the game was getting a bit too longwinded! ~August 1993 The following year Amigas were on their way out and PCs with more involved and better produced games were all the rage. August of this year saw leading a computer magazine launch an investigation into the high price of PC games. The 7th Guest sparked off the row when it was released for 70 quid, and led to fears about future pricing. Fortunately some software publishers have seen sense and many game prices are still the same as they were in 1993. But thats still too expensive. Microprose announced debts of 3 million pounds for the last financial year. Founder Bill Stealey resigned as president as the company merged with Spectrum Holobyte. Its thanks to this merger than Star Trek: A Final Unity is available today. This month saw LucasArts release the floppy disk version of Day Of The Tentacle - a groundbreaking graphic adventure. The computer press raved about it and the gamesbuying public bought it in their droves despite the plot based on American history. The only gripe was the game was way to easy to complete, although not as easy as Full Throttle turned out to be. Flashback was finally converted from the Amiga, as was Sensible Soccer. Both were to do well. ~August 1994 There was something of a news shortage this month, with only the CES in Chicago providing a bit of information on forthcoming games. How ironic all those estimated release dates seem now. Full Throttle was due to be released in the autumn and The Dig was to finally be available in the first half of 1995. Well at least they got the year right (hopefully). Heres an interesting quote from PC Format: "We combine the definitive review and exclusive demo of The 11th Hour next month on the PC Format CD Collection Number 5". The PC Format CD Collection is currently on number 16 and there's still no sign of the demo or review. Hmm... On the games front the classics Theme Park and FIFA International Soccer made their11 debuts. Also that month an advertisement was launched with a list of games coming soon from Gametek. These game names were covered in a pile of drawn on spit with the slogan: "We make this lovely advertisment and you droll all over it. Why do we bother?". Maybe Gametek have slightly overexaggerated the excitement computer games can produce. Especially ones as bad as Hell, Bureau 13, and Frontier: First Encounters. And as for August 1995 - well you can work that one out for yourself!