We’re back again for another of what’s been and will continue to be an ongoing monthly delve into an exactly forty-year old copy of Computer & Video Games magazine, which it turns out is quite the time capsule for anyone interested in gaming! Just to recap, as is now usual in these Retro Rewind features, I started collecting C&VG in earnest a couple of months into 1985, and would then carry on without missing an issue until well into 1992. A couple of years ago, I decided to complete the set from 1985 with a bit of help from eBay, but inevitably then decided to keep heading further backwards into 1984, to have my own copy of the ones I’d first read second-hand from a friend, then, while I was there, I thought might as well keep going back even further as and when the opportunity arose, as long as the price was right! As I write, after this month I’m now facing a gap in my 1984 collection but I’ll keep doing my best to fill it as we go, and very worst case we’ll be back in business again before the end of the year, when there’ll be no question of any further gaps for many years to come, all being well! By the way, any gaps I can’t fill for this year will revert to other regular Retro Arcadia features every Wednesday, so don’t stop checking back!

Right, with that I think we can turn our attention to the June 1984 issue! As always, the plan is to flick through the magazine together, check out the news, reviews, features, type-ins and notable adverts (where that time capsule thing really comes into its own!), pulling out whatever catches my eye, in the order it catches it, and providing you with a bit of commentary on top. And we’re going to begin with this month’s cover feature, which you might have already noticed has something to do with a certain Miner Willy! I actually thought the days of cover art based on a type-in might be over by now (not that I’ve got a problem with it but times were changing), although this is a very special type-in because it’s not only by none other than Matthew Smith, of Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy fame, but is also an exclusive listing for the 16K ZX Spectrum that adds a missing JSW screen! Or, realistically, based on one that never made the cut, but all the same, this is great! André the cook has disappeared for the evening leaving Willy with nothing to eat, so he ventures into the kitchen in his mansion (paid for by his previous mining exploits) only to come face-to-face with a load of man-eating pizzas! It’s a simple case of avoiding them for as long as the clock tells you to, and you really couldn’t ask for more from a BASIC game in a magazine!

It’s the software charts next, which continues last month’s new top thirty format, spread across a whole double-page near the front of the magazine, paid for by The Daily Mirror newspaper and covering the Spectrum, VIC-20, Commodore 64, Electron, Atari, Dragon, Oric, BBC and “other” which seems totally pointless as there’s nothing in it, although the same is also true of the poor old Electron and Atari columns this month, although I think that last one is probably down to a mistake because Pole Position is still at number twenty-four. No consoles here though, Atari or otherwise, which stay separate in their own section, which we’ll get to later. What’s striking is the increasing dominance of the Spectrum and the C64, with just Fortress and The Hobbit representing the BBC, then the latter again and Hunchback on the Oric, and only Jetpac left waving the flag for us poor old VIC owners… Our days were collectively well and truly numbered at this point, and didn’t we know it! Jet Set Willy is still riding high at the top of the charts, just reiterating what a coup that cover feature type-in was, and Manic Miner wasn’t far behind either, just separated by Digital Integration’s primitive but impressive air combat-sim Fighter Pilot. These charts are multi-format but you’ve also got separate entries for each version, so you’ll see C64 repeats for some of the above later, while the aforementioned Hunchback is its first entry at number four. You can certainly see it clawing away at the Spectrum’s market share as the months go by though, and we’re seeing exclusives like Space Pilot, Blagger, Jumpin’ Jack and the iconic Aztec Challenge all making an impact. Just to close on the Spectrum, it might still be number one overall but there’s a load of old games like Ant Attack and Lunar Jet Man still skulking around, so will be interesting to see that pretty rapidly changing, I imagine, over the next few months.

I do believe it’s time for the Games News now. The news section is often taken up by new game announcements, and while it’s still the case this time, we begin with one for Mummy Mummy on the 16K Spectrum that it excitingly proclaims “will banish forever the myth that computer games are only for children…” It never really says how, apart from having a bloke called Mad Clive and a load of Ancient Egyptian souls to vanquish, but the interesting thing is that it’s made by a company called MC Lothlorien (nerds!) who are leading the way with a new type of game – the strategy war game! Now, Mummy Mummy might well be that too, but this revelation is written as a footnote to the main article so I’m not sure, describing a whole new genre that will combine the best of arcade and adventure software, with “fast and furious shooting action inter-linked with military decision making!” Having already heralded the demise of the shoot ‘em up as it was apparently being swept away by the strategy game in previous issues, definitely watch this space for more on “these new ‘cult’ games” in future Retro Rewinds! Elsewhere, the bloke who did The Hobbit has a new Sherlock Holmes text adventure up his sleeve, Fighter Pilot has arrived on the C64 and it’s better than the Spectrum original, and The Lemming Syndrome is bringing a now not unfamiliar concept to the BBC way ahead of its time! Electronic Arts has also announced it’s bringing its Atari and Commodore 64 range to the UK, which at this stage definitely included Pinball Construction Set and M.U.L.E. but I’m not sure what else; they’re going to cost £30 each though so you’d better start saving! Jeff Minter is back with the more reasonably priced Sheep in Space though, and no other news can follow that so let’s head over to the Software Reviews!

As always, this section covers home computers while console games once again get their own treatment later, assuming we ever get there because there’s a ton of games reviewed in this issue – reckon it’s an all-time high, and I definitely don’t remember three games of the month in a single issue before! The first is a very good-looking Zaxxon clone for the BBC called Fortress, while the review also confirms the aforementioned dwindling flow of software now appearing on the BBC, with most companies turning their efforts to the Spectrum and C64. Speaking of which, the next game of the month is Psytron on the Spectrum, which might just also be one of those new-fangled strategy war games we heard about earlier, although it’s very hard to tell – from what limited description there is, it could also be a primitive sci-fi take on future FMV classic Night Trap! “All the normal features are here – sound effects and joystick options” so definite game of the month material, with the last of the six levels alone demanding you withstand an alien onslaught for a full hour, so plenty of game here too, once you work out what the game actually is! Our final game of the month is Orange Squash on the Commodore 64, which I’ve a feeling might be down to an over-zealous page-layer-outer rather than being deserving of the accolade, because normally it would be given to  more than “almost a good game!” It’s a Manic Miner-type “climbing game” with pretty graphics, lots of screens but is impossible to play, with iffy controls as well as being ridiculously difficult, so I hope everyone actually read the review before rushing out to buy it on the strength of the feature image alone!

Right, let’s have a quick run-through of some of the other stuff moving and shaking in this months reviews but not all of it because we’re currently on page 25, they go on until page 38 (admittedly with a few adverts along the way, including a lovely double-page Pitfall II one), and there’s three or four per page! Ad Astra was the first that jumped out at me as one I know, scoring eights across the board for it’s Gyruss-like shooting on the Spectrum. Fighter Pilot on the Spectrum isn’t really justifying its chart position, scoring crap for looks and average for the rest, although I reckon that’s harsh! Its follow-up, Night Gunner, is probably the more interesting flight-sim option on there this month though, giving you a varied bunch of missions from the viewpoint of a rear-gunner for a change. Cartoon caveman BC Bill is scoring big on the C64 and deservedly so, and is probably where that other game of the month accolade should actually have gone if its scores here are anything to go by, with eight for playability as low as it goes. Slurpy on there is an above average Pac-Man meets Q*bert thing but is interesting as being an early release for Creative Sparks, Thorn EMI’s games offshoot who’d go on to release some great stuff like Submarine Commander! On the BBC, Trafalgar is a remake of the famous sea battle of the same name that is definitely one of those new strategy war games, so maybe C&VG is onto something after all, although this pioneer is let down by not coming with any instructions so all that military decision making is a bit uninformed! While they’re a bit crap, there’s at least another four BBC games reviewed in here, so maybe save your sympathy for us poor old VIC-20 owners instead, although we were getting the remarkable take on Atic-Atic that is Tower of Evil this month! By the way, the deep-dive I did on that had a lengthy preamble on this very issue of C&VG that actually inspired this very series of features, so if you’re reading this you can probably skip at least half of that if you’ve only got time for a quick look!

There’s more but little of real note so let’s jump over to Arcade Action next for all that stuff you could only ever dream of playing at home! And it sounds like they listened to my complaint about stupid cartoons instead of screenshots last time out because there’s an actual picture of multi-event Circus Charlie in action, though I’d have preferred one of this month’s headline act, Tapper, instead. I love seeing stuff like this appearing for the very first time, and reading about things that would go on to become all-time favourites of mine, way before I knew it! Still such a unique concept too, with you running up and down increasingly hectic bars, serving customers, collecting empties and grabbing tips – so simple, so addictive, and as much fun to play now as it was back then. Classic Konami but less so classic Atari for this month’s final game, Cloak & Dagger, which is an alright Robotron-style shooter I suppose. That’s one page out of the two that make up this section, then the other is an entry form for the 1984 Computer & Video Games Arcade Games Champion competition! Not the catchiest but maybe that’s something the current champion and future magazine editor Julian Rignall might be able to sort out, once he’s done hanging out with Dave Lee Travis at least!

Speaking of champion gamers, and continuing the Jet Set Willy theme, next up is a feature that not only includes advice from Manic Miner expert, Aonghas de Barra, on getting the most out of its follow-up, but there’s also a magical recreation of his epic map of Miner Willy’s mansion, complete with all possible directions of movement and where to find those ropes to swing across, which were still such a wonder of modern gaming at the time! As is often the case though, get good is the best advice, or play long and hard as the expert tells you here, although he does go on to admit he’s not yet collected all fifty items scattered throughout the game, so call yourself a Willy addict?

Moving swiftly on to Video Gaming reviews, where we still find those strange console games hidden away for their own good, it’s a bit of a contrast to what we saw on the home computers this month, with just four games and one joystick getting a look in across a measly two pages! Not sure these console things will ever catch on at this rate but digitised images on Sylvester Stallone on the Coleco certainly won’t do their popularity any harm! I’m talking about Rocky, one of the few ColecoVision games I’ve ever played, and is obviously a boxing game that looks great in action, and even plays alright if you’ve got a Super Action Controller, which is that joystick I just mentioned, although it is fittingly more like a boxing glove to look at than a joystick, and they cost a whopping £45 each too! If you’re spending that much you might as well get Baseball on there too, which looks a lot like Pete Rose Baseball on the Atari VCS (or 2600) but several years before that, and sounds like it plays just as good as that. Over on the VCS, there’s a really good version of Zaxxon, running vertically rather than isometrically, which I reckon works in its favour even if it isn’t the best looking. Last game this month, also on there, is Polaris, a sea-shooter with nice variety but not much else going for it unfortunately.

We’re entering the realm of the type-in games listings now, and following on from that Jet Set Willy expansion from earlier, first up is Galactic Space Academy, a surprisingly complex space shoot ‘em up for the VIC-20 (plus 3K expansion), with pages of POKE and DATA commands to sink your teeth into! Commodore 64 fans shouldn’t feel left out either because Castle of Doom is a spooky take on the arcade game Shamus by none other than Melbourne House, who in reality are peddling their two new BASIC compilations it features on. There’s also a top-down racer called Road Runner for the TI-99/4A, Spider Grid, which is a Genesis arcade game clone for the Dragon 32, and an even more blatant arcade clone called none other than Missile Command for the BBC! The ORIC has an omelette making (or egg chucking) game called, er, Omelette, and finally the Spectrum is also getting a not particularly subtle second game listing for Wonderman, which sounds like Space Invaders with Kryptonite!

I know I’m going really long so I’m going to try and quickly round up a few of the special features in this issue, beginning with The Ultimate Driving Test, where “Video Grand Prix” and “Computer Grand Prix” games go head-to-head and rated out of five by none other than F1 driver Martin Brundle, and of the five games here, we’re talking some of the all-time greats! First up is Pitstop on ColecoVision, rightly earning four stars but he likes the pitstop bit more than the racing. Weirdo! Next is Enduro on Atari VCS, which is marked down to three stars for the car not sounding realistic enough and not driving realistically enough… On snow! More madness, but the next one, another top-down racer on the C64, might have solved an age-old mystery for me about what that old racing game with a night section I can never remember the name of was called – it’s Le Mans and got one star from him, so possibly not worth the wait! Pole Position on the Atari 400/800 only did marginally better with two stars, and I’m starting to dislike this guy even more than when he’s trying to convince me a Formula One race I’m watching on TV is fascinating when we can all see it clearly isn’t! Last up is the very first game I ever played on a ZX Spectrum, Chequered Flag, and I don’t care if he didn’t like the steering response because that thing blew my tiny little mind at the time! Did get four stars though so he redeemed himself slightly towards the end.

I know I recently did a deep-dive on Battle Chess for the Amiga but even I can’t face a whole double-page feature on chess computers, and the same for some weird puzzle adventure competition thing called Quo Vadis, where you can win a Coleco Adam computer, so I’ll skip to something far more exciting, the domestic robot! That said, I lost interest in these when I didn’t get a Big Trak the previous Christmas, although looking at the price of some of these, that was probably a lucky escape! Movits start a bit cheaper though, even if they are just little animals with motors in them, so maybe a Tomy VRR (voice recognition robot) is a better bet for basic domestic duties at £35. Topo is by Androbot, launched by Atari’s Nolan Bushnell, and for your £1,500 you’ll be getting some guard dog and fire alarm functionality, and you can program it to do various other things as long as you’ve got an Apple computer to do it on! Fred is Topo’s little brother, at a less eye-watering £200, and it can draw and say a few words and you can move it with a joystick on your computer but still can’t carry some fruit to your dad like Big Trak could! You’ll also be needing either an Apple or IBM PC to get the most out of the RB5X, looking a bit like R2D2 and almost as useful, with a vacuum cleaner, a trailer, a fire detector and an extinguisher too! No price for that one but costly as it sounds, I reckon it won’t be the £2,495 for the HERO 1 from Zenith Data Systems and Maplin, with a programmable processor and a robot arm to pick stuff up and bring it to you, assuming you’ve programmed it to do so and it’s close enough, so there may be an argument for saving your money, stop being so lazy and getting it yourself!

There are a couple of other features but I don’t think I can top that so I’m going to finish off with a look at some of the adverts that jumped out at me this month, starting with that lovely Pitfall II full-colour, double-pager from earlier! It’s a hand-painted beauty too, with iconic scenes from the game like swimming with electric eels in front of a giant frog and flying with vampire bats on a balloon. The ever-present Kevin Toms’ bearded face once again adorns a full-page of Football Manager, now available on the BBC (so it’s still not all bad for that platform), while this month, pre-Elite Richard Wilcox has splashed out on the whole back page for his Blue Thunder, while on the inside of that page there’s even a glimmer of hope for us VIC-20 sufferers, with stuff like Bonzo and Spiders of Mars from Audiogenic accompanied by a big and slightly rubbish illustration of the machine on a telly of the time in a living room from decades before! Great to see Mr. Micro’s Punchy still hanging around in all its glory elsewhere as well though! U.S. Gold is all over the place with early stuff like Aztec Challenge, Forbidden Forest and Solo Flight but with much better pictures – they even do screenshots! Imagine, on the other hand, have gone super-minimal with an almost fully-white page and just the words Psyclapse and Bandersnatch at the bottom. Mr. Wong’s Loopy Laundry is a casual racism classic on another full-colour, full-page, although it’s still the best thing Artic ever put out! Just spotted that gorgeous Beach Head advert from U.S. Gold too! Right, I’ve gone on forever and could easily keep going, so we’ll save more adverts for next time! In the meantime, I hope you’ve enjoyed reading through the June 1984 issue with me as much as I have, and I’ll hopefully see you very soon for the next one!

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