Finally, we’re back again for another of what is now going to be a non-stop, no-more-gaps-in-the-collection, 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 video games! I started collecting C&VG in earnest a couple of months into 1985, and would 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, then inevitably decided to keep heading backwards into 1984 so I had my own copy of the ones I’d first read second-hand from a friend. And obviously, while I was doing that, I thought I might has well keep going even further back when the opportunity arose, and the price was right, as well as trying to expand the other end of my collection too, although that’s proving to be far more difficult for some reason. Anyway, I’ve now got about eight years to keep working on that but before we dive into the December 1984 issue, I did previously manage to put together every issue from January to June 1984 in time to cover those, as well as a couple of pilot features taking in copies from 1983, so do check them out while you’re here too!

As was the case with all of those, the plan here is to flick through the magazine together, check out the news, reviews, type-in game listings, features and notable adverts (where you often get the best stuff!), pulling out whatever catches my eye, in the order it catches it, and providing a bit of commentary on top. Before all that though, this thing is a beast! I’m not sure about the September, October and November issues I’m still to get hold of but I don’t remember seeing an issue before or since going well over two-hundred pages like this one does! Best get on with it then, apart from a quick note to say this is the only time of year it really matters where the magazine was published a month ahead of itself, so we’re going to be seeing most of the Christmas stuff in the January issue instead, but any other way wouldn’t have made any sense for this feature so here we are! Right, we begin with Games News, where we learn that Atari 2600 (or VCS) legends Parker Brothers are withdrawing from the games business, mainly down to Atari’s desperate price cutting making it impossible to stay profitable, particularly while they were also splashing out huge amounts on things like Star Wars licenses, which explains why those games previously planned for the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum never saw the light of day. We’ve also got news of the first ever 2000A.D. game, Strontium Dog on the C64, which we’ll come back to when we look at reviews later, but fascinating to see the optimism for other characters, such as Judge Dredd, that might one day follow… oh dear! 

Over on the Spectrum, we learn that Sabre Wulf is going to be followed up by two games, Underwurlde and Knight Lore, although there’s an equally fascinating degree of scepticism that either will live up to Ultimate’s hype about being more like an adventure film than an adventure game – again, if only they’d known, but this is exactly what I love about doing this feature, where we’re regularly getting very first hints of what would go on to become considered some of the most influential or, indeed, greatest games of all time! Speaking of which, plenty of coverage of cultural phenomenan Ghostbusters having a game on the way, which they’re far more positive about after getting a preview at Activision’s London HQ, with the promise of a full review next month, which I for one can’t wait for because, apart from another Star Wars game that we definitely did get this time, I don’t think there was ever a better movie tie-in! Last bit in the news section is a Designer of the Month profile and interview with none other than Peter Liepa, whose diamond mining action-puzzler Boulder Dash is apparently set to be as big a hit in the UK as it’s been in the USA, which seems like a good time to jump to this month’s Software Reviews section and find out! The Commodore 64 version is, to no one’s surprise, awarded Game of the Month, scoring big across the board and with a perfect ten for playability – very cool full-colour, full-page advert conveniently across the page too! We’ll come back to adverts later, but elsewhere that Strontium Dog from earlier couldn’t be more average across the board, which could probably also be applied to any 2000 A.D. game that ever followed it, but I suppose it was alright for 1984!

There are tons of games reviewed this month but before I pick out a few highlights, it’s worth noting that apart from Sinbad and the excellent version of Jetpac for the BBC, it’s wall-to-wall ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64, and while we could already see the writing on those same walls for the VIC-20, ZX81, Dragon 32 and the rest as we worked our way through the first half of the year in previous Retro Rewind features, the emergence of the C64 is clearly now complete, and the dominance of these two platforms for the next few years is fully underway, even if (from personal experience) in reality there was a good eighteen months of shelf-life left in some of those old systems at least. Thankfully! Next pick here is Black Knight on the C64… Ever heard of it? Well, you should have because this sword and sorcery action-adventure scored even higher than Boulder Dash, and it “features the best animated graphics yet for the 64” so get straight on it if you haven’t already, just like I’m about to when I’m done here! U.S. Gold’s conversion of Tapper got the same huge score, which I’d agree with on the Spectrum but the C64 one is just a bit soulless. Which is apparently the other way around for Santa simulator Special Delivery on the Spectrum here, although it was the very first C64 game I ever played so maybe I was just easily pleased! The C64 is still playing catch-up with decent ports of Spectrum all-timers Jet Set Willy and Ant Attack but sets the standard in its own right with Jeff Minter’s brilliantly bonkers Ancipital, and there’s loads more but little more of note so I’ll close with Raid Over Moscow, which also reviews very well but as usual, C&VG can’t resist a big note over the top of it proclaiming nuclear war is not a subject for video games… But also as usual, I’ll once again mention that under exactly the same breath, they had zero problems with casual racism!

The Arcade Action section is unusually a bit underwhelming in this issue. I mean, being a sequel to one of my favourite games ever, I’m glad to read all about The Return of the Jedi from Atari, even if isometric shoot ‘em ups aren’t so much my thing, but that’s about all we’re getting for this month. There is a bit about Bally-Midway’s Two Tigers, and some tips on Xevious and Tempest and some other filler about a pinball convention, but this was the place I went every month to be blown away and unfortunately this time I just wasn’t! It’s now very apparent that the majority of the hundreds of pages here are taken up by admittedly very colourful, full-page adverts for some real moments in video game history but twenty pages later, our next stop is the first of this month’s type-in game listings, one of only four this time, and like the reviews just now, they’re also limited to the Spectrum, C64 and BBC. However, I remember enjoying typing-in plenty of VIC-20 games from C&VG later on, when that was about the only reason to keep buying it, so I won’t read any more into it in this instance! Anyway, on the Spectrum, we’ve got Gangster, which I think has you trying to escape a Mafia execution (but in a fun way!), and Weather Beater, which I get the impression is like reverse Lunar Lander. On the Commodore 64, Boxer is a very BASIC boxing game, and finally on the Beeb, I’m really tempted to try Frantic Farmer, which seems like a darkly primitive take on Harvest Moon!

As I’ve just been totally inundated by them as I skipped between those games listings, I’ll talk about some of the adverts here next, and while I was pondering where to even start, I spotted this relatively unassuming, text heavy nerd-fest, spread across two pages, for a brand new BBC space exploration, combat and trading game by the name of Elite! I first played this not long after, years before the Atari ST version would go on to be the game I’ve played more than pretty much any other, but I reckon this would have been the very first time I’d ever seen it, even if I didn’t really pay much attention, flicking through the same friend who had the game’s copy of this very magazine like we are now!

As alluded to earlier, we’re really in the age of big-hitters now, and they’re obviously being promoted with equally big-hitting budgets, so I’ll try and limit my gushing at what would have been encountering these iconic titles for the very first time, and give you a few examples of what I’m talking about… We have Bruce Lee (now on ZX Spectrum!), Summer Games, Spy vs. Spy, Boulder Dash, Football Manager, Raid Over Moscow, Ghostbusters, Pole Position, Tir Na Nog, Attack of the Mutant Camels, Tapper, Pyjamarama and F-15 Strike Eagle to name a few, as well as Ultimate having it large with individual spreads for those incredible pieces of box-art for Sabre Wulf, Underwurlde, Knight Lore and The Staff of Karnath!

I’m glad to see that in my absence, the Daily Mirror newspaper has continued to sponsor the Top 30 Software chart, allowing it a bit more polish than the average countdown, although having introduced this format as recently as when we were here back in May, there’s been a hell of a lot going on since then! Before we get into what’s where, while we still have the VIC-20, Electron, Atari, Dragon, BBC and “Other” listed in the little matrix showing what’s available where, the whole lot is now virtually blank, apart from the aforementioned Elite’s recent entry at number two on the BBC, while budget title Hectic on the VIC-20 is the only other little tick in any of all those boxes! So sad, although I think the Commodore 16 is imminent around now so maybe that’s all about to change again! The other thing that’s really changed already is how the C64 is now close to parity with the Spectrum for number of titles represented, again backing up what we saw earlier. Slightly more subtle, as well as games for the has-been machines disappearing, I also noticed that old stuff like Lunar Jetman and Ocean’s Kong are finally starting to drop out of the charts after years of hanging around the place! I was thrilled to see the very first game I completed on the Spectrum, Mastertronic’s Alcatraz Harry, entering at number twenty-five in their place too! And what a time to be alive elsewhere, with the Spectrum version of Daley Thompson’s Decathlon taking its rightful place at the top of the chart, with its weird C64 counterpart in third, then stuff like Beach-Head, Monty Mole, Jet Set Willy and Lords of Midnight heading up an all-star cast among the rest. Actually, coming back to Alcatraz Harry and Hectic, as well as Chiller, I think we’re seeing the arrival of the budget game here too. Let’s keep watching this space!

One other thing I’ve noticed this month is almost no coverage of any new console games. Not sure if that’s been a trend since we were last here or a one-off, so something else to look out for next time! No sign of any consoles themselves either in the first of the other features I’ll quickly touch on before we close either, which is part one of a buyer’s guide for all the fancy new machines such as the MSX, Enterprise (formerly Elan), Amstrad CPC and Sinclair QL. Let me save you the bother though… Unless you want to spend the next five years hating yourself and being mocked by your friends, just buy a Spectrum or C64 instead! Moving on, for all the colour splashed all over all these adverts this month, apart from an arguably irrelevant diversion into previewing the upcoming The Last Starfighter movie, these special features are really dry and bland – even (admittedly black and white) pictures of Minder and Benny Hill can’t dress up a boring double-page on games of films and TV shows and books, although… “Pretty soon you won’t be able to tell the difference between watching your favourite TV series and playing computer games!” In the meantime, I’ll stick to prospecting for oil in the jungles of South America in the Dallas adaptation on Atari 8-bit because even that’s more interesting than any of this! And on that bombshell, we’ll call it a day for this issue but hold on to your ten-gallon hats because as said back at the start, this is now the beginning of an uninterrupted monthly feature for way longer than you’ll tolerate reading my ramblings but at the very least, I hope to see you next time for the January 1985 issue!

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