Here we are once again for our regular monthly dive into the pages of an exactly forty-year old copy of Computer & Video Games magazine, which is quite the time capsule for anyone with any interest at all in video games! As always, a quick recap of where it’s coming from – I started collecting C&VG in earnest a few months into 1985, and carried on without missing an issue until well into 1992. A few years back, I decided to complete the set from 1985 with a bit of help from eBay, then inevitably decided to keep going 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 as well keep going further back, as and when the opportunity arose and the price was right, as well as trying to expand out of the other end of my collection too, although that’s still proving a lot more difficult than the older ones for some reason! Plenty of time to keep working on that though, so without any further delay, let’s jump into the November 1985 issue, where as usual the plan is to flick through the magazine together, checking out the news, reviews, type-in games listings, features and notable adverts (which are often the best bits), pulling out whatever catches my eye, in the order it catches it, and providing a bit of commentary on top…

As usual, we’ll start with what’s on the cover, and this month’s couldn’t have been more special to me because I was a huge fan of Eagle comic aged thirteen when this came out, and I loved Dan Dare more than any other character in it! It’s special in retrospect too, because the exclusive preview of the game it’s associated with would go on to be a real favourite of mine on the ZX Spectrum, as well as a bit of a miracle on there, and this was the very first time we were seeing it, which is always one of my very favourite things about doing this feature! We’ll return to the game shortly but there’s also a Dan Dare competition in this issue where you can win a copy and a load of comic-related goodies by drawing your own comic strip, either involving the Pilot of the Future himself or your own creation, which, given my pathetic drawing skills, I’d have had no chance winning even if I’d pretended to be under-9 and entered that age bracket! Not sure about my chances in the next competition either, where you’ve got a chance to win a briefcase full of everything a secret agent needs – which mostly seems to involve packing a Walkman and a disc camera – to celebrate the release of Beyond’s new spy ‘em up, Nexus.

All you have to do to enter this one is study an illustration on the page opposite, rather than draw it, and work out the name of the Nexus agent it depicts… Turns out that’s not so easy either though, so we’ll just go for Cyril and hope for the best! Maybe I’d have been better off entering the next competition instead, but who wouldn’t, because this time you could not only be in with a chance to meet a legendary eighties comedian (care of Probe Software and their new game about him) but might even get to play a young Cooper-Man in of his TV shows, simply in exchange for a photo proving you look like Russ Abbot! Last month, we saw Activision’s Tour de France game getting a very decent review, and now there’s also a chance to win a Peugeot BMX from them by answering some very stuffy questions about the race if doing a bit of research at the local library sounds less stressful, while Datasoft are giving away fifty copies of Zorro on the Commodore 64, which would also work on a brand new Commodore 128 if you’re lucky enough to win the last of this month’s competitions, where you’re completing a wordsearch related to Anirog’s Jump Jet flight sim, and I can’t believe I didn’t enter that, as proven by the coupon that’s still intact in the mag and can be seen in the bonus pic above! 

There seems to be a ton of news this month, so let’s get into that next, starting with an update on Scooby Doo in the Castle Mystery, complete with two more glorious screenshots on top of those that accompanied the big double-page advert we saw here last time, and the promise of a review next issue… And I’ll never stop waiting! Next we find out about Robot Messiah, the new game by Christian Urquhart, the Daley Thompson’s Decathlon bloke, which I honestly don’t remember at all so I’m looking forward to whenever that gets reviewed too, assuming lightning hasn’t just struck twice. I also don’t remember ever seeing any of the upcoming video game adaptations of the Fighting Fantasy choose-your-own-adventure books either, which I used to love, so I’m really hoping we get to those in a future issue as well! Ocean’s They Sold a Million compilation, featuring “games like Sabre Wulf and JSW” also sounds pretty exciting, as does a sequel to Trashman on the Spectrum, and one to the aforementioned Death Star Interceptor, which this time will be based on the trench run scene from Star Wars… Which I have to admit I thought I remembered its predecessor doing, but anyway, I still like a bit of that so I’ll certainly be keeping my eyes peeled for whatever that turns out to be called. I’m skipping a bunch of stuff in the interests of brevity but will finish with a couple of cool things on the way over from America, starting with David Crane’s utterly addictive and utterly groundbreaking Little Computer People, where you have to look after the little guy living in your computer, and then there’s a port of Marble Madness coming too, which I only really mention because after a very understated very first introduction to the Atari ST last month, it’s the Amiga’s turn to get the same treatment in this tiny paragraph – I could be wrong but I don’t think I remember hearing about it before now so something else to look out for in the future!

Games reviews next, and those fancy 16-bit machines can wait because we’re still smack-bang in the middle of 8-bit’s golden age so those classics keep on coming, starting with Game of the Month Starquake for the C64, Spectrum and Amstrad CPC, a huge sci-fi puzzle-adventure that just misses out on a perfect score despite featuring “some of the best sound ever from the Spectrum,” although that is a relatively low bar when you’re talking sound! All about the Blitz Game next to it for me this month though, the brutal but wildly enjoyable platforming sequel Monty on the Run, which might not have the best sound on the Spectrum but will always be where I’ll play it over the C64 version that was more positively reviewed here for that reason. Some top stuff on the Atari 8-bits this month too, starting with serious one-on-one fighter, er, Chop Suey, but there’s only one Rescue on Fractalus, even if this incredibly ambitious 3D space rescue game scores very average – possibly down to the C64 version, also reviewed, running way slower, but surely if they can give two machines different scores for sound on Monty Mole, then they can stretch to the same treatment for another all-time classic here! Once again, there’s so much being reviewed here I can’t get into everything, but more massive scores for Highway Encounter on the Spectrum and CPC, while the C64 then follows-up with two literal big hitters of its own in Barry McGuigan’s World Championship Boxing and Karateka, even if the latter could really have done with coming out a couple of months ago, before The Way of the Exploding Fist arrived! 

Strangely, both scored bigger than Hewson’s incredible Paradroid though, as did Ultimate’s Blackwyche, which I know is a stunner but ten for playability, really? I’ll go with the all nines and tens for their Nightshade on the Spectrum though, as if it needed another iconic isometric masterpiece from them! There are more Blitz Game awards being thrown around to Daley Thompson’s Super Test, which will wreck your joystick like its predecessor did but it won’t be as much fun doing so in my opinion, with its weird events like tug-of-war and penalty kicks! Then cinematic sci-fi adventure Marsport gets one, as well as the high-on-the-variety Astro Clone, and they’re both so underrated on the Spectrum regardless of their high scores, but that’s what’s going to happen in the presence of such greatness elsewhere, and once again, that’s just this month! The same for Fighting Warrior, a beautiful-looking scrolling hack and slash game that blew my mind when I first got it on the Spectrum a while later… An embarrassment of riches indeed, but things are really drying up now outside of the Spectrum, C64 and CPC, and aside from Chop Suey just now, about the only reviews on other machines are for old games ported to the BBC, although they’re also good ‘uns, with Beach Head being a great fantastic take on the “old” classic, starting with one of the best loading screens on the system, while Match Day on there offers a lot of personality compared to more celebrated versions too.

It looks like we’ve arrived at that exclusive Dan Dare preview next, and after all my hyping it up earlier, I have to say I was retrospectively a little disappointed when I realised the accompanying screenshots were from the Commodore 64 version, which is just a bit lifeless compared to the Spectrum one, and are hardly representative of the game regardless. Anyway, to set the scene, Dan Dare is like a very British Buck Rogers, with comic strips running from 1950-1967 in the original Eagle, then from 1982-1994 in the relaunched version I had put aside at the local newsagent every week, and with appearances in 2000AD in-between. The game is a run and gun adventure set on a maze-like space base in a hollowed-out asteroid on course for Earth which is carrying a giant bomb planted by Dan’s arch-enemy, The Mekon, setting up a load of exploration, survival and putting a stop to. Outrageously good game, and colourful without attribute clash like no other game on the Spectrum before it, and now I can’t wait to get my hands on it all over again!  

Now it’s time for this month’s Arcade Action section, thankfully still double-page and full-colour because that’s the only way to welcome Ghosts ‘n Goblins, and for once they’ve even got decent pictures of it running! In fact, I’d venture to say that the one with the Night of the Demon-style huge, winged boss is one of the greatest screenshots of all time, complete with hero Arthur being down to his undies! What a game to be seeing here for the very first time, completely oblivious to the impact this hard-as-nails spooky platformer is going to have on the next four decades plus of your life… Although calling the music “dreary stuff” is an outrage! I also don’t quite believe that the “Atari boys” came up with Peter Pac Rat on the back of “the huge success of Roland Rat” but I’d like to, and regardless, it’s great to see this hidden gem getting second-billing here this month, and with another cool screenshot. The one for Bubbles is a bit more underwhelming, which might explain why until right now I’d have told you I’d first come across it on Midway Arcade Treasures on PS2 about eighteen years later! Another proper hidden gem all the same though, playing like Katamari in a kitchen sink! Namco’s futuristic side-scrolling survival-runner Metro Cross also emerges this month but unfortunately no screenshot because I always thought it looked better than it played, which was also true when I got my hands on the Spectrum port a couple of years later. I’m not much of a fan of their Baraduke either, a sci-fi shooter thing with this horrible knock-back when you shoot and really dreadful sound, but I’m still thinking about Ghosts ‘n Goblins so who cares!

By now we should probably have covered the four type-in games listings included in the pull-out Games Book that came with this issue, but together with the free Blade Runner poster (which I have no recollection of but is also mentioned on the cover), I’m afraid that’s been pulled out and lost to the mists of time! For completeness though, the contents page tells us that we’d have had Poker and Injun Joe on the Spectrum, Heebie Jeebie on the C64, and Quake Alert for the Atari 400/800, but as I can’t tell you any more than that, let’s have a look at this month’s software charts instead! Way of the Exploding Fist is at number one in the all-formats chart, followed by Now Games at number two, which I did skip past in the news roundup earlier but is from Virgin Games and features six titles, including the likes of Pyjamarama and Lords of Midnight, which already explains why it’s doing alright for itself! Daley Thompson’s Super Test is straight in at number three, followed by a couple of C64 exclusives in Summer Games II and Sky Fox, which obviously also head-up that individual countdown. On the Spectrum, it’s Exploding Fist and Daley Thompson again, then Nightshade, which is its highest placed exclusive in the main chart at number seven. More Exploding Fist at the top of the CPC chart, with Frank Bruno’s Boxing hanging on in there at two and Finders Keepers at three, which is also the top all-formats budget title this month; interesting to note that Mastertronic now have seven entries in the top thirty too! I’ll finish by also mentioning there’s just one game in there that isn’t on a Spectrum, C64, CPC or combination thereof, and that’s Karateka from earlier, on Atari 8-bit as well as C64. Times have apparently now officially changed!

We’ll quickly cover a few other features in this issue before we close with a look at the new adverts knocking around, and I suppose I should start with the boring old Adventure bit, which this month includes a review of Rats, based on the horror novel by James Herbert and is possibly the most disappointing text adventure I ever played – the “gameplay” itself just doesn’t live up to the fantastic graphics and innovative way they’re presented, which is kind of reflected in the mag too. I’m pretty neutral on Dire Straits – it was old man rock at the time and I’m still not old enough! However, I can’t deny that dreadful Money For Nothing song was massive, and in no small part thanks the video that came with it, with computer-generated animation like nothing we’d ever seen before, and that’s why we have a very odd piece next about whether or not some wonder-computer called the BOSH FGS 4000 could produce graphics like it! Honestly, this was almost as boring as that Adventure stuff, and I’m not sure they ever reached a conclusion in the mass of words here, but “if you are interested in computer graphics there’s a big show being held at the Wembley Conference Centre in London from October 16-18th” so maybe see you there!

There is another bit about how video tech is also being used to colour old black and white movies but it’s completely irrelevant and clearly there to fill space (as evidenced by the accompanying reference to the American freelancer they bought the piece from), so I’m going to skip it and get into those adverts. I just have no idea how I’m going to choose one as the headline act this time, partly due to so much good stuff here, but mainly because I’ve clearly cut out whatever it should have been and stuck it on my bedroom wall! In its absence then, we’ve got big, full-colour, double-page ads for Winter Games and Monty on the Run that would definitely have also made the wall had it been practical! There’s also a first look at some iconic Zoids and Beach Head II artwork that would soon become very familiar, and more lovely ZX Spectrum screenshots (and less lovely airbrushed monstrosity) promoting Fighting Warrior from earlier, while Ocean are all over the magazine with They Sold a Million, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, and teasers for both “The Transformers” and Knight Rider, which you can see back up the page. As for that headline pic here, as you can also see, I went for Monty Mole in the end because I’m always going on about Winter Games, which reminds me, I’ve been going on far longer than was probably necessary here too, so with that, we’ll close for this month! I do hope you’ve enjoyed having a look through this issue though, and I’ll hopefully see you again when December 1985 comes around!

As always, I’ll never expect anything for what I do here but if you’d like to buy me a Ko-fi and help towards increasingly expensive hosting and storage costs then it will always be really appreciated! And be sure to follow me on Instagram, X (formerly Twitter) or Threads for my latest retro-gaming nonsense, and also on Bluesky, which is under my real name but most of it ends up there too if you prefer!