CU, CU: CU Amiga, The Final Issue 28/09/98

It had to happen sooner or later, the UK's longest-surviving Amiga magazine has reached its final issue. Since CU Amiga (formerly CU 64/Amiga, previously Commodore User, originally Vic User) dispensed with issue numbers many moons ago, no one knows exactly how old the magazine actually is, although educated estimates suggest it was officially launched shortly after its bigger brother, the still thriving Computer & Video Games, hit the news-stands in 1981. The magazine officially became "CU Amiga" in 1991.

Published by media giant EMAP, CU Amiga achieved remarkable success throughout its long and varied life, regularly outselling Future Publishing's 9-year-old rival Amiga Format and seeing off numerous short-lived efforts from other publishers. Ironically, the magazine closes with an ABC of 21,599 - making it the biggest selling Amiga title in the world. However, compared to PC Format's 110,000 in a market with many similar titles, CU Amiga was struggling to make a profit and that's the reason for its closure.

Unlike other failed publications from the same stable, the CU name hasn't been farmed off to another publisher. Sinclair User, EMAP's monthly for Spectrum owners was sold to rival Crash publishers Newsfield in 1991. And 16-bit games magazine The One (later The One Amiga) re-emerged shortly after its closure in 1994 as a shoddy 16-page pamphlette, before disappearing forever just a few months later.

CU Amiga's farewell issue, coverdated October 1998, is fairly typical of recent issues. Priced at £4.50 (around $15 US) for the 2-disk version or a whopping £5.99 with cover CD, the magazine comprises 108 pages, at least 20 of which are advertisments. Pretty healthy, you'd think. But even the glanciest of scans through the magazine reveals the fact that there's 1 inch of meaning to every 50 feet of noise.

The front cover - a 'hilarious' upside-down affair, featuring the CU Amiga logo being crushed by the famous Monty Python foot, how we laughed - lists the content highlights which include a "Demo Scene Special" and free "Bill Gates Halloween Mask". Sadly, the features likely to be of interest to Amiga owners, "Scala Upgrades, Sound Lab and a review of Net Connect 2" are relegated to mere footnotes. You'll be pleased to hear that enough room has been reserved to squeeze in the announcement that CU Amiga is "Still the world's best selling Amiga magazine!", though.

Once you've leafed through the first few pages of advertisments, featuring Amiga hardware and software sold at extortionate prices (anyone fancy 4mb of RAM for £45 or an external Zip drive for £170 - it seems there's no such thing as a bargain in the Amiga world), you're on to the news pages. Top story? "CU Amiga closes". Other stories include items about Microsoft & Intel, Wendy's Burgers and a Windows-driven Commodore 64. Marvellous!

A further seven pages are dedicated to explaining how to use the cover CD and disks, and after another few pages of advertisments, we've reached the first feature, "Bye Bye Baby".

It's traditional practice in farewell editions of magazines to be somewhat self-indulgent. Long features about the magazine's history; the highs and lows, the faces behind the fonts, the stories from behind the scenes. This can often serve as a fitting tribute to the dedication of both the magazine's staff and the readers who have bought the magazine each month. CU Amiga, instead, prefer to concentrate on printing letters they've received from the Amiga trade informing readers that, from next month, they'll be able to find their regular advertisement in Amiga Format. There's even a letter from Amiga Format's editor, Nick Veitch, welcoming freelance contributions from ex-CU staff.

Any real evidence of Commodore User's history was conspicuous by its absence. Although there were a few examples of old covers, I have a sneaking suspicion that few of the current CU staff even knew of Commodore User's existance, let alone read it. The oldest anecode dates from June 1995 and others were presented in an awkward manner - outrageous for a magazine with such a long history.

Page 30 is the first of real interest, an interview with Amiga, Inc.'s Project Manager Fleecy Moss, in which he offers two pages of evasive rhetoric, before revealing his desire to finish 5-year old game Cannon Fodder. Sigh. Turn the page and there's another feature. This time it's an unpaid advertisement for alternative Amiga magazines which, spook!, again includes Amiga Format along with promising looking "Amiga Survivor!!!" - a mail-order only Amiga games magazine.

Page 33 contains a cut-out photograph of Bill Gates, on top of which a pair of devil's horns have been superimposed. How we laughed.

A four page feature concentrating on Amiga networking concludes with the following: "With the patch in place, it works in exactly the same way as". I suppose we'll never hear the end of that sentence. Maybe it'll be in next month's Amiga Format.

Pages 41-43 examine the current state of the Amiga demo scene, something which CU have always had an interest in since the earliest days of CU 64/Amiga. This is illustrated using four shots of the Red Sector Megademo II - from 1989. Marvellous!

Screen Scene, the longest running section in CU's history, carries reviews of current Amiga games. On this ocassion, we see a screenshot of System 3's never-released Putty Squad from 1994 along with promises of lots of new releases. There are reviews, too. Epic's Sixth Sense Investigations finally gets a CD-ROM release and scores 83% and two Quake add-on packs, X-Men: Ravages of the Apocalypse and the Quake Resurrection Pack score 82% and 93% respectively. That concludes the reviews.

CU Amiga's Tech Scene is probably the most popular part of the magazine. CU have always been overly techy and prefer to concentrate on the fact that Amiga owners have always liked to 'do' things with their machines. This is not a bad thing, but CU's writers play on the old trick of padding out pages with enormous box-outs, huge screen grabs and large fonts in an attempt to cut down the amount of copy required for each feature. Still, there are as many technical reviews and features in this issue as you would have found in any other CU of recent years. Amiga hardware is clearly still making a profit.

The magazine starts to slip away come page 66, with PD reviews, an art gallery, user group contacts pages and flimsy features concentrating on C programming and emulation. It's not long, though, before we're back in self-indulgent mode on page 102 as Tony Horgan, the magazine's editor and long-time writer, along with the rest of the staff, have their say on the closure of CU and the state of the Amiga in general. There's some worthy words here, but a lot of bitterness about the imminent loss of employment. Which is understandable.

Amiga Format remain optimistic about the Amiga's future in 1999. AF's current editor Nick Veitch has confirmed that Amiga Format still makes a profit and looks set to continue well into next year at the very least. But as the sole surviving Amiga magazine, and with users increasingly turning to the Internet for news, information and software, and the fact that Amiga Format is now only available from selected newsagents, will Amiga owners have the determination and persistence to see it into the next century? DeeJay99