All Our Yesterdays - September 1988 25/08/97

What do movies Good Morning Vietnam and Buster, now defunct British Amiga games magazine The One and The Pet Shop Boys' seminal Domino Dancing all have in common? Sigh, you're right. Tenuously enough, they all saw the first light of day in September 1988.

SEPTEMBER 1988 THEN

So it's September 1988. The Amiga is still in its commercial infancy and the C64 leads the way in the global home computer market. There's only one fully dedicated Amiga magazine in the UK and that's crap. It's called Amiga User International and litters its pages with some of the most appallingly written features and ill-informed news you are ever likely to read in a magazine. Still, the Amiga's userbase is growing rapidly though, with more and more software companies clamouring to support the "natural successor to the Commodore 64". So it's only a matter of time before more Amiga specific magazines appear. And they did.

On the tail-end of the traditionally quiet "third quarter" of the year, September saw the release of some fairly major Amiga titles. Cinemaware's Rocket Ranger (released in the UK via Mirrorsoft) was described by C&VG reviewer Chris Jenkins as being, "...a complex blend of excellent arcade and strategy sequences." Which it was. In the same issue, Logotron's Star Ray was awarded the ultimate "C&VG Hit!" accolade. Luckilly, US Gold's Street Fighter wasn't, attaining a deservedly useless overall score of just 2/10.

C&VG's "Overall" scores weren't always indicative of a game's quality though. Notorious for reviewing unfinished, leaked and often pirated versions of software in pursuit of that elusive exclusive, C&VG dropped some almighty clangers over the years. Noteworthy mentions go to the amusing screenshots of games title pages clearly displaying messages from crackers (witness Dark Castle in the (ech) Tony Takoushi column and, earlier that year, Mickey Mouse twice in the same issue). C&VG also managed to review the same game three times in one year, yet the game never appeared in the shops. We don't know how they got away with it.

"Your search for the ultimate in entertainment... ends here," advised the ad for the relaunched Personal Computer Show (or "PC Show" as it was known in the trade, and by everyone else). Formerly the PCW Show, the annual gathering of the industry's biggest names was also relocated to London's Earls Court and played host to the most successful one (of it) ever. Thousands of computer users from around the country - and from around the world, flocked to the show in the hope of being granted a sneak preview of forthcoming games and releases, on the lookout for bargains and to generally revel in the spotty atmosphere.

CHARTING PROGRESS

The Top 5 for September 1988 (although no official sources were quoted in the October 1988 issue of CU Amiga magazine (then still sensibly titled Commodore User) from which these have been stolen) were as follows:

FA/18 Interceptor
Aaargh!
Football Manager 2
Buggy Boy
and Fire And Forget

Commodore launched its new range of floppy disks in September 1988. Offering "superb quality and value". A box of 10 3.5" disks would have cost you the princely sum of £17.95 (around $30).

KATAKIS FROM A ROSE

The last in a long line of Rainbow Arts' blatant plaigarism of popular computer games. It was in September 1988 that they attempted to release Katakis - until Mediagenic stepped in at the last minute. Mediagenic boss Rod Cousens, having only recently secured the rights to arcade blaster R-Type, was of the opinion that Katakis had "incoincidental similarities" to the game he had just licensed. A man with a wig agreed and slapped an injunction on UK distributors US Gold preventing them from releasing the game. Again. It surfaced a few months later though, after R-Type had been released and with a new name (Denaris). DeeJay99