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Zzap!64
''Zzap!64'' was a computer games magazine covering games on the Commodore International series of computers, especially the Commodore 64 (C64). It was published in the UK by Newsfield Publications Ltd and later by Europress Impact. The magazine launched in April, with the cover date May 1985, as the sister magazine to ''CRASH''. It focused on the C64 for much of its shelf life, but later incorporated Amiga game news and reviews. Like ''CRASH'' for the ZX Spectrum, it had a dedicated cult following amongst C64 owners and was well known for its irreverent sense of humour as well as its extensive, detailed coverage of the C64 scene. The magazine adopted an innovative review system that involved the use of the reviewers' faces, artistically rendered by in-house artists Oli Frey and Mark Kendrick, to express their reaction to the games. These eventually evolved into static cartoons as the magazine began catering for a younger market. By 1992, the magazine had changed so dramatically i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Newsfield Publications Ltd
Newsfield Publications Ltd (also known as Newsfield) was a British magazine publisher during the 1980s and early 1990s. Newsfield Publications Ltd was founded by Roger Kean, Franco Frey and Oliver Frey in 1983. Based in Ludlow, Shropshire, Newsfield published a number of popular computer game magazines from the mid-1980s to early 1990s. This line-up was later supplemented by a number of less successful magazines covering role-playing games, film, horror and youth culture. Faced with financial difficulties, the company went bankrupt towards the end of 1991. This didn't spell the immediate end for some of their magazines though. Another magazine publisher, Europress, continued to publish Newsfield's flagship publications, Zzap!64 and Crash, for a further six months before the former was relaunched as Commodore Force and the latter sold to rival publisher EMAP and merged with Sinclair User. Thalamus Ltd, Newsfield's sister company, was set up in 1985 to publish a number of compute ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chris Anderson (entrepreneur)
Chris Anderson (born 1957) is a British-American businessman who is the head of TED, a non-profit organization that provides idea-based talks and hosts an annual conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Previously he founded Future Publishing. Early life Anderson was born to British parents in Pakistan in 1957. His father was "an eye surgeon and evangelical Christian", and ran a mobile hospital in rural Pakistan. He has two sisters, and is the middle child. He studied at Woodstock School in the Himalayan mountains of Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India briefly, before moving to Monkton Combe School, a boarding school in Bath, England. At the University of Oxford, Anderson first studied physics. He changed to the subjects of philosophy, politics and economics, graduating in 1978. Career Anderson began a career in journalism, working in newspapers and radio. He produced a world news service in the Seychelles. After returning in 1984 to the UK, Anderson was captivated by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oli Frey
Oliver Frey (; 30 June 1948 – 21 August 2022) was a Swiss artist, who was based in the United Kingdom. He was known for his book and magazine illustrations, especially for British computer magazines of the 1980s. Under the pen name Zack, he became known for his erotic illustrations and erotic comics in British gay male porn magazines of the 1970s and 1980s. Early life Frey was born in Zurich, Switzerland, on 30 June 1948. He grew up fluent in Italian and German. His family moved to Britain in 1956 but subsequently returned to Switzerland.Roger Kean: ''The Fantasy Art of Oliver Frey'' (Thalamus Publishing, 2006), During his high school years in Switzerland, Frey enrolled in the American Famous Artists School correspondence course. Career After spending six months in the Swiss army and dropping out of Berne University, Frey moved back to Britain and started a two-year course at the London Film School, during which he supported himself with freelance work, including il ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Retro Gamer
''Retro Gamer'' is a British magazine, published worldwide, covering retro video games. It was the first commercial magazine to be devoted entirely to the subject. Launched in January 2004 as a quarterly publication, ''Retro Gamer'' soon became a monthly. In 2005, a general decline in gaming and computer magazine readership led to the closure of its publishers, Live Publishing, and the rights to the magazine were later purchased by Imagine Publishing. It was taken over by Future plc on 21 October 2016, following Future's acquisition of Imagine Publishing. History The first 18 issues of the magazine came with a coverdisk. It usually contained freeware remakes of retro video games and emulators, but also videos and free commercial PC software such as ''The Games Factory'' and '' The Elder Scrolls: Arena''. Some issues had themed CDs containing the entire back catalogue of a publisher such as Durell, Llamasoft and Gremlin Graphics. On 27 September 2005, the magazine's original p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gary Penn
Gary Penn is a former British games reviewer who wrote for Zzap!64 in the 1980s and is a video game industry veteran. He later was editor of The One from 1988 to 1990 and was Creative Director at DMA Design where he supervised the release of the first ''Grand Theft Auto'' game in 1997. Penn has described the game as taking years to develop and almost being cancelled. Penn won the Games Media Legend award in 2007. As of September 2011, he is head of development at Denki. Penn claims his magazine background helped him setting up a "Hollywood-style" studio system there: Penn is the author of the book Sensible Software 1986–1999. References External linksGary Pennat MobyGames MobyGames is a commercial website that catalogs information on video games and the people and companies behind them via crowdsourcing. This includes nearly 300,000 games for hundreds of platforms. The site is supported by banner ads and a small ... British male journalists British magazine ed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Commodore Force
{{Infobox magazine, , based = Ludlow, Shropshire , editor = Steve Shields James Price , image_file = File:Commodore_Force_Issue_12_November_1993_Issue_Cover.jpg , image_caption = November 1993 cover , frequency = Monthly , category = Computer and video games , company = Europress Impact , firstdate = January 1993 , finaldate = March 1994 , finalnumber = 16 , issn = 0967-7461 , country = United Kingdom , language = English , website = {{URL, www.zzap64.co.uk ''Commodore Force'' was a computer games magazine covering games for the Commodore 64. It was published in the UK by Europress Impact. Its predecessor was ''Zzap!64''. Background ''Commodore Force'' was created when ''Zzap! 64'' was re-launched with a new name and design. The name change was not only in line with the then current Europress Impact titles, ''Sega Force'', ''N-Force'', ''Amiga Force'', but served to distance t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Personal Computer Games
''Personal Computer Games'' was a multi-format UK computer games magazine of the early/mid-1980s published by VNU. History ''Personal Computer Games'' was launched in July 1983. The magazine was part of VNU and had its headquarters in London. The second issue was published on 28 October 1983 with the magazine going monthly from February 1984. Computer coverage at the time were mainly consisted of the Spectrum, C64 and the BBC Micro, although there were others featured such as Atari 8-bit, Electron, Vic 20 and the newly released Amstrad CPC. The February 1985 issue was the last of the magazine. Chris Anderson and Bob Wade went on to launch the Commodore 64 magazine ''Zzap!64''. Screen Test One of the sections of the magazine was the 'Screen Test' pages where the latest games were reviewed. The PCG Panel, who voiced their opinions on the games reviews, consisted of the PCG staff plus several contributions from readers. The review was laid out with an explanation of the game ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andrew Braybrook
Andrew Braybrook (born 1960) is a software engineer and former game programmer. He created video games such as ''Paradroid'', ''Gribbly's Day Out'', '' Fire and Ice'', ''Uridium'' and ''Morpheus''. He also programmed the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST conversion of the arcade game ''Rainbow Islands''. In 1986 Braybrook was voted Best Programmer of the Year at the Golden Joystick Awards. Career Braybrook started out writing accounting programs for GEC Marconi using COBOL in 1979. In his spare time he wrote games in BASIC for the ZX80, ZX81 and Dragon 32. His first foray into professional games came while he was playing bass guitar in a rock band with Steve Turner. Turner was writing games for the ZX Spectrum in his spare time and decided to make his break into full-time games production by starting the company which went on to become Graftgold. A few months after its inception, Turner asked Braybrook to join him in September 1983. Braybrook was commissioned by the magazine ''Zzap ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Julian Rignall
Julian "Jaz" Rignall (born 6 March 1965, London, England) is a writer and editor. He has also produced content for corporate websites such as GamePro Media, publisher of ''GamePro'' magazine and ''GamePro.com'', marketing collateral and advertising campaigns. Career Early 1980s: Teenage gaming journalist Rignall's career as a gaming journalist began in London in the early 1980s as a student competing in video game tournaments. During his teenage years, Rignall held the UK and World Record high scores on video games such as '' Defender'', ''Pole Position'' and ''Crossfire''. He also won ''Computer and Video Games'' magazine's 1983 UK Video Arcade Game Championship, beating more than 500 of the country's top arcade players to win the title. Rignall's success at winning international video game tournaments launched his career as a video game journalist writing gaming hints and tips for magazines such as ''Computer and Video Games'' and ''Personal Computer Games''. 1985–1988: F ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Europress
Europress was a British magazine and software publisher based in Adlington, near Macclesfield, Cheshire. Their magazine publishing business was previously known as Database Publications. The software division was renamed in 1999 to Actualize. History Europress was formed by Derek Meakin in 1965. It began by publishing magazines and newspapers, then during the 1980s as an expansion of its magazine publishing business, it became involved in the rapidly growing software industry. Under the name Database Software, they released software including the Red Arrows game for the ZX Spectrum and the office suite Mini Office II, as well as games and educational software for children. During the late 1980s Europress decided to spin off its software publishing division as a separate company: Europress Software, with Christopher Payne as managing director and Diane O'Brien as Sales Director. Chris Payne came up with the name Mandarin Software as the brand for all the planned games, graphic de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steve Jarratt
Steve Jarratt is a long-time videogames journalist and magazine editor. He has launched a large number of magazines for Future Publishing, many of which are still published. Magazines he has worked for include: *''Zzap!64'': Reviewer and assistant editor (March 1987 – May 1988) *''CRASH'': Editor (April–July 1988) *''CU Amiga'': Reviewer (approx. late 1988) *''Amiga Format'': Writer and reviewer (August 1989– ?), editor (June 1994 – Jan 1995) * '' S: The Sega Magazine'': Launch editor (December 1989–?) *''Commodore Format'': Launch editor (October 1990 – early 1992) *''Total!'': Launch editor (January 1992 - late 1993) *''Edge'': Launch editor (1993–?) *''Official UK PlayStation Magazine'' *''T3'': Launch editor (1997–?) *''Laptop Magazine'': Launch editor (September-November(?) 2003) *''3D World'' *''Official Nintendo Magazine'': Group Senior Editor 12 February 2006 (2006–?) *'' Windows Vista: The Official Magazine'': Editor-in-chief (2007) As Group Senior Edito ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Glancey
Paul Glancey is a video game producer and former journalist in the United Kingdom. He made his first steps into the videogame industry as a writer with '' Zzap!64'' and '' CVG'' before contributing a few reviews to '' Mean Machines'' (''Wrestle War'' in issue 9 was the first). Like Julian Rignall and Richard Leadbetter, he tended to appear in both EMAP magazines at the same time. He went on to launch ''MegaTech'' - the first UK Mega Drive only magazine. This was an impressive publication, which, at its peak, had a monthly sale of over 40,000 copies. Ultimately, its publisher, EMAP Images, sold the magazine to Maverick Magazines, the publisher of a competing magazine called '' Mega Drive Advanced Gaming''. Shortly after ''MegaTech'' was bought, Maverick closed it down. After ten years in videogames journalism Paul moved into the business itself by becoming the Senior Game Evaluator at publisher Eidos Interactive from 1998 to 2000.https://uk.linkedin.com/in/paul-glancey-75a437 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |