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Zzap!64
''Zzap!64'' is a computer games magazine covering games for computers manufactured by Commodore International, 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. High-quality games were indicated in reviews vi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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 compu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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. He is also the founder of video game journalism website IGN. Early life and education 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 near Bath, England. At the University of Oxford, Anderson initially studied physics before changing to philosophy, politics and economics, and graduated in 1978. Career Anderson began a career in journalism, working in newspapers and radio. He produced a world news service in the Se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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 art, erotic illustrations and erotic comics in British gay male porn magazines of the 1970s and 1980s. Early life Frey was born in Zürich, 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 University of Bern, Berne University, Frey moved back to Britain and started a two-year course at the London Film School, during which he supported himself with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Retro Gamer
''Retro Gamer'' is a British magazine, published worldwide, covering Retrogaming, 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 Software, Durell, Llamasoft and Gremlin Graphics. On 27 September 2005, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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] [Amazon] |
Roger Kean
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 art, erotic illustrations and erotic comics in British gay male porn magazines of the 1970s and 1980s. Early life Frey was born in Zürich, 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 University of Bern, Berne University, Frey moved back to Britain and started a two-year course at the London Film School, during which he supported himself with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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 dista ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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. Penn listed ''Bomberman'' for the TurboGrafx-16, the arcade version of '' Defender'', ''Doom'', ''Elite'' for the BBC Micro, ''PaRappa the Rapper'', ''Pokémon Red, Blue, and Yellow'', '' Populous'' for the Amiga, '' The Sentinel'' for the Commodore 64, ''Super Mario Bros.'', and ''Tetris'' for the Game Boy as his favorite games in 2000. Refe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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''. 1985–198 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Steve Jarratt
Steve Jarratt is a long-time Video game journalism, video game journalist and magazine editing, 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 (magazine), CRASH'': Editor (April–July 1988) *''CU Amiga Magazine, CU Amiga'': Reviewer (approx. late 1988) *''Amiga Format'': Writer and reviewer (August 1989– ?), editor (June 1994 – Jan 1995) * ''Sega Power, S: The Sega Magazine'': Launch editor (December 1989–?) *''Commodore Format'': Launch editor (October 1990 – early 1992) *''Total!'': Launch editor (January 1992 - late 1993) *''Edge (games magazine), Edge'': Launch editor (1993–?) *''Official UK PlayStation Magazine'' *''T3'': Launch editor (1997–?) *''Laptop Magazine'': Launch editor (September-November(?) 2003) *''3D World'' *''Official Nintendo Magazine (ONM), Official Nintendo Magazine'': ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
CRASH (magazine)
''Crash'', stylized as ''CRASH'', is a magazine dedicated to the ZX Spectrum home computer, primarily focused on games. It was published from 1984 to 1991 by Newsfield Publications Ltd until their liquidation, and then until 1992 by Europress. It was relaunched as a quarterly A5 magazine in December 2020 with the backing of the original founders. The magazine was launched to cater for the booming Spectrum games market. It was immediately popular owing to its quality of writing and distinctive, though occasionally controversial, artwork created by Oliver Frey. By 1986 it had become the biggest-selling British computer magazine with over 100,000 copies sold monthly, but struggled towards the end of the decade after other magazines put cassettes of games on the front cover. In the 2010s, a number of retrospective issues were created via a kickstarter campaign leading to the new publication by Fusion Retro. History ''Crash'' was launched in 1983 in Ludlow, Shropshire by Roger ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |