Julian "Jaz" Rignall

Had a lot of fun on this podcast talking about one of my all-time favorite games that I also just happened to be a bit tasty at playing.

The Games of a Lifetime Journey through five decades of retro video game history with Julian ‘Jaz’ Rignall, former CVG & Mean Machines editor, arcade champion, & game culture icon.

World book day, innit, so here's mine.

"This book chronicles a lot of the games we grew up with, right through to some modern classics. It is beautifully presented and written with the knowledge and passion you'd expect from the author." Lee C.

www.bitmapbooks.com/collections/...

35 years ago, the Amiga and ST were enjoying their heyday. Games like Renegade's GODS (a new company established by the Bitmap Bros) showcased the audiovisual capabilities of these systems. Definitely an interesting time, with both 16-bit computers and consoles going toe-to-toe.

35 years ago, CVG checked out this 1st-generation entertainment VR system - the Virtuality 1000 SD. The assumption was that it was destined for arcades, but it was far too expensive and impractical for that. And weirdly enough, VR remains kind of expensive and impractical today!

I dunno. 182 pages seems a tall order even for a weird kid…

ia801901.us.archive.org/view_archive...

What? Did you not read the paperback book sized manual? 😂

Here's that Midwinter II: Flames of Freedom review. A quite remarkable and sophisticated game for its era, mixing FPS, vehicle combat, and diplomacy/strategy. A classic 16-bit release.

Yeah. That's a big problem with people who didn't live through the evolution of gaming. It's difficult for them to truly understand just how impactful and huge some of the leaps forward gaming made from generation to generation. Especially so in this day and age of small incremental upgrades.

35 years ago, CVG's cover game Midwinter III scored 96% on ST. Other top reviews: Amiga SWIV (93%), PCE Jackie Chan (88%), C64 Last Ninja 3 (94%), SMS Pacmania (86%), MD Gynoug (91%), SNES Pilotwings (94%), and PC Red Baron (96%). An astonishing breadth of games and platforms!

FYI it’s Operation Epstein Distraction.

35 years ago, I wrote this Pilotwings review. I thought it deserved a higher rating than this, while Matt felt the game's high level of difficulty made it somewhat frustrating - so we met in the middle at 90%. Either way, this was THE game to show off your SNES to your mates!

Right. The 500 didn’t come out til mid 87 and took a while to get going, but soon surpassed the ST as the consumer’s choice (and rightly so). The Amiga just had so much more going for it.

No. The 1000 was available first in minuscule numbers in the latter stages of the year with a very wobbly OS and a crazy price tag of today’s equivalent of like four grand plus (hence parental resistance). The far cheaper 500 came out the following year.

40 years ago, Commodore's Amiga launch was touted but was still many months away, Activision bought text adventure specialists Infocom, BT bought Odin and did nothing with them, and good old British go-slow nanny state modem approval BS was causing problems for manufacturers.

40 years ago, Imagine was Ocean's arcade conversion label - and it was making full use of the large-scale deal they'd signed with Konami. This ad showcases no fewer than five ports of classic era coin-ops. Hyper Sports and Ping Pong were both especially good.

40 years ago, Quicksilva was advertising Max Headroom, a game based on the prescient TV show starring Matt Frewer as both a reporter and the eponymous Max, a computer recreation of his personality stuck inside a machine. Game wasn't great. TV show was seriously cool, however.

40 years ago I was playing Accolade's Hardball, a remarkable C64 title that not only set the standard for sports sims going forward but also established the template for modern baseball games. Their television-style presentation and detailed strategic gameplay started here.

40 years ago, Ocean was advertising Street Hawk, the hugely delayed game-of-the-failed-TV-series. It had already been marketed for well over a year at this point, but it finally arrived on Speccy and Amstrad. It was pretty damn bad, but at least we were spared the C64 version.

35 years ago I was enjoying R-Type on SMS. The devs made the right sacrifices (slower speed and sometimes flickery graphics) to ensure that despite its flaws, it was a surprisingly accurate and - more importantly - fun recreation of Irem's legendary coin-op. An SMS classic!

WTF lol. J/k? Amirite?

Yes, but there was a track record to maintain. This was the company that made mini TVs with CRTs rather than LCD screens, and was eyeing up those gonna-be-huge 3” disc drives rather than those 3 1/4 ones that surely nobody would use.

40 years ago, Sinclair turned its back on microdrives and decided to go with proper disc drives for its 128. A decision that was sadly too little too late. Meanwhile Commodore managed to lose $50m over Xmas while ol' barrow boy Sugar was coining it in thanks to the Amstrad 8256.

35 years ago, the C64 still had a bit of life left in it, as evidenced by games like Last Ninja 3. Its audiovisuals and general presentation were terrific, although its gameplay was a bit Marmite-y. I was never a big fan of the series TBH, but totally get why some really love it.

Well, there’s nothing ostensibly wrong with the game, but it wasn’t as good as its predecessor, so that seems fair to me in retrospect.

35 years ago, I was playing Nemo, a very cute and fun hidden gem of a platformer that I rarely saw in the wild. It was definitely released, but was very hard to find in arcades. I was also playing Robocop II, which was fine but like the movie, wasn't a patch on its predecessor.

Yeah. They definitely knew what they were doing licensing wise, just a bit shit with their quality control.

Precisely five years earlier, Ocean was doing the same thing with these mid-80s properties. However, while in 1991 Ocean's standards were generally fairly reasonable, in 1986, they peddled some serious crapola. Some versions of these games were absolute tripe.

35 years ago, Ocean owned the rights to some of the coolest IPs of the era. NARC and Chase HQ were a terrific pair of coin-ops, and Total Recall and Robocop were both seriously great blockbusters. The quality of the actual games was mixed, but those IPs were top class!

No. But to put it in perspective, that did come from the then reigning National Arcade Champ. 😁

This review of me book made my day.

[An unmarked envelope full of used notes is on its way, Al. 😀]