First off, lets take one final look back at the once proud king of AMIGA magazines; AMIGA WORLD. I have always looked upon this magazine with mixed feelings. They seemed to hit pretty well upon all the latest and greatest news in the AMIGA community, yet to me they always seemed cold and dry. As I pointed out in a previous article some months back, AW wasted an entire games section on a collection of mindless DOOM style clones in the making, failing to do an in-depth review of any new games. I figured they had a case of "IBM-envy" and that eventually they would get it out of their system. This wasn't the case. In their April issue, AW was right back at it again, this time providing us with an "update" on how all of these DOOM clones were coming along, ignoring a large group of recently released AMIGA games. Their review of the long awaited Rise of the Robots was a mere 17 words, no exaggeration, no lie. I began to dread AW's game section, fearing that we would have to have an all out "STOP THE PRESSES" update every time some basement, shareware hacker worked up another batch of code trying to imitate "DOOM", lord of the 3-D jungle, Emperor of the Citadel of computer gaming, Sovereign throne-squatter of the mighty kingdom of video fun. I hoped and prayed that they would forget DOOM and stop writing reviews the size of postage stamps about AMIGA releases, reviews that are shorter than most of my run-on sentences. But as Neil Peart once wrote, "Ignorance breeds imitation", and this seemed to be the final nail in the coffin for AW, who passed on to that great ram buffer in the sky shortly after.
But AMIGA WORLD wasn't as games oriented as I tend to be and I didn't mind too much, since I had the recently formed AMIGA GAME ZONE to read. AGZ is an ALL AMIGA GAMES magazine. They debuted in early 1994 with a great debut issue and seemed to be on the rise to bigger and better things. They provided detailed reviews of AMIGA games, focusing on things like pal/ntsc video compatibility and other hardware requirements. They even had pages for games hints and cheats that rivaled INFO, which in my opinion was pound for pound the BEST AMIGA mag that ever was. They had an excellent PD/shareware gaming section and started to send cover disks with issue #2. They seemed to be soaring high and then suddenly, without warning..... the music stopped. AGZ's latest issue was #3, which was released in October of '95. When I hadn't got an issue for a few months, I e-mailed AGZ, hoping to shed some light on their disappearing act. They replied to me that YES, they were still in business and issue #4 would be coming soon. This was in March. Then in July, I received a flyer in the mail saying that AGZ had been on hiatus due to the Commode-ore situation and issue #4 would be mailed out the first week in August (and there was much rejoicing)! After Labor Day came and went I stopped checking the mailbox.
Our score so far- Amiga World- *DECEASED, Amiga Game Zone- *AWOL.
Which brings us finally to AMIGA COMPUTING, THE US EDITION. This nifty little magazine, which is the replacement for any outstanding AMIGA WORLD subscriptions still out there, is a much needed breath of fresh air. AC is a British publication and is, in my humble opinion, an absolutely fantastic magazine. First of all, it's THICK! It has a large section of detailed reviews of games for us AMIGA game nuts. It also has a large section called "Amiga Guide" which is a monthly tutorial section, covering such popular topics as AREXX, AMOS, communications, assembler, and Amiga troubleshooting. Add a nice public domain section which ASKS people to send in their home-brewed software for review, plus a couple of optional cover disks, and you've got one heck of a magazine. Now, I know what you are going to point out next. You don't like EuroMags because the advertisers are Great Britain based, and all those prices in pounds seem almost good, yet strangely foreign and out of reach. This is where AMIGA COMPUTING'S US Edition outshines the other EuroMags. The magazine may be Europe based, but the advertisers are all the old United States companies you will probably remember from the pages of Amiga World. Companies like "Select Solutions" and "Software Hut" to name but a few. It almost seems to me sometimes like we've got the old Amiga World engine back, with a complete tune-up and sporting some beefy extras.
For a while I thought that the days when my eyes would light up with child-like wonder when discovering a crisp, new magazine in my mailbox were over. Times ahead seemed bleak and cold for Amiga users, with no guiding beacon to lead us through a fog-shrouded world of clones, and clones of clones. But it seems that hope springs eternal after all. AMIGA WORLD may have gone the way of the dinosaurs, AMIGA GAME ZONE may be missing in action, but AMIGA COMPUTING takes its place at the head of them all, leading us boldly into a bright future where Amiga users can proudly bask in the glorious glow of the machine that they have grown to love.
(Author's note-11/26/99- Amiga Computing didn't last much past this article. Oh well!)
Dr. Torgo
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