Commodore User (October 1987)

Source: Computer & Video Game Magazines – Commodore User – Issue Number 49 – October 1987

Commodore User is a Commodore gaming magazine that was published in the U.K. It covered the Commodore 64, C16/Plus 4 and Amiga. The U.K. was lucky enough to have several gaming magazines dedicated to the Commodore 64 and/or Amiga. Here in the U.S., we did have a few very good Commodore 64 magazines and an Amiga magazine or two but none that were dedicated to gaming. The October 1987 issue of Commodore User includes:

Specials

Bangkok Knights – Preview of a somewhat unique fighting game featuring Thai boxing.

Skate or Die – This story is actually on skateboarding as opposed to the Skate or Die game. Skateboarding was making a comeback at the time and was featured in a number of video games.

Maiden Voyage – Some odd logic is used to justify combining an interview with the lead singer of Iron Maiden with an overview of Rastan Saga.

Buzz – Some brief previews of new and upcoming games including Morpheus, Andy Capp, Airborne Ranger, Buggy Boy, Shoot ‘Em Up Construction Kit, International Karate II, The King of Chicago and Slaine plus some other news bits.

Charts – Top games this month include Guild of Thieves, Outrun, Last Ninja, and Sabateur among many others.

Letters – Readers comment upon piracy, arcades around Europe, multi-loading, and more.

Arcades – Reviews of the latest arcade games including Black Tiger (Capcom), Afterburner (Sega), and Devil World (Konami).

Play to Win – Strategy guide for Pirates (Microprose); Cheats for Airwolf II, Cataball, Great Guriands, Living Daylights, Mega Apocalypse, Road Runner, Quartet, Re-Bounder, Oink, Pete’s Pimple, Rubbishman, Tom Thug, End Game and Starglider (Amiga).

Into The Valley – Reviews of Life Term, a sci-fi themed adventure game and The Pay off, a conversion of an old Atari 800 text adventure game.

Tommy’s Tips – Programming tips including resetting the Commodore 64, programming the user port, generating random numbers, using GET statements and more.

Screen Scene

Renegade – Review of this side-scrolling beat-em-up released on the C64 by Ocean.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom – A preview of Indiana Jones’ second adventure.

Goldrunner – A sort of scrolling Galaga like game for the Amiga.

Quedex – A sort of arcade/puzzle game that is conceptually somewhat like Marble Madness only played from a purely overhead point of view.

Comics – An adventure game that gives a comic book like experience. Though not a particularly good one.

Track ‘n’ Field – An arcade translation by Konami that was relaly a couple of years too late.

Armageddon Man – A World War III strategy game.

Football Director – Another in a seemingly infinitely long line of football/soccer management games.

Joe Blade – More a maze/exploration game than an action game though some shooting is involved.

Evening Star – A steam train simulation game.

Graham Gooch All Star Cricket – I don’t know how to play cricket so…

Flunky – An odd puzzle game featuring you as a servant of the royal family.

Ace II – A split screen shoot’em up featuring jet fighters.

Traxxion – A supposed sequel to Tau Ceti which it is nothing like…you must escape the space station before it explodes.

Red L.E.D. – This looks very much like a clone of Marble Madness.

Legacy of the Ancients – One of the Role Playing Games for the Commodore 64 by Electronic Arts that I always wanted to play but never got around to.

Mean City – An overhead maze/action game in which you are picking up the pieces of civilization after a nuclear holocaust.

Rapid Fire – A relatively short but action packed side-scrolling shooter.

Star Fox – A sort of space flight arcade game played from a first person point of view. It gets a pretty bad rating here. I remember playing this one and though it wasn’t one of my favorites, I didn’t think it was that bad.

EOS – A space strategy game in which you must build space stations. It doesn’t get great ratings here but if you like the strategic aspect is is a pretty good game.

Anarchy – A fast paced arcade puzzle game.

Triaxos – A game with an odd premise. In this action game played from an isometric point of view you must retrieve a prisoner from a space prison before it destructs.

PiR2 – As in the area of a circle…a mathy puzzly sort of game.

Q Ball – a 3D pool game for the Amiga.

Last Mission – Commodore 64 port of the arcade scrolling shooter.

Baseball: Head to Head – This is a comparison of Hardball and Earl Weaver Baseball for the Commodore 64. Earl Weaver Baseball won this match-up but as I recall, Hardball was the more popular.