ACE Magazine

[Spicyhotpepper]

Damn, this thread brings back some memories! That early 90s period sure did give people a lot of choice when it came to mags, didn't it? I was a big fan of The One back in the day, but I liked this too.

 

Off to the Internet Archive I must go! Better than pretending to work 😂

[Anne Summers]

Two more issues added to my collection - April and May 1990.

 

I feel they have got a bit overexcited in the intro to the April issue where they said that two developments that year would make it the most significant year for gaming since the launch of the Spectrum in 1982 - the launch of the CDTV and the arrival of the PC Engine in the UK. 

 

 

 

[Rex Grossman]

5 hours ago, Anne Summers said:

Two more issues added to my collection - April and May 1990.

 

I feel they have got a bit overexcited in the intro to the April issue where they said that two developments that year would make it the most significant year for gaming since the launch of the Spectrum in 1982 - the launch of the CDTV and the arrival of the PC Engine in the UK. 

 

 

 

 

Who can forget that almost every developer in America was making games for the FM Towns and PC Engine CD Rom?

[Anne Summers]

On 28/09/2022 at 16:44, Rex Grossman said:

 

Who can forget that almost every developer in America was making games for the FM Towns and PC Engine CD Rom?

Actually having read the issue now - although that statement was clearly an exaggeration - there's an interesting element of truth behind it ...

 

A number of the larger companies that we definitely don't associate with those sort of Japanese micros apparently were creating FM Towns versions of their most popular games at the time. This wasn't because they thought they were going to crack the Japanese market and make loads of money, but mainly so they could get to grips with the ins-and-outs of producing CD-ROM software. So they'd be ready to go when the expected surge in home CD-ROM drives eventually happened. This is why there are FM-Towns and PC Engine CD versions of games like It Came From The Desert, Dungeon Master and Ultima floating around out there! 

 

[Rex Grossman]

1 hour ago, Anne Summers said:

Actually having read the issue now - although that statement was clearly an exaggeration - there's an interesting element of truth behind it ...

 

A number of the larger companies that we definitely don't associate with those sort of Japanese micros apparently were creating FM Towns versions of their most popular games at the time. This wasn't because they thought they were going to crack the Japanese market and make loads of money, but mainly so they could get to grips with the ins-and-outs of producing CD-ROM software. So they'd be ready to go when the expected surge in home CD-ROM drives eventually happened. This is why there are FM-Towns and PC Engine CD versions of games like It Came From The Desert, Dungeon Master and Ultima floating around out there! 

 

Oh yeah, there were a fair few but it was generally quick ports from certain publishers and was a drop in the ocean compared with games developed for non-CD systems. 
 

But you’re right about it being a useful testing ground.

[K]

Some prominent developers were testing the market with the FM-Towns, with some pretty high profile games. Dungeon Master 2 and Microcosm came out on FM-Towns well before they were released on other formats.

[MattyP]

Wow brings back memories! Think I pretty much picked up most new mags back then... think my fav was Arcade but well it didn't last that long!  Do miss a good paper magazine at times... might go pick up a Retro Gamer at the weekend... always good to have a thumb through! 

[Anne Summers]

23 hours ago, K said:

Some prominent developers were testing the market with the FM-Towns, with some pretty high profile games. Dungeon Master 2 and Microcosm came out on FM-Towns well before they were released on other formats.

Quite a cool article here about how/why they were putting together DM on the FM-Towns. Doubt they had any idea people would still be making and using DM construction tools like the one they describe, 32 years later ...

[Anne Summers]

 

Quick pic of my latest haul - I now have 25 out of 55 issues - I never even really intended to start collecting these wholesale, I just wanted to pick up a few selected issues to flick through. 

Gutted that I recently missed out on an auction lot that included the last five or so issues, as I know that if I ever get the itch to have a complete set, they will be a bugger to find (as with Zero and YS). 

 

One other thing I will say is that I've found the seriousness/ lack of zany-ness of this magazine makes it far more readable today than things like Zero/ YS that I've also been buying. I remember thinking they were hilarious in the day, but reading them now, it's obvious the silliness was really just filler because they didn't want to go into too much depth on anything. The result is there's not actually a lot of info in them if you're interested in gaming reading about gaming from a historical perspective.Ace, on the other hand, has quite in-depth features on all sorts of aspects of gaming and computing which makes it quite interesting to read today in order to learn about what was going on in gaming back then.

 

 

[Gabe]

Yeah, I think the humour of the a lot of the magazines in the 80s/90s ages very poorly, and as such things that are a bit more restrained fare better.

 

I was scanning through issues of Crash and The One a little while ago, and Crash in particular is really badly written, so I can't imagine what Your Sinclair is like with 2022 eyes. The One was better, but still very basic.

[Festoon]

 Amiga Power's humour lasts well, as it's essentially one increasingly dense in joke about language, idolect and game reviewing generally, as opposed to the Amiga.

[Sabreman]

I desperately wanted to win that FM-Towns. It seemed like a whole other world of technology at the time.

[knightbeat]

I wonder if the winner still owns it. It would have been an expensive paperweight in those pre-internet days.

 

Edit: Pre-web days, of course. Nothing to see here. Move along.

[Anne Summers]

8 hours ago, knightbeat said:

I wonder if the winner still owns it. It would have been an expensive paperweight in those pre-internet days.

Funny to think that the internet was actually only four or five years away at the time - for context, four years is the length of time since Red Dead Redemption 2 came out. 

[Rex Grossman]

Not to get too deKay about this but the intenet was around years before this issue of Ace. However the world wide web was not.

[Anne Summers]

2 hours ago, Rex Grossman said:

Not to get too deKay about this but the intenet was around years before this issue of Ace. However the world wide web was not.

Good point, DeKay. 

[deKay]

[sonixtorm]

On 29/10/2022 at 10:44, Anne Summers said:

 

Quick pic of my latest haul - I now have 25 out of 55 issues - I never even really intended to start collecting these wholesale, I just wanted to pick up a few selected issues to flick through. 

Gutted that I recently missed out on an auction lot that included the last five or so issues, as I know that if I ever get the itch to have a complete set, they will be a bugger to find (as with Zero and YS). 

 

One other thing I will say is that I've found the seriousness/ lack of zany-ness of this magazine makes it far more readable today than things like Zero/ YS that I've also been buying. I remember thinking they were hilarious in the day, but reading them now, it's obvious the silliness was really just filler because they didn't want to go into too much depth on anything. The result is there's not actually a lot of info in them if you're interested in gaming reading about gaming from a historical perspective.Ace, on the other hand, has quite in-depth features on all sorts of aspects of gaming and computing which makes it quite interesting to read today in order to learn about what was going on in gaming back then.

 

 

I distinctly remember that issue with the the £20k Reward and have wondered which was the first console to 'win' it. I am guessing Playstation (or possibly Jaguar), as I remember it talking about a 'tritter' for 3D.