Code Like It's 198x

ACE Magazine

Advanced Computer Entertainment

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Future Publishing launched ACE in Bath in October 1987 as a multi-format games magazine for readers who took their games seriously, rating every game out of 1000 from a predicted interest curve. EMAP took it over in the summer of 1989 and ran it from London until the April 1992 issue, the last.

ACE, short for Advanced Computer Entertainment, set out to be the games magazine for grown-ups. Its first issue, dated October 1987 and priced £1.50, promised no “kiddy comic-style reviews that treat you like a five year old”, no “incomprehensible programmer-speak” and no “endless little competitions with pathetic prizes”. It covered every popular machine, from the Spectrum and Commodore 64 to the Atari ST, Amiga and the new consoles, and rated each game with a graph of how long it would hold your interest. It ran for 55 issues under two publishers, Future Publishing in Bath and then EMAP in London.

Launched by Future

Future had started in 1985 with Amstrad Action, a magazine for one machine. ACE was its attempt at a magazine for all of them. The welcome page in issue 1 said it came “courtesy of the team who produced the legendary Personal Computer Games”, people who believed “that computer entertainment is at last coming of age”. The office was at 4 Queen Street, Bath. Peter Connor and Steve Cooke were co-editors, Andy Wilton was reviews editor, and Chris Anderson, Future’s founder, was named as publisher by mid-1988. The first issue’s news pages announced that issue 2 would give Commodore and Spectrum owners the first five levels of Firebird’s Bubble Bobble on a free cover cassette.

The magazine gave its readers space for more than games. Issue 1 had sections on computer graphics and on making music with MIDI, and in September 1988 two consultant editors joined, Brian Larkman for graphics and Mark Jenkins for music. The same issue welcomed Bob Wade, who had worked on Personal Computer Games and edited Amstrad Action, and said goodbye to “launch editor Pete Connor”. Cooke edited alone until December 1988, when Graeme Kidd, who had first written for ACE in issue 4, joined him as editor. By January 1989 Kidd was sole editor and Cooke wrote the adventure pages.

The interest curve

ACE’s reviews were built around its Predicted Interest Curve. Each review drew a graph of how interested the team expected a player to be over time, from the first hour to a year later. As the magazine explained, “brilliant coin-op conversions will start high and then steadily tail off; games demanding some thought and planning will stay higher longer.” The ACE Rating was “calculated to show the area underneath the curve” and “marked out of 1000”. A game that scored over 900 was “ACE Rated”.

Each version of a game also got its own box with scores for graphics and sound and two more unusual ones: an IQ Factor for how much thought the game demanded, and a Fun Factor for whether it was instantly enjoyable. A high score on one did not mean a low score on the other. Bonecruncher, the magazine pointed out, scored 9 for IQ and 7 for fun.

The EMAP years

In the summer of 1989 EMAP bought the magazine. The June 1989 issue still came from Future in Bath. By July the competition entries were going to Priory Court, 30-32 Farringdon Lane, the London building where EMAP made Computer and Video Games and Commodore User. The September 1989 masthead read “EMAP B&CP” and “© EMAP B&CP 1989”. Cooke and Connor were back as co-editors, Terry Pratt was publisher, and the contributors included Julian Rignall. That November a reader asking about missing competition results wrote that they were “aware of the recent take-over by EMAP”.

Cooke was editor through 1990, with Rik Haynes as his deputy. In February 1990 ACE told its readers that it had been celebrating “the award of Magazine of the Year”. The February 1991 issue announced that Jim Douglas would take over “the reins from Steve Cooke”, who had been with the magazine “(with one short break) ever since it started”. Douglas edited ACE for the rest of its life, with Cooke as consultant editor and Gary Whitta on the staff.

The last issue

The April 1992 issue, number 55, still carried a coverdisk and a full set of reviews. Its games tips section apologised that the second half of a Monkey Island 2 solution promised for the next month could not appear, because “this will be the last, if you will, ‘ish’ of dear old ACE Magazine”, a “rather terminal fact” that had not been known when the previous issue went to press. So it printed the whole of the remaining solution instead.

Page 82 said goodbye: “you have now arrived at the last page of the last issue of ACE Magazine. After this, there will be no more.” ACE had run for “just over four and a half years”. The page pointed its readers to EMAP’s other magazines, among them PC Review, a new ST Review and Mean Machines, and told Amiga owners that The One for Amiga Games was “our new home!” It was signed “Jim & Dave & Gary & Jim”.

Sources

  • ACE issue 1, October 1987: cover (price, date), contents and welcome page (“the team who produced the legendary Personal Computer Games”), Steve Cooke as co-editor, the Screen Test introduction (the Predicted Interest Curve, IQ and Fun Factors) and the Queen Street, Bath address; the news item announcing a Bubble Bobble cover cassette for issue 2.
  • ACE issue 6, March 1988: “The ACE Reviewing System” (the rating as the area under the curve, marked out of 1000, “ACE Rated” over 900, Bonecruncher).
  • ACE issue 7, April 1988, and issue 9, June 1988: mastheads (co-editors Peter Connor and Steve Cooke; Andy Wilton; publisher Chris Anderson).
  • ACE issue 12, September 1988: editorial (Brian Larkman, Mark Jenkins, Bob Wade, the departure of Pete Connor) and masthead.
  • ACE issue 15, December 1988: editorial and masthead (Graeme Kidd as new editor). Issue 16, January 1989: masthead (Kidd as editor, Cooke as adventure editor).
  • ACE issue 21, June 1989: Future Publishing, Bath. Issue 22, July 1989: Priory Court competition addresses, Cooke and Connor “back as editors”, Terry Pratt as publisher. Issue 24, September 1989: masthead and colophon (EMAP B&CP). Issue 26, November 1989: letters (“the recent take-over by EMAP”).
  • ACE issue 28, January 1990, and issue 30, March 1990: mastheads (Steve Cooke, Rik Haynes). Issue 29, February 1990: “the award of Magazine of the Year”.
  • ACE issue 41, February 1991: “New era” (Jim Douglas to succeed Steve Cooke). Issues 43, April 1991, and 48, September 1991: mastheads (Douglas as editor, Cooke as consultant editor, Gary Whitta).
  • ACE issue 55, April 1992: the Monkey Island 2 solution and the farewell page (p. 82).
  • For Future’s first magazine and Chris Anderson as its founder, see the sources for Amstrad Action.

See also

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