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Amiga Power

Future Publishing's Amiga games monthly, 1991 to 1996

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Amiga Power was Future Publishing's games-only Amiga magazine. Launched by Matt Bielby with issue 1 in May 1991, it promised to review every game, to use the whole of its percentage scale, and to have 'none of this every game gets 80% stuff'. It ran for 65 issues and closed with the September 1996 issue.

Amiga Power was the Amiga games magazine that set out to mark hard. Future Publishing already had Amiga Format, which covered everything the machine could do. Amiga Power, launched in the spring of 1991, covered only games. Its first editor, Matt Bielby, promised that it would review every game that came out, “not just the best ones”, and that “there’ll be none of this ‘every game gets 80%’ stuff”. It told readers to expect “a lot of 30, 40 and 50 per cents”, and it ran for 65 issues, until September 1996.

Issue zero and issue 1

Before the first issue came a preview. “Amiga Power issue zero”, given away with Amiga Format issue 22 in May 1991, was a list of the “All-Time Top 100 Amiga Games” chosen by a panel that included Bielby, the Amiga Power staff writer Stuart Campbell, and writers from Amiga Format and ZZAP!64. Bielby admitted that “hardly anybody agreed about anything”. The number one was a conversion of the arcade game Rainbow Islands, with the warning “It might not be what you expect!”

Issue 1, dated May 1991, cost £2.95 and came from 30 Monmouth Street, Bath. Its coverdisk carried a complete game, Bombuzal, “selected from the AMIGA POWER All-Time Top 100 Games” and “never released on budget”. The masthead named Matt Bielby as editor, Mark Ramshaw as production editor, Stuart Campbell as staff writer and Gary Penn, formerly of ZZAP!64, as consultant editor. On the back page, a regular feature called “If I Knew Then…” asked industry figures to look back at their work and “admit where they went wrong”. The first was Peter Molyneux of Bullfrog, on Flood, Powermonger and Populous.

Bielby’s welcome page ran through a list of promises, including full colour throughout and a disk “packed with hot demos and ‘stuff’” every month, then stopped himself: “I think you’re going to have to judge us by what we do and not by what we say.”

The scores

The magazine explained its scoring on its first review pages. “Bear in mind you won’t see the sort of high scores you might expect from other mags. After all, if you give everything 70 or 80 percent the whole concept of scoring gradually begins to mean nothing very much at all.”

From issue 2 it printed a box headed “Our scoring system (and how it works)”:

“Most magazines vastly over-rate the majority of games they review. Here at AMIGA POWER we believe in calling a spade a spade … so you’re going to get a lot of 30, 40 and 50 per cents as well as 70s, 80s and so on.”

Each game got one mark out of 100, with a Bottom Line box of “Uppers” and “Downers” and a one-sentence summary, “and nothing else”. Where the reviewers disagreed, a second reviewer gave a different view in a box headed “On the other hand…”. The Bottom Line also became the name of the magazine’s running index of every game it had reviewed, with its score.

The magazine made a point of how hard it played the games. In September 1995 it reported that Jonathan Nash, who it said played games more extensively than anyone on the staff, had found a bug about 60% of the way through Flight of the Amazon Queen that left the player’s path blocked. The publisher, Time Warner, “had been planning on releasing it almost immediately”, the magazine said, and had to take the game back and fix it.

Editors and writers

The mastheads name these editors:

  • Matt Bielby, from the launch to at least June 1992.
  • Mark Ramshaw, the launch production editor, by December 1992 to March 1993.
  • Linda Barker, from April 1993 to December 1993.
  • Jonathan Davies, by May 1994 to April 1995.
  • Cam Winstanley, previously reviews editor and deputy editor, by July 1995.
  • Tim Norris, by April 1996.
  • Steve Faragher, the former production editor, who rejoined the team in the summer of 1996. His name heads the masthead of the July 1996 issue.

Stuart Campbell was never the editor, but he was on the staff from issue zero. The mastheads list him as staff writer at the launch, reviews editor from late 1992, and deputy editor in 1993 and early 1994.

As the magazine went on, the masthead’s job titles turned into jokes. In November 1993 Linda Barker was “Memorable fighting she-monkey” and Campbell “Rapid crazy reusable police clown”.

The end

The price rose from £2.95 at the launch to £3.50 by 1993 and £4.50 by 1996. Issue 65, dated September 1996, was the last. It called itself “our last issue” and used it “to cast an eye back” at the magazine’s past, with profiles of the final team. The same issue carried an advertisement for Amiga Format addressed to Amiga Power’s readers, inviting them to move across.

Sources

  • Amiga Power issue zero, May 1991, free with Amiga Format issue 22: the All-Time Top 100 (the panel, Bielby’s introduction, Rainbow Islands at number one) and the masthead (Matt Bielby, editor; Mark Ramshaw, production editor; Stuart Campbell, staff writer; Gary Penn, consultant editor).
  • Amiga Power issue 1, May 1991: cover (£2.95, Bombuzal), coverdisk instructions and the Monmouth Street address, “Welcome to Amiga Power” by Matt Bielby, the “Games of the Month” introduction on scoring, and “If I Knew Then…” with Peter Molyneux.
  • Amiga Power issue 2, June 1991, and issue 6, October 1991: “Our scoring system (and how it works)”.
  • Amiga Format issue 30, January 1992: “The Amiga Year” (the April 1991 launch).
  • Amiga Power mastheads: issue 14, June 1992 (Bielby); issues 20, December 1992, to 23, March 1993 (Mark Ramshaw, editor; Stuart Campbell, reviews editor); issues 24, April 1993, to 32, December 1993 (Linda Barker, editor; Campbell, deputy editor); issue 31, November 1993 (the joke titles); issue 35, March 1994 (Campbell, deputy editor; Cam Winstanley, reviews editor); issues 37, May 1994, to 48, April 1995 (Jonathan Davies, editor; Winstanley, deputy editor by December 1994); issue 51, July 1995 (Cam Winstanley, editor); issue 60, April 1996 (Tim Norris, editor); issue 61, May 1996 (Steve Faragher to rejoin); issue 63, July 1996 (Faragher at the head of the masthead).
  • Amiga Power issue 53, September 1995: news item on Flight of the Amazon Queen.
  • Amiga Power issue 24, April 1993, and issue 65, September 1996: cover prices.
  • Amiga Power issue 65, September 1996: the retrospective and staff profiles, and the Amiga Format advertisement.

See also

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