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We wanted to do something truly special for Retro Gamer's 200th issue, something that was really unique in order to highlight this landmark edition of the magazine. Firstly we’ve teamed up with legendary composer Chris Huelsbeck to create a fantastic Turrican CD that’s filled with killer orchestral and synth-led remixes of huge tracks from the hit series. We’ve also got an exclusive cover by Army Of Trolls, which is also available as a double-sided poster along with some fantastic map work from Craig Stevenson for the forthcoming Melkhior’s Mansion.
In terms of content we’ve decided to kick things off with a bang, quite literally, as we’ve interviewed Steve Russell about creating Spacewar!, the game that is largely responsible for kicking off the industry that we know today. This historical theme continues throughout the issue as we look at the last six decades of gaming from the dominance of Atari in the Seventies, to the commercial explosion of retro gaming that has happened in the last ten years and the recent impact of virtual reality.
Additionally, a timeline runs throughout issue 200, highlighting the beginnings of many big companies and video games, from the likes of Activision and BioWare to Elite and The Legend Of Zelda. Each decade is also introduced by a key industry veteran — including David Braben, Mark Cerny, and Trip Hawkins — and also highlights the essential games and systems that dominated each decade. This is easily our most ambitious issue ever and really shouldn’t be missed.
Retro Gamer 200 goes on sale Thursday, 31st October, available in all major UK newsagents and through digital stores worldwide and it looks like this:
Subscriber copies will start arriving in the coming days, and feature this exclusive, stripped-back version of the newsstand edition.
Here's a taste of what else features inside issue 200
Atari: King Of The Seventies
During the Seventies video games were dominated by Atari Inc. The company excelled both in the arcades and in homes with its numerous 8-bit computers and consoles and it became synonymous with the term video games. Here Atari's co-founder, Nolan Bushnell, along with Atari Inc engineer, Allan Alcorn, explain how they built one of the most important video game companies in the world.
A New Dimension: 3D Games Take Over
Although 3D video games first started to appear during the Eighties, many were slow, hampered by the technology of the time. As a result 3D gaming didn't really take off until the following decade. Alex Trowers, Ian Andrew, and Shinichi Ogasawara look back at the 3D arms race that took off in the arcades of the Nineties and how the third dimension started making an impact on gamers in the home as home systems like the Amiga and PC were able to deal with the more advanced worlds that developers wanted to create.
World Of Warcraft
While it wasn’t the first MMO to be released, World Of Warcraft is arguably the most important and it's changed massively over the last 15 years. With World Of Warcraft Classic now available, it felt like the perfect opportunity to travel back to the very beginning of the popular series and speak to Kevin Beardsley and Kevin Jordan about the game's origins and how it turned into the huge online experience that it is today.
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