Search & Destroy: Computer Magazines

Your Sinclair - "Crap, but in a funky skillo sort of way!" The great granddaddy of that breed of computer magazines that were entertaining in their own right rather than being perfunctory and dull runthroughs of straight news and reviews like pretty much all computer magazines were like when it started. Who can forget National Rescue, T'zer, Gadgy The Mutant Ninja Duck, Doodlebugs, and Dunc McDonald? Almost all the people who have written worthwile stuff about computer games started out on YS. Truly wonderful.

Amiga Power - The most incredible games magazine ever, maybe. Featuring staff who had graduated from YS, AP was the most brutally honest of all games magazines, often marking terrible games so low that certain games companies refused to have any more to do with the mag (imagine if Sony refused to give any more records to the NME to review if they slagged off the Manic Street Preachers, and you can see the childishness of it all.) Other than that, it was ferociously entertaining, with smart, sophisticated and funny reviews courtesy of Jonathan Nash, Stuart Campbell, Linda Barker (not THAT Linda Barker) and others. J Nash was responsible for The Weekly, and one of AP's readership - one Mil Millington - has done rather well for himself as a writer. Ended with one final issue where the entire staff were slain by the Four Cyclists of the Apocolypse.

Zero - Like a "grown up" version of YS, covered the Amiga, ST and PC. Had most of the same people working for it, and featured some lovely design (with lots of victorian clip art illustrating articles and things). The writing was top-notch, and we had some of the finest Back Pages to ever be conceived anywhere (the Dave Excellent three page spread on what changes he'd make to Anglia Television now that he'd bought it sticks in the mind - "Before, a crap silver knight on a horse revolving on a turntable. After, A 3D holographic Excellent-O-Vision logo revolving 360 degrees as the entire universe explodes behind it". Was tragically cut down in its prime when the owners of the mag decided it was time to throw out all the nice writing and cool, smooth design and replace it with a garish, horrible monstrosity that gave away free tubs of "PlayGoo" (IIRC) on the cover rather than, you know, demos and games and that. Was axed a month or two afterwards.

Destroy:

Amiga Action: There was a person on this message board who coined a phrase that has stuck in my memory. It was "Shocking, shocking shite". I can think of no other description for this magazine. Bought one or two copies of this, regretted it afterwards. A soulless, nasty concotion.

Sinclair User: Up until around about 1987 was merely a worthy if dull periodical about the Spectrum. After 1987 was a haphazard attempt to emulate Your Sinclair, only one that paradoxically hated the thing it was trying to rival. Appeared to have been art-designed by a colour blind monkey. Reviews were curiously unlovable. Letters page, the heart of any good computer magazine, was witless and horrible.