| Ed Guidon's translation | Jonathan's interpretation | Original article | Story |
A warning: the article that follows is not going to bring forward any rejoicing for the Amiga. In these bleak times where everyone is trying to save our machine, a few of our comrades manage to do everything to destroy the few ideals we have left. It's with slight regret that we feel obliged to denounce this imposture in order to make our position respected. This month, our press review will resemble more a scything attack than a story for little children.
The magazine that we are attacking is a British publication that we have a habit of meeting in this part of the magazine. Why we are attacking it? Because this charming cross-channel magazine enjoys itself immensely when destroying all games, or should I say games from editors from which they receive no favours. And even at this level, I'm not sure if it's merely a feeling of sado-masochism which animates them.
We decided to commence our investigations having read the April issue, where ATR was simply destroyed. Imagine this game merely scoring 38%. A few fanzines could get away with such conduct, but how could a respected Amiga magazine for the past 48 issues conduct itself in such a way towards the source of their earnings? What's more, if nobody read this magazine, we wouldn't look to cause any trouble, but the problem is that this magazine is a reference in the Amiga press, so can you imagine the impact of what it says? And they really think they're good, with their slogan being (and I swear that I'm not lying) - "Don't buy an Amiga game before having read this."
You can be sure that with the marks that are given for each and every game, it's not the PC which is going to kill the Amiga, but rather AMIGA POWER. That's it, I've done it, I said it, may Her Majesty please excuse me, but the secret was too important to be kept by a single individual who at the moment is suffering a nervous breakdown. One can barely be surprised by the fact, as a consequence, if a publisher of such talent as Team 17 no longer wants to concede it's time to the Amiga. I can fully empathise with them.
Better be careful though, I can hear some people writing in, saying "Wouldn't you be defending Team 17, as you're selling their products?" You can indeed ask yourselves that question. Personally, though, I don't think we have to defend ourselves, and you should all know that in issue 12 we put ATR and Shadow Fighter on our coverdisks. Every day we receive approximately 300 letters asking for either disk. Within a month and a half we have sent over 1500 disks merely through demand. It was therefore public demand. We had nothing to do with it. You loved the game, so did we, so therefore it was normal that such a game should receive a mark neighbouring 90%.
AMIGA POWER thought it was normal to give it a measly 38% (having repeated it, I'm sure you'll finish by knowing it by heart).
ATR is but an example among many others, and the monthly crisis doesn't stop at that. In a little box (which some people might not see, such as short-sighted or long-sighted people) found in the "news" section, it is possible to find a feature called The Disseminator. And the irony of it is that they pride themselves in holding what they think is the Supreme Truth when it comes to reviewing games. Honestly, it's enough to make tight-arsed lawyers laugh. I'm not exaggerating things, and I use as definite proof the few introductory lines to the feature: "AMIGA POWER tells the truth about all games. We have no qualms about putting down the marks that we gave in preceding issues because they are all correct. This is the aim of The Disseminator, to compare them with our supposed competitors (...) Thanks to this, you will save £7.94 per month."
Seriously, isn't enough to make your ribs ache ? The magazines which receive the criticism are The One Amiga and Amiga Action. Both gave ATR 85% and 88% respectively. Why is AMIGA POWER so cruel ? In my opinion, they're frustrated people who wouldn't mind seeing the Amiga disappear. But let us rather change subject and allow the true Amigaphiles the right to dream.
Finally, France isn't in a bad position: two or three Amiga magazines who have an honest and cordial agreement, although at times some jokes may have caused a few problems. In the country of fair play, the Amiga longer reigns, and sadly, all is fair in an attempt to stop it from re-becoming king. What a shame.
Stephane Gabillot
Editor, Amiga Concept
The point of view of Amiga Concept's Ed-in-chief, Imré Antal
A letter to AMIGA POWER
"For years, I have enjoyed your magazine, but for the last few months, your behaviour has puzzled me: you present yourself as a "magazine with attitude", character... But, in your reviews, I don't understand why you tend to scythe the good games and praise the lesser ones. Would you be dependent on the publicity of certain publishers?
Take, for example, ATR, by Team 17, to which you gave 38%, and Super League Manager by Audiogenic, which obtained a generous 89%. Why be so severe with a game which the entirety of the press enjoyed ? At the heart of our team, not a day goes by when everyone, including myself, enjoy ourselves on this game!
On the other side, Super League Manager, of which we as yet only have a demo, does not seem to merit all the praise that you give it.
I don't think you are doing to much of a favour to your readers with such an "attitude." They will realise, sooner or later that you are in fact leading them down the wrong path. Many people in France will tell you that they consider Team 17 as one of the best publishers in the Amiga industry, if not THE best. With your reviews, you will inevitably discourage members of the industry, which includes Team 17, and the world of the Amiga does not desire this.
Maybe you are playing a game, or competing with other English magazines, to see who can get the most attention, by destroying as spectacularly as possible, the games of the future.
I don't want to defend Team 17 in particular, in truth it is of my own personal initiative that I am declaring my indignation, but the position that we hold is one where we should try and be objective, and you, you are deliberately killing off the Amiga."
Dear readers, I wouldn't want you to think that I'm sucking up to Team 17, but enough is enough.. The world of the Amiga does not need such a scandal, especially in these times. I accuse AMIGA POWER of seeking attention in an extremely competitive world of Amiga press, by scything down games which we are not alone in thinking are of good quality.
Admittedly, this problem doesn't present itself in France, and maybe you'll criticise me for mentioning it, but you should know that the British press plays an important role for the Amiga: any crisis might have severe repercussions on the rest of the world. On this side of the Channel, we have already criticised some of our French comrades, I will name them, Amiga Dream who more than often have been rather unpleasant to games publishers. Today however, notwithstanding the competition between our magazine and theirs, Amiga Dream is far more favourable to the Amiga than AMIGA POWER. Even though Amiga Dream gives the impression that it is a magazine that does look for trouble, they know when to stop, unlike AMIGA POWER.
What is worse is, that having read AP's review of ATR with more care (to come back to this one again), it comes across as if the reviewer hadn't played the game for longer than ten minutes! He was even clumsy enough to admit that he didn't understand the use of some basic power-ups, proof of his lack of seriousness and objectivity.
Finally, I will say that I don't want all magazines to be too kind to publishers who are still developing games for the Amiga, because we are renowned for our honesty (which has sometimes put us in the line of fire of criticism from other magazines). But the least we can do is to give recognition to games that merit it, and that it should not be conceded to publishers which don't, who might seek to gain a few favours (via finances...).
Right to reply from the parties concerned
Team 17 attacks.
First of all, I work for Team 17.
Secondly, here is my opinion, and it may not represent the general opinion of all those who work at Team 17.
Thirdly, this is entirely without prejudice.
An issue of AMIGA POWER has just come out with a few reviews of our products, Kingpin Arcade Sport Bowling and ATR (All Terrain Racing). The scores for the two games are, respectively, 47% and 38%.
As an ex-journalist from the Amiga press (ex- ed-in-chief for Amiga Format for those who wouldn't know), I hate publishers who use the scores from magazines to show off their products. In most cases, reviewers try as best they can to judge a game with intelligence and justice. A few magazines declare that as their main objective.
But, I ask you, what kind of objectivity is it if a magazine's aim is to attack and destroy games published by the same company? Personally, that's not what I call objectivity.
The review of Kingpin is full of discrepancies which just go to show that the reviewer didn't spend an infinite amount of time to test it. For the review of ATR, the reviewer does seem to have played the game, but has enjoyed giving a childish opinion rather than an objective one.
I think that these reviews are not only an insult for you, purchasers of Amiga games, but also for all responsible for Amiga magazines such as Amiga Action, Amiga Computing, CU Amiga, The One, C&VG, Amiga Format and all the other worldwide Amiga magazines. Scores for these games in the UK (in most of the magazines) are 20% to 40% higher.
The scores in AMIGA POWER can be, in my opinion, explained in two ways: they wouldn't know how to recognise decent games (careful, I'm not saying that our games are the best, but at least they're decent) even if it hit them. If that's not it, then it's probably because they have something against Team 17. But I know that most publishers have something against AMIGA POWER. But here, we have an interesting case:
ARCADE POOL - AP score 60%. It stayed at the top spot in the charts for over 13 weeks.*
SUPER STARDUST - AP score 89%. But we gave them an exclusive, the full game and the coverdisk.
TOWER ASSAULT - AP score 46%. It was one of the biggest successes over Christmas.
KINGPIN - AP score 47%.
ATR - AP score 38%.
I'm not saying that all the games that Team 17 publish are a success story. We realise that Kingpin, a bowling game, will only interest those who practise the sport, but in England there are a lot of people who enjoy it, and for them it's a good game. Criticising this as a bowling game is like criticising SWOS because it's a football game.
What we reckon, and what most other publishers think, is that we should be allowed decent and clear reviews, not children's tales. Apparently, this is what Amiga Concept thought too, and we thank them for it. They asked for a reply from AP concerning ATR, even though they weren't asked by Team 17 to do so. I think that the Amiga public deserves better than what a few magazines may give them. Thankfully, these magazines are in a minority, but sadly, for you, they exist.
Marcus Dyson,
Producer, Team 17
(Ex-Ed, Amiga Format)
To understand the scores that we gave, all you have to do is read the reviews:
ATR, 38%: "The tracks in ATR are marvellously confusing, the lack of coherence and the hair pins, and if you finish second it's a pretty good result"; "the game seems to have been conceived for the designers' enjoyment, rather than for that of the users"; "in two-player mode it is incredibly hard to distinguish who is who"; "whatever you do, the leader will be comfortably inaccessible, when he reaches the numerous corners: the screen turns into the angle of his direction, something which throws you to the other side of the screen, which leaves you with little chance of catching up with him"; "even when you have suceeded in mastering these difficulties, the game seems empty".
SUPER LEAGUE MANAGER, 89%: "At first glance, the game seems to resemble the numerous other football games... what makes SLM so good are two entirely original concepts"; "SLM evolves in an imaginary world. This may seem a bit bizarre at first, but soon it takes on a different aspect. You are not conditioned by preconceptions... but you'll gain a lot more satisfaction thanks to this"; "The player statistics are limited.... Football is not an exact science where each player can be categorised into specific groups.... and, as opposed to many other computer games, SLM doesn't attempt to do this"; "Normally I would be bored by an unoriginal football management game, but here I was pleasantly surprised to find one which managed to maintain my enthusiasm."
To claim that Team 17 is "one of the best games publishers on the Amiga" is a generalisation. To tell the truth, they have published some very good games, but that does not meant that all the games they publish are systematically famous. You have to examine each game on its own merits, ignoring who published it. We found ATR to be frustrating, superficial, and we never felt any pleasure at playing it. SUPER SKIDMARKS 2, which came out at the same time, would be a far better deal - as much on a level of enjoyment, with cars that slide and bounce through the courses, as at the level of innovations, such as an eight-player mode, a high-res option, a three way split-screen, and the possibility to play a race over two screens with two connected Amigas.
We do not "compete with other English magazines", and we are not "leading our readers down the wrong path". All that we are doing is being honest, by playing games until every bit of them is clear to us so that we can write down what we have seen.
Yes, we think that this is the best way to help the Amiga. What we want is that those purchasing the games enjoy them fully. Otherwise, they'll go off disappointed and less well-disposed towards the Amiga in the future. Games publishers know that, and it seems ridiculous when they reply to criticisms on their games drawn up in AMIGA POWER with letters of solicitation, without even taking them into account in their next game.
Jonathan Davies
Editor, AMIGA POWER