Games - Retro Gamer

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	Games - Retro Gamer

Retro Gamer is a British magazine, published worldwide, covering retrocomputing, with a particular emphasis on games. It was the first commercial magazine to be devoted entirely to the subject. Athough launched (in January 2004) as a quarterly publication, Retro Gamer's great popularity soon led to the magazine becoming a monthly.

Highlights of the magazine included interviews with leading 1980s programmers including Matthew Smith and Archer Maclean. Regular columns included Next Level Gaming, Desert Island Disks (what games would a gaming celebrity take to a desert island) and Games That Weren't (a look at unpublished and unreleased titles for computers and consoles - written by Frank Gasking of the website http://www.gtw64.co.uk). You can find full details of all the articles here

Every issue of the magazine came with a coverdisk. It usually contained freeware remakes of retro games and emulators, but also videos and free commercial PC software such as "The Games Factory" & "The Elder Scrolls - Arena". Some issues had themed CDs containing the entire back catalogue of a publisher such as Durell or Llamasoft.

An anthology issue, collecting together articles from the first three issues, was published in December 2004.

One of the lesser-known features of Retro Gamer's CDROM was the "easter egg", introduced in issue 5. This file was hidden on each disc inside the "adverts" directory, and included a Mario "speedrun" video and the infamous "Leeroy" World of Warcraft clip.

Despite being a relatively recent title, copies of the early issues (especially issue 1) have become collector's items in their own right, and often change hands for prices that are many times their original cover-price on auction sites such as eBay.

Recently, Retro Gamer binders have also attracted high bids as they are no longer available from the publisher. Other merchandise included T-shirts with witty slogans like "Waggle my joystick"

On Tuesday 27th September 2005, the magazine's publishing company (Live Publishing) went into administration. The magazine was later announced on the Retro Gamer online forums as finished, shortly before issue #19 was due for release.

Fortunately for fans, most of the articles for the missing issue were complete, and the freelance writers quickly got together to publish the otherwise lost work on the Retro Survival () CD magazine.

Another aspect of Retro Gamer's culture was their online forums, which were very popular. Since of the demise of "Retro Gamer Mk 1", many of the fans have gathered at http://forums.retrosurvival.co.uk instead.

Rights to Retro Gamer were purchased by in October 2005 and the magazine was re-launched on the 8th of December that year. The magazine is now £1 cheaper, but doesn't have a cover disc. The "official" Retro Gamer Forums are now located at http://www.retrogamer.net/forum.

Retro Survival

Retro Survival () is a commercial CD retrogames magazine put together by the freelance writers of Retro Gamer when Live Publishing collapsed.

The CD, to be published in November 2005, contains articles that would have appeared in issue 19 of Retro Gamer, as well as several extras including a foreword by celebrity games journalist Mr Biffo.

Retro Survival also has a forum ()where many ex-Retro Gamer readers and writers gather.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Retro Gamer ]

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