A NEW DAWN APPROACHES
I’d be lying if I claimed to know what were the first words that I typed for issue one of CRASH, but I expect they were for a game review. Our mail order catalogues were packed with ‘reviews’ of games both wonderful (Jetpac, Manic
Miner) and awful (enter appropriate title here), but we were flogging as many titles as we could, so they were hardly critical reviews. And they brought in the local kids to buy from the door and several of those sprightly horrors came back to complain...and so the idea for
CRASH’s unique reviewing system was born. In the prior months, at the Ally Pally ZX Micro Fairs, Oli and I had made friends with most fledgling software companies whose games we sold.
Now it was different. How was I to explain to XYZ Software that a twinklyeyed 13-year-old Ludlow schoolboy said their prized Froggerpede Attack was ‘a steaming pile of w**k’? (apart from a lecture that it doesn’t actually steam —‘Haha, sir, and how do you know that?’ ‘Get outta here!’). And so, battling to write critical, honest game reviews came first, with the able help of 17-year-old Matthew Uffindell playing whichever game it was as I attempted to turn three enthusiastic playground writeups into intelligible reviews without altering their combined opinion. Somehow, I think we succeeded.
However, my first words in the editorial still hold well for the future of CRASH, I think. Musing on the magazine’s name I wrote: ‘I like to think it symbolises more the power and strength of the computer game than anything else.
As a magazine title CRASH is short, sharp and to the point, and anyway it makes it the only computer magazine without the word computer stuck somewhere in it, and that must be worth some points!’ As I hand over to the next generation, so many years later, let my last words be: Long live CRASH!
Long live CRASH indeed — great words Roger, and thank you from all of us readers, fans and friends for everything you have created and contributed to over many years, including Newsfield and beyond. You continue to be an inspiration to many.
And so here we are — a new issue of CRASH in a new format that I hope you all will enjoy each quarter.
We will be covering all the latest games on both the Spectrum and Next, with a smattering of features and regular slots you all love.
Long live CRASH!