A Brand New CD32 Magazine In 2018? – CD32 SCENE
A fridge magnet and a DEMO CD is included with the magazine.Yes, you heard me correctly, a DEMO CD/COVER CD.
Anything can happen in AmigaLand, they say, right?
I am yet again in shock and awe because of the Amiga scene as the unthinkable happened, what am i talking about, you say?
This is what I’ve been talking about — CD32 SCENE, a brand-new, fully-fledged magazine dedicated to the Amiga CD32 console! The last time we had a publication like this was back in 1996, an incredible 22 years ago.
As much as I love the Amiga and the CD32, I have to admit — I never saw this coming. Launching a new magazine for such a niche system is a bold move, especially given how unpredictable the Amiga market can be, not to mention the ever-present wave of anti-Amiga sentiment out there.
Interestingly, the magazine doesn’t follow the traditional A4 format. Instead, it’s a more compact A5-sized publication. While that might sound “fan-made” at first, don’t be fooled — it looks and feels exceptionally well-produced.
Read on to find out why this little gem truly impressed me.
The first thing you might think is things like ” no way if it is produced properly” or “it’s probably a black and white magazine?” or maybe even “no way if there are enough things to write about, let alone exclusive stuff”.
Guess what? The quality is top-notch, every single page is in colour, and yes, there are loads of exclusives in it, and there’s even a pretty interesting interview in it too.
Finding new stuff to write about is often hard in the Amiga scene; the first impression of this new magazine is that they did a wonderful job at digging out both new and old stuff for us to read.
The first thing you see in the magazine is a new pre-order game advert, ZeroSphere. Guess I’ll have to buy that one right away.
A pretty good article about the last 25 years of the CD32 is covered nicely in the magazine.
Well worth a read for both new and old fans of the console.
Worthy is reviewed in the magazine; it was the first review i saw of the game, and i have yet to publish my own review for various reasons.
A well-written review.
Both new and old games are reviewed, retrospectives are always fun to read, but you will find several 2017 and 2018 games i the mag to read about, as well as some trivia and “Did you know?” fun facts, etc.
Included with the magazine is a fridge magnet and—yes, you read that right—a DEMO / COVER CD!
The disc is packed with exciting content, featuring new games and never-before-seen material, including a video message/vlog from a former CD32 Gamer staff member and several playable demos of games that, until now, we’d only seen in screenshots.
There’s also a full exclusive game, Lumberjack Revisited, a completely new version never released before (I covered the original release on the blog some time ago). On top of that, you’ll find playable demos of the upcoming Heroes of Gorluth and ZeroSphere—both exclusive to this CD!
The only downside? The Cover CD for this first issue is a homemade CD-R rather than a professionally pressed disc. Whether that changes in future issues remains to be seen, but if I had one small complaint, that would be it.
This new CD32 SCENE Magazine is easily the best thing to happen to the CD32 community in nearly two decades. It’s produced with real professionalism and has that “official” look and feel that instantly gives it credibility.
The big question, of course, is whether they can maintain both the high quality and the very reasonable £4.99 price tag over time — only time will tell.
One particularly positive sign is that every single copy of the first issue sold out — and in record time, too!
It may only be 40 pages, but those are 40 pages of well-crafted, beautifully designed content.
Into the CD32? Love Games and news? Go support this project right away!
Follow Us... Inspire Us To Get Better... Keep The Amiga Flame Alive... PlayStation VR2 For The Future... AmigaGuru For The Future... Contact Us At Twitter For Content Creator Support...
Ok, I just subscribed to the newsletter and bought the PDF version of the first issue.
I received the link to download the CD ISO image right away. Now I only need a CD32 to play it ….. 🙁
wow.. takes me back all the way…nice!
sphinxra
The content of the cover CD is actually the best part of this new CD32 mag, and the quality of the printing itself is a close second. Sadly, the writing itself by the editor (AmigaJay?) is quite ordinary if you compare it to something like the old CD32 Gamer, or even the English version of Amiga Future produced these days. Lots of grammatical/spelling mistakes, single sentences that go on for whole paragraphs with lots of commas and a fair bit of waffle. Worse still, the writing itself is what you expect to read on many Amiga forums or blogs these days (i.e. written in a hurry without too much thought or care because it’s on the net rather than in a professional print magazine that people pay money for!!!).
Seriously, if it wasn’t for the cover CD – you simply wouldn’t pay good money for this new CD32 mag. I doubt that the standard of writing will pick up either if the editor is going to write every issue by himself. If only Amiga Future would bring out a dedicated CD32 mag, or perhaps more realistically, spare 5-6 pages for a regular CD32 column in each issue. One can only dream……
well, if you put the price on the table and that this is a one mans effort then i certainly do not agree with you, but yes it does have its flaws and so on for sure but i am pretty sure that this was more of a test and that the next issue will be even better.
But yes this is a fan based service and one that he never expected to go through the roof, look at it what it is, a fan mag produced by a fan for the community and maybe most of all – for fun.
Other than that i appreciate the feedback and i am sure AmigaJay will too as he will use this as motivation to get better for sure.