July 1988 - Bagger, Scrambler

The Editor's Notes goes meta, looking back on 5 years. (The main feature of the first issue was "Does Your Computer Need a Cassette Recorder?")

An article on hard drives mentions they were a lot cheaper for the PC, like 3x as much, for a (whopping) 20Mb... there's also a feature on Civil War games, on the 125th anniversary of it.

There was an odd bonus program "Musical Zippers" that messed around with playing some well known songs at the same time, and then pulling them apart octave wise until they were more recognizable, and with an appropriate visual display.

Bagger - Kevin Black

The arcade game Tapper, but stripped down. (You have to figure out how to hit the "Run/Stop Key" on your computer-- fn-esc on my mac) Grocery store patrons come in from the left, you have to maneuver to the correct counter and press the button to sling some groceries at them, when patron and groceries collide both just disappear. Also you have to be in position to catch tips coming at you. Rating:2/5

Scrambler - Rhett Anderson and David Hensley, Jr. 

I was going to judge this harshly as something that could more easily done on paper, but that's only 2/3 true. The computer picks some scrambled letters, people take turns trying to find words in the mess. The computer has no dictionary to judge if you have real worlds, but it does some score-keeping and making sure you don't reuse letters or duplicate words.  Rating:2/5

June 1988 - Square Logix, Arcade Volleyball, Jericho

Oh look. More printers.

Have to say I don't like the new cover format as much as the old one. It's all kind of samey-samey.

Ooh, a review of Spectrum-Holobyte's Tetris! Amazing to remember- this once was new! (And there was a lot of history before it... the reviewer asks and answers "Is Tetris fun? I found it addictive on the order of Pac Man")

Square Logix - Leonard Morris

I couldn't get this C-128 game to run. It's a set of 4 shifting tile logic puzzles. I'm not really mourning its loss.

Arcade Volleyball - Rhett Anderon & David Hensley, Jr.

This game made the rounds (especially the DOS version I think, though both it and the Amiga version had only one player per side) but is still pretty fresh, with nice physics. It's a bit like Basketball Sam & Ed (by the same duo) but not quite as surreal, you play with a ball, you aren't the ball itself. (On the other hand, your players are suspiciously ball-like; their relationship to the playing ball feels a bit like that of Goofy and Pluto.) Still pending a proper 2 player review, but the physics feel good- and points off for no one player mode (actually the article mentions a 'warm-up' simple opponent accessed via a Poke. I mighta given them that final point if they baked it into the game proper.) Rating:4/5 

Jericho - Robert Bixby

Lovely idea, middling-poor execution, this is breakout except the ball is trapped in a matrix in the center of the court and you have to defend all 4 sides from its escape. To help make up for that, your paddle is given a clone and extended in length, but this game is still radically tough. Rating:3/5

May 1988 - Trap, Treasure Diver

Editor Notes talked about the results to the reader's survey: "Nearly 9 out of 10 readers program their computer". I wonder if that says more about the era or the hardware or just this one demographic.

Good quote about the Commodore's Future: Robert Jacob of Cinemaware saying "The golden age of Commodore software got started just a few months ago." A lot of that was the installed base it enjoyed at this time. (And while I value how these computers got me programming, I switched to Commodore because of all the fun piracy being had, it was a more vibrant game scene than for the Atari 800XL I had been using.)

This issue also has "Mob Maker", kind of an enhanced "Sprite Magic" that lets you see multiple sprites at once. ("Mob", Movable Object Blocks, were a Commodore term for Sprite.)

Trap - Eric Haines

At first I was worried this (admittedly graphically stylish) game was going to be the magazines second or third nod to Q*bert but it's a bit more focused... you control what's in effect a 4-square Snake... you're blocked by your own body segments, though they don't kill you (unless you trap yourself in a corner and have to wait for time to expire.) You have a short amount of time to sheepdog the bouncing ball into a corner, at which point you "tap its kinetic energy" and move to the next level. It's really tricky- the ball can't "choose" to jump onto a square of your tail, but if it's already in motion to one it can't bounce away either. I get the feeling there are some basic strategies one would soon learn, but I don't quite have the patience... anyway, neat idea, with great graphics and sound. Rating:3/5

Treasure Diver - Brian Casey

This game has some of the cutest sprites - only Q-Bird comes to mind as cuter. Anyway, this game is a bit simplistic, you control the little bubble, avoid sharks and picking up the treasures mysteriously crawling along the seafloor. Your air supply slowly depletes, and needs to be replenished at the ocean surface. Every chomp from a shark increases the rate your air goes down, though interestingly the indication of that is primarily auditory. Also you can hit the fire button for a turbo boost that really use your air quickly. Still, there's not enough to this game (despite the 4 speed levels, from ludicrously fast to annoyingly slow and jerky) Rating:2/5

April 1988 3-D Speedway, Spy Defense

They started a new "Letters to the Editor" column, more touchy feely than the historically more technical feedback section.

3-D Speedway - Chris Ulmer

Weak-sauce "Pole Position" clone. Is it mean to point out when a type-in clone pales in comparison to the Atari 2600 port? (Though it reminds me of a cool website I found a while back: Lou's Pseudo 3d Page that went into entertaining and geeky depth as to how old systems made convincing road effects, including Atari 2600 Pole Position) Rating:2/5 I think my favorite part was the art from article:

Sweet ride, man!

Spy Defense - John Dalton

Interesting flying around and shooting game.. what's the genre, like "non-scrolling Defender" maybe? So you pilot the "Laser Striker". Aliens that look like whirling shuriken harass you. Firing to the left or right spits out a powerful laser, and firing down drops a bridge piece- your goal is to build a path for your tititual spy to cross. Every once in a while a helpful supply satellite bounces along the top, touching it undoes damage and gives you bridge pieces. (Oddly, your craft drifts slowly downward if left unattended, but it's ok because you can't hit the bottom.) This game is ok but never really comes together; maybe if shooting an enemy caused the bridge pieces to drop, so you had to worry more about the shooting timing? As it is the combat just has a simplistic fire and dodge feel to the gameplay, the enemies behavior isn't much more than hovering towards you at angles. (Later enemies start firing back a little, I think more care was taken an increasing the stuff thrown at you vs making sure the core gameplay was good.)

I was wondering about the odd symbol on the title screen:

Given the science-fiction (and covert operations) theme, I wondered if it could have anything to do with the logo of "The Visitors" from the 1983 V Miniseries;

Maybe too much of a reach? Rating:3/5

March 1988 - Oil Defense, Human Rat Race

The magazine, especially the cover, underwent a graphical overhaul! Rather than multiple hand-drawn-ish images, each issue features a single splash image that looks like it might have come from a Commodore computer.

It's interesting that despite being "For Commodore Personal Computer Users", Amiga never seems to fit in that category. Which is fine for my purposes, but kind of intriguing from a historical standpoint.

Editor Notes that Commodore is recovering a bit, but feels like too much of the growth is international, and they really want to shore up their presence in the US market.

Favorite "simple answer to common question":

It sounds like you're suffering from an untoward event known to computer users as a system crash or lockup. Unfortunately, it's a normal part of computing.

Guess it will be a few years before they coin "Blue Screen of Death" (The column also mentions how far home computers of that day are from what would later be available in Babelfish and Google Translate...)

Oil Defense - Mark H. Thomas

This game has a theme similar to the arcade classic Rip-Off... (found some interesting behind-the-scenes coverage of the AI in that gem) -- aliens are out for your resources, and threaten the player only as an afterthought... in this case, the UFOs are hungry for your oil! (But they are still a threat to you, slowing you down? Except there's not much visual or audio feedback about that - I thought my joystick was messing up.) Your shots are steerable, which I found more irritating than helpful. I like the use of PETSCII graphics for the cityscape. Also the UFOs moved in appealingly random ways. Rating:4/5

Human Rat Race - Roger Hughes

This game looks and plays a lot like "Maze Craze" on the 2600. It's two player only and has two main variations, get to the other side, and grab gold (and return to your home base). You can set the number of drones that hit you and send you back home, and there's also an option to play invisible mazes. Tentative Rating:2/5

February 1988 - Mosaic, RADs

Editor Notes mentions COMPUTE!'s founder Robert Lock and the Editorial Director Robert Lock starting a new company. Wonder what that was?

Mosaic - Jay A. Reeve

I love the background mosaic of this game. It's a decent little strategy game for 2-3 players, 1-2 of which can be the computer. (Actually, a few weeks ago I played a roughly similar physical game called "Finito!") Your goal is to get your row of tiles in ascending order before your opponents. A tile comes you, and you press the number key you want to swap it for, or press space to get a new one...  the one you swap out is eligible for the next player. Not really my cuppa, but the 3 player option and pretty background make it solid, Rating:3/5

RADs - Bill Chin

A fast paced and highly original game. You control a "Rotating Alignment Droid" (the titular RAD) You have a little peashooter gun that turn the more radical spark enemies into slightly safer and more docile ones. (There are also these little bubble things floating around that you can shoot to slow down the enemies for a bit.) The goal of each level is kind of odd... there are those blue/yellow bars, and if you maneuver the droid over it, pressing the button left or right changes the color balance... the little bar at the bottom shows you the ratio of all-blue and all-yellow bars you need to make to complete the level. The one player mode was a lot of fun; the enemies drift in menacing but not entirely predictable ways, and trying to sneak around and switch over the panels has a neat multitasking feel. There is a pair of two-player modes, competitive and co-operative, that seemed like fun as well. Rating:4/5

January 1988 - Delta War, Cats 'N' Dogs

Editor Notes about Commodore doubling down on education, and also mentions how Nintendo and Sega are bringing interest back to video game machines.

This issue features a "Needlework Editor".

Oddly enough, my dad was national-competition level at counter-cross-stitch and needlepoint. Sometimes I think about the connection between his stuff and pixel art. More on him later, I guess. (There's also a "Tile Paint for The 128" which brings that computer into something like the world of mosaics...)

Also: Sprint 2, a BASIC compiler offering 15-50 times faster execution. That's pretty hip!

And look, a guide to buying modems. Man, it must have been kind of tedious to write that stuff year after year. (It would be interesting to do some text analysis and see if they ever cribbed from themselves.)

Delta War - Brian Pike

It's Spacewar! I only put the exclamation point in for tradition's sake; this game itself doesn't seem that exciting, at least compared to exactly-two-years-ago's "Space Arena". For better or worse this port (with gravity/no gravity etc variants) seems pretty fast paced. I have to try it with a buddy at some point. Tentative Rating:3/5

Cats 'N' Dogs - Fred Karg

Cute enough graphics in this pets themed port of "Connect 4", but suspiciously bad sound and control. You can play against the computer, and there's an optional element of chance, a "Dogcatcher" who will block one random column per turn. Rating:2/5