And what about the dude who methinks used to be editor and was always miserable? I remember he looked a wee bit like Rodney from Only Fools and Horses. He only smiled once or twice.
I'm pretty sure you're tallking about Chris Hayward, not James Price (the "Fraggle look-alike").
James Price? He was the only editor after Steve Shields, but he didn't look that much like Rodney. He certainly didn't work as hard either...
It's 2007 (2006 when that was written) and the mud-slinging continues... look, I was in my teens and had just discovered the world of C64 gaming and the joys of Zzap! 64/Commodore Force. I loved Force very much, probably as much as people similar to my age loved Zzap! when it appeared on the news-stands back in '85. Other than the inferior Commodore Format, I had no yardstick with which to measure Force's quality. It still stings a little when people sling insults at it, or when people blame it's declining quality as it came closer to issue sixteen on James Price alone.
Undoubtedly the quality slid, but so did the number of staff members, and Price, who had the responsibility as editor placed on him at quite a young age, was likely overwhelmed. Yeah, there were too many features and sure, there was no coverage of the still-active European scene, but as he himself said on this forum a while back, nobody on the magazine knew anything about it. Neither did Commodore Format until some time after Force had gone.
Still, at the time I appreciated Commodore Force for what it was and now, as a much older and wiser person, I appreciate it all the more as I understand now the pressures the "team", as it was, must have been under to fill the magazine with anything relevant. People who read Zzap! 64 in the glory days (back in '86, '87) were surely disgusted with how it had degenerated with the oncoming of Hickman and how bad Commodore Force must have appeared against those older magazines. But people my age loved it - we knew nothing else. There was only 'Format as competition, and it's design was much blander to look at in comparison, with it's faded colour pages. I also don't read any magazine that uses the word "super" in an attempt to be hip.
So, we knew nothing else. We must have seemed deprived to people who read the magazine in earlier times, but we were happy. The magazine was funny, it was intelligent, and it was great to look at, with Oli Frey covers with every issue. It was our only way of getting any news - it was our bible! So you can understand when I still get a little irritated today when people insult it and it's at the time very young editor. Even those who were contributors