The Def Guide to Zzap!64

http://www.zzap64.co.uk/cgi-bin/display ... l?issue=82

I've just started doing the ZzapBible v2 for issue 82 and man it is painful...

The copy from Lucy is just brain-dead toilet humour and going by the "Zzap Zoo" section at the beginning, it's somewhat infectious!

Bad Changes:

Lloyd replaced by Miss Whiplash
Scorelord replaced by Miss Whiplash
Manure truck loads of sexist / crude humour
Extra childish redesign

but there were some positive changes as well:
The reviewers avatar now has their name and personal overall score for the game
there's more personal comment from the team (maybe should be up in the Bad Changes section with all the innuendo? )
Compilations now have scores for each individual game

Although the run up to it was irking me a little for various reasons (including being ripped off to the tune of about £50 worth of mail order because of the Newsfield crash and burn and being lied to on the phone about it), this issue was the one where ZZAP! 'died' for me. Yes, I still bought issues after 82, but it was never the same.

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Compilation64 | Cosine
Arkanix Labs

£50? Nasty, did you ever get it back or get the goods?

I feel things did get better with the change to Commodore Force, but this issue and the next few are definitely the lowest point by far.

At least the reviews were still decent enough although it's obviously now looking back at it that the market was changing / dying with fewer full price games and plenty of compilations and release budget games. Still, a good time to get decent games for pocket money prices.

All I got was a huge wad of paper from the administrators explaining that I was pretty much bottom of the pile when it came to getting any goods or money back.

I had ordered Turbo Charge on disk, another game (which I can't remember) and a few other bits and pieces all paid for with hard earned bar work money... never saw a jot of it...



I don't think I ever bought Commodore Force - 'trashing' the ZZAP! name to 'improve the magazine' was the last straw for me. My reads by then were both Commodore and Amiga Format.

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Compilation64 | Cosine
Arkanix Labs

I lost the majority of a years subscription (well my brother did since I think I had convinced him to get the magazine by that stage, although I still read it and keep them up in my room!).

I had also ordered some binders and back issues. I got the back issues but not the magazines but I believe I was only charged for the binders so that worked out okay.

Didn't lose any money when Newsfield closed, but did end up out of pocket when Europress Impact folded...

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http://c64goldenyears.com
http://blog.myspace.com/merman1974
http://members.lycos.co.uk/merman64

The administrators for Newsfield did actually pay out a certain amount in the pound to registered claims. I can't remember what it actually was but I did get a proportion of the money I was owed for freelance work that I had done immediately prior to them going into administration.

I didn't get a penny for the last two issues, including last minute extra pages...

_________________
http://c64goldenyears.com
http://blog.myspace.com/merman1974
http://members.lycos.co.uk/merman64

When Newsfield went bust my subscription was still running, yet I received the last 3 issues of my subscription after Zzap! was taken over by Europress.

I got a bit confused there!

I lost the majority of a year's subscription when Europress Impact closed. As you said, when Newsfield went bust, subscriptions carried on with Europress Impact, which was rather nice!