The Def Guide to Zzap!64

September 1986: As an 11yr old lad, making the long trip from West Lothian with my Dad, guests of Electric Dreams (remember the pyramid?) I was super excited. To this day though, I don't know what happened but when Dave and Reuben from ED went to fetch Clare Hirsch for an introduction I completely fell to pieces, bottled it, ran away. I often look back on that strange, strange decision and quote it as my biggest regret.

Ah the infamous Clare Hirsch, not too surprising of a reaction I guess, but you weren't even a teenager, so she shouldn't have scared you that much!

Funny looking back at pictures of her now (in Zzap) she looks like a 14 year old playing dress up

Great first post!

I remember a letter to Lloyd asking how someone could meet Claire, and Lloyd suggesting they write a hit game, send it to Activision and then it would lead to a wonderful life together...

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There's a picture of her in the middle of the photos on this page in case anybody is wondering what we're going on about.

And while we're going into sad git territory here's some photos of "Software Cuties" according to The Shadow.

There is a better one of Claire somewhere in Zzap, but I think I've spent enough time on this already!

I hope she never searches for her name with zzap because there's quite a few results of people wondering about her.

Haha, great story! Welcome here!

And what a surprise... all the 'nerdy geeks' know exactly who you're talking about, including myself...

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Compilation64 | Cosine
Arkanix Labs

Didn't she marry Rod Cousens, or am I remembering that wrongly?

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Another visitor... stay awhile... stay forever!

That was the info on this older thread that mentioned her!

Actually going through all my old mags at the mo - leaving Zzap's until last (currently on to The One - then it's Zzap time)

Looking forward to seeing the old Shadow columns again - I think she was a looker back in the day. Defo married well too - wonder if still together?

He is on Linkedin - impressive CV, been in the business since 1985 and recently left Codemasters as CEO. Now President of Jagex (who are behind Runescape)

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The Shadow columns were interesting, doubt you'd get away with that type of stuff these days

I was reading trough all the Big Ks over the past while and was surprised to see the Shadow started off in that magazine!

And Gary Liddon was in Big K before ZZAP... hmmmm...

*scratches chin*

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They Were Our Gods - a website charting my progress on an upcoming book of the same name, about the UK gaming scene in the 1980s.

Indeed, although I'm pretty sure the Shadow was in issues before there was any mention of Gary and I only came across a handful of reviews by him, they didn't even mention him when doing a bio of the reviewers!

Gary L joined Zzap!64 in issue... 6 or 7 I think?

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Another visitor... stay awhile... stay forever!

But then it's not always a good indication. For example Robin Hogg wrote for ZZAP nearly a year before he formally joined. The body of the Mean City review in issue 31 was his, but he "joined" from issue 51...

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http://blog.myspace.com/merman1974
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Apologies for resurrecting the thread. Mean City was my test review when I came to zzap for an interview for The Games Machine Steve and Julian were there and Ciaran. Jezza asked me to write a review of the game. They must have liked it as I got a job on The Games Machine. I think they liked me writing lots as it was easier for editors to remove words than add them.

I moved to Zzap with Stuart and Phil but was on TGM for a year or so as mentioned.

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Robin 'Pig in a Poke' Hogg
Ex ZZAP!