Who would have thought that the beginning of 2021 would see the launch a brand new monthly UK Amiga magazine? But that’s exactly what has happened with the publication of ‘Amiga Addict’ magazine. Of course there are quite a few Amiga-centric mags out there now and I have covered these in the past but I believe this is the first UK Amiga mag and certainly the only one released on a monthly basis. Issue 1 was released in January, issue 2 in February and the March issue has just appeared on their website now too!
The cover design looks comfortingly familiar, and certainly wouldn’t have looked out of place on a 1980’s WH Smith shelf. At first glance it could easily be mistaken for a copy of Amiga Format but the magazine makers make no bones about the fact that they were inspired by all those great Amiga mags from the 80’s and 90’s.
Someone’s nicked my coverdisk!
I thought the tongue-in-cheek picture of a 3.5″ floppy disk with the message ‘What no coverdisk? was a particularly fun touch. It certainly brought a smile to my face along with fond memories of seeing this message under my coverdisks after peeling them off back in the day. It would have been awesome to have a coverdisk as an option with the first issue but I fully understand why this wasn’t practical.
The magazine itself is A4 sized and has a premium glossy cover with silk finished pages inside. Both issue 1 and 2 run to 55 pages in total and feature a number of adverts from the current Amiga scene too. I always enjoyed browsing the adverts to see what games and gizmos I could get for my Amiga back in the day and I still get that same enjoyment from doing the same thing now with Amiga Addict.
Contents Page.
A Look Inside Issue 1
Inside issue 1 there’s healthy mixture of gaming, news, letters, reviews, interviews and ‘how to’ articles. It aims to cater to all Amiga users whether they be using classic 68k machines, emulators or FGPA systems. I’ve only read issue one so far but I have to say I was really impressed with it.
The writing style is terrific and very entertaining and I could feel the passion that the authors have for the Amiga throughout their writing. It was refreshing to find a real sense of humour in a lot of the articles that constantly made me smile too. I do appreciate some light hearted banter in my magazines – it helps elevate them to something that I really look forward to, to lift my mood and provide some much needed escapism. This could well just be a British thing but it’s something I don’t find much of in the other current Amiga mags.
A review of the PageStream DTP software that is used to create some of the pages of Amiga Addict!
I found the reviews to be excellent; very informative and entertaining in equal measure. I discovered a couple of great new games that I was unaware of and proceeded to order them straight away. At the end of the day this is what it’s all about – helping to keep the Amiga community informed and thriving. Of course much of this info is probably available online… but it is likely spread across various social media and other retro oriented sites which can sometimes feel impossible to keep track of. Personally I think it’s fantastic to have all this info distilled into a single monthly publication. Something that I can read at my leisure without any political posts, irrelevant ads or trolls to annoy and distract me. Spoken like the true grumpy old man that I am.
What I personally find really impressive is that the entire magazine is actually laid out using PageStream on an Amiga X5000. You certainly couldn’t ask for a better demonstration that the Amiga is still relevant today! Suddenly I now how a strong hankering for an X5000 myself!
Anyway here’s a look at just few of the articles that can be found in the inaugural issue.
I’ve still got issue 2 to read and have just ordered issue 3 so am eagerly awaiting the arrival of that in the post soon!
If the magazine looks interesting to you then head over to the Amiga Addict website straight away and order yourself a copy – it deserves all the support it can get. Copies are available both digitally and physically and discounted subscriptions are available too!
