It’s been too long since I’ve come across a new Amiga print magazine so I was over the moon when I was made aware of a new kid on the block in the guise of ‘Amiga Point of View’ magazine or ‘APoV‘ for short.
APoV – Amiga Point of View Magazine
Technically it isn’t completely new as it existed for a few issues as an entirely digital PDF publication; starting out in December 2003 and ending in 2010 having produced a total of 4 issues over that 7 year period. After issue 4 it went into deep hibernation until recently when the team behind it (the guys behind abime.net no less) kicked things into top gear and brought out a full blown printed magazine.
APoV Issue 5 Contents Pages
So whilst this is the very first printed edition of APoV it is in reality issue 5. The previous 4 back issues can be found and viewed over at the rather splendid Amiga Magazine Rack should you wish to read them. Incidentally this is a terrific resource if you aren’t already aware of it – it contains hundreds of complete scans of past Amiga magazines for your reading pleasure.
Naughty Ones Review
Comprising seventy full colour glossy pages and retailing for just £5 this is a very welcome addition to the, once again, thriving Amiga print magazine arena.
Putty Squad Review
The magazine is packed with reviews of past Amiga games for both ECS and AGA Amiga’s – including the CD32 console.
News
The magazine is unashamedly game oriented with gaming news, reviews and features galore.
If only…
The reviews are where I feel APoV really shines. They feature plenty of colourful screenshots and are very in-depth covering all aspects of the games. The writing style, at least to my mind, is very reminiscent of the classic ‘Amiga Power’ magazine with irreverent jokes, sarcasm and funny anecdotes littering the pages. Make no mistake – this is a good thing and ensured my time spent reading the magazine was as enjoyable as it was informative.
One of my favourite racing games on the Amiga
APoV includes some really great articles with the Magnetic Fields feature being a particular stand-out for me as I love the Lotus Trilogy on the Amiga. ‘Games from Dimension X’ was a fun read too as it imagined a bunch of games that never existed but would have been absolutely awesome if they had.
Emulating the C64 on the Amiga
Another really interesting feature was the Amiga emulation scene and I’m not talking about FS-UAE here either. No, this article covers emulators that run on the Amiga enabling it to emulate various 8-bit machines such as the Commodore 64 and VIC20 computers.
Emulating the VIC too!
It even goes as far as including the likes of the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and even the MSX. Although I was an avid emulator of the Mac (using ShapeShifter) and PC (using PC Task) on my A4000 back in the day, I never tried emulating old machines on it so this was a fascinating read and has given me plenty of new ‘tinkering’ ideas for future rainy days!
If only it was 1996 for real…
In keeping with the irreverent theme I loved the little ‘adverts’ that pop up here and there that take the mickey and made me chuckle. The letters page was also suitably oddball!
This looks like a game I need to add to my collection!
This issue had a big focus on classic Amiga games but the next issue promises to cover more contemporary titles such as Aquabyss, Tenebra and modern hardware such as the PiStorm and A500 mini.
Coming in the next issue…
I had a blast reading through APoV. The game reviews are excellent and the articles interesting and well written (in fact the whole magazine is well written). It seems to have a good balance of news, reviews and features with a writing style that is informal and entertaining. Needless to say I’m really looking forward to the next issue – I just hope I don’t have to wait until I’m drawing my pension to see it!
Where to purchase a copy from?
Until the team knock up their own website from which to sell the magazine, you can buy a print copy of ‘APoV’ magazine for the bargain price of £5 plus postage from their itch.io page. There’s less than a hundred copies available at the time of writing this so if you fancy a copy and would like to support the team and encourage them to work on the next issue then go and grab a copy now!
If you are happy to relinquish the pleasure of owning a real, physical copy of the magazine that you can hold in your hand then there’s also a PDF version available for £2.50.