Editorial

It seems like ages since the last issue of SynTax, there's been so
much going on here. We took a week's holiday in Lincolnshire and
the East Riding of Yorkshire in the middle of May just after Issue
72 went out, then in mid-June we did a week in Cornwall.  I've
also had two summer schools (woodcarving and pottery) so it's been
a case of busy, busy, busy!

I've still found time to play games and am seriously hooked on
Cultures. I enjoyed the demo so much that I was thrilled to see it
on offer in Game in Bromley. I'm working my way through the main
missions and will then tackle the scenarios. These Settlers clones
seem to be the only sorts of games I play now. It's funny how our
taste changes over the years. There was a time when I was quite
sniffy over the thought of playing anything other than a text
adventure, preferably an Infocom. Then I discovered graphic
adventures and added those to my repertoire, followed by RPGS ...
but only certain ones, the Might and Magic games being favourites.
Then Maxis released SimCity and I was hooked. Now it looks such a
primitive game but I thought it was marvellous. I got sucked into
most of the other Sim games, which though called Sim-whatever,
owed more to strategy than simulations.  Other firms brought out
similar games and I tangled with Afterlife, where you 'run' heaven
and hell and games where you managed people like Beasts and
Bumpkins, Dungeon Keeper, Caesar and Pharoah. Settlers was a big
turning point and opened the floodgates for similarly styled
games. Cultures has been one of the most enjoyable I've played for
a long time and it was only as I was finishing the magazine that I
was able to pull myself away from it long enough to write the
review.

Another demo I enjoyed was Knights and Merchants. But I've been
unable to find it in the shops. A few people have mentioned Ebay
to me, the online auction site, and on there I found a copy for
just under œ10 including P&P. The auction only had about 24 hours
to go and no-one had yet put in a bid, so I took a deep breath
and put in the minimum bid. The next day I was told I'd been
successful and I promptly sent off my cheque to the vendor. The

software came today and I'm feeling very pleased about my bargain.
I think I may do this again ...

The readership of SynTax is going down slightly each issue and
it's a long time since I gained any new readers. I think this was
bound to happen as the internet got more popular and widely used.
I have no immediate plans to cease producing SynTax as long as
there's enough readers to make it worth the time needed to put it
together each issue. But with fewer readers, once again, I'm short
of reviews so anything that you can send in will be very welcome.
Some of you are very good at sending a review for any game you
play and I do appreciate this. I know it takes away valuable
gaming time! But to everyone else, please do your best to help me
out for next issue.

See you in September.

                                                  Sue

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