Editorial

First of all a very happy 2002 to you all. It seems no time at all
since Millennium night, seeing in the new century (which year *did*
that actually happen? Opinion seems to be divided). Whichever it
was, last year flew past and I'm sure this one will go as quickly.
I'm determined that during it I will do considerably more
adventuring than last year, even though *that* was an improvement on
the last few years. There are some great games about and I also
have a backlog of older games like Grim Fandango and the Might and
Magic series which I'd like to catch up with.

I bought Might and Magic VIII through Ebay at a good price but was
disappointed when I tried to run it and found that my monitor
couldn't cope with some aspect of it. I get a box up which says
'out of scan range'. I got a similar error with Harry Potter but
managed to work round it. With MM8, I can't seem to sort it out
though I have dropped both the resolution and refresh rate as low
as I can as suggested by Alex. The monitor is about 3 years old
and I gather this is the problem.

I thoroughly enjoyed playing the Harry Potter game but not enough
to play through it a second time immediately and see if I could
find ALL the collectable cards and write a solution. I may do it
some time in the future but not just yet. Instead, I went back to
Pharaoh / Cleopatra. As strategy games go, it is excellent, but I
think Zeus still has the edge because it is a bit more
user-friendly. One of the nice things about Zeus is that the game
manages the workers in such a way that you don't have to build
housing and industries next to each other. You can have posh
residential areas and slummy manufacturing areas, which I much
prefer! Mum gave me the add-on Poseidon for Christmas so I will
probably install that soon.

Thanks to everyone who ordered SynTax CDs under the Christmas
offer. I will do something similar again in the future. I'm still
planning to do some more gaming CDs such as RPG and strategy ones.
Again, it comes down to time. I have too many hobbies and only a
24 hour day.

Thanks too to those of you who found time over the busy Christmas
rush to send in contributions for this issue. As always, any for
next issue will be very welcome.

Once again, have a great 2002.

                                                     Sue












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