8 Bit Annual 2018 | Book Review

January 23, 2020January 23, 2020 zapiy

The review of the annual is somewhat late, considering its 2020 now and this is the 2018 annual. I still have to review this book though, lets not split hairs on the book/annual subject, to me this is as much of a book as any I have read in recent years. The 8 Bit Annual 2018 celebrates the world of homebrew gaming, that section of retrogaming has grown expenesially in recent years, so much so you can create content like this and still only scratch the surface.

My first impressions on the annual are very good, it feels like its made with quaility paper, the print quaility also looks very good and that front cover as seen here is simply stunning. So whats inside I hear you ask? Well an eye-dazzling 264 pages of reviews for your 8 bit systems of choice. Before we start with the games though, lets take a look at the opening few pages, here you will find a wonderful tribute to the late Bob Wakelin, featuring some images of his most iconic Ocean Software designs. After this wonderful read there are a few articles covering things like the Spectrum Next, New Hardware for the CPC and a great feature on women in the coding industry. Its at this point where the game reviews kick in, starting of with the Atari 2600, the majority of the annual is reserved for 8 bit computers so don’t expect to see a lot on console related content. Games featured range from the sublime Slipstream on the C64 that scores a mind crunching 95% to Mazogs on the MSX that scored a respectable 78%, review scores tend to split opinions, but the scoring seems to be fair to me.

Finally there is a section dedicated to interview with those behind the games, the developers, this was a fantastic read, I have always considered myself clued up on the homebrew scene but this section introduced me to a few new names for me to watch out for.

If you love homebrew gaming and your a fan of the 8 bit scene then I might suspect you already have this book, if your just a fan of gaming in general and you want a quick reference guide for the homebrew scene from 2018 you need to pick this up, yep its still available HERE.