Zzap!64 Annual 2019 - New C64 Magazine | Nostalgia Nerd

No covers were revealed in the making of this video (until you get to 5:30 at least). Zzap 64 was a magazine many of us Commodore 64 owners read in the 80s and early 90s. It was the best magazine for games. Serving the C64 population as well as Crash magazine did for the Spectrum community. That's why it's so excellent to see its return in the shape of a 2019 annual from Fusion Retro Books. Join me on a trip down memory lane and let's have a sneaky peek in the process.

Please note: Small cover spoiler alert at the end of the video.

Shiny things;

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[FusionMagazine]

Just to add guys - this is ALL new content with many of the features and reviews done by the original ZZap! 64 staff. All the game reviews are of games produced since the commercial days of the Commodore 64 - thanks for your support :)

[MakeMineMelodic]

Audio track is Future Joust - On The Knife, for those wondering.

[karehaqt]

At 1:26 the chap pulling his mouth open with both hands is my older brother :)

[allan.n.]

We used to occasionally buy Zzapp64! in Denmark in the 80'es.. they were expensive af (like 12 euros or 90 DKK in that times money) and hard to find - but we had to get them.. it was simply magic to get hold of a copy.. often the demos on the included tape didn't work ... but when they did.. oh boy oh boy...

[dragonmac]

Thanks for that massive nostalgia trip. As one of the second generation writers for Zzap! 64 (and Crash) back in the day, it's good to see this annual. I'm going to go and get a copy sorted, and if you're looking for contributors at some point for next years annual Chris, I'm still here (older but no wiser) :-)

[TheLevitatingChin]

30 seconds into your video and ordered a copy. This is going to make a great Xmas pressie - to myself haha

[eustacequinlank]

4:40 Oh, the Godlike entity of Julian Rignall and his bespoke mane of glory!

I saw him from afar at a ECTS show in London once, circa 1992 AD.

[cyrillobaggins]

my gaming mags (89-2000s) is the only thing I will keep around forever

[DanafoxyVixen]

Loved Zzap 64 back in the day and the demo tapes here in New Zealand. they were expensive but they were the only way to know what new games were coming

[MrVertical]

Proper unadulterated nostalgia. Spotted Robin @2.46. What a man.

[JustWastedHoursHere]

I do miss those cover disks, often with FULL versions of games or utilities on them. My favorite 64 mag ever was "Info 64" here in the states, which became just "Info magazine" when the Amiga came out. Good times...

I even miss those long type in programs that took hours and then still had errors...

[SirHilaryManfat]

I completely forgot that I ordered this a few months ago. I remember how sad it was when Zzap64 turned into what was essentially a crappy comic, around the time the C64 was dying out. Even though I had moved on to an Amiga by then, I really missed the old Zzap style, and gave up on it when it became Commodore Force.

[ClayMann]

This was my introduction to magazines. Previous to this I'd only ever owned those sticker magazines where you were shamelessly scammed into buying packs and packs of the same stickers you didn't need to complete the thing. So ZZap! was a breath of fresh air. It seems silly now but I remember being amazed at how the reviews had so much humour in them. How could they get away with it I'd think to my little self believing reviews should be something very serious haha. I would laugh as much as gawk at the amazing screenshots of games I too could own one day.

I'd read these magazines from cover to cover and enjoyed the adverts too. For that brief period of time where there were still pages undiscovered and unread it was just bliss. After you'd read it all you then had a wait a whole month more before you'd get to do it all over again. Later on the tapes became the really desirable thing but looking back I don't remember those or anything on them but I do remember my time reading the mags and immediately thought of the name Julian Rignall when I saw that reviewer head shot. He was the go to guy to read first. Even games you didn't like the sound of were worth getting if Julian recommended it.

[martinfrost]

Zzap!64 Was the centre of my world for a few years, especially in a tiny town with a video shop that occasionally had C64 tapes as my only other access to new tapes. The art style was so gorgeous and it felt anarchic, although I was probably way too young to read it as I was 12 at the last issue (Miss Whiplash?!) The first edition of Commodore Force in December 1992 (Lemmings demo on the tape) was the last C64 magazine I bought before getting an A600 at Christmas, it seemed fitting as the end of an era and Force just wasn't the same, nothing was. Went on to One Amiga, but as nice as it was it still didn't have quite the same feel.

[TheGamingMuso]

What the hell js that magazine made out of? Paper?! Gosh that takes me back!!

[kenknight]

The 2002 pdf only issue was a one-off they insisted would never come again.... yeah right. The demand for retro has hit much bigger than they would have foreseen. May the annual continue indefinitely. Plus, now that tape production has started again, it's time to see if the cover tape can be brought back at a reasonable cost. Since Commodore Force finished there have been LOADS of cool games that most people have never seen

[UncleAwesomeRetro]

Very nice video :) I like the focus on giving us emotion through cinematic shots and storytelling, instead of just giving us information.

[DavidWatts]

OMG I love it. The cover tapes were amazing, that and Commodore Format were the only games me and my brothers had. Oh the memories.

[BilisNegra]

On the lack of game maps... I remember how magazines often displayed the whole map of some games (a particular one had A3 sized pages, go figure what kind of amazing real state two side by side A3 pages can deliver) . The amount of effort put on image capture, page layout and so on with the means available at the time must have been ridiculously high!

[ade-d]

Ah, I used to look forward to getting a copy of Mean Machines. Loved that mag. Magazines of that era were full of cheeky charm, Happy days.