CRASH

Burp! Another issue of CRASH, bursting at the seams with news, reviews and the usual mix of goodies goes staggering off to be printed.

For the second month running, we’ve managed to persuade our printers to agree to producing a massive 164 page issue — and we’ll be putting even greater demands on them for the Christmas Special which should weigh in at 196 pages. Don’t forget, the Magazine that bears Lloyd’s initials — LM will have your newsagent’s shelves groaning with the strain in December: a whole 80 pages of LM is going to be strapped to Issue 36, The 1986 Christmas Special.

A trio of packed issues of CRASH. What better way to round off a year that has itself been packed with incidents — from the Sinclair sell-out, to the Spectrum Plus Two, from the launch of the brave weekly BANG to its demise with a PHUT... a year crammed with games releases: some excellent, some dire and some incredibly late. New ground has been broken on both the software and the hardware fronts, and next year looks likely to be every bit as exciting for Spectrum owners.

This has been a year which has seen CRASH romp to the top of the home computer magazine pile, and a year in which the CRASH staff have come, gone and changed around. We say Goodbye to Sean Masterson this month, who has decided to fight on new battlefields. We say hello to a host of new people in the Art Department, and we’ve just moved the CRASH office one floor higher in the Towers. From broomcupboard to ex-boardroom — the team’s set up for great things in the New Year...

Why this early lookback, rounding up the year? Well the Christmas Special is a festive issue, devoted to fun. Enough of this Editorialising. No more for 1986... have a good Christmas!

Maybe we’ll see you at the 21st ZX MICROFAIR on 13th December — the CRASH team should be there in force, and the whole day’s going to be a bit of a party according to the organiser, Mike Johnston... we might even have a few mince pies on our stand for early visitors!

TREATS IN STORE

We’ve been beavering away, working on a whole range of treats for your Yuletide amusement. Three weeks after this issue goes on sale, the bumper annual extravaganza known as the CRASH CHRISTMAS SPECIAL should be in the shops. Without giving away too many secrets, we should be able to offer a reader the chance to win £1,500 to spend on attending a sporting event of their choice anywhere in the world — just one of the extra special competitions that’ll have you racking your brains while the Christmas pud goes down...

A fulsome look back on the year is planned for next issue — including a gentle reappraisal of the SMASHes of 1986, news of a cunning device that allows owners of two other computers to play Spectrum games on their machines, and an overview of the musical possibilities opened up to Spectrum owners.

Of course, there’ll be the usual crop of reviews, and you can be sure of one thing: unless a game is finished it won’t get a review in our pages. Previews — well there are bound to be a few Christmas mega-games that arrive a bit late. What with reviews and previews, we should be able to give you more than a mere inkling of what to expect to see on the shelves as the jingle bells ring out in perfect harmony with cash registers.

Demand for the Christmas Special is likely to be high. Okay, so its going to cost £1.95 but you do get a completely free magazine courtesy of Lloyd and his colleagues on LM. And we guarantee 19.5% extra pages in CRASH next month, excluding the 80 page freebie...