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intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Sat Sep 10, 2016 5:25 pm

The first two issues of Freeze 64 - a new fanzine devoted to the C64 - are out, with the 3rd on the way in a couple of weeks. Freeze 64 bills itself as “The ultimate gaming fanzine for your Commodore 64.”

Each issue costs £3.50 pounds (today £1 is ~ $1.33). Shipping to the U.S. is another £2.25, so the first issue will cost U.S. customers about $7.50. Not bad for a magazine that is virtually ad free and averages 30 pages.

Freeze 64 is a labor of love from Vincenzo (Vinny) Mainolfi that oozes admiration of the 30+ year old breadbox computer and the scene that has never entirely died. Vinny is known for @C64_endings on Twitter, and is the editor of the website C64endings. He is based in the UK, so the perspective of the magazine’s focus is a bit UK-centric as a result, which is understandable.

The magazine itself is a small-format magazine. Pages are printed on standard 8.5”x11” landscape oriented paper, then folded in half. The good news here is the magazine is printed in full-color (probably via an inkjet). The front and back cover are made of glossy photo paper, which gives the cover a more substantial feel. It also has that slightly sticky feeling that photo paper prints can produce, so I’m quite careful to keep the little magazines away from moisture.

Vinny obviously has some print design skills, as the books are well organized and easy to read. He also, being the key (only?) writer, has a very infectious optimism and enthusiasm in his writings.

It probably is worth noting from the title of the magazine “Freeze 64” that a lot of time and effort is devoted towards the “freezing” of games to enter POKE commands to help cheat games. These POKES, which Vinny lists carefully and with clear directions, typically help gamers gain unlimited lives, free power-ups and other types of boosts, like walking through walls. Most of these POKES were originally developed into games for quality assurance (QA) purposes back in the day so developers could test their games more quickly and efficiently for bugs. Regardless, a key focus of this magazine is exploiting these backdoor commands to make games far easier to explore and beat.

I’m of the personal opinion that this is a very slippery slope. Once you have access, it’s almost like a drug one becomes addicted to using and abusing. If you have the cheat sitting on a note pad next to your keyboard, the temptation can become too great. And using them, ultimately, prevents gamers from mastering certain titles. But if time is of the essence, and a game is simply hard for the sake of being hard, there are times when a POKE command seems justified. I personally don’t rely on them to the extent this magazine has devoted itself. Considering that Vinny's other publication is "C64 Endings" I can easily see why POKES of this nature are so important to him. And hey, it's kinda cool to "hack" a game.

But to each his own. I suppose if you’ve completely mastered a game, using some of these cheats might be a fun way to explore areas you’ve never explored simply to check things out.

Commodore magazines in the 80s would typically spend a good portion of their focus on new games and applications hitting the market. Obviously, those days are over for the most part. But Vinny does do an exceptional job of covering new games that are being produced today, and the quality of these titles are impressive. The back of the magazines were generally reserved for code (literally pages of BASIC code that we would painstakingly copy by hand to make our machines do simple games or tasks), or advertising.

I’d equate pages of POKE commands to this section, but the focus is much more in the forefront, not the back pages for the hard-core.

There is also at least one very good interview in each issue from someone who is active in the current C64 game development scene - either from an engineering or design perspective. Those interviews, in my opinion, are worth the price of the magazine. They are well researched, thoughtful and insightful to the game design process. If Vinny is able to find some gray beard game design legends from yesteryear (maybe from Electronic Arts, or SSI) who are still around, I’d certainly be interested in those types of interviews, too.

All in all, Freeze 64 is worth a look. Vinny posts previews of each issue here. This lets you read about what each issue contains if you want to pick and choose rather than grab them all.
Attachments
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Issues #1 and #2 are shipping. #3 and #4 aren't far behind.

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I'm a huge fan of Datasoft's Bruce Lee, and I've finished it countless times (without cheats). My only critique is that it's over too soon!

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Each issue has one very well done interview with a coder or designer with a C64 game under their belt (possibly musician in the future?).






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