Freebies

Some might say that C+VG is responsible for starting the current publishing nightmare/trend that requires you to attach a free magazine to a £5.00 ($8.00) CD/DVD filled with a ton of crapola that can be downloaded for free from the Intraweb - if you've the time, which is I guess what editorial is all about.

Anyway, this is a quick look at the "free" stuff that you got with C+VG over the years.

Free Book of Games

The book of games was a book that had games in it. Though you had to 'type' them into your computron first and then type run.
Games on paper looked like this:

10 PRINT "JEFF IS WICKED"
20 GOTO 10

Or like this:

10 DATA 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10
20 USR "Dixons is Rubbish!"
30 POKE 'Martin'
40 GOSUBmarine

Anyway, C+VG used to give them away every 3-5 months or so; which was pretty handy as it would take you that long to actually type them in.

Free Round Counters For a Board Game

This is a video game mag right? And you're giving me half of a board game? And the other half is a program listing which I have to type in? ...Interesting.

Free Records

In October 1984 dancing to your computer games was all the rage. Here we have a Thomspon Twins game that was given away as a flexi-disc vinyl record which you put on your hi-fi and you could load into your computertron box or you could jive and get all groovy to its wicked happening sounds. Maybe we should start pod-casting old spectrum games as MP3s!

Free Stickers

Check these out, they glow in the dark - make sure you print them out on a colour printer though! Whhooooooo SCARY!

Free Holograms

Anyone want a free Incredible Hologram? That's right, not just free, not just holographic but INCREDIBLE! Check it out, it's a holographic preview of Xenon II. Exactly!

If you slowly tilt your monitor from side to side you can actually see the game working inside of the little 3DLasertronic sticker; whatever will those wacky boffins think of next? Talking of boffins, anyone remember that game Boffin by Addictive Software? Me neither. Anyway checkout the free hologram, did I mention it was free?

At one point C+VG was proudly announcing that a shiny silver hologram on the front cover was a free gift. Whatever floats your boat I guess! Perhaps we could get Lord Jazz of Rignall to comment ;)

Free Maps

Get lost! No, I mean, 'get lost?' - Here, you can use a map to find your way out, if you're like lost, or something. Mainly for gamers whose short-term memory has been blown by poor diet and not getting out into the world outside enough.

Free Games

Shortly after the invention of papyrus program listings, Thomas Dolby (A & B) invented the cassette tape into which you could record the sounds of a cat yacking up furballs. These sounds when played back into your personal computertron would draw many pretty lines onto the television box whilst playing the screeching sounds. After a while, usually a few whiles if you were loading an Atari cassette, the screeching would stop, the screen would go black and the computer would reset itself or freeze requiring you to turn it off and on and start again. This is how I developed such a large vocabulary of expletives as a child.

After repeating this process a few times you would then be able to play a game like PacMange or Horace goes Shoplifting.

Thunder Thunder Thunder Thunder Thundercats tape

Join Lion-O and his other cat friends in this musical extravaganza featuring Elaine Page and Barbera Dickson.