Okay here we go, a great big cover update for you all to check out over the bank holiday, thanks to everyone below for your contributions. We still have a lot more to get through so if your hard work has not yet been added to CPC Zone then please do be patient, we will get around to it.

From Nich Campbell:

• Myrddin Flight Simulation by Myrddin Software
• Star Trooper by Players
• Reckless Rufus by Alternative Software (R)
• Superkid in Space by Atlantis
• Throne of Fire by Melbourne House (F&B)
• The Archon Collection by Electronic Arts (R) (F&B)
• Microids Action Pack by Microids (F&B)
• F-15 Strike Eagle by Microprose (R) (F&B)
• Gunboat by Accolade (F&B)
• Jump Jet by Anirog (1594)
• Night Raider by Gremlin Graphics (F&B)
• PHM Pegasus by Electronic Arts (F&B)
• Americas Cup Challenge by US Gold (F&B)
• Future Bike Simulator by Hi-Tec Software
• Kettle by Alligata Software (F&B)
• Lee Enfield : An Amazon Adventure (F&B)
• Spindizzy by Electric Dreams (R) (F&B)
• Spindizzy by Electric Dreams - Winner
• Terminus by Mastertronic (R)
• Zone Trooper by Cascade Games

From : Ritchardo mkII:

• Snooker by Gem Software
• Jet Boot Jack by English Software
• Laserwarp by Mikro-Gen
• Mutant Monty by Artic Computing Ltd
• Pyjamarama by Mikro-Gen
• Roland Ahoy! by Computersmith

From Robcfg:

• Trantor by US Gold (ERBE version)

From S_Famicom:

• 3D Pool by Firebird (F&B)
• Jack and the Beanstalk by Thor Software
• Kentilla by Mastertronic
• Tusker by System 3 (F&B)
• UN Squadron by Capcom (F&B)
• X-Out by Rainbow Arts (F&B)

From WOS:

• La Abadia Del Crimen by OperaSoft
• African Trail Simulator by Positive (F&B)

(R) = Replacement of a previous scan.

Hello everyone, yes it has been a while since the last news update (a month in fact) but I just wanted to quickly let you know that I am constantly working on code upgrades, features and improvements for upcoming sections of CPC Zone. The first of which is live now, if you scroll down the page to the "Highest / Least Rated CPC Games" box you will notice that not only are we now displaying the most voted titles but you can now quickly flick between the most voted and least voted titles without having to ever reload the entire page. This is a totally new feature and should serve as a taste of things to come.

On the subject of game voting, previously if a single member voted a game 5 out of 5 then it would possibly find itself in the top voted games menu and unfairly knock a title out of the running, now our games require more than one vote before they even appear in these charts which should even out the balance nicely.

IMPORTANT UPDATE It seems that with the latest changes we accidentally broke the rating script and it wasn't saving your votes. It should be working fine again now, thanks.

Hello everyone, some things around here go unnoticed for such a long period of time that I am totally unaware that there is a problem, one such problem was the search function. It was reported via the forums that people could not search the website via the search box on the forum but it actually turns out that because of a security fix on the server, almost the entire script was acting strangely.

For instance if you searched for a game and no result was found then you were presented with a less then user friendly error message (this has now been fixed) or if you searched for a game developer as big as Ocean Software and found yourself looking at 40+ games, you were totally unable to get past the first page of results because the navigation at the bottom wasn't picking up your search terms (again fixed).

It is all working fine now (I think) so please try it out and if you spot anything then don't hesitate to post in the forums.

We are almost back at full speed, I need to do some further testing to ensure that everything went without a hitch. The plan wasn't so much to change how the site looks and feels but to change various pieces of code so that everything runs smoother and faster without putting any increased load on the server. It is worth noting that we haven't been told that we're going over any limits but of course anything we can do to prevent that is a bonus.

A couple of new features did manage to creep in though, for instance:

• the way the news is displayed
• news categories
• RSS feeds for each category
• moved : login box has gone from the menu on the right and is instead in a bar above the header
• fixed : some minor glitches with the browse function of Gamebase CPC
• changed : removed the Javascript for game galleries, now reverts back to the original lightbox

Everything else should be more or less the same, and that was the intention, so providing nothing has broken between then and now we should be fine.

Hello everyone, this is going to be a real quick message but I just want to let you know that the news will not be updated for a few days as important updates are being made. If you want to catch the latest happenings then we suggest you check out our forums where you can keep up to date and meet new friends.

The expected downtime is a few days and I will update the news again later to let you know how it all goes. Thanks.

Hello everyone, up until now a few of you might have been having a little bit of a problem rating your favourite games using the star rating down the right hand side of each game page? this was caused by a CSS glitch that prevented the stars from rendering correctly and could even have prevented you from voting entirely (depending on your choice of browser). I`m happy to say that at long last this has now been fixed and you should get an accurate star rating for each of the thousands of game pages and be able to vote for your favourite and least favourite Amstrad titles.

Oh and this feature is as always reserved for members of the website only. So if you want to post a comment or rate your favourite / least favourite titles accordingly you will need to head on over to the forums and register an account.

Enjoy.

CPC Zone is saddened to learn of the passing of Mark Haigh-Hutchinson from Pancreatic Cancer at the age of 43.

Mark converted a number of classic games on to the CPC including Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Paperboy, Android One, Highway Encounter and Alien Highway.

Latterly Mark moved on to work on a number of modern classics including Sam and Max Hit the Road and the Metroid Prime series.

On behalf of the forum members and staff of CPC Zone, I would like to extend our thoughts and best wishes to Mr Haigh-Hutchinson`s family and friends at this difficult time.

Hello everyone, hope you had a good Christmas break, pitty that most of us are back at work, college or some form of school again soon (if not already) though isn`t it? Why can`t you just relive your youth over and other again?

Anyway the comments system is back in a trial mode and is obviously only available to registered members of the site. You will be able to post comments on all of your favourite Amstrad CPC classics as well as give them your own personal rating out of 10. The reason I say trial mode is because, should the system become infiltrated with spam then it will once again go back offline to give me chance to clean it all out and edit the software again to combat such abuse. It is also nowhere near 100% complete as there are numerous things I want to add to this feature that will help me maintain the site and watch for rubbish such as adverts for viagra or dating websites and things like that.

You cannot delete your comment once posted. So please do make sure that you WANT to comment on the game you are looking at before clicking the button. You can however edit your comment at a later date and even post more than one comment if you feel the need to reply to someone elses earlier comment (these are also numbered for your convenience). We of course CAN delete your comment and block you from posting any future comments so please keep it clean and just enjoy the website.

In addition to this I`ve been cleaning up the Gamebase a little bit, still a LOAD to do on that front. Mainly the synopsis for games is being ignored by Google and I suspect it is due to the fact that it is not wrapped in nice paragraph tags on older entries, looks fine on screen but not so great to a robot. So that is my first priority. While I`m looking at that I`m also sorting out any misnamed titles and using the "Also known as" box to place any additional names for that title into, so for example Terminator 2 : Judgement Day is also just known as Terminator 2 or even T2, so when you search for either of those 3 combinations you will get the Terminator 2 game. Nice things like that. I`m also clearly marking the GX4000 entries in bold text and removing the word "Cartridge" from the title of those games, just looks cleaner. You can still find any GX4000 title by simply typing GX4000 into the search box because again I have used the "Also known as" box to get around this.

That`s it for now. More surprise updates coming soon though.

Just unwrapped my subs copy of Retro Gamer this morning with the rest of my Christmas Pressies (my g/f likes to do things like this - I was slightly less enchanted with the gas bill and pension leaflets but hey ho) and thought I`d summarise the CPC related content for anyone swithering over whether to pick this month`s copy up:

• Cover feature: "Huge Exclusive! Chase HQ II Only one copy exists on the GX4000 and we`ve played it!"
• Retrorevival: Express Raider on the CPC

Also slightly more tenuously:

• Making of Rick Dangerous I & II
• Box of Delights: 2 Hot 2 Handle
• Developer Lookback: Electronic Arts
• Making of Robocop
• Making of California Games

Obviously the biggest `news` there is the continuing saga of Chase HQ II and the confirmation that this is the real deal.

From a personal point of view, I would like to publicly apologise to James for any dis-satisfaction that my scepticism may have caused him, however, I hope that my explanation for my motives, which I provided to him at the time, was both acceptable and understandable.

Anyway, hopefully with this latest burst of publicity for CHQ2 we can drum up more support and methods for getting a copy of the game uploaded

For more information on this month`s Retro Gamer, head over to the Imagine website.

If you want more information on the discussions into trying to get a dump of Chase HQ II, then click on the forum tab above and head into the Games that Weren`t section to discuss this hot topic.

Oh!

And a very Merry Christmas to you all!

This might be the last big update before Christmas, if that is the case then I wish all of you a very happy one and I hope you get everything that you`ve asked for. Tonight I have uploaded another 43 excellent quality scans by Nich Campbell, some of which are replacement scans for older covers in the archive but all of which are worth checking out. Here`s the complete list:

• Arcadia by Ocean Software
• Bridge by Infogrames (front/back)
• Bobsleigh by Digital Integration (front/back)
• Championship Water Skiing by Infogrames (front/back)
• Deutsches Geheimnis 4e/3e by Generation 5 (front/back)
• Dark Sceptre by Firebird (front/back)
• Dempsey and Makepeace by Britannia Software (front/back)
• The Dream Team by Ocean Software (front/back)
• Echelon by Accolade (front/back)
• Empire by Firebird
• Espionage by Grandslam (front/back)
• Flight Path 737 by Anirog
• Fugitif by Lankhor (front/back)
• I Alien by CRL (front/back)
• Infodroid by Denton Designs
• Italy 1990 : Winners Edition (front/back)
• Jack The Ripper by CRL (front/back)
• Help Inc. by Cronosoft
• Iron Sphere by Cronosoft
• Lancelot by Level 9 Computing Ltd (front/back)
• League Football by Cult
• Livingstone OperaSoft (front/back)
• Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge by Gremlin Graphics (front/back)
• Little Puff by Codemasters *
• Mach 3 by Loriciels (front/back)
• Myrddin Flight Simulation by Myrddin Software
• Megaplay Volume 1 (Disk Version) (front/back)
• Microids Action Pack by Microids (front/back)
• Nexus by Prism Leisure
• P-47 by Firebird (front/back)
• Psycho City by Players
• Reckless Rufus by Alternative Software *
• Sailing by Activision (Cassette version) (front/back)
• Secret England 4e - 3e by Generation 5 (front/back)
• Sim City by Maxis Software (front/back)
• Sporting Triangles by CDS (Disk version) (front/back)
• Stranded by Cronosoft
• Southern Belle by Hewson Consultants
• The Red Arrows by Database Software (front/back)
• Time Bomb by Black Knight Software
• The Untouchables by Ocean Software *
• Turbo The Tortoise by Hi-Tec Software (Hi-Tec Software Release)
• Ultra Sound by Siren Software
• Wizard Willy by Codemasters
• Wild West Seymour by Codemasters
• XOR by Astral Software Ltd

Some of these are actually from games that were not part of our Gamebase system, they have now been added along with all the information that we currently have for those titles, namely Cronosoft releases.

In addition I have also added the the ability to play certain games online courtesy of the wonderful CPC-Alive Java based Amstrad emulator (Robocop, Batman, Barbarian to name a few) and support for your own recorded YouTube videos of various games in action on a real Amstrad CPC. These are relatively new features and obviously don`t yet support a large number of games, but we will be expanding this in the future. If you want more information on submitting your own YouTube game videos to the website please view our Gamebase forums.

Oh and did I mention you can now subscribe to the reviews and cover RSS feed? simply click the little RSS icon on the cover or review page via the menu at the top of your screen.