Of all the covers that never made it this is probably my favourite. I think this particular image ticks all the boxes when it comes to finding that perfect RG cover. It’s iconic, crisp and striking, and although the featured game (The Great Escape) is painted in shades of blacks and whites it still manages to look wonderfully vibrant. But it’s the neat little touches that Stephen added that really help to round everything off nicely, like the yellow and black barb wire framing, the silhouettes against the Retro Gamer logo, and the medal score box, which was going to display the issue number. Hopefully there’s a chance we can resurrect it one day. 

Hooray, it’s yet another exciting issue of everyone’s favourite retro gaming magazine. “But what’s in this month’s issue?” we hear you ask. Well how does this little lot strike your fancy…

The complete history of Mario Kart: Nintendo proves that you can teach an old plumber new tricks

The Making of R-Type: Irem exclusively reveals how its legendary shoot-em-up came to be

Retroinspection - MSX: A machine that’s both a console and a computer? That will never sell. Will it?

The Classic Game: Super Punch-Out!!: We strap on our boxing gloves and get in the ring with the SNES’s mighty 16-bit brawler

The Making of Frak!: Creator Nick Pelling looks back at his classic platforming caveman

A Shock 2 the System: How System Shock 2 changed FPSs forever

The Making of Robotron: Behind the scenes of the frantic, dual-sticked blaster

Something Old, Something New - R-Type Tactics: A new spin on the classic franchise

Eastern Promise - Shinrei Jusatsushi Taromaru: It costs a fortune, but is it worth it?

The Making of Ecco the Dolphin - Defender of the Future: How Sega watery hero went 3D

Advert Rising: An indepth look at product placement over the years

The Making of Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders: One of the funniest LucasArts adventures that doesn’t have a psychotic rabbit in it.

And much more including M Bison, Sir Lancelot, Scooby Doo, Pacific, Bubbles, The Ooze , Homebrew reviews

You may have noticed that we were very impressed with 4J Studios impressive conversion of Rare’s Banjo Kazooie. Well no sooner had we completed it, Rare revealed the first screenshots for the excellent sequel.

But that’s not all. For the first time ever, the Twycross-based coders have also confirmed that the fabled Stop ‘N’ Swop will now appear exactly as they had always planned when the game was first released on the N64.

Obviously those cheeky little scamps refused to divulge any further information about this amazing but of news, but needless to say it’s left as excited as a very excited person who has a special reason to be excited. There’s no firm released date yet other than “sometime in Easter” so expect further news to be drip fed over the coming months.

Now where’s Jet Force Gemini and Blast Corps eh?

Hooray, it’s nearly time to get jiggy again.

Imagine’s Nick Roberts used to work on classic Spectrum magazine Crash, so every now and again he shows up with something that his parents have dug out of their loft and begins regaling us with tales of the good old days.

His latest treasure that’s been recovered by his parents is a promotional jumper for Hewson’s Cybernoid, and very snug it is to. Roberts now thinks that he has his precious garment back in his possession, but we’ve actually done a clever switch with an old jumper that belonged to Stuart. By the time he’s discovered the ruse we plan to have already left the country, using the money we’ve earned by selling this precious heirloom on eBay.

Here’s Nick’s top in all its glory.

Last year I picked myself up an iPod Touch and over the Christmas break I’ve been discovering all sorts of classic games on the clever little portable.While many of them obviously feature next-gen visuals (good luck finding a DS game that looks as good as Hero of Spartan) it’s surprising just how many of them feel like the classics of old.

Gameloft’s Block Breaker 2 Deluxe and Bubble Bash are basically updated takes on Arkanoid and Bust-A-Move, while titles like Bejeweled 2, Trism and Rainbow are just as addictive as the puzzle games of old. There’s even mario styled platformers like Nicky Boom if you’re prepared to trawl through the many games that are already available.

I’ve also discovered Tower Defence games like Fieldrunners and Crystal Defenders, as well as impressive shoot-em-ups like the excellent rRootage. Perhaps most surprising though is the sheer amount of old retro games that are starting to appear on the system and the actual quality of them. Missile Command, Pac-Man and Pole Position all work exceptionally well on the system and can be controlled by either tilting the screen in the direction you want to go or with a quick flick of your finger.

Best of all though is the brave soul who’s taken it upon himself to recreate five games from Nintendo’s Game & Watch series. Chef, Octopus, Fire, Parachute and Helmut not only look the part but are addictive as now as they ever were. We’ll be taking a more in-depth look at Apple’s handheld in issue 61 of the magazine, in the meantime I’m off to play some more Fish Tycoon.

Fieldrunners is insanely addictive and keeps on receiving fresh updates. It’s well worth its paltry £3 asking price

Mirror’s Edge is a game of two feuding halves. On one side you have this beautiful milky looking city to play in, and the illusion that you’re getting to experience the fashionable pastime of Parkour; the insane art of getting from point a to point b via needless danger, the other is the reality that the game is a refreshing but linear 3D puzzle/platform game with clunky actiony gunplay bits bolted on to try and fool a first person shooter fan into thinking that the game is just that. 

When Mirror’s Edge is in full flow though it really is a treat. The food for critism I’ve heard others level at the game seems to come mainly from its trial-and-error gameplay. This is certainly no kind of game-breaker though, and forgivable given the perspective and theme of the game. A ‘free running’ platform game needs to find its difficulty from somewhere, and tricky platform sections that require a keen mastery of the controls (which actually find you quite nicely), and a good understanding of the environment, is all fine with me, as were the frequency of regeneration checkpoints (that seem to bizarrely get more frequent the further in the game you get) which helped to keep the game flowing and not become tiny triangular shards scattered across my living room floor.

Eventually you will find yourself scaling skyscrapers with the grace and ease of Peter Parker (or should that be Peter Parkour?). And you’ll probably, like I did, get the impression that it’s all down to you getting better at the game, getting better at reading the lay of the levels and becoming ‘one’ with its design.  Having stepped back from the game though I came to the belief that might not be the case at all.

Because the puzzles always have a control/action based solution, and Faith (the character you control in the game) only has a handful of controls/actions, you simply get better at reacting to the same four or so puzzle-types that pop up in the game; patterns cleverly disguised by their surroundings.  This is no bad thing though as the game hides this fact by feeling rewarding. 

No, the biggest issues I had with Mirror’s Edge was its banal story, the needless gun bits - which jar heavily against the excellent and polished free running sections - and the clear lack of replay value. Online Time Trials are all fine and good if that’s your thing, but for many people the six or seven hours that make up its single player lifespan just won’t be good enough. I managed to picked it up in Game for £20 over the holidays and finished over the course of two days, and while I really enjoyed the game while it lasted, I can honestly say I haven’t felt the urge to return to it. 

Although the forthcoming VR Missions-style DLC, which is said to remove the story and gunplay in favour of focusing solely on the platforming action, sounds like it has the potential to change my mind.