20 Years ago 'today': Tornado! Oh, and IndyCar Racing

I put this together for iRacing, but there may be a few old gits here who appreciate stepping back in time. Apologies for the image sizes, if anyone's still using their 14.4k modem from back then.

The September 1993 issue of PCZone was on my boss's desk as I waited for him to finish his paperwork so we could set the alarms and go home. I wasn't a PC owner at the time, but the Tornado headline caught my attention, because I'd spent way too much time flying F-19 Stealth Fighter on a friend's PC. However I'd just spent a lot of money on a rather nice, 32-bit Acorn Archimedes, from the company which went on to spin off ARM. So I was in no mood to spend more money, because that was a real luxury for me at the time.



But then I leafed through to the Tornado review and felt something expensive start to fester in my head.



https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-...AAAAALts/_xzX9n6zDxc/w1988-h1402-no/photo.jpg



https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-...AAAAALt0/lVPyFQub2Ao/w1987-h1362-no/photo.jpg



https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-...AAAAALt8/RRq7G0wHoeY/w1980-h1392-no/photo.jpg

That really whet my appetite for some serious sim satisfaction, and by the time we left work I knew I was going to have to buy this magazine myself and read more.

I did. And I bought Tornado even before I had a PC to play it on (I even took the manual on holiday with me to read!) I also read the magazine from cover to cover, and I discovered this...



https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-...AALuQ/5yM7JWAYfwg/w2101-h1438-no/IMG_2649.JPG



https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-...AALtQ/l5H7rZ0YaRA/w1773-h1225-no/IMG_2650.JPG

Little did I know that these two previews would change the next 20 years of my life. Sometimes for the better (the satisfaction, the thrill, the wonder!) Sometimes for the worse (the money, the strange looks from friends and colleagues, the time sunk!) But it's never been a dull ride, that's for certain.

Thanks Digital Integration, RIP, and curse Falcon 3.0 for stealing your thunder and robbing you of the attention you deserved! And thanks to Papyrus, RIP (ok, RiiR, Rest in iRacing!) and to the team who continue to put so much effort into giving us a reason to be bitchy and argumentative... I mean, happy and satisfied.

I have to go and drown my sorrows now. That magazine stole 20 years of my life!

I had that Indycar game after wanting to take a break from Microprose's F1GP that I had been playing for like 4yrs Papyrus had a great formula however from what I recall the AI just wasn't a patch on F1GP's.

Love the scans! Got magazines here dating back to 1989 myself. The oldest is an '89 issue of A.C.E.

Blimey! I remember a version of IndyCar, a demo I think, where I could race round Laguna Seca. Good days! Can't imagine there's anything similar nowadays?

Simon The Sorcerer.

Good times!

MarcLister said:

Blimey! I remember a version of IndyCar, a demo I think, where I could race round Laguna Seca. Good days! Can't imagine there's anything similar nowadays?

Click to expand...

That was most likely the game featured in the review Laguna Seca was a nightmare of a track!

Kainz said:

That was most likely the game featured in the review Laguna Seca was a nightmare of a track!

Click to expand...

Thought it might be. I always remembered GP2 as being gloriously hi-res. So when I played it again 2-3 years ago on a massive 24 inch screen I was quite shocked at how 'blocky' this previously hi-res game was. That's why I didn't recognise the game I had in mind in those images.