Acorn World 1997

Acorn World 1997 took place at the Wembley Exhibition Centre, London, UK from the 31st of October to the 2nd of November. For Acorn Gaming aficionados there were a few sites of particular interest, and there was certainly much more to see than the sorry state of affairs which presented itself at last year's show, even if it wasn't exactly gaming paradise incarnate.

You may already have read reports on Acorn World in other magazines, but I can assure you that this report contains plenty of things that you won't have read (or seen) anywhere else! Some of these are due to the focus on games, whilst others are due to a rather irreverent approach.

Probably the most hyped title finally on release at the show was TBA Software's 3D racing game Brutal Horse Power, although there was a first public showing of an Acorn port of Quake running throughout the show on Acorn's stand. The Datafile had the brand new Wizard Apprentice available on CD at a special show offer (now extended until the end of January), and the superb new space strategy game Exodus was also on general sale. If you hadn't seen Drifter previously then it was running on various stands, and some new ProAction ports of old BBC Micro games were on display on the Werewolf Software stand. The Fourth Dimension also had a couple of minor new releases on sale.

Due to the size of this article I've split it up onto several separate pages, liberally decorated with revealing photographs! There are also some interesting shots of Chris Cox and Peter Bondar giving their presentation on the Future of Acorn...

• Acorn's stand - games arcade, Java, Risc PC 2, LAN TV and natty clothing
• TBA Software - Brutal Horse Power, the Quake controversy and 3D graphics cards
• The Fourth Dimension - new games and old problems
• Werewolf Software - not a lot to howl about (sorry...)
• The Future of Acorn - Chris Cox and Peter Bondar entertain the masses
• Magazines - Risc User, Archimedes World and Acorn User
• Clan area and Acorn beta-test software
• Other stands - random, irrelevant stuff

^{The entrance to Acorn World (left), which was in Wembley Conference Hall 3 (right)}

...this page last updated: 31/12/97...
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