Reviews & Awards

Golden Joystick Award 1986 — Best Arcade-Style Game

Uridium (1986, C64, Andrew Braybrook / Graftgold) won the Golden Joystick Award for Best Arcade-Style Game in 1986 — the most coveted award in the British home computer gaming industry. The Golden Joystick was the BAFTA of its era; winning it confirmed Uridium's standing not only within the Hewson catalogue but within British gaming history.

The award recognised what reviewers had already identified: Uridium's combination of technical accomplishment, design precision, and sheer playability was exceptional. Andrew Braybrook's dreadnought shooter had set a new standard for the C64 shoot 'em up.

Your Sinclair — 84% Average & 14 Megagame Awards

Your Sinclair — one of the leading ZX Spectrum magazines — awarded its highest rating tier, the Megagame designation, to 14 Hewson titles. The 84% average score across reviewed titles represents a sustained level of critical acclaim rare for any publisher. Hewson's ZX Spectrum titles — including the Cecco and Graftgold productions — consistently scored in the upper quartile of the magazine's review scale.

Uridium (1986) — Zzap!64

"Uridium is visually awesome, sonically sound, technically stunning — brilliant shoot 'em up."

Zzap!64's coverage of Uridium established Andrew Braybrook as a first-rank C64 programmer. The magazine, which had emerged as the authoritative voice on Commodore 64 software, praised both the technical achievement of the dreadnought surface scrolling and the game design precision of the Manta fighter's controls. The review was a landmark in Zzap!64's history as well as Hewson's.

Paradroid (1985) — Zzap!64

Zzap!64's review of Paradroid recognised the originality of Braybrook's circuit battle mechanic and the quality of the ship design. The game's blend of shoot 'em up action and tactical droid management was praised as something genuinely new — a design that invited comparison with the best arcade strategy titles while being entirely its own thing.

Cybernoid: The Fighting Machine (1988) — Zzap!64

Cybernoid received extensive coverage from Zzap!64, with particular attention paid to Jeroen Tel's SID score and Raf Cecco's weapon mechanics. The magazine's coverage of the Cecco era at Hewson contributed significantly to his reputation as one of Britain's finest programmers.

Cybernoid: The Fighting Machine (1988) — CRASH

CRASH magazine awarded Cybernoid 96% — a remarkable score that places it among the highest-rated ZX Spectrum titles in the magazine's history. The review recognised the quality of Cecco's design and the precision of the weapon system, noting that the Spectrum version preserved the essential mechanics of the C64 original.

Raf Cecco Developer Diary — CRASH Issue 53

CRASH magazine issue 53 published a developer diary by Raf Cecco — a primary source for understanding his development methods and his working relationship with Hewson Consultants. The diary documents the process of developing Cybernoid and provides rare insight into the day-to-day reality of commercial game development in the late 1980s British industry.

The CRASH developer diary series was notable for its technical depth and its willingness to give programmers a platform to explain their craft. Cecco's contribution is one of the most significant documents of the Hewson era.

Exolon (1987) — CRASH

CRASH reviewed Raf Cecco's Hewson debut with strong scores, recognising the precision of the control system and the quality of the sprite work on the ZX Spectrum. The review introduced Cecco to the Spectrum audience and set expectations for the Cybernoid titles that would follow.

Critical Legacy

Hewson Consultants' titles have been consistently highly rated in retrospective assessments of the British home computer era. Uridium, Paradroid, Nebulus, and Cybernoid appear regularly in all-time C64 and ZX Spectrum top-title lists. The combination of Graftgold's precision design and Cecco's mechanical innovation, delivered through Hewson's quality-focused publishing model, produced a catalogue of unusual consistency for a publisher of any era.

The titles have been preserved by the Internet Archive, celebrated by the HVSC community, and discussed in depth in retrospective video content by channels including Retrounlim and The Retro Hour. See Videos for curated retrospective content.