Your favorite video game magazines, memories of them, and have they aged well?

[newtmonkey]

Game Players PC Entertainment (1991)

I finished reading through the '91 issues of this mag, and I loved it!  Highly recommended for anyone interested in the history of (mostly) PC games from this time.

     The layout is a bit dull consisting of mostly just a lot of text with a few screenshots, but the writing is of such high quality that I found myself reading each mag cover to cover (except for the previews section toward the end).  There were some really good writers working on this mag, including the awesome William R. Trotter, who covered mostly wargames but was such a good writer/reviewer that I read every word of his reviews even though I have no interest at all in wargames.

     I don't think this mag is very well-known today, which is a shame, because it was excellent.  I guess my only complaint is that I probably would never feel the need to read through these mags a second time, due to the dull layout.  I can revisit an old issue of Nintendo Power or EGM time and time again thanks to the great layouts and tons of screenshots.  In contrast, GPPCE is sometimes like reading an academic journal -- you'll learn a lot, and the content might be well-written and fascinating, but it's not something you'd hang onto and reread later.

Edited January 30 by newtmonkey

[Zap!]

3 hours ago, jhd said:

First, I am curious why a teenager would "steal" information from a corporate computer system. What possible value would it be without mechanism to sell it to a competitor? Identity theft was not really a thing in 1984, so payroll data (name, address, SSN) would not be very useful either. There was no "dark web" on which to sell this information. 

 

Second, I find it very odd that a serving prisoner -- even in juvenile detention -- would have access to current video game magazines, much less that the prisoner would be allowed to submit a letter thereto. 

He could have stole it for what he considered fun, which could be the same reason why he changed the finances (if he's real, big if). As for the letter, he theoretically could have given it to his mom, or told her to write it when she was visiting, although I'm not sure why that would be on his mind in dire times.

[Wayler]

On 1/29/2024 at 4:50 PM, newtmonkey said:

Super Play

This British mag first came out toward the end of 1992, and it's a brand new mag for me.  I got interested in this mag due to the accolades heaped upon it by SNES super fan RVGFanatic (sadly, website down as of posting this).  So far, I must agree: this is a great mag!  Plenty of nice screenshots, fantastic import coverage (both Japan and the US), good reviews, and a great sense of humor.  My only complaint is that they seem to really hate RPGs and shooters, which happen to be among my favorite games.  We'll see how it goes.

My favorite gaming mag but have we been reading the same publication? I never got the impression they were down on shooters and RPGs, I seem to remember many games on both genres got high marks. Any particular reviews that left you with this mindset? 

[newtmonkey]

@Wayler

Not any reviews in particular, but I've just noticed some comments and asides here and there in the first couple of issues suggesting the reviewer doesn't care for traditional RPGs.  For example, in their Soul Blazer review:

"...Soul Blazer treads familiar RPG territory, avoiding the weaker elements that plague many of these games - there's none of that tedious alternate-move combat stuff here, for instance."

 

As for shmups, there were some comments that suggest they are already tired of the genre, which is a strange position to take in 1992, unless you just don't like the genre.  Again, though, they were just asides and not reviews, so they might have even just been joking.

 

Of course, they reviewed only a couple of shmups (fine reviews) and no real RPGs in the first couple of issues, so we'll see how it goes!

Edited January 31 by newtmonkey

[Wayler]

@newtmonkey. It may be that they had dedicated reviewers for certain genres, who sometimes made snide remarks on the things they didn't like. But I don't remember that happening very much. 

 

One thing I thought was weird how some of the menu-laden, heavy strategic games or dungeon crawlers got high scores. I never could figure out why you would willingly play those on SNES when PC and a mouse would be such a better control scheme. But I guess I wasn't exactly the target audience for them. 

[bigfriendly]

Hello everybody:) I've really enjoyed reading this thread. From 1982-85 ages 12 to 15 years I was very fortunate to be a member of a home video game rental club in the town I grew up in. They had all the different gaming magazines at the store and I could take one home with the game I rented for the week. My Mom snapped this picture of me napping in my Dad's Lazy-Boy in 1983 when I was 13 years old. Notice the reading material on my stomach? As far as gaming magazines go the two I read the most were EGM and Gamepro. I had a subscription to EGM from the early 90s until probably some time after the PS2 came out in the early 2000s. I heard lots of trashing of the review crew but I enjoyed the reviews and that was one of my favorite parts of the magazine. It seemed thick and the April Fools gags they did were always funny. At some point a new editor came in and I noticed an immediate drop off in the quality of the magazine. It kept getting thinner and thinner and the final straw was when they started interjecting political views in the magazine. I didn't renew my subscription after that but for many years I always looked forward to it arriving in the mailbox. Great times my friends great times:)

[newtmonkey]

Gekkan PC Engine

I decided to see what's out there for Japanese mags in scanned form on the good old information superhighway.  As a major PC Engine fan, I was overjoyed to find nearly the entire run of Gekkan PC Engine, a monthly PC Engine mag that ran from 1988-1994, on Internet Archive... and found a few of the missing issues up on Retromags.  The mag was initially released as PC Engine Special, but was renamed Gekkan PC Engine in 1989 and the name stuck until the very end of the run.

 

I just read through the first issue (June 1988), and so far it's a very decent mag!  Like most Japanese mags of the era, it's pretty massive and mostly in color, with tons of screen shots and extremely detailed strategy articles (and outright walkthroughs) for several games.  The highlight for me is a complete walkthrough of R-Type, including stage maps with optimal routes, powerup advice, and boss strategies.

As with Famitsu, it also has a pretty big "culture" section that is definitely skip-worthy, unless you have (or want) the mindset of a 15 year old Japanese boy in the late 80s.  Even so, the rest of the content is quite excellent (though written for a younger audience), and I'd definitely recommend giving the mag a look!  I think it would be cool to flip through even without knowledge of Japanese, because the layout and screenshots are both excellent.

Edited February 3 by newtmonkey

[NE146]

2 hours ago, newtmonkey said:

I think it would be cool to flip through even without knowledge of Japanese, because the layout and screenshots are both excellent.

Back then I would OCCASIONALLY pick up a jap mag and did indeed enjoy the layouts, but at the end of the day not being able to read any of it really put a damper on things because it ends up as just looking at screenshots really. 

[CapitanClassic]

I wonder if Google Translate would work? You would unfortunately have to convert each page to an image first. (I thought that they also have a live app that translates images on the fly, but that would require your phone pointed at another screen that had the PDF open.)

[NE146]

40 minutes ago, CapitanClassic said:

I wonder if Google Translate would work? You would unfortunately have to convert each page to an image first. (I thought that they also have a live app that translates images on the fly, but that would require your phone pointed at another screen that had the PDF open.)

Yes of course it works to a certain extent and you can generally get the gist of what it's saying. But it's a bit of a hassle just for reading magazine content. Not to mention it's a few decades later then when I really would have wanted it.

 

That said, I 100% love Google Translate as it's a godsend when you're travelling. Just very recently when I was in a hotel in Japan, we were heading out and housekeeping came in. I kept trying to tell her "just give us 5 minutes" and she thought we were saying "5 o'clock". Google translate fixed that really quick. Or when we were telling the cab driver to drop us off at the Hilton. He had no idea.. then when he read it in google translate he said "ohhh.. HI RU TON!"  Just amazing a slight pronunciation makes all the difference. Gotta love it. 

 

 

[newtmonkey]

I've (mostly) been reading through my collection of scanned mags in chronological order, and I've finally reached 1993 for the major mags.  Some thoughts early into '93:

 

Electronic Games

Sendai (EGM) scooped up the core staff from VG&CE and released this mag as the "mature" version of EGM, more or less.  I didn't love VG&CE, but it was interesting to see how the mag would fare after the transition.

     I don't know which issue exactly it was, but one issue starts with an absolutely insane editorial from Arnie Katz, where he brags about his massive apartment, and home office full of video game garbage.  I kept reading it, thinking there must be some point, maybe he intends to editorialize about all the trash publishers are handing out in the hopes of getting good reviews?  But he ends it by talking about his absolute favorite knickknack received by some video game publisher.  I could not believe what I was reading; it comes off as totally unhinged -- especially for a mag meant for a more mature audience, presumably most of whom have real jobs and careers, and don't give a shit about Arnie's cheap trinkets sent to him to ensure a good review.

     Anyway, EG is basically more of the same, but they did stop using two of the absolute worst reviewers from VG&CE (Josh Mandel and Howard Wen), so the overall quality is a bit better.  The PC game reviews are just as good as always, mostly thanks to Ed Dille, who was probably the best reviewer from VG&CE.

     This mag is still going on and on about full motion video.  This seems nuts to me.  By this point, even EGM in its caveman language was calling out FMV for what garbage it was.  Meanwhile Electronic Games is still going on and on about how cool it is to watch a video on your TV, and then press a button and watch another video.  They really seem to have been completely hoodhinked by the industry, and also completely ignorant of the technology, because they keep thinking that, somehow, the next system (CD/I or 3DO) is gonna bend space and time and make FMV interactive.  It blows my mind that these guys, who have been in the industry from the very beginning, don't understand anything at all.

Edited February 4 by newtmonkey

[NE146]

I'm not sure if these were mentioned before (for all I know, I probably posted about them earlier already  ), but these "Video & Arcade Games" issues some of my favorite magazines back in the day, and there's only 2 of them. They're each jam packed with reading though at least.

 

Clickable link below to DP site:

 

 

Edited February 4 by NE146

[newtmonkey]

Over the past couple of years I've been reading a bunch of mags (mostly) cover-to-cover, starting from issue one.  I'm mostly up to 1993, though I have some older mags I've yet to catch up on (Computer Gaming World [1989], Game Players PC Entertainment [1992], and Gekkan PC Engine [1988]).  I've been focusing a lot lately on these stragglers, so here are some thoughts and comments:

 

Computer Gaming World

     There's a lot I like about this mag, but it's not perfect.  It's got a wonderful rumor column that's a joy to read, and the reviews are very respectable.  It's clear that the reviewers completed the games, or at least played them extensively.  I guess my only complaint at this point is that many of the reviews spend many paragraphs describing the screen to you, or summarizing the controls.  I understand that this was probably necessary back in 1989, but it's still a chore to read.

     I have mixed feelings on the resident RPG reviewer/columnist, Scorpia.  On the one hand, she knows her stuff and very clearly completes every game she reviews.  On the other hand, she tends to just outright spoil the game in her review without any notice!  She'll be discussing the combat system in one paragraph, and in the next she will start giving you basically a walkthrough until the ending screen.  Why would anyone want to read this in a review?

 

Game Players PC Entertainment

     I already like this mag, but it got even better in '92.  It's still got the same excellent reviews, but the previously boring layout has been improved somewhat.  My only complaint about this mag is the "Alternate Lives" column, which seems completely random.  Sometimes it covers a flight sim, one time that Battletech virtual reality game, but mostly RPGs.  The thing is, the writer doesn't seem to get or even like computer RPGs, so it really makes no sense.  I just don't get the point of the column.

 

Gekkan PC Engine

     This is still a lot of fun to read through, though the writing style is off-putting.  It's your typical "kids" writing you'd see in manga or anime, and while I'm sure if you were a 13 year old Japanese kid or whatever reading this back in '88 you'd think it was awesome, reading it now is annoying.  Having said all that, the screenshots are unbelievable good, and each issue includes some seriously in-depth strategy articles.  I'm talking multiple pages per game with complete maps, hints for tough sections, and boss strategies.  One issue had nearly 10 pages devoted to the ins and outs of some baseball game, with breakdowns of each player on each team.  Insane stuff.

Edited February 13 by newtmonkey

[Tanooki]

So is the PCE magazine there translated or are you using like google translation camera to do it?

[newtmonkey]

@Tanooki

I'm just reading it as is in Japanese, but NE146 above seemed to have decent luck with Google Translate getting the basic point across, if you're interested in skimming through some issues or particular articles.

[Radio F Software]

I have lots of scattered memories pertaining to video game magazines. Here are some of them? Beware this post is very long.

 

 

Nintendo Power: This is probably my mainstay publication. I started my subscription toward the end of the SNES' life when the Nintendo 64 was still being referred to as the Ultra 64. I maintained an active subscription all the way up through the release of the Gamecube because I ultimately bought a Playstation 2 during that console generation and no longer needed the Nintendo Power subscription. I eventually double backed on collecting Nintendo Power and bought issues 1-107(ish) from a eBay seller so I'd have a complete library starting from the release of Nintendo Power stretching all the way up to when I let my subscription lapse. I've been meaning to fill in the other half of the collection I'm missing but I haven't had the money to do that and the opportunity hasn't presented itself. Apparently I was really into collecting these magazines because in what few PM's I've sent to people here on AtariAge one of them was me discussing buying issues in bulk off of a user here for the price of $4 an issue which at the time was the average market price for each one. According to the dates on these messages that was a staggering 15 years ago.

 

Since 2008 I've owned the domain NintendoPowerless.com and I've had this idea cooking on the back burner to revisit Nintendo Power and collect scans and clippings from it that amuse me and present them in a sort of comedy/nostalgia blog fashion. I never pulled the trigger on this idea however and 16 years later I "still want to do it" but I don't know if I'll ever reasonably find the time to do so...

 

 

Game Informer: I had little interest in this publication however I was a subscriber of GameStop's annual membership plan that saved you 10 or so percent on all purchases of used games and things. I read the magazine however since it was clearly a publication arm of GameStop I didn't really trust the reviews and opinions printed in the magazine since I just assumed all of the reviews for major releases were thinly veiled advertisements and the reviewers were paid off by the game publishers. That said I wound up being interviewed by this magazine back in 2004. Infogrames had recently acquired the Atari company assets and one of the first things they did was threaten to strike down homebrew creators and I believe they sent a C&D to @Albert to have several Atari 2600 hacks delisted from the AtariAge's store and game database. (I'm fuzzy on the specifics, this was literally two decades ago.) This was a big deal around these parts to say the least and several discussion threads were posted about it. I sent a news tip to Game Informer about what was going on... and one of the editors actually called me and we spoke on the phone about the Atari homebrew scene. This interview and the editor's own research was published in the November 2004(?) issue under the name "Homebrew Gaming Under Fire?"

 

Albert seemed puzzled that Game Informer would run a full page report on something so significant but never actually reach out to him or anyone else in a position of authority on this website for comment. Once word got out that I was the one who tipped the magazine off and was interviewed by them I sort of became persona non grata around these parts because what I was up to was kind of embarrassing or something. This was entirely my own fault because as you can see in the linked thread from 2004 my dumb ass was an open book and I willingly gave that information out. At the time I thought I was doing the right thing by getting the word out there that Infogrames was shitting on the homebrew scene but I guess I just sorta got swept up in it all. I actually stopped posting on AtariAge for several years because of the fallout of this article and the whole ongoing Infogrames Vs. Homebrewers thing happening at the time. I also stopped all work on my own hacks/homebrews for a very long time. I don't know if any of the posts of people insulting me are still present on the boards here, I certainly didn't go looking for them, but I suppose if you're really curious they are out there and you can probably find them via the Search function.

 

 

Electronic Gaming Monthly: The middle school I went to maintained subscriptions to several magazines likely for educational reasons. For some reason this was one of them. I didn't initially have a subscription to EGM but I still read the new issues as they arrived in the library. Eventually EGM partnered up with Hollywood Video who owned the retail chain Game Crazy to offer a similar annual membership plan that gave you a discount at the store and also a subscription to a magazine. EGM wound up being that magazine. Unlike Game Informer I was actually moderately interested in EGM because Seanbaby, who was one of my favorite writers at the time, had a column at the end of each issue and it always made me laugh. So I always looked forward to that. I was also active on EGM's accompanying website, 1up.com. I participated in the online community there and was a fan of their series Broken Pixels (which Seanbaby co-hosted). One of the other hosts of the show, Crispin Boyer, was a long time EGM columnist and was credited as the author of EGM's official guide for the Star Wars game on Nintendo 64. A long time ago I reached out to Crispin and said I was a big fan of EGM and the Broken Pixels show and I asked him if he'd be willing to autograph the Star Wars guide if I mailed it to him. He was more than happy to oblige and I now have the guide in a frame to show off the autograph which reads "To Andre, May the Sixty-Fource Be With You!"

 

My connections to EGM don't end there, however. Dan "Shoe" Hsu was the editor-in-chief (I think) of EGM for many years until the end of the publication's life. Following the end of EGM he formed a gaming press outlet called BitMob where I was able to maintain an independent column for a while. A couple of my more noteworthy articles were promoted to and published on VentureBeat. I recently shared one of these articles here on AtariAge in my thread here.

 

 

Diehard Gamefan: Another magazine I did not have a subscription to. My only exposure to this magazine was an issue I received as a Christmas gift from my parents. The magazine was absolutely massive compared to every other publication out there and somehow this one was also monthly. Gamefan is what I would call my first experience with an "independent" gaming magazine. Nintendo Power was obviously the propaganda arm of Nintendo itself and Game Informer & EGM had financial ties to corporations. Gamefan wasn't like that and in the one issue I had the writers covered all kinds of seemingly random games that I had never heard of. Import games, anime games, Atari Jaguar games, Sega CD/32X games, etc. And since this was an independent publication the advertisements that ran in it contained several ones for small scale retailers looking to sell used games and other accessories. Gamefan was my first exposure to all of this and it really made an impact on me. (Plus the issue I got came with a cool Sonic & Knuckles poster that was drawn by an unaffiliated artist, it wasn't official Sega art.)

 

I lost the only issue I had of this magazine because of Hurricane Harvey, and it was the issue I'd received on Christmas so long ago. Out of everything I lost on that day this one stung the most because of the fond memories I had of the magazine. I later went out of my way to track down another copy of that exact same issue on eBay and bought it (and got another poster!!). The complete Diehard Gamefan library is scanned and available on Internet Archive. I've downloaded the whole publication run and one of these days I want to just crack it open and take it all in. I know I'll enjoy it.

[newtmonkey]

Game Player's

     I finished reading the last couple of issues of this mag, and was sad to see it go... and especially sad to see how it went!  The magazine continued beyond its October '91 issue, but changed completely (and for the worse), eliminating its computer coverage and adding lots of 90s 'tude.

     The final issue is sort of a transition issue, actually, and was quite a letdown.  They added scores to the reviews, which doesn't bother me at all, but the quality of the reviews really dropped this issue.  They tried to give the mag a "better" layout with more screens, but they did a really poor job of it, so you often just get a few short paragraphs of text each review with (poor) screenshots all over the place, and then this giant score number in the middle the page.  For me, the "real" final issue is the September '91 issue with Final Fight SNES on the cover.  Tom Halfhill is still the editor, and the mag still uses the classic format/layout.

---

     It was a lot of fun revisiting this mag!  I've mentioned earlier that this was a nostalgic favorite of mine from back in the day, and I was glad to see that it held up.  It's definitely written for kids (especially the console reviews), but less like some "hello fellow kids" guy and more like your cool uncle got you into computer games... which makes it pretty fun to read even as an adult.  I also must mention the excellent screenshot captions, which were really mini works of art; enough to describe the screenshot but leave you intrigued about the game, in just a few words.

     Of course, the magazine was not perfect.  The quality of the console game reviews ranged from unbelievably poor to okay -- some of the individual reviewers were horrible, and would just summarize the story for a few paragraphs and then leave you with the typical "if you like this type of game you'll like it" final paragraph (imo a clear sign that the reviewer barely even played the game).  The computer game reviews were usually much better, and the magazine benefited greatly from having William Trotter on staff, who was among the greatest video game critics of all time imo.

Edited February 16 by newtmonkey

[newtmonkey]

2 hours ago, newtmonkey said:

Game Player's

     I finished reading the last couple of issues of this mag, and was sad to see it go... and especially sad to see how it went!  The magazine continued beyond its October '91 issue, but changed completely (and for the worse), eliminating its computer coverage and adding lots of 90s 'tude.

I actually got this confused a bit with VG&CE on this point!  The Oct '91 issue of Game Player's was the final issue of the mag, but the mag was resurrected nearly two years later in '93 under the title Game Players.  It has a somewhat similar layout/design as the older mag (much more modern, though), and has some familiar names on the editorial team... so it does seem to be the legit successor to Game Player's.  It's very strange that they took so long to relaunch the mag, though (and a shame that they completely dropped computer game coverage).

Edited February 16 by newtmonkey

[Tanooki]

I'm curious I know I made one of the earliest posts in here on a series of three, but I have been thinking after reading all these about something. We're thinking back, but how many are thinking now or forward?  Do you still have these magazines, even a few?  If so, stored or read ever?  I looked back to that post, I didn't mention it at the time, but I do have a large selection of the more vintage NP magazines again and 3 issues of Fun Club too.  I know I have a least 120 issues of NP, solidly up to 76 with no gaps, and then spotty into 191 with some decent stretches of solid runs for a time more or less.

 

I like to find them browse them and if time allows re-read them entirely.  The earlier the better, largely meaning pre or early N64 era because that's when they'd hand out full game guides as the coverage in the issue or largely complete at least as to not ruin the last few or last stage.  You can see how they slowly got dragged along with the times and the work got worse as it moved into the 2000s and it ended up being Nintengeneric Powerless as it took the most useful bits, removed some, watered down others and made the pages sterile to match like what Game Informer, Edge, etc were doing in the Wii/DS and enough of/some of the GC GBA era too sadly.  A few of the latest ones I have around the 145 mark and after get into that point on the GBA/GC stuff.  I think now that I'm DS/GC free I'd even offload the 170-191 range stuff if it had no GBA stuff to it I could care about to get an earlier hole filled even.

[newtmonkey]

I don't have any physical copies of any magazines, sadly.  I had nearly complete runs of Nintendo Power, EGM, and Game Player's up through the mid 90s, but they became a hassle to move around so I ended up selling them on Ebay long ago.  It would be cool to have them still, just to flip through on a rainy weekend or something, but I make do with scans.

 

1 hour ago, Tanooki said:

You can see how they slowly got dragged along with the times and the work got worse as it moved into the 2000s

This is something I've noticed for many of the mags... as time goes on, they lose a lot of what made them unique, and they all start to resemble one another in layout and content.  It's fun to read most of the mags, though, at least up until that point.

[Tanooki]

I did the same, after the 2nd apartment in the mid 00s lugging around 200 issues of NP in holders got well...heavy, very very heavy.  I felt bad about it years later, and one thing led to another and I'm where I am now.  The start, a local offloading 40 issues at a dollar a pop, I was all over that, hyped...ran to ebay and dumb luck would have it nearly the same amount for around $2-3 shipped and it had the entire first couple of years in that too.  Grabbed a few pairs, got another local bundle of around 20 or so and they added up.  They're fun, the older they get more fun because the personality is there.  I'd consider even ditching the GBA/GC ones as they're largely lacking which maybe even NP felt given their 4 issue run of NP Advance as those went to the old style of lots of coverage and full game guides which made them amazing (and amazingly sad they opted out of making more from that test.)  I think honestly perhaps the best deal would be to try and find someone with spare magazines and swap the post N64/GBC issues (so basically 2001) for the ones I'm missing before that era.

[Radio F Software]

On 2/16/2024 at 7:31 PM, Tanooki said:

Do you still have these magazines, even a few?  If so, stored or read ever?

I keep my collection of Nintendo Power magazines inside my house, I have a few shelves devoted just to them alone (because there's a mural of Nintendo characters if you line the spines up). Keeping my Nintendo Powers inside my house is what saved them from being destroyed by Hurricane Harvey because otherwise they'd have been in my garage most likely and pretty much nothing from there survived. Every once in a while I flip through an issue just to kinda reminisce, however usually these days I flip through the PDF's I have of them as I accidentally messed up part of the spine of issue #1 trying to get it off the shelf a few years ago.

 

I only have one issue of Diehard Gamefan and looking online tells me that there aren't a lot of bundle listings comprised of someone's previous subscription, just a lot of individual issues that run anywhere from $12-50 each (and higher) depending on the coverage or who's on the poster etc. I bought another copy of the one issue that was gifted to me as a kid because of the sentimental value but I doubt I'll pursue collecting physical copies of Gamefan when I already have digital versions of every issue.

 

As for my Game Informers and EGM's? Those were kept at my parents' house so they survived the storm but I've been meaning to retrieve them and put them up for sale. As I said, I have no real attachment to those magazines. I only got them because I was a subscriber to GameStop's/Game Crazy's annual savings plan.

[Tanooki]

Fair enough.  I said what I've got more or less, and they'll get a random browse too.  Every single one is in a plastic magazine binder sheet, but not in a binder as that wastes a lot of space so the ends are folded back over.  All lined up on one shelf in my less the ideally but not horrible either rear closet of this room which has a good series of heavy wood shelves off the wall.  I have access to PDFs too, found a couple years ago a nice archive of NP 1988-2004 (consistent up to 145 then gets spotty towards 180) which is perfect for my cares.  Also found another with all the Fun Club and a third with the Wizard Pocket Power too (wish I still had that.)

[jhd]

 

I paid no attention to developments in console gaming between about 1983 (when I sold my Atari 2600) and 2004 (when I purchased a used PlayStation), so obviously I did not read any of these magazines BITD.

 

I very occasionally find copies of game magazines at thrift shops and used bookstores; I now have physical copies of perhaps half a dozen random issues of different titles from the mid-1990s onwards. 

[newtmonkey]

Some random thoughts on mags as I read through them...

 

Computer Gaming World

     I finished reading through the '89 issues, and I have mixed feeling on this mag.  When it's good, it's really good.  Unfortunately, you still get some reviews that just tell you what's on the screen and what each button does, without really telling you what it's like to actually play or whether the game is any good or not!  Scorpia's reviews are still perplexing... she focuses on RPGs, and in the middle of her reviews she'll just start giving you a complete walkthrough, or in some cases will just spring a paragraph on you telling you the final part of the game and the ending.  You have to be really careful reading her reviews, if you want to actually play the game yourself!

     They are still doing their awesome Rumor Bag column, where each column is written like a little story with the writer adopting some persona or another.  These are a lot of fun!  There was even a narrative running across several issues.

     One thing I forgot to mention earlier is that the mag started summarizing articles from Chris Crawford's newsletter aimed at industry professionals.  You'd think that this would be fascinating, but I found it to be really wishy washy pie in the sky game design stuff.  It was probably amazing stuff for a game designer back in 1989, but I don't think it's of much interest for your typical computer game player at the time.

 

Electronic Games

     I'm about halfway through the '93 issues so far, and not much has changed with this one.  It's VG&CE 2.0, which means a nice clean layout, writing aimed at a slightly more mature audience, and some of the worst reviews ever written.  Each game gets a full page review, but as much as a third of the text is usually devoted to telling you the story of the game or complete nonsense (for example, the X-Men [Genesis] review spends five precious paragraphs on telling you what a great idea it is to make an X-Men game, since X-Men are so hot right now, etc.).  The reviewer will then basically just summarize the instruction booklet for you, then end with a "if you like this kind of game, think of picking this one up!" paragraph.  I seriously doubt that many of the reviewers even played the games, never mind completed them!

     I do want to mention the layout again, which is text heavy, but basically perfect.  This is a seriously good looking mag (though the cover art is often horrible).

Edited February 24 by newtmonkey