Recommend me good gaming magazines from the 80s/90s

[Lord_Potato]

Poland had lots of good video game magazines, but despite cult following most of them only lasted for 6-7 years though. Difficult situation in the market, sharp competition and then internet killed them one by one.

Top Secret was one of the first (1990-96, unsuccesfully relaunched in 2002-3) entirely devoted to video games (not computer culture in general like earlier Bajtek or to one platform like Moje Atari) - for Atari, Commodore 64, Amiga, PC.

Then they had some conflict and part of the team moved on to create another title, Secret Service (1993-2001, unsuccessfully relaunched in 2014). In later issues they also wrote about some console games.

There was also Gambler (1993-99) which was more thorough, published larger walkthroughs and lots of other stuff.

I used to purchase all of them in different periods of time, but I lost most of my collections moving from one appartement to another. Now I have their whole archive in scanned pdfs for nostalgic consumption.

The only non-console focused title that survived the test of time and market was CD-Action (1996-until today), mostly because they added CDs (since 2018 DVDs) with full games to each issue. I never really liked them as much as the previously mentioned, but some of the authors from the other three found harbor in CD Action when the competiton closed doors.

There are also magazines devoted to consoles (mostly Playstation) but I never had any interest in these. Video game press is dying however in Poland. CD Action only has 4 editions yearly and sales around 70k copies. It's only a matter of time now.

 

[Rincewind]

Poland had lots of good video game magazines, but despite cult following most of them only lasted for 6-7 years though.

I consider that a *very* good run for such magazines.The Hungarian ones generally died or went to shit after 3-4 years tops.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Scorpia's reviews

I've only read her infamous Baldur's Gate review and it seems so simplistic, like if a 16 year old girl wrote it. No in-depth analysis of anything. I wonder if this was considered high standards back then.

For crying out loud, she even says the random numbers generator cheats.

I think that wwas the beginning of the end for Scorpia. Something really didn't click for her? in that game. But she was quite the character, and in the end, such characters ended up being seen as distasteful or even undesirable for magazines who actually wanted to sell. Criticism of major releases was still somewhat common back then, I remember scathing reviews of both Age of Empires games and Diablo 1 when they came out. For no other reason than "I don't like this game".

 

[luj1]

I have these from Yugoslavia

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

luj1 Looking at those magazine covers, 1999 was a great fucking year for the PC. Lots of technology coming of age that enable some fabulous creativity and innovation.

 

[kangaxx]

I used to read PC Zone sometimes but found myself disagreeing with their scores on occasion. Probably wouldn't recommend specifically seeking out old copies as not worth the effort.

 

[Ladonna]

https://archive.org/details/PCPowerplay

This one is still going here. I subscribed to it for a loooong time, but eventually the usual "politics" started seeping in.

I found out about Exile from an Exile III demo on the demo disk from one of the early editions. Also got the full Dark Side of the Sword Coast off one of the disks too. 56k internet was horrible when it came to huge demos and mods.

 

[Rincewind]

Huh, that's interesting, I kinda assumed all computer gaming mags died well before 2010. I'm very surprised to see some are still alive.

 

[Narushima]

Enchanted Realms was an independently published magazine (1990 to 1992) all about adventure games, initially Amiga only, but later including DOS as well. It's really good quality considering it was such a small operation.
There's an interview with Roberta Williams in there as well (issues 7 & 8), where she tells the story of how their life changed when they started making millions. They had a mansion built, with live-in servants, and their kids were sort of ostracised at school because of it, since it wasn't that kind of neighbourhood.

There's also QuestBusters, another independent magazine about adventure games and RPG, which had a long run, from 1984 to 1996. I haven't read these, but they seem neat too.

 

[Tweed]

The American edition of PC Gamer was worth reading up until Gary Whitta left and Rob Smith took over.

 

[fork]

I loved Resident Evil so much that I cut out all the previews and reviews and plastered them all over my wardrobe.

 

[Rincewind]

Enchanted Realms was an independently published magazine (1990 to 1992) all about adventure games, initially Amiga only, but later including DOS as well. It's really good quality considering it was such a small operation.
There's an interview with Roberta Williams in there as well (issues 7 & 8), where she tells the story of how their life changed when they started making millions. They had an mansion built, with live-in servants, and their kids where sort of ostracised at school because of it, since it wasn't that kind of neighbourhood.

There's also QuestBusters, another independent magazine about adventure games and RPG, which had a long run, from 1984 to 1996. I haven't read these, but they seem neat too.

Man, this is top shelf stuff, thank you very much!

 

[Covenant]

Computer and Video Games (CVG) was great in the 90s, as was Super Play, though that was primarily Super Nintendo focused.

I saw a Patreon or Kickstarter a while back where some girl was making her own monthly PDF magazine in the style of those old magazines (it seemed particularly inspired by Super Play) and it seemed to be of a decent quality. but I've not been able to find it again.

 

[Narushima]

I saw a Patreon or Kickstarter a while back where some girl was making her own monthly PDF magazine in the style of those old magazines (it seemed particularly inspired by Super Play) and it seemed to be of a decent quality. but I've not been able to find it again.

Dankzine? This one never seemed very appealing to me.

 

[Covenant]

I saw a Patreon or Kickstarter a while back where some girl was making her own monthly PDF magazine in the style of those old magazines (it seemed particularly inspired by Super Play) and it seemed to be of a decent quality. but I've not been able to find it again.

Dankzine? This one never seemed very appealing to me.

No, that wasn't it. I'm annoyed I didn't bookmark it at the time. It looked high-quality (I believe it was hand-drawn anime style art) but small in scale, so I guess it wasn't able to sustain itself.

 

[Falksi]

Hey Beans00, your retarded spamming on my posts actually fit in this case! I know it was unintentional, but you've been funny

Proud of you!

 

[Rincewind]

So in the end I narrowed my reading materials down to these. More than I originally planned, but I'm in no hurry, after all... I'll take it slowly, then I'm set for the next decade (or two!)

The absolute best (as in most relevant to my interests) seem to be these magazines from the US:

• Computer Gaming World
• Enchanted Realms
• QuestBusters

And in the second tier are the following European mags (still very good, and I like that they offer a different perspective on things):

• Power Play (Germany)
• Computer and Video Games (UK)
• Your Sinclair (UK)

Just skimming through a few issues of these gets me in such a good mood! Every single one is full of good games, especially in the second half of the 80s / early 90s; it's quite amazing, really! Something must've been in the tap water back then...
Thanks, everybody!

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

i see "computer gaming world" being mentioned multiple times. it does indeed ring a bell to my ancestral memories. is that the one who became "1up" and for a long while abolished votes? i vouch for that too. i had tons of pdfs, i wonder where they're now.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

i see "computer gaming world" being mentioned multiple times. it does indeed ring a bell to my ancestral memories. is that the one who became "1up" and for a long while abolished votes? i vouch for that too. i had tons of pdfs, i wonder where they're now.

I remember an online archive of CGWs, they had pretty much every issue scanned. The earliest ones are practically pure text, and as computers became more capable they slowly but surely introduced more and more screenshots. Which is fine, since VIDEO means "visual" after all. Some ads were pretty good too, there's something endearing about 90s edge applied to things that weren't edgy.

 

[Jarpie]

Despite being Finnish, Pelit was pretty good in the '90s, well, at least their RPG/adventure related reviews. Its worth looking through a computer translation.

Dragon magazine would cover computer role-playing games from time to time, especially as they gain traction with the pnp crowd.

Dragon was an absolute joke though. They basically gave out 5/5s so often that it was a meaningless score. Even they knew that, and eventually gave one game a 6/5 just to show it was actually good. When Sandy Petersen was their reviewer he would constantly cover Apogee/Id games. Oh, and they gave one game a low score because mentioned rape in it. Perhaps they had some brief moment in time when they were good, but it was definitely early in their computer game reviewing sections.

One of the things Pelit did right was to have specialized reviewers for different genres, a few of the people who reviewed strategy games and rpgs were great at it. After they took on consoles in early 2000s with PS2 and XBox, the magazine started a pretty deep decline, and their trademark sense of humor and fun vanished, along with the more colorful layout, it started to reek of pretentiousness too.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

I think I met the opposite of what specialized reviewers can bring to the table though. In the pc gaming mag I used to read as a kid, every game would be negatively reviewed by the dedicated RTS guy because he thought every game that wasn't Command and Conquer was shit. He might've been right, but stuff like Age of Empires was included in this too.

 

[Narushima]

i wonder where they're now

an online archive of CGWs

https://archive.org/details/computergamingworld?&sort=date

 

[Rincewind]

The so-called Amberstar II preview, a game that sadly never materialised, from the Dec 1991 issue of German Power Play gives me a serious hard-on. Look at that master-level pixel gfx! Oh man...

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

So, different than the proposed Amber Worlds?

 

[Rincewind]

So, different than the proposed Amber Worlds?

That I'm unsure about.