Incline Nostalgic Video Game Magazines

[Astral Rag]

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Edit:

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Pretty edgy preview.

 

[DwarvenFood]

That quote

 

[Astral Rag]

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https://archive.org/search.php?query=IE Interactive Entertainment CD ROM Magazine

 

[Unkillable Cat]

"Smurfs on crack" - Love that quote about the fairies in Stonekeep.

 

[Astral Rag]

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[Ovplain]

First computer magazine I ever bought.:S

My first issue as a subscriber. And that lasted until they wrote a very positive review of Fallout 3 over a decade later.:D I might have overreacted slightly but whatever. It was a cool magazine, funny, insightful, very original, never politically correct. Never read anything quiet like it anywhere else.:/ Their website has a little 'naked broad' section with pictures of nude women.:D Because why not, naked broads FTW!

 

[taxalot]

As far as computer magazine covers go, this remains my favorite

This was a newspaper format magazine, weekly for 8 bit computers in which you'd find computer news, reviews, and BASIC listings.

The headline literraly translates : "Sorry, computers are crap." . The entire article is strangely prophetic : it apologizes for making such a big deal out of computers whereas, really, they are completely useless piece of shit. Nobody would use them to do any decent work, word processors are awful and unpractical, who the fuck in a household would buy anyone to program stuff on it and what for, so really, the only good thing a computer is decent at is video games.

 

[Jason Liang]

I learned to how to write, and learned to love reading, from reading Video Games & Computer Entertainment every month. It's also probably why I still care so much about gaming and intellectualize it instead of just seeing it as entertainment. They used several writers, such as Chris Gore, who were actually decent writers, not just gamers. The earlier issues were especially amazing, 200+ pages each month, it would take me 2-3 weeks reading everyday to finish reading all the articles. The magazine also archived a pivotal era in gaming history.

http://www.retromags.com/magazines/category/usa/video-games-and-computer-entertainment/

 

[Cyberarmy]

One of the most entertaining magazines I've ever read. Indie Turkish gaming magazine, The Game Show.
Humerous, ridiculous, not taking theirselves serious and yet somewhat informative. They started as photocopy in March 1995 and remained indie till they went bankrupt (First decline of gaming history for me)
They also have some good FRP and net magazines as side-kicks. I dare to say, they were a bit Codexian.

January 1997 issue, look at them list of incline. HoMM2, Red Alert, Romb Raider, Daggerfall. New section had Unreal.

http://bahadirgurkan.com/gameshow/dergiler/pdf/23.pdf


Some other issues,

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[Astral Rag]

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[Scruffy]

this forum's mods are lazy fucks, this needs to be stickied for the ages.

 

[nomask7]

I read some game magazines 20 to 10 years ago. From my limited experience, English-speaking magazines were generic crap, their reviews were like 101 This Is How You Write Generic Game Journalism.

It wouldn't have been a problem but the 'generic' of English game journalism is a mixture of pretension, bland political correctness, paid hype, and no personality or intelligence.

I might not have noticed, but the comparison for me was the (then) wonderful Finnish magazine "Pelit". That would have been perfect for codexers too. It's like my childhood was intended to occur in a pocket universe where people were honest, bright, and interesting, and the terrible truth about humans was intended to be revealed to me only later in episodes of horrifying realisation.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

This needs further circulation.

 

[Astral Rag]

http://www.pixsoriginadventures.co....December 1998)/PC Zone 70 (December 1998).pdf

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

 

[pippin]

I was cleaning my post apocalyptic fallout shelter basement when I found some old pc gaming magazines. One of them features a preview for the original Fallout, when it was still a GURPS based game, saying that this wasn't your Babby RPG like Diablo, and a game like Fallout would set the bar on how a good rpg should be made. To add more salt, the same issue has a review for Diablo, which was reviewed as fun but unoriginal, and its only redeeming factors were graphics and multiplayer; the reviewer reccomended playing Gauntlet instead.

Another one featured tons of small previews for "upcoming" games; it says System Shock 2's concept could be too big for the limits of Thief's engine and how they were worried with Black Isle's announcement about how Planescape Torment was going to be a shorter and more linear game than the rest of the Infinity "family", since this could mean the game would suffer in terms of replayability and depth.

I don't have a scanner, though, and I'm a bit too lazy to take pictures right now, so you will have to believe me

 

[octavius]

I used to read Sinclair User, which was the best ZX Spectrum Magazine.

Then I got an Amiga and I regret buying and reading drivel like Amiga Action and other UK Amiga magazines with more fluff than content, instead of more prestigious magazines for the serious gamer like Computer Gaming World.
I also read Computer and Video Games before it was turned into a kiddies' console magazine. The Games Machine was also pretty good IIRC. Didn't it have a large RPG section?
Also some punk named Wayne used to have columns in various UK magazines dealing with stuff like Play-By-Mail games and RPG in addition to CRPGs, so while he had his column that magazine used to be my favourite.

 

[Baron Dupek]

I dusted off old gamins magazines from my old house.

I got almost full collection of old CD-Action magazines. I was stubborn enough to buy every one of them because reasons (my stubbornness bring me to trouble some day). It feels like a codex - you know who's the retard, competent and who have no idea what he write about (i.e. he write like bland essay for Matura or some shit). It especially hurt when you read that from modern perspective because the best people abandoned the ship while mediocre one remain and fresh meat is mediocre too, maybe to not fear the oldfags.
Actually, there was drama about some oldfag (EGM) abandoning the ship, that later fill itself with dorritos, but it seems like they fit them well from the beginning.

The only reason CDA survived to these days was because they were adding full games on CDs/DVDs*, they
are good reading material on the ceramic throne and most important - their publisher and team is solid and free from whiners and potential betrayals that could sink the ship. And they can be stomatched by casuals. Having decent gaming knowledge bring the risk of disgust (lesser or total). You can still read them if you're casual. Otherwise - gaming experience may clash with the impressions.

When I bought this issue - I didn't know that history has changed. UT3, bloom'n'hdr fest with multiplayer that died fast because the other game - CoD4 ModerWarfart1 - revealed to be revolution [my ass] like Cunter Stroke years back in UT vs Quake3 battle, to turn multiplayer FPS games into deeper shithole.
Plus Crysis - people shouted about lack of optimization, when later it seems like CrySis is p.good in that term.
Also because PC hardware upgrading rate slowed down and other gamer reveal to be shit but nobody agree with that.

What really blow my mind is the quality of gaming magazines for console peasants. Yes, I got some to compare for chuckles and whatnot. Only to be disappointed (Imma PC mustard rejs). Their reviews ARE WAY better than their the ones from PC village (detailed, goes to the point etc.). Even when you compare the modern ones.
How the fuck is that possible in postsoviet country where consoles and games are ridiculously expensive (games cost 1/3 or 1/4 of average income, tj.250PLN, while PC games force you to spend ~1/10? of that tj.65-150PLN) is beyond me. Of course that's when you want to go with the legal way :wink:

*and that was p. good source of full games, some of them are really obscure and still not available via Steam/GoG. Like recently - The Movies or Wolfenstein (2009). Or Wizards&Warriors by D.W.Bradley.

[fake edit]I found other one.
Click! play "cool guy card" and even when some of their impressions are ridiculous - still better still better than the one from CDA. They started adding full games on CD/DVD too but later, also source of some obscure titles like
Arx Fatalis. I remember that one from preview, then in 2011 gave it a shot and get a blast.

This one... saw Unreal Tournament review, guns description and 6/6/6 and overall 6+ score out of six (max)...
then pick years later with first PC and agree with this all. That was something cool. But these day "cool" is verboten, and all these people making shitty mobile games with characters ov caricature body building are not making "cool"... they're wong all way along .

Komputer Świat Gry (and his other mutations) play "professional and detailed" people with hueg charts a'la
Excel only to be wrong in some cases. I still have no idea how they saw the gameplay or "fun". There were some objective points but that still don't explain some of the strange scores from some p. good or p.cool titles.

THIS one...this was my first real contact with games. Best titles of 1997-1999 in all genres (RPG, RTS, action TPP, FPP before they named it to FPS, point'n'click etc.).
You can only imagine how it touched the unprepared mind of the kid that has no contact with videogames whatsoever.

 

[Ovplain]

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First computer magazine I ever bought.:S

Spoiler

My first issue as a subscriber. And that lasted until they wrote a very positive review of Fallout 3 over a decade later.:D I might have overreacted slightly but whatever. It was a cool magazine, funny, insightful, very original, never politically correct. Never read anything quiet like it anywhere else.:/ Their website has a little 'naked broad' section with pictures of nude women.:D Because why not, naked broads FTW!

All of the covers of this particular magazine, just in case anybody wants to check them out. You probably won't understand the language, but some of the covers still look cool despite that.

 

[AngryEddy]

I used to, and used to occasionally write for one.

What was it like writing for one? I read these old gamepro mags and it's almost a psychedelic experience for me, was it just another job for you or is there a bit of magic to it?

 

[AngryEddy]

The Kid in this picture is now 20 years older:

 

[AngryEddy]

Old Mortal Kombat 3 review with a cosplayer from '95 in it:

 

[Jools]

I used to, and used to occasionally write for one.

What was it like writing for one? I read these old gamepro mags and it's almost a psychedelic experience for me, was it just another job for you or is there a bit of magic to it?

Actually, I used to write for the "humorous" column (actually 4 full pages) of the magazine. I must say, it was fun. Maybe not magic, but fun. Surely better than having to review a game you don't give a fuck about, or one that you actually dislike. Usually they tried to avoid that, though: they'd ask who's interested in reviewing what, within reason. Of course the experienced reviewers had less of a say in it, because one of them would have to review some big title, whether they liked it or not, so the editor in chief would just give them the assignment and they'd do it (but again, that also comes with being a "professional", so to speak).

 

[baturinsky]

ZX Ревю, 1990s Russian magazine about ZX Spectrum. It was quite hardcore, 2/3 of it was about game design and programming and hardware modding

 

[pippin]

damn son that looks like kgb's secret plans :russia: