What's your favourite (hard copy) games magazine?

amp

Personally mine is PC Format cos it's got a good mix of games and other topics. I started reading it after Amiga Format withered away.

But what's your favourite source of gaming knowledge (apart from here of course)?

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Bard

I'd agree with you amp... PC Format would be my choice.

Future publishing have a very good reputation for quality magazines. Just look at PC Plus - the best "serious" PC mag around, and Cre@teOnline - the excellent Web design magazine.

The Irish mags, by contrast, are shiiiiiiite

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Bard

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First motorbike in the bible ???? ---- a Triumph --- 'Yea verily Moses struck down the ammmanites and all the land heard the roar of his triumph !!!'

Shinji

Used to be EDGE, but now it's rubbish... Gamers Republic, but now it's shut.

PC Plus is the only computer mag I read regularly to be honest... Aside from that I tend to pick up New Scientist occasionally. Nobody is doing a good multi-format games mag right now.

TwoShedsJackson

I suppose it's PC Format although I haven't bought that the last couple of months. PC Gamer used to be great but now sucks, and gives blatantly overrated scores too (95% for Black & White?? puh-lease!!)

PC Zone has always sucked the sweat from a dead man's balls. As for best mag ever all hail the might of AMIGA POWER!!!

Mikill

I remember Amiga Power - Quality Mag.
I still think PC Gamer is still a good read though.
I used to read Computer & Video Games before all the old writers left but now I can't stand it even if it is only what ?? -> 3.00 squid ??

amp

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Castor Troy:
PC Gamer used to be great but now sucks, and gives blatantly overrated scores too (95% for Black & White?? puh-lease!!)
</font>

Heh. Pc Format occasionally get over excited about a game too. They gave the same score to B&W. They also gave Frontier - Elite II an outrageously high score even though it was intergalactic pants.

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">
PC Zone has always sucked the sweat from a dead man's balls. As for best mag ever all hail the might of AMIGA POWER!!!</font>

hmmm.. I always thought that was the poor inbred cousin of CU Amiga.

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Lunacy Abounds! GLminesweeper RO><ORS!
"Boxes for show, Baskets for a pro" - [FCA]SyxPak

Swifty

PC gamer is the only mag i read. I like it.

Bard

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Castor Troy:
As for best mag ever all hail the might of AMIGA POWER!!!</font>

Oh damn right! Cam, Stuart and friends were true gods of journalism... I still get a laugh from those letter pages of theirs

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Bard

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First motorbike in the bible ???? ---- a Triumph --- 'Yea verily Moses struck down the ammmanites and all the land heard the roar of his triumph !!!'

[This message has been edited by Bard (edited 02-07-2001).]

Cake Fiend

Super Play

Manach

PC Zone usually.

Fidelis

Yes. PC Zone.

BlitzKrieg

I usually read either pczone or pcgamer but i perfer pcgamer, i find them more trustworthy.

For everything i use to read either arcade or edge but they have all gone down hill

Gamemaster and computer and video games are spores of satan.


They r so bias to major compainies.


I remember reading one when the n64 came out they told everyone tha psx had no chance of doing well and tha they should sell them and gat n64s and they kept this up until it was obvious the n64 couldnt do it. And they ARE stil bias and ful of SH!T

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GreenHell

Used to read PCG then it got ****e
Before that used to read Pc Zone ... its always been ****e

Now all read is www.playerofgames.com
/me watch Greenbean point the shotgun away from his head

Pcg used to be a real gamers mag not to "offical" n all that but now its gone like the industry tighter than a cats **** .

Shinji

Didn't Stu Campbell work on AP?

That in my mind would clearly mark it out as a scurrilous rag...

Firefox

Best Mag of all time?.....Sinclair User!

Kix

I used to get PC Gamer and PC Zone but there's only PC Gamer by my toilet these days. I usually have all the "news" off the web weeks before I get the mag. I suppose I like the cover disk and looking at the pretty pictures. (of Kieron Gillen )

Bard

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Shinji:
Didn't Stu Campbell work on AP?
</font>

Aye, he did...

didn't he go on from there to work for Team 17 ?... or was it Sensible Software?

... whichever one made Cannon Fodder ...

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Bard

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First motorbike in the bible ???? ---- a Triumph --- 'Yea verily Moses struck down the ammmanites and all the land heard the roar of his triumph !!!'

MrTimewalk

PC Gamer

It's nice to have something offline to read however I'm aware that news is at least 2 months old in these mags.

mewso

As far as PC mags go these days theres little to choose but PC Zone (and why people complain about it I don't know) has what I consider good online coverage and sticks mods on their disk quite often plus it's the cheapest I can buy. I can't be bothered with demos much these days, I don't like to fork out £7+ for a mag either and PC format and their 3 months after you can buy the game reviews defeat the whole purpose of reading reviews anyway. Others like Gamer are pretty standard 'games are amazing', 'our promise to bring you the best reviews, articles' crap.
So whats wrong with PC Zone?. Oh and if it's anything to do with 'the staff are knobs', 'they give great reviews to exlusives' etc. then I don't care. I'm sure knobs feature on the staff of all mags, they all get exclusives and their reviews might be biased as a result but I'll just bear it in mind. If you don't like Zone because the humour doesn't appeal to you, the journalistic writing is second rate etc. then fair enough. Doesn't bother me.

ThrAx

pczone is the biggest load of fu<king sh1+ but i still buy it coz it cheaper that most english mags. PC GAMER is far more superior, its just designed so brilliantly and has far better reviews by ppl that actually know about the games they are reviewing. PC format is also a great mag and so is pc gear. EDGE also rules. All the irish mags suck sh1++y ass. all the other games mags are ok apart from the console only ones and the american ones which are layed out like no mans land. bottom line pc zone sucks but ya get what ya pay fer even though its still too **** for that price.

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pat kenny

Pc gamer is pretty good if a little expensive.
On an intesting note if I had a look I think theres a copy of the second ever issue of gamesmaster lurking around my house.

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mewso

I take the points against Zone but I think the arguement is basically not backed up. Seeing as some recent reading on my behalf has led me to doubt Zones reviews somewhat I'll criticise them myself. I was reading up on Anachronox and discovered that PC Zone have blatantly not played anymore than about 3 or 4 of the areas at the start of the game for their review. This is essentially disgraceful reviewing on any level. No wonder they get reviews early. They don't bloody wait for the full game.
I stopped buying PC Format because their reviews were always late but now I suspect they only get a release version at that time. Thats far too late and obviously others who review the games early are telling us how good/bad a beta is. Pointless. From now on I'll buy if the disks have anything of worth and for no other reason.

Shinji

PC Zone reviewed Z: Steel Soldiers far earlier than anyone else, and did a massive multi-page review on the basis of VERY early code - nowhere near completion.

EON told them that a whole pile of things would be fixed before launch which never were, and Zone marked the game on the basis of that. As a result, their front cover splash and review are utter cack and have no relevance to the game that actually ended up in stores, simply because they wanted to get there first.

Add that onto the generally poor standard of journalism, the fact that many of the staff don't know their stuff about games, the presence of idiots like Steve Hill who basically plays Championship Manager and nothing else (and considers people who play other types of game to be "sad")... It's not exactly the ingredients for a good mag, now is it?

po0k

I read PCGamer regularly, but still have to get around to subscribing. The B&W debacle wasn't too surprising really. It was very hyped up, but thank God wasn't as bad as Daikatana. I borrowed the game off a friend and it kept stalling at the introduction.
I don't really like that Tamagochi/Creatures/The Sims genre, FPS or Stratagy is much more to my liking.
From my experience PCGamer is a very good read some months, but can be a total waste of a £9 some months. I ahve the 50th anniversary ssus and it had some really hillarious reviews of ****e games, totally ripped the p1ss out of them. Subtlety is a mark of the type of writing to be found here.
Recently though there has been an aweful lot of new writers coming in and some of them are crap. John walker is a favourite of mine, kinda the underdog of teh mag inmho.
Edge was also a agood read and I liked the technical stuff, programming 3d engines etc., but I fail to see how everything that coes out of Japan is gold in their eyes. I don't particularly like adventure games as I hate running about through loads of pre-redered back-drops just to put 'Tab-A' in 'Slot-B' (though many early FPS - and some new ones- are like that). I do enjoy the puzzles but the tedium of some loses me quickly.
Multi-format mags can't ast long imo, as tehy don't ahve enough writers who know each genre on each platform and their respective histories weel enough.

ThrAx

shinji, you should write a letter to pczone about this. But I kinda thought you would have a bit more respect for pc zone though, with you having done some work for them and for pc zone if my sources are correct. I agree with you about how crap pc zone is, i only buy it for the disks if there is every anything good on them or if I couldnt be bothered downloading the latest q3 or cs pacth for a few hours and pc gamer isnt in the shops.

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fisty

i only used to buy pc magazines for ground breaking demos that were too big to download on my 28.8
now i've got isdn i dont really bother - just download.
pc zone used to be really funny.
now its just cack.
Was going to buy pc gamer with that DVD full of stuff when i was in easons this month but i looked at the price tag and broke my $hite laughing - who is really gonna pay 7 quid for a poxy mag when you can get all the information -OLD information - online is 3 shakes of a lambs tail.
tbh I can't see pc magazines lasting much longer after broadband hits on a wide scale. You can see it alreay - there used to be loads... I read CVG when I had my Nes and there was LOADS of competition, they used to review games for all platforms and they were funny as hell too.
so enough of my rambling.
at the end of the day what im saying is.
mags - money.
online info/files - free. (you know what i mean)

Shinji

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">shinji, you should write a letter to pczone about this.</font>

If I wanted to talk to PC Zone I'd just ring them, in fairness

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">But I kinda thought you would have a bit more respect for pc zone though, with you having done some work for them and for pc zone if my sources are correct.</font>

I've never worked for Zone. I've done some stuff for Gamer, although never actual writing - worked on their CS league and stuff like that.

I note that Tony Mott just resigned from EDGE...

tHE vAGGABOND

all bu11**** aside, the DVD issue of PCG is great for catching up on previews movies n patches

bettyboo

snakes and ladders weekly

ThrAx

did anybody ever read any of those new linux mags? They are boring as **** on a hard drive, they dont try to be funny like "normal" pc mags.

oh yeah shinji, it was doodee that told me u worked for pc zone, soz.

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Thats ridicilous, nobody beats subzero

DemonBaby

I own a newsagency and get all the pc magazines.
I also used to get Amiga Format before I bought a PC.
Now I get PC Format Dvd which I find excellent.
It gives a wide mix of PC topics and has a lot of Gaming info.
Luis Villazon also has a fun Helpline page always worth a read.
But if I wasnt a newsagent who got all his magazines free (well I send back cover to get credit) I probably wouldnt buy it every month because of its steep price (now in £8 region)
PC live is another magazine i look at but it seems to be aimed at an older person/new to computers type person.
Not the quake/CS loving type guy or girl.
But they do have plenty of info on the Irish scene.
DemonBaby/Nemesis.