Which gaming magazines did you read?

[Gorse]

Before I was the internet-addicted monkey-man I am today, my key source of gaming culture and news was the diverse range of magazines my parents would occasionally buy for me. I never subscribed to these mags – they were typically purchased from airport bookstores or the local pharmacy in my horse-and-buggy town's shopping plaza – but I did collect several issues of them throughout the years, and they hold some very fond memories. THEY INCLUDED:

• Playstation The Official Magazine (PTOM): This publication doesn't seem to have had the fanbase of Nintendo Power, which is a real shame, because it was really quite good. The writing team laid out some very informative and entertaining previews of games (this is where I first learned about titles like Demon's Souls and Lollipop Chainsaw) with huge, gorgeous screenshots and plenty of well-thought-out gameplay descriptions. Developer, publisher, artist, and musician interviews were common and always worth my reading time. Unlike other first-party mags, there was never any pretense that the editors weren't allowed to say negative things about Sony, and they ragged on the company's games just as much as they praised them, which always made it seem like they really were on the consumers' side.
  
  I loved the reviews, too – each reviewer had their own personality that came out well in their writing, so you really got to develop a good understanding of their tastes and preferences. (This also let you easily identify the reviewers who's opinions you shouldn't trust, like the dope who infamously gave Hyperdimension Neptunia a 2/10 because it had anime characters in it.) Every feature in this magazine was of a very high quality, and it's the one I think of most highly from this list. I also really liked the special editions they did, too – I had this PSP one, which contained over 100 game reviews, and it permanently informed my taste in video games going forward. Plus, the graphic design on some of these covers was just effing killer:
  
  
  
  
  

• PC Gamer: Another one I picked up quite regularly, mostly because demo disks on the cover were common (and could be shared easily among my cadre of friends). What I remember most about this mag is how "adult" it seemed – they actually swore in it, which to my ten-year-old head made it indistinguishable from Playboy. PC Gamer focused a lot on boring computer stuff which I didn't understand (my parents were lifelong Mac users and my first Windows machine was a laptop), but they also had some very detailed reviews and did quite a lot to highlight the burgeoning indie scene of the late 2000s. (They were very much behind games like Super Meat Boy and the PC release of Braid.)
  
  In those days, the PC was nowhere near as well-supported or as popular as it is today, so the writers instead focused on extensive editorial segments that examined the development and mechanics of certain games very deeply. I can remember a multi-page feature that broke down the pros and cons of each Team Fortress 2 class in detail, which led to several hours-long discussions (and arguments) between me and my friends. PC Gamer was a good magazine, and I respect it a lot more in my adulthood than I did at the time. Plus, hey – it got an exclusive Minecraft demo! SCORE!!!!
  
  
  
  
  

• Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM): If you thought your old buddy Gorse was going to give each item on this list a ringing endorsement, you were mistaken, because I thought EGM was shit at the time and still do. Unlike the two examples listed above, this magazine felt cheap – the actual printing was far thinner than its contemporaries, leading to much poorer image quality and a noticeably worse reading experience. There was no sense of professionalism from the editors, either – articles were riddled with crude references and in-jokes, and any sense of proofreading or structure was nil. They covered a very, very wide remit of game reviews across every platform, leading to a magazine that focused far more on numerical scores and buzzwords over legitimate journalism.

The writers did have some sense of personality, but it was all that insufferable late-2000s dumb-guy meathead humour that I just couldn't stand. (Small wonder that many of the magazine's team transitioned directly to Cracked when the publication folded.) EGM has its fans – most of whom had stopped reading by the time I had access to it – and many of the people I knew did somewhat enjoy the magazine (it was nobody's favourite), but I'd only ever buy it when there was absolutely nothing else that interested me on the rack.​

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• Otaku USA: OK, I only ever had a few issues of this, but I remember really liking it at the time. In late 2000s/early 2010s Canada, seeing anything that mentioned or depicted anime IN REAL LIFE was a novelty, and I'd snap up any issues of this the second I saw them on shelves by collectors' instinct alone. This was a magazine that promoted new releases of anime, manga, and otaku-oriented video games, but remember: this was in the pre-streaming era, so they were highlighting the friggin' DVDs! In those days, the selection of Japanese pop culture you'd get was far more limited than it is now, and they had a lot of space to fill, so you'd get really unique features like a full four-page spread of Detroit Metal City screengrabs or a novel-length analysis of the latest B Gata H Kei collection that had just been released by ADV Films. (If you recognize anything I mentioned in the previous sentence, we can be friends.) I particularly remember a full-page advertisement for the initial English release of Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt that proudly declared, verbatim: "They're angels... and they're foul-mouthed!"
  
  This item is only tangentially-related to video games, but Otaku USA is such a novelty that I couldn't help but include it. I think they only had one or two people in their game review section, and nothing was ever detailed to any significant degree, but if you were someone who bought video games from Sega or Capcom (and I sure was), you'd certainly find them covered here. I even remember a feature they did that focused on the heavily-hyped launch of Megaman Legends 3 – HA!!! Unbelievably, Otaku USA is still going, with the Summer 2024 issue highlighting The Ancient Magus' Bride. Sometimes, this world is OK.

Anyhow! There's several trillion words about the video game magazines I grew up with. Which ones did you read? I purposefully left out Nintendo Power (I had the very last issue with New Super Mario Bros U on the cover), so don't worry if that's the only one you can talk about. I look forward to hearing your thoughts!

 

[Deadgar64]

I was a GamePro/Nintendo Power kid!

GP was really witty and honest about reviews. They also had the book divided into genre-sections which was fun. Always opened up to "Role Players Realm" first when I got a new one.
And NP was... well, NP. It was the official inside scoop, right?!
Good times!

 

[DarcyT]

I was a GamePro/Nintendo Power kid!
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GP was really witty and honest about reviews. They also had the book divided into genre-sections which was fun. Always opened up to "Role Players Realm" first when I got a new one.
And NP was... well, NP. It was the official inside scoop, right?!
Good times!

I'm violently jealous that you actually got to read Nintendo Power in person. I'm just glad that they got released digitally online (unofficially) .

The best thing ever was seeing the original "The Legend of Zelda" at number one spot for thirty months or more, then slowly die down...then people finding out about that game's Master Quest, and it jumping up to number one again for another twenty months or so.

 

[TrepieGroupie#1]

Before I was the internet-addicted monkey-man I am today, my key source of gaming culture and news was the diverse range of magazines my parents would occasionally buy for me. I never subscribed to these mags – they were typically purchased from airport bookstores or the local pharmacy in my horse-and-buggy town's shopping plaza – but I did collect several issues of them throughout the years, and they hold some very fond memories. THEY INCLUDED:

• Playstation The Official Magazine (PTOM): This publication doesn't seem to have had the fanbase of Nintendo Power, which is a real shame, because it was really quite good. The writing team laid out some very informative and entertaining previews of games (this is where I first learned about titles like Demon's Souls and Lollipop Chainsaw) with huge, gorgeous screenshots and plenty of well-thought-out gameplay descriptions. Developer, publisher, artist, and musician interviews were common and always worth my reading time. Unlike other first-party mags, there was never any pretense that the editors weren't allowed to say negative things about Sony, and they ragged on the company's games just as much as they praised them, which always made it seem like they really were on the consumers' side.
  
  I loved the reviews, too – each reviewer had their own personality that came out well in their writing, so you really got to develop a good understanding of their tastes and preferences. (This also let you easily identify the reviewers who's opinions you shouldn't trust, like the dope who infamously gave Hyperdimension Neptunia a 2/10 because it had anime characters in it.) Every feature in this magazine was of a very high quality, and it's the one I think of most highly from this list. I also really liked the special editions they did, too – I had this PSP one, which contained over 100 game reviews, and it permanently informed my taste in video games going forward. Plus, the graphic design on some of these covers was just effing killer:
  
  
  
  
  

• PC Gamer: Another one I picked up quite regularly, mostly because demo disks on the cover were common (and could be shared easily among my cadre of friends). What I remember most about this mag is how "adult" it seemed – they actually swore in it, which to my ten-year-old head made it indistinguishable from Playboy. PC Gamer focused a lot on boring computer stuff which I didn't understand (my parents were lifelong Mac users and my first Windows machine was a laptop), but they also had some very detailed reviews and did quite a lot to highlight the burgeoning indie scene of the late 2000s. (They were very much behind games like Super Meat Boy and the PC release of Braid.)
  
  In those days, the PC was nowhere near as well-supported or as popular as it is today, so the writers instead focused on extensive editorial segments that examined the development and mechanics of certain games very deeply. I can remember a multi-page feature that broke down the pros and cons of each Team Fortress 2 class in detail, which led to several hours-long discussions (and arguments) between me and my friends. PC Gamer was a good magazine, and I respect it a lot more in my adulthood than I did at the time. Plus, hey – it got an exclusive Minecraft demo! SCORE!!!!
  
  
  
  
  

• Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM): If you thought your old buddy Gorse was going to give each item on this list a ringing endorsement, you were mistaken, because I thought EGM was shit at the time and still do. Unlike the two examples listed above, this magazine felt cheap – the actual printing was far thinner than its contemporaries, leading to much poorer image quality and a noticeably worse reading experience. There was no sense of professionalism from the editors, either – articles were riddled with crude references and in-jokes, and any sense of proofreading or structure was nil. They covered a very, very wide remit of game reviews across every platform, leading to a magazine that focused far more on numerical scores and buzzwords over legitimate journalism.

The writers did have some sense of personality, but it was all that insufferable late-2000s dumb-guy meathead humour that I just couldn't stand. (Small wonder that many of the magazine's team transitioned directly to Cracked when the publication folded.) EGM has its fans – most of whom had stopped reading by the time I had access to it – and many of the people I knew did somewhat enjoy the magazine (it was nobody's favourite), but I'd only ever buy it when there was absolutely nothing else that interested me on the rack.​

​

​

• Otaku USA: OK, I only ever had a few issues of this, but I remember really liking it at the time. In late 2000s/early 2010s Canada, seeing anything that mentioned or depicted anime IN REAL LIFE was a novelty, and I'd snap up any issues of this the second I saw them on shelves by collectors' instinct alone. This was a magazine that promoted new releases of anime, manga, and otaku-oriented video games, but remember: this was in the pre-streaming era, so they were highlighting the friggin' DVDs! In those days, the selection of Japanese pop culture you'd get was far more limited than it is now, and they had a lot of space to fill, so you'd get really unique features like a full four-page spread of Detroit Metal City screengrabs or a novel-length analysis of the latest B Gata H Kei collection that had just been released by ADV Films. (If you recognize anything I mentioned in the previous sentence, we can be friends.) I particularly remember a full-page advertisement for the initial English release of Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt that proudly declared, verbatim: "They're angels... and they're foul-mouthed!"
  
  This item is only tangentially-related to video games, but Otaku USA is such a novelty that I couldn't help but include it. I think they only had one or two people in their game review section, and nothing was ever detailed to any significant degree, but if you were someone who bought video games from Sega or Capcom (and I sure was), you'd certainly find them covered here. I even remember a feature they did that focused on the heavily-hyped launch of Megaman Legends 3 – HA!!! Unbelievably, Otaku USA is still going, with the Summer 2024 issue highlighting The Ancient Magus' Bride. Sometimes, this world is OK.

Anyhow! There's several trillion words about the video game magazines I grew up with. Which ones did you read? I purposefully left out Nintendo Power (I had the very last issue with New Super Mario Bros U on the cover), so don't worry if that's the only one you can talk about. I look forward to hearing your thoughts!

These sound great, I'd be all over that PlayStation magazine back then if it existed for me.
The magazines i remember would be in Spanish so not really relevant for you guys

 

[Ravenspeaker]

I believe I still own my only copy of Club Nintendo. I don't really remember how I bought it, so I assume it's my younger brother's copy. Anyways, I was a pretty frequent reader of the Swedish version of the PlayStation Magazine (aptly named 'the Swedish PlayStation Magazine' go figure), SuperPLAY, and then later, PC Gamer and LOADING. Every once in a while the local but small retail by the train station has a gaming magazine and if it catches my interest, I'll buy it.

 

[VampireLord1024]

I don't think I ever read a gaming magazine or really knew about them growing up.

 

[Geass]

I love gaming magazines and wish more were preserved/made to this day. Nintendo Power Issue 6 was the first one I "read" as a kid mostly just flipping through picture but I only really started finding magazines interesting to read waaaay later with Issue 215 talking about Wii and DS games I was looking forward to.

I also read Game Informer when I was following a bit more mainstream video game releases for a bit but fell off as those games stopped appealing to me and honestly, the articles and reviews became real bad to read through. Honestly would love to go back and read through more magazines that maybe cover the PS1-PS2 era of video games or even Sega's entire lifespan but im unsure which magazines would cover those timeframes

Just seen this from a sega saturn magazine, very funny

 

[Ravenspeaker]

I remember playing the demo and we all got a kick from all the bouncy waterballoon-like they were!

 

[Kakatsu]

In Brazil we had some nice gaming magazines until 2010's. The one I read the most was "Gamers", but sometimes I also buyed "Super Game Power" and "Ação Games". There is a project on Catarse, a brazilian Kickstarter site, for a deluxe book about these gaming magazines from the past. I supported and we expect to receive the final product by December of 2025.

 

[It's Thinking 2]

Tips & Tricks magazine. I was subscribed from the late 90s to early 2000s. I mostly liked it because it had back sections filled with cheat codes. but also because it had guides for games every month, reviews, screenshots of upcoming games, listings of upcoming game titles even if some of them were either misspelled or outright fake or just never released. There were fighting game guides too and they had entire move sets for all the characters in the game like with MVC2. Sometimes guides were so long that they had to be split into parts between multiple issues. There would be plenty of E3 coverage every year with tons of screenshots. The Pokemon section was pretty neat too! I got an early look at Pokemon Gold and Silver versions before they released in Japan thanks to Tips & Tricks because I had no internet. They also advertised rare game merch and had hotlines for all the game companies if you had questions. The magazine was cheap too, that's probably why i was allowed to subscribe to it over other gaming zines at the time. Hey was like 11. lol

 

[Boo Man]

PSM official PlayStation magazine
i used to go to the shop and write down all the cheat codes on my hand
later i learned how to dumpster dive so was literally swimming in multiple copies of PSM magazines and demo discs! (also some other magazines that i wont mention)

 

[lucasgvse]

In Brazil we had some nice gaming magazines until 2010's. The one I read the most was "Gamers", but sometimes I also buyed "Super Game Power" and "Ação Games". There is a project on Catarse, a brazilian Kickstarter site, for a deluxe book about these gaming magazines from the past. I supported and we expect to receive the final product by December of 2025.

Essa daqui, ó:

I needed this magazine to finish Final Fantasy VII, because i didn't knew english back then and they translated (superficially) all of the story plus some dialogues. My uncle gave me and it's the only magazine i've ever had.

 

[Deadgar64]

This thread is awesome!

Archive.org has a collection called "The Magazine Rack" therein is a sub category for Gaming Magazines.
A lot of the mags folks are talking about here have actually been scanned and uploaded including a bunch of the Spanish and Japanese language books!

It's very cool. I recommend a visit for folks interested in what peeps have posted about.
Maybe even post links to some of your favorite issues if you can find them.

Edit: Looks like most if not all the scans are OCR'ed (Thank you Archive ) so it's possible to run them through a translator to read if they're not in one's native language.

 

[eroguro]

When I was teenager, I used to read Ação Games and EGM Brasil, but I can't had afford frequently. Fortunately, today we have lots of scans of this magazines to know about the gaming market in Brazil during the 90s.

This thread is awesome!

Archive.org has a collection called "The Magazine Rack" therein is a sub category for Gaming Magazines.
A lot of the mags folks are talking about here have actually been scanned and uploaded including a bunch of the Spanish and Japanese language books!

It's very cool. I recommend a visit for folks interested in what peeps have posted about.
Maybe even post links to some of your favorite issues if you can find them.

Edit: Looks like most if not all the scans are OCR'ed (Thank you Archive ) so it's possible to run them through a translator to read if they're not in one's native language.

Great tip! Archive.org is an excellent repository to find stuff like that!

 

[It's Thinking 2]

EGM has a kickstarter for a new book collecting all the issues' reviews into one hardcover volume. They are also releasing the lost issue to backers as well as making a website page that will give you access to every single full issue digitally like a big library for EGM. They met their goal of $200,000 but with another $50,000 they will make a brand new issue.