In The Beginning, There Were Video Game Magazines 85
simoniker writes "The early history of video game mags doesn't get explored much, but over at GameSetWatch, there's a new column that looks at the dawn of game magazines, from Computer & Video Games' 1981 UK launch to Electronic Games' same-year U.S. launch. The column's writer, Kevin Gifford, who also runs the Magweasel website dedicated to documenting old video games, also claims of the early days: 'Terms like easter egg, scrolling, and screenshot were originally coined by [Electronic Games editor and co-founder Bill] Kunkel.'"
Dragon Warrior & Nintendo Power (Score:4, Funny)
I sure did.
Re:Dragon Warrior & Nintendo Power (Score:2)
Re:Dragon Warrior & Nintendo Power (Score:1)
(It started a crazy trend towards rpgs for me haha).
I don't think Id've beaten super mario brothers 3 without those red guide books!
Re:Dragon Warrior & Nintendo Power (Score:1)
I wonder how game magazines are going to cope with the Wii and PS3's motion sensitive controller. They strive on game reviews, previews and cheats.
Imagine Nintendo Power describing how to pass a particularly difficult level in the new Metroid "First, roll yourself into a ball, spring up after three seconds and initiate three quick left-to-right slashes with your controller." Instead of simply saying A-B-A-A-L-R-U, will we have icons represen
Re:Dragon Warrior & Nintendo Power (Score:2)
I remember buying Video Game mags in the 90's (Score:5, Interesting)
I loved the reviews. Each reviewer (with different videogame tastes) would give his own opinion about certain videogame, and they would all give a certain opinion and I just loved the screenshots of all the games. There were dozens, hundreds of new games I'd like to try out.
Unfortunately, this golden era of videogames came to an end with consoles. Not only you had to pay suborbital prices for the consoles, the games were much more expensive. And my fascination for videogames was gone.
Re:I remember buying Video Game mags in the 90's (Score:1)
Re:I remember buying Video Game mags in the 90's (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I remember buying Video Game mags in the 90's (Score:1)
Re:I remember buying Video Game mags in the 90's (Score:3, Interesting)
When did this golden era end? You imply that this era was happening in 1992, and that it ended sometime later than that. But consoles had already been around for years by 1992. Do you mean that the golden era ended with a later round of console games? If so, what console round caused the end of the golden era? I mean, the Atari 2600 came out in 1977. The NES came out in 1985. The Super Nintendo came out in 1991.
Also, what type of game
C64 Game Code FTW!! (Score:2, Interesting)
Heh, I remember correcting the listing in pencil too then passing them on to my mates.
Re:C64 Game Code FTW!! (Score:3, Funny)
Heh. I remember buying up a bunch of those, writing about 20 lines of code, then deciding that game I had beaten 20 times before was awfully tempting to beat again.
Re:C64 Game Code FTW!! (Score:2)
I had a subscription to COMPUTE! [wikipedia.org] magazine, which did exactly that, only for multiple platforms. It was a wonderful resource for computer hobbyists.
Schwab
Re:C64 Game Code FTW!! (Score:3, Interesting)
I liked Crash! magazine in particularly, and not only for its occasionally pervy cover art.
Re:C64 Game Code FTW!! (Score:1)
Re:C64 Game Code FTW!! (Score:1)
I learned fast enough from that experience that:
1. GOTOs are hard to trace when you're typing something that you're trying to understand.
2. No indenting makes it much worse.
3. Commenting the code is especially important.
4. Never, ever, ever use RENUM on
Totally unrelated (Score:3, Interesting)
Offcourse it sucked for everyone else because of the horrible noise :P
Re:C64 Game Code FTW!! (Score:2)
Re:C64 Game Code FTW!! (Score:1)
The Apple II had a similar magazine named Nibble [nibblemagazine.com]. It wasn't just games - it also had utilities, business software, programming tips, and much more. I still have many of them - I'm not going to throw source code away.
Re:C64 Game Code FTW!! (Score:2)
JOIN THE NINTENDO FUN CLUB TODAY MAC! (Score:4, Informative)
Well, before Nintendo Power at least. Maybe not *THE* begining.
Re:JOIN THE NINTENDO FUN CLUB TODAY MAC! (Score:3, Funny)
Zzap! (Score:2, Funny)
Those were the days (Score:2)
All mags seemed to eventually suffer from the problem of their writers getting too big for their boots though. Once it became about them and not the games anymore it was time to move on.
Videogaming & Computergaming Illustrated (Score:2)
The mag was around 1982-1983 before the video game crash. They are a delight to read. Very in-depth reporting of home console games, hardware, and even arcade games. Computer games were lightly covered.
The best mag I ever collected.
The article only seems to cover a fraction of the video game mags that were out there.
Zzap!64 (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Zzap!64 (Score:1)
There were many things that I enjoyed about Zzap, from the game reviews, interviews with developers and diary of a game specials. Ah the nostalgia
I currently like the Retro Gamer mag that is being produced as it feels similar but has a more historic and informative feel. And has less ads than most of the other game mags out there right now. Plus the Oliver Frey cover art is great.
Rainbow (Score:2)
Re:Rainbow (Score:1)
Re:Rainbow (Score:1)
"Sinclair User" (Score:2)
Re:"Sinclair User" (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:NMS (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:1)
Re:NMS (Score:2)
/ Future now publishes the "offical" PlayStation 2, Xbox, Xbox 360 and Nintendo magazines. And half of the "unofficial" competitors.
Compute Gazette... (Score:2)
Compute!'s Gazette and RUN were the best! (Score:2)
About a year ago I found out that my boss at the time had also subscribed to RUN as a kid, and had even had a program published. I probably have it on a 5.25" disk some
And for the Sinclair owners... (Score:5, Informative)
And for Amstrad CPC owners... (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.digi-alt.net/cpcoxygen/aa.html [digi-alt.net]
There's also an issue of Amtix. I don't know if Amstrad Computer User ever got online though.
Re:And for the Sinclair owners... (Score:2)
Re:And for the Sinclair owners... (Score:2)
(heh...Poke Cards....that brings back some memories!)
I find this hard to believe (Score:2)
So what did the developers that created those games call it before EG existed?
Re:I find this hard to believe (Score:1)
Re:I find this hard to believe (Score:2)
Likewise for "scrolling", it is likely game developers just talked about "following", or "moving" or other ways of describing the background movement. I don't h
Re:I find this hard to believe (Score:1)
Re:I find this hard to believe (Score:2)
Well, the Atari 400/800 computers, designed 1978-79 and released in 1979, had references to the term "scrolling" in its system equates (a couple of registers called HSCROL and VSCROL). The names HSCROL and
Re:I find this hard to believe (Score:1)
The Best Games Mag? (Score:2, Interesting)
Anyone else out there read it? Perhaps it just appealed to my childish sense of humour...
Re:The Best Games Mag? (Score:1)
CVG information simply crap (Score:3, Informative)
The article does it a dissevice. While it was close on its purchase by Future that was because Dennis (who themselves bought it from EMAP) wanted shot of it. It's circulation was half of Gamesmasters' and to call Gamesmaster kiddie compared to the CVG of the last couple of years is like calling Windows svelte compared to DOS 1.
As for "Coasted all the way to 2004", that ignores the Jaz Rignall and Paul Davies eras of the early 1990s and 1996ish which produced some of the last great games journalism before magazines were beaten to a bloody press-release filled pulp by the internet. They also had Retro coverage before any other mainstream magazine, which got countless of us into it and no doubt accounts for the success of the superb Retro Gamer [retrogamer.net] magazine published by Imagine these days.
Re:CVG information simply crap (Score:2)
I never really read CVG, being totally addicted to Zzap64! at the time.
-Jar.
Re:CVG information simply crap (Score:2)
Joystick magazine (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Joystick magazine (Score:2)
I threw out all my ancient video game magazines long ago, but kepr the couple of "Joystik" issues I had, one specifically for the 2 page "Bladerunner" picture of the Spinner flying in front of the TV billboard.
The best, or worst, depending on how you look at it, part of those early 80s magazines was the fact that most of them had NO real screenshots of the games, just Art
Yup. It's "Joystik" (Score:2)
The whole magazine was pure 80's gold, from layout to content.
My favorite quote from that issue- "Admitting you don't own this classic is like admitting that your house doesn't have indoor plumbing." What were they talking about? Asteroids for the 2600, of course!
Good times.
Electronic Games (Score:2)
I used to ride my bike to the mall and anxiously await each new issue on the day it arrived. I can remember drooling over reviews of the Vectrex, a system that my parents never did buy for me, despite my begging. Perhaps if they had, the cool kids would have come over, and id'a been popular. Ok maybe not.
Criminal ommissions (Score:4, Informative)
Newsfield - more influential than C&VG (Score:5, Interesting)
Nearly all of the modern UK games mags follow the 'format' Newsfield devised. It's a format that works, because magazines that try to do something radically different tend not to last very long. Newsfield was also the direct ancestor of the major UK games magazine publishers - Future was founded by an ex-Newsfield guy, Paragon was founded by ex-Future staffers, and now Imagine was set up by ex-Paragon types. (In fact, one of Imagine's bosses worked at Newsfield, so the games rag Kevin Bacon game is very easy...)
Re:Newsfield - more influential than C&VG (Score:2, Insightful)
British is best (Score:1)
Yes! My life is allright again! (Score:1)
(if you get this, you probably read the tongue-in-cheek comics about CVG in CVG as well;))
The EDGE magazine is one of the best. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The EDGE magazine is one of the best. (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:The EDGE magazine is one of the best. (Score:2)
Re:The EDGE magazine is one of the best. (Score:2)
- Anything not yet released is the greatest game ever.
- Anything actually shipped sucks.
The magazine is basically all the hype from Microsoft and Sony, without the actual game reviews.
wikipedia (Score:1)
-Filik.
The UK Atari VCS Owners Club Bulletin was earlier (Score:2)
Some scans here [atariage.com]. This publication has special memories for me because I was in it [atariage.com]
Re: (Score:1)
Amstrad Action (Score:3, Interesting)
It was also the first magazine in the world to mount cover cassettes with demos, games, utils, etc. It was also one of the longest running 8 bit computer mags running from 85 til 95 even outlasting Zzap64 I believe.
I didn't realise until now but it was a major influence on me back then and I probably wouldn't be typing this now on slashdot without that influence - some of the segments from the mag had a real cool hacker side and you could learn how to do some pretty cool stuff with computers back then from these mags which at the time were pretty mainstream.
PC Format was great too, in the early to mid 90's anyway - very similar to AA back then but has since lost it's touch - far too glammy and glitzy these days.
Re:Amstrad Action (Score:1)
There was a section where they published '10-liners' - programs in 10 lines of basic. I was often very impressed with what people could squeeze in, and I learnt a LOT.
I learnt my first bit of assembly language from Amstrad Action - Z80 assembler of course.
Those were the days.
You wouldn't get a MASM tutorial in today's PC
Re:Amstrad Action (Score:2)
When I was your age games came on 5 1/4" floppies! (Score:4, Insightful)
When CDROM was on the horizon and everyone was drooling over juicy screenies of The 7th Guest and Myst, one magazine (PC Games and Computer Entertainment maybe?) actually split into two - one dedicated to CDROM titles - and were sold together in a plastic bag. Others started packing floppies, and later on, (gasp!) CDs. I requested some free sample CDs from advertisers which had demos of hundreds upon hundreds of games per disc which really whet my appetite for multimedia.
I'm glad the internet didn't become popular until well after the video game - and video game magazine - boom. The web is slowly killing the print medium, and I'm quite sure I won't have years worth of web archives in 10 years. I cherish and reread my old games magazines all the time and I wouldn't trade them for all the buckazoids on Xenon.
Early mags were best (Score:3, Insightful)
Good ole VG&CE (Score:1)
DieHard GameFan ? (Score:1)