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[Mochilador]

It is very interesting that you still had legit video game magazines but only able to buy illegal copies I remember when I was in Turkey about 17 years ago. They had whole buildings on the main street selling pirated video games. Not even portable stands or anything, but a huge two floor warehouse store filled with illegal copies of movies, music and videogames and again, on the main street. It was surreal.

Well, we also had the option to rent games. Keep in mind that this was my experience. Things might have been different in other places, in big cities like São Paulo.

 

[Kadayi]

PC Zone, PC Gamer. and EDGE occasionally, although a fairly well-respected journo I knew once confided in me that EDGE was good for articles but that the reviews section should be taken with a large pinch of salt. A lot of people put EDGE reviews on a pedestal because they eschewed the oh so familiar 7/10 scale, but he said that in fact they were largely written by freelancers versus staff under the veil of anonymity, which meant when push comes there was no professional accountability in terms of the quality of a piece if people wrote a poor review that didn't do a game justice. After all when you're only getting paid by the word how much time are you really going to spend playing a 60+ hour game? Not that much if their original Witcher review is anything to go by.

 

[brap]

OPM and Nintendo Power. Still haven't read the last issue of NP because it'll make me sad
OPM was pretty edgy and reminded me of those Big Brother skate magazines. Good shit.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

https://www.retromags.com/

https://archive.org/details/gamemagazines

 

[Red Crayon Aristocrat]

What I liked about the EGM version in my country (México) was their sense of humour. The editors were very good journalists and had a peculiar style, made your reading fun all the way. NOwadays the way game information is subsumed switched to podcasts, websites and YouTube videos. I in that sense still cant get used to it. A magazine is an easy to grab anytime object, you can read a bit, glance at the pictures, flip the pages without loading times, a computer or a mobile phone.

Yes, EGM in the US had a great sense of humor too.

EGM for the content and OPM for the demo discs

OPM had good content too though, although yeah, the demo discs were great fun.

 

[Chittagong]

CVG, man what a blast from the past!

My childhood consisted of obsessing over

- Mean Machines - that Street Fighter 2 hype was unreal!
- EGM - Just seemed to get thicker and thicker each issue, so many compelling ads
- Nintendo Magazine System - finally an official UK Nintendo mag, but still not close to...
- Nintendo Power - a mythical US magazine with game maps, almost impossible to get in Europe
- Club Nintendo magazine - it became my job to write and design it in 1997-1999
- GameFan - absolutely bonkers magazine with some weird and awesome import features
- Super Play - amazing import Super NES / Super Famicom mag with very cool manga style art
- Edge - my last gaming magazine... I suddenly felt like a grown up. Still reading it!

 

[THE:MILKMAN]

The One Amiga was my favourite and most easily remembered. Had brilliant and extensive cover discs too.

 

[synchronicity]

Had fantastic in-depth feature articles and interviews with developers.

Yes, I loved that mag. Still have my issues in storage. I really liked the fact that they treated the medium with more weight than many publications. Yes games are fun, but they deserve to be respected as an art form, and I think NextGen handled that well.

 

[Shai-Tan]

Anything on the magazine rack? For me it was about looking at screenshots (including the screenshots in ads) although I do remember getting hyped up by console hardware rumors (that I was too young to understand)

 

[Jae Mara]

N64 Magazine

3-4 weeks late EGMs

Finally EDGE perhaps GAMES if my lousy news agent didnt have EDGE.

A lot of people put EDGE reviews on a pedestal because they eschewed the oh so familiar 7/10 scale,

I could of sworn that they instilled the 7/10. UK podcast One Life Left always goes on about, its a staple joke of theirs. Perhaps a certain time in their history things changed but I feel like seeing a lot of 7 out of 10s back in the day.

 

[Nitty_Grimes]

Its a shame the C&VG site had to shut down, it was good, though I never brought the magazines....probably one issue maybe when Streetfighter 2 was the rage.....but for me my go-to magazines were Edge and Gamesmaster....both of which are still going, surprisingly in the world of all things digital..

Gamesmaster has gone, closed a couple of months ago.

 

[RAIDEN1]

Gamesmaster has gone, closed a couple of months ago.

That's a surprise...it never even had a website version either in all these years..

 

[s_mirage]

Commodore Format initially. In my Mega Drive and 3DO years it was Mean Machines, Sega Magazine, Sega Pro, Gamesmaster, and 3DO Magazine. Semi-regularly bought Sega Power, and occasionally one of the myriad of other Sega mags. Later it was PC Gamer, the short lived Total Control, and then the Official Dreamcast Magazine.

Looking back, it's almost hard to believe the number of gaming magazines that were available. I miss those days.