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[ScOULaris]

So I've found myself slipping into my annual gaming magazine nostalgia phase, and I've been looking through old covers from various 90's/early 2000's magazines online. Rather than making a thread in which we all list our favorite magazines from yesteryear, I thought I'd make it a bit more targeted and focus exclusively on the cover designs.

I'll kick us off with a magazine that I felt had the most consistently eye-catching covers: PSM.

While I think Next Generation comes in at a close second with its slick, professional cover designs (and premium cover paper stock with wrap-around art), I have to give the edge to PSM in its prime. At a time when most magazines were transitioning toward using 3D renders or other official assets from developers for whatever game was gracing their cover that month, PSM kept the old tradition of featuring original artwork on every cover alive. While the quality started to fade in the later years, the art speaks for itself during the PS1 and early PS2 eras of the magazine's lifespan.

Another shout-out to GMR Magazine, which was James Mielke's brainchild and also sported some seriously slick cover designs:

 

[Mdk7]

Edge: the thread.

I mean

(and these are just random ones i've found)

 

[Deleted member 47027]

LOL, PSM? My god, that's rough. The original artwork made it feel even more low-rent.

 

[Markitron]

I loved N64's cover art, the artist that drew the covers was so good that he was poached by Rare IIRC.

 

[Morat]

PSM looks awful mate, garish and over the top IMO. I would go for Edge as having consistently stylish cover design.

 

[NekoFever]

I loved N64's cover art, the artist that drew the covers was so good that he was poached by Rare IIRC.

Wil Overton. He did Super Play as well.

Those were going to be my choice for that reason.

 

[Allforce]

PLAY magazine is really the last mag I bought consistantly, this would have been around the early 2000's. Really liked their covers, writing, and overall design of the mag.

Have no idea what happened to anyone involved with it. It was really a high-quality magazine and had some great articles that weren't just PR regurgitation.

 

[Raide]

Edge: the thread.

This. Always loved EDGE covers. Just the quality of the print material is awesome!

 

[zenpuff]

Hah, I had every PSM ever, even when they started to get a little fanboy-ish and I rolled my eyes at them. The art was definitely a product of its time. I used to think it was the coolest stuff ever. Same as GameFAN, though some of that stuff looks waaaay more rough nowadays.

 

[Karak]

Edge and some of Next Generation.

 

[Monty Mole]

Let's go old skool

 

[JaseMath]

EDGE consistently has great covers...

 

[Algebrah]

Damn, I am loving these Edge covers. Especially the Sunset Overdrive and Splatoon ones.

 

[Leafhopper]

On my phone but Play and EDGE take the cake for me usually. Simply because of the font usually.

 

[Fantomex]

Next Gen. Because they always tried to put a magazine cover that would rival other important magazines not just Niche videogames mags like Gamepro or Games Republic.

 

[FatboyTim]

"Beat the Aliens with Hannah's Playing Tips" states Crash next to a painting of a semi-naked, large
breasted, alien mud wrestling female member of staff, whilst simultaneously answering the prayers of
100,000 schoolboys across the United Kingdom. "Win a Wurlitzer Jukebox!" it flashes across the bottom,
but there is no need for further temptation to purchase. The happy newsagent is a magazine, ten foam
shrimps and quarter of colacubes lighter.

http://www.uncleclive.co.uk/clive1s.html

 

[PillarEN]

EGM under James Mielke's reign. It was the sad end for the original magazine but they had great covers during that short period. I'll give props to Game Informer today.

 

[nillah]

 

[Sojgat]

GameInformer

 

[Aaron D.]

 

[gofreak]

Older school Edge.

 

[Handy Fake]

Let's go old skool

Came here for this, was not disappointed.

 

[mclem]

Let's go old skool

I was going to go with another from the same family.

Both Oli Frey, I believe?

(Also, hahaha, 75p)

 

[Accoun]

.

 

[ScOULaris]

LOL, PSM? My god, that's rough. The original artwork made it feel even more low-rent.

PSM looks awful mate, garish and over the top IMO. I would go for Edge as having consistently stylish cover design.

I know what you mean. The covers certainly aren't as clean and professional as those seen in EDGE or its predecessor Next Generation, but I appreciate that they always used original artwork not found elsewhere.

 

[Accoun]

Kinda offtop, but was anyone else's fist thought "Dwarf Fortress on the cover"?

 

[Kyonashi]

Kill Screen had some pretty slick covers.

But I REALLY like their identity post-Kickstarter relaunch, with the new dimensions it feels like a proper serious games mag, their writing is top notch too.

 

[SoundPulse]

~Clutter Intensifies~

hey

It has its 90s charms and such

 

[SonicMegaDrive]

Definitely PSM. I was buying that mag even before I owned a PS1, based on the covers alone.

GameFan also had some killer cover art late in it's life.

 

[brickarts295]

Edge has style

 

[moozoom]

When I was a kid, I religiously bought each month TILT magazine and I spent hours looking at the covers which were often made in pixel art / computer art with the first graphic tablets and paint software.
I particularly loved the ones with a "TRON" esthetic since I was crazy about the movie.

Even if some are a bit kitsch today, and I still find them less busy and garish than the 90's covers full of text, explosions and crude colors.
Please remember that it was the 80's and one of the first if not the first computer and video game magazine in france.
All these covers made me want to learn to draw, and are probably a big part of my job in illustration and graphic design today. (My first computer drawings in Macpaint were less than stellar, though.)

 

[sixteen-bit]

that Amano FFX art for EGM was nice

 

[TI82]

Game Informer got some pretty nice ones once in a while

Just a few random ones from google

And of course Nintendo Power, loved reading these as a kiddo

 

[TheJollyCorner]

Some of the early Nintendo Power covers were fucking amazing!

I could go on and on here.

 

[mollipen]

PLAY magazine is really the last mag I bought consistantly, this would have been around the early 2000's. Really liked their covers, writing, and overall design of the mag.

Have no idea what happened to anyone involved with it. It was really a high-quality magazine and had some great articles that weren't just PR regurgitation.

If you mean American Play, I'm still around, currently at EGM. Nick, Casey and I were doing a podcast for a while about Japanese gaming. Heather's comedy career really took off, so now she's doing that. Brady helped relauch EGM, and bow he's in the entertainment industry. Mike Griffin is a game consultant. Dave tried relaunching GameFan, but it didn't work out, and I'm not sure what he's doing now.

You might not have been around at that point, but late-era Play (2006 - 2009) was the closest thing to a proper GameFan revival as has ever happened. There were, at that time, like six of us from the old-school GF days on the mag, and we had a Japanese slant quite often.

 

[kunonabi]

http://www.uncleclive.co.uk/clive1s.html

So that isn't an actual game on the cover? That's a damn shame because it looks like it would be an awesome one.

 

[PillarEN]

If you mean American Play, I'm still around, currently at EGM. Nick, Casey and I were doing a podcast for a while about Japanese gaming. Heather's comedy career really took off, so now she's doing that. Brady helped relauch EGM, and bow he's in the entertainment industry. Mike Griffin is a game consultant. Dave tried relaunching GameFan, but it didn't work out, and I'm not sure what he's doing now.

You might not have been around at that point, but late-era Play (2006 - 2009) was the closest thing to a proper GameFan revival as has ever happened. There were, at that time, like six of us from the old-school GF days on the mag, and we had a Japanese slant quite often.

WAHP is dead again?

 

[GuitarAtomik]

Man it was my life mission for a while to draw an official PSM cover lol. I finally did get to do a magazine cover for an indie video game zine though.

 

[Shambalakan]

Older school Edge

Really nice covers! But why did they say "Sega is dead" in July 1998?!

 

[ScOULaris]

I also wanna chime in and say that I don't really care for the Game Informer covers. Sure, they feature wrap-around artwork like the higher-quality UK mags that they aim to emulate, but they feel so damn lazy. I'm all for clean layouts on covers, but these take minimalism too far. Nowadays they are typically just some concept art from whatever game is this month's cover story and that's it. Not even a little bit of text or any other design elements that could actually make it look like a cover rather than just an art print wrapped around the spine of a magazine.

 

[The Boat]

On the phone right now, but there was an Edge GC edition where the magazine itself was kind of square and the cover was the top of a black GameCube. Fucking gorgeous.

 

[Havoc2049]

Play, along with Girls of Gaming had some consistently good covers. I think I have every single issue. Shidoshi and the crew rocked it! ;-)

I also really like the design and layout of Gamers' Republic.

 

[Hektor]

The german WASD Magazine always looks amazing.

 

[MrCunningham]

Gamers Republic had some slick covers:

I still have a lot of old issues of this magazine.

 

[Ysarus]

The Game is a relatively new magazine, but it's got some amazing covers.

I skipped the E3 2015 one because everyone has seen it by now. But seriously, it's so good.

 

[Papacheeks]

LOL, PSM? My god, that's rough. The original artwork made it feel even more low-rent.

PSM has a little place in my heart.

These covers are what I remember:

All of them hand drawn, by comic book artist's, illustrators.

Play was another one I liked cover wise:

 

[NekoFever]

Really nice covers! But why did they say "Sega is dead" in July 1998?!

IIRC there was a time when the Dreamcast wasn't even going to have a Sega logo on it. Maybe Sega was thinking of a rebrand at some point.

That's certainly done a while before the Dreamcast release (note the circular start button, which didn't make it to launch) so it might be around that era.

 

[NoblesseOblige]

I came in to post PSM as a joke...

 

[Trogdor1123]

Next Gen. Because they always tried to put a magazine cover that would rival other important magazines not just Niche videogames mags like Gamepro or Games Republic.

Came to post the same mag, they used awesome paper too

 

[Shambalakan]

IIRC there was a time when the Dreamcast wasn't even going to have a Sega logo on it. Maybe Sega was thinking of a rebrand at some point.

That's certainly done a while before the Dreamcast release (note the circular start button, which didn't make it to launch) so it might be around that era.

Oh I didn't know anything about this!