/vr/ - Retro Games

For those in the UK, here's an archive containing almost all of the issues of C&VG ever printed -

https://archive.org/search.php?query=collection%3Acomputer-video-games-magazine&sort=-publicdate&page=1

C&VG ran from the early eighties till 2004 (though it still exists as an online site), I started reading it from the early nineties or so. I remember it had a pretty colourful layout but the thing that really made it stand out for me was the writers, they just seemed like a bunch of cool guys who just wanted to mess around and have fun with games, the tone was very informal, peppered with long running in-jokes and with several pages often given to features like reporting on the office Micro Machines or Mario Kart tournament.

I also remember it usually had a pullout section in the middle printed on news sheet with high scores, fanart they'd been sent and a regular retro-cabin feature on old games and systems.

Unfortunately it got bought out, the old staff were booted out, the tone became more formal and the features disappeared. Some of the reviews were even simply ported over from other gaming magazines the new publisher owned (in one case, I recall, even leaving the prices in dollars).

It actually kinda reminded me of TOTAL!, a Nintendo oriented magazine I used to read when I was even younger, it had the same kind of staff personality based humour, mostly centered around Andy Dyer and Steve Jarrat.

Oh, and I remember there was a terrible PlayStation magazine I sometimes got, it was trying to cater to the older players of the 32-bit era by being the gaming equivalent of a lad's mag with forced mature content - i.e jokes about boobs and sex and a few half naked ladies every issue. I can't remember exactly what it's name was, PlayStation Plus or something, I mostly bought it for the half naked ladies, because it was the mid-ninties - a time when internet porn was a few grainy pictures that one rich friend had printed out for you on his dad's bubblejet.