Did you ever read gaming magazines, /v/? Were they better or worse than getting all of your reviews and first impressions online?
I had PSM, OPM, GamePro, EGM, DieHard GameFan, and Nintendo Power in my life at some point or another. I'd read and reread the shit out of them when bored. Vidya seemed like a much smaller thing then- you only got what they reported on so every game was something that might be groundbreaking and awesome.. The internet killed print, but I have fond memories of wasting afternoons rereading old mags and drawing the shit i found inside. I do think that what we have now is better in that it provides more viewpoints and options of how to consume them, but you have to spend more time looking at reviews overall to discern if it's good or not. You can't just trust Sushi-X, gotta see them videos and review aggregations.
I got games master, it was great for an idort and none of this biased console shit.
>>333352563
My Dad threw out most of my old games magazines two years ago.
I'm still bitter.
>>333353720
Man this sounds familiar. I had a pretty massive collection too, it still hurts.
>>333352902
That post made me wax nostalgic.
>>333352563
I remember them coming with demo disks and how excited I'd be the entire ride home. Plus reviews and previews seemed to have so much more weight. Reviews weren't like today where every major game release is a perfect score. It seemed like seeing a game get 7 out of 10 was good and it was a game worth looking into more whereas today anything below a 9 seems to be regarded as shit. Of course that could also just be my nostalgia showing
i had gamepro and egm for years. loved browsing through the funcoland listings and the other mail order places that did import games in the back of the magazines wishing i had all the games.
>>333354172
>>333353720
My brother threw out mine when I was very young.
He was such a dick.
The climate was different. There wasn't a big fear of paid shills because I, perhaps naively, went into it believing that anyone with a legit journalism career and sleek prose probably had an opinion worth listening to. Also, this was a time when 7/10 wasn't synonymous with PURE SHIT RED FLAG AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID.
In general I liked it a lot more. It's at a point now where I literally can't trust a word out of most "reviewers" and gather my first impressions from idiots on /v/. Not ideal, but more reliable than some shilling nu male fuck on Kotaku.
>>333352902
Great post, you really captured what a rainy Sunday would look like as a kid.
I still occasionally download a pdf of and EGM from the 90s, just to look at the ads. Those old ads just take me back, I can't tell you what it was like to see a Daikatana ad and wonder "who's John Romero and why does he want me to be his bitch?". "What is this game? Where are the screenshots?".
I was active back in the Australian Xbox Magazine forum and had a letter published in the letter section and several posts published in the forum section of the magazine.
>>333355943
Ironically back then a lot more of the reviewers were literally being paid to give out good scores on hyped games. Now they're just so braindead they actually think things like Uncharted are 10/10.
Honestly what I liked most back then (because even as a kid I could tell when reviews were hyperbolic shilling) were the BAD reviews, they reviewed every game they were sent so they got to do a lot of shovelware crap on the PS1 and PS2 and GBA, and of course they knew nobody really cared about Strawberry Shortcake 2: the Fighting so basically just tore it to pieces as a joke. My 15 year old self thought that shit was hilarious.
>>333352563
Grew up on CVG and Gamesmaster. Both were pretty great and I owe a lot of my favorite vidya to both but like like the vidya itself, both fell into corruption and became completely unreadable.
>yfw final issue of Nintendo power
I cried
>>333356696
Yes! Ever magazine I'd read reviews of games I cared about then instantly look for all games 5/10 and lower to read how awful they were haha
I have a shitload of old OPM magazines at my mom's. I always end up chilling in my old room flipping through then when I stop by. I miss gaming magazines.
