100 issues of Computer Gaming World

[linchear]

Like the subject says. In PDF format:
http://cgw.filefront.com/

I always love taking the time machine back in time and maybe learn a thing or two about a thing or two.

[Ricardo C]

This is awesome! :) I used to collect CGW back in the mid-90s, when I got my first mutimedia PC. Windows 95 and a 2X CD-ROM on a 400 MB hard drive, baby!

When CGW started carrying CDs, I spent hours enjoying such then-cutting-edge fare as the FMV trailer for Gabriel Knight II ("are you the schattenjägger, or are you not?!"), and Johnny Wilson's spoken editorials. Good times. Should be a fun nostalgia trip :)

[KNau]

That's hilarious! Chris Crawford has been bitching about game designers and the industry since all the way back in 1982! His article in the March 1982 issue is particularly hilarious - it should be retitled "How to make video games for decades and never see a dime for your efforts".

Don't try to sell the game yourself; turn it over to a software house for royalties...Let a good businessman handle the business aspects of the job.
Although it makes me more than a little sad to see so many references to Avalon Hill and SSI :( *sniff* Where have all the good games gone, indeed.

Anyone else notice the odd tone of excitement and optimism that permeates the early years of these magazines and is so sorely lacking in today's gaming publications? Where are the snarky, jaded comments by the 15-year-old interns?

[Coyote]

I started reading (http://www.rampantgames.com/blog/2006/08/rip-computer-gaming-world.html) CGW in 1992... all the way up to the present, when I just got the FINAL issue ever last week. And of course, I've been playing PC games forever. So browsing through the PDFs of the old magazines feels a little like a photo album of my adult life. Weird, huh?

[Sirrus]

Too bad CGW is being rebranded as "Games for Windows: The official magazine."

There goes independently (if you call Ziff Davis independent) magazines.

I've really never understood why consumers would think 'official' equals 'good.'

[Dan MacDonald]

I miss GameFan, the greatest gaming magazine of all time.

[DrWilloughby]

I still have all my old CGWs from when I was a kid. I started reading in its early years. Stacks and stacks of mags. I figured one day I'd want to look at them as a piece of history. I really should go backa nd make some sort of retrospective or display or something.

[Cartman]

These are great. I thought I'd ask if anyone else knows of any other PDF archival efforts of other old magazines out there? If so, could you post them here?

Thanks

[HairyTroll]

These are great. I thought I'd ask if anyone else knows of any other PDF archival efforts of other old magazines out there? If so, could you post them here?


Zzap64 (http://www.zzap64.co.uk/cgi-bin/displayhtml.pl)
Commodore User (http://www.zzap64.co.uk/c64/CommUser.html)
Amiga Format (http://www.commodoreformat.co.uk/)
Crash (http://www.crashonline.org.uk/)

[Cartman]

Here's a few more I just found:

AtariAge Magazine Archive (http://www.atariage.com/magazines/index.html)
Classic Computer Magazine Archive (http://www.atarimagazines.com/)
Turbo Play Magazine (http://home.comcast.net/~turboplay-magazine-archives-tg16/)

[Escapist Games]

Thanks for the link! As others have said these old CGWs really bring back memories! Not only have I enjoyed reading some of the old articles and game reviews, I'm getting a kick out of the ads as well!

It's almost funny to compare a review touting a game's amazing graphics, animations and effects, with actual screenshots of the game. The industry has come a looooong way in the last fifteen or so years. (Although nostalgic I'm not one of those folks who believes that, on the whole, those early games were more fun than games today, but that's a whole 'nother topic.)

One of my best memories of CGW was reading the reviews of the war games! They always sounded so amazing, but then I'd try to play one and be put off by the complexity and presentation. (I was able to live out those early wargame fantasies a few years later with RTS titles like "Command and Conquer", "Warcraft" and "Total Annihilation".)

Again, GREAT link! Thanks!

[Uhfgood]

I don't know much about Chris Crawford, but he sure thinks highly of himself (back in 1981).

I have yet to meet a single programmer who has fully solved the mathematics of a hexgrid for computer use. I know the problem is soluble, for I solved it some years ago, and I know that it really isn't very hard. Nobody
has put their mind to it. I can summarize my characterization of computer wargame designers with one sentence: almost all are amateurs.

Quite interesting.

[Sybixsus]

Your Sinclair : http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~jg27paw4/

( I loved Crash too, but for sheer entertainment, nothing beat David McCandless in Your Sinclair. )

[Davaris]

Yeah Chris Crawford's pretty eccentric. I think he's either an under appreciated genius or a nutter. One thing I do admire about him is he is complaining *and* is brave enough to try and do something about it.

[Ricardo C]

It's almost funny to compare a review touting a game's amazing graphics, animations and effects, with actual screenshots of the game. The industry has come a looooong way in the last fifteen or so years. (Although nostalgic I'm not one of those folks who believes that, on the whole, those early games were more fun than games today, but that's a whole 'nother topic.)

I love those old ads! There's something so evocative about them... Perhaps because our imaginations had to work harder when all we had was lo-res 8-bit graphics, the experience could sometimes be more immersive?

It's like reading a good book and having your imagination create the "perfect" visuals for you, and then watching the film adaptation, which, although lavish and beautifully shot, is limiting to your imagination, because it forces "definitive" renditions of the locations and characters on you.

[Uhfgood]

I remember an interview with I think Irving Kirschner(sp?) about the Empire Strikes back, how they wouldn't show the whole rebel base on Hoth, just a few exteriors to let the persons imagination fill it in. That seemed to work for me. Nowadays computers can do everything and usually do, and so it's not as cool because your mind can't come up with anything. Our right brains like putting things together from disparate pieces. Like those giant pictures made up of tons of tiny little pictures. You look at it close up and it looks like a jumble of pictures, and then you step back see the big picture (literally) and your mind solves it and then you experience a kind of euphoria with that.

So yeah you're right the immersivness is a bit different because your mind made up the rest. You looked at a triangle in asteroids and your mind saw a spaceship (maybe even with details). You watched a black and white movie and some items seem to have color in them, even though you knew for sure there wasn't (because your mind assigned colors to items and thus you could sort of see what colors they were). It's that sort of thing.

I still like looking at decent pixel art, or decent old school 320x200 256 color gaming art. There's something pleasant because my eye is telling me it's made up of huge pixels but my mind is saying "look at this cool picture"

This is partly why my game is going low-res and why i've been scouring old video games to find nuggets of game design goodness. :-)

[impossible]

Like the subject says. In PDF format:
http://cgw.filefront.com/

This is great. I started reading CGW back in 1993 and was a subscriber for about 6 or 7 years. I stopped reading regularly when the internet became a better place for game news, but there was a golden age during the 90s where print magazines were really great. Back when I was a wannabe game developer kid (wait... I still am :)) I really loved the Hex, Bugs and Rock N' Roll game development column.


Sadly it seems like the issues stop slightly after I first started reading. I lost the issues with the Doom II cover a long time ago and always wanted to read it again :(. I still need to check out some of the older stuff that I missed.

[Pyabo]

This is also proof that the whole game cloning debate has been with us for 25+ years. :)

The one issue I looked at had a full page color ad (where most of the actual magazine content was B&W) for a game called "Cubit," which was an outright clone of Q*bert right down to character design, and the rainbow colored flying escape platforms. Oh, Cubit had a long, pointy nose instead of a tube. That was about the only difference.

[Ola]

Wow! Some awesome links here. I love flipping through those old magazines. There's so many cool things and nostalgic moments to remember... and what a lovely raw layout they have :D

I recently started a subscription on Retro Gamer, a UK retro magazine that only cover old games. They got many interesting interviews with veteran game programmers as well... http://www.retrogamer.net/