The print media that shaped a generation of players
The flagship US multiplatform gaming magazine of the 1990s, known for its newsstand presence, colour reviews grid, and the famous April Fools hoaxes that fooled an entire generation of players.
Nintendo's own official US magazine, originally published in-house, that served as the primary strategy guide, preview source, and brand ambassador for a generation of NES and SNES players.
A cult favourite US magazine distinguished by its import coverage, lavish full-page screenshots, and enthusiast editorial voice that championed Japanese games years before they reached Western shelves.
A long-running US multiplatform magazine aimed at younger players, recognisable for its "ProReview" format and mascot-heavy visual identity that made it a staple of school-library gaming coverage.
The UK's most critically rigorous games magazine, known for its austere visual design, willingness to award low scores to high-profile games, and a long-running editorial philosophy that treats games as a serious design discipline.
The UK's oldest dedicated gaming magazine, launched in 1981 when home computing was still new, and a primary reference for a generation of British players through the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad, and Amiga eras.
A UK console-only spin-off from CVG that became the defining voice of British 16-bit gaming coverage, celebrated for its irreverent editorial style and detailed multiformat reviews during the Mega Drive and SNES era.
Japan's most influential games publication and the world's longest-running dedicated gaming magazine, whose four-reviewer scoring system and rare perfect 40/40 scores carry enormous weight in the Japanese industry.
A well-regarded US gaming magazine from the early 1990s that carved out a niche with longer-form reviews, detailed strategy content, and a more analytical editorial approach than its mass-market competitors.
The UK's leading dedicated Commodore 64 magazine, essential reading for C64 owners who wanted type-in listings, hardware hacks, and reviews of the machine's enormous software library.
The world's longest-running PC-dedicated gaming magazine, launched simultaneously in the UK and US and still in print, credited with professionalising PC games journalism and making demo discs a publishing standard.
A US monthly dedicated entirely to cheat codes, passwords, and strategy tips that served as a pre-internet clearinghouse for game secrets during the years when sharing such knowledge required a physical publication.
The definitive ZX Spectrum magazine of the 1980s, published by Newsfield in Ludlow and famous for its sharp reviews and the vivid, distinctive cover artwork of Oliver Frey — for a time the biggest-selling computer magazine in Britain.
Newsfield's Commodore 64 counterpart to Crash, launched in 1985 and beloved for its irreverent humour, exhaustive C64 coverage, and star reviewers like Julian "Jaz" Rignall — a national gaming champion whose scores literally provoked developers to code against him.
The first magazine in the United States devoted entirely to video games, founded in 1981 by Bill Kunkel, Arnie Katz, and Joyce Worley — the publication that invented the vocabulary and editorial template every games magazine since has followed.
Edge's American sibling — an unusually intelligent, often controversial magazine that treated game development as a subject worth interrogating rather than a source of screenshots.
The magazine that used the whole percentage scale, published a table comparing its scores to everyone else's to prove the others were inflating, and got its ad revenue pulled for it.
The first games magazine to put a playable demo disc in every issue — turning a magazine into a delivery mechanism for the games themselves.
A British SNES magazine from Future Publishing, revered for its deep focus on Japanese games, anime, and import RPGs, and for Wil Overton's manga-style cover art — a publication that shaped a generation's love of Japanese pop culture.
The first magazine devoted specifically to computer games, founded by Russell Sipe in 1981 — a serious, long-lived US PC-gaming institution that survived the 1983 crash and covered the hobby for a quarter-century.
A British ZX Spectrum magazine famous for trading dry technical coverage for anarchic, self-mocking humour — a tone that reshaped UK games journalism and fed directly into later titles like Amiga Power.