Retro Gaming Magazine Appreciation Mega-Thread - Post Your Old Mags!

I still have a decent collection of old magazines I've kept over the years (except my EGM and Nintendo Power collections RIP), and I love going back through and reading them and seeing previews for games that never came out or that eventually came out on a different platform by a different name etc. It's fun to read the speculation from editors in the 90s about things to come, leaked console info, and hype around the big releases of the time. It's also fun to see tons of old advertisements that oozed big edgelord energy or just straight up wouldn't fly today.

Let this thread be a dedication to those things. Any interesting articles, ads, previews, whatever, I wanna see it.

I'll start with this August 1993 issue of Die Hard Game Fan with a dope SFII cover where as a child I drew mustaches on everyone.

I grew very fond of the absolutely insane graphic design of these magazines. Readability? SCREW IT! Throw in more graphics!!!
I always appreciated how they would stitch screenshots together to give you a bigger view of a level.

I love the fact that this mag was bringing me the "latest and greatest on the king of the super systems", the 3D0, with this excerpt from "issue #3 of 3D0nly".
Kneel before the king, y'all.

I loved this Summer CES spread and the hype around 16 & 32-bit systems.
Shoot this nostalgia straight into my veins.

There is sooo much good stuff in this mag, but I'll end this post with this. This bit from the section in the back called "Other Stuff", where on a previous page they mention the announcement of the Atari Jaguar and say "Believe me, when this info shot out of our fax machine, we almost went into shock." and then go into specs.

On this page I'm showing there's a blurb for the Wonder Mega 2, the NES toploader, a JAMMA supergun, and a super weird handheld that as far as I know never came out, that claims it plays SNES, NES, Genesis, and TG-16 carts.

Thanks for hanging with me on this nostalgia train, y'all. If this thread heats up I'll come back and post more from my collection.
I would love to see what funky stuff everyone has laying around the house. Something fun to do while we're all on lockdown!

Cheers

Shoutout to "Nintendo Official Magazine" in the 90s/00s.

Their most infamous quote is them calling the PS2 the "Greystation Poo"

@sombre: "a safe bet"

I hope Hamad didn't bet his last pound

@sombre: lol awesome

I wish I knew where all my old mags were. I think they're in a box at my parent's house. Along with about 100 issues of Newcastle United fanzines. I'm arguably more interested in those.

Oh hi. Did someone say old magazines?

@marino: yoooooooooooooooooo u just gonna whip it out like that, huh?

Impressive.

Lol I chucked all mine out a year ago. Game Pro, EGM, Sega XS, C+VG, Mean Machines, Sega Power?? and Megazone spanning from late 80’s to mid 90’s.

Was a bit sad but meh I got over it.

@marino: yo Marino please send me that EA Skate deck. at the very least get me a full pic of that. I still play skate 3 like once a week.

EDIT: just noticed the full view in the first pic. so sick. i'm super jealous.

@michaeltransactions: The deck comes from PAX East 2010. I won it by beating the high score on a Hall of Meat challenge at the EA booth.

Also...are we counting strategy guides as magazines? Because...

@marino: that's sick. i'm bummed about the decline of physical guides.

Who wants to learn some fingerboard tricks?

@marino: So do you sit down and read through them or is it a displayed collection ? Also nice Titanfall statue.

@merxworx01: Sometimes I'll randomly pull something out and flip through it. But it's more storage on display than anything I guess.

This first gaming magazine I ever purchased. EGM #100, including fold out cover, FFVII inner cover spread, and 8 postcards.

Spoiler: #1 game is...

I started work archiving my GamePros one page at a time. The very first one of my subscription was for the release of Xbox and Gamecube. It takes probably 3-5 hours to get a full magazine, but it's worth it...

Your post about retro gaming magazines really hit home for me. I totally agree with you about the insane graphic design and the way they'd stitch together screenshots to give you a bigger view of the game world. It's also interesting to look back at the hype around consoles like the 3D0 and Atari Jaguar, and see how things played out in reality.

I stumbled upon this post and decided to revive this thread. As someone who grew up in the 90s, seeing these retro mags really takes me back. I used to love flipping through old issues of Nintendo Power and GamePro, so it's great to see someone else appreciating these time capsules too. Your collection sounds awesome, and I'm definitely going to have to dig through my old boxes to see what treasures I can find. Have you ever checked out any old literary magazines https://blog.reedsy.com/literary-magazines/ from that era? I used to collect a bunch of those too, and they're another great way to revisit the past. Anyway, thanks for sharing your gaming mag collection, and keep the nostalgia coming!