PC Gamer Top 100 -1997

Posted on July 14, 2017 by Pix

By “popular” request, here is a scan of PC Gamer’s top 100 games article from July 1997, exactly 20 years ago. This time period just about marks the end of the non 3D accelerated era as evidenced by some of the new entries on the list such as Tomb Raider, MDK and Carmageddon which were initially released without 3dfx support and patched shortly after.

I haven’t checked but expect that Origin’s contribution to the list are much the same as the year before with System Shock at 16, Ultima Underword 1/2 at 28, Ultima 8 at 60, Crusader No Regret at 74 and Shadow Caster at 95. Wing Commander however gets emitted entirely with a nod only in the special award for perseverance! UK PC mags really didn’t like Wing Commander in this era.

There are at least some genuine favourites of mine among the new entries, especially Dungeon Keeper and Toonstruck. Some choices look very odd in hindsight and it goes without saying that my list would be entirely different but that’s always the case with these things. I do find picking Ultima 8 out of the whole series indefensible but it’s nice that someone likes it I suppose.

It’s the games on here that I haven’t tried that interest me the most so I’m coming away from reading through this list thinking I really should get that copy of D/Generation off the shelf and actually play the thing.

Descent Reviews

Posted on November 2, 2016 by Pix

As I suspected, the UK press liked Descent a whole lot more than I did with all of the reviews I found scoring around 90%. The bulb on my scanner has gone so it’s photos only I’m afraid until I get it fixed/replaced. I’ve uploaded the images unaltered so everything should be just about legible.

The first is a matter of fact review from the April 1995 PC Review:-

Next, the March 1995 PC Format describing Descent as the first game to better Doom:-

This is the harshest of the reviews at 89% from the March 1995 PC Gamer:-

It scored 94% in the April 1995 PC Zone write-up, featuring an alleged guest appearance by David Hasselhoff:-

And finally by request, here is a review for Descent 2 from the April 1996 PC Zone:-

Contraption Zack Reviews

Posted on April 3, 2016 by Pix

I found a handful of Contraption Zack articles among the magazines. This first from the April 1993 PC Review is the cover disc I must have originally played the demo from.

As for reviews, here is a tiny write-up from the February 1993 PC Format.

And this is a full review from the March 1993 PC Review. Both of these reviews broadly match my own opinion. I don’t reckon the repetition is as big a deal as stated here given how short the game is though.

The Legacy – Magazine Reviews

Posted on March 2, 2016 by Pix

I only found the two reviews for The Legacy and they differ wildly. The first from the June 1993 PC Zone below is the most negative citing criticisms such as the game being more Lovecraft than Poe, objects just lying around, the room layout not making sense and the combat being difficult. All of these are true but I didn’t regard any of them as major issues. I may be doing the reviewer a disservice but I do get the strong impression they barely played the game. Certainly none of these screenshots are beyond the very early levels. One thing I do take out of this review is the Horrorsoft games it mentions were horror dungeon crawlers along something of a similar vein. I’d forgotten about them entirely and really should try them out one of these days.

Onto the second review from the May 1993 PC Review. This is the one that got me to buy the game 23 years back so it goes without saying they liked it a whole lot more than PC Zone. The version I played did allow for saving of custom screen layouts so this must have been added post review. It still scores a very healthy 8 which is the same as Lemmings 2 and X-Wing which both got reviewed in the same issue. Maybe timing was The Legacy’s problem in the end with two big titles like that in the same month. To compound this, Veil of Darkness and Shadow Of The Comet both with a similar horror theme are in the same issue. It clearly wasn’t a bad month for PC gaming although the balance was redressed to a large extent by Accolade’s Wacky Funsters. Hopefully I’m the only person who remembers that turkey.

Finally, the August 1993 PC Review featured a brief guide to playing The Legacy which I happened to spot when doing those Tornado scans. It’s a long way off a walkthrough but offers a few hints to help out in those difficult opening sections.

Tornado – Magazine Reviews

Posted on February 17, 2016 by Pix

I had a request for some scans on Digital Integration’s 1993 flight sim Tornado. My feelings on flight sims are clear enough so I can’t say it’s a game I ever played or know anything in particular about. It was clearly highly regarded at the time however and I managed to find a couple of reviews. The first comes from the September 1993 PC Zone:-