What was (or is) everybody's favorite video gaming magazine?

[aliensstudios]

I was cleaning some things up over the past weekend and stumbled across my Nintendo Power collection that spanned from 2003 till 2009. I remember how helpful it was in the earlier days but after around 2005 it became just a gaming news and review magazine. I liked the magazine while I had it and seeing it again made me wonder what everyone else's favorites were or maybe still are if they're still in print.

[burningdoom]

Retro Gamer is my favorite, without a doubt. Such a high-quality magazine with amazing content and great articles. Extra-large glossy pages, too. Lots of retro content on a wide spread of consoles and computers. As well as modern retro-style games being previewed and reviewed. But the trade-off is that you really pay for it. Single issues being $12.99, and a subscription ran me $85 for a year. When I went to re-up it the next year they wanted a whopping $118! Couldn't do that. But that's because it's a U.K. magazine, and I'm in the U.S.

My favorite used to be Videogames and Computer Entertainment in the early to mid 90s. Like Retro Gamer, it just had so much content on such a wide spread of consoles and computers (but was current at the time, not "retro"). And I loved that. As a kid I was limited to the one console my mom would buy me, like most kids. So it was really cool to find out what was going on in the rest of the video game world and drool over it all. This was pre-internet, remember, so this info wasn't easy to come by for a kid back then.

After that went defunct mid-90s, I moved on to Electronic Gaming Monthly. The next best thing to Videogames and Computer Entertainment in being inclusive to many systems (even some of the "lesser" ones). Pretty hefty sized magazine by the late-90s to early 2000s, too.

And I'd always get an Official PlayStation Magazine and Official Dreamcast Magazine whenever I could...for the demo discs, of course.

[kamikazekeeg]

I actually didn't read a ton of Nintendo Power, but I did check out EGM, alongside usually grabbing PSM even when I wasn't a Playstation system owner till the PS2 released.  Another that I use to read in the mid'ish 2000's was Play.  I still have 4 volumes of their "Girls of Gaming" thing, which sounds more lewd than they really are lol

[ffxik]

Not Game Informer 

[Flashback2012]

Without a doubt it was Diehard Gamefan. Electronic Gaming Monthly and EGM2 were also favorites. I also liked Video Games & Computer Entertainment, especially when they shortened the title and had the Room of Doom segments. 

I never was that big into Nintendo Power aside from when it first launched. I have a beat-to-f*** copy of the first issue somewhere. One magazine I did NOT care for was GamePro. I thought it was horrible in just about every aspect from the cheap feel of the paper to the layout to that God-awful "artist" they employed to "draw" comics for them. 

Early issues of Game Informer weren't that bad IMO. I've got a bunch from the mid 90's before it took off and the coverage wasn't the worst I'd seen in a magazine.

[mark1982]

Back when I was in school I bought EGM every month without fail in the 90s. I had boxes of them and Gamepro as well, eventually they were just taking up space and I threw them all away.

I read every issue though, good times.

Nowadays I don't read magazines anymore, just get all my gaming news from online sources, when I think about it though the whole charm of waiting for a monthly issue with the anticipation of what is gonna be on the cover and reading the reviews is non-existent now since we can just get info anytime we want.

Now that I look back at it, some of the covers in the 90s were horrible... haha

[kashell]

Not Game Informer 

[mastodon]

EGM and Game Pro. Before the internet I would actually bring in a pencil and paper to copy the codes from the mags.

[undertakerprime]

I had a subscription to Nintendo Power for years, starting around maybe issue 8 or so, and it ran out in the mid-2000s. However, even in my youth I could tell it was more of a promotional tool than an objective publication.

I bought GamePro and EGM frequently, though. They were probably my favorite magazines from the time.

Currently my favorite is Retro Gamer, but subscriptions are too expensive and my local bookstore stopped carrying it, so I haven’t read it in a while.

[bikingjahuty]

Growing up I subscribed to Game Informer (1996 to 1997), Gamepro (1997 to 1999, 2001 to 2003) and Nintendo Power (1999 to 2001). Not surprising these are my three favorite gaming mags despite all but Game Informer being defunct and also being a shadow of its former self.

Another gaming magazine I like and have a complete set of is the Official North American Dreamcast Magazine, although aside from one issue I picked up at a Safeway back in the day, I never subbed to it.

I remember buying single issues of other gaming magazines growing up, but none of them appealed to me the way the ones mentioned above did and still do.

[aliensstudios]

Another gaming magazine I like and have a complete set of is the Official North American Dreamcast Magazine, although aside from one issue I picked up at a Safeway back in the day, I never subbed to it.

I remember going to Safeway with my mom on sundays just to go to the magazine aisle to read Mad and any gaming magazine they had.

[wartoy]

Nintendo power

[ffxik]

On a serious note as long as it was about games I wasn't that picky.  EGM, EGM², Gamepro, Tips and Tricks.  Anything but Game Informer.  I bought a few back in the day when they were a really thin mag March 99 - April 99 and it never clicked with me.  Which is sad because it was actually a better mag back then than what it is now.

[kashell]

I used to like this magazine called Play. I think they're out of print, but they did a good job of covering as many games as possible instead of filling their pages with fluff.

But, the last issue of theirs that I read did a special piece on Odin Sphere. They praised the game upwards and downwards. Their version of Odin Sphere must not have had all of the problems my version (and everyone else's) version had.

[hoshichiri]

This is an easy one- Game Players (later Ultra Game Players).

When I was about 12, my mom won a six issue Sega Visions subscription 2 issues before it folded. Game Players was tapped to fill out the run. We got 2 issues of that, then we moved. Mom didn't send a change of address to the magazine, it wasn't important to her.

That move really didn't go well for me. I had a very hard time making friends and felt really out of place. It didn't help that we moved just before elementary school ended, so I soon found myself starting the whole process over at a new middle school. I wasn't especially happy right then. But a funny thing happened- Game Players found US, and finished our subscription. I latched onto that magazine, and it changed my life! It kept me going through middle school. It's how I made friends in high school. It indirectly resulted in my meeting my fiancé. I read a lot of other magazines, and sadly for space I had to get rid of those back issues- but not Game Players. Game Players I keep.