Review of PC Gamer March 1997

And you would just play the whole game totally naked as Lara Croft. That that's a serious real thing and that's why PC gaming is for the reals, not baby gamers, okay? So, uh there's something wrong with human brains where we think everything that happened to us when we were 14-year-olds was the best it's ever been and it's wrong, folks. Your life was a lie. This has always been a problem. Always. Know your history. Know your config.sys and how much struggle we used to have. Welcome to magazine mode. We're looking at the 1997 March edition of PC Gamer magazine, the '97 PC Gamer Awards, and you can't read that because the one that I purchased had the cover ripped off and I'm passing the savings on to you. This video is free because the cover is ripped. Well, it's free cuz it's a YouTube and YouTube sucks. But anyway, so here we are. We're going to be going through this and one And the reason I picked this issue I'm going to put the picture up right here. You probably seen it already. The reason I picked the '97 PC Gamer Awards issue

is because it gives you a good idea of what players, and by extension the the the editors, the intelligentsia of PC gaming actually like. It's not uh what we think of retroactively. It is a primary source document of what people were thinking about. So, we're going to go through it. Um the big thing for this issue is yes, I'm only going to mention a few times and people hate it when I say it, but Steam is an extension of PC gaming and the legacy of that and the legacy of PC gaming is crafty building strategy simulationy style games, not these character adventure platformers like Mario and Sonic and Crash Bandicoot. You're not going to see that in here. These are Those are for babies. Those are console gamer babies. So, if you grew up playing console games, you're a baby. I'm just kidding. You're a full-grown adult, but you must adjust your tastes because Steam is an extension of PC gaming

culture and you must learn the ways and the culture of this world. So, let's continue on. Let's go through this. Um The interesting thing here that I like is it says here the last year of which we've seen new genres emerge like real-time strategy. You'll notice a lot in this magazine is strategy. It's just PC players love strategy games and there's war games, there's pure strategy, turn-based strategy, and now they're talking about real-time strategy and they they consider it emerging with um uh Warcraft 2. That was even though there was Warcraft 1, they still I they really emphasized that on the first one. So, I just like to talk about how new genres emerge. They just kind of do. You just got to roll with it. Um so, um again, I'm just going to kind of flip through here quickly cuz a lot of the games that people look at um on Steam are strategy games. People love strategy. I just put this out. I'm just calling attention to this. This is

a um CD. This is a If you're young kids and you don't understand how old we were before the internet could download megabytes and megabytes you they would ship demos on a PC so they'd be of a curated thing and here's a list of games that were on there. Um I've got a graph right here. I'm going to show it uh genres of the games that were included on here. As you see, simulation and strategy are the two biggest genres that you include on the demo disk, but you do see a little bit of some adventure games, a little bit really um there's a casino. People always like, "Oh, everything's just casino with extra steps." Casino games were huge on on PC because they don't put a lot of casino games on consoles except for uh Nintendo Vegas Dreams was the the one I really think of. Casino games were so popular on PC because they're for adults and adults like to gamble. Well, everybody loves to gamble, but it's only allowed.

And that brings us to Heroes of Might and Magic, a strategy RPG fantasy game, dark fantasy with dragons and all kinds of actually I can't I can't tell you much. I haven't played the Heroes of Might and Magic series. I don't I just didn't. Uh but the key thing is still popular. Hooded Horse released a version of this, Heroes of Might and Magic 3, I think it was like a remake. Did fantastic. Genres don't change very much, folks. It's still a strategy turn-based face-to-face strategy game. Still popular. People think Steam changes all the time. Stuff that was popular 30 years ago still popular to this day. And I did call this one out here. I just wanted to call this out because here is I think one of our only platformers that you are going to see in this entire magazine, Jazz Jack Rabbit 2. Anytime I say people don't like platformers, uh people are just like, "Well, what about Jazz Jack Rabbit or Jill of the

Jungle?" Epic Mega Games, here they are before they did Unreal and all that. Well, actually I think Unreal actually came out. There it is, Unreal. But before, you know, all the other follow on stuff, tournament stuff like that. But here is here and soak up your platformer, folks. There it is. I'm not I'm not cherry-picking. I'm going to call out every platformer I see. I think there's one other place where we're going to see a platformer. But there it is in this magazine of How many pages we got? 218, 220, some change. We got our one platformer there. So, soak it up. Enjoy it, platformer fans. That's what PC gamers think. It's an advertisement. This is even the editorial. There it is. One of the only platformers you're going to see in this magazine. Enjoy Jazz Jack Rabbit 2. All right, continuing on. I and I just like to remind you that do not like or subscribe this video. It sucks. YouTube sucks. So instead, the thing if you really like what you're watching is join the mailing list howtomarketagame.com/free. That's how you really follow what's good

about video games. This is just for fun. Just kids like to do the YouTubes, but it's actually really bad for creators to follow people on YouTube because YouTube is donkey. If you really want to help a creator or somebody like that, you follow them on their mailing list. If you don't have a mailing list, you should cuz it's important. There's another casino game. I'm telling you folks, people love casinos on All right, and we'll come over here to the sacred mirror of Kaphun. Um the interesting thing here is just the genre that they call it. They call it puzzle adventure. And this brings me Let's zoom in on this puzzle adventure thing right here. This brings me to my central thesis, and I think we're at a breaking point right now where you're going to see it um a lot of things converged at this period. So there was an FMV period, and this game does have its FMV world, and that really took over adventure games. So the classic adventure games like a King's Quest or a LucasArts were very popular. I loved them. I loved the King's Quest

series. That's what really was my entry gateway drug into PC gaming was I loved King's Quest. I thought it was the most beautiful interactive game. And it evolved. The graphics got better and better until it got to real life FMV, which coincided with Myst, which coincided with CD-ROM. But at this time, '97, which are the awards, but it was really for the games that released in '96, it kind of got stale because they were very blocky, stiff. It was stiff. It was very like like Myst. It was like a slideshow. And what you see is, and this is my theory, is I think the people who liked adventure games liked it for different reasons. And I, myself, like it liked them because they were the prettiest games at the time. Like no other game looked as good as King's Quest, okay? I remember in '85, '86 playing Mario, then I went over to a friend's house and they had King's Quest and it blew my mind. I was like, "What is this Mario? Donkey? Gross? Stupid?

Dumb Mario?" The whole world was interactive with a King's Quest game. You could go up to a donkey, speaking of donkeys, show it a carrot and it would follow you or feed a carrot and you could interact with anything and just say what you wanted to do and it was amazing. I liked that for that. I did not like the puzzles of King's Quest. I I Now looking back, I was like, "I liked King's Quest cuz it was so interactive and the graphics were so good." And this is where we fracture. I think this is the reason for the death of adventure games. And this is just This game didn't ruin adventure games, but it's just a symptom and we're going to see it throughout is See this? This is FMV and you're going to see an ad. I'll show you in a little while. Another ad where they were talking about how they they were defensive about FMV. So, this is kind of the end and I think I'll I'll show you examples throughout, okay? So, uh so carrying on. Anyway, let's carry on. Uh also, I just love '90s silly

font. This is desktop publishing uh going too crazy. Okay? Okay, I just want to pull out and a lot of the the the genres that I post in my uh round up like chart and stuff where I was like, "Oh, this is my preview." Where I was like, "Oh, yeah, look at how many Look at the breakdown of the genres." I I mostly go off these genres and you'll like they call it arcade. And this is by Apogee, still around. I think it's gone through some different ownership. Apogee software is really about I'd really say they were the the people trying to bring console games to PC. That was kind of their their thing. And so, this is like an arcade racing game. Um racing games are big, but you'll always see if they're a platformer, a lot of them came from Apogee because Apogee was kind of like trying to pull off that stuff and they never I other than Duke Nukem, maybe Rise of the Triad once they turned to FPS, um, this is no dig. I loved Apogee games. I really honestly totally did. Loved Apogee and 3D Realms. They were kind of like not the prime

tier, okay? So, yes, people liked them, but, uh, they were kind of sub like it just I they were they just were a little rough around the edges. So, just to give you context, you all will see Apogee games being a little bit more consol-y, but not quite. Uh, calling it out. Here's America Online. Just just cuz it's fun to always point at America Online. This was before America Online overstayed its welcome or it was a punchline. It was not quite a punchline at this point. They're just like, "Oh, yeah, it's it's great. They just updated their interface. What? American Online? That's a great way to get online." It wasn't like, "Huh huh huh, American Online, American Online, huh huh huh." It was it was just good. Look at this. I love old interfaces. This almost looks like a Winamp skin. Before I I don't think Winamp was really rounded. Like in the next year or two it'd be Winamp. Um, this is such a classic. This kind of capsule would work today. Just this fantasy up the wazoo dark high fantasy, whichever one. I think this is more high fantasy I'd say cuz look at those ears and all this stuff. So, I love this

stuff. It still doesn't change. This stuff is still big on Steam. This kind of look and feel. Here we've got a deep simulation game of, uh, going through the Straits of Hormuz over here, um, of piloting a submarine. Ugh, look at that. That is so steam. Ugh, just simulation strategy. It's there. I promise I'm not going to overdo it. Uh, I just call this out because we have Myth, Bungie, uh, before they even came up with an FPS, Myth was uh, one of their early art real-time strategies. They were chasing the trends of real-time strategy and they did well with it. A little time capsule here from the '90s. A little postal joke. That was a big thing in the '90s, joking about, "Oh, he totally went postal." Because um unfortunately some postal workers from the United States, they they they like shot people. Like they went in they they they kind of did mass shootings for

no reason. It was just kind of psychological. But later people did studies and found that there was no correlation between no increase in postal worker workplace shootings than any other workplace. It's just the public consciousness forever for whatever reason latched on anytime there was any violence by a postal worker. They're like, "Oh, man, you're going postal." So, you can see there's a postal joke here. It's just a guy who's I don't even get the joke. They're just like, "He's a post office worker. Ha ha ha." Stupid. So stupid. Uh those jokes back in the day. So, that was the memes of the time. Like and that was a long time. That we're like we joked about going postal in that game. Uh actually made by a Tucson studio called Postal. It was it was making that joke. Here's a action platformer kind of game. It's it's really like an action third-person shooter. Uh but MDK was actually pretty cool. But you kind of got these in the the late '90s on PC. On PC. All right. So, uh a little news section here. I love to see this. This one's interesting. Um

SimCopter. This is where a gay developer over at uh who was it? Was it Firaxis at the time? No, it was uh what's it? Maxis at the time. Sim Sim games. Sim flights were huge at the time. Uh snuck in. Uh it was very minor on his birthday or Friday the 13th or his boyfriend's birthday, um all of a sudden all the people in SimCopter, all the like NPCs floating everywhere, would turn into a speedo-clad man and they would hug and kiss you. That was it. And that was a major controversy and they had to pull it and patch it emergency-wise. There I'm going to link below, there's a YouTube video that explained all this. And then it turns out that the guy was also joined an art collective that would do these funny like corporate espionage like swapping out the voice boxes of Barbie to have the voice box of GI Joe and vice versa. It was an ironic commentary. The '90s were really fun, folks. Let me tell you, the '90s were fun except for I mean, he he got fired for this, but he kind of

seemed like he was fine. He's fine. All right. Um other I love any '90s sign of the time. We we the beating of Russia during the Cold War and Microsoft hiring some programmers. I don't know whatever came of this. I'd look it up. But Microsoft hired some Russian coders to make like a flight sim or something, but classic classic stuff. Good '90s, you know, um Star Trek stuff. Okay. Again, sign of the times. Um back in the day you would play at work first-person shooter multiplayer games. And this is a utility that they were talking about that would sniff out your network to make sure your employees were not playing games. And this was true. This honestly would happen. Like I worked at the software company in the '90s. I worked in the mail room. I didn't even do anything cool. I just worked in the mail room. But I was right next to the QA department. Like people would phone in for software issues and the guys would just play Quake all day on the network. That's all they did. They would like pause it when a call came in for one of them and they would answer it.

And I was so jealous of them. I was like, "Man, they just get to play Quake all day. I want to do that so bad. I want to be in QA." But it's just a dumb mail copy boy. So, but this would sniff it out. But this is a real thing. I don't know if it still happens, but you would just be on your work computer playing full on first-person shooters on your work computer. I think cuz first-person shooters and all that stuff requires such a high um like software requirement. You can't really play like an FPS, but with Quake 1 it was software written. You didn't need like a 3D graphics card to run it. So, a lot of people would uh just play FPSs. What a time. What a time. call out this Call out this one right here. To sell or not to sell Wiseman on VGA Planets. Here's uh your your reminder every uh time I do one of these videos that indie games were not invented by John Blow. We've been making indie games forever. This is a basically a story about an indie game developer named Wiseman who made a game called VGA Planets. I'm pretty sure the VGA part of that is

referring to the number of colors that would be in the graphics. Um the interesting thing it was basically an article about how he's not selling out even though his games are pretty popular. Okay, the interesting thing here is he said that he sold 33,000 copies in 1997. That means he probably had to like phone people that had to call him. He'd have to ship out 33,000 copies. I don't think they sold online because he was talking about his floppies and his CDs that he would ship his game out. But he was talking if he went with a publisher he would have to give up he would only get n- 10% to 20% of the profits. We complain about Steam's 30%. Back in the day the business model of distribution meant indie game developers would give up 80 to 90%. Wiseman back in the day would look at us complaining about Steam's 30% and say sweet child. You child. You little child who are so mad about your 30%. Look, I have to give up 80 to 90%. He in this article is basically him saying no way, I'm just going to sell it direct and

keep 100%. But we listen to this. 33,000 copies and he he and he was like no way, I'm not I'm not giving up 90% of my profits, okay? Uh I looked it up and this guy actually released an updated VGA Planets on Steam. Going to link to it below. It didn't sell well. Didn't sell well, but um there were indie games before Steam, before John Blow. So, it was a thing. It was a thing. And it is in a magazine. So, just interesting, just interesting times. Learn about this history of PC gaming, strategy games. It's a It's a 4X strategy planet game, just FYI. Heavy UI interface, classic Steam game. This is PC gaming, folks. PC gaming. Uh I just stopped on this ad because it's a guy screaming. For some reason the '90s they just loved guys screaming. I guess this is the same as in YouTube thumbnails. They always just have people screaming. They just have I'm going to For the thumbnail, you already seen it, but the thumbnail for this is just going to be me me making this face. It's just

screaming. That always It's not new. People love screaming faces. I don't know what it is. Here it is uh their game of the year. Again, you've seen the graph of all the games that do the best every year. I just point this one out. Simulation strategy game, Civ 2, game of the year. Beat Quake. Beat Lara Croft. Civilization. A boring game where you don't control the main character and it's strategy. And this is top favorites of my games. I literally played this game so much on my family PC I got carpal tunnel syndrome. I My My wrist hurt with the mouse using it. I ended up playing this game with my left hand on the mouse because I loved it so much. I love Civilization. This is the most Steam-ass PC game. They even included the Windows 95 toolbar in there. This is PC gaming, folks. If you don't understand Civilization, you Everybody should play it. Even if

you don't like strategy games, you need to understand If you're making a game for PC, you need to understand what PC players like. And the Civilization series is amazing. It is my favorite series. I love it. This is my favorite game. This is top five to 10 games for me depending on whether I ate lunch or not. Of all time is Civilization II. Good call. Game of the Year PC Gamer Awards. I feel like Quake has a better public consciousness, but in the year the game of the year 1997 Civilization II beat out Lara Croft, beat out Quake. This is not This is a Sony game Eidos and what all that, but this right here PC gaming. The other thing to note was they said Warcraft II was their game of the year last year. Again, remember This is This magazine is from 1997. They're picking the winners of '96. See, '97 they're picking It's like the Oscars. So, in 1997 they picked the games of '96. And so, the game of '95

was Warcraft II, another strategy game, real-time strategy game. I'm telling you folks, PC gaming doesn't change very much. We're still learning the same things. Every time people say, "Oh, PC changed all the time. Everything's different." Not so much. Um now, Tomb Raider did get best action game. It didn't get game of the year, but it got best action game. Um I must say okay, so here is where that split that I was talking about adventure games. Now, with the birth of 3D Remember I I showed in the map 3D that we had the 3D consoles, N64, PlayStation 1. And then just around the corner was more established um PC gaming 3D cards. This I think is the death of adventure games. Cuz me, I used to play adventure games because they were the most beautiful graphics. Nobody had that many colors. Nobody had that much depth where you could like walk through the painting. It wasn't about the puzzles and stuff. And I think

Tomb Raider being like this action game that is so beautiful. Like at the time these were the most beautiful graphics you you have. And it was amazing. And so this, I would much have rather played this than King's Quest because in all honesty, King's Quest was had puzzles. And so I think this contributed to the death of um adventure games because it siphoned off the audience that was playing adventure games because they had the best graphics. And no longer adventure games had the best graphics, these were now the best graphics. And so that sucked me, I know personally because as soon as Quake, uh Duke Nukem, this came out, I didn't want to play adventure games anymore because I was like, well, they're not the best graphics. I struggled through the puzzles so that I could enjoy this immersive world. And I think that's what happened. That's my thesis on what happened to adventure games. And that was the one thing that changed genre-wise and why adventure games used to be the AAA. They were the best-selling games every year and the

best graphics and they're not anymore. As as of 1997, you're starting to see that fracturing come in, okay? Um sports games always big on PC. They are I don't play sports games, but as you can see, golf and this I'll talk about golf in just a second. I'll show you golf in a second. And and the story behind golf. Here it is. Oh, it's right here. Okay. Interesting thing. Okay, so this is just an ad, but this was on um one of the games selected on their demo disk. Okay. British Open, look who it is. Looking Glass. And if you don't know, Looking Glass made Thief, they made System Shock, System Shock 2, and they really were the people who innovated and created immersive sims. Um System Shock 1 and 2 eventually and Ken Levine was on this I think he worked for Looking Looking Glass. He broke off, eventually um through several different companies coming and going, eventually made BioShock 2 um through a whole smattering. So, but look what they also made. British Open uh

golf. And I looked it up. Why why is Looking Glass who made immersive sims, some of the most influential PC games in the future making a golf game? They were chasing trends. So, Looking Glass was hard they made Ultima Underworld. That's what it's called, right? Ultima Underworld. That was their big seller. Made a lot of money. And then they're branching out and they were kind of running out of money cuz they're also making System Shock at the time. And they needed the money and so they like, well, we want a hit. Let's chase some trends. They made this game that did not sell well. They chased this trend and it did not work well because the trend at the time, some of the best-selling games were golf simulators simulating golf. Okay? And so, they chased the trend of golf because this was a best-seller. So, they could pay for their innovative games, okay? Now, the other game they chased and I think we'll see a couple of them. I think we will see it in this magazine is Flight Unlimited, which is an awesome game. It is beautiful. Um Flight Unlimited sold very well. That's

their number two seller, I believe. I looked it up. Number two seller is Flight Unlimited. Number one seller is um is Ultima Underworld. And then way down there, if you look at it just just do ask ChatGPT. Rank the best-selling Looking Glass games. Just do it right now. Don't take my word for it. Somewhere down the line is System Shock. I think Thief, either Thief one or two, was their number three best-seller. Um but their most The games like if you ask any indie game developer, especially immersive sims, immersive sim developers are kind of snooty about immersive sims. They're like, oh well, immersive sims the best genre there is. Nobody ever buys immersive sims except for BioShock. Um if you look at it, they they're so expensive to make an immersive sim and they make almost no money and they're very they're the the most highbrow of of genres for some reason. Immersive sims they never make money. And uh basically immersive sims bankrupt Looking Glass, but they did they were influential, critically acclaimed, game developers love them, but they don't sell. You got to chase these trends." This one sold. This chasing that golf

trend, I don't know why this game didn't sell. It probably cuz got the Union Jack there. This is America. Um But for whatever reason, um this game sold terribly. But when they chased the other trend, which was um flight simulators, when they did um Flight Unlimited, that that did very well. So, chasing the trend of flight simulators paid for the innovation of immersive sims, which later bankrupted the company. So, folks, chasing trends funds your games, okay? That's I know it's not cool, but look, Looking Glass invented the coolest genre that every artist loves to make, which is immersive sims, by chasing trends. So, chasing trends pays for your art. And then your art can be as unprofitable as possible. Like, it's great. It's great that System Shock didn't sell well. It's great that System Shock 2 did not sell well, because it broke through and it allowed BioShock to do it. And then basically nobody's ever been able to make that search. Like, how profitable search ChatGPT, um how profitable write the

top-selling immersive sims. It's like BioShock, BioShock Infinite is number two, I think. And then all the other ones are like, "Well, these all sold terribly." But they always bankrupt studios. I don't know why any everybody wants to make an immersive sim. Uh chase your trend, and then you can spend that money on the most extravagant immersive sim that sells donkey, okay? All right, next one. Uh I flagged this one cuz best war game. Still, I did not know this even in 1997, um they still called strategy games war some sub genres of strategy games war games. I I don't think we I don't know when this stops. This would just get lumped into strategy game as far as I'm concerned. Like, we don't call war games war games. Everything is called strategy. So, when I did my summation of top genres, I threw all the strategy like real-time strategy, wargame turn-based strategy. I threw them I lumped them all into strategy. I'm sorry. I'm not trying to pick cherry-pick or anything, but I'm going to come out this is a strategy game.

But, look at this. Close Combat. I played Close Combat 2. Uh but, yeah, look at this. This is PC as PC. You can still find top-selling strategy games on Steam that at least like 2 years ago or a year ago that still look like this basically.
[laughter]
Um these games are very hard to make, very comprehensive, but still super popular on Steam. Strategy games Again, these This is not Close Combat, but these are other strategy games. They just People on Steam love them. Love strategy games, okay? It's just I'm not going to labor it. I'm not going to talk about it too much. People hate it when I talk about it. Um here we go. Break it out. Uh real-time strategy, Command & Conquer, top top game. See, they broke out There were so many strategy games they had to subdivide their awards. And then Oh, yeah, here it is. Best turn-based strategy. So, they had wargame, turn-based uh turn-based, real-time. They had like three different categories, each with it of there. So, uh here's a Might & Magic. Like I said, Hooded Horse just released a uh Might & Magic rebrand of the third

one. I really should play. I've heard two or three is better. In the comments below, um don't comment anything else other than whether I should play number two or number three or just start with the Hooded Horse one. But, again, still popular. Look at this. Oh, that looks so strategy. Uh nothing nothing here but Grab Your Stick and Play. Uh see, another helicopter sim game stick cuz everybody had flight sticks. We didn't have controllers like a Nintendo. That's for babies. You have a control stick that cost you like $400. Okay. Here we go. Best RPGs, best role-playing games. I thought this was interesting, actually. Nowadays, Diablo is Everybody thinks Diablo is the best. Is the ultimate PC games. Like people made a Vampire Survivor likes that looks just like this interface Diablo style interface. Everybody quotes this graphics and everything. But actually best role-playing game 1997 was Elder Scrolls

Daggerfall, which I don't know. I feel like people don't like this one as much compared to like Oblivion and stuff. This one is actually I to be honest, I did not know the Elder Scrolls until Oblivion. Then they were like, oh this is technically uh like the last of a very long lineage. I was like, really? Daggerfall was up at the top. And they won it because it was so immersive. And this also I blame for the death of adventure games. Because again, to me King's Quest series was basically Oblivion. Where you could walk into any room, you could pick up any object, you could throw it any object, you could talk to any NPC and have an interesting interaction. That was cool to me. I thought that was the coolest thing. But essentially these open world RPGs took that and did it better than adventure games. And so I was like, man if these RPGs are doing it, I don't need to play a stupid thing where I have to solve puzzles. That's so lame. Puzzles are lame. This ate the lunch of adventure games. I think this took a big audience here. Cuz graphics at this time were pretty amazing. Um but

I also thought I just thought it was fascinating that they didn't pick Diablo. Because nowadays people are like, oh yeah Diablo is so much better than Daggerfall. Uh these Elder Scroll games weren't good until Oblivion. All right. Let's continue on. And here they still had a best adventure game. Beast Within C. Now at this point adventure games were all uh 90s they had like, Linda, uh please stop smoking in the teachers break room. Um they would uh you just had 90s people and they look so dated now. They're FMVs. And now this is kind of a a cool gimmick of remembering the 90s. But back then adventure games were in in like the late 90s, they were FMV and people were getting sick of it. I'll show you in a sec. Um Um yeah. Uh here's a Here's a thing about uh conversion to Windows 95. Now, Windows 95 at this age, 2 years old, people are still complaining about how much better DOS games were, and people were having to do all these things. Okay, so I'm going to throw this meme up. I love to throw this meme up cuz people always have this rosy-tinted history. They

think, "Oh man, PC games used to be so good. You didn't have to do anything." You used to have to buy software. You used to have to have buy an extra piece of software just to make DOS games run on Windows 95. That's what gives People complain so much about like backwards compatibility. You used to have to buy extra software just to make your old games run. It was not such a magical time. Like, I love the '90s. Don't get me wrong. But it wasn't all the stuff that people always talk about. So PC gaming sucks, people. It always has. I love it. I love I love Don't get me wrong. Don't get me wrong. PC gaming is all awesome, but it was never like, "Oh, it used to be so good back in the day." It always sucked. It always was like the same thing. It's better now. Things are better now than they've ever been. Don't be so there. Uh simulation, mostly flight sims. Back then, simulation was there. Simulation, Longbow. I played this one. Uh best educational game. It's got a little corner. See, people still had

education games. Don't Don't make an education You're making an education game, folks, they don't sell on Steam. Okay? Um best expansion pack, basically DLC. Okay, I love this. I just Just pausing on this. Look at this Star Control. This is actually a good strategy game, but look at that. That is such '90s CG. Look at that Look at that hair. It's just basically a texture thrown over this wrap. Ugh. God, look at that. Look at that. This is a texture, too. This is so so '90s. Love it. Love the aesthetic. Best multiplayer is Quake. Best arcade game. Okay. Here is arcade. Arcade is What does it They're basically for babies. Arcade is console gaming. If I would say console gaming on PC, it's basically arcade games. A schmup one than a racing game. Racing sim versus racing arcade, it's debatable. Look at that. There's the I'm putting out all the platforms. Now, this is technically a run and gun schmup, but I'll give it to you cuz you do jump up.

It is uh Shiny Entertainment's um Earthworm Jim. Popular on PC to or consoles, too, for console babies. Uh but I will give it to you, platformer friends. So, here's platformer number two. Soak it in. Here's your platformer number two in this PC magazine. Just living it up. Live up your your moment in the sun, platformer games. And it's technically a run and gun schmup. So, but we don't want to debate. We don't want to debate genres here. I won't I won't hammer too hard, but I got to talk about something. I love this ad. Overlapping text. I talked about this last time. 90s Raygun. Look up Raygun magazine for your influential You got this deckled edge on everything. I I just And then you've got the overlapping fonts. Ah. I love 90s graphic design. Ads are so cool, and it's always a dark guy. He's not screaming. I can't tell if he's screaming, but um that's what it is. Okay. Um they had a special section on best FMVs, all kind of stuff. Best graphics, Tomb Raider. See, graphics of

Tomb Raider were the best. Stole the lunch from the people who played adventure games for the graphics. No longer were adventure games the best graphics. Okay, music, whatever. Um here's uh Sega Rally. Nothing nothing too cool. Let's keep going here. Okay. All right, this one I got to stop. Let me activate the meme. Boom. About these stupid memes you always see on Reddit and stuff about how good PC gaming used to be. Okay. Look at this. Most So, this is trends of 1996 incomplete games. This is a whole section about how they hate incomplete games. This is basically the same argument about early access that people have, but this is worse because early access you just it auto updates. This back in the day, you didn't have to download it on your on your mobile or your slow um phone line connection, which is 56 baud, or uh you would have to buy an update disc or get it mailed to you. It's terrible. And I love I love this last

line. I'm going to I'm going to flex it right here. Zoom in. Look at this line. "Hopefully, we'll see a quick and sudden death to this trend of more and more publishers learn to their their customers aren't going to stand for it. Until that time, stay tuned." They They were saying like, "Oh, we hope that eventually publishers will just release full games." These memes that people always put up like, "Oh, back in the '90s, back in the classic days, they shipped complete games." No, they didn't. No, they did not. Look at this. This is complaining about how incomplete games were buggy, they needed patches, and all this stuff. This has always been going on. Making games is hard, especially PC games cuz there's no standard platform. You have to understand, people, if you came from console, if you're a console baby, because the expectation of console games was that it was shipped the quality bar was higher. I'll give you that. The quality bar on a console game was higher, but you had less innovation, you had less of this stuff, and so you could release cooler, jankier games that were

more innovative on PC because there was no standard hardware and all this kind of crazy stuff. And so stuff was just buggier, jankier, but it was cooler. Um and you just have to understand this. This isn't new. I think a lot of people who maybe grew up playing baby console games and then they went to the PC master race and they're like, "Man, this stuff is so janky and buggy. It wasn't like that when I was a kid." Well, back in the day you were playing it you were a console baby. And now you're in the world of Steam and so PC gaming has always been janky. It's not something new. I just want people to learn you got to learn your history. Know your history. PC games always been janky, buggy, and everybody's complained about it, but it was still fun. Independence Day 1996. Do do do Sega Saturn. There's a little bit of console baby stuff that shows up. Look at that. But see they just put those on there, but there's Sega Saturn. That's a That's good deep cut reference there. Oh, here's SimCopter. Did we talk about this is the one where you would see the naked men down there on the birthday It turns out he coded it

up at the last minute to sneak it in and it was Friday like I said Friday the 13th and his birthday and his boyfriend's birthday, but he coded it wrong and so it show up like all the time.
[laughter]
There's your Diablo review got Oh, that didn't get a B. It got a 90 a 90%. It didn't even get like a 99%. I guess people would be like Diablo II is better. I only played Diablo I. I like Diablo I. I played a little Diablo II, but I like Diablo I. I just didn't quite get it. Um sports sims very big. Here's a fighting game. Fighting games were huge back in the day um in the '90s. They kind of came over to to PC not as much. This one got a 47. You don't see too much fighting games and they still aren't that popular. There's a screaming guy at your screaming face man. Uh there's Monster 3D. Uh They weren't as mandatory 3D cards. I I I My own personal recollection it wasn't until like Quake II that it was really like you got to get a card for Quake lights. That was We used to be excited

because the lights had a color. Okay? Um Let's see. I think this God I think this is a run and gun platformer shooter. I'm I'm trying to give you guys I'm not trying to cherry pick that there weren't platformers on PC. I'm really trying to show you how much there they kind of were. Here's strategy battleship game. Okay. Here's a Here's the self um um conscious ad about FMV games. See, at this point they were kind of on the way out. And because they were on the way out, you kind of got these things like "Oh, FMV doesn't It doesn't really It doesn't really suck." It's the beginning of the end for what I'd say were the death of adventure games. Um people got tired of these FMVs are stupid. Look, if you're you're If you're saying Rob Schneider and they call him a funny man, the biggest death you can do is call somebody a funny man. Oh god, that's that's comedic death.

Um They Everybody thought it was called Sillywood and it was a thing in the early '90s once CD-ROMs came trying This was their short gap to make the most realistic graphics, but then once really cool interactive like Tomb Raider, Quake was more interactive, more fun, the graphics were starting to really look good and fun, these looked so old and dated. And now the only thing that left, the only people left the interactivity and the graphics were no longer adventure games' strong suit. The only thing left were puzzles. And so, only things left were people who really really loved puzzle games. Like actually like puzzles. And you saw the categories. There was no best puzzle game category. There was best adventure game. But as we saw that I My My theory is that the market just got fractured. And so now people on Steam who make adventure games, like classic point-and-click adventure, I love you. I

love you. I follow some people on YouTube who make those games and I love you guys. I love you. I really do. And it's so nostalgic. You do such good stuff. You really make it that vibe. But the The reason when I say genres don't change it was because at the time the reason a big portion of people played adventure games was for the graphics. And it wasn't the genre. And I think that's why they don't do as well on Steam and as they did on PC was because people don't actually like these games for the puzzles. They like them for the story and the adventure. And so that's where I think it just or in the in the beautiful graphics. And I think that just went away. Another Magic ad. Okay, here's NASCAR NASCAR um simulation racing game. Just is simulation and racing very good. Racing games on Steam I think do very well even today. It's just the graphic quality has to be very high. Um here's your One thing I got to give credit to this magazine. It wasn't as lascivious

as some of the other ones. The only one is this big bosomed lady and some gerbils. I Uh gerbils was also another joke that we always joked about in the 90s. Uh but Eric Idle they're trying to be funny. Trying to be But this is really the only really gross stuff. I always thought the 90s were more gross ads. Uh I think this is the only one and we can blame Eric Idle for that. Well, I they just used his name for that kind of stuff. So um This is a classic. A lot of people have messed up hands. That's a big thing in gaming is messed up hands. I've seen a lot of like casino games. I see it all the time where you get your hand cut off and stuff. For some reason gaming and um that uh Jake Birkett's latest game had a hand that gets mutilated. And I I played some other prototypes from Indies. Indies love to mutilate the hands. Maybe because it's like first-person shooter you always see the hand and stuff. Um something about mutilating hands in PC gaming. I don't know what it is. And Left 4 Dead. Remember the Left 4 Dead series? My little finger man. Let's see if I can line them up. There he is lined up perfectly. And what

am I doing? You've got stuff to listen to. Uh I got to tell you stuff. Here's Phantasmagoria. Ooh, got a 63. Puzzle of Flesh. Uh the next Phantasmagoria. Again, we're just getting tired of FMV at the time. We're like, I'd much rather be playing a Lara Croft game. Um That's it. Sports sports games just huge on PC. They really is. Here's Microsoft soccer simulation didn't do so well. Um Here's your simulation genre is simulation. It's really vehicles back in the day. I'd say that the the simulation renaissance that we have now is when they were like, why are these cool ones with submarines? Turns out people like boring ones like trucks and tractors, too. And so you really do see a broadening of the simulation genre. There is simulation genre. Um it's got its own category, but they were like, that Oh man, let's go all over the place. Let's all every type of

vehicle. Um here's a 4X style game. Really big. People love 4X strategy. I don't know why this one's not called turn-based strategy cuz it is. I don't know other genres. That's why I lump war games, turn-based strategy, real-time strategy all together. Uh let's keep going. Um but you can really see just the pages compared to the other ones, the graphic design quality is really just increasing. Um Age of Sail, I love this stuff cuz if you saw the previous graphics and all that stuff, look at this. 85% people like it. And look at these graphics. Look at
[laughter]
It's cuz the game is deep. And this is the other thing you have to understand, folks, is PC gaming has always been like, well, if it's deep enough and you can customize everything and it's super crazy, I don't need the best graphics. You could look like Lara Croft style 3D representation, or you could just just play game that looks like this. Look at this. It It just has the the file menus at the top. And this was a very well-rated guarded game. Wargame. This is not a This is not a strategy. This is

a wargame. I just I love This is why I love PC gaming. This is why it's so cool. Uh you got a flight sim. Why did I flight this one? We got our flight sims again. It was simulation games at this time were cool vehicles, tanks, jets, submarines. Eventually, they were like, "Yeah, it's just take this one." Uh, these guys aren't screaming, but they're uh reverse keyed here. Out reversed out. That's such 90s mix of fonts. You got that typewriter font. Love typewriter that impact. Uh, what do they call it? Courier new stuff. This one isn't that super lascivious. It's just like, "Do you want to go to the dance cuz it's the big dance?" I mean, look, they covered up her boobs. So, it can't be This one is on the fence, but um yeah, I just I I was I was surprised at how tasteful the ads were in this this issue. Cuz some of the other magazines I was showing you before in my other series, not tasteful at all. Here's a pinball

game, some arcade by Maxis. You go Maxis. Simulating that SimCopter again. These are the people that would get Again, your character is just a blue outline. The the the the naughty stuff was they would just turn them pink, and he had like a speedo on. That's what did it. Um, here's Fallout. Look, people liked Fallout back then. This is a early ad. There it is. Cool. RPG. One real RPG. I don't know who they were This is like a subtweet back in the day. The one real RPG this year. It was like, "Who who who who you who you calling out with that real RPG [laughter] this year?" I don't I don't know that I bet you knew back in '97 who you were calling out when you said the real one. FIFA '97. Uh, I think there was a thing in here. I read it, and it was just basically like, "Oh, when America hosted the World Cup in '94 or '95? I don't know." They were like, "Oh, Americans now love soccer."

Um, maybe. I mean, I guess we had fun this summer with our World Cup, but I don't know. Let's see if there's anything else going here.
[sighs]
Uh, see this is puzzle. So, this right here, this what I'm calling out, I would think this is an adventure game, but they didn't mark this puzzle. I think they're even having trouble classifying these games. I think if it See, Trilobyte and The 7th Guest was really leaning into the puzzles. It was like puzzle puzzle puzzle with like a little interstitial animation between. Maybe that's why they flagged this as puzzle and not like adventure game. And again, you can see that tension where they're starting to pull apart adventure games from puzzle games. I I thought this was I would I would imagine if a game like this came out 4 years earlier, they would have called it an adventure game. I don't know, but again, puzzle games. Nobody really likes puzzle games. I'm sorry. I'm just I'm just doing this so y'all understand. A-10 key, but this is a fun one. Flight Sim, again, another flight sim. I I thought it was more fun than 608.

He's playing at my friend's house. Good old Cave Wars. I don't even What is a strategy game? Look at Look at how how that strategy game looks. All right. Looked good. Um more flight sims. These are reviews reviews reviews. All right. I I just call this stuff out because um consoles are for babies, but the the adults they they spend hundreds of dollars just so they can have a steering wheel. I just call this out because PC gaming is all about mouse and keyboard or a very expensive peripheral. Look at this thing. You would mount your your heavy monitor that probably weighs weighed like 70 lb on this. Why is it having so much time freaking out? Why is it doing that? Let's see. All right, so this is our boring strategy game war game section here, uh, which Steam loves. Okay, um you could just have You just have a guy

that looks like this in 1990 on your page and nobody batted an eye. Just Jesus ass looking guy. Just nobody batted an eye. Um Okay. This is a whole article about Sim games. And uh when I played that game Cat Milk Co, so people were like, "Oh, this is It's so boring. It's for casuals. Ew." Let me tell you, folks, Sim And they're like, "Oh, this must be like people from Roblox coming over." Nope. PC games have always been boring, cozy. Um SimCity, SimAnt, Sim Sim Park right there. Sim This is She's saying Heidi is saying, "Look, there's SimPark, which is a game where you just laid out parks." Sim PC has always been cozy, wholesome, [snorts] easy, casual, and that's totally fine.

It is not People are like, "Oh, it must be like" whenever I review a wholesome game or something like that. Cat Milk Co, people are like, "Oh, it's all these Gen Z casuals invading PC. That's our space." No, it's not. PC has always had a casual cozy side, like just building a park, simulating building a park. That's it, folks. Stuff doesn't change as fast as you think it does. It really doesn't. This is This PC game is the same it's been for the most part. I mean, there's the the the deep cultural roots live there. Aw, look at that. Um Puzzle games suck. I I don't actually think this. This is just my my note here because what I wanted to show you, one, John Romero, my hero, uh uh just just pimping for this uh just selling out for this joystick. Again, these things would cost like [laughter]

equivalent of $200 just to have a controller. That's PC gaming for you, but here it is. Uh They'd be such a killer way to play it. Wingman worried is nobody worth their salt played a first-person shooter with a joystick. But, turns out eventually if you got two sticks, you know, like two stick controller, it's actually not too bad. So, this is I will even play a first-person shooter on PC with a twin stick shoot button, mostly WASD. Anyway, this is why This is This article, this is a um editorial section here. And this guy's just talking about how threatened he is about puzzle games. And if you go here, this guy is basically saying, "I love Myst. I love these adventure FMV games." But, like I said, at this time, this is the death of adventure games. At this time, people were sick and tired of FMV puzzle games. They were calling them like boring casual. And look this line here. I'm going to I'm going to read this one.

Still, the games have their appeal. Puzzle games he's talking about. The graphic puzzle game. He's talking about like puzzle adventure games. The games have their appeal. I must admit I I enjoyed the two short days it took me to finish Myst. And despite the derision of the rest of the PC Gamer staff, I still say it was an exceptional game. Back in the day, people thought Myst was casual baby game. And PC games always always worried about its own identity. Puzzle games used to be lame. And I Puzzle games don't sell well on Steam. I'm sorry, they don't. And it's This cultural thread has always been there. PC gaming just doesn't like puzzle games. And I I don't know why Indies want to make puzzle games all the time. I just there's no legacy of it. And it kind of went and it just got shattered. And if there was a thin thread of puzzle games,

but my thought is we misremember them. And let me tell you, I played Chip's Challenge on Windows 95. I think it came shipped with the bonus pack. It was like Windows 95 plus. You'd buy this bonus pack that would install some bonus software. And it had Chip's Challenge on it. I love Chip's Challenge. But puzzle games were always like these little free dinky games that you would like install and you'd play them casually. And real PC gamers always had a chip on their shoulder about puzzle games. They were always like, "Eh, it's kind of lame." Like this guy's like, "Hey, stop making fun of me. I actually like puzzle games." That's the the undercurrent of games. And so, the reason I tell you it's if you're making a puzzle game, finish it up. Do great. I I'm rooting for you. I really I'm you and this guy, I'm rooting for you and I'm rooting for this guy, Michael Wolf. I hope you finish your puzzle game, but PC gaming it's and puzzle games have always been tense. And we used to tolerate them when they were adventure games cuz they were the best-looking

games. But once Quake took over, once Lara Croft came, and those were the best-looking games, once John Romero made Doom the best-looking game, we're like, "Oh, yeah, we don't actually like puzzles. We like the graphics." And that is PC gaming. That's why puzzle games don't sell well on Steam. And I People are always like, "Oh, Steam changes all the time. Puzzle games aren't popular anymore. They used to be so popular." No, they weren't. Michael Wolf disagrees. Michael Wolf is like, "Uh, don't game genres change constant Everything's changing. Game genres [laughter] change constantly. And graphic adventures have changed so much recently. It's probably about time to name a new genre." This is very interesting. I should just This is hard to read, I'm sorry. I'll just link You could I'll link to the the full PDF. You can download it off some freeware sites and stuff. Genres, actually even though he's talking about genres changing, they don't if you take a a longer view of genre. See, PC gaming puzzle games just

they weren't a thing. And these war games simulationers have been there forever. All right. Uh next is uh this guy with a shitty English in which Scott Wolf, Michael Wolf. Not sure if they're brothers. Not sure if these brothers. I haven't looked them up. Um I don't know. Uh but anyway, uh right about Sim. This is our Sim colonist. columnists And he's just talking about how, "Hey, I don't like them all just boring." People And this is another thing he he's talking about how there's this tension between Sim games that are fun and like adventurous and some that are like die-hard realistic numbers. And there's a tension there. And people are doing that like, "Oh, today today like oh uh is that really Sim? You're you're doing a life Sim, you know?" When they're like making fun of like House Flipper or work simulators. You know, where people like, "Oh, yeah, running a video store." This has always been the trend of like how why do we play these games that are

kind of boring? And this guy's saying, "Actually, I like the games that are not boring. I like the actual adventure ones." That's what this column's about. So, again, these controversies and these controversies these debates are the same ones that we've all had. Now, back to the my my favorite meme about how PC gaming is so bad now and it used to be so good. You could back then developers were so good. They would just make it accessible to everybody cuz they were good programmers unlike programmers today who don't know how to do anything. This is a chapter about how this guy hates Windows 95 and DOS is so much better. And he gave all these steps. And And about autoexec for you you old fans right here. There's where he mentions autoexec.bat and config.sys. Uh if you know, you know. Used to have to print just how to run these games. And he was talking about how sometimes you would if you didn't configure it right, you'd be out of memory by like one byte of memory and you would have to like reconfigure your whole PC again to get it to run. And there's whole chapters

in these magazines about just how to make a game run and fit on your limited hardware and to get your DOS game to run on Windows 95 and earlier I showed you how you had to buy another piece of software just to make your software run on Windows 95. I'm telling you folks, it's always been hard to get a PC game running. There was no golden age where the developers used to be smart and good and the games would just run and now uh lazy devs don't know how to make games. This has always been a problem. Always. Know your history. Know your config.sys and how much struggle we used to have. It's so much better now. Okay? Don't over glamorize the past. Okay? Enjoy it. I love the '90s. I love '90s games. I love PC gaming. But don't over fantasize. Speaking of over fantasize, just pages and pages of not lascivious. They could have been much more lascivious. I I I played Lara Croft at my friend's little brother's house and he

swore that the only way he could get um it run on his PC was to install the nudity patch. And let me tell you, half of the reason you bought this game on not you, but people would buy this game on PC was mods and patches. And people used to patch in nudity and you would just play the whole game totally naked as Lara Croft. That that's a serious real thing and that's why PC gaming is for the reals, not baby gamers, okay? So um but they didn't mention it I think they made some little side jokes if you knew what you're reading, you could see like, "Ah, they're talking about the patch." But again, just paid This was the most beautiful game of the year. Like, this is what killed adventure games, okay? Um, page page after page of just Tomb Raider. It was It was huge, folks. Let me tell you. It was It was huge. Um, just more stuff, blah blah blah. Adventure games. Got your adventure games fans here. Got your stuff. Okay, there's some good stuff. I'm I'm just

fast-forwarding here. We're getting some We're getting to the ads ads ads. Cheaters corner. They used to put cheats. We used to have cheats now they This is the one thing I miss. Cheats. Used to have cheats. Uh, now you just I don't know what people do anymore after cheats. Um, I'm just skipping ahead to the good stuff. This is all just stuff. Nothing Nothing I must have flagged something here. Okay. Right here. This is where we stop, right here. Okay. I'm just going to I'm going to flag this one right here. I'll pull it down here. There's a common thing you'll also see that everybody else complains about. Like, back in the day games were not about the graphics, they were about the gameplay. Here's a guy complaining in 1997 the games back in I guess the '80s used to be about gameplay and all these fancy graphics like this are ruining gaming. It used to be about the games, not the graphics. Uh, it's the same debate. People have

the same debates. Nothing changes, folks. Genres don't change. The debate doesn't change. PC gaming is a culture and it games were the best when you were 14 years old. That's That's just the way it is. There's something wrong with human brains where we think everything that happened to us when we were 14 year olds was the best it's ever been. And it's wrong, folks. Your life was a lie. Your life was a lie. Um, yes, your 14 year old self may have had fun. I didn't have that much fun when I was 14. I think it was like 25 was my prime, but I don't know. There's something wrong with us in the age 14. So, it always used to be good. I I bet whatever this guy was 14 years old, that's when gaming was the best. It's not. It's not that good. Again, now we're in the ad section. This is like your bargain basement where you can see questionable graphic design choices and questionable art institutes, private education stuff. There's more art institute. This is where you used to do this. Like like I love it. You used to

just get Netscape browser in your ad. Just like they would just you would just see UI as the sign that this was on the internet. I love it. Uh, so so classic. All right. One. Here's your adult section here. It's always in the back. It's It's fun. It's fun. I'm I mean, I'm just to end This is our lascivious phase right here at the end. PC gaming is for adults, not for children, babies. So, you get the stuff that goes along with it. But overall, this um this entire um paper this entire magazine was a lot less gross than I thought. And um finally, we have this Jack Nicklaus course designer. Again, crafty buildy. Um this is a simulation game where you got to design a course. I think I'm not entirely sure, but I bet this would actually do pretty well nowadays. Like you You know, like cozy um castle What's that castle making game? I I know I'm in the credits. Um

I just can't think of it right now. Um Tiny Glade. Tiny Glade, but for golf courses. I'm not entirely sure that would work, but it's worth a shot. Worth spending at least a little time on it. And that's it. We end Creative always has the back page of PC Gaming magazine. And that is the end of PC Gaming magazine for March 1997. Um, stuff never changes. That's what we learned. And we also learned that adventure games died when Lara Croft was born. Uh, what else did we learn? We learned uh, you always complain about the graphics being bad when they're good. When they're good, you say, "Oh, well, that's because gameplay's bad." Uh, we got to learn some other things. Uh, so drop in a comment below what you learned. Um, and after this, hang up YouTube and just go work on your game or watch this video that I'm going to link to right here. This video is uh, where you actually will get stuff done because it's just sound. It's nothing else. Doesn't tell you to buy anything. It's just like, just do it. And well,

speaking of buying stuff, um, for free, sign up for my newsletter. It's It's how you actually follow me. Do not subscribe. Don't like it. Don't subscribe. Just join the mail list. That's all I care about. Seriously, folks. People like, "Oh, I watch all your YouTubes and I love you, Chris. You do the best YouTubes." And I'm like, "Did you join the mail list?" And they're like, "Uh, I didn't know you had a mail list." How many times do I have to say it? Do not subscribe to my YouTube channel. Don't watch my YouTube channels. Just join the mailing list for goodness' sake, all right? Bye.