About 30 years ago, the PS1 came out and - for better or worse - changed gaming forever on every level. That led to a slew of PS1 magazines, but the one I remember best was Official Playstation Magazine... specifically, the UK edition, so let's take a look at its not-so humble beginnings!
>>12284917Didn't have a PSX until I bought a cheap one during the 6th gen, but a friend got one at launch and had a bunch of these early games I have some pretty fond childhood memories of. This should be fun.
>>12284937>Shigeru Miyamoto cited as a video game connoisseurSurprising words from a UK Playstation magazine of all things.
>>12284943Sony used to be the new kids, so they knew they had a bit of an uphill battle to get any kind of cred. Trying to get the rub from Miyamoto, however indirectly, was only to their benefit.
>>122849958/10 for fucking WipeoutDamn, that's low, and this was the official shill mag too.
>>12285001OPM were surprisingly honest for an official magazine
>>12285013>5/10 to Rapid ReloadOh fuck off, that game was awesome.
>>12285004Future Publishing had a reputation for quality and wasn't going to squander that despite their license.
That's enough for today - I'll be back tomorrow with another issue of OPM UK
>>12285013>>12285016It's anti 2D bias. The game loses points for what they consider "SNES graphics" and "lack of originality". Sony's marketing early on in the west was REALLY pushing the whole "3D" and "new kind of games" thing, and the official magazine reflects that.The Rayman review >>12285027>>12285028also basically complains that "it's like an SNES game", review which also complains about the lack of running meaning he didn't play the game long enough to get that power up
>>12284917I played the shit out of the demo discs each month. I wasn't from a poor family but Birthdays and Christmas were pretty much the only times I would get new games outside of borrowing, so the demo discs were pretty much the next best thing.
>>12285013>>12285027>>12285028>>12285034>it looks like a SNES gamefunny how years down the line it would evolve to 'it looks like a PS2 game' to shit on outdated graphics
>>12284917>About 30 years ago, the PS1 came out and - for better or worse - changed gaming forever on every levelWhy force yourself to talk like that.
>>12285050Thanks for the memories, OP. My neighbor growing up worked at Future Publishing for a golfing magazine and he shared a floor with the Playstation magazine guys. Used to bring me home stacks of early demos/previews, merch/swag and controllers/memory cards to mess around with. Didn't know how lucky I had it back then getting my hands on early copies of games- even had a signed photograph of Lara Croft that I showed off in school. In hindsight just a stripper with a massive pair of norks squeezed into a cyan boob tube.Long live OPM and Rob next door.
>>12285013I've read a lot of 90s magazines that would write off 2D games in favor of 3D games, but the PAL Playstation mags are the only ones that seem to actively campaign against not just the format but any legacy series with heavy 2D roots except Final Fantasy, can't throw them under the bus just yet. Even PC mags would still give fair due to 2D games coming out through the early 00's.
>>12285291>except Final Fantasy, can't throw them under the bus just yet.That makes sense considering FF7 was the first FF released in Europe, and basically only a couple of turned based console RPG had released in Europe at that point.
>>12285118Based
>>12284927I know I have a bunch of demo isos, but not sure i have this, going to play this later today. those demo discs were pretty legit back in the day, loved getting them.
>>12285538Future Publishing was big on promoting import gaming, and Super Play had dicksucked the absolute fuck out of Final Fantasy 4 and 6 to the point literally everyone knew these were the best games ever made. Final Fantasy 7 was not this weird newcomer game to the people writing this magazine.
>>12284917thanks anon for this storytime.
>>12284917The small print font is very strange, it almost looks like AI upscaled text.
Man that brings me back as I used to read that every month. While my mags are long gone I did hold onto a bunch of the demo discs that came with the issues.
>>12284917I mainly got it for the demo discs. A lot of the time I didn't pay attention to the score and would become interested in the game if I liked the concept and graphics. Compared to the Nintendo magazines they even admitted in one issue that they were not real gamers but said it didn't matter because they had professional writing experience or something. During this time it was not about good games but trying to appeal to normies. In the Nintendo magazine they were more into consoles wars and actually trying to justify why N64 was better than ps1 with the idea of less games but better. I think it with a ps1 or Dreamcast magazine that I got triggered because they reviewed a Midway arcade collection and they spent the who thing saying who would want to play these crap old games again.The best demo disc was something like a best of and it also had about 30 Net Yeroze games which were half decent individually.The worst was a demo disc with only Gran Turismo that only let you do 1 lap, I had the game already, some of the car designs were a bit different at least.
>>12286759Interesting considering they're trying to sell dumb kids on why Pac-man is still awesome right here >>12284937
Some OPSM UK storytimes in case someone is interesting in:>PlayStation Official Magazine Beat 'Em Up Special Storytime 1999https://desuarchive.org/vr/thread/10600101/>PlayStation Official Magazine Football Special Storytime 1998https://desuarchive.org/vr/thread/11771508/
>>12287117>Beat 'Em Up >tekken>bloody roar>mortal kombatbut those aren't beat 'em ups
>>12287181Beat'em up was the common name for fighting games in the UK at the time.
>>12285012blessed ridge racer.
New thread: >>12288229>>12286292Nothing quite so sophisticated - I used pdf24 to extract the scan of this I found, but the first attempt I made it was way too small, so I just doubled the dpi to make everything readable.
>>12284950Twisted Metal> rather pathetic (and pink) ice-cream van.
>>12284957Ah the first Tekken, so charming.
