Heh, I've been doing the same with Computer Gaming World. Their entire archive is available online at the CGW Museum which makes it easy to jump back in time at your leisure.

There's also PC Mag which can be browsed via Google Books, if one prefers that.

CGW is......an adventure to say the least, given their changes, review system changes, management changes - and that's just the 90s. Don't forget the CGW's demo CG-ROMs as there's additional editorials on them (....and sometimes you hear them! at least for the 95-97 ones influenced by IEMag). Sadly, all of those haven't been dumped yet.

I had that same issue as a kid. That brings me back. Unfortunately, a lot of PC Gamers from the classic 90s era aren't available anywhere for reasonable prices.

Back in 1990’s I use to Spend my Sunday mornings reading the local paper.
I remember I could not wait to get the Sunday News Paper delivered to my front door because
It contained all the NEW computer add sales from local electronic retailers. ( Circuit city, Best Buy, Good Guys, Radio shack, Fry’s electronics, Sears, Office Depot, Staples, Walmart, etc ) I also use to pick up a FREE copy of “computer shopper” magazine which had
Allot of adds from local computer builders and component resale. You could compare Frys electronics adds to
Computer shopper adds for the best deals on NEW stuff.
Online shopping was not that BIG back then as Online Banking was not established until Wells Fargo took it main stream in USA
Back around 1998/99 that when Online banking really started to become trusted and popular.
I remember allot of people were spectacle about putting their credit card and banking information online.
So many people would not shop online.
But anyways Fry’s electronics had magazine shelves full of these types of magazines.
( PC, Mac, Hardware, Software, Programing, Gaming, Audio, etc )

Yeah I've downloaded all these in PDF format I could find including:

Boot
Maximum PC
PC Accelerator (ahem......for the discriminating reader)

This brings many fond memories of going into CompUSA and visiting their magazine rack!

This.

Though I'm not currently playing the game.

And this:

It's called 'Trio Detektif - Misteri Bisikan Mumi' in my country.

The Three Investigators was one of my favorite series in my childhood. Along with Hardy Boys, it was perhaps the only American popular children books that I read. The rest of my favorite readings were British, mostly Enid Blyton's works like Five Find-Outers and The Famous Five. There are similarities between Jupiter "Jupe" Jones of the Three Investigators and Frederick "Fatty" Algernon Troteville of Five Find-Outers; both are fat (alright, stocky), both are very smart, and both are rather pompous --and barely tolerable some times. The difference is Jupiter Jones is more like Hercule Poirot, preferring to sit calmly and use his "little grey cells" to solve the case, while Frederick Troteville is more like Sherlock Holmes, running around to collect evidences to test his theory. Also, Jupe comes from working class, while Fatty is obviously posh.

When I was a kid I was also rather plump, and people said I was a very smart kid. I tended to identify myself more as Frederick Troteville than Jupiter Jones, for some reason I didn't even know.

I've got a decent (digital) collection of old gaming mags that I occasionally flip through when I don't really feel like doing anything else. I've been pleasantly surprised with a few mags (Computer Gaming World, Game Players, EGM [good for what it is, until 1996 or so]), but have been very disappointed with some that were highly regarded back in the day (Gamefan, VideoGames & Computer Entertainment, Electronic Games).

The latter two were especially disappointing, with "reviews" that just seem to regurgitate stuff from the manual and paragraphs wasted on useless information; one review I read spent an entire paragraph saying that the game starts with a title screen, and pressing start will start the game. I could understand if the mag came out in 1980 or something, but this was from 1993! It's VERY obvious that none of the reviewers for these two mags actually played these games in any depth.

newtmonkey wrote on 2022-11-18, 13:26:

The latter two were especially disappointing, with "reviews" that just seem to regurgitate stuff from the manual and paragraphs wasted on useless information; one review I read spent an entire paragraph saying that the game starts with a title screen, and pressing start will start the game. I could understand if the mag came out in 1980 or something, but this was from 1993! It's VERY obvious that none of the reviewers for these two mags actually played these games in any depth.

This isn't exclusive to game reviews either. Similar examples range from wine tasting to college textbooks. For example, some research has shown that reputation that a wine has is strongly related to the first reviews that come out. If you read a wine review beforehand, you are more likely to agree with it. In textbooks, we often see the same mistakes repeated over and over again. This is because the authors of newer books tend to copy stuff from earlier books. The problems at the end of the chapters are also frequently copied nearly word for word.

For game reviews, this is probably even worse today. If you don't get your review out right away, most people won't use it. Now we have YouTubers reviewing games they barely played because they want to beat the other reviewers.

January 1995 issue of Electronic Entertainment Magazine. That one has special place in my heart, for obvious reason.

My most favorite gaming magazine ever.