Game Magazines and Books - Post yours

[NintendoLegend]

What I do hate, however, are their forums at gameinformer.com. Don't even get me started on that.

Oh, no, by all means, do tell! *grabs popcorn*

[Balasubbie]

I've always leaned toward the multi-formats. Most recently, this preference has manifested itself in a pretty consistent following of GamesTM and RetroGamer. They're both mostly well-written, and by that, I mean legitimately well-written, as opposed to the all-too-common 'well-written for a games mag' that a lot of mags in yesteryear fell victim to. They're also properly unbiased, pointing out something good regardless of its platform, be it homebrew, iOS, PS3 or Amiga. No desperate elitism.

[Rurouni_Fencer]

I've always leaned toward the multi-formats. Most recently, this preference has manifested itself in a pretty consistent following of GamesTM and RetroGamer. They're both mostly well-written, and by that, I mean legitimately well-written, as opposed to the all-too-common 'well-written for a games mag' that a lot of mags in yesteryear fell victim to. They're also properly unbiased, pointing out something good regardless of its platform, be it homebrew, iOS, PS3 or Amiga. No desperate elitism.

Agree with this 100%! I've been reading GamesTM and RetroGamer for a little over a year now and I'm incredibly happy with them both! The writing staff is very point-blank and unbiased, and every awesome game reviewed (or revisited years after it's release) is never free from some king of mature and well-deserved criticism..
And on a personal note - every time I read a new issue of Retro Gamer, I get that same feeling I used to get when I was a 10 - 11 year old kid reading EGM's back in the early 90's.. I love when a game magazine tackles games and systems off of the beaten path.. (Reading about TurboGrafx-16 and NeoGeo games as a kid when I knew of nobody owning either system was so fascinating... I feel the same way reading RetroGamer's retrospectives on old MAC games, or foreign/unpopular systems such as Amigas or Spectrums..)

[CRTGAMER]

I updated the OP to include books. I just ordered a video game book from a famous car repair publishing company, I'll post a review when it arrives.

Meanwhile my take on these four books, in the OP.

[Rurouni_Fencer]

^ That Hardware Handbook is an amazing book! I can't wait to pick up the other one!

[CRTGAMER]

^ That Hardware Handbook is an amazing book! I can't wait to pick up the other one!

I was very lucky to find the out of print Volume 2 at FRYs last week for twenty bucks. It has some wear on the cover, maybe was buried behind the rack? The Videogame Handbook Vol 2 reminds me of a DK reference with all the pics, great information to discover. I would love to find Volume 1, used copys are expensive. I thought I saw a Kindle version of Volume 1 on Amazon.UK with some previews.

http://thermoptic.posterous.com/retrogamers-videogames-hardware-handbook

So lets get to the content of the Videogames Hardware Handbook. As I think the "Perfect top 10" important I marked all the consoles with a little star " * " before the consoles name to indicate if the perfect top 10 is included or not.

1977-79
* Atari 2600

1980-89

* Intellivision
* Game & Watch
* Sinclair ZX81
* BBC Micro
* ZX Spectrum
* Dragon 32
* Commodore 64
* Vectrex
* MSX
* Famicom
* Amstrad CPC 464
- Commodore Amiga
* Atari ST
* Nintendo Entertainment System
* Sega Master System
* PC Engine
- Sega Mega Drive
* Konix Multi System
* Nintendo GameBoy
* Atari Lynx

1990-99

* Sega Game Gear
* SNES
* Philips CD-i
* Sega Mega-CD
* 3DO
* Atari Jaguar
* Sega Saturn
- NEC PC-FX
* Nintendo 64
- Nintendo Virtual Boy
* Game Boy Color
* Sega Dreamcast
* Neo Geo Pocket
* Bandai Wonder Swan

Volumes 1 and 2 show out of stock.
https://www.imagineshop.co.uk/videogames-hardware-handbook.html
https://www.imagineshop.co.uk/bookazines/videogames-hardware-handbook-vol-2.html

Anyone have an interesting book or magazine to share, please post with pics.

[noiseredux]

great thread! By the way, Video Game Hacks is by Chris Kohler, from Wired mag, but who is always awesome when he gets to be on Retronauts. He also wrote Power-Up which is a fascinating book about Japan's influence on games.

[Rurouni_Fencer]

Anyone have an interesting book or magazine to share, please post with pics.

CRT, hunt this down now!



It was my first exposure to GamesTM and Retro Gamer magazine. It's a compilation of all of the monthly 'retro' sections in GamesTM. As far as I know of, there are 3 volumes available, (pictured is the 3rd.) So far on my hunt for the previous issues, I've found the 2nd issue once for $50 on amazon, and have yet to come across the first... Needless to say, they're pretty hard to come by. However, despite the difficult search, and $20 newsstand price, it's an amazingly rich and colorful book that provides so much awesome info on a lot of uncommon, and otherwise unheard of, games and consoles..

[TheSSNintendo]

I was a fan of the old-school EGM magazines. Still read Nintendo Power, and I used to get PSM (Playstation Magazine) or whatever it's called now.

As for books, I have "The Ultimate History of Video Games". Anybody remember "Game Over"? That was a pretty good book, although I never finished it. Are there any other good recommendations on video game related books?

[CD AGES]

I really liked Tips n Tricks cuz its format was different from the competition, I liked the "Select Games" preview format as well as their "Japan Report", Tournament Report", and their "Collectors Closet" section. I also liked EB games GMR magazine. And I love Official Dreamcast Magazine. I just completed that collection of all 12 issues