PC Gamer Issue 3

The PC Gamer Cover Disc:

• Test your skills to see if you've got what it takes to run the Motor City in Detroit, an economic city simulator from Impressions.

Features:

• The Top 40 Games of All Time - PC Gamer's editorial board fought to the last Dorito to determine the forty greatest PC games in history. Here's how that broke down:
  • 40) Beat the House
  • 39) Pirates! Gold
  • 38) Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (CD-ROM)
  • 37) Leisure Suit Larry III
  • 36) Harpoon
  • 35) Empire Deluxe
  • 34) Wolfpack (CD-ROM)
  • 33) Pinball Fantasies
  • 32) D/Generation
  • 31) Betrayal at Krondor
  • 30) Lemmings
  • 29) LHX Attack Chopper
  • 28) Quest for Glory III: Wages of War
  • 27) Ultima Underworld II
  • 26) Return to Zork
  • 25) Might & Magic III: Islands of Terra
  • 24) Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe
  • 23) Wing Commander (CD-ROM)
  • 22) Stunts
  • 21) Star Control II
  • 20) IndyCar Racing
  • 19) Front Page Sports: Football Pro
  • 18) The Elder Scrolls: Arena
  • 17) Red Baron
  • 16) Syndicate
  • 15) Falcon 3.0
  • 14) V for Victory: Utah Beach
  • 13) Ultima VII: Part 2
  • 12) Aces of the Pacific
  • 11) NHL Hockey
  • 10) Alone in the Dark
  • 09) Chuck Yeager's Air Combat
  • 08) Sam and Max Hit the Road (CD-ROM)
  • 07) SimCity 2000
  • 06) Links 386 Pro
  • 05) X-Wing
  • 04) Railroad Tycoon
  • 03) Populous
  • 02) Civilization
  • 01) Doom
• Virtual Reality: Are We Having Fun Yet? - T. Liam McDonald tests out the next generation of VR hardware to see how close we really are to fully-immersive gaming. His conclusion? "It's gonna cost a small fortune, and it's going to be a long wait." So true, Liam, so true.

Scoops! (first looks at upcoming titles):

• Wing Commander III
• Skyrealms of Jorune: Alien Logic
• Star Crusader
• MetalTech: Earth Siege

Reviews:

• Bridge Baron for Windows (88%)
• Casino Expert for Windows (51%)
• D-Day: The Beginning of the End (71%)
• Dragon's Lair (65%)
• Evasive Action (80%)
• Fields of Glory (89%)
• Inherit the Earth (63%)
• Interplay's 10 Year Anthology: Classic Collection (83%)
• Millennium Auction (79%)
• Origamo (78%)
• Pacific Strike (70%)
• Pursue the Pennant (84%)
• Seaworthy (55%)
• Serf City: Life is Feudal (75%)
• Shadow of the Comet (59%)
• SSN-21 SeaWolf (75%)
• Tigers on the Prowl (65%)
• Time Out Sports: Baseball (75%)

Departments:

• Eyewitness - News, game previews, sales charts, and more!
• Extended Play - T. Liam McDonald runs down new levels for Spear of Destiny, add-on packs for The Blue & the Gray, and new CD-ROM versions of older disk-based titles.
• The Desktop General - William R. Trotter has some new ideas for the developers of those same old war games.
• Alternate Lives - Neil Randall on why you shouldn't take those on-line whiners seriously.
• The Learning Game - Heidi Aycock checks out Odell Down Under, Sitting on the Farm, and other new educational titles.
• Sim Column - Scott Wolf investigates the weird, wild world of simulation software.
• Tim's Tech Shop - Tim Vector thinks DOS extenders are going to remain a problem for quite some time...
• Strategy Central - Help is on the way for Myst, Goblins Quest III, Ultima VIII, and more.
• Letters - In which the editors turn the forum over to you for a few pages.
• Contest - The fine folks at LucasArts would like to give you the chance to win a laserdisc player, your very own copy of the Star Wars Trilogy to play on it, and a bunch of other goodies, courtesy of PC Gamer.
• Next Issue - What you can expect to see 30 days from now in issue 4.

Ads (in order of appearance):

• Star Crusader
• Spear of Destiny mission disks
• Outpost
• Wing Commander Armada
• Pinball Fantasies
• Titan Games mail order company
• CH Products joysticks
• LINKS Championship Courses
• Ultimate Domain
• Falcon Mach V desktop PC
• ImagiNATION! online network
• Echo DSP sound card
• Microsoft Space Simulator
• TV Gamer Plus peripheral
• Universal Cockpit peripheral
• Beneath a Steel Sky
• NuReality Vivid3D sound card
• Zephyr
• Five Take-Two Interactive software titles
• Reel Magic Lite MPEG decoder card
• Ensoniq Soundscape sound card
• PC Gamer subscription offer w/free Sierra Online game
• Raptor: Call of the Shadows
• Knights of Xentar
• Harvester
• Falcon Gold
• Creative Labs Game Blaster CD16 sound card
• TFX: Tactical Fighter Experiment

Notable Stuff:

• For $75 US plus shipping (the equivalent of over $150 US in today's money), you could order a copy of Universal Neverlock from Copyware, Inc. which located and stripped out the annoying copy protection routines from a few hundred commercial games. An updated version of the software was released in 1996, which added several hundred more games to that list. Of course, there were scene groups out there dedicated to doing for free what Universal Neverlock asked you to pay for, so it's not surprising that Copyware, Inc. went out of business after a few years.
• None of the games on this top 40 list (save for maybe Doom, and even that's dicey since Doom II is arguably the better experience) would appear on a modern-day list. It'll be interesting to compare this list with similar ones done by the magazine in years to come to see how rapidly war gaming simulations fall out of favor once the ascension of 3D gaming is complete.
• In addition to the Top 40, the editors included a list of the 8 most important games of all time (where you'll find obvious entries like Tetris, Zork, and Wolfenstein 3D), and the 10 runners-up who almost made it (where you see the likes of Star Trek: Judgement Rites, Dune II, and King's Quest VI).
• The table of contents promises reviews for Alien Legacy, Kingdoms of Germany, and X-COM, but none of these games is reviewed in this issue.
• Wow, that Before/After ad for Take Two Interactive games on page 88 is pretty damn bold for a magazine, isn't it?