Computer Game Review

[vgmax]

Mag with good writing from the mid 90s. Took a TV Guide kind of approach to games. I remember they did a review of Doom clones, "Doom of the Dark Triad", which contrasted Rise of the Triad, Dark Forces, and Doom 2. They also did an EGM-style multi-reviewer system that was often spot on about the problems in the games.

It's hard to get hold of those mags. They tend to go for $20 each on Ebay. Would be nice to find a collection and get 'em preserved

[kitsunebi]

Yep, this is already in our database.  Dunno what you mean by TV-Guide style (never read a TV Guide), but I disagree with labeling Dark Forces a "Doom clone."  It was a FPS, just as several games before Doom were, but it was technically far beyond Doom as it allowed for full 3D environments (as in, levels on top of levels) as well as the ability to aim up and down.  It certainly added more to the genre than Doom 2 did.

[kitsunebi]

Btw, all of the issues marked "acquired" were done so by marktrade, who has since retired, so don't expect those issues to be scanned.  As always, the best way to get something scanned is to do it yourself.  The second best way is to donate the mag to someone who is willing to scan it (since donated mags will always take priority in their scan piles).  The third best way is to use magical powers of the dark arts to create perfect scans from out of the ether.

[vgmax]

You mean go through the elaborate rituals of disassembling the mag, scanning it perfectly,  and editing it by hand to meet your standards? No thanks... I think I'll leave my contribution to the scene at torrent bandwidth.

[kitsunebi]

1 minute ago, vgmax said:

You mean go through the elaborate rituals of disassembling the mag, scanning it perfectly,  and editing it by hand to meet your standards? No thanks... I think I'll leave my contribution to the scene at torrent bandwidth.

Well, you can always lay it flat on a flatbed and make a crappy scan of crooked pages with the spine curl visible, then upload it to archive.org.  So long as its readable, I'll still download it if it's the only thing available.

[vgmax]

I wonder if it would be feasible, given the high quality of phone cameras nowadays, to take 4k shots of the whole mag using a stand to keep the phone steady.

[kitsunebi]

6 hours ago, vgmax said:

I wonder if it would be feasible, given the high quality of phone cameras nowadays, to take 4k shots of the whole mag using a stand to keep the phone steady.

That depends on what your goal is.  If your goal is to create something that looks like a collection of photos, then OK.  Assuming you were careful about taking pics at just the right angle with just the right ambient lighting, the mag might be readable enough that you could post it at archive.org or something (although I'm not sure if I've ever seen a photographed mag even there).

It wouldn't be allowed here, of course, since we only host high quality scans.  And in this case, "high quality" and "scan" are completely dependent upon one another.  A copy made with a camera will never be high quality.  Resolution of the camera isn't the issue, it's simply the fact that cameras take photos, not scans.  No camera ever made will be able to approach the quality of a good scan due to the nature of how a photo is taken.  A scanner makes a high resolution copy of an image in a perfectly controlled space - the page is pressed directly to the scanning glass, and the only light hitting the page is from the scanner itself.  A camera's lens is by necessity held away from the photograph subject, and that allows for far too many factors to change  and affect the quality of the image.  The angle of the shot won't be perfect, not every part of the image will be in equal focus, the light from the room in which the photo is taken will affect the appearance of the image and may even create a glare or reflection.  And need I mention the fact that there is no way to take a photograph of interior pages of a bound magazine without including the curl of the page near the spine, not to mention the very edges of the page near the spine, which may not be visible at all?  A scanner scans edge to edge perfectly without distortion.

The bottom line is - there is NO POSSIBLE WAY to create a high quality copy of a magazine without debinding it and scanning it.  What scanners do is not for the faint-of-heart who can't bear to cut up their mags in order to preserve them forever and share them with the world.  It demands sacrifice.  On the plus side, by creating a high quality scan, you've made something that looks as good or even better than the real thing.

Now, if you're talking text only, like a book or document, a camera may be an option.  There are handheld photo scanners that can read the text on a page and create an OCR PDF.  I imagine there are or will be apps for phones that can do the same thing.  But since magazines are just as much about pictures and artwork as they are about text, these types of scanners and camera apps will never be able to match the quality of a proper scanner.

 

[archeopteryx]

Sort of necro-ing this, but I'm looking everywhere for old issues of CGR.  In my memory, it was the best PC gaming magazine of the 90s and I can't seem to find it archived anywhere....I see that you have it in the database here, but no actual scans...am I just SOL on this?