Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 16-20 of 27
 My Favorite Magazine For Several Years Running May 5, 2008
Michael Baxter
8 out of 10 found this review helpful
I agree with the reviews that say the quality of the publication has diminished over time, but this magazine still puts out a quality product every month. Here are a few genuine PROS and CONS:
PROS
* I am consistently impressed with game and hardware reviews. In the six years I've been reading PC Gamer, they have only steered me wrong once with a review (that game was "Black & White")
* Depending on the subscription you choose, there is a game demo disk each week. Although this a hit or miss feature depending on the game demo.
* The magazine is put together by a very laid back, down-to-earth group of people that are often very funny and in general a pleasure to read
* The publication puts out a top-notch podcast every week that is a necessary compliment to the magazine.
* You're not just a reader, you feel like you're a part of community. PC Gamer regularly publishes letters to the editor and plays audio questions on their podcast. They always have some sort of giveaway or contest going on.
* You get the feeling these guys (and gals) really "get" the community for which they serve.
CONS
* Regularly features typos and misprints (one issue accidently printed the same page twice instead of the first page of its cover story. How does that happen?). I'm not perfect with typos either, but from a professionally published magazine, that's unacceptable.
* The issue itself has slimmed down to a dangerously skimpy thickness. The issues with any reasonable girth are only thick due to multi-page advertising spreads (i.e. its "Cell Play" section)
* There is an increasly shorter turnover rate for its editors. This hasn't affected the magazine too directly, but it is a future concern in terms of providing consistent, quality content.
 PC Gamer Review April 5, 2008
Matthew C. Mckinney (Indy, IN)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
I have been reading this mag for many years now and it never gets old. The reviews save money on game rentals and purchases. As well, the writers are well versed in gaming and gaming history for the PC.
 How the Mighty have fallen... March 7, 2008
B. Wiese
13 out of 19 found this review helpful
This magazine is nowhere near as good as it once was. The quality took a drastic hit a couple of years ago and has gotten worse ever since. They are more concerned with selling ads and pleasing sponsors or benefactor companies than with bringing actual gaming information to consumbers. My favorite is when they change the mag format in a really bizarre, pointless manner, tell you how awesome it is, then change it back after the backlash and still write an article saying how great this change was. Don't bother with this, internet websites are leaps and bounds better.
PCONTOP December 18, 2007
Capital One
1 out of 7 found this review helpful
The reason that I got PC Gamer, this year, I am going to buy a new PC this year in 2008. I am a real big Gamer and my old PC was to slow to run the new games that are coming out today,and PC Gamer is the best magazine fot the PC.
Good magazine but it has it's flaws December 17, 2007
P. Ridd
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
You would be hard-pressed to find a better magazine out there that deals with PC games. This mag has previews, reviews and even hardware reviews. The reviews are pretty much fair but I have seen some questionable ratings and omissions that leave me wondering.
Like one of the other reviewers here said, when they do a big review on a hyped game, they always seem to give the game a really great score. One exapmle would be Crysis. They did a really big review on it before the game was released and gave it a 98/100! That is one of their biggest scores ever and they gave it to a game that got an average score of about 90/100 on gamerankings.com. Not to mention the game was released with bugs that should have been counted against it, but there was no talk of bugs in the review at all. This is the main problem with the mag IMO. You only get one person's point-of-view and that person's job depends on large PC game companies making games for them to review. If they give a company like EA a bad review thus causing gamers not to buy the game, EA being one of the largest PC Game publishers may decide to stop making PC games and concentrate on console-only titles potentially putting the PC Gamer staff out of a job.
One other thing that bothered me was how they did not mention the copy protection used in their BioShock review or Spore review. Come to find out the games actually only allowed the consumer to install the game three times and after that the game was useless not to mention the impossible-to-uninstall SecuRom files. Seems to me a big time mag like PC Gamer would have at least mentioned this, but they did not. They instead gave the game a 91/100 leading many to buy the game without knowing about the ridiculous copy protection.
Finally, the mag is absolutely filled with ads. Every other issue gives us a 20-page ad for some crappy cell phone games. I definately could do without this annoyance as they have nothing to do with PC's or PC gaming.
As for the positive, the reviewers and staff seem likeable and there are always contests where you can win something cool. I especially like the articles on assembling a computer from scratch and hardware reviews. Both helped me greatly when I built my first computer. I would say that I can trust the review scores for the most part. The mag also sends out 13 issues a year instead of 12 and come bundled with DVD-ROM demos and reviews.
The mag also does some reviews on MODS for some of the games. This came come in handy if you have beat your favorite game and you are looking to extend the life of the game through modding. Sometimes they even include some MOD files on their DVD's that they send out with each issue.
With computer games seemingly taking a back-seat to console games, it is nice to have a mag that will only focus on the PC side of gaming. I do feel, however, that this mag is past it's prime as are PC games in general and is in need of an overhaul that benefits the subscriber. As of right now, I am considering not renewing my subscription that I have had for 4 years but I also recedntly got a PS3 so I admit that my attention is now more focused on the PS3 as are most game companies these days. I would recommend the mag for diehard PC gamers but if you own a console like the 360 or PS3, you may find that many PC games today are simply ported (sometimes very poorly) from a console anyway.
Update: No mention of Spore DRM in November issue. They gave the game a 91% however. Lego Indiana Jones got a public scolding for SecuROM DRM but Spore, another EA game, got no mention of the DRM at all. Also, I have heard on the forums that people automatically have their subscriptions renewed and are sent to collections if they don't call up and say they want to cancel....not a good way to keep long-time subscribers.
I decided to write to the PC Gamer Staff to get an explination of their new policy not to mention DRM in the reviews and now they claim they don't know if a game is going to include DRM even though for the past year or so they have. For me, not including DRM in the description is the end. If they aren't going to tell their subscribers that installing a certain game can also install privacy invading software that can potentially take control of your computer and cause compatibility issues, then I will look elsewhere. Keep in mind, on-line reviews are free and some sites even get many people's point of view rather than just one person like in this magazine. As of 2/16/09, if I could, I would change my review to 2-stars for the awful way the magazine has decided to handle DRM.
Showing reviews 16-20 of 27
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