Magazine Reviews

[Pix]

#8376

This one review is barely worth posting but I’ll share anyway. Shareware games were relegated to the buyers guide at the back of PC Review so rather than a proper review this is all we got for Wolfenstein 3D.

This second class treatment of shareware in the UK mags, regardless of quality, is kind of bizarre looking back. I only discovered Wolf 3D after I’d already played Doom.

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[TigerQuoll]

#8387

It’s true – reading computer magazines from the 90s, you do get the impression reviewers had a weird prejudice against shareware. Sometimes it’s more than an impression, and they outright say shareware isn’t worth reviewing.

It’s telling how many of people’s most fondly remembered DOS games are actually shareware.
(DOS Game club members excluded of course, with our encyclopedic and recent memory of the era!)

Good find though, pix! I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen a contemporary review of Wolfenstein 3D

[sorceress]

#8405

There were (and still are) cases of magazines giving overly favourable reviews to commercial games, in return for early access to those games. Perhaps there were other perks too, idk.

But this served the commercial interests of both the magazine publisher and the game publisher.

Giving shareware an equal coverage wouldn’t have done any favours for the industry :p

[Wesbat]

#8422

Here is a shareware review I found, this one is from PC Review issue 12 (October 1992).

This write-up is short and mostly positive, but it doesn’t strike me as that well written.

It really is a shame that there isn’t a full game review to peruse.

https://archive.org/details/pc-review-12/page/109/mode/1up

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[watchful]

#8441

From what I recall, violence in media was still controversial, at least in the US. This was especially the case around things that appeal to children like games and TV. So no surprise to see the gore called out in these old reviews.

It’s interesting how all those I’ve read acknowledge the breakthrough in sound and graphics, even if they had misgivings about the themes. Ultima Underworld may have had more detail but I recall its pace and UI was too much for a certain impatient adolescent.

Regardless, are contemporary and positive reviews really that rare?

These are some scans that PopularCultureGaming.com found in PC Games from 1992:

page 2.

Here is a medium post with a lot of references to the contemporary reception, though sadly without links to them.

EDIT: OK, I found the CGW #98 reference on archive.org. It’s quite positive too.

[Wesbat]

#8443

That’s a great review, thanks @watchful!

It’s fun that they mention the novelty of the bodies that remain on the floor, and the mention of the map and sprite editors is a nice glimpse into the popularity of those from the start.

[Pix]

#8458

Here are the only two reviews I could find for Spear Of Destiny, the first is more of a passing mention. I remember buying this on the high street at the time but I must have been a bit late to the party as Doom had definitely come out already so it was considerably later than these reviews. I was also a bit underwhelmed I recall.

[Dreamkid]

#8460

I just read on wikipedia that Spear of Destiny was an additional episode (I assume this makes it technically not a proper sequel) released September 1992, but two additional episodes for it were released in 1994.

[TigerQuoll]

#8468

Timeline-wise, I’m pretty sure Spear of Destiny is supposed to be a prequel. I guess you could call it an extra episode, but it was sold as a standalone product. It’s not like the weird arrangement of 3 or 6 episodes for Wolf3D which all still launched from the same executable.

There were two “mission packs” released for it, which I guess you could call episodes as well. They have all-new textures and sprites (worse looking in my opinion), and were made by an outside team with little input from Id.
These were also standalone, but I’m not sure if they were sold individually.
I don’t think they could have made all of this more confusing if they had tried.