Personal Computer Games was a multi-format UK computer games magazine of the early/mid-1980s published by VNU.
Contents
History
Personal Computer Games was launched in Summer 1983. It is famous for launching the careers of several notable games journalists of the 1980s including Bob Wade, Peter Connor and Chris Anderson. Anderson would later launch Amstrad Action, and Future Publishing, along with Wade and Connor. Other staff included Deputy Editor Steve Cooke and staff writer Samantha Nemens.
The magazine was part of VNU and had its headquarters in London. It was first published quarterly, then bi-monthly and then monthly.
Computer coverage at the time were mainly consisted of the Spectrum, C64 and the BBC Micro, although there were others featured such as Atari 8-bit, Electron, Vic 20 and the newly released Amstrad CPC.
The February 1985 issue was the last of the magazine. Chris Anderson and Bob Wade went on to launch the Commodore 64 magazine Zzap!64.
Screen Test
One of the many influential sections of the magazine was the 'Screen Test' pages where the latest games were reviewed. The PCG Panel, who voiced their opinions on the games reviews, consisted of the PCG staff plus several contributions from readers. The review was laid out with an explanation of the gameplay and then three opinions from the reviewers were given in boxouts at the end. PCG Ratings were out of ten, with a score giving to the graphics, sound, originality, lasting interest and the overall score.
Games of the Month
The highest accolade awarded by Personal Computer Games was the "Game of the Month". Games achieving this award and the issues they appeared in are as follows:
Cover mounts
In February 1984 PCG gave away a cover-mounted FlexiDisc containing game data that could be transferred to cassette. These included free programs for the Vic 20, Spectrum, BBC and Dragon computers. Chris Anderson did pioneer the cover-mounted cassette, but not with Amstrad Action, as many believe, but with issue 13 of PCG in December 1984. The cassette, labelled as 'Christmas Mega Gift' contained 12 demo games for the Spectrum, BBC and C64.