The Official UK Playstation Magazine Chronology Blog [#8 up]

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steli0s
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PostRe: The Official UK Playstation Magazine Chronology Blog [#8
by steli0s » Thu Jun 07, 2012 8:48 pm

Hello all!
I found this forum through Google, while trying to sell my old OPM magazines!

If anyone's interested i have for sale issues: 32-40, 42 and Football Special 1998.
All the magazines were stored all these years and some of them have a slight curve, which can be seen in the photos.

I might have the Demo discs too somewhere, but i'll have to take a better look to find these!

Anyway, i'm up for offers if anyone wants them.
Here's a pic with all the magazines i have for sale:
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Big size:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/8426648/archive.jpg

Edit:

I have started uploading each issue on eBay for sale.
If anyone wants, you can safely purchase them through eBay.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/steliosk1/m.h ... 4340.l2562
Starting price is the original price of the magazine!

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KK
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PostRe: The Official UK Playstation Magazine Chronology Blog [#8
by KK » Mon Mar 18, 2013 3:49 pm

Found this the other day - EMAP's Official Sony PlayStation Magazine, created in the summer of 2000 to show to Sony and various advertisers in an attempt to win control of the license from Future Publishing. Consists of 17 pages repeated.

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Seemingly they were going for some sort of Lifestyle mag hybrid, as there's interview features with celebrities, with no tie-in with gaming or PlayStation whatsoever.

Evidently EMAP didn't win. Which turned out to be a good thing, initially at least anyway, as OPS2 was excellent. And Nintendo Official Magazine was a load of shite.

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NickSCFC

PostRe: The Official UK Playstation Magazine Chronology Blog [#8
by NickSCFC » Mon Mar 18, 2013 4:18 pm

Looks and reads a lot like CVG after it started to go into decline.

Edit: Also looks similar to DC-UK.

Karelpipa
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PostRe: The Official UK Playstation Magazine Chronology Blog [#8
by Karelpipa » Thu Oct 03, 2013 1:40 pm

Nice clean design of this magazine. Pity they didnt make it.

Anybody does have Any of old Official UK PlayStation magazines for sale?

NickSCFC

PostRe: The Official UK Playstation Magazine Chronology Blog [#8
by NickSCFC » Sat Dec 07, 2013 1:13 pm

Karelpipa wrote:Nice clean design of this magazine. Pity they didnt make it.

Anybody does have Any of old Official UK PlayStation magazines for sale?


Just keep checking eBay, there's issues added every week.

I've noticed the 1998 issues in this thread aren't on the blogspot. Will we be getting anymore updates?

Karelpipa
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PostRe: Official UK Playstation Magazine [issue #1 lookback now
by Karelpipa » Fri Dec 27, 2013 1:31 pm

Mistletoe & KKLEIN wrote:
sw26 wrote:(the one with Cool Boarders 2 on the cover from I think February 98)

Later voted by the staff as one of their worst covers of all time. The other was this:

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They followed one after the other, too.


I have this issue, only in Black - it looks nicer i think. The cover with "Cool" Boarder is horrible.

Is there anyone who has an issue with a review for the first GTA amd is viable to sell it? Nice cover too. (it was volume 2 and issue number is maybe 31 or 34.)

Shame that Dangerblade never continued throughout the magazines.

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KK
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PostRe: The Official UK Playstation Magazine Chronology Blog [#8
by KK » Fri Dec 27, 2013 2:25 pm

I had a bit of time to spare, so here's...

Issue #28, January 1998
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Inevitable as it is, the end of the year gives us the chance to look back on a monumental 12 months for the PlayStation. The huge step forward that is Final Fantasy VII, widespread interest in the latest escapades of Ms Croft, plus price sparring with Nintendo, has meant all these new gaming breakthroughs can now be enjoyed by more and more people. As the adage goes, we’ve never had it so good.
What do the next 12 months hold? Plenty. A peek at our 1998 Preview (page 76) shows that we’re more than sorted on the games front, with the likes of Gran Turismo and (yes!) Tekken 3. With a few more price drops plus market pressure from a certain Other Console, come the end of the year, we could also see the first glimmerings of a PlayStation 2.
1998? We can hardly wait for next Christmas…
Happy New Year,


Rob Pegley (Editor)

On The Disc

On The Disc
Pandemonium 2 (Playable)
Grand Theft Auto (Playable)
Adidas Power Soccer 2 (Playable)
Courier Crisis (Playable)
Frogger (Playable)
Yaroze: A Dog Tale (Playable)
Yaroze advert (Rolling)

In The News

The Record Breakers – V-Rally and Final Fantasy VII in sales bonanza
Mail-order company Gameplay printed an ad in last month’s issue advertising a PlayStation for £74.99. Gameplay were adamant that Sony were reducing the price. They got it wrong.
The Official PlayStation Tips Magazine launches, priced £3.99.
PlayStation clothing range proves hugely popular.

Primal Screen
'Developers quizzed, boffins questioned, eggheads interrogated...The inside deal on the games you'll be buying in six month's time. '

Alundra
Viper
Theme Hospital
Sentinel Returns
Monkey
N20

PrePlay

Gex: Enter The Gecko
Nagano Winter Olympics
Snow Racer
GTI Line-up
MK Mythology
NHL Open Ice
Critical Depth
Rampage World Tour
Maximum Force
Youngblood
NBA Hangtime

Ark of Time
Hybrid
Bushido Blade
Bloody Roar
One
Resident Evil 2

PlayTest

Grand Theft Auto
Behind the impressive visuals and controversial subject matter of GTA lurks a very good game – playable, addictive, and above all original. But it is an acquired taste.
8/10

NBA Live ’98
And so another year, another swanky update of an EA Sports license. No real surprises then but when it comes to gameplay, just you try turning it off…
8/10

Discworld 2: Missing Presume…?
Quite simply, if you’re a big fan of Terry Pratchett, then buy this game – you’ll love it. Otherwise Discworld 2 Is probably one that’s best avoided.
7/10

adidas Power Soccer 2
It’s only a sequel and there are better footie games about, but its special brand of grit and flair means adidas Power Soccer 2 is still an excellent game of football.
7/10

FIFA ‘98
After two false starts EA Sports has finally produced a football game worth playing. Supreme playability and smart graphics make this a surefire hit.
8/10

Duke Nukem
Duke Nukem is a super-violent, super-offensive first-person shoot ‘em up but one with a supreme one-player game. An essential addition to your collection.
8/10

Marvel Super Heroes
Reports of the 2D beat ‘em up’s demise have been greatly exaggerated…At last a decent comics title for PlayStation. What more could you want?
8/10

PGA Tour ‘98
A great golf game that’s well worth a look if you don’t have any in your collection. But not worth a upgrading to it if you already own a previous version of PGA Tour.
7/10

Super Football Champ
You’d have to be a chump to buy this one; and to be fair, for all-round badness there’s certainly no other football sim on the market even remotely like it.
3/10

Red Alert
A mammoth game that will take you ages to complete, plus the skirmish and multi-player options never get dull. A classic. You must own this.
9/10

Resident Evil Director’s Cut
Merely a jazzed up re-release of the classic interactive zombie flick to hide the fact that RE2 won’t be ready till ’98. But if you haven’t played the original, treat yourself.
8/10

Tennis Arena
A really surprising little game. Beautiful animated, superbly imaginative and a worthy addition to the PlayStation’s impressive tennis-playing family.
7/10

Risk
A game saved by the Ultimate Risk option, which is different, challenging and well-constructed, but basically not worth the asking price.
6/10

Test Drive 4
Test Drive 4 is a gorgeous-looking and satisfyingly fast racer with a wealth of courses, but it’s let down by simplistic gameplay. Fun, but lacking depth.
7/10

Monopoly
Were it not for the odd AI strategies and the complicated menu sequences, PS Monopoly might be more playable. But not as much fun as the boardgame.
3/10

Platinum Re-reviews

Destruction Derby: 6/10
Air Combat: 6/10
Loaded: 5/10
Battle Arena Toshinden: 6/10
PGA Tour ’96: 8/10
Rayman: 5/10

Page Count: 154

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Wedgie
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PostRe: The Official UK Playstation Magazine Chronology Blog [#8
by Wedgie » Fri Dec 27, 2013 3:52 pm

Why is there celebrity news like Angelia Jolie's sex life in a gaming magazine? :lol:

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Denster wrote:My phone messaged me yesterday after i'd encouraged him to download and play the RESi demo.


Super Intelligent Phones Are Here!!!! We are dooooomed!
Karelpipa
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PostRe: The Official UK Playstation Magazine Chronology Blog [#8
by Karelpipa » Sun Jan 12, 2014 8:01 pm

Thanks at least for the review!

Here is very wide selection of magazines on sale. Shame its only for UK people. :(
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Official-UK-P ... 2334b86ccb

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KK
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PostRe: The Official UK Playstation Magazine Chronology Blog [#8 up]
by KK » Wed May 17, 2017 10:23 pm

The last ever issue, sealed, is available to bid on eBay from £18.40:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/172678290351

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Dangerblade
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PostRe: The Official UK Playstation Magazine Chronology Blog [#8 up]
by Dangerblade » Wed May 17, 2017 10:55 pm

Issue #9 will be up soon.

:slol:

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KK
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PostRe: The Official UK Playstation Magazine Chronology Blog [#8
by KK » Tue Jul 28, 2020 1:40 pm

Brought back from the dead, for no other reason than its notability, issue #15 was going to feature their 3rd ever 10/10 (after Tekken 2 and Tomb Raider) but ultimately never was because they thought freelancer Stuart Campbell was, well, wrong. I've included here the original review text as sent in by Stuart Campbell, with the lines that were altered or removed for print in bold, and the review as it featured in the magazine.

Issue #15, January 1997
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ABC: 51,444 (Jan-June 1996)

Another year over and a new one just begun, as somebody once said. And what a year we expect it to be for the PlayStation. By the time you read this, there should be 750,000 PlayStation owners in the UK - and with that many fans to satisfy, there'll be a lot of money spent on creating an abundance of games over the next twelve months. If you turn to page 52 you'll find 11 pages worth of them, as we give you a month-by-month breakdown of what to expect on the PlayStation in 1997, in the ultimate preview of the year.

One of the big games for 1997 is already with us, however, as Reloaded blasts its way on to our cover this month (both of them, in fact). Not only do we have the exclusive review of Gremlin's much-awaited sequel, but we also have the exclusive playable demo to go with it.

You'll also find the playable demos of Porsche Challenge, Tomb Raider and Pandemonium on the disc, which is possibly the best we've ever done. So, although 1996 was a fantastic year for the PlayStation, 1997 is already shaping up to be even better. With that in mind, rest assured that you will be having a Happy New Year.

Rob Pegley (Editor)

On The Disc

"This has got to be the best disc we've done yet, just in terms of the number of playable demos we have of top-quality games. Four of the most important titles on the PlayStation plus Lomax! An early version of Porsche Challenge will give you a taster of what to expect in 1997, while Tomb Raider and Pandemonium end 1996 in fine style. If you haven't got them yet then these demos may finally convince you of their worth. Also on the disc is a playable demo of Reloaded to go with our exclusive review. Finally a gentle game of Lomax should set you up nicely for 1997. Surely these discs can't get any better? Well, yes, actually they can, watch this space next month for details of our next superb demo"

Reloaded (Playable)
Tomb Raider (Playable)
Pandemonium (Playable)
Lomax (Playable)
Porsche Challenge (Playable)

In The News

Sony set to launch a white MPEG-compatible PlayStation in Asia, allowing CD films to be played on the system.
Sony update PlayStation with chrome optical disc drives.
"A pair of Telstars" as Excalibur 2555AD and Wreckin' Crew are announced for later in the year.
Gremlin announce the expansion of the Actua franchise, with Golf, Hockey, Soccer Club Edition and Soccer 2.

PrePlay

EA Line-Up: Darklight, Perfect Weapon, Ten Pin Alley, Crusader: No Remorse (Wow, loads to look forward to there...)
Mech Warrior 2
Total Drivin'
Jonah Lomu Rugby
Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain
Tenka
Virtual Pool
Tobal No. 1
Cool Boarders
NBA: In The Zone 2

PlayTest

Reloaded
Not the puzzle-laden bloodfest you might expect, but a mindless blast all the same. Fun for a while, frustrating at length, and worthy of no more than the original's score.
7/10

FIFA '97
Improved both in visual and gameplay terms, FIFA '97 plays a reasonably decent, if rather fiddly, game of football. It's not quite there yet, though.
7/10

Suikoden
Not the finest exponent of its genre, but Suikoden comes highly recommended to those who miss their fix of hit points and melodramatic plots.
* To date Suikoden is the first turn-based RPG to appear on the UK PlayStation. Full marks to Konami UK for responding to the RPG needs of us choice-deprived pointy-hats. More, please.
7/10

Project X2
Project X2 has been seen before by us all, but it's still a game worthy of loading up when you've got time to kill - or a lot of pent up aggression.
7/10

Command and Conquer
Even though it clearly wasn't designed for the PlayStation, this is still a spectacularly enjoyable game offering a compelling and long-lasting challenge.
9/10

Contra: Legacy of War
This game is only fun if you like watching your machine load games. It's only real appeal is that it's far too hard to finish quickly. A distinct disappointment.
4/10

Namco Museum Volume 3
Galaxian, Phozon and MS Pac-Man are the highlights of this compilation - but the appeal remains only for true fanatics and nostalgia freaks.
6/10

International Superstar Soccer Deluxe
Dated graphics spoil an otherwise perfect package. Many readers won't get past ISSD's sadly antiquated looks. Make sure you're not one of them. We greeted this PlayStation version with all the affection we'd lavish upon a presumed-dead relative.
8/10

Tempest X

Another 10, eh? You're probably going to need some convincing on this one. For a start, static magazine screenshots aren't the best medium for displaying the overwhelming sensory assault you're subjected to in Tempest X. And you may possibly also be the kind of idiot who insists that a game's no good unless it's making the maximum possible use of every hardware facility available to it. (Yeah, just like Tetris did. And Super Mario World really pushed the SNES to its very limits, didn't it?) So we'll get straight to the point.

This is the most all-out, heart-pounding, nerve-tearing, sense-dazzling thrill you'll ever get from a video games machine. You might have thought Wipeout 2097 was fast and exciting (and hey, it is), but it feels like a ride on a milk float compared to this. Tempest X's predecessor (the Atari Jaguar's Tempest 2000, or T2K to its friends) was rightly acclaimed by one magazine at the time as "The Game Of The Decade", but this purer, colder, harder new breed has had a massive overhaul and respray, and now even T2K's awesome benchmark looks a little staid by comparison. Tempest X has more levels (128 compared to 100), fiendish new web designs (clearly constructed by people who knew exactly what made the original game tick, too), evil new enemies, techno-tastic new music and shattering new sounds, and most of all, dizzying new visual pyrotechnics that'd make Jean-Michel Jarre at his most extravagant cough and look a little embarrassed. Do we sound excited? Good. Still, enough hyperbole. Let's answer some criticism.

"But it's just a 15-year-old shoot-'em-up with some flashing lights and nosebleed techno." Sigh. So what? Eric Cantona's twice that age, and he's just George Best with a skinhead. Anyway, Tempest X adds so much to the original gameplay that it's hardly recognisable. Genius is timeless. "But it's 128 screens of the same thing - it's so repetitive." Yeah, and in Tekken 2 you just go around beating people up over and over again. In Ridge Racer you just drive around and around in circles. What's your point? "But it's not going to impress my mates when they come round." Ha. Turn the lights off, crank the sound up to full, switch to Trippy Mode and watch their minds melt out of their eyesockets. Then ask them if they're impressed. (Although they'll probably just gurgle.) Yes, it's abstract. But it's also absolutely beautiful. If you want to look at real life, look out of your window. "But with everything going off all at once, you just can't see what's happening." No. Nothing ever happens in Tempest X that you can't see. It does, however, demand every last nuance of your concentration. Take your eyes off it for a millisecond and it'll run you down like a juggernaut. You'll need all your reflexes, all your co-ordination, all your senses and all your skill. But not luck. "But it looks rubbish. It's just lines." Please go away and fall under a bus.

There's some other stuff to point out here - you also get a version of the original Tempest (better than the Jaguar's version of the original, but still not as good as the real real thing), and a slight-but-smart two-player game. The music is fabulous, and the whole thing loads in one go at the start, so you never have to see the dreaded "Loading...Please Wait" so beloved of PS programmers. There is no "plot". But these are fripperies and technicalities. This shining, glittering, malevolent titan of a game is the best shoot-'em-up ever created on any format, and by a thousand million kilometres. It's arguably the best game ever created full stop. It may well not be a hit. It's your decision. It'll be your loss.

Graphics: Trippy 9

Sound: Nerve-shredding 9

Lifespan: Longer than you 9

Gameplay: Total 10

Presentation: No loading! 8

Originality: Abstract ?

There's nothing faster. There's nothing harder. There's nothing more intense. There's nothing more exciting. It's just the most, you know? 10/10

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Iron and Blood
An interesting take on the best beat 'em up, with characters from Dungeons and Dragons, but the appeal is really for the American market. Not as slick as Star Gladiator.
5/10

NBA Live '97
NBA Live '97 is a convincing enough basketball sim but it's just shying short of greatness. Thoroughly recommended for NBA freaks, though.
7/10

WWF In Your House
The WWF in all its stupid glory, but unfortunately the game itself is basic and languishing about three years behind the times - back in the 16-bit era at least. Die-hard WWF fans will probably love it - the sheer daftness and hype comes across well - but anyone simply looking for another beat 'em up is advised to pass along the shelf.
5/10

Riot
In gaming terms, it may not be a riot but it's certainly a reasonably-sized scuffle. Fun with a group of eight but not one you'll be playing alone for long.
7/10

Ayrton Senna's Kart Duel
ASKD is an ineptly produced game showcasing almost all that's worse about the whole license genre. A Forti when it should have been a Ferrari.
3/10

Top Secret (Cheats)
Crash Bandicoot - beat the bosses
International Track and Field Playing Tips (hammer square?)
Bust a Move 2, Wipeout 2097, Adidas Power Soccer, Fade to Black and Final Doom cheats

Page Count: 115

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OrangeRKN
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PostRe: The Official UK Playstation Magazine Chronology Blog [#8 up]
by OrangeRKN » Tue Jul 28, 2020 2:08 pm

I've genuinely never heard of Tempest X.

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Dangerblade
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PostRe: The Official UK Playstation Magazine Chronology Blog [#8 up]
by Dangerblade » Tue Jul 28, 2020 2:11 pm

absolutely not, stop asking this wrote:Issue #9 will be up soon.

:slol:

heh


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