Game Player's Guide to MS-DOS Computer Games Vol. 1 No. 2 (Fall 1988)

This was originally scanned by marktrade years ago, and due to a combination of the magazine's age and the non-standard settings applied to the scanner used, the original file's pages look VERY dark and VERY brown.  Anyone wanting that "pure" version can find it on the Internet Archive.

Cleaning this up and trying to make it look less than a zillion years old was probably the most complicated editing job I've ever done, as I had to edit the picture and text portions of each page completely separately.  Simply cranking up the white levels would obviously ruin everything by bleaching out text/images, so I had to use different techniques (indeed, I never once even touched the white/black levels) while editing.  But the end result is certainly a lot cleaner than this file has ever looked.  Go on, try to guess which is the original and which is my edit.

PLEASE NOTE: This issue is part of the early "WTF are we doing do we even know how to publish magazines" era of Game Player's.  When they first began, Signal Research clumped all of their titles together under a single numbering system.  So although this issue is labeled Vol.1 No.2, it is in fact the very first of their PC game line of mags (though the title would change a couple of times in rapid succession before settling on "Game Player's PC Strategy Guide.")

For the record, Volume 1 of Game Player's went like this:

Vol.1 No.1 The Game Player's Guide to Nintendo (this issue was also sold under the title Game Player's Nintendo Buyer's Guide)

Vol.1 No.2 (this issue) The Game Player's Guide to MS-DOS Computer Games

Vol.1 No.3 Game Player's Nintendo Strategy Guide (this issue was also sold under the title Game Player's Strategy Guide to Nintendo Games)

Vol.1 No.4 Game Player's MS-DOS Strategy Guide (in my scan pile)

After that, the Nintendo and PC titles went their separate ways, but because Signal Research loves confusion SO FREAKING MUCH, the very next issue of the PC mag was labeled Vol.2 No.2.

So here's the PC title in full:

The Game Player's Guide to MS-DOS Computer Games Vol.1 No.2

Game Player's MS-DOS Strategy Guide Vol.1 No.4

Game Player's PC Strategy Guide Vol.2 No.2

...and from this point they continued in order, beginning a new volume at the start of a new year.  But rest assured, THERE IS NO Vol.1 No.1, Vol.1 No.3, or Vol.2 No.1 of the PC title.  And don't expect concrete/accurate cover dates on these early issues - THEY DON'T HAVE ANY.  So we're going with "best guesses."

For the further adventures of Game Player's PC Strategy Guide, follow along as they release the odd issue under the title Game Player's PC Buyer's Guide, and then switch to the title Game Players PC Entertainment, all using the same number system they started back with The Game Player's Guide to Nintendo.  And then of course, they eventually relaunched as PC Gamer.  But that's another story.

Preservation is learning, kids.  Sometimes we learn about the stuff written in the magazines.  And sometimes we learn that you can completely sh*t the bed when starting a publishing line of magazines, and yet still have people reading and talking about them 35 years later. 

Game Player's™:  An inspiration for f*ckups everywhere.