Late 90s Mags

[Moonshadows78]

Greetings all!  Just wondering which gaming magazines from the late 90s, particularly console gaming, had the most unbiased/neutral reviews?

[Areala]

Welcome, @Moonshadows78!

It's hard to say, since every magazine and every reviewer has their own personal biases, and the 90's were certainly no different. My first thought is EGM, simply because they had multiple members of their Review Crew play and rate each of the games they reviewed, and it's easier for a lone reviewer/editor to let their personal bias slip into a review than for four separate reviewers to do so in the same way. Of course, if you look at the letter columns of any magazine that covered multiple systems in the 90's, you'd see constant accusations of favoritism towards one company or another, but that doesn't mean there was anything biased in the mag itself; some companies were simply more forthcoming with information or preview/review builds than others, and sometimes the editors themselves could see the writing on the wall long before the public would in general. It didn't make sense to devote 20 pages to Atari Jaguar or Panasonic 3DO coverage once it was clear these systems were done for, even if games were still coming out.

There were also publications like NextGen that covered multiple systems, including the PC, and were aimed at a slightly older audience than, say, GamePro and EGM, and for that reason tended to stick to features that limited the degrees into which bias could creep.

It's also good to consider that bias, by and large, isn't necessarily negative. Magazines like PSM or Dreamcast Magazine are "biased" in that they only covered one specific system, and GameFan practically cornered their segment of the market and grew their fanbase by being biased towards import and niche titles other magazines weren't willing to devote column inches to.

This was a great question! I'm curious to see what other answers people have.

*huggles*
Areala

 

[Sivilius]

The odd duck in this discussion would certainly be GameFan, due to the fact they were heavily biased fanboys towards ALL consoles in some fashion.

Certain reviewers strongly preferred certain consoles and game genres, and thus skewed their reviews accordingly. For example Dave Halverson aka E.Storm preferred Sega games and RPGs in general. While Nick des Barres aka Nick Rox preferred hand-drawn 2D sprite games. Eric Mylonas aka ECM preferred quirky titles and arcade shmups. I think you get the idea.

The console specific mags are biased but also unbiased since they only talk about one console and rarely mention others. Beyond that NextGen and EGM are probably the best in terms of multiplatform mags. But in truth no mag offered truly unbiased/neutral coverage since each reviewer had their own unique tastes and their reviews reflected those tastes.

[vgmax]

Bias isn't the thing GamerGate made it out to be. The relationship that was the focus of that debate was a one-off conflict of interest deal. I think Game Players made the point about reviews best in the mid-90s, in that if you are charged with actually playing through a game like a reviewer is, a boring game can feel like imprisonment(?), leading to experiences of "feast" vs "famine". EGM in 1994 I think it was had this cartoon of a superhero standing tall in first incarnation, then a little flabby in next, then finally dad-bod representing the failure of sequels to improve on original game's formula. The early 90s had a crush of titles which were basically re-releases with little bits added on (looking at you SFII and especially you, Megaman X). And oh the clones... Doom-clones then Duke clones with different presentation but basically same play. I think a lot of it was due to the high costs of storage in those days, which forced developers to compromise between better graphics (which did steadily improve) and game play which devs only had vague theories of how to modify successfully. Better to make a lot of weaker offerings which cost less than a handful of high priced awesome games (e.g. Final Fantasy III at $80) that might or might not sell and break the bank.

In the late 2000s there seemed to be a quality crisis in games probably brought on by the recession (the mid-2k games were amazing to put it mildly). Freemium and DRM developed and games started becoming more contrived and less fun. Experiments were less about game play and more about how to cajole players into paying more, incomplete games started shipping etc. People started getting mad and were looking for people to blame for it all. The superstar reviewer of the 90s who had real relationships with readers was put by the wayside as readers started looking to the internet for news (and readers stopped paying attention to who did the writing) and the metrosexual attitude of personal humility, insecurity and appeasement, watching your back etc. took over because people felt anonymized, and then Gamergate naturally followed.

tldr; Bias isn't a thing in reviews. Reviewers are looking for novelty, always have been, and will give extra points to games that offer it.

To answer TC's question, I think the mags with superstar reviewers like Game Players (who used humor and answered reader letters with their names) were probably more honest, though honesty really wasn't an issue in those days. Also be sure to distinguish between features (which cover promises by developers and previews using latest tech) and actual reviews which get much less fanfare. The only way you can really successfully allege bias against a review, I think, is to contrast it with scores at Metacritic, Gamefaqs etc. by people who played the game. If a company invites reviewers over for a feature preview, takes out a big ad, and gets a review players ultimately think it doesn't deserve, that's a pretty good sign of bias. This next to never happens. You might be able to make a point that features ultimately masquerade as reviews, but that could also be on the reader eh?

Edited May 25, 2021 by vgmax