Shit games on magazine covers

[Z]

Someone just mentioned the film Van Helsing to me, which reminded me that Computer & Video Games right before its death had Van Helsing (the game) on the cover and a very positive preview article that largely focused on how cool it is to  play as Hugh Jackman (iirc a few months later they gave it a tepid one page review). This was the era where magazines were just desperate for exclusives with the Driv3r debacle and whatnot but I feel like shit games negotiating covers for themselves has probably been happening since forever. Any in particular stand out to you?

If accompanied by suspiciously positive reviews, that's even better! Better still if it's a very positive preview followed by a totally meh review.

[St_Eddie]

This is partially why the only gaming mag which I read these days is Retro Gamer.  They're hardly likely to be paid a wad of cash to positively review a game which is 20 years old.  I'm still sore from the time that Gamestm gave Boiling Point a 9/10.  That was the one and only time that I've written to a publication to complain.

[biggytitbo]

Rise of the robots is a classic example. Was on most magazine front covers but got a case ranging from 5% to 90%, something fishy was definitely going on.

[madhair60]

I used to see risible shit like Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Wind Waker, Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword on mag covers frequently.

[Huxleys Babkins]

Rise of the robots is a classic example. Was on most magazine front covers but got a case ranging from 5% to 90%, something fishy was definitely going on.

The mid-90s had a lot of games and even platforms that promised big, looked amazing but were utter shite. Plus Amiga mags, especially, over-rated tons of utterly shite games because they ticked the right superficial boxes. *cough*Zool*cough*

[marquis_de_sad]

"Better than Half-Life?"

[Phil_A]

"Better than Half-Life?"

[madhair60]

Daikatana is fucking awesome

[St_Eddie]

"A NEW MAGAZINE for a NEW GENERATION... Read this or die!"

Reservoir Dogs reference.

"CONTENT NOT SUITABLE FOR SMALL CHILDREN OR OLD WOMEN!"

That magazine cover is the most 90s thing ever... to the MAX!

[Consignia]

Never heard of that mag before, but according to Wikipedia:

Games were reviewed on a scale of 0-10. Half-Life was the only game to receive an 11.

Mad lads.

There was a game reviewed in the magazine that never existed... and was completely fabricated including screenshots, developer interviews, company website and a developer company front.

Mad lads.

"Hector the Scarecrow" - Crafted from a coatrack and gas mask. Hector was dangled from the sprinkler system to appear more lifelike and eventually made a fire inspector very, very angry. Hector appeared in six issues.

Mad lads.

It's the PC Game Magazine equivalent of being 14.

[Z]

I said this in some thread before, but it's really weird thinking back that I took the opinions of the emotionally immature chancers writing in 90s games mags as some kind of vital authority. Can remember being disappointed that I had to settle for Smackdown instead of the super cool hardcore wrestling of ECW Hardcore Revolution on account of some moron who wrote a whole review about how amazing he thought barbed wire matches were.

DoA2 got positive marks in more than one magazine for "bewbs"

[garbed_attic]

I thought you meant free magazine games... Like the Klik 'n' Play demo!

[popcorn]

[Captain Poodle Basher]

I said this in some thread before, but it's really weird thinking back that I took the opinions of the emotionally immature chancers writing in 90s games mags as some kind of vital authority. Can remember being disappointed that I had to settle for Smackdown instead of the super cool hardcore wrestling of ECW Hardcore Revolution on account of some moron who wrote a whole review about how amazing he thought barbed wire matches were.

DoA2 got positive marks in more than one magazine for "bewbs"

Then there were the rave reviews of games that only worked on some bizarre mishmash of hardware/peripherals and nothing else which the reviewers had got freebies of. I can recall returning a few games because they were utterly incompatible with my system and I was running all the industry standard gear.

I can still remember going into Game sometime in 1998 to return one such game to be met with "Not another one" by the manager who told me that nobody could get the game to play on their system.

[QDRPHNC]