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In Junes 20 years apart, PC Gamer was writing about monitors, and what you could get for $600-700. In 1996, that was a CRT with something in the 800x600 pixel range at 17 inches. "That's not bad, but it isn't exactly cheap, either," we said at the time. In 2016, standards had changed a wee bit: a 27-inch, 1440p display with a 165Hz refresh rate was the hottest thing on the market, and around the same price. Today we're gaga for OLEDs as you can see in our best gaming monitors guide. There are certainly cheaper options, but it's funny how a quality monitor hasn't changed in price all that much even 30 years later.
Here's a window into what was happening in PC gaming—and in the pages of PC Gamer magazine—one, two, and three decades ago. Any of these issues look familiar? How do our review scores hold up? What seemed incidental at the time that's now the stuff of PC legend? Here's one example I noticed: the game Spycraft, which we scored a strong 89%, got a whole documentary made about it.
Archive Spelunker
PC Gamer had some killer covers in the '90s, and Star Wars was often to thank for them. It helped that those games were usually bangers (justice for Yoda Stories!!), both telling new Star Wars stories with Lucas's blessing and pushing the technology of gaming forward.
The C&C 3 cover is bland as all get-out—EA clearly wasn't far enough into development to have any damn art!—but I loooove that game. Amazingly, there are 400 people playing it on Steam right now. I should really get in there.
What was on the cover?
June 1996: Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter (US, issue #25)
Cover story: "A New Hope: Star Wars goes multiplayer" by Jason Bates
PC Gamer's editors may not have known it at the time, but they were entering the golden age for Star Wars games, spearheaded by the upcoming Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2. Multiplayer would really take off with the follow-up Jedi Academy, but most of the feature is devoted to the also-beloved X-Wing / TIE Fighter crossover, which was a substantial technical step up from the first two games in the series.
It's easy to forget now that Star Wars is ubiquitous across all forms of media, but this was Star Wars at the time, alongside a few novels. The prequel films were still years away.
Cover hits:
- 148 game review roundup
- Descent 2 reviewed
- On CD: LucasArts' god game Afterlife
June 2006: Command & Conquer 3 (US, issue #149)
Cover story: Command & Conquer 3: "Raising Kane" by Chuck Osborn
C&C 3, my beloved. Today's PC Gamer team has its Red Alert 2 diehards, but I don't think anyone is as fond of this entry in the series as I am. I played so many multiplayer matches with friends, where we'd turtle up against the AI. Kane's back, you get FMV Billy Dee Williams, what more do you want, man!
After the major gameplay shake-up that was C&C Generals, I was so happy to see the series return to its old faster-paced piles-of-tanks design. Interestingly, this feature was written early enough that EA wasn't yet talking about the story: "Other questions, such as whether Joseph Kucan will reprise his role as the villainous Kane, can't be answered becasue casting for the live-action scenes hasn't yet begun." To me, this was the last hurrah of the old school RTS; Red Alert 3 sadly did not land the same way.
Cover hits:
- Age of Empires 3 expansion news
- Red Orchestra reviewed
- On DVD: Rise of Legends, Alienware Alienguise Windows theme
June 2016: Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War 3 (UK, issue #292)
Cover story: Dawn of War 3: "Only War" by Tom Senior
We were really excited for Dawn of War 3, even if it didn't turn out as excellently as hoped. I remember this getting a big showing in the 2016 PC Gaming Show, with Sega and Relic going all-out to pitch it as a grand return for the RTS series, at a time when real-time strategy was not exactly the hottest thing going. I guess that's true in 2026, too, with Dawn of War 4 now making the same push.
I'm optimistic again, even if a studio as good as Relic fumbling the bag a bit a decade ago should make me more cautious. But Warhammer games have never been better than they are these days, even with how eagerly Games Workshop hands out the license.
Cover hits:
- Morrowind Resurrected mod
- Dark Souls 3 review
- Quantum Break review
In the news
June 1996
- Sticks in space: "Thrustmaster's latest venture is literally out of this world—they've been tapped by Lockheed Martin to reproduce the Rotational Hand Controller (RHC) used in the space shuttle, for training purposes."
- Blizzard announced its expansion to Warcraft 2, Beyond the Dark Portal.
- "The next big controversy: Gambling on the Net." Well, that sure got worse over time, huh?
- "New CD changers handle four discs." How exciting was it to see a 5.25" drive bay that could hold multiple CDs? Really exciting, apparently.
June 2006
- Alternate reality game Perplex City lures in more than 16,000 UK players hunting for a $200,000 prize. It wouldn't be found until early 2007.
- Crytek offers an early peek at the engine behind Crysis, which "steals the show" at GDC 2006. Little did we know what an impact it would end up making.
- Hellgate: London gets a comic book preview from Dark Horse and former Blizzard developers.
June 2016
- CS:GO has its first $1 million prize pool tournament. Brazilian underdogs Luminosity take home the trophy.
- Blizzard shuts down vanilla fan server Nostralius, years before launching WoW Classic.
- A war in EVE Online captures our enthusiasm, and destroys tens of thousands of dollars' worth of ships.
The hottest hardware
June 1996
The image above is actually an ad for a giveaway declared to be worth $20,000, but it's a bit flashier than what's in this issue's hardware section.
In the column Tim's Tech Shop, Tim Victor writes about monitors, and the state-of-the-art at the time:
"The typical 21" monitor has to support resolutions as high as 1600x1280 pixels, which boosts the horizontal scanning frequency up to 90kHz. The markets that need a monitor like that—CAD, publishing, and professional graphics—are verty small compared to the PC market in general, it isn't so surprising that 21" monitors sell for close to $2000."
June 2006
From the archives
Enjoying this trip down memory lane? You can still subscribe to PC Gamer to get new issues of the magazine (in print!) every month.
Logan Decker addresses the topic of physics accelerator cards as the next Big Thing in PC gaming. "Aside from the sheer joy of watching things blow up or rocks tumble downhill onto my opponent in a unique way every time I pull the trigger, the introduciton of hardware-accelerated physics will affect gameplay in ways that are tough to predict (just like sound cards brought positional audio and 3D accelerators brought us the near-photogrealism of the Source engine and high-dynamic range graphics)."
In the ends, this sort of physics acceleration just became incorporated into graphics cards.
June 2016
Monitors show up again, this time with us considering the improved TN panel technology against our normal IPS favorites. The Asus PG279Q and Acer Predator XB271HU, two monitors I ended up using side-by-side for years myself, score a 92% and 91%, thanks to their 1440p, high refresh rate screens with G-Sync support.
Our highest and lowest review scores
June 1996
- Descent 2 - 88% - "If you thought the original Descent was a walk in the park, you'll meet your match in Descent 2—but stick with it, and you'll enjoy the ride."
- Dinotopia - 89% - "A handsome CD-ROM adaptation of a fantasy classic, and definitely a game for the whole family to share and enjoy."
- Silent Hunter - 91% - "Simply a blast for anyone, from the dabbler to the true submarine buff."
- Spycraft: The Great Game - 89% - "An engrossing, unique adventure with top-flight production values."
- Batman Forever - 40% - "It's all been done before, and done much better. For Batman completists only."
June 2006
- CSI: 3 Dimensions of Murder - 79% - "3DoM might not cross over adequately enough to entertain adventure game fans accustomed to epic story lines, but then again, it just might."
- Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers - 78% - "If you like your tactical action with a fat slice of strategy, this sequel's a winner."
- L.A. Rush - 43% - "L.A. Rush would have scored even lower if not for its massive and exhaustively detailed L.A. driving environment."
June 2016
- Dark Souls 3 - 94% - "Sprawling level design, thrilling combat, and masterful indirect storytelling makes this the best Dark Souls yet."
- Out of the Park Baseball 17 - 89% - "A sports sim deep enough to sustain interest for years, but it's not vital if you've got last year's release."
- Need For Speed - 50% - "The series leaves its garage looking even worse than when it went in. Decent handling doesn't save it."
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