Personal Computer Games | Code Like It's 198x

Personal Computer Games lasted only fifteen issues, but a surprising amount of British games journalism started there. PCG was a games magazine for every home computer of 1983 and 1984, the Spectrum and Commodore 64 alongside the VIC-20, BBC Micro, Dragon, Oric, Atari and, before the end, the Amstrad. It was published in London by VNU Business Publications, which also published Personal Computer World and Personal Computer News. When VNU closed it in early 1985, its editor, Chris Anderson, took two of its writers to launch ZZAP!64 and then started Future Publishing. Two of ZZAP!’s first reviewers had been PCG readers, fighting over its high-score tables.

Fast facts

Publisher: VNU Business Publications, Evelyn House, 62 Oxford Street, London.
First issue: Summer 1983, 85p, edited by Deirdre Boyd.
Frequency: the second issue was dated December 1983/January 1984; the magazine was monthly from February 1984, at 75p.
Editor: Chris Anderson, from issue 3 (February 1984) to the end.
Last issue: 15, February 1985.
Awards: Game of the Month, PCG Hit and, in the early issues, Screen Star.

A magazine for every micro

Issue 1 promised “the top games for your micro”, naming the Dragon, Spectrum, ZX81, Atari, Oric, BBC, Commodore and Apple on its cover. Its editor was Deirdre Boyd, with Geof Wheelwright as consulting editor, and the masthead thanked “its sister magazines, Personal Computer World and Personal Computer News, and their journalists, who have contributed to this magazine”.

By the third issue, in February 1984, the magazine was monthly, cheaper at 75p and run by a new team. Chris Anderson was editor, with Steve Cooke and Peter Connor as staff writers and Tony Takoushi as software consultant. Bob Wade joined the staff writers in August 1984, and from September Cooke was deputy editor. Anderson did the job from Somerset: ZZAP!64 later said he “adored working on PCG, except it meant commuting to London”.

Game of the Month and PCG Hits

The heart of the magazine was Screen Test, its review section. Every game was rated out of ten, and the ratings changed as the magazine went along: in March 1984 a review of Chuckie Egg scored Graphics, Sound, Ease of Use, Originality, Lasting Interest and Overall. In June 1984 the magazine told readers how the marks were set: each rating was “scored out of ten by the reviewer, and then double-checked by a second member of the panel. The PCG Hit and Game-of-the-Month titles are awarded only after heated office arguments. So sit back and enjoy the world’s greatest reviews.” The Game of the Month came with a colour poster.

Its early reviews caught two of the Spectrum’s landmark games as they arrived. In December 1983 PCG made Matthew Smith’s Manic Miner its Screen Star, noting that “within a few weeks of release” it had become the best-selling computer game in the country, and ended the review with one word: “Superb.” In March 1984 Peter Connor’s profile of Matthew Smith, then 18, ran under the standfirst “At 18, star-programmer Matthew Smith says he’s over the hill”. Later issues mapped Sabre Wulf and Knight Lore, and the August 1984 Sabre Wulf review named the whole Ultimate team, Tim and Chris Stamper with Carol Ward and John Lathbury.

Readers argued with the scores. In November and December 1984 letters asked whether the Originality rating was needed at all, since “some of my favourite games are arcade-clones”. The magazine answered that it measured “the extent to which a game contains new ideas”, and said it would leave the rating blank when a software house converted its own game to another machine. The same December issue made Boulder Dash its Game of the Month.

In October 1984 PCG introduced its review panel. Alongside the staff sat teenage readers, the youngest a 13-year-old from Dunfermline; several had won their places with reviews entered in a competition, such as a 15-year-old from Aylesbury whose write-up of Quicksilva’s Fred got him in. The editor described himself as “PCG’s long-suffering editor, aged 27 and owner of a Spectrum and Commodore 64. Too busy editing the mag to spend as much time as he’d like at the keyboard.”

Gossip, shoot-outs and the Challenge Chamber

The magazine had a voice beyond the reviews. Its gossip column was signed by Horace, who in December 1984 asked readers to name “the world’s leading hardware manufacturers”. “IBM? NEC? Oric? Wrong, wrong, wrong.” A press release on his desk said it was DK’tronics: “Well, it’s obvious when you think about it. They produce a Spectrum keyboard.” Its high-score pages were run by “the Master” in the Challenge Chamber.

In November 1984 PCG put five programmers in a room for a “Programmers Shoot-Out”. Each brought a game of their own for the others to play: Steve Turner of Hewson brought 3D Lunattack on the Dragon, Jeff Minter Ancipital on the Commodore 64, Tony Crowther of Gremlin Graphics Suicide Express, Doug Anderson of A&F Chuckie Egg on the BBC, and Kevin Toms of Addictive Games a new Spectrum game, Dracula’s Castle, in place of the slow Football Manager. Crowther, who insisted “I never play games”, scored a quarter of a million on Ancipital at his first attempt and won. The magazine’s account ended in an Italian restaurant, where the contestants competed to order the most expensive dish while “the PCG Editor turned first green, then white”.

The same pages were hunting for “Britain’s meanest games-player”. Readers’ high scores filled them: in the January 1985 table, one of the top three scores on Minter’s Ancipital belonged to Gary Penn of Berkhamsted, and in February 1985 “ace arcade player Julian Rignall of Tregaron, Dyfed” contributed tips on Joust, having scored 10,117,050 on the Atari version.

The issue that never came

Issue 15, dated February 1985, gave no sign that it was the last. Its “Next month” page announced that “the March issue of PCG is due out Thursday, February 14. Just 75p!”, with the final of the meanest-player contest: “Our nominations for the title of meanest player have been summoned to PCG’s Challenge Chamber from the far corners of the land.”

That issue did not appear. ZZAP!64 told the story three months later: “a sad, out-of-the-blue announcement from the publishers of PCG. The magazine’s financial prospects for 1985 were said to be poor. It had to close.” Public listings of the magazine count fifteen issues, the last dated February 1985.

Where the team went

The staff were already spread across the next generation of British magazines within a year.

Chris Anderson had applied to edit Newsfield’s new Commodore 64 magazine, and put together the first issues of ZZAP!64 in Yeovil, dated from May 1985. By October he had started Future Publishing with Amstrad Action.
Bob Wade, “one of those put out of a job”, became ZZAP!’s software editor, then joined Amstrad Action, which he later edited.
Steve Cooke, PCG’s adventure columnist, the White Wizard, carried on the column at ZZAP!.
Peter Connor, “another veteran of PCG”, edited Amstrad Action from its first issue in October 1985.
Gary Penn and Julian Rignall, the reader and the arcade champion, were two of the five finalists in PCG’s search for Britain’s meanest player, and became ZZAP!64’s first two main reviewers. Both later edited it.

The name returned in October 1987, when Future launched the multi-format ACE from Bath “courtesy of the team who produced the legendary Personal Computer Games”, with Connor and Cooke as its editors.

Sources

Personal Computer Games (VNU Business Publications, London) issue 1, Summer 1983: cover (85p; the machines listed), masthead (Deirdre Boyd, editor; Geof Wheelwright, consulting editor; the thanks to Personal Computer World and Personal Computer News).
Personal Computer Games issue 2, December 1983/January 1984: cover date and 85p price; p. 97, Manic Miner as Screen Star (“within a few weeks of release”, “Superb.”).
Personal Computer Games issue 3, February 1984: cover (75p) and masthead (Chris Anderson, editor; Steve Cooke and Peter Connor, staff writers; Tony Takoushi, software consultant; VNU Business Publications, Evelyn House, 62 Oxford Street).
Personal Computer Games issue 4, March 1984: p. 62, Chuckie Egg review and its ratings; pp. 29–31, Peter Connor’s profile of Matthew Smith.
Personal Computer Games issue 7, June 1984: Screen Test introduction (“scored out of ten by the reviewer”, “heated office arguments”).
Personal Computer Games issue 9, August 1984: masthead (Bob Wade among the staff writers); pp. 58–59, Sabre Wulf review with the Ultimate team. Issue 10, September 1984: masthead (Steve Cooke, deputy editor); the first Amstrad reviews.
Personal Computer Games issue 11, October 1984: “Introducing… the PCG panel”.
Personal Computer Games issue 12, November 1984: “Programmers Shoot-Out”; letter on the Originality rating; the hunt for “Britain’s meanest games-player”.
Personal Computer Games issue 13, December 1984: Horace’s gossip column; the Originality letter and the magazine’s answer; Boulder Dash as Game of the Month.
Personal Computer Games issue 14, January 1985: the Ancipital high-score table.
Personal Computer Games issue 15, February 1985: masthead (©VNU 1985); Julian Rignall’s Joust tips; “Next month” page (the March issue due on 14 February; the meanest-player final).
ZZAP!64 issue 1, May 1985, pp. 3, 7: “How Zzap was born” (Anderson’s commute, PCG’s closure, Bob Wade and the White Wizard, Penn and Rignall as finalists in “the PCG competition to find Britain’s meanest player”).
Amstrad Action issue 1, October 1985: Peter Connor, “another veteran of PCG”, as editor.
ACE issue 1, October 1987: welcome page (“the team who produced the legendary Personal Computer Games”).
Wikipedia, “Personal Computer Games” (web, secondary): fifteen issues, the last dated February 1985. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Computer_Games